Family, Friend & RITL Weekend 2008

This past weekend I was able to make a trip out to Utah to have my annual RITL weekend with three of my girlfriends and also was able to visit with my old college roomie and my mom.
To the Willoughby's and the Dibbs: Originally I was planning on contacting you so that I could drop by and see you (if you were around) but due to some things that have happened this past month my mom came out and spent time with me instead. The next time we make it out we will be sure to visit! Thanks to my in-laws for watching Fisher during the days and keeping Todd company while I was gone.

Me and my first college roommate, Michelle.

Thanks for bringing Kennedi along. She is so adorable! It was great seeing you :)

Okay Amy, Michele, and BreAnn...at least our hair wasn't the same!
Mom, thank you so much for meeting up with me. I love you!



Amy and Justin got us all excited thinking we were going to hear the neighbors fight. Apparently they put on quite the show. It never happened. Here we are listening through the walls when we thought a fight was brewing. It turned out to be the TV.

Amy and Michele.

We all smelled like the Melting Pot that night and the next morning from the steam.

Me and Bre.

Amy & Michele doing things "Utah" style....ha ha :)

Thanks for putting up with all of us girls invading your apartment Justin! You were quite the trooper. Hopefully we will be allowed back into your house one day.

We had a lot less pictures compared to last year but this is one of the few that had all four of us in it.

HIGHLIGHTS:

-"I will never forget you letting me borrow your underwear."

-"I wouldn't say that I have a thing for feet or anything...Foot fetishes are a little weird."

-Going to the store for groceries and coming back with a lot of ice cream, cookie dough, Hostess Cupcakes, pudding, donuts (crumb & chocolate), Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cheez-Its.

-There is a wait for about 45-60 minutes. (You don't want to tell that to a group of hungry girls, two of whom are pregnant.)

-Andy Bernard flopping in the water on the Beach Day episode of The Office.

-Amy, Michele, and BreAnn laughing at my mom and me as we walked up to them in the mall.

-"Excuse me, can you tell us where the Pioneer Theatre is?"

-"Your friends were up really late last night."

-Crowding the bathroom to get a peek at Michele's new bra...pregnancy is amazing.

-Amy sitting in Micaela's car seat.

-Eating, Eating, and more eating.

-Justin, Amy & Michele on the air mattress.

-"Excuse me, we have to drive my grandmother over to _______street and we are on E. Can you lend me some money?"

-"We do take appointments you know."

-Amy going undercover to touch up her nails which she smudged twice before she even left the building.

-Four girls running through the cold rain in their cheap-o flip flops, with their pants rolled up, trying not to mess up their toe nails as they are five minutes late for massages.

As always, I had a fun time with you girls. Can't wait for next year!

Twilight Mania

For those of you who are around me or talk me on a regular basis, you know that I have an unhealthy obsession with the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer. Some exciting things have been happening in regards to the series lately: Breaking Dawn, the fourth book of the series, has a release date of August 2nd and the first picture of the Cullens for the upcoming movie, "Twilight" was released this morning. Hooray! I thought I would share the love with those who read our blog :)

Poor Jasper. (Back left) He got the shaft in the hair department.

Thankfully I am not alone in my obesession. My friend Melanie (who is just about as crazy as I am when it comes to these books) and I decided to throw a Twilight party. The idea started out as kind of a joke but in the end it was a fun night full of a lot of laughs. Thanks to those of you who attended. I know some (if not most) were just there to support their crazed friends and we appreciate it. For those of you reading this who love the books and were unable to attend I am sure there will be another party in August around the release of the new book.

Our food had a theme based off the books.

Melanie made these hilarious "Victoria" sugar cookies. The idea of the cookie was that in order to kill a vampire you have to rip them apart...

I saw some gingerbread cookies on another blog that made me want to have a Twilight party. These were our sugar cookie interpretation that Melanie made. (Melissa- I don't remember your friend's name or else I would give her credit :)

There was dark red punch...the theme being somehwat obvious, being that it is a book about vampires.

I made little cards with quotes from the books to explain how the food went along with our theme. These are a few of the examples. Sorry for the bluriness.

Veggies for the Vegetarians

I made some Puppy Chow to represent the werewolves.


Aside from food there were two games: "You know you are a Twilight fan if.." and a Twilight Quiz. We also had a t-shirt contest. The winners walked away with a prize package of a Ghirardelli Twilight Dark Chocolate Bar, a mixed cd of music from Stephenie's play lists for the books (the cd being shaped like a moon), a package of Eclipse gum and a Twilight bookmark.

Our T-shirt contest winners: April & Martha.

"Change me Edward!" and

"Edward, I'll be your Bella!"

This was the back of their t-shirt. I know who to hire when I go to the book signing for Breaking Dawn :)

These were our runner ups: Heidi and her friend, Kristin, who was visiting Heidi from out of state. We are glad she came :)

"I'd rather be bitten"

Melanie: the co-host

The back of Melanie's. It makes me laugh :)

This was my last minute shirt. Melanie and I were smoked by the competition :)

Go Edward!

Meredith: Monster Magnet!

Melissa with her "Hot Eats Cool Treats"

Me and Melanie.

Thanks again to everyone for making it a fun night!

Fisher. Fisher. Fisher.

I have been wrestling with Fisher over the mouse while trying to finish this post. The end result is that I am too lazy to do a spell check since that would mean that many more minutes of trying to win the mouse from Fisher. Warning you in advance.

***

As you might have noticed, I've slacked in the blogging department lately. Most of that has been due to Fisher being sick for about a week and part of it is due to some really good books I have been reading. I decided I should probably give the granparents some new pictures of Fisher.

You will be so excited to know that I re-organized Fisher's closet. After the holidays he was in need of a major closet overhaul.

We have begun pre-potty training. Fisher was sick for a while and now I am not sure I am up for it just yet. I have a girls weekend coming up in a few weeks so I am thinking after I get back we might get serious about poo and pee. We'll see. In the mean time Fisher enjoys sitting on the potty and using all of the toilet paper while he pretends to wipe.


I did buy him one package of little undies. His little bottom was so stinkin' cute running around in his little stripes :) I couldn't resist having him try on a pair.



Fisher is determined to dress himself these days although he hasn't quite gotten the hang of the whole process yet. He normally ends up frustrated and throwing the nearest object into the wall or something to that effect...I need to work on my patience.




The good thing about starting potty training soon is that Fisher is well aware of what to do when he has an accident in his big boy undies...



Fisher is also into playing with bugs. Unfortunately for the bugs, they don't have quite as much fun as Fisher. This particular episode had me screaming like a little girl while Fisher ran after me holding the cricket. (Melissa- you might recall the phone conversation we had during this episode.) This was the end result of the play session.



Fisher spends a lot of time coloring. What he enjoys more than that is peeling the crayon wrappers. I am constantly picking up/vacuuming crayon wrappers.

In one of my birthday packages there was a present wrapped in this yellow bow that Fisher became obesssed with...until it magically disappeared into the garbage can one day. Ooops! He constantly wanted the bow tied around him in one way or another. This was style no. 1.

And this was style no. 2. Now do you understand why the bow had to disappear??

Due to the throwing of toys and other random objects into walls and the occasional aim at Mom and Dad, Fisher has spent a lot of time in the time out chair. (The picture above was in the same location.) Hopefully one day he will realize this is not a fun place to be and not the happy singing chair like he thinks it is. Although, by the looks of these pictures he must have some clue by now.

Fisher has been sick lately. This particular episode was something he ate instead of being sick. We think this must have been the case because after he made a mess all over Todd, Fisher was a like a new person and went merrily on his way with no other problems. I mostly put this one up to show the joys of parenting. We must loves our children a lot to still love them after this :)

Last week Fisher had a fever induced seizure while I was home alone with him. This picture was taken about an hour before. He was only running a slight fever at this point in time and insisted on cuddling with his blankets on the couch (which probably didn't help with the fever.) It isn't quite as hard now that we know everything is fine. I can look back without crying and feeling that horrible pit in my stomach. I am not one to bare my heart and soul on my blog and to get extrememly sentimental but I can honestly say that I have never in my life been as scared as I was during those 30-60 seconds while the seizure was occuring. I had no idea why it was happening or what the end results were going to be. This experience has made me so grateful that Fisher has overall been a very healthy little boy. It also made us grateful for our family and our friends. We have been so blessed with wonderful people in our lives and we are very mindful of this. He finally seems to be over his fever, bronchitis and the ear aches. The cough and runny nose are gone, he is sleeping through the night again...it is good to have our little Fisher back after a long week :)

Colorado Part II: Fun in Denver

We had a chance to see a little of Denver while we were in town for my cousin's wedding. Todd and I would move there in a heartbeat!

Fisher's cousin's Chandler & Abby.

The night before the wedding we had a chance to drive up into the mountains to this HUGE pizza place called Beau Jos. It was really good pizza...I wouldn't mind eating some of it right now, now that I am thinking about it.

One of the highlights from the trip was one night Robbie, Erin, Todd & myself went cruising in our minivan to go check out down town Denver. It was a lot of fun and there were a lot of places to go see. The first stop was Invesco field where the Broncos play...I am hoping I am right on that...

A picture of all the bronco statues out front.

There was a little fox running along side the road as we were driving out of the stadium.

Next stop was the Pepsi Center where the Nuggets play.

Then we headed down town. Doesn't it look like a good time? We must have been having a little too much fun in the minivan.

Coors field where the Rockies play.

At one point while down town we were at a stop sign and there were tons of people walking around in between clubs. Todd, being Todd, had his head hanging out the window staring at people like there was something wrong with him...we thought we were going to get beat up or mugged or something along those lines. It makes for good memories now. What made it even better is that we were blasting our old school rap in our happenin' minvan with the windows rolled down. Man, we sure are cool.

I am not sure what building this was but I really liked the lights on it. I am sure Ken will be able to tell me what it is.

My little bro, Robbie, recently got a job with a construction company that likes to make very eclectic buildings....This was one of them. (They are not all like this. I think this was some museum or something like that.) My favorite is the giant broom and dust pan in front of the building.

We found a cute little english pub where we decided to take pictures in the muggle entrance to the Ministry of Magic.

Fisher worn out at the end of the trip. This was on the shuttle on the way to the airport.