Dirt monkey, new job and REAL SL

Our little dirt monkey! Yesterday Sasha and I were swinging on our swings out back. After a few minutes, I glanced over and noticed that Sasha was kneeling on the ground. I thought she was probably doing her typical activity of grabbing long pine needles and dragging them through the dirt. All of a sudden, Sasha layed flat on her belly and took a big bite of dirt. She immediately spit out the mouthful of dirt and stood up to look at me and secure some sympathy for her predicament. Her face was covered in dirt, which she promptly started wiping all over her coat sleeves. I was laughing too hard at this point to prevent the massive amounts of dirt from getting on her coat, but I did manage to persuade her to pause in her dirt wiping long enough to get her in the house to wash up. She wanted to get in the tub because she doesn't like being really dirty so she started stripping off clothing left and right in order to expedite the process. We ran into Aaron inside and I had trouble stopping the giggles again as I retold the story of Sasha's dirt adventure. Thanks for the laughs, sweet Sasha! So, for the last month we've been adjusting to life with Aaron at his new job, which has been wonderful and challenging at the same time. Aaron began work as an account manager for Cisco systems (i.e. routers, wireless connectivity, etc) in mid-February and is really starting to get a feel for things. It has been a challenging transition for Sasha since Aaron was previously working from home for the past year and a half. Aaron watched Sasha on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings/afternoons while I went to work. Sasha loves her papa and was so sad when she couldn't spend her days with him. Now, Sasha is watched by Deanna (our wonderful neighbor, who has 8 beautiful children of her own, who are now all in school) on Mondays and grandma and grandpa Hull on Wednesdays and Fridays. She used to cry everytime I dropped her off anywhere at first, but now seems to be adapting to the change. Another big change for Sasha happened this weekend when Sasha finally gave up her binky. I know, Sasha is 2 1/2 now and long past the time when we would have wanted to get rid of it. For the last 1 1/2 years, she's only had it at naptime and bedtime so we wanted to take the final step to get rid of it 4 months ago. However, right as we started, she got extremely sick off and on for about a month and we didn't have the heart to finally toss it out when she was so miserable and wanting it so badly. Needless to say, it's finally gone and we're so happy about it! It only took 2 nights and one day of some crying and being upset for her to adjust. Phew! Now (as soon as our crib modification set comes) we can put her in a big girl bed and make the final leap in potty training. We've been hitting the part or playing on our playground out back as often as we can when the sun comes out and Sasha loves it. Our tulips are poking through and it just feels like spring should finally be here. We can't wait! We were able to go a REAL Salt Lake soccer game on March 1 and see an impressive 4-1 victory. The game started at 8 pm and it was COLD so we weren't sure how Sasha would handle it. She actually did really well since all bundled up in coats and blankets. We lasted until about 9:30 pm when the score was 3-1 so we saw most of the exciting action. I love soccer and am so excited to pass that on to Sasha. Just yesterday she was kicking the ball around the yard and I couldn't help but feel a swell of happiness to her enjoying herself. I know it's cheesy, but what can I say? I'm sure she'll find her own things that bring her happiness, but I do hope that soccer get a little piece of the pie at some point. :) We were sad that the free tickets for our REAL passes ran out for yesterday's game against the LA Galaxy, but we were still able to go on a double date with Drue and Maggs to a fun (and free) comedy show at Wiseguys. It's great to laugh for a whole evening and have sore cheeks from smiling so much. Thanks to my parents for watching all the kiddos on short notice - they had such fun being all together and thanks to Drue and Maggs for finding the free deal and inviting us to go! It definitely kept me from feeling sad about not going to the game (what can I say, I've always wanted to see David Beckham play). I do have to apologize for the lack of photos - I will try to be better in the future. :)

Share the Love!

In celebration of the upcoming day of love, Sasha and I made a valentine for Aaron. It was Sasha's first time doing valentines and using scissors so I wasn't sure how it would go. Just picture a 2-year old girl with pretty paper, sharp kid-size scissors and glue. It turned out to be such a great time and Sasha loved tapping into her creative side. I think her favorite part was giving the valentine to Aaron - she couldn't wait to give it to him so we gave it to him early. She was so excited and proud to give him something special. I have been so grateful to have him around over the last year and a half (as he worked on building his own company) and see how his relationship with Sasha has deepened. It just makes me happy to see how they play together and how much Sasha adores her papa - plus, it doesn't hurt to have a hubby who understands what it means to take care of a child all day. :) We love you, sweetie!

Aaron had a surprise of his own for me on Saturday when I got home from work. He made me a special valentine. He got points from me just for thinking of doing something, but he took it to a new level. He looked through all my crafting scraps and made a "repurposed" card as an homage to the last year and a half. I don't know if you can see, but he actually cut out the word 'Valentine's' by hand - all I can say is wow. Thanks for the sweet card and, most especially, the effort that went into it.

To continue our post-sickness enjoyment of the winter season, we took Sasha snowshoeing and sledding. Okay, the snowshoeing ended up just being snow hiking because we decided to go on the Bonneville shoreline trail to be assured the joy of basqueing in the sun while hiking. Sasha even hiked for about 1/4 mile of the steepest part of the hike - what a trooper! Notice Sasha's attempt to lean in to the photo after papa asked her to lean close to him for the picture. We didn't get a great photo of sledding, but Sasha liked it. We found the perfect, little hill for her first time. She was hesitant at first, but she warmed up to it after the first time. I loved that the hill had a steeper part up higher that led into a more shallow section. Aaron and I enjoyed the steeper part on a few solo runs and stuck to the shallow section with Sasha. Aaron even attempted to "snowboard" down on the sled and got a lot more speed that he bargained for. He ended up having to bail early, but it was a good time for all of us.

Winter Wonderland...

We've had a wonderful January enjoying Christmas presents, baking, playing in the snow and looking forward to spring. Okay, so let's be honest. The looking forward to spring part has been especially strong this year because one or more of us has been sick over the last month. We're not normally sick very often so this year's fluke is a real puzzler. Needless to say, although we love winter and all the baking and winter fun, spring couldn't come soon enough!

Sasha received an apron from Gibson this year and particularly enjoying putting it to good use while making the pumpkin pancakes from a mix that Brandan and Becky gave us for Christmas. It was delicious! Sasha absolutely loves helping in the kitchen. Her "helping" usually consists of mixing anything and everything while it spills over the sides, using the measuring spoons and cups to pour various amounts of water back and forth and pretty much wanting to be involved in every aspect of making the food. It is such fun to see her learn, although you try explaining to a 2-year old the concept of food poisoning and bacteria as she pleads with you to handle the raw chicken.

Sasha is carefully examining the contents of the package and telling me how we should prepare it.
Sasha (with lots of help from her papa) made her first snowman ever! Okay, so we've slacked a bit on the snow activities due to illness floating around our house like crazy. However, we have vowed to make up for it with the last remaining bit of winter. Sasha's had the flu for the last week with a temperature of 104-106 so we're just focusing on making it through this and then we'll get to some more winter fun.

Sasha was queen of the snowman for the day.

This month, I'm hopefully going to start to selling my handmade cards and little girls' aprons at Serendipity, my brothers' store in Salt Lake. We'll see how it goes. The photos below aren't the best quality, but hopefully you get the idea. The first one was a birthday card for my brother who loves Adidas; thus, the logo and homage to Adidas. :)

Holiday Update

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Yes, that's right, I haven't posted in three holidays, which is a new record. I could make excuses, but the bottom line is that it's about time. I will apologize in advance for only posting a few photos - I left most of the picture taking up to Kim because I was a slacker so I'll have to beg Kim for hers.

For Thanksgiving, we finally decided upon rotating every year so this year we went to Aaron's side of the family for the feast. It was fabulous to have all of the yummy food of the season and spend time with family. Aaron's parents made both a turkey and a ham so it was doubly delicious. Sasha just loved being able to run around and play with Abrie all day. It's so fun to see` those two cousins play together so well.

Christmas sort of snuck up on us, probably due to me being sick for two weeks just before the big day. I'm just happy that we got everything ready and it turned out to be a fabulous holiday. To provide a little entertainment during some of the colder times, we went on an outing to the South Towne Mall. Sasha loves the cars that you can ride there. The best part is that she doesn't even realize that they move (if you put quarters in). She doesn't care because she makes up things to do and loves watching the other kids.

It was fun decorating the tree together this year, although Sasha defintitely had her own ideas about how things should go (i.e. she should be able to handle every ornament as well as take it off of the tree at any given time and place it in a random place in the house). She loves Christmas lights both inside and outside the house. We also found out that she can easily plug and unplug the tree, despite out attempts to hide the plug.

We also decided that we would spend Christmas Eve with Aaron's side of the family and spend Christmas Day with my side of the family (rather than alternate years in order to allow us to see both families around the holiday). We got to decorate gingerbread houses on Monday, December 20 with Aaron's side of the family and had a great time coming up with unique designs and eating lots of candy (which, I believe, is one of the true purposes of the event). Sasha was happy to have a graham cracker with a little frosting on it so she could place pieces of candy on it and immediately remove them to place them in her mouth. My gingerbread house ends up being a typical, square house with some sort of decor, which was no different this year. Aaron usually focuses on making some masterpiece of architecture and could care less about decorating. This year was no exception as made a model of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which are the tallest twin buildings in the world (and were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 - 2004). They were quite impressive!

On Christmas Eve, we continued the tradition of going caroling to neighbors of Aaron's parents. It was definitely a chilly night so we weren't out too long before the little kiddies decided it was time to come home. It's still amazing to me that the songs sound so beautiful with our frozen voices, which I'm sure due to the natural singing ability in Aaron's family. Afterward, we had some snacks and warmed up a little bit while chatting around the fire. It's always fun to talk and tell stories, especially since Lys, John and Jake were in town. To top off the evening, we watched a classic Christmas movie called Salt with Angelina Jolie. :) I know, it's not the typical movie, but since it's an action/adventure it appeals to everyone so it was the pick of the night. We stayed over night at Aaron's parents house so it was quite the party since there quite a few others staying there: Lys, John, Jake, Shelley, Rob, Grandma GG, Heidi, Abrie and Aaron's parents.

I'd like to say that we all slept perfectly and woke up refreshed around 8 am for a lovely Christmas morning, but the only thing that eventually happened was the lovely Christmas morning. Sasha was up most of the night coughing and finally got out of bed at 6 am with a fever. Her first words to Aunt Lys were, "I don't feel good. I'm sick." It was so sad to see her having such a rough time on Christmas, but since she's 2 and there were lots of people around to district her, it wasn't a big deal.
Other than the sickness, Christmas morning was pretty much the usual chaos since there are so many of us when everyone gets together. We had a delicious breakfast at 7 am since we had to presents earlier at 8 am so John and Lys could get to her family's by 9 am. After breakfast, we all went downstairs to open gifts, which Aaron had organized by name the night before to make it easier to find. I love that Aaron's side of the family opens gifts one by one so everyone can see what that person received. It takes longer, but definitely makes it sweeter as we get to share in each others' excitement.
After opening gifts, we went over to my brother Wade's house. We enjoyed a fabulous Christmas brunch, naps, opening presents, playing games, watching the kids play together, and eating a Christmas dinner together. It was such a wonderful day! We received so many great gifts, the main ones being the Cricut and cartridges for me, a blue-ray player for Aaron and toys and clothing for Sasha. We are so grateful to have such incredible families and truly enjoyed spending the holidays together. We are also grateful for this special time of year to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and all the hope and joy that comes from Him. Sasha said it best when I asked what Christmas is. She replied, "It's Jesus."
Last of all, we celebrated the New Year at Troy and Ang's (Aaron's brother) in Layton. We ate yummy food, including homemade chocolate mint truffles, played Dominoes, Scattergories and various games on the Wii (this includes my first attempt at Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii, which includes both feet and arm motions...it was awesome!). At midnight, those of us who managed to stay up shouted, "Happy New Year" while pulling the confetti poppers. After that we all ate 12 grapes, which is a tradition from Spain. The 12 grapes signify the 12 months of the upcoming year and if the grapes are sweet, then the upcoming year will be sweet. I think the assumption is that the grapes will be sweet so it's a good bet that you'll have a sweet and lucky upcoming year. It was a great night and fun to spend with family. Happy Holidays to everyone - may all your New Year's resolutions be fulfilled (or at least last longer than a week). :)

Halloween, house projects and happiness

There's something special about the holidays and for me it usually begins with Halloween and goes through New Years (sometimes I even count Valentine's Day when I'm feelin it). We had such a fun Halloween with Sasha being the lucky girl who got to wear 3 different costumes (thanks to all those who let us borrow them!) - Minnie Mouse, an elephant and a monkey. Unfortunately, I only have photos of the Minnie Mouse costume so that's all the cuteness you'll get this time. Since Sasha is such a girly girl, this was a fun costume for her. She especially loved the glittery, red shoes and pearl necklace. You might notice that Aaron and I were slackers and didn't dress up, but in our defense, we counted ourselves good with getting Sasha dressed up and we were her accessories. How did we know that Sasha loved Halloween, you ask? Well, for a few weeks afterward, she said, "Trick or treat" every time the doorbell rang.Aaron is my superhero, handyman husband. Let me explain. We've been doing lots of DIY projects lately, some by choice and some not. Here's a list of all that Aaron's done in the past few months:
Replaced the kitchen light with 6 recessed lights after a water line burst and flooded the kitchen through the light.
Finished the huge project known as the playset in the back yard (included clearing and levelling a 20'x20' area that was filled with 3 foot weeds, sanding and staining the playset we got for free through a generous neighbor and putting everything back together for Sasha to play on)
Rewired the TV and internet cables so we could relocate all of our electronics to a new location in the family room (included lots of drilling, installing new outlets, rewiring and patching)
Reorganized our shelving down in the basement
Saved all of our cds digitally onto a network hard drive and got rid of all the hard copy cds (and came out with a few new Wii games in exchange)
Helped with everything around the house and with Sasha when he was able (this is by far on the top of my list and he has been so amazing!)

Sasha is such a doll! She is such a talker and loves to copy everything that we say (I mean, everything). I love how sensitive she is and how she is always anxious to comfort everyone around her. She can immediately sense if something is wrong and always goes to the person who seems in distress. She'll usually pat or rub their back and say, "It's okay. It's okay. You need hug (pronounced hud)?" This girl loves to laugh and play, but watch out if you even think of going against what she wants - you will suffer the wrath!

I'm still loving my job now that I've been there just over a month and learning a lot as I work with new people in different training settings. I love being able to teach circuit training 3 days a week and all the challenges that come with it. Aaron is making progress with SUR Technology (the renewable energy company he, Troy and Mike have been trying to get going this last year). It looks like a project should be going through in the near future so we're excited.

We're so grateful for this time of year and the opportunity to spend time with family and friends. Mostly, we're just happy to have so much fun with our little Sasha as she experiences everything with wide eyes. We can't wait for Thanksgiving this Thursday and the fun of Black Friday to follow. We send our love to all of you, wherever you may be.

New job!

Hi all,

Just wanted to share the good news that I got a perfect, new job! I work as a wellness consultant for a company called RST & Associates. Basically, a company comes to them to get a wellness coordinator/wellness program for their company without having to create it themselves or hire staff. I am contracted out to work as a wellness coordinator for Fairchild Semiconductor in West Jordan. It's perfect because I get to work at a great company, with great co-workers, part-time and good pay. It's exactly what I've been looking for. I just started on Monday and I love being able to work in my field. I work Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings so it fits great with our schedule. I also still get to work one day a month at Serendipity so it's the best of both worlds. We are so blessed! I know you're all really wanting photos of Sasha so I promise that more of those are to come, especially with the holidays coming up! :)

I love September because...

I just love September! Okay, maybe it has something to do with it being both Sasha's and my birthday month (as well as quite a few other family members), but it's also the crispness (is that a word?) in the air and the changing of the leaves.

Sasha got the most adorable skirt from Grandma and Grandpa Henson for her birthday (among many other fabulous gifts). She's such a girly girl so I thought she would jump at the chance to wear it, but she proved me wrong. She was totally against wearing it at first. Now she wants to wear it every day. Girls, go figure! Here are a few cute pics we took of her while wearing it and dancing around the family room.

For my birthday, Aaron planned a special day starting with homemade breakfast of turkey bacon, eggs and toast. This was followed by an exercise class, an afternoon shopping with my mom, dinner with my sweet hubby at Sweet Tomatoes (probably one of my absolute favorite places to eat) and a REAL soccer game. Phew, what a day! The game was incredible! The weather was perfect - warm, but with a little chill in the air, we had great seats and there was a great energy in the stadium. It didn't hurt that REAL won 4-1 and we saw some sweet goals. I even saw my childhood soccer coach at the game. :) It was such a fun day and Aaron was so sweet, making sure that I was completely pampered. The fun doesn't stop there because he has also planned parties with both sides of our family coming up so it's like my birthday will go for 2 weeks. Doesn't get much better than that! I'm so lucky to have such a wonderful, thoughtful husband. Thanks, sweetie!

For the last component of enjoying September, Aaron and I got to go on a hike with some friends up north. It was a great hike with beautiful scenery, good company and fall colors. Thanks, James, Vicki and Dmitriy (hope I spelled your names right!) for the fun afternoon!