Apologies and Neglect

So apparently it's been over 9 months since we've done anything on this blog. This could be attributed to laziness, neglect, and simple distraction. I'm sitting here and wondering to myself, if I should even bother trying to update what's been up with us the last seven months...I probably only have 2 people left who even look at this blog anymore. Nonetheless, it's good to keep track of life, so for the greater good (and the fact that my son is napping on the couch, thereby impeding me from running errands until he wakes up) I'm going to give a quick overview.

JULY 2009
Um...July was pretty boring, but at least there was sun. We celebrated the 4th with family and also the 8th was Lisa's sister's birthday and we went to one of our favorite places, Tucanos. Here's some quick peeks.
This one is me with Seth on a blanket watching the fireworks on the 4th. Please excuse my ugly face. Not all pictures of people are flattering.


This one is of the family eating Tucano's for Denise's birthday:


So in the quickest nutshell possible, that was July. Okay moving on

AUGUST 2009
The only things I remember happening in August were Crystal's first game of T-ball and a quick trip to Vegas where we ate as much seafood as we could possibly stand.
Here's Crystal:


and here's the seafood:

The trip to Vegas ended up being a pain thanks to our one year old son. We were just staying the weekend, but on the second night he was more hyper and loud than ever. He refused to go to sleep and cried all night. Since we were sharing the hotel suite with Lisa's parents, we realized we were keeping them up, so around 3 or 4 in the morning we packed up and headed back to Utah a little early. It was a grumpy ride home. Oh the joys of parenthood.

SEPTEMBER 2009....
Can't remember a dang thing. Sorry. *snickering* Oh well. There's a month of our lives lost forever. I'm sure all 2 of the readers we have left are distraught.

OCTOBER 2009
I participated in the annual breast cancer walk in SLC with my sister. I'm not a big fan of wearing pink but I did for this. I love pink on other girls, I think they look cute in it, but I feel like one of those desperate housewives on that lame TV show whenever I wear it. (No offense to anyone who loves that show...I may have just lost one of my two readers with that comment.)



Our highlight for October was our trip to Disneyland. It's the second time we've gone in a row and we had a great time with the kids. After we got off the plane we made our usual stop at the beach for a day. This year was much warmer and it was fun. My only complaint is the beach was really dirty and I got GUM stuck on the back of my shorts when I sat in the sand!! Grossest thing ever!! I should have taken pics but I was too mad about it at the time.




That night we went out to the cheesecake factory to eat dinner. The major problem is that it was 10 at night, which was a horrible idea when you have kids as small as ours. This is the first night Seth screamed and embarrassed the crap out of us. Unfortunately it wasn't the last.



My friends Paula and Maqueca with their families planned their trip around the same time so we all got to hang out and see each other for a little bit, which was also a treat.


During that trip we also participated in what turned out to be the craziest dinner ever when we came to Tony Roma's with the whole crew after a full day at Disney. The kids were all loud and hyper.

Notice in this picture that our kids are all squirming to get out of our arms. This is what the whole dinner was like. It was insane, but it's a great memory looking back.

Alas, this is only a small sad preview of all the Disney pics we have. Unfortunately since I have to play catch up I'm going to have to stop posting them for now and maybe publish a small movie of the trip at another time and post it later.

Of course there was also Halloween in October too.

Seth was obsessed with these little dolls that his Grandpa bought him. They scream and make evil laughs when you squeeze them. He thought they were the coolest thing ever.


Our whole family dressed up and we had a mini Halloween party at our house with Scott's family. We ate good food, watched the Phillies play baseball, and watched a scary movie. It was a lot of fun.










NOVEMBER 2009...
All I can remember was thanksgiving. This was the year Scott's family was supposed to spend thanksgiving together, but that didn't pan out due to lack of money and conflicting schedules, so the day before thanksgiving we invented the "Itri Pre-Thanksgiving Pasta Pig Out." Which was also a lot of fun. We ate all Italian food and played games and watched the movie Angels and Deamons. We're going to have to repeat that party next year.





Thanksgiving was spent at my parents house. Aside from the food, we watched our favorite movie to watch on thanksgiving, "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles." Anybody who travels frequently understands why that movie is so fantastic. Plus you cant beat the Steve Martin and John Candy combination. My parents already had Christmas decorations up and Seth was terrified of the giant nutcrackers they had on display. It was hilarious. Here's a video of him overcoming his fear:


That thanksgiving night we also went home and put our Christmas tree up. The kids loved it. It's fun having kids during the holidays because they make it feel more complete and that Christmas magic you felt as a kid comes back to life.






DECEMBER 2009
Was packed with stuff to do as most December's go. Scott and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 17th. We went to our favorite restaurant, "The Texas Roadhouse" and to a movie. The kids were with my parents all day long. It was fabulous and one of the best anniversaries we've ever had in my opinion. Even though we didn't do anything really fancy, we had a blast just laughing and hanging out together. Unfortunately we forgot to take pictures. I just want to add that we're pretty proud of ourselves for those 5 years. All marriages require work, but we are still very much in love with each other in spite of our flaws, and are looking forward to another 5 years, and five after that and five after that...etc. Here's a couples picture just to show you that we still take those.


Moving on to Christmas...
Christmas was great with these kids. Crystal was a sheep in the ward Christmas pagent. On Christmas Eve we went to my Grandma's open house and then went back to make a gingerbread house, a tradition we started in our own little family. Then the kids went off to bed and waited for Santa. I'll have to upload a slide show of a bunch of the pictures we took. Seth figured out the joy of opening gifts and Crystal who is now old enough to completely understand the whole Santa concept was in heaven. We ate dinner at my parents that night.

The 29th was Crystal's 4th birthday. It's amazing that she's become so big over the years. We let her go to the store and pick out what she wanted, which was a treat for her and of course the grandparents gave her presents at their house to. She got sick of posing for pictures, that's why she's rolling her eyes in the picture.




JANUARY 2010
Whew...we're getting closer to being caught up! Anyone still reading? LOL We went to my parents annual New year pig out. Mike and Jenna were in town and my cousin Jared and some other family and friends all came. Aside from the amazing food, we played monopoly, rock band, and just hung out and goofed around.
Here's Seth on the drums:


Here's a bunch of us eating food:



Here are Jenna, Me holding Seth, and my cousin Jared playing Monopoly.


Look at the FABULOUS FOOD on that table!!!




The day after I (Lisa) got together with two of my high school friends and their husbands and we ate at the Olive Garden and caught up on old times. Scott stayed with the kids cause we didn't have a babysitter and he wanted me to have fun and not be stressed out.


Lisa Foster, Kathleen Truman, and Me




On the 22nd we celebrated my 30th birthday. I know most people, especially girls, freak out when they turn 30, but I honestly don't understand the drama. I generally like the way I look and feel, and that should be all that matters. I wish I could tell all my friends my age to stop boobing about being 30 cause I'm hearing a lot of it this year. Everyone who's lucky gets to turn 30 cause that means they've lived this long and it's been great. It's just a year away from your twenties for crying out loud! Get over it! Anyway, I had a great birthday. My parents took our whole family out to Rodizio's Grill and after that Scott and I went to go see Avatar in 3D. It was a cool enough movie, but it got too much hype for me to really appreciate it. The plot was predictable, but the technology and animation were really cool. It was good, but not nearly as phenomenal as everyone told us it was. Scott agrees with me on this. Anyway, Scott took pictures of me on my first day as a 30 year old before we went out of the house. So if you want to look at those, here you go:




FEBRUARY 2009
All I can think of for February is Valentine's day...or as Scott likes to call it, "Girl Day" because its the girls that demand it be special.
We celebrated on the 12th, which was a Friday cause actual Valentines day was on a Sunday. Scott got me tickets to see MUSE...one of my favorite bands of all time. They're from England and are currently touring in the U.S. The funny thing is he wanted to give it to me in a creative/funny way, so he hid the tickets in an envelope, inside of a a vacuum.
Let me explain.
The plan was to present the vacuum as my Valentine's gift, and pretend to be excited about it by saying "Hey, lets open it up and load the bag in it right away" and have the envelope hiding inside. When I would open it up to put the bag in, I would find the envelope.
He thought he could make me mad by giving me a vacuum for Valentine's day. For him, it would have been a great gag to watch me freak out about my fake gift before helping me discover my real present. His plan was to get it all on video, that way if my freak out was colossal, he could put it on youtube. Romantic, is't he? Hahaha! The joke was on him though cause when I opened my eyes and saw the vacuum I said "COOL!" Cause we really needed a new vacuum, and after the roses he already got me and being able to go out to eat I didn't expect a present at all. So when he showed me the tickets I was even more happy. I love Muse. I'm excited to see them in person and not just in this picture.



OKAY, SO ON TO MARCH!! YAY!! WE'RE CAUGHT UP!!!
So far since it's only a week into the Month, nothing new has happened. I will say that it's tax season which means Scott works till 8:30 or 9pm. He leaves for work before I wake up, so I'm basically a widow until the end of April. It's given me the time to catch up on this blog though, so that's a good thing. We're planning a trip to Mexico at the end of tax season, just him and me. The kids will be staying with my parents. We'll be gone for 9 days, which will be utterly awesome. Since this will be in 8 weeks, I'm giving up sugar, WHITE bread, pasta, and potatoes until we get out there so I can loose the winter weight and look good in a swimsuit. So I'm eating lots of salad, fruit, meat, fish, and slowly incorporating whole grains back into my diet without the artificial sugars. It sounds tedious, but the diet and the workouts give me something to focus on while Scott's working all day. I didn't realize that this will be during Easter though, so it's already torture walking though the candy isles at the grocery store. Yesterday I saw a huge chocolate bunny looking me right in the eye and begging me to take him home with me. I picked up the packet and took a whiff at the magnificent aroma that can only come from something as excellent as chocolate, then I sadly put it back. I'm pretty sure anyone watching thought I was some psycho crazy lady to pick up a chocolate bunny and smell it for at least 10 seconds. Somehow smelling it makes me feel a little better. I don't know why.

I've only been on this diet a couple of weeks. 7 more weeks to go. This seems long, but if I can do it I will feel like a warrior princess who can do anything. Who doesn't want to feel like that? Anyway, it's taken me a week to complete this entry so I'd better post it. I'm going to make a point of being more diligent about my posts for now on, even if Scott is being a busy working man and can't do it, you get to read my endless rambling about what goes on in my adorable family and complicated brain. Write you soon. I hope. ;)