J. Crew

Cortney and I have been wearing J.Crew for years. A great piece from J.Crew will last you years. Whenever we're in the store and we find a great pair of pants, we're always so torn about getting them because its double what we would normally spend on a pair of pants. We go back and forth on whether we should add it to our wardrobes or not. We have walked out of J.Crew many of times empty handed, but about 99% of the times we buy something (which is pretty rare) about 3 weeks later we realize we've been wearing those pants almost every day since we bought them. So in business terms, you really have to look at J.Crew as an investment in your wardrobe. That's what we told ourselves yesterday when we made 5 investments at the Crew.

Menu Plan Sunday

I have been horrible at planning meals lately. Horrible. The consequences of not having a menu plan are: chaos at dinner time, hungry husbands, many extra trips to the grocery store, and diets consisting of grilled cheese sandwiches and french toast. Not exactly balanced. On Friday I went through the freezer to survey everything we had and figured out a way to use all our meat, so I only needed to buy ingredients to go with the protein. Here's what's going on in our kitchen for the next week or so...

Sunday (Today)- Cranberry apple pork loin (gotta love the crock pot on fast Sunday) and asparagus.
Monday- Eat out with Dad-in-law
Tuesday- French Dip Sandwiches, asparagus
Wednesday- Shredded beef tacos (leftover meat from french dip sandwiches), tomato and cucumber salad
Thursday- Chili and baked potatoes
Friday- leftovers
Saturday- Basil balsamic pork chops, black bean and corn salad
Sunday- Chicken tortilla soup
Monday- breakfast
Tuesday- Shepards Pie
Wednesday- Ribs, rosemary herbed potatoes
Thursday- Grilled cheese with mozzarella, basil, and tomato, tomato soup
Friday- leftovers
Saturday- Chicken and broccoli, rice

Random Pictures

Will has become infatuated with sunglasses. Hee now has his own pair, but a lot of the time he begs for Dad's pair, like in this picture.

There was a really bad storm coming to Columbus and we were out running errands and it felt like we were driving into a hurricaine. The sky was completely black. It was one of those freaky, but very cool experiences.

Will, are you tired (he's laying down on our kitchen table)?

More CA

You can never have too many spaghetti pictures.

If you ever wondered what a daughter of ours would look like, here's a preview. Will loves playing with my head bands.

There's a new cowboy in town...and he rides a pink horse. Our friend let us borrow this toy for a while because her daughter didn't play with it anymore. Lucky for us!

Grandma Carma pushed Will around at SeaWorld till he fell asleep while we were petting sting rays. Good job Grandma!

Happy on vacation!

2009=Summer of Love

Many of my friends have probably thought "where is Amy? I haven't seen her in weeks!" many times over this summer, so I decided I would write about what I did this summer and why I've been so absent. When we moved into this house in June we had just finished a whirlwind experience called graduate school and seeing as how we graduated, moved, started a new job, and Cortney was called as the EQ president all in the same week, Will and I needed a break from life.

We slept in (like past 9) and took naps (2 a day sometimes), read books, and ran through the sprinklers every afternoon while we waited for Dad to get home. It was exactly the thing I needed- to just slow down for a little while.

After those first few weeks, I started getting back into my old routine, whatever that is. I was running errands, hanging out with friends, working up a sweat to cook dinner, etc. And then something happened. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, or how it happened, but it happened. There was a nagging something that just kept telling me to slow down and simplify my life and enjoy all my time with Will. Instead of bringing Will into my life and carting him around to all the things I needed to do, I needed to spend a summer in his world.

What happened this summer was truly amazing. I think there's just a special atmosphere during the summer that just lets everyone relax a little more, but this was more than that. I never worried about what to have for dinner- in fact, I hardly went to the grocery store and I can't remember how many times Cortney asked me if I had plans for dinner and I said, "nope".

I just treasured every single day. And I'm so not a mushy person! But there was just something about this summer that made me so sentimental. It was our time. Just me and Will. And I noticed so many small things that I probably would have never known had I not just followed that feeling of just relaxing. Here are some of them:

Will hates it when you grab his arm to hold hands, but if you pull out your hand and offer to hold hands, he'll walk with you anywhere you go.

Will remembers to say prayers at mealtimes better than I do. When I set food down on his tray, he automatically folds his arms, something I wish I had the habit to do every time I sat down starving in front of food.

He uses everything as a toy phone, even his hand. And he always hands whatever he's using over to you so that you'll talk on his phone.

Whenever he gets something on his hands, he holds it up to you like he's saying, "Hey, I have a problem and you're supposed to fix it!"

When we build towers with blocks and then knock them over, Will pushes off each block individually until he's destroyed the whole tower instead of just knocking them over all at once.

When Dad leaves in the morning, is walks over to the front window and watches him drive away.

His official vocabulary is: Amen, bye, hi, and yeah. He also mimics counting, which is really funny and I'm perplexed as to how he picked it up.

He whistles when he's excited. He also turns around in a circle when he's excited.

Fruit snacks can make any bad day better.

Pushing the stroller is much more fun than sitting in the stroller.

Will loves climbing into big chairs and sitting in them, strollers too. When we go to COSI, his favorite part is climbing into all the strollers parked at KidSpace.

Will goes down the big curly slide at the park all by himself. He crawls backward onto the slide and slides down backward on his belly. He feels so proud of himself when he gets to the bottom.

Will has also starrted a love for the garbage truck. He watches it from the window every week as it goes down our street.

I also read a lot this summer. About 2 books a month, in addition to BusinessWeek and the Economist most weeks. I know it sounds so corny, but I really can't put into words what this summer has meant to me. It was just perfect and it was such a great reminder of what I actually need in my day-to-day life, not as many things as I used to think. It was lots of cuddling, playing, laughing, and squeeling in delight. I am so thankful that I took a break for a while, and thankful for the prompting to do so, whether it was inspired or not.

Sea World

My mom and Dad took us to Sea World and this is at the Shamu night show. We had so much fun at SeaWorld and it felt good to reconnect with the ocean we miss so much in Ohio.

Easily my favorite picture from the whole trip. My brother Jared, his wife Tara, and our kids. I love it! My adorable niece Ava is holding her blue Shamu lunch box she got free with her meal. She was beaming all night holding that thing.

the stroller brigade. Ava in back. Lauren in front. Will riding solo. (but he's trying to take Lauren's binky, what a scavenger).

Will spent a good portion of our time in CA climbing into the recliners and after Cortney got there, we saw this picture quite often. Another favorite picture from the trip.

If you're wondering why I am wearing camo shorts and a teal t-shirt in front of the San Diego Temple, I have a few explanations. 1) we stopped here on the way to SeaWorld so we could buy garments. 2) I have a big problem packing clothes for trips. I seem to lay out lots of shirts and lots of pants and think, "great! I'm all packed!" but when I get to my destination, I realize that none of those items match and I end up looking like the picture above.

CA Trip

This is Grandma and Grandpa's Escalade. My grandparents bought it for my parents to have at their house for the grandkids to play with. Will was thoroughly entertained.
As you can see, the Escalade has its OWN garage door.
I guess my Dad started a tradition since I've moved away. Whenever he's around the kids when they take a bath, he combs their hair when they get out of the tub. This was actually the first time Will's hair has ever been combed as we don't even have a comb.
Its a little blurry, but Will has a Tupperware on his head.
Me and Will in front of the Root Beer Store.

CA Trip

In Temecula, there is "Old Town" which used to be the main drag back in the Wild West days. And one of the "hip" things to do in Temecula is to go and walk in Old Town. If you ask me, its completely over rated. the saving grace of Old Town in the Root Beer store. You can get any kind of carbonated beverage in a bottle there. Cort, of course, picked Coke in a glass bottle (his all time favorite form of Coke). Looks like Will takes after his Dad.
This is my nephew Clark wearing some goggles he found at my mom's. Clark used to have a "Lenny" complex where he would lovingly smother babies. I was very relieved he has grown out of this stage and it was great watching Clark and Will play together without Clark trying to squeeze him to death.
Will's favorite part of Grandma's house was the piano. We heard him play all day long.
My mom, Will, and Mae at Jacob's house.
Will on Clark's big wheel. Will was a big fan. We might have to get one of these.

The Many Meanings of This 'W'

Those of you who are up on your McAllister family history know that we are BYU fans. I don't know that we can claim the title of 'most fanatical' Cougar fans, but we definitely take BYU sports more seriously than we should. That's why Saturday's win over heavily favored Oklahoma means more to me than 1-0.

First, this has given BYU back the swagger it had through the 80s and 90s. I remember vividly watching BYU hold on to defeat Miami in 1990. I watched that game with my old man. That 3 hour game felt like a week long to us, we just wanted the game clock to read 0:00 and BYU to be ahead. I also remember being at the Ed in September of 2004 watching BYU play #1 ranked USC. Leading up to that game, there wasn't a BYU fan alive that seriously thought we would win that game. This win has changed that mentality. From now on, the Cougs will fear no team, tradition, field, or point spread.

Second, the Cougs are threatening to bust more than a BCS bowl game. College football fans have often hypothesized different scenarios by which the BCS will finally go away. Many people think that every year an undefeated team from the SEC or a 1-loss USC team gets shut out of the national championship game that we will finally submit to a playoff. Won't happen that way. But do you think that the power conferences will sit idly by and watch an undefeated and supposedly inferior BYU compete for a national championship without screaming in outrage? I don't know if BYU can hang on and win the rest of its games, but if they do, and the computers and voters are kind enough to put them in the top two, you will see massive unrest in college football.

Third, this game will most likely have a direct positive impact on my health. No, seriously. I told Amy that if the Cougs won this game that I would give up soda for a year. People have been asking me if I'm seriously going to do it. These people don't understand how bad I wanted this W...it'll be the easiest thing I've ever done.

And finally, this win did something I did not expect. It gave me a strange silent respect for the Utes. Hear me out. Those who know me know my level of dislike for the U. But after what they did to Alabama, and what we did to Oklahoma, two teams that are constantly despising each other for once have joined forces and served notice to the traditional powers in college football. The kind of respect that we are getting for this win perhaps would not be as great had Utah not throttled Alabama in January. And we will garner even more respect later this year if we beat them. Weird.

I read a headline this morning by Deseret News columnist Brad Rock that read something to the effect of 'chill out BYU fans, it's a long season'. I didn't read the column...I didn't have to. The season IS long, the Cougs DO need to bring it every week now because we have a bullseye painted on our heads. Bronco's job is to make sure that the team does not start reading its own press clippings. And after the way we trained in the offseason, and they way we played on Saturday, I have no doubt that they will be focused every week. But as far as I'm concerned, as a die-hard BYU fan that has been waiting almost two decades for a game like the one against Oklahoma, thanks Mr. Rock, but I will not chill out. In fact, I might just go watch the replay for the 17th time.

Friends Who Feast

These are our best friends the Dansies and the Staceys. One thing we all have in common is that we love to eat. Every 6 weeks or so we find a reason to get together a potluck to eat. Every time we do it I wish that we could eat dinner with them every night because all we do is laugh. Here are the girls: Me, Rachel, Reece, and Lauren.
And the boys: Brian, Davis, Andrew, Luke, Cort, and Will
The excuse for this current food gathering was the celebrate the start of football season the following week, where we would yet again, get together to watch the game and feast. Andrew is here tossing the pigskin with Davis.
Here is Brian telling Luke and Reece that they're engaged until further notice. The funniest part about this whole speech was that Reece was trying to hold Luke's hand the whole time and Luke kept pulling away. Don't worry Luke, you'll like girls someday.

I wanted to post pictures of all the food we ate. Here is the peach cobbler we had for dessert. This picture was luckily taken before it was devoured.
watermelon and carbonara. I love having friends who served missions in Italy.
Here is where the cheeseburgers and squash were before he inhaled them.
And the remnants of corn on the cob, chips, and apples with caramel.

If they manufactured little boys and there were varying degrees of quality, like some climbed, but then others climbed AND played with cars, Will would be the top of the line "Little Boy". This kid is positively 110% little boy. He climbs. He farts. He runs around with cars in his hands. He's squirmy. He loves mud. He doesn't like it when you hold his hand. He smiles when you're trying to discipline him. He loves his toy tool box. He makes all kinds of little boy sounds. He gives hugs at just the perfect time. He doesn't like to ride in the stroller, but loves to just push it. Anything "little boy", Will does to perfection.

*This picture was taken last month. As you can see he has one top tooth and one bottom tooth. Since this picture was taken, Will now has 6 teeth on top (including one molar) and 2 teeth on the bottom. He got 3 teeth in one week!