Scott and Nancy

Hi there, February.

2012-02-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

This is just hilarious. I was holding June to help her go to sleep, and she chuckled in her sleep! Just dropped the pacifier from her lips to give a little, "ha ha" and then right on back to dreaming.

I really love my babies. Anne goes back and forth between being a little tyrant who yells at me to get her way (she demands specific food or tv shows or craft supplies) and being a little sweetie who walks around singing silly songs. I love both sides of her. I am trying to be patient with the little monster girl with a will as strong as mine and to enjoy the little book-reader with her blanket and her "good ideas." She will come to me and say, "I have an idea." She starts the day by running to the window and telling me, "Mom! It's such a beautiful day outside!" She begs for a frozen yogurt. She wants to read the "Arthur Valentimes" book again and again. She asks if we can go to a friend's house. She asks, "Mom, do you want to take a nap?" She tells her uncle Spencer, "I cried today. I cried because I didn't get any om-n-oms [m-n-ms]." She gives kisses and hugs and cuddles with a fierceness and an intent that make me feel really really loved. And all the while, Juney just sits in her little chair or in my arms and watches patiently and smiles when I look at her.

I get such a thrill out of kissing June's cheeks. Her cheeks are so full and fleshy and yummy. I love making June smile. She's quick to smile anyway, but it is very very fun to get her to give me a huge, toothless grin. Her eyes squint up and her wet tongue gets pressed up next to her lip and she beams!

Anne is especially good at getting June to smile. The two of them had a laughing-fest as we bathed June the other night. Anne would squeeze water from a washcloth onto June's round little tummy and giggle. This would entice June to giggle, and then we were all giggling. "She's smy-wing!" Anne says triumphantly. "She's wooking at me!" I am glad they seem to like each other.

Anne and Dad

2012-01-29T14:04:00.000-08:00

Anne and I got to have a really great Saturday. In the morning, we got to sleep in (which was great). We then went to Monkey Joes, which is an inflatable jungle gym place for kids. She had a great time running around and jumping and sliding for a long time. I then took her kicking and screaming out and we got some little ceasars pizza. I will say that I really love the pizza. Anne and I almost finished a pizza, and she knocked down more than two pieces (pretty amazing). After that, we went to the church and cleaned a little. Anne was great at cleaning windows, she carried around the spray bottle and sprayed a bunch until I told her to stop.

We got home and rested a little. We still got to go outside, which is great because Anne loves to put her shoes in the snow. She goes from patch to patch of snow and loves to kick it and throw snow balls at me. We got to talk to Grandma Jones until Anne was falling asleep. Anne got to sleep early and Spencer and I got to watch a wonder Tony Jaa movie. It was martial arts at it best.

Baby, baby we got the fever

2012-01-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

This has been one of those sick months. I think that with kids, you end up getting about 5 or 6 sicknesses at the advent of winter. For this reason, I think that we should get January and February off of work. It would both prevent the spread of sickness and would help us rest during those too frequent impossible to avoid sicknesses. We'll Anne got sick, then Nancy got sick, then June got sick, then I got sick. We've been sick for about the last 2 weeks and it's getting a bit old. Luckily we're slowly getting out of it, because it's tough to be sick and have the kids waking up every couple of hours so Nancy and I can't get any rest and then they get up and are unhappy all the day. Well enough with that. Other then that, we have managed to have some fun because our best friends also had the same sicknesses. We still got to eat dinner with the Greens and we got to enjoy a wonderful trip from Nancy's Mom.

She came to help with Heather, though honestly we stole her a lot and she helped us a lot (thanks). Nancy said it and I believe it, there is no one that loves Anne and June more than Grandma (although maybe some that love her as much). She was holding June all the time through the whining and sickness. She helped us during one of our trips out to the annual farm show. We got to see all types of animals (llamas, baby chicks, goats, cows). Anne loved to hold a pet a rabbit and more than anything, we loved the food. We got to have pulled pork sandwiches, ice cream, fried chicken. Big news here, we are finally entering winter. It's been relatively warm outside and it's rained the last couple of weeks, although yesterday, we got a great snow. Anne wanted to go outside, so I took her on a short trip. Here, it gets windy and I was cold enough to try to steer her back inside with the promise of some Dora the explorer.

Our next big goal in the next couple of days is to throw away a bunch of stuff so we can have room to organize the stuff that we do have. Wish us luck and a blind eye. I've also included one of the photo shots of Anne, she loves taking the camera and taking pictures. This set was all of one of her favorite models, Uncle Spencer (enjoy).

2012-01-15T07:30:00.000-08:00

We had a great Saturday (although packed to the brim). It was strange that I woke up at around 6:30AM and felt totally energized. It was good, because I went to work and got all my stuff done and got home with time to spare. I got to play my Star Wars computer game like a nerd until Anne got up (she's now sleeping in until 9AM). I got to help somebody move, which was nice because there was a load of people that showed up. I really enjoy joking around the entire move because I think that moves are way too serious. Since the night marked the ward talent show, Spencer and I got to prepare our song and we got to also prepare our t-shirts for our band.

The shirts looked great and we got to have a wonderful lunch with tritip, home made mac and cheese. After, we rushed off to the talent show and had a great time. Spencer and I did "you're not the one for me" and it turned into "hey soul sister" by train. Nancy did a wonderful version of yesterday with a friend in the ward who arranged a string quartet and guitar while he sang. Pretty great stuff.

Merry Christmas

2011-12-24T08:28:00.001-08:00

Wrapping the Christmas presents

2011-12-21T17:54:00.000-08:00

So Nancy went off with June to play viola at a big Christmas thing in Lancaster. Anne and I got to stay home and I got to wrap Nancy's presents (which was a lot of fun). Anne really enjoyed cutting things up and drawing Sharpie all over herself and whatever she could get her hands on. Nancy and I talked about how excited we are about Christmas. We really want to see each other open all these gifts. I'm going to work on wrapping Anne's gifts in a little bit, although I'm so excited about them and glad that Anne doesn't regularly view the blog, so I'll spill some of her gifts for you to see (I got most on amazon for sale and Nancy found the rest on great deals at thrift shops etc.

oh and I just love this picture of Anne in her hat being a little shy

Anne in the last couple of days

2011-12-18T17:41:00.000-08:00

Anne is great at helping in the kitchen. It's been fun to see how much she likes to do things with the family. Here's her helping us make some Naan bread. (she loves Indian food)

Nancy's Mom did this great Advent thing, where she numbered and made gifts for the many days preparing for Christmas (I think starting in December). Anne has been loving opening these every day. They are a great warmup for Christmas. Some of the fun and useful things that she has gotten was a pez dispenser, tights, candy, socks for Dad and many other great things. What a great idea.

If you ever thought you had bad hair day...

Another gift that she was excited about (in spite of the bad hair day). So Anne's transition of having a new family member is beginning to wear off (thank goodness). Nancy and I kept commenting on how having another kid was not as hard as dealing with the crazies that came from our older kid! Here's the following list of things that have improved (although she has been fun the whole way, just a little grumpy): She is now better at

sleeping
eating
listening
taking naps
going back in the house after leaving
talking to us in English instead of giberish
not having total meltdowns

ahhhh, now our next hope is that June will sleep one day...

June and Anne have fun together

2011-12-11T07:56:00.001-08:00

It was really fun this morning to see June and Anne having fun together. Anne was talking to June and that made June smile and kick her feet with joy. It's been fun to see how much Anne loves her little sister and how well they interact together. It's been a busy weeks, our family went to the Washington DC Zoo, the Baltimore Aquarium and we just got back from a great Christmas party. It's been a lot of a moving around, although we've seen some great things.

Anne and I loved the monkeys and the orangutangs. We got to be so close to them. Anne just squealed with delight to see the little things.

We got to ride around with our two girls. June had a lot of fun in the back just sleeping the day away.

Nancy had to take care of all of us because I hurt my back on the way there and couldn't lift anything! It was funny how Nancy came with two kids and left with three.

These are the two sides of June, she gets happy now, and she's also very serious sometimes (most of the time, with these kind of looks on her face.

Even though she was sick, Nancy still went with us to the aquarium. Anne was being quite the rascal, she was not at all really interested in the fish and wanted to see "animals". She was really interested in the bubbles that can up through these tubes, we spent way too much time at these. The aquarium was awesome though. We got to see a dolphin show and sharks, big turtles, spiny sea urchins and alligators. It was a great trip.

The ward Christmas party also happened. We went with our friend Becca and had a great time. Anne wanted to see Santa, but was pretty shy when it came to game time. At least he didn't send her down a plastic slide shouting "you'll shot you're eye out". The party was a lot of fun, there was a lot of good food and a lot of friends. So it's been of lot of fun times and we are more than excited for Christmas because I really think that Anne is going to get the whole thing and will rip open her presents and be excited. We are trying to get all injuries and sicknesses out so that Christmas is pure fun! We did have a sick free Thanksgiving, which was wonderful.

June Smiles and Halloween was fun

2011-11-29T12:26:00.000-08:00

This is June's monkey PJs from my friend Becca. I absolutely love these PJs. It is also apparent that June is comfortable in them too.
Anne loves to play with Frisbees outside. She will throw them and run and get them.
Nancy was tigerlilly and I was peter pan. Luckily Nancy found tight sweat pants and I didn't have to wear tights because that would not have been pretty.
Anne was a great Tinkerbell for Halloween. Grandma did the makeup and made her look at least 18 months older! Nancy made this costume herself and did a great job. It's great to see how much better this looks than the store bought ones. I always remember that our home made costumes sometimes didn't always look so polished (one prime example being Eric's sweat pants pirate outfit!). Anne really got the trick or treating thing and got so excited about getting the candy. Even when she was tired, she wanted to keep getting more candy. She walked a long way and did great.
Anne loves to play with her "Cinderella" outside and inside (when we are not looking). It's fun and a little bit scary to see how much she loves the Disney princesses and can remember many of the lines from movies. She really loves Ariel from the little mermaid and she also likes tangled and sleeping beauty. When I put her to sleep, I usually have to tell her a Disney story 2 or 3 times before she will go to sleep. I've had to really brush up on my movies because I don't remember the plots too well.
me and my girls. They are both representing their attitudes!
This was a picture of Anne as me and her went on a long walk. She reluctantly got into warmer cloths, but we had a great time. I just love the owl hat that she got from our friend Megan. We originally wanted to walk only to the duck pond, which we did and we looked at the geese and ducks and had a great time. Anne loves that a lot. I walked all the way down to work and back and then had to have a long rest!
I have the uncanny ability to make June smile (when she wants too). She is kind of a more serious, low key type of baby, usually reserving joyousness for only the well-rested, well-fed moments (a good tactic to keep mommy and daddy in order). This is probably the biggest smile that I have gotten out of her and I'll tell you that this is the biggest payoff for a parent. The smile is so important for me feeling like I'm a good parent. I remember with Anne that I didn't know that she wasn't supposed to smile for a while and after she was born it was really hard for me to have this serious looking baby. June is so much fun, she is so calm and lets us do other things without freaking out. We are really enjoying her. June is also blowing up like a marshmallow. She really enjoys eating and you can tell!

I'm excited to say that it seems like life is becoming a little bit more normal for Nancy and I. Those first couple of weeks of newborn baby is really tiring. I will say that Nancy is super nice to not wake me up to keep up the maintenance on June during the night because I do not function at work with little sleep. We have really been enjoying June and its so fun to see how much she fits into the family. Anne has been quite a struggle to keep up with. She is much more emotional and is really to scream or cry at any moment. She is getting a little better and a little more used to the whole attention deficient, although I can tell it's not easy for her. Nancy and I have to remind ourselves that all her energy and passion is something that we really like about her and its good to have a exciting toddler more than one that is weird and anti-social. Anne is really smart and understands what's going on and what she can get, so the transition out of babyness is tough.

Hope everyone out there is great, we are having fun here and have enjoyed the holidays.

Anne and June

2011-11-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. More details will follow about it. Our great friends Alan and Lyanna came to celebrate with us and they brought us this beautiful quilt for June. You should check out her blog. Anne and June get a long really well and Anne is a great big sister. She is constantly helping June with the pacifier and giving her big hugs and kisses. It has been so much fun to see them interact. June is beginning to smile too, you can kind of see it in this picture, although we will have to put another picture with June smiling in it.

June is Six Weeks old!

2011-11-19T06:41:00.001-08:00

What a wonderful six weeks it has been. Wonder-full, stress-full, wake-full, change-full, diaper-full . . .

We love our Juney Juney Juney and are happy to announce her birth to everyone. If you didn't get one of these in printed form, know that we still love you, but we're still just poor college students who only allow ourselves a few splurges in the way of printed + mailed items.

Quick recap of the past weeks.

Week One: Hospital stay ended on Sunday afternoon. Scott stayed home with us on Monday, but was back to work by Tuesday. He was sweet to adjust his work hours so as to be home by 2:30 or 3pm. Just in time to watch Anne melt into a tormented, napless struggle and take her outside to play so June and I could rest. Kind neighbors and friends grabbed Anne for morning adventures so June and I could rest. Sweet people brought us food. June's first photo-session with Mommy. Aunt Heather helps hold lights and shush June to sleep.

Anne at the pumpkin patch with her friends.

Week Two: Real-life events ensue. Ward council, primary training meeting, dinner at a friend's house. June sleeps great in the day and not so bad at night. Neighbor friends help me by watching Anne so I can sew Anne's Halloween costume. My first photo session since June's birth. June amazes and delights with her tiny-ness. I realize I cannot eat delicious things like hummus or bean-burritos if I want to have a happy baby. I try to cut back on the beans for June's sake.

Week Three: My Mom arrives! We do fun things like shop at a thrift store, go to a Halloween parade, have friends over for chili and cornbread before not going trick-or-treating on the Thursday before Halloween (the day we used to have trick-or-treating in our town), and enjoy a huge snowstorm and accompanying power-outage for several hours. June continues to amaze and delight. And GROW!

Anne enjoys an ice cream cone from Grandma after our thrift store trip.

Anne and June both enjoy naps after the outing.

Then it was off to the Halloween Parade where Anne scored loads of candy and June snoozed through fire-engine's horns and high-school marching bands

Week Four: Halloween and Trick-or-Treating. Anne is Tinkerbell, Scott is Peter Pan, and I am Tiger-Lily. June is stuffed cozily in her car seat for the walk around the neighborhood. Host my sister's baby shower. Clean out my closet with my mom's help. Get rid of loads of stuff. Enjoy outings to the swings with Anne and Kennedy (Anne's curly-headed next-door friend). My second photography session since June's birth. June weighs 10 pounds! That's like a pound a week for three weeks.

Anne made an adorable Tinkerbell. She really enjoyed Trick-or-Treating and didn't want it to end.

Congratulations to Heather at her baby shower.


We ate and ate and ate. I broke my no-hummus rule for the occasion.

Week Five: June's Baby blessing. Scott and Spencer and Brant and Zach all helped bless June in church on Sunday, November 6, 2011. Scott voiced a sweet blessing including the gift to have an open and willing mind and to have love for her family. Dinner at Spencer and Heather's house afterward. Monkey Joe's with Grandma on Monday followed by Missy's Ugly Cookies and a serious nap. Say goodbye to Grandma. Cry. Cry some more. Get over it by taking a trip to the library the next day followed by another trip to Missy's Ugly Cookies.

June in her blessing dress. (Same as Anne's).

The Joneses. We have two crazy and beautiful girls.

Week Six: Anne gets a cold. June gets a mini-version of the cold. We all stay home and watch way too many movies and give Anne the wrong idea of what life is like by letting her eat frozen gogurts, popscicles, and caramel corn all day long. Anne gets better at taking a nap or two here and there. June almost learns to smile. She continues to amaze and delight with her cuddliness, great eating habits, and smooshy cheeks. She grows out of the size one diapers. We hope June has Scott's respiratory strength and eczema-free skin.

Think of June

2011-11-13T07:40:00.001-08:00

"When I look at June, I think a couple of a couple of things: a potato and a marshmallow." Scott on November 13, 2011

That's because she's 5 weeks old, chubby, cuddly, and roly-poly. We dig her.

One of my favorite artists gets even better!

2011-10-15T12:25:00.001-07:00

I love the music of the killers and brandon flowers and now the lead singer made me want to say "I'm a Mormon" too! I really respect him for doing this and standing up for the family in the midst of an industry that is not that supportive for values.

I have two babies

2011-10-13T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hello from the mother of two Jones girls.

Right now there is something really special happening: both Anne and June are asleep.

Anne has really been fighting the naps lately. This tortures her with sleeplessness both during the day and night. It tortures me with fatigue and tries my patience. We are working on it. At first a bribe of a sucker would convince her to lay still and snuggle her blanket long enough to sleep. Now, she outright says, "I'm not taking a nap!" She is a totally different person without her routine 1–3pm snooze. Wanting Anne to nap, hoping Anne will nap, and how to get Anne to nap are some of my most frequent prayers. I miss my happy napper.

June is a superb napper—during the day. Her long ol' three hour snoozeroos are during daylight hours. About midnight to 3 am she is bright eyed and curious. Hopefully soon she will figure out that we want to play in the day and sleep in the night. I am careful not to wish any moment with her away, though. She is so precious and small and fills my heart with gratitude.

Bringing Anne into the world was a lot of painful work. Birthing June was totally different.

My labor with June was gradual over the three weeks leading up to her birthday. By the time I wondered if my water had broken and maybe thought my contractions were getting to be something like labor I was already dilated to a 5. The nurses at the hospital didn't really take me seriously, though, because I was so chill. It just felt like cramps. I was admitted around 10pm because my water had indeed broken (they had to test twice to be sure). Some bouncy ball action, a nap, and a nice long hot shower took me to about 5 am.

Only shortly after that did I start to have contractions painful enough to request an epidural. I got some intravenous pain medication to help me hold still for the epidural, and let me tell you, the combination of those two forms of pain relief was amazing. I slept/concentrated on relaxing my entire self for the birth without feeling a bit of pain. Hours of this wasn't doing the trick to get me open enough to push, though, so I got me a little pitocin to help.

By 11am, I was a full 10 and ready to push. June's head was practically peeking out by this point, and I was giddy and ready to deliver her. The room was calm, the nurse and doctors were relaxed and helpful. It was rewarding and exciting and painless to push my baby out. She came quickly (by 11:30 am) and was healthy and beautiful. I would do it all again.

June is born

2011-10-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

Introducing...June Ellen Jones.

We'll have more about her soon. Though she was born yesterday and she has been making Nancy and I so happy. Both her and Nancy are in great shape and we will be seeing more of them soon. June is a really patient baby that seems to be loving the world.

Song Nancy and I wrote

2011-09-26T15:56:00.000-07:00

parties galore.

2011-09-25T08:33:00.000-07:00

Nancy is getting close to having this baby. She just went into the doctor 3 days ago and the doctor said, "I'll bet you have this baby in 10 days." Nancy and I are really excited about the whole thing. I really hope the baby comes sooner because we're excited to have another child. I think that Anne will finally understand the whole sister and mom's pregnant thing a lot better when there's a baby to show for it.

Anne's vocabulary has been growing a lot. She's beginning to speak in all types of sentences. She is especially becoming good at ordering Nancy and I around. She'll tell us to leave the room, tell us what items in the house is her's (including food, our bed and her toys). She's been a bit sick this week, which has been the regular things (no good sleep, no good mood, irregular naps). Although we're always really surprised how fast she plows through the sicknesses and moves on and she seems to handle them pretty well.

We've had a lot of fun at some of the different parties that we've had in the past week. We had a caramel apple party that was great. It involves loads of apples and topping like nuts, m and ms, chocolates of every kind, crushed cookies, cinnamon and sugar etc. That was great. We learned that you have to grease the pan that you put them on so that you don't have to eat wax paper! On friday night we had an indian fry bread night at our friend's place. It was a lot of fun. Lot's of good food, sodas galore (Dr. pepper thanks to Brant :) ), and chocolate cake. Anne got to serve Nancy and I a lot of fake cookies (although we got plenty to eat). Last party this week was yesterday night during the relief society broadcast, Spencer and I got to have our annual "man night". This involves celebrating during the women's broadcast kind of like the women usually go out shopping during priesthood session twice a year. The night is celebrated by watching a violent action movie. This year's choice was "Priest", a movie about an elite group of priests that kill vampires in a post-apocalyptic world. It was great to say the least.

Last of all, the pictures of me all dressed up is after I got an award in the department. I had a 50% chance of getting it, but I overcame the odds and we had a great time eating good food and sitting through a long awards meeting (Anne did surprisingly well).

Family Picts

2011-09-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, we got some new pictures. Some great ones of Nancy and Anne as we reach the end of the pregnancy thing. We're excited to see the new baby (we're meaning Nancy and I because Anne has no clue about what's going on). Nancy and I just took pictures at a wedding yesterday, I'm finishing off my paper and Anne is beginning to be a little independent stinker. She walks around the house some times and orders Nancy and I around. She'll tell me to leave her room, or to not sing, or to do this or that in such an authoritative voice and sometimes with a finger motion. She also is laughing more, saying cute things and really becoming comprehensible. So you take it all and enjoy it.

and it's still raining

2011-09-08T04:40:00.000-07:00

I've never seen so much continual rain in my life. It just rains all day. There is flooding everywhere. We are ok and we live on top of a big hill on the second floor (this makes biking bad, but makes us safe in flooding time). Here's some local picts of the flooding.

2011-09-04T14:04:00.001-07:00

This was a party week, we had three birthday parties to go to and we had so much fun at all of them. Anne was excited and by the third one, I think that she understood that the presents we not for her. Nancy has had a busy week of photography, she took a senior picture session and a fairy party. Both were great and the pictures are really fun. I've been working hard on getting a publication out. It's been so much work writing and getting the last pieces of the puzzle that I'm working on together. The last part of projects are the toughest. Relating to that, the other thing that Nancy and I have worked on is making our kitchen look better. We took down the old 70s wall paper and painted it. Nancy will post on the before and after, but it's so much work to finish a project! Even when it seems like a small one, there are so many things that have to be done.

I think that I can say that all of us here are ready for some rest. Here's a picture of Anne after church, this is how we all feel now (especially Nancy with the ever enlargening baby inside).

I live in a pretty place

2011-08-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Just down the street are fields with pretty green colorful hills behind them. On nice days like we had this week, the clouds are super white in a blue blue sky.

I took these with my iPod after I made sure there was nobody driving behind us. Not as dangerous as texting while driving, right?

It's almost September

2011-08-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

We survived the hurricane, which was really nice. For us, it was just a nice little storm, actually less than normal. We did have some good wind and some trees got knocked down. Luckily we live on top of a hill on top of a hill. No chance we were getting flooded!

August is half over?

2011-08-14T18:13:00.000-07:00

The temperatures have dropped here this past week to the point that it felt like fall was coming along. In the past few years in PA, this first hint of fall has done funny things to me. I feel like I have a little better attitude this year (I'm not angry with the onset of fall, which leads to winter, which leads to snow), but I'm still amazed and worried about the summer ending. Anne and I have had such awesome summer adventures together.

We go swimming twice a week with some little friends at Spencer & Heather's landlord's pool. The swimming wears us out and makes us hungry. We load up a van full of swimmed-out kids and head for another adventure—usually some errand or two or three. We buy snacks or $1 a yard fabric and share popsicles and come home nice and tired. Anne and I snarf a little lunch of burritos or hot dogs and fruit and then Anne asks for a nap. She snuggles her "star blankee" and snoozes for at least 2 hours.

During her siesta, I catch up on emails, edit photos while watching Drop Dead Diva, and generally do quiet activities until I can't keep my eyes open. I plop myself into bed and nap until Anne wakes up. I have always been a good napper, but let me tell you that this pregnant lady sleeps like a rock between 2 and 3pm almost daily. So luxurious!

Then we dink around, do laundry, make dinner, paint pictures, and try to only give into Anne's pleas to "watch a moomie" at the last moment when dinner making gets most intense. Daddy comes home about 5:30pm and we eat and then go on a walk to the swings or blow bubbles on the lawn outside. Did you know that liquid dish soap mixed with a bit of water makes the most bubbly bubbles? Anne squeals and runs after the bubbles swatting at them and stomping on them. We only have to drag her home kicking and screaming about half the time. :) Joyful, right?

Um, and my list of nesting activities keeps getting longer. Want to know what keeps my brain busy as I go to bed at night, wake up in the morning, and try not to feel too overwhelmed when by the mid afternoon I'm too pooped to do anything on the list anyway?

Here's the abridged version of my nesting list:

- finish stripping the wallpaper from our kitchen and PAINT the kitchen
- put a second coat of paint on the frame for Anne's new/upcyled chalkboard
- finish my brother's "welcome home from his mission" quilt
- finish the quilt I started for Coralee's baby (I'm on the binding stage and doing it by hand)
- finish editing last month's wedding pictures
- sew a maternity maxi dress with this fabulous cream and white striped jersey that was $1/yard
- make my curtains pretty (I want to transform the bedsheet hanging from the curtain rod into a ruffle curtain)
- attempt to design the blog books from 2009 (and dream of doing 2010)
- re-hang most of the art in our house (getting sick of some of it, getting sick of the placement of others)
- organize the baby's clothes by month
- figure out Anne's fall and winter wardrobe and fill in any gaps (I'm thinking she needs some more tights and possibly some church shoes)
- make some freezer meals
- make Halloween costumes (Peter Pan, Wendy, Tinkerbell, and the little baby can be a mermaid or Tiger Lily)

I don't really expect you to have read that, but it's nice if you did.

I hope to cross some of them off, but I'll let you know as they do or don't get accomplished in the next 2 months.

Only 8 weeks before Little Tiny Baby (as we call her) arrives. I am so excited to meet her and to have Anne meet her. I am also totally freaked out about starting over with a newborn and adding that to our near-perfect schedules. I really hope this little girl does not inherit my itchy skin. Anne's skin is a constant issue for us. Her diaper rashes are fierce and random and unconquerable. I hope Scott and I can know what to name Little Tiny Baby. Scott likes a few names, I like a few names, and maybe we both could agree on one or two names. And maybe one of those agreed-upon names will suit the three-pound person now kicking and squirming inside my body.

Spoiled and Loved

2011-08-03T19:22:00.000-07:00

A lot of people on Facebook told me to have a wonderful, great, fabulous birthday.

I am happy to report that my 26th birthday was all that and more.

It started with a breakfast feast of fruity crepes, spinach and cheese omelette crepes, a stack of thick and crispy bacon, and orange juice. And since food is one if my favorite ways to make a day great and fabulous, this report will mention all the tasty fare of the day.

I got a special delivery of chocolate covered strawberries from my Dad and JoDee. Who is that thoughtful? I felt so loved. The big berries were the perfect end to breakfast.

Then, we watched some project runway and dunked around a while till Anne's nap time.

During her nap, we finished watching The King's Speech. I totally recommend the movie. I also recommend you watch it with a remote that can control volume so you can mute the two scenes of steady profanity. It is a story that is super fascinating and moving. And Colin Firth, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Geoffery Rush are a fabulous combo.

Scott made me dinner. He rocked some ribs and roasted veggies with a mango pound cake and mango whipped cream for dessert. Tasty. Seriously tasty.

After dinner was Harry Potter. We watched it in 3D, which was my first experience with 3D. I enjoyed the story, but the 3D was distracting for me (and it made Scott ill by the end of the night).

Scott had to go to bed early to fix his headache, so I stayed up watching Design Star. Lovely lovely day.

Oh, and Scott and Anne gifted me with a cute sea otter print, the game Racko, and a box of chocolate covered cashews. Thus man knows me. And Monday brought the final presents in the mail of sweet temple prints. Not one, but four pictures of either the St. George temple or the Washington, D.C. Temple and a large reprint of Christ with children. Art and food are such awesome gifts.

And that is how a fabulous day goes.

2 Year pictures

2011-07-31T18:06:00.000-07:00

Nancy might put a few more up, but I decided that we needed to have something up this week. These are Anne's two year pictures. It was fun to see how much personality she has in the pictures and how much she is getting taller and skinnier and a lot more spunkier. If there's one that I didn't see coming, it was the attitude at age two. She's fun and all, although she's like a little rattle snake after she wakes up. She gets sooo mad and she screams and tries to punch and kick me. I can't help but it takes a while for her to become her happy self in the morning.

I got to do singing time today. That was one of the results of Nancy as Primary President, I'm the emergency on call guy. It was fun, although I was quite hoarse at the end. It was fun to see the little kids sing and smile and to enjoy being part of something at church. They really got into some of the activities. When I walked into Anne's class, she smiled and ran up to me and gave me a big hug. That was a payoff moment.

Nancy will blog more about her birthday celebration, although, we had a great time and really enjoyed food, friends and harry potter 7.2.

Little Bits

2011-07-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

This has been the hottest week of my life, it seems. Super humid 98–105 degrees all week.This pregnant lady (in her third trimester!) got tired just thinking about going outside. We still went on a walk every day except Monday; on Monday we were watching a friend's boys, though by Friday I was so pooped from the walk and swimming adventure of Thursday that I couldn't bring myself to step outside. I let myself be talked into a trip to the duck pond where I ended up walking for ten or fifteen minutes anyway. Thank goodness for air conditioning and popsicles.

Saturday I had a wedding. A wedding at 10:30 in the morning with an outdoor reception immediately following. It was a looong, hot, sweaty wedding for everyone! BUT, it was a blast. Scott got to come with me (thanks to Spencer and Heather being the all-day babysitters), and he was my trusty helper who carried all the equipment, made sure I drank lots of water and lemonade, and kept me well stocked with batteries and flash cards. We had an hour's drive to the wedding location. It was fun to blast some music and wind through the country roads together. The bride and groom are both dairy farmers, and the church was just around the corner from the bride's parent's farm. Talk about a scenic location. I was so tickled to be able to shoot photos in such beautiful and interesting spots that were simultaneously very meaningful and personal to the couple. Willow tree, corn fields, rusty red barn, navy blue silos. We were whomped by the end of the afternoon, but I am so excited to show you some of the pictures. So excited.

I didn't realize how pregnant I looked until I saw myself in the mirror at the wedding yesterday. It then made sense why everyone seemed very concerned that I was getting enough to drink and wondering if I was going to go into labor at the wedding. Yikes! This baby still has to gain maybe 4 more pounds. I am trying not to think about how tricky the wedding/events in September will be. Lucky for me I have the BEST assistant!

Anne continues to be our most adorable, entertaining, goofy, and tiresome baby. At lunch this past week she grabbed my hand and shook it saying, "Nice a meechoo" (Nice to meet you). No idea when she learned that one. She always wants to join us when we go places imploring, "Come wis [with] you." She tries to tickle us and pronounces tickle with a "k" at the front "kickle, kickle, kickle!" she says with a sneaky smile.

Scott has been working up a storm. He is so close to publishing a paper, and I am so happy for him. It is fun to see his work progress and exciting to think he may finish this PhD at some point. He consistently makes me happy with all he does at home, too. Like mop the floor, start the laundry, wash the poopy diapers, and vacuum. After I have spent a day looking at a mess or attempting to make sense of toy-land chaos, Scott will come in and whirl around tidying it up like it was nothing. So helpful and sweet.

How Old Are You?

2011-07-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

I just asked Anne, "How old are you?"

"Sixteen."

"No. You're two!" I told her before asking again, "How old are you?"

"I'm sixteen."

I guess she was paying attention the other day when she asked to drive and I told her not until she was sixteen.

Anne's Party 2 years

2011-07-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

We had a great party. The whole theme was Japanese and we had some rice crispy sushi, some pot stickers, vegetables and Nancy made the most delicious strawberry cake. Anne really understood the present thing and got some of the most fun gifts. When she was blowing out the candles on the cake, she nearly kissed the candles out. Nancy will probably post more about the party, but I wanted to put on some pictures for the world to enjoy.

A little bit of vacation and back

2011-07-10T16:49:00.000-07:00

So Nancy and I just got back from Utah and Idaho. We got to travel there to see our families and specifically to go to her Steele family reunion in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. There will be more pictures and details, although I wanted to post a few of the highlights that I got pictures of on the iphone.

The first include a fun little trip we got to take to the BYU museum. It was great to see the neat stuff that they have in there. They had a giant stack of books that I got a picture of Nancy by. They also had some great artwork and some nice quilts. Nancy and I could have spent a lot of time there, although Anne helped us to make the trip short and sweet (until the end when she was screaming).

Anne also got to stay at my brother's house in Lehi. She really enjoyed playing the drums there (which made me really proud).

We will have a separate post about the cabin, although another amazing thing was how calm she was on the plane ride home. She sat and brushed Nancy's hair for almost an hour! That was really nice.

We got home and it was nice to eat normal food and be able to put Anne down for naps. I got to go on a bike ride with my friend Brant. We did about 26 miles. It was killer and I felt like throwing up at the end, but we got a great view of the surrounding town and of three mile island. I really want to start working out again.

Yoo Hoo!

2011-06-26T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Anne to keep you going. This gal is almost 2! This is what she does when Scott asks her for her "toothy smile."

She asks for several things every day. Here she is enjoying two of those things: "watch Tangled"(pronounced "kangled"), and "toast with jam."

Anne put her skirt on all by herself! She ran off without a diaper first, though. Very jungle.

We love you! Hope you are all well.

Hi Cousins! Please let me know which designs you want at the reunion.

2011-06-17T12:31:00.000-07:00

Hello Cousins,

I am excited to see you all at the cabin this year. I sent an email with this info, but thought it would be good to get this out there in a few places.

A craft I'm bringing to the cabin: freezer paper stencils. Have you heard of these? Watch this video for more info.

It took me a while to narrow these down to 15, and there are so many more that would be fun, but let's keep it simple for now. Choose from these designs:

Let me know which designs you want to use for your family and how many.

Love ya,
Nancy

2011-06-15T19:47:00.000-07:00

I am now in the hungry-all-day part of pregnancy. One meal gets me through only a few hours and then I need something else to eat. It can get a little frustrating to try to carry enough food with me when we have errands, or else try to plan short outings so I can go home and eat.

Today's fare:

Oatmeal with apple slices(dehydrated apple cooked with the oatmeal)
Egg with cheese and whole wheat toast
Fruit and yogurt smoothie
Almonds
Navajo taco with beans, taco meat, and fresh lettuce from the garden at the Ellsworth's
Grapes
Bowl of cracklin' oat bran
Chicken salad sandwich
Half a popsicle
Pepperoni roll (mini skinny calzone with sauce on the side)
Mango sorbet
Mint cookie ice cream
Nut bar

I just hope I can avoid the near routine of waking up hungry at 4 am. Enjoy , Baby Jones! Enjoy!

It's Friday, Friday!

2011-06-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

It's so hot.

Anne has been cracking me up lately with her little questions and phrases. She says things like, "Okay—yeah." "What's this, Mommy?" "That's a motorcycle! It's really loud!" "I need this, Mommy." "I need a cookie." "I'm awake!" (when she's escaping a nap or bedtime) "Where's Daddy?" "Put it away!" "I can't do it; I need help." "Where's the star blankey?" "Take a shower" "That's funny. Ha ha."

I heard her "praying" this afternoon. She folded her arms up to her forehead and started whispering some prayer phrases and ended with "thank you." I guess that's what we say when she cooperates for prayers!

She likes the movie Tangled. I heard her singing along with the love song from the boat scene, "I see the light." She likes me to repeat the song from "Sweepin' Beauty." She can sing the "I know you" part pretty well!

Anne is currently napping, but her naps have deteriorated lately. She wakes up too early, and she wakes up screaming. I must go get a smidgen of a nap for myself right now before I dither away the opportunity on blog-land.

Summer time is coming.

2011-06-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

We have been enjoying the warmth and the summer time. Everything turns green here really quick because it rains here all the time. Just last night we suddenly had a couple of hour downpour out of nowhere and it will probably rain again. I really like the rain a lot. Some of the things that we have been enjoying has been good weather outside and water. We got to go swimming this last week and it was great. We were with Spencer and Heather at their place because they have a swimming pool. The water was cold (just filled up), but we enjoyed cooling off after a 90 degree day with a lot of humidity.

Anne had a great time, she didn't like getting in the water too much because it was cold. But she did enjoy kicking in the water and having people carry her around in the water.

The attached picture is one of Anne and her friend Annie playing with the hose. This picture was epic.

Baby Girl #2 Will Debut Mid October!

2011-06-02T18:21:00.000-07:00

This morning we went to the ultrasound where the technician instructed us (per our request) to turn aside as she assessed the baby's gender. Then, the technician put the gender of the baby in an envelope and I took it straight to Missy's Ugly Cookies. Missy had agreed to bake me a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and dye the filling either pink or blue based on the verdict in the envelope. Aah! It was such an exciting day. Like that SNL clip with the gal who says over and over, "I'm so freakin' excited!" Almost unbearable anticipation.

I picked up a beautiful chocolate cake just before 6pm. A few close friends and neighbors joined us at our house just after 6. At about 6:30pm we cut open the cake to reveal a swirl of PINK frosting! The cake was super tasty, gone in under 15 minutes, and a really fun way to find out that baby #2 is a girl.

I am so excited for Anne to have a sister. I've been trying really hard to orient myself to the notion of having a son, in case I were to be having a boy, so now I get to imagine another little girl. Aah! I'm so tickled. I loved thinking, "I could have a boy! Or I could have a girl!" all with a giddy fun feeling inside that I am mostly just really excited to have another baby. I love being a mother. I think this will be a wonderful challenge to have 2 babies, and to get to love 2 little girls. Yay!

More pictures and videos to follow. I'm too worn out from all the excitement to download anything right now.

Thank you for your love and support. It is super fun to share this with you all.

3 hours left! Guess boy or girl now!

2011-06-02T11:40:00.000-07:00

Do you think Baby Jones #2 is a boy or a girl?

We find out tonight!

Hurry and post your guesses. You might be right.

If you play with the hose, you will get wet

2011-06-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Anne thought she was getting her watering can filled up. Instead, she got a mouthful!

Happy Friday!

2011-05-27T13:20:00.000-07:00

I will be 20 weeks pregnant TOMORROW! We find out a little more about this baby next Thursday. We'll let you know if it be a he or a she.

Now I want everyone to take a moment and give a little round of applause to Scott for keeping up our blog.

Applause!

Okay, thank you.

It is one hot day today. I am editing some family pictures while Anne sleeps and planning a dinner get-together with Heather and Spencer via text message. We ate some ridiculously spicy buffalo chicken strips on Sunday. Scott said he wanted to eat that again this week only less spicy, so that's what we're planning for tonight. It's a bit of a hassle to cut all the chicken and batter and fry it, but it is mighty tasty!

Anne got to play in the sprinklers at Annie's house this afternoon while I tried to take some pictures of Annie's baby sister, Mabel. It was an adventure for both the ladies outside and the ladies inside. Anne got sprayed with the hose, and I nearly got sprayed with the baby poo. Hopefully there are a few pictures worth all that effort! Seriously, folks, newborn pictures are probably the trickiest. It's all about getting them in that first sleepy week because if you wait too long they are hard to sooth and you end up with crazy facial expressions and wiry limbs.

Enjoy the photos of Anne and I this morning. We were feeling fresh after our walk and our shower. Anne even let me blow-dry her hair (in fact she insisted on doing it herself for part of the time!).

hopefully you enjoy the movie

2011-05-22T06:40:00.000-07:00

Nancy is working on pictures like crazy. She has a great body of work that she is getting done and its great to see all the neat photos come out. Anne is getting really big. If there is one things about watching Anne grow up, it's that it all seems to be speeding up a lot now. She is now looking much older and she is beginning to talk like crazy. It's begun to become a new parenting level for Nancy and I because we are beginning to have to think about discipline and teaching her important stuff. I guess I knew that she was always learning, but now I can tell that she understands what we are saying and is learning great things. It's so wonderful to hear her praying and she understands principles that we teach her. She recognizes Jesus and the temple and she loves nursery at church.

My life is stressful. My research is about to hopefully bring me to a publication, although there are so many unknowns in research like: is anything I do going to work and will it ever work as well as it did the first time. There is an excitement in learning and being the first to discover new things, although much of what I do is do experiments that don't work and troubleshoot. I really enjoy baking because it works so much more then my work does! I'm also working on the revamp of Nancy's website. I'm enjoying the computer work and the site should be great. Working on computers is also fun because you can tell if the things you are doing are going to work instantly. I have the same type of troubles as my work: things constantly going wrong, but the fixes are quicker.

I wanted to put some videos up of Anne, so here they are.

Nancy Graduated

2011-05-15T12:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Nancy's graduation. We went to the Hershey Giant Stadium for the event and boy was it big. Nancy was super relieved to have the whole Master's degree done, which was nice because we have plenty of other things on the plate. Some of the highlights of the event included: a master of ceremonies that we could barely understand because of a thick accent. A keynote address about the Hershey business and the economy (snore...) and a student speech with an introduction including a quote about how someone who hasn't owned an animal has really not lived fully. Despite these, the event was fun and great and it was a proud moment for our family.

Anne was excited, although it was hard for her to understand the whole thing. All she knew is that Mom went away and we just kept saying she was below in view, but that we couldn't go to see her for a while.

These Days

2011-05-13T11:23:00.000-07:00

These days we wake up to birds chirping.

These days we go on long walks almost every morning.

These days Anne takes a nice nap after lunch. I take a bit of a nap during her nap after or before I've spent some time editing photos or organizing my closet.

These days Scott comes home early to be with Anne while I take senior portraits or family pictures.

These days we eat a lot of red grapes and cantaloupe.

These days we keep the windows open.

These are nice days.

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-07T14:28:00.000-07:00

To Nancy, Grandma Jones, Grandma Steele, Grandma Houk. Happy Mother's day. I thought I'd put the best thing for everybody to see on this special day. Thanks for all your hard work in bringing up the next generations.

Spring is Busting Out

2011-04-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

The promised pictures of Springtime in Hershey.

Happy Spring!

2011-04-27T06:35:00.000-07:00

Our street is in full bloom! Out our windows are bright green beginnings of leaves, trees full of white blossoms, and pink cotton candy trees. I took some photos with some photographer friends in a nearby orchard last week. It was magical! I will have to show you some pictures soon. I went again last night for a senior portrait session. I have decided that I want to be a tree in bloom--wild, gnarly, fresh, alive, sweet smelling, lacy, and fruitful.

We enjoyed two successful choir performances on Sunday. I love getting to conduct the choir. It is nearly always a miracle to me how the songs come together when we sing them in church. I love Easter Sunday, but having two choir numbers made it stressful for me a bit. Maybe we will take a week break? Or maybe not. :) I do love remembering the miracle of Christ's atonement and resurrection.

In other news, I got two or three terrible pictures of Anne in her Easter dress. She promptly fell asleep on the way home from church and we had to wake her up in the middle of dinner so she wouldn't be a complete mess. Heather and Spencer joined us for dinner. We enjoyed a wonderful supper of grilled steak, naan bread, hummus, tzatziki sauce, veggie kebabs, and flavorful rice. I had a hard time deciding when I had enough. There was barely enough room left in my belly for a delicious carrot cup cake that Heather made.

We then his a few eggs for Anne to find around the living room. We loved watching her thrill at finding each egg and bringing them to uncle Spencer so he could open them. Anne devoured the contents (fruit snacks and leftover egg hunt treats) immediately upon opening!

It's raining outside

2011-04-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's raining a lot today. It's been fun to see it just pouring down here. Anne has also learned about different things that happens when it rains (other then that we don't go outside because it's cold and wet).

Revenge on the Dentist

2011-04-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

I had a dentist appointment last Friday at noon. So, I took Anne to my friend who had agreed to babysit her, and I drove off to the dentist's office in the pouring rain. When I arrived, the office was closed. No cars in the lot, no lights in the building, and the doors were locked.

After the hassle of scheduling a babysitter and packin' up our stuff and getting out of the house at all on such a rainy day, I was miffed. Of course it's likely that I just wrote it down wrong, but I still had to do something to get back at the dentist. My solution: go to the grocery store and buy candy.

I couldn't just buy one little candy bar, though. On the way to the candy aisle, I passed the Oreos. They were on sale, so I grabbed a package. At the candy aisle, the Symphony bar spoke to me; I got a king sized one. But I was still itching for some peanut butter something. I grabbed an 8-pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for good measure.

On the way to the check out counter (wearing my old-lady-thrift-store rain coat and my actually-quite-hip rain boots) I saw a man carrying a sub sandwich from the deli. Hello lunch meat! I was suddenly starving for a sandwich like that.

On the way to the deli to pick up the sandwich that I absolutely NEEDED, I saw the strawberries were buy-one-get-one free. They were red and smelled sweet, so I grabbed two.

I made it to the deli counter, grabbed a pre-packaged Italian sandwich and just barely was able to carry all of my treats in my arms. I went straight to the self-check out to avoid any uncomfortable stares at my unlikely stash of treats.

It was a great way to get back at the dentist!

When I tell Anne to smile...

2011-04-11T13:50:00.000-07:00

When I tell Anne to smile, this is what she does...

Some great pictures

2011-04-10T16:59:00.000-07:00

I was the only one that survived the second session of conference (everyone else is asleep, not praying). Here's some pictures of Anne.

Weekend report

2011-04-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

Nancy and I had a busy weekend. It was a conference weekend for Nancy. She got to present a paper and watch break dancing and eat good food. Anne and I got to have a Daddy daughter day. We got to clean the house, go to the swings twice and fill the time in ways I don't even remember. After that, Nancy's friend Addie and fiance Jamie came into town. We took some engagements of them and had some great ice cream. I got the most fattening, candy bar ice cream thing. We all felt nicely sick at the end and had fun just talking after until the evening.

Hershey Gardens

2011-04-03T06:29:00.001-07:00

So between conference sessions, Nancy and I got to go to the Hershey gardens. It was great to get out in the semi-warmness (although the Spring is not really here yet). We had a great time outside, especially for the first part. Anne was having a great time walking around. There were three major problems that got Anne in an irreversible angry mood. #1: Anne mistook the fountain for a giant bath or swimming pool. #2: Anne mistook a drained pond floor to be a sandbox and wanted to play inside. #3 Anne found a fruit snack on the ground and wanted to eat it.

It was a bout of screaming until we had to carry her out in a long a painful walk. What was ironic about the gardens is that there was really nothing really blooming there. It was a bunch of prunned, dead looking things. Sadly, we didn't have time for the rock garden (which I thought wouldn't be dead). It is a pretty location and we hope to go check it out during the summer when it is full of flowers and blooming plants.

baby

2011-04-02T11:44:00.001-07:00

so we are really having a baby. Nancy thought it would be funny to pretend like it was an april fool day joke, although it's not a joke.

It Snowed Last Night

2011-04-01T10:08:00.000-07:00

And that is not an April Fool's joke. Ug.

Seriously? I am so done with winter and wetness outside and scraping snow off my car and boots and coats and gloves. DONE. Take a memo: no more cold days!

Anyway, that's enough of my whining.

We have some happy news: We're going to have baby #2 in October!

If you've noticed that I've been a lousy blogger, the main reason is that I have been too sick to care. Not really as bad as with Anne, but lots more nausea that lasts all day long and lots of food aversions. I'm finally able to drink the tap water again, and I'm not a total wreck all day. I HAVE to take a nap when Anne naps though. I sleep like a rock, or a baby, or like I wish I slept at night. Very deep sleep. It's wonderful to nap, and without a nap I get cranky and let horrible things happen: dishes pile up, laundry baskets sit waiting to be emptied, Anne watches her silly (ridiculous and tedious) Tinkerbell movie and Arthur episodes over and over. Yikes. "Moomie! Moomie!" she cries. It's so silly.

Spencer and Heather have been great at coming over and keeping Anne entertained while I sit on the sofa and read or watch movies. Anne loves "Spencer and Ha Ha."

I hope you have a happy Friday and a fabulous conference weekend. I get to go on a date tonight. Any ideas on what we should do?

It's cold outside, but warm inside

2011-03-27T07:02:00.000-07:00

We've had a lot of fun with different friends and family in the last couple of weeks. It's been great to have Heather and Spencer come over and hang out with us a lot. Not only do Nancy and I like it, Anne is a big fan too. She gets really excited. It was recently Spencer's birthday and we got to have this amazing Caesar salad and then we got to play music together and enjoy a nice evening.

Last night was a girl's night out and while Nancy was out, Spencer Brant and I got to take care of the kids (which involved turning on Arthur and breaking up toy fights). Nancy got to go to Fudruckers and get a half pound guacomole burger with bacon and then have crepes after. I hide in the back room after watching the girls and watched part of the movie "Price of Persia" (which was actually a good movie). It always baffles me that almost any ancient civilization will speak in a british accent and a little fake tan can make up for darker skin.

I got to teach a class this week. It was a bit shameful because I didn't have much time to prepare, so I just kind of read the power point. It was boring, though now I understand what being a professor is all about.

Attached are some random pictures from our Saint Patrick's Day party and hanging around the house. Anne really likes to be tickled a lot (unlike my entire family).

We had a great weekend

2011-03-20T17:54:00.000-07:00

We had some summer weather this weekend and we got to enjoy some time outside. If there is one thing that is very different about Anne than me, it's her absolute love for the outdoors. Not that I hate the outdoors, I enjoy going on hikes and everything, although I find that I also enjoy sitting around the house and watching movies (which is one of my most guilty pleasures. So this winter has been somewhat of a difficult thing for Nancy and I because Anne wants to constantly go outside, but it's cold and not fun to be out there. Now, Anne can go outside on the balcony and just enjoy the outdoors. What we really need is a giant backyard where she could just run around all day. The balcony will work for now.

If there's one thing that Nancy and I enjoy though, it's summer time. It's been getting green around here and it's nice to think that we'll be able to go to the park and enjoy being outside more. This is a lot more fun time of the year to enjoy biking to work. The winter is a little tough with the cold and all, though I find that it beats driving any day (I get really easily annoyed driving, even the 5 minute drive to work.

Anne also really enjoys books. I posted one picture of Anne outdoors swinging backwards and another picture of her with her fairy books. She loves fairies, especially tinker bell and this terrible tinker bell movie that we have seen way too many times. It's too cute to stop her from loving it and I've even conceded to get her one of the tinker bell dolls for her birthday (Nancy caved at the store, although I couldn't give in).

My research is going good, although I find that research goes good, then bad and so on. It's kind of like the pride cycle, except I have no control over what happens. Hopefully, I can get out a paper soon.

It's summer...at least today.

2011-03-18T15:34:00.001-07:00

Here's some picts of Anne, it's 73 degrees outside and it was a beautiful day outside. I just got home and took some pictures of Anne. It'll get colder tomorrow, but it has been a great day today. We had a lot of fun.

St. Patty's Day Treat

2011-03-17T18:10:00.000-07:00

It was gorgeous today! I am over the illness of last week that Anne shared with me, and we were officially stir-crazy. We walked to the duck pond(something we have not done in months!), then played at the park with some friends. I guess I wore Anne out with all the fun; she fell asleep for an hour in the car while we did an errand. Nice she could sleep, but it ruined my nap because she didn't sleep much longer at home. Oh well.

Anne is really fun to be around. She cocks her head, raises a shoulder, smiles and asks for candy or a movie. It's so cute! Really hard to say no when she pulls such tricks. How did she figure out the gestures for the most adorable way to ask for something she knows she shouldn't have?

A neighbor invited us over for corned beef and cabbage with some fabulous rhubarb cobbler. Anne's favorite part of the meal was the little pots of jelly beans adorning the table.

Happy Green Holiday!

Lucky Days

2011-03-07T09:18:00.000-08:00

Anne has been sick again. This time it was a pukey one. YUCK! Scott was so nice to be the main cleaner-upper because the smell of it was totally makin' me gag. She had a fever yesterday, but I think she's on the mend. Cross our fingers that we don't get it too!

We got the game Ticket to Ride. We used a groupon or two for Borders (or was it Barnes and Noble?) to get it and we have really been enjoying it. We opted for the Europe version. I like it, but sometimes I feel like it limits your score because the routes are significantly smaller than the American version. Like, you really have to put in the time to get at least one of the longer tracks to get a decent score, whereas nearly any route to anywhere in the America Ticket to Ride has a five-train track. Europe has lots of twos and threes and only a couple of longer ones (but they are crazy longer and out of the way). Meh. It's still fun!

Scott's birthday was a good time. We ate at the Shady Maple, as he said, then we hosted a nacho party the next day. Scott is so into nachos; it cracks me up. "What do you want to do for your birthday?" "I want a nacho party." "Are you sure?" "Yes." So that's what we did. Nachos, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, his favorite black cherry soda, and oreos. Not a veggie on the table! It was fun. We have really started to become better friends with some of Scott's coworkers. I like branching out and they find it fascinating to go to parties where there are lots of little kids around!

I have acquired some interesting free things on my walks lately. A pretty yellow hutch (minus the dresser it sat upon), a can opener (the kind that you just pierce the top of the can with a little triangle that we've been wishing we had for a LONG time!), a metal high chair that fits perfectly for Anne to sit up to the table, and a pretty mirror frame sans the mirror. I am thinking the hutch top and the mirror frame will be useful in my upcoming cookie windows. I'm sort of strapped for ideas, though. Any inspiration is welcome!

That's all folks. Oh, and Scott made lemon bars for us last night. I should give some away, but that would require going somewhere. yummy yummy!

Feels Like Spring Outside

2011-03-02T10:37:00.000-08:00

Just a leetle yoohoo! We're alive and kickin' over here. Anne and I went on a nice long walk this morning with our friends up the street. Then, we played and played and played at the park. Anne likes the slide, but it annoys me a bit because she tries to climb up the back herself. However, the slide is one of those crazy tall metal things, so I have to climb up behind her half pushing half lifting her to get her to the top and then ask my friend to catch her before she flies off the end and bonks the back of her head. She was wearing her pajamas for our walk (and snuggled inside the sweet 0 degree sleeping bag I have rigged for cold walks), and so we had to make a special trip back home for some shoes before she could enjoy the park. The fleece on her bum made her slide down really fast! She loved it. I endured it, but of course enjoyed that she had joy in it.

After a fabulous chicken, bacon, avocado sandwich for me and some yogurt with berries and a few bites of chicken and bacon, we are both pooped. Anne is asleep, and I have just spent the last 20 minutes oogling over pretty quilts here and here. I think it would be fun to quilt. I really need to get myself to bust out the sewing machine and finish that one quilt I started in high school so I can move on to prettier more modern projects. My lofty goal is to have a few homemade blankets and other smallish gifts on hand for all the babies that are coming to our ward and family this year. I shouldn't call it a goal. I have no real plan to accomplish it. I just think it would be a good use of the mounds of fabric I have in my possession to make things for people when they have birthdays and babies and things like that.

Happy March!

a couple more pictures

2011-02-27T07:34:00.000-08:00

It was nice yesterday, it was in the high 40s and Anne, Nancy and I got to play outside. Anne just loves to run outdoors and actually I found that I do to. It's nice to be out in the sun and not have to wear a coat or run around in the snow. If there's something strange though for Nancy and I, it's how fast Anne is growing up. I feel like I come home from work and Anne looks so much older than before. It's fun to have her give me big hugs when I come home and she is better able to play games and respond to us when we talk to her. Anne is right now in the other room talking to herself and playing with her dolls, whom she treats like her babies including changing their diapers, putting down for naps and kissing them. She also tells Nancy and I to be quiet when they are taking naps.

Nancy is doing good, the photography is beginning to take off and we are excited to collect more pictures of other people :) She is almost done with the thesis. I am working on getting my research working and I'm enjoying the extra time that I have on hand from not being a scout master anymore. Nancy planned me a great birthday party that went well, pictures and stories will soon come.

new picture of Anne

2011-02-26T11:02:00.001-08:00

So we got a new lens and as always we got the cheapest, most available model we could find to practice with it.

In and Out of the Box

2011-02-17T17:46:00.000-08:00

The weather today was SUPER! We went on two walks and played on the swings twice. It feels so good to go outside and want to stay outside. Anne loves it, too. She is really interested in birds (she says, "Burds!" and "tweet tweet!"), sticks, the moon, and snow. Just a few of the many interests we share!

She is also very aware of sounds on the street both when we are in the house and out and about. If she hears a truck, she looks at me and says, "Truck!" If she hears a bus, same thing, "Bus!" If she hears a plane, "Pane!" We can hear the train from our house, too, "Choo choo!" Sometimes truck and bus get mixed up, but she gets bus right most of the time.

Finally uploaded some videos/pictures. Expect to see a few more sprinkled in the posts. Here's a video of Anne playing with a box. It was ridiculously fun to pull her around in this thing and say, "Choo choo!"

I finished the St. Patrick's Day version of Missy's Ugly Cookies window display. This time went more smoothly. I may become friends with this window space, yet! I'm very pleased with it. The pictures are a bit low-res, but what do you think?

I was excited to try window painting. For the window, I cut stencils to spell out, "Missy's LUCKY Cookies." Then I traced the letters using a window pen and filled in with tempera paint. I'm pretty sure the paint will come off easily with soap/water/etc. My mom said she used tempera paint on window displays in college, so, this will test it out.

How did I cut out the stencils? I used my new Silhouette cutting machine! Wahoo! I had been eying the Silhouette since I first heard about it on some blog and then another and another. I'm not a scrapbooker, but I could definitely see the machine being fun for cards or freezer paper stencils or decorations. With this window display job, suddenly I could justify the purchase. It was super helpful this month. I'm excited to see how it cuts vinyl! I used the Silhouette to cut the letters for the window stencil, the shamrocks (which I designed myself) and the letters on the "cards." The overall effect with the plaid backdrop, the sparkly shamrocks, window lettering, and the oversize cards gives me a little bit of a pub mixed with Vegas feel while still being innocent and playful. This one was tricky for me, though, because besides my love for the color green, St. Patty's Day is nearly meaningless for me. Go check it out in person at Missy's Ugly Cookies and try the chocolate pizzelle I think it's called. Like a light and crispy candy bar with caramel between waffle cookies dipped in lots of dark chocolate. Lovely cookie.

Anne loves the snow

2011-02-12T13:08:00.000-08:00

Anne is enjoying the winter. She really enjoys getting outside and poking the snow with a stick. She is having a lot of fun and seems to be growing up so much.

Larger than Life

2011-02-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

Hi there! Just have to document this: I survived an allergic reaction to a medication that made my tongue swell so I nearly couldn't swallow.

I was so excited to finally have my favorite asthma medicine again (it's expensive, so I let it run out for a few months). One nice deep breath of the funky powder made me feel great. Until it didn't. I had such a hard time swallowing all night long. Not like my throat hurt so it hurt to swallow, but like there was so much extra tongue in the way that swallowing was really tricky. It became easier to just keep my mouth open, risk drying out my throat (I can't really breathe through my nose with the latest edition of Jones family colds), and just be mostly awake all night.

Stupidly, I took the medicine again this morning. I could swallow better by then and I hadn't figured the connection out yet—I was still blaming my cold. But when the obnoxious gag order on swallowing returned, I figured it was time to call a professional. The nice nurse suggested I go to the e.r. cause I was having difficulty breathing (I do have asthma, lady I told her). Meh. I felt no panic, so I waited an hour or so for an appointment with my regular doctor instead. I didn't realize how big my tongue had gotten until Coralee showed up (we had planned to go to Chocolate World or something fun when this thing got in the way). She stuck out her tongue and the way it fit so neatly between her teeth let me know that my fatty wide tongue that spilled out all over my teeth was definitely not normal. Shoh nuf: I is allergic to dat stuff.

SAD! I love love love that medicine. It is expensive, but it makes the whole breathing thing so smooth and so comfortable with only 1-2 puffs a day. Lame. There goes $100. Not to mention I still have some tight lungs.

Have you ever felt your tongue swell up? It's kinda freaky! I only had trouble swallowing one other time: I had freaked myself out at Hershey Park screaming my lungs out on a coaster and got super nervous while waiting in line for another ride. Roller coasters are fun, but also a tad on the scary side for me.

Then and Now: Anne in February

2011-02-09T12:51:00.000-08:00

Hi there. I'm sort of loosely doing this photography challenge/class thing. Anyway, I want to keep taking pictures of Anne on the 4th of the month at least until she's two. I love having the pictures to see how she grows. This month (Anne's 19th) I decided to do a similar shoot to the ones I did last year in February. Same white bed with white bedspread and Anne in pink and white. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

p.s. I am not really sure why I labeled that first one 8 months, because I don't really think she was 8 months there. Yah. Anyway. Feb to Feb is still only 12 months. :)

Videos of Anne

2011-02-06T16:08:00.000-08:00

Anne enjoys coming to church and sitting with her friend Annie. Most of the time during church, she slips under the pew so that she can sit with her and eat her food. Here is a video of her sitting with Annie during Nancy's Choir practice, since she leads the choir. I get to watch them during choir practice and it's a lot of fun. Usually Annie and Anne hold hands and walk around the church.

Anne has been sick a lot lately, I guess it's just the winter time that really does it. We're hoping that she'll be out of it soon, although much of the time, we are just stalling (doing anything to get her whining off our minds) under we can get her to sleep. We like to skype people (Anne doesn't mind that too much), make desserts (Anne really doesn't mind that) and clean (which Anne likes to help). So we can always get the essentials done.

What kind of things do you do to "stall" your baby to sleep?

Ice Storm

2011-02-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

It is an icy day! The trees outside look like popsicles and clouds or fog are making all the air look misty and white. I sort of want to go outside to see it all. Sort of. We have a nice patch of icicles forming in their favorite spot again. And every so often a big noisy truck drives by to scoop the gray slushies from the road. Happy Groundhog Day!

What are you doing today? Is is icy and foreign outside where you are?

Yesterday, Anne and I stayed in all morning. We baked and baked—bread, pizza dough, whole wheat cookies, even. You can use whole wheat flour in this recipe from Martha Stewart and get some lovely results. I even mixed some molasses in with the white sugar to make my own brown sugar. It was a sort of make-it-up-as-you-go baking experiment. The cookies turned out great, though. I recommend them, but don't expect 4 dozen like the recipe says. That's just way more than one little stick of butter can make. Oh, and I used chocolate chips instead of raisins. Anne and I made sure the chocolate was safe before we put it in the cookies. She kept asking for more chocolate! She says, "one" and "please" and "taste" and something that sounds like "chocolate." A few chips later we knew they would be good in our cookies.

Anne didn't nap at all yesterday. She just chatted to herself the whole time she was in her crib. She was surprisingly happy though until she crashed at 6:30pm for the night. Anne is napping now, though. Hooray! I love it when I have a few hours in the middle of the day. Lately I've been reading the Hunger Games series. I finished the last book just now. I enjoyed the books a lot. It felt so good to read something and not feel like I was neglecting my thesis to do so. I know I have several books I could start on in my own library, but I'm in the mood for more fun fiction. Any suggestions?

me and anne

2011-01-30T11:01:00.000-08:00

enjoy the video.

We had a good weekend.

2011-01-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

This weekend was fun. On Friday, we got to go to an american studies party where there was food and candy galoooooore. It was great to eat and eat, although the next morning was not so great to wake up to. Nancy tried to start a dance party a couple of times, although the crowd was a little bit more reserved than her. Saturday was fun because Nancy and I got to go to the Hershey bears hockey game. It was at the giant center and there was 10,000 people there. For some reason, I thought that there wouldn't be that many people and that it would be a small thing, but I was totally wrong. We had a great time watching hockey (it was my first time), although I found the people really immature. I thought that it was a terrible example to get in fights all the time for little or no reason, although it was exciting to see. We got home and than had a party with the Ellsworths and the Green. It turned into a man country and folk music night with Brant on the piano, me on the guitar and Spencer on the ukulele. We went through Johnny cash, Elvis, Kenny Rogers, and John Denver and other artists I don't remember. It was a load of fun and it reminded me how much I love to play music. Here are a few pictures from Christmas and from lately (nothing really related to the post but why not put a few up).

Nancy's family visits

2011-01-27T18:27:00.000-08:00

It was great to have Grandma and Grandpa Steele come and visit us. We had a great time touring all around the country. One of our favorite moments was going to Missy's cookie shop and getting enough cookies for the evening (10-20 of them). We had a great time playing board games, angry birds and just talking. It was a lot of fun and here are some of the pictures.

Pay off

2011-01-26T12:50:00.000-08:00

So being Anne's Dad has been great. Although more recently, it been really great. The reason is because she actually recognizes me. Just yesterday, I got home from work and she was waiting for me at the window and saw me coming on the bike. Than I walked in and asked for a hug and she reached her arms out and I picked her up and she squeezed me tight for a couple of nice hugs. I think that that moment was a pay off for a year and so of hard work.

And now...what you've been waiting for

2011-01-19T18:41:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it takes a while to upload the pictures from the camera. And when you see them again, you say, "why didn't I do this earlier?" Well, enjoy these fun pictures, because we do. These are highlights from our Christmas party, getting a sleeping bag for Anne, Christmas tree and more...including our friends the Ellsworths, who I think you haven't seen.

Did you know?

2011-01-12T19:21:00.000-08:00

Did you know that I have oodles of fun pictures just sitting in a camera on the table, but since Scott wants to re-install everything on the computer, I am putting off downloading them until after that happens?

Did you know that I got a new side-job that I'm super excited about? I get to design window displays for my favorite cookie shop! I'm in the middle of a Valentine's day display now. My finger is sore from using the exacto knife to cut through foam core. My thumb is sore from trying to shove a flat headed thumb tack into a tough wood ceiling. My head is spinning with ideas for St. Patrick's day already!

Did you know that Scott is practicing with a band for a concert that is coming up next week? I miss him when he's gone and only rarely do I do anything truly useful when he's away in the evenings. I'm so glad he doesn't have to go away that much.

Did you know my DAD is coming to town tomorrow? Just because I asked him to and told him he would like the farm show. He's really coming! And I didn't even have to give birth to get him and JoDee to visit! We've got a jam-packed weekend planned: Farm Show (duh), Washington, D.C., Natural History Museum, a smorgasbord maybe, Chocolate World, games, pizza, soup, fish tacos, and Missy's Ugly Cookies.

Did you know that I made myself some skinny jeans? Yup. Well, I made some jeans I already had (and have had for years) into skinny jeans. They slide right into my snow boots. It's the new boot cut, for reals.

Did you know that Anne is finally weaned? My drop dead nursing deadline was December 31, 2010. I tried to do it before that, but I just couldn't resist her sweet voice asking me, "Mommy?" and patting my chest. I'm wondering if her freak out from last week was not related somehow to that little bit of comfort food she's been missing. All in all, it's nice to be moving on, but strange to realize my baby is a little girl.

image from somewhere but now in my file for inspiring window displays

Family Pictures Fall 2010

2011-01-11T12:07:00.000-08:00

Spencer Green, the Great, acted as our photographer in November. Heather came along to help keep everyone smiling, and the two of them did a great job with these, no?

Now that I've done it two falls in a row, I guess it's a tradition for me to make Anne's family picture dress. Remember 2009 family pictures and that cute dress? I wish it still fit her! I wish I had one, really. This year's dress was every bit as last minute for pictures, but it was nice and early for Heather's wedding (which was its inspiration). The cozy velour is from a jump suit of my mom's. The happy print was used as wrapping "paper" in a birthday present two years ago from Coralee. I love love love making things from stuff I already have. I already have a lot of stuff, you know? The peter pan collar is my favorite part of the dress and the part that caused me the most grief.

Anne is in nursery

2011-01-09T17:20:00.000-08:00

Anne is now in nursery. Not only that but she loves it. She is really good with the songs and putting he star over her face. It's only a little sad that she is not agonizing over the whole thing. It's nice sometimes to be the parent that swoops in to save the day and make the smiles, although it is more nice to enjoy church. Althouh Nancy and I agree that it feels very long when you don't have a kid to take care of.

Snow Day

2011-01-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

We woke up to snow this morning. It's very pretty and bright white outside. The roads are all nice and clear, so we were able to go on a crazy little outing this morning. Anne and I went with our friends to a store to look for some kids clothes. Anne was a terror. I've never seen her like this before. She sneaked away from me, wouldn't listen to me, walked into back rooms labeled "employees only" and threw a total fit when I tried to pick her up or keep her from doing any of these things. What a nut bag! I don't know that girl. She did a little better when we got some food in her, but seriously, what is up? Is this normal? Probably. Oh well. She's a real charming person to be around after her naps and when we stay home.

Watching for Santa

2011-01-04T09:46:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! We're all feeling great now, and are so excited for 2011. I need to upload some pictures and videos to document our Christmas festivities before I don't care anymore. Here's a fun one. Did I tell you how Santa rode by our house on a fire truck with lights and a siren a few weeks ago? Anne was pretty mesmerized by the experience and kept a vigilant watch at the window in case he were to return.

This video is a nice way to show off our pretty Christmas tree, too. Scott put away all of the Christmas stuff on the 1st while I worked on my thesis at the medical center. I am consistently amazed at the stuff he is able to get done while watching Anne. Maybe we'd be better off with a stay at home dad than a stay at home mom!

I loved our Christmas decorations this year. I made a gold wreath with some gold leafs and hung it up by a picture of Mary and a sleeping Jesus above our piano. I strung crocheted snowflakes across our dining room curtains for a festive garland and hung a pine bough in the center of the window with some additional snowflakes tucked on the branches. We had our partridge and pear tree up by the dining room and our stockings were hung by the window with care. Though we seem to have more space with all of that cleared out, I'm wondering what to do next to make it feel festive in a January-ish way. Maybe I'll bust out some Valentine's day stuff and feel all retail with my early acknowledgment of the coming holiday. Probably a good idea, though, since I usually don't remember at all until a few days before and then it doesn't feel worth it. Ha!

post Christmas

2010-12-29T18:02:00.000-08:00

Well, our Christmas was interesting. It had some ups and some downs. Christmas adam was filled with Indian and international food with Heather and Spencer. Christmas eve was tritip and coconut shrimp and Christmas day was...a stomach virus. Early Christmas morning was filled with the wondrous sound of throwing up from Nancy and Anne. We opened gifts throughout the day as Nancy felt ok to do that. Anne, even though she was sick, loved opening the presents and got exited about them. Even now, every time a package comes, she gets really excited and wants to open it. I got the sickies on the day after Christmas, which was not fun. Anne has continued to want to stay up late and only wants to eat candy, watch movies and stay up really late. Well, I don't blame her.

Merry Christmas St. Nick

2010-12-16T19:14:00.000-08:00

Photography has taken over!

2010-12-14T11:28:00.000-08:00

I have been glued to my computer working on photo editing for two weeks straight. Or, for two weeks, that was the only activity I filled Anne's nap times and Saturday mornings with. It's been rough, but I'm finally finished with the fall family photos plus a fall wedding extravaganza. Hi there.

Meanwhile, we had a fun little church Christmas party last Friday. We stuffed ourselves with some serious treats, performed "Little Saint Nick" by the Beach Boys with Heather and Spencer and a fabulous musician from our ward, and smiled for a photo with Anne screaming like a mad woman at being placed on Santa's lap. Scott has a video. I'll have him post it.

We have a pretty little live tree up in our living room. Anne has done a wonderful job restraining herself from removing ornaments. Occasionally, she is tempted, but I'm impressed that the ornaments are all mostly in the same place as we put them originally.

Did I tell you that Scott is no longer the scout master? Have I mentioned that he teaches Sunday School and we now have an extra evening a week? It's nice. Change can be so good. I have also moved on from directing all the activities at church. Oh yeah. I just WENT to the party on Friday instead of BEING the party! Very nice indeed. I'm still choir director. You can come sing with us this Sunday for Christmas, if you would like!

I'll try to be a better blogger. I know I've been silent for a while. I used to think it was so weird how people could just disappear from their blogs—especially when they had been regular and amazing posters in the past. Now I know it's not so weird. You just get in the groove of other things. Honestly, I think I was a bit addicted to the internet before. It was like an automatic thing to go to the computer as soon as I woke up, as Anne was down for a nap, as Anne was down for bed, at any spare moment. I still have my favorite blogs, but it has been kind of fun to leave them alone for maybe a few days and come back to have so much more to read than one little post.

Anyway. I also realized that I haven't really been reading much. Reading and writing just go together. I must write, but to write, I must read. I picked up some novels at the library. Maybe I'll go do some reading now!

if you ever have a bad day

2010-12-11T15:11:00.000-08:00

If you ever have a bad day, watch this one.

fun videos

2010-12-05T06:05:00.000-08:00

here are some fun videos from the last couple of days. Life is good. We just got a live Christmas tree, it is great! I didn't know how much of a difference it makes to have a Christmas tree up. It's beginning to get cold here and snow is soon to come (either today or tomorrow). Also attached is a picture from a while back of a trip I did with the scouts. Hopefully you know where we are in the picture.

Some Pictures from Heather's Wedding

2010-12-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

None of these are actually of Heather or of Spencer or of me. Lame, right? Oh well. Here's a small sample of what the cold and lovely, busy and fulfilling day looked like. I made Anne's dress out of fabric people had given me (velour jump suit from my mama, and paisley from my friend used as wrapping paper). My mom bought the lovely sweater to accompany the dress.

Heather chose gorgeous flowers. The pomegranates and the cool vintage bottles (from my grandmother) tied everything together. Fabric shown here was leftover from the drapes that hung in my bedroom in high school. That fabric has now been across the country twice. And now it has also been useful.

We ate yummy food like rolls, short ribs, cheesy polenta, and salad with pears and pine nuts.

I'm so happy for Heather and Spencer. I am especially grateful that they chose to be married in the temple. The best way to start your life together is to start it with the promise of FOREVER.

A Wedding, a Holiday, and a Long Weekend Part 1

2010-11-28T08:17:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello! I'll be filling you in in two segments so your eyes don't get tired. I'll add pictures as I upload them (eventually).

I went with Anne last Tuesday (16th) to Utah to get ready for Heather's wedding. We traveled quite well on our two plane rides, but Anne is getting old enough that she doesn't nap in my lap so easily. I am not looking forward to buying her a ticket, but I am looking forward to not having to hold her the ENTIRE time on an airplane. My mom and Randy picked us up from the airport in Salt Lake City where it was cold cold cold. We enjoyed some In-N-Out burger and then got some food for Anne for the rest of the week (her current favorites: bananas, yogurt, French toast, and milk).

Wednesday was the least stressful day of that week. I got to see a few of my loveliest friends, one of whom I hadn't seen in over four years. My friend Laura Beer made us lunch and we practiced a song to be performed at Heather and Spencer's wedding. Laura is remarkably talented. It was so fun to see her little baby and her little apartment and her big happiness. Seeing good friends who live far away makes me wonder why things have to be so far apart. Like, airplanes are nice and fast, but it still seems like space is too great a barrier. I must live closer to my family and dear friends like these someday!

While Anne napped that afternoon, I started the wedding piñata. If I remember right, Scott asked sarcastically, "Are you going to have a piñata?" The answer was a surprised, "Why not?" I think it was a very fun idea. So, I took it upon myself to get the layers of paper and flour-paste on a huge rounded balloon. The piñata was to be pomegranate shaped.

Thursday was shopping day. Heather crawled into bed late Wednesday night after her long flight to Utah. Dad took us to Costco to get all the big food and utensils for the meal and the reception. Anne had a fun time playing with stickers, watching Grandpa's goofy faces and doggy sounds, and eating pita chips we had in the cart for the bridal shower.

I let Heather and Dad continue their shopping the rest of the day while Anne attempted a nap. It was largely unsuccessful, though, so she just helped me paint the piñata and paint her face and play with stickers. Aunt Gwen got her to sleep eventually for a little siesta. I was so grateful for a nap myself!

Thursday night were the bridal and tool showers. Bridal showers you've heard of. Tool showers, maybe not. Tool showers are the Steele family equivalent of the bridal shower. Usually they take place at the same time on the same street in a different aunt or uncle's house with the same treats divided between them. The girl cousins, the mothers, the daughters, the sisters, and grandmas all gather for the bridal shower. All the fellows and the groom are at the tool shower. Traditionally, the groom would be sent home well-equipped with a garage full of tools. Since Heather and Spencer would be flying back to Pennsylvania, however, people generously brought small things and gift cards. I'm so excited to see the tools and household items they choose. A major thank you to my aunts and cousins who did so much work for these parties. They were wonderful.

Kissy Face

2010-11-15T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hi All.

My baby likes to give kisses only when she is sorta sleepy or silly. Or, apparently, when she has a playmate over, like her little friend Logan.

Check out this video. It makes me squeal with laughter. I hope you enjoy it.

2010-11-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

Guess what I'm doing right now? I'm blogging. The fun part is that I'm blogging from my early Christmas present: my iPod touch!

Scott decided we should sell our old video camera and replace it with this puppy. Not bad, right? I am digging it. It is crazy novel to send emails from my hand on the sofa while Scott uses the real computer to work on other Christmas presents and stuff.

I'm attempting to make a pair of my jeans into "skinny jeans." I figure the trend has been around long enough that if I look ridiculous then at least it is not just me. :) They will fit nicely into my rain boots; that's the practical reason for going to this trouble. And I will at long last know what it will look like on me.

The Desk

2010-11-06T20:14:00.000-07:00

This seems like old news now, but it's still one of my favorite things we've acquired in the last three months. THE DESK!

This was exactly what I had been dreaming of. Someplace that would hold all our technology in one location. I wanted something to build up and hide chords and provide storage. I discovered this lovely old gal sitting at a garage sale with a big fat "FREE" sign on it. Hello!!! It was a gift just for me I think.

I got it home that day and started dreaming what we could paint it. We learned the hard way with one early ugly yellow that we tried to slap on without any primer. It was kinda sesame street lookin' and very uglay. When we put this color on over it, with the help of our Home Depot man's prescribed oil-based primer, we were in love. Scott loves it. I love it. Anne loves it. As you can tell from the way she dances in front of it in nothing but her undies.

I wish I could say that I keep is super organized and tidy. That is something I'm working on constantly. Oh well.

Anne in a bonnet

2010-11-04T16:31:00.001-07:00

Anne looked so cute and great in her bonnet. Here's spencer, he's going to be my brother in law and Anne and him and Heather have a great time. He's great at funny faces.

Halloween!

2010-10-31T08:42:00.000-07:00

This was a great halloween. Anne was a certain character from Toy Story and she had a great time. She was running the whole time and would go to the door, knock, try to enter the house, grab a piece of candy and put it in the bag. She would repeat if they let her and as many times as they let her (which people around here are nice.

Anne's Trip

2010-10-29T10:54:00.000-07:00

Saturday night Anne got to ride in an ambulance.

The five minute ride was courtesy of some peanuts hidden in the delicious Pad Thai noodle dish that Heather made for us (she didn't know the sauce had peanuts). Like I told you before, Anne is allergic to peanuts. She only ate a few noodles and chewed on a piece of chicken, but it was enough to get her all snot nosed, coughing, itchy red puffy faced, and gagging a little like the airway might be getting smaller. Last time, Benadryl worked just fine, but I couldn't remember the right dose. (I did remember, it turns out, but I wanted to double check). The nurse triage emphatically suggested we call 911; it took her forever to tell us to give Anne 1/2 tsp. By that time, we were wondering if we should use the Epi-Pen (cool little stick the size of a tube of toothpaste that injects medicine to help reduce symptoms of allergic reaction) we have for her. The nurse said it might be a good idea, again urging me to call 911. She said, "You call 911 and I'll call you back in five minutes to make sure you called 911." Great. It's a five minute drive, yet we felt all sorts of pressure to call 911. I called. They came in the same amount of time it would have taken us to get there. Meanwhile, we tried the Epi-Pen. We weren't sure if it worked (shoulda read the instructions more thoroughly), but the paramedic assured us that her fast heart rate was indicating that it had worked.

Scott followed behind the ambulance in our car. Anne was freaking out. She was super tired and the puffy red face made her look terrible with all the tears and snot and sad screaming.

The doctor came and saw her. The Epi-pen, they supposed, had worked, but they wanted to watch her for at least four hours from the time she ate the peanuts (7:30-11:30pm). Lucky for us, he miscalculated and let us go home after 10. and eventually we were able to go home from the emergency room. Still, nobody seemed able to explain whether we had done the Epi-pen correctly. We got home. We put Anne to bed. We read the directions and practiced with the practice device. We found out the Epi-pen had not worked.

Now we know what an ambulance looks like on the inside. Now we know that Anne's reaction to peanuts takes a little bit of time to show up. Now we know that almost the right amount of Benadryl sloppily shoved into her mouth will basically take care of her reaction. Now we know that as much help as they might seem to be, the doctors, nurses, and paramedics aren't that familiar with how an Epi-pen works and are guessing as much as anyone. And knowing is half the battle. :)

We took some pictures and video to remember our little trip. When I get them uploaded, you can take a look.

Anne Videos

2010-10-20T18:56:00.001-07:00

Mmm, Cookies!

2010-10-17T12:45:00.000-07:00

One of my lovely neighbors and good friends opened up a cookie shop this month. Her grand opening was indeed grand, and I just wanted to let you all know that you can start ordering cookies online for shipment throughout the country this week, I believe. I don't lie about cookies. Missy's Ugly Cookies are the tastiest, most creative cookies I've ever had. I went there three times this week. (Gross, huh?) I can't help thinking about them!

The cookies that are supposed to be chewy are perfectly chewy, the shortbread cookies that are supposed to be crunchy and melt-in-your-mouth are exactly that, the sugar cookies with frosting are ideal sugar cookies, the cupcakes are moist and slathered in really substantial and decadent frostings. Oh, and talk about brownies. These have a thick layer of chocolate-buttercream frosting covering fresh and bouncy marshmallows. She also makes this amazing peanut-butter rice crispie (known to some as a scotcharoo) which is covered in peanut-butter cream and chocolate.

Also nice: no preservatives or funky ingredients. Just real butter, sugar, flour, eggs, chocolate (in at least three kinds), peanut butter, marshmallows, oats, etc. I wish I could send you all a big assortment of these tasty treats. But, my cookie budget will be spent on cookies for me. Sorry. Order some for yourself, or stop by the shop in Hummelstown, PA. You'll be glad you did.

I've been practicing my product photography skills for Missy and her cookie shop. The photos you see here are ones Scott and I took. Drool, then order, then enjoy!

Did you know that Anne is allergic to peanuts? Please don't let her taste any of the ones with peanutty goodness. It's bizarre how just knowing she can't have any peanut butter makes me CRAVE peanut butter stuff. Normally it's not my first choice, but lately, all I want is trail mix, or Reese's, or Missy's peanut butter anything. Weird.

We Go Walking

2010-10-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

Anne and I go on a walk in our neighborhood almost every morning. Lately we've been neglectful because of the rain and stuff like that, but when we do go, it's lovely. Lots of hills around here, so that means lots of sore ankles and legs! Anne likes to look at the ducks at the duck pond. If I let her out of the stroller, she tries to go into the pond. Mostly, I keep her in the stroller.

We've been keeping busy. I do spend plenty of time on the computer working on little ads for people or ward activity poster designs or Spencer & Heather's wedding announcements.

Even with this time on the computer, I've felt little desire to blog recently. Harumph.

I really want to get my thesis done within this semester, though. These last two weeks I did 7 interviews for my project. Definitely crammed them in. It messed with Anne's nap schedule, though, so now we have a gal who is totally confused about when to nap and often refuses to sleep in the afternoons. AAH! My goal is to get a rough draft done by Heather's wedding. I have two gracious neighbors who have offered to help me by watching Anne in the afternoons. So far, that has helped me get almost 2 interviews transcribed. I very much enjoy transcribing. It's so productive feeling without being really mentally taxing. Like, I type and type and type something really useful without having to think too hard about what I'm writing. It is also nice because as I go over the interviews to transcribe them, I have left-over brain space to start processing and analyzing the content as I go. It's helpful to make connections and be refreshed on what it is I'm trying to accomplish.

So, if you think of it, send nice thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes my way. It will take almost a miracle to actually get a rough draft done in a month. Not like the olden days of stay-up-all-night-and-write-like-mad that I got so good at during my BYU days. This is a different set of rules when I'm hoping Anne doesn't wake up or trying to get dinner started and stuff like that. Must learn to do a lot in a little time. Honestly, though, my writing sessions of old were filled with lots of dilly-dallying time interspersed with great bursts of ideas and writing furiously. I guess now I just have to train my mind to get into that furious writing mode in two minutes rather than two hours. Ah! Mothers can do anything, right?

Meanwhile, I'm planning a big carnival for church at the end of the month. If you're going to be in the area, you are more than welcome to come. It's going to be a hoot and a half with some cute decorations to boot.

Scott is still scoutmaster with lots going on there. He is very good with the boys. I got to see him in action last Wednesday because they met here at our house. He helps them come up with ideas on their own and really motivates them to plan for their scouting activities and other Young Men/Young Women meetings. So fun to see him at work!

Anne is growing and growing. She's had major diaper rash this past week. Even with that, though, she has been funny and sweet. She follows me around all day and says "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy" for almost anything she wants. It's cute/sometimes obnoxious. I love watching her figure things out. She can really tell what I'm saying most of the time. I got her a toy kitchen two weeks ago, and she LOVES it (vintage 1980s just like the one my cousins had growing up). I'll tell her, "Go put this bowl in your kitchen," and she will walk over to her cupboards and start playing there. It's amazing to me. I am excited to start hearing her talk more and more.

That's all for now. Hopefully you had the sense to read slowly and then it would be like I had blogged over several days! Ha! Love ya.

Anne at 15 months

2010-10-07T07:37:00.000-07:00

This girl is so adorable in pajamas. We toss Anne around on our bed and give her magic carpet rides on our sheets just before bed. She is still kinda cranky as she gets sleepy. Her daddy's new i-phone makes her happy, but only when she can touch it. Happy 15 months!

Words Anne Can Say as of October 4th

2010-10-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

hi
Daddy
shoes
Mommy
no ("no no no no no" all in a row)
wow
oh man

Words she cannot yet say, but can make sounds approximating the word:
thanks
more please
yes
up

Just thought you'd like to know. Happy rainy Monday!

Wouldn't it be nice?

2010-09-27T10:49:00.000-07:00

I just entered to win this fun thing from this fun site. I could really use up all my paper in a bunch of fun ways cutting and styling away!

This Is Miss Anne

2010-09-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

This is Miss Anne. She likes to be outside. She likes to walk around. She likes to collect acorns and do silly things like bring her shoes over to her momma and say "shoose."

These are her 14 month pictures. She moved too quickly for most of the walking pictures, but I like the blurries anyway.

Enjoy this video of Anne in HD

2010-09-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

Here's another Anne video, I just can't get enough of them and I hope you can't either.

and another one

Anne is now in HD (sadly blogger is not)

2010-09-18T05:27:00.000-07:00

Enjoy this one

Imagery

2010-09-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting at my NEW DESK this morning getting lost reading interesting blogs and essays. I'll have to show you pictures of my lovely chartrusey-mustard desk that was FREE that we painted ourselves. But for now, I'll show you an image that really inspired me this morning.

I found it here via here. Some of them I am not really partial to. Some of them I think are possibly even a little ugly or harsh looking. But this one rocks. Scott and I were just reading in the Book of Mormon about Nephi and his family becoming strong so that they bore their trials without murmuring. Finally, after how many years of wilderness living, they were all holding up and doing well and not complaining. This image is a nice accompaniment piece to help me invision the women who bore children in the wilderness and traveled with their babies sans disposable diapers, wipes, plumbing, and grocery stores. What amazing gals! Right? It [the picture] helps me invision myself as someone who can be THE MOTHER and a tough lady—someone who can buck up and get the stuff done and take care of my family with faith and pluck and perseverence and a look-you-in-the-eye confidence. OOh. Shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Okay, I'll go attack the dishes with some gratitude that I have a sink and dishes. And, no more complainin' about how they just get dirty again!