Sad

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I WANT IT!!!!

Chef P

P LOVES to help in the kitchen. He wants to make eggs every morning so that he can help stir them.

Yum!

Guess who came to visit?

Nana and Papa came to visit! P spent the weekend snuggling with Papa...

and riding on Papa...
and playing and playing and playing with Nana.

What a fun weekend!

Good-bye, sweet mullet...

For the past several months, P has sported a handsome, shaggy mullet.

If you look closely, you can see the feathering.

However...the mullet is no more.

What a hansome toddler!

Best. Neighbors. Ever.

Our neighbors across the street have three teenage sons who come out after every snow storm to shovel the cul de sac. They do all the sidewalks and have even done our driveway a few times. And their dad jumps on the 4-wheeler and plows the rest.

Seriously. BEST. NEIGHBORS. EVER.
P wanted to get in on the action, too...but he mostly just shoveled the same pile of snow back and forth over and over again.

Snow Day

Top 10 of 2010

10) Jorden's new calling in the Young Women's Presidency. Despite finding out about the calling during sacrament meeting when my name was read over the pulpit and having much less time to spend with my family, I really enjoy it.

9) Our first garden. Technically, this was our practice garden, to see how well things would grow. But we had an abundance of tomatoes, peppers, beans and cucumbers this year. Zucchini...not so much. Next year we hope to grow some berries on the hill...

First cucumber of the year.

8) Christmas 2010. If you forget about P getting a pretty severe bloody nose, Jorden getting called into work and spending a good chunk of the day at the hospital doing the thing she hates most about her job, and the car breaking down on the way home...it was a pretty good holiday. We love that P was able to open his presents and really enjoy the holiday. And I got some great ideas for family traditions this year, which I am super excited about.

7) First Mother's Day/Father's Day. These days were more important to me this year, not because we are parents for the first time but because it has made me appreciate my own parents more. I was talking with a coworker about her mother's expectations on Mother's Day (expensive presents and praise) and I thought about how my parents never wanted anything more than a clean house from us (which is really hard to give them when I live so far away). From now on, I think these days will actually be about feeling grateful for loving parents...and I guess it took having a child for me to get to that point. On a different note, Dan and I both received super awesome gifts from our little one...but that's not the point, right?

6) Dan winning the Men's League Championship. To ensure that he was able to golf AT LEAST once a week, Dan joined a men's league at our local golf course with a couple of friends. They golfed every Tuesday morning before work and had different competitions with other league members each week. And at the end of the season, there was a tournament...and Dan won! Ok, let me rephrase that...Dan won the Net Championship (which takes into account each member's handicap), but still, that is pretty impressive. PGA here he comes! AND he won enough to buy a punch pass that pays for his golf for next year.

5) 5-year anniversary. Yep, we've been married for 5 years. And to celebrate, we did this. We are super grateful to Dan's parents for spending the weekend with P. We know they had a great time with him (who wouldn't, he IS super fun), and it is nice to know that we can take a break from the real world .

4) P's blessing. It was great to have both sides of the family together to participate in P's baby blessing. We were only missing both my brothers. This was the first time P got to meet his Nana and Papa and Aunt Jen, and it was a special experience for all of us.

3) BEST. BIRTHDAY. EVER. For my 30th, Dan threw me a surprise party and flew in my BFF for the week. It was the best, and I was definitely surprised. I can't WAIT to see what he has planned for this year!

We miss you Shoshie!

2) Visit from the Cavanaugh's. I am so glad Nana, Papa, and Jen were able to come out for two weeks this last summer. Not only did we get an incredible new bathroom out of the deal, but they were all able to see P's fun personality. P really enjoyed waking Aunt Jen up every morning...

and helping Papa work with his tools...

and playing with Nana.

He can't wait to see them again this year!

1) Having P in our family for an entire year. It has been so much fun watching P grow and change. He is such a character. Since he was born, P has been intrigued with everything going on around him. He always wanted to be held so that he was facing the world because he did not want to miss a thing. Now, he is still our little Curious George, getting into anything and everything you could possibly think of. Our house is always a mess, but it is so fun to watch him try to figure things out...he is such a problem solver! I can't wait to see what the next year will bring!

Merry Christmas!

Guess who is not a fan of Santa?

It took 5 years...

to go from this...

to this.
For our 5th Anniversary, Dan decided to treat me to a weekend of luxury at the Anniversary Inn in SLC. At first, I was nervous about leaving the boy overnight for the first time, but once Dan reminded me that I would get to sleep in for the first time in a year, I decided to give it a shot. P went to stay with his grandparents for the weekend and he did awesome. He didn't even notice we were gone...but he was excited to see us again (which always makes a mom feel good). However, our bodies were not physically capable of sleeping past 8am, but that was still 2 hours of extra sleep for me! The Inn was very fun...each room has a different theme, and we got to stay in two different rooms. The breakfasts were delicious, and my favorite part was that they give tours of the rooms every day, so we got to see all the fancy rooms.

The weekend was full of our favorite things: movies, delicious food, and relaxing. We LOVE movies...it's kind of an obsession for both of us. Back when we were childless, we often went to the movies once a week (for FHE on Monday nights with my BFF Shoshanah, may she rest in peace). However, since being blessed with our adorable little one, we have only been to 3 movies, and each time we went to see something that ended up being sold out, so we watched something else that was less enjoyable. So, in one weekend, we doubled our movie attendance for the year. We saw Due Date (which was extremely disappointing...we are fans of Robert Downey Jr and Zack Galifianakis, and I am a big fan of having babies...so a comedy with all 3? How could you go wrong? Well...they did go wrong. Seriously wrong. I barely laughed at all. Boo), Harry Potter on the IMAX (of course it was great...but I thought the hullabaloo about the "nude" scene was a bit much, and it is annoying that they split the last book into 2 movies making the entire franchise even more commercial), and Red (which we both enjoyed...John Malkovich is hilarious in it...despite his general creepiness). Overall it was a pleasant viewing experience.

We also tried a few new restaurants in SLC. We went to The Copper Onion (thank you Matt for the suggestion) which is my new favorite. They have a very fresh and simple menu and use locally grown products. We recommend the house made Pot o' Pickles (if you like that sort of thing), but everything we ate there was delicious. I am only upset that we didn't try a dessert...maybe next time. We also went to the Italian restaurant Al Forno which was NOT good. Super high prices for food that was WAY below standard. In fact, we would not be surprised to see them on Kitchen Nightmares one day.

Overall, it was nice to spend some time together and leave the world behind for a few days. We didn't even bring a computer with us...can you believe that?

Look what I can do!

Happy Turkey Day!