September Decorations

After all the crafting and re-crafting I did last month, I kind of needed a break this month. So my table remained the same as last year. I had ideas for other BYU football crafts, but I didn't get around to them.

I did do my shadow box. The shadow box that the Wood Connection sells for September is back-to-school things - like a ruler, school house, books, etc... But I wanted to keep with my BYU football theme, so I improvised a little. The b was a little too tall, so Rog cut it down for me. I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

Go cougars!

Playing Catch Up

Things have finally slowed down a little... for a few days anyway. So it's time to play catch up before I get even more behind!

My parents came up two weekends ago. Friday afternoon Rog went golfing with my dad and then we went to Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner. My parents watched Corby while we did some initiatories in the Provo temple.

Saturday was the BYU vs. Utah game. Before the game Grandma Lori shared her Jamba Juice with Corby. He loved it!

We made a quick stop at the BYU Bookstore where Grandma Lori bought him his first BYU hat! And then we went over to our family tailgate where Corby's Great Grandpa Ririe gave him a BYU flag. He loved that too!

While we were at the bookstore, I couldn't resist buying myself a new hat too. You can't see it in this picture, but there's a Y on the other side. New hat twinners!

I made these cookies for the tailgate. They were delicious! I'm pretty sure it was the buttercream frosting that made them though. I actually wasn't all that impressed with the sugar cookie recipe. My MIL's is just as good and actually easier to work with.

Because the game was so late, Grandma Lori took Corby home and put him to bed.

We wore our "friends don't let friends go to the University of Utah" shirts that Jared made for us for Christmas last year.

After one particularly bad play, I decided to go get us a blue raspberry snow cone. Because snow cones make everything better, right? Wrong... I don't think we could have eaten enough snow cones to make that game better. But it was still a good snow cone. (And look, a picture where you can actually see the Y on my hat!)

We bought season tickets (not all-sport passes) because we didn't really go to any other sports last year. (Other than 1 basketball game.) We bought the cheapest season tickets available and they were cheaper than all-sport passes. We got them with our friends, Bill and Mariah. It was actually Mariah's first football game... I don't know why we are smiling because at this point in the game there was nothing to smile about. At least she has probably already gotten her worst football game ever out of the way! They don't get worse than that!

We stayed until the bitter end! It was the longest, most painful game ever. Seriously. We haven't lost that bad to Utah since 1922! Final score: 10-54.

Moving on...

On Monday night Mariah and I canned peaches. We started around 6:30 and didn't finish until 12:30! Rog says I'm not allowed to can during the week anymore - only on Saturdays when I can start in the morning!

On Tuesday I started taking a Photoshop class through Spanish Fork's Community School. I learned a lot from Jared, but this class should be really good for me.

On Thursday I had my dinner group. I've mentioned it before, but I didn't really explain it. It's a group of Mariah's friends that get together on the 4th Thursday of every month to have dinner. She invited me to join the group a few months ago and it's been so fun. We take turns hosting. The host does the main course and everyone else signs up for the sides, drink, and dessert. This month the theme was Chinese. My MIL has an egg roll recipe she is famous for, so I decided to do that. They turned out just as good as hers - I was so proud!

On Friday night we had the BYU vs. UCF (University of Central Florida) game. For the tailgate I made Sloppy Joes and my Peach Crisp. Usually Rog doesn't like Sloppy Joes, but these really were very good.

Grandma Lori wasn't around to watch Corby, so we took him in for the first half. We were a little nervous about how he would do, but he did GREAT! I think he was a little intimidated by all the noise. He sat on my lap for 95% of the time with his little hands holding mine as tightly as he could! He did loosen up a little bit towards the end of the half, but he only ventured as far as his dad's lap.

I took him home at halftime because it was his bedtime. We had heard that UCF was good, so we were a little worried it would be a repeat of the Utah game. But fortunately we pulled out a win! 24-17! I got text updates from Rog and then went right to bed when the game was over - completely exhausted from a busy week. Traffic was bad coming home and he had to stop to get milk, so Rog didn't crawl into bed until 11:30 - 2 hours after I had gone to bed!

On Saturday I went to a baby shower for one of my second cousins on my mom's side. Her mom, LaNae, was the host. She is my mom's cousin who sells Vinyl quotes on Etsy. (I've mentioned her shop before.) She is always posting cute ideas for everything on her Facebook page, so I knew it would be an adorable shower. It did not disappoint!

After that I met Rog and Corb at our BIL, Phat Tony's 25th birthday party. I knew it was at a park in Mapleton, but Rog wasn't answering his phone. Luckily I drove right to it!

Last night we went to dinner at Dave and Julie's. Julie is Roger's cousin who lives in Spanish Fork. She has 6 perfect kids (ranging from 13 years to 8 months) and her husband is the bishop. Every time we go over there, I'm in complete awe of how perfect her house is, how well-behaved her kids are, and how delicious her food is!

And that brings us to the present time! Phew, congrats if you made it this far!

15 Months

The Corb at 15 Months:

*Takes our hand (or finger or piece of clothing) and takes us where he wants to go.

*Likes to put on our shoes and walk around.

*Takes his vitamin without a fight. It only took 9 months...

*Says ball, mama, and dad. Repeats a few other words back to us when we say them, but doesn't say them on his own just yet.

*Likes to push the button to open and close the garage and the doorbell.

*Likes to sit in the corner of our couch and surround himself with pillows.

*Lifts his legs and steps into his shorts and pants.

*Kicks balls.

*Likes to put the cookie shapes in his cookie jar and is getting pretty good at stacking blocks.

*Knows where his hat and shoes go. I found him like this the other day. Hat on (sideways) and trying to step into his shoes.

*Likes to play with me while I'm pushing him in the running stroller through the clear cover on top.

*Had kind of a rough month as far as sleeping goes. He'd start to get back on track and then something else would get him off. Lots of early mornings and short naps. One day he was so tired he fell asleep while I was pushing him in the swing (he had just refused to take a second nap). Luckily he has finally gotten back into a good schedule in the past week. He's been waking up at a normal time and taking good naps. Yesterday he took the longest nap of his life - 2 1/2 hours. (You moms who have kids who take long naps need to be grateful! It's a good day when he takes a 2 hour nap.)

Hello There

Yeah I know, long time, no blog... This week has been C-R-A-Z-Y! All month it seemed like I had nothing going on and then this week hits and I've had something every single day! Between canning peaches, visiting teaching (all 4 of my sisters), setting up meals/taking a meal to a new mom in our ward, starting a weekly Photoshop class, and dinner group (tonight - praying that my egg rolls turn out), I feel like I've had no time to do anything (including sleep). And this weekend is equally busy.

I have a few posts in the works - one about last weekend and the awful BYU game and one about Corby turning 15 months old last Saturday. I don't know exactly when I'll get to those - hopefully soon. But for now I just thought I'd let you know we're alive and well.

And because no post is complete without a picture of Corby the Corbs, here are a few silly ones for your viewing pleasure.

September 11, 2001

*I'm way late posting this, but I went to all the effort to scan this picture from my scrapbook (on Sunday when I meant to do this post). So I thought I'd do it anyway.

September 11, 2001 was 10 years ago. I was a sophomore in high school. That morning I had cheer first period. I remember sitting in the dance studio waiting for our cheer coach to come in. Robyn came in screaming at us and asked, "How are you all talking and laughing? Don't you know what happened?!" Most of us hadn't heard yet, so she turned on the tv. It was a surreal experience because I had just been in New York City two months earlier on a tour with my dance studio. While we were at the Statue of Liberty, we took this picture. The quality is pretty crappy, but if you look closely you can see the twin towers in for top left corner.

Since then I have been back twice. I went the summer after my senior year (2004) again with my dance studio. We walked around Ground Zero and even though it had been almost 3 years, it was still just a bunch of ruins.

And Rog and I went in April of 2008 after I graduated from BYU.We went to a temporary memorial that is right off Ground Zero.

That's Ground Zero behind us. (Rog will kill me for saying this, but wow, look at all that hair!)

I know I will never forget that day. God Bless America!

Weekend Already?

Because we drove home from Colorado on Tuesday, Wednesday felt like Monday. And then when Friday rolled around, we were wondering how it was the weekend already.

Saturday morning we helped KD and Phat Tony move (from one part of the Salt Lake Valley to another). They moved to an apartment complex that is practically around the corner from Wood Connection, so of course we had to make a stop there before driving back home. And then we watched the BYU game with Bill and Mariah. We don't have ESPN, so we mooched off them. But we did make them dinner, so I'd say it was a fair trade. We only watched the first half because we had the adult session of stake conference that night. Rog went with Bill and Mariah while I stayed home with the Corb who was not welcome. We were winning the game at halftime, but Texas ended up coming back to win 17-16.

On Sunday we had stake conference in the morning. Our church is usually from 1-4, so we felt like we had so much time to chill and do whatever after church. It was nice!!

Corby is obsessed with balls right now (has been for awhile). He found an orange in our fridge that looked a lot like his orange ball, so then he had 2 orange balls. (Until I threw the orange away today because it was getting really bruised and gross from him throwing it all the time!)

Sunday night I gave Rog the haircut. We've been saying for awhile that we should embrace the fact that he is going bald and just buzz the whole thing. I used a 3 all around and I think it looks so much better. And it is so much easier too! I think this way it blends better, so it doesn't look so thick on the sides and so sparce on the top.

On Monday our friend Amera turned 30, so I made her these cookies. I was pretty proud of how they turned out! And Amera if you're reading this, Rog says you don't look a day over 12. So don't even worry about it!

Goodbye Fred, Hello Daisy

This post has been a long time coming. I was waiting for my parents to find a picture from when I first got Fred, but after much searching they were unable to find it. It was before the digital picture age, so I'm sure they searched through many many boxes of pictures. I swear I remember taking a picture - I didn't mean to send them on a wild goose chase!

I got Fred about a month after I turned 16 - so in April of 2002 which was also when I got my license. I wanted a blue Honda Civic, but I didn't want to drive around our family minivan anymore, so I settled on a green one. He was the 1999 model and had about 36,000 miles on him.

I was one of the first of our friends to get my own car and we were all sick of taking the bus. So I picked up Tiffany, Zack, Spencer, and Nate on my way to school for the last few months of our sophomore year of high school.

We originally called Fred the "Gangster Vehicle" because his windows were really tinted. For the first few years I owned Fred, it seemed like every year we did the safety inspection, we had to take a little more of the tint off, so he would pass.

I finally settled on the name Fred because my senior year Emily and I had imaginary boyfriends we would talk about when everyone else on cheer was talking about their real boyfriends. Mine was Fred and Emily's was Billy Bob. (Yes, I know this makes us sound really cool.)

Fred was our escape vehicle for many a devious adventure. On more than one occasion, we filled the trunk up with toilet paper and got all our guy friends' houses.

Fred was also the location of my first kiss. It was with Nate Edwards the summer after I got Fred.

The summer of 2005 when I was living in St. George, Fred was in a bad accident. I was driving to work and got hit while making a left turn. An older gentleman wasn't paying attention and totally ran a red light. His insurance company paid to fix Fred, but he was in the shop for over a month. They gave me a rental car, but they wouldn't allow me to take it up to BYU when school started. So I had to take my mom's minivan and she drove the rental while we were waiting for Fred to be fixed.

Fred was never quite the same after that. His gas gauge didn't go below the point it was at when I was hit. So even when it was totally empty and the gas light would come on, it still said I had 1/4 tank left.

Fred made lots of drives back and forth between St. George and BYU. And he made the trip to Laramie, Wyoming when a group of us went for the BYU vs. Wyoming football game my sophomore year of college. This is one of my most fond memories from college - such a fun trip!

Then I met Rog. He had a car of his own, but we almost always took my car because my parents paid for my gas. He even had his own key to Fred after we got engaged. This picture was taken when a group of us came to visit Rog in Colorado for the BYU vs. Air Force football game my junior year of college.

We returned Rog's car to his family (so Taylor could drive it when he got home from his mission) which made Fred our main vehicle. (We had Cliff too.)

The summer of 2008, Fred hit 100,000 miles!

When we got Meg, Rog became the main driver of Fred. About that time, the air conditioner broke which made driving Fred in the summer downright miserable.

Of course Rog did have to compete for driving time in Fred when Corby got big enough to drive. :)

Fred was a good car ! He had 129,000 miles on him when we sold him, so that's 93,000 miles and 9 years worth of memories. I will miss him and I will always hold a soft spot for him in my heart!

As we say goodbye to Fred, we welcome Daisy to our family. Daisy was my grandma's car. She's a 2003 Subaru with only 28,000 miles on her. (She was brand new when my grandma got her and she only drove her around Salt Lake City.) She has leather seats, cruise control, a sun roof, electronic everything - basically she was the top of the line when my grandma got her. So you can see why we jumped at the opportunity when my grandma decided to get a new car. And she gave us a GREAT deal.

(When I was finally putting this post together I realized I needed a picture of Daisy, so we went out and took this one. It was raining, so it's not the best picture. If you look closely you can see Corby standing in the front seat.)

Goodbye Fred! And hello Daisy!

Labor Day Weekend

For Labor Day weekend we went to Colorado to visit the Phillips. We stayed with Kenzie and Irving who just moved to Aurora from California. We drove there Friday and then the fun began.

Saturday:

Breakfast at Village Inn

Denver Aquarium

{I was happy to see they had otters! They are always my favorite!}

{Corby liked looking at the fish, but he loved the "Coral Crawl" best.}

{Though he was pretty interested in these fish.}

Papa Johns Pizza for dinner

Watched BYU beat Ole Miss (recorded from earlier in the day)

Sunday:

Church at the Highlands Ranch ward

Nap time for Corby at G&G Phillips'

Dinner at Rex and Edda's

{All 4 Phillips grandsons were together for the first time ever. This photo shoot was going pretty poorly until Rog stepped in with his juggling skills and saved the day!}

Monday:

Breakfast with Jenn and Evan Bergam (and their cute little Dean) at Mimi's Cafe

{I was so disappointed we didn't get a picture because it was one of the highlights of our trip. They were in our married student ward at BYU. Jenn was a Junior Core grader with me and we became really good friends, so it was fun to catch up with them!}

Picnic lunch with the Tenneys

{Corby kept climbing up on these chairs and relaxing. Funny kid!}

Golf for Rog

Dinner at Olive Garden

We decided to have Rog take off Tuesday and drive back then, so we didn't have to drive home on Labor Day which was of course an excellent decision.

{Corby loved visiting Maverik and Charlie. He would have spent his whole trip outside with them if we would have let him.}

{And he had fun playing with Jaxon too. He gave him lots and lots of hugs.}

We had a great time with the Phillips clan!