Party Time!

I think this past December can officially be called the party month. Here are a few highlights:

Josh's office had a really impressive Christmas party. I had my first taste of king crab legs, Macie met Santa's helper, and they took a family portrait for everyone. I think ours turned out cute! The sad news is the pictures I took were lost when we cleaned up our computer.

We had the funnest party ever at our house (if you were there you know it's true!) but unfortunately all my pictures were lost. GRRRR! This is one I got from my sister's camera taken right before we started the unwrapping game. It pretty much resulted in a wrestling match. We had great food, good company, and some hilarious white elephant gifts!

My in-laws also had a nice party at their house, and some other friends as well, but yet again there are no pictures. How sad!

Pobre Trisha

I have so much to say yet so little time. That's how life seems to get this time of year I guess. I'll be updating my blog later about all of our Christmas season fun. For now, I have to take a moment to talk about sad little me.

Yesterday I had to go to the lab to have some blood drawn for a couple tests. This is never a pleasant experience for me. Not only do I have tiny veins, but they roll as well. This results in the phlebotomist digging around in my arm with a needle trying to catch my veins. Of course yesterday was no exception. After 3 tries my arms were hurting and I was feeling very sick. I am very familiar with the phases of passing out and knew I was getting close. First I get sweaty, start to go pale, get sick to my stomach (at which point my color turns from pale to greenish), have trouble breathing, tingle, see spots, and then the lights go out. When they finally did catch a vein the blood was drawing so slowly that at times it would stop, then start up again. I was DYING! I would much rather pass out sooner than go through the agonizing phases that lead up to passing out. However, I didn't quite make it to seeing spots when it was all over. After my recovery I was free to go with a few bruises on my arms.

Lucky for me, I had a similar experience around noon today. I was in the kitchen wearing slippers when I decided to run over to prevent Macie from spilling her yogurt. When I rounded the corner my feet shot out from under me and down I went on the tile, hard. Oddly enough I landed mostly on the knuckle of my right hand. I had a surge of pain and then nothing. I totally panicked and refused to look at my hand because it felt like my knuckles had smashed into my hand. I instantly had flashbacks to freshman year of college when I had a nasty thumb dislocation. The pain felt the same and I knew what an unpleasant experience that was. I picked myself up called for my brother-in-law who was upstairs, telling him the my hand was broken. He and my sister both came down at which point I started to enter the stages of passing out. This time it was prolonged by a bout of hyperventilation. It was miserable and I wished I had been knocked out because for me it is far worse going through the pain and misery. The whole not being able to breathe thing didn't help either.

So, hours later I am ok (obviously if I'm typing!) with a bruised right hand, knee and hip. Am I getting old or what? I wonder what will happen tomorrow...

Jaw-Dropping News!

Now that I have your attention I'll just come right out and say it...my 20-month old toddler pees in the toilet! It is completely Macie's own doing. Let me bring you up to speed on how this eventful day has come about.

Macie's cousin Bella is potty training right now. The other day she was at our house and had to go to the bathroom. Macie watched in awe as her mom helped her sit on a "big people toilet" and go. The next day this video came about.



She is such a funny girl! The last couple of nights Macie started running to my bathroom toilet so she can "go" before she gets in the bathtub. I just hold her there for a few seconds and that's pretty much it. However, I told Josh that maybe we should consider getting her a potty for Christmas since she's showing a little interest. Well, tonight we were out shopping and we went to Babies R Us to get Macie's own potty. She was with us so we let her pick one out. As soon as we got home and brought things inside she was over to the box saying "rip it Mommy," so she could get it out. We took it out, set it up in the bathroom, and she just went. I was shocked! We made a huge deal about it and gave her a special sticker and her very first dum-dum sucker (I know).

A couple hours later we took her upstairs to get in the bathtub and she insisted on sitting on her toilet and...drumroll...she did it again! She's now in bed and I am sitting here wondering what to do next. Should I buy her some panties? Is this just a fluke incident? Will the potty excitement wear off? I really haven't looked into potty training at all yet because I had no plans on even attempting anything until after she turns 2. What a girl!

Speaking of Special Occasions...

This may come as a shock to those of you who know my family well, so please brace yourselves. My little sister Lisa is officially engaged!!! The lucky guy is Paris Bayardo, a friend that goes way back to her highschool days (which is hardly back at all), and they got together after his mission. Lisa is only 19 folks, but we won't go there. Paris just turned 22 so there must be some common sense in all of this, right? Juuuust kidding. We do like you Paris, eventhough you are totally robbing the cradle here. The date right now is for June 28th, one week after Lisa turns 20. Phew!

Happy Anniversary (and Thanksgiving too)

So this year our anniversary fell on Thanksgiving, Nov. 22nd. Yesssssss. Four years already; I can hardly believe it. It definitely seems substantially longer after watching our wedding video. Yes, I like to pull out the video on our anniversary eventhough it's cheesy. Halfway through I looked at Josh and asked him how much of that day he actually remembers. He said not much. It really is such a blur when it happens that it's funny to go back and watch it.

We decided to celebrate the day before Thanksgiving and went out to the rebel basketball game and then the Melting Pot. The game was great until the end when Louisville took a substantial lead and our rebels lost. We always go to the Melting Pot for dinner on our anniversary and, as usual, it was really good. Cheese fondue definitely holds a special place in my heart. I recommend it for anyone that hasn't been there already.

All in all, it has been a great 4 years filled with so much more than I would've imagined. I am really happy with where we are in our lives now, and most especially for our daughter Macie. There isn't a day that goes by where my little girl doesn't make us laugh. And Josh is the best husband and father I ever imagined. He really puts his 2 girls ahead of everything else and doesn't hesitate to do what it takes to take care of us. His willing attitude and desire to serve others is a great example to me. I truly am so lucky!

Poor Baby

We already have our Christmas decorations out (I know, I KNOW!) so I thought Macie could use a little introduction and instruction about them. To cut to the chase, the item of interest for this post is our nativity set. Notice anything missing from the picture??? If you look closely you may notice an empty manger. That's right, there's no baby Jesus. I told Macie about the nativity and gave her specific instructions that we are not to touch any parts of the display, including baby Jesus. She complied at first, until her cousin Bella came over. After an evening of playing, I put away Macie's toys and found some pots and baby Jesus in one of her purses. The next morning after another talk about not touching the nativity, I saw her standing next to it with the baby laying on the floor, minus one arm. She dropped the baby and broke his arm off! I couldn't believe it! I sat Macie on the stairs and this is how our conversation went:

Me: Macie, you broke baby Jesus' arm. I don't like it.
Macie: I like it.
Me: No Macie, I don't like it.
Macie: I like it.
Me: Macie, I DON'T like it.
Macie: I like it!

At this point I knew she didn't understand and I was trying to be serious, but having a very hard time. She is such a crack up!

A Tribute to Comet

As I cleaned the house yesterday I was reminded once again, how lucky I am to have Comet cleanser. It really and truly is my favorite cleaning product. It is a very deep cleaner that gets out so much more than normal spray products. The reason I love it so much is because I get to scrub and scrub and scrub so many surfaces until things are spotless. It leaves no residue or filmy build-up, and contains bleach to disinfect. How much greater can it be? There's nothing like a sparkling clean bathtub after a good Comet clean. And yes, I am being totally serious.

How Did This Happen?

I know many people are already familiar with the picture above. I had seen it more times than I can count from people raving about it for a long, long time. I'm not sure the reason why I steered clear of this series. The whole vampire love story motif just wasn't that appealing to me. Hello, I'm more cultured than that! Well, I finally picked up Twilight after the billionth recommendation and I have to say, I didn't want to like it.

The book started out fine, but I still didn't understand what all the fuss was about. By the time I was halfway through I couldn't stop and, just like that, it was done. By the end of the day I couldn't stop thinking about it. I HAD to keep going. I read the series in less than a week and have to say, this past week my thoughts were completely consumed with Edward and Bella. The series was extremely well written, captivating, and full of surprises. I think what really sucked me in was the way the author brings the characters to life. They were so real, and I wanted to be a part of every bit of the action.

Now that I'm done I am sad that I have to wait so long for Breaking Dawn, the final book of the series, to be released. Not to mention Midnight Sun, a re-write of Twilight from Edward's perspective. In the meantime I have to satisfy myself with book discussions and author Stephenie Meyer's website. I don't want to do any blog posts about the series to refrain from spoiling it for anyone else, but call me if you want to talk about it! Oh, and if you haven't read it yet just break down and DO IT!

Money Matters

I was sitting on the couch reading a book when Macie came up to me and said, "Mom, I dollar." (Macie uses the word I for I want or my). Her uncle Kip was laughing behind her, and she just kept repeating herself very intently. "Mom, I dollar." Apparently Kip told her to ask her mom and dad for a dollar because he thought it would be funny. The funny part was, Macie had no idea what a dollar was, but she knew it was something that Josh and I had and she wanted to have it! Dang uncles. I told her that I didn't have a dollar, and since Josh didn't either, Kip finally gave her one himself. He held it up and said, "Look Macie, here's a dollar!" She took it from him, put it on the ground and colored on it. I guess money doesn't mean much to a toddler.

Happy Birthday Josh!

...last Thursday (Nov. 1st) that is. I'm just now getting to post the pictures because I had to do Halloween first and there's no time and excuses, excuses. I'm finally getting used to the idea of his birthday being the day after Halloween. I get busy with Halloween things and have to make sure all the birthday presents, parties, food, etc. are also ready before Halloween. But after all that, we always have a great time.

Since Macie was sick Halloween night, we decided to take it easy on Josh's birthday. She was definitely doing better when she helped Dad unwrap his new 80gb ipod in the morning.


To celebrate Josh hitting the big 26 we decided to go out to dinner with family, and then have a party the next day on Friday night. We went to Claim Jumper for some delicious food with my brother Ben and his family, my sister Mel and her family, Josh's brother Chad and his wife, and Josh's parents and 2 siblings. We had a huge table! Friday night we partied at our house with appetizers, birthday cake, and a few games. It was fun to get together with so many friends and have a house big enough to do it! The girls won the games (pictionary and catch phrase), as usual, while the guys insisted we were cheating, as usual. Sore losers is all I have to say about that. Macie was up for the beginning of the party and was very excited about all the people. It meant a lot of cell phones to talk on and shoes to wear. She was so cute! At one point she walked into the kitchen with a pair of high heels and a cell phone in hand...that's my girl!

Every year I make Josh's favorite, a lemon-glazed cake. And every year I get better at making it. I'm not a big fan of cake, but this one tasted pretty good! Macie was THRILLED to see the cake all lit up (literally) and everyone singing happy birthday. It is one of her favorite songs.

All in all we had a wonderful week of Halloween and birthdays and look forward to things slowing down again before Thanksgiving creeps up on us. So happy late birthday to my favorite guy who is the best husband in the world and cutest dad around. We love our Joshy!