husbands say the darndest things

just got a new do. showing it off to the fam and got a good response. miranda said it was her favorite look on me...nick came in and said, "wow. didn't know i was married to a 70-year-old". devastated.

i think we can all agree that my baby is adorable. dare i say beautiful. beautiful.

rigby cousins

cousins, fish, sock monkey and santa

christmas is coming and zuri's getting fat. who would have thought that nick and i could create this cute of a thing. zuri is so much fun. she is constantly squealing, grunting and making new sounds. she is constantly wiggling her arms and legs and putting things in her mouth. she loves to eat the puff treats, drink from a cup, but she doesn't like baby food. she is already starting to do tantrums—when i take something away that she wants she does this high pitch squeal. cute now, but oh boy. in the last 2 days, zuri has started to get up on her knees. she will be crawling soon. she thinks her dad is the funniest guy. she loves to stare at miranda. what else...her hair is starting to fill in. it looks like she may have light brown hair. nick and i both had super blonde hair. interesting.

our house has started to move, since we hired a contractor. we've finalized on our kitchen cabinets, appliances and our hardwood floors. we love our contractor, but english is his second language, therefore nick is the one that communicates what we want, because when i try it gets funny. i had a nightmare that we went into our house to find all the wood things we had discussed with our contractor the previous night was done in ornate italian style carvings. it was intense and horrifying. suddenly nick appears with a huge letter explaining to us that he was going to jail and he needed to collect this money to support his family and that he was sorry. ha ha ha. good thing it was just a dream.

nick, my mom and zuri and i took advantage of the free day of the living aquarium in sandy. we pulled up (after making an illegal u turn with another car in front of a police officer—luckily nick turned into the parking lot the police car was and the other car was pulled over. sad for them. good for us. whew. the aquarium looked super ghetto from outside, but they did a good job inside. loved seeing the big turtle, penguins, sharks, octopus, and touching the stingrays. nick basically forced my mom to come with us, but i am really glad she did because it was a fun memory for us. thanks mom. the photo where i am totally cheesing it, is because my mom kept taking pictures of us and cutting off nicks head again and again.

i love sock monkeys. my mom has spent some good money for me on them and just bought me this awesome sock monkey hat for zuri. she looks adorable in it. i took her to the jazz game and she wore it and when i walked into the court and started walking through the row, the next 5 rows up stopped watching the game and started oohing zuri and talking about her. it was hilarious. people couldn't get enough of her for the rest of the night.

zuri finally met santa. my mom's hairdresser puts on an annual party with santa claus that we were able to go to. rex and rylin came with us and were jumping out of the car to see santa. rexy was a champ and grunted his way through the questions. rylin was up next and put on santa's lap and instantly started screaming and jumped off santa's lap and face-planted into the carpet. it was hilarious. sad, but i don't think that image will ever leave me. ha ha ha. i put zuri on santa's lap and she immediately fell asleep. nice.

nick started a month long rotation in medicine and we will not be seeing him much. he has to do a 30 hour shift starting on christmas day. boo. no worries. we have decided to celebrate our christmas in the middle of january. therefore, you are all welcome to join us. i have always thought christmas should be celebrated in january—the longest and most boring month of the year. just sayin.

well, i am off to wrap some presents and watch "". merry christmas you filthy animal. (name the movie)

oh. i want to give a shout out to my sister jackie. awesome. you made my day today.

boogedy, boogedy, boogedy, BOO!

happy halloween! zuri and i tricked grandma capeners house this afternoon and then treated ourselves to seeing nick at the hospital. my mom got zuri this costume that i saw online and thought "wow. that's rootin tootin cute". i like to talk as if i am an old gold miner to myself. we got it and she is adorable. i watched, with my mom, the movie "carrie"—which was more disturbing than scary. i had a huge scream at the very end because my mom screamed and it startled me more than scared me. we did manage to wake up zuri. he he he.

thought about last year and going around beggars night with the roses and i miss you liz, bob and co. hope you had a spooky halloween.

oh. last night i forced my parents to stay up and watch an old time favorite of mine. i watched "mr boogedy" on the disney channel back in the day and it spooked me to my core. i found it online and bought it and it did not disappoint. it was hilarious!

while uploading the photos to my computer, i noticed nathan and carries costumes and i have appointed them best costume this year. nice work. way to be inventive and awesome.

side note: doesn't my mom look beautiful. she's the best.

another side note: the few times i answered my parents door i was surprised to hear "trick or treat" and a bit disappointed to not hear kid jokes. oh iowa, you've tainted my halloween.

the vacation continues and my random thoughts

i am going to do this pretty choppy, but there is a lot to cover.

since we have moved to utah we have been living with my parentals while we found a house (check), fixed it up (not check) and move in (i wish). my parents have been amazing and so hospitable—that is why i still feel like i am on a long vacation. i keep having the thoughts while i am hanging out with family that i have to enjoy before i go back to utah and then i realize that this is my life.

i have loved being back in utah and having nathan and carrie back too. it is so much fun to hang out with the fam and spend time with my nieces and nephews. i am a huge fan of each of them.

we went to disneyland with my family during nicks one week of vacation. my parents got us a beach house right by balboa pier. it was so much fun to have nick around the whole time. we drove down and stayed in las vegas. zuri love love loved the lights. sensory overload. nick and i had a lot of fun driving down with heather and sean. in california, we spent a lot of time on the beach, surfing for nick, getting hurt trying to surf for me and trying to keep zuri sand free. disneyland was a lot of fun and california adventure was even more fun. it was great to be at disneyland for halloween and see the haunted house as nightmare before christmas. awesome. not awesome was my favorite ride, space mountain, great ride but the halloween approach to it was an anatomical man with no skin—nothing to do with fantasy cartoons or walt disney. we also went to an angels baseball game and had the pimped-out seats right on the field. it was amazing. not amazing—my dad and carrie getting hit by the foul baseball. luckily they were ok and a guys hand was the first contact and then their heads.

jazz games have started and it is the best to be living here and getting to go all the time. thanks dad.

i finally became a true monson and experienced the guy fawkes party at my in laws. it only took over five years to be a monson. it was a crazy party of eating delicious food, pies—my father in law made a banana caramel pie that left me speechless, and then throwing our own personal guy fawkes' in a fire. oh british holidays.

i would like to take this time to do a shout out to my sister marci. i love you. i love hanging out with you and it is great to be in utah hanging out a lot. can't wait to live in slc. i love that i make up the most random games with you and that you play them.

ok. lets talk baby talk. i love zuri. she is adorable. she has the biggest gummy smile and her eyes light up. all i have to do is look at her and she melts me with her smile. she thinks i am awesome. she recently found her toes and it is adorable. she has started to sit up and is grabbing everything (glasses of water, my hair, a random womans necklace we saw at church...). she also does this 2 finger sucking thing and somehow one other finger finds her nostril at the same time. she stays up til past midnight with me (like she is now and sucking her fingers smiling at me) and then we sleep in until 11am. she laughs for nick, my dad and my mom. she spent all day staring at my sister miranda. she is beautiful. i am obsessed with her. i miss the moment i have to leave her to go work on our house and i get so excited to see her when i get home. she is a perfect distraction for me with nick being stuck doing long hours at work. her favorite toys: the wet wipes, glasses of water, my cell phone, a baby ball toy that looks like a cat toy, and her baby princess ariel doll. she looks amazing in pink. yes pink. she is already growing out of her 6 month clothes. she loves being outside and looking around. if she starts to fuss, i take her outside and she immediately stops and we could sit out there for hours. she also loves the stroller ride runs we go on. she is very interested in jenga's ears and jenga has been so good to let her pull. the best thing is that she loves to snuggle with her mom.

nick: i miss you. i love you. thank you so much for working so hard for us. i can see that it isn't that fun right now, but just know that i appreciate you and i think about you all the time.

house update. i spent yesterday and today finishing the demo of some ceilings and walls. tried to clean it up for the furnace people to start soon. we have this huge old coal furnace that has been made into an inefficient gas furnace and we are having it totally removed along with all of the ductwork-starting fresh. i had my kitchen planned, but was not happy with the monotony of it and went to home depot and talked to the employed kitchen designer that i think is fabulous and he brought up all of my concerns i am excited to see where we are going with the kitchen. i need to post some pictures so that i can see the changes made.

this post is really boring. i think i have said what i needed to say. i miss you iowa friends. still think about you and the good times in iowa.

love spending time with family:

my nieces princess birthday party—happy birthday caroline

zuri working construction at the kids science museum in salt lake city

california and las vegas