New Macy Movie!

We finally have November's movie out. It is my first movie made all by myself so hopefully it's not too bad. You can find the movie here on our Web Gallery. It's titled "November in a Nutshell."

PwC Company Party

Last night was Jonathan's company party in New York! 

Not really, but it was still fun. Whoever plans company parties sure is talented. They had four main rooms: New York (with hot dog stands, pop corn, etc), Las Vegas (with gambling fake money, food buffets), Los Angeles (dancing, appetizers, drinking), and Miami (tacos, salsa dancing). Of course each room had enough alcohol to last for decades. It was very classy and very well done.

We were able to meet up with some work friends and had a great night eating too much food, gambling fake money, and drinking Shirley Temples. We found out that Jonathan has pretty good luck at Roulette and more than doubled his winnings.

Advent Calendar

Jonathan expressed his desire for an advent calendar. His only specification was that it was one that didn't just have cheap chocolate inside. The next day I was at Trader Joe's and saw advent calendars for 99 cents. Perfect, but it had cheap chocolate inside. I was out of luck.

A few days later friend told me about an advent calendar on the blog Homemade By Jill. It's amazing and beautiful but a little out of my league. I don't have those kind of sewing skills. I love making things with my hands, and especially love things I can make with cute paper, so I knew I wanted to make an advent calendar. I searched Etsy for ideas and I found one that looked very doable and cute. I enlisted two of my friends to make them with me this past Saturday. Not only was it a great day cutting and gluing, but our husbands were good sports about it and watched the babies.

Can I say I LOVE my advent calendar?! I am extremely happy with it. I couldn't have done it without the Cricut machine and without Jonathan's help with Macy. I worked on it pretty much all day Saturday and a little bit on Sunday. I wanted it to be perfect so I would want to keep it for a long time.

And here it is in all it's glory...

It's a mini muffin tin with magnet covering the holes. I plan to place candy, scriptures, stories, etc. inside.

I can't pick a favorite number, I love them all, but these two are Jonathan's favorite.

I love, love, love it!

In other news, Macy has discovered how fun Facebook is. So make sure your posts are Macy appropriate!

Macy visiting her Grandparents and Great Grandparents

When relatives say they want to see you they really mean they want to see your baby. And see the baby they did.

Macy was most definitely the center of attention this trip. As soon as we got to my parents from the airport the whole family sat around the table and watched Macy eat. Then they watched her play on the floor, then they watched her get her pajamas on. Get the picture? Macy sure did not mind the attention, she loves it.

It took about the whole week to get used to the dog. At first I couldn't put her down on the floor when the dog was around and on the last day she was grabbing at Pepper's fur. I wish I had a picture of Macy and Pepper.

Macy also visited Great-Grandma and Grandpa Seymour's house a few times. She loved to play (or eat) with the wooden blocks, a banana, sit in the high-chair no one has used in almost 10 years, and entertained us all with her crazy cuteness.

At my parent's house Macy enjoyed playing with/eating racquetball balls and tupperware lids, standing up on the bed while holding on to the railing and shaking to make the railing squeak, swinging at the park with Grandpa, and playing in the sand. Great-Grandma and Grandpa Franics also came to visit.

Friday night more relatives came to visit for a belated birthday party for me, but I know it was so see Macy because once again she was the center of attention. I don't mind, I could watch her all day too.

Halloween

We were watching our 2 nephews and niece for a week so we tried to do as many activities with them as possible (we found they get in much less trouble when busy doing something rather than just sitting at home). Lucky for us it was Halloween soon and we had a few parties to attend.

Our first outing was to the Air and Scare at the Udar-Hazy Air and Space Museum. Among all the planes, helicopters, space ship, and memorabilia, there were Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and other Star Wars characters walking around. It was pretty cool. Here are the pictures I took.

Later that night we had a Halloween party at a friend's house which was a lot of fun. We ate Halloween inspired food and played a green slime game. We also went to two more ward parties which were also a lot of fun. Then on Halloween night we went to another Halloween party! We were Halloweened out.

Since you're dying to see the little chick up closer here are some more pictures. I loved, loved this costume. Macy was so adorbably cute! Unfortunately she would get really hot in it so the outfit never lasted the whole night. But as you can imagine, everyone loved the costume!

Macy at the Mall

We were going to go for a walk with Macy's friend Grant, but it rained at the exact time of our walk! We were bummed, but we headed over to the mall to walk around there. We stopped at the "Kids Corner" for some final fun. Here is Macy and her friend.

Macy sitting on top the whale

Macy trying to climb up the slide. We haven't taught her playground rules yet.

We also haven't taught Macy to read yet. It says "Grant" Macy!

They were both getting tired so I stopped trying for a picture once they were both facing the camera.

Another Laura Sighting!

A friend emailed me saying she found my picture on a website for toddler activities. The funny thing is, my picture was on an ad for "Todays Military." How many preschoolers want to join the military?

Thanks for sharing Amber!

Macy loves Lily

Macy's cousin Lily was over to watch conference (well, she actually slept through the whole thing) and Macy couldn't get enough of her. She was constantly crawling up to Lily and either staring at her or grabing her feet. Luckily Lily had her feet pulled towards her body so Macy was only grabbing her pajama feet.

Macy watching General Conference before Lily came. She couldn't get enough.

I would take Macy away and try to get her to play with something else and she would crawl right over to Lily. It was very cute. When the camera was pulled out to take a picture Macy knew exactly what to do, smile!

Macy's cute squat to view Lily.

We also found out that Macy loves to be involved in the party. Greg, Caleb, Jeff, Tiffany, and Lily were over last night and we couldn't get Macy to go to sleep when they were here. She would cry and cry until I brought her out to the living room. Then she was happy again. As soon as everyone left she fell asleep. 

Homemade Chicken Stock

I enjoy watching Ina Garten on Barefoot Contessa. I don't get recipes from her necessarily, I just enjoy watching her cook. It seems so effortless and do delicious. Ina always uses homemade chicken stock in her recipes and makes comments about the taste and quality being superior to store bought. That got me thinking...

I could make my own chicken stock. Why not? I've started roasting whole chickens (which is a new favorite meal for us) so I can use the extra bones and parts to make the stock. It was really an experiment, and sure looked like some weird experiment. Here is the pot in the beginning.

Here it is after simmering for 4 hours.

As a bonus it smelled wonderful and made the whole house smell like Thanksgiving. I took a nap while it was cooking and dreamt that it was Thanksgiving day.

I also wanted to make my own stock so I could know for sure what the ingredients are. This is an ingredient list from a can of stock:

chicken broth (water, chicken, stock), hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, salt, monosodium glutamate, onion powder, chicken fat, vegetable juice concentrate (carrot, celery, onion) disodium insosinate, and disodium guanylate. 

Here's my ingredient list:

12 cups water, bones/parts from 2 chickens, onion halved, carrots, 3 garlic cloves, bay leaves, thyme, parsley, basil, salt, pepper. 

There's something to be said for homemade anything. I feel better putting things into my body when I know exactly what's in the food. 

Now, I don't know if I'll always make my own stock. I only got 5 1/2 cups of stock at the end. But maybe after tasting the dishes using this stock I'll change my mind. I can't wait to taste it.

Church is Exhausting

This is especially sweet because Macy normally does not cuddle.

I try and she arches her back and wiggles away. Even when I hold her on my hip she turns her body to face forward so she doesn't have to hold on to me. But, after church she is exhausted and will cuddle up to us on the way from the car to our apartment. We take turns getting her out of the car so we can have Macy cuddle time.

Macy is now 9 months old! We went to the doctor's this week and here are her stats:

15 lbs 9 oz. 

26 1/2 to 27 inches long (they measured her 3 times and got different numbers each time because she wouldn't hold still)

17 in head circumference

The doctor asked me if Macy could clap. I said that Macy did clap, but I wasn't sure if she knew she was doing it. Well, Macy proved me wrong by clapping on and off for the next five minutes. It was so cute.

Macy also decided that she was going to crawl on her 9 month birthday. She's having a great time being more independent and mobile. 

In case you're wondering what's new with me I just told you. It's Macy.

Harris Teeter

This is a grocery store that I don't normally shop in because it doesn't have the best prices. However, periodically it has double and triple coupon weeks. It will double or triple coupons up to $1.98. This week was a double coupon week. My strategy is to bring in all my coupons $1 and up and match them up with things that are on sale for close to the double amount so they will be free. My favorite coupons are the $1.75 off because then I get $3.50 off! I got a bunch of items for free today. I'm only writing my post because I was so happy with my savings. Here's the break down:

Total before coupons: $121.01

Total after coupons: $39.29

That's $81.72 savings!

Normally when the cashier says, "Thank you, you saved $30 today," I think, "Yeah that sounds right." But today, I actually said out loud, "Wow!" I can't wait until triple coupon week!

Macy and George Clooney?

That's right! She looks pretty excited to be sitting with the actor doesn't she?

We did see George Clooney, unfortunately, he wass made of wax. But it makes for a great picture. We went to Madame Tussaud's wax museum on Saturday. Normally it costs $20 a person, but with Groupon I got both of us in for only $9! It was a lot of fun. We had more fun that we expected. Here are more of our favorite pictures.

The figures look so real. Each hair, eyelash, eyebrow hair, and facial hair is individually placed in the head. The men looked like they had just shaved that morning. If I looked to long into their eyes I got a little weirded out. It felt like they were going to start talking and moving.

Later that night, we went to a birthday party for Macy's friend Grant. There were 7 babies there all close in age. The girl on Macy's left was born the same day as her, only 2 hours earlier. Isn't Macy such a cute baby? She's the only one looking and smiling at the camera. As soon as she saw there were 4 cameras pointing at her she started smiling. It was adorable. You can tell that the girl second from the right is about to push her neighbor, who then fell backwards on her back. Such a fun party.

Then it was onto our 2nd party of the night. We had home made root beer for Greg's birthday. Jeff had Macy and Mark mesmerized with his story telling.

One Step Closer

Macy has the kneeling down...

And the standing up down...

Now if she would get the crawling down.

Gifts From Macy

All my life I've had straight hair. 

No amount of hairspray could keep a curl. I was very envious of those girls who had naturally curly or wavy hair. Two things have happened lately because of Macy which have changed my hair life dramatically.

The first, I've grown my hair out to the longest it's been in over 7 years. I got it cut before Macy was born but haven't cut it since then because I had a baby to take care of and didn't really think about my hair. Ja is very happy about this. He's been wanting me to grow my hair out for the last 5 years. It's just past my shoulders, which may not be long for some people but it is to me.

The second, my hair now has natural curl! I don't know what all those hormones did, but I like it! I've been fighting the wave in my hair for the last 8 months by blow-drying and straightening it. Yesterday I decided I wasn't going to brush my hair out after my shower and what I got was nice natural curls. Today I put mousse in my hair and the curls are holding better. I'm so excited! No more fighting with my hair.

Even with the mousse in my hair is still frizzy on top. Any advice on how to get rid of the frizz?

A New Macy Movie!

For those of you who requested a longer Macy movie, here it is! Check out our Web Gallery here. It's the movie titled "Macy June-July 2010."

Happy Birthday Caleb! This one is for you! (Our nephew Caleb requests to watch the "Macy movie" on their family's movie night. So cute.)