Weekend Recap

How was your Mother's Day? Mine was fantastic. 

I got breakfast in bed, a happy, well-behaved baby, a leather kindle cover, and chicken saltimbocca (see below) with roasted asparagus and potatoes for dinner. Then Tyler watched a non-action movie with me (Mona Lisa Smile) while we snuggled. It was perfect.

I can't even begin to describe how grateful I am to be a mother, participating in the most essential work to be done on earth. I feel so incredibly blessed, and want to cry all over the keyboard when I think about it. Thank you to my own beautiful mother who taught me firsthand that "no other success can compensate for failure in the home" (David O. McKay).

Best night ever.

Well, almost.

Okay, maybe not even close. But you must admit it's pretty darn cool when you plug in your husband's camera and find a treasure of goodies. Like pictures from the night he proposed, our honeymoon, and our first apartment that I didn't even remember we took.

A couple of things:

1) Um, also because of these pictures I decided the short-hair look just isn't for me. Sorry, husband, I'm growing it out.

2) And Mom - you never thought you'd hear this from me but you're absolutely right. Now that I've got straight hair, I actually miss my curly hair. Is there a way to get it back that doesn't involve pregnancy? (Pregnancy made my hair stick straight - no joke - but I'm not ready for that phase again, just to see if it would go back curly. I'm not a crazy person!) Help me.

K, mates. Now that we've got that settled, anyone want to meet pre-baby, pre-wedding/newlywed Alie & Tyler? {In my own words, "Aww. Look how cute I am!" Can we just rewind two years and give me back my youth? I know I'm not old by any means (I'm twenty-two) but just look at us!! And my hair. Just look at my hair. Gah.}

That's a fat marshmallow in my mouth. Date night roasting marshmallows on the BYU belltower lights. Kind of successful and very buggy.

I remember knowing something was up that night because Tyler insisted on taking a picture at Cold Stone. Hmm...

And then he proposed to me an hour later. :)

One of many BYU football games.

Cold Stone. Again. (Can you tell Tyler spent a lot of time outside that summer?)

Ugh, would ya look at that red hair. One of the many mishaps before our wedding where I tried to (professionally, might I add) get the red out of my hair, unsuccessfully.

Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband concert, still with red hair.

Fast forward to our honeymoon! I think we're sitting in a jazz lounge on the cruise ship?

"Formal Night" on the cruise ship.

We picked snorkeling for our excursion. We had a blast! (I still remember we tried to fix Tyler's crooked sunglasses several times this trip...)

I think this was in Ensenada but I'm not sure.

I wasn't going near that thing.

But Tyler got pretty cozy with it.

It was pretty chilly our entire cruise, hence the jacket. (It was December, after all.) We decided this rastafarian singer was the best part of the entire cruise. We made sure to tell him that. :)

I think this was before a show.

And I have no freaking idea why we would have taken a picture with this crazy lady. Maybe because it was ridiculous that she was part of the kid show?!

Tyler always picked the best restaurants on our trip.

Nothing really to comment about this one except that apparently neither of us looks good in sunglasses.

We loved the molten lava cake so much that our waiter snuck us the (secret) recipe. Go Icky! 

This was our first apartment's kitchen. No countertops and only one usable cupboard. I'll never complain about a kitchen again!

... which kind-of-sort-of-doesn't-really-but-we'll-go-with-it brings us to where we are today:

We look really different. I don't even really recognize me!

 But we are so happy. :)

(drumroll, please)

We are excited to finally announce ... 

we're having a baby!

Just kidding. Really, guys ... you thought I could handle pregnancy again so soon? Shame on you. (But kudos to anyone who does have kids so close. You are part of the elite rockstar momma group.)

The real news is that we won't have to wait until September to move out of Provo. Bahaha. Did I trick anyone? (Eh, probably not, but I got a good chuckle out of myself with that one.) Tyler's official KPMG start date is in the beginning of July so we'll be heading out of p-town in less than three months!! (If only you could hear the excitement in my voice, but double exclamation points will have to do for now.)

(p.s. Tyler took the above photo on his internship last summer and sent it to me because I was pregnant. It's from the San Diego Jack-in-the-Box corporate office. Their hallways were lined with all sorts of funny Jack photos.)

(And I know you were thinking it. At least one of you was thinking we might have named our baby after the aforementioned fast food restaurant. No matter how tasty their 2-for-99-cents tacos are, I could never live with myself knowing our son was named after a burger joint, a pirate, a serial killer, or a beer.

Let's get real here. He was named after Jack Black, duh.)

(um, just kidding. again. He really wasn't named after anyone at all.)

Our Story

Update: Here's the digital version so ya'll can read it. I had to separate it into two because it was vertically gifted (ahaha, instead of vertically challenged? yeah? no.) Click on each image to view it larger.

I love Taylor Swift's lyrics to Our Song. I think it would be so sweet to have your own love story put into a song for the entire world to hear.

But alas, neither Tyler or I were given the gift of song. I played percussion in high school, but that was mostly playing the music given to me. I can't sing or dance, but fortunately I discovered I can draw and create.

About a year and a half ago I created a poster for Tyler with "our song" on it for our first-year wedding anniversary. I didn't want any of the details of our engagement to be forgotten. (It's kind of funny because my older siblings argue sometimes about how things "really" took place when they met, but it was 5+ years ago for all of them and none of them can remember! I wanted a way to always keep our story straight.)

Hence, this was created:

And I finally framed it. It took me well over a year and a half to print and frame it, but it finally got done! I was so excited to show Tyler yesterday! :)

Tony Stark

Before (assembling the Iron Man):

After (Iron Man is completed and ready to conquer the world!):

For those of you who didn't catch my post last week, Tyler built a new computer for our house. And it's wicked fast. (3x-5x faster than a MacMini would have been.)

No, seriously. It installed Windows7 in less than fifteen minutes.

We named him Tony Stark. We give names to lots of things in our family - cars, computers, babies, soccer teams - you know, the usual things anyone would name. Tyler has a name for every computer at our house, and I think I have a name for everything else. (When I was little I used to name the bugs in our house, and I've also given a name to my mom's pig statue.) We're pretty good at coming up with good names. (Tyler's soccer team is named Something Epic. He called me up to ask what he should name it and I told him, "I don't know...err...just come up with something epic." Obviously I was referring to giving the team an insanely awesome name, which, in turn, he did.) 

Thus, our new, blazingly fast computer is named Tony Stark, from Iron Man.

Can I just tell you how much I love Robert Downey Jr.'s character in Iron Man? They casted the perfect person for the role of Tony Stark. His character is witty, clever, and conceited, yet you still absolutely adore him. Genius.

That's all for today, folks (just kidding...one more post to follow). I've got Adobe Illustrator CS5 (finally!!) installed and I need to "reorganize" things on here. I'm so lucky to have a husband who is a computer genius - even though my old laptop won't even start up, he was able to recover my entire hard drive. I love you, Tyler! (p.s. isn't he cute in the above picture? For him it was like Christmas morning at our house!)

Chef Tyler

TWO nights in a row this past weekend Tyler cooked dinner. He really spoils me sometimes. :)  He has this thing about cooking meals that he's never tried before (or even making up recipes) when we have people over for dinner. It drives me crazy, but I think luckily he's (almost always) been successful. Our poor friends Lindsay and Matt! They always seem to be our taste-testing friends when Tyler goes on a cooking spree.

This past Saturday he made some sort of chicken thing, and on Sunday night he made Pastel Azteca (for just us two). [Correct me if I'm wrong, Tyler] but I believe it's an aztec/mayan food. Basically it has fried tortilla, lots of gooey cheese, hand-shredded chicken and some sort of sauce. Not entirely sure what was in it, but it was delicious. A little spicy for me though, so I was heaping on the sour cream!

He also used his Christmas present for the first time. I got him a lemon squeezer, just like the one that Paula Deen and Guy Fieri use on Food Network. It works so well and the limeade was delicious.

Hide yo' kids, Hide yo' wife.

Anyone seen Autotune the News? Of course you have. It's got a bajillion views on youtube. (Well, almost. It has 46,394,657 as of right now. 46 million!!! But then again our OK GO music video has a modest 20,504. Not bad for a video made our senior year of high school in a mere 9 hours.)

Tyler found this and thinks it's the funniest thing ever, and wanted me to share it with you. (I'll admit, it is pretty dang funny.)

And I also wanted to let you know that he passed the rigorous CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) exam this morning*. (Well, I'll remain modest, but he pretty much aced it.) Way to go, Tyler. I'm so proud of you! :)

*According to Wikipedia, "CCNA certification is a second-level Cisco Career certification. CCNA certification validates the ability to install, configure, operate, and troubleshoot medium-size routed and switched networks, including implementation and verification of connections to remote sites in a WAN^[1]." Yeah...whatever that all means.

Turkeyless Day 2010

Anyone have a cool Thanksgiving holiday tradition? Tyler and I make fried chicken instead of turkey. Our children will most likely grow up turkey-deprived, but when neither of us like the dry meat why spend hours cooking it? And don't even get me started on turkey leftovers...yuck! So fried chicken it was last Thursday. Some people think we're insanely awesome for 'sticking it to the man' and wish they could come to our house for turkey day. Others (mainly my dad and Tyler's family) prefer turkey, which is cool too. Just no turkey at our house, please. :)

Suzy & Todd Jones (Tyler's parents) with Jack

This past weekend, Tyler's family and my family were able to come visit us. I'll admit it was a looong weekend (why do we both have such big families?!) but we thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to all who drove out to blizzardy, snowy Utah to visit us. Well, to visit baby Jack, anyway. Let's admit it: that's the real reason people came to visit. Tyler and I aren't interesting anymore - it's Jack who steals the show! 

Tyler's little sister Olivia

An Attitude of Gratitude, Part 2

My heart is so full of gratitude towards my husband today.

After last night, I can't help but thank my husband publicly. He deserves it. The man is wonderful.

Jack is showing signs of colic (which is completely normal, but frustrating to a new mommy), where he won't settle down at night. For the past week or so it has been in the evenings, from 5pm to 11pm. He won't sleep or eat much and he is just all around a fussy little baby. It's quite draining to a parent because he likes to be cuddled and hates it when I set him down. So my arms are pretty much dead and I am tired all the time.

Yesterday I did my research and I think the problem is that he is inhaling too much air when he drinks out of his bottle, which in turn makes him very gassy. He gets lots of bubbles stuck in his tummy, and burping doesn't do much to help him. The poor little guy is uncomfortable and in a little pain because of it, and thus can't settle down and cries a lot. Hopefully I have fixed the problem and he will feel better soon. (I found out the bottle's lid was screwed on too tight, not allowing proper ventilation.)

Anyway...back to why Tyler is so amazing. He is currently a full-time student, and working to provide for our family. He comes home every night from a long day at school and work and cranks out homework, and then wakes up to do it all over again the next day. Because I am at home with Jack all day, we decided I am the one to wake up with him in the night. Makes perfect sense. Except last night Jack was colicky and fussy and screaming the entire night. (I am used to him sleeping in 4 hour stretches at night.) Needless to say, I rocked and fed and swaddled and did everything I could think of for over 2 1/2 hours to try to get him to go back to sleep. I was unsuccessful and exhausted and sobbing by the time I regretfully woke Tyler up to try to soothe him. TWICE last night, when it wasn't his turn, Tyler spent about 45 minutes soothing Jack and putting him to sleep. I don't know how he does it, but Jack is so much calmer with him. And then this morning, Tyler got up and went to work and school. He is a rockstar.

Basically I just want to point out that I am so grateful for my husband. I couldn't do it without him. One of the happiest feelings in the world is seeing Tyler with baby Jack. He loves to play and cuddle and smile at Jack, and it just melts my heart every time I see the two of them together. It is amazing how your love for your husband grows so much after you see him with your son.

An Attitude of Gratitude

My neighbor&friend Jessi made a list on her blog of ten things she was grateful for, ten days before Thanksgiving. Now it's my turn.

 I am so glad I took the opportunity to write down things I am grateful for, and I encourage you all to do the same. I'm already in a happier mood because of it. :)

1. Tyler and baby Jack. I'm so grateful to have these two wonderful boys in my life.

2. Our lovely apartment which we call 'home'. It was a huge blessing to even find another apartment in our ward, let alone right in our price range and with a washer & dryer.

3. Good health. I feel blessed to have had a healthy pregnancy, a perfect labor and delivery, and a fast recovery. Plus a strong, healthy baby boy to show for it.

4. Tyler's smile. This man has the best, most genuine smile in the world. Even on my worst days I can't help but smile right along with him. After all, it was his smile that caught my eye from day one.

5. Plans for post-graduation, and the opportunity we will have to live in San Diego. Tyler works so hard for our family, and has a full-time job when he graduates. I am grateful we have a (somewhat planned) future ahead of us.

6. My parents. Without them, I wouldn't be the person I am today. I look up to them and admire both of them so much. I am grateful for their strong marriage, and that they have always put their children first. They still make so many sacrifices for us today. Thanks Mom and Dad.

7. The gospel of Jesus Christ. The atoning sacrifice of our Savior. A living prophet of God on the earth today. Knowing that Tyler and I can receive personal revelation for our family to guide our choices in life. Being sealed to Tyler for time and all eternity, and knowing that we will be together as a family in heaven.

8. My friends, and the overwhelming love and support I have received in the past few weeks. I had no idea so many people cared about me. Thank you.

9. Modern technology. Cars. The internet. Electricity. Clean drinking water. A hot shower. We take so much of this for granted!

10. That our little family always has enough to provide for our needs. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices and go without, but I know it will all be worth it in the end.

Tyler is 24!

Yesterday Tyler turned 24 years old! So Logan could attend (she had to worked the 8th) we celebrated the night before (the 7th) with his birthday cake. He doesn't like cake too much, and though he falls head over heels for a warm, gooey batch of brownies, I didn't think brownies said "birthday". I can make him brownies anytime I want - I wanted something special for him. Tyler also loves bananas and ice cream, so I decided to make an Banana Split Ice Cream Cake. YUM!!

My mom has won first place with this recipe!

12 crushed sugar ice cream cones

1/2 c. chopped nuts

6 T. melted butter

3 cups vanilla frozen yogurt

2 mashed bananas

1 t. banana extract

16 oz. hot fudge topping

1 c. chopped walnuts

1 c. strawberry topping

8oz. cool whip

Combine crushed sugar cones, chopped nuts, and melted butter. Press into the bottom of a 9" round spring form pan. Let the ice cream get a little soft, and then in a large bowl, mix the ice cream, mashed bananas, and banana extract together. Press into the pan. Freeze. Make the next layer using fudge topping, freeze. Make the next layer with nuts, freeze. Make the next layer with strawberry topping, freeze. Finally, make the last layer with cool whip and freeze and/or serve.

Notes: I used Breyer's chocolate chip ice cream instead of the frozen yogurt. It seemed to harden up almost too much and was hard to eat. It never softened while we ate it. I also made a homemade version of the chocolate fudge topping, but it melted into a huge gloppy mess after being out of the freezer for only 2 minutes and it just didn't set up right. Verdict: I'd use a softer ice cream and a non-homemade fudge topping. It's also fun to set aside a little bit of the sugar cone layer to sprinkle on top afterward. 


For Tyler's real birthday, we went to Roy's, a Hawaiian seafood/steakhouse in La Jolla. Wow, it was amazing and so delicious! The most expensive meal I've ever eaten, but it was sooooo good. I got the filet mignon and it melted in my mouth. I barely had to chew it was so tender and yummy!

Broken, part 2

Here is Tyler's arm right before they put his cast on:

And right after (what a cheesy smile, honey!)