Ashleigh learned to tie her shoes! :)

Family pictures...

Gingerbread Houses

Nick and Ashleigh did gingerbread houses the other day. I wasn't able to participate as I was making dinner and taking care of Preston...but I did get some cute pictures.











Here's Nick helping ash assemble it. Poor roof didn't have a chance...the darn roof kept falling off no matter how long he held it in place or how much or little frosting he used. frustrating.
Here is Preston-he was grumpy that night....but he did learn the word for candy and kept SHOUTING it at us, until he was able to get some...his favorite are the little gummy ones. I think he is chewing on one in this picture...


Cute Ashleigh again...she loves the camera...and helping her daddy do pretty much anything! :) (See, he's holding the roof on...darn thing!)

Christmas with the Calls

For those of you in Utah, you know, it started snowing pretty hard here on Christmas eve. Well, the Call's live where it was probably the windy-est (sp?) To be cautious, we decided to pack and plan on sleeping at their house-which we did end up doing. It ended up being more fun than we had hoped. We had "snack/finger" foods, then we watched Mr. Kreugers Christmas, than our family did a little "program" and then Grandpa read the night before Christmas. Then...we went SLEDDING!!! :) Nick and Quinn did the most...the kids rode in the truck with grandma and grandpa and I pretty much sat in the bed of the truck-freezing! It was so cold! But SO much fun! Utah is great about plowing the roads almost immediately when it snows-not good for us sledders...but we found that the church parking lot hadn't been plowed so thats where the most of the fun took place.


My daughter is notorious for sleeping in-usually 930am or 10am every day-so this was really the first year that we haven't woken up at the crack of dawn to open presents. We didn't get started until just before 9am.

It was nice to sleep in.... Christmas was great-as usual! Nick took a nap in the afternoon, but when he woke up, he wasn't feeling well-again-so shortly thereafter we headed home...missing Christmas dinner! :'-(


Poor Nick is sicker than ever and I have been secluded in our room with the kids-while periodically checking on him and doing laundry-but trying to keep us away so we can keep well!!!




(This is my pile of laundry-from us being sick...feel sorry for me?)




Anyway, we got some wonderful presents and are SO grateful for the fun time that we did have with the Calls this holiday (we hope to go sledding many more times in the future!). I think we'll have to stay in seclusion for a week or more once this illness does pass to be sure its gone and that it won't go to anyone else...hopefully we'll be better by new years......
Merry Christmas everyone!

SICK SICK SICK...

There's really nothing more frustrating than having places to go, things to do, people to see ...and someone-or everyone in the family gets sick! Well, for the last 10 days, a stinking flu virus has passed through our family once and now it seems it's on it's second leg around!!! We kept thinking, hey, it's been almost 48 hours, it must be done-woo hoo! but, Noooooo, with in hours of thinking that, someone else gets sick!!! UGH! The only upside is that once you actually get the illness-it comes on suddenly and strong-it only lasts for at most 6 hours! I am just so sick of being sick-or having someone else in my family be sick...It's so hard to LOVE and ENJOY these beautiful winter days when I can't even go out to enjoy it! I am at home cleaning up puke...or puking myself! sigh....I just have to remind myself that this too shall pass...........right? I hope so....

My best friend and her family...

So, for my family- I saw this stinking cute picture of my friend Vanessa and her little family on her web page and just HAD to post it here! Vanessa and I have been best friends since we were 6! This is their first baby-who is almost 2 months old now. I am just a very proud "aunt".


Vanessa, Adam, and baby Liliana

Visit with my grandma Ballard...

My grandma Ballard and uncle Ron came for a "visit" last night so we were able to go to my sisters house to see her...here are a couple pictures. :-)



(Clockwise from top-Braeden, Ashleigh, Teriesa, and Cooper)






Cousin Cooper...ALWAYS willing to smile. He's so cute!













From left side-clockwise- Grandma Ballard, Todd, Me, Uncle Ron, Maura, Preston, and Braeden.

Do you really even care???

Once again-Maintenance came...they finally textured the ceiling-which looks bad, but said, it needs another day to dry so they MIGHT be back tomorrow!!! ARG!!! I'll call them on Friday if they don't show up tomorrow. I'd really like my bathroom back now, I'd really like my bathroom back now, I'd really like my bathroom back RIGHT NOW! (Movie-Jumping Jack Flash-"I'd really like to go home now, I'd really like to go home now, I'd really like to go home-RIGHT NOW!"...anyone? anyone seen that? GREAT movie. ha ha)

no surprises here...

Maintenance came today-but decided the bathroom wasn't ready to be textured and painted...so they added some more putty or whatever and left...they claim they will be back tomorrow morning...who knows!!! ARG!!!! WHATEVER!!!!

New earrings for Ashleigh

So, 2 years ago, Nick and I pierced Ashleigh's ears. (that's a story for another time), but it was shortly before Christmas (again) and she got clip on princess dangly earrings from "santa/Christopher" so she promptly took our her earrings to put on the clip-ons, thus allowing her newly pierced ears to close up. So...I think enough time has passed and she forgot about how much it hurt and she has been asking again for a few weeks to get them done again. Today while we were out running errands she asked at every stop if this was where we were getting them pierced at. I finally took the hint and took her to Walmart. Thankfully they had 2 people there so we had both ears done at the same time. She cried a little, but really did a great job! Right before they did it, she smiled at me and said-I'm SO excited!

Before...















A few hours after...















And the other side...











And this necklace is what she picked out as her "present" for being so brave. :) She says it's my heart and hers... (Mine is the silver one, hers is the pink one.)

update on our bathroom...

So, we had that water leak in our bathroom over 2 weeks ago! And it has not been finished YET!!! The maintenance came by on Friday to patch it, and are supposed to come by today to finish and paint. We'll see if that really happens...I am so tired of All of us having to use Ashleigh's bathroom. It'll be nice to have ours back again! grrrr.....

Bowling

We got to be subs on Corey and Laurie's bowling league. We had so much fun. Playing 3 games makes for a long night, but I improved a ton with each game-first game score-63, 2nd game-106, 3rd game-147. :) Maybe by the 8th or 9th game I would score a perfect 300? I guess I'll never know! Anyway, here are a few pictures...









Ash eating french fries-YUM!










Here's Nick-I'm sure he's upset that I am beating him! :)

Preston had pretty much free roam of the place-he loved it!

And me-ok, by now we all know I am a dork-I'll admit it, proudly! Hey, but I just bowled a spare...I was happy! :)

I guess we didn't get any pictures of corey....maybe next time. :) Thanks guys for inviting us-it was tons of fun!

Conner excited to see Preston

Ok so even though Preston is a bit of a bully to Conner you can plainly see in this video that he really loves Preston...it was so funny to see his reaction when he saw that Preston was coming in the room. Conner is such a cutie and we love having him over to "play" with Preston! Ha ha-Enjoy! :)

Red meat-SICK!

We went out to Rodizio Grill in Salt Lake on Friday night with Corey and Laurie (Ashleigh and Conner are not in the picture but were there!). It's an amazing place-You are given this wood thing that has an hour glass shape. One side is green the other is red. When you put the green side up on your table you suddenly become swarmed with servers who are offering all sorts of meats! From beef to chicken to turkey-plus some chicken hearts-and some grilled pineapple-YUM! You switch to the red side when you need a break for a few minutes. It was so much fun and although it's pretty expensive, it's-in our opinion-a necessary place to go at least once! I hope we go back many times!

Personally, I don't like red meat-especially when I can see ANY red in it. Nick on the other hand LOVES red meat...until he got this piece...the server did tell him it was really rare, but seriously, this is too rare for anyone to eat! Makes me sick just looking at it!

Basket boy

Preston has learned how to climb up pretty high thing-my bed, Ashleigh's bed, our couch, etc...today he decided to climb in to the laundry basket all by himself. Ashleigh thought it would be really funny to push him around the house and take his pictures...she took this picture...and that's me on the side. Right after this, Preston tried to get out and fell over-hurting himself. sigh...

Snow Play

We played in the snow for a few minutes when we got home from dinner last night. Preston is obsessed with snow now and gets very mad any time we don't stay to play in it...When we finally went inside last night, he cried/threw a tantrum for almost 30 minutes! That's how mad he gets....

Preston got some snow on his hand-here he is trying to "daintily" get it off...






Ya know, it's funny though-he loves playing in it, but hates being PUT in the snow....Oh-well...here he and I are playing in it...sort of.

I am weird....

I do a lot of really weird things-makes Nick crazy...but here is my latest. On our way home from dinner at Nick's parents house last night I decided to see how pictures come out when taken in the dark...amazingly, they came out pretty well...

Here is Preston showing me the melted snow on his foot...






And here is Ashleigh-always smiling when the camera comes out...seriously, if she would only show here true personality to outsiders, she would be a shoe-in (sp?) for modeling and acting gigs...but that's just my opinion.









Here's me, trying to get a picture with Nick...who is driving and was very annoyed by the bright green light that goes on before we take a picture. Sorry honey! :)










YES, got him! but then he has to go and stick him tongue out...oh-well. :) Gotta love him anyway!













And finally, here is Ashleigh trying to get a picture with Preston. He was almost asleep when I took this-oops. Who knew? It was totally dark out!

Yummy Macaroni...

Preston is just now showing an interest in using utensils so last night with my total supervision, I let him use both a fork and a spoon to eat his macaroni (first time he's ever had macaroni too!). It was funny though, he would stab the food with his spoon and scoop the food with his fork. I still can't tell which hand he will be. He used both his left and his right pretty much equally. I am still hoping he'll be a lefty like me, but only time will tell. :)

Play time with the Kunz's

We had Corey and Laurie and their son Conner over the other night. We had pizza, Cold Stone, and played Madden on X-box. It was so much fun. Here are a few pictures from that night.

Classic first meeting with Santa

This is the first year Ashleigh has not been scared of Santa. She was actually really excited to see him-3 days in a row! This particular santa was great-very engaging and asked her all sorts of questions. But, as soon as I put Preston on his lap, he started crying hysterically! It's so sad that kids are so afraid of Santa, but at least I knew to expect it! I am just so proud of Ashleigh-she kept her smile didn't concern herself with Preston one bit! Such a good girl! :) Once again-I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!!

What a difference a year makes...

Nick and I were looking over some old pictures last night and decided to see what we all looked like just 1 year ago. 1 year isn't that long, but we were shocked by how much younger ashleigh looked and of course, Preston was only 3 months old, so he looks different. It's amazing to me that we dont notice these changes on a day to day basis, but looking back it's really a shock. Anyway, here are pictures from 1 year ago-and now....