Melarky

Stuff #1:
It is our anniversary today. Mark and I have been married 5 years now. Crazy! It’s been great, gone by fast/seems like an eternity, and very, very wonderful! I’m the luckiest girl to be married to such a great guy! He spoils me, hardly ever beats me, keeps me laughing, and keeps me sane. And you know after 5 years, I’m still surprised by him, and that’s hard to do cause I’m a snoop, but somehow he manges to keep me on my toes. I love you Marky, you and your little beard!

Stuff #2:
For an anniversary present I got my hair cut and colored. It was long overdue. I was feeling pretty homely, I wasn’t sure if I could get my hair dyed while I was pregnant though, but after calling my doctor I found it was perfectly safe. I went to my favorite, very talented, hard-to-get-into hairstylist, Angie. She always does a great job (which makes waiting for an appt. worthwhile). I took her a few pictures of some hairstyles I liked, and got exactly what I had imagined. Better actually. She cut about 3 inches off, but it’s still pretty long. This color is more true to my natural. I’m very happy with this new look.

Stuff #3:
Christmas was great. Welly got lots of fun toys, books, socks (*not so fun), boots, big boy underwear….etc. Mark got a lot of fix-it type stuff from me. A book with illustrations on how to fix things around the house, nuts, bolts, he also got a real Louisville slugger baseball bat. No, Mark is not a big baseball buff, it’s our own home protection system. Mark gave me some great gifts, I don’t know how I lucked out so well this year. I got a light tent for photography stuff, chocolates, dishes, and more more more. We had a great Christmas, but I’m glad its over, now it’s time to get ready for a new baby to come.

Stuff #4:
I’m about 25 weeks along. Head to heel, our baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Weight —about a pound and a half , starting to get his baby fat. His wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and he’ll start to look more and more like a newborn. He’s growing more hair and if you could see it, you’d now be able to discern its color and texture.

Getting ready to stuff my face!

Kids are trying out their new toys!

Father-in-law is snoozing the big one!

Everyone is having a merry Christmas!

I finally finished my Christmas shopping this afternoon. I was out there with all the men, doing their last minute shopping. I still have a few things to wrap, and the kitchen to clean, but I mostly just want to do as little as possible the rest of the night and just relax.

Mark is breaking tradition and wrapping my gifts himself this year. He usually gets his sister to do it for him, but as I’m writing this he is cutting, taping and working away at making my Christmas a fun one.

Welly is taking a nap. Thank heavens! He really hated going from store to store today, and was a total grump. Lets just say there was a display torn down, a few tantrums and some screaming, all in all it was good fun for everyone within a 10 ft radius of us. I’m sure he’s glad to be done with shopping as much as I am.

Hastings for the second time in one day

After Mark worked a few hours today we went out to lunch. After all that shopping, I was so hungry and I told Mark, “I’ll eat anything, just pick something, and I’ll eat it!”. “Poo?” he said (classy, I know). “Dirty Snow?”. Doesn’t he know not to tease a hungry pregnant lady? Don’t get between me and my food. We went to one of our favorites, El Sol, and had a fun Christmas Eve lunch, non-alcoholic margaritas and all!

Eating Mexican food in the nerdiest Christmas sweater ever!

Tonight we have plans with family, in the morning-Christmas Crepes and presents. Hope you all have a Merry Christmas tomorrow!

Wellington was so cute in his super-nerdy Christmas sweater at church today. He was such a good boy in nursery or so it seems since he wasn’t brought out to me. He seems like he is really doing well in nursery now, and I’m so glad. It’s so fun to see him go into nursery without a fuss, to bring home pictures he had colored, to peek in on him and see him sitting down eating a snack or singing a song. It makes him seem so big and grown up.

After church, we had Temple recommend interviews. Wellington was so patient waiting, even though he was very tired and hungry. The hallway that we were waiting in before our interviews was lined on the walls with pictures of Christ. Welly was so smart and could pick out which one Jesus was. So smart! He also pointed to the pictures they had up of the First Presidency and he just called them, “guys”. That works for now. We’ll have to work on their names later.

While he was trying his two-year-old hardest to sit still, he was entertained with my phone. His Dad took these pictures while I was in having my interview.

That last video I posted, was kinda weird, and scary, and not in sync with the true Christmas spirit, in my opinion (although that song is Christmas-fun). When Welly saw it he grew very concerned for all the crying kids.

So to make up for that last one, here’s one that will hopefully it put you in the Christmas giving mood.

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

We recently watched the new Wallace and Gromit short “A Matter of Loaf and Death”. If you’re not familiar with Wallace and Gromit, it’s a claymation series created by Nick Park (also responsible for “Creature Comforts” and “Chicken Run”) about an eccentric clumsy inventor named Wallace and his level headed mute dog/partner named Gromit. Theres a pretty clear evolution of the animation technique throughout all the Wallace and Gromit shorts, with this one looking fantastic (with some added computer graphics that aren’t too over done, but plenty of impressive stop motion to make you wonder how long each scene took to film). The story is very clever and fits in with all the other shorts (quirky characters and phrases throughout, and standard Wallace and Gromit humor, gotta love the nun scene at the end). If you’re a fan of the other shorts, there’s a lot to like here, but if you didn’t like the previous ones, then this probably won’t make you change your mind (don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with “A Matter of Loaf and Death”, just more of the same, which is great in my book).

A couple years ago we had a little weekend getaway to Vegas. A friend let us in on a deal and ever since that stay we get “exclusive” (that word makes me sound so important) emails informing us of new deals. Most of them are usually JUST OKAY, but one just came up Monday, that is incredible! It’s actually the exact deal that we used a few years ago when we stayed.

The deal is for the Treasure Island hotel, one that we highly recommend. It’s right there, in the middle of everything so you don’t need to drive anywhere. We just parked and walked anywhere we wanted to go. The hotel is clean. Of course when you walk through the casino to get to the elevators, your going to get that smoke smell, but there was absolutely NO smoke smell once you got on the elevators and onto your floor. Or course if you don’t mind a smoke smell, your aren’t going to care about this, but we found it to be very nice perk. The room was very nice and clean, we stayed in a king bed (not sure if that’s part of the deal) and had a great view.

The deal is $49 a night! Yes, there is a catch! Isn’t there always? The catch are the dates you can stay. Like the deal we had a few years ago, it was in December. Which is actually not a bad time to go to Vegas. Less people, and not so hot (unless your Korby and you embrace the heat). Here is a calender of the dates the deal applies.

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I love the snow. I always have, so the several inches that fell Saturday morning in Cache Valley were welcome, to me at least.

I’m sure some think I’m crazy to love the winter so much, but I have so many good memories attached to the cold, the snow, and winter-time, that I can’t help but love it.

Growing up, I remember happy times in the snow with my sisters. It really was a simpler time, finding joy in making snowmen, watching snow fall from our window, and sledding down small hills on stove top element covers (our answer to no sled).

The younger Mel (about 5th grade) enjoying the snow. And yes, that is a white bow a top my head!

Winter time, not only has the happy attachment of Christmas, but of our wedding. I dreamed of a white wedding, and that’s what we had, a white BLIZZARD of a wedding. Just ask anyone who had to brave the roads and the canyon to attend. December 27th we were married, and so when the snow starts falling, all I can think of was that happy day.

Our beautiful snowy wedding day. Behind us Cache Valley.

Mark and I also share this liking to winter. We are the couple that would pick the vacation destination of Montreal, Canada in January over say, the Bahamas. Which we did do, and we thought it was great! Sight seeing in our puffy coats and rabbit lined hats.

Visiting Quebec in January. Behind us the frozen St. Lawrence river.

Last year, Wellington was old enough to take sledding. His Uncle Ryan took us, and Welly loved it, although I think he was still a bit too young to really have fun. This year, I’ve been looking forward to taking him out to sled, throw snowballs, and play. So far he really has liked the snow more, crying whenever its time to go in. But mostly he loves to eat it.

When we had that good snow fall on Saturday, all he wanted to do was to eat the snow. Yesterday, we actually went out and played in it. It was fun, and it wasn’t until he ditched his gloves and realized how cold it was on his little baby hands did he want to go inside.

He was so cute playing in the snow, and I got a bunch of pictures of him doing what he does best, being cute. Duh!

I hope everyone has a safe and fun time in the snow.

A while back we made a post about a friend, and local Logan artist who entered and WON second place in a shirt design contest, on shirt.woot.com. We bought two and they arrived yesterday.

I think Wellington looks so cute in his shirt, me, I don’t know that pregnant belly isn’t really doing it for me.

I love the shirt though, and you can still purchase them on shirt.woot.com. They come in kids and adult sizes. I’m actually wearing a men’s, it’s the only size that will fit my expanding tummy, but I’ve gotten the women’s style in the past and its a lot cuter and more shapelier than the men’s..

Thanks Erica for designing such a cute shirt, keep it up! We can’t wait to see what you come up with next.