This is for grandma, who didn't get to come visit this week...

Sticker from her shirt, over her nose. Not really that funny, but she thought so.

Look at those cheeks!

Girls Rock.
Helping mommy make scones. Ha. "Helping"

She is a crazy person sometimes.

She loved the snow!

I have a problem...

Hi, my name is Alisa and I am OCD.

When it's my own issue, whatever. People can think I'm weird when I organize the pantry every few days or hang my clothes in order of color.

Here's the problem: I passed it onto my child. Here are just some examples that make me laugh/cry.

1. Karly shuts cupboards and doors when someone leaves them open. Even if she's on the other side of the room, she'll walk across the room to shut it. She always has this kind of attitude when she does it like "who left this open?" By the way, this isn't just my fault. My mom and Kippy do it too. :)

2. Today at the park, she was putting the little wood chips that were in the grass BACK in the playground area. What 18 month old does that?!?!

3. She repeats things over and over either until I respond or she gets what she wants. If I think about it, I'll record it, but it's SO funny and a little annoying. For example, if she wants to watch "Itsy Bitsy Spider" she says "Spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide? spide?" I'm not even joking. I have started just laughing because it's so ridiculous. (At least she's not throwing a tantrum, right?)

4. This may be typical of kids - I don't know - but if she drops food on the floor, she almost always comments on it. She won't necessarily insist I pick it up (depends on what it is) but she notices and knows it's not good when food falls on the floor.

Those are all I can think of at the moment, but you get the picture. I'm not sure if it's behavioral or hereditary, but the poor girl is going to get mocked when she has to spread the peanut butter clear to the edge of the bread...

Okay, you win

I promised my friend Becki a post that would "wow" her mind. Then I told her "but probably not."

What I'm sure she didn't realize was that I fully intended to write on this blogginess, but the wow part was the probably not.

Make sense?

Also, this might take me several hours to write as our computer is on the entertainment center since we still don't have a TV or a computer desk, so Karly throughly enjoys climbing all over me while I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Another comment this dear friend Becki made was that "you and nate have stopped existing" I had every intention of proving her wrong with current pictures of us. Here are the most current pictures of me and Nate:

Why yes, those were taken on September 20. For all you know, we could have ceased to exist since then.

We are now officially moved into our apartment. I would post pictures, but there are picture frames all over the couch and a couple of boxes that will probably never get unpacked. Have you ever tried to refurnish your life? Couches, bed, entertainment center, nightstands, dresser, bookshelves, etc. etc. etc. It is mucho expensivo. So someday when we have everything, I might post pictures. :)

For Becki (man, she's needy) and anyone else who cares, I am still in the running to win 8 Weeks to a Better You! There are like 24 of us who still have points and I'm guessing nearly all of those will make it clear to the end. The hardest part is probably making sure I get 2 fruits and 2 veggies every day. Pathetic huh?

And just because this blog is really boring, here are a couple of funny videos of Karly. The first one is her wrestling with Addy (and winning) ;) and the second one is watching videos with grandpa. That kid will watch videos all day if I let her.

Happy Halloween!

...from the cutest little Cat and Cinderella you've ever seen! :)

Happy Birthday Babe!

Since Nate is in Michigan, we didn't get to celebrate his birthday with him today (and he had to work until like 8:00 tonight - boo).

Anyway, I wanted to do something for him since I couldn't make him apple crisp (birthday tradition) or give him presents today.

Most everyone who reads this blog knows our story and our relatively short time dating and being engaged. What a lot of people don't know is that I knew after dating him for only 3 weeks that I wanted to marry him.

{First Date: January 2006}

{Temple Square, April 2006}

{Engagement Picture}

As if all the confirmation we received before we got married and during our temple ceremony weren't enough for us to know it was right for us to get married, we got further proof at our reception in North Dakota. I had written a letter to my future husband in a Young Woman activity when I was younger. We opened it in North Dakota and I had written the letter on June 8, 2003 - 3 years to the day we got married.

{Wedding Day - June 8, 2006}

Every day I spend with him is further confirmation that I married the right guy. The day Karly was born was an incredible day - to see him as a dad for the first time and how much he loved and still loves that little girl makes me so happy.

{Karly's birth - May 14, 2009}

From the time Karly was born, everyone has said "Oh, she looks just like her daddy!" While it occasionally makes me crazy (where am I in her?!?), I really am happy about it. He's a dang handsome guy after all! :)

He's probably going to ask me to take this post down, but I just wanted him (and the world!) to know I really do appreciate all he does and how patient he is and all the other cliche stuff. :)

Love you babe! Happy Birthday!

Kit Kat Bar

Hey hey (if you know Finnish, you know what I said (or if you've seen Confessions of a Shopaholic)).

We are moving this week. Into an apartment and out of poor Dan and Kippy's spaces. Oh, and Nate's in Detroit. As in Michigan for work. So I'm kinda busy. But I promise (Becki), I will post as soon as I have time/energy/etc.

Until then...

(Oh, and the Kit Kat Bar reference is so you'll "give me a break." :D)

8 weeks to a better you!

I signed up for something called "8 Weeks to a better you."

Here's the link:

http://8weekstoabetteryou.blogspot.com/

Wish me (and AJ and Leona and Nisha and almost 100 other people) luck!

And...We're Back!

Oh, you didn't know we were gone?

Nate has basically a month off work (did a temp job for the summer and starts with EY October 6!), so we decided to take a Loooonnnnggg vacation.

We started out at Mt. Rushmore. Pretty cool. Moving on. :)

We went to Bismarck to see my parentals and little sistahs for two of the weeks. My mom spent the whole time apologizing for all the stuff we didn't do (silly woman) and we spent the two weeks telling her now nice it was to just spend time with them! :)

We did, actually, go to a couple of museums and planned to go jet-skiing (love North Dakota weather!), Nate and I read ALL THREE Hunger Games (thanks everyone for watching our kid!), did a bonfire and had dinner at Space Aliens, so I'd say overall it was a perfect trip to Bismarck. I took my camera, but as we all know how awesome I am at taking pictures, here are some my mom took:

Suz and Karly were good buds (not only does my mom take pictures, but they look artistic! Why didn't I get any of that?)

Apparently is was mostly Suzie watching my kid while I read books. :)

Nate and dad watched the BYU games every Saturday and Karly sported the true blue each time. Too bad it didn't help...Even though it's blurry I LOVE this picture. So cute and candid.

We played dress up with a very confused Karly.
We went to the zoo, which happens to have a petting/feeding section to it. You have no idea how much I sanitized her hands after this. :)
Looking at the ducks.

Don't worry, there's a glass wall between my daughter's hand and the ridiculously large tiger, who stared at her like she was a gazelle.
We played in grandma's big tub with the jets.
I don't know what on earth she's doing, but dad (grandpa) was happy to have the attention.

Sharing food with daddy.

She had an ear infection while we were there and did NOT get the sleep she needed. This was about 7:00, which is 6:00 PM, our time, so she must have just been exhausted. This is the first time she's ever fallen asleep like that.

We made our boneless buffalo wings and completely pigged out. I don't even want to talk about how much weight I gained on this trip.

SO! That was North Dakota. From there, we drove to Utah via Yellowstone.

There was a controlled burn in Yellowstone while we drove through - this picture doesn't show it, but we could actually see the flames. Cool (that's the pyro in me talking...).

Waterfalls. Really big ones that even scared Nate. And here they are leaning over the edge. Makes me shudder.

I love how we are squinting in all our family pictures.

Waiting for Old Faithful.

Still waiting (it was COLD!)

We also went to Utah for a week to hang out with friends and family there. I took a total of 3 pictures, one of which was blurry and another which was the same as this one:

I love this picture. This is Bridget, Karly's good friend (and daughter to our friends Jake and Mekelle - we miss you guys!). I love the contrast in the faces.

We actually stayed the week at Adam and Becki's house (thanks again and again!) and hung out with little Mia. I think Karly enjoyed finally being the older kid!

We went down to BYU and both tried to visit our old jobs (nobody was there at Nate's and the stupid security guard wouldn't let me on the floor at AT&T - do I really look like someone who is going to steal secrets? If I was going to do that, I would have when I worked there!). Ahem. Anyway, it was fun to see friends and family while there.

Now home and back to real life!

Triathlon? Check.

For those who didnt' already know, I have been training for a triathlon. I just completed it last Saturday.

The operative word there is COMPLETED. I did a triathlon. It was awesome.

Now, before you start thinking I'm now a super athlete (ha), let me give a few more details. It was a sprint triathlon (so half the length of an olympic traithlon), it was with my ward so there were like 10 of us total and it was totally low key and finally, I came in dead last.

No super athlete here! :)

And now for the excuses for WHY I came in dead last (this is mostly for my benefit - to make me feel better...): I basically hadn't exercised for 2 years, I only trained for 10 weeks and in that 10 weeks, one week we had family in town and another week I was sick.

So anyway, I'm not sharing my times, but I will share a couple of pictures.

The whole group, pre-race

On your mark, get set...

That's me in the red cap in the front. I was actually in the lead for the first 400 yards and in a close 2nd for the rest of the swimming...

...it was the biking...

...and running that did me in.

But I finished!

Thanks to Nate and Karly for being there to support me and Jordan and Paige for coming to the finish line!

And thanks IHOP for existing so you could be my reward! :)