Watched Over!

We are being watched over. We really do have a Heavenly Father who knows what predicaments we are in and cares very much for us.

I've really have been reminded of this factor this week. Isn't it great to know the gospel? to know the grand scheme of things and how most of the cogs fit and function.

Even with this valuable information we still get caught up in the little things. We get so worried about our selfish little selves.

But life is good no matter how it's going. We are commanded to be happy. So it's easy to say that we can be happy no matter what predicament we are in.

Hot Tub

What is it about a hot tub that makes things so relaxing. it's like you melt. even when your knee is hurting and inflamed and made worse by heat, everything in your body just feels better. especially when the air is freezing all around you and submersing yourself in that water is all the better.

yeah. guess who made a trip to the hot tub tonight?

Merry Christmas!

So to whomever still checks our blog, (i'm thinking no one since we haven't updated in over a month) we wish you a merry christmas.

i was about to write that not a lot has happened since the last post. but in all honesty. a lot has.

I am now working in the laguna hills terminix branch as service manager. Abigail is now 6 months old and is crawling and pulling herself up to standing. Missy is about 8 weeks pregnant now and elated at the news but not loving the nausia.

so, random thought for the day. for christmas, we got a soft serve ice cream maker from grandma and grandpa owens. we cannot wait to make our first batch. anyone have any good ice cream recipes? cuz we want to test it this week:)

Christmas Tag - Tyler

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
I prefer to prepare gift bags cuz it's SOOOO easy. But i definetely love opening wrapped compared to bags. if you don't agree with me on that one, you must have some ideas i've never thought of.


2. Real tree or Artificial?
real tree is so traditional and memory filled. so just for the sake of our kids i want to have real trees. but for sake of my pocketbook and ease of clean up, fake.

4. When do you take the tree down?
valentine's day? i don't know. we have never lived alone and bought our own tree and had to take it down. being married to a girl who was born christmas eve, it'll probably be around mother's day.

5. Do you like egg nog?
homemade yes. storebought, not so much. unless it's "southern comfort: vanilla spice"

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
super nintendo? voltron? those are the only major ones i remember. foos ball. ping pong.

spoiled much?

7. Do you have a nativity scene?
i don't think we do. but i may be wrong. i don't get to make those decisions. only weigh in.

8. Hardest person to buy for?
my dad. impossible. he never emits that he needs or wants anything until he is at the register buying it himself.

9. Easiest person to buy for?
Missy. I know what she wants before she knows she wants it.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Depends. personalized christmas cards with family photo are the FUNNEST to receive. but to send, i will probably go with email.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
i guess the only reason someone should put something here was a gift that was given in spite. the gifts i've gotten that were "crappy" because they were not very useful, are the best stories. For example, my brother once got a broken pencil sharpener (like the 25 cent ones) from my grandma. as you can tell we still laugh about it and love my grandma all the more because of it. so it was crappy, but still one of the best gifts ever.

12 . Favorite Christmas movie?
it's a wonderful life, or mr. krueger's christmas

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
i almost always am thinking ahead, but, i actually start making purchases around nov. 1st

14 . Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
i'm thinking this question is about re-gifting, not drinking the soda you got from your friend and throwing the can in the recycle bin.

i don't think i have.

15. Any Christmas traditions?
open 1 present christmas eve, and it's always the gift picked by my mom and it's always new pajamas. always used to go outside and look for rudolph's nose before bed. always seemed to find 1 or 2. any other night i knew it was a plane, but that one night, i knew it was rudolph.

16 . Clear lights or colored lights on the tree? CLEAR!!!! i don't want to admit any more than i have to so i will not explain my reasoning.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
white christmas by bing crosby.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
either/or. don't matter to me. if you travel it must either be to a snowy place, or a tropical place. nothing in between.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?
nope, can't remember the song.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
when i was a kid, it was a thing that looked like one of the spires on the kremlin. til i was on my mission when it broke. now it's a little angel.

21 . Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
in ecuador it was christmas eve. it's just how they do things down there. not sure why. otherwise, christmas early afternoon. (we all sleep in)

22. Favorite thing for Christmas dinner?
HONEY BAKED HAM!!!!:)

Recipes

So, because we like so many different recipes of my mom's, and because it takes so long to copy those cards down into our own handwriting, we have made a recipe blog (typing is so much faster!). It's a compilation of all our own recipes, plus the ones from my memory as a kid, like the egg nog one i first made on my own when i was 12.

anyways. If you have any suggestions that you would like to add for everyone's benefit, please let me know and i will copy paste it in, so it can be searchable.

as is right now if you go to the blog and hit the "thanksgiving" tag, it will show you all the recipes that my mom has that i put in the computer that we would eat on thanksgiving. if you hit the "dessert" tag it will show you all the different dessert recipes. if you are thinking about making something with the chicken you have lying around, hit "chicken" and all the recipes with chicken in it will pop up.

i was thinking we could keep it to just family because there are plenty of sites out there that have thousands of recipes. but this can be our extended family cookbook.

also, if you make one of the recipes, take a picture of it, and i will update the recipe with your photo.

if you are reading this than you are welcome to submit recipes, i just don't want to be getting every recipe out there that has ever existed. pretty much the memory foods.

it's possible you may have a similar recipe with your own spin on it, if that is the case send it to me and i'll post it with your name on it that way we can still all try your version too!:)

the address is:

http://owenscookbook.blogspot.com

Critics

Pay no attention to what the critics say... Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic!
- Jean Sibelius

PLAY!

Play: Work that you enjoy doing for nothing.

-Evan Esar

Awesome Video!

Trust me on this, it's a feel good video. It is much better if you be patient and don't fast forward this.

It's 50 People, all asked just one question.

Fifty People, One Question: New Orleans from Benjamin Reece on Vimeo.

Prop 8

Although i entirely disagree with opponents to prop 8, i think the major issue that confronts this nation is described really well by Orson Scott Card. he wrote last week:

We need a constitutional amendment declaring that no court, federal or state, can strike down or alter any law passed by a legislative body except when it contradicts the plain language of the applicable constitution, as understood at the time of passage.

The unconstitutional usurpation of powers by the judges must be brought to an immediate stop.

But with Democrats in control of the Congress, there is no chance of getting that body to propose a constitutional amendment that will correct this gross abuse -- again, because they have only seen it used to enact their agenda. Short-sighted as they are, they will not oppose this judicial power until and unless it is used against them. Then, of course, they'll scream bloody murder and behave much more badly than the too-long complacent American moderates and conservatives.

This is part of a very long article that i found very insightful and interesting and definelty worth the time. You can find the rest of the article HERE.

Yes on Prop 8!

So yes we support Prop 8. We were out there waving signs and Missy's Visiting Teacher said we had to get a picture of the family at this momentus occasion. So we submit as evidence the following pictures.







One Happy Politically Active Family!

Wake up Routine

We thought this was pretty cute and wanted to share. She is a lot of fun in the mornings.




We went to the Harbor in Dana Point and needed something for Abigail to stay warm in. This is what we found out in the garage, from when I(missy) was a kid. Needless to say, we found something else that fit her a little better at TJMAXX:)

just checking stuff out

cheapskates

So being cheapskates, we decided to make our own little photo studio today and take some pictures of abigail posed. yeah, these are nothing like what we were shooting for, but they will have to do.

Bathtime

Abigail at bath time.

Chilling

it's pretty fun putting abigail to sleep and she isn't already overtired. she can be so sweet when she isn't so tired.

Abigail Smiles big

I know we are posting a lot about Abigail. But lets be honest. She is about the full extent of our lives right now. it's pretty awesome.

Abigail singing with missy to Mae

Pictures of Abigail and Missy's new Haircut!

So at Brittany's 8,000 requests we are posting more photos of abigail. This one was our favorite that we took tonight, cuz i surprised her and caught her in the the middle of being startled.






This is Melissa's New haircut, i will show the before picture later. (this is the order i uploaded them and i'm too lazy to reorganize them in this little tiny text field) oh, and we are giving abigail her first bath while not being held by us.


Hey Missy, She likes it!


This is Missy making abigail dance to Mae or Survivor is something like that.





Who couldn't love this CUTE smile!





Inspired by Ani Bewsey's blog we decided to get a "bumbo" for abigail(compliments of grandma and grandpa owens). she loves it. she is enthraled watching the "baby einstein" lullabye video. (we're all branded out now!)


Taking a nap

Missy's hair before.... yeah i know, way down here.


And another cute view of abigail in her bumbo. awesomeness no?

Grandpa's Birthday

So it was my Dad's Birthday this last weekend on August 31st. It was a blast and we ended up giving him this card from Abigail. 

As part of my dad's Birthday present we also got him some picture frames with pictures of Abigail and him and just Abigail and a family picture too.

This is a picture of our next door neighbor Erika before she left for BYU.

And lastly, here's Abigail again.:) love her to pieces.

Abigail doing Pull ups

So this is a video of Abigail doing some pull ups with grandpa and being cheered on by all of us. Luckily the camera was nearby and was able to get this on video. She really cracks us up how much she has to be standing up or sleeping and nothing in between.

Pictures from Abigail's Baby Blessing

Such a pretty baby in a pretty dress... Thanks Mom & Dad!

Abigail Irene, Grandma Irene & Melissa Irene

4 Generations

So many aunts & uncles to be spoiled by

Who'd guess this is they're 4th grandchild?

Just for kicks... and to creep you out a little :)

Look at me- Abigail's Baby Blessing was only a month and a half ago and I'm already posting pictures!

Pictures

Now that I have a moment where the baby is sleeping, I'm well rested, showered and all the errands, bills and laundry are caught up on, I can finally blog and show off how adorable my baby is!

Just before she was Blessed

Abigail in mom's favorite outfit

Helping daddy take a nap

Chillin at the pool

What?

I am feeling so very on top of things :)

Missing!

please observe this photo from a previous post:

The binky found in the bottom right of this photo is missing and cannot be found. if you see or find this binky, there is a reward. 

reward: a lifetime of appreciation from missy and me and a 2 second smile followed by passing out from abigail.

Proud Owner

Guess what terminix gave me! that's right, i deal with airborne chemicals and poisons so i get to wear one of THESE bad boys:

yeah, it's hot stuff. it actually feels like breathing through a snorkel with no cool fishes around you.

1st Day at work

So I signed my name today over 40 times. I thought I signed it a lot in boring college classes. I'm just glad that I sign it so fast now or it could have doubled how long it took me to sign all those tax forms HR forms. I'm excited to get past the training because of what I will be doing. Helping teach technicians, helping a branch make more money by being more efficient with my techs. It's hands on work, and office management too. It's great.

I also found out today, that after I finish the training, we will most likely be moved down to San Diego area, which we are totally excited about. We will be kinda on our own. We will be in driving distance to family and super close to the temple. We will also be really close to the beach. Life is good!

Heat Exhaustion!

On Thursday Missy and I gave the baby to my parents for a few hours and we went to the beach(knowing it would be the last chance to go on a weekday since my job starts on Monday.) We went to aliso creek beach and spent about 2 hours tanning and swimming in the HUGE waves(they were 7-8 foot faces.)

When we got back we went to dinner, which is when Missy started to shiver like crazy. We find out later that she had come down with heat exhaustion. would you like to know how she got it?


Missy NEVER wears sunscreen. EVER. she doesn't burn in the normal sense. she just gets more brown(curses her latin and native american blood.) So she didn't think it was possible for her to burn. Well as you can see, she did. pretty bad actually. (funny thing is she never turns red, she just turns more brown where the sun hit.)

she ended up with a temperature averaging 101 and stayed there since this morning at around 9AM all the while not sweating a drop. she woke up this morning in a pool of sweat. (sorry this may be too gross) but we woke up and i felt wet too cuz she had sweat that much, over to my side of the bed.

my mom later tells me that that can happen when someone's fever finally breaks. So she is feeling MUCH better.

One of the greatest blessings about this is living with family. All day friday I was working to get all my parents landscaping done because all the plants arrived friday morning and I couldn't let so much money die. So Brittany and my mom took care of Missy and the baby which turned out being awesome. When my dad got back from work for the day we gave Missy a blessing and her fever broke the next morning.

Thank you Brittany for taking Abigail for us so much the last day or two. You have NO IDEA how much that helped out knowing she was taken care of but a room away as well. Love you so much!

here is a picture of the toaster oven and little Abigail resting together.

Tagged

My cousin Raechel kind of tagged me. I volunteered actually. Here goes.

The rules: look up your answers on google image search and select a picture from THE FIRST PAGE OF IMAGES ONLY.

my name

favorite food

favorite pet

where I live (Laguna Niguel)

my first job

favorite animal

favorite object

past love

nickname

favorite place

where I want to go(London)

grandma(s) name(s) (Eleanor and Lorraine)

bad habit

where I was born

what I am doing(I exterminate)

how old I am

my favorite color

my college degree
I tag Jess Price and Blibby's