This time, for real

Almost didn't make it

2012-01-30T21:41:00.000-08:00

So it's the very end of the month, and I almost went without posting. This month has been a little too eventful for my taste. It started out with our annual empanada new years party. The empanadas this year were definitely the best that we've had, and the company was great. We had mostly neighborhood friends over for a change, which meant that Alice had a party of her own with all her friends upstairs. It was loud and crazy, but fun. While the party ended early so most people could get their kids in bed, Alice stayed up until midnight with us and watched the fireworks.

A few days later, the kids and I flew to CO to stay the night before catching an early plane the next morning to Orlando. Aidan decided to make the trip to Disney as well as a last minute add on, which sounded like fun, but ended up being very difficult. I'm not sure how Alice would do if she were in the same situation, but Aidan was very sad and ended up going home as soon as Michael could make it out to Florida to bring him back.

We had a great time in Florida, going to the beach, Disney World, and hanging out at Mom and Dad's new condo. Erik came down a few days after we got there, then left a few days before we did. Someone had to be home to earn the money for us to spend, after all! :)

Since we were flying stand by, we planned to stay a few days in CO visiting family and friends before going back home. Unfortunately, the flights were oversold after the first couple of days, so we waited it out. By the time the flights opened up enough for us to fly, though, Jack and I were both getting sick. Him with a fever of 102.5, and me with the normal congestion, runny nose, and a sore throat that radiated through my ears. I ended up at the doctor's office with a sinus infection, and after a couple days of Jack's fever not breaking, we took him in to the ER and found that he had 2 ear infections, which would limit how comfortably he would be able to travel. We decided to wait it out again. By the time he seemed to be doing better, Alice started with her fever and coughing. After a few days of trying to wait it out again, we instead decided that our best bet would be to drive, meeting Erik in Grand Junction so that no one was driving 16 hours in one day. Driving meant renting a car for the day since we can't all fit in a smart car. And my Dad very graciously did that and took the day off of work to get us home.

Of course, getting stuck at Mom and Dad's house is far from the worst place to get stuck. After a week, though, I was starting to feel as homesick as Aidan did on that first night in Florida (though I wasn't *quite* as emotional... barely...)

As we drove into our neighborhood, 2 and a half weeks after we left, I kept looking at the townhouses and it almost felt surreal that we were actually home, like the entire world had a slightly different color than I remembered it. It felt good to be in my own little house and see my neighbors and friends. I regret not being able to spend more time with my family and friends while I was in CO, but I really didn't want to pass that plague on any further.

The fun unfortunately didn't stop just because we were home, though. On our first day back, we took Jack and Alice in to the Dr. to recheck his ears and have him listen to Alice's cough. Jack's ear was not doing any better, so it is probably a good thing we didn't try to fly. Alice also had to get an x-ray to rule out pneumonia (again), which she thankfully doesn't have (again). She does have asthma, though, which seems to get irritated whenever she gets sick, thus making her cough non-stop. She is on a steroid and now has an inhaler to use as needed, which she hasn't actually needed more than a couple of times. I'm hoping that she will outgrow the asthma, or that it will at least not be bad enough to limit her.

Other than that, our month has been pretty chill. Relaxing, even. I was cleaning up the house a couple days ago, and Alice said, "Mom, who's coming over?" I told her no one, so she asked, "Then why are you cleaning up?" If only it weren't true.

The last piece of news from January is that I got a call from the HR department at jetBlue. They officially gave me a job offer! I am seriously excited. I'll be working full time for the training, then part time from home after that. It's not a very glamorous job (call center/reservation/customer service type stuff), doesn't pay very well, and the flight benefits aren't the greatest out of SLC, but if I view it as a long term investment, I'm really just building seniority so that when the kids are older (and we possibly live elsewhere), we will be able to fly. And in the meantime, it's a paycheck and it gives me some purpose besides being "Mommy"

Recap time?

2011-12-31T07:49:00.000-08:00

It seems strange to be writing a recap when I haven't written anything else on the blog for an entire year, though maybe that fact makes it all the more important to write my recap.

I very clearly remember the beginning of 2011 because the year was ushered in with a tragedy. A former coworker lost her baby to SIDS, which put my struggles with my own 3 month old baby into perspective. Every time I was about to complain that he was still waking up every 3 hours throughout the night to eat, I was reminded that he was waking up... and that I was blessed to not have to endure the alternative to that.

Alice turned 3 this year and she very definitely became a child instead of a toddler. I have loved watching her show what a great big sister she is and how genuinely she loves her baby brother, almost as if she were a second mom to him.

Erik's company was officially bought out by Echostar which afforded a great sense of stability that we had been previously lacking. It is a good feeling to not be constantly worried that your livelihood could at any moment be taken away. He loves the work he does and the people he does it for.

Jack hit all of the usual milestones... rolling over, crawling, walking, babbling, laughing. His personality is really starting to show now. He is much more stubborn than Alice and has a short temper. He is a VERY loving boy, though, and is constantly tackling his friends with unstable baby hugs and covering them in slimy baby kisses. He even made sure to give the picture of the baby on the box of diapers lots of love and attention.

I got to be present at the birth of my newest little nephew. It was a very interesting experience and baby Isaac is adorable. :) He's a cranky boy, but cute all the same and hopefully he will out grow his fussiness soon.

We also got to make a torturous drive up to Seattle for Shawna's wedding. On top of the usual bored children and restless adults, we also passed around a lovely 24 hour bug that made hotel stays and visiting family members less than pleasant. There are times when you just wish you could be in your own bedroom and bathroom.

Alice started dance lessons this year and loved it. She got to be one of 40 sheep at her recital in the nativity. It was chaos, but still adorable.

I'm not usually one for new years resolutions, but for the coming year, there are a couple of goals that I have in mind:

Be more punctual. I get anxious when I am late and it'd be nice to cut out one more source of anxiety, right?
Read to the kids more and help Alice learn to read.
Read to myself more. I saw this list of 100 books that everyone should read, and I'd like to start making a dent in it.

Other than that, there is of course the aforementioned goal to blog once a month.

Happy New Year!

What?

2011-12-30T00:37:00.000-08:00

Yes, an update. On our blog. Believe it.

It's no secret that I tend to leave all my updating on Facebook, but I don't want to let our blog die... even though it's been in a comatose state now for about a year. I'd like to be more on top of it here... I won't promise to update every day or every week, but I'll try to at least do a monthly recap. How's that for improvement?

So, while this may be seriously lame, but in an attempt to catch up on my blogging, here is a record of my status updates for the past couple years (yes, lame, but also kind of fun to read? Maybe??)

Those of you who are tuning out now, I promise my next update will be less 'copy and paste's.

Wed December 28, 2011, 11:39 am: Jack was captivated by me throwing a ball in the air and catching it (mostly) this morning. He even tried to duplicate it by holding the ball up really high and then dropping it. The result must have been satisfactory because he would clap every time and look at me with a face that said, "I did it!" I love my buddy.

Mon December 26, 2011, 2:07 am: Anyone have any good book suggestions?

Sun December 25, 2011, 2:43 pm: Alice slept in until 9:00 today. I didn't expect that Christmas gift :) Now time for naps and then we'll watch our new movie (how to train your dragon) while we eat the remaining stocking snacks. Merry Christmas, friends!

Wed December 21, 2011, 11:14 pm: "mom, you're prettier than anything. You're prettier than half a toast." Thanks, Alice.

Wed December 21, 2011, 9:57 pm: I'm loving my new laptop, especially the touchpad. It's so smooth!

Sat December 17, 2011, 11:24 pm: The recitals today were both successful. My second song was a little sloppy, but not too bad. Alice also started crying bc she couldn't find HER baby Jesus to dance with, but she recovered once we found him. Also, I know he's kind of slow in this, but jack clapped for the first time today at Alice's recital. I guess he finally saw something worth clapping for. :)

Fri December 16, 2011, 9:48 pm: Alice just told me she's gonna grow up to be a teacher. She says she wants to teach people all kinds of stuff and make them rainbow jello. Michelle, you've made quite an impression.

Wed November 9, 2011, 2:27 am: Fair warning to anyone Alice spent time with today: She woke me up about a half hour ago with the announcement, "I barfed". One of the hard parts about being a mom is that I couldn't shy away and say, "ew gross. Go clean it up," but had to put on a brave face and clean her up myself. Why does seeing someone else vomit make you feel like you're going to vomit? There must be some evolutionary purpose to that...

Fri November 4, 2011, 12:11 pm: "Good think these socks aren't silver, or our feet would get really cold!" So true. Wisdom of a 3 year old.

Wed November 2, 2011, 4:31 pm: Where was the proof reader on this paragraph: "Of course, you also need to do some exercises. No gyms, if you hate them. Just 30 hours of brisk walking everyday or every other day is enough. Riding a bicycle, even a statutory one, can help your body burn calories."

Wed November 2, 2011, 3:55 pm: My piano teacher is looking for some new students. If anyone around Spanish Fork is interested, I'll get you her contact information. She is very affordable and I've learned a lot from her :)

Mon October 31, 2011, 10:53 pm: Our porch light is off and some kids just came by trick or treating. It's 10:00 at night. Does no one know the rule anymore?

Fri October 28, 2011, 11:22 pm: I hate how catchy the song, "Pumped up kicks" is. The lyrics make me sick, but I can't get it out of my head!

Sat October 22, 2011, 7:17 pm: Alice: knock knock. Me: who's there? Alice: banana Me: banana who? Alice: aren't you glad I didn't say orange? So close.

Wed October 19, 2011, 11:56 pm: In Alice's prayer tonight: "Please bless that our legos won't get lost".

Sun October 16, 2011, 12:11 am: It should never take an hour to clean a kitchen as small as mine.

Fri October 7, 2011, 11:48 pm: Do any of you lovely people happen to work for jetBlue and want to write me a recommendation?

Thu October 6, 2011, 9:37 am: Alice looked at me very seriously, wiggled her eyebrows, then told me, "I said, 'I love you' without using my words"

Fri September 30, 2011, 11:25 pm: Salt and pepper pistachios are surprisingly awesome!

Fri September 30, 2011, 10:18 am: Alice just called Erik, "my big daddy bear"

Mon September 26, 2011, 10:50 am: A very distraught Alice just told me, "Jack tried to push my bones with his butt where my neck is". I don't thing that laughing was the appropriate response.

Wed September 14, 2011, 11:02 pm: In the fashion of "goodnight moon," Alice was saying goodnight to everything she could see today. Including the pile of laundry in the hall. we ought to write a second edition of that book that is more true to life...

Wed September 14, 2011, 4:37 pm: I had the most thorough teeth cleaning this morning at the dental hygiene school, thanks to Jacquie Easdon McArthur. If any of you are due for a cleaning, it's $10 and amazing :) I can get you her number if you want to schedule an appointment.

Wed September 14, 2011, 7:21 am: Looking for a last minute babysitter to watch my kids from 7:45 till 11:30 ish. Any takers?

Mon September 12, 2011, 9:52 pm: I love when Alice talks for jack. Thus evening. After we cleaned up all the toys, jack started pulling them all out again. This worried Alice, so I told her that he just doesn't know any better. She said (in his voice), "I know better. This is much better! Mwahahahaha!"

Mon September 12, 2011, 1:02 pm: Alice just gave Jack a toy. Jack threw it, so Alice said, "He's like, 'that's rubbish! no no!'"

Thu September 8, 2011, 10:18 pm: 5 things I like that start with the letter P- pooper scoopers pants pediatricians pens (I'm a little obsessed) pentagons like it and I'll give you a letter.

Tue September 6, 2011, 11:15 am: and ps: who lets their dog crap on the walkway leading up to someone's front door? seriously... If anyone ever catches me letting my dog do that, make sure I don't walk away without stepping in it first.

Tue September 6, 2011, 11:14 am: Oh the irony... I've been looking for cheap airfare to Seattle for months, and finally got an email alert for a round trip ticket for $168... 2 days after making the drive home.

Wed August 31, 2011, 10:44 am: "Mom, do we have Okie Dokie now?" "What's Okie Dokie?" "It's a movie that I saw a long time ago." "Oh... What's it about?" "It's about Okie Dokie." "What's Okie Dokie?" "He's a puppet made out of pine"

Sat August 13, 2011, 12:49 am: proud of myself and Eryn Stalker for our run today. We're on our way to a 5k :)

Fri August 12, 2011, 1:41 pm: Alice is playing with a toy rotary phone. She's sticking her fingers in the holes saying "beep boop beep" to dial the phone number. I think that the age of rotary phones is officially dead.

Fri August 12, 2011, 1:16 am: Anyone in the vicinity have a jogging stroller I can borrow for a couple days to see if it'd be worth it to find one for myself? :)

Sat August 6, 2011, 8:39 pm: Alice: "I saw an airplane made out of birds!" I look up in the sky an sure enough, there's a flock of birds flying in a v formation.

Thu August 4, 2011, 1:03 am: We need to do family pictures. Anyone have suggestions for a good and inexpensive photographer in UT? (We don't need tons of prints but would like to have the digital files)

Wed August 3, 2011, 11:35 pm: I turned off the ceiling fan in Alice's room because she wanted to sleep on the top bunk. As it was coming to a stop, she said, "It's going slower and slower mom...adagio."

Wed August 3, 2011, 3:24 am: I put both kids in the same room tonight awake and by some miracle, they both fell asleep!

Sun July 31, 2011, 3:28 pm: "But the mouse was still dirty, so he let the water run into the house next door" It's National Book Week. The rules: Grab the closest book to you. go to page 56. Copy the 5th sentence as your status. Don't mention the book. Post these rules as part of your status.

Thu July 28, 2011, 12:58 pm: I told Alice, "thank you for moving so quickly into the right spot." She thought for a minute and said, "is that the left spot over there?"

Mon July 25, 2011, 3:25 pm: The "whys" are getting a lot more in depth: "why is it cold in the morning when it's not winter?" and "why did you make a rule that if I can't buckle myself, I have to sit in the grey carseat?"

Thu July 21, 2011, 9:49 am: Yesterday, Jack took a 5 minute morning nap, then a half hour nap in the afternoon. This morning, he woke up at 4:00, thinking he was done sleeping for the night. Did someone add caffeine to the water here?

Mon July 18, 2011, 2:18 pm: Alice: Why does babies talk like that? Me: Because they don't know real words yet. Alice: Oh. I guess that makes sense.

Wed July 13, 2011, 2:24 pm: Maybe it's wrong, but I love holding my baby through his nap. He's so cuddly.

Tue July 12, 2011, 4:59 pm: Alice (speaking of Jack): "he's like, 'I have so much teeth now how bout I eat you?'"

Sun July 10, 2011, 3:32 am: Tried to adjust my nonexistent glasses for the first time today. I also keep feeling like I'm forgetting to take my contacts out at night. Even though my vision hasn't yet stabilized, this is awesome.

Fri July 8, 2011, 12:16 pm: I can see!

Thu July 7, 2011, 10:40 pm: 12 hour till LASIK time!

Thu July 7, 2011, 12:41 am: I got Jack out of the bath today and wrapped him up in a towel. As I turned around and saw myself holding him in the mirror, deja vu hit and I was suddenly holding my 10 month old Alice instead.

Wed July 6, 2011, 11:34 pm: Is it possible for a 3 year old to have insomnia? She is refusing to nap and keeps getting out of bed at night, yet she is cranky b/c she's not getting enough sleep.

Mon July 4, 2011, 2:11 pm: Erik and I were in the kitchen making a peach pie, when we heard some thumping around upstairs. We looked into the front room and saw only Alice--no Jack. I went upstairs to check and there he was, in the bathroom, banging a toy around on the ground. I guess it's time to be diligent in closing the baby gate again!

Fri June 24, 2011, 12:21 pm: Early this morning, I got to be there when baby Isaac joined the world. That is a crazy and amazing thing to see. Good work, Sarah! He's adorable :)

Thu June 23, 2011, 9:57 pm: Alice's conversation with a little girl in a play place: Kid: how old are you? Alice: free Kid: it's three, not f- f- free! Alice: I didn't say f- f- free. I said free.

Mon June 20, 2011, 5:31 pm: 9 new pairs of pants and 12 new shirts for Alice for $46. I love thrift stores!

Sun June 19, 2011, 9:26 am: Alice blew her nose this morning, then laughed and said, "my nose sounds like a tuba!"

Thu June 16, 2011, 12:36 am: I picked up a cranberries cd at a yard sale for a dollar. Alice loves it :)

Wed June 15, 2011, 12:00 am: I think our a/c is broken. Sad day.

Tue June 14, 2011, 10:35 pm: Alice wanted to read a chapter book that I was pretty sure was above her level for bed last night. I started out reading it, and wanted to test her to see if she was even following at all. I asked her, "What did Mrs. Brown say to Paddington?" She replied, "umm... she said, 'I am a child of God' or something". Yeah... we'll wait on that book for another year or so...

Mon June 13, 2011, 8:21 pm: Alice and I are watching "Tangled" for the first time in at least a month.

Sat June 11, 2011, 7:54 am: Why do my kids wake up at 7 now instead of 8?

Thu June 9, 2011, 10:33 pm: Surprisingly, Alice only asked me "why?" 27 times today... though it did increase exponentially as it got later and later in the day. oh, and she was at preschool for 1 1/2 hours and the daycare at Gold's Gym for the same amount of time. Still. Nowhere near what I expected :)

Wed June 8, 2011, 9:58 pm: Stay tuned, friends. I decided to count how many times my 3 year old asks, "why?" in one day.

Mon June 6, 2011, 10:35 pm: "Mom, why are we still on this Earth?" Good question, Alice....

Sun June 5, 2011, 3:51 pm: Came downstairs today on the way out to church and Duke had pooped all over the front room. Sometimes I wonder why I have a dog.

Wed June 1, 2011, 5:47 pm: Alice: "Can I go outside and just relax? Actually, I'm gonna play."

Wed June 1, 2011, 11:17 am: I can tell from our conversation this morning that Alice has been spending time with Erik Heppler: Alice: (pointing at the picture on my glass of milk) That's a yellow mushroom. Me: Yes, it is. Alice: Some mushrooms are red. Me: In Mario, they're red. Alice: And some are brown. Those are the goomba mushrooms and they're really bad. You have to run away from them.

Tue May 31, 2011, 10:59 pm: We are never skipping naps in our house again...

Tue May 31, 2011, 10:50 am: watched, "I am number Four" yesterday and it was totally dumb. I could see how it had potential, though. Has anyone read the book?

Sun May 29, 2011, 2:49 am: Quote from a knife informercial: "My wife bought a bread machine, and we quit using it cuz neither of us could slice hot bread"...

Sat May 28, 2011, 7:02 pm: Erik told Alice, "I love you so darn much". A couple minutes later, Alice asked, "what does that mean? Darn?" Try explaining that to a 3 year old. She has since tried using it in a couple sentences.

Thu May 26, 2011, 5:54 pm: I wish for a clean house.

Fri May 20, 2011, 10:40 pm: I'm watching videos of Alice at 8 months (and older) and it's crazy how much her and Jack are alike, both in how they look and their voices. Their facial expressions are so similar, too. You can definitely tell that they are related.

Thu May 19, 2011, 11:53 pm: I hope I'm not the only one who thought that tonight's "Bones" was totally stupid.

Thu May 19, 2011, 9:03 pm: Just played "Old Maid" with Alice and she totally got it. I know it's not a difficult concept or anything, but it still made me proud. :)

Mon May 16, 2011, 10:18 am: Today, jack is finally consistently able to crawl forward. He had a month or more of really trying to get that motion down and he finally got it. :)

Sun May 15, 2011, 12:19 am: My inner english teacher dies a little every time I see someone type "would of" instead of "would've".

Wed May 11, 2011, 10:00 pm: Both my children went down to bed SO easily tonight! Maybe they were making up for the crazy day that we had with friends. :)

Sun May 8, 2011, 8:48 pm: Why do people say defiantly instead of definitely? I can understand definately, but not defiantly.

Thu May 5, 2011, 11:48 pm: Jack was incredibly easy to put to bed tonight. Thanks, Jack. Alice, on the other hand... I guess I can't have it all! Though she did correct me when I said, "I love you, too" and made me say, "I love you too, baby girl" instead :)

Thu April 28, 2011, 11:16 pm: I love poison control....

Wed April 27, 2011, 1:01 am: Had a LASIK consult today. I am very seriously considering it. How many of my facebook friends have had LASIK?

Mon April 25, 2011, 2:33 pm: Who wants to play heads up seven up?

Sat April 23, 2011, 12:14 am: Why does my baby have to be a tummy sleeper?

Mon April 18, 2011, 1:26 pm: Alice: "Ok, daddy. Here's the thing. If you're so hungry, you can eat noodles, or oatmeal, or hmm... cheese"

Sat April 16, 2011, 9:47 am: turned on the TV and saw the dish "your receiver is turned off" message. Alice looked at it and said, "It says: you can watch Tangled... on DVD BluRay"

Fri April 15, 2011, 10:00 am: Jack is a super scooter! He's rolling/scooting/backward crawling all over!I love that baby boy <3

Thu April 14, 2011, 11:46 pm: Round 2 with the pneumonia started today. This time, we'll knock it out with a stronger antibiotic.

Thu April 14, 2011, 10:41 am: I love watching Jack reaching for his toys, and trying everything he can to get them. Of course, all he needs to do is be anywhere near Alice and she will hand them to him.

Sun April 10, 2011, 9:02 pm: Do any of you have an extra set of Tangled lithographs that came with the pre-order of the movie at the disney store?

Fri April 8, 2011, 3:06 pm: Poor little jack got 4 shots today. He's staying constant in percentiles: 50th for height, 55th for weight and 95th for his massive Oviatt noggin. Alice came up to me a minute ago and said, "2 bandaids plus 2 bandaids is 4 bandaids." Maybe it was luck. I had do idea she could add.

Thu April 7, 2011, 2:43 pm: Heard Alice say, "I'm stinky," so I turned to her and said, "why?" just in time to see her open Daddy's deodorant and attempt to lift her shirt and swipe it under her arms. Better too early than too late, right?

Tue April 5, 2011, 5:34 pm: I feel so weird driving a minivan.

Sat April 2, 2011, 10:03 am: I love our pediatrician. :)

Fri April 1, 2011, 10:12 am: Spent 4 and a half hours at the er last night. Alice has pneumonia, and will be feeling better after a round of antibiotics.

Tue March 29, 2011, 3:32 pm: Audrey is the coolest ever!!!

Thu March 24, 2011, 1:06 am: Alice left her shoes under Erik's boss' desk yesterday when we went to meet him for dinner. When Erik got to work today, they were filled with candy. :D

Mon March 21, 2011, 4:57 am: fell asleep at 8:30 with the kids... now I'm awake, and I'm really awake. What do I do?

Thu March 17, 2011, 11:17 pm: We just ordered Alice's first book order books. I'm so excited!

Tue March 15, 2011, 6:35 pm: Accidentally ordered the 1/2 lb at smash burger. Holy huge. The patty was the size of a dinner plate.

Mon March 14, 2011, 8:39 pm: We're driving through pleasant grove and Alice said, "I see a 'g' on the mountain, daddy!"

Sun March 6, 2011, 11:32 am: We watched "Remember Me" last night, but the disc was scratched, so it skipped a couple of big chunks. I thought it was really good though. Very interesting.

Fri March 4, 2011, 7:48 pm: Alice: "if I die, then I won't be able to watch my shows and you will just watch my shows when I die, right mom?" .......

Wed March 2, 2011, 12:33 am: I love playing family feud with my dad... to the question: "name a handsome cartoon character," he replied "George Jetson".

Mon February 28, 2011, 2:03 pm: Just finished the last Harry Potter, and yeah.... I cried.

Sat February 19, 2011, 12:56 am: I love babies.

Wed February 16, 2011, 10:52 pm: I'm hearing an awful lot of sirens....

Wed February 16, 2011, 5:06 pm: Breaking out the Beatles, America, and Neil Diamond. Wish you were here to enjoy torturing your teenage son with us, Dave.

Tue February 15, 2011, 9:59 am: Alice made up her first knock knock joke that actually made sense! Knock Knock? Who's There? Raz. Raz Who? Raspberry! I'm so proud.

Thu February 10, 2011, 10:34 pm: I left Alice in her bed tonight to go get jack, who was crying. Alice told me, "don't forget to say the magic word to jack so he will be happy. Say 'pocus pocus'". It didn't work. Some magic.

Fri February 4, 2011, 3:40 pm: I have a baby that doesn't want to nap anywhere besides in my arms. Good thing all I want to do is hold him :)

Fri February 4, 2011, 2:03 am: Just finished the 4th Harry Potter book. That's right, I'm only 10 years late, but I'm finally reading them.

Thu February 3, 2011, 9:41 pm: "You know we're gonna fall off this Earth, Mom. We're gonna fall off this Earth." I sure hope not. I don't know where she got that idea.

Thu January 27, 2011, 11:22 pm: I love how Alice stares lovingly at Jack... and vice versa. The other day, when they were in the car, she said, "I love that boy". She's such a little Mommy.

Thu January 27, 2011, 10:27 pm: My baby loves baths! He saw Alice taking a bath and started laughing and kicking, so I put him in with her and he just kicked and splashed her, laughing the whole time--even when she was splashing him :)

Sun January 23, 2011, 10:05 pm: Alice tried some salad today and actually enjoyed it. Though we may have put too much dressing on. She said, "I like ranch with lettuce on top".

Thu January 13, 2011, 11:29 pm: To those of you who are interested: We're going to do dinner on Saturday to celebrate my birthday. We're going to Sakura in Orem at 6:00. They have more than just sushi for those of you who are non raw fish eaters :)

Wed January 12, 2011, 11:27 pm: One of fox news' top stories this evening: A giant baby anteater was born at a zoo in Sweden. He will spend up to a year hiding in his mother's coat... Slow day?

Wed January 12, 2011, 10:55 pm: Alice had some water before bed tonight and I told her "not too much, or you'll have to go potty in the middle of the night." She replied, "I just drank a little bit so I can have more energy."

Tue January 11, 2011, 11:30 pm: Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. We spent the day celebrating alice's birthday. How is that fair? :) Those of you in Utah, though, we will be going out on Saturday and would love to have you join us. I'll post more details when we have them

Fri January 7, 2011, 8:59 pm: My little boy loves baths. I put him in the tub today and he was so happy he was laughing. Then when he splashed himself by kicking so much, he'd suck on his lips to taste the water. It was so cute :)

Wed January 5, 2011, 12:45 pm: Went to a baby funeral today. So sad.

Tue January 4, 2011, 5:43 pm: We just got a garden gnome at costco. Alice named him Spriton.

Fri December 31, 2010, 6:51 pm: loving my Kindle

Wed December 22, 2010, 7:13 pm: Alice just recited the pledge of allegiance. Where did that come from?

Mon December 20, 2010, 9:13 pm: My daughter shares in my love for pomegranates.

Mon December 20, 2010, 12:53 am: Does anyone in the area have a serger and about 10 minutes to serge something for me? It's for the cub scouts, so you can feel all good about serving afterwards ;)

Sun December 19, 2010, 6:44 pm: The tv is sold. Thanks everyone!

Sun December 19, 2010, 11:40 am: We are selling a 52" LCD 1080p TV if anyone is interested. It's in great condition... Erik won it at a work party but we like the one we already have with the built in surround sound better. :) I think he was thinking $600

Fri December 17, 2010, 9:41 pm: I love Baby Jack.

Fri December 17, 2010, 9:28 pm: I said to Alice, "I love you sooo much!" She replied: "I love you so much and a half!" ;)

Thu December 16, 2010, 10:11 am: Alice just told me "you have a neck and a chin". Always good to know.

Tue December 14, 2010, 4:09 pm: No tv so far today. It's been so nice!

Thu December 9, 2010, 12:24 pm: I have some formula to give away. All in unopened sample cans that I have been given for Jack but will not use. I have: 2 Enfamil Premium, 1 similac advance, 1 similac sensitive, and 1 good start gentle plus. Anyone who wants any of them, let me know :)

Fri December 3, 2010, 3:40 pm: K I know that this doesn't do much for child abuse, but here it is: Change your FB profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood.the goal? not to see a human face on FB till monday, December 6th. join the fight against child abuse, copy and paste this to your status to invite your friends to do the same

Thu December 2, 2010, 8:42 pm: Alice just came up to me with a straw. She blew in it and said, "It's like a flute, Mama. It's like a straw flute. It's kinda like an instrument"

Wed December 1, 2010, 10:50 pm: Wisdom of a 2 year old: suckers stick to tongues and really stick to hair.

Wed December 1, 2010, 6:33 pm: I'm working with a personal trainer. My legs haven't been this sore in a long time.

Mon November 29, 2010, 2:01 pm: Alice said about jack today: "mama, I was just using him for a stool!"

Sun November 28, 2010, 11:22 pm: I was changing jacks diaper in the bathroom at church. A lady walked past and said, "what a cute baby girl". When people get the gender wrong in babies, I never get offended, but I was baffled that she could get it wrong when his entire bottom half was exposed.

Mon November 22, 2010, 2:37 pm: So, say that you rent a car and you find a wallet inside. You decide to use the credit card inside to go shopping. After you are done with you shopping trip and you return the rental car, what do you do with the wallet?

Fri November 19, 2010, 10:19 am: Like my status and I'll tell you: 1. Something I've learned about you from looking at your wall for 13 seconds 2. The color of which you remind me 3. My first memory of you 4. The animal of which you remind me. 5. My favorite thing about you. (Yes, I finally gave in...)

Thu November 18, 2010, 7:13 pm: Don't ever leave your wallet in an Alamo rental car.

Wed November 17, 2010, 2:07 pm: where do you get an infant's hair cut?

Tue November 16, 2010, 10:34 am: peeling sunburns suck

Fri November 5, 2010, 8:40 pm: As sweet as it is seeing jack smile, it was even sweeter seeing the look on alice's face when he smiled at her for the first time.

Wed November 3, 2010, 10:52 pm: Everybody needs an uncle Jared.

Tue November 2, 2010, 12:53 am: watched The Lovely Bones yesterday. It was sad and creepy but also uplifting. I'm still not quite sure if I liked it, though.

Sun October 31, 2010, 2:18 am: When I opened the door to leave today, I saw some trick or treaters that were about to knock but I had startled them, so I said, "Trick or Treat!" to them. They looked at me like i was totally lame. That's when I realized that I'm turning into Gary Oviatt

Sat October 30, 2010, 2:56 am: I was singing pearl jam: "don't call me, daughter..." and Alice sang back to me, "ok, I won't call you daughter"

Wed October 27, 2010, 2:31 pm: I was kissing Jack on his chin today and he gave me a big smile with a coo. I love my baby.

Wed October 27, 2010, 2:21 pm: Alice walked up to me today and said, "Surprise!" and showed me our computer mouse which she had colored pink with lipstick....

Tue October 26, 2010, 12:22 am: After her bath today, Alice walked back in the bathroom, reached into the drawer, grabbed a q-tip, and wiggled it around near her ears. She then threw the qtip away and walked back to her room. I haven't ever cleaned her ears with a q-tip, but I guess she's an observant girl. :)

Fri October 22, 2010, 2:03 pm: You know those status updates that say something like "90% will not copy and paste this"? Where do they come up with that statistic?

Tue October 19, 2010, 8:33 pm: Alice just asked me what I'm going to be for Halloween. She didn't seem to accept my answer when I told her I'm going to be Mommy.

Mon October 18, 2010, 6:04 pm: What do you do when both kids are asleep in the car when you get home? Surf facebook on your phone, of course.

Thu October 14, 2010, 2:48 pm: I love that when jack is hungry, he just looks at me and opens his mouth like a baby bird.

Mon October 11, 2010, 11:17 pm: Alice has had a problem with arguing lately. I told her for the bajillionth time today that she needs to stop arguing with me and she said, "I love you, but... i can't stop arguing." Good thing I love my 2 year old.

Fri October 8, 2010, 5:54 pm: Alice watched me change Jack's diaper today and said, "His crotch looks like a nose! Thats so silly."

Wed October 6, 2010, 6:31 pm: I love watching Alice run so excitedly off to preschool. Thanks, Michelle Holmes Roper

Thu September 16, 2010, 5:41 pm: Within a week, I will have this baby. My induction is set for next Thursday if he doesn't decide to come on his own.

Wed September 15, 2010, 12:09 pm: According to Alice at preschool today, mommy likes to have baby jack, daddy likes to get his phone, alice likes to play with toys, and as a family, we like to cook food in the kitchen and cuddle.

Wed September 15, 2010, 2:17 am: What do you do when the baby iso moving so much that you can't sleep?

Mon September 13, 2010, 1:09 pm: Alice is playing with some of her little princess figurines, one of which is Ariel from the Little Mermaid. I heard her saying "And you don't have a tail, huh? No, just a butt" I guess mermaids don't have butts.

Sat September 11, 2010, 1:46 am: gah! I cut a jalapeno a couple hours ago and somehow some of the oils must have made it onto the backs of my knuckles b/c they are just burning and won't stop!

Fri September 10, 2010, 4:57 pm: Paid my ticket today. now I can just pretend it never happened, right?

Mon September 6, 2010, 10:20 pm: Thanks to my little toddler parrot, two of the phrases I've learned that I say all the time are, "you know?" tacked onto the end of a sentence and, "or something like that".

Fri September 3, 2010, 10:07 pm: Did anyone in the neighborhood hear any more about a park being built nearby?

Fri September 3, 2010, 1:00 pm: After being awake for less than an hour, I had to take a nap. I had a dream that I was dusting the house. At least in my dreams, I am not a lazy person.

Tue August 31, 2010, 5:36 pm: Alice is making little guns out of her fingers and saying "pew pew.... is this how pew goes?"

Tue August 31, 2010, 11:05 am: Why is pregnancy so exhausting? I can't get anything done without having to stop and lay down.

Mon August 30, 2010, 8:13 pm: Alice woke up from her nap today and in her half asleep state was talking about crayons and a chart. It must have been a good dream. :)

Sat August 28, 2010, 4:56 am: I got my first ever speeding ticket today... I tried really hard not to, but I cried and felt stupid. At least the officer was super nice. He probably saw my 8 mo pregnant self and wished he had never pulled me over.

Sat August 28, 2010, 4:16 am: To the mice: Don't come in my house. But if you do, when you get caught in my trap, please die. I don't like coming home to find that my trap is not where I placed it and then see you in it a foot away, desperately wiggling around, looking at me like I'm gonna help you. Ok, so yeah I felt bad... but like I said: Don't come in my house.

Fri August 27, 2010, 2:38 am: I HATE mice!

Thu August 26, 2010, 1:42 pm: So my feet hurt, which concerned Alice. I told her that sometimes, when you have a baby in your belly, it makes your feet hurt. She informed me that she has a little crystal baby in her belly. I asked her what the baby's name is, and she replied "Gurney".

Wed August 25, 2010, 1:37 pm: Alice and I are watching "super why," and they took the word "chairs" and were going to change it, so they took off the "ch" and put on an "st". The character asked "what's this letter?" and highlighted the "s". Alice said, "um..... stairs!" Has she seen this episode before?

Mon August 23, 2010, 3:42 pm: Thanks to Brad Newbold, Alice was playing with her princesses today and they were talking about going "to the moon!"

Fri August 20, 2010, 10:50 pm: Does anyone know a cheap place to get safety and emissions inspection around provo? :D

Tue August 17, 2010, 11:43 pm: I saw a spider's web today right by the front door with lots of tiny bugs in it, and for a second, I was glad for the spider keeping the bugs out of my house. Then I realized that the spider IS a bug, and i vacuumed up his web.

Tue August 17, 2010, 1:34 am: actually put away the laundry today... the SAME day I washed it! (It's the little things...)

Fri August 13, 2010, 5:16 pm: Friday the 13th and my 5 year anniversary. spoooky....

Fri August 13, 2010, 1:32 am: Alice just woke up crying. I asked her what's wrong and she said "I want to go potty!" Poor thing...but on the other hand, I'm really proud :)

Wed August 11, 2010, 7:21 pm: I went to the AT&T store today to upgrade my phone. Alice asked me "are you getting a new phone?" so I said, "yep". She said, "Does your new phone have games?" I told her that yes it does, to which she replied "good". Yes, now I have a fun phone just like daddy :)

Sat July 31, 2010, 12:21 am: anyone know of a good place to get a pedicure in Provo area?

Thu July 29, 2010, 1:36 pm: Heard back from medicaid and I was approved! Now to find insurance for the rest of the family and we are good. :)

Wed July 28, 2010, 5:57 pm: *sigh* One more day to wait? hopefully? The unemployed/uninsured thing is stressful.

Tue July 27, 2010, 1:53 pm: waiting, waiting... checking and waiting some more.

Mon July 26, 2010, 5:56 pm: Erik's gone to a "final interview" with the company that we would really like him to work for. The recruiter says he was the only one called back, so it should be good news. I just hope it really is and i"m being cautiously excited.

Mon July 26, 2010, 9:36 am: should get the medicaid verdict today. It's also the beginning of the week, which means that this week we should be hearing on 2 jobs that Erik interviewed for...

Sun July 25, 2010, 12:30 pm: Watching 'the little mermaid' now as an adult, I find myself realt sympathizing with triton.

Sun July 25, 2010, 2:45 am: potty training is exhausting. Mostly mentally, but a little physically too. Alice was a trooper all day and I think we are making progress.

Thu July 22, 2010, 9:44 pm: Does anyone have a copy of the little mermaid on DVD that we can borrow? Alice has decided that it is her favorite (based on a book and the soundtrack) but she has only seen the movie once at grandma's house. I'll repay you in some way, I promise :)

Mon July 19, 2010, 10:06 am: For some reason, Alice has decided that our digital camera is her baby... She's named it Roxy (everything is named Roxy lately...) and the case is Roxy's jammies.

Wed July 14, 2010, 6:38 pm: I love hearing alice's little chatters while she's playing with all her little disney figurines... some thing's I've heard: "aaah!!... Don't worry, I've got you" and "I'm sorry, I have to go to work" Right now, she has 2 of them hooked together by the feet, and one of them said "we're stuck at the foots"

Tue July 13, 2010, 1:26 am: Alice said 'ow' today and pointed at her chest. I asked why it hurt. She said 'because I want to shake it' then started singing shake your booty. Crazy child.

Sat July 3, 2010, 2:14 pm: Looks like the powers that be have received all of our medicaid/CHIP application paperwork. Anyone know how long it takes them to respond to that? Losing our insurance is by far the biggest stress I've had this week, what with the $25,000 medical bill that is coming up in September...

Wed June 30, 2010, 11:49 am: Erik's at work picking up his stuff and a packet of info on why the company was dissolved... 2 weeks severance, woo hoo! Anyone know of someone hiring a unix/linux admin guy? (He knows better what he can do than I do)

Tue June 29, 2010, 11:52 am: about to go back to take my hour 1 glucose test. ugh....

Mon June 28, 2010, 11:47 pm: Alice: You need to give me a bath! Me: Oh really? Why? Alice: Because I want to be nice and clean.

Thu June 24, 2010, 6:27 pm: Does anyone want to take over our tmobile contract? $60/mo plus taxes for 500 min and unlimited texting on both lines. We'll give you both of our blackberry curves for free. Let me know :)

Thu June 24, 2010, 10:02 am: Waiting to have my blood sugar tested at the dr's office...

Thu June 24, 2010, 1:01 am: When I put alice down for a nap today, she said, "I get to cuddle with my nice, warm mommy" and then called me her "comfy, cozy mommy".

Wed June 23, 2010, 8:08 pm: I just patted Alice's bum as she walked away from me, and she turned around and said, "Aw, Shucks!"

Tue June 22, 2010, 6:31 pm: Alice has been talking in gibberish lately, so I was talking to erik about it in the car. Alice said, "I'm not talking gibberish. I'm speaking spanish" Too bad she doesn't really know spanish or maybe we'd be able to understand some of what she's saying!

Sun June 20, 2010, 1:41 pm: Alice just told me " Elliot Jane Nielsen and Suzette Cook gonna be here in 40 minutes" Does she know something I don't?

Wed June 16, 2010, 9:33 pm: Loves how well Alice and Elliot Jane Nielsen play together. I think Alice will be a good big sister :)

Tue June 15, 2010, 2:29 pm: Alice's first word when she experienced glow-in-the-dark for the first time: magic!

Sun June 13, 2010, 12:43 am: k I'd want one. :)

Sat June 12, 2010, 8:48 pm: Just ran into a couple with 2 newfoundlands. They are humongous, drooly, fluffy, and so adorable! I can't see myself vacuuming up all that hair or I thin

Wed June 9, 2010, 12:34 am: Alice wanted me to sing her the "mario song" for bedtime tonight. Ever since she's been staying home with daddy during the day, her tastes have changed...

Sat June 5, 2010, 9:28 pm: I have so much motivation to clean... but as soon as I do 1 thing, my back just hurts too much to do anything but lay on the couch.

Mon May 31, 2010, 12:13 pm: I gave Alice a piece of bread and she wanted peanut butter on it, so I put some on and then folded it in half and said, "There, it's like a sandwich!" She said, "It's not a sandwich. It's bread". How could I have thought otherwise?

Sun May 30, 2010, 7:51 pm: Gestational Diabetes is here... I was feeling all shaky before I ate a late lunch today, so I tested my blood and was at 66. Ooops...

Fri May 28, 2010, 9:29 pm: Out of the blue, Alice said: "Paws... Doggy has paws... I have feets!"

Thu May 27, 2010, 4:38 pm: anyone know where to buy compost worms in utah?

Tue May 25, 2010, 11:27 pm: Baby Jack has been soooo active today. Who knew that my uterus was such a happenin place?

Fri May 21, 2010, 6:27 pm: Alice just made up a song: "Dukie, I love you. I'll give you a treat. And I'll give you another treat. Duke, I love you"

Wed May 19, 2010, 8:27 pm: Why did I order 2 pizzas when the only people here are Alice and I? now we have 1 1/2 pizzas left...

Tue May 18, 2010, 10:10 pm: I was watching lost today and when one of the characters said, "vaya con dios," (or however its spelled) Alice turned to me and said, "it's Spanish, mommy!"

Sun May 16, 2010, 3:52 pm: I said to Erik today, "Let's go to the P-A-R-K" and Alice looked right at me and said, "I wanna go to the park!" Little smartie pants...

Fri May 14, 2010, 10:19 pm: took the cubscouts to a friend's house yesterday to see some snakes. He showed them the difference between girl and boy snakes, and one of the scouts turned to another and said, "how DO you tell the difference between a boy and a girl?" The second scout replied "duh... the hair is long!" The first said back, "what if the guy has long hair?" The second replied "by the shirts they wear!"

Mon May 10, 2010, 1:43 pm: I think we've decided on a name.... or at least one of 2 names: Jack David or Adam David. the biggest problem with Adam David is that his initials would be ADH which is really close to ADHD... not really a huge problem, but it kind of bugs me.

Mon May 10, 2010, 12:54 am: Alice was asking to go to work with me tomorrow, so I told her that her and daddy would take me to work and then go to Comcast. She said, "Comcast? I don't know what that means..." so Erik said "Comcast is a company that provides television and internet". Alice thought for a second and said, "Comcast is awesome." Silly girl.

Sun May 9, 2010, 5:23 pm: Alice put a button up her nose this morning right as we were about to leave for church. Why do kids do that?

Sat May 8, 2010, 6:56 pm: still has no idea what to name her child... Boys are so difficult to name!

Wed May 5, 2010, 6:32 pm: It's a boy :D

Tue May 4, 2010, 7:53 pm: I just told Alice to go eat her craisins since she was hungry, and she said, "It's not crazy. It's raisins." How can I argue?

Fri April 30, 2010, 10:08 pm: Alice just told me "I'm pretty, you're pretty, daddy's handsome" Even when she's sick, she still says the sweetest things :)

Fri April 30, 2010, 10:01 pm: i was too exhausted to work tonight. Oh well... that's what happens when I stay at the office until midnight the night before.

Fri April 30, 2010, 9:00 am: I have a baby dr appointment in a half hour, then off to work for another million hours today. I'm really liking the unlimited overtime this week... Do I want $20/hour for unskilled labor? sure....

Wed April 28, 2010, 7:37 pm: Alice informed me today that the doorjamb of the car is "wobbley" when she was standing on it, rocking back and forth. I didn't know that she knew such words...

Sat April 24, 2010, 9:01 pm: Why are there so many sushi ads? And why is sushi off limits? :(

Thu April 22, 2010, 8:33 pm: I'm feeling the baby move pretty much every day now. It makes me remember that I really am pregnant!

Sat April 17, 2010, 10:18 pm: I have the sweetest little girl... i was kissing her head and she said, "don't kiss my head." I guess I looked a little sad b/c she grabbed my face and said, "Mommy, you make me happy"

Fri April 16, 2010, 4:34 pm: I had no real cravings with alice. This time: green olives

Sun April 11, 2010, 3:28 pm: I got a temp job with the census. Wish me luck!

Fri April 9, 2010, 1:16 pm: Only 3 diapers left... then we're switching back to cloth until Alice potty trains...

Sat April 3, 2010, 1:41 pm: Alice was playing with stickers this morning. She put a shark sticker down on the page with a bunch of fish stickers, and said, "'Aaaah!' said the fishes"

Sat March 27, 2010, 1:13 am: Just tried Kookaburra Liquorice for the first time. I don't even like licorice and I love this licorice. (this is the red. I'm still afraid of the black...)

Thu March 25, 2010, 9:56 pm: I'm thinking of going back to school... who would want to watch my child(ren)?

Wed March 24, 2010, 11:41 am: It's official. I am wearing maternity pants.

Sat March 13, 2010, 7:57 pm: Went to a sad funeral today... not that any funeral is not sad, but when it's for a baby, it seems sadder.

Sat March 13, 2010, 9:32 am: Apparently Erik drives like a drunk... But he was the nicest cop I've ever met!

Fri March 12, 2010, 10:40 pm: In the car today, Alice burped so i turned around and she just grinned, so I said, "What was that?" She answered, "A duck. Making sound."

Thu March 11, 2010, 8:09 pm: I'm looking for a good Pediatric Dentist in Ut. Valley. Any suggestions?

Wed March 10, 2010, 11:46 pm: I think Alice has a cavity... i don't get it! We brush and floss her teeth... I don't even know what to do. It doesn't seem to be bothering her but I want to get it filled so she can still use that tooth and it doesn't just rot away... but how will a toddler let a dentist fill her cavity?

Tue March 9, 2010, 10:33 pm: Just put alice to sleep for the first time in her "big girl bed". She first read me a book about mickey mouse and then layed down and listened to her little giraffe play music. Now I hear her on the baby monitor yawning, but as far as I can tell, still in bed and falling asleep.

Tue March 9, 2010, 6:06 am: I was bonking Alice's knee with my fist and I said, "It's a hammer!". She looked at me and said, "That's not a hammer. That's your hand!" Silly me...

Tue March 2, 2010, 9:06 pm: Watching lost and 2 characters are fighting, so Alice said 'that big guy is hitting that guy. That's not very nice!"

Tue March 2, 2010, 4:16 pm: Appointment was ok. I have an ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow because the dr. couldn't find the heartbeat. She told me it is still early and common not to find one at this age, so I'm trying not to worry too much. :\

Tue March 2, 2010, 9:34 am: I have my first baby doctor appointment today in 3 hours! I'm a little nervous and very excited.

Mon March 1, 2010, 4:00 pm: I'm talking to Erik about baby boy names b/c I still can't decide on anything I like. He suggested that we "open source" with all our friends, but that we'd have to make sure there's no "collusion" He's so weird.

Sat February 27, 2010, 6:36 pm: Who taught my daughter to say "hubba hubba" when she looks in the mirror?

Sat February 27, 2010, 9:31 am: finally cleaned up the house last night. It felt so good to come down the stairs this morning and not be in a trash hole.

Sat February 27, 2010, 12:52 am: Goodbye, cafeworld. You got boring.

Wed February 24, 2010, 4:21 pm: Finally got my celery and peanut butter!

Tue February 23, 2010, 1:00 am: Just watched Forrest Gump. I love that movie!

Mon February 22, 2010, 8:09 pm: A conversation while riding in the car today with Alice and Katie: Katie: I'm scared. Alice: It's not scary. It'll be ok, Katie. Katie: Thank you, Alice.

Fri February 19, 2010, 5:16 pm: Alice was visiting with Grandpa and told him "Thank you, grandpa. Very sweet of you talking to me"

Wed February 17, 2010, 7:40 pm: Alice keeps telling me "happy birthday, mommy" and giving me a kiss on the knee. Silly girl

Sat February 13, 2010, 9:50 pm: Alice woke up from her nap today and proudly informed me that she had "giant poopers". The joys of motherhood!

Sat February 13, 2010, 5:56 pm: I love Glee. I know it's corny, but I started watching it a couple days ago and finished today. It's adorable.

Thu February 11, 2010, 7:52 pm: Alice is trying to turn the lights on and off by standing on a little chair she has, but it's just too short, so she went to the table and said, "Maybe big chair will help. This is too little" and pushed a dining room chair over instead.

Thu February 11, 2010, 12:08 am: With the new facebook layout, if you have more than 250 friends, you wont see all their status updates unless you adjust the number of friends showing in your news feed. Do this by clicking on "most recent" from your news feed, then scrolling all the way to the bottom of the page and clicking "edit options". You can change the number there.

Wed February 10, 2010, 10:49 am: So... I keep going back to the name Malcolm for a boy... but don't want to name my son that if it is terrible. I can't decide if it's terrible or awesome. So facebook, tell me what you think.

Tue February 9, 2010, 10:49 pm: it's not that i don't like the new facebook layout, i just don't understand why they changed it... again...

Sun February 7, 2010, 2:39 pm: i want celery with peanut butter. And blueberry pancakes or french toast.

Wed February 3, 2010, 3:30 am: yeah.... I love LOST...

Tue February 2, 2010, 2:48 am: ok, Facebook. Time to make it official. Announcing: I'm gonna have another baby :)

Mon February 1, 2010, 2:56 pm: is it just me, or is the internet really boring today?

Thu January 28, 2010, 8:44 pm: I gave Alice a piece of bread and she said, "Thank you, Mommy Bear. You're Sweet"

Wed January 27, 2010, 1:22 am: I love pointing at different parts of Alice's body and having her tell me what they are. Today she told me that her nipples are "armpit buttons" I guess it makes sense... 1 belly button, 2 armpit buttons...

Fri January 22, 2010, 9:42 pm: Alice just handed me an empty teacup, so I took it and sipped from it, which made her upset and she said, "cheers?" She then took the teacup back and took it over to her pretend sink and "refilled" it before she let me try again.

Fri January 22, 2010, 7:57 pm: It's nice to know that if we were ever abducted by aliens, it wouldn't be long before the whole family found out. ;)

Fri January 22, 2010, 12:13 am: Alice just came up to me and said, "Mommy, I poke your eye?" to which I replied, "No thank you" and then she walked away. What in the world?

Fri January 22, 2010, 12:10 am: Any time Alice sees words, she starts singing the ABC's.

Sat January 16, 2010, 9:42 pm: Alice is watching Word World and just said "oh no!" when she realized her sock was missing (she took it off hours ago). I told her it was on the floor, and she said, "Can't see it!" so I asked if she wanted me to get it for her, and she said, "Yeah. I too busy". Maybe I say that too often? ;)

Sat January 16, 2010, 7:01 pm: Please put this on your status if you know someone (or are related to someone) who is an idiot. Idiots affect the lives of many. There is still no known cure for stupidity, but we can raise awareness. 93% won't copy and paste this, many because they're too stupid to know how to copy and paste. Will YOU make a difference and make this your status!?

Sun January 10, 2010, 10:53 am: Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It was a good birthday :)

Sat December 26, 2009, 9:14 pm: just told Alice, "I love you very very much" and she replied, "I love you very very mucher!"

Sat December 26, 2009, 1:30 am: Cleaning up dog pee from the carpet... i can't be too mad though cuz we did leave him here alone for 14 hours...

Fri December 25, 2009, 2:35 am: Alice's second christmas and the first one that she is excited about :) Just finished the stockings and wrapping gifts!

Mon December 21, 2009, 1:29 pm: gonna rent a rug doctor and clean the carpen once Baby Alice goes to sleep

Thu December 17, 2009, 12:33 am: Don't know why Alice was having such a hard time falling asleep tonight.. She just kept asking to cuddle and after laying on the bed with her for about an hour while just just jabbered and played, i finally gave up and let her cry in her crib. she's out now.

Thu December 3, 2009, 12:29 am: watching extreme dr. 90210. It's Crazy!

Fri September 18, 2009, 2:24 am: My dog just peed on the floor in his sleep. gar....

Fri August 14, 2009, 12:04 pm: thanks everyone for all the good thoughts and advice

Thu August 13, 2009, 10:38 pm: has a completely normal brain. Now to figure out what's triggering a migraine every 10 min to half hour...

Thu August 13, 2009, 4:17 pm: It's your anniversary? Here, have an MRI!

Wed August 12, 2009, 9:38 pm: Loves that Erik is doing so much facebooking, but hates hearing about his status updates from other people

Thu August 6, 2009, 3:47 pm: Why does my baby love Peggle so much?

Tue August 4, 2009, 10:42 am: Gave up on twitter. It's boring.

Fri July 31, 2009, 10:19 am: I love pancakes!

Wed July 22, 2009, 7:24 pm: finally did the dishes today... it's been way too long

Tue July 21, 2009, 4:27 pm: Snuggling with a cute little baby girl

Life, Work, Family, Friends

2011-01-28T03:58:00.000-08:00

I can't sleep. That has become a reoccurring theme lately. Honestly I think I need to take my cafeine consumption down a notch or two or three. But it's been ages since I blogged so what better to do while I lay here awake?

2010 was a crazy year, and 2011 is shaping up to be a much calmer one (knock on wood).

A couple months ago I accepted a job offer for a full time salaried position with the company that nearly went out of business at the end of June. The whole ordeal with the layoff and everything that followed was possibly the most uncertain and trying time of my life. It is not something that I would ever want to re-live, but at the same time it's an experience I would no sooner give up. I learned some important lessons about financial security and learned a lot about myself, my skills, my weaknesses, how important family and friends are, etc (big shout-of to those who bailed us out and/or gave us moral support (you know who you are)). I ended up working two full-time jobs for 3 grueling months; but working those two jobs gave us the opportunity to fix some financial missteps we made as a young married couple. Getting back to the job offer; it was a hard decision to make and I was terrified that I might be making a mistake. A few months later I can honestly say that I have no regrets. I am happier at work than I have ever been. In a lot of ways I am working my "dream-job" if there is such a thing.

A couple days ago I posted on Facebook saying that I was happier than I'd ever been. I thought I should add to that. I don't have everything I want in life. There are a lot of things I would change if given the chance, but I don't think about those things. I have a lot of meaningful things in my life to be happy about, and that is what matters to me.

The next big question mark on the horizon is taxes. Working as a contractor really complicates the tax situation. We set aside a lot of money to cover taxes on that income; I just hope it's enough. We're waiting on carolyn's W2 from Uncle Sam before we can see what the damage is going to be. I keep hoping that we will owe significantly less than we have saved so that we can take some of that money and put it to good use, but I'm not getting my hopes up too far. What I'd really love to do is take that money and use it as a down payment on a second car, but that would be undermining everything I thought I learned about financial stability.

Since my employment situation has settled down again I'm back in school. I'm taking some more philosophy courses and really enjoying it a lot. I think I finally found the right major, (too bad it's more or less worthless in terms of career advancement). I am really enjoying it but it's also a big time commitment so I'll be glad when it's over. So far this semester I haven't really had any work due, and that's starting to worry me like it's all going to come crashing down on me in a couple of weeks. I keep telling myself that I need to sit down and map out the semester, but I have yet to ever accomplish that in past semesters so why should this one be any different? Maybe I'll just let all those 12 page papers sneak up on me overnight :/

My last thought for the night (which has now turned into morning) is that I feel like I'm drifting away from my friends. It's hard to find time with my schedule, but I feel like it's something more than time pulling me away. I actually just don't feel a closeness that I used to feel, but I don't know what's changed. I've been thinking a lot about this recently and I've come to feel like I don't have any really close friend-friends anymore. I've never been the kind of person to seek out a lot of friends but I've usually kept at least a few close friends around. That's not to say that I don't have some great friends and family, but I find myself feeling (maybe for the first time in my life) like I need to foster some stronger friendships; the kinds of friend that would take a bullet for me.

What's in my makeup bag?

2010-12-23T20:22:00.000-08:00

First of all, I don't wear makeup very often. I should. I always feel better when I take the time to actually get ready, dry my hair, put on makeup, and all that. But, since you asked (even though you didn't), this is what's in my makeup bag:

Bare Essentials foundation and blush, Smashbox foundation, a couple of bare essentials eyeshadows and liners, and mascara.

Interesting, huh?

In other news, today was Christmas for us. Since we're leaving town tomorrow, we decided to celebrate today. Alice got a new play kitchen. I set it up last night and decided to nap on the couch until erik got home from work at 2 so that we could finish putting stuff up together. I woke up to the sound of Alice playing with the kitchen. It was before Erik got home since he got stuck on the freeway. Alice immediately walked over to me and said, "I want to cuddle with you" she seemed to know that she wasn't supposed to be down there playing, but didn't know what else to do. I took her upstairs and started asking her what she saw since I was only half awake and not quite sure what had happened. She told me:

"I was calling you, but you were asleep. I came downstairs and you were asleep. I was playing with my kitchen in the front room. I was making Spadetti"

It was hard to be upset with her, even though I really wanted to see her face when she first saw the kitchen.

Also, Erik got me a Kindle. It is awesome. I love it already! It's the year of the Kindle. So many people we know are getting them :) Its a good thing for amazon, I suppose.

Our favorite place to eat

2010-12-22T10:22:00.000-08:00

We have lots of favorites. Pretty much any time we can go out and not have to cook at home, it's a good thing. Our favorite lately has been:

It's mostly b/c of the free kids quesadilla with strawberry. That thing is really good and free kids food is ALWAYS appreciated. :)

The last item I purchased:

2010-12-18T20:13:00.000-08:00

The last thing I bought was groceries. Among other things, this included potatoes. We are doing Raclette tomorrow with the Breakfast Clubbers, and we are in charge of the veggies. We'll also be doing a gift exchange white elephant style.

This Christmas has been the most spread out Christmas I've ever had. We had parties as early as the 12th, plus Alice even had her own party this year. It's been awesome. I'm excited to continue into the week of Christmas :)

The song

2010-12-17T17:45:00.001-08:00

This is the song that has been stuck in my head for the past little while, and the only one I can think of to match my mood. I am so excited for Christmas!

There, Bridget. Are you happy? ;)

Dream Wedding?

2010-12-14T23:11:00.000-08:00

I tried to write a post off of the prompt about my dream wedding... but it's too dumb of a prompt. I think that marriage is important, but not weddings. Don't get me wrong, I loved mine and seeing so many people i love there. The ceremony was great, but it was only the two of us plus... maybe 30 people? So... the wedding itself was pretty small scale which I guess was always how I pictured it.

In other news, in the past 3 days, 3 of my friends have had babies. How weird. My baby is no longer the babiest baby anymore. He's growing up and getting more interactive. I love his smiles and coos. I'm so ready to get his hair cut, too. It's getting out of control! We'll get it cut by a friend's mom when we're in CO, just shortly after his 3 month birthday. I can't wait. he'll look so cute :)

An animal I'd love to keep as a pet

2010-12-10T21:18:00.000-08:00

Don't you think that a miniature elephant would be the cutest thing? Can't you picture it tromping around the house? Instead of a dog barking, you'd hear the little trumpet when someone rings the doorbell. You'd never lose anything because your elephant would always remember where you put it. How awesome would that be!?

I hope that miniature elephants would be cuddly. And not bite.

Me 2 years ago

2010-12-09T21:30:00.000-08:00

This is me and Alice at Sushi for Santa 2 years ago. I don't feel like I look much different, but Alice has changed a lot. :)

Favorite picture of my best friend

2010-12-09T07:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't actually called someone my "best friend" for a long time. I have a lot of good friends, and we all have a different relationship dynamic. Some of my closest friends have stayed the same for years and some have changed. Since this post is looking for my best friend, though, I'll post a picture of the 2 people who I last remember really calling my "best friend"

I actually don't have very many pictures of them on my computer so I guess that this is my favorite b/c it's pretty much the only one I have :)

A perfect first date

2010-12-06T23:16:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I don't think I'm very picky when it comes to dates. The only thing that I would have wanted out of a first date is for the conversation to flow naturally. I don't like awkward silence, especially when you are trying to get to know someone to see if you would like to continue dating them.

Erik passed the first date conversation flow test.

Right now, the perfect date would be to go somewhere fancy dressed up nice (not completely formal, but nice). No kids, which would mean that Jack would have to be happy taking a bottle. We're still working on that. Though I do have to say that I love taking Jack to the movies b/c I can just cuddle him the whole time.

We saw Tangled today and it was surprisingly really cute. I thought it looked dumb, but Mom convinced me to go. Alice loved it and I loved watching her watch it.

A photo of something I ate today

2010-12-05T21:37:00.000-08:00

So I'm totally cheating on this one since I was really busy yesterday with building our shelving unit in the laundry closet. Yesterday, something I ate was:

It was the 2 piece meal with salad. It's ridiculously good. If you've never been and you get the opportunity, go.

We still have a long ways to go on the shelves, but we got the hardest part done.

A picture of me and my day today

2010-12-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Here's a recent picture of me from our trip to Disney World. Alice loves riding the carousel and we were lucky enough to have grandpa get a shot of the 3 of us (Jack was riding in one of the stationary cars with grandma)

So that's me. I don't really look that blond lately, so I guess it was just the lighting.

My day today has been relatively uneventful, though I guess when compared to other days in the life of a stay at home mom, it's been pretty normal. I held Jack for a nap since his swing wasn't plugged in and I didn't want to find another outlet. Then a friend came over to drop off some supplies from cub scouts yesterday. She had subbed for me since Alice was sick :( I hate it when my kids are sick.

After that... I ate some cold pizza for lunch and put Alice down for a nap. For the whole morning, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse was playing in the background.

Right now, there's a load of whites in and I'm listening to our washing machine do this weird gear grinding thing that it's done for the past couple months. It's not a good sound. I'm looking forward to our new set that we are having delivered on thursday. They stack, so we'll be able to use the other half of the laundry closet for a pantry :)

Speaking of our new set... does anyone need a washer or drier? They still work (besides the gear grinding thing... and the drier doesn't have the auto dry feature anymore. That broke some time last year) and we're looking to get rid of them for maybe $50.

Blog Revival

2010-12-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

I've seen this a couple times and feel like it's time for my blog to be revived...

So here's a 30 day challenge that I'll be following for the next month:

Day 1 – A photo of yourself and a description of how your day was.
Day 2 – A photo of something you ate today.
Day 3 – Your idea of the perfect first date.
Day 4 – Your favorite photograph of your best friend.
Day 5 – A photo of yourself two years ago.
Day 6 – A photo of an animal you’d love to keep as a pet.
Day 7 – Your dream wedding.
Day 8 – A song to match your mood.
Day 9 – A photo of the item you last purchased.
Day 10 – A photo of our favorite place to eat.
Day 11 – What’s in your makeup bag?
Day 12 – A photograph of the town you live in.
Day 13 – Your favorite musician and why?
Day 14 – A TV show you’re currently addicted to.
Day 15 – Something you don’t leave the house without.
Day 16 – Your celebrity crush.
Day 17 – A photo of you and your family.
Day 18 – Something you crave a lot.
Day 19 – Another picture of yourself.
Day 20 – The meaning behind your blog name.
Day 21 – A photo of something that makes you happy.
Day 22 – A letter to someone who has hurt you recently.
Day 23 – 15 facts about you.
Day 24 – A photo of something that means a lot to you.
Day 25 – What’s in your purse?
Day 26 – A photo of somewhere you’ve been to.
Day 27 – A picture of you last year and now and how have you changed since then?
Day 28 – Your favorite movie.
Day 29 – Something you could never get tired of doing.
Day 30 – A photograph of youself today + three good things that have happened in the past 30 days

Putting stuff in stuff

2010-06-29T18:23:00.000-07:00

Alice has been practicing her spacial skills lately as she has realized that containers can fit "stuff" inside them and then those containers can fit into other containers and so on. I am forever finding all kinds of random assorted items throughout the house. Some of my favorites have been:

A piece of bread inside a fossil watch tin in the toybox
An old wallet I let her keep in her purse that was packed full of puzzle pieces
Coins rattling around in the steering wheel (she had jammed them in through the cracks between the horn and the rest of the wheel)
playing in the basket aisle at DI, putting a little stuffed animal into a lunch box, and that into a basket, then that basket into a bucket... and so on

She will constantly just rearrange things and try to fit more and more into different boxes. She was trying to put a Mario toy into a tin that also had a large fridge magnet that makes music and some stencils in it, and was very frustrated that not all 3 would fit. I would show her that 2 of the three would fit, but then she'd want to add the last item. Finally, we did find a way to tetris it all in and she was happy.

Today she came up to me in the kitchen and saw that I have a zippered pocket on my pants, and said, "A zipper. Can I put toys in it?" She came back with a beanie baby sized mickey mouse, realized it wouldn't fit, then ran out of the kitchen saying "gotta get a smaller toy" to herself. Right now, I actually have no idea what is in my pocket...

The only thing that is frustrating is that along the bottom of our entertainment center, there is a gap that is about an inch tall, and she loves to stick stuff under there. Since it is such a small opening, and the TV and entertainment center are so heavy, I can't really get much out from under there once she has put something there. Once in a while, I will run a ruler or something under to retrieve what I can, which is usually book and puzzle pieces mixed in with other random small toys. One time she stuck her beloved "mickey mouse ice cream" toy (a piece for mr. potato head that we got in disney world) under there, then realized it was stuck and ran off into the kitchen saying "I need a knife!" When I asked her why, she told me that her mickey mouse ice cream was stuck "on the tv." Yeah... we're still working on our prepositions. ;)

In other news, I had my 3 hour glucose tolerance test today and it was horrible... I felt sick the whole time. My fasting was good (91) but my 1 hour was around 220 somewhere, my 2 hour was 200, and my 3 hour was 140. Basically... confirmation that I have gestational diabetes again. It's kind of a bummer, but I expected it. I looked up how much glucose is in the drink they give you, and it's somewhere between 75 and 100 grams. Considering that the little bottle is only 8 oz, that is a LOT. imagine dissolving 1/2 cup of sugar in 1 cup of water (a little less i guess...) and then drinking it. Yuck.

Anyway, they faxed an order over to the diabetes specialty people for me to be educated. I'll see what they have to say, but pretty much have been eating as if I'm diabetic already, checking my blood sugar and have had no problems yet, so I think I'll be fine.

I just got an email from babycenter...

2010-06-20T21:53:00.000-07:00

I love the emails baby center will send b/c they have information about what kinds of things Alice should be doing and other developmental landmarks both for her and for Jack. I just got this one though, and it cracked me up:

"By 30 months, your child can name a few body parts, some colors, and even a friend or two. Her memory and speaking ability work in tandem. Help out by expanding on what she says. If she says, "Dog sleep," you might say, "Yes, Spot is curled up and fast asleep in his doggie bed." She can't imitate your complex language patterns yet, but her brain is absorbing them. Every time you repeat her words or expand on them, you're giving her memory practice. "

I know that Alice's language skills are advanced, but most of the kids she hangs out with speak at a similar level to her, so I forget sometimes. She has been putting together some complex sentences lately, like "Katie took the ball and I really want it" or "Watch out for the scary ghosts, Daddy!" (while he's playing mario game). The other day, Sarah was rocking Pepper and Alice came into the room with her. Alice saw the breast pump and asked "what's that?" Sarah told her, "It's a pump". Alice then put the pieces up to her little boobies and asked "Can I try?" When Sarah asked her how she knew that's what the pump was for, Alice replied "People just learn these things".

I love listening to her talk and seeing her grow. She's so much fun and such a sweet little girl. She is starting to get an argumentative streak though. For example, I will tell her "I'm making soup for dinner" and she'll say, "It's not soup for dinner. It's soup for lunch". I have no idea why she would argue something like that, but she will...

I know it's a ways away, but we're looking at a preschool for her to start up in the fall of 2011. It's a Spanish immersion preschool that I think looks really cool: http://www.mckeeschool.com/ It is a lot of time each day, but it's mostly narrated playing, so I'm not worried about it overloading her. I think that with her language skills, it'd be really nice for her to learn another language at a young age. We'll see when the time gets closer if we do decide to put her in, but for now I'm pretty sure that I want to :)

Oh Chick Fil A....

2010-03-25T19:50:00.000-07:00

We stopped at Chick-Fil-A on our way out of town on tuesday to grab breakfast. I have never had their breakfast before but have heard that it is good (no surprise there) and it was. It was so good that I haven't been able to stop thinking about it and I can't get over my craving for chick fil a. Amy drove down that evening and took me to chick fil a, and i had the leftover nuggets for breakfast the next morning. I still want more.

Since there's only one in utah valley and it's at the mall... and i don't have a car... and indulging myself in chick fil a every day would get expensive, I looked up a copycat recipe. I have put together the ingredients and am waiting to give it a try. (You are supposed to soak the chicken in an egg/milk mixture for an hour before breading it in the flour/salt/pepper/powdered sugar mixture)

If it's any good, I will be so happy. If it's not... well i guess that chick fil a has me as a customer for life. I just can't resist! I'm tempted to get one of their party trays and freeze the nuggets so I can have them ready whenever i want. It's not too expensive... well more expensive than buying nuggets at costco, but better quality too. 64 nuggets are $23, 120 are $41.50, and 200 are $66.50. It seems cheaper than buying them 8 nuggets at a time... but then I'm not sure. I haven't done the math.

Erik thinks I'm crazy. Maybe I am....

baby Ty's Funeral and Raisins is Sticky

2010-03-14T20:15:00.000-07:00

2 very different stories for today:

Yesterday was a funeral for baby Ty (a 4 1/2 mo old baby in our ward who died of SIDS on Wednesday). It was very sad to see his dad carrying his casket in all by himself, instead of the usual where they wheel it in. As his mom walked in behind him, she broke down crying and her knees buckled. She had to be supported by her mother in law who looked like she was practically carrying her in. I can't imagine the kind of strength it would take to bury your baby. It is an impossible task that I hope I am never challenged with.

The funeral was good. It was long, but everyone was hurting so I can't blame them for wanting to say as much as they could. There was a lot of family there. I think both parents had large families. The whole center section of the chapel was full of family members. The rest of the church up to 1 overflow was packed as well, with people in the foyers who couldn't get a seat inside.

He was a sweet little boy and he will be missed.

This morning, Alice woke up at 7:30 which was really 8:30 because of the Daylight Savings time. I'm not a fan of daylight savings. It just messes everything up. Oh well. I'm not so adamantly opposed to it that I would ever try to do anything to change it. Anyway, I told Alice that it was Sunday so we were going to church, and she started talking about bubbles and coloring and all the fun stuff they do in nursery. She was getting so excited. It was cute.

After a couple minutes, I realized I was too exhausted to go to church, so Erik took Alice and i slept the whole time they were gone. When they came home, Alice came upstairs to wake me up. I asked her what she did in Nursery, specifically if she had any snacks. She said "yeah. Pretzels and raisins". I said, "oh that's good. What else?" Her reply was "Raisins is sticky." It's true. Raisins are sticky.

Seeing the loss of a child makes me appreciate and want to spend more time hugging my own child. You forget how fragile their lives are and how you really need to enjoy every moment. I feel silly sometimes just wanting to tell everyone about all the cute things she says, like my life is just Alice. But it's true. Alice is my life and I'd rather only talk about her and report on her than on nothing.

This is why blogs are dying

2010-02-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

I don't like posting and not getting any feedback. If I do a status update on facebook, I get tons of commentary and feedback. I like having blogs to keep in touch with people, but not if people never reply to what i say. I don't want to write a book about myself, I want to talk to people about what's going on.

So, this post is mostly to say that I won't really be posting on the blog anymore. Maybe I'll get the sudden urge to again, but If you want to know what's going on with me, you will be more likely to find updates and pictures on facebook.

This cracked me up

2010-02-06T23:47:00.000-08:00

Especially when you get to the part about the letters in the confirmation code. When i was working for Convergys, I once told a lady that her code had the letter K as in Cat... yeah she caught it, too. Oops.

Aaaand.... we're back!

2010-02-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the bit of a break up there. As I was saying a few posts ago, Erik's server was due to be turned off at any time (since it was an employee account at a company he didn't work for any more) so even though we had months of notice, we just never moved our blog off of the server. oops!

Anyway, we're back now. Welcome to our new blog! You shouldn't have to update any links since we still have car0lyn.com pointing here, but the real URL is carolynerik.blogspot.com.

Erik survived a round of layoffs at work this past week. We had no idea they were coming until maybe a few days before. The day of, Scott called us and asked if Erik had been scheduled a 1 on 1 meeting with the boss. Apparently, Scott had, and this meeting was where they gave them 1 months severance and said good luck. It sucks. I am glad that Erik was not let go, but there was a scary morning where I was left wondering if he would be. It was also hard to rejoice when i knew that Scott had lost his job. It has worked out alright though, b/c only 2 days later, Scott started training at another new job and as far as I can tell, things are going great there.

Since the training is in the mornings, I have been watching Katie & Audrey for 6-7 hours a day for the past week, and will be watching them for the next 2 weeks as well. Katie is only 8 months older than Alice, and i think that this is proof to me that there is a reason why it is impossible to have children that close together. The two of them are HARD to watch when they are together. Katie alone is a very sweet and nice little girl. Alice alone is easy. Alice and Katie together is terrible. They fight, push, cry (mostly Alice. Katie only cried once this entire week, adn that was when she was going down for a nap and missed her own home), run, scream, play, and have the best and worst times of their lives. It is very tiring, especially since I am already feeling kind of icky and tired from the morning sickness. Bleh.

All in all, though, I am happy to do it. I feel helpful and am getting compensated for the 3 weeks, so it's not a total loss. I do hope that by the end of the 3 weeks, Katie and Alice will be a little more used to spending time together. Audrey, of course, is just easy. She is the sweetest little baby. She's been eating a lot and sleeping really well. Sometimes she just wants to be held, but for the most part, she is content to be just sitting on the floor with me and the girls and playing while I either surf the internet or run back and forth getting water and making ramen and changing diapers and what not.

Erik's family is all coming over for dinner tomorrow to celebrate Shawna's birthday. I am attemting to recreate a dish she had in Disney World as closely as I can. I'll let you know how it turns out. If it is delicious, i will post the recipe.

Grammar

2010-01-05T04:57:00.000-08:00

Alice has been putting together some pretty good sentences lately, but her grammar skills have not been perfected yet. Yesterday, we went to Barnes & Noble and when we walked out, she said to me "store book fun" so I said, "book store" back to her. She thought for a minute and then said, "bookstore fun!" She has been amazing me lately with her grasp of english. If I ask her where something is and she can't find it, She will say "Where? I don't see it!" If she does find it, of course she'll say "There it is!" One of her favorite phrases is "I did it!" She's also been getting into "Mine" lately, so will describe things as "Mine toy" or "Mine Couch". We were browsing through the books at Savers and she picked up a couple and said, "Mine favorite books". It really just is so amazing to me when she puts sentences together like that. I know the grammar is wrong in most cases, but the fact that she is learning the language just makes me proud :)

Today, I had to go drop off the car to get the check engine light looked at and all diagnosed, and since there was no one to come pick us up for about an hour and a half, the guy from the shop gave us a ride home in our car. Alice didn't like that much. This guy was a typical auto shop kind of guy. He was very nice, but a little rough and big, which scared her. Well, when we got out of the car and he drove away with it, Alice said, "Mine car. Mommy daddys car." and was pretty sad about it.

She has also been quite concerned in parking lots lately, and wants you to hold her. When I picked her up, she was worried and said, "Car get me!"

Forever

2009-12-29T03:44:00.000-08:00

We went over to a Dan & Mindy's yesterday night and were trying to put Alice down for a nap (it was around 10:00 pm and we were still playing games).

Alice has been going through a pretty clingy phase lately as far as sleeping. She always wants to cuddle (and she says, "Mommy cuddle you" which I can't resist) and she likes laying in bed with us which she hasn't done for about 6 months.

So being in a strange place, she was having a hard time falling asleep and wanted me to cuddle her and hold her. I did, but also wanted to get back to the game, so I offered a stuffed dog. "Do you want to cuddle the doggy?" she said, "No, cuddle Mommy". So I cuddled some more and then started singing to her. I asked her what song she wanted to sing, and then I'd sing that one. Then I sang her "I love to see the temple" and when I asked what song she wanted to sing next, it was "see temple" so we sang it again.

I asked her then if she wanted to sing "Families can be together forever" and she smiled and said "Foreber" and cuddled into my arm closer. It was so sweet. I love my baby Alice.

What in the world?

2009-12-28T08:36:00.000-08:00

A useless Muppet Video

2009-12-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

Watching this video, Alice kept saying "Cute!" and "Silly!" and then at the end, she said "I like it, I like it, frog!" Otherwise, the video was kind of dumb, but she liked it. :)

As Promised

2009-11-23T07:46:00.000-08:00

Here is my post about Disney World. I know it was a couple months ago now. I guess I have been hesitant to update thinking that at any time, erik's server will be deactivated and anything I add will just be deleted anyway. Really, he hasn't been working there for a couple months so I'm not sure why they have not deleted stuff off of his server but whatever. I believe we have a back up copy of everything up to his last day on our computer...

So Disney world was very fun, but also very different with a toddler. If she didn't eat, then she would be VERY cranky, and it was hard to get her to get enough food and sleep well because she was so distracted and excited. Some of the time while we were there, I felt like we were wasting time because she was taking a nap or we weren't able to move as fast or what not, but overall, it was good. I can't expect her to go at the same speeds as we normally would anyway.

She LOVED the characters. We had to hold her back until it was her turn to give them a hug. Here's a little montage of her running to see them:

She came to love her stroller too, because it meant that we were going bye bye. By the last day we were there, she went over to the door and got in her stroller and said, "Bye Bye?" which made me a little sad.

Just over a month later, Alice and I went back to Florida for my parents' time share on cocoa beach. It was awesome. I felt a little silly going back to FL so soon after i had already been, but it was nice and warm and the beach was fun and we got to go to the Disney parks about every other day. We almost got to see a launch at the Kennedy space center, but it got postponed to the day after we left Cocoa (you can see the space center from the condo).

Alice had a hard time sleeping in the condo, so she developed her own routine. First she would bring a bunch of toys into the bathroom and throw them in the tub and say, "I'm ready. Bath" Then she realized that it was fun to have grandma push her up and down the walkway while holding "cookie man" (a gingerbread cookie stuffed animal that we picked up for her b/c I had neglected to bring anything cuddly for her) and drinking chocolate milk. We left the stroller in the car one night when we got back and as she was getting ready to go on her walk up and down the walkway, she said, "where stroller go?"

She also bonded with her "friends" which is a set of bath toys we got for her on the first trip. There are Alice in Wonderland, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Dopey, Hercules, and Pinnochio (who she calls Dokie Doo)

The ocean was interesting because she was really loving the water until a wave came up a little too high and got her in the face. Then the water was "scary" not fun. Just like Pirates of the Caribbean and the Norway ride. If you asked her if it was fun or scary, she'd say "scary".

I also met up with an old friend from freshman year while i was over there, which was awesome. I haven't seen her for years and we just had fun talking and listening to a HORRIBLE cover artist at the bar that you can hear from our balcony and deciding to go for a walk on the beach in the middle of the night where no one could hear you scream, then seeing a guy sit up and then stand up and look like he was going to follow us as we were running away... yeah worst idea we've ever had...

Thanks to Mom and Dad for making our second trip possible. :)

A little update

2009-10-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

I know it's been a long time, but here is a little update. I still have a ton of pictures to post from Disneyworld and video too... but I'll have to save that for another time seeing as how Sarah is coming to pick me up in about 6 hours to go paint her new house. Yikes!

But this was too cute not to post...



The shock
2009-09-15T17:30:00.000-07:00
So this is a couple days old, but I wanted to share it with all of you before I forget and then randomly think of it and think that no way it really could have happened because I already feel like no way it could have happened, but i have a witness! so it did happen.

I took Erik to class last Thursday cuz I needed the car. Since Shawna happened to be at our house, I asked if she'd mind watching Alice for a few minutes so I didn't have to hassle with dragging a baby along (side note, I never understood before why my mom said it was quicker to run errands without us... now i do). Anyway, Alice was not too incredibly happy that I was leaving her, but I told her I'd be back soon and set her on the couch and all seemed fairly ok so I left.

When I got back home, I walked in the door and Alice looked up at me and said, "Mommy! I thought you were gone! Where'd you go? Where go?" I answered her, "I went to take daddy to class" and then it registered that she had said a couple of full sentences. It was totally bizarre. 

Since then, she has gone back to her normal talking. "iwan chocolate milk" and "bite cereal" and "Don't like it" (which really sounds more like "no rocket") are the most complete sentences that she's said lately. Much more normal.


Hi, Teacher!
2009-09-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

So we have this "Biscuit Goes to School" lift a flap book that Alice was looking at today. On the first page, one of the flaps is a door and behind the door is the teacher. She lifted the flap and said, "Hi!" so I told her, "That's the teacher". She then said, "Hi, Teacher. How doing? Bye!" and closed the door.

She's been speaking a lot more in almost sentences lately. She'll say "all done milk" or "david, more this?" and point to the window when she wants it rolled down instead of just saying "more" like she has been. She'll also request that her diaper be changed by saying "diapers" and sometimes will tell me that she's pooped or answer yes when I ask (although sometimes she answers yes regardless).

She's also been starting to throw more fits lately, which has been getting frustrating. She has been hitting and getting mad and wanting things her way. Most of the time, it's easy enough to make things work out for her in a way that works for both of us, but when it doesn't, she just screams and cries which can get frustrating. I'm trying to be patient. She's a very good baby overall though and her fits are pretty mild compared to others that I've seen.

Here are some pictures from the trip to CO. I have been meaning to get these up for a while now. We had so much fun and Alice loved seeing cousin Aidan and Grandma and Bridget and Audrey. The rest of you she loved too of course, but those were the names that stuck out. I'm glad that she's finally warming up to Michael (I swear it was the facial hair. She's really doing much better with men with facial hair overall) and Grandpa.

[caption id="attachment_402" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Her first time getting her own seat on the Airplane"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_403" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Watching Handy Manny on Grandma\'s Bed"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_404" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Alice & Aidan\'s hats"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_405" align="alignnone" width="271" caption="He\'s too cute!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_406" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Baby Sister Bridget"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_407" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Backin\' up!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_408" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Alice loves Grandma!"][/caption]

Every time I go back for a visit, it makes me want to move back there. Erik only has 3 years left of school. He was going to be doing the Information systems major which is through the business school and is an intensive 2 year full time program once you're in it (on top of the generals, that is) which means that on top of working full time, he would never see us. he decided that after not seeing us for 2 weeks, he didn't like that idea and decided to explore other major options. after looking for a while, he decided on philosophy. With that major, he will still graduate in 3 years but will never have to take more than 9 credits.

Anyway, I know that was a terribly long post. I didn't even get into the funeral or anything about my Grandma dying or the road trip back in the middle of my vacation, but maybe I'll cover that another time. :D


Silly Puppies
2009-09-06T21:56:00.000-07:00


I've got some real updating to do, too, but that'll wait for a couple hours. Just online randomly in the middle of the night (aka early morning) and thought I'd post this adorable video Erik showed me a couple nights ago.


Fun new site
2009-08-14T02:07:00.000-07:00
This is a fun site that I discovered, thanks to cakewrecks:

http://wwww.thereifixedit.com/

Check it out when you get a spare moment. It's pretty funny!


Say Cheese
2009-08-13T19:25:00.000-07:00
Welcome to the new layout, hope you all like it. I had to change it when I combined the blogs :)

All of my old posts (yes, all five of them) are now part of the archives here. I imagine Carolyn will still be doing most of the posting but I'll make an occasional guest appearance.

Happy anniversary Carolyn!

P.S. Here's a picture of a nosy squirrel:




Uncle Daybid and Aunt Darah
2009-08-13T05:09:00.000-07:00
Alice has the best aunt and uncle in the world. I've been getting a lot of migraines and David & Sarah have been coming around to take Alice and help me get prescriptions and bring medicine and just be great support. The other day, they showed up while we were sitting outside taking video of Alice anyway, so we were able to get her reaction to the surprise visitors:





Then yesterday, we were outside playing down the street when David and Sarah got here to take me to pick up some prescriptions, so David called me to let me know they were there. I asked Alice, "Do you want to go get uncle David?" And she got excited and said, "yeah!" and got up right away to go home. While we were walking home, she was saying "Darah, Darah!" and then "Daybid!". She just loves them so much!


Today is Erik and my 4th anniversary, so Alice gets to stay with David and Sarah all day. I hope that she's good and has fun! I also hope that the surprise plans that Erik has for me work out and that I don't have too terrible of a migraine. Bleh...



no more Dr. Pepper, baby...
2009-08-06T07:45:00.000-07:00
So, Alice had some Diet Dr. pepper yesterday... not an obscene amount, but apparently enough to affect her sleep somewhat. She went to bed at a normal time, but was fussing and not really staying asleep very well. At about 3 am, She started crying so I finally went in to her room and laid down with her on her bed and dozed off. She, however, didn't... She was playing with me (unresponsive as I was). I vaguely remember her ramming her head into my stomach and saying "Bonk!" several times, and then making her way to the foot of the bed and saying "Feet! Feet!" at which point, I sat up and told her, "It's still night time, you have to go back to sleep". She laid down by my feet and said, "Ni night..." Then pretended to snore, started giggling, then got back up and started saying, "Daddy?". I took her into the bedroom and showed her that Daddy was asleep, then tried to wake him up so he could keep her company (it was his Dr. Pepper, after all...) But he was totally out (which is strange... the one night he actually goes to bed before 3 is the night that she is awake at 3... does that seem fair?)

So Alice went into the bathroom and said, "Draw?" and picked up her tub crayon and started doodling on the bath tub. That's when I realized that I was still really tired and decided to take her and put her back in her crib. She laid down and wasn't too happy about it, but she wasn't screaming, so I left and went back to sleep. She must have fallen asleep at some point b/c she woke up at a normal time this morning and came downstairs to watch Curious George.

Moral of the Story: follow Sarah's advice and don't drink Dr. Pepper ever, especially if you're a baby.


Me? Of course!
2009-08-04T06:48:00.000-07:00
So... Alice was sitting on the floor playing the other day, and she kept saying over and over, "Me? Of course!" and I have NO idea where she heard it or what she thinks it means. It was hilarious, though! I tried to catch it on video, but of course as soon as I started recording it, she stopped (typical) but you can at least see the idea of it:





We got that picture from our Pediatrician. He gave us a bunch of inspirational little posters like that with a story about some kids who had a picture of a sailboat in their room and they all grew up to be sailors, saying that we should fill our homes with inspirational art and music. It was really cute, but the art itself... not my favorite. Alice decided that she loves that one though and apparently thinks it's a picture of her, so I let her play with it.



Zombies
2009-07-30T03:44:00.000-07:00
So I'm not really in with all the zombie hype, but Erik and I got together with Sukie, Wudan, and Striker (or as he is also known, the Scarlet D) for a game of "Zombies" yesterday, and it was pretty fun. The pictures on the cards are really gruesome and yucky, but the actual game play is interesting. My biggest complaint is the length of time that one game takes... I think we were playing for 4 hours. All in all, though, i'd play again, but I wouldn't buy it. There are apparently a bunch of expansions that would be fun to try.

In other news, I don't think I've mentioned here that I've decided to go back to work. The company Erik works for is hiring again, so I put in my resume and had an interview (I used to work for them) The interview was funny. We were pretty much just sitting around, chatting. I'm supposed to be a shoe in for the position so we'll see how that goes.

Anyway, I'm off to the gym. I love my gym time. There's free daycare and Alice likes playing with all they toys so I get a break for just me time, and she's having fun, and I'm doing something good. It's a win win win situation!


Mom & Daddy
2009-07-27T13:21:00.000-07:00
So in our house, when I'm talking to Erik, I'll either call him by his name or if Alice is around, I'll often call him Daddy. The first time I called him Daddy, it made me feel old, like a real mom who calls her husband not by his name, but by the title that her kids would call him by.

Naturally, when Erik is talking to me, I'll either be called "Mommy" or "Carolyn". However, Alice for whatever reason refuses to call me mommy. She always says "Mom". It's funny now that she's realized that if she says my name, I'll look at her or respond to her in some way. She'll be in the back seat and decide to tell me something or ask for something and she always says, "Mom!" first and waits for me to respond. I like being able to communicate with her :) Of course, there are times when she still asks for something and just says "this?" and I have no idea what it is, but it's a work in progress I suppose.

She's been singing along to songs lately, too, and has actually been getting a lot of the words right. Especially if it's the theme song to word world. She LOVES that show. :D Good thing I like it, too.


Nonut's Ark
2009-07-23T07:49:00.000-07:00
So we have a little board book with flaps that is about Noah and the ark. We were reading it to alice and asking her, "what's that" pointing at the different animals and things. When we pointed to noah, who is an old grey haired looking guy, she said, "MamPah!" (grandpa) Which i thought was adorable.

Well the next night when I was reading it to her, I told her that it was noah, and she said it, but it sounds like "No Nut". For the past week, that's how she's been saying Noah. I guess Noah must be totally sane. He's no nut, that's for sure.


My stupid voip phone
2009-07-09T16:00:00.000-07:00
So I'm getting so frustrated... we have a voip through tmobile. Our internet connection is supposed to be 15mpbs down, 5 up. Whenever I test it, it's around 10 down and 3 or 4 up, but my phone is always getting that annoying voice distortion thing that voip phones do if the connection is bad....

A ping shows 2% packet loss if I let it run for a couple minutes and less if I just let it run for 10-15 seconds. However, the site that tmobile tech support has me testing my connection at shows that my quality of connection is under 50% (sometimes as low as 20%) which is not high enough to have a good VoIP experience... so they tell me to contact my internet provider... which I've done, and since my speed and packet loss are fine, they don't see a problem...

What's going on?? HELP! I'm getting so frustrated....


Do you love peaches?
2009-06-29T10:44:00.000-07:00
On Erik and my first shopping trip together as a married couple, we were browsing through the produce when he turned to me and very matter of factly asked, "Do you love peaches?" It cracked me up that he would use the word "love" instead of "like" when asking about produce, so it has become a running joke to ask in our family.

I gave Alice a piece of my peach today, and while she was eating it, she turned to me and I could just see in a little thought bubble above her head, "Do you love peaches?" Here she is:





She's also invented a new game that I call "aaaAAaa, Bonk". She'll stand at the top of the stairs and throw a stuffed animal down. The whole time it's falling, she'll scream "AAaAAAHAA!" and then when it hits the ground, she'll say "bonk!" It's adorable. :)


Food pick up day!
2009-06-27T01:16:00.000-07:00
It's pick up day for the co-op! I always get so excited for pick up day. Here's what we're getting this month:

	1 lb. lean ground beef

	2 lbs. chicken thighs

	4 6oz. boneless center cut pork chops

	1 lb top sirloin fajita strips

	6 peaches

	7 plums

	6 oranges

	2 avocados

	1 bunch broccoli

	1 romaine lettuce

	3 bell peppers

	1 bag carrots (2 lbs.)

	Stone Ground's Artisan Wheat Loaf

	16 oz. red beans


All for $23 that was paid at the beginning of the month. The best thing is that by this time in the month, all of our money is spent, so it's especially exciting to be getting so much produce. :D

If you're interested, check out http://foodco-op.net/


Babysitting & Big Fat Losers
2009-06-24T16:16:00.000-07:00
For the past couple days, I have been watching Suzie's little girl, Elliot for about 3 hours a day. This is going to be a semi permanent gig while Suzie is going back to grad school. I was worried that I wouldn't bond to her because even though I love her and think she's cute, I have heard that it's hard to do in home daycare when you have your own kids. I hear that you don't love the kids and you come to resent them for taking time away from your own kids or from your family or housework or whatever.

Well, Monday was rough. Elliot cried quite a bit and I tried holding her and bouncing her and rocking her, and she would fall asleep but then wake up immediately any time Alice got right up in her face and very excitedly jabbered or said, "BABY!!" to her. Go figure.

Tuesday was better. Elliot had a bottle although not much of it, and Alice went down for a nap about an hour before Suzie came to pick Elliot up, so we had some time to ourselves. I also wore Elliot in the baby carrier that day which really helped me to bond to her because I got to feel her so close and any time she would wiggle, it reminds me of how you can feel the baby move when you're pregnant.

Today, I decided that Alice would be taking a nap at 2:00 every day. That gives Elliot and I about 2 hours of time when we don't have to worry about toddlers being "helpful" and shoving pacifiers into baby mouths or patting baby on the head a bit too roughly. Don't get me wrong--it is adorable. I have a very willing assistant who is unfortunately not as skilled as she thinks she is.

I'm hoping that tomorrow will be good, too. :) She's such a cute little thing! Here she is *almost* laughing at a little vibrating toy that she loves:



Tonight, I made spaghetti for dinner and sat Alice down in her chair with a bowl of chopped up noodles and her spoon. She started eating and immediately said, "mmm... mmMMmmm...MMmmm" over and over until I acknowledged her and said, "is it yummy?" Later in the meal, she informed me "I toot" and when I didn't say anything, she proceeded to tell me 2 or 3 more times until I realized what she was saying and asked, "Did you toot?" She said yeah and gave a little grin and I said, "Oh, excuse you!"

She's starting to put words together into sentences. Yesterday, Sarah and David were babysitting, and Alice grabbed Sarah's hand and brought her over to the stairs, said, "I get you!" and then started running up the stairs, hoping Sarah would follow. It was so funny because we have played like that with her, but always say "I'm gonna get you" or something like that, so her saying "I get you" is really amazing to me because it means she's putting the words together on her own, and knows at least somewhat of what they mean.



I've joined a biggest loser friends edition blog with Amy and Brad and Sam. All of you friends should come and join us! The rules are that you weigh in once a week (wednesdays), you have to post at least once a week, and that whoever loses the highest percentage of weight by December 24 (Christmas Eve) is the winner! If you join, then you will have rights to contribute to the blog. So far, even though it's only been 1 day, it's fun to be contributing to a group blog. COME AND PLAY! Even if you only have 5 lbs to lose, we'll help eachother stay motivated. :)


Picture Puzzle
2009-06-15T14:37:00.000-07:00
So every day Squirt will do something that I'm either proud of, impressed, or amazed by. Today we were watching Mickey Mouse Club House, and there's a segment called Picture Puzzle, which is just a picture (in this case, a tent) that has been divided into 4 pieces and then shuffled around. There's a little song and then the pieces settle, and Mickey asks, "Does this look right?" At which point, Squirt said, "no". The puzzle started moving around again to the music, and it stopped in the right position. Mickey asked, "how about this?" Squirt said, "yeah".

If she watched this show every day and I sat there answering Mickey with her all the time, then that would be one thing, but she doesn't usually like this show so we don't watch it more than once in a while (every other week, maybe?) so the fact that she got the puzzle right is even more surprising to me. She's getting so big and growing up so much. <3

I think she's teething again. A few weeks ago her top 2 molars cut through so we went through the snotting and drooling like a water fountain, along with the extra crankiness. On Saturday, the face dripping started up again so I am hoping that these teeth will cut through quickly!

I'm realizing that our trip to Disney World is coming up closer and closer, which means that (since we are planning our family around a vacation) the day that we start trying to have a baby is getting closer and closer. I'm starting to get a little anxious about it. I'm remembering all of the hard parts about being pregnant and thinking about how much I love spending time with Squirt and how I don't want any of my time with her to go away, and the selfish part of me doesn't want to spread out my love at all, but to concentrate it on her. On the other hand, I'm excited to get pregnant on purpose and to have a new little tiny baby and have a sibling for Squirt and to feel a baby  move insie of me again, but it's almost like now that I have my baby on the outside, all of the magical parts of pregnancy don't seem as magical anymore... the baby getting hiccups and kicking and the ultrasound and all are being overshadowed by counting carbs and getting fat and feeling sick all the time... *sigh*

I almost wish though that we could just get surprised again because we probably would have put off getting pregnant longer and longer and we might still not have Squirt at this point in our lives if we had actually been able to plan for her. I can't imagine not having her yet though and how bored and selfish Frik and I would be if we didn't have Squirt to keep us serving and working. So I'm trying to not be selfish now and think forward to the fact that I am going to love a new baby. Maybe the horrors that come along with pregnancy will mean something more to me when I am purposefully putting myself through it.

Anyway, that's my rambling thought for the day :) I recently posted a bunch of pictures on facebook, so you should take a look at them :)


Looking through old stuff only causes trouble...
2009-06-09T18:04:00.000-07:00
I've been looking through some old documents I have saved and came across some that were funny and some that were embarassing... the one that follows is both of those. I wrote it shortly before I met Frik about my first "make out" experience. It was a class assignment to write about an event that changed my life or something like that, and this had just happened days before the assignment was given. Much to Frik's dismay, my feelings about kissing are still pretty much the same.

Without further ado, here it is:

My First Kiss
I made it all the way to 19.  Not intentionally, not accidentally, I just made it there without being kissed.  Lots of girls I knew had never been kissed—virgin lips.    They were waiting around, wondering what it felt like and hoping it would happen to them.  That’s what made me different from them.  I never cared.  I enjoyed holding hands, walking together, or cuddling during movies, but I seldom daydreamed or hoped or even thought about whether or not he would kiss me.  At the end of the night, we would say goodbye without anticipation.  That “perfect moment” never came, but I went back to my room and fell asleep just as content as ever.  My only thoughts about the future kiss I yearned for so little: whenever it came, it would come—probably with some guy who I had dated for a while, someone with as little experience as I had.  I never expected a perfect, romantic moment, but I thought I would tolerate it.  That’s all I thought about it.
Then one night I sat on the couch reading magazines in German with some guy named Nate…or Craig.  I could barely remember.  I had only met him 3 hours ago.  He didn’t speak German, so he really just followed along while I read, pretending he knew what the articles said.  At curfew, I walked him out the door.  We hugged and then it happened: the moment I had never sat around waiting for.
He turned his head towards mine a few times and looked at me with his eyes half shut like he wanted to eat me.  I resisted, but he finally came at me with his mouth hanging open like a trout right after you take the hook out.  He put his tongue on top of my lips that I kept pursed together.  I didn’t know how to react.  Not only had this never happened to me before, but I didn’t like him or even know him well enough to like him.  I tried to avoid drinking his saliva, which felt surprisingly thicker than mine with a slightly syrupy consistency, similar to the texture and thickness you get from sucking on a cough drop, but without the flavor or the menthol cooling action.  For the most part, I succeeded in my endeavors to avoid fluid exchange, but in the process, his spit spread all over my face, coating the skin between my nose and the cleft in my chin.  He rubbed his rough yet squishy tongue over my lips, trying to shove it between and into my mouth.  He finally stopped, and I put my head down on his shoulder and tried to stifle a chuckle that had built up.  I thought it was over.  I thought I was safe and free, when he apparently realized that he had failed in his attempt to woo me by licking, so he tried again.  This time I just stood still.  When he finished, I wiped my face off on his bristled jawbone and retreated to my apartment, laughing.
My roommates, who watched us through the peephole, tell me that kissing feels good when you actually like the guy and that I should look forward to the next time. I don’t think so.  In fact, any physical contact between a male and female causes a gagging reflex in my throat—Even contact that I used to appreciate or enjoy.  The next day, Nate/Craig came over and tried to snuggle with me on the couch.  Besides my fear the entire time that he wanted to assault me again with body fluid, I got the chills every time he ran his hand up my back or rested it on my shoulder—not good chills.  Bad chills.  Your mother just fell and broke her back chills.  That’s when we talked and decided to end our one and a half day attempt at a relationship.
I can’t even watch movies anymore where people kiss.  I felt especially nauseous while watching the scene in “Spiderman” where Mary Jane kisses her super-hero stalker while he hangs upside-down in the pouring rain.  Wet bodies touching seemed less romantic than ever.  That will never happen to me again.  No, I have vowed never to kiss again.


Can't sleep...
2009-06-03T22:35:00.000-07:00
Isn't it just wonderful that as soon as my baby is really sleeping through the night, I fall into a bout of insomnia? Doesn't seem fair... I woke up yesterday at 5:00, worried because i didn't think Frik had made it home, but he was here. I couldn't fall back asleep after that. boo... That was also the first night that Squirt slept completely from 8:30 until 7:00 without waking up and needing me to go comfort her back to sleep. She is growing up so much! a couple of my favorite things she does lately:

She says a new word at least every day, and I'm not talking about mimicking when I say "Say apple" and she'll say apple, but more like she was playing with a friend's scooter, just looking at it, and she said, "bike" or she came up to erik and said, "muhnana" and so he asked "do you want a banana?" and she said "yes" and nodded her whole cute little body.

She has been listening to instructions I give her and then acknowledging me by saying "k". For example, I'll tell her, "Lets pick up your blocks and then we'll eat some lunch" and she'll look at me and say, "k".  Or when I dropped her off at the daycare at the gym, I set her down with some baby dolls and told her I loved her and I'd be back soon, and she said "k" and gave me a kiss.

She has also been so good about going to bed. As i left the room a couple nights ago, she said, "ni-night" to me on the way out.

When she is done eating, she will say "all done" now instead of "da done".

She started saying Momma more intentionally instead of calling me daddy all the time :)

Yesterday morning, when i brought her downstairs, she looked around the corner of the house and said, "Daddy? Duke?" It was adorable and when she says Duke it's the cutest little thing ever.

Some of her words now are book, banana, Ellie (the neighbor's daughter), Belly, eye, nose, mouth, cheek, teeth, ear, cute, pretty, bird, good girl (about a baby at church), blue (actually referring to the color when someone asked what color it was!), phone, and 'one, two, three, wheee!'(which really sounds like two two three whee, but it's still pretty good!)

Anyway, there's my middle of the night update. I'm gonna clean up the front room and maybe get tired enough to fall asleep. hopefully. :(


3 VERY lucky people...
2009-05-29T07:51:00.000-07:00
The first three people to leave a comment on this post will receive something made by me. However, there are some limitations:

1. I make no guarantee that you will like what I make.
2. What I create will be just for you.
3. It will be done this year.
4. You have no clue what it is going to be - cards, bows, a bag, frame or a little invention of my own. I may bake something and mail it to you . Who knows? Not you that's for sure!
5. I reserve the right to do something extremely strange. It may blow your mind!

Here's the catch, if you choose to do this. You must post this on your blog and be ready to make something for three people too. This will be fun! When you receive the fabulous item I make you, you must post a picture of it on your blog. Now time to comment and start thinking about what you will be making for someone else! ;)


A couple new tricks...
2009-05-14T15:18:00.000-07:00
One of Squirts favorite things to say lately is, "Duke, NO". Of course, it's usually as she's shoving some piece of food in his mouth, but sometiems she just walks around the house saying it. He looks so sad when he hears it so I try to tell him he's a good boy. She also has another new favorite word: poke. She LOVES poking people, including herself, and poking bubbles and poking anything. She'll poke on command, too. If I say, poke shawna, she'll walk over and poke her. It's funny. I don't even know where she learned the word from, but it's cute.

Frik and I have been going to the gym together and leaving her in the free (thanks to my VIP membership) daycare. It's been good for us to be able to do something togther, but she hasn't been enjoying the daycare very much. They actually had to page me back to pick her up today b/c she was so sad. When I got there, I asked her if she was hungry and she said, "mMMmm" so we got her some food and she was much happier. She's been doing really well with communicating lately. She told me that her shoe was falling off by saying "shoes stuck" while we were walking into Costco the other day, and when she's hungry or wants something, she will say no when I offer everything until I get to what it is that she wants. It's fun, but it'll also be nice when she knows a couple of other words so she can tell me straight out what she wants instead of playing the guessing game. :)

She's also realized that it's funny to lie. I asked her if she pooped and she said yes, so I went to change her diaper and there was no poop, which she thought was hillarious. silly girl.

We had an all you can eat sushi party on tuesday with Sukie, Wudan, Striker, and some of the fish friends. I was really looking forward to it and was very happy with the sushi, but I realized that all you can eat sushi isn't really that great of a discount because you only end up eating 2 or so rolls anyway, and that'd cost anywhere from 15-20, which is the price of the all you can eat... But you can get more variety with the all you can eat and not even feel guilty looking at the prices, so that's a bonus. I guess that we're going to make the sushi night a monthly tradition. mmm... looking forward to that. And Squirt loves the shrimp, so I know she'll enjoy it, too!


Brigham’s Young’s is a strange place
2009-04-29T18:35:00.000-07:00
The new semester started today (yesterday actually, but for me it started today ;).

So on my way to class I parked the usual 15 minutes away from campus (if you've ever tried to park at BYU you know what I'm talking about) and just as I'm getting to the outer fringe of campus I walk past an empty, parked SUV with the keys in the ignition, engine running, doors unlocked, and windows down.... My first though was "weird" my second thought was "if I were a less-honest person I could hop in that car and drive off" and my final thought was "he's going to feel really stupid when he comes back and his car is gone."

So I went to class for 3 hours. (One class, 3 hours, but it was good. I think I am really going to enjoy this spring term.) Then, on my way back there it was: the same SUV in the same spot, keys in the ignition, engine running, doors unlocked, and windows down.... "weird!"


Happy Wedding!
2009-04-29T14:51:00.000-07:00
For those of you who are living under a rock, David and Guildy got married. Congratulations!



the 2 groomsmen trying to smell their flowers



Dad & David



The groom trying to smell his flower...



Silly boys



Us!



Grandma & Squirt



David and Squirt after dinner.

I can't believe I didn't get a single picture of Guildy! Sheesh... I guess you'll have to look elsewhere to see how hot she looked ;)

correction- Frik didn't get a single picture of Guildy. He was the one with the camera, so he was the one to blame!


Playing Catch-up
2009-04-20T12:57:00.000-07:00
It's been a while so here are some pictures from the past couple weeks:



She really liked the Easter Egg hunt with Lorna's ward, and figured it out pretty quickly.







She actually enjoyed easter egg dying, too, and put a couple of eggs into the dye all by herself.



Enjoying the post Easter snow



mmm



Today, trying to blow bubbles. Can you believe that this picture was taken only a couple of weeks after the others? The weather has been SO nice lately. Warm, but not hot, and sunny.



Just enjoying the Sun :)

Some of Squirt's favorite words to say lately: bubbles, cheese, shoes (sounds a lot like cheese), Day-bid, Duke, Ma, Daddy, ByeBye, Butt, Poop, Milk, Eye, mmm (in response to the question, "Are you hungry?") and of course, No. It seems that she's starting into the "terrible twos" where she is fighting me over whether or not to go to sleep or to eat or go outside or whatever it is that she does or does not want to do. It's frustrating, but hopefully won't last long.

Lately, when she wakes up, she doesn't cry for us but instead calls down, "Ma! Mama!?" One night she even called down for daddy. It's nice that she knows we'll come up there and doesn't get sad, just lets us know she's awake, however, she's been calling down to us within a couple of minutes of us laying her down for the past week or so, so we have to go up and tell her it's nime for ni-night.

She's so much fun, though, despite however difficult she is being lately. She still is my favorite little person (Frik is my favorite big person, haha) and I still can't wait to see her and cuddle her and love her. :)


:D
2009-04-09T19:48:00.000-07:00
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViO6Gu7qHcE]


Who Knew Foosball Could Be So Much Fun?
2009-04-07T04:02:00.000-07:00
I recently became a foosball addict. At work we have a real professional-type foosball table in the break room, and when I first started working there everyone who was anyone played it for almost every break they had. I played a couple of games back then just to fill-in when they were desperate for a 4th guy. I wouldn't necesarilly say I sucked; I played about as good as you would expect a normal person to play foosball, but these guys seemed to be playing another game entirely. It turns out there's a lot more to foosball than hitting the ball as hard as you can in the right direction. Anyway, most of the guys that were really serious about it have been gone for a long time now and the foosball table hasn't been maintained in a couple of years.

That was, until a few weeks ago. Some coworkers and I started playing and it spread like an infection. So yesterday we cleaned up the playing surface (it was disgusting), cleaned up the foosballs, cleaned up the players, and oiled the bars, etc. Playing a few games a day with the few good players that are still around has been a lot of fun. I'm at the point where I can more than hold my own and the competition is getting intense.

If you've never played a real competetive game of foosball you're missing out. I think it's the most fun I've ever had in an office setting (saying a lot, I know). It comes at a really good time though because things were starting to get a little tense at work with the lay-offs and everyone working so hard all the time trying not to get canned. Don't get me wrong, hard work is great, but you can only sprint for so long before you start to hate your job. So it's been nice to relax a little and really enjoy going to work again.


My Macbook is Cooler Than Your Macbook
2009-04-04T14:15:00.000-07:00



Favorites
2009-04-01T17:19:00.000-07:00
When I was in CO a few weeks ago, Mom and I stopped at a garage sale where they had a bunch of CDs for $1 each. Pretty typical garage sale CD prices, and I love getting them there because they're so cheap! Well one of the CDs that I picked up was Simon & Garfunkle's greatest hits. I know, totally lame, but also really cool. I was mostly looking forward to "Mrs. Robinson" and "The Sound of Silence" since they were the only 2 that I knew I knew. Well I listened to it once in CO and found that I liked quite a few of the songs on the CD. I brought it back and played it for Erik in spite of his dislike for them because of a crazy hippie elementary school teacher who was in love with them.

Well, within just a few listenings, Squirt had fallen in love. She was dancing and kicking and bobbing her cute little head to "The Boxer" all with a huge smile on her face. Then when "The Sound of Silence" came on, she was really liking it, and when the song ended, she started yelling and crying until we started it over again. Silly girl, loves Simon & Garfunkle. (Her other favorite group is ABBA).

Another favorite of hers is Cheese. While we were at Sarah's for "fakesgiving," Squirt had decided that it was time to go home and was banging on the door saying "bye bye! bye bye!" In order to keep her occupied for another couple of rounds of the great Dalmuti, I asked Sarah if she had any cheese. Alice immediately stopped and said, "Cheese?" and went over to the fridge.

One other favorite of hers is her favorite TV show: Handy Manny. Today, I was trying to make dinner but she was getting all in my way, so I said, "Do you want to watch Handy Manny while I make dinner?" She nodded and headed in to the front room and I put it on for her. I have, in the past, asked her if she wanted to watch Handy Manny, but then put on Little Einsteins or Mickey Mouse Club House, and she has brought me the remote and insisted that I change it. I love how she has connected that the remote is what makes it so that I can make her tv shows come on, and if she wants to watch tv, she'll bring it over to me. So cute!

The really interesting thing to me is how much Squirt's favorites become my favorites. I would never have picked McDonalds over ANY other kind of food before, but now that I can see her playing on the toys and enjoying her hamburger, I love it. And Simon and Garfunkle are quickly becoming favorites of mine, as well.  Don't hate. :D


"no"
2009-03-31T13:38:00.000-07:00
So my sweet baby has learned how to use a new word. David and Sarah had come over to pick up some wedding cards that were sent here, and Squirt was just waking up from a nap. When I brought her down, she was still a little cranky and clingy, but overall happy because she saw that David and Sarah were here. Uncle David asked her "Do you want to come see me?" and she shook her head and said in a very sweet little voice "no". It was so cute. They kept asking her if she wanted to come see them just to see/hear her say no in such a cute little way.

She's been struggling for the past couple weeks with an abscess on her neck. It started right as we got to Colorado for our visit and then just got worse, until we finally took her to the dr when we got home a week later. at that point they told us what it was (we were thinking swollen lymph nodes) and gave her some antibiotics which were supposed to either make it go away, or make it come to a head. For those of you who don't know what an abscess is, it's like a boil, but bigger. Similar to the problem I had while I was pregnant.

Well by friday last week, it had come to a head so we took her in and then drained it, which was super disgusting and sad and traumatizing at the same time. They had her strapped down to this board and had a nurse holding her head down while the dr worked and then packed the empty cavity with this really skinny tape like gauze.

The worst part for me is that every day I change her dressing and then have to pull out 2 inches of the gauze and cut it off. Yuk. Pulling stuff out of my baby's neck like it was a floss dispenser is really disturbing, and I swear Frik almost pukes every time he thinks about it.

The whole ordeal has made me fall even more in love with our pediatricians office, though. They drove me home on the day of the draining because frik had to get to class. They've been calling and having us come in after hours no charge to get the dressing changed or to take a look at her to make sure it's ok... and the dr called a couple times over the weekend just to check and see how we're doing and left us with his cell phone number. It was really nice to have someone care about us so much!

I've also realized that Squirt doesn't like older men. We saw a younger dr when we went in the first time (around 30 or so) and then our regular dr came in (in his late 50s I'd guess) and although squirt was fine with the first dr, she was scared and cried for the second one. So Wizard, don't take it personally! You're just too old ;)When I thought about it a bit, I realized that it's probably because Squirt never really associates with any older men since my dad isn't here all the time and Frik's dad is gone, so she has no problems with grandmas and mommy and daddy age people, but grandpas are a foreign concept to her. We've gotta find a surrogate grandpa around here...


BIG doggy
2009-03-16T09:30:00.000-07:00
We went for a walk the other day around the block, and the people who live behind us have horses, so I asked if we could go back and see them. As soon as squirt saw them she started saying "Doodun" which doesn't sound like duke or dog really, but it's the word that she says whenever she sees duke, so i think it's just her way of saying it. The horse startled her when he brought his head towards her, but after a few minutes and after seeing me pet the horse, she reached out to pet him. It was a very nice horse and when we started leaving, it trotted along the side of his pen to follow us. It was very cute.

she has another tooth now, so that makes 7. :D I had my first day of nursery yesterday at church (in this ward anyway) and I have to admit that I wasn't looking forward to being in the nursery when they called me, but as soon as one of the little girls reached up to hold my hand, I changed my mind.  I really have it easy. I'm not even in the nursery with the kids having to play with them and keep them entertained, I just take them to go get their parents when they have to go potty or change a diaper, and help shuffle them from room to room. I'm in charge of the older half of the nursery along with one other girl who is my neighbor, and there are 3 groups in that older half that get moved around between 2 rooms the whole time. It's pretty crazy. Then the younger half has another 3 groups and will need a 4th one by the end of the year. TONS of kids. I love this ward!


Speak softly...
2009-03-12T17:19:00.000-07:00
Squirt went outside to play today and found a big stick on the ground probably about 4 feet long and decided she had to have it:



She carried it around with her for the next 5 minutes or so until I made her come inside. It sucks because it's not quite warm enough for her to play outside for very long, but she really loves going "bye bye" and will stand banging on the door crying "bye bye! bye bye!" if she doesn't get to go out.

I have been amazed lately by how much she has learned. I told her the other day "let's change your diaper" and she walked over and grabbed a diaper and handed it to me. If I say "let's go upstairs" she heads over to the stairs. I can ask her to get me her shoes and she brings them to me. It's crazy for me to think of how much I say that she really understands now, and it's funny when she hears me say a word she knows how to say so she'll repeat it back to me. Today while I was changing her diaper, I said, "you have a cute butt" (something I thought was so weird until I was a mom... thinking a butt is cute? seriously?) And she looked back at me and said "butt butt butt". She can also say poop (hahaha) and cheese and duke and daddy and bye bye of course, and the cutest thing is that she'll say "david" when she's looking at him and guildy's engagement picture... of course, she also says david now when she looks at her growth chart and points to the picture of mickey mouse...

She is just growing so much and it's really amazing to me to be able to see it!

Oh and for those of you who may be wondering about the 90% of humanity being scum bags, I think you can blame the most recent episode of House for Frik's overreaction... I'm sorry, honey! I love you! <3


Revision
2009-03-12T16:59:00.000-07:00
So I guess I have to post again after last night's post. I didn't expect that anyone would actually read it until maybe another week or so had passed and somebody accidentally hit my blog. Sadly, I didn't account for those pesky RSS feeds.

Last night's blog post was the product of taking in months worth of noxious back-biting in single evening, letting it fester for a couple hours, and finally needing a place to unload it. I must have drafted at least 10 emails and another 5 blog posts before I was finally able to write something coherent. In short, something had to give, and it did.

In hindsight, I've been reminded once again of why I try to avoid this kind of toxic discourse we so affectionately call social drama, as nothing truly good ever came of it.

Finally, I have to revise my numbers a bit. 100% of the human population has a festering cesspool of disgust and hate buried somewhere deep inside their persona. You just don't get to see it very often because it stays hidden behind a generally decent exterior. I apologize to those people I offended.


I’m so full of hurt and anger right now…
2009-03-11T16:42:00.000-07:00
and yet have very little to say.

I used to truly believe that, deep down (further down for some than others) 90% of the human population were good people. I'm now convinced it's more like 10% of people are good inside, and 90% are a festering cespool of disgust and hate. (Some hide it better than others, so my numbers could still be off a bit)

So, what would happen if we all dispensed with the niceties, the falsehoods, the decency, and the platitudes? I can't begin to imagine, but I got a taste of it today and I am still at a loss to describe how it made me feel.


Carolyn Needs...
2009-03-05T12:25:00.000-08:00
Here's what you do: Google your name with the word 'needs' after it. Put it all in quotes like this: "Harvey needs" or "Darren needs" Make a list of the first 10 things that make sense that Google spits out.

1. Carolyn needs a spanking =)

2. Carolyn needs good food, good shelter

3. Carolyn needs to take long hot baths and add some herbs.

4. Carolyn needs to cut back on stress and find emotional satisfaction.

5. Carolyn needs us guys.

6. CAROLYN NEEDS TO KNOW.

7. Carolyn needs urgent sponsorship.

8. Carolyn needs someone to cut her food and stay close by in case she chokes.

9. Carolyn needs to turn 15 more or gain 365 more Zombe points to reach the next level.

10. Carolyn needs phone #'s because her mom accidentally washed her phone.


Scavenger Hunt
2009-03-02T16:04:00.000-08:00
Lately, I've been finding items in interesting places: tomato sauce on the book shelf, magenets in the lazy susan cabinet, princess dolls in my spaghetti pan to name a few. It seems that Squirt is going through a phase where she's liking to put things "away" just not in the right places. It's funny, I've seen her move a bag of rice from one cabinet to another, as if she just thought that it was better suited to the other cabinet.

She has this set of princess dolls though that she got for Christmas. She LOVES them and carries them around with her everywhere, so when it comes time to put them away, it's like playing hide and seek.

Most of you know that we are planning a trip to disney world. The original plan was for late 2009, then it got pushed to early 2010, and now it's back to late 2009 just because that way we won't have to buy Squirt a plane ticket. I get excited every time I think about it and start planning it at all... needless to say I'm really looking forward to it :)

For those of you who don't know, Frik has a habit of seeing products that are on sale for really cheap and then buying them to resell them. It's something that is kind of crazy, but also an easy profit (if he ever gets around to listing them on ebay or craigslist). Currently for sale, we have 3 pink graphing calculators (ti-84 plus) so if any of you are interested, let me know!


C is for...
2009-02-23T12:51:00.000-08:00
Rules: erase my answers, enter yours,  and tag 10 people.  Use the 1st letter of  your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real places, names, and things.  You can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

 1. What is your name: Carolyn

2. 4 letter word: Camp

3. A Boy’s Name:  Charles

4. A Girl’s Name:  Cindy

5. An Occupation: Customer Service Rep

6. A Color: Cerulean 

7. Something you wear: Cap

8. A Beverage:  Carrot Juice

9. A Food: Candy

10. Something found in the bathroom: Conditioner

11. A place: Carport

12. A Reason for being late:  Can't find my keys


13. Something you shout: Come here now! 


Jaw Dropping Excitement
2009-02-23T07:30:00.000-08:00
A couple of months ago, Frik and I bought Squirt some bangles to play with because she had taken to wearing the roll of packing tape around her wrist all over the place. She loved them, but they've been sitting in a tin in the bottom of her toy box for over a month now, so she forgot that she even had them.

Today, she wanted to play with Daddy's sunglasses, so instead I pulled out that tin because it had a pair of little kid sunglasses in it. When I opened the box, her jaw dropped as she looked inside and saw all the pretty things. It was adorable.

Yesterday was a rough day at church. She was very tired and cranky, so I was trying to put her down for a nap. She was of course screaming and crying, but in the middle of her crying she still managed to find it in her heart to give me a kiss. Maybe she was trying to bribe me... "If I kiss you, will you let me go play?" She has been doing a lot of kisses lately. We were walking around walgreens and pretty much anything I handed her that had a face, she would kiss. She loves to kiss herself in the mirror, too.

Her walking has improved quite a bit, too. She is nowhere near Jack Jack's level of expertise of course, but she is walking around unassisted all the time now.

Grandpa came to visit for the weekend and got to spend a lot of time with us. Squirt was holding out on him for pretty much the whole trip. She's got a cold and isn't feeling to great so it was hard for her to open up, but she did give him a couple of cuddles when he was reading to her:



Also exciting is the new addition to our family, Frik's new girlfriend:



He actually compared the laptop to a perfect wife...

Alice and Duke in the tent (duke LOVES the tent...):



And here's one of Alice saying "Daddy"



DVR
2009-02-17T15:04:00.000-08:00
First of all, I want to say that I very strongly dislike my DVR. Before we moved in here, we had DISH and i loved their DVR and remote and everything about it... When we moved in here, we switched to Comcast because basic cable was included with our HOA fees. After about a year, we decided we really missed our DVR and decided to upgrade through comcast for an extra $15ish/mo...

Well... I really really don't like it. The quality of HD programming is lower than SD programming was on the basic cable. It's yucky. It freezes up often... it's not intutive and unpredictable.

That said, It's better than no DVR and cheaper than DISH or DirecTV or anything else since we will be paying the HOA regardless. I have really liked being able to keep a couple of kids shows on hand for Squirt (Little Einsteins is one of her favorites) and play them at any time.

So I'm wondering... What are your top DVR/Tivo'd shows? For me, it's probably Friends, Scrubs, and Jon & Kate plus 8. These are shows I wouldn't watch otherwise because they're either on at stupid times or I don't want to wait through commercials or both. There are also, of course, the shows that I would watch even without the DVR: House, Lost, Life on Mars, The Office... Almost a new show for every day of the week! So exciting :D


You may all have seen this already...
2009-02-11T16:27:00.000-08:00
but I thought that it was interesting:

 http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=6854285&page=1 

Sukie accused me of having a "mommy blog". I have to admit that it is totally true! I can't help it. Since I had Squirt, my life revolves around her. I was even watching friends recently and thought that it was so stupid and unrealistic that after Ross and Rachael have their baby, nothing changes. There are a couple episodes that have Emma in them, but for the most part, nothing is different. Even in the series finale, Rachael is going off to Paris or wherever and Ross comes to the Airport and tells her he loves her blah blah blah... but there is no Emma anywhere around. Weird... I guess sitcoms don't typically aim for complete realism.

Anyway, back to the link... I know a lot of people aim for 1 year for breast feeding their baby and that is considered a long time. I've heard people who only want to for 6 weeks or 6 months or until the baby has teeth, etc... And then some people don't breast feed their babies at all. I'm of the opinion that whatever you choose to do with your baby is fine as long as he or she is healthy. I chose to breast feed Squirt to at least a year and in my mind have always thought that it would probably be more like 2 years, which is practically unheard of  in our society, but it's the decision that I feel is right for me and my baby.

There is, of course, the extreme:



Breastfeeding a child to 8 years old is definitely not something I would do... Even the 5 year old is much too old for me. They seem like an interesting family anyway. Doesn't seem like their kids ever have any candy or anything if you listen to how the older child describes the taste of breastmilk... However, she's not abusing the kids and so if she wants to do it... whatever. I'll try my best not to judge her. ;)


Just wanted to share...
2009-02-10T14:09:00.000-08:00
You know how in some kids shows, the characters talk to the kids (think blues clues or mickey mouse club house) Well the other day, I noticed that when the characters are obviously talking to the audience, Squirt responds with little questiony sounding comments. It is SO cute. :)


3D Fun
2009-02-09T18:24:00.000-08:00
Berserk & Val came into town this weekend for Theorb's wedding. Although they didn't make it down to Provo (next time you guys will have to come down here!) we did have fun hanging out with them at the planetarium and later at Theorb's wedding. We saw "fly me to the moon" (the 3d Imax version) and it was kind of cute but mostly annoying. It was Squirt's first 3D movie, though, and she did really well until the last couple minutes. When she'd actually keep the little glasses on and look at the screen at the same time, she was intrigued and would reach out in front of her to try to grab the picture. It was adorable.



Playing in the gift shop at the planetarium



Us forcing Squirt to choose between her 2 least favorite  people. With Berserk, I think it's a matter of proximity and her never seeing him. With Striker.... well... She just doesn't like him. Sorry Striker! She was doing better this weekend, though...



All the kids. This is The Boy's contemplative face.

She's been teething some more lately and so has been harder than normal to deal with. Today, when I was changing her diaper, she decided that she just had to give me a kiss and pulled herself up by grabbing my neck as I leaned over to talk to her and then gave me a sweet little baby kiss. She will get that idea from time to time. The first time I saw her spontaneously kiss something with out being prompted, it was the dog. The second one was The Boy (that one I ALMOST caught on camera) and then this time, it was me. :)



Squirt's first kiss! (The Boy is her FAVORITE person. She just thinks he's so hilarious)



Squirt posing with the happy couple. The reception was beautiful. :)



The other happy couple



Pretty baby princess!




A little less wise... and toothy
2009-01-29T09:57:00.000-08:00


So last year, when we were signing up for our flex spending account contributions, we put about 1000 onto the plan so it would cover the birth of our Squirt. It turned out, though, that even though she was born in the correct tax year, it was not the correct fiscal year, so we had to pay the $900 ish out of pocket and then were left with a ton of money in our flex spending account. We tried thinking of all the medical procedures we could have done, and finally settled on me getting my wisdom teeth out (something I should have had done already, and those of you who have read this who don't have kids yet, but still have teeth, get them taken out now. It's easier when you don't have to worry about taking care of someone else)

We kept pushing the date back because since I was going under general anesthesia, I wouldn't be allowed to breast feed squirt for 24 hours after the procedure. This was nerve racking because she still nurses at night and several times throughout the day, ususally when going down for naps. In addition, she likes to try to "help herself" by grabbing my shirt and pulling and saying, "eh?" like, "can I please have some?" Since I didn't want to have to tell her no and try to not be in pain myself, I thought it would be good if she wasn't around at all, so Sarah graciously decided she could take her for the day.

She did very well, and for more details on that excursion, see Guildy's blog. Once she got home that night, Guildy gave her a bath and put her in bed. She cried for about 15 minutes before falling asleep which isn't too terrible, but it was hard for me to hear. She slept all the way from 8:30 until about 3, then woke up and Daddy tried to calm her down, even giving her a bottle of milk I had pumped a while back, which she was mad about at first, but then realized it was that or nothing and took it. He watched mickey mouse with her and she finally fell back asleep around 5. Then woke up at 7. I had a Dr. appointment at 8:40, so we went to that and She ate a lot of bananas... and then by 12:30 I was nursing her down for her nap, which was about 2 and a half hours.

Overall, it messed with her schedule a bit, but she is pretty much recovered form that now. She even slept so well last night. I put her down at 9:30 (because she had had a weird late nap, recovering from no sleep at all...) and she didn't wake up until about 5, when I went in and put her back down and she then woke up at 8:30, just like normal. I'm so proud of her! She slept in her own crib all night! (me being on narcotics didn't feel like it would be safe to bring her into bed with me...) And so i really feel like's she's growing up and becomeing more independent. :)

Now I'm just getting sick of the bloody taste in the back of my mouth... yuck.




Eye, Eye...
2009-01-15T06:36:00.000-08:00
I was trying to put squirt down for a nap today and she rolled over on the bed and saw her stuffed sheep, and started saying "hi, hi, hi" to it. I thought it was so cute, but then I realized that she was pointing at the Eye and that she was saying "eye, eye, eye". That made it even cuter! She does like to play the game where she points at my nose and I say "nose" or she points at my mouth and I say "mouth," so she's just taken it to a new level. :) So cute!


Cutest Hide and Seek
2009-01-14T15:51:00.000-08:00


Squirt was playing hide and seek with Frik yesterday. He used to play with Duke, where he would throw duke's ball downstairs then run into the other room and hide and wait for duke to come find him. As adorable as that was, it's so much cuter when squirt crawls in and sees him and then starts laughing and getting excited, then Frik will run into the other room and hide and Squirt will come crawling after him. It's so so cute.

Mom and Scooter came into town for the past weekend for Squirt's birthday party. Thanks again for all the help getting ready for the party! I think it went well. We had a ton of people here (around 25, and that's a lot for a house this size) and we made some really good green chili... mmm... and had cake and chips. Squirt was pretty cranky. She's been not feeling too great and has been very clingy for the past week or so, so I think that was the root of it. Plus there were a lot of people here and she needed a nap. She didn't even end up getting to have any cake because we had to put her down for a nap before we cut it.

Last night, Frik woke up to a thump coming from upstairs and then the baby crying (we had fallen asleep watching tv downstairs). So he ran upstairs and guess who was not in her crib anymore? That's right. She was on the floor, crying. Today I moved the mattress down to the lower level. Poor little Squirt. Too good of a climber for her own good.




2 more teeth!
2009-01-07T11:52:00.000-08:00
My poor baby's next 2 teeth finally broke through. Her gums have been purple and swollen for the past couple days and she's even bit with her bottom teeth and drew blood up there, so I'm so happy for her that they finally cut through! The dr also mentioned yesterday that her teeth are very straight, so here's hoping that she will have straight teeth like her mom and not need braces! :D


Long Overdue Christmas and New Years Pictures
2009-01-06T14:29:00.000-08:00


Here are a bunch of cute pictures from Christmas and New years:



Jack Jack discovered a new vessel to get milk from




Squirt loved the bubbles we got in our stocking!






She found the baby under the tree and fell in love






Such cute babies!




Playing with her new princess dolls




Jack Jack loves Tiger!




Silly boys




Silly Daddy, too.




On New Years Eve, her "bracelet"




Duke and his baby




Family picture




Playing "wanu"




Aww...




Sukie, since you refuse to smile for a picture, I'm going to post all the crappy pictures I get of you until I get a good one.




I can't quit you, Striker!


So the other day, we went to DI to browse around and I picked up a nutcracker and started making it talk to Squirt. I made it say, "hello" and she said back "hello". It was so cute! Now she'll say it once in a while and a lot of the time, she'll hold her hand up to her face like she's talking on the phone. It is adorable.

We had a dr appointment for her today. She got 4 shots and a toe stick. Everything is good, she's in the 80th percentile for height (29 1/2 in) and the 40th for weight (20 lb 12 oz) and her head is in the 75th. The Dr. told us something interesting, that there is a correlation between a baby having less than 6 teeth at 1 year old and them being tall as adults, so he thinks that given that Squirt has only 2 teeth (the top 2 are so so so close!) and that she's tall right now, that she's going to be, as he says "a barbie". She did so well with the toe stick, like she didn't even notice it, and then the shots were ok. She cried of course and broke our hearts, but then she calmed down very quickly and even gave the nurse a smile on the way out.

We drove scribbles up to idaho yesterday in a caravan style. The weather was not good at all, so what was supposed to take only 8 hours up and back took around 12, partially because of stops and partially because of bad weather and traffic. It was fun though, and Squirt did so well in the car. She either slept or watched Brother Bear the whole way. She slept a lot more today, so I'm thinking a growth spurt is coming.

When we got up to Scribbles' dorm, there were some baby toys in the main lobby because the hall advisor has a few kids. One of the toys was a doll house with a little family of dolls. Squirt went over to it and tried to climb in and was playing with the mommy and daddy and baby dolls. I swear she even had slightly different voices that she was giving to each of them. Then she put the baby doll in the crib. It was so adorable.

One last cute thing that she's been doing lately is when she sees us pull out specific foods (cheese, french fries, chocolate...) she'll say "mmmm" in anticipation. It's adorable. It's silly, but I"m proud of her for being able to associate the way those foods look with what they taste like, instead of just thinking everything is food and putting it all in her mouth like she was doing for those couple of months. No more eating leaves and card board! (hopefully)

For those of you that didn't see my blog post from new years day (there were 2) who are curious about what happened and what MJ is talking about, there was a second post where I talked about a scary incident that happend with Squirt. After posting it though, I felt like it was just too personal and that since I don't know who all could read my blog and honestly I was afraid of people's reactions, so I took it down. If any of you want to know what happened, though, email me and I'll let you know. If you don't have my email address or any other means by which to contact me, you are the people that I didn't want to share with. sorry :)




2008 Recap
2008-12-31T19:56:00.000-08:00


Well since I've been blogging pretty well for this past year, why not do a recap to tie it all up?

January was the biggest change of the year (duh) when Frik and I had our baby, Squirt. She was so tiny and adorable!



I got to stay home with her and recover for the next couple of months, then went back to work part time at verio. After a month or two of that, Frik decided that my income wasn't worth having to keep a poor little hungry baby from crying (always refused a bottle, that one...) so I quit and became a full time stay at home mom.

We took Squirt on her first roadtrip for my cousin's baptism in March or April... I forget which. We then proceeded to take her on roadtrips to colorado, Oregon, and repeated trips to St. George to visit her cousins who she loves. She is a well traveled baby. She took her first flight in April when I went to CO for one of my best friends from high school's wedding, then took another in October for the other best friend's wedding.

I tried out selling Pampered Chef for a couple months. It never quite took off enough to be worth the time that I put into it, so I've slowly let that dwindle away. In November, I found a part time contracting position with a hair bow company through a family friend. That has been a bit more reliable as far as income goes, and still lets me stay home and take care of squirt so it's been great.

Frik finished a couple more semesters in school, although we're still working to find the happy medium between too much class and not enough, somewhere that we'll be able to have 1 college degree in the family before too long, but not burn him out at the same time. It's been hard. He got promoted at work and moved to the salary club, which has been nice since it makes the income so constant and predictable, although overtime hours and holiday pay have been missed. He is loving his new position, though, so that is great.

We traded in our Forenza when it started flipping out in weird little ways... the brake lights not working, the seat belt not locking if it got too hot, the battery dying because the brake lights wouldn't turn off at all... someone trying to break in to the car by jamming a screw driver into the driver side lock and messing the entire door up so it wouldn't open at all... stupid things, and since it was out of warranty, we decided that fixing all the tiny things was not worth it, so we traded it in for a Mazda 3, a more reliable and more fun car overall.

Of course, there was the election which was a big deal at our house since Frik is the king of boring TV. We had the TV on CNN constantly for at least 8 months leading up to the election and then again for about a month afterwards.... Boooooring, but at the same time, it's nice to have a source of knowledge in the house (frik, not the tv...)

At the end of November, my Grandma died... just over a year after my Grandpa on the other side of the family died. Her death was violent right at the end so that is still hard for me to accept, but overall I know she is happier and in less pain now, so that helps.

Soon I'll have a 1 year old baby girl. She is getting so big and is playing so cute these days. She has decided that this roll of packing tape that got left on the floor makes the greatest bracelet. It's adorable to see her walking/crawling around the house with it pushed all the way up to her shoulder.  We tried to make a somewhat big deal out of all her first holidays, while still keeping them within the range of normal holiday celebration. Life has taken on a whole new meaning since she arrived and I find that almost everything I do now is for her in one way or another. I didn't expect that I would be a mom yet, but I wouldn't trade it, even for the couple thousand dollars a month that we're missing out on because of it :D

In the upcoming year, I would like to start saving some money just so that we have a bit of a cushion "just in case". Other resolutions or goals for the coming year... Kiss Squirt every day (should be easy), and snap out of lazy streaks where I let the house go to pot and never cook or do anything other than sit on my butt watching TV within a day or two (compared to the week or so that is typical now :D ) That's it. I don't like the typical make millions of resolutions at the beginning of the year  because it's so overwhelming and I know that I won't follow through with them all, so I'll just work on those 2... which is really just 1...

Good bye old man 2008! I'll miss you!






New Year’s Resolution
2008-12-29T18:24:00.000-08:00
I realize I'm a day early here, but I just spent the better part of the last 4 hours thinking about it and I decided I should put it in writing before I change my mind. My new year's resolution is:

I will not spend any money.

By that I mean I won't spend money on anything I want to buy. Of course I can't stop paying the bills, putting gas in the car or buying groceries, but for the upcoming year my personal spending will be as close to $0 as is humanly possible. I'm going as far as to not carry any source of money (paper or plastic) with me on a daily basis. I thought about it a lot and I couldn't think of any unavoidable situation where I would need immediate access to money. "Unavoidable" is of course the key word there. With the right planning I should be able to avoid any potentially problematic situation that might otherwise arise.

I am absolutely serious about this.

Side-effects will hopefully include: significantly less fast/junk food, significantly less carbonated/caffeinated beverage, and hopefully, a little weight lost in the process. I'm also going to stop surfing bargain sites *gasp* so maybe I'll do some homework to pass the time instead, or maybe I'll get around to playing with all the toys, games, and gadgets that I already own.

I don't typically make new years resolutions, especially not written ones, but this is one that I intend to stick to. And you can all hold me to it a year from now. (assuming anyone still visits my blog, and I can't blame anyone who doesn't)


The annual progressive dinner
2008-12-22T14:38:00.000-08:00


Frik's family does a progressive dinner for christmas every year. For the past couple years, we have always done appetizers, but this year, we switched it up and did dessert. It was fun and tasty :) As soon as we got to Lorna's house, Squirt and Katie were so excited to see eachother that they were squealing and laughing and hugging over and over. It was so cute: 

 



we then visited the rest of the family's houses in the valley from north to south, and by the time we made it to our house, Squirt was pretty much finished, so we put her to bed. One last shot of the girls before we put Squirt in bed:

 

Then we played some guitar hero world tour and Katie wanted to sing, too, so she found the most microphone shaped thing and started singing along:





It was a fun night! 




Squirt's first chrismas party!
2008-12-19T01:45:00.000-08:00


Squirt climbed up onto the couch all by herself. She then proceeded to climb onto the top of the bookshelf we have sitting next to the couch. She was so proud of herself, and although I was equally proud, it was more of an"oh crap" proud :)

I've finished my chrismas shopping for everyone on my list. I did order some things on ebay for stocking stuffers that still have not come, so I'm hoping that they will get here in time.

Squirt had her first encounter with Santa yesterday at the "Sushi for Santa" party downtown. She doesn't typically like men with beards, and this beard was no exception.



She also had her first encounter with sushi... she didn't like the seaweed, so I tried picking out some rice and giving that to her. She was also not a fan of that, so they gave her a cooked shrimp. I didn't give her anything raw because I wasn't sure if that's one of those things babies shouldn't eat.



And a cruel Sukie also let her try wasabi :)



Frik and I decided that we weren't going to drag our christmas gifts over to CO with us, so we opened them yesterday :) He was happy about the shoes I got him, and I loved my gifts, too. We still haven't given squirt hers. She was asleep when we did the exchange.

I started planning Squirt's 1st birthday party yesterday, too. I should have invitations out soon! In the meantime, Merry Christmas!






Saw this on a friend of a friend's blog...
2008-12-08T12:31:00.000-08:00


And I wanted to do it before I forget all the answers! (yes, i was reading the blog of a stranger...) *ahem*

1- Where were you when you first found out you were pregnant? At my parent's house

2- Who was with you? It was just me in the bathroom, but Frik and mom were waiting right outside.

3- How did you find out that you were pregnant? a chemical reaction with my pee and who knows what on a pregnancy test.

4- What was your first reaction to finding out you were pregnant? Scared and happy

5- Your Husbands reaction? happy and happy

6- Who was the first person you told? Well my mom ran around the house waking every one up and showing them the stick I had just peed on...

7. Did you plan to get pregnant? No

8-Was everybody happy for you? Silly question... I'm pretty sure they were but I'm not them so I can't know!

9- Did you go out and celebrate? No not really, although we did go to McDonalds in Rawlins on our way home

10- Did you want to find out the sex? Yes

11- What was the sex? Girl

12-Did anyone throw you a baby shower? Yep

13- If yes, who? Sukie

14- Did you get any outfits at the baby shower that you just knew you weren't going to put on your baby? Not that I can recall...

15- How much weight did you gain? 20 lbs

16- Did you loose all of the weight that you gained? Yep

17- Did you get a lot of stretch marks? Yeah I look like a zebra now

18- What did you crave the most? all I can remember was not wanting to eat anything, and one time craving a pickle while we were in a hotel in caliente. Luckily, they did have pickles at the gas station.

19- Did you crave anything crazy? No, just food.

20- Who or what got on your nerves the most? hm...probably people thinking I was incapable of doing stuff because I was pregnant.

21- Were you married at the time? Yes

22- Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? Gestational diabetes

23- Where were you when you went into labor? At home at a new years eve party

24- Did your water break? only when the dr broke it for me

25- Who drove you to the hospital? Erik

26- Did you go early or late? a week early

27- Who was in the room with you when you gave birth? Erik, mom, sarah, and Lorna

28- Was it video taped? No. yuk. there were enough people there already!

29- Did you have any drugs for the pain? they gave me percocet for the week before I was dilated enough and then I got an epidural

30-Did you go Natural or have a c-section? Natural

31- What was your first reaction after giving birth? I thought it was weird that I had a baby and I also wanted to hold her, but didn't know what to do with her when I got to hold her.

32- How big was the baby(s)? 7 lb 2 oz, 19 1/2 inches

33- Did your Husband cry?He's too much of a man to cry (yes he did)

34- What did you name the baby(s)? Alice Margaret

35- Did the baby(s) have any complications? Her Oxygen saturation was too low, so they had her in "special care" and I didn't get to hold her. Every time they'd take the oxyget away, her levels dropped again, so they got an iv ready and had me nurse her and it didn't drop again.

36- How old is your baby today? 11 months. She's getting so big!

37- When is the next one(s) coming? Later, maybe when she's 2

38-If you could, would you do it all over again? Yes, definitely. Frik and I were talking about it and how if we didn't have her, we'd have so much more money b/c I'd be working and we wouldn't be buying diapers and stuff... and we were home by ourselves when Guildy and David took Alice for the afternoon, and we both decided that while it would be fun if it was just the 2 of us still and we would have a lot less responsibility, seeing her face makes everything better and I would do anything to have her!




Is it too late to change the subject?
2008-12-04T05:05:00.000-08:00



Another neat trick she's picked up from the dog...
2008-11-29T15:38:00.000-08:00


Squirt was eating pizza today right after watching duke eat, and this was the new preferred method:



Silly baby :D

Thanksgiving was good, too. The turkey didn't go exactly as planned since I didn't cook it all the way, so that was a drag. I think I had the thermometer too close to the surface... so we stuck it back in the oven and let it finish. It was pretty tasty, though, once it was cooked. We're trying again tomorrow since we didn't take any of the leftovers anyway.

Katie has a little tent in the basement that squirt and her were playing in for a while. It was so cute to hear them giggling in there for no reason except that something was funny to them:





Squirt loved the stuffing, both the stove top and Sukie's apple bacon onion stuffing. Overall, it was a good first thanksgiving.

I also went to see the twilight movie today with Lorna. As cheesy as the books are (and that's pretty darn cheesy) the movie is 10x worse. That's not to say that I didn't enjoy it, since I did enjoy the story line, but it was also just a tad over the top. If another one comes out for the next books in the series, though, I'm gonna go see them too, if that's any kind of recommendation. :D




Looks Easy Enough
2008-11-25T20:42:00.000-08:00
I. Put your iTunes etc on shuffle.

II. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.

III. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

 

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY? Township Rebellion

2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Give Me a Call

3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? D.J.'s

4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? The Noose (yikes!)

5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE? What She Said

6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? Miserable (sheesh!)

7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? Under Heaven's Skies

8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? Queer (erm...)

9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? The Swiss Army Romance

10. WHAT IS 2+2? Sunday

11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Secret

12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Let Me Down

13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Don't You Think

14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Funk Ad

15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Gotta Know the Rules

16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? Solutions

17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Aliens Exist

18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Breath

19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? The Gift

20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? Days of the Week

21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Scar Tissue

22. WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? Universally Speaking

23. HOW WILL YOU DIE? Bring Me To Life

24. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? Please Take Me Home

25. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE? Self Esteem

26. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? Listening



I wanna play!
2008-11-25T17:50:00.000-08:00


I. Put your iTunes etc on shuffle.
II. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
III. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

1. IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY" YOU SAY? Chariot
2. WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY? Du Musst ein schwein sein
3. WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL? Stellar
4. HOW DO YOU FEEL TODAY? Under my Thumb
5. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE? Breath
6. WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO? New Moon on Monday
7. WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU? What you wish for
8. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR PARENTS? What a scene
9. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN? Scarlet Begonias
10. WHAT IS 2+2? shoulder to the wheel
11. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND? Last Ride in
12. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE? So like a rose
13. WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY? Breach Birth
14. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? Inaudible Melodies
15. WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE? Tear
16. WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU? No More, No Less
17. WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING? Drowning
18. WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL? Sing Sing Sing (With a Swing)
19. WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST? Cryin'
20. WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET? X-girlfriend
21. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS? Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head
22. WHAT'S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN? The World has turned and left me here
23. HOW WILL YOU DIE? Underneath it all
24. DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU? Book of Days
25. IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?  Early Sunsets Over Monroeville
26. WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW? Playpen

:giggle: (except that I did this on itunes on shuffle, not the ipod... same thing, though)




Little Climber
2008-11-23T17:08:00.000-08:00


Squirt has been doing really well with crawling for the past couple months now, but she has recently discovered that climbing is MUCH more fun!

It started with the stairs, so we got the gate. Now she's trying to figure out how to get past it:





Now she climbs on just about anything, including the dog:







Guildylocks says that as soon as Squirt can fit into a kid harness, they're going climbing :)

We had a "Fakesgiving" dinner with friends on saturday, which was awesome. Instead of the traditional turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, etc., we did steaks, potatoes, empanadas, 7 layer dip, and impossible cake for dessert. That way, we won't get turkeyed out before thanksgiving even comes.  The cake came out pretty good, although it was way to big for the pan, so I'll have to work on it since it baked over the top and into the water. For those of you who don't know what I"m talking about, impossible cake is a flan cake, where you put regular cake batter into a pan, then put flan batter on top of that, and then as it cooks, the cake gets lighter and so moves to the top and the flan sinks to the bottom. It is really weird, but tasty. I thought the cake was too dry, too, so we'll have to figure that out also. It may have been just because it was a regular box cake.

I'm making the turkey a la Alton Brown for thanksgiving this year. We got a new roasting pan since ours is pretty tiny and it was a good price with the rack and all at Costco. We also got a probe thermometer that you just put in the turkey and leave in until the external display tells you it's done. I'm excited to do the turkey b/c I've only ever done it in mom's roaster before, so it'll be different and I'm also worried for the same reason. :D Hopefully it will be delicious.




Squirt's favorite "person" in the world
2008-11-19T16:08:00.000-08:00


Squirt LOVES duke. Absolutely loves him. She's apparently learning from him, too. Today, I followed her into the kitchen to see this:





Duke soon saw that she was in there and started getting jealous:



So I took the baby out of the kitchen and filled up duke's food and water. I even blocked off the doorway into the kitchen with Squirt's baby walker and the trash can so that duke would be able to eat uninterrupted. Then I went back to the computer and played "Geo Challenge" on facebook (a newly discovered app from playfish that I am currently addicted to). I kept looking over at squirt to make sure everything was ok, and she was just standing up on her walker and waving her arms in the air, babbling at duke. I'm sure that if I spoke baby, I would have heard "Help me in, Duke! I'm stuck out here!"

Well so a couple minutes later, I heard the splooshing boing sound of Duke's water bowl hitting the ground, so i looked over and Squirt was no longer there. I have NO idea how she could have gotten through, and the barricade was completely sound still. I walked in and saw her sitting in a puddle of water. She was so pleased with herself, and just thought it was hilarious when I picked her up and she stuck her dripping feet up against my stomach, making me scream.

So I called my mom and was telling her about the recent shenanigans when I looked into the front room and squirt was no longer anywhere to be seen. Then I looked over at the gate blocking the stairs and realized that it had been left open (again). I went upstairs and saw her chasing duke around the hallway. I'm just glad she didn't fall!

Needless to say, though, she loves her duke:





He's not totally picked on, though. She always has fun throwing her food over the edge of the high chair for him to eat. 




Catch Phrase
2008-11-16T15:53:00.000-08:00


We had some friends over tonight and had dinner then played catch phrase, which is now Squirt's favorite toy. She was pushing the button then watching it while it beeped. Then when we actually started the game, she was being SO cranky because every time the game would finally make it all the way around the circle to her (me), I would pass it off to the next person. Poor thing doesn't understand how to play catch phrase ;)

She has also discovered where her toys are kept:





I think the first of these two is my favorite picture of her (recently) because she's trying so hard to reach whatever it is that she's looking for and she's stretching up onto her little toes... It just makes me smile.

Here she is a few days ago doing her best impression of Steve Urkel:



We also went and got professional pictures taken of her and Katie at Sears with a coupon the other day. Normally their individual sheets are $19.99 each (total rip off) but Sukie gave me a coupon that was 1 8x10, 2 5x7, 16 wallets and 16 minis for $4.99, so that's less than $1 per sheet. pretty good if you ask me, and I thought that it would be a nice gift for my mother in law for christmas... don't correct me if I'm wrong, Lorna, b/c it's what you're getting. :D (Although I didn't draw your name so it's not the only gift you'll get, so don't be too disappointed).




Achy Breaky Ear
2008-11-13T15:34:00.000-08:00



We took Squirt to the Dr. today. She has just not been doing well with this cold and I was starting to think that she may have an ear infection. Our Dr. is the best pediatrician I have met. Granted, I haven't met a whole lot of pediatricians, but I love this guy. He checked her ears and said that the right one was infected, then gave us the option of a few different medications: an oral medication for a few weeks, or a one time shot in the office. Since Squirt tends to spit out as much medication as she swallows, we opted for the shot. I felt bad when the nurse came in and said, "this is going to be a pretty painful shot, so you'll want to make sure to rub it for about 20 minutes to help it spread out". I still feel like we made the better choice, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel bad for torturing my poor child.

She's sleeping better so far tonight, though. Her nose is also not running quite so much, so that makes me feel hopeful.

I'm taking Katie and Squirt to get portraits on Saturday morning, then we're going out for lunch with the rest of the in law gang. It's to celebrate my father in law's birthday. It should be a good time, if not completely bittersweet.

Meryl showed me some family pics they had taken and they turned out really good! It made me want to go get pictures taken. I'll probably wait until spring some time... but I have been thinking about getting family pictures for a while now. Maybe I'll just do it when we do Alice's 1 year pictures.





I can make this pencil disappear... only not...
2008-11-12T18:05:00.000-08:00



Squirt was playing with a mechanical pencil yesterday, so being the wonderful mother that I am, I took it and pushed the lead back in so she wouldn't scratch herself and then gave it back. A few moments later I looked over at her and she had the pencil next to her eye and she was squinting, so I took it away at that point thinking that she had stuck herself in the eye. I was wrong though, which I knew when her nose started bleeding. Poor Squirt's first little nose bleed :'( I think the worst part for her was not the scratch or the blood but the fact that I was holding her nose to make it stop bleeding (which it did within a few minutes). Mother of the year award over here!

She has been playing and sharing a lot lately. We got her vanilla wafers, which she loves... not because she likes to eat them, but because she likes to feed them to the dog. It's kind of cute to watch him gently take them from her hand...but not so cute when he doesn't quite get it and she then puts it back in her mouth. yuk!

She was playing right inside the front door yesterday when the UPS guy came with a package. He always rings the doorbell and knocks 3 times. Well I was in the kitchen and when he knocked, I came over to the door and she was crawling away as fast as she could, screaming. Seems that the UPS guy's knock is pretty startling.

She's starting to get better balance, although she still holds on to things in order to stand and won't walk unless you're holding her up. She is doing so much talking and babbling though. It reminds me of t-rex because she'll just be talking to her toys or herself and it's just so adorable.

I got a surprise in the mail today from Archie:



I was jealous of one that she has that is similar (read: the exact same), so she got me one. Thanks, Archie! I love it!

We've all been working over here for the past couple days on building our immune systems up. That is to say, we have all caught a cold. It stinks, but it's the worst for Squirt. I hate seeing her so miserable and sick. Hopefully we'll get over it in time for goonies night this weekend!





I give in...
2008-11-02T09:22:00.000-08:00
Place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not.  Answer the 30 questions at the end.



(  ) Gone on a blind date

(x) Skipped school

(  ) Watched someone die

( ) Been to Canada

( ) Been to Mexico

(X) Been to Florida

(X) Been lost

(X) Been on the opposite side of the country

(X) Gone to Washington, DC

(X) Swam in the ocean

(x) Cried your self to sleep

( ) Played cops and robbers ... not very recently

( ) Recently colored with crayons

(X) Sang Karaoke/Tried

(X) Paid for a meal with coins only

(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't

(x) Made prank phone calls

(x) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose

(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue

( ) Danced in the rain

(x) Written a letter to Santa Claus

( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe

(x) Watched the sunrise with someone you care about

(X) Blown bubbles

(X) Gone ice-skating

(X) Been skinny dipping outdoors

(X) Gone to the movies



1. Any nickname: carebear

2. Mother's name: mickey mouse

3.  Favorite drink? milk (but maybe I'm just thinking that because I'm eating cookies...)

4.  Any Tattoo's?   No

5. Body piercing's? Ears

6. Do U love your job?   Yes

7. Ever seen or been in a tornado? No

8.  Favorite vacation spot? Disney World

9.  Ever been to Africa?   No

10. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? yes

11. Been on TV? on the news at a broncos game, being interviewed about why I came.

12. Ever stole a traffic sign? No

13. Ever been in a car accident? Yes, I ran into a truck in a parking lot while he was backing out and then when I got out to check the damage, locked the keys in the car. Luckily, he was a locksmith.

14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? 4 door

15. Favorite salad dressing? Outback Ranch

16. Favorite Pie? Elsha's apple pie

17. Favorite number? 1 million

18. Favorite movie? I like TV shows more because there's always something new.

19.  Favorite holiday? christmas, thanksgiving, and most of the others.

20. Favorite dessert? outback chocolate cake

21. Favorite food? I'm not picky

22.  Favorite day of the week? Weekends b/c I can spend time with people.

23. Favorite brand of body wash? Anything that smells good.

24.  Favorite Toothpaste? Colgate total

25. Favorite smell? Clean laundry or clean house

26. What do you do to relax? sit around bein' lazy

27. How do you see yourself in 10 years? living in a big (ish) house with a couple more kids and having a husband who makes lots of money (same one as I have now... just making more money b/c he'll graduate)

28. How many siblings do you have?5

29. Furthest Place you will send this message?

30. Who will respond to this the fastest?


2008-10-30T15:19:00.000-07:00
(X) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
(  ) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
(X) Been lost
(X) Been on the opposite side of the country
( )  Gone to Washington, DC
(X) Swam in the ocean
( ) Cried your self to sleep
( ) Played cops and robbers
( ) Recently colored with crayons
(X)  Sang Karaoke/Tried
(X) Paid for a meal with coins only
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(X) Made prank phone calls
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
(X) Danced in the rain
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
(X) Been kissed under the mistletoe
(X) Watched the sunrise with someone you care about
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(   ) Been skinny dipping outdoors
(X) Gone to the movies

1. Any nickname: Frik, Shaggy(many years ago)
2. Mother's name: Lorna
3.  Favorite drink? Coke Zero
4.  Any Tattoo's?   No
5. Body piercing's? No
6. Do U love your job? Yes
7. Ever seen or been in a tornado? No
8.  Favorite vacation spot? Disney World
9.  Ever been to Africa?   No
10. Ever eaten cookies for dinner? Yes
11. Been on TV? No
12. Ever stole a traffic sign? No
13. Ever been in a car accident? Several, but never with me at the wheel
14. Drive a 2-door or 4-door vehicle? 4-door (hate 2-doors)
15. Favorite salad dressing?  Ranch or caeser
16. Favorite Pie? Apple
17. Favorite number? 1
18. Favorite movie?    V for Vendetta
19.  Favorite holiday? Christmas
20. Favorite dessert? Not Sure
21. Favorite food? Yes please
22.  Favorite day of the week? Saturday
23. Favorite brand of body wash? whatever's cheap
24.  Favorite Toothpaste? Colgate Total
25. Favorite smell?   Food
26. What do you do to relax? Surf the net
27. How do you see yourself in 10 years? graduated
28. How many siblings do you have? 4
29. Furthest Place you will send this message? Virginia (physical location of my server)
30. Who will respond to this the fastest?


Is this guy for real?
2008-10-30T07:42:00.000-07:00
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCaOCWYpPk4]

For the last two months we've watched the most desperate, disgusting, and vile political tactics coming out of the McCain/Palin camp, but they're really stepping it up in these last remaining days. This clip is almost unreal!

Even KSL, Utah's dyed-in-the-wool neo-conservative news radio, is catching on to it (20 mins):
 



Edit: I am pleased to present next year's winner of American Idol:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlwwFZdXck]


Ninety-Two!
2008-10-28T21:34:00.000-07:00
I took a midterm last week, for one of my CS classes, which I was beyond unprepared for. I may have spent 10 minutes studying, and I missed my fair share of lectures. Going into it I fully expected to bomb the test, but coming out of it I felt a little better; I thought maybe I did as good as an 80% optimistically.

The scores were finally posted today and I got a ninety-two percent!! woot! Exciting news to say the least... for me anyway  :D


Presidential Debates Are Serious Business
2008-10-21T10:38:00.000-07:00
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfd5g8Y_Jqo]

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSI3ydJtKoA]

My next post will be a real blog post, but I couldn't resist posting this video.


Cute Cousins
2008-10-21T01:40:00.000-07:00


We had Yoshi and Meryl over for dinner on Sunday, which was fun! We had cake, so naturally, Alice needed a bath. When I took her upstairs to give her a bath, Katie followed us and started trying to climb in the tub, so I took her clothes off and let her get in, too. It was so cute, they were both splashing and laughing at eachother. Adorable.

Took a couple of pictures of them together, although I wish I had gotten some of them in the bath:





Then tonight I made soup for dinner and Alice loved the little star noodles. She actually took the spoon from me and put the soup in her mouth with it.



She's still figuring out the whole spoon thing, though. :)



Her hair is getting so long!






New Server. Woot!
2008-10-20T14:52:00.000-07:00
If you're a diehard fan that reads my blog posts over and over day-in and day-out you may have noticed that the site was taking a looooong time to load. Turns out that the server I was on had some serious performance issues so I moved my blog to a new server and it's super snappy now :D


Create a Caption
2008-10-16T08:16:00.000-07:00


That's it. Come up with a caption and post it in the comments!


Holy Huge TV, Batman (part 2)
2008-10-13T09:22:00.000-07:00
Chaelomen requested a picture of the huge TV with something near it to compare sizes to. So, here it is:





So, as you can see, it's quite massive.


Squirt has been so cute for the past couple days. She's getting better at doing stairs, which is cute but scary, because when she's done, she just tries to sit down on whatever step she's on, and if I weren't there to catch her, she'd probably go tumbling all the way down. She's started playing peekaboo with a blanket or by ducking behind a door and then popping out to look at us. She's enjoyed when we play peekaboo with her for a while now, but it's new for her to actually be making the movement herself. It is so cute.
We had Frik's mom and brother over yesterday for dinner and games. It was fun! Lorna started a blog. Her link is in my blogroll for those interested :D


Squirt also had her 9 mo dr. appt on saturday. actually... it was on friday and I THOUGHT it was on saturday. The nurse who made the appointment with us 3 months ago asked what day we wanted to come in, and I told her saturday would be best. So she scheduled it for 10/10 at 10:00. That was great, except 10/10 is a friday, but I didn't realize that. And then since july and august both have 31 days, my watch was off by a day on the date, so I thought it was the 10th on saturday, and thus we showed up without an appointment. :)


So anyway, Squirt is in the 90th percentile for height, the 55th for weight, and the 75th for head circumference. She is almost 20 lbs (19-14) and so we're in the market for a new carseat, since ours is made for kids under 23 lbs. We've got another couple months I'm sure, but I want to be ready.


And now, for your viewing pleasure, I got a better picture of Squirt's teeth:





Still too soon?
2008-10-09T17:13:00.000-07:00
I promise this will not disappoint :}

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAg5KjnAhuU]


Another Codorado Wedding!
2008-10-09T08:36:00.000-07:00
We drove over to colorado last weekend for a high school friend's wedding. A drive that normally takes 8 hours took nearly 10 because of a sick, fussy baby. She had a fever for a couple days before the drive, then the day before, the fever had been gone for almost 24 hours and this rash showed up. We took her to the Dr. who told us that it was Roseola Infantum and that it was no longer contagious. She'd only ever get it once and then she'd have the immunities, so that's good to know. Here she is being all sick and tired before we left:


Regardless, though, it made the drive suck rocks.


We stopped in Ghettoville to visit Archie and eat at OTB, which was awesome. Seriously, if anyone is interested in moving to utah and starting up a restaurant, I'd be eternally grateful if the restaurant was an OTB. We then went to Archie's house and washed off our guacamole baby. I made the comment of the century when talking to archie's room mate... seriously, if you've heard bad things about someone's boyfriend, don't say, "you must be the boyfriend i've heard so much about".


We then went down to t town and stayed at my parents. We slept on their mountain bed. Seriously, that thing is weird. usually a bed will sag in the middle after years of being slept on, but not theirs. I had to put a pillow on the edge of the bed to keep from rolling off. I was sad that they were out of town, but it was better than the futon.


We spent some time on saturday with friends and then went up to MJ's parents' house and hung out there for a while. Then we got sweet pizza with Berserk and Val and the boys and hung out for a while. I was pleasantly surprised at how well Jack Jack and Squirt played this time. They were so cute!





Jack Jack is really standing so well, too!





Being cute:





In her party dress eating green beans:





Pretty Samara:





The wedding was great. It was fun and the food was surprisingly good! I made a slideshow for the reception and that went off without a hitch. Funny thing... the girl who got married is a twin, and I was standing next to her sister and dad for the whole slide show. Her dad kept asking "which one of you is that" even after we told him that ALL of the pictures in the slide show were of the twin who was getting married... seriously!


Bride dancing with a tired baby. She was being such a good sport!





The happy couple:





On the drive home, I got some pictures of Squirt's teeth (sort of)





I really had a great time! We should have more weddings!



Any Takers?
2008-10-08T14:52:00.000-07:00
Some kind of morbid curiosity makes me want to try these, but not enough to make them myself.



Bacon chocolate chip cookies-

1 cup butter
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon hazelnut or almond extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups bacon bits

*An important note- Be sure to use real bacon bits, not Bacos

You can also make your own bacon bits, just make sure you pat down the bacon chunks with paper towels to remove as much extra bacon grease as possible. It takes about 2lbs of bacon to make 2 cups of bacon bits, just for future reference.

Directions-

preheat oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.

Beat together the butter, sugars, flavouring and eggs until creamy. In another bowl, sift together the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir together. Dough will be slightly soft. If you want a cakier cookie, add another half cup of flour. Add in chocolate chips and bacon bits. Stir until well integrated. Place dough on a sheet of waxed paper and refrigerate at least an hour. Remove dough from fridge, pinch off 1 1/2 inch pieces of dough and roll into balls. Set dough balls about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Flatten dough balls slightly with your fingers in the center.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes, or until the dough starts to turn golden brown. Allow cookies to cool on a cooling rack while you ready the glaze.

Maple cinnamon glaze-

2 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon maple extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
enough water to make a thick glaze (about 3 tablespoons)

Mix all ingredients together until smooth and creamy. If lumpy, use a whisk.

Spread a small amount of the glaze on the top of each cookie and top with a small piece of crisp cooked bacon.

Voila! Delicious!