We're getting a Cheesecake Factory!!
No one thought it would happen. . . but low and behold, they're putting one in Murray! Check it out!!
It says it's opening in November!
And that is a lot of exclamation points in one post. . .
Can you tell I have a love for the Cheesecake Factory?
I remember very clearly the day I went to meet my first nephew in the hospital in Provo. It was fall (obviously) and we were in the middle of working on my first production of Sweeney Todd up at the castle. I had a pretty small window of time between work and rehearsal to go over to the hospital to visit Natalie and her new baby.
I have to admit, I was pretty enamored with him from the very beginning. I have always loved the role of doting aunt and, being first, he has always held a very special place in my heart. I was going through a really crappy emotional time when he came into this world and his tiny little self was a perfect reflection to me, at that point, of what real unconditional love looked like.
I wish I had digital pictures of his first couple of years. I was still in a film stage back then. But here are just a few of our moments together over the last 6 years. There are lots more out there. And, some day, he's definitely going to grow out of his willingness to have his picture taken with me. . . but in the mean time. . .
Happy Birthday, Bug!
Christmas 2004
Spring 2005
Fall 2005
Birthday #4-- 2005
Summer 2007To me, conference weekend is a fabulous excuse to stay in my pajamas for 2 straight days. This is especially crucial to me in my 9 months pregnant state. Unfortunately, I ended up getting dressed both days. . . but it was still a good weekend.
Here are a few pictures as evidence:
Ben and I played with Aubrey in the kitchen
All the cousins together.
Batman paid us a visit
Mom & Baby
Ethan's birthday is tomorrow, so we celebrated a bit early.Assuming my due date is when the baby comes (and when does that happen?), I have 18 days to go. . .
FREAKY!
I am now in my 3rd cubicle here at XanGo, though the first one only lasted a couple of weeks and barely counted.
I have moved from a row of all girls to a row of 2 Mels and 4 boys. Quiet boys.
Life is going to be a little bit different here at work. . .
Am I the only one who is a little bit skeptical about this?
I have no doubt that these people can act the parts, but I'm definitely not sure they can sing them. Especially after this trailer. It's tough music! And if all of them Rex Harrison their way through it, I will have to cry.
Johnny is fabulous, but based on this, I don't think he can sing it.
I hope I'm wrong.
Everyone said this was the one show you HAD to watch this fall on TV. . .
They were right. It's great. The art direction is great, the writing is great, the acting is great.
This may be my new favorite show.
Did it really snow this weekend? Oh yes, it did. On September 29th. . . what IS THAT?!
We were on our way up to Salt Lake to go to a presentation by a time share company (don't ask. I don't want to talk about it) and do some shopping when the rain most definitely turned to sleet, and then snow. And by the time we made it home Saturday night, there was a nice dusting on everything. That's right, not only did it snow. It stuck!
And here's the thing. . . it's not that I really mind snow that much. And it's not that I really care that much that we had one little freak storm.
What I DO care about, is that we get to have fall. I suffered, pregnant, through the hottest summer EVER in Utah. I think I DESERVE at least a month of wonderful comfortable 70s and turning leaves and chilly, but not cold nights. I deserve that awesome smell that's in the air during the month of October.
It's my favorite season, for heaven's sake!
And also, I have no warm maternity clothes. . .
I haven't totally managed to catch up on this week's new TV yet. I still haven't watched Grey's Anatomy or Big Shots from last night. (we had childbirth class at the hospital again) But.. . . I did watch Wednesday night and we caught Ugly Betty before we crashed last night.
So, here's a rundown of what I thought.
I was totally torn between watching Bionic Woman or Private Practice while I recorded Private Practice on Wed. But in the end, I chose to just watch PP. I have to admit, there were some moments when I wondered if this show was going to totally tank. BUT, overall, I actually think it's actually going to work. As Ben pointed out, it took a few weeks to get sucked in to Grey's Anatomy too, but in the end I really did. I think I just need to get a feel for the characters on this one. & hopefully the writing will do them a service and give them great things to say.
I was pretty convinced that Dirty, Sexy, Money was just going to be crass and stupid. I didn't expect good writing or acting, and I really didn't expect to care about any of the characters. In the end, though, I actually did. Not that I am wholeheartedly committing to this one yet. It still is a little crass and stupid in parts. But I will definitely give it a try again next week.
Ugly Betty left a lot of things hanging at the end of last season. In fact, the season finale was really kind of depressing. . . But I still wanted to know what happened next. The opening episode didn't answer every question we were left with. . . but it did give a pretty satisfying end to one story line (in a pretty clever way) as well as adding some new twists for the upcoming season. It will definitely have to come up with some fresh new stuff this season, but it is definitely one of my favorite things to watch for the pure joy and silliness of it.
Hopefully this weekend I'll catch up on Grey's and Big Shots (which has huge suck potential. . .) I hear I didn't miss anything when it came to Bionic Woman. True? Anyone watch? How about Life?
Last night officially started "premiere week" of TV. We have been anxiously awaiting the new season of Heroes, having watched the whole first season on DVD recently. And I must say, it did not disappoint. I don't want to spoil it for anyone that TIVOed, but it sort of went in a Lost direction. They brought up a TON of new questions and didn't really answer any. I am SO excited to see how the rest of the season goes.
Before Heroes was a show I had sort of seen trailers for and never really paid attention to. . . Chuck. I went into it thinking it was just going to be a stupid geek comedy. Nothing interesting. Turns out, it's a spy show! And it was really interesting. I have to admit to having gotten completely sucked in by it. Also, the guy that plays Jayne in Firefly is in it. . . and for half the show we were trying to figure out why we knew who he was! How sad is that? I'm a little ashamed to admit it, actually.
Following Heroes was Journeyman. It looked really intriguing to me, so I decided to watch. Ben was pretty bored by it right away, and I have to admit to having zoned out a few times myself. The thing this show suffered from was actually being too complicated. . . I think I will keep watching it though. By the end I was interested enough to watch next week. . .
There's really nothing on tonight that I'm interested in. . . so I'm waiting for Wednesday and hoping that Private Practice is all I hope it will be. . .
We managed to check a few things off the list of doom this weekend. . . and while I spent plenty of time with my feet up as well, I am very proud of us for the things we accomplished:
#1-- The finger puppets finally came in the mail and I was able to construct a pretty fabulous mobile for the nursery (if I do say so myself). There will be a picture of said mobile as soon as I hang it up tonight using the fancy plant hanging hook I got at Home Depot today.
#2-- Grocery shopping. OK, for most of you this isn't very impressive, but for us. . . Let's just say it had been AT LEAST a month since we had ventured in to a grocery store for actual food to put in our actual fridge. Once home, I emptied everything from the fridge and freezer that was either gross or expired, and that left us with very little. Luckily, we filled it up again, and we can now officially say that EVERYTHING contained within is edible. . . At least for the next week or so.
#3-- Pantry organization. This one has been like a fly buzzing around my head for months. Our pantry was a MESS. I can't explain it. You had to have seen it. Opening the doors and trying to remove everything was a feat of daring. But, Saturday night, while I sat at the bar and worked on the mobile, Ben was kind enough to tackle the beast. Not only is everything in there edible, it's also organized (thanks in part to something that looks like this)
It is a beautiful thing.
#4-- All of the baby clothes in the house have been washed and dried and are now ready to be put away in the dresser drawers to await the man child's arrival.
YAY for progress!
We went to our first of two childbirth classes at the hospital last night. Lots of people told us that they thought they were just a big waste of time, and I almost didn't sign us up. Heaven knows we have plenty of other things to spend our time on these days. Have I mentioned the LOOOONG To Do list I've been working on?
But then I talked to the doctor, and he pretty much guilted me into it. I asked if they were worth it, and he said "It depends on how seriously you are taking this pregnancy". He really has issues with moms that don't take the time to be pregnant. We all just need to relax more and stop trying to make pregnancy one more thing we add to our list of things to do. . .
So, I decided to sign us up for the class.
In the end, it was really very informative. There wasn't a lot there that I hadn't read in a book or heard on the internet, but it was still good to review. And a lot of it was newer to Ben, as he doesn't spend as much time reading about pregnancy as I do.
My favorite visual of the night (of all of the truly special visuals) was the chart showing where your organs are in your body pre-pregnancy compared to at full term. (I apologize if any of you are squeamish, you may not want to see this)
I'm fairly certain that pregnancy induces ADD.
I can't sit still.
I can't wait to try to make it through a childbirth class tonight :)
#1-- The AWFUL smell of the new "air freshener" in the office bathroom. It reeks of old lady perfume. And maybe it's just my pregnant nose, but it is MUCH stronger than the previous scent.
#2-- Needing to go in to said bathroom every half hour, ALL DAY LONG.
#3-- People who mark EVERY email with "! this email is of the highest priority"
#4-- Attempting to keep my eyes open and stay on task when all I want to do is take a nap.
That concludes my whining for the day. . .
I left Ben behind in Salt Lake on Saturday morning and made my way up to Ogden for a family baby shower. My sister Natalie and Ben's sister Kim put it together for me, and we had it at my grandparent's house. It was so much fun. SO many people came and they were all so sweet and generous with their gifts.
Me with my aunt Louise (my mom's oldest sister)
Ben's aunt Marlene and his sister Kim
My mom and cousin Tara at the food table 
The DARLING diaper cake that Jenny made 
I spent Friday night up in Salt Lake with Ben and a bunch of students who have decided to commit themselves to a year of party planning (pardon me, "program planning") for all of the freshman living in BYU's on campus housing. We started at a park and then made our way up to downtown to check in to the hotel and spend the evening gathering information in a scavenger hunt kind of format. The weather looked ready to ruin the evening, but in the end didn't hamper things too much. I did get some cool pictures, though, of the storm blowing over the park.
Lucky for us, Ben will have a lot less to do with these programs this year than he has in the past. There's a new assistant manager on the block and he gets to be in charge of this stuff so that Ben can focus his time on telling freshman not to blow things up in their microwaves or throw bottles of urine out the window.
Don't you wish you had his job?
Yeah, me neither.
It's probably the nature of the "nesting" phase of pregnancy that I feel like I'm most certainly going to run out of time to do stuff before the baby gets here. Beyond the fact that I only have 6 weeks left (holy crap!), I feel like I can only accomplish a little bit in any given day. And for a person that normally sets about a really productive day with at least 6 things on her list, and actually accomplishes most of them, that can be very very frustrating. I just get so tired SO fast.
Last night I managed to do 2 loads of laundry, unload and reload the dishwasher, and finish touching up the paint in the nursery. When I was done I was wiped out. That's how pitiful my energy levels are right now. I order things online instead of actually going to the store. I drive through for food so I don't have to get out of the car. It's amazing how tired it can make you to grow a human. . .
So now, I've decided to make checklists. I will endeavor to check 2 things off the list each day. Some of them can be done at lunch time, others after work. If I can manage to check 2 off each day, I MIGHT finish everything I need to do before the baby comes. . . IF I can stop adding 3-4 new things each day.
In celebration of Jenny's birthday last night, we surprised her by meeting her for dinner at La Casita en masse. It was a fun sort of surprise, and extremely yummy food.
Tanner had been long convinced that it was his duty as her son to make and decorate a cake. Apparently he spent quite a bit of time flipping through Jenny's cake decorating books trying to pick out the perfect thing to make for her. In the end, he chose a funfetti cake topped with a Lightning McQueen candle. . . because what mom wouldn't love that?!
We all gathered at our house after dinner to blow out the candles and partake of the cake. Jenny's sister Jessica and her husband were there too, as well as my mom, who had been kind enough to drive their truck down to free us of the queen sized bed in our guest room/nursery. We still have a lot to get done in there, so it's nice to finally have the old furniture moved out so we can move the new in. And also, a great bed to sleep on when we're in Syracuse on weekends. Now that all of us are married, there were just not enough beds to go around. Hopefully I'll have semi-finished nursery pictures soon.
Since I just now got around to downloading photos from the weekend, this post is a little bit out of order, but I thought it still warranted a place here.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early and made the trek to Ogden to see Kim's girls play soccer. They are both very talented little girls. Last year Isabella spent a good part of the game randomly sitting down on the field and generally wandering around rather than kicking the ball.
This year, she got 3 goals, the only by her team as a whole.
Helaina had her first game on a big field on Saturday, and holy cow. It was HUGE. It's a miracle, if you ask me, that none of those girls passed out cold. That is a LOT of running. Her team didn't walk away victorious, but seeing as there were only 2 girls on th green team that had ever played before, they held their own quite brilliantly.
Of course the fact that the games were followed by a trip to Dylans and a rousing game of Monopoly just made the day all that much better.
How would you like it if your birthday suddenly took on a crazy and scary new meaning to everyone you knew? Well, in Jenny's case, no one ever forgets it any more. And that has to be worth something, right?
Jenny has been a part of our family for what seems like always, but it's only really been 4 years. She married my brother Nathan, and I can't possibly explain how grateful I was that Nate was smart enough to pick a girl like her. She's amazing. Gorgeous, but still low maintenance. A wonderful mom with a great sense of humor. She even puts up with us giving her a hard time the way we do each other. She's an amazing cook, throwing together seemingly unrelated ingredients to make a masterpiece every time.
I am so glad she's one of us.
Happy Birthday, Jenny!!
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