A Walk in the Park

We watched my sisters last night for my parents because it's was my mom's birthday. Wowee! Kudos to all you with lots of kidos. We had a lot of fun we took them to this really neat park near our house that has a really great playground and a little splash area. Then trying to get them all home and bathed, hair combed, teeth brushed, scritpures, prayers, and to bed - that was work. I'm glad I had Officer's help. The girls had so much fun at the park that on the way home from their swimming lessons this morning we decided to stop there and play and have a picnic lunch. Miss Peanut just love kids especially her Aunt Mackenzie and Emorey. They were great entertainment for her in the car. I can't get enough of her giggles. The videos aren't that great because it's our still camera, oh well.

I haven't had Peanut out in the heat that much because of the helmet; she gets overheated pretty quick, but it was a beautiful day to be out. She didn't even freak out at the water. I was kind of surprised because Aunt Emmy isn't a big fan of water and she had a wee bit of a hard time at first (code for Emmy was the one that freaked out a little - just a little). She did warm up to it though. Mackenzie was a big help with keeping track of Emmy and keeping Peanut giggling. Of course I forgot to get the camera out while we were playing, but here are the very tired girls eating their lunch. Our cell phone started ringing in the middle of lunch and Peanut was hilarious to watch dancing to it so I had to share it with you.

Nap-time

I don't have all that much to blog about right now. Miss Peanut is finally over her cold and has been sleeping better, so we've finally got some sleep too. Last night she only woke up for an hour. I sat and rocked her until she fell back to sleep. She just stared up at me with wide eyes forever. I just love quiet mommy moments like that. Our other challenge has been getting her to sleep in the pack-n-play in preparation for our trip to the coast next week. She is very partial to her crib - its awful trying to get her to fall asleep any other place. We'll be camping in a tent for about a week and all she gets for those 10 days is the pack-n-play. Today she finally fell asleep without a fight. They are so cute anyway, but especially when they're asleep. I love to sneek in a watch her. I love her crazy hair too - it's getting so long.

the way...we were

Hah, hah I had to add those lyrics. All of the sudden this memory blog tag has popped up on alot of your blogs so I gave in and decided I'd play along with this one.

1. Leave a comment on my blog of a memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me for a short time, or a long time, anything you remember!

2. Re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you.

3. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.On your mark...get set...blog your memories!!

Headlines

I don't do it all that often, but if I stay up to watch anything I have to say that it would be headlines on the tonight show on Monday nights. That really doesn't have all that much to do with anything, kind of. Anyway. My sister gave me this friendship bread starter and here are the instructions.

Amish Friendship Bread

NOTE: Do NOT use any type of metal spoon or bowl for mixing. Do NOT refrigerate. If any air gets into the bag let it out. It is normal for the batter to rise and ferment.

Day one
Do nothing.
Day two
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day three
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day four
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day five
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day six
Add to the bag, 1 cup each Flour, sugar, milk, mush the bag.
Day seven
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day eight
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day nine
Mush the bag, let out the air.
Day ten
Bake day.

Pour the entire contents of the bag into a NON METAL bowl and add:
1½ cups flour
1 ½ cups sugar
1 ½ cups milk

Measure out 4 separate batters 1 cup each. Keep one for yourself and put the remaining 3 into a 1 gallon Ziploc bag. Give bags to 3 friends and keep one for yourself.

Baking instructions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. To your remaining 1cup of batter in the bowl add:

3 eggs
½ cup milk
½ tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp baking powder
2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil
1 large box of Instant vanilla pudding
OPTIONAL: (1 cups nuts, raisins, chocolate chips, etc)

Grease 2 large loaf pans and mix an additional ½ cup sugar and ½ tsp cinnamon. Dust the greased pans with ½ the mixture. Pour evenly into pans, sprinkle the remaining sugar mixture over the top. Bake 1 hour, cool.

BE SURE THAT IF THE BAGS ARE NOT PASSED ON THE 10TH DAY (DAY 1) THEN BE SURE TO TELL YOUR FRIENDS WHICH DATE TO START. IF YOU KEEP ONE OF THESE BAGS, YOU START COUNTING AGAIN FROM THE TOP. ONLY THE AMISH KNOW HOW TO MAKE THE STARTER, SO IF YOU GIVE ALL YOUR STARTERS AWAY YOU WILL HAVE TO WAIT FOR A FRIEND TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER STARTER.


For emphasis I've changed a couple words to RED. Really, is this Amish cause I didn't realize that those Amish couldn't do without their instant vanilla pudding?! I just thought it was funny. I'll just be calling it friendship bread. I think you can probably make your own starter with 1/3 cup milk, 1/3 cup flour, 1/3 cup sugar? If you try it and it works - let me know cause then the secret out - Wah -hah- hah- ha!

So.. it's has been one of those weeks. Miss peanut picked up a cold at church last week - I told her to put it down, but you can't keep anything out of an infant's mouth - seriously. Needless to say sleep has pretty much been non existent this week. We did take Peanut into the orthotist to adjust her helmet and the before and afters are pretty positive. One month down 5 more to go.

Yesterday we got out and went to our stake pioneer day activities. It was nice to get outside and Peanut just loves to watch the kids. They had a primary parade around the parking lot; she clapped and squealed. Finally today she started to feel better and be more playful - I hate it when they're sick it's the most sad thing in the world. Anyway tonight we read scriptures in our bed and when we were finished we threw the covers over her and she just started laughing so much. I'm so glad we caugtht it on video. One of these days I'll finish the other posts I have in progress, but not today.

Anybody want a Peanut?

Not really I was just quoting the Princess Bride, good show! I haven't done a video for a while - I forgot that I took this one with our still camera and found it when I uploaded some photos today, so I hope you enjoy it! It's alway so funny to watch and realize what a dork I am to get her to show off for the camera. Sorry for the high pitch ringing - our still camera does that when we use it for video - eh, what can you do?

I Just Love My Daughter!

HELLO - is there a cuter girl out there? I don't think so! My sister took this picture on the 4th; she is doing more photography stuff these days. Anyway I just look and her and I can't believe how stinkin' cute she is! What did we ever do without her? We had corn bread with dinner tonight and it was so entertaining to watch her try to pick up pieces and get them to her mouth before they crumbled apart in her little fists. We got such a kick out of watching her, so grown up now!

I love when Officer's surprises me with flowers! I didn't really expect to get any this year for our anniversary(seriously whose pocketbook isn't a little tight these days). I guess you don't celebrate 5 years everyday, so he came home from work with these. Aren't they just beautiful! He took me to the Melting Pot for dinner. We had never been there and it was pretty fun. Just wanted to say thank you!

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time I met this boy. All great stories start with once upon a time and this one is great at least for me. So once upon a time...Yep he was a boy, in fact my first impression of was WAY CUTE, but I thought that he was too young; every mutual acquaintance we knew was just leaving on their mission and I was not going to get interested in a younger guy. I had just finished my first internship for school and had one year left until I graduated. Some guys in my ward came to help me move into my new apartment and he came along to help (apparently someone told him a cute girl was moving into 12C). Our apartment was kind of a hangout for whoever and Officer was there a lot.

That fall we tried to get a group of us together one Friday night and go to a fair/rodeo in a nearby town. Like many other college Friday night’s, plans changed rather quickly and it ended up being just him and me that went. I didn’t have any intent of this being a date, but I think he felt obligated when it was just us. I found out later that he overdrew his account just to pay for admission to the rodeo. Sorry Love! A few weeks later I found out that my grandma and grandpa were staying in Idaho Falls for her birthday. My grandma and I have always had a special relationship and I wanted to surprise her with a cake and a card with a five dollar bill (just like she had always done when I was a kid) since she wasn't far away. My car Trixy was not the most reliable vehicle, so I turned to Officer. Really, I knew if I asked anything of him he would do it; I guess I kind of took advantage of the situation. I called him (a bold move on my part I think) to see if he wanted to take the afternoon and drive to Idaho Falls with me. He told me later and swears he was preparing himself to call me and ask me out for that night. Anyway he jumped at the opportunity and we took off that afternoon. I wanted to just doorbell ditch a cake on the room of their hotel, but nothing gets by grandma. She caught me. I talked with her for just a minute; her first question was, “who is this young man?” I just said a friend. She invited in for cake, but we planned to go out to eat, so we compromised with coming back for cake after dinner. We get to the restaurant and look over the menu when he looks at me from across the table and says, so if I pay is this considered a date? I laughed. Sure, why not it was free dinner for me. I don’t recall much of the conversation, but I’ll never forget the waiter winking at him (it was a waiter, not a waitress).

I guess that's kind of where it all started for us. I'm sure I could fill you in on a billion details, but I'll just sum it up. We both dated other people for a while and then about 6 months later we just kind of ended up together. He invited me to a concert and on the way home we drove all night in a blizzard. 25 mph on the freeway makes a trip quite long, but we found a lot to talk about. We started spending a lot of time together after that and 4 weeks later I was going to be moving to start my final internship before I graduated. He proposed March 2nd, 2003 after we took a trip to visit my parents. This is hilarious really. He wanted to talk to my dads, he was pretty nervous even though it wasn't really an asking permission thing. My dad ended up in the ER that night from some kind of food poisoning before he had a chance to him talk about it - not a good sign - it just made him more nervous. Once that was over he wanted to make it official and took me to the Temple grounds on our way out of town. As he got down on one knee to ask me, I could see a security guard in the background walking up toward us. It kind of ruined it for me, I was trying not to laugh or cry - I hate getting in trouble. I think he was disappointed that I didn't cry. It was late and long story short - we got kicked off the temple grounds. We joked after that that they probably had photos hanging up somewhere with instructions not to let us come back, of course we knew that wasn't the case. It didn't go as he had planned, but it was a memorable proposal anyway. I wouldn't have had it any other way. We did the long distance thing for 4 months and after I graduated we moved to Sugarhouse(I lived with grandma, he lived in our apartment - had to clarify).

This is getting to be a forever long post - sorry. If you've made it this far keep going, it only gets better, for us anyway.

Then we had this magical day 5 years ago today and we got married! It was a beautiful day, you can't ask for any better in the bay area. After the ceremony and pictures on the Temple grounds we needed to change because it was an hour drive back to the luncheon and reception. It just so happened that Officer gave our temple recommends to his brother to hang onto during pictures and it just happened that he left early for the drive back. It was the craziest thing - we really weren't going to be allowed to go back into the temple. Thank heavens for this little man who snuck me past the front desk. The rest of the day went off without any hiccups - at least that we knew of. I'm so grateful for my in-laws and my family because trying to plan an out of state wedding while you're in one state and your fiance is in another and the wedding is in another...to complicated for me. Officer and I really didn't have to worry about anything as far as planning goes. It was a happy day and we left that night for Monterrey, CA for our honeymoon - that was a surprise for me, I didn't find out until the reception. We started our happily ever after life together...

And we have lived happily ever after, it's true we have not so good days, but it's a lot easier together. I love you

O

this much!

(a circle is forever)

Happy Anniversary!

SWEET SUCCESS!

We really aren't torturing her, I promise. She was singing with Dad and he just moved her lip enough that I finally got a quick picture and if you enlarge it you can she her tooth! It's not that much yet, but we're excited. Yeah! Miss Peanut is all sorts of grown up. It's amazing what we do for pictures - ridiculous really, but it'll always bring a smile to our faces.

Yeah for Purple Popsicles!

We shared a purple Popsicle. Need I say more.

The Tooth Fairy Came to Our House!

The tooth fairy came to our house and brought Miss Peanut a tooth! I assumed that most of Miss Peanut's crankiness was because of adjusting to her new helmet, wrong! I took her to see great grandma Hess the other day and my grandma says she's got two teeth. My Grandma had a stroke a couple years ago and we didn't think she could see all that well anymore - well she can see just fine. That morning when I checked, nothing, but I knew she had two teeth that were really close. She kept pushing her tongue kind of funny out of her mouth and I felt her gums one more time that night when I put her to bed and sure enough there was the ridge of a tooth! What a week. Here are some pictures of my failed attempts to get a picture of her tooth. Too funny!

Update on Extreme Baby Sports

Today Miss Peanut and I took a trip to Costco. One of our first outings with her helmet. Anyway as I'm putting groceries on the check stand a little older couple were behind me talking about how cute she is and about her helmet. I told them that she really likes mountain biking and the cute little man totally believed it for a second until he thought about it. I caught the confused look on his face and said I'm just kidding and told them why she was really wearing it. He just started to chuckle and snort and said uh, mountain biking. I went about paying for my groceries, etc a few times I could hear him just start chuckling to himself again. Probably the best reaction so far.

Fun link for anyone with girls!

http://shedoeshair.blogspot.com/

Update on the potted plant.

After much laughing and unfortunately no letter from the HOA, it has now been retired from their yard and will reappear at a later date, (to be determined when everyone has forgotten about the incident) perhaps on the bishop's lawn I think was the idea (they are a young couple 30ish with a very well taken care of yard). It reminds me of a picture that was passed around in college between me and my room-mates it would disappear just long enough to forget and then suddenly it reappears for a good laugh. Where is that now anyway? Hmmm, Linds?

Extreme Baby Sports Here We Come!

Peanut got her helmet yesterday afternoon, and what an afternoon it was. For those of you who didn't know she's got kind of a funky head. I'm grateful for my education because she had torticolis when she was born and I was able to notice it and treat it quickly, but as she grew her head was not changing the way it should. Her occipital bone (the one in the back) never really expanded normally and then she sleeps 10-12 hours most nights on her back and what do you get - a flat head. At first the pediatrician kind of made it seem like it would be no big deal and it would change as she grew, but at our last visit to her, she made it seem to be a more pressing matter. So hence the helmet. We got to wean her into the helmet 1hr on 1hr off then tomorrow 2hr on 1hr off and so forth. She gets to wear it 23 hrs a day for the next six months.

Yesterday went like this. Try on helmet - FREAK OUT. Adjust helmet and try on again - did okay. Adjust and try it on again - ticked at the orthotist. Wore helmet home - fine 20 minutes screamed 40 minutes. Off 1 hr trying to settle her down. Put helmet on fine 20 minutes scream and cuss at dad 40 minutes - mom and dad almost in tears while also trying to hold scouts at our house. 1 hr off - finally napped. Put on helmet again - ate dinner and anything she could reach, got ready for bath - no screaming - yeah! Only a little fussing, then helmet on after bath for 45 minutes until bed time. Thank Heavens we don't have to wear it to bed yet. Poor girl. She finally rolled over and played a little after her bath even with the helmet on, but it was been a rough day for her. I think this is just as hard on us though. It just makes us so sad to see her that upset, she has been such good natured baby until...dun duh da - the helmet ;) I know she'll adjust quickly, in fact this morning was much better. We've decided that our story to people, when they ask about it, will be that we have encouraged her to be well rounded and she has taken interest in some extreme sports at a very young age and we insist that she were a helmet at all times. Baby football, sky-diving, motocross, mountain biking, etc - you get the idea. Anyway here is our cute girl getting adjusted.

Da-Da's girl!

No doubt about it, Miss Peanut is definately a daddy's girl. When he's home she is all smiles and begs for his undivided attention. She totally says da-da all the time. Most of the time I think it's just her talking, but she says it especially when he's around. I wasn't much of a daddy's girl myself, so it is fun to watch these two together. I just want Officer to know that I am so grateful for the Daddy that he is. I knew when I met him that he would be one of those dads, mostly a big kid, who would be silly and fun, but who would be patient enough to take opportunities to teach. Not so much Peanut right now, but he is so good with his nephew and nieces.

A couple years ago we went camping in California with his family where they spend a lot of time skin-diving. I didn't see him all that much at camp, he was off with the kids teaching games and causing trouble :) He took the time to take each of his nephews that wanted to out snorkeling in this little cove. For most of them it was their first time and Officer was able to teach them how to breathe through a snorkel and not panic with the movement of the waves or the cold water. It's not exactly warm in the Northern California ocean, the water was a sunny 51 degrees. Anyway, I know those boys will never for get that experience and they are the next generation of divers in the family. Last summer we were out in California again and Officer and his brother took the time to teach these boys how to shoot, but he and his brother made sure to teach them how to be safe with them as well. I've been a cub scout leader for a few months now den meetings are at our house. He is so helpful (cuz hello I'm not that good at knot tying and stuff) with teaching and directing these boys as well. I love watching these moments and I look forward to our experiences as parents.

It has been really hard recently with officer's new shift not allowing him to attend church with us on Sundays, but he sets an example by trying to at least make it to a church building to take the sacrament. He is also the elders quorum president and not being able to attend church doesn't help, but during the week he is always trying his best to serve our family and the ward. I'm grateful for that example now because I know that it will be important as Miss Peanut (and someday siblings) grows up.

When Peanut was first born there were a couple nights that after hours of a crying baby and eventually exhausted crying mommy Officer would get up (even though he was in the middle of some pretty stressful training and really long days at work) and he would say "Let me be the daddy - you go to sleep for a little while." Or he came home from work to find me unshowered, in PJs, mascara streaming down my face, changing the 15th diaper of the day and he'd say, "What can I fix for dinner?" I so appreciated that. Despite work and callings and exhausted upset wife and everything else, I know that he is an active loving daddy and husband. THANK YOU!

So from me and Miss Peanut, We love you and

Happy first Father's Day!

Nothing says friendship like a "potted" plant!

So we've had these pranks, I guess you could say, with some friends of ours for a couple years now. It all started when I left my house to get the mail and to my amazement I found a happy group of garden gnomes tending to my flowers. Several months later we were house-sitting for said family and we replaced a wall hanging with a plaque that said:

"A Friend Is Someone Who Will Bail You out of Jail, but Your Best Friend Is the One Sitting next to you Saying 'D*** that was fun!"

I don't think it took them too long to notice, but still a good laugh. Those are a couple highlights, but you get the idea, so with that said...

We have been watching for a toilet at a garage sale FOR-EV-ER and we were thrilled when we found this beauty below for $5! It just so happened that this family had to go out of town this weekend and we were able to do a little architectural landscaping for them while they were away. We originally thought to add a water feature with a fountain inside the bowl, but this clean simple "water feature" was just what their yard needed! Wouldn't you agree? They should be home in a couple days, and we're hoping that not only will they have a surprise to come home to - it's been in the yard long enough that they just might get a letter from the HOA! Good times! Lovely arrangement I must say.

Some friends told us to try this a while back and I was killing time so...why not.

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Drawing a family tree - Family tree search

Peanut's favorite time of day is before her bath - she kicks, squeals, giggles, and has even started to play a little peek-a-boo. I usually give her one of her favorite fuzzy blankets because she loves how soft they are. I love that she is starting to think something is funny and just laugh at it or us. These are my favorite pictures from playing last night.