On to Something NEW!

We have had some exciting changes happen for our family! Well, just one exciting change: Justin is moving on from his job at Davita!

He has been unhappy with leadership changes in the past several months and has been considering moving on for a while. He fished around for some different opportunities, but nothing struck his fancy until our good friend Aaron Christensen said he was ready to launch his business and needed someone of Justin's caliber to get it started. He had a great interview with another company just down the street from where he currently works for similar pay, but with better vacation and better benefits. So he was going between that new position and working the new business. That all happened the first week of December. Aaron wanted Justin to be able to start in January, so Justin had some quick decisions to make: not his comfort zone! We dropped Emmett off with Jon for a last-minute temple run to seek some heavenly guidance! Justin put in his two-week's notice the next day, and decided to go with the new opportunity with Aaron.

This will be his last week at work. He gets to cash in all the PTO he saved up, and then he starts working with Aaron in January. He has always wanted to do something like this, and he has always admired Aaron and wanted an opportunity to work with him so he is excited and I am too! I have to say I've never seen Justin so excited about anything in the 5 years we've been married! So come January we will have some changes and I'm thrilled for Justin.

Emmett is 16-almost-17-months old. He is a dare devil. He has officially reached the age that nothing, nowhere, is safe. He can climb onto ANYTHING and he's way too confident about it ;) He is FAST about it, too. We keep the piano bench and the chairs tipped over so he doesn't climb on top of the tables, counters, and piano. Those are his favorite places to get at! We are working on learning new words. He is in the 35% for weight and 80% for height - tall and skinny. But don't be fooled because this boy LOVES cookies, chocolate, you name it. He can hear a wrapper being unwrapped from a mile away and will come running asking "please" for some and has a complete meltdown when the answer is no! It is hilarious and annoying.

Recently he has become quite the mama's boy. Justin said "You like that don't you?" and I said, "For now!" Little guy is gonna have to learn to share when baby Rose gets here in 10 WEEKS! You guys, this pregnancy is FLYING by. I'm enjoying this pregnancy way more that with the first. Go figure: no one has tried to stab me recently!

Our Christmas season has been very enjoyable. I sang in our community Christmas concert and we sang some of my favorite songs. All those practices helped bring the spirit of Christ into Christmas for me. I love love love the Christmas music! We had a cookie exchange with some friends Friday night and got a nice haul of many different varieties of Christmas sweets. I made Mom's fudge to share. This weekend I will make Christmas Eve dinner and next week we will take all the kids sledding up at Snoqualmie.

We got a rug for this area (finally) and he was too cute: he ran right over to it and plopped himself down.

He had a crazy high fever a few weeks ago and just wanted to sleep on me. 

After his shots he got TWO suckers - that face!

our cookie exhange

Emmett and his buddy Teddy - they play every Tuesday morning. 

He HATED Santa..poor buddy!

Justin is building some kind of shenanigan toy for Emmett at his parent's house

fell asleep holding his teddy bear...awww

watching White Christmas

Thanksgiving 2017

We staying in Puyallup this year for Thanksgiving. It was suggested back in October that we simplify Thanksgiving by purchasing a pre-made Thanksgiving dinner...after I declared that over my dead body was I having pre-cooked Thanksgiving and offending my Rose family, Keith and Gerda offered to host and cook the turkey while we split up the sides. Excellent! I've always felt this side of the family doesn't understand the proper proportion of mashed potatoes, so I gladly accepted the task of bringing potatoes and candied yams. I also made Mom's Thanksgiving jello. Justin made chocolate "spheres" popularly coined by the Netflix series "Zumbo's Just Desserts" with chocolate mouse filling and a caramel sauce with chopped walnut. Someone else brought a pumpkin pie.

The day before Justin and I made pies to share and we invited some friends over to have pie pig out with us. My coconut cream pie was amazing! I ate it over the course of the next 3 days. Justin's did blackberry, and the Christensen's brought a pumpkin cheesecake to share. Thanksgiving morning we cooked and baked, and that afternoon we went to the park and played while we waited for it to be time to eat.

Friday we took the day really easy. We had a slow morning and headed to the zoo in the afternoon. It was perfect! There were very few people there, and the animals seemed as much into Emmett as he was into them. The tigers prowled up to the window to get a good look... so fun! We went out that evening to Target and got a few things for Emmett. Saturday I had a "Small Business Saturday" booth event that I tag-teamed with one of my consultants. Justin and his family met up to watch Justice League while I was busy with that - hallelujah! Glad I didn't have to watch that one ;)

Emmett learned a new word this week: "No no no no no no..." ha! This kid!His latest thing is putting objects up to his ear like it's a phone and saying "Hello?" I tell you! More is caught than what is taught... He is 16 months old and  I'm 6 months along with his little brother. My life is so full - I feel like it gets better and better! He loooves his mommy, and I loooove it. Not much else to report on. On with the rest of the holiday festivities.

Justin's Birthday

Sunday was Justin's birthday. Friday night I got a sitter and I picked Justin up from work. We drove to Gig Harbor for some birthday shenanigans. First stop was dinner at The Gourmet Burger Shop. It is a small shop but I loved the food and my Dr. Pepper was yumm!

From there we went to a shopping area near the theater where we were going to see Thor: Ragnarok - I am the ultimate wife to endure this decade of comic book movie blech. We walked around Home Goods until it was time to grab our seats. We love this theater because the seats are really wide, and the chairs recline with a leg rest! It made the movie more endurable...I actually ended up kinda liking it so it wasn't all bad. And my Dr. Pepper kept me awake.

Sunday I invited Justin's family over for apple crisp (thank you Mitzi for the recipe!) and ice cream, complete with caramel sauce. His family got him a few gifts, including a drone. Thank you Jon! I have tried twice now to buy him a drone for a gift and I am just not nerdy enough to understand all the parts that are needed so both times have been a waste of money. So now Justin gets to play with his new drone. Emmett HATES it! He screams mad fury when it starts flying.

I took Emmett to the park to play today before the rain came in. We have had a glorious fall! He is so brave/adventurous. He came down the big-kid slide face forward today! He normally comes down backwards...so he's getting more daring. He continues to climb all over - now he can reach the top of the piano, and he climbed on top of the dresser with the TV the other day! He is so fun.

And we are so excited to add another BOY to the mix in March! Justin and I ran the Halloween party for the ward for the 3rd time in a row and I am declaring the LAST time! But we did our best to make it a party for all. My costume was a gender reveal which didn't get a decent picture, but it revealed our baby BOY's gender. I am so excited for Emmett to have a little brother. I am 24 weeks along so we are cruising right through this pregnancy.

Other pictures and videos of our ultimate life

It snowed on Sunday - and was actually cold enough to stick. Emmett enjoyed the snowflakes

He luuuurves blueberries

Check out that sunrise: this is Justin's view at work.

my other videos won't upload right now for some reason.