where are you christmas?

Well christmas is over and soon the new year will come. so crazy. Christmas was a little weird this year which I guess is to be expected. It was quiet and relaxing though, and I enjoyed hanging out with jared and his crew. Lindsay made some delicious food all throughout christmas day, and my tummy thanks her for that.
Christmas eve we did the traditional "earl family" get together, which is always filled with good food and entertainment. Don't know how many other families have a talent show every christmas eve...but we do! I think my favorite part of the night was seeing my 83 year old grandma dancing to chris brown's "forever"...yep it was as awesome as you might be picturing.
After the earl festivities I drove down to tri-town to spend the night with jared's family. That trip down there pretty much sucked. I have driven in some crappy winter weather before, but this one took the cake. It was snowing soooooooo hard, and the roads were just covered. I drove 30 mph almost the whole way, only knowing I was on the road because i kept hitting the bumps on the side and middle of the roads if I veered too far to one side. It was insane. I was so happy that my little girl just slept so good the whole time in her car seat as we listened to rockabye baby tunes (rock songs made into instrumental lullabies...yeah pretty awesome!). By the time I got to tri-town my knuckles were so sore, and I was ready to relax.
Overall christmas was good, and i am thankful for the memories that were made.

last night jill baker commented about how cute baby clothes are and how fun it is to shop for them...and it is so true. so true in fact that i had many "holiday outfits" for qiana, and managed to get them all in throughout the week long festivities. so here is an outfit recap.

her official christmas dress featured in her 3 months old pictures

one of her christmas onesie's...worn christmas morning.

a pretty gold and cream dress that she wore christmas eve

her santa's helper outfit....the boots pretty much make the outfit.

her other christmas onesie...i liked them both and couldn't decide which one to get so of course I bought both...I am my mother's daughter.


Hope everyone had a great christmas!

santa baby leave a present under the tree for me...

so i have a secret santa and i wanted to put a thank you out into the universe. so to the person or persons that gave me some wonderful and needed items this christmas...THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! my heart is full of gratitude and love.

my girl wants to party all the time, party all time, party all the time

So this weekend we had a bunch of stuff going on, which probably explains why my baby is now getting sick, poor thing isn't used to having functions to attend to.

Friday night was our friends christmas party and we had the girl over for fondue and other finger foods, presents, and games. It was good times.
Leave it to emily to try new things....






Michelle had come over earlier in the day and Qiana found the perfect spot to lay on...how is this comfortable?


Saturday we headed to the Singles ward christmas function. My main reasoning for this was to get Qiana's picture taken with Santa. I have already posted before how I feel about most mall santa's so I thought getting her picture taken with a Santa I trusted was a great idea.

To fully grasp how cute her outfit was here are come pictures I took earlier in the day...


even us grown-ups got in on the action...
and....no rachel and I did not coordinate our outfits.

the singles ward was having an "ugly sweater" theme....emily does not usually look like this.

Well saturday night it started to snow like crazy, and pretty much didn't stop on sunday. My baby was getting a cough and running nose so we stayed indoors chillin on the couch watchin christmas movies.




We did try to work some more on "tummy time" throughout the weekend....yeah that isn't a very pleasant thing for either of us. But in pictures in did happen to catch what i like to call the

5 stages of Qiana's tummy time experience:

"um...what exactly are we trying to accomplish here?"

"just so you know I am not liking this very much, and I would highly suggest you pick me up"

"you are trippin'....seriously...pick me up"

"i warned you..."

"i still love you...but right now I'm not liking you very much and I would appreciate some time alone"

ooh girl I know your secret...

When I was younger I had this game called "adver-teasing". I'm not quite sure how you were supposed to play it, but my sister and I would make up advertising campaigns all the time, and do our "pitches" to the pretend clients that would come into our office. I believe with this "experience" under my belt I am able to see real genius in advertising. Ha ha ha. Okay maybe not, but I still think this commercial is just plain awesome...and pretty catchy!

do you hear what i hear?

With Christmas just around the corner and holiday movies filling up our televisions I thought I would give you guys a little quiz. See if you can guess what holiday movie the quote is from. Now don't cheat! The answers will be the first comment.

1.
"It wouldn't be the Christmas season if the stores were anymore hooter...I mean hotter than they are."

2.
-What did she says the play is called?
-"Christmas Pageant."
-That's no name. That's what it is.
-I know a name. I'd call it "Revenge at Bethlehem."

3.
-[narrating] NOW it was serious. A double-dog-dare. What else was there but a "triple dare ya"? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.
-I TRIPLE-dog-dare ya!
- [narrating] Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the triple dare and going right for the throat!

4.
"It's just like Santa's workshop! Except it smells like mushrooms... and everyone looks like they wanna hurt me... "

5.
-Did Clarissa leave her mittens here ?
-Oh, yes, yes they're right here.
-You hung them on the christmas tree ?
-Well, you remind me of everything good about Christmas so I just couldn't think of a better place. Here... there you are.

6.
Yes! So perhaps, in the future, you will hold your tongue until you have discovered where the surplus population is, and WHO it is. It may well be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than MILLIONS like this poor man's child.

7.
Dear Santa Claus,
How have you been? Did you have a nice summer?
How is your wife? I have been extra good this year, so I have a long list of presents that I want.
Please note the size and color of each item, and send as many as possible. If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself: just send money. How about tens and twenties?

8.
[Props man tries to attach antlers to a mouse]
-I can't get the antlers glued to this little guy. We tried Crazy Glue, but it don't work.
-Did you try staples?

9.
Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?

10.
Damn. How can you give Kris Kringle a parking ticket on Christmas Eve? What's next, rabies shots for the Easter Bunny?

11.
-Fluctuate? You make it sound like I'm retaining water. I've gained 45 pounds in a week. Pete, -what's happening to me?
-Well, what's your diet like?
-Milk and cookies.
-Really?
-But I don't finish all the milk.
-Well then there is your problem. Just try to cut back on the sweets, okay?

12.
-That's not *my* Christmas! *My* Christmas is filled with laughter, and joy... and this: my Sandy Claws outfit. I want you to make it.
-Jack, please listen to me. It's going to be a disaster!
-How could it be? Just follow the pattern!
[holds up design of outfit]
-This part's red, the trim is white...
-It's a mistake, Jack!
-Now don't be modest. Who else is clever enough to make my Sandy Claws outfit?

13.
On Christmas Eve many years ago I laid quietly in my bed. I did not rustle the sheets, I breathed slowly and silently. I was listening for a sound I was afraid I'd never hear: the sound of Santa's sleigh bells.

14.
-All right, you're a reindeer. Here's your motivation: Your name is Rudolph, you're a freak with a red nose, and no one likes you. Then, one day, Santa picks you and you save Christmas. No, forget that part. We'll improvise... just keep it kind of loosey-goosey. You HATE Christmas! You're gonna steal it. Saving Christmas is a lousy ending, way too commercial. ACTION!
-[Max knocks the red nose off]
-BRILLIANT! You reject your own nose because it represents the glitter of commercialism. Why didn't I think of that? Cut, print, check the gate, moving on.

15.
But wouldn't it be great if number one this Christmas wasn't some smug teenager but an old ex-heroin addict searching for a comeback at any price?

It's Picture Perfect the way you work it girl...

So this past saturday I took Qiana down to tri-town to get her pictures taken. I am a major planner and was proudly organized. Our appointment was at noon, so I got there around 11:15 with plenty of time to feed her, change her diaper, and put on her christmas dress and be ready with smiles for our appointment. Apparently the group in front of me did NOT follow this plan. They had an appointment at 11:30 and got there a few minutes before noon...AND THEY TOOK THEM BACK BEFORE ME!! So Qiana... who was feeling good, smiling like crazy, and completely chill had to wait a little over 30 minutes to get her pictures taken. Talk about frustrating. She did okay, but I fear she wasted her most precious smiles on me while we waited. After about 15 minutes of picture taking she was done and just wanted to snuggle. Here are some of the pictures that came out.
I won't show you my favorites cause those will be featured on the cards coming soon!

'Cause somebody gonna love you....Oh, I'm always gonna love you

So this past friday my friends and I headed to Spokane to see "the Color Purple" at the opera house. This has always been one of my favorite books, and along with "to kill a mockingbird" was always my "go-to" book for a report in any english class, so when I heard they had made it into a musical I was seriously stoked. Then a couple years ago I saw Fantasia's performance of "I'm here" on the Tony awards and I was desperate to see it the first chance I got. The music is so fantastic from it with "I'm here", "somebody gonna love you", "what about love", and "to beautiful for words" being my ultimate favorites.


Me and the gang got to Spokane, got a bite to eat, then headed to the theater.



It was so awesome to get a chance to see this musical, I was fortunate enough to get Michelle's parents to watch Qiana and give me an opportunity to hang out with my friends and see a wonderfully awesome musical. I do have to admit that it was really weird being without Qiana and I was ready to get home and snuggle with my baby once the show was done.

although the musical was cool in some respects it didn't quite live up to hype I had created in my head. for instance...
1. The lady playing, in this production, the role of Shug Avery just did NOT have a voice powerful enough to move me like the original cast member.
2. Some of the acting, especially from "Mister" was kind of pathetic in some scenes.

and lastly but most importantly...
3. Of all the times, I read the book, the theme of (how shall I put this) massive "women to women love" never stood out to me. I remembered that shug and celie had kissed and that celie "loved" shug, but to me it was always more about celie finally feeling capable of being loved then actually having a lesbian love relationship with shug. But the musical version...well I don't know if they were trying to appeal to a certain gay broadway-loving audience but they sure played up THAT theme..which was a little weird. Especially since my favorite song "what about love" is apparently the lesbian love theme of the show.

Overall though I quite enjoyed it, and pretty much felt like i had been transported to the black, gospel lovin south for 2 1/2 hours on a cold friday night in Spokane, washington.

So let's add this to my

list of broadway shows I have seen:

annie (2 times)
phantom of the opera (2 times)
Les miserables (3 times)
brigadoon
sayonara
cats
joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat
west side story
lion king
hairspray (2 times)
wicked
dirty rotten scoundrels
jersey boys
spamalot
avenue q
color purple

it's christmas time in the city...

I'm collecting addresses for my christmas card list. If you would like to be on the list, please email me your address. Thanks.

ab98837@gmail.com

Funky Christmas and a funky new year, I swear...we got ourselves a party here

So last night Em, Qiana, and I got our holiday decorating on. We put on my christmas mix, and got the trees up. Qiana was a good girl, dressed in her holiday onesie (okay not really, but she was super comfortable so that's all that matters right?) and watched.

I was fortunate enough to be able to keep my mom's tree that she was so proud of, and em and I put it up where she always liked it. Man that thing was a beast to put together, and I'm not sure how my mom with her bum knees and all did it, but I just think it's the prettiest tree around.







Apparently Em and I had a "who could take the worst picture of the other under the tree" contest? Not quite sure, but i think we both lost this one.


I am now officially a grown up I think, because my household now has one classy tree and one "kid" tree filled with my precious ornaments from my grandma, and now Qiana's first christmas ornament.

This next picture is blurry but i had to post it, cause Qiana is smiling so so cute.

I know I should have waited until the traditional christmas eve, but she's too young to know about tradition yet.

I did continue with the Bates family dance party though. How can you not move to mariah's "all I want for christmas is you"?

i talk talk ...i talk to you.

I had a couple posts to catch up on so make sure you check out both of my newest posts.

you are the sunshine of my life..

My baby is two months old. so so crazy.




Things I love about her:

She loves music. Whether its chillin in her seat listening to hip hop as I get ready in the morning or layin down listening to love songs as we nap in the afternoon...she loves her jams. I swear she already has rhythm and swear she was kicking her legs to the beat of Pinks "so what" this morning. some of you nay-sayers may say it was a coincidence, but I say she is a natural.

She is the most content little thing. I am pretty sure she may be like I was and Be a really a good baby until about 18 months, and then go crazy from there...but I won't mind. Right now she is a dream. We took our first plane ride and she basically slept or laid quietly in my arms the whole time. I got alot of compliments on her behavior...but at this point I really can't take credit for anything..."she was born that way" is all i say.

She is loved by her family and she loves them. Elsie couldn't get enough of "baby", Kaiya was my little helper and an amazing older cousin and caretaker, and Qiana loved all the love.



She smiles and I get giddy.

She is really starting to hold her head up pretty good. The rest of her is still a little topsy-turvy, but she moves her little head around like crazy.

She is sleeping for longer periods at night. if you consider 4 hours a longer period...and i do. She usually has one long period (like 4 hours) followed by 2 hour periods of sleep until she is up for a big chunk in the morning. It may not sound like a big deal, but I am counting it a blessing.