Perfect 10

in 10 years

we've had 9 jobs

spent 8 nights in the hospital

visited 7 states

had 6 homes

and 5 cars

taken 4 trips to Disneyland

earned 3 college degrees

added 2 kids

equaling one happy life!

I couldn't have dreamed up a better anniversary than this one. 

Thirty, Flirty and Thriving

 It's not every day a person turns 30.  It's especially not every day that event happens on a Saturday.  So when the stars aligned for Reo this year, we celebrated big...Okay.  We celebrated medium.  Here's what we did.

Opened presents.  Ummm, do you think Holden likes his dad much?

Saw Wreck It Ralph.  Along with some sort of ghost apparently.  Stupid iPhone.

We ate food.

A lot of food.

Here's Harper not understanding that no teeth = no pizza.  Poor girl.

Don't worry.  We saved room for cake.

And then we did it all over again the next day, at a joint family party for my sister in law Cami and Reo.  I have no pictures of Cami....Oops!  I do have one of Reo with his loot!

Happy Birthday Reo!

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas

I have been determined not to let Christmas slide through my chubby pregnant fingers the way Halloween did, so  we have been living it up with the Christmas activities this year.

Exhibit A:  Since Holden is still not a fan of Santa's beard, we decided to write a letter instead.  Holden can still ask for his Firehouse Legos and Thomas Train Set, but doesn't have to be creeped out by the big guy...Everyone wins.

Exhibit B:  We went to the Festival of Trees and ogled impossibly intricate gingerbread houses and took funny pictures of ourselves while waiting for the REAL point of going, watching the dancers.  That's everyone's favorite part, right?  Oh, that's just Holden, then?  Hmmm..

Exhibit C:  Inspired by the impossibly intricate gingerbread houses, we decided to construct some of our own.  Pay no mind to the fact that if you look too closely you will see that they are actually haunted gingerbread houses.  Halloween clearance will not be ignored, people!  P.S.  Holden put exactly two pieces of candy on the gingerbread house before declaring he was going to go watch Netflix.  Scrooge.

Exhibit D:  We have been doing LOTS of Christmas crafts in our underwear.  Well, Holden is in his underwear.  I am usually wearing sweatpants.

Exhibit E:  We also play with our nativity sets a lot.  I have been finding baby Jesus' all over the house.  Maybe Holden just thinks I need some reminders of the reason for the season.

In non Christmas news--Reo had a birthday.  It went both undercelebrated and under photographed...Sorry honey.  I'll try again next year.

Holden and I celebrated Reo's big day by seeing a movie (some family we are) (also, 30 by 30 alert).

Reo missed out on an empty theater and typical Holden gems such as...

"I used to watch The Muppets when I was a kid!"

"That's okay, I will just leave it at the movie theater." (said after dropping his Junior Mint on the floor).

"Oh no! I forgot my Kitty Piano!"

and finally,

"These Junior Mints are delicious! Even the minty ones!"

More Christmas festivities to come!  

Survival Mode

Summer officially comes to an end this week.  This usually makes me really really sad.  This year is a little different.  Whenever anyone asked me if I had any fun plans for this summer, I was usually only partly kidding when I answered "survive."   Our whole family spent the summer in what I like to call Survival Mode.

He spent the summer working like crazy at a new job and finishing up a particularly demanding quarter of school filled with daily conference calls and a killer Finance class.  

To show for this he has a brand spanking new diploma.  We are also all carrying about 2 pounds of graduation cake weight (that Costco cake is good stuff!).  

He survived an absentee father and exhausted mother, and way more hours than I would like to admit of Netflix streaming.

To show for it has has an intimate friendship with the cast of Superwhy, and as a result can spell the word spell.

I survived spending a lot of time lounging here, on my BFF, my new couch.

I know, lazy, right??  Probably so, but apparently growing a person once again takes a lot out of me.  And I have now officially grown almost 42 percent of a person.  Come March 1st(ish) 2012 the fruits of my laying on the couch  labors will be fulfilled.

So, while I am always sad to see summer go and will be cursing winter before I know it, I will not miss having an MIA husband, TV zombie child or morning sickness.  I do miss Diet Coke.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Reo had last week off of school (yay!) and was also getting ready to start a new job (YAY!!), so the stars aligned and we had 5 straight days of uninterrupted family time last week.  And we enjoyed every second of it.  Well, I did.  And Holden did.  I am pretty sure Reo was really ready to go back to work after hanging out with the two of us non-stop for so long.

Here's a glimpse at some of the ways we wasted away those vacation days:

Little boy's dream come true:  Riding the train to the arcade.  Life doesn't get much better than this when you are Holden.

Unless maybe you also get to play Playstation with Dad.

There were French Toast breakfasts...

And after bedtime nostalgic movie nights for the grownups..

And we explored an awesome park, where Holden became more fascinated by whether or not certain birds were or were not "pooping" than by anything that the playground had to offer.



Not Pictured:

Eating out about a million times more than was probably necessary.

Local Celebrity sighting (Bob Harmon, of grocery store fame, for those who were curious).

Diaper changes done only by Reo the whole long weekend ( I know, right?  He is way more than I deserve.)

It was back to business for Reo today, but Holden and I kept the party going by having a long overdue lunch and shopping date with a friend.    It's a hard life.

My Thoughts on Indiana

1. No offense, Indiana, as I am sure you are a delightful place to live, but as far as visiting goes, you are pretty much dullsville.  Since tourist attractions not involving racecars or steakhouses were not abundant, I made do with my own personal tourist attractions (meaning: Utah doesn't have them yet)-- H&M, Trader Joes, and Panera Bread (3 times, by the way, we are hardcore like that.)  We also got doughnuts at pretty much the best--if not scariest--doughnut shop ever. 

That's Reo chowing down...Okay, so I guess maybe Indiana isn't SO dullsville, since it contains so many of my favorites.

2.  Another plus?  While strolling through the local Borders, what should I stumble across but this...

That is my sister, Emily Wing Smith's, brand new book, called Back When You Were Easier To Love.  Clearly I thought this was pretty fancy. and I recommend you stumble across it yourself at your local bookstore.  Or Amazon... I told you, fancy.

3. The speed limit in Indiana seemed to max out at 55 miles per hour.  This irritated Reo to no end.  Regardless of the fact that we were usually being led astray by a faulty GPS, through major construction zones, usually while raining, driving the bohemeth the 18 year old boy at the rental car place thought it would be funny to give us, and we really had no business going any faster than 55 MPH anyways, he would have none of it...

Also, if we had been going faster, we wouldn't have seen this random/inappropriate license plate.

4.  I will say, Indiana, you can throw a mean graduation celebration, making all the other craziness well worth it.

Reo was so excited to graduate he turned into some sort of cross between The Flash and a vampire in the Twilight movies while getting his diploma...Hopefully the professional photographer fared a little better than I did.

5. Despite the fact that I can count on no hands the amount of time longer than 4 hours that Holden and I have spent apart in about 2 years, he didn't miss me at all (most likely because he had an entire household of aunts, uncles and grandparents catering to his every whim).  This enabled me to not feel one bit of guilt at leaving him behind and soaking up all the Reo-time I could (we even saw a movie, the first we saw in the theatre together since Wall-E.  That's 2008, people.)  I forgot how easy it is to kill a whole day when you aren't running on a two year old's schedule.

Oh, and before you get too excited for me, the graduation celebration was a bit premature for the Manning household, as Reo still has an entire quarter of school left.  But the end is in sight and soon I will get to remember what Reo looks like in the daylight!

Stage Parents

Fact:  Reo is a ginormous hockey fan.

Fact: Reo wants to pass this on to his child.

Fact:  Apparently this means Holden must learn how to ice skate as soon as possible.  For instance, the second Holden took his first steps, Reo had grand visions of taking him skating.  I was able to hold him off for another year and a half after that, but the time has come.  So even though Holden's teeny tiny feet were still too small for the smallest ice skates they had, skating we went.  Well, skating THEY went.  Let's not get crazy, I was just there for the pictures.  

I was slightly concerned (AKA almost positive) that Holden would not quite feel the instant love Reo was hoping for, but Reo claimed he understood and would in no way have his feelings hurt if it didn't go according to plan.

As I expected, Holden was a little apprehensive at first...

      

And slightly more so when he saw the empty ice just for him (what can I say? We have friends in high places).

Turns out, he is a fan!   What's not to like, though?  Getting pushed around the ice with little to no effort on your part sounds pretty good to me (well, except for the ice part.  Again, let's not get crazy).

They are both being stoic about it in the photo, but I think both Holden and Reo were thrilled with the way things turned out.
 

As was I, because it means that all my Toddlers and Tiaras nightmares were unnecessary.





A Big Birthday Post

In the spirit of all things holiday lately, we celebrated Reo's birthday all week long this week. And seriously, if anyone deserves the birthday hoopla, it's him.
Seriously, who else do you know who wakes up at 5:30 AM, goes to work all day, studies for a million hours after work and barely has time to change his clothes before his cranky wife complains to him that she has been playing with their kid ALL DAY and needs a break.
He deserves way more than a night out at a kinda nasty bowling alley (oxymoron?), but that is what he got.

We had a good time, though, as evidenced by this picture of the back of people's heads (action shots are difficult while bowling).
And Holden totally seemed to enjoy his cheater bowling.

I enjoyed looking at Holden's teeny tiny bowling shoes.

I also enjoyed that the bowling cake I made turned out looking halfway like a bowling cake...And if you'll recall, my track record for these things is pretty much the worst.

On the actual big day, we stuck to the basics: Presents and Cold Stone cupcakes

Holden and I also handcrafted this awesome birthday banner. No coloring session at the Mannings is complete without Holden requesting I draw The Beatles, which is why there are four stick figures in the middle of our banner. What, you didn't recognize them? Shame on you.

We closed out the week with a joint birthday dinner at my parent's house for Reo and Cami, who also drew the unfortunate lot of having a December birthday. Here's a picture of the birthday kids.

Oh, and we had cake again, because, well, why not?

Happy 28th birthday, Reo! You are pretty much awesome!

Welcome Home...

Back in the day, (you know, three months ago) I would come home from work or studying to a warm welcome from Holden. Okay, maybe not warm, but cute. I would open the door and hear little footsteps approaching from somewhere in the house, accompanied by a little boy going, "aaaarrrrrggghhhh". Usually, he would then see me, smile, and turn around and run off. Good times.

Lately, something has changed. Now, I walk through the door and still hear the footsteps. However, instead of the "charming" scream, I get this: "I play Rock Band, Daddy? Play Rock Band?" With this request comes him grabbing my hand and leading me to the living room and the Playstation. I usually have to decline, or at least tell him that we'll play later. It can be tough though, because who can say no to this:

Next time you see Holden, maybe he can sing you a favorite from his playlist:
"The Yeah Yeah Song," AKA Uncontrollable Urge by Devo
Roxanne by the Police
Next To You by the Police
Pump it Up by Elvis Costello

The Best Part of November

Fact #1: Reo is a planner, especially when it comes to gifts.

Fact #2: Despite being such a planner, Reo also is a big fan of instant gratification.

Result: He buys my Christmas presents insanely early, and I always manage to con at least one out of him before the holidays even arrive.

This year it was this super awesome apron (pay no mind to the frazzled looking girl wearing the apron..it had been a long day.)

The best part is he made it himself!! Okay, not really, I picked it out at Ross a few weeks ago, but I had you going for a minute, didn't I?

Let the Christmas Season begin!

Smells Like School Spirit

Reo spent last week in Indiana, getting all sorts of Master's Degree know-how (he's home now, so don't get any ideas all you internet creepers out there).

I am sure he learned all sorts of educational things, but he also contracted a severe case of Hoosier Fever.

Apparently the only cure is to bring home massive amounts of Indiana schwag.