Say Hello

Say Hello to Jaycee everyone. She's one of the many cute kids in our ward here that I get to hang out with occasionally. She's two years old and incredibly smart. Oh and she's so cute! Just look at those blue eyes and cute smile. The other day she and I were playing while everyone else did the hard work of moving. [By the way, thank you so much to everyone who helped us move!!! I counted and we had at least 15 people there helping!] Anyways, so as we were playing Jaycee pointed to my prego tummy and asked "What's in there?"
The first thing that crossed my mind was "how on earth do you explain pregnancy to a two year old?" So I told her that there was a little girl growing in my tummy.
"Oh." She said. Then she thought for a little bit and said "Why don't you just let her out for a little bit?"
I laughed so hard!! So then I explained that she wasn't done growing in my tummy and she wouldn't come out of my tummy for a long time (three months is a long time for a two year old).
She looked at me rather disappointedly and then said "ok" and we went on playing. We were at a friend's house who lives on the second floor. They have a porch off their front room, but it's being revamped and so there's currently no railing.
Jaycee went to the window and turned to me and said "Come here" as she tapped her leg. She looked just like someone calling their dog over, it was so funny. I laughingly went over to the window and she pointed to the porch. "See that?"
"Yup" I said.
"We don't go out there because we might bonk our noggin." she said in a very matter of fact tone.
Once again, so funny! Seriously, where do these kids come up with these things? Thanks Jaycee and all the kids that I get to interact with who bring joy and laughter into my life. :)

We're outta there!!!!

So we've moved. Yup. We left our old apartment and moved to a flat right by the med school. Literally. Our street dead ends into the med school parking lot. I LOVE the location. And I love how stinking cute our new place is. I'll post pictures as soon as I remember to bring the camera to school (we don't have internet hooked up yet, so I'm using the school's computers). The house was built in the 1920's and it's got fun architecture and charm. We rent the main level and the upper level is rented out to another lady. We share the basement as storage space and we have use of a washer and dryer down there. YEAH!!! No more saving quarters and hauling all our stuff to the laundry mat. There's always a washer and dryer available in the basement that I can use any time I want. This will especially be handy with a newborn who just may be like her cousins and throw up all the time. We have a cute little closed in sun-room right in the front and a rather spacious living room as well. The coat closet is huge (score!) so there's even plenty of storage on our level. There's a separate dining room that is quite large as well and it has two corner built in china cabinets. More storage! :) The master bedroom has a big walk in closet and I think it will actually hold all of mine and Mike's clothes. And that's saying something because Mike has a ton of clothes! The bathroom has a tub that I'm not grossed out by (I'm usually grossed out by apartments bathtubs...). The kitchen is huge, although it needs more counter space. There's enough room that we can get a portable dishwasher, so we're looking into that. The nursery has plenty of light in it and the walls are already painted a light green, so our white nursery furniture looks really cute in there. :) The nursery also gets some great natural light which is another bonus. AND our house is right across the street from an elementary school. It's actually one of the best schools in the area. I love our place! The other day I was doing homework and suddenly I heard some drum music outside. I peeked out our window and I saw the entire school out in the field doing their Halloween costume parade. It was so cute to see all the kiddos in their outfits. :) Oh and I forgot to mention, we've got a garage too, so there's more of a chance that our car will start on those freezing winter mornings. There's space for a garden in the back, so come spring we'll be planting veggies, and our landlady said we can do anything we want with the flowerbeds around the house. :) All in all we are thrilled to be in our new place. Seriously, it's perfect for us. :)
So some of you may be wondering why we moved. Well although our old place had a great layout and it was well kept, there were other factors that were less than desirable. For starters, our bedroom window was only 20 feet away from the train tracks. When some of the larger trains went by the windows would shake and the sound was nearly deafening. Not exactly fun at 2 in the morning. Three out of our four neighbors smoked. They smoked in their apartments and the smell would creep up through the vents. They'd smoke in the hallways and on the doorsteps to the building so that we would have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get into or out of our apartment. Since smoke is a trigger for my asthma, it was not good. Our neighbors were also loud. Not consistently loud like some people, but randomly it would sound like they had a herd of rhinos in their apartment doing the conga. So since our lease was going to be up at the end of the year, we decided to move sooner rather than later. We were able to find someone to take our place and we were able to find this amazing place right by the school. Our landlady is awesome too. When she found out we were from Utah she got so excited and asked us if we were Mormon. When we responded that we were she said "I LOVE MORMONS!" She then spent 20 minutes telling us about how Mormons make the best tenants and how they're always so nice and they refer other Mormons, etc... All I have to say is props to all her previous LDS tenants! They certainly have left a positive impression about members of our faith. She was also talking about her sister who lives in Sandy, Utah and how she's excited to go out to Utah to see her sister. It's great.
So in case you couldn't tell from this novel, we are so excited to be in our new place. We're close to the school, friends and the grocery store. All very important things. Like I said, I'll post pictures of our place so you can all see how cute it is. But you may have to use your imagination for the decorating because next week is my test week, so I've got a lot of studying to do before I can tackle the unpacking and decorating of our new place. We never really unpacked at our old place, so I'm excited to pull out all our fun stuff. Anyways, so excited to be done with that other place!
Oh and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Mike's skateboard videos

This is Mike, and a few people have disbelievingly asked me if the rumors were true: was I a skater? The honest answer is "no." I was a nerd that possessed the ability to ride a skateboard, not a skater with chains, black clothes and hair, etc.
Here are my skate videos, and there is a little story behind each that you can read when you click on the link. The 4th one has a little blip of Robyn (before there was a baby in her tummy and before she changed her name-you have to be patient to see it or just fast forward to about 5 and a half minutes into the video).
Enjoy!
Mike's skate video 1
Number 2
Number 3 (the best)
Numero 4 (con Robyn)

Picture Tag

So I get to go to the 6th picture in the 6th subfolder of the 6th folder in My pictures and then blog about it.
Ok so there's the picture. :) These triplets are three of the cutest little munchkins you'll ever meet. From left to right they are Kailee, Chase, and Alexis and for about a year I had the chance to be their nanny. This was taken last April just before Mike graduated from Utah state and we moved away. I wanted to do something special for their mom because lets face it, with triplets AND a teenager, she's pretty much supermom. :) I loved working for this family because they were just the most amazing people ever. :) So one day I packed the kids up into the van and took them to the park for a picnic and a little photoshoot. I'm not much of a photographer and with 3 three year olds, their attention span isn't that great. But thankfully I had Mike there to jump around behind me and keep their attention. No literally Mike was jumping around behind me like a crazy man, but we got this picture, so I'm happy. :) Man, posting about these kids makes me miss them. :)
These kids are geniuses too. At the age of 2 they had figured out how to get through every kid proof lock in the house. The ones on the drawers and cabinets, the plastic shells on the doorknobs and everything. With three mischievous brains working together they got into a bit of trouble sometimes. For example, one day after we had just finished lunch I was taking 30 seconds to throw something away and wipe down the table. It really took me no time at all. But when I get into the living room, they're no where to be found. On my way to their bedroom I pass the garage door and I just know they'd gone out that way. Now their parents had installed a lock above their reach so they couldn't get out, but these little stinkers had piled up a couple of their toys and climbed on top of them so they could reach the lock and unlock it. So I jet out into the garage and the side door is open there too. They had found an unopened box of diapers and got through that door too. Keep in mind that all of these doors have the plastic covers on the doorknobs so they're getting through those too. I race outside and I find Chase had stripped down to only his t-shirt (diaper and pants were in the driveway), Alexis was inside the little water runoff tunnel next to their house and Kailee is running as fast as she can down the street to try to get to an old neighbor's house who always gives her cookies. These kids could seriously move like lightening when they wanted to. So I took Chase and Alexis each under my arms and took off after Kailee like a quarterback going for the winning touchdown. I was moving. So I finally caught up with Kailee and she refuses to come with me. So I pick her up too and slowly head back to the house. I'm sure I was quite a sight carrying three kids down the block, one of which who is half naked. :) Ahh the memories. :)
When we found out we were pregnant everyone kept saying that we were going to have multiples because I had nannied for the triplets so it must have been preparing me for my own kids right? Thankfully at least for our first pregnancy, there's only one little girl so I can breathe a little easier, for now at least. ;)
So here's to the cutie patootie triplets and I tag Sarah Larson, Jordan, Trina, Lesley Biddy, Ann Sampson, and Emily Abbott.

Mirror Mirror....

So I got an email from my granddaddy that made me just bust a gut. I don't know how far spread this is, but this is the first time I've seen it. So I thought I'd share it with ya'll. Enjoy!

Mirror Mirror...
Shrek, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt were all having lunch together.
Shrek said, 'I have always thought that I'm the strongest man in the world, but how can I be sure?'
Brad Pitt said, 'I'm pretty sure I'm the sexiest man alive but I've never had it confirmed.'
Angelina Jolie agreed. 'I'm told I'm the most gorgeous of them all, but sometimes I wonder.'

They all decided that the best way to find out if their beliefs were true was to ask the famed talking 'mirror, mirror on the wall' to confirm for them whether Shrek was the strongest, Angelina Jolie was the most gorgeous and Brad Pitt was the sexiest. They agreed to meet again the next day for lunch to discuss their findings.

The next day Shrek walked up with a smile. 'Well, it's true. The mirror told me that I am the strongest man in the world.'

Brad Pitt perked up and said, "And I know for sure that I'm the sexiest man alive."


But Angelina Jolie lifted her sad face and said ...











Who the heck is Robyn Larson?


(...didn't see that coming did you?)

:)

Mike's face

Mike usually like's having his goatee but every now and then he gets sick of it and shaves it off, only to grow it back a few weeks later. Well about two weeks ago he decided it was time to shave his goatee again. But I decided to use this to my advantage and convinced him to wait until the ward halloween party so we could give him a genie look. So last night after the party Mike shaved it all off.



Notice that in the first picture he's only got half his mustache. :)















Then in the second picture he's just got the soul strip...
















Then it's all gone. :)
















Oh and here's what he looked like pre-shaving. This was one of his baking experiments. He called it chocolate tumor... The white stuff was marshmallows by the way.

Halloween Party

The ward Halloween Party was last night. I had so much fun getting all dressed up and getting Mike all dressed up too. :) He was a good sport. I went as a princess and Mike was my genie. I even made a genie's lamp for a prop. I wanted to make sure I documented it thoroughly, so there's quite a few pictures. I added captions, so be sure to read those too.

A lot of the kids weren't exactly sure what to make of me with the nose-ring and all the jewelry. One little girl kept coming up to me and just staring. It was funny. We did the trunk or treating part with our ward. We had our "magic carpet" laid out and Mike sat down on it genie style and granted all the little kids wishes for candy. :) It was fun and really cute to see the kids get excited about the magic. Ok and the candy too... :) All in all it was a fun evening and I'm glad Mike was a good sport. :)

Thanks...

Today has been an absolutely wonderful day. :) This morning we had another OB appointment and everything is going great. It's test week, but Mike doesn't have any tests today, so he was able to come with me. :) Everything checks out fine and our little girl is doing great.
Another plus of Mike's having test week and no tests today is that he gets to study from home. So today we've both been studying from home and although we haven't had a ton of interaction because we're actually getting a lot of studying done, it's been fun to just be in the same room with him. I love my sweetheart. ;)
It's been a beautiful day today. The past few days have been rainy and gloomy, but today the sun is shining, there are blue skies and it just lifts the spirits. :)
Tomorrow is our ward Halloween Party and I am so excited!! I'm not going to mention what we are going to be because I don't want to ruin the surprise, but if things go as planned, we're gonna have some pretty sweet costumes. I'll try to post pictures on Saturday assuming it all goes well. :) The idea is pretty great if nothing else. And in case you didn't know, I get really into my costumes. I love dressing up! It's kind of crazy actually and some family and friends may say I go a bit overboard, but hey, it's fun! :)
Anyways, life is great! :)

Hungry anyone?

Well I'm not entirely sure why, but I decided to create a website with some of my favorite recipes. I don't have them all on the website, but I've started and I thought ya'll might as well enjoy it too. So feel free to visit "robynscookbook.blogspot.com" to check out the recipes. Feel free to leave comments or just enjoy experimenting with the recipes. And mom, I hope I'm not giving away any family secrets by giving away the pound cake recipe... :)

Girly Girls

Last weekend while all the hubbies went to the priesthood session, all of us girls got together for a truly girly girls night. We started off our evening with some delicious frozen custard at Kopps, which is basically the best frozen custard place in town. After indulging ourselves in the delicious sweets and some great conversation we went over to our friend Necia's home for some pampering. We put on some incredibly relaxing "ocean" music and pampered ourselves while talking and laughing the whole time. Some of us even did an oatmeal-banana face mask. I don't know if it did anything for my complexion, but it was fun nonetheless. Thanks girls for such a fun night!
sorry to those of you who already read about this fun night on other blogs. :) I think we only ended up with one camera, so the pictures might look familiar. :)

Jamming with Meghan

This last week my dear friend Meghan and I got it into our heads that we should make freezer jam together. Neither of us had endeavored such and undertaking before and we thought the task would be a fun adventure. So we went to the store with recipe in hand to purchase the ingredients. Since strawberries were on sale and they looked so delicious we decided to each buy 8 cartons of strawberries. Remember we had no clue how many strawberries constituted the 2 cups mashed strawberries needed for the recipe. Then we went to buy the sugar needed and somehow thought that a couple small bags would suffice. Then we bought the pectin and thought again that a few boxes would suffice. Next we bought the containers, thinking that if we each made 6 pints of jam that would be great, but we bought a few extra because really tupperware is such a useful thing to have around. Then we eagerly went back to Meghan's home to begin our adventure. Meghan and I are both terribly fond of musicals and so we put on Thoroughly Modern Millie and sang, talked and laughed as we made the jam. After cutting up half the strawberries (remember, that's 8 cartons of strawberries), we realized that we may have gotten ourselves into more work than we had first foreseen. We laughed and continued our jam making with delight. Two musicals later (that's about 3 hours for those of you who do not reckon time by the length of musicals) we had only managed to transform a fourth of the strawberries into jam and realized we had grossly underestimated the task we had set ourselves to. Meghan's dear husband was sent to the store for more supplies and we continued our jam making. Another musical was put on, but we no longer had the energy to belt it out as we had with the first we listened to. By about the 4th hour into the jam making process we realized we were still short of supplies and Meghan went to the store for more supplies. By this point we had reached our stride and we knew exactly how much was needed in order to transform the last four cartons of strawberries into freezer jam. Meghan was kind enough to offer to feed dinner to Mike and I, and so when he arrived for dinner we put him to work in helping us complete the last few batches of freezer jam. :) All in all we laughed a great deal and learned that though the strawberries may have looked delicious, it didn't mean we needed to buy out half of what the store carried. :)
In the end we made 24 pints of freezer jam, leaving 12 pints for each of us to enjoy for the next year. :) Well, that is assuming that Mike and I slow down in eating it. Mike has decided that a spoonful of freezer jam is just as good as ice cream and so I have frequently caught him in the past several days eating a spoonful of freezer jam to satisfy his sweet tooth.

Hoolagins

So yesterday was such a lovely day that I had the window open to let in some of the fresh air. We don't usually have the window open since we live a mere 20 feet away from the train tracks and the noise as the trains go by can be deafening with the windows opened. But yesterday was the exception. It was wonderful.
Last night Mike went out on splits with the Elders and I was at home doing schoolwork on the computer. As I was working I started to hear some teenagers outside and then what sounded like someone moving a bike. Since Mike's bike was locked up right outside I looked out the window to see two teenagers hunched over Mike's bike. I yelled out the window and asked them to please leave my bike alone. They took off quickly with two other bikes in tow. One can only assume where they got these other bikes. I decided to bring Mike's bike inside the apartment, so I went down to get it. When I got down there I found that they had cut almost entirely through his steel bike lock. I have no doubt that they were out specifically to steal bikes. So sad.
After I had calmed myself down I found several phone numbers for the police to call in and report crime. Unfortunately every phone number I called either rang forever without anyone picking up or just went to the general answering machine. I left a brief message with my phone number, but I doubt anything will happen. By this point I was so frustrated that I couldn't focus on schoolwork, so I decided to clean our apartment. (I frequently clean when I need to let off steam) As I was cleaning I began to hear the teenage voices outside again. This time the light outside had come on and when I peeked out the window I could see that it was the same teenagers with their big wire cutters and they had come to finish the job! The nerve! Thankfully I had brought the bike inside or they would have likely gotten away with it.
In the end I'm just grateful I had the window open so that I could hear them and do something about it before they got away with the bike.

Missing the Balloons

Ever since we lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico during the first few weeks in October I think of the balloons. Alb hosts the worlds largest hot air balloon fiesta during this time and it is spectacular. If you've seen a real hot air balloon up close, or even had the chance to ride in one, you'll know how amazing they air. Now imagine hundreds and hundreds of them gathered together in the same place and that's in the balloon fiesta. People come from all over the world to participate in this. The state has set aside a balloon fiesta field where everyone goes to watch the balloons take off from. You get to be right there by the balloons. Here's a few pictures of my little sister and me at the balloon fiesta.

It is always so great. Since there needs to be 100 degrees difference between the air on the inside of the balloon and the air on the outside, morning and evening are the best time for balloons to fly. So we'd get up at what seemed a ridiculously early time and bundle up for the balloon fiesta. There was always excitement in the air as we hurried over to the field where we would find all the balloons. We'd stop by our favorite vendors with Papa and pick up our green chili breakfast burritos, mini cinnamon rolls, and hot chocolate while mom and some of the kids would stake out a spot with our camp chairs. Then we'd enjoy the balloons. The great thing about the balloon fiesta is you are right there as they lay out the nylon balloons and then fill them up. In fact if you get a really nice pilot they might even let you help with the process. You get to be right there as the balloons take off and pass over you. In case you're wondering how all these balloons take off without running into each other and causing a mess, they have referees of sort. We'd call them the zebras because their striped uniform didn't have to be the boring even stripes and sometimes they would really have zebra prints. But they had their whistles and walkie-talkies and they'd keep everything organized. Then almost as soon as a balloon took off, another would start setting up in it's place. It was great. There were balloons everywhere! :) Here's some pics that I found off the internet. :) All mine are still on film and I haven't put them on the computer yet.
Anyways, as you can see it was great! So that's what it's like in the mornings. After all the balloons have taken off and all that they sometimes have little competitions that the balloon pilots can participate in. One of the reasons that the balloon fiesta is held in Albuquerque is because of what we call the Albuquerque box. The city sits between the Sandia mountains and the mesas (or plateaus). This creates some amazing air patterns. So a balloon can be at one elevation with the wind going one direction, but then go about 10 yards and the air will be going in a different direction. This makes it so that a really good pilot with ideal conditions can get just about anywhere in the city. So as a way for pilots to prove themselves, they have a bunch of different competitions. Some involve picking up a car key off of a really tall poll and others involve dropping bags from your balloon onto a target on the ground. Some of the prizes that the pilots win are cash prizes and others are cars and others are just from sponsors within the valley. All in all it's fun to see. Sometimes they even have mini airshows with planes and cool tricks and stuff. It's great.
Oh and so all that is usually just for the regular balloons, although they have special shaped balloons too. They have a special day for these balloons to fly because their unique shapes make them difficult to handle sometimes. In fact, some balloons were so intricate that they weren't fit for flying and they'd just stay tethered to the ground the whole time. Here's some pictures of the special shapes.
Anyways. So that's the day time. But they even have stuff going on at night. Several times during the time of the fiesta they have what you call the night glow. During this event, all the balloons start setting up at dusk. They get all set up and they tether their balloons to the ground. Then through speakers set up around the field they blast some fun music and the balloons "glow" in time with the music. Whenever we'd go to the field to watch this we would always get glow sticks and dance around (oh the memories!). But since we lived near the mesas, sometimes we'd go to the top and watch the night glow from there. They would broadcast the same music that was at the field over the radio so everyone could enjoy the synchronized glowing. Here's some pics of that. :)
So yeah, the balloon fiesta is an amazing experience and I miss it so much. But maybe Mike and I will be able to save up enough to go next year or something. (I can dream, can't I?) So for those of you in Albuquerque, I hope you enjoy the balloon fiesta for me. :)

Gymnast in training

A week ago I had the opportunity to volunteer my prego belly for doctors to practice their ultrasound techniques on. Don't worry these were real doctors and I was only on the table for 20 minutes at a time. There were 5 of us there volunteering so we would rotate around. There was no risk to me or the baby by doing this, so don't worry about that. Plus I got to see our little girl and they compensated us for our time with a little cash and a really good lasagna lunch. :)
So I had about four shifts of ultrasounding and our little girl wasn't cooperative for any of them. During the first shift she was sitting with her legs crossed indian style underneath her, so the doctors had no chance of determining her gender. Her arms were crossed in front of her as if she was giving us attitude. "Uh uh, you're not gonna get an ultrasound of me that easy," she seemed to be saying. Since she was upright and facing straight out, the doctors fun trying to get the views they needed. Oh and she also was punching a bunch too. I think she was just practicing her dance moves. That'd be cool if she's a dancer. :)
During my second and third shift she was incredibly active. We decided she was doing her gymnast training because she was doing somersaults and flips all over the place. Even the head doctor who was supervising the whole endeavor and who was one of the best at ultrasounds said that she was a feisty one. In fact he finally got a good shot of her heart, but by the time he had clicked his finger to freeze the frame on the computer, she had already moved. During my third shift she moved from having her head on my right side to my left and back to my right in less than 20 mins.
During my fourth shift she was thankfully calmer. This was after lunch and the doctor joked that she was taking an after lunch nap. This time she had her head on my left, but she was face down. They were still able to get a nice profile of her, but she had developed the hic ups! It was so cute to see her little hic ups. After a while she also began sucking her thumb. We could see her little thumb in her mouth and the throat swallowing. So let's hope she's able to use that little trick to self soothe after she's born. As long as she gives it up easier than her uncles did. :)
So yeah, she's moving around a bunch and doing well. I just wish she wouldn't move around so much when I'm trying to sleep. Mike's been able to feel her a few times through my belly, so that's made it even more fun for him to experience it a little. :)

What's in a name?

So many of you have been asking if we have names picked out for our daughter. The answer is still no, but we've found a few that are maybes. If you look in the right hand column there are a few names that are possibilities. Some of them we like better than others, and some are definitely only middle name possibilities. So what we'd like from each of you is your opinion on each of the names. Just rate the names and don't be worried about offending us because, well we won't know who voted what! Also, if you have any name suggestions (please please please) leave them as a comment on this post. :) Thanks and we love ya lots!

Tagged (again... and again...)

5 Things I was doing 10 years ago:
1. Singing and dancing in our high school production of "Brigadoon"
2. Being rather weird in the 10th grade and loving it
3. Enjoying the world's largest hot-air balloon fiesta in the world (takes place in Albuquerque the beginning of October)
4. Planning some incredibly awesome halloween costume
5. Convincing my little brother to wear a dress and getting a pic of it... he he he...

5 Things on today's to do list
1. Get ready to go to conference
2. Watch conference and love it
3. Figure out what quiet snacks I can eat while watching conference
4. Go for a walk with my hubby on this beautiful fall day
5. Figure out dinner...

5 Snacks I enjoy, unhealthy to healthiest:)
1. chocolate frozen custard
2. mint oreo cookies dipped in milk (I can eat a whole bag by myself...)
3. apples dipped in caramel sauce
4. toasted peanut butter sandwich
5. yogurt with granola

5 Things I would do if I were a millionaire
1. Buy a conservative house for our family
2. Start saving accounts for our children's college education
3. Help family members who are having a hard time financially
4. Invest lots
5. Go see a couple Broadway plays in London and New York

5 places I have lived
1. Orem, UT
2. Bangkok, Thailand
3. Albuquerque, New Mexico
4. Manila, Philippines
5. San Diego, California

5 places I have worked
1. Marie Calenders- salad bar attendant
2. Nimrod Hall- kitchen assistant
3. Wright family nanny
4. Kirk family nanny
5. Unofficial baby sitter for Volcano Cliffs ward

I'm supposed to tag 5 people, but I don't really feel like it, so if any of you feel so inclined, feel free to keep this tag going. :)

Loving Nursery

As many of you know we have been called as nursery leaders again. We served in nursery for a year in our last ward and so this is our second time. I love nursery though and Mike seems to also love it. He's sometimes just as bad as the kids because he can't wait to get to nursery and play! :) I love all the things that the nursery kids say and do. One of the girls was playing with a plastic telephone and one of the leaders asked her "who you talking to?" Her response was "Heavenly Father." :) Another time we were looking through the church pictures in our manual with one of the kids. We came to a picture of when Jesus was being baptized by John the Baptist. After discussing who the people in the picture were, this little boy looked up at me excitedly and said "Someday when I'm big like Jesus I'm going to be baptized like Jesus was!" This comment turned into a great little lesson about baptism and why it's important and pretty soon all the kids were excited that they could be baptized when they were 8. I love the little unplanned teaching moments that always come up.
Some funnier moments have come during sacrament meeting. With over 70 kids in the ward under the age of 3, our sacrament meetings are what our high councilmen kindly call "lively." With so many kids we have 3 nurseries. I love to listen to what some of the kids say. One time during the middle of the sacrament prayer I heard a little voice start singing to herself "Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to me! Happy birthday to meeeee-eeee! Happy birthday to ME!" Another time we were sitting in front of a little family. The father was passing the sacrament and as he passed it to his family's row his little boy looks up at him and said "Dad, I think you need to come sit down now. Dad, come sit down. Dad, here's a seat. Come sit down. Mom, why isn't dad sitting down and being reverent?" It was so cute! Later during that same meeting this little boy was playing on the floor. While his mom was distracted with his little sister, he climbed under the bench and came up on our row. He stood up looking quite proud, but when Mike invited him to sit next to us, this boy's face began to look worried. He began searching around for his mom. When he saw her on the row behind us he began to frown and then sniffle a little bit. When Mike offered to help him get to his mom, the boy began to full on sob! It was like this little boy had forgotten that he was the one who had climbed into our row. So Mike picked him up and passed him back over to his mother and he was quickly quieted. The funny this was that after sacrament was over and this boy came into the nursery room, he was more than ready to go play with Mike. :) he he he... go figure. Oh and there was another little boy in the row in front of us who would just sing any little tune he wanted to at full blast during all the hymns. It was really funny, especially since everyone around him was having a hard time singing the actual hymns. :)
Oh and here's some pictures of us during nursery. We have a fun wiggle time routine that we do that involves jumping, walking, tip-toeing and spinning. Here we are spinning. I love the little boys with their arms up like ballerinas. They've got older sisters. :)

I can do it myself!

Yup I can do it myself. Ever since I was a young child I have been...well...ok let's face it, I've been stubborn. As a young girl I was determined to do anything that my 3 older brothers did and despite my petite size I was going to do it myself. I'm sure I said "I can do it myself!" so many times as a young girl that the words are probably still ringing in my mothers ears. This was not always a bad thing, and in fact I think I accomplished a lot through the years through this stubborn determination. Sometimes it's incredibly entertaining (Sarah, Donald and Lesley need only remember the hammock chair), but unfortunately sometimes it just ends badly.
Take last week for example. For several weeks I have been saying to myself that I need to go get a haircut. Unfortunately along with being stubborn I can also sometimes be a terrible procrastinator. So the haircut kept getting pushed aside over and over again. Until one night I got fed up. I went into the bathroom to just trim my bangs so they wouldn't be hanging in my eyes anymore. I reasoned with myself that I cut Mike's hair and do a decent job and I've given some of my old roommates a trim on occasion, so I could just trim my bangs real quick, right? It started out ok, but as I tried to get the wispy look that comes with my pixie haircut, my bangs kept getting shorter and shorter. You might as well know another one of my flaws is that I can sometimes be a bit of a perfectionist, and so I would even out the bangs and then go back and try to make them a little wispy, but then they wouldn't be even anymore and I'd even them out and... well I'm sure you can picture it. Pretty soon I had incredibly short bangs that looked... well awful. Here's a picture of my bangs. So I finally realized that if I kept going it was going to be really bad. So I put the scissors down and made Mike promise that if I ever even suggested that I was going to give myself a haircut, he was to physically restrain me from doing so. Some may ask why be so adamant about it? Well this wasn't the first time this has happened. Several months ago, right before my younger sister's wedding I decided that I just needed a trim and well it ended badly so I went to a professional and got a longish pixie cut done. I'd wanted the haircut for a while, so it wasn't a tragedy. Thankfully I haven't gone too far in my own hair cutting, but if I try cutting my hair now I'm not going to be left with any hair for a stylist to work with. So although with many things I can do it myself, when it comes to giving myself a haircut, I simply cannot.
So this post is my way of committing myself that I am never going to give myself another haircut, no matter how tempted I may be! And yes, you may all feel free to laugh now because, well this is all rather humorous and I've been laughing at myself too! :) Oh and check Mike's post on 9-29 for my new even shorter pixie cut. Thank heavens for people who know what they're doing and can fix my mistakes!

Girls Night

There are many things that I love about being here in Wisconsin. The frozen custard (kinda like frozen yogurt.. ooo! so good!), the cheese, our fabulous ward and especially my girlfriends! A group of us first year med students wives have started a weekly girls night. So while our husbands are hard at work with their studying we get together and do something fun. We've done crafts, movies, frozen custard, harvest fairs and walks and I just love the fun that we have! Since I'm doing online classes I don't really have much socialization (well I talk to myself a lot, but I don't think that really counts...). So having a group of incredibly fun and spunky gals to hang out with every week is fabulous! Our group fluctuates every week depending on everyone's schedules but it's just nice to know that I can count on them for an incredibly fun evening and they'll totally understand when I'm just having one of those days where I just need a girlfriend to talk to. :) Oh and they're pretty much amazing. :) I've been going to a bunch of the rummage sales that they have around here and looking on craigslist.com to try to get some decent baby equipment. I found a high chair ($25), changing table ($25) and bassinet ($15) that are all in great condition and as you can see I got them for a great price. The people I got them from said they had only been used for one child each, so they're really not beat up or anything. And the high chair I got is the same one that one of my sister-in-laws had that I had been drooling over. So I'm quite pleased with that. Ok, back to my girlfriends. I have been looking for a crib for a decent price, but haven't had much luck. I've found a few on craislist.com that I was interested in, but when I called the people about them, the crib had already been purchased by someone else. Or I would call them and they would insist that they're not selling the crib without the used mattress with it. Well no thank you on that! So I've been out of luck. Well my incredible girlfriends were at a rummage sale last weekend and they found this classic cute crib that was for sale. The lady was trying to sell it for something like $40, which for a crib that's only been used for one child and is in good condition is not bad. So they called me and asked if I was interested (I was studying for a test and so not able to go with them). I was excited about it and then a few minutes later they called me back saying they had talked the lady down to $20! Sweet!!! So my girlfriends delivered this cute white classic crib to me and it was only $20! That made me so happy! :) So yeah, not only are they fabulous friends, but they look out for me too! :)
I need to get a picture of all of us, but as this hasn't happened yet here's a picture of two of my girls (Necia on the left and Kjirstin on the right) before our walk through the park last night. We're doing a pampering girls night this Saturday while the boys are at priesthood meeting, so I'll be sure to get pictures then. :)

:)

I just thought I'd give you a peek of what I look like in the morning as I'm getting ready. Sorry it's a little frightening, but I always get a kick out of what my hair does in the morning, so I thought I'd share the laughs with ya'll. he he he... :)

Just Cuz

So we were walking out our door to head off to church a few weeks ago and we saw that some of the trees on our block were starting to change colors. So on impulse we grabbed the camera and climbed a tree. :) As we were taking a few quick pics of each other one of our neighbors was walking out to her car and when she saw us she said "Well that's something you don't see everyday: a pregnant lady in a tree!" :) And the funny thing was I hadn't even thought twice about it.
Since then the trees have continued to change their colors, but unfortunately we've seen the sunshine less and less. In fact, in the past three days it's gone from summer to fall (complete with 40 degree weather at night!). I actually don't mind it because I not melting hot all the time now. It's actually quite comfortable for this prego lady, but poor Mike is freezing all the time. :) But it's beautiful and although it does signal that dreaded winter is one step closer, I'm still enjoying it. :)