Not Cool

I have always liked to listen to the radio really loud. I want to be able to belt out the lyrics without being able to hear when I don't hit the correct notes. I don't just want to listen to the music...I want to feel it.

Growing up, my mom and I would always bicker about the volume of the radio. I would want it louder. She would want it softer. It used to drive me crazy!!! I told myself that when I became a mom I would let my kids listen to the radio nice and loud.

Nothing has changed. When I'm in the car I still like the music loud. HOWEVER - I'm not the cool mom I thought I would be. Whenever I turn the volume up Vance yells at me to turn that song down or yells how he doesn't want music right now.

Seriously son?! Now it isn't my mom telling me to turn it down - it's my freaking 2 year old! You are supposed to think I am cool because I like loud music. Maybe you'll appreciate my coolness when you're older...

Blogbook 2010

Blogbook 2010 just arrived! I love it!!! I feel like this is my best book yet! Here's a little sample -

This is a labor of love because I put SSOOOOO many hours into this book, but it was worth it!

Ice Cream Truck

Vance had has first encounter with the Ice Cream Truck while we were at the park the other day.
The funny thing is he could hardly figure out how to eat it. He is popsicle retarded!

He finally figured it out!

I was tempted to buy myself a Hyperstripe - those are the best popsicles ever! All I kept thinking was "You're 24...do you really need a popsicle from the ice cream truck?"

Maybe next time...

Spoiled Rotten

My husbands spoils. me. rotten. SERIOUSLY! I don't know what I did to deserve him, but he does nice things for me left and right. He recently gave me a deck of cards labeled "Alli's Pregnancy Deck." First let me start by saying Chad came up with the idea and assembled them all by himself (my sister just helped him cut some stuff out).
How cute are these cards?! He even inked the edges of the cards for a nice finishing touch.

Each of the cards say something different and they are all things that make my life easier. Here are some pictures of what they look like -

Here's a few of my favorite cards (he gave me like 25 different ones)

-Bending over puts too much pressure on my baby. Will you pick up?

-Growing a baby is wearing me out, I need a nap!

-I'm so sick of our son. It's your turn!

-Cleaning isn't good for the baby. I think you should do it!

-The heat in the kitchen worries me, could you make dinner?

-This card is good for one food craving late night grocery store trip.

-The soapy water makes me sick, will you do the dishes?

He said the cards are reusable and don't expire until a month after I have the baby. These cards are worth a million dollars and lots of brownie points in my book!

Chad had a cute surprise for me the other day when I got home. I have been craving Jolly Ranchers lately. It's the perfect small treat. I came home to this -

It says "To mommy! Love, Vance. Every mom deserves a "jolly" pregnancy!" Underneath it says "PS I needed one!" because Vance couldn't wait for me to get home to have a treat. Isn't that so thoughtful from Vance (well let's be honest...Chad!). You are amazing honey and I appreciate all you do for me. I hope feel as loved as you make me feel!

Party #1

In our family it seems like birthday celebrations last a month. Vance's birthday isn't until February 13th, but he already had his first party at January's FHE with my family. He was pretty excited, but really had no clue it was his birthday (we haven't been talking about it)
He got lots of Cars stuff!

His favorite was a Chick Hicks diesel and pit crew. It is a prized possession at our house.

More Cars -

You would think eventually you would have enough Cars stuff that he wouldn't want/care about any new things but not yet. He still loves every new car even if he already had 3 of them. The other day we had a friend over to play. I was telling Vance the friend would be over in just a little bit and he asked if he could put all his Cars stuff in my room so he didn't have to share. Hopefully age 3 will be the year of sharing!

Geocaching

My mom got a handheld GPS for Christmas and has been dying to try it out. She's convinced all of the family will love geocaching. My parents came over the other night and Chad and I decided to humor her. We went out to Lake Las Vegas with two different coordinates. Here we are ready to find our first cache -

Vance was so excited for everyone to help him look for treasure.

We couldn't find the first one so we followed the second set of coordinates which took us here -

We didn't find the second one either. This is what I thought of geocaching-

Since then we tried it again during the day and have actually found what we were looking for. The kids have been having a blast...I guess my mom was right. I hate it when that happens.

Disney on Ice

We took Vance and Colton to Disney on Ice last week for their birthdays. It was a huge hit!
We stopped by their favorite restaurant to get some dinner first - Taco Bell. Gotta love a cheap date!

Here they are ready for the show to start! We sat on the first row in the balcony and it was perfect. They didn't have anyone in front of them and could stand the whole time.

Vance waved the entire show - literally. Earlier in the day out of nowhere he said, "Mom - I'm going to wave to Mickey Mouse like this!" He then demonstrated it for me. He stayed true to his word and waved lots and lots and LOTS!!!

Colton on the other hand sat completely mesmerized the entire show. He hardly moved a muscle.

The three rugrats: Colton, Vance, and Blake!

Chad and I with Vance, Blake, and Colton. We had some other adult friends there too, but we didn't try for a group picture. It was hard enough to get these three boys to look at the camera. It was fun to go with other adults though!

This is how Blake, Vance, and Colton spent most the night. They stood right next to each other and rarely turned their heads away from the ice.

The favorite part of the evening for both boys was definitely when the Toy Story characters came out. Vance is convinced Bullseye was there (which he wasn't) and Colton quickly decided Bullseye must be sleeping. Gotta love kids' imaginations right?

Vance was mesmerized the whole show and continued to wave to anyone he thought might be looking his way. He definitely thought the night was magical!

Colton was all smiles at the end of the show!

It was a fun night and makes me so excited for Disneyland next month!

Spoiled Boy

I was trying to kill some time before I met up with my mom one day. Colton and Vance were bored and we were in the area where two of my sisters work. We picked up two Diet Cokes for them and when to say hi. First we went to see Leslie who works for a dentist. Here they are showing off their teeth -
Leslie gave them each a bag full of toothpaste, tooth brushes, stickers, and toys. They were in heaven. However - later in the car they both started crying hysterically. I turned around to see empty toothpaste bottles and they were drooling/spitting out toothpaste everywhere. Thanks a lot Aunt Leslie!

Next we took Aunt Jennie her soda. She had chocolate and suckers to give them! You can guarantee we didn't make it out of the salon before they were already eating their goodies ;)

Later that same week my niece Briton came to my parent's house with lots of goodies for Vance. Those two are buddies and she always spoils him. She scored at Target clearance and got him Cars and Thomas stuff.

How awesome are these slippers?!

We're so lucky to have so many people so close to spoil Vance. He loves it too!

Some light baking

Yes - there is a small bun baking in my oven! We are expecting Baby #2 sometime around August 12. I am 10 weeks right now. We are SO excited and can't wait for our new addition.

I had my first ultrasound yesterday and was able to hear the baby's heartbeat. Things seem much more real now. Here's our little jellybean:

I was anxious for our ultrasound because at my last appointment my doctor said I felt further along. I wasn't too surprised because with Vance I had a condition called polyhydramnios. It's basically a fancy word that means when I'm pregnant I have WAY too much amniotic fluid. It results in a HUGE uterus. When I had Vance at 36 weeks my uterus was measuring at 47 weeks (that's 7 weeks overdue for those of you who are counting!). The doctors said it could happen every pregnancy so I was prepared.

So when the doc said I was big I reminded him of my last pregnancy. He then continued to say, "Well it could be that or there could me more than one in there." What?! You must be kidding! It was a long week waiting for my ultrasound, but I was SO relieved to see there was just one healthy baby in there! It does however look like there is already excess fluid. See the baby and the big pocket of black? That's the extra fluid.

I am prepared to be gigantic again, but as far as I'm concerned there are way worse problems out there. We are just praying for a healthy baby. I can handle the rest.

So far I've felt okay. I am more tired than I have ever been in my life. I have been trying hard to find the motivation to do anything I deem optional (cooking, cleaning, getting ready, etc). Hopefully this will explain the decreased blogging that I'm sure will continue. Luckily for me I have the most amazing husband ever (more to come on that later...he deserves his own post!).

The good news is no throwing up. I've preferred a pretty bland diet lately. I think I should buy stock in Rice Krispies I've been eating them so much.

Well that's way more than I intended to write and I'm sure way more than you care to read. Oh well ;) Congratulations to us!!!

Love for Reading

Last year one of my new year's resolutions was to read a book a month. I far surpassed that goal and re-discovered my love for reading! Chad recently got me a Nook and I'm LOVING it!!! I thought I would share some of the books I read last year if anyone was looking for something to read.

Quick and fun reads:

Shopaholic series
Undomestic Goddess
Hunger Game series
Princess Academy
Book of a Thousand Days
Book of Bayern series (starts with Goose Girl)
Paranormalcy

A little heavier:

Prisoner of Tehran
Water for Elephants (a little in appropriate in places, but i still liked it)
These is My Words
The Other Boleyn Girl
The Book Thief
The Help
A Thousand Splendid Suns

These are books that people have recommended to me and are on my reading list. If you've read them let me know what you think!

The Thirteenth Tale
Bitter is the New Black
The Glass Castle
Gods and Kings
The Forgotten Garden
The Last Jihad
Something Borrowed
Pillars of the Earth
The Kite Runner
House Rules
Red Tent
The Maze Runner
The Grand Sophy
Graceling
One for the Money

If you have any book suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!!!

50 Cent Bowling

Sams Town has 50 cent bowling on Friday mornings so my sisters and I took the kids. It was a lot of fun for not a lot of money! I'm too lazy to switch the order of the pictures so we'll start by a picture of the final scoreboard. Allison - 117 and Leslie - 107. How sweet the taste of victory is!
Vance's balls took FOREVER to reach the pins. Can you tell by the way he is just laying there?

Aunt Leslie finally decided to help him a little and move things along.

Vance wouldn't let his orange ball out of his sight. He also wouldn't let anybody use the ball or touch it for that matter. We definitely need to work on sharing at our house.

Here's some of the cousins. They did pretty dang good bowling!

We will definitely make more trips to Friday morning bowling at Sams Town!

Goodbye 2010

We had a great year in 2010. We didn't have a lot of together time with Chad's schedule being so busy but I feel like we made the time we had together really count! We're grateful for the stability we were able to enjoy. Of course no job is great everyday, but it's such a relief knowing we have a paycheck coming and don't have to worry about paying for the necessities. We have loved living in Henderson and have made so many great friends.

I'm really proud of us for making so much progress with our New Year's Resolutions from 2010. Of course we didn't do great with all of them, but I really feel like we created some new habits for ourselves this past year!

Here's the highlights of our 2010 progress:

Chad -
Chad rocked school this year. This past year he really changed his studying habits and it has paid off. This last semester he got 4 A's and 1 B while working full-time!!! Chad also wanted to find a new hobby and has taken up shooting lately. I think it's great he has found something he loves to do.

Allison -
I have re-discovered my love for reading. All those years in school, I pretty much quit reading for pleasure and read only textbooks or nothing at all. I have read tons of good books this year (post coming soon) and I can't wait to continue! I also found a hobby for myself in tennis. I haven't been playing much in the cold, but can't wait to get back to it this spring.

Vance -
Vance is always learning new things and keeps us on our toes. He has started learning how to help out around the house and usually does it with a smile. His vocabulary is always expanding and he rarely stops talking. He is a social butterfly and talks to literally anyone who is willing to listen.

As a family we have tried hard to make our time together count. We have been trying to turn off the TV and computer and DO things together. We had fun this year with our monthy pizza and movie nights and think it is a tradition we will continue!

We also religiously tracked our spending this entire year!!! I can't say we lived within our budget every month, but we made serious improvements in the spending department.

I can't wait to make new goals for 2011. Goodbye 2010!

Opp Village & Bellagio - Round 2

This first picture has nothing to do with the rest of the post but I wanted to document Chad and his sister Mariah going on a bike ride together. I kind of feel like Mariah is the one who really got everyone into biking.
Now on to the post. We went to Opportunity Village with the Waldron's and had so much fun. Vance was the only kid in the group so Chad and I got to relax while everyone catered to his whims - FABULOUS!!!

The balloon guy made him an orange reindeer. Does it get any better than that?

Aunt Sierra and Vance with Santa.

Our little family in the carriage. Don't you think it suits me?

Vance had to take a picture with quite literally every character we passed.

The whole gang!

Next we went to the Bellagio. We went through the atrium, but it was packed so we didn't take any pictures. Every time I take Vance to the Bellagio we stop listen to the magnificent piano players. I want my kids to appreciate music. Well this pianist was so cute with Vance. He kept smiling/winking/waving to him and Vance just ate it up!

Then we went outside to watch the water show. It was freezing, but beautiful as always.

Thanks Waldron's for a fun night!