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Happy Birthday, Adelaide!

I can't believe it's been a year since Adie's arrival. This year has flown by. It does every year, and it's true what they say, every year time flies faster. It's been an incredible year and I can't imagine life without our little Adelaide now. It's also amazing to see something so small and helpless change and grow. Sure, she's still a mini human and can't do a ton on her own, but she's growing up very quickly.

We didn't do much to celebrate tonight even though today is her real birthday, but we did plenty of it over the weekend. We actually went to Idaho for the weekend to attend the Rexburg Temple open house, which was absolutely beautiful (as expected), so Sunday night we had ice cream, cake and opened gifts with Brett's family. On our way back from Idaho on Monday we stopped at my mom's house and had another party with my mom, stepdad and dad - more cake and presents. We got a lot of good pictures. Here are a few for your enjoyment.

Listening Online

This weekend Sabrina and I get to be in Idaho to see the Rexburg temple open house. This caused a slight problem, as the BYU vs. Utah basketball game was played today. I listened to it online because my mom doesn't have cable or a fast enough internet connection to stream video. A most frustrating part of listening to the game online is I have no clue if the announcers are unbiased or not. I've listened to KALL 700 enough to know that they are certainly biased, and so I realize I can't necessarily believe everything the KSL guys say either. From the way they called the game the refs let Utah foul BYU throughout the game. If BYU had lost the game, I would have been upset about that. Would I have really been justified? I'm not sure, but maybe I should just get used to it though since the mtn. certainly won't be broadcast wherever we're living next fall.

Roma Tomatoes

I'm sure we've all bought roma tomatoes at the grocery store. They're the long, narrow tomatoes, right? WRONG!!

This evening I was contemplating what to eat and decided to have toasted cheese sandwhiches (open face bread with cheese melted in the broiler in the oven). I always have tomatoes covered with mayo and salt on it. (for some reason specifically naming salt in a dish that doesn't seem like it should have it automatically makes it sound nasty, but it's not nasty, it's quite good). Anyway, on with the story. So, Sabrina tells me that we have roma tomatoes, so I plan 3 sandwiches to go with 1 tomato ( I know, I have it down to a science), slice the cheese and put the sandwiches in the oven. As I go to pull out the tomatoes, I had to double check because those tomatoes certainly couldn't be roma, could they? I thought not, but they were long and, well.. fat. It just wasn't right. I started slicing it up and realized that it had totally ruined my plan. I was left with extra tomato, and nothing to eat it with! Dang mutant tomatoes. This probably isn't nearly as funny at 8 am either, but oh well.

My Love-Hate Relationship with American Idol

Many of you know American Idol is one of my guilty pleasures. I've actually tried to give it up and it just keeps sucking me back in, but I don't know why. I love it, but I hate it. I especially have a hard time watching the audition episodes. This is most people's favorite part of the series but I really dislike it sometimes because the judges can be so cruel to people who honestly think they can sing decently. It probably does most of them good to have someone tell them that singing should just be a hobby for them and to not utilize more of their time trying to make it a profession, but do they have to do it so heartlessly. Yes, Paula and Randy generally break the news a little softer than Simon, but they have their moments of cruelty as well and I think they've gotten meaner over the past few years. I will concede that they are nice some of the time, especially when they are aware of a delicate situation. Also, I don't mind them being harsh to the people that do ridiculous antics just to get on television. They know they aren't getting through. In any case, I don't particularly love watching anyone make a fool of themselves on national television, whether they're doing it on purpose or not.

The part I do enjoy about American Idol is listening to the truly talented people sing. I have mentioned previously my love for music, so I am naturally drawn to a show focused on music. I tend to like the episodes after the Hollywood auditions better because you get to see the real talent (usually, unless they pick someone for a marketing ploy). The judges do throw some unnecessary barbs in there occasionally, which I still don't like, but it's better than watching people who never should try out to begin with embarrass themselves. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind constructive criticism, but laughing at someone who is honestly trying or telling them they are "hideous", or some other nonconstructive word, is never appropriate in my opinion.

All that said, I continue to watch, even the audition episodes. It's even worse now that we have DVR. Before, if I missed an episode, oh well, but now, I have no excuse and I give into the temptation every time.

Holiday Recap

Is it too late to tell everyone how the holidays went? I haven't been in much of a blogging mood lately. Christmas really burnt me out and then I had a sick child for a while. Besides we're still dealing with what are becoming normal sleep issues though I am feeling pretty good again and ready to get back into action.

The holidays really started for us on the 22nd. I went up to meet some friends for breakfast, a tradition we've done every Christmas for a while now. It's always good to catch up with them. Of the 5 of us in attendance, 4 are pregnant. No, I'm not making an announcement. I was the odd (wo)man out and that is just fine with me :) I can tell you, though, that we've never had a conversation so centered on pregnancies and babies before.

(Ah oh, I just heard ripping coming from Adie's room. Better go check that out. Ahhh, I carelessly left my Spanish Book of Mormon I was reading to her on the floor of her room. I should have known better. It's just one page and repairable with tape. That will look really nice!)

Ok, back to Christmas-time...Saturday night we watched the Las Vegas Bowl with some of Brett's siblings. It was a very exciting game and Adie was very well-behaved. I took her back to my mom's place early though to put her to bed and since my mom doesn't have cable we listened to the 4th quarter on the radio and couldn't believe the outcome.

The next day was probably my favorite day. Brett and I went to the Music and the Spoken Word while my mom watched Adie. It was nice to have a little date and as I've said in previous posts, I love, love, love the MoTab, especially at Christmas-time. All the songs were amazing, but I was especially moved by the Wexford Carol and Oh Come All Ye Faithful. We later went to church with my mom and step-dad. It was just hour-long church, which is nice to have every once in a while. Then, later that afternoon, Brett, Adie and I went to Temple Square to see the lights, hence the new header to our blog. Adie was enthralled with the lights. We got a lot of great pictures, but they are all in a format I'd have to change and I don't feel like it right now, so you just get that one. After Temple Square we headed to Brett's sister's house for fondue. Mmmmmm! We decided to make it a family tradition to do fondue every Christmas. Sweet!

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were spent going back and forth from my mom's house to Brett's sisters house so we could enjoy Christmas with everyone. We had lots and lots of good food, tons of presents and played lots of games. The going back and forth was kind of tiring though. Normally, we go to Idaho one year and stay here for another, so we're not used to sharing, but Brett's mom came down and we thought we'd take advantage of trying to see everyone. I don't know how people do it whose families live close together so they always share. It was pretty hectic.

The highlight of Christmas day was Adie already figuring out that you don't sleep in. She decided to wake up at 4 am and not go back to bed. I guess she is already in on that Santa thing. Mom was not at all happy (see previous posts for explanations of being cranky without sleep), but by 6 am we were all up and started opening gifts.

The day after Christmas we headed back to Provo, unpacked, did laundry and cleaned before heading off to the Brick Oven for dinner with friends. Most of us came back to our place for hot chocolate and games. We didn't end playing games, as Brett and Brian spent their time on Photoshop while the rest of us talked, but it was a good time.

The next day was Christmas II with my dad who had to work on Christmas. We met him at my grandparents' place in Alpine. We spent a few hours together, opened gifts, talked and then went to the Holdman House to see their awesome light display. I am so glad we went after Christmas though. I heard there was quite the line before, but we went right in. It was really fun to see.

The 28th is when the fun really began. We headed down to St. George for a family reunion / late Christmas party and on the way there Adie threw up. She caught the nasty bug that everyone is getting. At the time we thought it was just mucous draining into her stomach since she had a little cold and had been sitting up in her carseat for so long. But, when the nastiness just kept coming once we were in St. George we knew is was worse than that. As you may have read in an earlier post, Adie got everyone sick, including many of my family because we shouldn't have taken her to the reunion (to our credit, she had been seeming better and was acting just fine). Brett actually did manage to escape without catching it, which was nice because he could watch Adie while I recovered. By New Year's Eve we were all feeling at least well enough to play games until midnight and have a toast of Martinelli's to the new year. However, my brother and his wife, who were celebrating with us that night, got home from St. George and promptly starting throwing up too.

It took Adie a few more days for her to recover than the rest of us and ended up with an ear infection to top it off, but things are pretty much back to normal. I don't even know what her sleep schedule is supposed to be now though since it got all messed up from vacations and sickness, but hopefully, we'll get that sorted out soon. All in all, it was a great holiday break. I am glad to be back to a more normal routine though. I start to miss that after a little while. I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday as well and that the new year has started off well!

College Football

I believe I've made several statements in the past about the farce that the BCS is and how overrated the Big 10 is. I would have to say that Ohio State helped prove that point for a second year in a row. While I am no means an SEC fan, Ohio State has managed to embarrass themselves and the Big 10 for 2 years running. While the blowout was not quite as colossal (they actually got 353 yards of total offense this go round as opposed to 82 last year). However, I just had to post a fairly enjoyable article from ESPN: link.