Play time!

We had the opportunity to watch our friend Mr. T the other day. Gman and Mr T are true best buddies. Whenever GMan sees Mr T he yells out T (or maybe B but I can't quite tell). It is so cute to see how excited these two get around each other. Let's just say we hope we have more play time with each other.

These two love playing with the music table.

Lindsay, I know your boys out grew this thing

a long time ago but I am not sure my kid

could ever give up the music.

Thanks for letting us borrow such a remarkable toy.

The other big activity of the day was pushing each other on the car. It was totally hilarious to watch them give each other rides.

It amazed Mr T's mom and I that these two play so well together. They both have such laid back temperaments that even if the other steals a toy they just move onto something else. I'm glad that after our move GMan is able to make friends too. :)

Fort Hood

The title is a little decieving because while I passed Fort Hood and our friends are based at Fort Hood, I never actually set foot in Fort Hood. We took a little weekend trip to visit our dear friends Dave and Katie in Texas before Dave was deployed to Baghdad.

Even thought we were there for a day and a half we had so much fun with them. We took our adventure down to Austin. If you are asking why we would drive an additional hour after coming 6.5 the answer is simple.....donuts. Being the nerd that I am, I love the Food Network Channel/HGTV/Travel Channel etc. The shows fascinate me and encourage me to try new cooking and home decor techinques. Well, a show on the Travel Channel recently was 101 Chowdown Countdown that listed the top 101 places to eat in the country. One such place was in Austin, TX and I was not going to pass this chance up. The Restaurant......RoundRock Donuts, their claim to fame......a 3 pound donut. This thing was DELICIOUS! We all thought it would be dry or gross but we were wrong on all counts. It was moist, chewy and perfectly glazed. I was in sweet sugary heaven. The best part, the little donuts were even better. So I went from amazing to AMAZING and my tastebuds were in pastry delight.

Check out the size of this sucker!?!

It is roughly the size of a dozen donuts in one.

To help, Dave is holding a normal size donut in the back.
Yup, it's that big.

Even Baby G got in on the action of trying to complete it.
We did fail because we had to try more than just the incredibly ginormous donut.

They also served cinnamon rolls (not great)

regular donuts (Fantastic)

and sausage rolls (don't know, didn't try one)

After engorging ourselves, and while we were on a sugar high that we knew wouldn't last, we headed downtown to check out the capital and other known spots.

This is the view looking up into the capital dome. Cool, huh?

Austin dowtown is pretty cool and I would love to go there on a Saturday night. There's a street with a ton of restaurants and bars called 6th that on the weekends they actually shut down to vehicles.

The street is then taken over with partyers and musicians.

It seems like it would be a lot of fun. Maybe next time......
Katie and I walking down Congress Ave

Family photo with Austin Art on the street.

This is a pretty typical pic of us,

Me looking beautiful, The Man making faces and Gman not even noticing.

It's a wonder we get Christmas cards out. :)

Dave and Katie, thanks so much for having us. It was blast! By now Dave has been deployed so Katie, I hope you are hanging in there. You know our home is always open if you need to escape. You both are in our prayers!

18 months means Nursery!

It was a week ago today that my baby turned 18 months. For those of you who are not mormon that might simply seem like another age milestone but for those of us who are mormon that age means so much more. For the last 18 months we have had to take our babies to our classes at church. Now while they are small and cuddly or even sitting up and playing it is not a problem. Even crawlers aren't that bad. You position yourself in the back of the room , create a playzone and there is general silence through the lesson. Then you hit 1 year and the walking starts. Now said child wants to walk around the room disrupting the lesson, yelling "da" or "ma" or "no,no,no", or my personal favorite hitting the nearest breathing target with a ball or book. Oh the joys. As they progress for the next 6 months it does not get any better. The yelling becomes more pronounced, the walking around becomes running, and the hitting becomes throwing with amazing accurancy. It is roughly this time that you question why you even go to church because you spend most of it in the halls so you don't disturb everyone else. Then the glorious 18 month birthday arrives and life becomes joyous. The nursery opens it's doors and your child is now old enough to enter. It was delightful to have both of us go to class and not have to leave at any time. It was even better to watch other people's kids causing chaos and having to go to the hall.
While it wasn't easy, GMan was a champ. The first week he only whimpered a little. Today he flat out cried but it was only for a few minutes. It doesn't help that nursery time also happens to be nap time but we will get through it.

When I told GMan I wanted to take his picture he walked over to the wall and gave me this pose. I knew I should have made him a baby model. Dang it.

Viva Las Vegas!

After we returned to AZ from Disneyland we picked up Baby G and took him to the Nana's house. The next day we abandoned him once again to enjoy a four day jaunt to the entertaining land of Las Vegas. We enjoyed the trip with our amazing friends Brent and Lexi. It was great to joke around with them, enjoy the sights of the strip and get to know Lexi better. The trip included a stop to take the Dam Tour, we went to the Las Vegas temple, saw all the sights down the strip (both welcome and unwelcome), took in the show Ka by Cirque de Soliel, and partied in the New Year on the strip.

The one and only Sexy Lexi.

And our Brent who is always full o fun

Standing INSIDE the dam at one of the grates

on the Nevada side. It seemed to be really

important that we remember which state we

were in. I don't know why, both sides are

mirror images of wach other.

Oh well, whatever.

The view from inside the dam, beautiful


On the observation deck. Behind us is the new bypass bridge that should be done by the end of the year. It should be great in alleviating the traffic congestion when trying to cross the Hoover Dam. The blasted traffic that we had to sit through. Awesome.

The Bellagio fountain show. It's amazing,

go to LV just to see that.

The Mirage Volcano. Also awesome but it doesn't

explode every 15 minutes to the beat of different

songs. Still good though.

No we aren't in France, just in front

of the Paris hotel.

Ka - interesting show but not my favorite Cirque performance.

I would check out "O" instead, just my opinion.

On New Year's Eve waiting to ring in the New Year.

The crowd around us.

After midnight and we were trying to get back

to the car it was like we were packed in like

sardines (or vienna sausages since they stand up

in the can). We were moving as one big crowd.

ps - I've never seen so many old people at a New Year's party as I did on the strip. Interesting.

Anyway, a big thanks to Nana for watching GMan so we could enjoy an AMAZING trip together. It was very rejuvinating and definitely needed.

Thanks Brent and Lexi for stickin with us even when we were walking through ciga-weed smoke.
PARTY ON!

Disneyland

Yup kids, we did it. We went to Disneyland without our own child.

First, a huge thanks to my sister and bro in law Beth and Kyle for watching the rug rat while we went and partied with the big kids. I should also thank my neice Kaci since she is probably the one who smothered my child with love and attention.

Thanks to a truly inspired idea by Nate we decided to head to Disneyland for a day because The Man had never been there. The trip was a blast. The car ride was entertaining, The Man got sick so hearing him snore at night kept the other three awake, and even if you want to be, you can't be angry in the Happiest Place on Earth (right Nate?) The weather was significantly chillier than we planned on which was really only a bummer after my butt got soaked on Splash Mountain. Boy did I look like I peed my pants. Good thing The Man was the only one lookin. :)

Darth Vader made entirely out of Legos. So cool!

Waiting in line at Thunder Mountain. Aren't we cute?!?

I know we look like pathetic drowned rats but it really was cold

Yup, we were still that happy after waiting

to get to the front of the line.

What a stud.

Yes ladies and gents she really is just too cool for you.

We finished the day off by eating in the ESPNZone in downtown Disney. The food was amazing but I am not sure if it is really that good or I was that famished. Either way it was a great ending to a great day. Thanks again Nate and Darcy for planning such an awesome adventure!

Holiday Catch Up

Wow has it been a long time or what? In my defense, we partied hardy through Christmas and New Years and by the time we got home we both hit the ground running with work and callings. This is the first time since we got back that I have been able to sit at the home computer and blog. If this helps you understand my level of patheticness we just put away our Christmas decorations yesterday. Yup, I knew if we didn't do it yesterday than it wasn't going to get done before Valentine's Day and that's just disgusting. Since we vacationed way too long and had way too much fun I will post the trip in different sections. This post will be Christmas. We were in Arizona and celebrated the birth of the sweet 8 lb 14 oz baby Jesus (movie title anyone?) and 9 lb 8 oz Baby Matt with part of the P clan. Nate and Darcy were the gracious hosts and David also joined in the fun. We watched Home Alone on Christmas Eve to get into the Holiday spirit and I'm pretty sure I passed out somewhere in the middle of it. Christmas morning we awoke to our phones ringing with Christmas greetings from family who forgot to account for the time change between east coast and mountain standard time. Oops. It's okay because G Man awoke a short time later to see what Santa brought him. What a haul. He got blocks, cars (from Nate and Darcy and mom and dad), a football, a car the he can push around the house, clothes, etc. After Baby G opened two presents and didn't want to open anymore The Man told me it was a waste for me to have bought so much stuff. I don't care thought because it has been fun to see the kid play with it all. Following the present frenzy we gorged ourselves with delicious Kringle pastries and Hormel bacon and eggs. After breakfast the men went for a walk to the park while the women stayed home to clean and pack for our afternoon trek to California to enter the Happiest Place on Earth the next day. (That will be the next post) Either way here are some shots of the action.

Merry Christmas! Look at my Crazy hair. Don't worry it gets cut on New Years.

ps - I had him in really cute Christmas jammies but when we got him out of bed Christmas morning he had peed everywhere. That was GMan's present to me. Yummy!

Gman and Dad opening a book from the Nana

Me and Baby G. He just opened this truck which turned out to be one of Santa's more loved purchases.

The Mans' birthday dinner at Rainforest Cafe in downtown Disney. We were getting a head start on our happiness but the park won't come until tomorrow.

Gingerbread House 2009

It took me over a month to finally finish this years Gingerbread House but here it is in all it's glory. I love making these every year. The light inside heats up the house just enough to make the room smell like gingerbread. Yum! I hope that all of you have a great Christmas!