Hammer Time

After Jasper broke the back of the first bookshelf, Jon let him help put the second one together. It was really sweet to watch.

Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas this year. We got a lot of good stuff, and I think we were all happy. Now we just have to find room for all Jasper's new stuff. We were glad to have Chrismas, but now we're glad it's over :) We will be excited to have a new little baby to celebrate with us next year.

The loot from Santa

I don't know why he does this. He did the same thing last year.

I have wanted two bookshelves since we moved here two years ago, and I finally got them. I am so happy with them. Eventually I'll get baskets for the bottom shelves, probably for toys or whatever.

Best present ever

Ooh la la

He's a Transformer. This was all his idea.

A bag full of boy stuff from my dad

Jon's family gave us this great Flip video camera and it is so awesome. It takes great videos with sound and it has a USB port attached to it so you just plug it into your computer. It has software on it that you can edit your videos with, and make CDs and take stills from the videos, and a bunch of other stuff. It's just great and we are VERY excited to have it.

The Lighted Gingerbread House

Jon and I were watching a show about over-the-top Christmas displays, and we saw that this house was in our area, so we decided to go last night. It was actually pretty cool. They closed down part of the street and they had a jumping house and a little train you could take a ride on, and the best part was that it was all free. The people who own the house do a toy and food drive and instead of charging for the fun, they ask people to bring donations. It was hard to get good pictures because there were quite a few people and my camera batteries ran out so I was stuck with my phone which does not take the best pictures. Jasper liked jumping in the jumping house, but didn't seem to care that much about anything else. He didn't want to talk to Santa, which was fine because there was a long line. I just thought it was nice that these people do this every year, and that their neighbors let them! I think we'll be making this a tradition.

According to their website, christmastyme.com, there are over 138,000 lights.

The guy comes out dressed like Santa and sits in a big Santa chair and the kids can go talk to him. His teenage son was there dressed as an elf, and I'm pretty sure he was looking around making sure none of his friends were there :)

Jasper's favorite decoration

Snowmen

As my dad said to me on the day my mom left, crafting by yourself sucks. So I recruited Jasper and we made snowmen out of styrofoam balls. He's not too shabby as a crafter, I have to say.

O Tannenbaum

Last night we put our tree up. It's always been a tradition in my family to get the tree around my birthday, and that's something we're continuing. Jasper kept getting a little too excited and kept giving the tree a big hug while Jon was trying to do the lights. Plus it was about 9:00 at night while we were doing this. It was an amusing, hectic, sometimes grouchy experience, but it got done and it looks beautiful. And the added bonus is that our house smells delicious!

Looks like we might have another Jeremy on our hands

I don't know what his thing was, but he kept putting the lights on his stomach and wiggling around saying "it tickles my tummy!"

If you look closely, you can see the new baby sticking out. We get a new ornament every year and this year I bought one for the baby too.

The finished product.

(It looks like the tree is leaning in a lot of these pictures, but it's not. It's just the angle.)

Jasper is so excited about Christmas. He even made sure to give the tree a good night smooch before he went to bed.

G-Ma Came To Town

I LOVE when my mom comes to visit. We do fun stuff that I never get to do with anyone else since I'm surrounded by boys and 3-year olds aren't that great at crafting. We had a busy but so fun week, even if we went to the store WAY more times than actually necessary.

It snowed! Some Utah natives say this doesn't count as snow, but it does here and me and Jasper could not have been more excited.

We went to McDonald's for breakfast...on our way to the store :)

I turned 25 and got sick that night so I couldn't eat any cake or dinner that Jon cooked.

I got the Big Top Cupcake pan from my mom and it is awesome. Jon decorated this to look like a carousel/circus cake keeping in theme with the Big Top name.

This ship is docked in Old Sacramento. It's called the Hawaiian Chieftan and it used to be a trading ship. It was way smaller than we thought it would be, but fun to tour.

We made lots of crafts

Ma's

Ma's

Mine

Mine

We also spent a lot of time baking, and Jasper was very helpful. (G-Ma put him in potty training boot camp which is why he has no clothes on. He's doing very well with it.)

He's better at tasting than stirring

We made treat plates and jars for the neighbors

And a delicious apple pie

I am so glad my mom was able to come. She kick-started the potty training and it was a nice break for me from the every day stuff. If all goes well, we'll be going to Utah in March, although Jasper says he'd rather have G-Ma come back here.

Ho Ho Ho

Cutest picture of a kid with Santa EVER.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is kind of weird when there are only three people, and only one of you likes turkey. Add to that the fact that I've hardly cooked for three weeks because I can't stand the smell of food, and it makes for a hard Thanksgiving. However, in honor of my husband, I got up and cooked this traditional Thanksgiving meal.

Roasted turkey, sage-infused stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes with gravy, steamed broccoli, baked sweet potato, and fresh cranberries in a sauce.

Yeah, right. I couldn't cook that if I was possesed by the spirit of Julia Child. We decided to go to Black Angus for their turkey dinner so Jon could have traditional food and we wouldn't have to cook an entire turkey for one person. It was a good meal and Jon was satisfied and happy. Jasper didn't care much about eating and spent a lot of the meal under the table, which made it seem like Jon and I were on a date by ourselves and that was kind of fun. I'm thankful for my little family and maybe next year we can have a real meal.

(I don't know why this picture looks so weird.)

What's that Smudge?

That tiny raspberry-sized smudge is our new baby!

We are SO very excited about our new baby. Well, Jon and I are, at least. Jasper is not as sure. He doesn't seem to think it's a very good idea, but he has until June 22 to get used to it. Yay!!!

Somersaults

Jasper had learned a new trick.

(P.S. I had look up the correct spelling of somersault)

Halloween

For some reason Halloween was so stressful for me this year. I kept thinking Jasper's costume wasn't good enough, and I kept stressing about the trick-or-treating, because we don't get ANY trick-or-treaters at our apartment. And I mean ZERO kids. So I decided to take Jasper around to the houses that are behind us. A lot of people weren't home and there were maybe 5 other kids out, but Jasper seemed to be thrilled to be receiving all this candy for no apparent reason and there were just enough houses for him to have a good time. Fortunately, he is not super crazy when it comes to candy, and for the most part he listens when I say he can have one piece sometime before rest time, and one piece sometime after. He kept trying to get in his bag and eat the candy from the first house, until I explained to him that he would be getting more. It was our first time actually trick-or-treating outside, instead of at the mall, and while I may have been a little disappointed, it was plenty for him and he enjoyed himself. And that's what matters. For some reason I didn't really take any pictures of him actually going to the houses, but I did get a picture of him in his costume before we went, so enjoy!

Shy Shy Armor

Before we went trick-or-treating we went to eat at Jon's restaurant, so I thought it would be fun to dress up as him. All the servers and the hostess seemed to be confused as to how I had a chef coat with their manager's name on it, which I thought was amusing.

Thanks for staying until Halloween, Jerm!

Jeremy's Visit

We were SO excited that my brother Jeremy came to visit us for two whole weeks. It was so nice to have some family in the house, and Jerm is a blast. Jasper liked having someone else to play with, and I think Jerm liked playing with Jas too. Jas gave him lots of hugs and smooches. We got to do a lot of fun stuff, and some boring hanging out, but we are so glad he came, and we can't wait until he comes back!

Jasper got to sit in his "big boy" car seat in Jerm's car, which he thought was great.

I guess Jeremy is the horse...?

Jasper was actually able to pull the wagon

We knew Jeremy would succumb to the temptation of WoW, and Jasper gave him some great tips

New boot goofin'

Jasper was pretending to be a doctor and used a Lego sword and Lego guy as his doctor tools. I'm not sure this was Jeremy's favorite activity.

We rented a Rug Doctor and Jeremy cleaned my couch. It looks and smells SO much better now.

Building a couch cushion house

We got to go to Old Town Sacramento and ride the "Spookomotive", which was a train decorated for Halloween. I thought it was fun, and I think the boys did too. It wasn't spooky at all, but that was fine with me. We rode along the American River for about 40 minutes and it was so nice and pretty.

We also took a trip to the Jelly Belly Factory. They had one room set up as a haunted swamp, and Jasper kept wanting to go back in there. It wasn't scary at all, but they had all kinds of fun decorations.