Sawyer Boy

There comes a day in every puppy's life when he becomes... a dog. That day is today for Mr. Sawyer Boy. That's right, as we speak Sawyer is at the vet's office, probably getting ready for some anesthesia so that he can be neutered. What a great way to start off a new year, eh?!Puppy Sawyer- cute little fur ball

Dog Sawyer- still cute but not so much a fur ball

Speaking of Sawyer, he is beginning to outsmart/outwit Jason and I. He never was very fond of his kennel, so we gave that up about 4 days after we brought him home. The solution that worked the best for us and him was to keep him in our laundry room with a baby gate while we are at work. I can't say he loved this arrangement but it was better than the kennel. He just doesn't like to be alone, I think that is normal for his small breed. I hate to keep him home alone all day but I don't have much of a choice and if you ask me he's in a better situation than stuck in a pile of hay bails on a flea infested farm.

He does pretty good in the laundry room, only cries a little when I leave in the morning and he doesn't use the bathroom until I come home to let him out. I say "pretty good" meaning he hasn't chewed completely through the gate, almost but not all the way. However, this last week has been a particular struggle for us. I think he got spoiled last week being with us for 5 days straight, not to mention all of the play time he got with my dad and brother over the weekend. So, when Monday morning came around and I started to blow dry my hair, he knew exactly what was happening. He just laid around all morning looking up at me with those sad puppy dog eyes that say, "Are you really leaving... can't you just stay?" I wanted to, I really did, but I had to leave him in the laundry room... crying for me as I walked out to my car. So I decided that I would definitely come home at lunch to play with him. When I got home, much to my surprise he greeted me at the door. Now, this has happened before but today I made sure that the gate was very tight between the wall and washer. I had even shut the door enough (I thought) that if he got out he couldn't get out of the laundry room. I was wrong. I went upstairs to see how Sawyer had done it. The gate had been moved a tiny bit, allowing him (I'm assuming) to climb over it and get out. I have to admit, it's sort of cute to come home and see his tail wagging self so happy to see me and so proud that he had gotten out of the gate. But not cute enough for me to let him roam around my house all day while I'm at work.Here's what happened Tuesday: put him in the laundry room as usual, but this time shut the door all of the way. Came home and he had gotten out of the gate again and was sitting between the door and his gate.

Here's what happened Wednesday: put him in the laundry room, moved the gate from between the wall and the washer to between 2 walls, thinking that it would be hard for him to move the gate at all... didn't shut the door at all. Came home and he was, once again, happily greeting me at the door. I went upstairs to see how Sawyer the Houdini dog had done it. Apparently he is getting old and big enough to jump right over the gate, which is pretty surprising considering he will barely jump off the couch.Between now and Monday, J and I need to put our heads together and figure out a new arrangement for Sawyer while we are at work. We need to outsmart our dog. Any suggestions...

This Christmas

...was, once again, a busy one! Every year Christmas seems to come around so quickly and then fly by ten times faster. It almost takes as much effort to embrace the season as it does to prepare for the day. This year, I didn't feel like I got fully into the holiday spirit until 2 days before Christmas when we went to a Christmas concert with my family. Here we are waiting for the concert (T Minus 5) to start. It was an awesome concert and definitely got me into that Christmas mood. For me, it's almost like a switch that turns on in me. I can trim the tree and deck the halls, make gingerbread houses and go to Christmas parties and give it my all... and still not feel the Christmas spirit. But then, all of a sudden, the switch turns on and the Christmas spirit engulfs me. Unfortunately this year it happened later than usual and I was sad to see it go by so fast. Luckily the things, or rather the people, that make Christmas special to me are available year round, I just need to remember to make more time for them.

Have you ever seen the movie Four Christmases? Sometimes I feel like that is how our Christmas is... well it's not that bad because our families aren't that crazy but it is a lot of work squeezing four Christmas celebrations into one day.

Christmas #1: Jason and Nicole's Christmas.
This year we decided to open all of our gifts to each other (well the ones we hadn't already unwrapped) on Christmas Eve. This helped us avoid the need to get up at 6:00 in the morning to open our gifts and then make it to my Dad's house in time. And truthfully, I still get a little restless Christmas Eve night. It's just hard for me to sleep when I'm so excited to give my gifts to Jason. So this year, when I woke up in the middle of the night with excitement, I was able to fall back asleep knowing that we were already done exchanging gifts.

We also threw together a last minute Christmas Eve dinner and invited my family over because it didn't make much sense for us to cook an entire ham for just the two of us.

Tristan looks like he is hating life right now, but I promise he wasn't. Our house might be small but it was fun to cram everyone in for dinner. I love entertaining, can't wait until we have a place that would be more suitable for it.

I just had to throw these pics in... I was pretty proud of my last minute table setting.

After dinner, came dessert...

Hailey made some delectable sugar cookies and frosting-because as history will show, I have not yet mastered the art of frosting! Notice the plate full of sprinkles... well the sprinkles I bought did not have the shaker top, you know with holes in the top, it was just one big hole. Apparently, Tristan didn't know this until he dumped the entire jar of sprinkles on this plate! Definitely the highlight of the night!We had a lot of fun decorating them and just as much fun eating them all weekend!

Christmas #2: Christmas with Dad
Usually we start getting calls around 7:00 am on Christmas morning, wondering when we are coming over. This year, we told them no calls until at least 7:30 am. Much to our surprise they were still asleep when we walked in the door at 9:00 am. Not for long though as I walked in yelling "Wake Up!! It's Christmas!!!" Pay back...

Jason had a brilliant gift idea for my Dad. It was this sign to go above his shop door. It's the name of his company. {Shameless Plug: go to here to see how amazing he is at woodwork! OR visit his booth in the Ogden Quilted Bear}

My gift idea for our parents was to make a calendar for them. It was a lot of fun to make and I think they enjoyed it... and who couldn't use a calendar full of pictures of their kids? This is a tender picture of all of us looking at the calendar together. Pretty cute, definitely a keeper.

I love this picture... I'm not exactly sure what we were laughing/talking about but it's cute. I love her more every year! We used to fight like cats and dogs, and we still have our differences, but I wish she were closer so we could hang out more. It was a fun morning, full of cheesebraid, hot cocoa, and Wii fit playing.

Christmas #3: Christmas with the Merrill's.
We ventured down the street to the Merrill's around noon for present opening and talking to Elder Merrill (who is coming home in 2 weeks). I didn't take any pictures but it was a pretty fun afternoon. Chuck and Michelle gave us the most wonderful gift... a new garbage disposal! It came a few weeks earlier when our garbage disposal broke after I had my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. It was greatly appreciated! After a little eating and napping we were on to our fourth and last Christmas.

Christmas #4: Christmas with Mom.
Much later that evening, after driving to Bear Lake, we arrived at our final Christmas at my Mom's. I didn't take any pictures here either, but we had fun opening more presents (upside of divorced parents- more presents, downside of divorced presents- pretty much everything else) and eating more food. My mom saved the best present for last... Hailey and I both unwrapped at the same time a CD case full of DVDs. It took me a few seconds to realize what it was and then it hit both of us... it was all of our home videos on DVDs. One of our favorite things to do when we visit my mom is watch home videos. It's so funny to see how we were when we were little and bring back the memories. I was so surprised, overwhelmed, and happy that I almost cried. We received a lot of wonderful gifts this year, but that gift will be, by far, the most treasured. That night we searched through a few DVDs for the infamous Spice Girls performance from the Thomas Girls Three! Unfortunately we have yet to find the Spice Girls performance even though my mom swears its on the DVDs somewhere. Can't wait to find it... or maybe I can, some of those home videos are a little embarrassing and I'm pretty sure the performance was taped during one of my more awkward stages of life.

My parents may have not been the best about keeping journals/records of their life together, but they sure do have a lot of home videos and in my opinion that's just as good. Have you ever been asked the question "If your house were on fire, what material possessions would you take before you ran out of the house?" Well occasionally I think about this question (kind of weird I know) and I don't really have very many material possessions that I would care to grab. However, when I opened that gift and realized what it was, I immediately began thinking of ways to protect and preserve them forever. Maybe next year I will ask my mom for a fire safe box.
On that same note, I found a way to publish my blog. I knew it could be done I had just never taken the time to look into it. So, now I have a record/journal of everything I have blogged and I plan on making a new book or volume every year. I want my children to know the happenings and thoughts of their parent's {average} life together and hopefully one day these books will be cherished as much as I cherish the home videos. So, if my posts from now on seem a little more personal and thoughtful or long and boring, just know that it's for my kids. I want them to be able to get to know me through this blog. I was getting a little tired of the whole {blog} thing a few months ago. It seemed like a fad and it was quickly fading for me. After publishing my blog, it has given me a restored passion and new purpose for blogging. So now, with a new year, begins my blog turned journal!

Frustrated...

I really hate it when I don't have anything to do at work, but a million thousand zillion things to do at home. (I miss inventing fictitious numbers- I think I will bring that childhood pastime back into my life...starting now.) Frustrating...

This Little Guy

Had his 1st birthday! We gathered for some present opening and cupcake eating, although by the looks of things I'm not sure if he was actually getting any of the cupcake in his mouth!

Man I sure do love this little guy! And he sure does love his Uncle Jason!

Gingerbread Thoughts

Jason and I decided to put our architecture and design skills to the test this season in a gingerbread house competition! I considered doing the Martha Stewart thing and making the gingerbread from scratch... then I came to my senses and realized there just isn't enough time in the day. Why shouldn't I take advantage of the modern conveniences that Wal-Mart offers us (pre-packaged gingerbread house kits)? Let's just say that it's a good thing that Jason is the architect and not me! One of my walls kept falling over (mostly because I was pushing the candy on too hard) but not to worry- Jason to the rescue!Let's also just say it's a good thing that I'm the designer and not Jason... after he was done constructing his house, his interest in decorating it waned very quickly. The house in this picture was pretty much his end result!This was how my house turned out in the end... at least it's pretty much finished.

As I was decorating my house I started thinking about the house in a different way. While we were at the store picking out candy to decorate with, I was making all of these perfect plans for my house... brick made out of gum, a candy cane and pretzel gate... my house was going to be PERFECT! Well, soon after I started decorating I realized it wasn't going to be perfect. I always set my expectations really high (especially of myself) and then when they aren't met I get really disappointed. So for me, decorating this gingerbread house and accepting its imperfections was sort of therapeutic. I know that it sounds a little strange- but I was comparing this imperfect little gingerbread house to other expectations in my life. I think I had unrealistic expectations of marriage, not to say that it isn't great, I just thought that we would get married and automatically be a family. I never spent a lot of time thinking about this in-between stage where we are just a couple, going to school, working to survive, and trying to find time to be together. It took me almost a year of marriage to accept this part of my life as it is. And I'm finally starting to enjoy it- even though it's not the exact way I had imagined it. Even now, I find myself thinking about our next home and how "perfect" that is going to be with a garage and appliances that are younger than we are, and our next step in bringing kids into our lives and how "perfect" that is going to be. So when this gingerbread house didn't turn out the exact way I had imagined, it was almost a relief that I was able to accept it the way it was. My next house, while it will probably be an improvement to this one, will more than likely not be perfect. Having children will not always be perfect and I probably won't be the perfect mom who makes her own gingerbread. But guess what- I'm finally starting to accept the fact that I'm not and probably will never even be close to perfect. And for me, that's a HUGE deal!... I just hope that I don't crumble and fall to the ground like my little house did...I hope you are all having a festive and bright holiday season!

Stranger Danger!

So my office is above a pediatric office and yesterday I hear a mom and her little boy come in the front doors. He is obviously resisting as she tries to get him to go down the stairs. Eventually he starts saying (in an escalating tone) "You're not my mommy! You're not my mommy! You're not my mommy!" Then I can hear her embarrassingly start to chuckle and say "Oh yeah, then what am I?" I bet at that moment she wished she wasn't his mommy! Note to self: teaching your kids stranger danger can backfire...

Merry Christmas!

In lieu of sending out Christmas cards... I figured this would save a lot of time and money... and usually the cards I intend to send out, only end up as good intentions. I found some Christmas cards we wrote last year in my box of cards this year!
So here's wishing everyone:

Seriously?

I am so sick of hearing about Tiger Woods and all (what's the count up to today) 15 of his mistresses!Leave him alone! Isn't it kind of sick that we feed off of someone else's problems when really if we spent that time working on our own issues we would all probably be better off? Who's with me? If you are... leave a comment!

The Halls Have Been Decked

Our family tradition is to get our Christmas decorations out the weekend after Thanksgiving and that is just what we did this year, with a little help from Sawyer boy! He is the best early Christmas present ever! I told Jason that we needed to have a dog or know we are having a baby by Christmas. He wasted no time in bringing Sawyer into our home! (Sometimes ultimatums aren't such a bad thing!) Even though he has been a lot of work, he has been such a great dog so far! We love him! And isn't he just so cute! Another tradition passed on from my family is for each member of the family to buy a new christmas ornament each year. We didn't buy any last year, so these are the four that we got this year.(Jason's- "Fantasy Football Legend" ornament, First Christmas ornament, Nicole's- "Holiday Cookies" ornament, and Sawyer's "Dog and Bone" ornament)

Sawyer even tried to help with the ornaments but got the ornament box stuck on his head!

Yesterday when I came downstairs to leave for work, this is what I found...

Sawyer and Olive watching the snow fall. They still aren't the best of friends, but this is improvement in my opinion! Isn't it just wonderful when your children get along?!? :)

Late birthday present = Fun FHE

You can't really tell what we are doing from this picture. My dad gave Jason some Jazz tickets for his late birthday present so on Monday night we went down to watch the Jazz beat the Spurs in an intensely close game ending. (Ok- that was the only game summarization that I could muster, and even that took a long time to think of.) THANKS DAD! That was probably the best late birthday present Jason has ever received!

Nicole and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Have you ever read this book? Well I am contemplating writing my own book and changing the name from Alexander to Nicole. Saturday was one of THOSE days. You know, those days when you just want to go back to bed and start over. First off, I woke up with a terrible sore throat, clogged head (clogged with snot), and a puffy face. (Don't ask why a puffy face, because I have no idea... it just was for a good 2 hours that morning). Feeling under the weather is the TERRIBLE when you have ONE DAY, one SINGLE day of the week to catch up on things like housework and homework and grocery shopping and THAT day your immune system decides to crash. So I began my day a little ornery and a lot annoyed that I couldn't just sit around and drink cough syrup.

We (Jason and I) decided to do a little housework first, that went okay- although I wasn't as fast as I typically am. After an hour or so of that we decided we needed to head up to the school to take a few quizzes that we had put off until last minute. After studying for an hour at the testing center, we went in to take our tests and APPARENTLY they are only letting people take FINALS, since it is finals week! It makes sense I guess except for that our professor told us that all work was due by December 9th. No one ever mentioned that the testing center deadline was the 4th (and YES Jason and I are fully aware that we shouldn't have put it off until the week before, but really who of you have not done this before). So they told us to go to the Davis campus and take our quizzes (quizzes doesn't really roll off the tongue, maybe the plural for quiz should be quizi). So we ventured, in the cold and snow to the Davis campus... where apparently everyone had been sent because the line to get in the waiting line was a mile long. They were handing out buzzers (you know like the kind you get at restaurants) and our hands never made it on one of those buzzers. Basically, after 3 hours we had accomplished NOTHING, 0, zilch, nada. To me that is the WORST- accomplishing nothing on a day when you need to accomplish a lot and not even enjoying accomplishing nothing. It would have been one thing if we had been lazy at home for 3 hours and didn't accomplish anything.

So then we went grocery shopping, which was pretty uneventful and not that bad. EXCEPT that I am used to going grocery shopping alone and quite enjoy going grocery shopping alone, so when Jason was (in all innocence) trying to help me, I was just too frustrated to listen to his suggestions or opinions. So that made the day a little more HORRIBLE- I never like being mean to Jason, it never makes the day better and then we were both frustrated even more.

After arriving home, I realized that the day was just about over and I still had a few long hours of cleaning to do. So as Jason studied for another final, I began cleaning... still wishing that I could climb in bed and go back to sleep. Here is a little history to the next part of my NO GOOD day... -Our vacuum broke a few weeks ago. Luckily we have another smaller vacuum that we are storing for my mom, so I have been able to use that one. It doesn't work quite as good and it takes a little longer but it's better than nothing (history over)- So as I am vacuuming the living room, the smaller vacuum stops working as well! I layed down on the floor next to the vacuum for a few minutes, to gather the mental will power to not start kicking and screaming like a 2 year old.
I got up, proud of defeating my internal desires to give up on the day, and began cleaning out the fridge and doing the dishes. About 2 minutes into my endeavor, I flipped on the garbage disposal and much to my dismay I did not hear any disposing going on, only a small click... and then nothing. That was the moment when I did give up. I felt like everything I touched was breaking. So I then decided to give up and go take a lavender bubble bath. Doesn't that just sound relaxing? Well it is, when the water is hot! Do you think my water was hot? NOPE, warm for a few minutes, luke warm at best for the majority of the time! That was when I really decided that today was just not my day and it reminded me of this book.

The rest of the night, after I had given up hope of anything working out, wasn't so bad. Jason and I made breakfast for dinner and watched a crazy crazy movie- Coraline (It's like a kid's show on crack). And I would not recommend it for kids.

The only good thing is that I was able to go to sleep and the next day was better. Those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days don't come too often, but when they do it's nice to know I have someone to snuggle up and share my bad day with.

** P.S.... I know there are some moms out there thinking that my day sounds like a piece of cake compared to some of the bad days they have had...but hey, my day will come when I think back about this day and wish for it again but until then I'm glad it's over.