Christmas Cards

Can't wait to see what else has arrived in the six days we've been gone!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

We're spending Christmas here in Illinois with the M. Family (Brandon's mom, stepdad, and two sisters). We're having a ball. Jonah loved the excitedment, paper, ribbons, toys, and books of Christmas!


Waving (Jonah's newest trick) with Grandpa Mike.


Jonah with Aunt Vivi.


Who is SOOO Big? (Jo with Nana Lisa)


Unwrapping gifts Christmas morning.


Jonah and Brandon playing Mario Galaxy.


Aunt Tori (12 & a great babysitter) with camo Jonah.


Brandon and Vivian rockin' it on Guitar Hero 3.

Yet another special occassion with no pictures of me.

4 Months Along

Today I am 18 weeks pregnant. My belly is progressing faster than last time. My MIL bought me new maternity clothes for Christmas today. This evening we ate dinner in Wisconsin. Christmas pictures, etc. to come shortly.

Compliments

I received two glowing compliments today that I wanted to share cause they made me feel so good (and I need that when I'm feeling so overweight and frumpy!).

"You could get along with a pissed off gorilla." - Victoria

And my SIL Michelle told me that I had a flair for storytelling. We both agreed it's nothing like my brother Adam's talent for it, but she says my whole immediate family has the touch for storytelling:)

No Ts

Jonah's official second word (after Momma) is "kitty-cat." He pronounces it "ki-ee caa."

Reading n' Stuff

Finished the satisfying Persuasion by Jane Austen last night. I'm going to begin Life of Pi tomorrow. I fall asleep reading most evenings now.
Only three more Christmas gifts to buy and I can get them all online. Yippee! Now I need to get started on wrapping and get a few things mailed.
Jonah now says "Mama" when he is asked to:) !! He's on the verge of saying "kitty cat" too. He doesn't babble "dada" or "blah, blah" anymore lately. Still no top teeth.
He's also displaying the signs of picky eating for the first time ever. He's figuring out what he likes. He likes things he can feed himself, meats, and juice. He loves carrot apple juice and the green Bolthouse Farms juice. He's not so into oatmeal lately. We like grapes. He tried edamame/soybeans last night for the first time and loved them.
He poked/pinched/pulled his belly button so hard in the tub last night that he cried. Silly baby!
Off to Illinois for Christmas on Sunday, we're excited.
Nothing else I can think of right now.
Adios.

Snack of the Day

www.marysgonecrackers.com

This is NOT salsa

Lomi Lomi salmon (not to be confused with Lomi Lomi massage, which is a story for another day)

I just read an incredibly funny blog by my friend Lauren about her first experience with sushi. She ate the wasabi plain. PLAIN! I got a good laugh at her expense.

It reminded me so much of another story that I now just have to share.

I lived in Hawaii for 3 1/2 years. My best friend there was Arianna. The first time I went to a luau was shortly after Ari had gone to hers. She said to me, "When you go, there will be stuff that looks like salsa. That is NOT salsa. It might even taste good but if you are expecting salsa and you get fish, it just isn't good."

Top 5 Christmas Things (edited)

Brandon and I were trying to list our Top 5 things of all things Christmas: movies, songs, albums, treats...

Here are a couple of my lists. (Had to replace one cd)

My Top Five All-Time Favorite Christmas Movies


A Christmas Story (the red ryder bb gun, the leg lamp, the bunny pajamas... there is SO much to love about this movie)


White Christmas (one of my favorite musicals too)


National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation


How The Grinch Stole Christmas (animated)


A Charlie Brown Christmas


My Top Five Christmas CDs


White Christmas - Bing Crosby (Hands down, both Brandon and my favorite since childhood)


Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker (The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra)


Christmas with the Rat Pack


Harry Connick Jr.'s When My Heart Finds Christmas


Home Alone: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (stop laughing)

This Week

Somebody is stylish.


Brandon and I watched Charlie Brown's Christmas too many times. Here's our skinny tree; we love it, so does Jonah.

This week we trimmed our tree.


The cutest baby in the world.

This week (Thurs) Jonah learned to clap.


Me being a dork in our luxurious room at the Grand America with my roses, white chocolate swans, and berries.

This week we finally celebrated our anniversary.It was 24 hours of luxury. We began by dropping Jonah off with his Gampa. Then we went to a play at the Pioneer Theatre Company. We both love plays and we we lived in Utah while we were dating and the first two years we were married we went a lot. We saw The Foreigner, it was pretty silly, fun though.
Then we checked into Salt Lake's finest hotel, The Grand American (Brandon says he still likes The Four Seasons in Dallas better). Our room was on the 22nd floor with a nice view. There were a dozen red roses waiting for me in the room, Christmas music playing on the tv along with sparkling water, two white chocolate swans, raspberries, blackberries and chocolate. Great room.
Brandon had me choose where we would go for dinner. We went out for Nepali and Indian food at the Himalayan Kitchen. It was only a block and a half away so we decided to brave the cold and walk, which was fun.
After dinner we spent a little time checking out the hotel spa before our massage appointment. Our therapists had us spend a little time enjoying their designer chocolates while smelling the different fragrances we would choose for our custom-made massage oil. We have never done a couple's massage before. In fact, Brandon has never had a professional massage before at all. He was not disappointed. Both of us have had sore backs lately and we REALLY enjoyed this much-needed pampering.
We slept in (8:30 is sleeping in for me) and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast at the Grand's Garden Cafe. Then I swam laps in the indoor pool while Brandon enjoyed the spa's saunas. We picked Jonah up at 1:30 and came home. It was a wonderful 24 hours!

RC Sumo Guy

I've never had such trouble posting a video. Ugh!!
Anyway, the cuteness is all worthwhile. Here is a minute of Jonah playing with his current favorite toy.

Congrats Captain!

This is one of my best friends, Ryan, he is Brandon's closest non-related friend. (Ryan and I are actually distantly related by marraige). Ryan has worked in the airline industry for about seven years (I'm guessing here). He has wanted to be a pilot for longer than that. A couple years ago while living in the Houston area (he still lives there) he decided to splurge on his dreams and go into debt to go to flight school in Florida. It has been a rigorous road. He has terrible hours and not the best pay and he works another full-time job. He has been flying as a first officer for Continental for awhile now. He flies domestic, Mexico, and the Carribean. Recently he was promoted into the Captain training. It has been really hard work and only 50% of those put into the program pass. Last night after chatting with Ryan on the phone for about 20 minutes, he went in for his big Captain's test and PASSED! Way to go!! Though he's been calling Brandon "Doctor" for about 6 years and we've been calling him "Captain" for about as long, they have both finally earned their titles. We're all grown-up now.

Full Weekend

Brandon spent all day Friday and Saturday at a course learning more about how to do dental implants. He loved it and excited to start doing them on patients.
It snowed most of the day on Fri. and Sat. which made B's commute home Friday evening twice as long as it normally would have been and kept Brad, Stephanie & kids from coming up to hang out with Jonah and I on Saturday and enjoying the Christmas festivities up here. It also made it look like Winter has truly arrived in Utah. It's lovely.
Saturday I indulged in my second Happy Meal of the week. I've also been eating a lot of bacon, but not as much as I want to eat. Maybe it's not because it's my second pregnancy that I'm already looking so round.
Saturday Jonah and I got to ride the train in Heber, which was free for locals who picked up tickets in advance and who were accompanied by a child under the age of 12. Jonah liked the train ride more than I expected and LOVED having so many kids around. He didn't give a hoot about Santa.
After the train ride we went to Swiss Christmas at the town hall in Midway. It was small and crowded and the kids we saw perform were neither especially darling or very talented. I'm sorry to be so critical, but I was unimpressed. However, we did pick up a bar of locally made soap (I love homemade soap) and locally made jam (including the local service berry), which was delicious. Jonah was too tired to make it to the creche and gingerbread house exhibits going on nearby.
Today we enjoyed the company of the whole immediate J. family. Linda made her fantastic homemade chili and we all ate at our house. The dogs (Cody & Oakley) loved playing in the snow together. Then we took family pictures, or I should say picture, the first one turned out well, so we just left it at that. It was a Christmas miracle. Then we drove up Daniel's Canyon and cut down our own Christmas trees. We chose a very skinny, but full fir. It is about 6 ft. tall. Jonah enjoyed riding around in Grammy Linda's coat watching the three trees being sawed down.



Jonah and me with Santa aboard the Heber "Creeper".



Brandon, Brandon M. (our brother-in-law), Linda, and Jonah.



Brandon with our tree, just before cutting it down.