We Wish You a Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year

Christmas has finally come and gone, and while it's normally my favorite part of the year I would be lying if I didn't say, I wasn't in the best Christmas spirit this year. Work is killing me! I am there all day every day, doing all the work no one else wants to do with zero recognition or credit. I can't seem to catch up with everything they want done! My boss is awful! She doesn't seem to get how much Mariah and I have on our plates already, so she keeps on dishing it out. If I tell her I can't do something she responds with things like "It will only take a few minutes" or "That's your job" while she sits on her butt watching Mary Poppins on her computer! Then there is the stress of trying to find time to get the right gifts for everyone, and decide how to split the holidays with our families this year. Basically I'm done, with all of 2013!

While I am under a lot of stress, we did have a lovely Christmas. My side of the family has a tradition of doing Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve, so we didn't have to split that holiday with my husband's family as much. After dinner, we watched a Christmas movie, opened our Christmas Eve presents of new PJ's and a movie and then hung out until it was time to go home. Bright and early in the morning we went back to my parents to open the rest of our gifts. We were spoiled! Then it was back to our house to open gifts from that side of the family and have Christmas dinner with them. It was especially fun to watch everyone open the gifts we bought them. The best reaction was Lisa's when she saw her new coat, hat, scarf and gloves. She was all smiles as she modeled her new outfit for everyone. I don't think I've ever seen her act like that before, but it was awesome to see and we could tell she was really happy with the present!

Rachel's presents got a little abused by the cats sitting on them

Mom so excited about her chippandales calendar

Dad's gift from us

The Graham way of unwrapping gifts wears
off apparently

Dad's new cooling pillow

Mom's turn

The new egg dish she wanted

Rachel isn't so sure about her present

Now she is happy

Bob crocheted the hat and scarf just for her

Kelsey is so excited...

Now she is happy!

Finally Savannah's turn

Harry Potter and new sunglasses!

One last picture of Bob's craftmenship

Unfortunately now that's all over and it's back to work from Hell! I know things will get better after the new year because the warehouse move will be slowing down and Teresa will be back from maternity leave to help out. Here's hoping the rest of it will sort itself out as well!

In other news, since it's almost the new year I would like to show off how well I did on my 2013 resolutions and this year I will share my 2014 resolutions with you from the get go!

In 2013, I resolved to:

1. Learn Spanish or ASL (sign language)
2. Pay off our honeymoon
3. Pay off my car
4. Get a 2nd car for Bob
5. Get to 125 lbs (the healthiest weight for my body, and the weight I felt best about myself at)
6. Either run a half marathon (13.1 miles) or a sprint triathlon (swim 500 Meters, bike 10 miles, run 3.1 miles)
7. Write a post on my blog for every week.

#1. While I don't feel at all comfortable understanding or speaking in Spanish or ASL, I have started listening to a lot of Spanish radio and every day I get a Spanish word of the day sent to my email so it's coming along slowly but surely.
#2. Paid off in June
#3. Paid off beginning of July
#4. Done at the beginning of July
#5. Close, but not quite. I've gotten to 127 this year and I'm currently around 130 but it's not bad.
#6. Half Marathon completed at the end of October
#7. This post will actually make #55 (that's 3 more than needed!)

As you can see, while I didn't finish everything on my list I did pretty well! This year to keep myself accountable to my goals still I'm posting my resolutions at the beginning of the year! Here are my goals for 2014:

#1. Continue on my path to learn Spanish, ASL or both
#2. Get to 125 lbs and stay there (at least until I'm ready for baby)
#3. Get a road bike so I can train on it. Someday I would still like to do a sprint triathlon
#4. Have a blog post every week (total of 52 at the end of the year)
#5. Go Hang gliding or Paragliding
#6. Climb a Mountain
#7. Climb a Waterfall
#8. Pay off all of our debt (except Bob's new car)
#9. Save up at least $2000 by my birthday (to be used only as a down-payment on a house)
#10. Keep saving at that rate until we have our house
#11. Buy a house!!!

Here's hoping this year is better than the last!

Holiday Celebrations

The closer the holidays get, the busier my schedule gets! Work is still pretty crazy since we just barely moved into a new warehouse and Teresa and Amy Kay are both on maternity leave so it's up to Mariah and I to do everything ourselves. I have been pulling extra hours everyday and running around like a crazy person trying to catch up on all the work we have still to do. Luckily I somehow found time to finish my Christmas shopping and Thursday I was able to leave work in time to go to my favorite little swimmers Christmas dance recital and watch them dance. This year Meridien  was old enough to help with the little dancers and all the backstage work so I didn't sit with her during the show. Caelin came and sat with me after her dances though, and she was so excited to see me she forced her dad to move over so she could talk to me. Both girls danced beautifully but Caelin was especially impressive since she was dancing and tumbling with a broken hand (everything one handed of course, not actually putting pressure on it).

Meridian is in the white and Caelin is the little one in black

Meridien's lyrical routine

Caelin's hip hop routine

She makes the best faces!

Caelin mid-tumbling

Friday night Bob and I went to my friend Emily's Ugly Sweater Party. We had a lot of fun. There were great cocktails and delicious food. We did an ugly sweater contest which I won, and then we passed around white elephant gifts. Bob and I were both drinking so we planned on staying the night but everyone else had DD's and left for the night. Unfortunately Bob had a little too much and after saying and doing a lot of stupid things, he got sick. It was a pretty bad turn of events and we both vowed not to drink again for a long time. The alcohol also made it hard to remember to take pictures so I don't have a picture of our ugly sweaters or silly gifts. It's too bad cause I worked hard on making my sweater the ugliest of them all!

Saturday while Bob was recovering I went with Renee to see Ballet West's performance of The Nutcracker. It has been too long since I have seen it so I forgot how great it was. As always Ballet West did an amazing job. The set, costumes, music and choreography added up to a wonderful experience. Renee enjoyed it too, and I soon found out that it was her first ballet! I'm glad I got to take her to her first!

This week history was also made in the state when Utah became the 18th state in the U.S. to perform and recognize same sex marriage. I didn't see it coming at all since this is such a conservative, religious state but thanks to a federal judge, Judge Shelby, it's true! He declared the Utah law banning same sex marriage to be unconstitutional, overturned that law and marked our place in history. I don't know how long it will last since I know the LDS church and the state of Utah will fight it, but I'm happy to know that as of right now same sex couples are lining up and being granted marriage certificates at the court houses. The courts are even staying open outside of normal business hours in order to meet the demands and help as many couples as possible. It is a truly beautiful sight to see and a huge leap forward in the fight for equality!

First same sex couple married in Utah

Happy Birthday Anya!

Bob and I decided to actually get out of the house and socialize for once this weekend, and for a special occasion. It was my dear friend Anya's birthday. Anya and I have been friends since 8th grade, so 10 years! While we have lost touch a few times, we always get back together and I'm sure glad we do! It was a fun party, I got to see a lot of friends I don't talk to enough, and people I haven't even seen since high school. I also got to drink some of my work frustrations away, and have some fun! We enjoyed playing and losing at flip cup, and beer pong and just hanging out with a lot of great people. Unfortunately a misunderstanding between Anya and her boyfriend AJ marked the time to leave. After saying our good-byes, Bob my DD drove me home where we cuddled up to sleep off the excitement!

Double fisting it

My Asian fam



A drunk attempt at getting all the girlie's! Sarah, Renee and Jeanine are the
cute Asians in the top corner, Chelsea is in red in front and Anya, the birthday
girl is next to Chelsea.

Welcome Kynzi Joan Tolman!

The day we have been waiting for has finally arrived! My beautiful cousin Shelby had her labor induced last night, and today at 12:35 PM Kynzi Joan Tolman entered this world at a healthy 7 lbs 1 oz. Bob and I went over as soon as we were both off of work to meet her for the first time. Both mom and baby were tired, but healthy and happy. We didn't get to stay for too long since the nurses came in to do a full check of Shelby and then it was time to breastfeed, but it was long enough for both of us to fall head over heels in love with the newest addition to our family. Welcome to the world Kynzi, we are so happy you are here!

Beautiful Kynzi, just 8 hours old!

Holding Kynzi for the first time!

Can't get enough of this beautiful girl

She has the mama look already down



Kynzi

Mama and Kynzi

Thanksgiving

I love holidays. I love having work off, good food, decorations, traditions and of course spending time with family. It is hard though when your married, and don't have kids of your own to celebrate with yet because you have to try and figure out how to best split the holiday with both families. Thanksgiving was no different, and this year was harder than normal. In the past Bob and I would go to one family's house for dinner and the other for dessert. The next year we would switch. This year dinner was supposed to be with Bob's family and dessert with mine, but things gone chaotic very fast.

Loose Thanksgivings are usually at Tessa's but Tessa was doing dinner with another part of the family this year. Ryan and his family were doing Thanksgiving with his wife's family so they weren't coming either. Instead they said we should all get together in the evening for dessert. Bob's grandmother was coming down from Idaho for the Thanksgiving though, and whether we like it or not, we don't know how many more we will get to enjoy with her so we were still going to dinner with them. Unfortunately we couldn't get an answer from Marcie on what time dinner would be at, and we still wanted to go see my family so we told them we would come over for an early dinner. Thanksgiving morning, Marcie finally told us she wanted dinner at 1. About half an hour after my mom's dinner was planned which we had already RSVP'd for. I think Marcie was a little upset when we told her we were going to my parents because we had told them already that we would be there. We did dinner at my family's house, and it was delicious but rushed because we wanted to still do a little dinner with Bob's grandma.

By the time we got back home, around 2-2:30 dinner was already over. Wanting to make Marcie feel better about us missing dinner, we ate again despite already being stuffed. After we ate at home, we needed to take Grandma to Uncle Kirk's house. When we got there, dinner #3 was ready. We ate again... Finally after a small nap and resting, it was off to Tessa's for dessert. I was so full! I didn't eat as much dessert as normal because I didn't have room. After dessert the family raked through Black Friday ads to see where we wanted to go. Most of the places we wanted didn't open until 4-5AM so we went to Walmart for cheap movies. My nieces Katie and Mimi practically  dragged us since Bob and I weren't sure we were going to go. We had fun with all our shopping but Sam gave Katie a curfew so we had to rush her back home. After taking the girls back Bob and I went to get some sleep before finishing our shopping.

Bright and early we hit the rest of our stores. We went to Gordman's for my new coat and Lisa's gift. Then it was off to Cabela's for my bow! Finally off to another camping store for some more outdoor gear. It was a long, and tiring but successful shopping day. Finally Bob and I collapsed into bed to go to sleep!