Haylie and Huck Updates

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.

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

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

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!

Winter Wonderland

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

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.