Oh that kid!

First he grabbed at my cheek and left a huge scratch mark with his unnaturally fast-growing dagger-like fingernails.

And a couple of hours later he started to snuggle into my chest. I thought it was cute. But then he bit me. Right on my chest!

Two hours later there is still a little red mark and it's sore.

Little jerk. Good thing he's so dang cute...

My favorite Idol (this time around)

I think this was my favorite song when I was a kid. It just resonated. I think I must have been 10 or 11 and I thought it was the greatest song ever.

David Cook sang this for 80's Night on American Idol a couple weeks ago and I fell in love all over again.

There are a couple of Idol contestants this season that I'm rooting for, but he's my pretty clear favorite.

The surprise has been revealed

Early this week I decided that I wanted to clean the house as a surprise for Brent. I had long ago gotten the phone number for his best friend by going through his phone's contact list, so I called Ian, who was a willing participant.

I told Brent I was going to play with the girls on Saturday, and when Ian called to invite Brent to play with him, Brent thought that was a great idea.

As soon as I dropped Brent off at Ian's house, I went to my sister's house to drop off Felix. In exchange, I grabbed Andy to help me do some of the cleaning. I don't know how good of an idea that was, except that for some reason having company helps me concentrate better.

We ended up cleaning for about 7 hours before my mom took Andy home and to pick up Felix. I kept cleaning for another hour.

The surprise was complete. The cleaning was not. And although I didn't get everything done, I did get a lot done. Brent was pleased and extremely relaxed from spending the day playing video games with his best friend.

So after spending the late evening with our friends Jason and Char, we brought Felix home, put him to bed, and then talked till very late.

The thing is, marriage is difficult. Part of this is because people naturally communicate differently from each other - at least at the start. Brent and I have had a rocky time, mainly because we're just two very different people. We argue and we get our feelings hurt and we talk it out and we make progress.

I am fortunate to be married to a person who absolutely wants to be a good husband and father. He wants to get better. He wants to build an eternal marriage with me.

I know that there are no guarantees, and that our life together will very probably contain many difficult times in the years to come. But I know that I am meant to be with him. This is where we belong. And it is enough.

So no fanfare on two years together. Just an assurance that this is where we need to be, and a calm joy knowing that we both want the same thing.

Spouse Tag

I thought these were some fun questions. Don't worry Shauna... I won't tag you. ;)

How did you meet your spouse? My cousin Shauna met him online and after determining they weren't compatible relationship-wise, she decided she needed to set him up with me.

Where did you go on your first date? We drove from Orem to Logan to trade cars back with my brother.

How long have you been together? Two years and about 3 months.

Who eats more? Brent's got a bigger appetite, but I definitely eat more sweets.

Who said I love you first? I have no idea.

Who sings better? Brent has a wonderful voice, but he goes off-key more easily than he will admit. I stay on key better. So it's a toss up. I think we sound great when we sing together.

Who is smarter? About what? My nerdy husband is quite smart, but I'm no dummy!

Who does the laundry? I do most of the time, but he helps out a lot.

Who does the dishes? Brent does almost exclusively. Leaning over the sink for more than a minute kills my back.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do.

Who pays the bills? Brent does almost exclusively because all our money is kept in his account and paid with auto bill pay.

Who mows the lawn? Neither.

Who cooks dinner? Brent does most of the time because he enjoys it more.

Who drives when you are together? Brent does almost exclusively. When I drive, the seat belt buckle digs into my hip but it doesn't when I'm a passenger.

Who is more stubborn? Probably me. But I'm also the first to apologize.

Who is the first to admit when they’re wrong? Oh, that would be me.

Whose parents do you see the most? Mine, since we live in their house. Brent's mom died a year before we met and we only get up to northern Utah to see his dad every couple of months.

Who kissed who first? Brent kissed me. I told him we should "preempt the mistletoe" and he practically attacked me.

Who proposed? He did. 15 days after we met. We were doing a very good job of not watching Monty Python's Holy Grail at the time.

Who has more friends? I do, by far. Brent's not nearly as social as I am. He has a few very close friends, but I have a pretty large social circle including some very close and some close and tons of not so close friends.

Who has more siblings? Brent. You would think that with my 8 siblings I would win, but he has 12.

Who wears the pants in the family? I do about a lot of things (most?). Brent is really a "go with the flow" kind of guy.


I tag anyone who is willing to answer it. Shannon, Lisa, Andrea, Tran, etc. But not Shauna. Never Shauna. :)

... and Pain

I stubbed my toe with the ingrown toenail. More than 24 hours later, I'm still cringing whenever anything touches my toe.

Felix has a super awful diaper rash. Poor kid cries and cries and cries whenever his diaper is stinky. I'm thinking his poo might be acidic. You're welcome to offer suggestions, but I think I've heard everything by now.

Tonight I went to a movie with friends, and to let Brent have some time alone after dealing with a fussy baby all day, I took Felix with me.

It didn't work out so well (I think I spent a grand total of about 10 minutes sitting in my seat), but everyone loved him anyway. Here is photographic proof (I don't know the girls sitting on the floor with him... they just thought he was cute and wanted to play with him for a few minutes after their movie got out):

Notice he's not sitting down. Poor painful baby bum. :(

Easter fun

I know there is a lot to be said for the meaning behind all the celebrations for religious holidays. And in my heart, I think about those meanings all the time. They are never far from me. I think about the Passover, the atonement, the resurrection, and I think about my savior Jesus Christ.

That being said, I like the celebration part too.

On Friday my brother and his family came to visit and pick up some Easter dresses. I feel quite chagrined to admit that I was supposed to make those dresses but my mom ended up doing the majority of the work. She did a fantastic job, of course. She's such an amazing bailer-outer.

We had lots of fun hanging out with family that evening and Saturday morning, and by noon we were off to our next adventure.

Brent's family had a big late lunch planned for up in northern Utah. It was a mostly pleasant drive and we got there within half an hour of it starting (even though we left an hour later than I wanted). The lunch was held in the veteran's hall in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere - the same place we had an open house for our wedding two years ago.

The kids ran around looking for Easter eggs, Felix crawled around enthralled by all the people and getting filthy, and we had lots of fun talking to everyone. When the lunch came to a close a bunch of the clan decided to go see a matinee movie, and Brent and I picked 10,000 BC over Horton Hears a Who. It was horribly entertaining. Dumb movie, but well made.

After the movie we headed back to a brother's house to hang out for a couple more hours. Brent played with some nephews on the Wii and I watched Martian Child (good movie) and Felix just kind of wandered around. After that movie was over, someone mentioned a "little kid roller coaster in the basement" so we went to look. This is what we found:


On Sunday we got together for a family dinner with my side of the family. We had fun hanging out with everyone and eating yummy food.

Last night Brent and I were goofing off while we were getting ready to go to sleep and as we turned toward each other, his elbow and my nose connected. The flash of pain knocked me back and I put my hands over my face and kind of yelped at Brent. He hadn't even noticed or felt it! I laughed at him and then I felt liquid on my hands. That was the biggest nose bleed I've ever had! The whole time I was holding the kleenex tight to my nose I was laughing, and it did stop after not too long. I guess it was worst in terms of volume.

Anyway, today (and this past weekend) has been great. In short: the weather is beautiful, Felix is cute, and I love my husband.

Two Years

There's nothing like being married to the guy you are meant to be with. There is nothing better than knowing you're in the right place.

Happy anniversary, Honey. I love you with everything I've got.

Weird dream #3

This morning's dream was a bit on the disjointed side.

I was watching a movie with Felix, my dad, and three girls (grown-ups), one that I knew a little bit.

Felix fussed a little bit and started coughing, and one of the girls started yelling at him to shut up. I snapped, got all up in her face, and started yelling at her, all the while having her yell at me and Felix for ruining the movie.

That started a huge feud, and for some reason, when she brought over a 2-liter bottle of homemade salad dressing, I knew she had put hair in it. I started pouring it out over the sink, straining it through my fingers, and every time I caught a hair I would show it to the girl that I had known because I didn't want her to side with the other girl.

Then for some reason we were taking the girl I knew to the airport.


There was more, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was or why. So odd. I guess I'm feeling a bit protective of Felix lately...

Weird dream #2

This morning's dream had something to do with a creepy old guy who wanted to marry a young princess so he could inherit the kingdom. Something like that. I know, not very original. The princess had run off with the guy at first, saying that she wanted to marry him but then she changed her mind and everyone was super happy about that.

Anyway, Felix is cute. You already know that. But I really do think he's adorable. Good thing, too, because if he weren't I would have already given him away. Man, being a parent is time consuming! I can't even imagine what it would be like to have a gaggle of the little droolers wanting my time. Kudos to all you moms out there who do it and make it look easy. I know on the inside you're dying of sleep deprivation too, but I swear you can't tell!

Weird dream #1

(I actually have a lot of really weird dreams, but I don't normally remember them long enough to record them. I'm eventually going to write a book about one series of alien dreams I had a while back. In the meantime, I'm going to record my dreams here whenever I remember them so other people can laugh at them as much as I do...)

There was a giant really old school that I went to (as in visited, not attended). It was very strange. I was with some old friends of mine and we were wandering around. I got the sense that one of my friends attended the school.

One evening after classes were done, we decided to do some shopping in the tunnels underneath the school. They reminded me of small side streets in Europe - little tiny shops stuck in the side of the walls.

When we got to the bottom of this very steep and curvy corridor, there was a bookstore that was going out of business. It looked like the owner had stockpiled all the very best books for his own use. We went past and there was one more business - a bar-type restaurant. We were afraid it wasn't still open because by now it was super duper late at night.

The bar/restaurant was open, and out the back of the room it was really open - out onto the grass below the school. We looked out and it was now daytime and the grass was covered with carnival-type rides and booths.

I saw what looked like a couple of old-fashioned cars on the grass in a circle under a built-in canopy and I thought it was a place to eat. There was also a set of seats like one of those old trains that goes around fairs (you know, that take the people on a small tour) that I didn't want to sit on. We went and sat in one of the cars (by now it was just me and one friend) and it started moving. It turned out to be some sort of carousel.

When it finished, all the Hispanics shouted out, "Viva South America! Viva Cuba!" Apparently they had built the ride.

I went to find Brent and Felix. Felix was asleep in his swing somewhere and Brent was wandering around. There was a water slide and a fun fountain to play in below the carousel. This whole thing was on the side of a giant not-too-steep hill. I looked back up at the school and there was a big round building (kind of like a water tower) that had a giant sign on it. The sign said, "ONLY TWO CREEPS AT A TIME", meaning that at any one time there were only two creeps attending the school.

As I was on the upper part of a small incline by the fountain and water slide, some lady was putting her two small children on that upper part so she could walk up the hill. One of the children was a baby and he crawled over to my leg and started pulling himself up. I said, "Wrong leg, kiddo," got myself free, and went to find Felix because I thought he would really love playing in the fountain.

I got distracted because I had to go to the bathroom, and that's when I woke up.

Another week in paradise

Not really. I mean, it is just Utah.

Truth is that I really like where I am right now. See, for those of you not in the know, we live with my parents. We have our own space, but still get to use the main house when we need. This has been a huge blessing for us during the past two years and I appreciate it immensely.

I'm still trying to get things organized though. I think that'll end up being a life-long battle for me. Sigh.
I have to tell you a funny story. On Monday evening last week I had a hard time sleeping. Weird for me because I can usually sleep anywhere, anytime. So I was in the living room watching tv in the dark and just trying to relax. All of a sudden, there was a big crash and the light came on. I totally jumped out of my skin!

There is a little shelf between our two main doors (one into our living room and right near it is the door into the rest of our little apartment). There are a bunch of hooks for jackets, and we keep knick knacks on the shelf part. Apparently, one of the nails on the shelf that attaches the tooth thinghy to the back came out, and the weight of the shelf took the whole thing down. On its way down, it caught the light switch (there are two for the living room lights, so it was off in the up position), breaking the light switch plate in half.

Once my heart got back to a normal speed, I thought it was super funny. I mean, talk about random!

There was one sad thing though. On that shelf we had a small glass replica of the Bountiful Temple, where we got married. In the fall, it shattered into many pieces. It wouldn't be quite so tragic, but the lady in our ward who makes them (she did the glass-blowing herself) retired for health reasons and I don't think she could make us another one. :(

Lazy me, I haven't put the shelf back up. The glass is all cleaned up, but the shelf is just resting on the rocking chair with a pile of jackets. I have no idea why I have such a hard time putting things together sometimes. Maybe it's that if there's an easy project I still need to do then I don't have to start on the difficult projects yet. Who really knows the reasons for procrastination?

Fixed

The first pic is Felix and the cookies. The second is his new favorite place to play. He just crawls in and throws socks. Not sure why, but he loves it. So cute. :)


So, we got my new hard drive in the mail today and Brent hooked me up. I'm back at my computer. That's a good thing, because as you can tell by the previous two posts, I don't post so well from other places. Actually, I posted them on two different days. When I looked the next day and it still wasn't there so I tried again. That's why it's there twice. Please accept my apology.

Anyway, I'm still getting used to the new operating system. This has all been very frustrating. Partly because I have now lost everything that was on my hard drive (all my pictures!!!!), and partly because I don't feel like this should have happened. I feel very victim-like. My cousin-in-law very helpfully tried to see if he could do any salvaging, but it was no luck. Sigh. Thank goodness for free blogs because otherwise I wouldn't have any pictures of Felix at all. That would be so tragic!

Here's a summary of the past couple of days...

* um, dead computer finally fixed.

* Felix threw up most of the day Sunday but was fine by the evening (he cut his fourth tooth on Monday. coincidence?)

* Mom came home from church and told me I had been released. Apparently Brent and I are no longer ward missionaries. We still haven't heard anything officially.

* Sunday afternoon I drove to Logan with Mom and we hung out with my brother Jared and his family and my brother Nathaniel and his wife Lina. It was very pleasant. On the way home I talked to my sister Sarah for most of the entire trip. I really like speaker phone!

* Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I babysat for my sister Anne. She had orientation and needed someone to watch her youngest. It was nice to not go in to work, but I'm glad to be able to sleep in late again.

* Tuesday evening Anne and I went to the cannery. My first time. It was actually really nice. Cute little old people and some volunteers. Anne paid me back for babysitting with food storage, so now I have 7 boxes of long-term food storage in my living room and another 6 in my car. I haven't had the energy to figure out where to put them yet. Maybe I'll do the Mormon thing and store them under a bed. hah!

* Brent finally did our taxes and he thinks we owe $4500. I'm just a little bit freaked out.


That's about it. I've missed you!

A commercial I really like

My friend Lis shared this with me and I like it a lot. It's almost a pet subject of mine. There are a lot of comments and some people seem to think that Dove is hypocritical, but I don't think so. Advertising is such an inaccurate science, and I appreciate the effort.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

A commercial that I like and some other stuff

My friend Lis sent me a link to this commercial and I really like it. It makes me think a lot and I agree with the sentiment. On the original link, there was a lot of negative feedback because people were saying it was hypocritical for a company like Dove to advertise this kind of thing. I disagree.

Last night after I bit poor Felix, we put him to bed and he slept. That was a really nice thing. Especially since he slept till this morning about 9:15. Then when he woke up, he didn't cry. He was just hanging out in his crib waiting for us to come and get him. It was such a change to see him so cheerful!

We're going to try to recreate the day, but I won't bite him again unless I get desperate. hah!

When we finally got him up, he was soaked through his sleeper, so I changed him and then let him crawl around in his diaper.

Apparently, it's a bad thing to leave your cookies where a little kid like Felix can find them. I'll post pictures later today from Brent's computer.

I bit my baby...

Yesterday my computer died. That was a really sad thing. Brent bought a new operating system to see if he could get it to work and it doesn't so he has to do some digging to figure out what's really wrong. Apparently it's not even recognizing the hard drive and I know the hard drive isn't bad because it's almost brand new.

Anyway, tonight I was playing with Felix while we were watching some TV. I've had fun pointing out different features and body parts and getting him to point to them - you know, teaching the names of things. One of the parts of our routine is pretend chomping with our teeth and saying, "teeth!"

Well, I was doing that chomping thing and Felix got his finger too close. I actually bit down on his finger pretty hard. He started crying and had to go over to daddy and cuddle for a bit. I felt so bad.

He did forgive me about 15 minutes later because he came and cuddled with me. Brent put him down to bed a few minutes later and instead of crying for a long time like usual (normally, about 20+ minutes of hard crying, often so hard he throws up), he was asleep in less than 2 minutes. It was a beautiful thing.

How many of you moms out there can say you've bit your kid? So hard you made them cry? Yeah, I'm a mean mommy.

The old, the new, and the blackmail

We had a family birthday last week. It was nice to hang out with all the family-type people.

Felix tried really hard not to fall asleep in his makeshift high chair. Sadly, he succeeded.







I decided to try a new format. Not for any specific reason, but I guess I wanted to make it more my own. I'm still working on it, so you may see lots more changes over the next couple of weeks.

I still can't get over how cute he looks when he falls asleep in the swing. It has been an absolute life-saver for us and I can't imagine life without it.



Felix has a new hobby. Can you tell by looking in the picture what it might be? I'll give you a hint... it doesn't matter if we roll it over the top or under. Yep, that's an entire double-roll's worth of TP on the floor.




I debated with myself over whether to post this pic. But still being annoyed at having to use floor toilet paper for the next couple of days, it would seem my better judgment (or maybe my being a nice mom) lost out.