Neglected

Dear Blog,

I'm so sorry I have neglected you. I'm seriously going to try harder to post.

Your Author,

Brittany

A Few Favorites...

By request, here are a few of my favorite titles from 2009
-Hunger Games
-Catching Fire
-The Help
-Goose Girl
-Thirteenth Tale
-The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Hated Hated Hated
-Poisonwood Bible
-Life of Pi
-Princess Bride

Books Read in 2009

Some of you know that I love to read and always have. The unfortunate thing about being in school is that your "leisure reading" completly is non-existent since you're reading textbooks, notes, tests, papers, etc. You don't want to read ANYTHING extra. Then after school I worked nights so if I started reading anything then I'd just end up falling asleep. So at the beginning of my marriage my husband never saw me read anything at all. Well, the other day he turns to me and made the comment that he can't believe how I can fly through books like I do. Little did he know that there's a reader in the house I guess. I really don't have much free time, but if I ever do I really try to get a few chapters in. I especially love to read when I'm waiting for Ethan to get out of school and Max is asleep in his carseat. Those few precious minutes of me and my book are heavenly! So here are the books that I read this year (in no particular order)

Books Read in 2009
Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
Catching Fire Suzanne Collins
The Help Kathyrn Stockett
The Book Theif Markus Zusak
Goose Girl Shannon Hale
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
To Kill A Mockingbird Harper Lee
Night Elie Weisel
Princess Bride William Goldman
Along for the Ride Sarah Dessen
Glass Castle Jeanette Walls
The Giver Lois Lowry
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Schaffer
The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett
Water For Elephants Sara Gruen
Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby Marc Weissbluth
Babywise Gary Ezzo
An Ideal Husband Oscar Wilde
The Poisonwood Bible Barbara Kingsolver
Uglies Scott Westerfield
Pretties Scott Westerfield
Specials Scott Westerfield
Peace Like A River Leif Enger
Maniac Magee Jerry Spinelli
Thirteenth Tale Diane Setterfield
Devil in the White City Erik Larson
The Pact Jodi Piccoult
Thursday’s Child Sonya Hartnett
Life of Pi Yann Martel
Midwives Chris Bohjalian
The Alchemist Paulo Coelho
The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
The Ladies of Missalonghi Colleen McCullough
Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert
The Tales of Beedle the Bard JK Rowling
The Water and the Blood Nancy Turner
The Secrets of the Baby Whisperer Tracy Hogg

Dressing Properly for an Arctic Blast

We're currently in the midst of an "Arctic Blast" here in Texas. That means it gets down to around 15 degrees for the low and around 25 for the high. It's all over our news and we even had school closed today! Are you serious? An Arctic Blast in Ohio that meant it was -30 with an insane wind chill. I remember there were a few times they closed down school because of the temperature, but it was honestly -30 and kids couldn't stand at the bus stop because if they did they'd have little snotsicles coming out of their noses.

Anyway, back to our Arctic Blast in Texas...I told E to go get dressed with some long pants and a long sleeved shirt. The kid would wear shorts and a t-shirt every day if I let him, but with an Arctic Blast you cannot wear shorts. So I'm getting Max ready and in walks this...

He proceeded to tell me that this was the warmest thing he should wear and that he wouldn't even need a coat if he wore his tiger suit. We were headed down to my mom's for the day so I packed some extra clothes for him and let him wear the tiger suit. So we drive on down to my mom's house and he jumps out of the van and surprises her with his outfit. Immediately my mom is totally cracking up and I'm snickering as well. This is when E stops us and says, "Nanny, stop laughing! This is serious! This is a serious outfit!" It was just so funny to see him walking around in his tiger costume to stay warm. You'd think that I'd never bought the kid a sweater before!

2009...It was the best of times...it was the worst of times.

That is seriously what 2009 was like this year, but I'm sure every year has a little bit of good and bad. It just seemed like this year was the year of extremes in the realm of good and bad. One hand, 2009 was a year of awesome experiences and fun moments, but it also started off really rough.

Worst- Colicky Baby
Max was a really colicky baby and Ry was traveling a lot at the beginning of the year. With all the lack of sleep and not knowing what to do about my crying baby, it took its toll on me. This is a picture that Toni did of Max doing his thing, crying. From the moment he was born he cried and cried and he still cries quite a bit even at 15 months.
Thankfully I have a very understanding mom that had already gone through the exact situation with me when I was a baby so she helped get me through. I also have some pretty awesome friends that would take care of me whether it was a phonecall or taking E for me.

Best: Couponing
Things got better around March when I took up the hobby of couponing. Couponing has seriously changed my life! I've tried to calculate about how much I've saved this year and it's about $5000-$6000! I remember this trip to Tom Thumb, my grand total was 4.64! And thankfully I couponed all that yeast so I can have fun making all this homemade bread lately! My family likes to joke around about my couponing all the time, my father in law even calls me the "coupon oracle" and I have to live up to my name, right?

Worst and Best: Car Accident
Even though I coupon like crazy, we've always lived frugally and have saved, saved, saved. Thankfully we do because back in April Ry had a car accident. People don't tend to think of car accidents as blessing, but I did this time.
We are so blessed that Ryan is okay, that the other people involved were okay, that Ryan doesn't have any ill effects from the accident, that the car ended up totalled, we got more money from our insurance then planned, and that we got our new van because of the accident. I just love my van! I never ever ever thought I would be a mini van mom, but I certainly wouldn't want anything else!

Best: Reunions
A great part of this year was my ability to connect and visit so many friends! In April I visited my best friend from college, Ashley and her husband Byron (also a friend from college).

My wonderful husband took care of everything and sent me out to San Diego for the weekend so I could see her. We had so much fun and I miss her so much! Come to Texas, Ash!!!

Shortly after my visit to San Diego, I was able to reunite with my California girlies! We all flew/drove to Las Vegas for a fun filled weekend of shopping, eating, and catching up.
I really got close to these girls back when we lived in Santa Clara and they are seriously like family to me! I had such a blast and I hope we do it again soon!

Believe it or not reunion #3 happened during the summer when my best friend from high school, Liz came to Dallas and paid us a visit!

Ethan just loved her and still talks about the chocolate rocks that she brought for him! I love it when it feels like no time has passed at all. I think the last time we saw each other was at least 8 years ago and the moment we started talking it felt the same.

And last, but not least we had Elmer Family reunion back in July and that was quite an adventure. We drove with 2 kids the entire way to Utah without stopping to sleep and did the same thing on the way home. Thank goodness we got the van, right?

It was great to see all the family and spend time with everyone. We definately made some memories there.

Best: Weddings
We had 2 weddings in my family this year. Jessica, my cousin, got married while we were out in Utah so we were actually able to attend. This was the wedding that E was "Casanova" and danced with my other cousin, Morgan. Too funny!


And then in August my brother got married here in Texas! It was really fun to have family and friends in town. And my boys are just so darn cute!



Best: Ethan Started School
He loves it! I love that he loves it! I love the extra time I get with Max by himself. Works out for everyone.

Worst: Ethan Ruining the Hard Wood Floors
Still a sore spot with me...don't want to talk about it.

Best: Max turns 1 and Ethan turns 4
One year older and wiser too!



Best: Chuy's Trips with Ryan

This year I've been able to travel with Ryan to 2 of his Texas Chuy's openings in Houston and San Antonio. Who wouldn't love a fun drive with your hubby, an entire day to yourself while he works, followed by great Mexican food?

Well, now that I really look at it...this was actually a really fun year! It did start off pretty rough. January and February last year had to be some of the worst moments for me, but hey, I got through it and I'm much better for it. I'm really looking forward to 2010 and the great moments that I'll have this year. Happy New Year!!!

Santa Came!!!

And boy did he come! Despite the brush with the naughty list a few times (for both of the boys), Santa pulled through again this year. Last year all E wanted was Hungry Hungry Hippos and this year it was Don't Break the Ice. I swear that is all I heard about for 3 weeks straight. Can you just see all the excitement in his face? I LOVE it! We even had a white Christmas all the way down here in Texas this year! How great is that?! I felt like I was back in Ohio for a moment...sigh...

Not only did Santa come for the kids, but he came for me too. Both sets of parents went in on a Bosch for me this year! WAHOOOO!!!! I'm venturing into the art of bread making and it is very, very fun! My first bread that I tried in the Bosch was focaccia and here's the finished product... Oh I wish you were there to taste it! I was so proud. Right now I'm working on Honey Wheat and 7 Grain Bread and I'm thinking about doing really digging in and going for some food storage so we'll see where it takes me.

Christmas was great this year, full of family and fun!

New Moon!

A bunch of us went out to see New Moon opening weekend back in November. Thankfully Carol went early to save us a spot in line or else we wouldn't have been able to sit all together. I think we ended up taking up an entire row with all of the girls that went. You could tell that we were a bunch of Mormon women when people started pulling out the homemade fudge and caramel corn out of our bags and passing it down the row, haha!

Ornament Party 2009

This year I resurrected my annual Ornament Exchange since last year it didn't happen since I had a baby and couldn't function enough to throw one together. This year I did it a little different since I was chosen as a host from House Party to host a Safe and Bright Party sponsored by Underwriters Laboratory. UL provided an array of goodies for a few of my friends to make some cute little wreaths to get ready for the holidays.
They also provided some information on how to keep our kids and our homes safe so we got to do a fun craft and learn a something at the same time. As you can tell, Kaitlyn is very excited to get started!
I think everyone enjoyed putting their own personal touch on their wreath and they all turned out so cute! Here are some of the finished products, unfortunately we weren't able to get a picture with everyone.

After some wreaths and some food we had our ornament exchange and we did it Yankee Swap style. I feel bad since it was my party and I ended up with the stolen ornament of the night. Is that allowed? There were a lot of cute ornaments this year! We also played a game about our family traditions. We had each person write down one tradition that was true and one that was not and then we had to guess who's tradition it was. I got a ton of great ideas for new traditions to start for my family. Even some of the fake ones were good! I think we ended up calling it a night sometime around midnight so I was a tad bit tired the next day, but it was so much fun! Thanks everyone for a great night!

Thanksgiving 2009

Yes, I'm just now posting Thanksgiving. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to get caught up on my blogging and do a better job taking pictures and actually blogging about things. So I'm going to have to back track just a little to catch up, but it shouldn't be too bad.

Thanksgiving
We spent most of the Thanksgiving holiday down at my parents' house this year. We had a great dinner with all the trimmings. Some of the highlights were my mom's famous rolls, homemade stuffing, and a delicious turkey. Yummy!

We wasted no time with the Black Friday deals. My mom and I scoured the sale ads for awhile, made a battle plan and hit the some of the stores that were open on Thanksgiving. We ended up at Michael's and Old Navy and got some great deals before the crazy rush.

Black Friday

It has always been our tradition to go out on Black Friday. I know many of you think it's crazy, but if you go out with a plan and know exactly what you want to get, it can be fun and save you a lot of money. We woke up at 3:30 am and were in line for the Kohl's opening at 4am. We just get up and laugh at ourselves, seriously. We had the water, power bars, sale ads, and my dad as our driver. It worked out great...my dad would drop us off and go find parking while we got a spot in line. Then once we got inside my dad would stand in the cashier line for us while we grabbed what we needed. What ends up killing you on Black Friday is the lines so if you have a front spot in line every time then things go very fast! We were in and out in 30 minutes and on to Macy's for the 5 am opening. Macy's was easy since they have so many cashiers going in all the departments. Again, in and out in 30 minutes and we were in line for the Staples 6 am opening so I could get the hard drive that I wanted. After that we went to World Market for their 7am opening. We hit 4 openings and got all the doorbuster goodies that we needed. I think we ended up home by 8 and we were done with most of our Christmas shopping. What fun memories!

Chuy's Parade

That night Ry and I drove with the kids down to Austin so we could go to the Chuy's parade the next morning. It was a funny little outing for our family. While we were waiting for the parade festivities to start we decided go look around the capital.

Ethan loved checking out the cannons and tried to figure out how to make it go off. He wasn't going to listen to me that they didn't work anymore and he was determined to prove me wrong.
This picture just illustrates the phase we're in right now...door opening and closing. Doesn't matter if we're at home or at the Capital, Max wants to open the door.
We explored just about every floor that a 4 and 1 year old would allow and then we headed outside for the parade. The weather was PERFECT! It was 75 and sunny and we all sat out there without a jacket and enjoyed every minute of it. You can see in the pictures that we hadn't even lost the leaves on the trees yet!

After the parade we ate at Chuy's (of course) and then drove on back to parents that night. By the time I got home I felt like I had done a lot of traveling and I seriously needed some sleep. I mean, waking up at 3:30 am and bracing Black Friday crowds paired with wrestling 2 kids can really tire a momma out!

Max's Photo Shoot

Way back in November, Max had the chance to be a "model" for Ragdoll Clothing. Our friend Stephanie over at Auburn Soul Photography took the photos and all I can say is my little Max is just so darn cute! These pictures ended up as little gifties for many proud grandparents!

I HAD to buy the tie, it was too cute to come home without it. The funny thing about the tie is when Max wears at church we tend to get a lot of comments from the guys in the ward. They seem to be big fans and they want me to get him the matching shoes to go with it. I just thought it was funny since women tend to comment on clothing before guys do, but I guess guys notice ties more often then girls do,
But anyway, back to the photo shoot... I was surprised how well Max did during the shoot. You can never predict how a 1 year old will be when you take pictures. He was just mesmerized by Stephanie and her camera. It just cracked me up! He totally posed for her and everything. Go figure!

He is just so cute! Maybe we should start him a little portfolio...

Thanks Stephanie for such cute pictures!