All sugared out for one weekend

What a weird, new Thanksgiving! We spent the holiday in Pueblo at my sister Kari's house with her hubby and his parents, his brothers, my parents, my grandma, and my sister and her husband and baby. Whew, what a crowd! 17 people feasted on a 21-pound turkey, plus a little 8-pound turkey that looked like an overgrown chicken, plus LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of sides. We cooked our BUTTS off and the kitchen was about 200 degrees all day, but the end result was all finger-lickin' good :-d mmmmm!

The Gustavson part of the crew, though most of us ditched the maiden name. Here are Joe, Kirsta, and Patrick Jacobs; Jonathan and Kari Phelps; John and Linda (mom and dad) Gustavson; Grandma Gustavson; Brian, Elsha, and Kalena van de Boogaard

The saaaaaaad part about the holiday weekend was that it did not provide me much relief from one very picky 10-month old, who just decided last weekend that he cannot live without physical contact with his lovely mother at each and every waking moment. So he put on his saaaaad face as soon as I put him down, handed him to dad, stuck him in his high chair for meals, tried to get him to hug the relatives, or get 2 minutes to myself to go to the bathroom. He was NOT HAPPY. But perhaps he just needed extra comfort because in 2 days he got 2 new teeth! Which brings the grand total to 6 teeth, and exponentially increases my fear of getting bitten while nursing and further convincing me that relatives bring on new teeth, as he has only popped them while someone was visiting or being visited. Watch out, Christmas break! ..... I don't actually think the teeth are the culprit, but I can lie to myself pretty convincingly (and optimistically!)
All in all, though, we've had an AWESOME Thanksgiving break, we've had SO much fun visiting family, and we're not looking forward to returning back to the daily grind and a semi-normal diet :) Chillin' and digesting in the living room after the big meal

Patrick plays with (or wrestles) cousin Kalena

"Grandma" Gustavson - she's still mom to me! - plays with some of her very favorite people.

More Phun with Photos

Just because I like to mess around with photos waaaaaaay too late into the night... posting them was *almost* my excuse for my behavior. So I hope you enjoy :)

Shoes, glorious shoes!

Today Patrick turned 10 months old! Hooray for double-digits! This is a whole new phase of his life, as he will be in the double-digits of months up until 99 months, or 8 years and 3 months. That is a LONG TIME. Patrick didn't do much celebrating, but I did - in the form of sewing up a storm! With some fabric remnants I had laying around (I have BAGS of remnants, yet I still crave more....) I whipped up these shoes based on a pattern a friend sent me. Thanks, friend! The pattern can be yours, too, if you are willing to click HERE. Their features shoes are way cuter than mine, you'll see, because I cannot find my bag o' buttons to save my life. I sewed those cute button dinosaur eyes on and then the bag ran away, so I have no "flair" for PJ's kicks :( And also, his are plain, dark colors because a) he's learning to walk and they actually get dirty, and b) he was only in posession of brown shoes, which do not match any of his black outfits. Now that I have practical shoes, I can move on to brightly-colored, zany patterns that match absolutely none of his shirts. Hooray!

Photos

I can (and do) take hundreds of photos of Patrick, doing this or that, or just while we're wrestling around since he likes the camera so much. But professional photos? Not so many. In fact, none! Since he hasn't had ANY professional photos yet, why start now? We'll do it in January for his 1-year, but until then, let's keep with something more artistic and laid-back! And Rebecca Aycock, cute photographer extraordinaire, lent us her talents for an afternoon. Thanks again, Rebecca!

High-Centered

As I mentioned earlier, I just can't keep up with the new and interesting things Patrick does that have simply become a part of daily life. But THIS ONE is different - partly because we caught it as it was happening, on camera, and partly because it is terrifyingly awesome. He's done stairs for a while now, but Behold! He climbs! ....and then he gets high-centered on the arm rest. But fear not - he climbed it succesfully about 5 other times, and also got so good he no longer needed any assistance from me (except for getting down gracefully).

About last weekend....

Joe's parents came up to visit from Craig last weekend, and we had such a great time! Of course, our nuclear family has been having such a great time this week (not doing anything in particular, just having a great time enjoying what was left of the warm weather) that I haven't written about it...'til now. They came up Friday night and Joe was able to hang with them a while; I stayed home with Patrick, who was having a meltdown from sleepiness. Saturday morning they came over after breakfast and we talked and waited for Patrick to warm up to these "strangers," which he eventually did, and then some! He's quite shy when someone new is trying to be nice to him, but fortunately he gets over it quickly, and by the end of the day he was cuddeling and showing off new tricks, like taking steps by himself!

Patrick first official step came 2 weeks ago when my parents were visiting, and they even got to witness it! (Why did I not mention this before? Read on) I was surprised by how anticlimactic it was - it's not like he took off running, but it was definitely a step on his own! And nobody had a video camera waiting, there was no screams of joy afterwards, it was just "oh! That's new!" But then nothing for 2 weeks, until Joe's parents came, and then he took more steps all by himself. Maybe he's inspired by an audience? If that's the case, anyone want to hang out and be an audience? We could have him walking solo by the end of November. As it is, he is now standing unassisted and taking one or two steps unassisted, and it's scaring the daylights out of me. He's such a KID.

Cute li'l stories:
SO fatigued last night he fell asleep early without nursing, but then woke up an hour later with a rumbly belly and a wet diaper. I nursed first, then went to change his diaper. I'd gotten the diaper off off, but before I could put a new one on he rolled onto his stomach, naked butt in the air, and fell asleep on the carpet! You don't want to laugh out loud because you don't want to scare them, but it was almost impossible not to!

While I was cleaning up breakfast this morning Patrick got into the cupboard. He grabbed the bag of Pizza Goldfish and, standing unsupported, was working his two little hands to get the thing open. Much harder done than said, so instead he turns it upside down and shakes it til ALL the goldfish are on the floor, then he sits down in the middle of them and started snacking away. Facing the corner, totally in his own little goldfish world. It made me chuckle so much, I didn't even mind the mess!

My brother Eric is not allowed to read this post

Not that I don't love my brother Eric (I do!) but this post is about a particular present I made for his son, since we drew their names for Christmas. It's so cute, though, I wanted to show it off before I gift-wrapped it and gave it away, and I'm much too impatient to wait to post about it til after Christmas! Plus, what if someone wants to be a creative copycat? I couldn't deprive them of the pleasure. So now, Eric, STOP READING, unless you want to spoil the surprise for yourself.







I'll give you adequate space so you don't "accidentally" read it.










Is that enough?







My sister Elsha made a cute "taggies" pillow for her daughter, who likes to chew on the tags of the toys rather than play with the toy itself. In that spirit I thought, "hey! I could do that, too! But you know what would be more manly than a pillow? a DINOSAUR." And then I thought, "We have a number of stuffed animals and Patrick really doesn't play with any of them, OR their tags. But I still really want to make one." So I decided to make it as a gift. Here is my tagg-o-rrific Stegosaurus:

His exact words were...

In the shower last night I got all inspired to chop my hair. This is a particularly good time to get inspired for such a thing, as I will NOT chop my hair, despite the inspiration, if it requires that I shampoo my hair when I was not planning to. I am a lazy shampooist. But the baby was in bed, the hubby busy working on homework, and I had wet hair and some good hair shears and NO FEAR. Here's how it turned out:

Here's what Joe said: "Did you trim your hair?"
Me: "Ummmmmmm....yeah...... and cut some bangs......"
Joe: "Oh, I thought you'd just styled it differently."
Me: "You didn't know I didn't have bangs?"
Joe: "I thought maybe you just brushed them to the side all the time, but tonight you styled them."


I have not had bangs since my awful sophomore year class photo when my bangs were horribly lop-sided (once again, wet hair and NO FEAR, but perhaps I should have had some). So Joe has never known me when I had bangs. Do all guys think we are secretly hiding bangs? 2 1/2 years of marriage; you'd think he would notice! Do I laugh or cry? :) (I'm laughing, but it is sad laughter....)

All about my S.O.

1) Where did you meet? At CB&Potts, watching a CSU football game on TV. This is also where I fell in love (*siiiiiiigh*)

2) How long til you got married? 7 months and 6 days
3) How long have you been married? 2 years and 5 months (Just like my sister! married 20 days apart)
4) Your favorite feature of his? His whole face
5) Your favorite quality of his? His generosity (he bought me the movie PS I Love You and a Dustbuster [which I'd been dying for and he knew it] on a random trip to Target, without me there! Who is that nice, seriously??)
6) Does he have a nickname for you? Sheersta, which is awful because I don't like it but it makes me laugh every time! Like being tickled! I'm laughing just typing the silly thing.
7) His favorite food? What isn't his favorite? Some of the top: Medium ribeye steak, clam chowder in a breadbowl, graham crackers and milk, and the rigatoni martino from Carrabas (our first date, leading up to #9)

8) What is his favorite sport to watch? Football because he doesn't watch any other sports. Ok, we watch Rockies baseball, but only if we're actually THERE. I've never seen him watch another sport on TV (UFC doesn't count)
9) When was your first kiss? At the end of our first date, the day after we met. He was so smooth, he went in for TWO kisses.
10) What's your favorite thing to do as a couple? Go on "dream dates" to Home Depot and dream about buying everything in the store! That or our Saturday lunches - we go to a fast food place every Saturday, and it's what I look forward to all week (am I pathetic?)

11) Do you have kids? If you read my blog, you know the answer.

12) Does he have a hidden talent? He speaks spanish. This shouldn't be hidden, since he has a degree in it, but it still surprises me when he gets into a conversation in Spanish. You speak spanish? (You got bangs?)
13) How old is he? 24 for a few more precious weeks! Wish him Happy Birthday on December 5th, and tell him he's a cradle robber!
14) Who said I love you first? He did because I cajolled him. It was so OBVIOUS he did, so just say it already! (Maybe that's where Patrick gets his obviousness)
15) What do you admire most about him? His spur-of-the-moment attitude.
16) What is his favorite type of music? Country, though we disagree on the particulars. He likes Dierks Bentley and Cross Canadian Ragweed, and I do NOT.
17) Do you think he will read this? Mmmmmmmmmmmaybe

...and, because only 17 questions is kinda weird, I made up my own to round it to 20....

18) What is his favorite article of clothing? These brown shorts that he wears every single day, no matter what color of top or what the temperature is outside. He comes home and puts on the brown cargo shorts.

19) What is his favorite hobby? He goes through phases, like me (I'm not a phase, I go through phases...sheesh!), ranging from golf to target-shooting to camping to working out

20) How did you decide he was the one for you? Two things: he danced with me in the kitchen (a lifelong dream of mine), and he wanted a girl who wanted to be a girl. Not a career woman, but someone to take of him, to have children with, and someone that he could take care of in return. Funny, because that was exactly what I was looking for in a guy :)

Finally: I tag Tara and Andrea A.

SHOCKER - for those who weren't paying attention

Joe will totally not approve of this post.....but I must!!!

I may be just a teensie bit excited for Twilight the movie to come out, and have found myself googling (on more than one occasion) trailers for the movie and pics of the actors. And today I was SHOCKED to find that Robert Pattinson, aka Edward (*siiiiiiiigh*), also played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies! No wonder Cho Chang had such a thing for him! So if you, like me, can't stand the wait to see him in the flick, go check out "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

As Cedric, with Harry (Danielle Radcliff).

Cedric again. How did we not notice this guy???

Ahhhhh, Edward

It's the most grateful time of the year

I'm blending myspace and blogging, since I was tagged in this myspace post but am too far gone with blogger to even think about writing on myspace anymore. It is the Top 10 Thankful-for list for 2008! (for me, at least)

1. My husband. I could make a miniature top-10 list of why I'm glad he's my husband and not yours! (Similarly, you married folk could make a list of why you're glad you married your man and not mine! Funny how we're all grossed out at the thought of another person's spouse but imagine everyone is totally jealous of ours) But instead I'll get sappy and tell you he is my DREAM BOAT, the guy I always wanted to marry but never thought I'd end up with, but -as luck and a marriage license would have it - he's mine. And I'm more grateful than I could express in 100 blogs or more! (p.s. this is us when we were dating - teehee!)2. Patrick, for so many reasons. He has put an entirely new spin on my life, made me a mommy and Joe a daddy and US a family. Plus, he's really cute and makes me laugh :-D
3. Strong Faith. You always hear the tough decisions in life aren't tough at all when you've made up your mind beforehand (like drinking or smoking or something), and it seems like faith is the same kind of thing. When I come upon tough questions in life it's so much easier to face them with my mind already made up and my heart in the right place.
4. Talents. I really consider myself a jack of all trades, having no willpower or desire to completely devote myself to one thing or another. But I love so many things (piano, scrapbooking, art, interior design, cooking, violin, sewing...) that I feel very blessed that I have such an easy time with them all. It would be very bad if I loved scrapbooking but it took ages and I hated the way my pages turned out. It would be like being alergic to your favorite food!

5. Books. In spite of all of my aforementioned loves, if I have to choose between reading a good book and sewing an awesome new skirt, reading will win out almost every time. Sometimes this is obnoxious, as it causes loads of laundry to go unfolded, but who could stay mad at a good book and a blanket? Nobody, that's who. 6. Arrested Development. Yeah, it's been off the air forever, but Joe and I rented all the seasons and we were rolling off the couch together! It's been the source of referred side comments ever since, which are ALWAYS good for a chuckle. 7. Nursing. This has certainly had its ups and downs, but over the long term it's been not only good for Patrick, but GREAT for my waistline! Nursing bras: $20. Breastpump (that I melted half of): $60. Extra-large grocery bill because I'm continuously ravenous: $300. Weighing less than I did before I got pregnant: priceless. 8. One silver Honda Pilot. It's not new, but it's new to us! And every time I climb in our "new" car I am SO glad we bought it. From grocery trips to car trips it gets good gas mileage and gets us where we need to go, and we never have to worry if we'll have enough room for our luggage or if it will make the trip over the mountains.
9. Diplomas! Getting mine in May was more than amazing, it was a flat-out MIRACLE. Now Joe is graduating in December with his second degree, and we'll finally be done with college! forever. Now THAT is something to be grateful for!
10. Connections. With so much going on this year - having a baby of my own and gaining a beautiful neice and nephew, turbulent months of family members in and out of the hospital, numerous family trips, etc - it would have been so hard without cell phones, email, and (of course) blogs. I love seeing photos of the babies as they grow, my sisters as they make their houses homes, and hearing updates from family and friends alike! So when Patrick takes a nap (or goes to bed ridiculously early like tonight) I get a chance to reach out beyond my own living room! I don't know how people did it before technology, seriously. Hats off to you!

There they are People! I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!! And lots to be thankful for!! I know I do!
Kirsta

Food fiiiiiiiiiiiiight!

I think we're getting to the point where we just can't keep up with Patrick's ever-growing list of skills and funny moments. With newborns, they're blobs and they're blobs and they're blobs... and then one magical day they SMILE at you! With 9-month olds, they crawl, then crawl up stairs, then crawl onto the printer, then try to crawl on the chair, then laugh being whooshed into the air off the chair, laugh at dancing, laugh at clapping, laugh at singing, laugh at bigger kids walking by, throw themselves out of your arms and then try to crawl all over that big kid... it's not really milestones anymore, it's just life! Which is fine by me, it keeps ME laughing every day! The big thing Patrick thinks is funny (daily) that I will NEVER think is funny is dropping food off the high chair. Every meal he'll drop a piece off the side, turn his head to look at you when you say "no," then stare you dead in the eye and do it again. We give him three strikes and he's out (on the floor), but Joe wanted to catch it on video. He is just too obvious.

the mascara monster

In actuality, this isn't me. But read on.

You know what's really embarassing? When you are at the pool, having previously put on makeup that day, and you get all splashed by your child so your mascara runs all over your face, but you don't realize it til you go in the locker room to leave. I swam around like that for an hour and talked to 5 strangers, who I'm sure thought I was stranger than any of them! Whupps!

DANG IT

I forgot to blog yesterday. I knew it when I woke up this morning. No zombie sock puppets for me :(

But who cares when I have the entire Twilight series to sit around and read??? It all started with a trip to the Library on Monday to see if they had a copy of Twilight, a book about vampires and the teenage girl who loves one of 'em. I wanted to re-read it before going to see the movie, but it was doubtful that they'd have a copy since the movie's coming out soon and my re-read idea is not that original... but they had a copy of the Travelling Pants 4 right before the movie came out, so why not? I'll tell you why not: because there are 103 holds on the 27 copies they have of Twilight! And 63 holds on Eclipse. I didn't even bother to check the others. So I came home and lamented to Joe, who sympathized. I think he might even consider reading it himself; he definitely wants to see the movie (although maybe he's just dying for a movie date; we haven't been in a while). This afternoon he came home with a big (and heavy!) surprise: the complete series! Shrink-wrapped and everything. He said it's my early birthday present!!! :-D But he refused to sing to me until it's my actual birthday :( But hooray! I have my spare time filled since I am no longer contractually obligated to blog every day all month long (didn't last long, did I?)

Ahhhh, Edward, being undead never looked so good

Scrapbooking

Kari and Jonathan, knowing our limitless talents and bottomless generosity (wait, who am I talking about? that's definitely not us) asked us for some unique wedding gifts. From Joe: a handmade pot rack. Joe made his own pot rack, hung in our last apartment (but not this one, the gaping holes in the ceiling it leaves from being mounted were just not worth it when we'd only be staying here 6 months) and Kari took a liking to it and asked for her own. Of course Joe went to work an made one 10 times better and more attractive for them - he considered swapping them out, giving US the new one and THEM the old one, but that bottomless generosity got him again :) Sadly, we have no photos of this amazing pot rack, and of course I can't take any since it now lives in Pueblo with its proud owners, so just use your imagination.

From me, they asked for a whole lot of scrapbooking. Kari scrapbooks, to be sure, but she doesn't do it as much as I do and she thought I might do a "better" job with her wedding photos. I'm not sure why she thought this, my own scrapbooked wedding album was pretty simple and unimpressive, but whatever. It was a big compliment and my inflated ago said "yes!" before I had a chance to talk sense into it. So I started scrapbooking her engagement and honeymoon photos as a warm-up to the wedding (don't want to start out with the big stuff first and get better as you head into the small things) and, like Joe's gift, they turned out 10 times better than anything I've made for myself. I was REALLY sad they were for her, not me! So as a way for keeping them for myself, I made another blog - willscrapbookforfood.blogspot.com - where I can post projects I've done that I'm especially proud of. Feel free to check it out if you, too, like to scrapbook. Or you can just look at the 2-page preview below, my feelings won't be hurt. They won't even be hurt if you shut your eyes and refuse to look at the preview! Because, like this blog was originally created for the grandparents, that blog was created for me because those scrapbooks will go live with uncle pot rack in Pueblo and I will be sad if I don't get to see them again. Please ignore the carpet, distortion and color change (the backgrounds are really the same color); I wanted to scan the pages in, but 12x12 is just too big for our home scanner, so I took photos, which are never perfect. But I'll take what I can get.

...and that's how my eyes ended up glued shut.

So the weekend continued after the AWESOME LOSS to BYU, and my family stayed til Sunday afternoon (if any church readers are wondering why we skipped out, we didn't - we just went to the Harmony building since they have Sacrament meeting at 9:00 like regular people). But I digress.

After the game we all came back to our apartment and ordered some pizza to sustain us through many, many rounds of Wackee Six, the most ridiculously great card game. I won't explain it here (but you can buy it here: wackeesix.com), but it is intense. Also, we had a few rounds of Blokus, a sort-of board game that Elsha and Brian played with Kari and Jonathan, so we really needed sustenance for all this game-playing. The first to leave were Eric and Amy to take Espen to sleep in a real bed (not his car seat carrier) for the night, then my parents trickled out an hour later, and then it was down to me, Joe, Kari, and Jonathan.... and we played game until 1:30 in the morning. Why? I don't know. I mean, at the time it all made sense, but in the morning (and especially as the day wears on into afternoon) you really start thinking "why did we do that??" But we still had company in town! Places to go, things to see, caramel rolls at Farmer's Table to eat! We just kept on going and going (the caramel rolls really were worth it) but poor Patrick had skipped his morning nap, so our late breakfast was one big grumpy struggle. This was not helped at all by my lack of preparation - I wasn't really counting on a wait (am I retarded? At 11:00 on a Sunday at a breakfast place? of COURSE there's a wait!) so I hadn't packed any tide-him-over-til-the-food-arrives food, and he wasn't really a fan of ketchup on a spoon. Imagine that. Once the eggs and toast came out, though, we were golden.

M&D, E&A&E hit the road after Farmer's Table to they said their goodbye's to our grumpy guy, but the remaining 4 of us got to go back to our apartment and put him down for a nap. Once Patrick went down for a nap I, too, went down for a nap. With my contacts in. A long nap. And that's how my eyes ended up glued shut. I'm looking forward to not staying up tonight and not starting the week out without a raging case of dry-eye compounded with stupid-looking-squinchy-blinks >-( *bliiiiiiink* {:-( awwwww, still dry. Oh well! Thanks for coming, family! We'll do it all over again at Thanksgiving (when we stay up too late watching Twilight!)

Football and Family

My side of the family (my mom and dad, brother Eic and his wife Amy and son Espen, my sister Kari and her hubby Jonathan) came up to Fort Collins this weekend to watch the CSU/BYU football game, which turned out to be THE MOST AWESOME LOSS EVER. Well, maybe not EVER, CSU has had some STUNNING losses against CU, but this definitely was in the Top 3. (For reference and because you care, the top 2 were losses to CU in 2005 and 2006. Losing in the final seconds, either by a ridiculously long field goal or by getting held at the 1-yard line, was craaaaazy). So by "stunning" I mean that it was edge-of-your-seat action from start to finish, not that we got stunned by how badly we were beat. So tonight's game started out with a touchdown by BYU (which didn't count after a flag on the play) but then CSU responded with their own touchdown (for real) only minutes later. Then BYU. Then CSU. Then BYU. Then CSU. Again and again and again! I know this means the game wasn't really great because obviously both teams had pitiful defenses and couldn't stop a pass or a run to save their souls, but it really makes it fun to watch! The final play, with only 22 seconds left, was made by BYU, leaving the score 45-42. I will have a scruffy voice tomorrow, I may have none at all, thanks to screaming and screaming and screaming. So goodnight, and enjoy that extra hour of rest, people!

Wearing the front carrier so when CSU scored I could jump up and down and not lose my grip on Patrick. Obviously he's not IN the front carrier here....

Joe with Patrick, Amy (S.I.L), Espen (nephew), and Eric (bro)

Double-fisting

Grandpa simultaniously rooted for BYU (hat) and CSU (sweatshirt). He must be getting old, he's wearing a sweatshirt and everyone around is wearing t-shirts. That, or we just need to buy him a CSU t-shirt!