Week of the Babies

The stork has been busy this week. At least with my family members! My sister-in-law Tara had a little girl(Paige) Thursday night. My Sister-in-law Stefanie had a BIG boy(Walter Glenn Ray IV, or Cuatro as we call him) this afternoon. And my best friends wife is having a baby any time now. Yay for the babies!

Pictures

Here are the action shots of Andi crawling as promised!

Out of Order

Sunday night the computer decided to shut down and die. . . completely. We couldn't even get it to turn on! So after Thad pulled everything out of it he discovered that the motherboard had died and it took 2 days to find one a new one. So I've been without internet for 3 days! I felt so disconnected. . . I couldn't check e-mail or your blogs. . . but luckily it's fixed ;)
I'm getting antsy to go back to Provo. I keep getting these spassy urges to start packing. . . I start eye balling things around the house that we won't need in the next 2.5 weeks. So I have to distract my self by cleaning. I just wish we could pack up and go right now and get it over with! But I'm sad, the neighboor kids have been mowing the lawn for us this summer, and one of them e-mailed me to say that the lawn is dead! Apparently the sprinklers broke and our cousins who happen to be staying there have not fixed it. Thad and I worked so hard on that yard to get it looking good and now it's dead! I'm very upset.
Andi has begun crawling, sorta. She get's up on her hands and knees and lunges foreward, but from the initial lunge it's more of an army crawl. . . scrambling and pulling with her arms and pushing with her legs. It's very funny, and surprisingly effective. I've been trying to load a pictuer of it, but Thad has not finished fixing this dumb thing and it won't read the photo card. Oh well, I'll put one up when its fixed.

Agh!

There are few certanties with babies. With Andi we know that anything in her line of vision must immediately go in her mouth. Whether phisically possible or not, she will try to put whatever it is in her mouth, and if the object is too big, she covers it in drool. The other thing is that she freaks out over toothbrushes. Everytime I take her into the bathroom(she likes to stand on the counter spit at her reflection in the mirror) she tries with all her might to wriggle out of my arms and get mine or thads toothbrush. Yesterday during this event I realized that we actually had a baby toothbrush for her just waiting for a little chomper to come in. So I gave her the toothbrush and she would not put it in her mouth. The one object in the house that she is supposed to put in her mouth and she wouldn't do it!! She'd get close, then make a weird face and pull it away!


Oh! and my sister called me from Jersey last night with a disturbing situation. She was sitting with her employer and another lady and neither one of them knew what Newsies was! They had never heard of it! Fearing she might have slipped into some twisted alter uiverse she called to verify her sanity. I mean, who doesn't know what Newsies is!?!?! To shake off the bizarness I had to immediately turn on the soundtrack. What kind of Crazies live out on the east coast!? I'm still disturbed.

ho hum

So we finally have a picture of Andi with her hair done and I thought it deserved to be shown off. It's finally getting long enough to put a clip in it ! !


There is nothing terribly interesting going on lately. Our stake is having a pioneer day celebration at some park. We are going, but I can already gaurantee it will not be able to compare to Pioneer Village in Bako. That is one thing the tri-stake does very very well back home. . . TONS of good food, music, parade. . . not even the 100 + weather keeps people away. It's quite the party every year.
I really have nothing else interesting to post about, but we are going to Cali in a few weeks yay!

Half Birthday!

Today is Andi's half birthday, I can't believe it's really been 6 months. But then I look at her and can't believe it's only been 6 months. She's grown so much! She is still not crawling, but I still think she's going to skip that and go straight to walking. She sits up by herself now, and even stands holding on to the couch and coffee table. See. . .

She loves her jumper, mostly b/c she can walk around in it, and walks well if you hold her hands. She just doesn't show any interest in crawling. I've been looking up stuff to see if it's bad that she skips crawling and all I see are a bunch of people(Dr's included) arguing back and forth about the issue. Some say it doesn't matter, some say it does. I dunno.
It has been a long week. Not for any particular reason, it just feels like it has lasted forever! thankfully it's almost over.

Pirates and more. . .

Well we had a fun weekend. It was Dave's(Thads cousin here in vancouver) Birthday on the 7th, and to surprise him Mike, Heather Spencer & Hilllary drove out from Utah to hang out for the weekend. We of course saw Pirates on Friday night, which was so packed that we were on the very front row! Strange angle, i'm not even sure why they put seats that close to the screen. And I was kinda irritated by the ending of the movie, or lack thereof. Total cop-out ending. . . it's like the whole movie was just the lead up to say, hey, Pirates 3 soon to come! BUt it was still good, I'm just bugged b/c now I have to wait who knows how long to get some resolve and closure on the story.
Anyway, Saturday we went out to round lake and had a picnic with everyone. Thad caught a couple of ugly sunfish just to prove to everyone that he could flyfish even in a lake. It was pretty warm this weekend, Sunday of course always feels the hotest b/c we can't go to the mall to hang out in the AC or to the pool. But we did find a way for Andi to cool off ;)

Andi's first 4th of July was eventful. We started the day by buying her some new toys. We bought those foam alphabet puzzle piece mats and some blocks. I don't know why I didn't buy one of those mats before. It is genius! she spent like an hour just scooting around chewing on the letters and whenever she spit up, duh, the carpet was saved. Definitly a good purchase.


Then we went with Thad's Cousin to a BBQ at his in-laws, which was nice. Andi even enjoyed the fireworks. . . at least the ones she saw. They do their firework show really slow, one little popper at a time, so she was falling asleep before the good stuff started.
Growing up in a place where the big cool fireworks are illegal I had no idea how great a show you can see without going to a stadium. After we put Andi down for the night we sat on our patio and just watched the sky and there were fireworks going off everywhere! It seriously sounded like a warzone. . . I don't know how Andi slept through it. But it was really cool. I think we are going to buy some today and smuggle them back to Utah for New Years ;)

Happy 4th!

Well, it has been a fun couple of days. Friday we went down to Corvallis to hang out with Tanya & Billy for the weekend. We had a lot of fun, played games, watched movies, went on a picnic and walk along some river. Unfortunately they did not have Monday off so we came back to Vancouver Sunday night. This is our little picnic/hike.




Thad however did have Monday off which was great, because it was my birthday. So we planned to go downtown in Portland and check out Chinatown and the Pearl District. . . both of which sounded very cool and a little touristy from the website. I was expecting something along the lines of San Francisco. . . but it was really LAME! Chinatown was nothing but chinese restaurantes and the pearl district was full of construction and homeless people. So we came back and had a picnic at the park down the street.

Trouble!

Okay, so I discovered today that no matter how young they are all girls are capable of the craziest moodswings, even 5 month olds. Andi woke up this morning very happy and playful and we had fun for about an hour. Then the beast turned and did nothing but scream and whine, and nothing I did made her happy! She was like that for over an hour before she calmed down and went back to normal and she has been normal and cheerful since.
It makes me very nervous for the teenage years. If she can pull something like that at 5 months, what are we going to do when she's 15 and teenage insane?!

The Coast

We definitly went to "the coast," not the beach this weekend. It was very pretty and nice and cool. We went to Cannon Beach and walked along the water for a while. Andi thought the waves were very funny. Then we walked around the little town, which was very cute, touristy shops. We even found a bead shop and got stuff to make Andi a new bracelet. . . like she cares, but her other one is getting too small. Anyway here are a few pics of the day even though Thad is going to get mad that I am posting pics before he is ;)

Bubbles!!!

Andi took her first bubble bath last night and loved it. She kept trying to eat the bubbles, and I think she actually sucked a few down. She did manage to cover her entire face in bubbles and suck a few up her nose too, which she didn't really like.
We are headed to the coast this weekend. . . yay! e are taking Andi to the aquarium and to whatever else we can find in Seaside. I'll let you know how it goes ;)

Andi's Page

In case anyone was wondering Andi's page has been down all weekend because that part of the BYU server is down. There are new pics on the site, but we have no idea when it wil be back up. Keep checking!

I'm a big girl now!

Well, She's not walking yet, but Andi has figured out how to take the bumper pads off the sides of the crib to play with. The last few mornings I hear her babbling and walk in to find her chewing on the bumper pads or the ties that are supposed to keep them on the crib. And laying sideways like this.

We also finally bought a high chair this weekend. We started Andi on Solids this week and she loves the cereal, and we figured her swing was probably not the best place for her to be eating. So here she is in her new big girl chair.

For my Friends

Someone once said that life's largest conflicts are between your head and your heart. I couldn't agree more. But I think that no matter the struggle the heart will always win, because the heart cannot forget. The heart does not suffer from memory lapses or forgetful spells, but holds on to feelings, people, emotions you think your head might have forgotten.
I am having one of those conflicts today and thankfully my heart is winning, or reminding me of what my head had forgotten.
It is strange to me how content I can be in my life, and how much I can feel at a loss at the same time. My life is good. I am happy. I have a wonderful loving husband; a beautiful sweet baby girl whom I have the privilege to stay home with and take care of, and I have accomplished some of my life's most important ambitions.
But today I miss my friends. My old college roommates who are scattered across the country; My old high school friends, many of whom I've lost track of; and those people I've known my whole life who always seem to live so far away. There is a melancholy, a bittersweet sadness, in knowing where they all are, and what they are doing with their lives, and being unable to be apart of it all. In being unable to have them share in my joys every day. My parents used to tell me that friends come and go, but family will always be there. That is true in a way, but very untrue in another. My family will always be there, and we will get together for holidays and summer vacations, weddings, births and funerals. And while I won't see my friends nearly as often, I will always have them in my heart. I will always want them to be apart of whatever event is happening in my family. I will reminisce and look through pictures and wish that I could transplant everyone I love to the same place. And I will treasure what they have taught me, for each of them has changed my life in a different way.

This is what comes of watching Dawson's creek re-runs by myself in the morning. The funny part is that I never watched the show when it was on in new episodes. But I watched the last 2 episodes of the series today and felt somehow attatched because of how life had scattered them. Thankfully it is time for Andi to wake up and I will now be distracted from this weird funk that I am in.

just checkin in

I don't have anything exciting to talk about. Life is back to normal since our little trips. Although Andi decided to turn in to a teenage since we've been back and does not want to get out of bed in the morning. I usually don't set an alarm b/c she get's up right about 7 every day, but saturday and sunday I was dragging her out of bed at 8 or 8:30. Oh, and now for some reason she sleeps with one arm hanging out of the crib between the bars. I know I did that as a kid, always had an arm or leg hanging off the bed, but i'm not sure it started this early. Strange.
Anyway, it's temple night so Thad is getting off work early and we are having counsins kid baby-sit again. But this time Andi will be awake so we'll see how he does ;)

catching up

Well, I hope you all saw the pics of our weekend in Corvallis on Andi's website. I am back from Cali and so now have some cute ones to post of that trip.
Andi decided she loves swimming so here are a few pics of her in the pool.














Thankfully on our trip home we had an entire row on the plane to ourselve. So Andi spent the flight like this.
I love going home, but am so glad to be back. Andi sleeps so much better in her own bed, as do I. And I sleep much better when we don't have to share a room! But it was a fun trip and we are looking foreward to my fam coming to visit in July. We are headed back to Cali in August Sean and Ash so don't forget!

Trauma

First of all, Thad put some great pictures of last weekend with his family up on Andi's website. So since they are up there I'm not going to put them up here. So check them out there.
Second we have had a rough few days with Andi. She was really fussy and whiney and just not herself saturday and I just figured it was teething. Well Saturday night she woke up around midnight just screaming. SO I picked her up and she was just burning up, it hurt my arm to hold her. So we gave her some tylenol and water in her bottle and took her outside by the pool to cool down. Sunday after Dad and Walter gave her a blessing we took her to the Dr's office I used to work at and she has a wicked ear infection. All the Dr had to do was put the light thingy in her ear and she started screaming. So we got her some meds and keep her on tylenol and she is much happpier today. Much more like herself. ANd since the meds are a 5 day supply she should be much much better by the time we have to fly home. Poor baby.
Oh, but we did take her in the pool saturday and she is a fan. and looks stinkin cute in her bathing suit ;)

Friend!

Okay Lisa! Now my life is complete! I have found everyone I miss! well sort of, I still need your e-mail Lisa.
Graduation went well last night. Bobby secretly(well he told me and kels but we couldn't tell the parents) auditioned for and was chosen to sing at graduation. Mom and Dad were completely surprised, "Bobby's singing. . . by himself. . does he know that?!" But he did really well, and I was so proud of him.
Tonight we are actually still in the middle of the party for he and his group of friends. The nice part is that it was a family party, so the kids all came with their familes. But as an older sibling I am a little tweaked about all the hoopla. My parents never threw parties for me. If I had one I planned it and did all the work. I guess those are the perks of being at the end of the line. Loosers get everything!
I am, at the moment, waiting for the paint to dry in these blocks we are using as center pieces for tomorrows baby shower. I have become a little crafty in my stay at home mom career. Not really, Thad cut out teh blocks and sanded them, I just get to paint them.
I will report back when more fun happens.

Keeps going and going . . .

Well, Monday was really nice. The boys went fishing of course, and the girls went downtown. They have a super cute walking path along the river in Corvallis, and all these fun shops, including the best bakery/deli ever! It was a great discovery. Andi quite enjoyed herself, and even tried to drink out of my straw, she didn't get anything out, but tried really hard.
Tuesday and today I have been doing all the laundry from the weekend trip so I can re-pack everything for California this weekend. Andi and I are flying to Bako tomorrow morning for my little bro's graduation and my sister-in-laws baby shower. Plus my parents are hosting a graduation party for Bobby's friends, and I am teaching YW's on Sunday, and Tarin is throwing her little guy his first birthday party. As usual it's non-stop action. Should be fun. I"ll post pics when I get them!