Seasons greeting etc. etc

As of yesterday, Addison is 2 months old! Time continues to fly by and my little baby isn't quite so little anymore... well compared to some other babies (and Chad, as you can see from the pants picture, she's little but not to me :)

With Chad's parents in town, we blessed her this past Sunday. Before church, we put Addi's dress on her and took a few pictures. We decided to take her dress off and put her in her carseat... where she promptly decided to throw up more than she ever has before. I am SOOO glad we took her dress off. We got her onesie changed and the carseat wiped up as good as we could and then rushed to church and got her dress put back on. Chad did a great job and Addison didn't have any other issues during the blessing or Sacrament meeting.

Since we didn't manage to get Christmas cards sent out this year and since I'm supposed to be packing to fly to Omaha tomorrow, this is as good as its going to get.
MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!!
From our little family!

And from this cute little bear!

Sad Day for Provo

This is the Provo Tabernacle. A fire destroyed it this morning. I have lots of great memories of attending concerts and stake conferences in this building. It is a great loss for Utah residents, both historically and sentimentally.
Here's the story on KSL http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=13693318

The price of Motherhood

Several days of monstrous blow outs
Price= Half a bottle of OxyClean and lots of time spent scrubbing little clothes at the sink
Lessons learned= 1.Its time to move out of newborn diapers and up to size 1
2. Some clothes cannot be saved


Projectile Spit up
Price= Got to experience the lovely sensation of having curdled milk thrown up in my hair and all down the inside of my shirt
Lesson learned= Just because a baby is asleep doesn't mean mommies are safe


Adorable smiles and the knowledge that she's mine forever = PRICELESS

What Already?!?

Sup foo! I'm one month old!

Mom and dad (mostly Mom) really wanted to get some cute pictures of me on my one month birthday. I wasn't being very cooperative at the time and then I decided to projective vomit on my awesome clothes before Mom could get some more so these are the ones they got. I've never not cute though so they're still ok.



I've had lots of visitors and fun in the past month. I'm getting bigger and actually fit into some of my clothes! Unfortunately for my parents, I'm not sleeping as good during the night anymore. I think its great staying up late. There's so much to look at, who would want to go to bed?!?! I'm also eating every 4 hours now instead of 3 so Mom gets a little bit more of a break between feedings. Life is pretty grand!
Here's some pictures from the last month.









Dad was a Geek Squad technician for his work Halloween party and I matched him with my "My Dad is a Nerd" onesie that Stephen and Heather got for me. :)

Its official

Addison is one of the cutest babies of all time.
Don't her smiles just make you want to melt :)

Who knew she could be such a cute little thug baby in her jogging suit.

She is smart too. She already knows sign language. We love you too Addi-baby.

On Saturday we went on our first family walk. The fall colors here in Orem were beautiful and the weather was just too good to stay inside. Addison really likes going for rides in her stroller. It probably because Chad made sure she got a top of the line, deluxe ride.

Too bad its going to get cold soon so we won't be able to do many more walks but we'll enjoy it while we can.

An Introduction

Hi. My name is Addison. I had a birthday last Friday on the 22nd. I like surprising people, especially my parents. I wasn't supposed to make my debut for another 2 1/2 weeks but everyone was happy to see me. I was pretty small, 5 lbs 12 oz, but my mom REALLY didn't mind that. :) I'm already a week old and everyone says that I've grown.
Before I was born, my mom worried all the time that she couldn't feel me move but it turns out that I've got a pretty mellow personality. My schedule consists of eating every three hours and then sleeping in between. I very rarely cry. I'm really good at making funny faces, especially when I'm sleeping. Everyone thinks I'm just the cutest baby ever and I'd have to agree.

Bragging Time

Last week I made Oreo Pie

And a Reeses pie

They were yummy

In other news, Chad really loves his new job and this baby is hopefully coming really soon. :)

Weekend of Happiness

A few weeks ago Chad read in our "What to Expect When You're Expecting" book that our baby's brain is growing really fast and that omega 3 helps promote a healthy brain. One of the foods suggested in the book was salmon. I have never liked fish (I blame those icky salmon patties we had growing up) but Chad has really been wanting to make it for me. So on Friday for our date, we started out by having salmon a la Chad. And guess what... I didn't die! In fact, I must be a real grown up because it actually tasted pretty good. Shocking, I know.
After dinner, we stopped by Iceberg and got some yummy shakes and then headed up to Squaw Peak... ooh scandalous ;) Ok so it wasn't really scandalous because we're married and we were just going to see the pretty fall colors but neither one of us had ever been up there so I think we got a kick out of pretending we were silly BYU freshman. Look at the beautiful scenery!

I think that shirt makes me look bigger than I really am...

Utah Lake and pretty clouds.

More scenery.

I found this handsome man wandering around the mountain and thought he'd make a good model for a rugged landscape shot.

After we went home, we watched "Searching for Bobby Fisher". Good movie.
Saturday was General Conference which is always wonderful. During the Priesthood session I went up to Holladay to visit Miss Meggie Winn. I even got to drive by Chad's new office. We made cupcake stands out of flower pots. I didn't take any pictures so maybe Meggie will put up a picture or two on her blog but they turned out really cute.
It was a very nice, relaxing weekend. Perfect for someone who's almost always tired for some reason. :)

Employment Status Update

Big news, i have a new job!  The company is called MindShare and i start on October 18th as their IT Systems Administrator.

To give a little background about my current job.  There have been a lot of changes and several things out of my control which have increased both my stress and workload over the past year.  I was not planning on leaving but an opportunity came up a couldn't refuse.

I have some good friends at MindShare who recommended me for the job.  Since the company started, about 7 years ago, they have never had a full time IT presence.  They have been pooling their minds together to make it work.

It is located of 4500 S in Salt Lake City.  It's a longer commute, but that is the only real downside we could think of.

But wait, how could that be the only downside if your wife is expecting your first baby 2.5 weeks after you start?


Here are some details that made my descision to make the switch easy.
1. Pay increase
2. Yearly performance bonus (4 figures)
3. a signing bonus to help pay back tuition reimbursement plan with current job.
4. COBRA insurance paid for my Mindshare for the month of November.  That way we can keep the few thousand $$ of deductibles and other hospital expenses we've paid making it easier when the baby is born.
5. Was able to custom build the laptop i will be using. (here are the quick specs for the geeks out there: Dell Core i7 2.66 GHz, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 360 GB Hard Drive, Windows 7....)
6. Flexible with school schedule.
7. The company religiously plays Ultimate Frisbee every Wed and Fri during the middle of the day.  They love it so much that they company is building showers for their employees to use after the game.
8. Lots of opportunities to be successful.

I am very excited to start this new job and wish the next 2 weeks would pass by a little faster...

Go go go

For some reason I feel like Chad and I have been on the go constantly lately... or maybe Chad is constantly on the go and it makes me tired just watching him. :) Its probably the "go-go-go" mentality that has made September fly by. Seriously, where did it go?!?!? (not that I'm complaining at all because what pregnant woman doesn't want time to fly by?)
Last Saturday, we got to go the BYU vs. Nevada football game. The seats were great and it was fun to be back in the stadium. Unfortunately, it just wasn't the same as it used to be when I was in school because BYU's game failed to impress this time around. Very, very disappointing to say the least. But we did get 2 pictures in. :)


We reached the 34 week mark yesterday which means in 6 weeks or less, we'll have to transition into responsible people that have to keep a child alive! I'm not really too worried. Mostly we're just excited and ready for her to come. I'm pretty sure I go into the baby room almost everyday just to look at the cute clothes etc. Chad laughs at me sometimes but I'm pretty sure he finds me adorable.
In other news, stay tuned for updates on Chad's employment status...

Bad Parent

If this was my daughter I would laugh... alot.

Contract Kung-Fu

So a few weeks ago i was driving in my car when the check engine light came on. I didn't think much about it. The next day i went to AutoZone to have the error code read for free. The results didn't help much, "clutch solenoid." So i Googled the answer but every website that i found said that you had to take it into the dealership. *sigh*

So i brought it into the dealership and paid the $47.50 diagnostic fee. After hours of them tearing apart my engine the conclusion was that my car needed the transmission replaced.

The error was a faulty part inside of the transmission. Far above any grease monkey work i've done.



The positive side is that when i bought my car 2.5 years ago i purchased an extended warranty, which wasn't cheap. So i let them know and they called the warranty company to get the ball rolling.

They called me back the next day saying that they were still waiting to hear back...

day two....still waiting to hear back.

Finally they came back on the 3rd day with 3 options. (Keep in mind that my car currently has about 89,700 miles on it.)

1) Pay the $100 deductible = Used transmission with 82,000 miles on it.
2) Pay the $100 deductible + $150 = Used transmission with 44,000 miles on it.
3) Pay the $100 deductible + $1,000 = New transmission.

The options were less then exciting for me. So i called the dealership and asked for a copy of my warranty contract. After about 1.5 weeks i finally got it.

I read it over and over....and....i had some questions. It didn't say anywhere in the contract that they could use a used transmission. In fact, it stated that the warranty was an extension of the manufacturer warranty, in this case, Hyundai. As far as i know the Hyundai warranty rocks! and i was positive that under the Hyundai warranty that i would get at least option 3 above.

So i called the dealership and asked to speak with them in person about the questions i had with the contract. I went in, did some of my contract Kung-Fu, explained everything to them and they said, "you're right."

So i ended up with option 4 which is pay the $100 deductible = NEW TRANSMISSION!

Boh-yah!

So my car is currently in the hospital and i have a loaner until it is finished.

I was pretty excited about the end result.