we're still alive

hello--so its been awhile. i'm currently in utah to have christmas with andy's family. i don't really have anything to say, but i felt like i needed to post something so you would know we're still alive and kickin here in good ol spo-compton. i'll be back really soon with pictures. good times...for all of you of course :)

almost a disaster

so i set out to post a blog entitled "technical difficulties, part II" because the last time i downloaded the pictures from my camera onto the computer, they disappeared for what i thought was forever. my first thought was, where is one of those genius computer analyst/hacker people from 24 when you need 'em? it really is almost scary what they can do, but i really could've used their help so luke wouldn't know me as the person that lost a chapter from his childhood. how sad would that be? my second thought....well, i decided to stop thinking about it because it was just too sad. anyway, today i put the newest pictures on the computer and a little box showed up and said it was going to import all of my pictures...and lo and behold, the lost sheep were found! by lost sheep i, of course, mean the pictures that were gone forever. they're not gone! i guess i didn't need a hacker person after all. maybe i'm a technical genius after all. or windows vista is just really smart. we'll go with option 1 for fun and my own ego boost. long story short (or even longer as the case may be), all is well with the world, or at least the last month of luke's little life is safe and sound on my computer's hard drive. its a christmas miracle :)

happy december

wow, i can't believe its already december again. luke is over a year old, andy's almost done with school, and we still live in the ghetto...i mean...oops, did i say that out loud? its really not that horrible. its only semi-ghetto now. we actually cleaned up the place yesterday and actually organized the pantry so that more than my 6 qt crock pot fits in there. who'd a thought?
i got my first very own poinsettia from a girl in the ward who's trying to go to australlia with her choir. why the heck am i helping to send someone else to austraillia? when is my trip to austraillia? am i asking enough questions? sorry about that. i actually wanted to announce that thanks to a friend, i figured out that luke's first birthday pictures have been saved. they will be coming soon, so you all much anxiously wait in anticipation...or just check back soon and you'll see the cake baby :) happy december everyone! yay

bargain shopping

there must be some deal-seeking gene that i wasn't born with. i just don't get it. there are so many times when i compliment someone and they say, "thanks i got it at tj maxx for two bucks!" how the heck did they find tht billion dollar coat for 2 dollars when the only place i saw it at was retailing it for 350? i know what you're thinking, i should just go to tj maxx, right? wrong, unfortunately, i don't get that place either. i walk in and am immediately overwhelmed by the sheer size of it all...i give up after about two racks because i can't handle the pressure. sad tale i know. if i find something i like, its pretty much inevitable that first, its the most expensive thing in the store and b-its going to be completely out of stock by the time it would go on sale...so, then begins the battle in my mind. can i afford it? do i REALLY need it? okay, i usually don't need it, but i've gotten pretty good at convincing myself sometimes...and finally, i really should just get it now because it will be gone later. dangit!!
one of the solutions that i have come up with for my lack of amazing deal finding talent (should that have been hyphenated?) is to just put the blinders on until i get to the back of the store where the "clearance" resides. the deals kind of have a way of finding me that way instead of vice-versa. of course, that awesome shirt or pair of shoes for luke just happen to be right by the clearance rack and i'm back to square one.

baby gap...friend or foe

so, its been awhile...apparently i felt the need to state the obvious. as if you didn't know that i haven't been very good about writing everyday. anyway, onto today's subject--my new addiction...baby gap/children's place. i have become pretty obsessed with dressing my son like a trendy midget. i seriously might have something that borders on unhealthy. i can't stop looking online and checking out the baby section everytime i go somewhere. i guess i used to be obsessed with dressing myself so it seems only natural that the issue would transplant itself into making sure that my son't socks match the layering shirt underneath his sweater. yikes...is this a serious problem? if it is, its a cute one. i mean look at this kid...cutest thing ever, right? well, besides all of your little guys, of course. speaking of the little fashionista, he's sleeping at the moment so i'd better take full advantage and do absolutely nothing...i mean, the laudry and the organizing of course :)

vacation

hey everyone. just wanted to let you all know that i'm stuck in the 20th century at my parent's house where there is no high-speed internet...therefore, i haven't had much chance to post anything on here. i will try and take the opportunity while i'm at one of my brother's houses. luke's great. we're great. all is well :)

first steps

well, the day has arrived. my son is human after all. he really doesn't have to crawl around on all fours forever. yesterday, andy and i sat across from each other and decided it was time to prove that luke really has evolved from the four-legged creatures of the past. he took his first steps (with a little help from mom and dad...but who's counting? way to go luke

happy sunday

i love sundays. i'll admit, its not like i work so hard the rest of the week that i need a day off...its just nice to actually have a reason to not do anything but go for walks, hang out with my family and eat really good food of course.

loose cannon

today i felt like a loose cannon. do you ever have those moments when you really feel like the estrogen that is coarsing through your veins takes on a mind of its own? yeah, i had one of those...and as if the hormonal surge wasn't enough to send me into an emotional rant, add on hunger and fatigue as well as a fat day and you've got a recipe for something very scary. i was going to write volitle or some other intelligent word, but i wan't sure how to spell it and then i just decided to go with the next word that came to mind. anyway, we've been house-hunting lately and i found the home of my dreams...okay, well not really my dreams, i mean i do live in spokane after all people, but it really was wonderful. huge master bedroom with a walk-in closet (i've never been blessed with one), laundry on the main floor, room enough in the kitchen to actually put things away, etc...wow, anyway andy found several things wrong with it, of course and i, in turn, laid into him like there was no tomorrow. after all was said and done, the house was sold before we even looked at it. just goes to show ya, the estrogen rants just aren't worth your time or effort. they do seem to really work at the time that they are happening though. funny how that is...

sometimes its hard to be me

okay so that sounds pretty dramatic, but i really do have quite the dilemma. sometimes i just want to write about my day...you know; i woke up, ate breakfast, changed luke's diaper several times, etc. but there is this tiny little voice inside my head that says "say something funny, be witty." so you see, i can't just keep a harmless little diary when this pesky little writer inside of me won't leave me alone. i guess i shouldn't complain too much since that little voice is going to make me millions when i become a bestselling author in the near future...one can always dream, right?

little mr. independent

not to be mistaken with kelly clarkston's "miss independent" is my son, luke and his new independent phase...sorry for the reduncancy. i just can't think of another word for independent right now at this heinous hour, which actually in the scheme of things isn't quite so heinous because its daylight savings--anyway, the last few days i've been doing the little things that need to be done around the apartment in order to make it bearable for me to continue residing here, only to realize that little lukey isn't hovering around my ankles looking anxiously up at me as if to say, "play with me, pick me up, do something..." instead, he has actually been making his way on his hands and knees to his room and has proceeded to play with his mountain of stuffed animals and little tonka truck by himself. is this kid growing up before my eyes or what? i mean, what's next? his driver's license? one thing's for sure--he will definitly never cease to amaze me...you guessed it, my son's a genius :)

technical difficulties...

so apparenlty i wrote somewhere that i would be posting pictures of the lukeinator swimming in his first birthday cake. yeah, i pretty much suck. sorry guys. remember how i said that the big day kinda snuck up on me...well, one of the casualties of this was that i didn't have the camera with me. i know, i know i'm a horrible mother. who doesn't have their camera when their only child turns 1??!! its disgusting i know. anyway, all was not lost (or so we thought) because we had andy's cell phone which has a 2 megapixel camera and we had just received one of those fancy cards that you can save stuff to and then download onto the computer. i thought i was saved from mommy outer darkness-until i tried to actually put the pics on the little card...you guessed it, tara's luck reared its ugly head yet again...didn't work. so, now we have a bunch of blue cake covered luke on andy's phone and apparently no way to share it with the rest of you anticipating people. don't fear--i haven't totally given up, but i'm not really sure what else to do...so maybe that classifies as me actually giving up...oops. sorry folks. maybe we'll re-enact the fateful day and you can all pretend with me that i was a better mother on october 8th. no? well, you can't say i didn't try, right?

short and...not so sweet

this will probably be short and sweet. okay, so speaking of that phrase...does everything have to sweet just because its short? i mean, aren't there things in life that are short and not so sweet? like oscar the grouch for example. he is definitly short and most definitly not so sweet. 1-tara 0-phrases that really don't make any sense. score

a visit to the pumpkin patch

so technically the actual "visit to the pumpkin patch" happened last saturday at about this time, but i've waited until this moment to write about it for dramatic effect...or i just haven't written about it yet. yeah, anyway so my good buddies richelle and siobhan (you know who you are) came to visit last weekend and i told them that we would be frequenting a pumpkin patch and a haunted corn maze. siobhan responded with, "yay! i will bring my hiking boots!" well, alright then. i'm not sure what she was expecting. its not like we were going to be climbing mt. everest in search of the perfect pumpkin, but i went along with it anyway and decided if she wanted to bring her hiking boots, more power to her. little did we know, what she should've brought was a space heater and some long johns. it was freezing out there at the little patch. we had to bundle the little guy up to the point where "he couldn't put his arms down" (yes, that was a shameless plug for a christmas story...its funny though, right) anyway, we all froze our little selves just so we could say...well, mostly I could say that i went to a pumpkin patch. confession--i'm 28 years old and this was my first pumpkin patch...sad but true. i'm so glad i could get that off my chest. okay, so when the rain started pouring, we decided we'd had enough nostalgia for one day and decided to hit the road. i just realized that i'm not the computer that has the pictures from the fateful day among the pumpkins, i guess you'll just have to wait in suspense...i'm sure you will too:)

eureka

i haven't really done a lot of "brainstorming" for this entry, but seeing how i'm pretty sure that the only one that reads this is me, i don't think it is such a big deal. one thing that i would like to comment on, however, is how totally and unbelievably cute luke is in his duck costume. halloween kind of snuck up on me..kinda like his first birthday...and before i knew it, it was time to figure out what the little tike was going to be for the big day. i had seen this adorable turtle costume in children's place (is it okay to mention name brands in these things? am i infringing on some copyright law or anything?), but it was 20 bucks and i wasn't sure i needed to spend that amount on something that would only be worn once (for those of you that know what the wedding dress cost, mum's the word). so, i decided that i would keep looking and maybe get lucky and get the thing if it went on sale. with my luck, though, i wasn't really counting on it. anyway, the weekend before the weekend before halloween came up and i just happened to be in the mall, so i swung by "the place" to see if my costume of choice just happened to be waiting for me in the right size and at the right price. well, it wasn't...surprise, surprise, but someone must have known better than me that the duck was cuter and it just happened to be there...EUREKA! i don't think i've ever actually used that word before. kinda fun. okay, now that i've rambled on for longer than necessary, i will close. goodnight luke fans, until another day.

clapping, waving, and open-mouth kisses

don't be alarmed by the title. this post is not going to be pervocative (this is a family show after all). these three things jus happen to be luke's new trcks that he has picked up since turing the ripe old age of 1. i won't take this opportunity to mention that his cousin, who is a week and a half younger than him, has been doing all of these things for several months now...oops...anyway, luke has also dominated a milestone. he's made it to the 10th percentile for weight--up from the measley 5th percentile that he has been for so long. congratulations luke! maybe you won't be a midget forever.

ps the other boy in the pic is not luke's cousin--its actually a boy that is 2 months younger--go luke

patheticness

so, somehow i saved this until entirely too late yet again. this must be due to the fact that i am so busy during the day painting my house, canning, scrapbooking, saving endangered species...oh wait, i forgot, i'm not martha stewart/the crocodile hunter. yeah, unfortunately i'm just a housewife without any hobbies besides taking naps and walking/jogging occasionally. wow, that's sad. i'm sorry if i've forced all of you readers out there (are there any readers out there?) to pull out your hankies and weep for me and my patheticness. don't worry, i'm getting better. i've actually recently organized my place of residence and made it more kid friendly in preparation for my son to begin walking. i've had plenty of time to do this based on the fact that he still has yet to venture anywhere beyond where his knees and hands can take hime. he's been pretty slow with every other milestone as well; including reaching the 10th percentile for weight, which he just barely accomplished on his first birthday...congratulations luke! now, as far as a fifth tooth and taking those first few steps are concerned, time can only tell i guess. okay, now that i have digressed from my previous flow of thought--i guess that means it must be time to retire. my brain is pretty foggy thanks to the fact that it is far too late for a mother of a baby to be awake. there is that darned patheticness again...sheesh

if shakespeare had a blog...

well, here i am again. i guess this blog thing is really going to happen much to my own chagrin, and definitly against almost every fiber in my being that said i would never do it. oh well. i've decided that it isn't just for fun, however, or because i have succombed to be a member of the dot com generation. i won't be texting as my only form of communication any time soon. instead, i've chosen to declare it an occupational hazard...i don't think that is the proper term or that i really even know what that means, but anyway, point being--i'm going to call my foray into the internet diary world "preparation..." for my future stint on the new york times bestseller list. after all, every inspirational and acclaimed writer began their long, illustrious (is that right? definitly starting off on the right foot...) career witha blog, right? yeah i can just see shakespeare sitting in front of his macbook mulling over the details of his latest blog entitled, "to write or not to write." okay that was cheesy, sorry, its late and i really should be sleeping, seeins how my one year old will be waking up in t-minus 6 hours, if not sooner. goodnight bloggers and civillians alike.
parting is such sweet sorrow

okay, so i did it

yes, this is me, tara sutton--blogging. for those of you that know me, this may come as quite the surprise. this is partly because i'm not the most "organized" person...and by not the most-i of course mean not at all :), however, it is mostly because i swore vehemently that i was never going to be a "blogger" in a milion years. well, here i am. does that make me a conformist? a hypocrite? or just bored? i don't know, whatever i am, i'm blogging apparently. i figure that i have a hard time writing in a journal, trying to even begin a scrapbook, or doing anything that most of the new mommies i hear about do. i'm pretty average, i'll admit. maybe that's why this blogging thing might actually be doable instead of something to loath. so, i hope you enjoy. not like i think that my life is something to enjoy per say, but at least i have something to do while i'm usually sitting here thinking that i should have some sort of hobby and you will have something that might at least make you laugh.