Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Birthdays Shmirthdays, Right?

Yes. It's my birthday. But who cares, when Wicked is in town? That's a rhetorical question, no need to answer... today we got to celebrate the ol' 24th with some dinner at Acme Burger Company and Wicked!! Let me just say, if you are lucky enough to have gotten tickets to this, you will LOVE it. If you weren't lucky enough, I feel so bad for you...Sorry Leslie (but thanks for watching Tessa). Anywho, it was a way fun night, complete with goody bags courtesy of my mom!
This picture is Alex's thoughtful idea...I had just woken up and despite what you may think, it takes work to get as beautiful as I usually appear. That's why I'm covering my face...plus I was yawning.
Opening presents at dinner. For some reason, I cheesy smiled everytime. I don't know what came over me! It must be the fact that I'm one year closer to renting a car. Cecily and Zach were excited too.
Goody Bags! The girls got High School Musical and the boys got Star Wars. Or as I called it, that Transformers movie.
WICKED. This was us in front of the background, but you can't tell...
It was the best b-day ever! Mainly because my dad was in town. Inside joke...so funny.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Graduate

No, I'm not talking about that Dustin Hoffman movie. I'm talkin 'bout my mom. She totally graduated the hell out of BYU this weekend. Oh, I meant heck... So the graduation is a two day event. On Thursday, she graduated from the University. Then, on Friday morning, she graduated from the College of Humanities, on account of her being an English Lit major. She was so excited, she planned out her outfits weeks in advance, and she even bought matching shoes...for every single outfit. It was adorable. So we got to hang in Provo for two days, just being proud of our mom. Here are the pics:
Just waiting to graduate.
People kept taking pictures in front of the trees. So we thought, When in Rome...if you don't know the rest of that quote, it's do as the Romans do.
My proud dad. He was so excited that he got her these flowers. He also got her a dozen roses and left them in the hotel room for her. Yeah, we stayed overnight. It's a long drive.
Proud sisters. We're all looking at different cameras.
Proud son in laws. This was on Thursday and my brothers and their wives were all working/out of town. So they got to come down for the Friday graduation ceremony, not this one. But I don't have a picture of that. I'm sure Cessy and/or Cailey will have some more pictures.

After the Thursday ceremony, we went to take my mom's picture by Brigham Young. Not the real Brigham Young, silly. He's dead. This was the statue. I don't have a picture of that, but I do have a picture of Cailey and Devon rolling down this massive hill.
This is so inappropriate.
My mom waiting for her diploma.
My dad, being proud and taking pictures.
She finally graduated!!
Anyway, that was the happenings of the ceremonies. It was great-we're all so proud of our mom. She graduated before all of us, and we've all been going to school for longer. (Except Ces and Alex, they graduated last year.) It was lots of fun too. Hopefully Cessy and Cailey will post more pictures, because I know thaty got some winners.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Funny=Tessa

So this is just a quick funny story about my baby girl. So every night I say to Tessa, "Time to go to bed." And she says, "I don't wanna go to bed," to which I reply, "Well, you have to." I know. I'm pretty wise. If you want to nominate me for Mother of the Year, I'll totally accept. Anyway, last night I say to her, "Ok Tess, time for bed!" (this was at 11:00 pm. Mother of the Year.) And she said, "I don't wanna go to bed," then immediately she said, "Well, I have to." She's a genius child. It may have been funnier if you were there, but you weren't. It was only me and Alex. So too bad for you.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

I Totally Ran the Salt Lake Marathon...

...5K. Did you think I could really run 26 miles? Silly you. But seriously, I didn't even think I could do 3 miles, or whatever a 5K is. But I did it. Yesterday my sisters, mom, and Zach met down with all the other marathoners at 7:30 am and ran our little hearts out. Well, my mom and Zach ran their hearts out, followed by Cecily-who ran most of the time, then Cailey and me, who walk/ran/jogged, but mostly walk-jogged. It was tough stuff and today my legs don't work right. Alex thought it was funny because "it was only 3 miles" and I was like, "3 miles of hell is more like it." I'm totally proud of myself though, and my fam. This isn't a very funny post...I'll think of funnier things for next time.
Waiting to start the race...we totally made friends with the women behind the camera. They were A-dorable.

Our running shoes. You'll notice that our time chips were attached to our shoelaces. Technology. (Time chips track your time, for those who don't know.)

After we finished. It was like Saved by the Bell. Not the college years or the years with Tori (remember her? She always wore a leather jacket. She was pre-Kelly Kapowski.)

Monday, April 13, 2009

Easter Shmeester, Bring on My B-day

Ok, so I don't mean that. I love Easter. When else in the year are you going to get giant peanut butter and chocolate bunnies? No, I'm not refering to my boo. Ha. Anyway, this week was a super busy one. First off, (sound the trumpets) Alex and I had our 4 year anniversary! I know, right? I didn't think we'd ever see this day either. I didn't take any pictures of it, but it was way fun. We take turns planning our anniversary events and it was Alex's this year, so we went to dinner at Tsunami and then went to see Haunting in Connecticut. It. Was. Awesome. I loved it. I know it seems a little odd to go see a scary movie on my anniversary, but if you think that's weird then you must not know me...so stop reading my blog....I'm obviously kidding. Read on stranger, read on.

The rest of the week was non eventful. So onto the weekend.

Every year, Alex's mom and Zach's mom (who live next door to each other) have a huge neighborhood Easter egg hunt for all of the kids. And it's the best. People who haven't lived in their circle for 20 years come back with their grandkids to be apart of this spectacle that is the Easter egg hunt. They hide tons and tons of eggs and then they have a big breakfast for everyone afterwards. Tessa finally caught on this year that there are things inside of the eggs, so she had a good time.
All the kids that participated. Tessa and Stone are on the end...they don't want to conform to the "group shot".

Tessa got into it. She found every egg that we pointed out to her.


After the great hunt, as I so lovingly call it, we dyed eggs with Alex's family. This too was a new thing for Tessa, and she loved it. Luckily Leslie (alliteration) helped her out, or there would have been drastic repercussions.

Trying to dye a plastic egg. Silly Tessa.Her finished product. You can't see her other hand, but it's the same color as this egg.

Every year it gets to this point. Someone writes on the counter with dye (I believe it's usually Leslie...not to name names or anything). But this is the outcome. Keep in mind this is only half of the counter.


Then, that night we went to Alex's friend Andy's house to play rock band with Mike, Steve, Andy, Brock, and Danielle. Tessa loves it.
She always says, "Lets rock!" And we do.


Then the next day was actually Easter. Of course we had to get Tessa all dressed up for church, where she stayed in nursery the entire time. She actually asked me to leave her there. I sort of cried.This is her in her Easter outfit. I put it on her and she asked me if she was Cinderella. So I said no, because I don't think it's right to lie.

After church, we went over to my dad's office, because as you may know, he's a CPA, so he was working. My mom and my aunt Darci (who is my age, or close) decided to take them over some lunch. They set up a little egg hunt around the office complex, and we had some good food. It was way fun. I think it might be a new tradition, unless they make taxes obsolete. Which I think Obama could do. Go Democrats!This is Tessa in her casual Easter outfit. She has a lot of clothes. Those shoes were white and then Alex's mom Mindy dyed them...how awesome is that? And I'm not sure why she was posing like that. She did it in like four pictures.Hanging with the big kids after the egg hunt. Just checking out their loot, as I've heard it called.

Then-are you getting tired yet?- we headed up to the park by Alex's grandparents house, where they roll eggs. If you've never heard of this tradition, it's ok. Apparently it's only them that does it. We found that out whilst in the act. There is a cute little park up there with slides and stuff, and Tessa mastered the ladder. She just kept climbing up it and sliding down, then running around to climb again. She's like a monkey. Or rock climber.


This picture should be on one of those posters that are supposed to be self esteem boosters. Determination. Or Fearlessness. You decide.Alex and I aren't sure what was happening in this picture. It was a really long day, a lot of stuff happened. I think maybe they were playing soccer with one of the hard boiled eggs. Eating lunch afterwards. We took her shirt off because it was white-ish and she was eating a red strawberry. You do the math.

Then today-this is the last event, I swear-we celebrated mine and Doug's birthdays with Alex's family. You see, Doug's birthday was the end of March and my birthday is the end of April. Usually, I celebrate mine with Lance, who is the first of May, but since he's on a mission, they decided to combine mine and Doug's since, according to Trace, we are in laws, which only counts as half a person. He was joking, he's actually really nice. So Doug waited two weeks for his birthday and I got mine two weeks early. I got the better end of the deal, but don't tell Doug. Especially you, Leslie. I know you're reading this. Anyway, we went to Italian Village for dinner, and then came over to our house to open presents and eat cake. And watch scenes from Gladiator. Normal birthday stuff.

Tessa's outfit. And her cheesy smile. She couldn't stop doing this.

All that I told Mindy I wanted was Crest White Strips. And she doesn't disappoint. I also got a gift card to Ulta, that awesome make up store, and I got Beckham perfume. Alex was so jealous. Tessa helping Doug open his presents. They were shirts, in case you were wondering. Alex was jealous.


Mindy made cake for Doug and brought me Reese's Ice Cream for our desserts. It's like compromise.This should be on one of those motivational pictures too. Compromise. We were blowing our candles out, if you couldn't tell. Just the in laws, getting older.Tessa made Pa watch Shrek with her. She loves when Fione becomes Scary Fiona (the ogre). She doesn't understand that she is still the same person, even though she is hideous. I'll teach her eventually. For now I'm ok with her take on the situation.


And that is all. I understand if you didn't make it this far, but for those of you who did, I've got a special present for you.

You're welcome.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Simpable Things

So this past week was Simpable Things (did you hear those angels singing? I did.) And it, as always, was a blast. But I'm getting ahead of myself...sort of. Firstly, the night before we were hanging out at home, and Alex said that something was stupid. Our main rule in this house is that we don't say that. So Tessa had to enforce the said rule. This is Alex. He's in time out. Which is funny because we don't do time outs, we do spankings. Or verbal abuse. (I'm totally kidding, don't report me.)

Then it was time for Simpable Things. Every year there is a theme. This year, it was Cupcakes. Cupcakes, cupcakes, cupcakes. Oh, and did I mention Cupcakes. It all turned out really well, and it's always so much fun to hang out with the sisters (and Devon) and see everyone that we don't see very often. Every time we do it, my mom says this is the last time. That started about 5 years ago. But I'm glad we still do it. I love it. Even though I had a melt down (funny story, but pretty long) it was fun. So here are my pictures.My sisters and mom in our costumes. Excuse me, I meant uniforms. (From the left: Ashlii, Cessy, Linda (my mom), Me, and Cailey) Don't mind my mom's eyes. There were a lot of cameras taking pictures at the same time.
My friend Lindsey-she comes every time. But no, she doesn't always dress this way. She had to run home. Literally run. I promised her I was totally going to blog this. I always keep my promises.Tessa had an apron too. It was different than ours, but she loved it. I put it on her, and she said "I'm getting married?" She really asked, I didn't just write it that way. The last day, I put Tessa's hair in curlers for the first time. This is the before picture. I couldn't bare to take an after picture, because if those pictures somehow came back into her life after she had made it big, it would have ended her career. It doesn't helpt that she has pink eye, so her eyes looked horrible. I know what you're thinking, her eyes are always so normal and not gross, so that's too bad. Sarcasm. It may be too soon for curlers. We fixed it though...with a lot of hairspray.