A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Yay for the day-before-birthdays. Sofar this birthday is GREAT. My garage sale loot: $10. Half of these still had tags! You can't tell from the picture, but most have never been worn, or maybe worn & washed once. (Note: You might see these at your baby shower if you are related/friend of mine.) SUUUUUCH a good deal!
Adrie was READY for bed tonight.

Hippity Hoppity...

The new Easter Dress... (thank you Grandma!!!)

The Traditional Sunday afternoon Easter Egg Hunt - and Adrie kept right up with those boy cousins of hers!...


The family picture - yay for self-timers....

And my little bunny. Happy Easter.

Some random thoughts

Someday when the world comes to an end I think I will miss cheddar cheese more than ANY other food that can't be in my food storage. I just don't think that powdered chesse stuff is going to compare. If I had to pay all my free cash for a craving in those days, I'm betting you it will be for some sharp cheddar cheese. Mmmm.

Speaking of, do you have your disaster plan prepared? I can't stop thinking about it lately. Lots of talks in church have focused on preparedness lately, and there's even a humongous billboard along I-15 that says has a big map that reads "You are here (arrow). Where is your family?" How will we meet up when disaster strikes? All we know sofar is that whomever is closer to Adrie that day will get her, we'll meet at home, wait 24 hours from the time of said disaster to let Kendall and Rachel catch up to us, and then decide if we need to go somewhere else. But that's not much of a plan. Are you prepared? What are we going to do when cell phones and internet don't work? I have water and food, but how happy will I be eating and drinking it? Anyway. I could ramble on but I won't.

Adrie talks SO MUCH lately. Gone are the days in which I can list for you the words she says, because she shocks me every day with new ones. My newest favorite is "Shoes" and "Please" ("Beesh"). Kendall watched her last week and she said at least 2 new words while I was gone -"Outside", and something else I can't remember.

Adrie had ear tubes put in on Thursday, and to our surprise (and dismay) both of her ears were infected! That makes her fourth ear infection since Christmas. Guess those tubes really are needed.

I'm taking a Digital SLR class through UVSC's community ed courses to learn better how to use my camera. It's utterly exciting and entirely overwhelming all at the same time. I can only push myself for so long before I give up and set it aside for a few days. After the SLR class comes a Lighting class. I'm not quite ready to give up my day job yet though.

I've said it before, but I really think the polarity of water in dissolving food on dishes is amazing. Think about it people, how awful would it be to do dishes in milk or oil or some other non-polar liquid that didn't dissolve 4-day-old food?

I didn't do dishes from Sunday through Friday this week. I think it's a record.

Yup, life's a little stressful and here I sit blogging block text that few are likely to read. That's ok! I'm off to clean my house so I can make it through parent hell week at work. :)

All in all, life is good!

March in Pictures (sofar)

I have finally uploaded my camera card! I've been taking family snapshots with my D80 instead of my usual Elph (which is about to bite the dust, it's falling apart), so getting to them takes a teeny more effort!
Here you see Adrie's fascination with my Ipod (and lots of other things electrical), as well as her jail break (she LOVES to shut herself on the other side of the gate) and the camera's perfect capture of her froot loops flying!

I left Adrie bundled up after her bath and ran downstairs to get diaper cream - and this is how I found her upon my return. We watch Veggie Tales - Jonah - over and over because it's the only entertaining cartoon I have. We've seen the beginning ten minutes at least 20 times. She is getting so big!

Thank you Aunt Natalie for this wonderful dress to mark Adrie's first day in nursery! She played for two hours straight without needing any attention or assistance. The nursery leaders couldn't believe on her first day she did so well! That's my social butterfly.

And YES, that is my Christmas Tree, I know it is March but I am so lazy I have not put it away - so much WORK needed to squish it in its own little box!

Zsheeszhush

Family Home Evening Monday night: I decided to have our first-ever whole-family home evening. It would consist of singing "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" with Adrie a few times and sharing with Kurt a few of my insights from the March Savior-focused Ensign.

Well, after showing Adrie the large picture of Christ and saying "This is Jesus" once or twice, she picked it right up and started pointing Him out in all of the Ensign pages. "Zsheeszhush?" "Zsheeszhush.... Zsheeszhush... " So the rest of FHE consisted of Kurt and I getting Adrie to say it over and over because it was so darling.

The next morning she woke up asking "Zsheeszhush?" "Zsheeszhush?"

Kids are SOOOO fun.

Family Feud

I spent the last couple of weeks surveying my ward - yes, 45 actual questions handed out to every person I could catch in the ward. This resulted in over 200 answers for our very own "survey" for Family Feud.

These very unique ward/area/church-specific questions have kept me entertained for the last week as I tallied up the answers.

How would YOU answer the following?

• What is your favorite Sunday activity?
• Name something missionaries do.
• How long could you live on the food storage in your home today?
• At what age was your first kiss?
• Name an event in which a prayer is said before it begins.

Well, the ward responded hilariously and it made for a super entertaining, memorable ward party. Nearly every adult in the room got to participate in a "family" to play our very realistic game - buzzers, scoreboard, corny game-show-host jokes and all.

I laughed right out loud at a few of these answers - Missionaries "break rules", lots of people "Nap" on Sunday (so I knew those people don't have kids yet), a prayer is said before "church basketball", and how long could you live on the food in your home today - "TWO HOURS!!!" I still laugh when I tell that one out loud, it caught me so off guard.

I'm loving my ward and having a ward family again.

New tricks

The Itsie Bitsie Spider - Adrie finally knows all of the actions to this song, and if she's in the right mood will even perform it for you! Her favorite part is saying "Yay!" and clapping her hands at the end. My favorite part is how seriously "up comes the sun..." with her arms over her head. Any time she sees a spider in a book she asks "What's that?" and when I say "A Spider!" she starts moving her fingers and singing.

"Five" - she gives high fives, low fives, and more. And always accompanies it with a loud "Yay!"

Yeah and No. She absolutely knows what's what and answers quite readily. "Are you pooping?" "Yeah." "Do you want a bite?" "No." "Are you ready to go to Adrie's bed?" (after tossing and turning in mine again last night) - "Yeah."

"Bones"! - this one has been months in the teaching process. She will finally keep her hand closed and bump knuckles with me, saying "Doh" (bones). THEN she puts both of her own fists together and says it again - because this is how I have spent months trying to teach her to bump knuckles instead of 'five'. Haha!

TV - she absolutely knows how to turn on every tv in the house, if she can get her hands on a remote. Change channel and volume, too. It's hilarious. I'll come downstairs and find her watching the news.

New Animals - a bird does "Dah ba da dah" (in SUCH a cute, high sing-song voice! Don't know where she got that) and an owl goes "Who-hoo-hoo."

Life is so entertaining with her around!

The Golden Years

It is my GOLDEN birthday this year! I have anticipated this magical date for most of my life. To turn your given age ON the given date. 27 on the 27th. Wow.

Sadly, as age seems to bring with it more down-to-earthedness, it's not as exciting as I've anticipated most of my life. It doesn't really have much to do with getting older, I'm not cliche like that.

Although my getting-older-by-the minute body is definitely complaining, and I am entirely unhappy with how.... uh.... loose in general things are. Saggy. Flabby. Got the picture yet? Oh well, it's a life well lived and a beautiful baby as a result of it, right!?

In anticipation of my birthday, here is my wishlist:

• A Hilary Weeks cd (LDS artist). Not "Lead me Home" I have that one, and not Christmas specialities. But any others I would Love Love LOVE.


• A cookie-dough scoop. I've been meaning to put this on a list for over two years and keep forgetting.


• Disney Movies and Musicals. Dig out your old VHS garage-sale-worthy movies, I will accept them with open arms. I can't wait to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Oklahoma and the Cutting Edge and Beauty and the Beast and Anastasia with my kids.

Um... that's really all I can think of for now! I think that's part of getting older, too - needing/wanting less STUFF.

***Unless you accompany me to a baby-clothing store and then I will max out your credit card.

The Week in Pictures

What a fun week! (WeekEND, mostly.) Letting Dad and Mom coddle Adrie while she's not feeling well, making royal messes of the toys at home, 24 hours straight at Grandma's enjoying the costume jewelry, a fever (see how flushed she is in that jewelry picture! Whether from the teething, the cold, the ears, or the pesky eyedrops, your guess is as good as mine.)

Adrie spent Friday and Saturday with eyedrops that blur the vision in her good eye, in an effort to force her to use her bad eye more. It didn't work. Four more weeks to try this, and I'm dreading it - she mostly settles for just playing semi-blind. Bumping into things, being onry, not focusing on things far away. So our duck pond party may get repeated when her vision isn't so handicapped. It was still fun.

After this little excursion she finally added the duck sound to her repertoire - "Wack, wack."

For history's sake, her animal sounds are "Arf!" dog, "Bffffff" bee, "Boh" cow, "A-a-a-a-aaa" sheep, "Raa?" cat, *Grunt* pig, "Aaaa-aaa!" rooster, "Wah-wah-wah" truck, "Ahhhhh" dinosaur, and "Wack-wack" duck. Everyone who ever hears her pig bursts out laughing, I still am amazed that she imitates the sound of a diesel engine, I always laugh at how wide she opens her mouth to growl for the dinosaur, and her sheep and rooster are so loud it's embarassing in church.

Not more embarassing, however, than her clapping and loudly yelling "Yay!" "Yay!" "Yay!" for all the people with their arms folded during the opening prayer today.