Updates Galore

Gwen.

She has been eating solids (no chunks) and sitting like a pro for quite a few weeks now. I remembered that I was supposed to be reading books to her everyday so I have been trying to do that. She eats ok... not as well as Asher did, but she gets the job done most of the time. She also takes in less liquid, which is a problem here in the dry hot Arizona air. I try to make her drink water bottles, but so far she only likes water if she is sucking on a rag in the bath. She won't put her weight on her feet, and maybe it is because they are still the size of a newborn's. As I mentioned before, she has the EXACT same size feet as her cousin Zach who is 8 weeks old. I have given up on socks and tights. They don't work at all.

Asher.

Tic Tacs are candy to him. Also- he calls Gwen's Gerber bites "starfish" and Sunny D "Sunshine." Marshmallows are still "secrets" and business cards and receipts are "treasures." He will call any ball a "space ball" especially the little squishy basketball around here. He has a few mispronunciations like "hangabars"(hamburgers) "callapaters" (caterpillars) and "Minjas" (Ninjas). He is getting more imaginative, and the other day he pointed to some clouds and called them "polar bear mountains." We were reading his "foot book" and he pointed to a duck and told me it had "diver feet." He currently has a preoccupation with an imaginary scary orange hippy-pot-o-mus (another mis-pronunciation.)

Me.

No picture, sorry.

Not much going on with me. I go to the gym a lot. I tried a diet that was supposed to make me lose 12 pounds in 2 weeks, and I was starving, but in a week and a half I had gained a pound instead of losing any, so I decided to quit that. I'm about to turn 30, which is a coincidence because that is exactly the number of pounds I would like to lose (at the minimum). I have a lot of housework to do all the time. I'm not reading anything, going anywhere or hanging out with anybody. I don't have any goals or projects I'm working on. I got a new calling of primary song leader which is something I never really wanted to do although everyone thinks that is a perfect calling for me. I got released from my nursery singing calling which I loved. I promise I'll let you know if anything exciting happens to me in the future, because right now I'm just kinda sitting around watching my kids. Good thing they're cute.

Dan.

Still cute and skinny and smart and working for Red Pear. He also has other projects that come his way every once in a while, which is nice. He works on his website spokt.com every now and again adding features and whatnot. He is a secretary in the Elder's Quorum Presidency and he still takes the occasional picture of our kids as seen above. I'm glad he has talent and a good camera. Cute pictures of my kids are nice to have.

Wow. This feels like the kind of Christmas Card we never send out! Sorry for boring anyone who made it this far. I guess this is mostly for... posterity?

July 17th

This past Saturday marked two important dates in our lives. First of all, exactly one year ago we moved into our house. Secondly (and far more importantly) the 17th is Asher's birthday. He turned three years old.

I laugh when I think about how we commemorated these events. First of all, there was no celebration for our house. Not one room is "done" as far as decorating goes. The house is still lacking in furniture and style. Some rooms need paint. The house didn't even get cleaned for it's anniversary. Sad I know.

On all the mommy blogs I see out there in cyberspace, every child's birthday party is amazing. There are themes and tons of children. There are specialty cakes and fun favors. Not to make Asher feel left out, I decided on a theme. Would you like to know what it was? Of course you would. The theme was "cheap and free stuff."

Yep. He got some cheap birthday hats and some cheap red and blue streamers that were hung unevenly through the blinds on our windows. The cake was free: an ice cream cake that Grandpa bought from the grocery store while he was in town that we never busted out. We wrapped things like tic tacs and fruit snacks. I got most of his gifts on sale at the Disney store. I didn't buy anything that wasn't at least half off. There were no kids at his party, unless you count his baby sister.

We did much better last year. Somehow as we were moving into our house we had time to make a Wall-E cake and invite cousins and stuff. Right now all the cousins are in California, so that didn't work out this time. We still have no friends, so there was no one else to invite.

The thing is... it didn't really matter. Asher is only three after all, he doesn't know he is supposed to have friends or themes or anything. He loved opening things like tic tacs just as much as he loved opening his Buzz Lightyear shirt or Hamm piggy bank. He still had a fun time, and hopefully I'll try harder when he is older and he cares more.

See. Look how happy he is. All the time. No matter what.

Another Visit

Last weekend I had some family members in town again. How lucky am I that I keep getting visited? Kristy and her three kids came as well as Lori and her two boys and my mom and dad. We were all comfy in this house, but I really need to think about getting a queen sized bed set up in a guest room. We have so many visitors and only one extra twin bed.

Anyway, I keep not blogging about it because I don't really have any pictures. I took a few, but my camera battery ran out and I can't find my charger. So here it is... my very late blog with no pictures. Here are some of our highlights:

- Kristy's and my kids playing outside at the mall play area in the heat. That took the energy right out of them, and quick! They play really well together and it was fun to watch.

- Reanne and Sierra conspiring to give me and Asher gifts because it is our birth month. They got Asher a frog that terrifies him (you can never tell what is going to put him over the edge), and me two pots of pretty flowers that I can't seem to keep alive. Thanks girls for being thoughtful, and thanks Kristy for paying for those treats!

- We went to my Grandma's 79th birthday! It was special to be there with so many relatives even though my grandma actually hates to be fussed over and doesn't like crowds much. She loves her family, so she put a brave face on. I love my Grandma.

- I loved just sitting and talking with my family. I miss that.

- We watched some old embarrassing family videos. So funny.

- We went to Cornish Pastys again! LOVE that food. (It is especially good when just coming off of a diet.)

- We discovered on the last day of our trip that Gwen and Zach's feet are the same size. Exactly. Zach is EIGHT WEEKS OLD. Gwen is almost eight MONTHS old. We knew she had tiny feet, but this is ridiculous. If they had a chart for feet size she probably wouldn't register.

The Most Important One

I did get one thing from my project pile done before Tracy left... I finished her dress! You know, the one I started in December...

So this is how it turned out. Not the best pictures in the world... just taken with my point and shoot out back in my weedy yard. Of course, I had a lovely model so she did her part. If only I were a better photographer...


Here is a shot of the lace hem. I love the way it turned out.


A few more details...

Happy late late late birthday, Tracy!

P.S. Doesn't she look fantastic???

Inspiration Comes to Town

Tracy, whom I recently referred to as my inspiration, came to visit this past weekend. I said I would get 10 things done from my project pile before she came.... unfortunately that didn't end up happening. I did a few things, but I didn't even like the way they turned out, so I didn't post about them. Also my brother and his wife came to visit right before Tracy did, so I was busy with them and didn't have as much time as I thought I would to work on projects. Anyhoo, I had a fun time with Chad and Clara working out at my gym and looking at model homes and eating at Cornish Pastys and chatting. I also more recently had fun with Tracy being crafty and cooking and going to Joe's Farmhouse and the Wizard of Oz and window shopping and getting pedicures and talking.

While Tracy was here, we made necklaces and headbands. The necklaces were replicas from the J. Crew store and the headbands were an idea we saw at Designer Blvd. (among other places). She also made lemon cake that was to die for! If you want to see the recipe or a semi-tutorial of the headbands complete with gross pictures of me, head on over to her blog.

I guess I am in charge of the necklace tutorial, but I don't feel like going in to detail. Mostly because we just made it up as we went along, and because they were sort of fragile in the end. I wore mine to church and Gwen almost tore it apart. Anyway, if you want to make it you need strips of chiffon fabric, large glass pearls, a few large black jet beads and string.

We used black thread and strung all of our beads first. We knotted the thread so that the beads would stay about a thumbprint's width apart. Then it was time to lie them down on our long strip of chiffon.
We kind of wrapped the beads in the chiffon and then used other smaller strips of the same material and tied knots in between the beads. I tied the knots twice so that they wouldn't fall apart, and I tied them quite tight.
We left enough room at the end of our chiffon strips to tie a bow. They ended up looking pretty good, but like I said they were kind of fragile. If I were to do it again, I think I would wrap the beads in two long strips of chiffon instead of one, and I would knot those two together in between each bead.

Pileup

So, I have a bunch of projects that are almost done. I guess I'm one of those people. You know, the kind that start things that they never finish. Well, I'm going to try to change that. I'll finish the "almost finished" things from my project pile, and I will report. Since my sister Tracy is my inspiration (she does something awesome like everyday) I will try to get 10 things done by the time she comes to visit on the 24th. (Yay!!)

Side note: I've also become one of those moms. You know, the kind that ignore their children in favor of something stupid and inconsequential. I used to be APPALLED by mothers who were watching TV, and who's kids would come up and beg for some attention. "Will you read to me Mommy? Can you play with me Mommy? Will you LOOK at me Mommy?" All the while the Mother was staring at the latest dumb reality TV show saying "Go away. Not now. Can't you see that fat guy is trying to get naked girl off the island??" I hated that those Mommy's were messing up their own reality in favor of some stupid alternate reality. But now that is me. I get tired of playing with, feeding, and caring for my kids all the time so I turn to the computer many times a day while my kids just have to deal. Do you know how many cute blogs there are out there? Anyway, those cute mommy blogs are not my reality, so I've decided that I will only do this while my kids are asleep or otherwise engaged. If they need me, the computer gets put away!!

In fact... I hear Asher waking up now. Good bye computer!

For the record

A few things about my girl:

• Her feet are still so tiny. The only socks that will stay on her feet are the skinny infant kind.
• She is the happiest kid ever. She may cry when she wakes up, but she gives you the hugest smile right when you walk in the room. And sometimes she doesn't even cry when she wakes up.
• She doesn't have a lot of hair, but her eyelashes are to die for! They are light though, so they are hard to see... but you just wait until she is old enough for mascara. (16, right?)
• She is 30th percentile for weight and 75th for height, so you would think she would look skinny. She doesn't. She is chub-a-licious.
• She loves her brother. Sometimes if she is fussing a little bit, Asher comes over and says "Shh. Momma's gotchu, momma's gotchu." He also randomly pats her head and says "Sweet Baby Gwenners!"
• She's not so good at rolling from tummy to back. She has done it, but she usually just makes noise until you help her back onto her backside.
• No scooting yet. And no sitting. She can support her weight just fine, but she doesn't have balancing down.
• She likes to chew on her foot right now.

We all love her in this house. I can't believe she is already almost 7 months old. It is amazing how time flies.