You're not Santa....

...You smell like beef and cheese.

You Better Not Pout...

Having our tv in the middle of the floor has been found useful for something.

This is Alexa's new way of pouting.



She'll have to find a new place when we finally get our tv put away.

New Loves

Alexa found 2 new loves this past weekend:


#1 - Shoveling snow with Papi




She loved pushing the shovel and making bootprints in the snow




#2 - Spending time with her uncles


Some of you know, she took to Aaron pretty quickly when he got home 1 1/2 months ago.


Brandon, on the other hand, has been trying to win her affection since she was born. She has usually just cried and run away from him.


But, it all changed when they came to visit last week (our first visitors!). I don't know what happened, but she finally likes him now.

A Christmas miracle!




And she has realized it's a win-win situation






Oh, and we found a little diner in Mountain Home that has pretty much whatever you want to eat. It was surprisingly good too! If you come visit, we'll take you there... :)

Family Fun

For FHE on Monday we decided to try some new activities. First, we wrote our names with glitter glue on our stockings. It worked pretty well, but we forgot to take an after picture...oops.

Then, we attempted to make sugar cookies. We didn't realize how much time it took to make them. I guess we should have realized that when you have an almost 2 yr old helping, it's going to take a while.

And you shouldn't get mad when she cuts a shape out right on top of another.

Luckily, she has a very patient dad.

Powdered sugar is the best!!



We had lots of fun. We love that Brad gets to hang out with us every night. Life is good!

New House

We're finally getting settled into our house. We decided to go with a duplex on base. It may not sound like much, but it's bigger than anything we've ever had before, so we're pretty excited.

Alexa had some fun in the moving process. She was entertained by the plastic-wrapped furniture.


Here's our kitchen. There was even space after we put our table in!

This is part of the front room. The bedrooms are upstairs.

Our backyard area has lots of room to play. And there's a playground just behind the neighbor's house.

We can't go out and play cuz it's so darn cold here with all the wind, but Lexi is just happy to have it there.

Visitors are welcome. We finally have a spare bedroom - well, until February. But we're willing to kick our kids out of their rooms if it means having visitors.

Fun Holiday

Thanksgiving is the best when:

Your mom gets you all dressed up in the morning to go swing


You get to watch Papi play football with Grandpa and your uncles

You spend the day having lots of fun with your family

And you finish it up by taking a bath with your cousin Mitchell

And then, a couple days later you get to cuddle with your new buddy Uncle Aaron while watching Peter Pan and the Grinch over and over and over again

Nothing could be better than that.

1st Day on the Job

We made it to Mountain Home AFB last night. They put us in temporary housing - which is like a nice 2 bedroom hotel. It's been fun to drive around the base - everything is so close. And they have just about everything you need right on base.

Here's Brad just before he went to work this morning:

The best part is is that he'll be done at 4:30!!! And he won't have to do homework!

Now we just need to find a place to live within the next 2 days so we can go home for Thanksgiving. No problem, right?

"Happy Ween"

It's a little late, but I'm putting this picture up anyway.

This was the little witch who got excited at every single house we went to on Halloween because they were giving her a "teat." And the next day she forgot all about it, so her little sister got all the sugar from it. It was awesome.

Update on Brad

So Brad flew to Alabama on Monday to start his training with the Air Force. He took the camera and has no computer with a usb port around, so we'll have to wait to see pictures when he gets home next month.

I wonder what he looks like in his uniform?

Anyway, he survived his first week with no more than 5 hrs of sleep a night and classes all day long. He thinks all the yelling should die down a little by the end of this week, but he'll still have to get up at 4:40 every morning.

He's getting fed pretty well and his roommate is from Texas.

That's all.

Good times in Vernal

We went to Vernal last weekend to see Hannah and Jake, our friends from way back. They've been living in Houston, but then they got real and moved to Vernal. Vernal is a little closer than Texas, so we decided we should go see them while we were at least kind of close. This is Jake.

I asked him how to best describe himself, and he just sent me this picture. It really does speak volumes. (I copied that pic from their blog without permission, which might be illegal, but probably not in Vernal.)

We mostly spent the weekend hanging out, playing games, and eating. It was great. On Saturday we took a trip to Split Mountain, so named because the Green River split the mountain instead of going around it, which apparently baffles the scientists who study this kind of thing.

This is inside the Dinasour National Monument. (Oh, and don't be fooled by the name "Monument," because it's basically a Park.) The Monument boasts of some nice hiking, and cool petroglyphs. We went on a hike and found this tree bent clear over the path.
We named this the Arch of Friendship. The petroglyphs were left by the Fremont people ages ago.

To me it looks like an ancient playbook.

This rock goes by two different names. Would you say it looks more like a "Turtle Rock" or a "Skull Rock"? Feel free to make your voice heard in the comment section.

Can you believe we were there for 2 days and this is the only picture we got of Alexa with Annie (age 2) and Molly (age 4)? We are ashamed of ourselves.

But Alexa provided other photo ops. She found a primitive version of her pack-n-play, probably crafted by the Fremonts. Those clever Fremonts . . .

And let this be a lesson to you: When you look like a movie star, the papparazzi will find you.

Thanks Jake and Hannah for hosting us in Vernal. It was great to see you again!

2 Girls

When Alexa and her sister are young they'll be cute like this:

But then for 13 years after that they'll probably just fight....and fight....and FIGHT....AND FIGHT!

That's my biggest fear about having 2 girls.

Little Vacay

A couple days ago we had to go to Boise so Brad could officially become a lawyer. It was my first time ever going to Boise. The drive up there is NOT pretty, but it's nice once you get to the city.

They have a beautiful, different colored temple.



You know those people who you see at the front desk trying to get in somehow without their recommend because they left it home or lost it?....We'll that was me on this day. Luckily, the nice people called my stake pres. who told them I could go in. I think they take more pitty on you when you're pregnant because they know the baby is taking all your brain cells away.



We had a very enjoyable day. We went to Ross, Chili's, and the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory - how could it be any better?


We stayed the night in Twin Falls in order to break up the drive a little.

We got to see the temple there on the way out. Another first for me.



Then, we went to Shoshone Falls.



I guess the water was really low that day. On a good high water day, the cliffs in the above photo are supposed to be covered with water. That would have been cool.

But the area was pretty.



Anyway, we got to see some pretty things. While we were at Shoshone Falls Brad got a call from the Air Force giving us our choice of our first assignment - (for those who don't check facebook regularly) Clovis, New Mexico or Mountain Home, Idaho (which we stopped at on our way to Boise - the McDonald's there charges you for water! But the Wendy's doesn't so go there.).

Since Clovis is out in the middle of nowhere and we don't know anyone remotely close to that area, we went against the whole being mad at McDonald's thing and chose Mountain Home. We'll be moving to the AFB around the end of November and will probably be there for a couple of years.

We're excited to start our new adventure with the AF - ok, but really, we're excited to finally be making some money instead of just going deeper and deeper into debt.

Oh, and my apologies go out to Linc and Hollie again for Alexa waking up to sing for 1 1/2 hours at 4:00 in the morning. Thanks for taking her!!!

Way to go Idaho!

Brad passed the Bar!!

Now, hopefully he can start training with the AF in October (if they have spots available).

He'll be able to look like Harmon Rabb from "JAG":

I think I can handle that.

Thanks to everyone who helped us make it through these past 3 years! We couldn't have done it without you.

RIP

We finally got to have a funeral for Brad's fingertip. Our sister-in-law put the whole thing together.

Brad showed up like this:

Apparently he felt the need to get dressed up for his own funeral.

Then we drove out to the field where the smashing had taken place and had a nice ceremony.


We had a good crowd come to say their goodbyes.


We buried the finger and then huried back to the house when it started raining.

There we had....

Finger Food!

And then we played a game where you had to guess which picture of a hand belonged to which person. If you ever need a REALLY HARD game, that's a good one to play.

It was a great funeral! It made me think about chopping off my finger so I could have one. Thanks KJ for all your work!

Oh, for the obituary, see "The Preston Citizen" under the Clifton news section. It comes out today.

Here is what Brad's hand looks like now:

Not too bad. The surgeon did a great job. Oh, and Brad wanted to make sure you all know that these are his farm pants and the red stuff is just a stain.

Surgery is Fun!

I wanted to thank everyone for your thoughts, prayers, well-wishes, and obituaries on my (and my finger's) behalf. As Cassi mentioned the surgery went well. I didn't get to talk to my doctor after the surgery was over (I guess he had more important things to do than to watch the anesthesia wear off (more on this in a bit)), but the nurses told me that everything went according to plan.

I decided that surgery is kind of fun, mostly (actually, only) because of anesthesia. It didn't even feel like I had surgery, just felt like I got to go take a nap at the hospital. Seriously, they're over there grinding back my pinkie bone, and I'm in la-la land. You only get this kind of fun during surgery.

I was talking to my brother tonight, and I started to remember some of the funny things that I did (or that the nurses told me I did) while under the anesthesia. As Cassi mentioned in a previous post, I really wanted to get my fingertip back because my sister-in-law is putting plans together for a fingertip funeral. My doctor, Dr. Miller, told me that they wouldn't let me take it home because, by law, they have to test everything that is removed during a surgery. But Dr. Miller also told me that if I reminded him, he would put in a request for me to be able to pick up the pinkie tip after the testing was done. So, the first thing I hear as I'm coming out of the anesthesia is the voice of my doctor in the next recovery room, talking to another patient. All that I can remember is that I really wanted to talk to him about putting in my request; I don't remember anything else. Well, one of the nurses told me later that I really must have wanted to talk to Dr. Miller, because I was yelling "Dr. Miller! Dr. Miller!" over and over for a minute or so. Apparently I wasn't loud enough, because I didn't get to talk to him (at least I don't remember talking to him). But, I found out he did put the request in for me.

Another thing that I remember from when I was "coming to" is that that I could hear the radio was playing somewhere nearby, and the song was Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman? by Bryan Adams. Great song, right? Really makes you think. So great, in fact, that it made me blurt out "Bryan Adams!" This is the first thing I actually remember saying, but then I was confused about why I would say this out loud. Maybe it's cuz Bryan Adams is such a great artist, or maybe it's cuz I have a friend named Bryan Adams and he still hasn't sent me my fajita mix. Who knows.

Either way, here's proof that Bryan Adams is a great artist.

Success

Surgery completed. Finger shortened. No skin graft needed. Things are looking ok. They wouldn't give us the finger tip because they need it for testing - I don't know - it's pretty much dead. But the Dr. requested it back after testing and then he'll give it to us. Maybe we can have a funeral after all.

No luck

Brad's finger died. Surgery is hopefully Tuesday. His Dad is excited to be able to give him 4 1/2's (he's missing part of a finger too).

I would show pictures, but Brad won't allow it at the moment - "too gross" he says.

Fingers Shmingers

Sometimes when you brand calves they don't like to get burned and they go nuts. Then, you get the tip of your finger smashed off between the cow and the bar. Then, it takes 10 minutes to find your finger in the dirt and you go to the ER and tell the Dr to sew it back on. He puts a bandage like this on your finger...

and you have to walk around with your arm up like this to help with the pain...

and take lots of pain killers that make you really tired.

And then you have to wait 10 days to see if the tip of your finger reattaches itself or dies. If it dies, then you're left with a short finger that doesn't have a fingernail on it.

Much Needed Date

When we moved home, I was so excited to be around family who could babysit so Brad and I could have lots of dates....but then Brad spent 3 months studying which pretty much sucked all the fun out of life.

So, I had been planning an awesome date that included sleeping somewhere since we had never been together over night without our baby since she was born - 19 1/2 months.

We went to Logan, where we met my brother Brandon and his wife Lauren. Since they're both jobless, we invited them to come along. We started off with a much-needed temple session, then we went and ate lunch at the park where Brad and I got engaged 5 yrs ago.

We played an intense game of frisbee golf.

I didn't catch the frisbee. Not good.

Here's my teammate.

I don't think he was too pleased with my performance.



Next, our enemies - they look really mean.

But, looking mean must work, because they beat us. I blame it on my pregnant state.

After running some errands and going to a sad movie, it was time to go to our hotel....

It was the Campers' Suite located in the heart of Logan Canyon. At least it fit our blow-up bed in it (barely).

We ended our fun date with a morning hike.

We enjoyed having our date buddies with us.

Too bad it ended so fast!