Mike's turn

So Robyn has been way busy, so it is Mike's turn to post an update. Life has been great, life has been busy, and as usual with Robyn life has been incredibly fun.
Here is a picture of Robyn, in her pregnant beauty:) We are excited for our little princess to be done in Robyn's tummy so we can start with the fun. Honestly, after being around kids for a while (Robyn for years as a nanny and both of us as nursery workers at church for over a year), we are kinda really excited for her to come out to start entertaining us like so many of our nieces and nephews have (see below).

Well, I don't have too much other than that to say... We are both busy with school and Robyn is doing something with her friends 2 or 3 nights a week--in fact they found us an amazing deal on a crib. Oh and I am being fed at school every day this week except Thursday and everyday last week except like Tuesday. That's what I get for keeping my interests open and joining every club!

Good Morning!

Good morning! Today is going to be a beautiful day!

You looking at me?

Are YOU looking at me, kid?
So the other day as I was doing my hair I had an intensely crazy urge to mohawk my hair. So I did.
It's a pretty sweet picture if you ask me. The only problem was that we were going to play games with B-Rad and Kjirstin and others that night. So I listened to the advice of my incredibly intelligent husband and toned it down into a more normal do. :) Which turned out to be a really good thing because we ended up going out for frozen custard after games and I ran into one of Chris's old buddies from BYU at the custard shop.
We also took a more "normal" prego picture today. We're at... oh almost 21 weeks now. So YEAH! I made it through the halfway point. Although I no longer have the morning sickness, I now have a backache as my constant companion. Oh well. One of the prices to pay for parenthood. :) Enjoy the pics!

You can call him Dr. Mike

This is my dear hubby studying the muscles and tendons in the arm. I thought it was so funny I had to catch a candid picture of him. :) Then when I was studying at the med school library I saw several other students studying their wrists and hands. Good luck all you med students! Ya'll are awesome! :)

Dr. P Penguin

While cooking dinner the other day, Mike and I ran into this little guy. Ok, so we made him out of a potato, but I've always had this fascination with penguins and when the potato Mike was peeling reminded me of a penguin, well we got a little carried away. :) he he he... Oh and the blue penguin is a little shout out to my baby sis! Miss ya Lesley!

And attack!

No this is not me in some sort of superhero getup gone wrong. This is what I looked like the other day when I needed to clean the oven. We have discovered that our oven rack is tilted and because of this, the bottom of the oven frequently catches the overflow from the tilted pans. Unfortunately I always leave the mess to be cleaned up later when the oven cools off. But I forget about cleaning it until I start heating up the oven to cook something and start smelling something burning. Well I decided enough was enough and I attacked the bottom of our oven. Ever aware of my need to be careful in my delicate condition, I took the proper precautions. Mike was thoroughly entertained. :) And yes, I am wearing rubber gloves, holding a pie server with a bandanna wrapped around my nose.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls

The moment we found out we were having a little girl, this song from Gigi popped into my mind and it's stayed there since. :) So this post is a dedication to our little girl. We love you sweetheart!

Ultrasound results :)

So we had our ultrasound today. The baby is developing just fine and the ultrasound technician said that we have a textbook baby as far as development goes. So that was great to hear. Since I know some of you are dying to know... in Mike's words "We're having a princess!" Yup we are the proud parents of a little girl (although it'll be 20 more weeks before she's ready to meet us...). :)
We're so excited! It was so neat to be able to see our girl. She was very cooperative and was in just the right positions when they wanted to look at her heart and brain and everything else. It was almost like she was posing for the camera (gee, she couldn't get that from her mother, could she?). :) Through most of the ultrasound she had her legs crossed at the ankles just like a little lady. Then when the technician had finished checking everything out she started moving around a bunch. It was like she was dancing saying "Ok I'm done with you guys, I'm doing my own thing!" In fact at one point she had her right elbow on her left knee with her fist under her chin. She looked like the thinker by Rodin.

So yeah that's our news and we're so excited. Oh I'd better mention here that we're steering clear of the color pink with our little girl. I (Robyn) really don't do pink. It's not a color that I'm necessarily against, it just doesn't work for me. Other people can have all the pink they want, but no pink for me thank you. So yeah, purples, yellows and even a good red are all just fine, but no pink. Do you understand that everyone? I understand that she's a little girl and that our culture has saturated everyone to believe that pink and little girls go together, but I'd much rather another color please. :) Seriously, can't a little girl look just as cute with purple? Ok, I'm done with the pink ranting for now. :)
Anyways we're thrilled to finally know for sure that she's a girl. Now we just need to figure out a name for her. Mike likes more traditional names (like Sarah or Brian) and I tend to go for names that are a little more unique. Not necessarily less traditional, just names that they won't share with 10 other people in their classes at school. When we moved out here to Wisconsin we found out that there are about 30 other Mike Larsons in Wisconsin. So is it so bad that I want our kid to have a name that will be theirs and even if someone has the same name as them, they probably won't ever meet each other. Anyways, it's really not that bad. :) It just may take us the next four months to come to an agreement on this. :) So if any of you have ideas for little girl names for us, feel free to pass them along. Don't be offended if we don't use any of them though, because we can be kinda picky... :) Anyways!
Thank heaven for little girls!

I've been tagged again...

You'll probably know more about me than you'd care to...

So with this tag, I just have to give 8 facts about myself.

1. I love dancing! While at BYU-Idaho I was working on my minor in modern dance and I loved it! I was actually on a professional dance company called Valley Dance Ensemble in Logan Utah. With this team I did a lot of modern dance, but I also was introduced to African Dance, which I love! And by the way, modern dance isn't usually the "become a tree" that most people think of. It's really just a combination of all the other dance styles, so it's less restrictive. I also used to have a job teaching 3 and 4 year olds how to dance. That was amazingly fun and challenging. So I hope you get it: I LOVE to DANCE!!!!
2. I am not a morning person. In fact I can sometimes be downright mean in the mornings. My family members, old roommates and even my hubby can testify of this. Those who may attempt to wake me before I'm ready had better beware as I have been known to yell and even throw things (I still feel bad about throwing that alarm clock at you princess Sarah).
3. Connected with the above statement is the fact that I cannot function on less than 8 hours of sleep and 9 hours is truly optimal for me. The alarm clock incident mentioned above occurred due to a lack of sleep and an obviously clouded thinking process.
4. I am only five feet tall. That's it. At one point my height was measured for my drivers license and they listed me at 5 feet 1/4 inch. That was a happy day. But the next month when I went to the doctor, I discovered I must have just been wearing tall shoes because I was still, alas, only 5 feet tall. In some states I could get a handicap sticker for the car because I'm so short. I always have to drive with the seat completely forward and there are some cars that I just can't drive because I can't reach the pedals (Pontiacs and Penske rental trucks for example). I have come to accept and celebrate my height and love all the things that come with being short.
5. I can sometimes be incredibly loud. On our second date I took Mike to a hockey game. Although I am not into sports, I love being in crowds and cheering for someone. So I let loose and was cheering for the Aggies with all my heart (and voice). Mike looked at me in wonder and said "Wow, I didn't know that much noise could come out of something so small." I love cheering for someone and really just being loud. So if you're ever involved in a competition of some sorts, let me know and I will come cheer you on.
6. I love to cook. I love cooking elaborate meals that taste delicious. I cook everything from good old American foods to ethnic foods from all over the world. I'll admit that sometimes when I experiment it goes terribly wrong, but for the most part I would have to say I'm a decent cook. I also love making desserts. In fact I make this fabulous pie that once upon a time brought the proposal of a guy I wasn't even dating. When I laughed off his proposal he said "No seriously, if you can make something that tastes this good, I need to have you cook for me." We came to an agreement that when he was rich and famous he could hire me as his family's personal chef. So if you ever want to throw a party, but don't want to do the cooking, give me a call and I'll help out. But be warned, I don't do the dishes. Mike and I have an agreement that I'll do the cooking as long as he does the dishes. Fine by me! So if you have any great recipes, pass them on my way!
7. I love cheese. On the verge of addicted to cheese actually. I usually have cheese with almost every meal. I'm not a huge fan of cheddar, but give me a good swiss, fresh mozzarella, munster or brie and I'm in heaven. Unfortunately despite the fact that we now live in America's Dairyland, cheese is still expensive here and so I have to settle for the cheaper cheeses that I can get in large quantities to help satisfy my daily cheese intake.
8. I've decided for my last fact to share something about my personality. I am incredibly loyal. Once I make a close friend, they are my friend for life. I regularly email and chat with friends I made in the sixth grade. For some of you that may not seem like that big a deal, but when you consider how much my family has moved during my lifetime, it's kind of a miracle. I love having close friends and I love all that comes with it. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me through all my craziness (and yes I had some interesting years back in high school...).

I tag Bonnie Tadlock, Marissa Odell, and Shannon... Oh I can't remember your married name (yes you my friend who is married to matt and have a cute little boy and I met you when I was serving in San Diego...)
I'm supposed to tag 8 people, but that'll work for now. :)

I've been tagged

Four random things I love about my husband:
1. His devotion to our little family (he talks to Superfly every night so he or she knows their daddy's voice)
2. His tickle fights (yesterday we both needed a break from studying and he looked over at me and said "let's have a tickle fight!" so we did)
3. How great he is with kids, it's so attractive!
4. His desire to learn: in school, the gospel, and family life

Four jobs I’ve had:
1. Salad Bar attendant
2. Kitchen assistant at a retreat for artists and writers (this job was awesome!)
3. Security system installer for Walmart (that's right, I know where all the cameras are in the Logan Walmart)
4. Nanny

Four movies I have watched more than once (in fact I've seen all of these at least a dozen times):
1. Newsies
2. Finding Nemo
3. Pride and Prejudice (A&E version)
4. Meet the Robinsons (I LOVE this movie)

Four TV shows I watch (I actually haven't had cable or satellite or anything like that for over 4 years, and I don't miss it one bit. Here's some shows I used to watch):
1. We used to watch cartoons every Saturday morning and I loved the comic book ones (Spiderman, X-men, Batman)
2. Star Trek Voyager (we used to watch this as a family every week... yup, I'm a Trekky... Live Long and Prosper)
3. Boy Meets World
4. The Pretender

Four places I have been:
1. Bangkok, Thailand (and oh how I miss it sometimes)
2. Boracay, Philippines (this island has the best beaches in the world! Believe me, I've checked the others and they don't even compare!)
3. Paris, France (I went there for spring break when I got home from my mission with my parents and my sister and we had a blast!!!)
4. Johannesburg, South Africa (I went there as a kid to visit my mom's granny, and I'd love to go back)

Four of my favorite foods (I LOVE ethnic foods, but here are some of my favorites):
1. CHOCOLATE (remember that chocolate buffet mom and Lesley? yum...)
2. Thai cashew chicken
3. Tandoori Chicken with Naan (Indian dish)
4. Italian Chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus
(looks like I like chicken, huh?)

Four places I would like to visit:
1. IRELAND!!! (this has been a lifelong dream of mine. Maybe for our 20th anniversary, right Mike?)
2. South Africa (my grandma is from there and I'd love to go back and see it all, that is when it's safe to go back...)
3. Tokyo, Japan (but only if my sweetheart is my personal tour guide)
4. The Holy Land

Four things I am looking forward to in the coming year:
1. Our ultrasound next week :)
2. January 30th or there abouts (that's when we finally get to meet our baby)
3. Having my mom here when the baby's born
4. Seeing Mike hold our child for the first time :)
(ok, so they all have the same theme, but can you blame me?)

Four People I tag: you're probably gonna hate me for this but... Chris Sampson, Ann Sampson, Sarah Salway and Alli Hicken. I look forward to reading your posts... :) Remember how you love me?

Labor Day Breakfast

My grandparents have been doing a huge Labor Day breakfast for... well forever. Growing up when we lived too far to go to Grandma's Labor Day breakfast, our family would host our own breakfast. We've had these breakfasts all over the world and I absolutely love them! Last year Mike and I were living in Logan, so we were able to drive down to SLC for Grandma's Labor Day breakfast and Mike fell in love with the tradition. Basically everyone brings their favorite breakfast dish to share with everyone. There's more food than anyone can possibly eat and the company is always wonderful. :)
Well being here in Wisconsin we decided to host our own Labor Day breakfast. So yesterday morning 45 of our friends came over for the Larson family Labor Day breakfast. It was fabulous! :) No one was really sure what to expect, and even though we were squeezed into our two bedroom apartment, I think we all had fun. I know I did! :) I love having tons of people over for a party. One of my dear friends from high school, Andra Reilly, described it best when she said I love organized chaos, especially when I'm doing the organizing. :) If anyone had peeked their head in our door they probably would have thought it was a bit chaotic with children running around and everyone eating, laughing and enjoying themselves. But I thrived in it. I'm a people watcher and it was so fun for me to just sit back a few times and watch everyone enjoy themselves. Most of the people we invited were new families here for the husbands first year of med school. So it was really fun for me to have them all here and everyone had the chance to kinda get to know each other. There were probably a few people who were a bit overwhelmed by it all, but I hope they still had fun. :)
Since the whole point of the gathering is the food, I figure I'll make you drool as I describe some of the foods we had. :) For those of you who have been to my parties in the past, you'll know I always feel like I need to cook enough food to feed an army. I don't know why it is that way, but Mike is patient with me and since I make most of my stuff from scratch, it's not too expensive. Anyways, so Mike and I had supplies for mini breakfast burritos (a tradition picked up while we lived in New Mexico), homemade breakfast cake (ok, so it's coffee cake, but we always called it breakfast cake growing up), homemade chocolate chip muffins, mom's sticky rolls (one with nuts and one without :) he he he) which someone told me yesterday are also referred to as monkey rolls, and decadent french toast (which is french toast with a caramelized goodness on the bottom, and a cream cheese filling). Although everything turned out fine, I had a few issues with the sticky rolls and decadent french toast. We discovered this weekend that our oven is possessed. It is a gas oven and unfortunately the temperature it says it is on the knob is not the actual temperature inside the oven. The decadent french toast wasn't cooking like it should have, so I turned up the temperature a little. Unfortunately this caused one of the pans to get a little too hot on the bottom and the caramelized deliciousness was burnt. I didn't know this, though and we served that pan first. People still ate it and said it was great, but it still wasn't the fabulous dish that it was supposed to be.
The next fiasco took place right as everyone started getting here. I was cooking the sticky rolls and all of the sudden I smell something burning. I opened up the oven and a huge cloud of billowing smoke erupted from the oven. Once I was able to clear the smoke a little bit, I discovered that one of the pans of sticky rolls had boiled over and the contents were burning to the bottom of the oven. The rolls looked done so I pulled them out. Unfortunately when I tried to turn them over on the plate they just fell everywhere causing a very sticky, gooey mess and the rolls piled on the plate didn't look terribly appetizing. But for the second pan (the one without the nuts) I remembered a little trick I had seen my mom employ many times and the rolls were turned out onto a plate without any problems. :)



Everyone brought delicious foods and people went back for third and fourth helpings, or maybe that was only me and Mike... :)
I forgot to take pictures before and during the breakfast, but we did remember to take some after pictures, so here they are.
These first two are of the kitchen and all the pans and dishes left for us to do. Thankfully we had used disposable plates and such so we didn't have to clean those up. And we also have a dishwasher so clean up wasn't that terrible. Actually, Mike took care of most of the clean up. He's such a sweetheart!
As you can kinda see in the pictures, we pulled our table into the kitchen and had all the food served from there. This actually worked quite well and it made more room for everyone to sit in the other rooms. :)
The next couple of pictures are of us right after the party and right after clean up. We were tired, but incredibly happy. We really had such a blast planning and hosting this breakfast. I hope we're able to keep up the tradition. :) It is was so fun! :)
The last few pictures are just random fun pictures I thought I'd share with you. Mostly they're just random, but I do have to explain the one where Mike has his arm up and he looks like he's yelling. We were listening to the Wicked soundtrack (which Mike now enjoys after seeing the production). He especially enjoys the defying gravity song and this picture is actually him singing along with the music. When I asked him about having his tongue out he said it helps him sing louder. :) he he he... I hope you enjoy the pictures and sorry about this incredibly long post. :)

Wicked Part 2

Ok so here's your update about Wicked in Chicago. Basically it was awesome! The musical was in the Oriental Theater, which added an incredibly awesome ambiance to the whole experience. We were early (of course) and Mike was worried about having something to entertain us. But once we were in the theater we found that all the decorations on the walls and ceiling were entertaining enough. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to use our cameras inside the theater, so we don't have any pictures of that, but believe me, it was cool.
As far as the actual play goes, when you first sit down and look down towards the stage you'll notice the prominent dragon. This dragon sits atop the proscenium arch and has a wingspan of the entire stage length.

Ok so I found this picture and you can kinda tell what I'm trying to explain. Anyways, so the dragon is just a really cool piece of the set, but what's really cool is that it's controlled by an actual puppeteer. I thought that was incredibly cool because they could have easily animated the dragon with gears and stuff, but they decided to go for something a bit more traditional. I thought it was a nice touch. :)
The actors were amazing! Of course this is no surprise because if they weren't great, they wouldn't be playing on the Chicago stage. :) But I love to see a performance that is just fabulous with everyone being able to hold their own. They were performing to over two thousand people with a full orchestra backing up. It takes some great talent to be able to do that. :) I have been quite familiar with the storyline of Wicked for some time now, but this was my first time seeing the actual performance. I've seen snippets of it here and there on TV or online, and so I had a basic idea of how the actors would play each character. The actors in Chicago thankfully played the characters differently than I had imagined and it made the whole play new and fresh for me. I surprisingly enjoyed the gal who played Glinda (the prissy good witch of the north). I kinda expected to be annoyed by her, but was not. :) Elphaba (the green witch) was played by Lisa Brecia, who is amazing! Apparently we saw her on her last night in Chicago and now the role is being played by another gal, but wow what a performer!
I knew that Mike would enjoy seeing Wicked with me, but I had no idea how into it he would get! During the first couple of scenes he kept poking or nudging me and whispering things like "wow this is so cool!" or "I can't believe we're here!" By the end of the first act he was so mesmerized that his eyes were glued to the stage and he was in the land of Oz. :) When the lights came up for intermission Mike turned to me with an incredibly worried face and asked "It's not over is it!?!" When I explained that it was intermission he said "Oh yeah, I forgot about halftime." :) But he seemed to enjoy it just as much as I did, which I loved! :)
The music was amazing. I love going to performances where there is a live orchestra because there is something amazing about the experience. It just brings the level of performance for everyone up a notch. And there's also something almost electrifying about the experience. Many of you may not know this, but I am incredibly moved by music. There is something about wonderful music (particularly live music) that just grabs my soul and brings me joy. For example one of my favorite musicals is Newsies. I can sing every line of music and quote every bit of dialogue. I've probably seen that musical a hundred times (and I think that's a fairly accurate guess too...). But during the song Carrying The Banner there is a part where a mother is searching through the boys for her son who has run away. She sings "Patrick, darling, since you left me, I am undone. Mother loves you! God save my son!" This part is just heart wrenching to me and the way it is sung in the movie makes me cry EVERY SINGLE TIME! Another example is Les Miserables. I was raised listening to this musical all the time and my mother, aunts and even grandmother would frequently sing lines from it while making dinner or doing the dishes. It's just a part of our family. Well, once again I know every single word and note from that musical and yet there are still those songs that bring tears to my eyes and touch my heart. And they don't even have to be sad songs. I think one of the most powerful songs in that musical is "Do you hear the people sing" and I always choke up. In fact when our ward put together a simplified production of Les Miserables and I was asked to be in the chorus for this song, I would constantly find myself tearing up. Unfortunately I am not one of those people who can cry and sing at the same time. So on the night of the performance I found myself mouthing through half the words.
Anyways, back to Wicked. As I mentioned earlier, I know all the songs to Wicked, and none of them had made me tear up really (ok, the song For Good made me tear up once when my sister and I were singing it for a video we sent to my brother in Iraq...). So I wasn't expecting to have tears in my eyes, but the grandeur of the song Defy Gravity made me cry. The actress playing Elphaba just belted it with so much power and emotion. The orchestra was playing amazingly and the visual appeal of what's going on stage just hit me and I cried. It was amazing! sigh... :)
So the performance of Wicked was amazing. I'm not completely in love with the storyline because it's all just a little too out there for me, but the production was definitely fabulous. My one complaint is the costuming and dancing of the chorus members. It was... well less than tasteful, which was really a shame because you can tell that they are skilled dancers... Oh well.
But overall Wicked was great! :) whoo hoo! :) Now only if we could have afforded some of the Wicked merchandise... :) he he he...