Jessie's EARLY Christmas!!

So Jess got super lucky this year, and got to open up some early Christmas presents! Her grandma and grandpa Orgill asked if she could open them up when they arrived so that she would have a chance to play with them before she got all of her other stuff.

The box FULL of gifts.

I couldn't resist this picture. I love the hand over her chest! SO cute!

Do you think she was excited about getting this?

Here's a little video, if you want to hear it, pause the music down at the bottom of the page!

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Orgill! You guys are awesome. Jess could not have been happier with the gifts. Merry Christmas! We love you!

Christmas time and.....SNOW?

So, Jess has been really excited for Christmas this year. It's really getting fun with her now that she understands more. So we put a Christmas tree in her room this year, and she could not be happier about it.

So here's the finished tree, covered with her favorite thing...Candy!

My dad got this Santa hat and door hanger for a white elephant gift at his office Christmas party. Jess thought that it should be a beird!!

She has been playing with these little things every day. She can entertain herself for hours. It's a beautiful thing!

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So the other morning we woke up to SNOW! I don't know how long its been since it snowed in Cali, but its been a long time. It didn't last all that long, but we sure enjoyed looking at it while it did.

Goodbye snow! See you again in 10 years.

Tiff's B-day and Ornament Making Night

So Monday the 30th was my friend Tiffany's birthday. She and her husband Joe spent the Holiday in Utah as well, and had just returned home Sunday night. So naturally we had to do something fun, considering it had been a week since we had all seen each other. So we started the evening with BBQ (which was way good by the way), and then, I was introduced to the tradition of Ornament Making Night! So let me tell you how this goes. We start by going to the Dollar Tree and each purchase 5 items(side note-apparently the goal is to get the most ridiculous items possible that you would never imagine turning into an ornament). We then went back to Joe and Tiff's and combine all of the purchases.

The table full of all of the randomness that we bought.

We then assign each item a number, and put all of those numbers in a bowl. Then we went around the table and drew one number at a time. So you may not end up with any of the items that you actually purchased. Which by the way, I did not. Then with the 5 items that you have, you create some sort of ornament. It doesn't really matter what you do, the only rule is that you have to use all 5 items, at least part of them.

Cute picture of Joe and Tiff (don't mind Matt in the background). So by the way, the 5 things I ended up with were; a weird mirrored Christmas tree, a roll of gauze, a GIANT red comb, a tacky orange negligee (yes they sell those at the dollar store), and a blue foot massager.

The Felt Family

Here's baby Tay holding Matt's ornament.

Leave it to Tiff to come up with something beautiful out of so much crap. Her tree was awesome.

Andy's thing actually turned out kinda cool too. He made something that looked like a propeller out of safety pins and red hots! Can't see it very well from the side view, but pretty sweet.

And here's mine. Scary I know, but honestly, I did not know what to do with that. I probably stared at my stuff for 10 minutes before even starting anything. But its all good! Now I have some weird creepy tree thing, that I guess I'm supposed to be hanging on my tree!

Yay for ornament night!

Thanksgiving Trip!

So, for Thanksgiving this year, Jess and I went to Utah! I'll be honest, I was not all that stoked about this trip. No offense to the good people in Utah, but it was not exactly the ideal setting for a holiday. It was Jessie's Dad's holiday with her, and so I was going to be all alone. :( Plus it just meant that I had 20 hours in the car with only a 3 year old to talk to. Really?? Anyway, in the spirit of Thanksgiving...

I am so thankful for the sweet little lady that I have to keep things about life in perspective for me! This is our little turkey craft that we did together the day before we left. The feathers are her hands, and the body is her foot. We spent a few hours on this, and that time was precious to me. All I have to do is look at her sweet face, and I remember why I'm here!

So I know this picture is fuzzy(sorry, I was still driving when I took it), but if you cant tell the mileage is 666.4. That's how many miles it is from my on ramp to Scott's off ramp. But I am truly thankful that the weather treated us well. It is always a fickle time of year to be traveling, especially along I 80, but for the most part, everything was clear. If you thought that traveling with a 3 year old in the car for 10 hours sounded bad, try doing it in the middle of a storm! Not fun.

I am thankful for good friends, and babies! This is little Gracie Sue, my friend Tara's sweet baby. Tara was good enough to let me crash her families Thanksgiving. She is so good to me. She has always been such a wonderful friend that is there for me when I need her. And having Gracie there to hold made me feel a little more at home. Since I couldn't have my "baby" with me, I was so grateful that I had her. Plus, apparently she doesn't really like anyone to hold her that isn't her mother, but she was pretty content with me!

I am also grateful for my awesome friend Sheryl who let me crash at her house the whole time. She is so sweet, and patient with me. I'm usually pretty frazzled, and flaky when I'm in Utah, but she just says "I'm here whenever you need a place to stay", and even with only a few hours notice apparently :) thanks Sheryl!

So this picture does not at all capture how beautiful this sunset was, but you get the idea! I was so grateful to have this to stare at for a while on my way home. Jess was asleep, and I was alone with my thoughts, some good music, and this gorgeous site! Wow.

Halloween...I know its late!

So I know, this is way late, but I was lame and forgot my camera on Halloween, so have been waiting for my sister to send me the pictures they took. So this was her first attempt at using photo shop! Cute huh!

Here is my little princess! She was sooo excited about her beautiful dress, and the fact that she got to wear make-up!

Us just before we headed out to go trick-or-treating for the night.

The whole gang. Amber's best friend Cheryl's family, and her brother Mike's family joined in on the choas! All in all, I think Jess had a really good time, although she decided that she really didn't feel like walking in between houses. Note to self, do not wear heels on Halloween ever again!

School Pictures!

So these are the first School Pictures. I thought that they turned out pretty cute! Sorry about the crappy quality though, I had to scan them in. Anyway, just thought I would share with you in my proud moment!

P.S. The other day when I went to go pick Jess up from school, she came walking out holding hands with Logan, the little blonde one on the bottom row. She introduced him as her friend! It was so cute!

Yeah For Fall!!

So the Fall events are officially in full swing! I absolutely LOVE this time of year. What with all of the apples and pumpkin, whats not to love right? Anyway, so last week I went with Jess to her preschool field trip to Bishop's Pumpkin patch! It was kind of insane with about 15 3-year olds running around, but hey, they all had fun.

Jess walking around this cool old barn they had there.

Taking a peak inside. She was mad when I told her that we couldn't get in.

It took the girl forever to try and find the perfect pumpkin. They were all "dirty."

They had a ton of animals there, it was fun to watch Jess with them. She kept trying to get all of their attention, and didn't quite understan why they weren't responding to her.

So anyway, Bring on the FALL!

Once apon a time....

There was a princess! Well it is finally over. On tuesday, we had Jessie's Birthday Party. It was all things

princess, because, well that's what she is... right? It was hecktic, it was loud, and the place looked like it had been hosed down with pepto bismal! But all the name of celebration!

Jaxon (jessie's cuz) decorating his crown (the boys got crowns from BK, so as not to wear the pink tiara's)

The beautiful party room before it got trashed!



Jessie blowing out her castle cake! That was what she was most excited about, she didn't really care about the party, just said she wanted CAKE !

One of the many princess items she got as a gift! Thank you Morrell Boys!

Loved this picture! One of her little friends Hailey made her a card. It was so cute, she drew a picture of the 2 of them and wrote, I love you.

All in all, it turned out pretty well! I was relieved to be finished, but glad that everyone seemed to have a good time!

My Baby is 3!

So yesterday my baby turned 3! Can you believe it? I can not believe how fast these last 3 years have flown by. So in honor of this sweet little lady, I wanted to show you ( those of you who actually look at this blog!) a few pics of her over the last 3 years.

Well Happy Birthday Jess! Mommy loves you soooo much. You mean the world to me!!

P.S. Updates to come... She wants a princess party, which we are having tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Parenting Tactic Backfires

So you know how I was taking that "Love and logic" Parenting class? Well one of the tactics that they teach is the "giving choices" tool. The point of this is to make the child feel like they have the power, when really you are giving them the option between two things tht would end up with the result that YOU would want. Example; "Are you going to get in the car all by yourself, or does mommy need to put you in?" Okay, so not a perfect example, but you get the idea.
Well this morning, Jessie used the tactic on me! Thats right, my 2 year old has outsmarted the system.

When I left to go out last night, she was already in bed, but apparently she woke up and ended up in my parents room. So when I asked her about it this morning, she said "You're not supposed to leave me mommy." I said "I know, I'm sorry but you were already asleep, I didn't know you were going to wake up." She reply's "Are you going to stay here, or are you going to not leave me? Which one, mommy?" She then felt like she needed to repeat herself when I didn't respond right away.

Basically feel like I'm doomed. This kid is way to smart for her own good!

GIANT'S GAME!!!

So last night I went to my first San Francisco Giants game! It was awesome!

So I have to admit, I have not been much of a baseball fan all my life, I have not had anything against it per say, but I have never really followed it. So to be honest, I was not so sure about what kind of an experience I was going to have. But Andy made sure that it was amazing. This whole baseball thing is kind of important to him.


So here are a few pics from the night.

The Rockies during batting practice!

Andy had a cheat sheet with the teams roster on it so that he knew all of the players names. He tried the whole time to suck up so that someone would throw him a ball.

Ok so this is a really bad pic, (Andy took it) of..that's right, Randy Johnson! He walked right in front of us to go practice during the game. I was not ready fast enough with the cam. Did you know this guy is like 6'7. Dang, he was huge!

Me and Andy in the middle of the 8th inning. Just to give you an idea of how freaking amazing our seats were. Yes, that's the field right there at our seats! Andy literally was able to have conversations with the players!

And of course, the ball. Andy worked his little tail off the entire game to make sure that we came home with a ball. Literally, jumping up every time a ball came anywhere remotely close to us. And luckily, we came home with 2, which is good for him because the first one was mine :)

So the funny thing about the fact that I had such a great time is, I will probably never be able to top that! Pretty much any other experience would be a disappointment from here on out. So I really don't know how much more baseball is in my future! But hey, at least I know that it can be a ton of fun! And you never know, if I'm flippin through channels and a game's on, I may actually stop and watch, at least for a few minutes!