Wilson

Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-26T07:24:00.000-08:00

We spent Thanksgiving day with our good friends, he Moss family and Brett, and the Schroeder Family. The kids had a great time playing together and the adults had fun watching football and chatting. Big Thanks to Melissa for hosting. For those of you who don't know, I served my mission in France. Our mission president at the time President Wilcox always told us that we had all chosen to serve in our mission together. I don't know if that's true or not, but I do know that I am thankful for those I served with, and am amazed that eight years later Melissa and I ended up in the most random city on earth together, El Paso. So maybe it's true, because having her hear this year has been such a blessing!
Since I'm talking about blessings, let me add that every good thing I have in my life I have because I served my mission. Marrying Tom is a direct result of my decision to serve and he is the best thing that ever happen to me!
A few more things I'm thankful for...my super sassy children, our families in AZ (especially grateful that someone married my brother Buck, and turns out she's amazing), and my great friends here in El Paso (you know who your are), and all the friends all over the place!

2010-09-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

Huck turned two today! Yesterday we celebrated his birthday with some friends and Grandma Charlotte and Uncle Chad.

Tom is a Soldier, a dentist, a carpentar, a painter, and a chef all rolled into one! He made this fantatic R2-D2 cake for Huck. It was actually his first time even baking a cake, let alone a project of this magnitude. He did an amazing job. The cake is consists of nine, 9 inch round cakes, a batch of rice krispie treats (for the legs), 10 pounds of powder sugar, 7 pounds of butter, and a whole lot of heart. Tom even made his own fondant frosting...and bought a new Kitchen Aid mixer to help...he was complaining that his wrist hurt after mixing two batches of Buttercream with the hand mixer. All in all I think the finished product took close to 10 hours, including the baking time. Take that Food Network, Challenge contestants!

Huck loved his cake! And we love Tom for making it for him!

Huck and Wilder

2010-09-03T13:06:00.000-07:00

Now that Haylie goes to preschool I have more alone time with the Huck Monster. He is always sad when we take Haylie to her class and he can't stay with her. He forgets all about it when he gets home and gets to go play outside and find bugs. He loves to come inside and tell me about the bugs he sees. Sometimes if I'm lucky he will bring me a bug to see for myself. It will usually be writhing around as Huck holds it by a wind or a leg. Their life expectancy is not long after Huck gets ahold of them. I just keep praying he doesn't try and pick up a scorpion!

Wilder is 10 weeks and growing big. Tom and I think he looks like his Grandpa Wilson, but you can't be sure at this age. He is sweet and smiling, and cries a lot if he isn't being entertained, held, or feed. He is exhausting, but at least he sleeps through the night!

Haylie's First Day at Preschool

2010-09-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

Haylie was becoming bored at home with me and her little brothers so this year we decided to enroll her in a preschool program. We were lucky enough to snag her a spot at a great preschool in El Paso. She gets to go to class five days a week in the mornings. So far she loves it. Her teacher, Wendy, said she jumped right in with the other kids in her class and made friends right away. I think she has already formed her own preschool gang and made herself the ring leader.
Today Huck and Wilder and I joined her at school. It is a Jewish preschool so each Friday the kids and parents and siblings are invited to observe Shabbat with the students. They light the candles and sing songs and do some dancing and have challah ( I think that's what the twisted bread is called). A good time was had by all. I could see Haylie across the gym sitting with her class, I think she looked puzzled. They don't light candles during Nursery on Sundays.

Wilder Chad Wilson

2010-06-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, a little over a week early, we had our baby boy. He was 6 pounds 10 oz. and 19.5 inches long. It was a relatively easy birth compared to Haylie and Hucks. I went to the hospital at 7:30 and had him at noon. Not too shabby...although I had been in a state of non progressive labor (is that even a real condition?) since Sunday after noon. It had not been a pleasant week up until the hospital finally said they would admit me. We are pleased as punch to have him at home, he is doing well and Huck loves him. Haylie, still not the nurturer, has very little use for him.

2010-06-04T08:48:00.000-07:00

My youngest brother is getting married next week. Since I will not be able to attend the actual wedding because my due date is far to close we took a trip to Arizona last week. My whole family was in town, even my brother Tyler who is in the military. Obviously with several of us in the military opportunities for all of us to be in town at once are rare. We took the opportunity to get updated Pear Family pictures done with all the new additions.

We had a great time visiting family. Haylie especially loves visiting her cousins, aunts and uncles and Grandmas and Grandpas. She really loves her Aunt Reilly and Uncle Travis. It's adorable. When we came back to Texas we were putting her to bed and out of the blue she told us "Uncle Travis is my best friend". Aww, so cute. I'm sure it helps that Reilly and Travis only have boys so she is a novelty when she visits their place. Reilly fixes her hair and gives her candy. What's not to like about that?

Upper left corner picture is the original Pear Family. Next to that is the current family with in laws, and kids. The lower is obviously our family. Haylie is 3 and Huck is 21 months. In this picture I'm about four weeks from my due date. Tom was loving his first experience with white linen pants. He said they were more comfortable than pajamas and wondered why he hadn't sported the look earlier. In reality I think he wore them just to see what my family would say when he showed up. I thought they looked nice despite his reasons.

2010-04-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I had any kid pictures posted. So here they are in all of their sassy glory. I can't manage to get a good picture of Huck so this one will have to suffice. I love how Haylie is showing off her "My little Pony" and her sunglasses in her picture. She LOVES that pony. Unfortunately the dog loves it too. He loves all of her ponies and has chewed off limbs on each one. I HATE the dog. But this post isn't about that awful animal, because even thinking about him makes me angry...especially today since he just chewed up an expensive shoe. It's not like the shoe was sitting in the middle of the family room, he had to make an effort to go into the closet and drag it out....he may not be with us for much longer (anyone want a retarded miniature schnauzer?)
The kids are great and growing up so fast! In July (maybe June) they will have a little brother to harass. At my 22 week ultrasound the tech told me I was having a girl. I was super excited. I gave away all of my little boy things and started buying pink. And since we live in El Paso I had to order most of the clothes for the new girl baby because all they have here is Old Navy and Gap. Turns out that they baby was measuring small so they sent me back for another ultrasound at 30 weeks. That's when I was told I was in reality having a boy! What the crap?! I was not pleased. Not because I had my heart set on a girl, but because I had been planning on a girl and now all the sudden I was having a boy! I just wasn't prepared emotionally for the change of sex. I guess it's a good thing I found out now instead of when he came out. I promptly sent back all the cute girl things I had ordered and exchanged them for the boy version. Sadly, it's just not as exciting to shop for a boy. But, that probably makes Tom happy, I'll spend less money.

2010-04-28T14:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends back one of my cousins was married. Since we are now only a few short hours from our families in AZ I thought it would be fun to go. Tom on the other hand had different ideas. He suggested that I fly out to AZ alone and have fun with my family while he stayed home with the kids. Of course I jumped at the chance to go somewhere sans children and was more than willing to leave Tom in charge while I went gallivanting off to visit family and friends. After all Tom did have that eight week vacation last summer...okay, so basic training isn't exactly a vacation but he had way too much fun with going to Sea World, and Six Flags with his "BTFF" (Basic Training Best Friend Forever) Captain Johnstun for me to think that it wasn't kind of vacation! Anyway, I flew out to AZ and had a fantastic time visiting my family. I hung out one night with my sister in law and even had time on Saturday to spend time with one of my best friends from high school before heading out to dinner with all my sisters and a soon to be new sister. I had such a good time and was so glad Tom suggested that I go alone!

The picture on the left is all of the Pear (my brothers and sisters) kids, minus Tyler who is in the military, and Tammie who is just late (as usual). The picture on the right is of all the Pear girls, including an almost Pear on the very left, Kristin, who is marrying my brother Dallin in June. Check my out in my almost eight month pregnant glory. Notice my legs are a bit orange...they are! I had to wear nylons to hide my pregnancy induced varicose veins, snazzy.

"That might be a penis"

2010-02-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

I betcha no one reads my blog anymore! I don't blame anyone, it's been a lifetime since I posted anything. Not that we haven't been having loads of fun, because we have. Here's a just a few of the fun things that have happened since my last post.
1. found out we are unexpectedly expecting...again.
2. Tom started moonlighting at the Sierra Blanca prison. He says it's not as glamorous as one would think.
3. at 10 weeks I started hemorrhaging profusely (sorry, I know it might tmi).
4. Spent some time in the ER were I was diagnosed with what is called a subchorionic hematoma. Good news is the baby is fine, but my uterus not so much.
5.I am put on modified bed rest until I'm out of the danger zone.
6. My Mom came to visit.
7. We sent the kids the stay with family in AZ. (modified bed rest says I'm not suppose to lift anything more than 10 pounds, push a vacuum, sweep, or really do anything useful.
8. Tom and I joined the kids in AZ for Christmas.
9. Came back to TX and took the kids to the ER.
10. Haylie had pneumonia and so did Huck.
11. Huck spent four days in the Pediatric unit of the hospital for his pneumonia.
12. We celebrated New Years Eve by getting Huck home from the hospital and going to bed by 10 p.m.
13.at week 19 we found out that the hematoma has cleared up so I can have a normal pregnancy from here on out.
14. The doctor told us we are having a girl....five minutes later it might be a boy. Her words exactly "that might be a penis. But if it is I've never seen a penis that looked like that before. I guess we'll just have to wait and see." Now, I'm really worried.

So, lots of fun times for us in El Paso. So far this has been the longest pregnancy of all time. Now that it's Feb we are all doing well. The baby is due July 1st and I'm hoping for a healthy normal sexed child. I am getting another ultrasound next week so I'm really hoping the tech can tell us for sure one way or another. I'll keep you posted.

El Paso Zoo

2009-11-03T17:53:00.000-08:00

We have been all about trying everything El Paso has to offer so this week we made our way to the El Paso Zoo. The sign outside boasts they have 20 endangered species at the zoo! The place was so small that I'm not sure there was many more than 20 animals in total. Maybe I missed something? Either way we had a great time. In my opinion there is a lot to be said for a small Zoo. You get to see it all and you don't have to spend the whole day there dragging the kids all over the place.Last year we went to the Bronx Zoo in NY and it was so huge and crowded that it was hard to see anything and we ended up leaving early...only to find that while we had been inside we got a parking ticket for parking too close to the fire hydrant. I can't tell you how much we spent last year on parking tickets but it was a lot! No more of that here, that's the beauty of having your own garage!

White Sand National Monument

2009-10-29T07:34:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we drove the the White Sands National Monument. By far one of the funnest/coolest places I've ever been, and I've been to some fairly cool places in my time i.e. The Eiffel Tour, London Bridge (and a few others).

The sand basin was formed by gypsum desposites millions of years ago, or something to that affect. All the sand is piled high so what you do is buy a sled and slide down the drifts of sand like you would in the snow. Haylie loved it, and I thought it was super fun too! Everything was so white I felt like it was snow. It didn't help that it was FREEZING. I mean freezing, it snowed on the way back and the wind was whipping all around. We should have dressed warmer, but we didn't think it was going to be that cold. In fact, last night when Tom took Wedge out it was snowing at our place! This is El Paso, I didn't think we were going to get snow. This morning when I walked out side there was snow all over the Franklin Mountains! Yikes.

We had a blast, and it was one of the first days Tom has had off in awhile. What a fun family adventure!

The Things Tom built

2009-10-29T07:22:00.001-07:00

Because I have expensive tastes and we currently don't have the pocket book to match Tom has become a carpenter.

Haylie has graduated to a twin bed. She kept falling off of her toddler bed mattress. I looked and looked for a modern kids bed that was affordable and it wasn't out there. All of the beds I liked had a price tag of 900-2,000, for a kids bed! Come on, it's just wood and a non-toxic finish! So I had Tom make a replica of one of the beds I loved. He did a pretty fantastic job. I should have posted a picture of the actual frame, because it's impressive. It's hasn't been stained and sealed yet because I've had a hard time finding a non-toxic stain here in El Paso and I have to special order one. I'll post the pictures of the finished product once it's all done.

The other thing Tom built was our media console. Once again I fell in love with one I found at Room and Board in NYC. Couldn't afford it, and since it's just wood, Tom decided he could make it. It houses all of our cables, DVD stuff, XBox360, Wii, Playstation3, and even has enough room for Haylie and Huck to go inside one of the cabinets and have small party. The picture doesn't show how big it really is...Nine feet! It's huge! It took Tom and another Dentist in the ward to move it into the house.

It sure is nice to have a handy husband.

2009-10-26T13:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to bother trying to give an update. I will simply give list a few of the most important events...in no particular order.
1. We moved to El Paso, Texas,
2. Huck turned 1
3. We bought a dog. The mini schnauzer is named Wedge Antilles, after the Rebel Alliance Starfighter pilot in Star Wars.
4. We bought our first house

Here are some pictures, also in no particular order!

Welcome to El Paso

2009-08-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

We've been in El Paso for a little over a week now. The first week was spent living at a Embassy Suites Hotel while we searched for a place to live. We think we've found a place and are currently waiting to see if everything goes through. In the meantime we have moved to a more permanent-temporary home at the Value Place. We have a studio with two double beds, a fridge, microwave and a two burner electric stove top. Just like home! Actually if there was a bedroom and a hallway it would be about the size of our Jersey place....which we miss like crazy in case anyone was wondering.

We are luckier than most military families as it just so happens I have a friend from MHS (carry on Jackrabbits) whose husband is stationed in El Paso is well. They have been great, even having us over for a real meal on Sunday (all we've had for over a week is fast food...disgusting). Slowley but surely things are getting better!

In the last two months since I've posted Tom has completed his Officer Basic Training in San Antonio. It went better then expected. He ended up being assigned the best room mate ever, Kevin. He was also LDS, and I personally think they had way too much fun. The went to Magic Mountain a few times, Sea World, and ended up Golfing 90 holes in the last two weeks!

In the meantime, I was living back in AZ with my family. It ended up being better then expected. I hired my 15 year old sister to babysit for me while I went to Pilates sessions. I went to K Pilates studio in Mesa and it was one of the best studios I've ever practiced at. I don't feel so bad about all of Toms fun since I was going to Pilates sessions everyday that I could. That took the sting out of living back at home! We did have lots of fun getting to know grandparents and cousins. Haylie ended up having a really sweet bond with her cousin Travis. She would wake up and ask about "Travy".

Being back out west has taken a bit of getting use to, I forgot how hot it gets in AZ. El Paso is about 10 degrees cooler so when we got here it felt like heaven. El Paso seems to be a great place and we are excited to get settled, sooner rather then later hopefully. We really miss the City and hope to possibly go back there to live one of these days. Although, my only request of going back East is I want to live in Manhattan. Sometimes I still feel robbed that I had to live in Jersey for part of our time there.

Tom misses everyone from school, especially Mike, Audrey, Anne and Dr. Meeker! He starts work on Thursday, and I'm sure he's excited to find out what it's like to be a dentist for the US Army.

I'm a Pop Star/ Couch for Sale!

2009-05-15T12:32:00.000-07:00

Tom and I have the exact same problem in the opposite way.
We both have a difficult time finding sunglasses that fit our heads. His head is too big for most and my head is too small for all. I've been trying to find a pair that looked nice and fit me properly that I could use now that the spring/summer is upon us. I looked everywhere for a pair that was just right. I tried on expensive Dior, and Channel, and Oakley's, even Rayban. Nothing fit. Then one day with out warning I found a pair that actually fit me. Check me out in my new Shades. I know, I look amazing. If you want to look like a rock star like me you can. You too can buy your own Disney's Hannah Montana "Pop Star" sunglasses at Duane Read. I'm slightly embarassed that I'm wearing childrens sunglasses but they fit so I can't complain. At least I'm a bonafide "Pop Star", I mean if my glasses say it, it must be true. Tom even made the clerk at Duane Read cut the Hannah Montana plastic protector off them so I could wear them while we walked home. How thoughtful. She looked like she felt sorry me, and adult wearing sunglasses with the words "popstar" emblazed on them.

The other day we came home and the house smelled of Gas. I thought nothing of it, someplace always smells like gas out here, and went to my Pilates session. When I came home Tom was still obsessing about the smell. He was now convinced that he could smell death seaping from beneath the couch. He had already looked all over for the smell to no avail. The only thing he hadn't done was cut the couch open, but right after Huck went down he turned the couch upside down. Using his keen sense of smell (apparantly this is a Wilson trait and both of his sisters have amazing sniffers as well) he located the area where the smell was coming from. Utilizing a utility knife he sliced open the belly of the couch and out fell a dead/rotting mouse! Umm, gross. I already hated the couch for being ugly and uncomfortable but now I have a new reason to not take it with me when we move.

And in case you were wondering we finally recieved our orders. We will be stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. We are excited for a new adventure, but as our stay in NY comes to a close we are having a difficult time and remembering all the great things that have come our way out here. I love NYC, it was our first home together. We are trying to embrace the change and look forward to the great things in Texas, like Rodeo's, cowboy hats, and boots. I've already decided that Haylie is going to run barrels and Huck is going to be a little cowboy and rope those little baby goats. It's going to be adorable. I'm also going to start speaking with a southern Texas accent, just for fun. Oh, and I'm going back blond, Texas blonde...the bigger and blonder the better. It's going to be amazing. I'm also going to start saying "y'all" and put a big banner outside our door that reads "God Bless Texas"and inside our home instead of a "Remember who you are" sign I'm going to put up "God hates a coward" instead. Tom told me he was going to become a "hunter". He asked if I would display his kills in our home. I said no. He said okay, it cost thousands of dollars to stuff animals and he doesn't really like to kill animals (except for birds he says) anyway. He's too much of an animal lover. As you can see we have big, Texas size plans.

Feel free to come visit us if you are out our way. I'm sure we'll have plenty of room for ya all.

NYU Class of 2009

2009-05-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was New York University's Commencement. Although Tom's official Graduation from NYU Dental isn't until the 26th of this month he attended the ceremony along with thousands of other NYU graduates. Hilary Clinton spoke and Tom said that her speech was great despite the fact that she is a Democrat and he's a Republican. He said she was very relevant. I wasn't able to attend..well I could have attended, but seriously, taking a two year old and a seven month old to sit and listen to speakers for two hours straight seemed a bit much to ask. I wish I could have been there to show my support for Tom. I am incredibly proud of what he has accomplished. The last four years have been a lot of hard work! When Tom first arrived in New York, a naive young man from Arizona (not that naive, but naive by NYC standards) he was living the single life. In the last four years a lot has happened for Tom. At the end of his first year we were married. At the end of his second year we had Haylie, and in his forth year he became a Dad for the second time to Huckleberry. If you ask me that's pretty damn impressive (hope the curse didn't offend anyone, but I don't think "darn" had the oomph I was looking for). He has handled all of it with grace and maturity. I don't usually do sentimental posts, but since we are coming to the end of this period of our lives, I feel justified by what I'm going to say. I am immensely proud of Tom and all that he has done. He is respected by the professors and the students alike. He has done well in all of his classes and tests while at the same time becoming a husband and a Dad twice. I'm glad to say he didn't do any of those things half way (well, maybe he did only half way study for his boards...but if you know your stuff, you know your stuff). Congrats Tom! Haylie and Huck say thanks for all your hard work. And a special thanks from me for your hard work in becoming a dentist so you can buy me all the stuff I want. We need a dentists budget for that :)

Traitor

2009-04-20T05:30:00.000-07:00

When Tom moved to NYC four years ago he swore he would forever love the Diamondbacks and forever hate the Yankees. Maybe he could like the Mets he said, but the Yankees, Never.

Never say never. Tom is a bonafide Yankees fan. Check out how he made them all dress up in Yankees apparel for the game! And Huck wasn't even attending the game, he was just going to watch at home while Tom took Haylie.

Haylie loved going to the baseball game and asks to go all the time now. Here first words this morning (after asking to watch Harold and the Purple Crayon) were "baseball game"? She even ran to collect her glove from the toy box. She's had the glove before she was even born because we knew she'd have baseball in her blood, like her Dad.
Here's Tom and Haylie right before they left for the game to go pick up Willis and Mike, Haylie's new friends. (Tom's friends, but Haylie likes them too)
Haylie and Huck showing the love for Derek. I remember the first time I saw Jeter in person. It was on my honeymoon at the Baseball World Classic. He looked right at me. Wow. Hands off Jeter, I'm a married gal!

P.S. Guess who started standing up on furniture and crawling? Huck that's who. He's just become more difficult to manage.

Haylie and Huck Updates

2009-02-12T09:54:00.000-08:00

One of Haylie's favorite things to do is climb up onto the window sill and hangout. She'll watch the people walking by and say "Hi" to everyone. Occasionally, she gets a hold of game control and trys to play video games. So far all she has managed to do is turn on the game consoles. It's only a matter of time until she figures out how to start a game, I'm sure. She is talking up a storm. Her favorite phrase is "that mine". The other night I was sitting on the floor with Huck. My hair was pulled back in a pony tail with a hair band that Haylie likes to use as a necklace. She noticed that I was using it and pointing to it remarked "that mine". I told her that it was mine and I was using it. She wasn't content with that answer and a few minutes later I felt her come up behind me. She leaned over my shoulder and whispered into my ear "that mine", and proceeded to pull it out of my hair. It was all very stelth like. Let's not forget that she figured out how to climb out of her crib last night. Fueled by rage and I'm sure indignation, she made her first attempt to escape the confines of her crib. She succeeded, and I caught her as she came over the edge. I don't know what we are going to do. I for sure don't want her in a bed yet, but don't want her to get hurt crawling out of the bed in the middle of the night. We'll see what happens.

Huck is four months. He enjoys chewing on his fists, rolling all over the ground, grabbing toys, droolling, and laughing. He also loves when Haylie comes to play with him. He doesn't even care that she kicks him in the head. She does such a soft kick, he thinks it's funny and laughs. He is starting to scoot everywhere. I have to keep dragging him back onto the rug, but he just won't stay in one place. He just wants to be where the action is.

2009-01-22T11:43:00.000-08:00

Nana and Grandpa Wilson sent Haylie some Dora PJ's for Christmas. Of course she LOVED them! I put them on her to wear for bed and she was so excited to have them on. There was just one thing....because they are a 3T they were a bit big, but only in length (I think she must have Tom's broad shoulders :)!) She kept stepping on the bottom of the PJ's so I decided I would just hem them to her current size. When I say "hemmed" I really mean "cut". I haven't sewn since High School when I sewed my senior prom dress, betcha didn't know I could sew, huh? Anyhow, we had the two leg pieces left from where I had "hemmed"
the legs and I gave them to Haylie. I figured she would like to play with them. I started on dinner. Next thing I knew, I turned around and there was Haylie using the Dora scraps as a head band. It was the cutest thing. Of course she couldn't stop at just one Dora head band she had to have them both on. She was so pleased, she even had Huck try one on!

Letter to Tony

2009-01-13T06:24:00.001-08:00

Dear Tony,

Seeing your face on the computer screen at the FBI was a shock. Not just because I believed you to be dead, or because I didn't want to believe that you were capable of the things the claimed you are responsible for doing. But because you hurt Jack.

Tony, haven't we all given enough? Yes, we've lost Michelle (we all loved her), and Curtis too. Edgar's death took us all by suprise. We can't forget Milo's sacrifice either. Jack has been exiled as now under indictment for torture. All of these things break my heart, but none of them can compare to what I felt when they told me you were a terrorist.

I wanted to hope that you weren't what they claimed. But I'll admit my faith in you was wavering. All I could hope was that you were undercover, but with CTU disbanded the chance of that being the case was slim. It was hard enough when you passed away, but to think that you could turn like that...well, I just wished you'd have stayed dead so I didn't have my heart broken twice.

I'll admit I worried about you for the last couple of days. Never giving up hope completely. I can tell you that when Jack dialed "Deep Sky" last night and we heard Bill's voice I was overcome with emotion. Seeing Chloe was in on it completed the joy I felt. And I was so happy for Jack. He has lost so much, I couldn't stand to see him hurt by the one's he loves (you Tony, I'm talking about you). After he spoke to Bill I was able to understand why you hurt him with your comments about Terri's death. You had to get him close enough to tell him, and knowing him so well you knew what he would do.

Tony, I'm so pleased that you still have good in you. So pleased that you are back from beyond the grave. So glad to hear your voice say "yeah" again in the way only Tony Almieda can do. I should have known that you would never go that far astray for good. Your Tony Freaking Almeida and you're back from the dead to kick some A with Jack!

Don't let us down, and don't let Jack down. We are counting on you to once again give everything to protect us from evil that surrounds us on all sides.

Jenny

Fire Starter

2009-01-06T17:33:00.001-08:00

New Year's Eve at our place is always the same. It's probably the only hardcore tradition we have create since our marriage nearly three years ago ( I know it seems like longer because we have two kids, but really we're just newly weds still). We have a game night. Not just any game night. This game night is filled with heartbreak and disappointment because it's a night of high stakes. You'd better bring your A game on New Years Eve at our place. It all goes down like this. The day before we select a series of games/challenges. Each game/challenge is then assigned a prize. For example, this year the winner of Scrabble won a 50 dollar gift card to the mall. Other prizes included the opportunity to choose the dog breed when we get a dog, a night out with 30 bucks to spend, a pedicure/video game. We have a few games we always play, Scrabble, Boggle, Scattegories, Wii Ping Pong, and the USA Today crossword puzzle. This years challenges included "House of Cards" and "The Fire Starter".

House of Cards was tricky. This is where we each had to build a house of cards (self explanatory), the first person to build three levels wins. The cards we used were super, ultra or as the French would say "hyper" slick. Neither one of us built more than one level. However I ended up winning because my first level was far more sturdy than Tom's. His crumbled with every card stacked on top.

The Fire Starter Challenge was my idea. I'm a huge Survivor fan. Although I know I would never want to be on that show, I still love the "game". Tom always tells me I'd be the first one voted off the island. I don't think that's true, as I can be very polite and fun when I put my mind to it. For a million bucks I can be nice to anyone for a few weeks! The real reason I'd never go on the show is because I can't stand to not sleep in a bed, or be cold, or be uncomfortable in any way. I came home from girls camp every year. Part of the reason was the sleeping situation. Sleeping bags are not my cup of tea. Anyhow back to the "challenge". Each contestant (Tom and I) were given ten minutes in which we had to start a fire with only flint and some kindling. That's right folks, just a bit of dry leaves and sparks. I've never started a fire before in my life (that's what men are for, thank you very much), Tom claims he hasn't but also claims he received his "fire starting" badge for cub scouts so we know he had a leg up. The night was freezing, and windy. Of course we weren't dumb enough to attempt to start a fire in our living room so we had to go out onto the street. Tom made a good effort, got major sparkage, and nearly started a fire but the blasted wind kept blowing it out so he never got it going well enough to burn the string rigged up above the fire (okay, it was just paper rigged up, but the string sounded much more Survivorish). My turn, I got a few sparks, nothing amazing. I forfeited my turn because my hands had turned to ice and if I put on gloves I couldn't grip the flint and knife well. Tom was determined to start the fire so he brought the challenge inside, away from the wind. After a few minutes he did indeed get it started. He was pretty impressed with himself, and I felt good knowing that if we ever needed him to take care of us by building a fire, he could do it.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T10:54:00.000-08:00

Winter Wonderland

2008-12-20T19:42:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had one of those days where you get up, spend a couple of hours getting you and your kids ready for family pictures, then when the time comes to load them all into the car you can't get the doors open because they have been frozen shut by the previous nights snow/rain/freezing temperature?

Not only were to doors to the car frozen shut, but the windshield was covered in an inch of solid ice. It took so much time to get everything defrosted that we missed our appointment to get the pictures done. Now, I don't mean to complain or anything but this is the fourth time we have had family pictures ruined in the last two months due to weather! And I wouldn't even be that upset about today's car fiasco except that I had taken the time to really get myself ready. Usually I put my hair in a pony tail, dab on some blush and swipe on some mascara. Rarely do I have the time these days to doll myself up the way I did PC (pre-children). I spent all that time making myself into the good looking girl I once was and it was all wasted on a day spent inside.

Yesterday when it started snowing I was super excited. After all I'm from Arizona, snow is still a novelty. Everything was covered in a pretty powdery snow, it covered up all of the grossness that is Jersey City. For a while it looks like we live in a snowy fairy land...until the snow turned to rain, and then the rain froze along with the snow and turned our car into an ice cube.

Huck Gets Blessed

2008-12-11T09:21:00.000-08:00

When you live in Jersey City it's not unheard of to travel back to your hometown to have your baby blessed. When Haylie was born I asked Tom if we should wait until we visited Arizona and do it then. He said No. Tom said that you have your baby blessed in your ward, where you live. So we blessed Haylie in JC with no family in site. We were lucky enough to have some great friends to participate in the blessing, but still not the same.

This time around I didn't even ask to wait to bless Huck with family. But we were lucky enough to have some family around. Tom's mom, Charlotte, was here as was my good friend Jeff Depew.

We had a great time having Tom's Mom here. The kids loved her! Haylie cried when we dropped her off at the airport. Well, it was either that or she was really sad that her fruit snacks were gone. Huck was spoiled rotten while she was here. If I wasn't holding him, she was. Now he's back to normal life hanging out in his swing. It was really nice to have some family here, we rarely get visitors.

It was also fantastic to have Jeff help with the blessing. Jeff and I served our missions together in France. We served in the same small town of Beziers for over eight months. He is pretty close to family for me, Jeff was even a bridesman at my wedding. Talk about a good friend, he never even told anyone about that time Julie and I wet our pants from laughing at the beach on P-day.

Tom did a great job with the blessing! Huck was an angel the whole time and it couldn't have gone better. Huck was adorable in his blessing gown. It was the same gown Tom was blessed in over 29 years ago. Not to be outdone by his son, Tom looked pretty handsome too in his suit.

2008-11-10T12:24:00.000-08:00

I finally was able to get a shot of Huck smiling. Granted he isn't grinning ear or ear but still that's a smile on those little lips.

In other news, just as exciting as Huck smiling, I finally drove through the Holland Tunnel by myself! I have been putting it off for months, ever since we got a car, but last week I finally had to man up and overcome. I have this huge fear of driving through any underground tunnel but especially the Holland and Lincoln tunnels. This is probably due to watching "Daylight" with Stallone. I probably wouldn't have even thought of the possibility of a car accident resulting in mass disaster in the tunnel without it's help. But every time I go through the tunnel I'm praying to make it out alive. So far we've been okay, but I don't want to take more chances then I have to.

I have Jill to thank for giving me the opportunity to overcome my fear of the tunnel. If I hadn't told her I was going to come visit her I never would have had the courage to drive to the other side. Unfortunately once I got to Manhattan and then over to Jill's place I drove around for half an hour trying to find parking within walking distance. It never happened! I was so disappointed. Now that I know I can make it through the tunnel alive I'll be much less nervous to make the trip again, and actuall make it in to visit Jill.

Am I the only one with really crazy fears? For instance I have another fear of getting stuck in an elevator, or getting trapped on the subway...I refuse to take a cruise because I'm sure a tidal wave will overturn the ship or we might hit a glacier....the list goes on. Please don't tell me I'm the only crazy one out there!

All Hallows Eve

2008-11-03T13:23:00.000-08:00

All Hallows Eve sounds much creepier in my opinion.

In case it's not totally obvious, Haylie went trick or treating as a Witch and Huck went as a tiger. We had to keep him in his stroller so he wouldn't attack people...he was that invested in his costume as a Tiger.

Tom's step mom, Sujean, made a little butterfly costume for Haylie. She loved the tutu, even though it kept sliding down to her ankles. We had her dress up in both costumes. What a fun Halloween!

2008-10-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

If you look at these pictures of Haylie and think to yourself "Gee whiz, Haylie's bangs sure are short. I wonder if she cut them herself". You would almost be right.

Haylie's hair was getting long, especially her bangs. I was actually pretty pleased about that because I had cut them a couple of months back and they were way too short. I vowed that I would not attempt to cut them myself again.

One day out of the blue, Tom mentioned that he thought Haylie's bangs were becoming shaggy and he wanted to cut them. I told him it wasn't such a good idea. "Cuting bangs is alot harder than you think", I said. To which he replied (and this is a standard Tom reply to most things) "even a monkey-retard could do it". I implored him to please whatever he did, don't cut her bangs.

I thought he was going to respect my request. Then one evening Haylie came running out of her bath with Tom right behind her. "I cut her bangs" he said. "They are a little shorter than I thought they would be, but I think it'll be fine." . Since I had told him that it would not turn out well and he did it anyway there wasn't much left for me to say except "sure". He went ahead and put Haylie to bed with her hair wet. A couple of hours later she woke up. Tom went into get her. I could hear him laughing. He called me in to show me Haylie's bangs. It actually did look like a "monkey-retard" cut it. It looked so ridiculous that I laughed until tears were streaming down my face.

As most bang cutters know when you cut bangs wet they will be much shorter once they have dried. That's what makes it so tricky for a non professional hair cutter to do. And although I did my best to explain that to Tom he just wouldn't listen. He learned the hard way.

The next day he took her into a salon to get her hair cut. His hopes were they would be able to even it out a bit an make it look better. When he took her in he was too embarrassed to tell them he was the one who made her look that way and blamed it on his wife! What!?

I don't think he will be attempting to cut her hair again. By the way he isn't allowed to give me highlights either as the one time I let him do it (to save money) he botched it. Of course it ended up costing way more to have it fixed than it would have to just had it done well the first time. Some lessons are only learned the hard way, even a "monkey-retard" knows that!

Trapped Inside

2008-10-28T09:58:00.000-07:00

Exactly how is this suppose to work? I mean, how am I suppose to leave my house with two kids. It's not as easy as it might seem. Most of my readers with cars are probably a bit spoiled having their vehicles parked in a garage connected to their home, or even parked in front of their home (in case their garage is stuffed with too much junk to fit a car inside). My car on the other hand can be parked anywhere in a square mile radius. On a good day, when the "Car God" smiles on me I get a parking spot right in front of my apartment. On other days when I have angered them, I am forced to park several streets away. It's not unusual for me to drive around for 20 minutes looking for a good parking spot only to give up and park far away after all.

So back to my problem. I just haven't figured out how to leave me apartment alone (meaning without Tom's help) with the two kids. I guess I could leave them alone in the apartment, go get the car and drive around to the apartment and then load them in one by one. That options freaks me out. Whenever I think I just might go for that option I get flashes of scenes from movies where a fire breaks out, the fire department is there and the building is in flames and a woman is screaming that her baby is in there! I am afraid that would be me if I left to go get the car. I always wondered what kind of a mother leaves her baby in the apartment alone in the first place. Now I know, the kind that has to park the car a mile away. So, no that's just not a safe option. The other idea I have is loading them into the stroller and walking all of us to the car together. I haven't worked out the details of that one either because that would require me to leave a child outside alone. This is because I can't lift two kids in the double stroller up the stairs onto the street alone. Two kids in a stroller is heavy. I would have to put the stroller up on the street empty and then load them in one by one. I'm worried while I'm putting one kid in that the other may be kidnapped, or hurt. Haylie unattended by the stairs is an accident waiting to happen. She thinks she can step up and down stairs like an adult. Going up the stairs isn't a problem, but going down is. Although we have tried to teach her to scoot down on her bum she refuses and steps down with gusto. I can't say how many times I have caught her just in the nick of time before she plummets to injury on the hard stone pavement.

I've talked to Tom about installing a handicap ramp onto the stairs. That way I could load them up inside and just stroll right up to the street. Only, he doesn't have the tools, and the ramp would have to be pretty steep. I'm not sure how safe it would end up being. I fear I am doomed to stay inside our apartment for the next eight months unless I can figure out a safe way to get us all out of the apartment at the same time. Quite the dilema, isn't it.

The best laid plans

2008-10-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've been around long enough to know that things rarely go as planned. Why I thought I could "plan" my labor is beyond me. And even though my first labor went completely array I couldn't help myself from making a "birth plan" for the second time around!

My birth plans are pretty specific. Absolutely no drugs, no episiotomy, let me eat and drink during labor, no I.V., let the cord stop pulsating before it's cut...you get the picture. When I wrote my first Birth Plan for Haylie, Tom made me revise it. He told me it sounded condescending and the nurses were going to hate me after reading it. I didn't think it sounded that bad, but on the other hand I tend to think Doctors don't know anything when it comes to natural child birth. Okay, it may have been that bad.

Things with Haylie didn't go as well as I wanted. After 22 hours of labor I had pitocin (I just wouldn't dilate past nine) and morphine. I thought for sure this labor would go much more smoothly. After all it was going to be my second and everyone knows the second one is easier, right? Wrong.

I went into the hospital at three in the morning. I was dilated to a three. I didn't progress despite the regular contractions. They gave me Pitocin. The labor pains became worse and I started feeling that old familiar pain in the back. Oh yes, back labor! How the H could I be having back labor I made sure at every appointment that the baby was not posterior like Haylie had been. For anyone who has endured back labor you understand how it is, if not let me say that back labor is one of the worst feelings on the planet. It is pure agony. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. It is that painful. A little while later the nurse came and announced that the baby had somehow turned and was now posterior. I was pretty angry. And after nine hours on Pitocin I was still only dilated to a four. How was this possible? It all started to feel like Deja Vu. It was all going exactly wrong!

Around 12:30 pm my doctor came and broke my water. The pain had been pretty bad up until that point but after that the pain became unbelievably intense. Worse in fact then it had been with my first labor. I have a fairly high pain tolerance. I mean, I went 22 hours without drugs with Haylie, and that was with the back labor. I started talking to Tom about possibly getting some drugs. He told me no. He did the right thing. I had written out a list for him and one of the things on the list was to make sure I didn't get any drugs. He told me to wait just one more hour and then I could make a decision. He then left the room to go call my Mom for a quick update in AZ. As he left my new nurse, Susan, entered the room. The pain was getting worse, I was actually crying through the contractions, and still only dialated to a four! That's when I broke. I asked Susan what my pain management options were. By they time Tom entered the room again I had called in the Anesthesiologist. Tom was baffled. He knows how much a natural birth means to me.

The epidural was the best thing ever. This is coming from someone who is so anti epidural I could form my own anti epidural corporation. Sure I still felt pain, especially during transition, but it was manageable pain. I can honestly say I think I would have died without the epidural intervention. Don't misunderstand me, I still believe in a drug free childbirth. I'm pretty sure my next labor will go as planned. Unless it's posterior again, in which case I'll gladly accept the epidural the moment I walk in.

Within 45 minutes of getting the epidural I ended up giving birth. I only had to push for a few minutes this time. It probably helped that Huck was more than a pound lighter then Haylie had been. I will credit the epidural with the speediness of the delivery. Sometimes you just need to get one despite your best laid birth plan.

Pictures

2008-10-01T08:20:00.000-07:00

"Huck" ne' Thomas Huckleberry Wilson

2008-09-23T08:15:00.000-07:00

Huck was born Saturday afternoon, the 20th of September.
weight 8.7
length 20 inches

Baby Stuff and a cute picture of Haylie

2008-08-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to have a baby is the best! There's just so many fun things you get to buy. For instance we HAD to buy a double stroller. I love stroller shopping! There's just so many things you have to consider. For instance, do we want a side by side stroller, or tandem (like the Phil and Teds), what kind of tires do we need, and of course we have to consider the weight...the list goes on and on. I can't even tell you the hours I have spent weighing our options. We looked at the Phil and Teds E3 sport. It seemed like a good choice, at first. After seeing it and strolling it around we had to admit it wasn't going to work for us. Tom is just too tall. He kept kicking the infant seat in the head as he walked. Lame. My heart was set on the Duo Skywalker, it's a stroller company out of New Zealand, and it looked amazing on the internet. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any stores in the metro area that had it on display. I refuse to buy something as costly as a stroller without seeing it in person. Because I know you are dying to know which stroller we did decide upon, I won't keep you in suspense any longer....The Bumbleride Indie Twin is our choice of stroller. Side by side, it fits through standard doors, pushes like a dream (one handed even), folds up compactly enough to fit in our limited storage space, and looks ever so stylish (totally important).

I do admit that I let Tom be the deciding vote on the stroller situation because I had my heart set on a Natural Mat crib mattress. I'll be the first to say this mattress brand is a bit "steep", but in my heart I couldn't bring myself to buy anything else. You see, I'm really into organic, enviromentally friendly things these days (ever since Haylie's horrible experience with mold). I don't even vaccinate! Natural Matt mattresses are 100 percent organic, totally breathable, dust mite resistant, and naturally anti flammable( thank you organic wool ticking) . You may think I'm crazy, I don't really care, but all that off gasing from the chemicals they put in crib mattresses makes me nervous. Do I really want my infant to inhale all of those fumes? I don't think so...enter Natural Mat. I am SO excited to have it delivered! It could be here any moment.

After purchasing the crib mattress of my dreams we had to invest in quality baby bedding. So we bought the cutest Tahti blue bamboo sheets (bamboo is the best, anti-microbial, eco friendly, and oh so soft!). To make sure the air stays clean I made Tom, literally forced him, buy an air fliter. Not just any air fliter, but one that gets rid of dust, pollen, viruses and any VOCs or other chemicals in the air. The air filter is mainly for Haylie's room/hallway. I didn't know what I know now when we purchased her baby items, so I'm positive her room is filled with off gases and chemicals that will surley bring down her IQ and immune system.

By the end of this week we will have all that we need for baby boy Wilson. On a side note, the middle name is totally up to me! Exciting, I know. Tom and I had to make a deal, we make lots of deals, we are VERY good at comprimising, probably because we have the pefect marriage (maybe later this week I will do an "Ode to My Husband" blog). Anyhow, the deal was brought about because, suprise, I was anti circumsicion (still am). Since there was a good chance I was going to lose the battle against circumsizing our precious little boy, I jumped at Tom's offer to let me have full reign of the babies middle name in exchange for circumsizing. I haven't totally decided what I'M going to name him...it could be Tikkeanine (Grandmas maiden name) just to make Tom sorry for what he's doing to our child. Sounds harsh, not really, I'm not going to do that to my child, sorry Grandma. But the middle name will be one of these three: Victor, Charles, or George (after Georges St. Pierre UFC fighter, oh, and my Grandfather). Before any of you scoff at my middle name choices know that they are all family names and that's super important to me. For my child to have a link to his ancestors. I'm all about turning the hearts of the children to their fathers. If you are wondering about the first name, don't. We have no idea what it will be. Wierdly all of the names we like begin with the letter H, and we are concerned about labeling our family as the family that names all their kids H names. We don't want to be THAT family, if you know what I mean (unless that IS your family, please don't take offense).

Seriously, babies are the best! It gives one the ultimate excuse for shopping. And since I am currently banned from making any purchases for myself (I had to sign a contract with Tom, which is legally binding as we that watch Judge Judy know) shopping for the baby is just as good! Thank you baby!

If you all are super lucky I may get super motivated and post something else before the baby comes (around the 24th of September). After all, now that my baby shopping is done (tears) and the Olympics are officially over (If I hear anything about lame-o Micheal Phelps I might throw up), what else is there to do?

Update

2008-07-15T17:30:00.000-07:00

We are back! After a four day drive from AZ to the NYC metro area I have come to realize a few things.

#1 Besides TiVo, the GPS may be the best invention of the modern age.
#2 Texas and Oklahoma have the nicest rest areas in the country
#3 Missouri has one heck of alot of Adult Superstores

Let's discuss the GPS. Usually when Tom and I travel he drives and I navigat. The problem is I'm not very good at reading a map. All those squiggly lines don't make sense to me and we end up yelling at each other because we miss turn offs, or end up 40 miles down a road we weren't suppose to be on in the first place. The GPS eliminated essentially all arguments, it was by far one of the best investments we have ever made. If someone asked me which I would rather give up, my scriptures or my GPS, I may be tempted to say my scriptures. That's how much I love the GPS! Now that I am back in the city, it's just as helpful as it was on our journey. I found the Whole Foods with no problems, got to my Doctor appt in no time and am no longer afraid of ending up in another state because I take the wrong Turnpike. Besides, I can always down load the scriptures onto my computer, right?

About the rest areas. Usually rest areas are disgusting. The floors are sticky, the doors don't close, there's never any toilet paper because someone decided to put all of into the toilet and not flush it, and the local insects have made themselves at home. That was not the case in TX or OK. I urge you to drive through just to experience the rest stops. Clean bathrooms with granit counter tops that actually smell clean! The were well lit so you were pretty sure no one was going to jump you, and on top of all that they had a nice playground for the kids. I wish my bathroom in Jersey was as nice as the ones in TX. Granted mine is cleaner, but I sure liked the Granit.

Last but not least. What is up with Missouri! Never in my life have I seen so many Adult Superstores advertised on the highway. I may have dismissed the big billboards as advertising one giant superstore, but you could actually see the superstores from the highway so you knew they were for more than just one superstore. I'm sure all those late night travelers appreciated that they were open 24 hours, just in case they wanted to get a Missouri souvenir for friends and family. What also superised me was all the churches I saw in Missouri, I guess they wanted to Adult Superstores to have a little competition. The way I see it, unless those church doors are open 24/7 they probably aren't giving them much of a run for their money. Who knew there were so many perves in Missouri? I bet that state is glad they pushed out those puritan Mormons to make room for their Adult Superstores, I know I'd rather have one of those in my neighboor hood than one of those pushy Mormons! Obvisouly, I'm joking, Who wouldn't prefer a nice mormon to a sleazy Adult Superstore.

As a side note. Several people posted that they didn't know I was pregnant. I guess I never really announced it, it was more of a "by the way I'm having a baby" type of a thing but for all of those that are wondering...I am due in September and we are having a boy. We weren't going to find out the sex, but I couldn't resist, it was too much temptation. To be fair, I knew I was having a boy already, but I just wanted it confirmed so I could get my mind around it cause I kinda wanted another girl. I felt better after I went shopping for boys clothes, shopping tends to fix all of my problems. Let it be known, I am currently very excited for a boy even though it took some time.

Our New Addition

2008-06-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

This is such exciting news, I can hardly stand it. In just a few short days I will be making the trip to Arizona to go pick up the newest addition to our family (drum roll please) a new-to-us car! It will be great to see family and friends. I managed to get my brother Tyler to fly home with me to help on the plane. He just came home from Afghanastan and is on leave for the month. He wanted to come visit us anyway and the timing worked perfectly. (As a side note, if anyone has any single sisters, friends etc. that are into blind dates, my brother is single, 25 years old, returned missionary and active church member who doesn't get the chance to be around a lot of girls since he is in the military).

As exciting as this new addition is, it's got me a bit worried. First of all, the roads in Jersey City, are really difficult to drive, crazy intersections, lights, and traffic. Second, it's been about two years since I have had to drive. True, I have rented a car twice in the last couple of months but those experiences didn't turn out too well.

The first time I rented the car was to go to my Ob appointment in Hackensack. Hackensack is about 16 miles away, and I had never driven. Well, I hadn't ever driven anywhere in Jersey or NY for that matter. I left an hour plus early, giving me plenty of time to find my way if I became lost. It took me two hours! That's because I made a wrong turn onto a crazy turnpike and ended up going the wrong way. Luckily, the doctors office allowed me to come in over an hour late.

The second time I rented the car was much, much worse. I got the car the day before and decided to do some grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Once again, I had never driven there but I knew the way since I'd been along on Trader Joe outings with a friend. We had rented a brand new Ford Focus. They handed over the keys and told me to enjoy and let them know what I thought since it still had that new car smell, and just 19 miles on it. As I was driving to Trader Joes I passed the entrance and started to panic (I'd never been pass the Trader Joe's, who knew what was on the other side!). After driving for about a mile I didn't see anywhere to turn around, then I saw an opening in traffic and decided to execute a U turn (are they illegal in New Jersey?). My last car the Toyota Echo, could turn on a dime and u turns were simple as the turning radius of the car was amazing, but that's what you get with a Toyota, and this was a Ford. There was a bus about a hundred yards away, I figured I had plenty of room. Well, I ended up misjudging the turning radius of the Ford. There was no way to make the U turn without either backing up or going up in the curb. Since I saw the bus behind me I decided to gun the engine and go up on the curb (I'd done this lots before with no problems...unless you think missing hubcaps is a problem). I hit the curb hard but made the turn. About a minute later I realized something was horribly wrong. Luckily there was a gas station just ahead so I pulled in. I got out of the car and saw that I had managed to blow the tire completely! I was horrified, and of course have no idea how to change a tire (that's what boyfriends and husbands are for, right?). Some nice men at the gas station put on the spare for me...and then charged me 20 bucks for their kindness! I was all shaken up after that but still went to Trader Joe's, where I lost the keys to the car while Haylie was locked inside. I found the keys, the key ring broke while I was putting away the cart, on the ground and all was well, but it was a super scary day. I'm worried things like that are going to happen all the time now!

I am glad to be getting a car. If I just had the one child I could get by for the next year or so walking everywhere, but with another one on the way, it just wasn't as doable as I would like, especially with doctor appointments. It will be nice to know I can go to the hospital with out waking up Naomi or Dawnell when the time comes.

American Idol

2008-05-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

The good thing about Tuesday's performances by the top 5 was that it actually made me feel not so bad about our Neil Diamond talent show medley. What I think the top 5 didn't understand about Neil Diamond week is that you don't just SING Neil, you PERFORM Neil Diamond. Neil himself isn't even really a singer, he's the man that write the songs. No one ever listens to Neil and thinks, "Damn, he sings like an Angel". Heck no, they think "great song. Who's the creepy voice singing it?" Anyone who has seen a Neil Diamond live sing "Desiree" or "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon" has got to admit that his creepy voice it what holds us to his music. And he performes the heck out of his songs, that's where the magic is. I personally have not seen Neil Diamond live, but I've seen Tom impersonate him enough and I think I've got a pretty good idea. As if that wasn't enough I've also seen "Saving Silverman" a few times. How could I not, it's a wonderful tribute to a wonderful artist.

Let's do a quick run down of what I remember...

Jason sang "Forever in Blue Jeans". Did he smoke out prior to this performance? He was way to chill, don't be chill when singing Neil Diamond. Frankly, he lacked passion and he made me forget that I love this song. His second song was forgettable, however, I do remember that it made me feel like I was at an open air restraunt on Maui with a soft breeze blowing. Not exactly a song that had an WoW factor, which he needed after his first song.

Brooke sang "I'm a Believer". I love Brooke, I think her sound is so fun and cool, but it didn't work with this song. Not only do we all remember it from the Shrek soundtrack but she was way too cute and happy while singing. Neil is never too cute or happy while singing. She needed to be uglier to pull this off, or wear hot pink sequins. Her second song, I thought was amazing. She made me believe in this song. I felt she did a great job of connecting with the lyrics. Maybe it was when she changed the lyrics to "I'm Arizona born and raised" that I really started to believe that she believed in this song. Like a drifter she is caught between two shores. Arizona raised girl to girl, I know just how she feels.

David Cook sang I'm Alive. He did well. He is creepy enough to pull off any Neil Diamond song, but seemed to be afraid to really take it on. His second song was good. It didn't blow my socks off, but it was the best showing of the night. He deserves to make it to the end, even though he is smug, he did rock Billie Jean a few weeks ago.

Syesha. I can't stand Syesha. She did a great job on "Hello", but totally blackified "I Thank The Lord for the Night Time". Why must African American singers always do this? Take a wonderful song and turn it into Aretha Franklin? I had enough of that last season, I can't stand another second. She would do well on Broadway, I give her props for that.

And now let's talk about David Archuletta. Am I the only one who can't stand this kid? Yes, he can sing, but it's what he sings that I have a problem with. Give him his own Disney Channel show for crying out loud, he's just begging for it. It could come on right after Hannah Montana. I don't remember what he sang first, but he probably butchered it like he did "Remember Me Fondly" on Andrew Loyd Weber night, and made it sound like it was a "Little Mermaid" soundtrack song. His second song, Coming to America, which he obviously picked because he liked the message and because his Mom was lucky enough to score a Missionary serving in her country and brought her to America, was so boring. I'd much rather hear Tom's rendition, which was much more colorful and creepy, just the way Neil Diamond should be.

I was sad that Brooke got the boot on Tuesday, but it was a long time coming. Now if we can only band together and get ride of Syesha and then David Archuletta. The kids young, he wants to go back to Utah and attend Prom with his little girlfriend. Being the American Idol is only going to mess him up and make him into another Donny Osmond. Do we really need another Donny Osmond in the world?

Neil Dimond

2008-04-27T17:55:00.000-07:00

Haylie is smiling in this picture because she just found out that this week is Neil Diamond week on American Idol.
Tom LOVES Neil Diamond. He owns all of his albums, and even goes to his concerts. A few years ago he went to see Neil with his family, in the process he acquired a Neil Diamond T-shirt. It's the ugliest gray T-shirt on the planet, and yet he gets really upset if I wear it and get food on it.

A few years ago when Tom and I had just begun dating and I thought his adoration of Neil was appealing, he talked me into doing a Neil Diamond medley for our singles ward talent show. It was Tom, myself, and his sister, Shanna who was also a Neil Diamond fan. We got together one afternoon to decide on the songs. There were so many they felt necessary to include that all together the compilation was about 15 minutes. The plan was for Shanna and I to be the back up singers while Tom did the actual Neil Diamond singing. Just to be sure that no one lacked on stage time Tom and I sang a Barbara Striestand/Neil Diamond Duet "You Don't Bring Me Flowers Anymore", and Shanna had a solo to "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother". Tom and Shanna went to the thrift store for our costumes. They came back with a pink, sequined, black shimmering shirt for Tom, a gold 80's dress and matching gold pumps for me, and a sexy black, beaded frock for Shanna. We looked awesome, as you can imagine. Now the great thing about this performance is that we didn't do any lip syncing...no, not at all. We did all the singing ourselves. Tom was worried that the singles wouldn't realize that he was the one doing the actual singing so he made Shanna announce that what they were about to hear was indeed our actual voices. This is where it gets rally embarrassing...the stereo system wasn't loud enough to get the music into the cultural hall, so instead of having back up music it ended up being an acapella
Neil Diamond performance...for 15 whole minutes. It was so embarrassing. We have it all on tape. Every time we watch it we literally cringe as it is awful. I can't imagine what the audience was actually thinking as we draped the American Flag over Tom's shoulders during the finale song "Coming to America". Although the applause at the end was huge I'm not sure if it was for us and our immense talent or because it was finally over.

It goes without saying the we are elated at this upcoming American Idol. I wonder what they'll sing. I think Brooke would do well to sing "Forever in Blue Jeans" and Cook could sing "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon", and annoying David Archuletta could sing "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", because it has such an amazing message.

Happy Birthday Haylie

2008-03-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Haylie's 1st Birthday last Saturday. It was just the three of us, Tom, Haylie and me, but we still had a great time. She really liked her gifts.

Two Years

2008-03-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

Last Friday Tom and I celebrated our two year anniversary. Of course, we celebrated by going to a Knicks game. For our honeymoon we went to the Baseball World Classic. For our first year anniversary we went to the Baseball Hall Of Fame, in Cooperstown NY. Does anyone see a trend?
To be fair, for our Honeymoon we did go to a spa. I got a facial, and Tom had a massage. After my facial I went and got dressed and went out to wait for Tom. He wasn't there. Minutes passes, he still didn't come. I wondered where he was. The front desk finally paged him and after awhile he came out. I asked where he had been. He explained that he had been enjoying the amenities. The natural mineral spa outside. A hummingbird had even landed on his shoulder while he relaxed in the outdoor spa of paradise. He explained all of the other wonderful things the did, and I couldn't believe it! No one had told me about any of those things! I missed out on everything good because no one had clued me in. So while Tom was enjoying the beautiful palms trees outside, and the spa, and of course the hummingbird I was waiting inside on a bench wondering what was taking him so long! When ever I think about this story it makes me upset. After I found out what I had missed we didn't have time to go back because we had to get to the baseball game.
Back to our Anniversary...it's been two years, but we were dated on and off for three and a half years before we actually tied the knot. I've been very blessed to be married to Tom. He does everything for me! There is nothing he would not do for me, I know this because I ask a lot. When I decided to stop working at three months pregnant with Haylie he supported me in my decision, which I have always been grateful for. Every Saturday he loads up the laundry, rain or shine, and walks to the laundry mat to wash and fold all of our clothes. He does the grocery shopping, pays the bills, goes to school full time, and often cooks dinner for me when I don't feel well. He takes care of Haylie when he can. He is the handiest guy I know. He has brought our computer back from the dead more times than we can count. I got the better deal when I married him. He does everything I ask, usually without so much as a complaint. He has always put me first in our marriage, there are not enough good things I can say about him as a person. If only we could agree on politics and vaccinations, it would be a marriage of true minds.

Tagged!

2008-02-28T06:39:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by my friend Naomi and it's about time I did it.

A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.

B. Each player answers the question about themselves.

C. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 other people and posts there names. And then leaves a message on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog to get the directions.

What I was doing 10 years ago:
I'm afraid this isn't going to be a very interesting question to answer. Ten years ago I was 19. Living in AZ and "waiting" for my missionary, Zac Hoover, who was serving a mission in Alaska. I actually made him a really great quilt while he was gone. I cut out the shape of the state of Alaska and appliquéd it onto the quilt and then marked all of his area's with a little polar bear. It was pretty awesome. However, since it's pretty obvious my last name is not Hoover, we broke up and he refused to keep the quilt. He said if he kept it he was going to burn it, so he returned it and I think it's still somewhere in my parents home...so, Zac, If you still want that quilt I can get it to you. In case you were wondering he was a really nice guy and was my first boyfriend. I'm glad he ended up married to a really great girl.

I also remember I was working in Phoenix for Banner Hospitals in the insurance dept. It was a pretty fun job. I was one of the only Mormons that worked there. The rest of the staff was Catholic, they gave me a really hard time about being Mormon. That was the same year I bought my very first care from a dealership, all on my own. It was a Ford Aspire. I always claimed it was "aspiring" to be something better. It was just a roller skate on wheels but it was nice not to spend massive amounts of money on gas for the Cadillac that I had been driving previously.

5 Things on my To-Do List Today:

1. Make sure Haylie and Beckett both get fed.
2. Clean the kitchen
3. Do some grocery shopping on line from Fresh Direct. I love that place!
4.Read my Scriptures (everyday I look over at my scriptures collecting dust and think "I should read those today" and everyday I still don't do it. At least I pray, that counts for something.)
5. Figure out what I can make for dinner that won't make me want to vomit.

3 Bad Habits I have
I have so many, it's hard to choose just three...
1. I am horrible at paying my bills..horrible. I always forget to do it and then end up paying massive late fee's on everything. Tom is in charge of all our bills at this point.

2. I sleep in every chance I get and have trained Haylie to sleep in until 9:30 every morning to accommodate my bad habit.

3. I am easily irritated by other what other people say and do. My most common phrase is probably "that's the lamest thing ever". For instance....I can't stand when people refer to their children as "the kiddies" or "the kiddos". It makes it sound like children are accessories and it irritates me to no end, just call them what they are, kids, or children.

Places I have Lived

Mesa, Gilbert, QueenCreek, Arizona
Provo, Utah
Toulon, Montpellier, Beziers, Perpignan, Nimes, France
Manhattan, NYC
Jersey City, NJ

Things Most People Don't Know About Me

Is there anything that people don't know about me? I suppose most people don't know I have had over 28 different jobs since I was 17. I have done everything from working at a Yogurt shoppe to selling socks. I worked at Abercrombie and Fitch for a bit, a dried fruit store, I managed a Karate School, worked as a Nanny, receptionist, a High School teacher for a charter high school, sold wedding dresses... the sad thing is I wasn't very good at any of these jobs but I interview so well that it makes people forget that I'm not a very hard worker. The longest I ever stayed with one job was when I worked as an Aesthetician. I did that for a total of two years before I got married, and loved it. It was the only thing I did that I actually enjoyed and was any good at. The only thing I ever really aspired to be was a Mom. I looked forward to the day I could stay at home with my kids. I was so glad to finally have a baby so I could stay home and do the best job in the world. I feel bad for people who don't have the opportunity or don't want to stay home and raise their kids because it's the most important job a woman can do. Being a Mom is the most fulfilling job I've ever had, it's also the hardest and most fatiguing one out there. But it's so worth every single sacrifice we have made to have me stay home despite the lack of income we currently have.

Another thing people may not know about me is that I technically served two missions. I entered the MTC in January of 2001 to serve in the Marseilles France mission. I left the MTC Feb. 19, 2001. I decided I didn't want to serve a mission after all, and ended after tons of prayer decided I would rather go home to Arizona, or break something and go home to Arizona. I was home for a month or so when my Stake President called and told me one of the Seventy had called and asked if I wanted to go back on my mission. I said no. The MTC was horrible in my opinion. The only fun part was meals when the elders could entertain me (thanks Wiseman and Gibb). The Stake President told me to think about it and let him know if I changed me mind. I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. I had felt good about the decision to go home and I wasn't about the change my mind after all of that. But, things happen and after a family trip to AZ I felt impressed that I needed to go back. I called the Stake President and told him I'd go back. Within 24 hours I was back in the MTC. I went back to the MTC April 25th 2001. I was called again to the Marseilles France mission (It's rare that you get called to the same mission). This time was totally different. I loved the MTC, had wonderful companions who are to this day still my best friends. The elders were even funnier than before. I was only in the MTC this time for two weeks before going to France. Going back on my mission was one of the best, but most difficult decisions I ever made. I sobbed the whole flight to the MTC because I didn't want to go but knew I needed to be there. What a relief that it turned out so well!

Oh, and in September we are expecting another baby.

I tag Dawnell, Tammie, Kaycee, Jodi, and Starr

American Idol- My family endorses Brooke White

2008-02-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

I enjoy American Idol. This year is especially exciting as one of our friends, Brooke White (Ray) is one of the top 12 girls! If you don't know which one she is, she is the cute blond who has never seen an R rated film. You should all make an effort to vote for Brooke. If we can't win a Presidential primary election at least we can get a Mormon girl to win American Idol, right? Of course, don't vote for her just because she's Mormon, vote for her because she is incredibly talented, and nice as can be.

Also, all those RM's from the France, Toulouse Mission you have special reason to vote for her since she is dear Elder Ray's ( You know him, the firefighter with huge arms also known as a "soeur hater") sister in law. Which means if she wins we can all take pleasure in saying we know her family, and what Mormon doesn't enjoy the "who do you know game" when you get to know someone really cool? Kind of like when one of the sisters on the mission came up to me when she found out I was from AZ and asked if I knew of her uncle...Danny Ainge (former Suns player and then Coach). First off, I found the question to be condescending, how could any one live in AZ, be Mormon and not know who that guy was, impossible. Yes, I answered the question and managed to keep the annoyance out of my voice, it was hard.

And Canadians..her husband is from Canada! This could be your chance to do something great for your country besides getting maple leaf tattoo's or maple leaf patches on your backpacks...think about it.

Sunshine!

2008-02-14T10:58:00.001-08:00

Haylie and I have been visiting family in Arizona for the past week. I will post pictures when we return next week. We've done some fun stuff. Besides visiting family we went to the Phoneix Zoo. They have new exhibit with StingRays. You are able to go in and pet them. I loved it. Even Haylie tried to pet them. Her arms were a little too short so she wasn't able to touch them, but she still enjoyed watching them swim up to her. Who knew they were so friendly? Don't worry, they trim their little stingers so there won't be an Steve Erwin experiences.

Haylie: The Destroyer of Books!

2008-01-24T14:30:00.001-08:00

This is Haylie. She loves books. Loves to destroy them I mean. When I'm not looking she loves to sneak into her bedroom (not really a bedroom, just a hallway in our apartment) and pull all of her books off the self. Sometimes she looks at them, other times she rips out the pages with her amazing 10 month old strength. When she is not destroying books she likes to seek out and eat mouse traps. Lucky for Haylie, when she gets caught in a mouse trap we don't take her outside and cut off her head with the kitchen shears.

Hugh Jackman or Ian McShane?!

2008-01-24T09:02:00.000-08:00

The other night Tom and I decided to watch the Woody Allen movie "Scoop". It starred Scarlett Johansen and Ian McShane. Do any of you know who Ian McShane is? I did not and it served to make me look the fool.

A few minutes into the movie Scarlett Johnassens romantic interest arrived on screen. Tom said "oh, that's weird, I didn't know Hugh Jackman was in this film." Then I said "that's not Hugh Jackman, Tom, it just looks like him. It's Ian McShane, the guy who played Hugh Jackmans double in "The Prestige"". I gave him a look that conveyed how foolish I thought he was not to recognize the difference in the two similar actors. He then gave me a look that conveyed that he thought I was an idiot. "No, Jenny, Hugh Jackman played both parts in The Prestige".

Still, I didn't believe him. He made me a $20.00 bet that Ian McShane had no part in The Prestige. He set about immediately to prove me wrong. He looked up the info on the internet and sure enough Ian McShane was not in the film and it turns out Hugh Jackman did play both roles. I don't know how I managed to become so confused.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I tend to make mistakes like that more often than I want to admit. For instance, when I was in High School I was driving along with my friend for a night out on the town. As stated in a previous post I was none to savvy on the Music front. My friend started singing a song which was going to set the tone for our evening out. "wild thing, you make my heart sing, wild thing..". I stopped her midway through and said "Stacey, you are such an idiot, the words are "Swamp Thing"!". She gave me a look like maybe I was from another planet and explained that despite what I though the original song was Wild Thing. I understood that I had been mislead by an advertisement on T.V. for the old horror movie "Swamp Thing". I guess that happens sometimes, where the notes stay the same but they change the lyrics. How was I to know? The only time I heard the song was when it was advertising Swamp Thing, it made sense to me. I know, that's a very sad story. I am embarrassed for myself.

P.S. Is anyone else mourning the loss of Heath Ledger? He was amazing in "Ten Things I Hate About You". Totally overshadowed his female lead, I can't even remember her name.

Target, Chess, and Twilight

2008-01-17T21:44:00.000-08:00

Tom came home at a decent hour from school today. That meant one thing, we were going to go to Target. Before you judge me and think I am totally lame to take a family outing to Target please understand a few things.

#1. We do not own a car..we walk everywhere. This means even when I was nine months pregnant I still had to walk to the grocery store and lug them all home. Once when I was about eight months pregnant I was walking home from the grocery store. My homeless cart (that's what I call the wheely cart) was laden with groceries. As I was crossing the street my homeless cart hit a pot hole and sent my cart flying, and the groceries. They were all over the street. I had to bend over and pick everything up as the light turned green and cars started speeding by me. No one even slowed down for the pregnant lady in the middle of the street picking up her groceries. It was sad and pathetic and basically sums up everything there is to say about Jersey City.

#2 There are very few places with in walking distance. There is the Mall, Target, and...oh yeah, that's it. The Mall is totally played out for us. Target, not so much, it's about a quarter of a mile farther than the Mall so we go there a lot less. Target is still a Novelty for us.

#3. It's cold outside, and I don't have a hat or mittens. I had a hat last year, but I put it through the wash and it's completely misshappen and I wouldn't be caught dead wearing it. It makes me look like I should be pushing the aforementioned "Homeless Cart". I also had mittens. In fact I just bought some at the beginning of the season. They were a bright, cheery pink. They were lovely. I left them on the train. I guess I was overly excited about being on a date with my husband. We never go on dates. Finding a babysitter is more work then getting into the Ivy League and just as expensive.

There we are at Target. Walking down the isles, imagining what it would be like to own more than two matching dishes let alone buy new ones for every holiday like Target is always displaying. I stroll down the toy aisle with Haylie and show her all of the cool toys that I am not going to buy for her. I make my way over to the media section while Tom browses the video game aisle. Tom is the lucky one. He has a 50 dollar gift card. He won it during our New Years Game Marathon. He beat me fair and square at Chess. Why I offered Chess as an option for our Game Tournament I'll never know. I am terrible at Chess. I can't think far enough ahead to really succeed. Just to illustrate how bad I am at Chess I'm going to tell a short story.

I use to teach at a High School for delinquent kids in Tempe, AZ. Most of the kids had been kicked out of their regular high school and my class room was their last hope. In the beginning I tried to help the kids in my classroom. The pregnant girls, the boys with home arrest devices attached at the ankle, the girl who dressed inappropriately, and the kids that were never going to succeed where all in my class. One day I challenged one of my students, Marco, to a Chess game. I figured I would win easily. I figured it was a sure thing since he should have graduated the previous year and still had no hopes of graduating the year I was his teacher. Marco and I gathered the other students around the table. I blinked and it was over. Marco, the delinquent, who worked at a discount grocery store beat me in just three moves, check mated me in just three moves. I hung my head in shame and walked back to my desk. They didn't respect me before the game and they sure as H didn't respect me after my devastating loss to Marco. Later that year I was called into the Principals office because some of my students had come to him saying "Miss Pear doesn't give a S***t about us". When confronted with the statement I didn't even bother to deny it. I just shrugged my shoulders and said they were correct. I was quickly demoted to the night teacher and given a teaching partner. It's okay thought, I still received the same pay but had to do even less. It worked out for the best.

As Tom 50.00 gift card was burning a hole in his pocket I was searching for something to occupy my lonely hours at home while Tom is at school. That's when I found myself reaching for something scandalous, something I am completely against, something I have balked out for months, something that I'm almost ashamed to admit to. I reached for "New Moon". Stephanie Meyers sequel to Twilight. I was disgusted with myself. Of all the books in all the world that is the one I hate the most. I read Twilight when it first became the "it" book to read. I couldn't figure out why so many people liked it. It was horribly written, the plot was thin, and Bella was a disaster. Never have I met a character I cared less for then Bella. I found her romance with the vampire shallow and mediocre at best. I would put it just a notch below the trashy romance novels people buy at the grocery store. Now, all of those Twilight fans out there, please don't get offended by my distaste for Stephanie Meyers novels, there are certainly books that I love that you may not, and that's okay. I put the book back on the shelf and backed away, and bought "The Giver" instead. We walked out into the night, Tom with his StarWars game and I with my book, and Haylie empty handed and braved the wind and the rain for the journey home.

Top 5 songs of the 90's And a Few Other Things to do With Music

2008-01-06T19:38:00.000-08:00

Last night was a late night..I mean really late, like going to bed at 3 am late. That's because we tuned into VH1's Top 100 songs of the 90's countdown. We came in about half way, and since Tom has no control when it's a VH1 countdown special, we watched the whole thing all the way to number one.

This was an interesting program, especially for me. You see, dear readers, until I was in the sixth grade I didn't know there was such thing as FM radio or Rock Bands. I was led to believe there was only AM talk radio or rock and roll records from the 50's and early 60's. The Beach Boys were my favorite band, followed closely by The Carpenters. That Karen sang like an angel! Little by little I figured out how wide open the music world was by listening to Debbie Gibson and Tiffany. Boy could they sing! I remember the first time I heard Paula Abdul. I was on the Synchronized swimming team at Kino pool and we preformed a routine to her song "Forever Your Girl". I fell in love! I don't think Paula had any songs in the countdown.

Tom claims he bought the single to the song "Shine". "Oh, was it a good CD?" I asked. He laughed and told me it wasn't the CD, but the tape. Oh how that brought me back. I remembered my first tape...I was going to Smitty's (the local all purpose Target of Mesa) and was going to buy myself a Beach Boys tape. Yes, I am totally lame, I know, but I really wanted their California Girls song for myself so I wouldn't have to beg my friend to let me listen to her album on her Holly Hobby record player! They didn't have the tape I wanted so I decided to get the "Pet Shop Boys" tape instead. Even though I'd never heard of the group I figured a group with a sweet name like that had to sing totally cute songs! My Mom wouldn't let me get the tape of a group she didn't know. I was sad, but quickly realized I'd rather have Tiffany's new tape, Hold an Old Friends Hand, so I got that instead.

Does any one remember how cool it was to have one of those state of the art tape decks in your car. You know the ones that you can fast forward, or rewind but it will automatically stop when it comes to a new song. That was great! No more coming in half way through my favorite Eagles song. Oh no, from there on out we started at the beginning of the song. That was some amazing technology. My family suburban "Polly Pollution" had a tape deck like that. It was pure bliss until the said Eagles tape become permanently wedged in the tape player. From there on out it was "Tequila Sunrise" everyday until my littlest brother Dallin took over the vehicle and spray painted a skull and cross bones on the tailgate and upgrades all of us to the a CD player.

When my sister Kori and I were in high school CD's had just started to become available. She and I went to the store one day to buy a Reba album. Instead of getting the CD she opted for the tape. I asked her why didn't she start getting CD's instead. She told me, and I quote "CD's are a fad, they won't last". It was probably a year or so later that she relented and admitted that CD's were indeed here to stay!

Now Here it is, the moment you have all been waiting for...the top five songs of the 90's!!!

#5 Madonna "Vogue"- I didn't think that was even close to being as good as the song she wrote for "League of Their Own", "This Use To be Our Playground". That is a great song, heartfelt, real, and tender, like you've never seen Madonna before, until she adopted that kid from Africa.

#4 Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You". Yes, the song from the Kevin Costner film. There is no way on earth that song deserves to be in the top 5! She is totally lame in every way, including that song she ripped off from Dolly Parton!

#3 Back Street Boys "I Want It That Way"- I guess I can agree with this one. Not only do they have some amazing arm dancing ( I think I might have spotted "spirit fingers") it does define a whole generation of teenie boppers. Plus you know when you hear it on the radio you don't change the station, you sing along and muse "what is 'His' way?"

#2 U2 "One"- I've heard this song is about a Mormon girl Bono wanted to marry. She wouldn't marry him unless it was in the Temple. Proof of the truth of this rumor lies in the lyrics "love is a temple, Love, the higher law". Yeah, sounds like the Temple to me. (Are Mormons really this lame that we have to do this to all celebrities...Steve Martin is not a Mormon, neither is Prince..Paul Walker is!)

#1 Nirvana "Smells Like Teen Spirit"- I didn't know who this band was until after this guy died. This song disgusts me..remember girls of the 90's, the deodorant brand called "Teen Spirit"? I do, and that's all I can think about when I hear that song....smelly, berry scented, sweaty under arms. That's gross.

I wonder..who is it exactly that gave this program the authority to proclaim the top 100 songs of the 90's? Most of my favorites weren't even included. Maybe that means I'm not nearly as cool as I hoped I was. That's okay, I'd rather hear "California Girls" then a Marky Mark song any day.
P.S. Tom just informed me this was voted on by the people..people who have nothing else to do except listen to old Vanilla Ice tracks all day.

Poopcon 4 and an Elevator full of Angry People

2007-12-27T18:05:00.001-08:00

Tom I decided it would be a good day to go visit the Museum of Natural History. I knew we would be taking pictures so I decided to dress Haylie in a cute new outfit we just bought her. It's the cutest little outfit. Sweet pink camo cargo's and a pink sweater. I decided to start dressing in her in lots of pink because people on the subway keep mistaking her for a boy! That has nothing to do with the story, just know she was looking cute as a button and I was excited to get some photo's outside of our apartment.

Once we arrived at the museum (after carrying Haylie's large stroller up several flights of stairs) we got out a map and decided to devise a strategy. We headed over to the elevators to start on the 4th floor where the dinosaurs exhibit is located. As we were waiting for the elevators we took Haylie out of her stroller so she could see everything around us. A few seconds later Tom looked at me and asked if there was a changing table in the womens room. He then showed me the arm of his sweater, which was soaked through with poo. Yes, folks she had managed to produce a "Poopcon 4" (Think Defcon 4=massive, out of this world diaper emergency) that was all over her pants, her shirt, and Tom! I took her into the ladies room where I immediately set to work changing Haylie's diaper. The buckle on the changing table was broken so with one hand I hold Haylie down on the table and with the other hand search franticly in the diaper bag for the diaper and wipes. I find them just in time for Haylie to start screaming at the top of her lungs and begin thrashing about trying to get off the table. I manage to get her pants off and wipe her down, it's all over her, and it takes a whole package of the travel size wipes to get her kind of clean. I had the other diaper right under her, ready to put it on, I roll up her dirty diaper and I glance down at Haylie just in time to see a waterfall of urine pouring out of her. For some reason a little bit even sprayed up onto my clothes, and of course not a bit of the pee gets on the diaper all laid out ready to be put on. It all flows down her legs and onto the changing table where it turns into a yellow lake, probably half an inch deep! Keep in mind her diaper reeks, and she is still screaming and people are walking past me into the stalls wondering why my baby is screaming. I was slightly embarrassed, hoping it would be over soon, and secretly thinking it was all kind of funny! Like I said earlier, I had used up ALL of the baby wipes with the POOPCON 4 so I didn't have any left so I had to use the paper towels in the dispenser to wipe her down. In case you didn't know they aren't at all absorbent so it just stuck to her bum in patches. I was able to pull out a new diaper (the other one sustained urine damage from the newly formed Lake Haylie) and get it on her. It's at this moment when I remember ever so clearly a firm prompting I had just a few minutes before we left the apartment. The prompting came several times in fact, "take a change of clothes". Did I heed this prompting? No, I did not. Since she had poo all over her shirt, and pants (only her socks and sweater managed to survive), and I had failed to bring an extra change of clothing she had to be white trash and wear just her diaper and her pink sweater the rest of the day. We wrapped her blanket around her to try and cover her up (as you can see in the pictures). I think I was more disappointed than she was, I was really hoping to get some cute pictures of her all dressed up. Instead I have a whole bunch of pictures where it looks like my baby is naked, in the winter, at the museum. When I left the bathroom to find Tom he managed to break into a utility closet and found a plastic bag to store the wreckage. Tom had also cleaned his sweater up so he didn't smell, in case you were wondering. Tom and I had a pretty good laugh about everything once we had stored all the clothes away in newly acquired garbage bag.

In case you think the adventure was over there, think again. Our second adventure begins at the elevators. For some reason massive amounts of able bodied people decided that they should take up the limited space in the elevator. After waiting for close to 15 minuets we finally found room in one of the elevators. We hopped on grateful for a spot. Once we arrived at the next level tons of people started pouring into the elevator. There wasn't nearly enough room for everyone, with all the little kids inside, but those damn foreigners just kept pushing (maybe where they come from it's okay to smash children and pregnant women so they can't breath) in until I yelled at everyone that no one else was allowed in. Everyone in the elevator was grateful except those that had pushed there way on. As the doors were closing another man, who I will call Midwest Man was really angry about all the people and began yelling at some man who was standing in front of him saying "there are kids in here, and you're smashing into them". The other man who I will call Yellow Jacket, yelled back that he didn't feel like he was pushing into anyone. This is where it gets exciting, Midwest Man says "Oh yeah? Can you feel this?!" and goes ahead and shoves Yellow Jacket! I was surprised but I was ready to jump in and defend Midwest Mans actions, that's what you get for pushing into little kids moron! Yellow Jacket who had just been shoved exited eagerly at the next level. Once he was gone Midwest Man apologized to the rest of us for being so rude. Hey, I don't blame you man.

I'm not going to go into the details of Tom yelling at the entire elevator of people. The same elevator full of people that had just witnessed the shoving match. Needless to say if you are on an elevator, or train with Tom and you don't get off to let those at the back of the train/elevator off, you will wish you had!

After all the Poopcon 4 and elevator excitement the rest of the Museum didn't seem nearly as exciting...except for the part when we tried to find the exit, but that's a story for another day!

Who's in your House?

2007-12-21T17:05:00.000-08:00

Tom is on Holiday for the next two weeks. Ask me how we've spent the first few days of his vacation. Well, besides a fair amount of shopping we've spent the remaining time watching Harry Potter DVD's and trying to figure out which "House" we would be in. I know everyone thinks they're a Gryffindor because their brave and they always win the "House Cup", yadda, yadda, yadda. I've always considered myself either a Ravenclaw or a Gryffi, but this week Tom and I set out to prove where we really belong. We have taken no less than 10 tests promising to tell us which house we fit into. One test even claims it was written by Psychologists
and was a whopping 122 questions! That said let me preface by saying that I think the worst house to be in is Huffelpuff. All of the other houses boast specific qualities...except Huffelpuff. They'll take anybody, which doesn't ever make a person feel really special.

After the aforementioned tests it turns out I'm Slytherin. I would try and say this may be a mistake, but deep in my heart I know it's true. After coming to grips with who I really am I'm proud to be a Slytherin. They aren't all evil you know! Snape, my favorite Harry Potter character was Slytherin, along with many other talent wizards. Slytherins are so misunderstood, it's a shame! We get a bad rap for our ambition but are we really so different than the always popular Gryffindors?

Now as upset as I was at being in Slytherin, Tom was even more disappointed because it turns out he's totally a Huffelpuff! I didn't think anyone I knew really belonged in Huffelpuff, except for my little sister Kenzie, but lo and behold I freaking married one. If I had known he was Huffelpuff I might have thought differently about him. Which kind of just proves that I really do belong in Slytherin.

Tom didn't want to accept who he really was so he took test after test. Where as my test results showed Slytherin time and again, Tom's results were varied. He ended up being in Ravenclaw. He wasn't disappointed with that since that means he can share a common room with Cho Chang...didn't you know he's always had a thing for Asian girls? Why he married a blond, green eyed girl I'll never know...except maybe I do. Total Slytherin, I manipulated him into marrying me like only a true Slytherin could do. Kudos to me for landing a smart and witty Ravenclaw!

Into the City

2007-12-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

Haylie and I are extremely cultured. Since she is a city babe she gets to do things that other eight month olds only dream about. For instance this last week she attended her first ballet performance. The NYC Theater Ballet did a special showing of The Nutcracker at the World Financial Center in Manhattan. Haylie and I attended along with Beckett and Dawnell and a host of other Manhattan babies and Nannies! It was so much fun to see the costumes and the dancing. Haylie enjoyed it too. We had prime seats on the steps of hall so she was able to watch the ballet and crawl on Beckett during the boring parts!

Later that same week Haylie accompanied me to midtown to meet up with Jill Anderson Lloyd. This was very exciting since it's been months since I've seen any AZ friends. Jill was a breath of fresh AZ/Utah air. She brought some much needed news a.k.a gossip. Jill is so fun to hang out with, she is hilarious. Haylie also enjoyed the day out while munching on Cheerios. The guy at the restaurant had to come by our table no less than three times to sweep up her Cheerio droppings! I tried to tell her it was bad manners to drop her food on the floor, but she wouldn't listen!

As if two trips into the city wasn't enough, I packed up Haylie again on Saturday morning to go meet 14 of my book club friends at Sarabeth's (a restaurant) for Brunch. Yes, I am fancy..me and my Manhattan girlfriends have brunch, are you all a little bit envious right now? I ordered the Lemon Ricotta pancakes, delicious! After Brunch we headed over to Jill's apartment to where we reveled our secret Santa gifts! We also did a children's Christmas book exchange. I love childrens Christmas books. I highly recommend the book "Osbert". It's about a little boy who asks for and gets a real penguin for Christmas and then ends up regretting it. It's so funny! Go buy it now! You won't be sorry! The Christmas party was great, Jill did a wonderful job with the decorations. Haylie loved chilling with Jill's pet rabbit, I think she might want one of her own for Christmas!

I think next week I will take her to the Natural History Museum and Rockefeller Center, and maybe the Met.. look forward to more Haylie in the City!

Christmas Lists

2007-12-01T12:37:00.001-08:00

We have lots of kids in our family. As a result every year we pick names out of a hat (literally, someone tosses names into a hat, and someone picks them out, it is awesome). This year I got my 14 year old sister Mackenzie.

I probably haven't told nearly enough Kenzie stories for anyone to truly appreciate her Christmas list, but I will tell this any way because it is just that good!

This last week I called home to AZ to talked to Kenzie about what she wanted for Christmas. The converstation went like this..

Me: Kenz, I have your name this year. What do you want for Christmas?"
Kenz: I like makeup. Latley I've been wearing green eye shadow, so maybe more of that. Or there is a Medieval sword that I want...but it's too expensive.
Me: Really, a Medieval sword, huh? That's too bad it's too expensive.
Kenz: Yeah, (with a wistful sound in her voice).... but there is a Dagger I found on ebay. It's only 12 dollars!

In case you are curious, I did not buy her a Dagger. She is getting something girlie and age appropriate. The great thing about this story is that she took the time to search out a sword that she wanted, and then went to ebay and entered a search for "Daggers". Yes, that's my sister and she is awesome!

I hope you enjoyed the random picture of Haylie. I haven't posted any of her for awhile and I realize that some people rely on this blog for Haylie updates. In this picture she is acting all sweet, what you don't see is that moments before I was dragging her out of the bathroom where she likes to suck on the toilet fixtures. She is disgusting...is that worse than Kenz eating a cockroach when she was the same age as Haylie is now? You be the judge!

Our Apartment

2007-12-01T12:28:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. I promised pictures weeks ago and never put any up. Didn't you all know that I am totally disorganized? Well, here they are faithful readers. I can honestly say, no matter how lavish and big our future homes will be I will never love them as much as I do this place. It's probably because of the squalor we lived in previously, but I honestly wake up everyday grateful to be in a place as nice as this one..funny what you come to appreciate, isn't it?

Tagged!!

2007-11-25T13:33:00.001-08:00

I've been tagged! This means that you all get to read a few juicy tidbits about my life that most people don't know...here we go!

#1. My comp and I took covert Funk dance class on our mission. This is true, and I'm not at ashamed. In my mission in the south of France the sisters couldn't proselyte after dark. My comp and I didn't want to waste all of those night hours during the winter (it got dark at 4:00) sitting at home eating. We came up with a plan and looked all over the city for an affordable gym. In the end we settled on signing up for a "Funk" dance class. The first dance we learned was to the song "Voulez-vous chouchez avec moi", preformed by the Pussy Cat Dolls. You can imagine what it translated into.

#2. I have strong opinions about EVERYTHING! I don't share even a fraction of my opinions with others because chances are that if I did you probably wouldn't be my friend. Not that they are bad opinions I just think there is a right way and a wrong way. Most of these strong opinions are about the gospel. Once Tom and I got in an argument about what "Intelligences" really are as referred to in the Book of Abraham. We almost broke up because we were not able to come to an agreement.

#3. I kind of wish I was Japanese. They are such beautiful people with their dark hair, exotic looks. Not like my "Finnish" blond hair which is neither a beautiful blond or an elegant brown. I guess the grass is always greener though, right?

#4. I love to dress other people as much as I love to dress myself. A person walks by and I immediately put together a new, more flattering look for them. If I could be Stacey London, I would be in Heaven. I think the world needs a few more people with the right to say "you shouldn't be wearing that".

#5. I don't buy cheap imitation anything. This may sound like I am a snob, I'm not, I just don't see the point in pretending that I own something high end that isn't authentic. I would never purchase a fake Gucci or anything else. If I can't afford the real thing I won't get anything at all. That said I do not have a problem forking out over a thousand dollars for a purse that I really want....when we are not longer students that is! There is a great Chloe bag I've had my eye on for years!

#6. I once had a friend tell me that they liked being my friend because they never had to wonder where they stood with me. If I like a person, I am 100% loyal, their biggest fan, and will talk them up to everyone even to the person themselves. It's my philosophy that a person can never hear too many good things about themselves. Who doesn't like their own fan club? On the other hand I don't feel the need to be everyones friend. I just like some people better than others and I think everyone is like that, but few people actually admit it. Tom says I'm just mean, but I think I'm just honest!

I hope I didn't offend anyone by saying that, but if I check your blog or you have my blog address chances are that I like you and do consider you my friend, which means you have a loyal friend for life!

I tag...Tammie, Rhiannon, Sheena, and Addy!

Arizona Softball Players Needed!!!

2007-11-24T10:46:00.000-08:00

All my AZ friends this is for you! My sister is starting a Co-Ed Softball team in Queen Creek, AZ. She needs some couples who are willing to commit to playing with her team. As long as you've played a bit before and are going to show up all the time you are in! They will be playing either Wednesday or Fridays starting January 9.

If you or any of your friends are interested email her at taimetoo@hotmail.com and put Softball in the subject line!

Pass it on ballers!

Pure Revelation-A True Story

2007-11-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

Two things have inspired this post. #1 Last Sunday I taught the R.S. lesson on Revelation and #2 Last night we attended a Nintendo party at our friends home.

When I told this story to a girl at the party, she gave me a look of disbelief, as though God doesn't care about all the hopes and dreams of his children. This is a true story, and it is told exactly as it occurred nearly two decades ago....

When I was in the fifth grade my parents finally relented and bought us a Nintendo game system. It was purchased on the condition that we would play educational games on it as well as "fun" ones. Hence the reason I can wipe the floor with Tom going head to head on Donkey Kong Jr. Math! But, that's a story for another day...I loved Super Mario Brothers. I played it as much as I possibly could. I thought about how to beat it constantly. I have to say I was pretty good at it, the best in my family at least. Although that may not be saying much, Kori has never been good at video games, Tammies' hands were always sweaty and too slippery and therefore she lacked control on the plastic controller, Tyler and Bucky were too little and were no match for an older, more coordinated sister, and Dallin, Emily, and Kenzie weren't even around to contend with! That said, the responsibility feel upon me as the best Nintendo player in the family to beat the game. It was all new territory for me, I hadn't seen King Koopa beat yet, and by the time I got to the end of level nine I was all out of ideas. Time and again I tried, nothing worked, I couldn't run under him, and his stupid little hammers hit me every time. Frustrated I went to bed. That night I had a dream, a revelation if you will. I was playing Nintendo, I was at the boss King Koopa at the end of Level 9. Princess Toadstool was right there, I could feel it...K.K. stood there, throwing his hammers, jumping up and down on his bridge. Behind him was the lever I had to hit to cause the bridge to crumble beneath K.K. and lead my to P. Toadstool. That's when I saw it all happen, Mario calmly waited until the hammers had been thrown and K.K. was on solid ground, Mario ran at top Mario speed and jumped right between the hammers and the top of K.K.'s head to land directly on the lever bringing K.K. to his death, and Mario to his Princess. I saw all of this so clearly in my dream that when I woke up I could picture everything that had happened. All day at school I went over the events in my mind, determined to try it as soon as I got home from school.

After school I gathered my brothers and sisters around me and told them that I knew exactly how to beat the game once and for all. Then, just as in my dream, I proceeded to do exactly what had been shown to me in my "revelation". And just like in my dream I sailed over and between King Koopa and his hammers unscathed! My brothers and sisters cheered and I was the hero.

To this day I can still see the dream vividly in my mind like it was yesterday. Maybe it was stupid, but it was important to me. And thus we see that God Answers all of our prayers, even that of a ten year old girl intent on beating her first video game.

Tom's Baby's Momma!!

2007-11-16T15:31:00.000-08:00

Turns out I didn't have to call the Mental Hospital after all! "Crazy Mail" lady called us instead! I was kind of expecting this since we have been getting collect calls at four in the morning! Of course we haven't actually accepted the calls but I had a feeling it was our mental friend.

This evening as I am getting Haylie ready for bed the phones rings. The caller ID says it's from a pay phone and I know without even picking it up that it's her! When I say "hello" the caller goes ahead and introduces herself, and what do you know, it's her. "It 'Rowna', 'My Love's' Mother. I need her new phone number!" I'm surprised to hear that she sounds totally sane, and I ask her who "My Love" is. "It's Tom's ex-girlfriend and his baby's mother"! I start to smile, and then explain to her that Tom doesn't have an ex-girlfriend named "My Love" and that he is actually married, and we have no idea who she is talking about. At this point I think I've convinced her and she says that she must have been mistaken. "Yea, you were" I say as I hang up!

I am just hoping that Tom isn't keeping this "My Love" girl a secret from me and that Haylie doesn't have some "half sister" running around out there! I'm only joking, I know he isn't someones "Baby Daddy".

Thus ends the saga of our Mental friend....I hope!

Crazy Mail

2007-11-13T15:47:00.000-08:00

Quick update...we moved into our new apartment. It is the greatest apartment EVER! At least that's what if feels like to us, after living in the Cave for so long. I would have posted pictures, but I haven't figured out some of the tech things on our new computer monitor so those will come later.

In the meantime...Tom showed me a letter we received at our old place the other day. He says he just forgot to show me, but I don't know how he could have. The envelope was addressed to Mr. Thomas Wilson, and there was a small note in the corner that said "Please Rush". The handwriting was weird, kind of more like a scrawl, very creepy. Neither Tom or I recognize the return address or the name, which is also weird when you get a handwritten letter. I open up the letter and I read the most bizarre letter ever. It's some women who says she needs "My Loves" new cell phone number, and how it's very important that she get the new number etc.. the woman just keeps going on about "My Love", which is a creepy, psycho thing to call a person anyway. The letter really creeps me out. My first thought upon seeing the hand writing was to asume it cam from a Prison or something. I asked Tom, who was at the computer to Google the return address, which he does. Not one minute later it pulls up the exact address, in big, bold letters it announces that it has come from a Psychiatric Residential Hospital! That's right, a Mental Institution..someone at a mental institution has our name and our previous address, someone we don't know, who uses creepy language like "my Love".

I think I will call the hospital and see what I can find out about our Mental friend!

Jump Start Halloween

2007-10-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

This year for Halloween we decided to go as Kelly Kapoor and Ryan "The Temp" from the hit T.V. show "The Office".

This seemed like a good idea when Dawnell and I were deciding what we were going to be for the upcoming Book Club Halloween Party. I don't think I really thought it through like I should have. I didn't realize that I was going to have to walk close to a mile dressed in a racially politically incorrect costume. The whole subway ride people stared. I don't know if they were looking at me and noticing the stark difference between the color of my face and the whiteness of my arms or looking at Haylie. Either way, when half the population of NYU is Indian, it's probably best not to offend them in anyway.

On the way to the party we were the only ones dressed up. On the way home it was a different story altogether! We saw "Dr. House" and "Laura Croft-Tomb Raider", we saw the Sheriff from Reno 911, there was a guy dressed as Thor walking down the middle of the road. His companions were the two sluttiest witch and referee I've ever seen!

On the way out of the Subway we ran into a friend of Toms from school. They are in the same Dental Practice at school and this was the first time I had met anyone from school. He had to ask if I really was as tan as my faced appeared to be. I asked Tom as we walked away if he was embarrassed that his friend had met me looking like I did, and Tom actaully said yes! I don't know if he really meant it, he may have just really been into his Ryan "The Temp" character, and we all know how lame he can be!

The party was great. The whole "Office" gang was there. In the picture above you will see Angela (Dawnell) and Pam (Jill). In the picture below you will see the whole cast since Dawnells' husband was Dwight and her baby, Beckett was a Beet from the farm. Tom is doing his best "Temp" face, and Jills husband was M.I.A but he was Jim, "3 hole punch Jim" to be correct!

Slum Lord Update!

2007-10-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

I just got off the phone with our Landlady. She told me that she feels we are "playing dirty" and that she doesn't have time to "fight" with us. She even claimed that we asked to be let out of our lease because we were not comfortable with the mold. I told her that it wasn't that we were "uncomfortable" but that it was a health hazard and was unlivable. She seemed to disagree. I told her that because she terminated the lease despite what she thinks that we won't pay another months rent or give her two weeks notice.

That said....great news! The place that we really like is ours! I am thrilled to be moving and can hardly wait until next week when I can shake this disgusting hole that I've called home!

Slum Lord

2007-10-23T14:57:00.001-07:00

When we moved into our apartment over a year ago I noticed that it had a funky smell, "moldy" if you will. I have always been a little bit worried about this smell, but chose to ignore it because so many other things were going on with the place that were more obvious, like a gas leak or mice (we have killed seven so far, and one ran across the floor two days ago while I was changing Haylie). After the "Flood" in August we decided that we really needed to get the smell checked out. We called a Mold Testing place. The came out and for a mere $375.00 checked the air in our place.

Last Thursday we received the test results. I wasn't totally surprised to find that we did have high levels of toxic mold in the place. The results claim 87% Aspergillius in our place. We gave a copy of the report to our Landlords who live upstairs. On Friday I was checking the mail and who should I see but our Landlady. She then proceeded to inform me that we have to move out. She said that they were going to have to tear out walls etc. It's my opinion that they just want us out. When we are out I assume they are going to rent the place to some unsuspecting new person!

Since then we have been looking for apartments, which is a NIGHTMARE out here! We found one that we really liked. In the meantime we received a letter in writing from the landlord terminating our lease.

Today I see the Landlady again and she informs me that we owe another months Rent plus we need to give her two weeks notice so as not to "leave her hanging". Is she on Drugs?! SHE terminated the lease, not us. They are the landlords and need to take care of the toxic mold, not us. SHE informed us that we needed to vacated the premises since the place is a health hazard . Now SHE thinks we are going to pay another months Rent and give two weeks notice!

I am intensely angry about the situation. Not angry about the new place we found as it is newly renovated and closer to the PATH. We are just waiting to hear back from the Broker to make sure everything is shipshape! Cross your fingers for us!

Dana White and the UFC come to Jesrsey!

2007-10-08T08:07:00.000-07:00

I am a Ultimate Fighting fan! Actually, both Tom and I are fans. We love to watch the reality show and tune in for all the fights. I have a slight crush on the President of the UFC, Dana White. It's not like he's really good looking, he can't even claim to have a fighters body, he's just a slightly middle aged man with really good fashion sense. The only thing I can liken this crush to is my long standing crush on Jean-Luc Picard Capitan of the Enterprise. I know it's totally weird! I think Dana is a genius who has managed to bring a little know sport out of obscurity and into the main stream. It's my opinion that Mixed Martial arts is going to over take Boxing. Who wants to watch boxing anyway? It's a totally unintelligent sport! It's not like MMA, they have it all, wrestling, submissions, martial arts, striking, the list goes on. I know a lot of people think it's a brutal sport, where "anything goes". That is simply not true, there are rules, and I think it's more civilized than boxing. If a fighter is unable to intelligently defend himself the fight gets stopped.

UFC headquarters is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Rarely do the fights venture out east. Tom and I have discussed this at length and made the decision if there was ever a fight scheduled out east we would make the effort to go. I've dreamed about going to a live fight, even thought out what I would wear. I haven't come up with what my attire would be yet, as this is a crucial decision. I can't be slutty, and wear the usual "groupie" attire, of halter tops, and tube tops, so I have to come up with something just as flashy yet not slutty(in case I make it on t.v) . This is harder than it sounds...but that is so besides the point. Tom came home from Priesthood Session Saturday and announced that our long awaited dreams were about to come true! UFC was coming out east! Not only were they coming out east, they were going to be fighting in Newark, New Jersey! That's Haylie's birth city! Finally something to be proud of!

We immediately started looking for tickets. This is where it gets sad and depressing. Although tickets had just gone on sale that very morning, they no longer had any affordable tickets left. Unless you think 203.00 per ticket is affordable! The odds of getting two tickets are about the same as Tom and I buying a car. We entertained the idea of spending the money, we figured we could give up our Tom and Jenny's Days gifts to go to the fight. We went to bed that night firmly decided that we were going to go "No matter the price". The next morning dawned bright, and muggy and harsh reality set in. We knew in our hearts we weren't really going to be able to go after all. The dream is dying as I type. I think of the fights I wanted to see and a tear slides down my cheek. We haven't talked about it much since, I think we are both in denial. It's okay though, just like JSP (Saint-Pierre) will come back and beat the New York Crap attitude out of Matt "the terror" Serra, Tom and I will eventually make our dreams come true too!

P.S. I challenge you all to watch the reality show. It's on Spike T.V. and it's well worth the time. In case you were wondering Haylie is showing her disappointment that we will not attend the UFC inNewark.

Womens Confrence-Don't be fooled this is not a spiritual post.

2007-10-02T05:50:00.000-07:00

As most of you know Saturday evening was General Womens Conference. A couple of friends and I decided to head to the stake center together to watch the broadcast. Our stake center is about 45 minutes away, or an hour and a half if you have traffic and aren't exactly sure how to get there. We were in the later group! Sadly we didn't arrive until well into conference, in fact we only saw Sis. Thomspons talk and Pres. Monson. I'm not going to lie and say how sad I am that I missed most of the conference, because my main reason for going was all about "sisterhood", and the fact that we had decided to go to dinner following the conference. I use to go out to dinner with my Mom and sisters after Women's conference and I've really missed the tradition since moving away. Luckily all of my friends were more than willing to humor me. In reality, I was looking forward to dinner more than the actual speakers.

As previously stated the broadcast was in a different city than our own. We didn't really know our way around town, except that just around the corner from the stake center massive mansions had been discovered. Mansions that put all other homes that we once thought to be large to shame! At least according to Addy, as she is the one who inadvertently discovered the homes while lost trying to find the stake center for stake conference. This is important for the story I am telling. Remember that we live in New Jersey, and New Jersey is head quarters for the Mafia as all those who watch "Sapranos" already know. It's been rumored that the Mafia is alive and well in New Jersey, particularly around our Stake Center. Which makes sense when you think about it, that the best and the worst of the earth would be in such close proximity to one another. In an effort to be adventurous and save time we decided to eat at a restrautn close to the stake center. We had passed an Italian restaraunt on the way home and figured it would be just as good as any place to eat, and the parking lot was full of cars. From the outside the restraunt kind of look like a "hole", but we walked in anyway. To our surprise when we made it indoors, it was kind of fancy looking. There was a live band in the corner, when I say band, I mean a key board player and a singer, and maybe someone playing a tambourine, I don't remember clearly. Two things happened when we walked in, firstly the whole restaraunt turned and looked at us in disbelief and all talking stopped. Secondly, the weird, bony, Italian speaking host made a beeline for us, and basically said he wasn't gong to seat us. I asked if the kitchen was closed for the night, and he said no but then motioned us to a table, and said "sit here, I will be back". He went into the back to ask if we could be seated, which really made no sense since the place was hopping and there were several empty tables. He came back a few minutes later after apparently receiving permission for us to stay, and asked us where we would prefer to sit. We chose a table in the corner, because by that time we felt the awkward stares of the other customers and wanted to be as far out of the way as possible. It wasn't until we were seated comfortably in our corner that we were really able to look around at the others around us. Here is what/who we saw. White linens tables clothes, candles, a bar in the back, a band, women with big, teased hair, gaudy chandelier earings, scantily clad women, large men with Italian accents, dressed in suits clasping one anther on the shoulder, and waving their large hands about. This is about the time it started dawning on us that we had walked into a Mafia Den! I'm not joking, it was obvious that we were unwelcome not only by the attitude of the other customers who kept giving us the evil eye, and by our waiter who made it very clear that he did not want to serve us. He was rude, and made snide remarks and distorted his face when we let him know we didn't drink. At one point I asked him to wrap up my leftovers, he tried to refuse by telling me that I hadn't eaten enough. One of the other girls also later asked to have her meal boxed and he told her that she needed to eat more, so she told him she had eaten plenty of hers and had even had a few bites of Addy's ravioli. "There were only three" he exclaimed about the ravioli, apparently in an effort to let us know that he thought we were pathetic. I've never had such a critical waiter in all my life. I think he found us a nuisance since I could tell he was trying to schmooze with the mafia people, probably trying to get his foot in the door for some bigger money.

We paid the bill and were walking out the door just in time to hear the beginning of a "disagreement" between two men at the bar. One yelled at the other "why don't you just leave". Addy looked back at Shannon and I and said "we should leave before the guns come out". She was just kidding, but we were in a Mafia Den and those guys can be unpredictable!

Hands down most memorable Womens Conference ever! Is it wrong to hope for something just as exciting next time? I think we need to make it a tradition, we can go somewhere less exciting next time. Maybe someplace with Karaoke? Can't you just see us in our church attire up on stage singing "Spice Girls- If you Wanna be My Lover"? Awesome!

The New ipod Nano

2007-09-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Tom came home from school today with a "suprise" for me. This time it was not a candle, instead he decided to buy me the new ipod nano! This is all very exciting, it's not my birthday, our anniversary, or even "Jenny's Day" (in case you are wondering, Tom and I have designated specific days of each year as Jennys/Tom days. We instigated these days because when we started dating we both felt the injustice of not having a holiday like Mothers Day or Fathers day so for the last five years we have celebrated this new holiday. These days are in addition to all other holidays. The only difference is that this is a day set aside for unadulterated celebration and gift giving for the other person. In fact, the gifts for this day are usually bigger and better than any other gifting holiday except Christmas).
This is my first ipod. I'm way behind technology, it actually really sad. I just figured I didn't need one. I did mention that I would like one of these new ones to Tom when they were just advertising, since I did just join a gym. I'm going to start toning up and hopefully train for a 5K. I have luckily lost all of the baby weight, but feel like I need something fun to work towards! Way to go Tom for being so incredibly thoughtful and generous! In case you were all wondering, he is like this pretty much all of the time. There isn't anything he won't give me, including the Seven Maternity jeans he said I couldn't have but bought me anyway. He is really great!

2007-09-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

Haylie is really into everything these days. She is able to get around really well now so she pretty much can get whatever she wants, including Tom's phone, or T.V. remote if left on the ground. Incidentally, Tom's phone broke this last week. He took it in to get fixed. When he arrived later that day to pick up his phone guess what the tech told him? He said that the reason it wasn't working properly was because of water damage! What he meant was "drool damage". Haylie drools alot since she is teething (third tooth broke through a couple of days ago), and she loves electronics, they are her favorite things to chew, and she must have managed to chew and drool on his phone a little too often. Tom actually told me that he knows Haylie is his daughter ( as if she doesn't look exactly like him!) because she loves cables and remote controls as much as he does. This is a true statement. When we first were married it seemed like every other day Tom was buying a different cable for something! It was ridiculous, so of course I teased him mercilessly about his "cables addiction". Almost as much as I tease him when he tells me he has bought me a surprise. Without fail his surprise is always a candle from Anthropologie. It's become something of a joke in our home. I'm not complaining though, I'll take a candle from Anthropologie any day of the week, they smell divine!

"Do you Mind?"

2007-09-04T06:14:00.000-07:00

Tom and I are geeks. Sunday afternoon, just several hours before our plane is scheduled to take off, we decided that we no longer wanted to fly. No, we wanted to drive.
Since we don't own a car, this idea was something of a long shot. It meant we actually had to buy a car to make the drive. One would think that may have deterred us from the idea. You would be wrong. We decided to go to the dealership and find a car that very second. We were very specific in which vehicle we wanted. Either a Honda Element, a Scion (I don't know which model, but the one the looks boxy), or a Toyota Yarius. Turns out we couldn't afford any of the vehicles we insisted we had to have, unless we didn't want to eat on a regular basis. As you can imagine, we ended up on our flight after all.
Every few months we go through this. We think we can't live another day without a car. So we get really excited and start looking, only to be smacked in the face by reality. After spending our last precious Arizona hours looking for a car, that we didn't end up buying Tom and I started to praise the freedom of not owning a car. This is a typical Tom/Jenny cycle. We claim we need a car, we get excited thinking about all of things we can do if we have a car (roadtrips, going to church, grocery shopping at the nice store, etc), We go to a dealership, look at a few cars, do the math, realize we can't afford a car, walk back home, talk the whole way home about how we "didn't really want a car anyway". The "we didn't really want a car anyway" phase last the longest. After we realize we can't afford a car, we feel kind of sad but are able to be buoyed up after the pep talk we give each other by telling each other all of the things we can either do or get if we don't get a car. So by the time we walk home we don't feel bad at all because each of us is thinking about what we are going to buy with the money we didn't spend.
Now that we are back, it's nice to be in our own house. However, I did have a rude awakening upon our return. I had to go to Manhattan to get some things for Haylie. I took the subway. Usually the subway is crowded, and you end up holding on to a poll, with several other people. It's normal, you get use to touching and being touched by people you normally wouldn't associate with. So I'm on my way back from Whole Foods, with two very full/heavy bags. I get on to the train, and it's quite full, so I weave my way over to a semi uncrowded area and get comfortable, standing up with one hand gripping the poll and a grocery bag. The other bag is cloth and I managed to sling it over my shoulder along with my purse. I'm standing there minding my own business when I see a woman giving me dirty looks. I glance over at her and notice that one of my bags is every so slightly touching her. She turns to me (she is wearing all black, and sunglasses, almost a little bit like that girl from Matrix) and in a bitchy voice says "Do you mind?". What?! Do I mind? I should have lashed back with some witty retort, but I was tired from the long flight, so I just shifted the bag away from her. But the whole time I was angry, thinking of what I should have said! Who the heck was she, if you can't handle being touched accidentally on the train, maybe she should have splurged for a taxi, or hired a car service. Do I mind, heck yes I mind!

Favorites

2007-08-27T12:04:00.000-07:00

I know I shouldn't have a "favorite" niece, but I have to admit that I do. I think my niece Mallory is the funnest little girl ever! Before I had my baby I was a bit worried that I wouldn't like my baby as much as I like Mally. The good news is that I do love my baby just as much (let's be honest, I love her more!), but I still get a kick out of the things Mallory says and does. Mall is the sassiest girl I know, and it makes me laugh so hard. For instance...the other day I went over to her house to help decorate her bedroom. She was suppose to be cleaning it up when I got there, but wasn't doing a thing. Finally my sister had enough of her dallying so she was a bit sharp with her and told her to hurry up or she was going to get a punishment. So Mallory gets all huffy and turns to her Mom with tears in her eyes and angrily states "Stop saying that! You are going to hurt my feelings!"

I also enjoy all of my sisters. I think my sister Kenzie is pretty funny (she doesn't try to be funny, she just is). She is next to me with the short hair, pink shirt. A few years ago she had a big poster hanging on her wall. It was a giant kitten stepping over the New York skyline (Godzilla style). The caption said "Bright Lights, Big Kitty". I would always mock the poster by telling Kenz how much I liked it and how great it was. One day I came home from work and found the poster rolled up and tossed onto my bed. I went in and asked Kenzie why it was in my room. Her reason? "Well, I think I'm too old for that poster now..but I knew how much you liked it!" I laughed so hard, and then hung it on my wall in honor of her. Just to specify, Kenzie is not my favorite sister, I don't have a favorite. I love them all equally...most of the time.

2007-08-20T14:59:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a great week! Tom gets to town later this week, and I can hardly wait. It's been too long since I have seen him, and although talking on the phone is great it's not nearly as fun as being together in person.

I know he is excited to see Haylie. She has changed so much in the last month or so since we have been away from him. She is rolling everywhere. She got caught under one of my parents couches the other day and was upset because she could roll back out. It was so funny, for me, not for her, she was crying.

Sometimes I feel like a really mean person. Case in point. Last week in my parents ward I ran into a guy from my mission. We started talking and he gave me the best mission gossip I've heard in a long time. So what did I do? I didn't even consider keeping it to myself, I called one of my best friends (ex-comp) and told her all about it. The entire time I kept picturing the, New Era, "Mormonad". You know the one with the two pairs of hands, one pair is filled with black oil and it's being spread to the other pair of clean hands! That's me, the one with the real greasy, black hands, it's all over me, my clothes, my carpet, and yet I can't keep from spreading it! Just as a small disclaimer, I don't Always gossip, I can keep a secret if I am instructed to! I promise.

Summertime!

2007-08-06T21:54:00.000-07:00

The reason for this blog is two-fold...1. To brag about Haylie's two teeth. That's right, two! She actually cut the first one when she was 3 1/2 months! (if you enlarge the picture in her carrier you get a clear shot of her two little teeth) 2. To show off her cute bathing suit that she will only get to wear a couple of times before she grows out of it!

My sister and I decided to take the kids swimming today. It was lots of fun. Before we left for the pool I was excited to get a tan. Apparantly I forgot that I'm a Mom now and that doesn't leave time for me to lay out on a beach chair and soak up the sun! We had to stay in the shade the whole time. As you can see the babies skin is extremly fair, and Tom made me promise that she would not be in the sun for longer than 10 min. at a time. So, no tanning for H either! She was sad, she thinks she looks so much slimmer with a tan!

Family Time

2007-07-31T19:23:00.000-07:00

I know everyone has been on pins and needles wondering what the Wilson's are up to these days. What in the world could we be doing that has not allowed a Blog Post in weeks!

Baby H and I are currently visiting family in Arizona. Tom, the studious guy that he is, is still out east studing for his Dental Board exam. He takes that in August and will then come join us here.

It's been fun seeing family and friends. Tom's side of the family is crazy for Haylie. My side on the other hand didn't blink an eye when I walked in the door. I have to beg my sisters to hold her while I shower! It's so funny...I guess that's what happens when they have a bunch of little babies around. We just aren't a novelty!

I was hoping that we'd get a little love from "Eric, the Cat", but he has been staying away from Haylie's little hands. It's sad...I had such visions of "Eric the Cat", and "Bandit" running to greet us when we pulled up, but that was probably expecting too much from cat's. Sometimes I wonder if the even know their names let alone who I am. In their defense, I haven't been home in a year, so they have most likley forgotten that I exist. That said, I've told Tom he is getting a Cat for his birthday! Tom didn't act excited. He's not a "cat lover" as my little sister Kenzie lovingly calls herself.

2007-07-03T14:11:00.000-07:00

Four Jobs I've Had

1.RockFord Fosgate-Car Audio company (it inspired me to want to be a 'car audio model')
2. American Musical Salutes-High School band, choir competition sales and tours
3. Pinnacle Charter High School- Teacher (the worst one in history)
4.Salon Amore'-Aesthetician

Four Movies I can Watch Over and Over

1.Keeping the Faith
2. Drowining Mona
3.Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
4.Bring it On!

Four Places I have Lived

1.France
2.Provo, Utah
3.Manhattan, New York
4.New Jersey

Four TV Shows I Watch

1.Prison Break
2.Real World/Road Rules Challenge
3.The Office
4.Real Housewives of the O.C.

Four Places I have Been on Vacation

1.Hawaii
2.Cooperstown, New York (the birth place of baseball-for our first year anniversary!)
3.Spain
4.England. London and a few other English Towns

Four of my Favorite Foods

1.Sushi! I could eat it everyday, I use to when I worked in Manhattan and my company paid for my lunch everyday.
2.Chips and Homemade Salsa!!!!!
3.Baked goods! Cakes, cookies, brownies...if it's baked I will eat it! Anything from "Sweetcakes".
4.Ethiopian Food

Four Websites I Visit

1.Gmail
2.Anthropologie
3.revolveclothing.com
4.Blogs of friends and family

Four Places I'd Rather Be Right Now

1.Arizona with my family
2.Our old apartment on Park Ave. Manhattan (I was high class for a while)
3.A tropical island
4.The Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie

People I'm Tagging! -If you read my blog, consider yourself tagged!

Balding Baby!

2007-06-27T11:54:00.001-07:00

I just ordered and received the cutest little bows for Haylie's hair. I bought the "alligator" clips because she had plenty of hair to hold them in place. What do you know, just days before I actually get the bows her hairs starts falling out! I know I shouldn't be so upset about this, but sadly I was really proud of her hair. True, it was vanity, but I did just read an article in "Mens Health" stating that vanity can be a good thing! You can see the bald spot in the picture! So sad!

Here is my question...does anyone have any experience with their babies hair falling out (none of my nieces or nephews had this problem, they were bald to begin with)? When does it grow back?

I put one cute picture of her to remind people that she is adorable despite the recent hair loss events! I don't think she knows her hair is such a wreck, and I'm not going to tell her. I don't need two upset people in the family!

"Shenanigans! I call Shenanigans!"

2007-06-23T07:37:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, before Tom left for class, I asked him if he would be able leave a little early to go by the post office. He said there was "no way I can miss Pharmacology". I understood that it was an important class so decided I would just go to the post office myself.

A little bit later that morning, while I was getting ready I got a phone call from Tom asking if I wanted to go to Six Flags-Great Adventure that very afternoon. "What about Pharmacology?" I asked. "It's just a lecture, I can miss it" he said. Interesting how just hours before he claimed he couldn't miss it, and now just two hours later he was singing a different tune!

A couple of hours later we were at Six Flags. We had so much fun! Tom and I were both able to go on several rides, not together of course, but with the other couple we went with. Naomi and I started out with a tame ride, Skull Mountain, and then went on to the scarier ones, like "Nitro". I thought I was going to die on that ride because I was positive my lap harness wasn't clicked in place right. Luckily it was secure enough to keep me in, but not tight enough to keep me from floating up out of my seat every time we went in a loop. I'm paranoid about roller coasters, I always think I'm not harnessed in correctly. I shake my harness, it's loose, so I always turn to the person next to me, and ask if theirs is loose too. Theirs never is, and I'm left to wonder if I'm going to make it to the end of the Batman ride! It makes the ride even more thrilling!

Haylie had a good time too! She was so well behaved the whole time. She loved looking around and seeing all the people and the scenery. She didn't cry at all until we were back in the car on the way home.

Tom is addicted to the arcade games at amusement parks and always ends up spending more than he should in an effort to win some lame prize. One year he spend 15 dollars trying to win a stuffed animal for me, that I didn't want, and had to end up carrying all over the park! This time he was convinced he could win an X box 360. When he didn't win after several tries and several bucks, he decided it couldn't be done and called "shenanigans". He didn't just say "shenanigans", he yelled it at the guy running the both! After that disappointing loss he decided to try his luck at winning a guitar. All he had to do was knock three blocks off of a table. He threw the ball so hard that it missed the table completely and bounced back over the counter and hit some other game player. The other gamer didn't look too pleased. Tom told the booth runner that since it bounced back he got another try, the booth runner didn't go for that and asked for the ball back anyway. He pretty much destroyed Tom's dreams of winning anything that night. I had to get him away from the arcade area pretty quick after that, or I knew he would try another game, and either loose or spend a lot of cash to win.

At the end of the day we both decided that six flags "Great Adventure" was just as good as "Magic Mountain" and maybe even a little less trashy! Way to go New Jersey!

Book Club

2007-06-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

Last night Haylie and I took a trip into the city to attend my Book Club meeting. I strapped her into her little carrier and away we went. It was so hot and humid outside, especially with our bodies so close together, but she was a trooper and didn't cry much as long as she was able to look around and see the sites.
We were reading the book 'Professor and the Madman'. The book is about the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary. What little (87 pages) I did read, I enjoyed. The great thing about book club isn't the books that we read, though I do love the reading part too, it's the wonderful friends I have there. I honestly love my book club friends. They are the greatest group of girls ever! I learn so much from them. When I had Haylie they all came out to Jersey. When they showed up they had not only dinner for that night, but for several nights afterwards. I don't know what other people on the subway thought seeing a group of girls carrying an entire crock pot and other dishes, but I was so grateful for their thoughtfulness! It's always nice to have meals brought in, but I felt like what they did was going the extra mile. Who wants to walk a mile carrying a crock pot?
Last night we had to leave the meeting a little earlier than I would have liked, but Haylie decided she wasn't going to calm down and go to sleep until I got her back to her own place. Even though I was only their for a little while (with Haylie crying no less) it was so much fun to see everyone and catch up a little. Can't wait for the next meeting!

P.S. Obviously these pictures are outdated, as I am not longer pregnant and neither are Dawnell and Alicia (they both have cute little boys!).

Designer Jeans or Designer Formula?

2007-06-18T18:07:00.000-07:00

I love this picture! If you look closely you can see that her hair is plastered to her head with sweat! We had just walked home from the Pharmacy. We have the pleasure of purchasing designer baby formula. At least that's what I'm going to call it because it is so expensive. When I say expensive I mean like 50 bucks a can (that last about two days). Yes indeed feeding Haylie costs more than my designer jeans!
You know it serves me right that I have to feed my baby formula! I remember at a fireside when I was in YW. A story was told (about the importance of tithing) about a young married couple at BYU. As many young marrieds are they were quite poor. They had just had their first baby. So the story goes...at the end of the month the couple had no money...they could either pay their tithing or they could buy formula for their baby. Being the self righteous 15 year old I was, I turned to my friend and cynically said "haven't they ever heard of breastmilk?". I didn't feel any sympathy for this young couple at all! Because they paid their tithing everything worked out...which is great for them..however I am now forced to be a bit more humble and recognize that things don't always work out as planned and sometimes you HAVE to buy that formula! I was pretty sure I was going to have an ugly baby as well, because I've made fun of so many other babies that I thought were homely. Luckily God didn't stick it to me with that one...so far Haylie is cute (at least I think so, who knows what people say behind my back)!
Moral of this story is don't judge or maybe don't be such a know-it-all 15 year old.

Happy First Father's Day!

2007-06-17T19:51:00.001-07:00

At three months old Haylie adores Tom! Tonight when I was trying to get her to bed Tom came in to get her into her pjs. He does this every night that he can. He has an entire ritual that he does, he sings her the "Pajama Time" song, and plays with her for a few minutes. She is always so excited when he does this. It doesn't matter if she was screaming her head off, as soon as Tom says "what time is it Haylie? Is it..pajama time?" she instantly stops crying and starts to wiggle around smiling. It is the cutest thing! Anyway tonight when I was putting her down he came into get her ready and then gave her to me to feed her, but as soon as Tom said good night and walked out of her line of vision she started to bawl! I couldn't calm her down! Finally Tom had to go in and finish feeding her. That makes me so happy, because even though Tom can't be home at night very often he still spends all the time he can with her! He is a great Dad/Husband. For my birthday tomorrow he told me he would babysit Haylie and I could go out on a small shopping spree. He gave me a budget, and of course I went over but he didn't even get mad. In reality how could he, he knew Haylie and I had bought him so great Father's Day gifts, like the Randolf Concord Aviator sunglasses, the same ones worn by Jack Bauer in 24!
I'd also want to give a shout out to My Dad for being such a great guy. You know he use to drive three hours up to girls camp every year when I was in young womens to bring me home early because I would get homesick! He did things like that all the time without complaining. And even though I write this blog I know Tom would like me to mention his Dad. Tom tells me all the time how much he admires his Dad, and how he hopes to be the kind of man he is.

I Knew It!

2007-06-09T09:57:00.000-07:00

Blessing Day and Fast Sunday

2007-06-03T18:35:00.000-07:00

I wanted to bless Haylie back home in Arizona. Tom said no. I did my best to convince him that it would be best because all of our family (at least those that aren't in the war or on missions) could be there. Still Tom said no. He said we needed to do it here so it would "bond" us to the ward. I said that was crap, but gave in anyway.
It ended up being really nice. All of our friends from Dental school stood in the circle, along with a few other friends we have made along the way. Tom did a great job, and oddly enough I do feel a little bit more of a bond with the ward! Don't tell Tom!
Since we blessed Haylie today that must mean it was fast Sunday. These are the best Sundays in Jersey City 2nd Ward ever! I've told you stories before, and I have one more today. I didn't actually get to hear this testimony, but my friend filled me in afterward. One of the members got up, he is a very old man, his accent is so incredibly thick that I can rarely understand anything he says. Luckily someone did and reported...He said he prayed to know if Hurricane Katrina was a result of the wickedness of New Orleans. He received the answer that it was not because of their wickedness but because of Global Warming and Gas Emissions! Now, maybe that is true, and I'm not saying he couldn't have received that answer, all I'm saying is that I don't know if it should have been included in his testimony. Once again, glad that he did include it, and hope we get alot more of where that came from next meeting!

P.S. Toms garden is growing. We have little green sprouts coming up all over the place. Tom told me today that we should have a "Wilson Harvest". I said I thought that was a great idea, and just like the Pilgrams we should invite our friends to join in the bounteous harvest with a dinner.
So if you live in the New Jersey/NYC area and are a friend, look forward to one heck of a party come harvest season!

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2007-05-28T19:38:00.001-07:00

Tom planted his garden. Guess what he decided to plant? Keep in mind that our "garden" is just five smallish pots outside our door....did anyone guess Cantaloupe? that's right, in a few weeks we will have delicious Cantaloupe. I don't think the pot is big enough to hold such fruit, but Tom wanted to see what would happen. It's his garden so he can plant whatever he wants.. the funniest thing about this is (he is also planting squash, and green beans) he is planting two pots of flowers to place in front of the fruits and vegetables. Want to know why the flowers are going in front? Tom said it was so "grazers wouldn't be tempted to come eat our vegetables". Are you laughing as hard as I am? I think I'm kind of crying I'm laughing so hard, I just asked him again "Tom, why are you planting the flowers in front?" and that was his reply. He already told me at Target but I wanted to hear him say it again, and trust me, it was even funnier the second time. I don't think we have to worry about anyone being tempted by our garden. Okay, he was just telling me that I'm going to be sorry I made fun of him when he is sitting here eating his "delicious cantaloupe". Then I asked him if he was serious about planting the flowers to dissuade vagrants. "not vagrants", he said, "grazers". What do you mean by grazers, I asked..."raccoons, mice..". Should I tell him I don't think the flowers are going to throw them off?

P.S. The flowers are in the round pots, and the summer squash, green beans, and cantaloupe are in the square pots!

Sour Patch Kids vs. the Rat

2007-05-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

My sister Tammie just told me a story about her little boy Garrett. Tonight at dinner she promised him ice cream if he finished his dinner of fish and potato slices. She left the room, he came and found her telling her that he had finished. On her way into the kitchen she looked in trash and sure enough, there were the potato slices, dumbed in the trash! She told him he couldn't have ice cream because of what he had done. She left the room again, while she was out he fished out the potatoe slices and ate them! Tammie figured if he was that desprate to eat out of the trash he deserved the ice cream...Anyway, it reminded me of a Tom story..
Awhile back Tom and I decided to go to the movies, it was the one about the video game coming to life and killing people. Not as bad as it sounded. We always get treats for the movies and this particular night Tom got a bag of sour patch kids. I had a kitkat. Half way through the movie I saw movement on the floor out of the corner of my eye. I thought maybe it was a wrapper or something, upon closer inspection I realized it was a rat! It was far enough away that I wasn't really concerned. Awhile later that stupid rat came right up to my feet and started sniffing around. I was disgusted and kicked it away! During this time Tom was eating his candy, one of them feel on the floor. He left it there since he had plenty left in the bag. He finished the rest of his candy and sadly decided that he wanted the one that feel on the floor badly enough to pick it up and eat it! It's gross enough to eat something off a regular floor, but a movie theater in New York floor is even more disgusting! I had no idea he had done this, so after the movie we were walking home and I told him how I had seen the rat running around our feet. He got this horrified look on his face and then told me that he had picked up his sour patch kid off the floor (it had been there for awhile so the ten second rule doesn't even come close to applying!) and ate it! I started laughing so hard, and of course made fun of him..he just wanted to gag! I think you do need to have a certain amount of respect for a person who wants something as insignificant as a piece of candy bad enough to eat it off a rat floor!

Bedtime Haylie

2007-05-24T20:32:00.001-07:00

I've been Tagged! 8 Random facts about Me

2007-05-22T18:27:00.000-07:00

I have finally gotten around to doing this since Tammie passed the tag onto me.

1. I am secretly obsessed with the Bravo T.V. Show "The Real Houswives of the O.C.". I can't help it, I love to watch and judge them. It makes me feel like my life isn't so bad. It's like watch a train wreck in slow motion, you know they are going to ruin their lives but they just can't stop! I love it!
2. I sucked my thumb until I was in the third grade! I'm so ashamed :)!
3. I tried out for cheer four times! I managed to talk my college roomates into trying out! It was so embarassing, but I heard you got a full ride scholarship if you were on the team, and it was worth a shot. That was embarassing, but even more embarassing was when I tried out for the J.V. team in High School. We were suppose to have a tumbling rountine, including back handsprings, flips, etc...only I didn't do any of that (I was counting on my good looks getting me through), So when it was my turn to do my tumbing routine, I ran down the 30 yards of mat doing cartwheels, and not very good ones at that! I'm humiliated all over again just writing about it...funny how that didn't stop me from trying out in college. I'm so lame!
4. I think Jean Luc Picard, Captain of the Starship enterprise is so sexy, I always have, ever since I was young. I think it's how powerful he is, the whole universe is at his disposal!
5. I lie, when it suits my needs....not bad lies..just little white lies. Sometimes it's just easier to tell a little lie than it is to explain why I did what I did..No, I didn't eat all 12 cinnamon rolls, I took some to a friend! Really, I did eat them all, but just didn't want to look like a selfish glutton! I made the aforementioned rolls this week and ate all but two while tom was at school. I knew he would ask where they all went when he got home so I was all prepared to tell him that I wrapped up half and took them to a friend, but I knew Tom would catch me in that lie (he is really good at knowing when I'm not telling the truth) so I told him that I ate them.
6. I hate my elbows and knees. I have some sort of genetic elbow/knee fat. At family gathering my girl cousins and I greet one another and then immediatly start discussing how our elbow/knee fat is. Doesn't matter how thin I am, I still have that blasted fat.
7. I love word games, not crossword puzzles or anything (I detest puzzles), but games like Scrabblle, Boggle, Bolderdash (I like that cause you get points for good lies). My brother Tyler came to visit us in New York for Christmas. He had never played Boggle, or scrabble before,but we made him play with us (it was snowing outside), he totally sucked and I kept laughing at how slow he was..is that mean? Tom and I are really competitive about Scrabble. The rule is that the scrabble winner has to pick up the game (usually off of the floor) because the loser is usually too upset and angry about losing and swipes all of the pieces onto the floor! What's wrong with us that we care that much about scrabble?
8. Some of my all time favorite books ever are the "BSC". Don't tell me you don't know what that stands for! You know it, "The Baby-sitters Club"! It takes on a whole new meaning now that I have a child and no one to babysit. I use to want to be a part of that club, now I would give anything to be able to call one number, three days a week at an appointed time, and reach seven responsible babysitters! That Kristy was a genius!

Now I' am suppose to tag some other people...here are the rules. You need to list eight random facts, or habits, and then four other people, leave them a message and direct them to your blog for the rules....I'm so sorry for what I'm about to do..but Tag! You're it!

I don't know who to tag....Reilly? Do a girl a favor?

All Smiles

2007-05-13T18:36:00.000-07:00

Haylie was all smiles on Mothers Day

Then and Now

2007-05-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was thinking today how life changing this last year has been. Last year at this time we had just moved into our Park Ave. Manhattan apartment (doorman included). I had just started working at Yves Saint Laurent (and subsequently quit two weeks later). We were taking long walks in Central Park, and exploring the city. I was getting use to married life, and the subways, and Tom was getting use to a very homesick wife! He offered to buy me a cat (like any old cat could replace the beloved/hated "Eric the Cat") to make me feel a little less lonely.

Now we are living in "Dirty Jersey", in a basement, ant infested "Mouse House" (we've caught and killed seven mice so far, Tom cuts off their heads with scissors). Instead of two we are three. We are bumming rides off friends to Costco, and figuring out which stroller will handle Jersey city potholes the best. Tom refuses to buy me a cat, even though it might help with the mouse problem. Ah, what a difference a year makes!

After Bath

2007-05-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

So how cute is my baby? She loves getting a bath and will cry when I take her out, but today she was all smiles.

Faux-hawk

2007-05-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

For all of you that wondered what her hair looks like when shaped into a mohawk, wonder no more. You can also see it in the picture with her and Tom, it's so long that it reaches his cheeks!

Did she just say "Panties?"

2007-05-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

I wish all of you could have the chance to come visit us out East and attend our ward! It is the best, not in the "we are such a loving, welcoming ward and are so righteous" kind of way, but in a "Did I really just see that happen", kind of way..which I admit at times I prefer.

Today was my first Sunday back after having Haylie, and I was quite excited to come back for Fast and Testimony meeting because we have a few regulars who tend to say and do the most inappropriate things during there testimony time. The Bishop (bless his heart) has actually had to stand up, put his arm around a member and tell them they should probably stop talking! I just have to tell you all a few of the great things that were said today. One lady got up and started telling us about how she woke up last night at 2:34, and didn't remember that it was fast sunday and started eating bananas and then her son came out and reminded her and she felt horrible, but the best part of her testimony was when she told us about how her little granddaughter woke up and she found her leaning over her bed, and she had thrown up. So the lady told her she wasn't suprised since she had "drunk lots of juices and cakes", and then she used the word "panties", and told how she had to wash them out and hang them in the bathroom to dry! In your whole life, have you ever heard the word "panties" from the pulpit? I didnt think so! I was dying and had to keep my head down so no one could see me laughing. Another man got up and started talking about how a guy at work asked him about the church so he challenged him to follow the book of mormon for a year, and he would have a better life. Good advice, right? He went on to say that his life is better since he joined the church and even if it isn't true, it isn't hurting any to live this way "even though I've had more cups of coffee this month than before I was baptized". I don't think any of us needed to hear that, but I was secretly glad he shared!

I'm in the ward choir. I know, not my usual gig, but it's my friends calling and I go to give support, plus they always bring treats. Tom goes too, he sings with the men..and one women. The women who gave the "Panties" testimony usually stands next to him and sings...and though she sings her heart out, she is always off key (and makes Tom forget his part), and tends to sing either the wrong words (even though they are right in front of her) or pronounce them completely wrong (for instance singing the word "ask" as "axed"). This is the first time our ward has had a choir, and it is so much fun!

Dallas BBQ

2007-05-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Do you all like Tom's pink shirt? I made him buy it and then wear it into the city on Saturday night with some friends for dinner. We went to Dallas BBQ in Chelsea. I think people may have thought he was Gay, pushing the stroller walking with my friends husband. I should have thought a little more before making him wear that color in a part of town that is host to a 15 story high poster that reads "ARE YOU GAY?". Next time I will be a bit smarter! But don't they look cute both wearing pink?

Haylie's First City Trip

2007-05-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

Today we took our very first trip into Manhattan! We met up with my very prego friend Suzie and hiked up to the west side of Manhattan to go to a specialty store. We met up at the Grove St. PATH station in Jersey and took it the World Trade Center. From here I was pretty sure I knew exactly how to get there. I've been living her longer than Suzi so of course she trusted me! When we got to the subway trains we couldn't believe our luck. There was the train we needed just sitting there all ready for us, so we hopped on. This whole time Haylie was being a perfect angel in her Ergo baby carrier (so great, she can even nurse while she's in it, but it's tricky to get the hang of). People are checking out the pregnant women and the girl with the baby, and giving up seats for us left and right (okay, only twice..but we appreciated it every time). We were going to get off at the 72 station on the west side, and then walk to 70th street where the store was. It was the simplest thing on earth. Well, we got to chatting, as friends do, all the while I was keeping an eye out for our stop. We passed 5th ave, and we were right on track, just another two stops and then it was us. The next thing I knew I looked up at the next stop and the sign read "23rd St". That's when it hit me! We were headed to Queens! I figured all of this out just as the doors shut and we took off again. We had to get off in queens and loop back around to get to where we needed to be. Aren't I the savvy New Yorker! We ended up getting to our destination, it just took a little longer than I'd planned. Gotta love the subway!

Daddy Does My Hair

2007-05-03T19:04:00.000-07:00

One of my good friends gave me this onesie and I love it. I love it even more that Tom really does do her hair. Although, they way he does it disgusts me! He spits on his fingers and then shapes her hair into a "faux-hawk"!

2007-05-03T16:02:00.000-07:00

After I gave Haylie her bath I decided to giver her a new "Do". I slicked her hair back, as soon as it dried it stuck straight out. She's so cute

Haylie and her Mommy...one of the few pictures of the two us!

2007-05-01T10:30:00.000-07:00

The newest member!

2007-04-18T16:28:00.000-07:00

After nine long months we finally welcomed Haylie Ann Wilson to our family! We are so excited that she is finally here. She made her debut at the early bird hour of 4:26 am on March 22nd. She weighed in at a hefty, healthy 9.47 pounds. Labor was long, 24 hours long, and hard work..I really didn't think I could do it! Thank goodness for Morphine. After 20 hours of labor I decided to accept Pitocin and figured if I was going to be getting an I.V. they might as well give me something to take the edge off! Enter Morphine, it was great, I was finally able to get a little bit of rest (I was exhausted..that's what happens when you stay up the night before watch "Flower Drum Song" thinking that you are never going to go into labor!).
When I finally pushed her out they put her on my stomach and I could feel the weight of her. I looked down and saw this huge swollen thing on me and the first thing I noticed was her "man hands" and I thought to myself "oh, no! My baby is a monster!" The second thing I noticed was that she was the spitting image of her Daddy!
She is now about four weeks old and getting cuter every day!