Traditional Beignet Day

Here we are again...officially 6 years and going strong.  I think it was pointed out that I'm the only one that has been there all 6 years, regardless, I love this tradition.

The 3 of us...Moore, Moore, and at the time, Hahn had gone to Louisiana to do a dance workshop with some street kids in New Orleans.  (Susanna wasn't able to go with us at the last minute.  She was sorely missed.)  The Moore's are southern bells from birth.  They had a lot of family to stay with while we were there.  One thing we had to do while we were there was eat Beignet's at Cafe Dumont.  We decided since Ms. Betty had the recipe that we shouldn't let the deliciousness of Beignet's be restricted only to the deep south, so we started Beignet day. 

This year we not only made the dough ourselves and prepared it all, we celebrated at Elizabeth's new home.  This was our first time not seeking any advice from the Ms. Moore.  We were very proud of ourselves.  Susanna got the rolling of the dough role this year. 

I started helping with spooning the dough out of the oil, but I was leaving them in too long, I turned over my spoon to Elizabeth who did a marvelous job.  I assisted by dropping the sliced dough into the hot oil.  No burns praise God. 

Emmaus' first Beignet day ...at least out of the womb.  He seemed pleased by them. 

Rebecca got the Cafe au Lait.  Another Cafe Dumont delicacy.  This is my (almost) once a year coffee of choice. 

Here we are again...

nice star susanna...

My favorite job, the powdered sugar.

seriously, this is a piece of heaven.

I like this pic.

I think I was checking to see if his tooth had broken through the gums yet.

Something had just gotten in my left eye...Guess I was already perked up by the coffee...

Reeping the rewards of our hard work...that's funny...reeping...cause an in depth convo about the new Voyage of the Dawn Treader insued...it got quite heated...I wasn't part of it..Jake and the girls mostly....but...punny..Reeping, cause of Reepicheep...I crack myself up.

Jake took most of the pics...honorary photographer, thanks for letting me just have a fun night!

I love you girls sooo much.  Thanks for making this such a special night!!!

5/5

I'm silly.  I think most people know that about me.

I am trying to get a good jump on this college thing.  I have quizzes, and papers that I can turn in early if I want.  I turned my first paper in 2 nights ago (not due till the 24th.) ...I wasn't sure what they wanted exactly, and I was nervous, but...

I got 5/5 points!

woot woo!

Then I got so excited to take a quiz last night too....I was hoping for an immediate result, but no such luck.

I'm just excited about how things are going so far.  Probably won't be this chill in a few weeks, but I"ll enjoy it while it lasts.

New Years, and the first part of January (My favorite month!)

Pics are out of order, and not all talked about in this post, but here they are...the 4 dueces casino Murder Mystery New Years Eve Party...what a great group of people

Emmaus doing his favorite thing in his Christmas/birthday gift from Gma Vickie.  It's a mini Ikea chair...so cute.

We went to the park with Gma Terri and the dogs...Emmaus signs dog now...again, so cute.

love this face.  He throws the soccer ball around nicely too.

This was one of our Christmas gifts to him..he loves it.

This was from auntie erin....great toy.

1st flight.

1st cars.  Daddy showing him how it's done.

So...

New Years eve our friends set up an amazing Murder Mystery night.  If you don't know, Jake had written the past 2 years, Murder Mystery nights, quite successfully if I do say so myself.  So this year we thought he'd do a third, but..it didn't happen.

So, last minute, Elizabeth and cohorts bought organized and provided us with The 4 Deuces Casino.  I don't want to ruin it for anyone else who might use it, but it was a good night.  I got a lot of "money" and won an award.  Some people might say that I came about the money in a dishonest way, but when staying in the parameters of the game, I still feel justified!

Then about a week later I started my first day of classes at the Univesity of Utah.  (And started my second semester of interperting up there.)  It's all going quite well so far.  I love my professeurs, and the class load seems doable.

Then, on January 11th, merely 8 days before my birthday I got THE email.  In this email was my....wait for it

NIC: Interview and Performance results.  So I freak out a bit.  I whisper to my coworkers that "THE" email came.  They ask if I passed, I say, I can't open it. 
I click the button, cover my eyes, finally get the nerve to look, and it's a letter thanking me for my patience (18weeks!) and the results are in the attachment.  Foiled.

So then I have to get the nerve up again to open the attachment.  I do it.  and then I can't tell if it's good news or bad news.  It started with congratulations, but I couldn't decide if I really passed or not.  I think they call that shock.  I had my friend come over to confirm with me.  It was funny thinking about it now, but

I PASSED.  I'm NIC certified.  (I can interpret in any state, and not have to recertify under their state requirements, I get a pay raise, and I can work in most settings now.  I won't be changing my work environment anytime soon, but if something came up, and I wanted to, technically, I can.)

Major Life Goal....Check.

So, then to push my luck when I got home from work (My dad had called wanting to buy me sushi to celebrate.)

I tell Jake, lets take a pregnancy test just to see if we can have a double celebration.  He says not to, but once I get something on my mind, I kind of have to.  Plus I was what they call "late" and I really wanted to be pregnant...So I was hoping the momentum would pay off.

So I took the test.....and sadly saw a negative...So I waited, was bummed...

then

I looked over again, and faintly saw, not a negative but a positive.  I couldn't tell if I was seeing things (I think it was shock again.)  I yelled for Jake (he had gone downstairs and was out of ear-shot.)  I kept hollering for him....he came up.  looked, and I checked the instructions.  It says it doesn't matter how bold or faint the positive is, if it's there, there's a BABY!

We are sooo blessed.  It's only January and we have everything that I wanted for this year.  I need to find something else to put on my list of goals..then again there is the BA that I'm in pursuit of...guess my education can be the next big focus, and I"m already going stong with that one...so yea, and Praise God.

So Jake has been sick the past few days.  (That doesn't happen very often.  Maybe once every 2 years.)

My bday is tomorrow (I take too long to blog...)

Friday we're going to the Poison Ivy Murder Mystery Dinner.

Jake's parents fly out the 2nd week of February.

Lots of fun coming up.  But I'm still on high from the news from last week!

as always.....

Christmas

This was our 1st and last time in the snow....it was fun, we just never got back out in it...2 more years, and he'll be loving it.

Jake misses his brother soo much, they are fun to watch interact.

Emmaus is a little aggressive, and doesn't know that people aren't more than something to help him stand up with , and cousin J, is a little emotional.  He loved playing with the boys though.

Last minute Santa showed up, please not too many comments about this due to the sensitive nature of santa in the Cullen family.  The kids get so excited to see santa every year, I'd hate to ruin it for them.  This year though Santa looked a little boxy, and apparently forgot to dye some of "his" hair white.  She, He was almost busted on it. 

I rarely get to be in pics that I like, ...Thanks jeannine, these are great.

Jake LOVES playing with the kids. 

Emmaus mastered going down the stairs on his own while we were there. 

sage looks sooo excited to be pulling him...i love it.

Christmas morning. 

he sort of got into pulling the paper off.  Thank again kristen for the pjs!

The boy cousins...thanks T for the hug!

With the greats!

This says it all!

(he's getting soo big!)

We were in Minneapolis for Christmas 2010.  We had SUCH a nice time.  I loved being off for 8 days and being away from home and I enjoyed being surrounded by loved ones and nieces and nephews, and grandparents, and aunts and cousins...etc...

I got a nasty stomach bug 2 days before we were supposed to fly out.  I managed to make it to work, but other than that I was not motivated at all to pack or clean or anything.  Jake was wonderful to help me out with everything. 

My dad took us to the airport (we flew.)  He showed up at 330 am.  The flight was for 6 ish.  We got there, got checked in.  Emmaus took a nap, we changed him just before boarding, and I took some of that pink stuff, and we were off. Emaus did great! He only got fussy when it was time for a diaper change which happened to coincide with our descent into both Denver and Minneapolis.  Other than that, he was a trooper! Success..(This was his first flight. Lucky kid, mine was when I was 18 years old!)

While we were there we hung out, played games (dominon and joker board mostly.) I went shopping a few times for food, once to JC Penney's (tried to buy Emmaus some shoes...bought these cute mock converse size 4, but they didn't work out..apparently he's a size 5 already at the age of 11 months, but they'll sure be cute for the next one. (No, this is not an announcement.)  And I went to the Mall of America with Jeannine and the girls.  I rode the Log Flume with Sage...it was a lot of fun.  I tried to return a shirt that was too small...not a good idea A: at the Mall of America (SOO big) and not the first monday after Christmas, there was a line to get into the dressing room, and a really long line to get to the registers.  I opted to just take the lovely shirt home and I"ll go to the mall here and try to get something.  Hopefully they'll have the same shirt here.

Christmas eve we went to the Cullen Christmas party.  This is one of the only families that I know of where everyone, cousins, aunts uncles, everyone LIKES to be together.  It's such a warm environment to be invited to.  I love these people.  They donate goods to the Hill House (I think that's what it's called) instead of exchanging gifts...that is except for a White Elephant game  that they like to call the Crap Game (Thanks to the German family members (apparently that's what they call it over there.) that weren't able to make it this year.)  I wound up getting a box of 5x7 sized envelopes that we couldn't bring on the flight.  That's okay, that would just mean I'd want to send more photos all the time....darn it.

Um....I'd be able to narrate this better if I had pictures with me...however, I'm at work, so I can't upload them here....

anyway.

Christmas morning,  we woke up and unwrapped gifts.  Emmaus got a cool LeapFrog guitar that was a huge hit the whole time we were there, and when we got home!  Jake and I got my favorite Christmas socks from REI...sooo warm and comfy...we even got 2 this year...very generous mom and dad...thanks again.  Mike got a cool collaged photo frame spelling out the word Dance from Jeannine's website Word Art, check it out, it's pretty cool.  I know the boys got a Bat Cave that their daddy seemed happier to open than they did (so cute.) and the girls....got a My Little Pony, and a Tangled Barbie Doll, they were inseparable with those toys for the rest of our stay...There were other gifts, like great books, and coffee mugs etc...Christmas is definitely not about gifts, but it was cool to see the Spirit of giving.  Even from the younger kids.  Again, I love this family.

Honestly I can't remember...

(This is where I kept writing and writing, and then...the computer closed or something and I loss my awesome writing stuff....and I can't remember what I said. Total bummer. )

I know I said something about going to Soloman's porch, playing games with Luke and ...a few others...
Jake won Risk, I came in 2nd.  I won Settlers...I rock...I love it....
Then we toured Luke's gallery and bought a print.  I"m excited to hang it on the wall somewhere.  Luke Hillstead

I can't remember what else I said above, nor what got erased.  I have tons more to blog about, so this one will be done for now...I'll add some pics...when I take the time to do it...maybe tonight, can't promise though...

as always....Thanks for reading, even thougth I feel like I'm a year behind!!!