Livin on a Prayer...and Kelloggs

Look what Momma brought home! My awesome friend and neighbor also doubles as my personal Savvy Shopper, she tipped me off to an AMAZING deal at Smith's...and then she gave me 5 of her coupons. So, really...I can't take any of the credit except that I had the motivation to put my shoes and jeans on at 10:30PM and trek over to Smith's to get my 38 boxes of cereal for $44.

It's Finals Week here at the Wilkinson household, and if you know my husband...you know that nothing says "Good luck on your finals and I love you" like bringing home 38 boxes of cereal.

Mission = accomplished

Fruit Snacks

To say this little girl loves fruit snacks would be an understatement. Our friend at church noticed Tenley's draw to the juicy goodness and her husband surprised Tenley with four boxes of her very own fruit snacks! Our only problem = mommy loves fruit snacks just as much.

Ye Old iPhone pics

Finally got around to moving the phone pictures onto the computer, so I figure I might as well take advantage of blogging about some of our recent impromptu-don't-have-the-camera-on-hand-so-quick-grab-the-phone pictures....

Along with everything that comes with being a second year Medical Student, Brandon has also been working his tail off for the last 8 months on research. Last week, he was able to present his research at the Academic Surgical Congress in Las Vegas and got to stay at the swanky Wynn hotel. Since his trip was only a mere 24 hours, we didn't think it would be worth it for me to join...but in hindsight, next time: I'll go too :) Between class, studying for exams, studying for the upcoming Boards, research, preparing his presentation, spending time with me and Tenley, Church, he and Tenley were able to get some much needed quality time together....nap time:

I had a meeting for my job, so Brandon was in charge of putting Tenley down for her nap...when I got home, that was the sight I had. Loved it. They took turns snoring....precious.

Here are some pictures we took when we went to Temple Square for Family Night back in December. Tenley is absolutely obsessed with "Lights!"...needless to say, this was pure heaven.

While we were in AZ, my mom treated us to a night out on the town and she kept Tenley for us! Honestly, if you know my mom, you know her middle name is, "I'll watch the kids and you guys go enjoy yourselves!" She is the best. She even gave us a gift card to Claim Jumper....Brandon ate like a King.

Here is Miss T. Clause at Church on Christmas. We were in my sister's ward in AZ, so nobody knew who we were, but having a cute little Clause in your company is an easy way to have everyone come up to you after Church and ask if you are "new in the ward." Sorry folks, this cute little girl belongs to UT.

We have been trying to schedule actual "Saturday Family Time" so I'm trying to get creative and come up with fun/free things we can do as a family. Feel free to share any ideas you might have...

Here we are at the library, where Tenley was able to score a free book AND a library card. She loves books, and the cutest thing is when she is reading to herself in her carseat. We can just hear her in the backseat talking away and making animal noises as the flips the pages.

Another favorite of hers? Swings. Living with a playground 25 ft away from your front door has its pros and cons. Pro: you don't have to walk far to find a park. Con: every time you walk out to the car/get the mail/neighbor's house, you have to hold onto your one year old's hand as she pulls and tugs toward the swings crying, "Siwah, Siwah".

Here she is doing her favorite past-time. A personal favorite of hers is when you pretend like she is going to swing and push you over when she comes toward you. I'm sure I look awesome as I utilize my best acting skills and sound effects as she "knocks me over"

Recent favorite past-time: studying with Daddy. Everytime Brandon is sitting at the table studying, Tenley MUST be sitting in his chair with him. As long as she has a highlighter, book, pen and her Daddy's lap...she's content. Mommy = loves it. Daddy = can't get anything done.

And, lastly...a random picture caught on the phone. Still not quite sure what she is doing, but during random times of the day...we will find her laying on the floor just putting her feet in the air. So content.

Love is the Balm

Being a mother has opened up chambers of my heart I didn't realize existed. What a blessing it is to now not only spend Valentine's Day with my best friend, but also our sweet little girl.

I remember a favorite talk from back in the EFY days, the speaker titled his message, "Love is the Balm", referring to the Balm of Gilead. How true that is.

Lucky to not only have my little family of 3 to love, but also the family and many friends we get to love.

Two Posts in One Hour. Pinch Myself.

Just realized that after submitting that big long blog post, I didn't do my proverbial "Tenley Update". Here she is with her Nana, whom she LOVES. While we were at my mom's house, every morning we would wake up, Tenley would point to the door and say, "Na". She immediately wanted to begin her day off with this lovely lady. Can't blame the kid.

Our little stone-faced child :)

Some honorable mentions of Tenley:

She WALKS like a normal 14 month old! In fact she runs!

She loves to play in her crib. When I put her down for bed at night, she will sometimes play for an hour and a half before finally falling asleep. I have started to put her in her crib by about 7:15PM just to ensure she's going to bed around 8PM.

She LOVES these blankets, and every time she sees someone else with one of these blankets, she tries to go grab it, find the corner of the blanket, and put it in her mouth (*her trademark)

She loves balloons, in fact, she is so trained to know that grocery stores give out free balloons, that when I put her in the grocery cart, she immediately starts to look up and ask for her, "Ladle, ladle" (note: she says that for balloon AND blanket, because she sees us using the "L" in those words. The reason I know this is because I once asked her if she wanted a Lollipop and she responded with, "Ladle, Ladle"...guess she's learning her sounds)

She literally belly-laughs with her Daddy, it is adorable, but sometimes disheartening when I spend ALL day trying to get her to belly laugh, and then within .04 seconds of Brandon walking in the door he has her rolling. It's endearing, I tell ya.

She and Brandon have this game when we eat dinner where Brandon will look away and then look at her and snort/growl/bark-ish. Well Brandon has been pulling some LONG days lately (LOVE YOU babe), so we haven't seen him as much as we would all like. I have a family picture of us above the dishwasher, and the other night Tenley would look at the picture and then look away, and then look at the picture again and snort/growl/bark-ish. So cute, but so sad huh?

We have been teaching Tenley about Jesus, and lately before her morning nap we will sit and read out of her very own little Book of Mormon. Well now, it is her favorite book (even though there are only those 5 pictures in the very front of the book!) and every time she is running around I need her to come sit and read to wind down before naps/bed, I just say "Let's read your Book of Mormon" and she immediately walks over to the rocking chair. I have to put the book up high where she can't reach it, because if I don't she will carry it around all day and tempt to rip those fine little tissue-paper-like pages. Our little scriptorian. :)

That's all I can think of for now, I gotta save up for my next blog-post in 2 months from now!

First year sharing Christmas with Palm Trees

Might as well start the new year off with a post, eh? Let's not notice that it's already February. That's still the New Year to me, folks! And, to make it even better, I am going to blog about Christmas 2011. How's that for New Year's blogging?

Rewind to Christmas 2010. Erica = had a newborn which happened to be the same timing as my Mom's 60th birthday (December 29), and well, let's just say I didn't really feel like venturing out a TON for the first 3 months of Tenley's life. (read: not at all, in fact I hibernated better than most bears do). So, my mom's 60th birthday ended up being kind of a flop because we all had these great plans to spend the New Year with her and then if you remember the crazy snowstorm of 2010, you will remember that everyone was snowed in.

So, in 2011 we took it into our own hands to make sure our Mom had the best redo "60th birthday" present ever. By August of 2011, we were making plans to get the entire family down to Arizona for Christmas and to surprise our Mom (she moved to AZ last year...and after spending Christmas down there, can't blame the lady!). And if you know my family, you know that is literally NO small feat. Even by December 21, we were a little worried we weren't all going to actually be in the same zip code for Christmas.

Brandon, Tenley and I flew into Arizona the Wednesday before Christmas, hoping to snatch up some quality time with my best friend/oldest sister Rebecca . We had so much fun stealing some one-on-one time with her family before the rest of the crew came in. By Friday afternoon, we were all waiting outside of her house for the big surprise. Brandon and I were in charge of getting all of the grandkids out to the cul-de-sac so that my mom was in her house alone. We got the older grandkids involved so that we could make sure every single kid replied with a "yes" when we excitedly exclaimed, 'Hey guys, do you want to go outside and play red-light-green-light?' That was their cue. The older kids were so awesome about getting everyone outside. I was the last one to leave my mom in her house. I say, "Mom, I'll be outside with the rest of the crew." And of course, she says, "Okay I am going to print some recipes out in my office." Office= the huge front window of her house. So I hurried outside and made sure nobody parked anywhere or came CLOSE to that window! Once we were all gathered together, we rang the doorbell and Rebecca's family was there to sing, "We wish you a merry Chrismtas", and then Rachelle's family chimed in, "We wish you a merry Christmas", and then the Wilkinsons, "We wish you a merry Christmas"...and for the surprise sisters, Lindsay "And a happy new year" and then Krista's family. Here was my mom's reaction:

Makes me want to cry again just thinking about it.

Needless to say, she had NO clue. Which was a relief to me because I really thought I had blown it at least 2x while we were there.

Mom: "Oh look I found these pacifiers of Jack's under my bed."

Me: "Oh I bet he will be excited when he sees those!"....."Because I will put them in my bag and bring them back to UT with me!"

We had so much fun together as a family, we played ultimate frisbee, went on jogs, walked to the park, ate, watched movies, and just spent time together...all 21 of us.

For our Mom's "60th" party, we gave her the gift of family pictures. Our photographer was honestly AMAZING, she has even sent us all CDs with the pictures on them, and she wrote us all thank you cards. If any of you three readers of mine live in Arizona, check her out: Amy Hill

Here are some pictures from the photoshoot. I will try to get some more up when Brandon is home so he can walk me through the "how to upload pictures on a Mac" phase. Noted: Brandon gave ME the ultimate surprise for Christmas and bought me a MacBook! That might explain my sudden burst of blogging/Facebooking/emailing....because I actually have a computer now. Hooray.

Here are the adults. I wish I had the picture of this, but I need to write it down to document how hilarious my sister Rachelle is. Our nephews are all boy, so they were pretty excited when they found a DEAD butterfly to play with. At the same time, Rachelle was remarking on how she didn't have a guy in the picture with her. So, she grabbed the butterfly and placed it on her shoulder. We are thinking that butterfly was DEFINITELY a male. :) Maybe you had to be there....it was funny.

Our Christmas card picture that I never got around to sending to anyone.

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE WILKINSONS

The posterity

I love this picture. My mom = just one of the girls

My beautiful Seesters

I LOVE these sisters/momma of mine

**note: if you think the outfit I'm wearing is my go-to outfit for any family picture I take,

then you would be right.

Arizona was literally magical and we loved drinking up every second we could with each other,. Having Tenley be around all 10 of her cousins was priceless. Though I would say, for the record, it literally broke my heart to not get to have my Dad witness all of the love. Divorce = no fun. So maybe in 2013 I will be blogging about our big surprise to my Dad/Eva's house for Christmas! (I'm safe to say that because I'm pretty sure my Dad doesn't even know my blog address :)