Ooh Baby Baby

My imagination got the best of me the other day as I stumbled onto one of those funny and ridiculous sites that mesh the faces of you and your significant other into one slightly misfortunate looking child.  Let me tell you that the chuckles uncontrollably burst out of my mouth as soon as I saw the picture that developed from the glamour shots I chose to use. I’m thinking our kids will be absolutely adorable no matter what because, let’s face it, who doesn’t think their own children are the most beautiful things ever?! I wish that I had saved the picture and posted it, but I guess I will have to let you all be the judge. Here are a few pics of Tanman and I growing up so you can decide if our kids will be beauty pageant contestants or pig farmers. If our kids are, on the off chance, entirely unpleasant looking we all know that they are gonna rock the world with the coolest personalities ever.

Hallow's Eve

Could Halloween be the best holiday ever? I think so! My only wish was that the weather would decide to cool down enough for fun fall sweaters and boots. I mean the heat pretty much turned our pumpkins into liquid before we could even enjoy them! As grateful as I am for nice weather (we spent our entire Saturday playing at the pool) is it too much to ask for a little chill in the air? … Just a thought. Here is a summary of our fun Halloween:

We tried to make our costume as clever as last year’s…

…but it’s a little difficult to be extra creative with a baby bump. So we decided to play on that instead…

I did, however get some pretty interesting looks at the party we went to and quite a few compliments on how "real" my stomach looked. All in all it was a pretty fun night and I think we rocked it. Now it's time to put lights up and turn on the Christmas music right?

long time no blog

Well Hello. Fancy meeting you here. It has been quite a while since I last posted about our lovely, adventurous and expanding family. Let me catch you up to speed….

We found one of these in my tummy:

And bought one of these:

But couldn’t move in because some of these decided to trash the place:

Which brings us to trying to put the whole house back together while trying not to run to the bathroom every second I stand up. Let me tell you those first few months had me seriously wondering what I signed up for, but now that the numbers on the scale are actually rising and the smell of melted cheese doesn’t immediately paralyze me I’m feeling pretty excited about our new adventures. Nothing quite beats the feeling of a little baby dancing around in my tummy. Can I just say turning a house into a home is so much fun during the Holiday season! The smell of pumpkin candles alone makes me want to cuddle up and read a book with hot chocolate. Being pregnant I totally have the excuse to relax whenever I want and you better believe I’m taking advantage of it! I promise I will stop neglecting this blog. It is about to turn into a feast of photos of baby and house repairs. Just you wait.

take me out to the ball game…again

We definitely hit the ball out of the park this week. Literally.

Tanman and I utterly SCORED with free tickets to the Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers game. I obviously wore Dodger Blue and Tanman wore Diamonback Red. Our seats were amazing. We were right behind home plate. In the row just about all the VIPs. If you read the post below you would have learned how much I love baseball. I believe it all started from this:

…with a little of this:

…and a lot of this:

Yes, I realize that I used this picture before, but I love it and it makes me smile! 

in case you were wondering...

Alright, still no camera charger but I was playing around on Facebook the other day and came across this little ditty. It's one of those survey things that everybody does and tags you in and then they spread all over and they get super annoying really quickly. Well deal with it, cause that's what I'm posting. I'm pretty sure I filled this one out like two years ago, but it's surprisingly still accurate and since we are new to the blog world, here is a little introduction to Merelips:

25 Things:

1. I am painfully shy when I don’t know anyone in the room.

2. I love antique rings, necklaces and pins because I think jewelry should always have a good story behind it.

3. I miss picnics on the bridges of Paris.

4. I would rather clean the bathroom and vacuum than do the dishes. I don’t mind cleaning my own, but I won’t clean off other people’s half-eaten food.

5. At night, I have to sleep with the fan on to dull the noise. In France, I used to listen to the sound of rain on my laptop to drown out the sound of people walking up and down the stairs all night.

6. Baseball and Football are the best sports ever created (Running Charades would have to be 3rd)

7. I have probably read Pride and Prejudice 10 times from 10 different books. (and two languages)

8. Scrapbooking and crafts are my release. I buy stickers, fabric and embellishments like there is no tomorrow.

9. The full-length mirror in my room (at my parent’s house now) says, “Don’t get fat!!” and my sister Melissa snuck in and added, “I mean it this time!” to the bottom.

10. There is a reason my sisters call me “Marshmallow”

11. I love photography and really wish I knew what I was doing when I take pictures.

12. Make-up is my hobby. I hardly wear it but I love putting it on people.

13. I still believe in chivalry, and expect it.

14. When I was two, I fell through the window from jumping on the bed.

15. I’m pretty sure that I know ALL of the words to Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Miss Saigon, Evita, Joseph and Mamma Mia.

16. I would love to have my own family. (Looks like I can check that off)

17. I would like to travel the world before though. (Still working on it)

18. Laundry is my favorite cleaning activity.

19. My clothes are color coordinated in my closet.

20. If I could get by without a job, I would keep up with piano and take voice lessons again.

21. I miss dance.

22. I have probably been to about 30 weddings in my life and probably around the same number of funerals.

23. Math is the best subject there is.

24. Baguettes and cheese, crepes or chocolate covered strawberries will get me to forgive ANYTHING.

25. I am the neighbor that bakes treats and drops them off on Sundays just to say hi. I mostly use this as an excuse to have leftover goodness in the kitchen that I can snack on :)

Well there you have it! If you ever wanted to know anything about me you now do!

no news is good news

I don't know what is going on, but I seriously cannot think of ANYTHING to write and I am determined to have more than one post a month. (My original goal was one a week, but really who are we kidding?).

Highlights:

1. The charger for my camera and the usb chord are MIA. This is serious folks. I have searched everywhere. If you have seen them please let me know. I might even be able to offer a reward.

2. Tanman came back from his "business trip" last weekend. While he was gone I stayed with the in-laws. We came home to the biggest spider I have ever seen chilling on the floor in our bedroom. It ran away behind the dresser and Tanman had to take the whole thing apart before he finally caught it. (I took pictures, but of the battery died) I don't do spiders at all. There is a fun little story that has circulated in our family of a time we were on the lake near the lagoon and a spider crawled on my back. I screamed so loud the lifeguards jumped in their boat and came over to see what was wrong only to find me hyperventilating in the paddle boat crying that a spider was on me. I really don't do spiders.

3. We used our George Foreman for the first time, and I have no idea why it took us so long! I am obsessed now.

4. Oh and we've been published! No, I didn't finish my book (not that I have even started writing one) but some pictures from our wedding made it into BYU's bridal guide. Nothing too exciting but slightly entertaining.

Can you tell now how uneventful our life has been? This is why there has been no post for the past two weeks. The best stuff I could come up with was something about a battery, some food and a spider.

I promise next post will have pictures and jokes in it. Stay tuned!

writer's blog

So, I haven't posted for two weeks! I feel like our life suddenly became ridiculously boring and, as most of you know, boring is not my thing. So instead of writing about our lives lately, I figure if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I'll just post one of those so I don't have to worry about putting a thousand words together in a witty little story. So here is a photo from back when life was a little less boring... enjoy! I don't know why, but it always makes me laugh whenever I see this picture.

Some might say we have "interesting personalities. I saw we're more normal than anyone I know.