Too Cute!

Yesterday we were out and about running errands.  J had to stop by his work to pick up something and while Zuri and I were waiting in the car, she was playing with the play glasses you see above.  She got those from a birthday party last year and it is one of the toys we keep in the car for her.  She was being so cute with the glasses that I couldn't help but snap a few pictures!  These two are my favorite!

Buford, Georgia

 

We have our apartment all lined up!  We will be living in the basement apartment of a ward member in Buford, Georgia, which is on the outskirts of Atlanta .  Here is a picture of the house!

We found out that the Atlanta temple is currently undergoing reconstruction right now and will be out of commission the duration of our stay.  The closest temples are in Birmingham, Alabama and Columbus, South Carolina.  Looks like we will have a couple more places to visit!  We are already planning a trip to Florida and Joshua has researched on the closest beaches.  We are excited for the upcoming adventure!

Tantrums

 

Zuri has become a master at tantrums these days.  She even has a spot where she goes to throw her tantrum.  It is the back wall in the kitchen between the fridge and the counter.  Heaven forbid if you disturb her there!  She will get even more upset!  In the picture above, although you can't see it, she is throwing a tantrum.  I can't remember the reason behind the tantrum in the picture, but we were in the living room when it started.  She will run and put herself in the corner, even facing away from us.  If it weren't so obnoxious (her tantrums, I mean), it would be funny.  I guess it's nice that she has a self-imposed time-out, right?

Welcome to the terrible two's....early....

Modeling

Zuri is growing up so quickly!  She is really into modeling these days.  When we go out shopping, we always wipe the shopping cart handles and kid seat before placing Zuri into the shopping cart.  For Christmas Zuri got a doll stroller to push around.  A couple weeks ago I had given Zuri a wipe to play with, and she proceeded to wipe the handle of the stroller with the wipe!  I laughed so hard.  A few days later we were eating dinner and had a napkin near her at the table.  She would pick up the napkin, wipe her mouth, get a drink from the sippy cup, wipe her mouth, and eat something.  She repeated the process several times.  Whoever taught her to be neat and tidy?  Lol.  After dinner we always rinse her hands and face off at in the kitchen sink, well, she now goes straight to the hand towel and dries her hands.  She wants to do everything herself--it is so fun to watch as she grows into this little independent person!

Her favorite time is bath time.  All we have to do is say the word "bath" and she is racing up the stairs.  She has also become a social butterfly.  If there are other kids in the area, J and I become non-existent.  Tonight was a perfect example.  We had a wedding reception to attend but it was for adults only, so we had a baby-sitter all lined up for Zuri.  This morning the sitter called to let us know that she wouldn't be able to watch Zuri due to illness in the house.  Our neighbor was kind enough to watch her for us, even though they had plans this evening--they were able to push them back a bit.  Anyhow, we dropped Zuri off and she went right inside (she had already caught sight of the kids) without a fuss.  When we went to pick her up, she was excited to see us, showing us all the nifty toys they had, but she didn't want to leave.  Funny kid.

On another note, all you who know me, know that I am not an expert in the culinary field.  I detested cooking growing up, and still don't have a fondness for it now.  At work Schelley brought in little mini cheesecakes which were oh-so delightful.  One of my other coworkers asked for the recipe, and when I heard how easy (*ahem, I mean difficult ;-) ) they are, I got the recipe as well and have been itching to try them.  We had Sunday dinner at the Lucero's last week and I offered to bring the dessert.  I made the cheesecakes and Josh made homemade mint chocolate chip ice cream.  They both turned out heavenly.  I even took a picture of my masterpiece!

Zuri got to spend some time bonding with her great-grandpa Lucero.  He was her favorite person of the night, even eclipsing her Auntie Shawnie (whom she preferred over me all night--she loves her Auntie Shawnie).

 

By the end of the night, Zuri was worn out and fell asleep within minutes of getting into the car.  Precious moments!

UP!

The other day we rented UP! from the redbox.  Usually, when we rent movies, we put Zuri to bed and snuggle up together and relax.  Since UP! is a kid's movie, we decided to let Zuri stay up a little longer and watch it.  We figured she would get bored within the first five minutes (like she does with all movies) and play around.  Were we in for a big surprise!  She watched the entire movie!  She was captivated from the beginning.  We thought it might be a fluke, so the next day we put it on again--same thing!  She loves that movie.  Zuri never sits still--she is an on-the-go girl, so it is really strange to see her sit down and watch something.

She started out in her saucer chair, went to her little couch for a while, and then finally snuggled up with me (once I was done taking pictures).

She caught me taking pictures and wanted to show off her new nose-picking ability.

This last picture was taken tonight.  I decided to see if she would still be enamored with the movie after a third viewing.  Of all the movies, I have no idea what it is about UP! that she likes so much (other than the dogs), but something about it definitely captures her attention.  She even clapped at the end the first time she saw it.  During the credits she would clap, and if I didn't clap with her, she would grab my hands and make me clap too.  It was really funny.  Guess it's one we are going to have to buy. 

Internships

Well, I am officially out of the training room!  Yay!  Haven't I been working for three months now?  Yep, basically, you stay in the training room until new people are hired and there isn't room for you anymore.  The biggest thing is that 80% of the people they hire never make it out of the training room.  You heard me right.  It's a tough biz and if they don't think you have what it takes, they fire you; or more adequately, you are given a box.  It's a running joke around the office that if you see a box you head the other direction.  Sad, but true.  I was given the box Thursday, but for a different reason, I was graduating.  I have officially made it past the first cut--it doesn't mean that I still can't be canned at any point in time, but they will at least give me a warning before I am handed the box.   We had three new people start Monday, one of them is already gone.  In the three months I have been there, four people have been "let go" and one moved to another state.  I don't understand the rationale behind having a company that leaves their employees with such fear.  If it weren't for the fact that I will only be working there a maximum of another three months, I would seriously be considering another job choice.  Sad thing is, I do enjoy it for the most part.

Here is the news!  We are officially going to Georgia this summer!  Crazy.  I'm not entirely thrilled about the location (I already have issues with the heat in Utah, and it is a dry heat), but I am way excited to be getting out of Utah, even for a bit.  We still haven't decided what to do about our current place and all our stuff while we are gone, but we still have a bit of time to decide.  J has also found out that his fall/winter internship will be at a local High School, working with the kids .  The internship will be very beneficial because although J doesn't want to be a school counselor/social worker when he graduates, he will have the credentials to do so.  Just another avenue if other things don't pan out!

New Years

This year we brought in the New Year with my mom, Rob, Breanna, Dallas, McKenzie, and my cousin Alexis.  We had a small party at our apartment and just relaxed and played games.  We lost track of time and didn't even watch the ball drop at midnight--we noticed it was a 2010 a couple minutes past the hour.  Ooops!

For Christmas I received an ice cream maker and we made homemade ice cream which we ate at midnight--cheers!  I even pulled out all my scrapbooking stuff so that I could show mom my cricket and play around, but we never did get around to it--the evening seemed to go by so quickly.

Zuri stayed up until close to midnight.  The poor baby was so tired!  She cuddled up with both Mom and Rob and we thought for sure she would fall asleep, but she wanted to be involved so bad that she would wake herself up at the last instant.

It was a fun night--I know it wasn't all that exciting for the teenagers, but I hope they had a little fun as well.  Here are some highlights from the night!

Breanna not wanting her picture taken.

New Years day we relaxed at home.  Because Zuri was off her schedule, and we all got up late, we delayed Zuri's normal naptime.  I guess we delayed it too long, because she fell asleep in the funniest position.  One of her methods of self-soothing is to pull a blanket over her head.  We had been playing with a puzzle and she laid down pulling the puzzle over her head.  I thought it was funny and wanted to see how long she would stay that way.  After a minute I had J check (she was also laying in my lap) and sure enough she had fallen asleep.  Too funny!