Bye Bye Baby!

Gabe got his first haircut and now he looks like a little boy. I would be sad but he looks adorable! Of course he was darling with his long, baby hair as well. Mom was teasing me that he looked like a Beatle and was threatening to start calling him Ringo! The thought of that appalled me enough to get out the scissors! I think I did a pretty good job for an amateur (as long as you don't look too closely). :)

The old Gabe:

The new Gabe:




















Mohawk madness....I had to post the before and after of the mohawk!! Ha ha! :)

HAPPY EASTER!

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Easter...we did! Doesn't Gabe look adorable in his Easter vest? :) I thought so! Even though he has a horrible cold right now, he is still full of smiles. I forgot to get a picture before Eric changed out of his church clothes (no one changes faster than Eric after church!!)

The Easter bunny brought Gabe a toy that he was sure to love (he played with Ben's the whole time we were in Detroit). Gabe could hardly tear his attention away for a quick picture!

Here are some pictures of Gabe with his grandma and grandpa Richardson and his aunt Crystal. Gabe was really into that book they gave him!

Bucking Broncos!

I'm just kidding! These horses are great. However, I learned the hard way that when they don't get ridden a lot in the winter, they need a little warm up time to get used to a rider again. (This warm up is best done by a really great rider, not me!) Once we got going though, the horses were great and it was a blast! We went riding this past Saturday while my sweet mother-in-law tended Gabe. Unfortunately, Eric ended up having to leave early but we'll definitely be going again sometime soon and I'll be sure to get a picture of my cowboy then. :)

I'm on Baldo, my sister-in-law Amy's horse. Dad is on his new horse Coal Train, Mom is on her favorite Chief, and Matt is riding his horse Rio. All these horses are Missouri Foxtrotters which make them the most comfortable horses to ride. They have a gait that is very smooth and fast. We love it! My parents have always loved horses and my brother Matt certainly inherited that love. So he and my Dad started buying them for hunting (another passion of theirs) and for fun riding, of course. The rest of us sure love it! We have a great time riding...I can't wait for Gabe to get a little bigger!

Tagged

This is the second time I've been tagged so I'm going to combine the two since I never got around to it last time (sorry Cristina)! I am going to tag my sisters: Erin, Mel, and Amy.

TEN YEARS AGO I WAS:
1. In my second year of university at the U of U and trying to decide which part of the medical field I wanted to go into.
2. Moved out of my parents house and living with friends in a little house in Holladay...I'm a real grown-up! :)
3. Getting ready to spend the summer in Italy on study abroad and saving up to travel Europe while I'm there!
4. In the middle of my first "adult"(and I use that term loosely here) relationship that ended up as a complete disaster. (gotta have at least one of those, I say)
5. Really getting into the exciting new world of snowboarding...which at this point had become my favorite winter pasttime and was soon to be taking up more of my time than even school!

THINGS ON MY TO DO LIST TODAY
1. Super clean the kitchen (done, thank goodness)
2. Do my mini workout and go to physical therapy for my shoulder at 4pm
3. Research online strollers, car seats, and backpack baby carriers (for hiking), all of which we need to buy for Gabe this spring.
4. Make dinner later; new recipe Asian Grilled Salmon (yum)
5. And the biggest and BEST part of the day...caring for and playing with Gabe!!

THINGS I WOULD DO IF I WAS SUDDENLY A BILLIONARE
1. Buy a house on a beautiful, big piece of land with lots of grown trees. (Plus a beachhouse on the coast of Oregon and a gorgeous cabin in the mountains!)
2. Start traveling the world (in our own Lear jet, of course) with a nanny so we could bring Gabe but he wouldn't miss naps and could still go to bed early!
3. Get a personal trainer and home gym.
4. Donate to the church.
5. Invest the rest to Eric's heart's content. :)

BAD HABITS
1. Biting my nails. (Eric has challenged me to quit by the time I turn 30...that gives me 4 months. Unfortunately, I've been trying to quit for almost all of those 30 years so we'll see how it goes! :))
2. Eating late at night.
3. Reading too much fiction.
4. Taking really long showers-especially in the winter. (They are just so relaxing I can't make myself get out!)
5. Being late for church.

PLACES I HAVE LIVED
1. Utah (Logan, Midway, Heber, Sandy, Holladay, downtown SLC, and Cedar Hills)
2. Arizona
3. Colorado
4. California
5. Italy

JOBS I HAVE NOW OR HAVE HAD
1. Cleaning houses and making icecream cones at Snelgroves (highschool years)
2. Brief stint swirling cones at Golden Spoon- yes, I like icecream! :)
3. Waitressing at Giardino's, Dos Serranos, and Lodge at Snowbird (college years)
4. Registered Nurse at LDS Hospital in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (last 7 years) - we actually just moved our unit to the big, new hospital: Intermountain Medical Center.
5. MOMMY!!!

THINGS PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME (quirky things about me)
1. I'm an insomniac - although it's better since I don't have to work nights anymore.
2. I think baking is very relaxing when I'm home alone!
3. Cloudy, rainy days are the best!! I feel so invigorated on those days, whereas sunny days just drain me. Weird, I know.
4. I actually like snakes but I'm deathly afraid of and HATE centipedes and cockroaches.
5. I hate hate hate jogging!

yes, the list goes on...
6. I'm a Canadian citizen as well. (always American first and last, though!)
7. I have a compulsion to run when I'm cold (as in, from the car to the house or store, etc)!
8. I like rock music although I've turned more toward Coldplay, John Mayer, and Dashboard Confessional-type music now that I'm a mother! :) (Old Favorites include Linkin Park, Bush, and Limp Bizkit- that last one being slightly embarrassing! I must admit I'm really into 30 Seconds to Mars now - it takes awhile to phase this stuff completely out!!)
9. I get really emotional when I'm tired...the emotion tending toward irritable-to-tears within 10 seconds, so watch out!
10. I've never broken a bone... not for want of trying though. For example, just this weekend I got bucked off a horse twice! Ok fine, I fell off one of those times. :)

THINGS THAT MAKE MY LIFE SUPERFABULOUS RIGHT NOW
1. A fun and loving husband and a darling little boy!
2. The gospel
3. Being able to stay home and care for my baby full time (thank you Eric for your dedication and hard work- I love you!)
4. Good health- for me, Eric and Gabe
5. My incredible parents and siblings (and their spouses) as well as my awesome inlaws! We have such an amazing family!

Pickle Face

Gabe likes pickles!! You wouldn't know it from this face he pulled though! He loves to make this face lately...for things disgusting, strange, new, annoying, you name it. It's pretty funny! We went out to lunch for my brother Matt's birthday, and being the prankster he is, he handed Gabe a pickle to chew on. Well, he wasn't disappointed when Gabe puckered up immediately! However, no one expected him to keep on chewing! He got over his dislike pretty quick and ended up loving that sour pickle. Gabe never ceases to surprise me with what he considers yummy. For instance, he would rather snarf canned pinto beans-by the dozens-then eat fresh, sweet pears!! Crazy kid. (Although in all fairness to Gabe, he did end up loving the pears after a few days of enticing him with them) So anyway, despite Matt's attempt to torment my baby, we all had a great time! We even got to see Eric in the middle of a work day - yay!!

Happy Campers

Eric has decided that every weekend this summer that I'm not working, we should be camping. In an attempt to protect my sanity I've declared two nights is the maximum I can do without my bed and even then, one night is plenty for the average weekend get-away! Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy camping. I grew up camping! My parents love the outdoors. We never went a summer, or even a few months, without some kind of excursion involving tents and dutch ovens. I had lots of birthday parties around the campfire with an upside-down pineapple cake with candles in it (my b-day is in July and often coincided with one of our camping trips)! However, now for some reason the idea of sleeping on the ground and no showers is less appealing. For an extended period of time, that is. As long as it is limited to one night (2 max), camping is a lot of fun. It feels so good to be up in the mountains away from everything. I love the smell of the pines, the fresh air, the beautiful hiking, relaxing around the campfire...the whole experience can be so invigorating! I'm actually getting more excited for the summer just writing about it! We are planning on doing a lot of hiking and horseback riding as well. Eric even wants to rent some 4wheelers one day! Sounds like one action packed summer. I wonder if Eric is trying to make up for our last summer which was spent indoors with our new baby? This summer Gabe is in for a treat - lots of fresh mountain air and sunshine for our little man! Of course, he isn't a complete stranger to the mountains...we have taken him quite a bit up the canyon and even over night once last fall when he was 4 months. Here is a picture of us up American Fork canyon last October...we were trying to do tinfoil dinners with Eric's siblings but we ended up getting rained out! It was a lot of fun anyway!

Laundry Day

Yes...so exciting. :) (There hasn't been too much going on lately, hence the lack of posts on my blog.) However, I wanted to post these cute pics of Gabe in the fresh-out-of-the-dryer clothes waiting to be folded. He looked so cute peering up out of the pile! Gabe is such a sweet little guy-so easily entertained. He just keeps me company as I go about my chores. Since he doesn't seem to be in any hurry to crawl and get into mischief, our days are peaceful and fun!

Happy Valentine's Day

Hopefully everyone had a great Valentine's Day! Gabe and I spent the afternoon at Mel's making goodies for this special day. It's always so much fun to hang out over there. Cannon and Gabe don't actually play together yet but Gabe sure enjoys Cannons toys! Mel and I always love to get together and cook up a storm. Unfortunately there isn't much time since we usually cram these cooking sessions inbetween nap times and even if we didn't, Mel is one busy girl with five boys to take care of (make that six, right Brad?!) Anyway, the real fun came later that evening after Daddy (aka Eric) came home from work! (Luckily it didn't take him 3 1/2 hrs to get home like the night before in that horrendous blizzard.) Gabe and I had a special surprise in store for him...balloons with little love notes hanging on the strings! Yes, I know, very very cheesey but I don't care! That is what Valentine's Day is for!! And I even got a single red rose out of it - very romantic. :)

Now I had to post the funniest picture of Gabe and Denali staring at the balloons. They stared and stared until I finally got the camera - I was cracking up the whole time! When I brought the balloons home from the store, Gabe was absolutely fascinated. He and Denali were both transfixed by this bunch of strange and slightly scary things hanging out by the ceiling. I think Gabe liked them but Denali was very suspicious and watched those balloons with something like terror in her eye. If I bumped one or something, she would scramble up like it was about to attack her! It was so funny. Eventually they both got used to them and in the way of babies and dogs, the balloons were old, boring news. :)

sisterscafe.blogspot.com

Here are all my sweet sisters! Mindy and I(with Gabe), Melanie and I, Amy and Erin (with Gabe again), and the last picture is Mindy, Mom, Amy, Mel, and I. Sorry girls, most of these pics are of one or all of us pregnant!! :) Luckily every one of you is darling pregnant.

Anyway, the bunch of us decided to start our own cooking blog. We all love to cook and experiment with new recipes. This way we get to share with each other and all our friends our favorite recipes as well as any new and exciting ones we've tried. Best of all, everyone gets to witness my amateur attempts at culinary photography! If something doesn't look too appetizing, ignore the photo and try it anyway...it's delicious! Of course Mel and Erin's pictures look professional but I'll get there someday. :) And the photos are a must...who likes to make something new without seeing it? It makes it a lot more fun anyway. So check it out if you get the bug to cook something new!

Best buddies...

...ok, maybe not yet but if each of them had anything to do about it, they would be! Eric and I are just starting to let Denali (our American Bulldog) get close to Gabe. From the time we took him home from the hospital, Nali has been trained to keep a respectful distance from him and all his stuff. Over the months we have allowed her to come closer and closer...and now she just loves to join him on the floor when he plays with his toys. She even tries to join him literally on his blanket...the closer the better! Gabe loves her! His little face lights up when she plops herself down next to him and he immediately goes in for the grab. Denali's ears hold endless appeal for Gabe. He absolutely loves to pull and twist and flap them back and forth with is hands. For some reason she doesn't seem to mind at all - in fact I wonder if she likes it since she always lays down within reach of his grabby little hands! Once in a while, when she thinks I'm not looking and she just can't resist anymore, she will lean over and give him a long lick across the head! ICK! She is not allowed to do that but she LOVES to lick and has a really hard time controlling herself for long! :) Although it really grosses me out, Gabe doesn't seem to mind - which is probably good since he is in for a lot more licks as the years go by and they really do turn into pals!