Updated Photos

Okay, okay. I know, I know. I've been totally slacking in the picture department. Here are some updated pictures and video to keep you happy for awhile. Enjoy!

"I'll give her a HAH and a HI-YAH!"

Reading with Grandma Lawanna and cousin David

I'm such a big boy, I'm sitting up on my own!

Playing at Ikea with mom, Ashley B., and Grandma Lisa. What a ham!!

My hairs are growing. Can you see them?

A different trip to Ikea with mom and Grandpa Scott.
Grandpa shared his frozen yogurt with me. So yummy!

I love my bouncy chair!

Girls' Night Out

My mom and I went to Eclipse and had a great time. I can't wait to see it again (without a potty break so I can see the whole thing).

Published with Blogger-droid v1.3.8

First step: Baby Idol, next: The World!

Everyone vote for Carter in Mix 96.9's Baby Idol Contest!


Click here to vote!

Catching Up

So Sunday was the series finale of Lost and I'm sad that it's come to an end. I won't post any spoilers for those who may not have watched it yet. Just know that there better be some kind of tell all special that reveals all the little interconnections and "easter eggs" (as I like to call them). It would be nice to get a little more back story on some characters like Libby since we never really found out why she was in the mental hospital or if she was actually a clinical psychologist (I kind of always felt like maybe she was lying about that as part of her crazy). Anyway, I'll be rewatching the whole thing now and taking copious notes to find all the easter eggs. Here's a little tidbit for you: did you realize how many times the number 23 popped up? In season 6 we discover what 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 means (sort of) and that 23 is Jack's number. One of the times it popped up was the gate number flight 815 departed from. Coincidence? There's no such thing on this show. If you decide you want to be crazy like me and rewatch the whole series, pay attention to stuff like that and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Now back to reality...we've been kind of busy (hence the lack of recent posts).

Our truck was stolen from Leland's work parking lot at the end of April. The most common response to our telling people this was, "AGAIN?!?" Yes, again. For those of you who don't know, Leland's truck was stolen from his school parking lot 2 years ago; we'd had it for 5 months. A few weeks ago Pima County Sherrifs recovered it on the outskirts of Tucson. The scratches/dents to the exterior, a huge dent in the top of the cab, all the electronics stolen, and a broken/cracked heater core brought the damages total to over $10,000. Needless to say they are going to be paying us the blue book value and we'll be buying a new one.

Not only was there the damage, but the thieves put around 1200 miles on it in the week or so that they had it. It also had Mexican money and cookies inside when it was found. I guess we'll never really be sure how many times it crossed the border, but I think we can safely say that it did without presuming too much.

On to some happier business, our little guy, Carter, is growing like crazy. He was 16 lbs at his 4 month checkup and at 5 months and 1 week I could no longer button the bottoms of his 6-9 month outfits. That's right, my 5 month old child is wearing 12 months clothes. I don't put too much stock in the age portion of the sizing, but he does seem to fit right into the weight/length bracket they put on the labels.

He's also eating real food now. He struggled at first with how liquidy the cereal had to be, but he's got the hang of it now and he really enjoys eating his apples, peaches, and pears with a little cereal mixed in. He's such a good eater and not very messy anymore. That first try was SO messy.

Cutest smile ever!

Here's a video of him I took when I was trying to have us take a nap together. We never did get that nap.

Song of the Week

This post was inspired by Emily...She's been posting songs and other little things that have been sticking with her and inspiring her, which inspired me.  (Do you think I could use the word "inspired" one more time?  Ha!  Just did.)

Anyway, the first time I heard this song was at our friends', Terri and Dave's, house.  Their daughter, Corinne, did her senior pictures at the temple and the photographer put together an AWESOME slideshow/collage/video (I'm not quite sure what to call it 'cause it was so cool!) and used this song.

And over the past couple of weeks it's just kept popping up.  On a radio station I don't normally listen to and on my cousin's blog playlist.  I think it would normally be a little too much pop for me, but something about it reminds of that feeling you get when you're watching a fireworks show at Disneyland or something.  Like magic is real and anything is possible.

So without any further ado...Here's Owl City with Fireflies.

A Crazy Couple of Weeks

We've been so busy lately, and I'm finding it hard to stay awake (unless of course I'm in bed where it's been fairly difficult to fall asleep, guh!).  At least Carter is sleeping longer at night.  He's always been great and slept for at least 6 hours, but in the last week I've been trying to cut out his middle-of-the-night feeding and just let him sooth back to sleep with his pacifier.  It's been working almost every night.  So hopefully soon he'll be used to it and sleeping 8-9 hours without my help.

So here's a recap of my busy last couple of weeks:

Two weeks ago we had Carter's baby blessing and I just want to say how grateful I am for the priesthood and for my husband.  The blessing Leland gave Carter was so beautiful.  My mom looked at me afterward and said, "All right, no tears!" to which I replied, "No, I totally cried," and she said, "Not you, the baby."  Our little man was so handsome in his little white outfit.  We were able to transcribe most of the blessing so I'm putting that into his baby book.  I hope one day he'll look at it and realize what a special blessing it is to have the priesthood in our home.  Lawanna was able to have a family member do Leland's blessing in shorthand and then transcribe it; it is really great to be able to read that now and feel the strength of the priesthood and that blessing.

After the blessing we went back to David and Lawanna's house for a lunch/family gathering.  Thanks to Lawanna for opening up her home to not only her family, but mine as well.  And thanks to all those who helped me with food for the lunch.

We didn't have much the week after the blessing.  Sam's 14th birthday was the following Sunday.  Goodness, how time flies.  I still remember when my mom and dad got the call from our social worker at LDS Family Services letting us know we were going to be getting another brother.  And not just any brother, but a full blood brother for Daniel (I don't know that it's common knowledge, but my brothers are each others' biological siblings.  They have the same birthparents.).  Sam is our resident goofball and I love him so much.

Here's where things start to pick up a little bit.  Mom and I have been slowly working at the grandparents' house in preparation for the young women in the ward to do a service project at their house.  They're going to be coming in tonight with some Relief Society ladies to do some deep cleaning.  Mom and I have spent our last few Saturdays over at the house clearing stuff (ok, I'll say it, JUNK) so that it can actually be cleaned.  Last night, Aunt Linda joined us and really dove in.  She took the bull by the horns and we got so much more done (Thanks, Aunt Linda!).  There was so much stuff that should never have moved from California (and that was 15 years ago).  I'm not kidding, we found a coupon with an expiration of 1984!!!  I wasn't even alive when that coupon was printed.  In addition to battling the clutter, we had to battle the mighty will of Rudy.  He seems to think that we shouldn't throw away Fuller Brush cleansers that are 60 years old.  Really, Rudy?!?!  If you haven't used it in 60 years, do you really think you're going to use it now?  Not that it would even work if you tried using it.  You might just give yourself cancer from all the crap that's in those things that we didn't know about in the 1950s.

I've also had quite a few appointments/activities to make it to in the past week.  Here goes it:

• Last Thursday - Leland kept Carter at home so I could go to our ward's Relief Society Royalty Dinner.  The theme of the dinner was to remind us that we are children of our Heavenly Father and what that should mean to us as we go about our lives.  It was so lovely.
• Last Friday - Initial visit with dentist & optometrist appointment
• Saturday - Grandparents' house
• Sunday - semi-restful, you don't really get to veg all day when you have a baby
• Monday - Back to the dentist for a cleaning.  My mouth hurt the whole rest of the day (but that's my fault for not having gone for so long.  I won't make that mistake again.)  And then the chiropractor, I'll be going back next Monday and probably a lot of Mondays after that because I'm so tense and I keep whacking it out carrying around a giant car seat and baby.
• Monday night - Leland helped my dad and Daniel lay laminate wood flooring in Dan's room.  The contents of Dan's room have been in the living room for 2 weeks.  After we'd worked on that for awhile, we headed over to Dairy Queen for a little break and to support Angie's family in their March of Dimes/March for Babies fundraiser.  Here's the link to their family's fundraising site.
• Tuesday night - Back to my parents' house for more flooring.  The men got the room finished and moved all of Dan's stuff back into his room.  Yay for reclaiming the living room!  Mom and I were at the grandparents' house with Aunt Linda working our butt's off.
• Wednesday (today) - First thing this morning I was at the dentist for a filling.  At some point, I need to go by the optometrist's office to pick up my new contact lenses.  I think I might also have to meet someone to sell some baby gear that I posted on Craigslist.  Later today I will head over to help my mom in the last efforts of preparing for the service project at the grandparents' house.  Grandpa will be taking grandma to dinner so that she isn't frantic with all of those people in the house.  Leland is one of the Webelos (Cub Scout) leaders in our ward so his Wednesdays are spoken for.
• Friday - My coworker is having a Cookie Lee jewelry party.  I don't know if I'll buy anything, but I haven't seen her new house so I think I'll go and take the baby so everybody can see him.

Also coming up in the next 2 weeks: my annual checkup, Carter's 4 month checkup, and a consultation with an oral surgeon about having my wisdom teeth removed.  I guess this was just meant to be the month of many doctor's appointments.

Thought for the day:  Now I know how moms get everything done; they cut out the crap that doesn't matter, take care of the necessities, and spread as much love as they can while doing it.

Our First Family Photo

A few weeks ago we got with our wedding photographer (who I love) to do some baby/family photos. They turned out AMAZING! Really, it's hit or miss with babies and some of them are not good because you can't really tell a baby to look a certain direction or well, not cry. After an hour of photos he started crying and was just done with the whole thing. A week later we were able to see the proofs.

I really do love this photographer. See his website here. And don't be surprised if you see some photos of me and Leland in his galleries. Anyway, why do I love this photographer?

• He's personable and really easy-going.
• He doesn't mind doing a location shoot.
• His studio is in a really nice office complex for doing some outdoor photos.
• He has some really good ideas for different poses.
• His prices are reasonable, especially since he ends up giving you a disk of all your photos and doesn't make you pay for proofs as long as you do an order.
• He does everything with digital which means he takes WAY more photos so your chances of getting good photos and not just okay photos is increased. (We got a disk of over 900 photos from our wedding. With that many, I actually had trouble picking out the ones I wanted.)

So here are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

These were great, he looked right at me and I think it totally made the shot.

I love this little man's smile!

Identical to our engagement photo: stairs, jeans, black shirts.