For you sister

My sister is in Peru for a couple more days and I got to play with her cute kids today. I thought you'd love to see them playing in the pool and you're probably missing them a lot. La La was hilarious and this was after she got the hang of it a little better, but we were seriously crying because we were laughing so hard. She kept bending over and putting her leg up to get in the pool at least a couple feet away and when she didn't get in the water she had the funniest confused faces. Anyway - they're ready for you to come home - they miss you too!

Another year goes by...

Officer and I have been married six years, today is our Anniversary. I recounted most of the story last year if you want to read all about it. A little detail I didn't share was that after our reception we were starving and stopped at the Wendy's drive thru on the way to our hotel. When we arrived at our hotel, Officer was trying to be such a gentleman and carry our luggage to our room as well as a fun little basket that his sister put together for us - that we topped off with our Wendy's food and frosties. As he took everything past the threshold of the door - he tripped... and frosty went all over the room - no joke! His pride was just a little hurt or maybe a lot, but when he recovered we sat and ate our soggy frosty burgers and fries and will forever have a good laugh about it. We've kind of made it a tradition that every once in a while on the 28th - not necessary just June, one of us will surprise the other and pick up a frosty on the way home. Since our Anniversary fell on a Sunday this year and Officer works, we didn't plan to celebrate this weekend, but I picked up a frosty on my way home from running errands last night for us to share. Thanks Officer for six great years! Happy Anniversary Love!

Honey Do...

We seem, well I guess I seem, to have a big honey do list lately. I'm sure officer thinks I'm a drill sargaent or something, but we've gotten a lot of things done around the house and I'm so grateful! I just can't do as much as I think I can these days. Of course inside is never-ending with cleaning and little things here and there that I try to keep up with, but we've had so much to do in the yard this year and we finally got some of the big things done that we've been talking about for years!

The biggest project has been in our backyard! Our backyard is west facing so in the evening we get huge amounts of sun into the back of the house and it makes it pretty stinkin' hot and the A/C runs like crazy, but just doesn't make it any better. So...last fall Officer and his dad poured an extra concrete pad out back so we have more patio space. And this past month - in between huge rainstorms - we had a very talented man in our ward add on a patio cover/overhang to the roof in the back and painted the house(of course he does this for a living - so it's probably no big deal to him, but HUGE deal to us!). The patio cover has made a world of difference! It stays cold in my house now! Amazing work - here is the before and after. The paint color isn't all that different, but we didn't know what else to do without being totally drastic becasue we have such dark brick around the garage. Officer wired the patio for lights and he and my dad even put in a new front door! Thanks for all your hard work, honey. Someday - patio furniture.

Before:

After:

Eat your Veggies!

Miss Peanut loves her veggies; I don't know many her age that will chew on a piece of celery, but she does. She loves peas, carrots, corn, beans, zucchini, squash, pretty much everything she's tried and just recently grandma offered her raw broccoli and she loved it! This was yesterday as I was cooking dinner - I just laugh at the way she says broccoli - too funny!

Sorry for my lack of blogs - I've just been busy doing to many other little projects trying to get things done while I'm motivated. I'll fill you in on a few things soon.

Miss Peanut has something to share...

We went to the Dr. today and everything is looking great with Squirt. Fingers, toes, heart, kidneys, and a a few other details, it all looks great. I'm always amazed at the detail you can see in an ultrasound. Peanut was hilarious and this took us a little while, we had to cut out quite a few things - but hopefully you get the right idea. We're really excited - we just have no clue what we're going to do for a name?! Throw some at me - I'll take any ideas.

Who's her daddy?

My sister took this adorable picture of my Peanut yesterday. It just makes me smile!

This is a picture of Officer at a fairly close age to Miss Peanut - Who's her daddy? What do you think?

Go, go "Pauk"

I know that I've put a lot of video's on here lately, but I think it's fun for grandma and grandpa and extended family who don't see her in person that often to actually see her in action. When she got up from her nap yesterday Miss Peanut said go, go pauk - translation lets go to the park. I took her in the evening yesterday to feed the geese and then we repeated this video at least a dozen times before I finally had to take her home for the night. She loves so much to be with all the big kids and do most everything herself.

(For some reason the video seems really pixely and there is a high pitch squeal, but it's fine when I view it on my computer - maybe because it's small? I don't know, so sorry. And love the videography of the pregnant women climbing the jungle gym :)

I had to keep her in her stroller while we fed the geese because the 2 mommy geese were quite protective, hence I didn't take a video of them because I was thinking I was going to have to wring myself a goose. I would give Miss Peanut a piece of bread to throw and she would hold it out and laugh as I'd throw more to them, then she would eat the piece and repeat until we ran out of bread.


After bathtime last night she finally got to see daddy who has been working a lot since we've been back and I just never can get enough of these two together especially when she laughs like this.

Take me away....

I must say that coming back from a relaxing vacation makes reality... daunting. Miss Peanut stayed with grandma for a week, which was wonderful. However, she had a little more freedom getting to hang out with her Aunts Emorey and Mackenzie and she does not want to be any kind of little anymore. I've lost track of how many meltdowns she's had this week readjusting - but I'm telling you its ridiculous. So between the meltdowns on my part and Miss Peanut's and the pile of laundry I've unburied myself from, we've been exhausted. So to catch up here are a few of our favorites from our trip to the Bahamas.

Lucayan National Forest Freeport, Bahamas. This a small area that didn't burn down just two weeks before we arrived. The rest of the forest was still smoldering. We went there to see one of the worlds largest underground cave systems - but we were kind of restricted where we could tour, but we did spent a few hours at Gold Rock beach and an area/resturant known as Banana Bay.

That was where we both got to nap in a hammock for a while - just doesn't get much better than that.

Nassau, Bahamas Port and street shops.

The view leaving Nassau.

We spent one day on this private island.

We both had had enough UV exposure at this point so we hid under umbrellas when we weren't in the water snorkeling. The umbrellas don't really give you any real shade so we covered them with our beach towels which did a great job of keeping us cool.

This was our view from our chairs. We snorkeled out and around that large "rock" in the middle of the picture and saw some great stuff.

With underwater cameras it's kind of hit and miss, but this picture of an eel turned out pretty great considering that Officer dove 25-30 feet down to take it.

Coral and Fish

Officer diving; I didn't feel the need to post diving pictures of my pregnant self trying to defy buoyancy; I had a ton of fun, but seriously not worth preserving on film - thanks anyway Officer.

School of Fish

Surface of the water from underneath

Coral, fish and Sea Urchin.

Blow fish.

Last sunset of the trip.

This is how you look after 6 kid free days, where you get to sleep through the night and you don't have to cook or clean. Bliss. I did miss Miss Peanut terribly though - there were lots of little kids around and you can't help but miss your kids.

A little something growing around here.

We've kind of kept it quiet at least on the facebook/blogger world of things, but many of you, mostly our family, know that we are expecting baby #2. For those of you who didn't know - we're finally filling you in. Here's a picture from a couple months ago of our little "Squirt," as Officer has already nicknamed this one. We'll be halfway here in just a couple weeks, and so far things are going pretty smoothly. We're debating somewhat, but we'll most likely find out what we're having at our next appointment in just a couple weeks. We're due October 13-ish , and with any with luck this little one will wait long enough for officer to go on his annual hunting trip and come home (Hunting season opens October 10). Odds are in his favor seeing that I was overdue 1 1/2 weeks with Miss Peanut, only time will tell.

so busy, busy...

Miss Peanut is getting to be a handful - could I expect less - not really, but she always has us laughing. We bought her a toddler bed a few weeks ago and although we haven't really tried having her sleep in it much, she is learning that she can climb it and reach new heights in her dresser - the second drawer. Of course that is where I have all of her wipes and diapers stashed...this is her caught in the act (Cheez) of emptying the entire wipe container onto the floor one wipe at a time - wipes are way more fun than kleenex. I, of course, had a hard time keeping a straight face, but she was so good to help me put them all back in the box afterward - what a big helper!

Her next fascination has been with Q-tips - for whatever reason. This cracks me up because the camera didn't even faze her, this was when she realized that daddy had caught her.

Aparently her artistic ability is most inspired when she is not clothed.

Miss Peanut's new favorite spot to play; the basket in her closet.

Her favorite "chair" when we read our scriptures, it's actually our empty bookshelf(empty because she has also discovered that shredding paper is really fun). I tried to get it all on video because she will put her snack on the shelf and her drink and then get her cute little bootey up there and sit - its hilarious. I probably shouldn't let her do things like that, but oh well. Sorry the video is a little dark.

She has so many aunts, uncles, and cousins that we've been trying to teach her to say their names when we point to pictures on the wall. She does really well with the ones she sees all the time, but the ones that are far away are harder. Here's just a couple, but then she got distracted by daddy and the lawn mower.

Her cousins taught her how to jump this past weekend, I was impressed at how well she did for being just 17 months.

We're goin' to the zoo, zoo zoo!

My friend and I took our girls to the zoo yesterday because Spring seems to have finally arrived and we were in need of a day out of the house. She took a bunch of cute pictures, so I'm sure I'll post more when I get them from her, but here are a few.

Our little safari wagon - love the shades on these chicks!


Little dudes are just eggs, leave 'em on the beach to hatch and then...coo-coo-ca-choo, they find their way back to the big ol' blue (Crush the tortoise -- Finding Nemo - ahh)


Everything was a kitty to Miss Peanut and when this big kitty walk across and sat right in front of her her eyes just about popped out of her head.


Taking a ride on the Komodo Dragon

Miss Peanut's new favorite thing to say is "I got it" and that is all I caught on video before the memory on my camera was full, but it makes me laugh everytime she says it cause its so stinkin' cute.

Aside from Miss Peanut's mini-meltdown when it was about time for a nap, the day went pretty smoothly! Thanks for a day out Nick!

Easter

I really loved Elder Holland's General Conference message, so for the Easter season and any other time, I hope you will take time to read it. Any words I could say would fall far short.





How cute is this little princess? I loved this dress when I found it, but like most Easter dresses it is sleeveless and hello it's not all that warm here yet, so I needed to find some kind of little cardigan to go with it. Gotta say - I don't love them together, but it worked because seriously I couldn't find anything to match closer without having to buy one that came with another dress. I just love that she pranced around in it like a little princess and loved being all dressed up! I even got her to hold still long enough to curl little ringlets in the back of her hair. So fun to have a little girl!

Side note: My daughter - does not know how to smile for the camera - I just get the cheese face a lot. She's still such a cute little stinker, but I'm going to try to have my sister take some professional cute ones and hopefully get some smiles with her eyes open - but we'll have to see.

We had a little basket with eggs for her in the morning, and I guess with Officer busy working all weekend we kind of forgot about things like dying eggs and stuff, but the highlight of her Easter was an Easter egg hunt at Grandma's house after dinner. We had several of the cousins (and Aunts) all together and the Dad's had just as much fun hiding all the eggs. We weren't sure how quickly Miss Peanut would catch onto the concept, but she went out there like a pro.

This is the before shot:

And the after shots:

She seriously did not want to part with those eggs after it was all done and she figured out what was in them.
This is Miss Peanut in action:

A smattering of things...

I am amazed at how quickly Miss Peanut's vocabulary has expanded the last month or so. She is just such a sponge. Here's just a few:

dad - dad da
mom - mamma
grandpa - pa-pa
hi
bye-bye
up
down
open
shoe (totally has a show fetish already)
sock
shirt
pants
home
ball
cracker - kacker
cookie - cooey
water - otter
cheese - cheez
strawberries - berwies
blueberries - usually comes out boo-bies you can thank dad for that one.
shower
chair
car
beep-beep
vroom-vroom
keys
dog
kitty
bear
turtle
baby
belly

She still signs: I only taught her probably 5-6, but she talks enough now to usually get her point across.
- more
- please
- all done
- toilet - it's been so helpful with potty-training.

I finally uploaded a whole bunch of videos from the last few months. I tried to shorten it down to just a few, but because our far-away family hasn't seen Miss Peanut in months (like 8, or some like ever) there's a lot. Don't feel like you have to watch them, any or all of them. They're just silly stuff, that most parents catch on video, but we think she is super cute!

Animal Sounds

Officer will play coo-coo with her rather than peek-a-boo. You have to kind of listen for it, but I love that she says coo-coo. And Officer taught her to make "poo-poo" faces - lovely I know, but hilarious. If you're offended that she is on the toilet - sorry - don't watch then.

This was outside yesterday. She LOVES to be outside and has explored every inch of our backyard. I need to take her to the park more, but the weather doesn't seem to cooperate for very long, so the backyard has worked for now. She loves to stand/sit/bounce on the cable box - we don't care - we don't have cable and we don't particularly care for the fact that most of our neighbors cable comes through our backyard - maybe they'll move it.

It's finally Spring!

Even if it is still freezing outside here my cute little girl was so springy today and I just had to capture this little ray of sunshine.


And this is my eye!



This totally girly girl love clothes and shoes (I don't really consider myself too much of a girly girl - at least I wasn't when I was little so I'm still trying to figure out where she gets it from), so today was her day and we went shopping for an Easter dress. Pictures of the dress to follow - although we did play dress up in it today to make sure it fits - hello she's 16 months and she now fits in a 3T. I tend to buy a little big anyway so she can wear things longer. And this picture just makes me laugh - we really had a fun shopping trip.

Not much to report here, for now. I did receive the following email though the other day and thought I would share.

The Price of Children

This is just too good not to pass on to all. Here is something absolutely positive for a change. Have repeatedly seen the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is the first time have seen the rewards listed this way. It's nice.... !
The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family. Talk about price shock! That doesn't include the cost of post-secondary education.

But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down.
It translates into:
* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month,
* $171.08 a week.*
A mere $24.24 a day!*
Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is: don't have children if you want to be 'rich'.

Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140.00?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold usually covered with jelly or chocolate.
* A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up.
You get to:
* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs,
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:
* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and
* wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodlewreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to be a hero just for:
* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
* coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the:
* First step,
* First word,
* First bra,
* First date,
* First time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexualitythat no college can match..

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost.

That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren!!!!!!! It's the best investment you'll ever make!!!!!!!!!

Poor thing!

Peanut spiked a 104 degree temperature last weekend. That's uncharted territory for us - we've had pretty much everything else, but that's the first time she's ever really had a fever. Luckily it only lasted through the weekend and she is finally healthy (knock on wood). It was a fairly nice weekend and we would have loved to get out more, but it was me and her on the couch with little einsteins most of the weekend. Such a sad picture of my little monkey - she's never that lethargic.

You've had birthday!

Officer turned the big 29 last week and to celebrate (and spoil myself a little) I took him and we got couples' massages. If you've never done that - do it sometime - it's so nice. Of course we would rather have been on a beach in Mexico having them, but we'll take it. He's never been a cake man, so I made him his favorite Lemon Meringue Pie - only one candle - 29 won't fit on a pie.