The long awaited girl :)

We had our ultrasound for the baby last week and had the doctor write the gender down in an envelope which we opened on Christmas with my family and with Brian's parents on the phone. All the girls were pretty excited and Brian's first comment was "I need to buy a gun." This will be the first girl on both sides so that's exciting :) She is growing very well and is healthy. We are going to visit Brian's sister this week where she will give us another ultrasound (free!) to confirm. The next challenge will be finding a name . . . we'll come up with something eventually right?

Christmas 09

Lots of pictures :)

We went to my parent's house for Christmas this year. Everyone was together for Christmas Eve. We're quite a lively group!

The tree and gifts on Christmas morning

Matthew slept until about 8:30 then went downstairs and decided to start opening presents on his own. Luckily Brian hopped out of bed and stopped him. Then Matthew went to get everyone else up (there are some videos and pictures on Brian's flickr page , some of the photos are my duplicates).
This is him showing me te present he started opening on his own.

Opening our present from Nana and Papa all the way from Italy.

The girls opening their phones.Brent opening his gift with his teeth . . .

The aftermath.

Playing with presents with the twins when they stopped by later in the day.

Grandma gave the grandsons matching outfits.

Christmas this year was so nice! It's hard to tell by the pictures, but we had a pretty low-key Christmas (at least the Harris part did). I didn't feel stressed at all. We always have fun with our family and Matthew was so cute this year. He was excited about everything so just making him happy was enough. Merry (late) Christmas to you all and happy new year!

Mom's Surprise Party

My cute mom turned 50 yesterday. My dad decided he wanted to do a surprise party for her. We have been planning this for a couple of months because she's so hard to surprise and we really didn't want to embarrass her; just let her feel loved. As part of the surprise we flew out. We were able to pull if off and I think she had a good time.

Mom arriving at the party and seeing Matthew :)

My dad says my mom is a hot mama so that was the theme. She's putting on her party attire. We also had hot wassail (her favorite), sweet breads, hot tamales, red hots and cinnamon jolly ranchers.

Da cake.

Matthew helping open a present.

Brian really getting into the music . . . .

The bottom of my head and Danny.

Jared waving hi (one of his newest skills).

Matthew was in little boy heaven being able to fly to grandma's. We drove to the airport, took the shuttle, rode escalators and moving sidewalks and then got on the plane. He did a great job, the only bad thing was he asked so many questions! He is so curious!

This was a little boy he played with at the playground area of the Salt Lake airport.

Walking (actually running) up the tunnel to the plane.

So happy to be on the plane, isn't he cute!?

Happy birthday mom, you're the best!

Christmas Party '09

This year for Brian's company party they reserved this big house up in Boulder. It is on a historical site called Chatauqua (I hope I spelled it right). We started off with munchies and a game with baby pictures where you guess who it is. This year was kind of difficult for me because there were so many new people! Having only worked here for three years Brian is already one of the "senior" people. The first Christmas party we were around for there were about nine employees and a couple of them were up from Australia. This year there were about 20, plus their dates (and none from Australia this time). I almost needed everyone to wear name tags.

The hang out room with the bedrooms up on the second floor.

Our cute little room

We had to get up before everyone else to make it back down so Brian could take his Ham radio test, which he passed :)

The dance floor. The DJ was really entertaining too. We didn't spend a whole lot of time on the dance floor because I was tired. Brian and I decided we were a little too old and too sober to really get into all the dancing.

Here's the dj; he's not dancing around in this picture, but he spent a lot of the night dancing. You could tell he really liked his job.

What's my reward?

Pardon a non-Christmas blog post, but I will get to those too. . . . eventually.

I was folding laundry the other night and thinking to myself, what's my motivation for doing this? What will my reward be? This is one of the hardest things for me about being a stay-at-home mom. Most of my life has been spent with work followed by some kind of a reward-I studied hard for a test so I get a good grade; I stayed with the company for another year and am rewarded with a raise; good driving record? my rates go down; I choose the right and am able to be married to my man in the temple; etc, etc.
But in my now day-to-day, life rewards are harder to find. Yes, I feel better and happier when my house is clean. Having clean clothes and clean plates is a nice perk. I hope I set a good example for Matthew when he sees me working hard. But wouldn't it be nice to have some cosmic force say "Wow, you really took it to the bathroom this week! As a reward you don't need to clean it for two weeks!" or if my precious boy after a temper tantrum turned to me and said "Mom, you handled my emotional outburst really well, why don't you put your feet up and enjoy your book while I play quietly in my room without making a mess." Wouldn't that be wonderful!?
I've also had trouble playing the roles of both "student" and "teacher." When do I really deserve a reward? How much work does it require? Can someone else set the expectations for me so that I can enjoy a reward without feeling guilty?
I'm sure this is one of the many balances that I will continue to juggle, so thanks for reading and have a good weekend :)

The life and times of my turkey

We had a pretty small Thanksgiving this year so I made my very first turkey. I think it was some kind of right of passage. You know that's something my mom and grandparents do, I show up with a salad and an appetite! Everyone said it turned out really well and now I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing next time.

Utah November '09

We went to Utah last week for my roommate's wedding. I didn't take pictures of the wedding, but here are the ones I did take-

Matthew helping Grandma make his favorite, pumpkin bread.

Playing with Uncle Brent

Helping Grandma rake leaves. He was so happy she had a rake just his size.

Eating breadsticks with his friend Logan.

Fake out eggplant parmesan

I have been super bored with food lately and just wanting to eat out. I decided to try and make eggplant Parmesan since I wasn't going to make it to Macaroni Grill. I need it to be simple so I read a couple of recipes and then made up my own. I thought it was pretty good-here's what I did:

One eggplant sliced then put in some Italian salad dressing and then Italian seasoned bread crumbs. Baked it in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes (but I think I'll do it for closer to 20 next time). I made just normal spaghetti for the family. Then I sprinkled some mozzarella and Parmesan cheese and put it back in the oven until it melted. I think the mozzarella is the star of the show so don't skimp on that one. I thought it turned out pretty well so I'll try it again; now I'll have to come up with something yummy for the leftovers. :)

Butter sneared on bread

Matthew was singing and "dancing" for about 30 minutes the other day. Here's a small piece-

Halloween and snow storms

Carving pumpkins at our house involves power tools.

Matthew didn't want to touch the pumpkin so he just supervised.

The snow storm

Getting ready to trick or treat. If you want to see more pictures you can go to Brian's page (I donated my memory card to him when he discovered he didn't have his).

Following a temper tantrum, he looks so peaceful and innocent doesn't he?