In Memory.....

In Memory of "Grape-Grandma." We miss you!

Just A Little....

I wanted to take a few moments and with you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope that this year has been good for all of you and that you have a happy holiday season!

How True It Is Today

As we found ourselves Christmas shopping last night, I had a twinge of missing traditions from my younger years and wanting back some normalicy for what I always considered Christmas to be. Including early morning present opening at my parents house and waiting patiently on the stairs for my Grandparents to come through the school room to watch us tear into brightly wrapped packages under the tree. Being a a furious, but not so mad rush to get showered and dressed to go to my Grandparents house to see what Santa had left there. A fabulous lunch of ham and funeral potatoes eaten on paper Christmas plates and then off to the Hjorth family for some quality family time. Ahh...sigh of relief, that was Christmas. Since Miss Libbi, there are a few new families to visit and I find myself very stressed and stretched very thin to make sure that we spend quality time with everybody and contribute to all their traditions as we see fit. Gone are the restless moments at the top of the stairs, replaced are moments waiting for Libbi to wake up and open the presents that Santa so carefully picked out for her, hoping that I found just the right "surprise" present for Kyle since he likes to know well in advance what he's getting as to not be disappointed. I always surprise him, he hates it, I love it! Then off to Kyle's Grandma's for a morning with extended family and brunch. With a few moments of quiet downtime before we are off to spend some time with my family. We have a few other grandparents house to fit in, which include just a quick visit, but it is a necessity and I will always insist on it because I feel that family is one of the most important parts of growing up and I want Libbi to know all the people who love her and to feel like she has had some sort of relationship with her Great-Grandparents. I want Christmas to be perfect, but we always end up in a little tiff about time and where we are supposed to be at that moment. This morning, I came into work and read my horoscope listed below.

Saturday, December 20, 2008
Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22)
Perhaps you really thought that this holiday season would be different. And maybe, to a limited extent, it is. But it still might not match up to your vision of how you wanted to revitalize some of the old traditions that could put you in touch with your roots. Don't fret about a lost opportunity; there's no time like the present moment to begin. Create your own magical celebration and share it with someone special.

What a perfect description of my last month of worrying. I am ready to begin new family traditions with my little family and hopefully, one day, Libbi will remember those traditions and think that 'this' is Christmas.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and safe travels in your Christmas Traditions.

Oh No!

So Saturday night, I lost my phone. I have no idea where it is and I can't find it. So....if you have been trying to call me or text me....I didn't get it. It's a bit strange to be phoneless, it's been a long time since that happened. Maybe I'll find it soon.

It's Christmas Time!

Last week we were given a gingerbread house by our activities committee to make during our team parties. We had a meeting to decide what we were going to do with this new challenge. (Remember Halloween a few posts back, we thought we were going to win and we lost. Boo on the judging.) This is the finished product. In case you can't see what it is, it's a gingerbread trailer park. But since we didn't want to offend anybody, we changed it to the redneck Christmas. It is pretty funny and inventive.

This is a bad picture of us getting everything ready for the final touches. I won't tell you how we "bent" the rules to make sure everything stayed together, just know that we put everything together on Wednesday and decorated Thursday without worrying about our trailers breaking. You should all be impressed with my frosting making skills. I guess all those hours at the gingerbread party with my mom's family finally paid off. Thanks for teaching me how to make gingerbread houses. This one was fun because we through out all the traditional ideas about it and created something fun.
Here it is, the finished product with our 3 trailers, green grass and random assortment of redneck accessories. We got creative and built telephone poles, dog houses, train tracks, on the roof of the gingerbread house is a light up sleigh and reindeer. Below are some pictures of the finer details of the trailer park. Remember that I work for Marriott......when you see the Hilton sign on a trailer.

Yup, that's Libbi's Monster Truck. She picked it out all by herself and then told Kyle last night when the monster truck commercial come on that she wanted to to. I told him he was more than welcome to take her, but I wouldn't be going.


We did a good job, now we'll have to see who wins. A big thank you to Somer for putting it all together, Jess and Daysi and Leigh for all there help and the rest of our team who put their own touches here and there. Oh yeah, and to our manager and team lead for being so supportive of this activity, in more than one way.

Saturday afternoon, we had all this freshly fallen snow and I happened to glance out the window to see how much snow we had gotten and saw this on the front lawn.

We decided it was a paragon falcon and it was eating some type of bird, since there were feathers all over the new white snow. It was scary neat. A once in a life time moment, but it kinda freaked me out a little. Shortly after I took the picture, he picked up his prey and flew to the tree to finish eating...What a weekend!

A Glimmer of Me in Her......and a Few Other Things

Libbi is her father's daughter in many ways, they look just like each other, they like the same things and they have very similar personalities just to name a few. However, I have started to notice Miss Libbi has some tendencies that I had long ago...ok I still have them, I'm just more self conscious of them. Kjerstin and I spent many hours converting the pre-school room table to our stage. Depending on the time we had depended on how elaborate the stage was. There was always bad singing with pretend microphones, sometimes a real microphone, sometimes it was an object that doubled as a microphone. The dancing was even more atrocious and anybody in the house was either "invited" to attend and watch or was a part of the show. All I can say, I love my parents for putting up with the random, annoying shows I made them sit through all those years ago. (I am trying to find a very embarrassing photo of one of these shows, but I currently don't have any on my work computer! :) I'll have to petition my mom to dig them out.)

This is the glimmer of me in her....lately when she hears a song on the tv or radio that she knows and likes, she runs for her echo microphone to sing along and dance. She will stop whatever it is she is doing and run for her microphone. She will continue this as long as she thinks nobody is watching. She isn't quite over her stage fright yet. Frequently you can hear her singing along with the radio from her car seat. Everything from Metallica to Country...it's pretty funny. Now, she has always been a fan of Hannah Montana on the Disney channel and has been singing one line from the opening song. You can hear this randomly through out the house or into her little hand balled up like a she's holding a microphone in it. "You get the besk of boat words!" The real line is "You get the best of both worlds." She is so darn cute! There is hope for my little ballerina! Now, if I could only convince her that dress up isn't bad!

Last night a couple of girls I work with and I went to see the Twilight movie! I was planning to wait until it came out on DVD, just to see if I really wanted to see the movie, but I really enjoyed it. I tend to agree with my mom's idea's of it a little, but it was great for a low budget, 500 page book. I'm looking forward to more to come. Other than that, we are just getting ready for Christmas and enjoying life.


Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!
You are thoughtful and care very deeply for your family. A loving home is of great
importance to you and you always try to make people feel welcome. Although you have a great capacity to love, you also have a great capacity to hurt, so at times you can be
sensitive. You're firm when you need to be, but people trust your judgment and
appreciate the kind way you always handle things.

Random Libbi Moments

Last night as we were trying to go to sleep, we were watching the news and the sports section was on. They were showing the stuff about the Utes going to the Sugar bowl. I thought Libbi was asleep because she was being so quiet and still and I heard this, "They aren't supposed to be red, they are supposed to be blue, like the Aggies! Not red, it's blue....." She kept mumbling under her breath about how they were supposed to be Aggie blue not red. Oh, I raised a good little Aggie who always picks the right True Aggie Blue!

The Time Came.....And a Few Other Random Items

Last night Libbi and I were in Wal-Mart picking up random things that we needed. One of the items on the list was night time pull-ups for her. I think the fact that we have left her in them so long was a security issue for us, not because she needed them. So last night, she decided she would rather have this:


(Nevermind the look, she had just woken up and wasn't really happy to be awake.)

Than these:



So far, we are one night down dry, many more to go! I hope this is the incentive for her to not want a pull up to sleep. I'm very impressed with her and hope that this works. She even decided this morning that she wanted to take Mermaid to Grandma Cynthia's house so that she could wear them tonight. Best of luck to my mom, secretly there is a pull-up in the bottom of her back-pack.

Ok, on to other things. Since those books have consummed my life all week, I haven't gotten around to blogging all the things we actually did this week. Since Libbi has a new found excitment for Christmas lights, Monday night we decided to take her down to Temple Square to see the lights. We drove around for 20 minutes trying to find a parking spot and then had to wake her up to walk 2 1/2 blocks to the grounds to look at lights. The problem with taking pictures in the dark with out the flash is....they turn out blurry, but if you turn the flash on, then you don't get the full effect of the lights. So here are some pictures of Kyle and Libbi walking around looking at lights. Libbi loved it. We'll have to take her back when it's not so crowded and when we have her stroller so we can look at all the lights without having to hold her the whole time.





Also, the mustang got covered for the winter. Kyle is sad...but I'm not sure how excited he would be to work on it in the cold and dark of winter. They moved it to our backyard, so that they had a spot the the Samuelson's back yard to work on the trucks as needed through the winter. Good-bye mustang, see you in the spring!


(I didn't take these pictures.....sorry they are fuzzy!)

It's Over.....

So maybe I can get back to my life and not worry about what's going to happen next in those books! I was not so thrilled with the ending....it was kind of a let down. But I'm not one to spoil books, so if you haven't read it, I'm not telling you how it ends! Back to real life!

I Caved......and I Love It!

Alright, so I was against reading the Twilight series for multiple reasons, one of them is....I hate reading one book that I know it is part of a series had have to wait a looooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg time for the next book. I love to read, but I hate waiting for something. And so I waited until just the right moment to read that blasted Twilight series.....and then I waited some more (thanks to Zoe my cousin and her forgetful brain.) And FINALLY Zoe brought me the series, all 4 books, on Thanksgiving. Guess how many of them I've read:


Ok, not quite all four of them yet, I'm about half way through book 4. I can't decide if I love the series or if I'm just engrossed in finishing it. See, this is why I have to read all of them at once and not wait for them to come individually. I've been dreaming vampires for the last 3 nights. They are well written, but slightly predictable and can get repeatative. Now I know you are all going to say....I love these books don't trash them, to those people, to each his own. This is only my theory on them and I am entitled to my own opinion. So there! I am enjoying them and I will be sad when they are finished, that I'm certain of. Kyle will be happy, I don't think he's ever seen me read, to the point that I'm don't care if I eat or sleep and I can ignore the world around me until I'm finished with the book. Not quite as easy as it used to be, not with Libbi demanding attention. Oh well, it just makes it last longer so I can enjoy it more. And all of a sudden there seems to be a crazy around me of people who are going to read them or finish reading them. I took the quiz, to see what character I would be and found out the following:


You're Bella Swan - You are intelligent and kind but not quite sure what you want out of life yet. You have a feeling there's something more out there for you. You're attracted to those who are real and avoid the fake. Sometimes you're a bit accident prone, but your true friends will always be loyal to you and come to your aid when you need it.

Alright, back to this book.....I can hear it calling me.....I probably won't get anything accomplished this afternoon....