For you, Mom

Since e-mailing a picture makes it lose it's quality, I've discovered this is a quick and easy way to give someone a picture. In this case, my Mom. Ok Mom, just click on it, so it opens in it's own window then just save it to your computer! Hope you can figure it out, and hope this picture works.

For the rest of the you who need an explanation, I will give one: My Mom is making a photo book for my bro who is on a mission. His "half-way" day is coming up at the end of August. She needs pictures of all his family and friends holding these signs. Kind of cute idea, huh?

Big Boy

Jaxon thinks he's a big boy now. Next time I'll post pictures of the huge mess he makes when he tries to feed himself.

The big 3!

Like my new look? Decided it was TIME. And the reason being was that I was sick and tired of having itty bitty little pictures on this blog. So, I had to change everything to get my pictures big. It really needed it though. Andrew thinks the owls are creepy, what does he know anyway?

Speaking of that guy, hey! I've been married to him for 3 years now! Yikes!

From The Talbi

I wanna say it's gone by fast. But has it? The honest and true answer to that is: NO. No way. Is that bad? I hope not. It's felt like 10 years. Or more. The reason being this: We have been through SOOOOOO much in those 3 years, it's not even funny. Well, actually it IS funny now. We look back and giggle.

Here are some of our adventures, obstacles, triumphs:

*The first 2 years of our marriage, lets just say I had a VERY, VERY hard time adjusting to the whole "in-laws" thing. It was rough, and many fights stemmed from that particular subject. I've matured a little, and everything is hunky-dory now, THANK GOODNESS FOR THAT.

*We haved moved. and moved. and moved. 6 times to be exact. St. George, then Logan, then another place in Logan, then Maryland, then Tennessee, then we split (he was in St. George, I was in Richfield for a month. No, we weren't fighting. We were trying to find a place.) Then St. George again, and now Washington (Utah). Good grief.

*We had a baby. Now, to those of you who have had a baby, you know that things get pretty ugly (physically, emotionally, etc!) Andrew stuck it out with me somehow through that gosh-awful pregnancy. And the 26 hours of labor. And the pushing. And the devastation of the pushing not working. and he was right there during the ever so traumatizing C-section. I wanna say Andrew is a trooper, but I think I get the points on that one!

*We've been across the country and back with a young baby. (there were NO airplanes involved). We saw and experienced all sorts of tests to our sanity on that trip. Findin out Andrew is NOT a salesman, then packing up and moving to Tennessee, where we were soon out of work, so then heading home, where there we had a ROUGH time finding jobs and a place to live.

*We've battled hobo spiders, cockroaches and now ants.

*We lived in Logan. That right there is a something to be proud of. (jk, I am just bitter cause I was pregnant. Oh, and I hate winter!) While suffering out the dreadful 9 months of winter, we really learned what "being on our own" meant. We were 4 hours from my family, 6 hours from his. We grew together so much.

*Andrew has worked his butt off. After Jaxon was born, he would work 16 hour days. When we moved back to St. George, he was working 7 days a week for a few months! We've experienced being over-worked and also being laid-off from work.

*We stuggled together with trying to make it to the temple. We would go up and down. Finally, we DID make it!

*We've dealt with wasting money on crappy cars, making stupid decisions about selling cars, and now being down to only one car.

*We've been to Yellowstone, Catalina Island, Las Vegas, and fun little other vacations. (Andrew held me when I cried and cried and cried after finding out my family was going to Hawaii, and I couldn't, because I had a new-born baby! Someday, we WILL go!)

*We've been through the ups and downs and parenting. We've had to make decisions together about what on earth we're supposed to do.

Sorry that was so long. I'll stop. I just felt like it was worth sharing. Even though maybe you don't. We got thinking how nice it would have been to stay put since we got married, had a plan in mind, and recieved tons of help with everything so we'd never have to worry. But , where's the fun in that? I know we would not be where we are today if we hadn't gone through all that! I almost for bad for couples that don't get to go through that. We've learned and grown SO MUCH.

ON with the acutal anniversary. It was great. We had planned on California, but had to cancel cause of that stupid stuff called money. But we did some AWESOME stuff anyway)

ZION:

this was where we got engaged. Way more memorable than California, anyway.

From The Talbi

From The Talbi

From The Talbi

From The Talbi

From The Talbi

We compared the trudging and struggling through this river, whose current was going against us, to our marriage. SAD!

Can I just say this was the COOLEST place ever! You get to cook your own meat right in front of you, and the FLAVOR! Oh my gosh. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. If you haven't been , you must go to the ANASAZI. Not cheap, but YUMMY!

THEN, ANNIE AT TUACAHN!

yes! We even got in free. Andrew got stand-by tickets at work. We had way way good seats. It was SO CUTE. Even Andrew liked it!

From The Talbi

what a FUN day that was. And it was spent entirely Jaxon-free. Thanks to Andrew's parents!!

From The Talbi

Thankful

Today I feel thankful. I have a lot to be thankful for.

Here are some of them:

* I have a cute, VERY SMART, sweet little man Jaxon. I am thankful that he is growing and learning so well. It's a fun age. He says EVERYTHING, and KNOWS EVERYTHING! He astounds me!

*Even though we had to cancel our California Anniversary Vacation due to lack of funds, I am still excited for that day, because we are still going to do some fun things. Hopefully it will be a day without Jaxon, spent together. That sounds exciting.

*I am so thankful to have friends. It was so fun to hang out like we did last weekend (twice!). It breaks up my monotonous week. Thanks, friends!

*I am so very thankful to be in these townhomes. For too long now, it has seemed out of reach for us to be accepted into these. Finally, this time, I guess our timing was just right mixed with a little bit of luck. I am so thankful to be paying less rent and live in these nice places!

*Yesterday, Andrew got called back to Wal-mart D.C. He goes in this weekend, and works his FULL part-time hours. YAHOO! That is definitely a big huge something to be thankful for. Now, maybe we can pay our bills without asking for any help! Yes!!

Those are the things I am feeling especially thankful for. Just had to share!

Quail Lake+BBQ+Friends

Friday night we went to Quail lake with friends! Jax & I had never been swimming there. It was gross water with crappy beaches , so I don't suggest it to anyone. Just keepin' it real is all. Maybe if you had a boat it wouldn't be so bad. I'm sure the middle of the lake is nice and clean. Who knows? It's not as packed as Sand Hollow. (my favorite lake ever, almost. But I think Bear Lake might take the cake.) It was fun though. And Jax sure wasn't complaining, well, only when it was time to leave of course! We missed you Kim & Cole!

Yikes! We saw a lot of these on the "beach"

Lil' Andy man doin what he does best....BBQing

The cute Kiddies.

Here are our friends: (This is for you, Felicia! you can have the others, too!)

I just love this overexposed photo of Andrew on the lake waving back at us. I really do.

GMA

GUESS WHAT?!?

Remember those pictures I took for the Amber Alert GPS project?

Well, my Aunt, who is the co-inventor I guess you would call it, (My cousin invented it, and they work together on it) is going to be on Good Morning America tomorrow (Friday) at 7 am! She said if they show any of their brochures or packaging, my photography will be on it!! Yay! I'm gonna be famous! haha.

If you haven't checked out the website yet (which soon my photography will be on that too!) , you should! It's a way cool product. I know they have a fan page on facebook too.

Way cool! I am so proud! My family is going to be on TV!

(They're putting this cute pic on the front of their packaging!)

Up-date

Amidst me taking photos like these,

Other stuff HAS been going on. I'm promise. I've just been really bad about it and really, really busy. I will try to fill you in on all the little and BIG occurences that have happened lately at The Talbot house.

First of all, we did move. And it was hot and crappy to move this time of year, but well worth it. We've made the goal to actually stay here a long while. I'm pushing for it to be the longest stay of my whole entire life. (We'd only have to top like 4 years.) Yes, I am so so so very sick of moving.

Story of my life.

And here she is. Our beautiful new townhome. No, we don't own, but this is the closest to a house we've ever had. It's not new either. But it looks like it. It's barely barely been lived in.

And what's this??!?! A GARAGE!! Yes, it's true. We have a GARAGE!

Here are a few other details I'm quite fond of:

The blinds. Now notice that these blinds are white. Not yellow. or brown. or dusty. or bent. or thrown up on. or who knows what else had really happened to our blinds in our last place. Whatever it was, it wasn't good and it wasn't pretty. I am so very thankful for these beautiful , clean blinds.

The cabinets. Once again, they are not yellow. or brown. or stained. Or stinky. or dusty. Or cock-roach infested. Or cock-roach poop infested. Nope. I actually stuck my nose inside and took a big whiff. All I got was the nice, comforting smell of new wood. Can you believe that? I'm still having a hard time believing it.

Vaulted ceilings. I used to consider these as something only rich people had. They're SO nice. They're so pretty. AND they make the place look bigger.

No this next picture was not taken on accident. I did indeed point my camera at the floor. I LOVE that we have tile. Yeah, what? You heard me, TILE. Real, live tile too. At least it's fooling me if it's not. And I don't really care. It's awesome. AND the carpet. The carpet is that short almost shaggy kind. Oh, it makes me happy. It's not the cheap kind. Once again, if it is, I don't care. It looks nice.

Here is Jaxon in our backyard without pants on. Yes, backyard!! We have our own space, shared with absolutely no one at all. Right here, I told Jaxon to pretend like he's playing. He's not really. It's waaaaaaay too hot for that. Maybe in a few months.

And here's the gate that keeps that stinky kid in. He can't escape! I don't really plan on leaving him out here in the St. George sun for too long , unattended, but I could. And that's the beauty of it. He can't get out! Am I mean? Nah.

Our new place didn't come furnished with a big-boy bed. We bought this. We thought what better time to get Jax started in a toddler bed? He's done pretty well in it so far. Well, with the exception of last night when I found him on the floor sleeping without blankets in this very same position! Cute bear!

During the moving process, I left for Richfield to take a gazillion pictures. Those can be found on my photo blog if you are interested.

While in Richfield, we celebrated the 24th! And again, another father-less 24th it was for Jaxon. Andrew had to stay in St. George and work. We went to the parade and saw some fireworks, both legal and illegal ones.

Here is a picture of the latter:

Sorry, this was the best I could muster up being tripod-less. No, still haven't figured out the human-tripod thing. Maybe next year.

And the parade.....

There is great fun to be had in small towns. Check this out. This was one of the many CLASSIC sights to be seen in the Monroe parade this year. Little old woman on a little wagon with a miniature horse to pull it.

Gotta Love it.


Uncle Tanner and Jax.

Lastly: Friends & the pool. Yeah you heard right, POOL! We have one. Ok, we share one with hundreds of people, but hey, what's the difference!?! We have access. No more sneaking illegally into pools. Not that we ever did that...


WHAT A BLAST! Many more FUN days to come involving this pool!

Now here is a very very Ultra gay photo of Andy and his friends. I thought they'd all enjoy this one. I can't possibly even imagine what is going on here, nor do I want to try. They're all very happy though, and thats what matters.

Here they are racing. Cause that's what guys do.

Here are all the cute boys havin some guy talk.

Here's Jaxon. This is definitely not one of his finer moments. His diaper was so full of water, and it somehow shaped this little bubble on his butt, making it appear quite big.

And that is the last of it for now. I will try to be better about up-dating like I used to, so that I won't always have to post 400 pictures all together like that.

Hope you are all doing well!