Random Thoughts

1 I seem to be blogging more than Kendall lately. I'm moving up!
2 Growing teeth in SUCKS (for moms as much as babies)
3 Moroni must have been utterly sad and lonely there at the end. And I figured out he was probably at least 60 years old so he was also missing his wife, kids, grandkids, etc. who were all killed.
4 My family is becoming so great at communicating. I love when you can tell people anything.
5 Adrie is so cute that I can hardly stand it sometimes.
6 I'm secretly glad she's not crawling yet because that means my life is still easy for x more days.
7 Redbox free codes are a scam. We checked out five dumb movies just because they were free (to rip onto computer), and of course forgot to turn them in by 7 pm so guess who is $5 poorer?
8 My Chi hair straightener is the best hundred bucks I ever spent.
9 I can't believe I can live with Kurt day in and day out and not get sick of him. Marriage is an amazing thing.
10 The dollar store is pretty dang awesome. I can't believe the once-in-a-blue-moon unbelievable finds I make there. Picture frames were the catch this week.
11 I have three business ideas I am so excited about that I can hardly sleep at night. Please cross your fingers that the American Dream can work for me.
12 Just when I convinced myself that it was time to move on from Heritage, they accepted my plea to work part time. Miracles happen!
13 Sadly my "transition" to part-time will be a long slow one and I wish it were tomorrow. (See #5 and #11 for where I'd rather be spending my time.)
14 Cariss Despain, world's greatest sister in law, is dang amazing. Really.
15 I use the word amazing way too much and it might sound redundant but I truly mean it with all of its awe-inspiring, one-of-a-kind, unique and words-can't-describe it awesomeness.
16 NEVER AGAIN will I drink 48 oz of Mountain Dew after 12 noon. Perhaps not ever. I can count on my ten fingers and toes the number of minutes I actually slept last night. Combine that with # 11 and it's a disaster. I hope I survive today.
17 Blogging is a) a huge waste of time and b) the greatest thing ever.

Oops...

I dropped her today. First time ever.

I feel terrible! Thought she was buckled into her carseat, she threw a toy overboard, I reached down to pick it up... and she rolled out of her seat onto the sidewalk. Head hit loudly. Ouch! She cried, then cried softly for a few minutes, but overall was fine. I was much more traumatized than she was.

We've all survived worse, right!? ??... :(

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Now I have REEEEAALLLLLLLY arrived.

Introducing Alaina Despain, LCSW.

Now I'm a college graduate, a graduate school graduate, a wife, a mom, and an independently licensed therapist. 4,000 hours after finishing six years of college I have everything I've ever aspired to.

Wow.

What next!?

Adrie LOVES...

sucking on my toothbrush
paper in any way shape or form (and she eats it faster than you can catch her!)
Indigo
cereal
tasting and eating absolutely any food within reach
cheerios or rice puffs
walking with her Dad
sitting on top of Dad's shoulders and using his hair as reins
smiling wide-mouthed at people in stores and at church
being naked
dumping out my makeup bag while I get ready
spitting
blankets over her face (that's how I put her to bed - drape the blanket over her head and she'll grab onto it and go to sleep!)
sucking the water out of washcloths in the bathtub
being put under sheets or pillowcases
saying "dah-dah-da-da-dah" over and over and over
other little kids
sleeping with her feet stuck between the crib rails
pinching her bottle top
playing with her carseat (when she's not in it)
grabbing people's glasses

10.2 Megapixels

Can you tell what I was wearing when I took this photo? Note: it is a crop from that 'Yo quiero taco bell'-dog in the last shot. Cool huh.

My first attempt at Real Photography

I've developed an obsession of playing with my little 4 megapixel Canon Elph, to the point I can't seem to get photography off my mind. So this weekend I gave the Nikon D40x (10.2 megapixel Digital SLR) a little test drive. Here are some of the results. I feel like such a novice (meaning, it took a LOT of work to get these few simple prints) but I'm excited to get better at it!
and yes, I did experiment on things besides my baby:

Okay, even Adrie got tired of it. I'm done for now. :)

Embarassing!

I walked around with a thick black poppyseed between my teeth from approximately 10:30 am until 3:30 pm. And nobody told me. I saw and talked to LOTS of people, too. What is this world coming to?


In other news, this was my google desktop photo of the day. Don't even try to decipher the stupid words on the bottom (they hurt my eyes), just enjoy the photo.

Photo Shoot!

Yes, there is another side of her (here's a picture to prove it).

I went over to pick Raquel's brain about photography, photoshop, and which camera to buy, and she couldn't resist snapping a few (okay... like 200) shots of our model baby. It was great! I told her it's like going to a friend's bakery and getting tons of free dessert. Anyway, here are a few of my favorites:

As you can see, her eye is still pretty swollen and the doctor says to just keep on keepin' on, waiting to see what will happen as the swelling slowly goes away...

Thank you to Raquel for a fun afternoon!

PHOTOSHOP!!!

Erica and I went to our first Beginning Photoshop class tonight and it was AWESOME! I am so excited and I am going to learn more than I even thought. The teacher is absolutely amazing, a professional that has recently been voted into the "Black Book" which is the top 150 photographers in the world. Bryan Niven is his name and he has some pretty amazing stuff that he's more than excited to teach to us. Here's one example of his work. Check out his web page and blog to see others.

It was fun to be with Erica and I am super inspired to become an amazing photographer, and brush up on my Photoshop skills. Now if only I could win the lottery to buy all the photography STUFF I want... Starting with a big phat camera. Stay tuned for some examples of my works in progress as I'm learning...

I couldn't resist

Teeth!

Here are my Adrie's two little teeth! And how I kept her entertained while making dinner.

Closeup:

Le Garage

I finally tackled the garage today. With a fussy baby. She was squawking, annoying me and many of the neighbors whose windows were open... So I found a great toy to entertain her, and it kept her quiet for a long time.

Observe the convenient air holes:

And the camera lens was the perfect size to peek into her little habitat:

And on a side note, look how much stuff my darling sister has. I'm sure she must be naked and bored at home because everything she owns must be here!

The Breakfast of Champions

Chocolate-covered strawberries count as a fruit for breakfast, right!?

They are about as big as my palm. As you can see from the empty spaces in the box, I have eaten my fill this morning. I can't seem to stop eating the nut-covered ones, and usually I dislike nuts!

Thank you Dean (a teriffic father in law) for a great early mothers day slash houseguest present.

The Miracle of Technology... and the Deceiving Qualities of the Internet!

It was a sad, sad day for us when our second hard drive in two years crashed. (Kurt has bad luck... don't ask.) Especially since most data recovery services were looking in the ballpark of over a thousand dollars to try to retrieve bazillions of photos.

But never fear! Thanks to the miraculous internet we found a local business that charged only $299. This is their link in case any of you ever need their services. Their web page testifies to certified technicians and a state of the art "clean room."

We didn't want to pay to ship our hard drive to Provo, despite their sales rep's urging that it was the best and easiest way. I took my address slip in hand and drove around, trying to find "Suite B" at the given address. I pulled up to an old red brick house that for all intents and purposes can be called the ultimate in white trash tacky. Broken garage door hanging open, a broken trailer of rotting firewood taking up the driveway, peeling acrylic green-grass carpet up the walkway, nails for Christmas lights perilously hanging out of every inch of the wood paneling around the broken front window. But alas, it was there - a shiny black "B" on a rusted mailbox by the front door. I knocked on the door... knocked... (it was 9:30 am)... finally a guy in his underwear answered the door, revealing a smelly kitchen with potted plants overgrowing the kitchen table. He sleepily (hung-overily?) said that I was in the right place as he profusely apologized for not being ready. He looked something like this:

Regardless of how his "clean room" or he himself presented, less than 48 hours later my 18 gig of pictures is restored for only $299!

Will we use him when hard drive number three crashes? You betcha.

Break your Fast

I had a French-dipped sandwich for breakfast this morning. Yum.

The Amazing Raquel Allen

I mean it; I think it's art. I often scroll through her blog to find my favorites, so I thought I'd just post them all in one place so I can admire them whenever I want. Even if no one else enjoys this, I will. Amazing. Which is your favorite?

Mind Dump

There's too much to blog about that isn't really enough to blog about at the same time. So here goes.

*Adrie has two darling little front teeth. But they aren't in enough for a cute picture and she keeps them well hidden under her tongue. But she sucks on them frequently which makes for a really funny frowny-face. Her mouth turns down and she looks like she's about to break out in a sob, all the while happy as can be.

*I took Kevin shopping! I felt like Natalie the personal shopper. $200, four pair of pants, five shirts, undershirts and undies later, he is a new man. It was a lot of fun. What a handsome guy he is and a good catch for any lucky lady.

*I cannot believe the price of stamps is rising. Nearly half a dollar to mail a little letter?!?! I remember when they were 25 cents.

*Yesterday I wore capris, sandals, and a short short short sleeved shirt. (Thank you Natalie the personal shopper who bought it for Kendall as a Hollister clearance gift that I could not pass on because I liked it too much.)

*Today I wore shoes, socks, jeans, three shirts and a winter jacket and carried an umbrella all day. And our back yard flooded with all the rainfall.

*Speaking of houses, the gas to our house got turned off yesterday. After convincing the onry Questar guy that yes, it really was off and my pilot light had not simply blown out, he sent a repairman. Turns out when they built this triplex of townhouses they reversed the pipes with the one next to us. That means the previous owners were paying each other's bills for the last two winters. SAD! I can just picture the retired couple next to us saying "Wow Honey, the heat bill isn't very expensive this year, crank it up!" while the poor single mom living here was saying "Put on your sweatshirts kids, we're turning the heat off tonight." SAD! I feel like ethically I should do something about it but I just don't know what. Oh well. At least they caught the problem before WE were paying someone else's bill...

*I had grape flavored gloves at the dentist's office yesterday. And the dentist called me at 8:30 pm to make sure things were all healed up. And they handed me a beautifully wrapped carnation on the way out.

*Adrie waves her little pincer fingers all day long, like she's picking things out of the air. Sadly, this means that the three cheerios that used to keep her happy for ten minutes are now gone in ten seconds.

*While feeding Adrie this morning she slowly reached up and stuck one long finger perfectly up my nose.

*I think Raquel Allen is an amazing photographer and I look at her work like art. Really. You should go check it out at http://raquelsphotography.blogspot.com and see her amazing portfolio on her website at www.raquelallenphotography.com. I don't put this in as a plug for her, I just think it's like art and maybe you'd like a taste of what I appreciate. In fact, I just might dedicate a blog to her great work sometime.

*I think my Bose Ipod speaker dock is the best three hundred dollars I ever spent. I love it, I love music, and I love Kendall who supplies me with good songs.

*I like my job again. Hallelujah. And I got called "God" today. Does that mean I'll get zapped or the mom who said it in all seriousness?