A Year In Review

So 2010 has been a big, monumental year. Like big! It has a great year.

I started off the year humongously pregnant and working at APX. Kenny was working at the testing center. We were both taking classes and anxiously awaiting the arrival of Miss Harper and preparing to move to Washington D.C. for an internship.

Harper was born. We learned that being parents was crazy, hard, and absolutely WONDERFUL! We were all in love at first sight. We also learned how hard it was to function on minimal amounts of sleep.

We no longer felt right about going to D.C. So within about 2 weeks, we found a new apartment in Provo, Kenny got an internship for the City of Provo, we both signed up summer classes at BYU, and continued learning how to be parents.

We celebrated 2 years of marriage!

We had a fun reunion weekend with Kenny's family up in Alberta.

Kenny GRADUATED!!! We are so proud of him! He interviewed, interviewed, and interviewed some more.

Harper grew, grew, and grew some more.

We sold our contract, packed our stuff, said good bye to Utah for the time being and moved to Texas to continue the job hunt.

A week later, Kenny go a job that he had applied for up in Utah. And again, we are so stinking proud of his amazingness!

Went to Houston and spent a fun filled week with Kenny's sister, Heather, and all her kids.

Kenny started the job and the traveling commenced. Harper and I are having a blast playing with Gran and Grandpa Dethloff and all the uncles and aunt.

Harper grew fang teeth (see post below) and is continuing to grow and learn like CRAZY!

Kenny went to his sister, Linda's, wedding. Harper got sick so we stayed behind. :(

We had a fabulous Christmas (Harper's first was so exciting) with my family and enjoyed getting to see my brother, Brian, and his wife, Katie. It had been way too long.

We have learned A LOT this year! It has been quite the transitional, growing period for all of us. We have seen the Lord's hand guiding our lives countless times this year. We have received unconditional love, support, and guidance from our parents and siblings and grandparents and just everyone. We are ever so grateful for our families and all the many blessings we have received this year.

We are looking forward to 2011 and all the changes and growth we know that it will bring.
And to end, a cute picture of Harper....

This is NOT a Guest Post

Hey y'all this is the HLK im just chillin here in texas minding my own buisness when i was bitten by what we all thought was just another toothless man




But it was actually a vampire and now strange things are happening and im turning into a vampire myself


BEWARE FOOLS I'LL BITE YOU ALL

Incoming Guest Post

So, I had an all I want for Christmas blog planned out in my head. I got my AWESOME little brother, Chris, to help me snap some cute pics of Miss Harperty- Darperty to post on there... But it never happened. Instead Harps got sick... Way sick! Sicker than the last time (see the sicky-poo post).
It was most unfortunate! Again, your kid being sick is HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE, NO- GOOD, VERY BAD DAY... Or in our case days! Ugh!!!!
Plus, we missed Linda's wedding and all the Kyle Family fun that was going on without us! It made us sad. We were stuck in Texas sick and sad!
But anyways, back to the matter at hand, my little brother Chris had taken all these cute pictures for me for the post and I want to make sure the get used and documented because the are stinking cute and are well, down right funny! So, I decided to let my little bro do a guest post.
It is the first guest post on Crazy Little Thing Called Love and we are vey very excited!
So stay tuned today, for the first ever guest post by Christopher "one of the greatest uncles ever" Dethloff.

Forget Em All!

Forget Hop on Pop. Forget the Pokey Little Puppy. Forget Goodnight Moon. Forget Charlie and Lola. Forget Go Dog Go and all other Dr. Seuss books. Forget (and excuse me for the blaspheme here) Fancy Nancy. Forget Dear Zoo. Forget Baby Blue Cat and the Smiley Worm Doll.

Heck, forget the Shiny, Glowy Christmas Tree and Presents right behind her.

Miss Harper has decided to focus on the more serious, weighter matters at hand. Tonight in the study, this is what I found....

As seen by the face, the oil spill is a issue she is deeply concerned about!

*note- These pictures are not staged! My mom, Riley, and I were talking in the study tonight. When we looked down, this is what we saw. (She had pulled all of the National Geographics off of the shelf and was checking them out...So Stinkin' Cute!!!) At the ripe, young age of 9 months, Harper is ready to take on the world!

Christmas Must Haves

I love Christmas time. It is truly a beautiful time of year! I love the lights, glitter, holiday cheer, drinking hot chocolate, the smells of Christmas-trees, gingerbread cookies, and candy canes- wrapping paper and pretty bows, fires in the fireplace, the music (especially my ALL TIME favorite song, I want a hippopotamus for Christmas), the joy that can be seen on the faces of little children running wildly through the toy store, and the madness that can be seen on the faces of their parents.

But ultimately, Christmas time means...

CANDY CANE TOOTSIE POPS!

Guys, these suckers are SO SO SO stinking good! A Tootsie Roll encased in a peppermint sucker. YUM!!!! I love peppermints in all forms. It is one of my favorite things about Sonic, eating a peppermint while drinking a cherry limeade. And you just can't ever beat a tootsie roll. So clearly, this combination makes the ULTIMATE sucker!

My mom and I discovered them when I was in maybe the eighth grade and we have gotten them every Christmas since... except for Christmas 4 years ago.

Sadly, we could not find them anywhere. We seriously looked in every candy aisle we could find and came away empty handed every single time. That Christmas scarred me! And you may laugh, but it is true. I have not handled the suckers the same since.

Before the infamous Christmas, my mom and I would go through maybe one to two bags max the entire Christmas season; whereas now, I buy two bags every time I go to Target (but shh, don't tell Kenny). Blessed Target! That is where you get them. It is the only place that has consistently had them year after year. Love Target, and I go there A LOT... so we have gone through a lot of suckers already this year and I just bought more today.

I blame that infamous Christmas without for my craze. When you are forced to go without, you realize and appreciate what you had. I promised myself that I would never take these suckers for granted again; hence, we are now on bag #6.

That is how good these suckers are... 6 bags and it is only the 7th of December. WOW... I just realized how crazy and obsessed that makes me sound. Makes me a little worried for myself... but don't fret, I am not worried enough to stop eating them or stocking up once Christmas is over. They are just that good!

Self Feeding Equals...

Self Feeding = Sharing and Feeding Mommy

Self Feeding = A Lip Licking Good TimeSelf Feeding = Cute, Funny Faces

Self Feeding = Messy Foreheads and Food Smeared Everywhere

Self Feeding = Feeling Mushy Goodness Between Fingers & Using the Cool Spoon from Gran

Self Feeding = Yummy Food?

Self Feeding = One Heck of a Good Time!!!

Sicky-poos

sicky-poo (noun)- my mother's term of endearment for anyone who is ill or under the weather. origin: when you are sick you look like poo? feel like poo? it is stinky poo to be sick? Who knows the origin, we will have to ask my mom

Sentence most commonly used in: "Come here my sicky-poo, I love you!" or "How is my cute sicky-poo doing?"

We have all been sick here this week. Riley, Mom, Harper, Chris, Cole, Dad and Me (luckily Kenny escaped this week-just work, he did not abandon us or anything). Riley and Mom were struck last week and led into this week and the rest of us were hit this week! It has been fun... SIKE!

What is being passed around? The CRUD!!! The gross, nasty cold and an ear infection. Which leads me to a question... is an ear infection contagious? I didn't think so, but that has been the debate this week.

Harper, thank goodness, is on her way out of the sickness. And can I just say that watching your kid be sick, and uncomfortable, and feverish, and snotty is not fun business. And my kid just had a cold! It made me grateful for Harper's health. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a child with serious injuries or diseases. To all those parents out there who have that struggle, I am amazed by you and am praying for you!

My sister-in-law warned me about this aspect of parenting, the having a sick kid aspect. She said it was horrible. Sue, you were completely right!

I was very grateful for my parents this week. I was glad to be at their house this week while Kenny was at his first week of work! They are amazing people, my parents. When Harper was at her worst, and neither one of us had slept very well the night before, my dad stayed up all night and took shifts with me so that I could get some sleep. Every time Harper would cry or whimper and my dad got her back to sleep, I said this prayer... "Dear Father in Heaven, thank you for giving me a superhero for a dad. I am seriously grateful." And he even got up super early the next morning to take Cole to seminary... seriously, superhero!

But, on the plus side and just because I am a glass half-full kind of girl, I logged some major cuddle time this week with Harper. Jealous? You should be cause I definitely put the mother in smother this week and LOVED every minute of it (disclaimer- I can't take credit for the cleverness of the "mother in smother" line... I heard it along time ago on a blog that I read, reagansblob.com-if you haven't read her blog, you should. I love it. Her daughter Pip is so stinking cute. P.s. she is one of the parents I am amazed by).

And to end this post, I leave you with a cute picture of Harper waiting to be smothered to sleep.

P.s.- Sorry about the poor quality cell phone picture. I hope to get a new camera on Black Friday.