Lemonade at the Griffin's

This week and next week Landon is traveling for work, bummer. But making lemonade out of the lemons in this scenario, Griffin and I decided to take a two week trip to Arizona to visit my family. We arrived yesterday and we are already having a great time. It's great to be here in Arizona's 70 degree weather while Colorado is hovering around 30-ish.

We wish that Landon didn't have to leave town, but since he has to go, we might as well make the most of it. My family is way cool and Griffin loves getting all of this attention from his aunts and uncle. Yesterday, Spencer took some great pictures of Griffin learning about the piano.

Isn't he a virtuoso?

In other news, my sister got a huge lemon as a gift from a friend. This thing is enormous! It's almost as big as a football. She's still trying to think of ideas for what to do with it. Lemon meringue pie? Lemon cookies? Lemonade? Whatever she ends up doing with it, she has a whole bunch of lemon to deal with.

Now who sounds stupid?

This week has left me feeling utterly idiotic. First and foremost, Griffin and I have both had a bout of the stomach flu. I'll spare the gory details and simply say that I never imagined that there could be anything more miserable than being sick with the stomach flu. However, being sick with stomach flu at the same time as your infant really tops the misery charts. Landon has been making chicken noodle soup and folding laundry and generally being Superman, which of course leaves me feeling grateful and useless.

Also, earlier this week I had a telephone conversation that went something like this:

ME: (Dialing my sister's phone number, and waiting for her to answer)

NOEL: (in a voice that sounds like she's got her nose plugged) Hello?

ME: (amused by Noel's silliness) Hi there. How are ya?

NOEL: (still with the weird voice) Um, good. And you?

ME: Good, what's up?

NOEL: (in the increasingly obnoxious voice) Not much, I suppose.

ME: Noel, you sound stupid. Cut it out.

NOEL: (persisting with the annoying voice) I sound what?!

ME: I said, You sound stupid.

NOEL: (still with the voice) Who is this?

ME: Wait, is this Noel?

NOEL: No.

ME: Really?

NOEL: This is NOT Noel. Who is this?

ME: Uh, this is Noel's sister...Are you sure you're not Noel?

NOEL: This is NOT Noel.

ME: Oh, ummmmm. Okay. I'm so sorry. (awkward pause) Well, bye.

In my defense, what are the odds of me accidentally calling a woman whose voice sounds exactly like my sister with a plugged nose. Furthermore, my sisters are often trying to make me believe I have dialed a wrong number when, in fact, I haven't. And lastly, I've just switched phone plans and I'm using Landon's old phone while we wait for mine to arrive, so I'm now dialing all of the phone numbers I normally have on speed-dial.

None of this changes the fact that I told a random stranger that her voice sounds stupid. Sorry, lady. But truthfully, you did have kind of a stupid voice.

Play it again, Griffin!

Griffin celebrated his 1st birthday with a flight to Utah. That's 15 flights for one baby in one year. This kid is a trooper. Mere hours after landing in Salt Lake City, Griffin was ready to party. And party we did. The first night we were there, we attended two parties, one for Griffin's birthday, and another for Christmas. The Huber family knows how to party and I think we had some sort of gathering, pow-wow, hoopla, brouhaha, or get-together every single night that we were in Utah. We loved getting to see all of Landon's family, and Griffin loved all of the attention. Here are some of the favorite moments from the trip:

At first, Griffin was really more excited about the flame than the cake

But pretty soon he got the idea. Who needs a fork? Or hands, for that matter?

He was even gracious enough to share with his dad, who apparently

likes squished birthday cake.

Griffin's cousin, Ben, teaches him about static

Christmas morning at the Huber's

After a little practice, Griffin figures out that it is fun to tear wrapping paper.

After a week in Utah, we flew down to Arizona on the day after Christmas...that's flight #16, for those of you who are counting. I don't know who started all of this business about dreaming of a white Christmas (I think perhaps Bing Crosby had a hand in it), but I'll take a sunny 65-degree Christmas when given the chance, and Arizona provided exactly the chance I was looking for. We spent a week in Mesa with my family and it was spectacular. My family isn't nearly as good about taking pictures as Landon's family, so you'll have to settle for these pictures:

Griffin and his Grandpa reading a story.

For those of you with a good eye: yes, that is a Care Bear

book that I've had since circa 1985

Noel got some foam swords for her birthday, and Griffin was a natural.

We're considering signing him up for baby fencing.

Griffin's first desert hike

Not pictured: Mom challenged Landon to a Roller Coaster Tycoon build-off. This rivalry ended in a draw after approximately 5+ hours of cut throat competition, at which I could only sigh and roll my eyes.

And to all of you who gave Griffin birthday or Christmas gifts: Thank you so much! He loves them all, especially the ones that make noises. There is one in particular that sings a song about a puppy in a red truck; I don't think he's stopped playing with it since we got home. I may have to find the off switch on these toys eventually. But for now, I'm willing to listen to that song all day long if it buys me enough time to get the dishes done.

finding my voice

I've lost my voice today. And truthfully I didn't really realize what a chatterbox I can be until I am robbed of my ability to talk. So instead of talking I'm posting a quick update to the blog.

In the last half of November, we surprised my family by showing up unexpectedly for Thanksgiving (big thanks to Rachael for facilitating that one). My dad's birthday was also that weekend so it was a double celebration. Griffin had a fantastic time hanging out with his grandpa... with everyone else too, but especially Grandpa. I think that was mostly because my dad gave Griffin everything he wanted. Cookies at bedtime? sure, why not?

a quick swim in November? You bet!

Man, Grandpa is a push-over.

So far in December we've been fighting a really awful cold that just won't seem to let go. And now at the very end when I'm finally feeling mostly better, the virus makes one last desperate attempt at spite and steals my voice.

And have I mentioned before that I love working in the Primary children's organization at church? This week I had a little kid tell me that I was "huuuuuge." But I suppose that before I start getting a weight-complex I should remember that earlier in the conversaion he told me that his mom's "really fast van" could drive from Colorado to Canada in twenty minutes. Hopefully, his perception of time and size are equally distorted.

And last but not least, this Christmas we had the 2nd Annual Huber Christmas Cookie-thon. Here are the results:

Free carpet...sort of.

Griffin really is much happier than this pouty face would indicate

For anyone who has been to my home, you'll probably remember the carpet in our basement. It's disgusting. Purchasing a home that was repossessed has its risks, and for us the risk was nasty carpet in the basement. Landon and I have been talking about frugal ways to re-vamp that basement ever since we moved in, but inspiration struck back in August when we were visiting my family. My mom told me about this calico-carpet thing that her mother had done a few times when my mom was a kid. It sounded fun and interesting, but best of all: it was cheap. The idea is basically to take carpet remnants and cut them into squares then create a patchwork carpet using carpet glue. When I describe it like that, it sounds like a really straightforward one-day job. Not so.

We spent several weekends searching for just the right free carpet, endured several carpet salesmen looking at us like we were crazy, spent several more weekends tracing and cutting carpet into squares, and then a few days gluing it all onto our existing carpet. Then it took me a while (I am embarrassed to admit how long) to muster the determination to finish off all of the little oddly-shaped pieces around the edge of the room.

So now, after more than a month of work, I am happy to debut the finished carpet here on the blog. I am really proud of how this turned out. And I am even happier with the price. If anyone wants to do this type of thing my recommendation is to give yourself a month of work time, and buy the biggest tub of carpet glue available (it's worth it, if only to save yourself four different trips to Home Depot).

A belated BOO!

I realize that I'm very late in posting this picture. And I realize that all of Landon's family has seen these costumes before. But I feel that these costumes are cool enough for a repeat, and cool enough to make up for my delayed posting.

In case you are not an avid Pixar fan, we're characters from The Incredibles (Elasti-girl, Jack-Jack, and Syndrome). One of our friends told us, "It's weird to see Elasti-girl fraternizing with Syndrome." When you think about it, though, Syndrome is a way cooler costume than Mr. Incredible. Plus, I don't think Landon would have been excited about wearing red spandex.

Funnily enough, Landon's cape got caught in the door on our way out:

"NO CAPES!"

Snow Day!!

Growing up in Arizona, I never experienced the childhood pleasure of a snow day. The closest I ever came was one day when the power to our high school went out. I remember that day as possibly the coolest day of my adolescence: board games, movies, ice cream, etc... I suppose it wasn't the activities of the day, but just the unexpected liberation that really made it fantastic. Anyway, in my mind snow days always had a somewhat mystical appeal.

Last week a snow storm rolled through and dropped 14-18 inches of snow over the course of 2 days. Because of the road conditions, Landon decided to work from home. In my mind all of my imagined "snow day" dreams were about to come true. I was really excited that as an adult I was finally going to get a snow day. My list of snow day expectations was as follows: hot chocolate, popcorn, blankets, movies, crackling fire, warm socks. Unfortunately, my imagination did not include the fact that "working from home" actually meant that Landon had to work. To his credit, Landon didn't get frustrated when I kept interrupting with things like, "Hey I was thinking about Christmas ideas and..." or "I'm rethinking our plans for that basement bedroom and..." or "What do you think about hanging curtains in Griffin's bedroom?" or "Remember that one time when..."

Truthfully, my mind is normally jumping around mundanities like that, but Landon typically isn't here to vocalize all of these thoughts to. It took me a while to muster the self-control to allow him to work in peace. So my snow day, in reality, was much more similar to a regular day than I expected. It just meant that I got to eat lunch with Landon.....ok, ok, so we took a hot chocolate and popcorn break too.