I reject your reality and substitute my own

I think this was our funnest Christmas yet! Lo finally semi-understands the concept of Santa Claus. She really got into all of the traditions. Which, I created another one this year. Ty and I were watching Dirty Jobs and his job was a gourd farm that scrapes them and dries them and turns them into these amazing decorations. My new tradition is adding a gourd every year. I love him. Definitely my favorite Christmas decoration.

I used to have a whole cabinet full of beautiful smelling soaps and body wash. Spring time scents, winter scents, going out scents, etc. etc.

This morning I found myself showering with a very unnatural strawberry scented glycerin ball with a Christmas snow globe in the middle. I had other choices... there was the harsh staph killing soap we use on Lo when she gets flair ups. There was rollers of equally unnatural smelling body paint soaps. There was baby wash.

Although none of my options were close to my beautiful smelling ones collecting dust in a box somewhere, I chose the glycerin ball because Lo is so excited to get the snow globe out of the middle and I know if I use it than she will get it out quicker.

This is my life... and I couldn't be happier!

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is bake. Even more now that I live so far away from my mom. Seeing her in the kitchen baking is one of my strongest memories of the holidays and I love all of the goodies she made only once a year. I really want Lorelai to have that memory and to be apart of it and help me. I bought us matching aprons and we have been baking once a week for a month it seems like. I love it, and she just loves to taste... oh, and crack eggs leaving little egg shells in whatever I bake.

Be jealous.

Ty never takes any vacation time and he accrues a ton of it. This year with his cash out, I came across an espresso stand that was for sale. The same one I go to every single day and know the employees and completely love. So we bought it. It has been awesome and stressful and exciting and scary, but I have loved every second.






When I bought it, it was called The Green Submarine. I really didn't like the name and I REALLY didn't like the color. So I negotiated for us to paint before I even took it over. I didn't want to open up my first day and have it that awful color.

I have been so crazy busy that I haven't had a chance to update posts. So I'll try to get a few done now.

Thanksgiving was totally fun. We had it at our house. Gramma, Paul, Kate, Kevin, and Tom and Lyn. Everyone did their own cooking and then brought it over to share. I only had to make stuffing and do some snacks... so it was totally low stress.




Ty's Grandma makes the best rolls but since we don't live close to her, Ty's mom recreates the recipe every year. Lo was lucky enough to get to learn how to make them this year!



I don't own table cloths... surprise surprise. Luckily Ty's dad had this roll of butcher paper in his truck. Actually worked out for the best. Less mess and we all got to color while we ate!



This is a perfect turkey if I've ever seen one!!

I taught Lo what red, yellow and green lights mean. She picked it up pretty quick except now, when we are in the car, all I hear is "Mommy! Red light! STOP!" or "Green light Mommy! GOOOOOO!"

This is added to her already worried little mind that tells me to "be careful!" and "too fast Mommy!" Talk about a back seat driver... SHEESH!

Important Voting Info!!! (pass it on...)

Everyone's talking about how important it is to vote today, but there are still lots of people who don't have all the information! Help your friends and family be informed by checking www.justvote.org with all your voting questions.


http://www.justvote.org

-look up the address where you're registered
-find your polling place
-learn the law about time off from work

Also you can video your election day experiences and upload them to http://videothevote.org


PASS IT ON!!!!!!

Even though I voted last week, I'm still going to be glued to the t.v. all day and night to see how the voting goes. I honestly don't think we could do any worse, so as long as everyone gets out and votes... I'm happy!!

Halloween has been such a blur the last 2 years. Guess that comes with the kid territory. This year we started off by going to Gramma's house. Lo was so sad when Gramma couldn't come trick or treating with us. Here's a couple pics from there:



After that we went to Lucy and Williams house and got ready to go to the Sheridan Park center for some games. There was a ton of kids there and it was so incredibly loud, so we didn't stay very long. The below pic pretty much sums up how I felt about it:


Lorelai was getting stressed out with all the people. She actually bit me, which hasn't ever happened before, so it was time to leave after about 10 minutes. But here are the pics from that:






Then it was trick or treat time! I actually got to take her this year. Garma and Garpa came along and Lo conned Garma into carrying her from house to house. Tricky little character. She was so excited about getting the candy she didn't want to stop. She went to sleep crying that she wanted to trick or treat longer. Here are the pics from that!






It was a great Halloween and I am so excited that Lo has such great friends to experience these fun times with. There are a couple more pics I don't have yet from a dance party she had at Kim and Nancys, I'll post those when I get them.

Tolerance is a God given gift every baby is born with, YOU are the ones that change that. Why not teach to love and not discriminate?

On the 18th we had the Holts over for some dinner and pumpkin carving, turns out it was way too early in the season to carve pumpkins because ours are all caved in now... oh well. It was fun and the kids had a blast and that's all that matters.


Lucy and Will can't stand the smell of pumpkins... hahahaha.


William doing his share.



Lo obviously doesn't remember last year, so we had to explain the whole thing, she was grossed out by the innards at first but then she was fine with it.


After pumpkin carving, it was bath time and then we watching Halloween Max and Ruby. There might have been some early Halloween candy in there somewhere.


And here are the finished products!! Wish they still looked this good!!

Here are some pics from Lo's first 2 Halloweens. I can not wait to post pics from this years. Everything is better with kids!



My little fishy. Her first Halloween. Sarah and I did a little photo shoot. It was so fun.



Baby in a bucket! I still have this bucket and Lo can't even begin it sit down in it without getting stuck.



I really have no good pics from last years Halloween of her entire costume. This was her first trick or treat and we had had a LONG day of Halloween activities before trick or treating so she was one UNhappy camper. She went to one house before throwing a fit and coming back home. We are hoping for a better time this year!

Lorelai has been making her own words up lately.

She loves telling me that my hair is beautiful or my pink shirt is cute, so she recently combined the 2 and now everything is "cute-iful".

Every single toy today requires batteries. When the batteries stop working I tell her that it needs new batteries to work. So Lorelai now says "mom- (insert toy here) needs new batterworks".

These are my favorite parts of having a kid. I love watching her mind grow and seeing how she puts things together in her head. She is so incredibly smart (tho I may be a bit biased). She is speaking in full sentences now mostly and I almost tear up when she says something new... well, no. I DO tear up when she says something new. I thought I was going to melt into a ball of sappy mush when she told me I was her best friend the other day.

Every time I stub my toe or slam my finger in a cupboard or anything and say "ouch" she runs over saying "oh mom, I'm sooooo sorry. Are you no-k?" Not sure how "ok" got translated into "no-k" but we run with it and now everything is "no-k".

Tomorrow we are going to Chuck E Cheese and all day long I have been hearing about it. "Mom- I high-five chuck e cheese". "chuck e cheese has candy in his pocket". Then after a few more little tidbits she remembers from last time she gets so excited nothing makes sense and it's 5 miutes of complete giberish.

Lorelai has a blanket that is her entire world. so every time I sit down on the couch next to her she will instantly get up and say "mommy blanket too?" Then she will run and get the blanket off my bed and say "here you are mommy!" She recognizes how good she feels when her blanket is around and wants me to be that happy too. She can be so sweet.

Every time I get her dressed or comb her hair (even though she kicks and screams and wiggles and tries to run away), when it's all said and done she always follows it up with "thank you mom getting me dressed!" or "thank you mom brush my hair!" She may be 2, but she's a very kind 2.

Ty is out of town right now and we use Skype to keep in touch so he can see Lorelai. Today, after she had a session with daddy I told her daddy had to go and to say goodbye. When goodbyes were done, I closed to laptop and she said "daddies hiding in the puter!"

Lorelai has been out of a crib since before she was 2. After only a couple rough nights, it has been uneventful except that she will never get out of her bed unless I go in there. I know this is a blessing, but I get so curious as to why she thinks I need to be there for her to get out. Even before I go in her room I can hear her saying "mom- wanna get out!" Sometimes I stand outside her door and say "get out of bed Lo, come open the door". She still will not.

My most favorite thing in the whole world is after I put her to bed I leave her room and she usually talks to herself for a good hour or so. I love listening to her talk and listen to every little thing that goes through her head. But that's not my favorite. Sometimes when she gets sick of being alone and isn't tired she says "mommy- I need you". Regardless of how tired I am or how much I know it's just a ploy, I run in there.

Not sure how this turned into such a long blog about all my little favorite Lo moments, but I'm glad I put them down in writing. I get so worried I am going to forget all of these things. I have such a poor memory. Sometimes she will do or say something and I think, OH! I need to tell Ty when he gets home and just over the course of the day I forget.

You all feel how you do and I feel how I do. Regardless, this is funny. I just read it on a family friends blog and got a serious kick out of it.

http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2002/WhyCantIOwnACanadian_10-02.html

Lo has a plastic beetle that she likes to keep around but is horrified of it. One morning I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth and she asked me to go get her "beetle-bug". I told her no, she could get it herself. She goes into the hallway and all I hear is "OUCH!!" I asked what happened and she said "beetle-bug bite me. see mom loook right there!" points to her incision from her hernia surgery. I think this was the first time she lied to me. Hahaha

So when I left off we were at the high school. From there we headed to the police station. There was a mom and daughter that we had met earlier at the visitor center that we kept running into throughout our tour. They were nice enough to take this picture. I'm sure they were a little weirded out at first, but after they took our pic they posed for the same one. hahaha... this might be my fav picture from the trip. Have I said that before?



This is the sign in front of the police station/city hall. Mike had told us earlier that the police chief had been called Chief Swan so often, he now answers to it. We were trying to look shady as we walked around so that a police officer would come out and we could take a pic with them... but apparently they've seen our kind before. I did have to pee really bad at this point and I debated going in, but didn't happen. Also, on my life list is to get arrested... so I thought this would be a great addition to our story, but I chickened out. Plus, I didn't even know what I would do that would have no fines and could get me released within 4 hours. So, didn't get to check that off the list this trip.



Next stop was the Cullen house. It is literally next door to the police station and not hidden at all and no woods around it, no drive way... really nothing that would make you think it was the Cullen house besides I think it's the nicest house their... which really doesn't say too much. It's actually a Bed and Breakfast and the mother and daughter we had been running into were staying there. We were so jealous.




The Innkeeper leaves a note on the door everyday about what the Cullens are doing that day, so that is what this picture is.











After the Cullen house we were starving and headed to Sully's so Laura could get a Bella Burger. I don't eat beef and neither does Jess, so Laura was alone in her adventure unfortunately. I didn't think to ask if they would do it with chicken until after I had ordered. Boo. Anyway, it was your typical greasy spoon. Really yummy stuff and the Bella Burger came with a pair of vampire teeth!! Laura was nice enough to ask if we could all have a pair and they obliged. There was a photo booth there and we took some amazing pics. I still have to scan them in, then I will post them.





What can I really say? <>insert laughter here<>









We took a break from the tour and did some shopping. We went to all the tourist shops and looked at all the Twilight loot. Of course shopping didn't mean we still weren't being creepy twilighters. hahaha I found a few shirts and sweaters that were ok, but I was still holding out for the perfect one. I was a little too cautious and ended up walking away with nothing! I did buy a pen and a coupe postcards for a select few that prob haven't received them yet since they are still sitting on my table.


There was an ice cream/sweet shop that we went to that had these awesome tags. We all decided to get one. Mine said "Twilight Visitor". These are the ones Jess and Laura got. I also got a box of chocolates with vampire teeth on them and some wax candy vampire teeth as a souviner for Lo. This was the store that gave us the hardest time for being Twilighters.


That was the end of our Forks tour, but it wasn't over yet! Next stop was LaPush!!




She's pushing me... get it???



We went straight to First Beach in LaPush. It was GORGEOUS! One of the prettiest beaches I have ever seen. I wanted so badly to rent a cabin and stay for the night. Someday I will. We stayed for a while just absorbing the amazing scenery.







Thought maybe these were wolf prints. hehehe



We were in LaPush, but we represented Team Edward!



Then we saw this carved into a fallen tree. Of course I managed to swipe a piece of driftwood, hahaha. I stole a couple of the smooth rocks for Lo too. She digs rocks.

So that was it, that was our trip. If anyone has the chance to go, I highly recommend it. I'm sure it will all fade away eventually, but definitely not until all the movies are over and done with. That could be years! Next time Amy or mom come up, we are definitely going! Thanks Jess and Laura for seriously making it one of the funnest days of my life. I haven't laughed that hard and so frequently in years! It was great!