Baby Crazy!!!

Yay for life moving constantly forward!  To begin with, no this is not my child.  But i would like to share with y'all a little bit about my baby crazy weekend.   

First of all, my best friend Lindsey came on a long awaited visit to Utah!  She is living in Cleveland, Ohio while her husband studies law at Cleveland State.  She is pregnant with her first baby and I have only seen pictures of the growing baby belly.  Until now!  You can't really tell in the picture below, but she is seven months pregnant, due in July.  It was so fun to see her in person and feel the little guy kick.  

Second of all (but really first of all because it actually happened first) my other best friend Stacy had her second baby - little Jared Monte Anderson.  I believe he is ten days old in this picture.  Lindsey and I were able to take a drive down to Provo to visit Stacy and Jared on Saturday.  He is such a little guy!  6 lbs 3 oz and just adorable. I just love his face in the second picture.  He is sooo tiny!!  Thanks, Stace, for letting me hold him forever.  If we didn't have to leave, I might never have let him go.  I did, however, let him go to let Stacy change his diaper.  I guess I am not quite ready for babies yet.  (Oh, and the whole umbilical cord stub still being attached thing totally weirded me out too!)

I am excited for these two lovey ladies.  Such fun changes in their lives.  I am excited for these changes in my own life, you know, somewhere far down the road.  :)   

P.S. Don't get any ideas or give any smart aleck remarks!!  :)

Life as we know it…

I don’t know how often I say, “Man, it’s Thursday already??” or “Where did February go?”  I’m not gonna lie, today is pretty similar to yesterday, and I’m sure tomorrow won’t be much different.  So what exactly is going on in my day?  Sometimes I have to stop and reflect on the wonderful, fun, and crazy things that are happening every single day. 

So here is a glimpse into the lives of Kara and Christopher Hill...well mostly just Kara Hill.   

5:30am – my alarm goes off.  Now, that doesn’t mean that I get out of bed, no sir!  In fact, some days I don’t roll out of bed until 6:30.  Some would say that this is time wasted.  But right now, during my optimistic mood, I don’t think so.  This is the time that I get to drift peacefully between consciousness and dreams.  I often have my best dreams during this time.  It is also the rare time when Christopher is cold and I am warm, so I get to snuggle with him all I want without feeling bad! So, all in all, a good start to the morning.

Then it’s off to work sometime between 7:00 and 7:30.  My day is filled with meetings, budgeting, and serving customers.  I work with a great group of people.  I’ve worked at the Church Office Building for a little over a month now and I am starting to feel more comfortable around everyone.  Yesterday, a group of us took an impromptu outing to find crazy prizes for a luncheon we were having that day.  Needless to say, my coworkers got see the crazier side of me.  Kirt even said to my boss (in front of me), “You know Scott, I’ve learned something about Kara today and I am pleasantly surprised.  Kara is funny!”  Yes, thank you, Kirt.  I’m glad you found that out.   So slowly but surely I am coming out of my shell and enjoying myself at work. 

4:30pm – I have started taking the bus to and from work, so around 4:30 I hop on the bus home (today is my second time on the bus).  I believe this will prove to be a fun adventure.  People watching on buses can be totally fun.   It also gives me a little time to indulge in the latest novel I’m reading.  Can I just say I LOVE books!  I love seeing life from someone else’s perspective.  It can be a totally skewed perspective that I don’t even agree with, but I love it all the same.  I am so grateful for books.

By 5:00pm I am usually home either greeting Christopher with a kiss, or plopping on the couch waiting until he comes home.  Between 5:00 and 6:00 I get a little relaxing time or chat time with my hubby.  I should probably be more productive and start preparing a dinner for Chris to pop in the oven, but I haven’t yet.  That’s next on my improvement plan.  J  But for now, I veg a little. 

6:00pm – off to the gym.  I have started to become a gym rat.  Not really, at all, but Chris and I did get a membership to our local recreation center.  I have been feeling a little out of shape lately so this has been a lot of fun.   I go to step classes, yoga classes, power tone, water aerobics, all this good stuff.  I always feel good after and it puts me in a good mood.  But today, I am very sore. 

I get home at 7:00 and usually start making some semblance of a dinner for Chris and myself.  I am in desperate need of some good recipes that don’t take very long or use very many ingredients.  J  If you have any good ones, please, send them my way.  

After dinner I have no more plans.  Chris and I will watch a show or pop in a movie.  Or most nights, Chris will sit on the floor doing homework while I nestle into the couching reading my novel again or browsing pinterest.  My days are peaceful, warm and loving.  I have nothing to complain about and everything to be grateful for.   

So

...because life is b-e-a-utiful!

(Maybe next time Chris can write about his life.  His is much more interesting. J)



Valentine's Day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day this Friday.  Chris and I trade off the two romantic holidays, Valentine's and our Anniversary (thanks for the idea Stacy and Lindsey).  This Valentine's Day I was in charge.  Here was the plan...

First Stop - The Melting Pot

Neither of us had ever been there, but we are big fans of fondue.  We took advantage of a coupon and ordered "The Big Night Out."  That means we had the whole shebang - cheese fondue, salad, meat and oil fondue, and last but not least, dessert chocolate fondue.  Dessert was by far our favorite.  It was soooo good!  We got a fondue made of white chocolate, cinnamon and bananas.  At first, it didn't sound amazing, but the waiter recommended it so we ordered.  And man was he right!!  It was amazing.  I would definitely recommend going there for dessert.  The rest of the meal was only okay, but dessert...amazing!

Next Stop - the Jazz Game

Not the most romantic idea, I guess, but I thought it was make my hubby happy.  He loves few things more than basketball (one of those things is me, of course).   The Jazz were playing Oklahoma, number one in the West.  We put up a good fight during the first half, but lost it in the third quarter.  We were up in the nosebleeds, but it was really fun to enjoy the atmosphere and support the Jazz.

Final Stop - Home Sweet Home!
I got the hubby an awesome Valentine's Day card that made both of us laugh.  The night ended with some Hersey's kisses and a good snuggle.   Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  Hope you had a good time, where ever you are!

Quote of the month: "It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them."
~Agatha Christie

Amen, sista!

The Practical Life

Yesterday, Chris was making a model of cyclobutane with his organic molecular model set.  Exciting, eh?  Well it was pretty exciting!  Chris got to deal with me acting like a five-year old and asking a million "why" questions.  Why does this one have a double bond?  Why do carbons have to have four bonds?  Why isn't the set more colorful? etc, atd.  Soon, however, all of the science mumbo-jumbo made me weary and I fell asleep on the couch.

And how was I awakened?  With a lovely organic molecular massage.  Have you ever seen those little wooden massagers that are made of round balls and have the smiley faces on them?  That is a little bit like what Chris's molecule looked like and he was trying it out as a massager.  It worked pretty well!  



And who said science wasn't practical?

New Haircut!

As per Stacy's request, I have added a few pictures of my new haircut.  I have had the same haircut for about four years now.  It was time for a change!!  But, as I'm kindof a scardy-cat, I started with a very small change. Bangs! :)  I'm liking them so far.  What do you think?

Just a quick update.  Chris and I had a fun Saturday today.  After a morning of a much needed apartment cleaning, we headed up to Park City to return a Christmas present and do a little shopping.  We came back home just to make a mess again in our clean apartment.  

I had made pulled pork a few days ago so we decided to try and make Cafe Rio salads.  We gathered all the ingredients for the famous cilantro ranch.  We pile our tortillas high with pork, black beans, lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and of course the cilantro ranch salad dressing.  If I do say so myself, it was pretty good!                                                                                                         We also love to make homemade pizza.  I've learned to make Amanda's recipe for pizza dough and we love piling on the toppings.  However, most of the time we like different toppings.  So, Chris creates a Meat Supreme side, while I have my Margarita.  We like to try new things and I'm slowly trying to develop the cooking skills of my mom and mother-in-law.

Linds also asked me to put up a few pictures of my apartment.  It is starting to come together and really beginning to feel like home.  Chris and I have lived here for about two months and have made a few improvements. :)  

We are in a basement apartment so it can get a little dark.  We recently bought this floor lamp to give a little light.  And I love it!  I think it adds a little detail to the room.

This is our little corner.  Yes, those are fake plants because I cannot keep a plant alive for the life of me.  I also love the brown flowers I made out of paper sacks.  If you want to learn how, click here.

This is our bedroom.  We still have some decorating to do here, but I love our bed!

And here is our little kitchen.  It is pretty small, but we are making everything fit pretty well.  (Please ignore the dishes on the counter.  At least they're clean! :)

 

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And here is our new tablecloth.  It is sooo cute and adds a lot to our kitchen. 

t'was the night after christmas...

All of the festivities are over and we finally have time to take a breath and look around to count our blessings.  We have truly been blessed this year.  Chris and I were able to spend our first Christmas with both our families as we live so close to both of them (right in between the two, in fact). 

Our Christmas Eve morning was spent at Christopher’s house with a little trip down memory lane.  Chris remembers making homemade taffy every year with his family, that is until his mother decided that it was too messy and just wasn’t worth it.  We got her to give in this year, however, pulling the “new in-law” trick.  “Mom, Kara has never pulled taffy before,” Christopher pleaded.  And it worked.  We each got our own glob of taffy to flavor, color and pull.  I chose cinnamon, my favorite taffy flavor, while Chris chose banana.  Other flavors included black licorice, peppermint, coconut-almond, root beer, and lemon.  The taffy is made of…well, sugar - corn syrup, caro, and more sugar.  Once it is boiling hot you pour some onto a buttered plate and let it cool off a little.  Not too much, though, or the taffy will start to harden.  So we all braved the hot blob and started pulling.  The taffy did not turn out exactly as we had thought.  Some of it was more of a hard candy to suck on rather than chewy taffy.  But we had a lot of fun anyway.

Christmas Eve we spent with my family, enjoying the Lee family traditions.  One of those also included a trip down memory lane, although I can’t say that it ended as well as Christopher’s nostalgic journey in time.  My trip down memory lane included watching Christmas Eve on Sesame Street.  I remember loving that movie, watching as Big Bird tried to find out how a plump Santa Clause got down a skinny chimney.  However, about twenty years later, it just didn’t seem to have the same effect.  J  It was fun anyway, to laugh at the sometimes silly things we hold dear.  The evening progressed with a big family Christmas dinner of ham, steak, yummy potatoes, salad, mom’s rolls, and of course, Martinelli’s.  After dinner we all settled into the living room to listen to dad read the Christmas story.  This year, we sang a few Christmas carols as well to make the story come alive.  Then, mom handed out cards to each of us so we could write our “gifts to Jesus.”  Each year we write something that we would like to give to Christ which usually means a spiritual goal we would like to accomplish or something that we can work on to be more Christ-like, as our will is the only thing we can truly give to Christ which He hasn’t already given to us. 

Once that was over, it was time to put out the cookies for Santa and send the kids to bed.   I got to help my brother play Santa as we set up a new pink and purple bike for his daughter, Reese.  The rest of the night was spent playing games, watching movies, and finally sleeping. 

The best part, however, was Christmas morning.  And I’m not talking about opening presents.  No, my Christmas morning started about 6:15am.  That is when Chris started tossing and turning.  Finally, at 6:30 he sat up and said, “Aren’t there children in this house?  Why aren’t they awake and screaming?!  It’s Christmas!!”  Yes, Christopher was the first one awake, even before the four year old.  He even made sure to go to the bathroom a few times, sneeze loudly, and constantly talk to me in hopes of waking up the children.  And finally, about 6:45, they did wake up.  Christ sat up straight as a fence post when he heard the first whimper from the one-year old.  Yes!  Finally!  When we were all awake and had brushed our teeth, we marched upstairs to the excess that awaited upstairs.  Boy, was our cup overflowing.  We all opened presents and enjoyed the general splendor.  And man, did Chris spoil me.  He is so thoughtful and kind and thought of all the presents that I needed even if I didn’t think of them.  My favorite present, however, was a small one that came in a big package.  And when I say big, I mean very, very large!  This present, which was about the size of a pair of glasses, was wrapped in box upon box and layer upon layer.  One layer was tin foil (a whole roll!), another was cellophane, another duct tape.  Boy was it a joy to open. J  Inside the last box (which happened to be a glasses case) were two tickets to the Broadway musical Wicked!  I have never seen the play but I am in love with the music.  What a perfect surprise!  Thanks you Chris!! (And thanks to Dad who did so well at keeping it a secret.J)   I got Chris a new Fossil watch that, I must say, looks very good on him. 

We had a great Christmas as we celebrated with family and friends.  However, it was also a great time to reflect upon and commemorate the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  It is our Savior who fulfilled the Plan of Salvation and made it possible to return to our Heavenly Father and live with our families forever.

God Bless!