Christmas 2006

"New Gasses"
Sugar. The best present.


Jake woke up Grace on Christmas morning and she very literally told him groggily, "Daddy, I'm still tired!"

"I recall last night somebody saying something about Santa, but WOW."

Now those are some sexy legs.

Just a little bit of baby fat, no biggie.

Gorgeous Grace.

New gasses, kitty, sweater, what else does a girl need?

Gracie and I in the kitchen cooking some pumpkin chocolate chip bread.

I hope with all my heart that everyone had a great Christmas! All of our love to you.

Joy to the World

I love this picture, and I'm sure we all needed a laugh. The new house contract fell through, we are dissapointed but saw it coming since the buyer's condo was not selling. They will probably make a fresh offer after the new year if they can get their condo under contract. Meanwhile, our house is back on the market and we lowered the price $5k, so we'll see where that goes. We are still set to go to close on January 12th on the house we currently live in.

Happy holidays to everyone!! We have made this our year of setting goals and we will put our goals under the tree as gifts to ourselves (I know, cheesy). Writing goals down will make them 100% more achievable. As a sidenote, I don't know about anyone else, but my feet and legs haven't been warm since September. Maybe I should make "getting warm" one of my goals...I just can't handle the cold, and for the past few years I have been either pregnant or nursing during the winter and have been MUCH warmer. But this year I am back to my old self and my old self is COLD. And I can't sit by the heater all day, I've got other things to do... like watch that the heating bill doesn't skyrocket. Kisses and hugs to everyone, we do miss or family and friends that can't be near us.

Good News

Both houses are now under contract! For those who didn't know, we were selling the home we live in as well as the spec home. We are so relieved to have them both under contract! Nothing is completely certain until we sign the closing documents, but it's nice to be closer than ever and we're welcoming any back-up offers. We are set to close on the home we live in on January 15th. So we will move on or before then. We don't really know where, probably an apartment until we can get things figured out... like where we want to live, etc.

This life of ours is crazy.

Jake passed his series 7 (Stock broker) test on Friday, and we're really happy about that... now he has to study for his series 63 (State Broker test). He should be taking that in the next 6 weeks.
Well, that's all the news for now. As a sidenote, we are freezing our behinds off in Utah. Inversion has come and hasn't gone away. Inversion is when the air is super cold and hangs in the valley and is exacerbated by the moisture from the lake... basically, really cold, unhealthy air for weeks on end. No snow, no wind, no rain, just cold. It's a party I tell you.

Just some thoughts

I had gone to bed at 12:30 a.m. last night. At 4:30 a.m. my brainfog finally allowed me to spring half an eyelid open. I heard my baby crying from her crib in the next room. My body was like lead, seriously, and the bad attitude came FLOODING toward me. Couldn't escape it. She's 21 months old, do the math, that's almost TWO. And she keeps waking up. Why? WHY? So I turned my feet toward the floor, let my down comforter fall from my shoulder and shivered. So I had to get these legs to lift my body up to walk. There, I did it.. I am running on momentum only. If I stopped walking I would probably just fall back in bed.

Why do kids wake up? Why can't I get ONE full night's sleep without someone wetting the bed, needing a drink, needing to go potty, coming into our bed.. just one night and I would be good for another year! By this time I am opening my bedroom door. I struggle into the dark hallway and my eyes are literally glued shut with sleep. It's the best I can do, so I will just have to remember the distance to open the girl's bedroom door. My hand pushed it open and the crying was razoring my ears. It was so dark and so cold and I was SO TIRED.

In the moment before I bent down to pick up Ruby I thought about those long sleepful nights when I was pregnant with Grace. No school, just full time work and that feeling that one gets when waking up at noon. AHHH. Then the peaceful breakfast that follows. A little email, a little news, orange juice, cereal, toast, donut, whatever happened to be there.. and we used to have to much food because we were married and both working and man were we rich back then.

My mind starts to focus back to the problem at hand. I think maybe I can just back out of the room and she will stop crying, go back to sleep, and I can snuggle back in my covers. No such luck. I reach down to pick her up, glancing over my shoulder at Grace to make sure Ruby's cries aren't waking her....... What? Ruby is burning up! She has a fever, my baby girl has a fever!!! Poor thing! I better rub my eyes so I can wake up and fix her a cup of juice!! Let's get her out of her hot jammies and a cold cloth for her forehead! Let me just run to the bathroom to get the Tylenol! She might need me to stay up all night which would be completely fine! And that's how it is being a mother.