Thank you Martin Luther King, Jr! And Tanners!

We had a long weekend for the MLKJ holiday, so we spent the weekend with our friends that Tanners. They moved to Salt Lake, so we haven't gotten to see them as much as we used to (they were our first married couple friends and we've stayed good friends ever since).

Both Lindsey and I are horrible about taking pictures, but we did each manage to get a few.

Blake and Karly got to be good friends over the weekend. And, of course, we have future marriage plans for these two. :D heh heh

Blake couldn't get enough of "baby." When asked "What's the baby's name?" he answered "Blake." So cute!

Silly girl waiting for dinner.

Hungry boy!

We went to a pizza place in Park City called The Red Wagon. The pizza and cheese bread were super yummy! It took forEVER to get our food, though and I think the waitress got sick of us because we took forever to order and were probably kind of a pain. We asked her to take a picture and this is what we got. On two different cameras. You can still tell it's us, right?

These two boys could talk for HOURS (and did)! Lindsey and I just roll our eyes and laugh at the things they come up with to talk about.

Troy and Linds have been our game buddies for basically our whole marriage. Anytime we get together we play games. We played Bang!, Settlers of Cataan, Acquire and Ping Pong. Guess who lost EVERY single game? If you guessed me, you're right. Nate and Lindsey (with her pregnancy luck) took turns winning. :)

It was the perfect, relaxing way to spend the long weekend. Thanks again Troy and Lindsey! :)

8 Months!

I don't have a lot of time to post today, but I wanted to put some cute 8 month pictures of Karly. Enjoy!

We love kisses!

All for a triangle block...

I have the funniest kid ever

So I have a bunch of random pictures and videos on my camera of Karly that just crack me up, so I wanted to share them with you!

This is just a random, eat the orange picture (don't all babies do this?)

Okay, this girl: when she smiles, she squints. It's so funny. I think my in-laws and Nate's aunt have better pictures, but this is what I've got. Still stinkin' cute.

So one day I was in the kitchen making dinner and Karly was in the living room, where I had been working on organizing all her clothes into their drawers. I figured she'd probably pull all the clothes out, which was fine - I had just started. I heard her crying/whining a little, but I figured she was just being grumpy. Then I went in to look and this is what I saw:

I laughed so hard that she started laughing too. Priceless.
So while Karly was sick, she really wasn't eating very well. She'd nurse, but she wouldn't take a bottle and definitely wouldn't eat cereal or anything solid. I still tried to get her to eat some and this was the result:

In case you can't tell, the food is just sitting on the edge of her lip while she cries. I had to scoop the food out of her mouth to get her to stop crying.

Oh, and that video is for all of you who ask me, "does she ever cry?" Yes. Yes she does.

Okay, in this one, I promise I'm not abusing my daughter. She thinks it's funny when I push her over! And I think it's funny when she does this:

Annnndddd....in case you can't tell, she's falling over when I put my hand up. SO funny.

At least Christmas was still less than a month ago...

I've been meaning to post for over a week, but Karly got sick last Tuesday and is STILL sick and I joined her for about 4 days last week.

Yuck.

She's gone from a fever, to a runny nose (still has that), to runny other places..., to a nasty cough. I hate seeing her sick, but I love how cuddly she's been.

So anyway, that's my excuse for not posting.

We had a terrific Christmas break! We went to Arizona; Nate really missed the snow. In fact, I'm not sure he'll want to be anywhere that doesn't have snow ever again for Christmas. I like snow too, but I kind of liked this:

That's right. I'm picking ORANGES. That was pretty fun.

My mom and I jumped in the pool, but I'm not going to post that. Let's just say you don't want to see me in a suit. Ug. Anyway it was COLD!

Oh, for those who may not know (and those who care), my parents bought a house in Phoenix just before Christmas. And AJ and Josh just moved from Minnesota to Arizona, so they are living in said house for now. Kinda crazy!

It was a fun Christmas to have so much family around. Kinda loud and kinda crazy with 9 kids/toddlers/babies but we still enjoyed the time. We sure missed you Shan and Glenn!

Here are just a few pics of us just being together:

The one above needs explanation. This was Christmas Eve and we were doing a Nativity, so Nat and Chris were dressed for that...maybe four hours before we did it. :) They were sure excited! It was pretty cute.

Probably the funniest event of the whole week was my dad's "illness." We're not really sure why it happened, but for some reason, random body parts would start swelling out of the blue. For example:

Yeah. We called him Bubba Gump all night. So funny.

And of course, Karly was adorable and so fun the whole time. :) This is my favorite picture of the whole week.

(she couldn't understand what we thought was so funny)

(this is a little enclave for a statue...or Karly!)

A way too mobile 7 month old!

I tried taking Karly's 7 month pictures yesterday.

This is what happened:

Why yes, that IS 5 different attempts. Why do you ask? Sigh... (I didn't even post the 6 other pictures of the EXACT SAME THING)

She doesn't even hold still when she's asleep! I put her on one side of her crib, then go into check on her 30 minutes later and she's clear at the other side. But still fast asleep.

I did actually get a couple of decent ones though.

I tried to get one of her kind of standing up, but of course, she kept moving, so this was all I got:

She's such a nerd.

Despite the lack of non-blurry pictures, we sure love that girl!

Merry Christmas!

We had a ward party tonight and guess who came!

"Uh...who is this guy?!" (by the way - my parents have a picture of me screaming while being held by Santa. I'm very glad my daughter was better than me!)
She was in SUCH a good mood.

This is her "concentrating" face. It's Nate's favorite.
Karly has started doing this loud squealing noise. She did it for like 10 minutes at the party tonight. Silly girl.

(Please ignore me in this video - I didn't know Nate was recording all three times and I kind of look like an idiot)

Must See Movie!

Night at the Museum 2

I've seen the first one and definitely thought it was well made and really funny (the best part, though, was watching my dad laugh at it).

But this one. Oh. This one is hilarious! Nate and I laughed over and over. There was even one scene where Nate laughed the whole way through. And then went back and watched it again.

Totally worth it.

My World Revolves Around...

Her!

She's sleeping, so I really should be doing the dishes or picking up clutter or even reading my book [The Chosen by Chaim Potok - is it weird that I'm totally fascinated by Judaism? I blame my Religion in the Home professor...]

BUT instead of doing those things I'm posting more pics/videos of the munchkin. I wonder if anyone has stopped reading my blog because it only consists of Karly. If so, they're crazy!

This girl makes us laugh every day. She has all these funny little things she does that just crack us up. For example:

She does this thing where she flips her wrist back and forth when she's holding something. It almost looks like she's trying to do arm curls - like she's lifting weights.

Also, a few days ago we were at some friends' house and they have one of those jump-a-roo things for their little girl, so we put Karly in it. She LOVED jumping. So much in fact that...

she tried jumping in her exersaucer. I think she's going to break it. :)

She is now a crawling machine!

Crawling almost always consists of getting to a place where she can pull herself up to standing.

Sometimes while crawling, she gets a little stuck (she's getting better at pulling herself up and down though).

Did I mention she has TWO teeth? She bites everything in sight, including our fingers and shoulders (though she still gives really good, nice kisses).

And she still loves her binky. I finally bought one of those things to attach it to her shirt, she we're not constantly trying to find it.

And finally, this is hard to catch, but she has the GREATEST laugh. And she laughs at the weirdest things. In this video, I was jumping up and down in front of her.

Christmas Tag!

I promise I am going to post pictures and updates (certain grandparents are begging for them! :)

Until then, I got this from my cousin (I love that these things used to go out in forwards and now they've moved over to blogs). Read only if you want to. And post on your blog if you'd like!

1. Have you started your Christmas shopping?
Started? I've finished! (Well, I need to get one more thing for Nate...)

2. Tell me about one of your special traditions.
My family always used to read the Forgotten Carols together. Most years, we'd read it over a period of a few days before Christmas. I want to do that with my family too - Nate and I have done it, but not consistently.

3. When do you put up your tree?
Always right after Thanksgiving! If I'm home, it's the day after - if not, it's the day I get home.

4. Are you a Black Friday shopper?
Heck no. I don't like shopping enough to get up at 4 in the morning and NO deal is that good.

5. Do you travel at Christmas or stay home?
Depends on what our family is doing. We usually end up traveling some, to wherever family is staying.

6. What is your funniest Christmas memory?
Nate would agree that this is the funniest: a couple of years ago, we did Christmas at my Aunt's cabin in Huntsville UT. There were like 21 of us staying in a house with 2 bedrooms (lots of air mattresses...). The funny part is that on the day before Christmas Eve, the toilet overflowed and the plumbing in the whole house was backed up. We couldn't use the toilets, so we called a plumber to fix it, but he couldn't get there that night, so we put a plastic trash can with a plastic bag in the garage and that was the toilet until ours got fixed. Ah, memories...

7. What is your favorite Christmas movie of all time?
Probably A Christmas Story. Who doesn't love that one? :)

8. Do you do your own Christmas baking?
I like baking all year and haven't really made a habit of doing extra baking around the holidays. BUT when I have my own house with an oven that doesn't cook too hot, I think we'll make treats for neighbors and friends (another holiday tradition of my family).

9. Fake or real tree?
Fake - I know that's so boring and it doesn't smell good and all that, but it's SO much easier and let messy and cheaper. Maybe some day we'll get real ones...we'll see.

10. What day does the actual panic set in to get it all done?
Hmmm...never? Maybe when I have more kids to shop for and have to hide presents and stuff.

11. Are you still wrapping presents on Christmas Eve?
Oh my gosh. If that was the case, THEN I would be in a panic. If it's not done at least 10 days early, I'd go crazy.

12. What is your favorite family fun time at Christmas?
I mentioned Forgotten Carols, which I love. Other than that, just being with family and relaxing. And I LOVE opening presents and watching others open presents.

13. What Christmas craft do you like the best?
I'm not very crafty, but someday (maybe next year?) I want to make an advent calendar!

14. Christmas music, yes or no? And if yes, what is your favorite song?
Would anyone really answer NO to Christmas music?! Of course yes! And Carol of the Bells is, without a doubt, my favorite.

15. When do you plan to finish all of your shopping?
Already done!

So now that you've read this, TAG you're it! Copy the questions on your blog and answer them! It's so fun seeing what everyone's traditions and favorites are!

Merry Christmas!