It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

We did it. We put up the first Norman Christmas tree. And it's beautiful. At least we think so. Take a look...

And as you can see on the first picture, we already have gifts under there. I'm only 3 or 4 gifts away from completing Christmas shopping! My dad and in-laws are kinda hard to shop for. Hope your holidays are off to a merry start :)

BACON!!

Saturday I went to the store. I passed the isle that has the bacon and sausage and other things like that. As soon as I passed it, I swiftly turned around and went to look at bacon. "hmmmm," I pondered, "should I make today the day I buy bacon to cook for Jake and then try it again (see our 101 in 1001 post here)?" I decided that day was a good day to do it. So I picked up about 10 different packages of bacon to finally settle on one of the mid priced regular bacon packages. That was success #1.

Success #2 came tonight! You know what #2 is? I COOKED it! see...

Sorry for that crooked picture...but look at how crispy I got that bacon. Jake is a fan of "extra crispy" bacon. I made a glorious breakfast for dinner complete with eggs and waffles!

So, take a guess at what success #3 was? Yes, that's right, I ATE the bacon! WOA! I can't believe myself. I semi-enjoyed it. I think I need a couple more tastes before I can say I like it again. Mmmm, bacon!!

I wish I were a Children Photographer

Often I think I would love to be a photographer. Babies/children/family photographer. If only that made money. I'm not a good photographer at all, but I do love how kids' personalities are so easy to capture in one simple click. This past weekend, we went to San Antonio to hang out with the fam (celebrating my mom's 50th birthday!!), and I got to take some cute pictures of Mia. Here they are, for your enjoyment. Now, if only I had a fancy camera, these would be killer pictures!

The last one is my personal fav. She's pretty much the cutest little girl in the world. I love you Mia :)

We failed at 101 in 1001

Some of you knew that I had tried to start a 101 in 1001. We (as in Jake and I because I made it our thing instead of just mine) have failed. Miserably. I think I started the list about a month ago, and we got as far as 37. That's not even half way there! But just so that you do know we tried, here are our 37 "101" items. I think we'll still strive to do these 37. I'll blog about them when I do.

Start date: 10/8/09

End date: 7/4/12

1. Go on 3 vacations outside of the state of Texas. 1/3 down with Playa del Carmen (see previous post).

2. Make a pie completely from scratch.

3. Have a baby.

4. Get back to pre-baby weight after having the baby.

5. Go to a live baseball game (Round Rock Express doesn't count).

6. Meet 2 more of our neighbors. Done! getting a puppy made this super easy!!

7. Paint at least 2 rooms in the house (hiring someone does count).  This is done!  I'll post pictures of this eventually...we painted our powder bath and our kitchen!  wooohoo.

8. Write a blog every day for 5 consecutive days.

9. Make snow angels.

10. Pay off my car (that means we have to pay it off 1 year and 3 months earlier than needed).

11. Get wood floors for our house.

12. Eat at 10 new restaurants in Austin, TX. (6/10 - Mangiari's, Mesa Rosa, La Condesa, Asti, Ciola's, Torchy's Tacos...we're getting there...)

13. Plant flowers that last through an entire season in our front yard.

14. Go to the Austin Zoo.

15. Take 3 equipping classes at the Austin Stone. (1/3 - taking one right now).

16. Go on a marriage retreat.

17. Host Thanksgiving at our home.

18. Cook bacon at home for Jake 3 separate times. (2/3). The second time we got the healthy no nitrates one - it was peppered bacon. And it was delicious!  I like bacon now.  I don't think getting to 3 will be all too hard.

19. Read 3 books from beginning to end (don't laugh at how small that number is; we both don't like to read).

20. Go a full week without sweets.

21. Sleep more than 9 hours 2 days in a row.

22. Put up a Christmas tree in our house. Done! See it here.

23. Go camping. One time. I must sleep in a tent, not the car.

24. Finish the black and white picture collection in our game room.

25. Learn how to take professional pictures. This is in process....I got a nicer camera, so I'll get to taking professional pics soon!

26. Make cute cupcakes.

27. Go to a new winery. Done! See the post from May 31st.  We went to Mandola's with my mom and dad and we loved it!

28. Get a video camera. Done! Got jake a Flip HD for Christmas :)

29. Drink hot cocoa at home with the fireplace going.

30. Quit our #1 bad habits; for Jake it's biting his fingers, and for me it's biting my lip.

31. Iron everything in the ironing basket so that it's empty for once.  Yessss....Jake did this. All by himself!

32. Cook a recipe from Real Simple.

33. Watch Lord of the Rings with Jake from start to finish without falling asleep (just the first one).

34. Try bacon again (I've hated it for the past 8 or so years). Done! And I kinda liked it!

35. Give food/clothing/shelter to the homeless at least 20 times. (3/20)

36. Get a puppy. Done! Vince Norman joined our family in May 2010. He's quite the cutie. You'll love him!

37. Climb a tree.

So there you have it. Our failed attempt. It's the Norman 37 in 1001 :)

Life Lately

I do wonder when the day will come that I will stay consistent in blogging. That day will come, I promise! There's just no telling when.

Lately, life has been busy. It gets busier and busier and busier. And just when you think you're at your busiest, it's gets busier. Anyone feel like that? Surely, someone reading this does. And we do know, that as we get older, it will only get busier.

Let me just tell you a little bit about the past month and half. Work has of course kept us the busiest. Jake's 3 jobs + quarter end at my job = super busy working Normans. Both of us were pulling good 70-80 hour weeks. Eeek! In between the hectic work life, we both fought (and still are fighting for that matter) yucky allergies. I even had to go to about 4 dr appointments to end up getting an MRI. Just swollen lymph nodes; no worries. Somewhere in there we also had the Q4 Norman smoke-out to celebrate my and Martha (Jake's step-mom)'s birthdays! That was fun. My family came for a weekend, and then the following weekend was somehow the weekend of Jake and I's long awaited vacation to Playa del Carmen! Oh and in between that week, we had (well I had), the scariest house experience ever. Someone throwing rocks at the back of our house. Consistently. For about 2 hours! I had to call the cops. TWICE! They didn't catch anyone, but it hasn't happened since. Pray it never happens again because my heart almost beat out of my chest that night.

Yes, last week, as my birthday present, Jake and I went to Mexico where we got nice and tan and relaxed as much as is humanly possible. It was very glorious. And then I've gotten to celebrate my birthday a couple more times, including a delicious dinner at Jake's mom's house. Tasty seafood and bread pudding were perfect!! And we had a halloween party at our house. The first halloween at our house was way more fun than I ever expected. I LOVED the cute little trick or treaters. I leave you with some pictures from the past couple weeks...

What I Learned this Weekend

This past weekend was awesome. For so many reasons. It was Jake's first weekend off in a really long time (I think since February when we went to New York!). And as you read in my previous post (#1), we went to Galveston for the weekend with some great college friends!

So here are a few things I've learned from the weekend:

-- Galveston is about 4-4 1/2 hours away from Austin. That is the longest car ride I've been on since college. I'm not a fan of sitting in a car for long periods of time; gives me headaches.

-- Monkey balls (or Aggie Golf) is a brilliant invention of a game. I want to buy one. So if anyone that is wondering what to get me for birthday or Christmas, you can get me this game. (This is mainly an FYI for my family [if they're reading this]). Here's a picture of it:

-- Guys can stay out in water for a long long time and have a great time! I don't understand this; yet at the same time I have a great time just laying on the sand soaking up some sun.

-- Quelf is a crazy/weird game. Period. If you've never played, look it up. I guarantee you'll think it's crazy.

-- I can drink cheap beer. And I like it. It's lighter, and that's good for a girl.

-- Being out in the sun for over 5 hours gets me sunburned even when I reapply a couple of times. For Jake, being out in the sun for over 5 hours gets him extremely sunburnt (but he didn't reapply).

-- The cube is a cool car. I don't think I would get one, but it's still pretty neat!!

-- The Texas Longhorns is the best team in the nation. (I didn't really learn this, but the game on Saturday helped re-affirm it). I love my horns!

-- Jake and I are not a good team in Cranium. We are good at the yellow cards (apparently we're great backward spellers); but we fail miserably at the green and blue cards (we stink at acting things out and at drawing/sculpting things).

24 things...

I just got back from a doctor's appointment. (I have today and tomorrow off work, just fyi, so you don't think I'm skipping out on work). It was my first visit to this doctor, so I had to fill out all sorts of paperwork. Three different pieces asked for my age. Each time I hesitated on what to write. I'm 24, but I so badly wanted to write 25. My birthday is close enough, so really I'm closer to 25 than 24. And then I thought to myself, why am I so eager to be 25?? mmm, I don't know. Anyways, this post is on 24 things that make me happy/excited/thrilled/joyous, etc. I picked 24 because that's my age that I had to write down 3 times this morning. And that's my logic on picking 24, in case you were wondering.

Here we go...24 things:

1. This weekend! I'm headed to the beach with good ole college friends. So excited to hang out with them and to relax on the beach and to soak up some sun.

2. Seeing my niece in about 4 hours. I get to go help out with her because my poor sister is having knee surgery today. According to my mom, Mia was told that I was going to pick her up from school, and she repeatedly said, "tia? tia? tia?". Gotta love it!

3. Getting my hair done in just one hour. Those new grays that keep sprouting up in my head will be covered up with highlights, and well what could be more exciting than that??

4. This season of Biggest Loser! Jake and I watched it on DVR last night. Umm, I cried. I love it already. And I was very happy to see Alexandra had lost weight after being voted off! Jillian needs to tone down just a tad though.

5. America's Got Talent. One of my new must watch shows. I'm a little disappointed Barbara didn't win, but glad that someone like Kevin gets a million bucks!

6. Next Tuesday. That's the first day of Fall (I think). And you know what that means??? I will place my cute light up pumpkin out by my front door because Fall is official :)

7. Oct 24-28. I will be in beautiful beaches in Playa del Carmen with my sweet hubby. All inclusive beautiful resort; now THAT'S exciting!

8. The weather in the mornings. Seriously, today I wished I had a light sweater. And I LOVE that. There's something about cool crisp days that make me very joyful.

9. Reading my Bible for a few minutes in the mornings before working out. It really does make my day that much brighter!

10. Horizon Vanilla Milk. If you haven't tried it, you must. It's happiness in your mouth. The only milk I can drink straight; ha, and yea I know it's because of all that sugary vanilla in there!

11. Texas Football. I'm so pumped for the game on Saturday against Tech; it'll be a good one! HOOK 'EM HORNS!!!

12. Coffee. I don't know what I would do without it.

13. New jeans. I just ordered some from Neiman's. If they don't fit, I won't be so happy, but I will hunt down a perfect pair. I will brag about my hubby just a little bit on this one. I've been wanting a new pair of jeans the past month or so, but because we're trying to save as much as possible right now, I didn't really think I would get one. Then on Tuesday, Jake sends me an e-mail from his iphone with a smiley face as the subject line and a picture of 7 jeans as the body of the e-mail. Yep, he bought me some jeans all by himself! Turns out they didn't fit perfectly, so I returned those and ordered others. But what matters here is the thoughtfulness of my hubby :)

14. Stella and Dot party at my mother in law's next week. Inching closer to getting our church some money for their building!

15. Candles. I can't not light a candle when guests are over now. Circle E candles specifically make me the most happy - they fill up the entire house with the yummy scent!

16. Espresso. Jake and I recently got an espresso machine. He had been dreaming of one for a LOOOONG time. And by long time, I mean since we were engaged. I think he wanted to register for one. HA. Anyways, it's an awesome addition to our home. Instant perk me ups right there whenever wanted!

17. Updating our expenses. Well, maybe seeing that we spend too much money at times doesn't make me too thrilled, but there's an inexplainable sense of accomplishment in updating it that I really enjoy. Yea, I know I'm such a finance nerd.

18. Jake's kiss and "I love you" before he leaves for work every morning. Sometimes it wakes me up enough that it's hard to fall back to sleep for an hour before my alarm goes off, but it's so worth it!

19. Nov 21st. Jake, my mom and dad, and I will be at the Texas/Kansas game. First game for me to go to since I graduated! Very very exciting.

20. Active Release Therapy. Jake knows one of these therapists and my low back had been hurting for a couple of weeks, and it is simply amazing. I had never had low back pain before, and if you have, you know it sucks a lot. Well, this therapist, Kyler, fixed my back in just three sessions with him. I told Jake the other day I wanted to give him a hug. When something makes me happy, I like to give hugs. But that would have been awkward. So no hug for him.

21. Pomegranate Soda. I'm having one right now, and it's delicious!

22. Anything sweet. Hey Cupcake and Yogurt Planet sound good right about now, but I'm trying to cut back on my sweets. And on my chips and salsa (I haven't had any in 2 weeks!).

23. Cheap dates with my hubby. We were introduced to restaurant.com so we have had a couple cheap (and very yummy) dates recently.

24. Slowly decorating the house. And by slowly, I mean VERY slowly. It's coming along though. Recently, we got all the black and white pictures hung upstairs in the gameroom!

Phew! I honestly didn't think I was going to make it to 24 right around 14. But we made it!

Fall excitement continued...

I know I went on and on about the most wonderful season (Fall) in my previous post. This upcoming fall just got a tad bit more exciting for me and I just had to share...

Mainly because of two things:

1. Late last week, Jake and I went to Starbucks. And guess what we got??? Yes, Pumpkin Spice Lattes. Actually, I got a Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino and Jake got an ICED Pumpkin Spice Latte. DELICIOUS! Now it just needs to get about 30 degrees colder for me to get this yummy drink nice and hot. And you know what made these drinks even better? We paid for them with a gift card! Free Pumpkin Spice things = awesome!

2. I went shopping with my parents who were in town this Labor Day weekend, and I got something that made me very excited for fall. Im super pumped to decorate our new house with all things Thanksgiving/Christmas. However, I realized I have maybe 2 decorations for Fall time. So I set out to find something cute for the main door/entry. I almost got a cute pumpkin shaped sign that said "Welcome". My mom wasn't a fan of it, so like most things that my mom doesn't like, I opted not to go for it. Thank goodness I didn't. Pier 1 was our next stop, and look at what I found there:

A cool looking light up pumpkin! It doesn't get better than that for our mini front porch! Cute huh? I wanted to place it outside already, but my mom had to remind me that it's not quite Fall yet. Darn. In about 2 weeks, it will be out there though!

I must tell you, however, that Fall has now taken a tiny step back in my favorite season. You know what comes with Fall that I have not mentioned? ALLERGIES! Awful allergies! They are starting to get to me. Darn mold and ragweed and all that other stuff that's coming our way during this otherwise perfect season.

Happy Tuesday!

Fall is here?

Have you been to a Starbucks recently?? If you have, did you see what they had announced on their chalkboard above the register (or wherever the chalkboard is at your local Starbucks)? It's amazing...it's the countdown to Pumpkin Spice lattes! I love pumpkin spice lattes, but what I love more is that it means it is Autumn! Fall is by far my favorite time of the year.

Have you felt the cool, breezy mornings the past week or so? If you live in Houston, you probably haven't felt it (so sorry!). But about a week ago, I was leaving for work in the morning, I opened the garage door and felt a cool little blast of air. I couldn't believe it, so much that I quickly stuffed my things in the car and swiftly walked out to the driveway and just stood there. Ahhhh, nice cool morning! The last time that happened was like in April. Oh how I missed it. And it's only bound to get better from here. Come on COLD weather; I am ready for you!!

Do you know why else I love Fall? Football season (HOOK 'EM HORNS!). My birthday (less than 2 months away!). Thanksgiving (mmmm family time and delicious food). Preparations for Christmas (decorating the house with all things Christmasy, buying gifts, and most importantly celebrating the birth of our Savior).

So I know that the most wonderful season is not yet here, but I love that it's so so close!

Daydreams...

It's been a while! jeez...almost a full month. So sorry blog, don't hate me.

Believe it or not, today has been the first time in a about the month that I have been absent from blogging that I have more than a 2 hour timeframe to do things around the house, relax, watch tv, read, and anything else you do when you are at home and have time to do things. So here I am, after a morning of babysitting and a few hours at work...the dishwasher running, the laundry going (I should actually go put another load in), the tv on, and now I'm blogging. It feels nice :)

So TLC was on earlier, don't even remember what was on because I wasn't watching it at the time, but I happen to catch a commercial - a TLC baby commercial. And then I started daydreaming about babies as I continued with the things I had to do around the house...

As I day-dreamt (by the way, did you know that dreamt is the only word in the English language that ends in mt?? neat fact, I know!), I realized that I'm way crazy. Just as girls day dream about their wedding (the beautiful gown, the perfect location, the colors, the flowers, etc, etc), I daydream about future baby related things! So I can honestly say, I daydream more about kids than I ever did about a wedding. Yes, I'm that crazy. I loved my wedding, it was so wonderful; I just can't say that it was everything I dreamt of because I really did not dream about it. If I did, I don't remember a thing.

But for those who did daydream about the details of their future wedding, I imagine the way I was daydreaming earlier about future baby Norman's room has just about the same passion and desire (I don't think that sentence made sense, so I apologize if I don't go back and fix it). Let me see if I can write out a portion of my day dream....

"I really hope we have a baby boy first. I want to paint the room orange, not a bright orange nor a burnt orange, but somewhere in between; I'm sure I'll find that perfect shade. The furniture should be dark brown. The color scheme will be orange, blue and brown. Either stripes or dots...guess it depends on the fabric I find for the bedding. Ooooh it'll be so fun to register for cute stuff for the baby room - babies r us and pottery barn it will be! I want to get those big hanging wall letters for the baby's name to hang on top of his crib. A bookshelf would be nice; bookshelves look so nice in baby rooms."

I probably carried this dream on for some time, and then I think to myself, "I'm more excited about a baby room than an actual baby!" Hmmm.....see I AM crazy.

I think I have big urge to paint right now...paint any room. The orange baby room will have to wait, so I think I should paint the guest bath or the game room. Maybe I'll give myself a mini project for labor day weekend (if Jake helps and approves of a color and helps me shop for the things I need :) ). Now I'm excited...I'll post pics of whatever I end up doing, or I'll just blog about the reason that I ended up not doing :P

Happy Saturday everyone!

Do I really look that old?

I just got home from a little trip to the liquor store. Jake's family is coming over tonight and Jake requested I get something...

After a little detour to starbucks, I go into Twin Liquors and look at the gin and vodka isle. A nice man asks if I need help and so I tell him I can't decide what I want. He then recommends Citadelle Gin and says we'll never go back to Bombay Sapphire. Anyways, this is not the point of this blog. I just digressed to recommend a gin that was recommended to us :) I'll let you know if we love it after tonight. So I go to check out, and he just rings me up and I pay. Yes, he just rings me up and I pay. Do you see what's missing!? He didn't ask for my ID!

I left the store deep in thought of how, recently, no one asks for my ID anymore when I purchase alcohol (except for at Trudys, but they card EVERYONE even if you're 60).

Just yesterday, Jake and I went out to eat at this Mexican place Verdes...didn't ask for our IDs there. Earlier in the week, we went to Hula Hut to meet up with an old high school friend, Jackie, and her hubby. Jake and I got there a little early so we sat at the bar area to get a drink. Jake went off to the bathroom and I was just looking around the bar, and there's a sign pretty close to where I was sitting that says "We ID 30 and under." Well right as I read that the waitress comes up to get my order. I tell her I'll wait because she'll have to see his (Jake's) ID as well before we order. Her response is, "are you 21?". I say "yep!" She says, "You look a lot older than 21, I wasn't going to ask for your ID." Welp, I guess that means that I look older than 30 to her. AWESOME!

I am 24. I've only been at the legal drinking age for a little under 4 years; I can't possibly look like I'm wayyyy older than 21 to the point that people don't ask for my ID! ahh!

Maybe it's those gray hairs I have now. Or the fact that I have a wedding ring. Or because "look mature"(whatever that means). Or maybe it's my new shorter straight hair.

Meh, I think when I was 21 I thought it would be cool when they stopped asking for my ID. It's not cool. I wish they kept asking...

Oh Dieting!

I've come to the conclusion that marriage makes you gain weight. Many of you know that I've gained 10+ pounds since Jake and I got married. Some people don't believe me and some people just tell me I look good to be nice, and thankfully Jake still thinks I look hot (at least that's what he says). But I know that I have gained weight and that my clothes fit a little tighter, so that's what matters.

That said, I've been trying to lose this weight for a while, and for various reasons (some which I don't know), I haven't lost weight. I've gained it instead. So last week I finally decided to do something strict. My mom recommended a diet she was doing, and I decided to give it a shot. I lost 5 pounds in 5 days. That's great, right? Yep I thought so, but right now, I feel like I gained all that weight back. You see, the diet calls for a break on the weekends, and I think I may be taking too much advantage of my "break". Today this is what I've eaten:

-- Panera Bread egg and cheese sandwich and 1/3 of a blueberry bagel my niece didn't eat

-- Walnuts for a snack

-- Whole foods - salad, chicken, and quinoa; delicious bread pudding and about 5 other samples of deliciousness.

That's a lot of food!! But if I tell you what I've had to eat on this diet all week, I think you may understand...

You see, for 5 whole days, this is all I ate: oatmeal (still cut oats w/ no sugar; just cinnamon), lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, celery, apples, bananas, oranges, and strawberries, and a little bit of cheese. Every day that went by I dreamt of what I would be eating Saturday for my "break". I dreamt of eggs and a delicious Jersey Mikes sandwich and Yogurt Planet and chips and salsa/queso and wine and cheese and crackers and pizza and cereal. Just ask Jake, every night before bed I would rant about how hungry I was and how all I really want is a little bit of eggs and just a little sandwich. So yes, I may have gained my 5 pounds back already but jeez it was worth it. I may do another 5 days of the diet next week to see if I can lose 5 more. We'll see. I'll keep you posted...

Stella and Dot Stylist

Okay I'm doing good with my goal of 2 posts a week! Hehe it's only been 2 weeks though.

Well this post is going to be a shameless plug for something new I just started. If you haven't heard of Stella & Dot, it is this wonderful boutique style jewelry company. And I have become a stylist! You may think that as a "stylist" I'll be designing jewelry (which sounds pretty neat), but I'll just be selling it :)

I was introduced to Stella & Dot (from now on, S&D) by my friend April. I immediately fell in love with their style - unique and fun! I loved it so much that I got like half of my family's Christmas presents at her party! Because I truly believe in their product and because the company offers great perks for becoming a stylist, I did just that.

Jake and I have been looking for a way to donate money to our Church (Austin Stone) for their new building project (it's a 6 year old church and we meet at Austin high school), so a majority of what I make through anything I sell for S&D will go to our church; I'm excited about that!

If you have some time, check out my S&D website: www.stelladot.com/veronica or go here. I know you'll fall in love with their line just like I did. What's even better is that it's very affordable! If you've seen the Bachelorette this season, pretty much all of her jewelry is S&D! The S&D designers/founders come from great backgrounds - Jcrew, DeBeers, Banana Republic and more. Check it out; and if you live in Austin or nearby, look for my upcoming evite - I will be hosting a party on Aug. 16 at which you can purchase items and have fun girl time over some snacks and wine. I'll have sample jewelry on display so you can try on, see it up close, etc.

Let me know if you have any questions. Thank you so much for reading my plug for S&D!

Baby Fever, Puppy Fever Update

If you read my former blog at wordpress, you most likely read my puppy/baby fever post. If you want to read it, go here.

Puppy fever lasted quite a while. We even looked up breeders and talked to a few. It was pretty promising for a while. We were going to get a cute little shih-tzu, and we were oh so excited. Then, one day God enlightened us with the fact that we were rushing through life. We met about 3 years ago, got engaged a 1/2 or so later, got married 1 year ago, got a house in March of this year...and then all that stuff in the middle of that. And welp, we realized we needed to slow things down.

Does slowing things down = not getting a puppy? We think so. For many reasons: 1. It would be initially costly. 2. Jake and I have ridiculously busy schedules and honestly we had no idea how we could come home and let the puppy out. 3. It's a commitment - we could no longer freely leave for the weekend somewhere or take a day trip to Fredericksburg, San Antonio, etc without the puppy in tow or without finding a dog sitter (which costs money). 4. Um I actually don't have a 4th reason. But the 3 reasons were enough to convince us that we were not ready for a puppy right. I think if they gave puppy maternity/paternity leave at work, it would be doable because I know the commitment is greatest the first few months. But I don't think there will ever be such a thing as puppy maternity leave :P

So that was that. No puppy. For a while. So my fevers were gone. Both puppy and baby fevers were gone for at least a few weeks. And you probably guessed it, baby fever has returned now! Ahhh! My best friend from high school just had her baby earlier this week (Congrats Kristen!!), and that makes me want a baby. There are probably about 1000 pregnant people I know that will have their babies soon, and that makes me want a baby. Everytime I see a cute baby when I'm out and about makes me want a baby. My niece's cuteness and awesomeness makes me want a baby. I could probably bore you with many more things that make me want a baby, but I'll stop now.

I know this is a boring post, but I just had to share. Babies are cute and I would love one soon. But it will not happen soon, that I promise. Jake would wait 10 years to have kid if I let him, but it won't be quite that long :)

Too many sad movies

Jake here,

Lately Veronica and I have seen some pretty good movies. Unfortunately, 90% of them have been dramas that bring her to tears, and get me choked up -- not that there's anything wrong with getting a little choked up...

I'm torn on what to do. She doesn't like thrillers anymore because they scare her (even though I tell her I can protect her ;) ), comedies have been hit or miss lately, and chick flicks, being one of our last resorts, are lacking... severely!!

We just watched Marley and Me tonight...she balled...good movie though

Before that was Curious Case of Benjamin Button...she cried in that one too

Before that was Up...Great movie!!! Balled her eyes out.

Burn After Reading was good...a little dark...but good.

Maybe we should hit some of the classics again!

Ferris Bueler's day off

What about Bob

Elf

Don't get me wrong...Crying in a movie is never a bad thing! Kudos to the film for being able to bring out that kind of emotion in its viewers... I think we're just in need of some movies that don't require such high loads of emotional energy!

Please make some requests...Our Netflix queue is running low, and we need some good ones to fill it up. Any funny, lighthearted comedies y'all can think of?!

thanks!

Made the move...

So Jake and I have made the switch over to blogger. Wordpress just wasn't cutting it for me...couldn't upload videos, couldn't use thecutestblogontheblog.com, and well I could go on. I decided I like other people's blogs on Blogger, so here we go. Maybe the fact that I like my blog a whole lot more will inspire me to write posts more often. Maybe. I hope. We'll see.

I need to figure out how to transfer the whopping 7 or so posts from Wordpress over here, but I think that'll be for another night. For now, I leave you with The Norman's 4th of July celebration.

Actually, it wasn't really a celebration. We attempted a party, but we planned it way too late. Totally okay though because Gabby, Nick and Mia came into town, and even if it had only been them that we hung out with, it would still be super fun. Mia is just about the cutest girl (just look at those pictures!) in the world (and Jake and I are so proud she's our niece).

Our celebration consisted of about 8 of us hanging out at Jake's parents' pool and grilling some sausages - his parents were out of town and gave us permission to use their house...if you're reading this, thank you Jim and Martha, we love hanging out in your awesome backyard :) So, Mia relaxed in the pool and Gabby and Nick had fun doing cannonballs. And then Tio had such a great time with Mia.

The fam stayed through Sunday, and Sunday evening we come home, and this is what it looks like. Furniture/decor re-arranged so it's safe for a 16 month old. Big purple ball on the ground. And completely quiet (Mia is quite the verbal one, so quiet doesn't exist when she's awake - sister, I don't mean that in a bad way :) ).

I contemplated leaving the room looking like that permanently. No, really I didn't, but we did leave it like this for a couple days.