The Jooniper Blog

One Year Old

2011-11-27T16:34:00.000-08:00

Anyone still out there? It's been months since I blogged, but here's the general theme since my last post:

Work keeps me busy. I've been traveling every other week or so for various work projects- this won't be the norm, it's just for this season. I'm ready to be a homebody again. I've spent a lot of time in New Jersey (Princeton area) and Manhattan and even got to see some old friends.
Kenny is the ideal stay-at-home dad. He's happy and feels "more appreciated and productive as a stay-at-home dad to two kids than he did as a public teacher to 100+ kids". On top of it, he does almost all of the cooking, cleaning and dishes- and yes, he even does most diapers these days. What an awesome husband I have.
Daniel is hilarious and bright and exhausting. He's learning his letters (slowly) and will happily tell anyone he meets his full name ("Daniel Jatson Toonz"- still working on that K sound) but mostly, he's perfecting his already impressive video game skills. Seriously, this kid can navigate a Wii Mario Kart course on his own, or get a Mario Sunshine sprite, and this afternoon he found me my sword on Zelda Skyward Sword- in a place I didn't even think to look.
Camille had her first birthday yesterday. She's babbling WAY more than Daniel ever did, can correctly identify Mommy, Daddy, Brother, and Puppy, and is still a few weeks off from her first steps (by my best guess). I think she has finally resolved whatever digestive issues she had her first year and she eats most anything we eat these days.

We had an awesome Thanksgiving week: we got to see my parents here in houston AND kenny's parents and sister in Fort Worth. We went to the zoo and an animal park and the kids loved seeing their cousins so much. We're SUPER excited to go up to Utah in December for a few days for my company Christmas party- my sister Becky is flying down with her Tyler (just a few months older than Daniel) so Kenny and I can take the trip with just the two of us. It will be the first overnight trip we've had together without kids since before Daniel was born.

Here are all our pictures from November. Others can be found at our online album.

Big Brother

2011-09-23T18:48:00.000-07:00

Daniel loves to tear apart our couches. It drives me nuts. So when I saw him bringing couch cushions from upstairs to our front entry way, I asked him to put them back. He said, "make bed for baymill!" (His name for Camille has evolved from Baby 'Mille). She was happily crawling nearby, so I decided to see where this was going.
He assembled two couch cushions, two pillows, his blanket, and a baby blanket, to make them a little double bed:

Camille quite enjoyed it:

He even "read" her a book (which she tried to eat):

Call me cheesy, but I think the biggest joy of parenting for me so far has been seeing my 2 children show unfeigned love for each other. The second Camille starts crying, often before I even realize she's upset, Daniel starts making this weird goofy noise in an attempt to make her smile instead- and the majority of the time, it works. He's been calling her "sweetie" lately (thankfully he hasn't started on "fatbaby" yet). Camille lights up when he comes to her and cries when he walks away from her. He helps her sit down when her chubby legs are tired. She plays with his hair and blows filberts on him.
I tried to find one or two good photos of them together, and found so many sweet ones, I don't know how to narrow it down- this is not even half of the cute ones showing their relationship.

The Failed Haircut, illustrated

2011-09-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

I try to do the boy's haircutting at home, to save money. I figure I might as well practice it while Daniel was too young to care if I screw up.
I was spared haircuts for the first year and a half, because he was bald as a cue-ball for the first year and hardly had enough for a cut up until he was 20 months old or so:

The first haircut was rough. I took him to a pro so I could observe how it was done. Oh, how I loved those curls... but they were just too long. Sadly, they never grew back:(

I'll be the first to admit that his first few haircuts at home weren't great:

But they got better over time. The last haircut was the best yet- I actually didn't feel ashamed of it at all;)

We waited a bit long between haircuts though, and Daniel was looking pretty wild:

He was NOT happy once the process started. He kept asking "Why?" and I'd say "because your hair was getting wild" and he'd say "I WANT wild hair, I no like nice hair". Amidst continuing mutterings of "I tan't let you do this, mum", and one wiggle at a critical point, I accidentally hacked off half his bangs and some important sideburns. I tried evening it out, but this was the final product:

I tried to just let it be and let him go wash off and play a bit but.... he looked like a goober. There's no other word for it. Goober.
I called my sister Becky for the advice I knew I'd get: "buzz it". I love Daniel's curly hair and NEVER thought I would buzz it, but... it had to be done.
Knowing how wretched our first haircut of the day went, I found Daniel and told him I needed him to come back, this time for a totally new and different SUPERHERO haircut. He perked right up. I buzzed him first with a 5 but he looked shaggy, so we went down to a 3. He still squirmed but the anticipation of looking like a SUPERHERO did the trick. Finally:

(this was my first "buzz" experience- don't worry, I went back and evened it out afterwords)

Showing off his superhero awesomeness:

He looks... ok. His ears stick out. But he's convinced he looks like a superhero, so my plan worked there. We'll be avoiding buzzcuts in the future, but it's nice to know its an option.

First Day Of Preschool

2011-09-09T19:13:00.000-07:00

First, this is the first "back-to-school" season since 1989 that Kenny has not gone back to a school (aside from two-years spent on a mission for the church in montana). He seems quite happy and free:) I think he is doing a truly fantastic job as a stay-at-home dad and I love that we are all at home during the day now. He brings a smiling Camille in to my office whenever he gets her up from a nap, just to smile at me for a few minutes while I work. It makes me happy:)
Second, I completed my first solo sewing project! Daniel needed a new nap mat for school and I decided to be crafty about it (I thought it would be thriftier, too, but.... turns out sewing projects are expensive). Camille was quite the helper:

With some last-minute, late-night sewing machine troubleshooting from my mom (hurray for FaceTime) I finished it just in time. Daniel loves it:

And it's a little easy to transport than his old beat up "nap mat" (aka, 10 dollar Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag from walmart).

It may be Kenny's first year NOT at school, but it's Daniel's first year AT school- even if it is just a preschool. The last year and a half, he's done a Mother's Day Out program 15 hours a week (at the time it was necessary for childcare while I was working at home and Kenny was teaching, though I definitely think it's been fantastic for Daniel's development). This year, at the same place, Daniel is officially a preschooler.
He was oh-so-excited about going back to school:

Though once we got there, he got a little shy (this is a new thing for him- he'll hide behind my legs and say "I... I.. I can't talk, I'm too shy".) This lasts until you ask him to show something off (a sticker, a tshirt, a toy, an imaginary super hero outfit.... whatever is available) at which point he brightens right up and tells the stranger all about it.
Anyways, he seems to be loving preschool, and we're admittedly enjoying some quiet time around the house (well, as quiet as it is with a grumpy baby around.)
On top of her fantastic crawl-scoot skills, Camille can now pull herself to standing. We discovered this for the first time when I went to get her from a nap (in her still-in-highest-position-and-totally-unsafe crib) and found her thus:

Needless to say, we lowered the crib. Now that she knows how to stand, she's been constantly frustrated- either frustrated that she isn't currently standing, or frustrated that she is stuck in standing position and can't get back down, or frustrated that we've put her in her crib to sleep when she'd rather be standing. It's been a tough week for all of us (mostly for Kenny though, while I'm working). She's permanently exhausted, and her napping schedule is out the window. Which leads to my FIRST EVER child-fell-asleep-in-the-high-chair experience that my sister Lori has had such fun with:

But it is fun to see her interact so much more with the world around her

She's also hit her first bit of separation anxiety, just a little- but only for daddy. If I take her from him, she cries for him. It hurts me more than it should- believe me little girl, I would love to be with you fulltime but things sometimes don't go as planned.
She is still a smiley, cute baby, though, so I guess we'll let it slide. Also, she is reminding me more and more of my sister Lori, which makes me happy. Everywhere she goes, people stop us and comment on her cuteness. Apparently today at the mall, someone even asked to get a picture with her! To be fair, her outfit today was +4 cuteness (and check out those teeth):

Anniversary!

2011-09-05T17:23:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we celebrated our 5th anniversary. Kenny, fantastic husband that he is, planned a fun little overnight trip to austin with the kids to celebrate. It wasn't anything big, fancy, or free from children, but it was still a nice little break.
We hit the Bluebell Ice Cream factory on our way to Austin. The parking lot has hugo silos on one side, with labels identifying the deliciousness inside:

Camille quite liked the hat she got:

By which I mean, she liked to eat it:

The tour was great, as was the free ice cream scoop at the end (I got the nuclear yellow cake batter with colored sugar cookie dough, which the person serving us warned me was really REALLY sweet, thinking that would dissuade me- ha!)

Then Kenny took us to a sculpture garden, which seemed random to me, but I like that kind of stuff so I didn't question it, aside from the fact it was 100 degrees out. When we got there and he expained he planned it into our trip because he wanted it to remind me of our honeymoon trip to Victoria and the Butchart gardens. Isn't that just so sweet? Plus the garden had a few "romantic" statues (aka people making out in bushes) that added to the romantic-osity of the trip:

And for the kids, a giant chicken:

Then we checked into the hotel and had a blast swimming in a pool just by ourselves.

Then we high-tailed it to downtown Austin to see the 1.5 MILLION bats who live under congress bridge all take off for their nightly hunt. I had really wanted to see this, and kenny went along with it, and we got there at just the right time with a few minutes to spare... but unfortunately, Daniel had to use the bathroom and I thought we had a few extra minutes so I took him and ended up missing pretty much the whole thing. Kenny did get it on camera though:

Even though I only caught the tail-end of it, it was amazing. Felt straight out of Planet Earth of something.

Then back to our hotel room. Kenny had specifically requested and paid extra for a suite that had "separated rooms" so we would have a private bed and daniel and camille would get the other room with the hide-a-bed and a pack-and-play. Unfortunately, "separated" meant they just had a desk in between them, so we spent our "romantic" anniversary night in plain sight of Daniel, who gushed for hours about his "magic bed" that changed from a couch:

So much for privacy, but such are the adjustments parents must make. At least Daniel's cute.

Kenny didn't have much planned for the following day, so I googled for stuff to do in Austin and we found Barton Springs Pool, a pool formed out of a natural spring. The outer rim of the pool was improved for swimmers, but the floor of the pool was the actual spring bottom, natural rock, seaweed, deep holes and all. The water was COLD and the ground was super slippery but it was a blast (and only like 6 bucks for the whole family). I'd absolutely recommend it for anyone in Austin. Though it isn't an ideal kid pool- there are shallow areas but they are so very slippery that we just gave up and sat down and let Camille splash her heart out:

In other news, my baby is VERY FAT:

(at her 9 month checkup ther other day she was 90th percentile for weight and 10th for height)

All in all, a fantastic trip, only a little over 24 hours away from home. While part of me wishes we had a trip by ourselves (which look like we may be getting in December- 4 days without kids for my company Christmas party in Utah), in a way I'm really glad the kids were there. We all had a blast and I can't think of a better way to celebrate the family we've built together in the last 5 years than including the kids in the celebration.

20 pounds

2011-08-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

Kenny and I have set some weight loss goals, with prizes and everything. My goal? To lose 20 pounds. If you need a visual representation of how much fat that is, here you go:

Camille happens to weigh exactly the amount that I want to lose (seems fitting, considering it's her fault that I'm carrying this extra weight).

Every once in a while you can see her deep inner shame that she let herself go:

For my own weight loss goals, I'm hoping to lose the roll around my midriff:

And do some general toning:

So we've been doing a lot of wii-fit lately.

Some yoga:

And trying to eat right:

(on a side note, this was our most recent attempt at solids- she LOVED it but as with every other attempt, she had hours of digestive discomfort (aka screaming) afterwords:()

So far, I lost two pounds, then gained 4 back. Camille has done nothing but gain and doesn't seem worried, so I feel ahead of the game ;)

July

2011-07-24T18:13:00.000-07:00

I spend about 9-10+ hours a day at a computer now, so you'll understand why the blog has fallen by the way side. Once I'm done with work for the day, I'm ready to not touch a computer again til the next morning.
Still, lots of fun happening around here.

Camille is crawling! Well, scoot-armycrawling. She's definitely mobile.

Watch out world! She's also broken out her first tooth. She and Patches continue to be the best of friends (sometimes Patches babysits while I work):

I FINALLY met a real wild Texas Armadillo. I've looked in every bush we've driven past for the last 3.5 years, and finally found one! Actually, Kenny saw it while driving away from our development, he called me at home, and I ran down the street in my PJs with a camera and start looking through the bushes till I found her. Her name is Francine.

She was pretty fearless- I had to scare her off the very busy road. I got within a few feet of her and probably could have touched it her I wanted to. It made my week.

Kenny planned the best birthday surprise EVER! First, knowing I needed a new swimsuit and how hard it is for me to find one that fits, he ordered one for me a few weeks in advance- and it actually fit and I feel amazing in it! He had arranged for my wonderful brother Kevin and his wife Candace to watch the two kids so Kenny and I could go to Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Galveston for a whole day by ourselves.
It was the first time since Daniel was born that we have spent more than 4 hours with each other, kid-free. We had a BLAST! Great waterpark- the slides were not notable but that "lazy river" (which we actually called "the ambitious river") is a LOT of fun. We were worried about weather, and sure enough the whole drive down was an awful storm, but literally the moment we pulled into the parking lot, the rain stopped, and it ended up being sunny enough we got pretty burnt despite sunblocking every hour.
I don't have a picture from our day, sadly, so instead here's Camille in HER new swimsuit:

I think I've finally gotten proficient at cutting Daniel's hair. He still wiggles a lot so that's tough, plus he has crazy cowlicky hair, but I'm no longer ashamed of his home-done haircuts (And think of the money we'll save!):

Unfortunately, we've been passing around an awful cough. Camille sums it up pretty well here- goopy eyes, goopy nose, crusty face... all-around miserable:

Her little cries are hoarse and SO pathetic sounding now! She and I have been dealing with it for 3 weeks or so, Daniel caught it about a week ago, and Kenny finally succumbed today. No fun.

Lots of other pics up at our June and July albums.

The New Job

2011-07-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

This is kind of old news, but for those who haven't heard, I got one of the jobs I had been shooting for- so much happiness here. I started full-time at a great consulting agency mid-June as an Implementation Consultant (the same work I did at Omniture before Daniel got too big, and what I've been doing as a contractor for the last 18 months or so.) And yes, this is the agency that has the #nerdshirtfriday competitions :).

I had been looking at 4 or 5 different positions but had pegged Keystone as a favorite early on. I've been watching them hire one industry leader after another since January and happen to have become friends with a lot of them over twitter. One thing I love about my industry is that it is FULL of smart people. This job will also provide the best income we've had yet in our marriage, so... woohoo!
I wrote a blog post- mostly geared at my non-analytics friends, actually- describing what my industry (Web Analytics/Tracking) is about and how it really benefits the average internet user. If you have a free minute I recommend giving it a read- especially since it touches on current legislation that will affect all of the internet.

Working from home with the whole family here has been great. Kenny no longer has to be out the door before 6 am- which has changed our family dynamic a lot. We wake up together, eat breakfast together, then I go to my home office (formerly known as "grandma's room") while Kenny watches the kids. We get to eat lunch together then by the time I'mn done with work at 5 or 6 we're all pretty eager to get out of the house. Kenny's been amazing about watching the kids, though I am a little gratified to see that even he needs a nap sometimes when the kids go down (or sometimes when they haven't ;)).

My first week of work was, well, exhausting. I went to meet a couple of my coworkers in Austin for a couple days (and enjoyed a baby-free night in a hotel), then on the 15th dove into the work from my home office. The first project was a lot to handle, but it was using Google Analytics, which I've been itching to get more experience with, so I'm happy. We've fallen into a good routine now and I'm feeling good about how everything fits together now. I'm working with some pretty big names and will take a day-trip to Florida next month to meet with some of them in person.

I still hope someday to get to be "just" a stay at home mommy, and we definitely hope someday Kenny will go back to teaching. But for the foreseeable future, we feel this is the best path for our family.

So, now that we have a bit of stability in our life, our plan is to save every extra penny possible and start preparing our house so we can move back to the Pacific Northwest. I don't expect the moving plans to start rolling until next spring, but it's nice to know we have a goal to work towards.

Children Grow

2011-06-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

I suppose it has been a month since my last post. It seems I would need to post twice a day if I wanted to keep up on all the cute happenings here, while nothing of real note has happened this last month. Kenny's last day of school was last Friday and we're now in a brief vacation mode (I'll post job news very soon, I promise).
Daniel has adjusted to being 3 and I don't want to strangle him daily any more (we had a few rough weeks there but now we're back to the only big issue being his overall crazy hyperness and inability to focus/sit still). He's absolutely obsessed with iron man, is getting really into books, and loves to play with Camille.
Camille is in "wonder-baby" mode- if I could freeze her in this age I would. She's smiley and interactive and beginning to be playful but can't destroy the house yet. She is now 6 months old and grows chubbier by the day (she's in the 80th percentile for weight and the 10th percentile for height). She is also sitting up well on her own now:

Our new activity of choice is going to the Waterway Splashpad in the Woodlands. Daniel runs amok in the fountains:

While daddy and Camille chill:

Afterwards we go to Grimaldi's for pizza. Good times.

Daniel and I had fun in a rainstorm (we've been in a severe drought so every rainstorm is a huge deal).

Pretending to be a puppy:

Being his crazy self:

I took a gazillion pics of my sweet chubby baby:

(the rest are on my smugmug).

We spent a day at a friend's house and Camille napped (twice) on the patio furniture (look at those thighs!):

Daniel loves to draw (sun-daddy and sun-camille, he was working on drawing a sun-mommy):

All in all, lots of fun times. The rest of the month's pics are up for May.

Teacher Appreciation

2011-05-07T10:57:00.000-07:00

Today marks the end of national "Teacher Appreciation Week". I'm afraid my husband, who teaches 9th grade algebra, is not feeling very appreciated.

When Kenny graduated in Mathematics Education in 2006, he could have gotten a job in pretty much any city in the nation, usually with an extra stipend, because the need for High School Math/Science teachers was so high. A degree in Mathematics Education leaves few job options aside from teaching, and we knew he would never be "rich" as a teacher, but everywhere we had lived, teachers always had good benefits and there would always be a need for math teachers, right? Plus, he's always felt it was his calling; he enjoys teaching and he is good at it.

He started teaching in 2007 at a Title 1 school about 30 minutes from where we live in Spring, Texas. About 80% of his school is "economically disadvantaged" and about 93% are minority. Kenny has to work at the metal detector stations every other week. The kids are not allowed to have opaque backpacks- they must be either mesh or clear, for safety . This is a very different school than the ones he and I attended.
But it is a "magnet school"- kids must apply to get in and maintain certain academic standards. Because of its demographics, the pay is better than in other nearby districts. His starting salary was significantly higher than it would have been in, say, Utah, where we were moving from (though if you consider the healthcare options it starts to look less shiney). We thought he'd teach there for the first few years, then hopefully we'd move elsewhere- the options at the time seemed limitless.

His kids are good kids, and he genuinely cares about them. Lots of them don't care about their education and aren't given any reason to care by their family and culture, but a good number of them DO care and go on to great college careers, often with substantial scholarships. This school has resources allocated to it to help those kids who do actually have it in them to excel.
Still, when his district's average passing rate for the TAKS 9th grade math test is 68% (kenny's kids were well above that last year, but still lower than you'd hope), you can see how it would be hard to maintain job satisfaction. With that background, you can see why Teacher Appreciation matters so much.

It's very important to remember this when discussing public education: this is NOT a free market, folks. If Kenny wants/deserves a raise, he cannot simply walk in to his manager and ask for one. If he has a problem with benefits, he can't just go work at the public education system down the street. If he does a really good job, he doesn't get a promotion. His education gave him the skills to be a great educator but his other professional options are limited without going back for another degree.
Educators can't sell more of their product or up their marketing efforts if they need more "revenue". They can only plead with lawmakers who in turn have to appease taxpayers.
For the record, Kenny does not have access to any teacher union. If any union approaches him near school property, they can be prosecuted. Texas is a not a union-friendly state. Which means if we have a problem, we have no voice.

In 2009, as part of the federal stimulus package, Texas received 3.2 billion extra federal dollars for its education department. Rather than using that money to boost the Education Department, the state took nearly the exact same sum out and used that money for everything but education (including for the state "rainy day fund"). In the end, Texas educators didn't see any of that extra money.

Under current proposed budgets, up to ONE THIRD of Texas teachers might be losing their jobs. That's 100,000 teachers.

And yet there is a billboard on 1-45 that says "Want to Teach? When can you start?" (can you think of anything less sensitive and more insulting to the thousands of teachers who planned and prepared for their career only to be laid off this year?)

We considered taking time off during this education "crisis" to get Kenny a master's degree so he'd be more eligible to teach in a different state (fun fact: in Texas state, getting a Masters would raise his salary a whopping $500 a year. That wouldn't even begin to cover student loans). As a teacher, he'd be eligible for government aid in getting another degree- but those "loan forgiveness" programs require him actually working for 5 years after graduating.

Last year, when Kenny applied at a better school closer to home, he was told he was one of 1100 applicants. For two open positions. Needless to say, as a relatively new teacher, he didn't get the job. Suddenly that Master's Degree doesn't look like such a good idea. We could be saddled with a whole lot of debt and no job options.

Add to this the fact that in the last two months, Kenny has been told all of the following by his employer:

His school, which currently has 850 students, is expected to grow to 1100 next year. But, since they are essentially bankrupt, they can't hire the appropriate amount of teachers, so Kenny's class size is likely to go from 25 to 40 students (there isn't even room for that many chairs in his classroom), and he's losing his prep period (teaching 6 periods a day instead of 5, without any extra compensation).
His $3000 stipend he was getting for teaching a "high-needs" subject is being eliminated.
The medical benefit premiums are going up again. Apparently the current $1200 or so a month it would currently take to insure our family (with a $2000 deductible!) isn't enough (it would be $2800/month for the "good" coverage).

(Don't worry, we don't pay that much, we go through a private third party. Fun fact: Maternity coverage simply does not exist if you're not on a group plan. My 5-month-old baby was paid for out-of-pocket and we STILL saved money from not going through Kenny's school district).

My sister's children in Oregon attend an elementary school that has is losing 20 million from their duget this year. They've already eliminated bus routes so the school now only has 3 buses for roughly 500 students. They've shortened the school year 5 days and have early-outs every Wednesday to save on costs. Many schools throughout the country are cutting extra-curricular activities (also known as "those things you can't be standardized-tested on and therefore don't get funded").

And then, the most recent bit of news:

There is currently legislation in the works in the Capitol that would cut teacher pay and rights even further, eliminating "minimum pay" for teachers and allowing districts more flexibility in deciding on layoffs and pay schedules. I understand why the legislation is being considered- making sacrifices to keep teachers from being laid off altogether. The education budget is such that they have the option of either laying off hundreds of thousands of teachers, or laying off a few less teachers while reducing pay and rights to the remainder. Both options stink.
Kenny's district hinted that if the bill goes through, teachers in his district might no longer be paid for teacher inservice days- which accounts for about 15% of my husband's salary.

When all is said and done, Kenny might be making about 13k less next year for teaching than he did when he started 3 years ago.

On a lighter note, a joke:
What's the difference between a teacher and a large pepperoni pizza?
Answer: The pizza can feed a family of 4.

Kenny has officially let his school know he won't be returning next year. He loves teaching but not enough to be a martyr to it, especially not with two young kids to support. We are very lucky that leaving public education is a choice that works well for us- he hasn't been laid off, and I happen to have some great job opportunities right now. He will be a stay-at-home dad and hopefully feel truly appreciated, and I'll work from home fulltime.
I will be very disappointed, though, if he never returns to teaching. The world is losing yet one more young, passionate teacher. But first, our state and our nation need to get some priorities straight. I won't pretend to know what the solution is, but something has got to change.
Next time you feel the strain of taxes is too high or that teachers are asking for too much, please think of teachers as individuals, with goals and families. Let your legislators know that you want education to be a priority.

Month in review

2011-05-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

Sorry for no posts lately. I keep hoping I'll have happy job news to announce so I can let you all in on what our plans are, but we're still in limbo- turns out the interview process is long (but still looking hopeful).

In the meantime, in the last month:
Grandma and grandpa came to visit:

We went to the wildlife park again:

C and D worked on their reading skills:

I worked while Camille napped (all done with contracting, yay!):

Dyed easter eggs:

C learned to sit up:

Ate real food for the first time:

Made a lot of funny faces:

Got really into watching TaleSpin with her brother:

Got all dressed up for easter:

Daniel turned 3 (kenny made this cake for his actual birthday):

(and this cake, for his party):

Loves his soccer ball he got as a present:

Made a very full house for his iron man party (7 toddlers=parents=yikes)

Got really dirty having fun camping:

The rest of our April pics are in our smugmug album:

My amazing husband

2011-04-02T16:41:00.000-07:00

Remember this?

Kenny turned it into this:

This last month has been VERY busy work-wise for me and Kenny has been amazing about watching the kids. I know it's hard after coming home from a hard day of work, where he is very under-appreciated, to immediately take kids off my hands so I can work, but he does it every day without complaint.

He has done 95% of the dishes and 90% of the cooking in the 5 years we've been married (and the majority of the cleaning). He takes out the garbage twice a week without being asked, makes sure the car always has gas (he refills it 9 times out of 10), makes fabulous cookies and pizzas, and plays with the kids like he's a kid himself. He can build, he can repair, and he just installed two new ceiling fans, of his own initiative. He answers things honestly and with thought ("Does this dress make me look fat?" ... "turn around.... hmm, I bet you could find something more flattering"- I actually LOVE that kind of honesty and know how risky it is when your wife is moody and sometimes overly sensitive). He doesn't take offense at pretty much anything. He is completely "without guile" (what an apt description). And he really rocks a beard.

(You may be wondering "if he does all that, what do YOU do, Jen", I wouldn't blame you. I change diapers, take care of kids between 10 pm and 7 am, clean bathrooms, vacuum stairs, and work 10-20 hours a week while dangling children on my knee. But even I concede I don't feel like I do nearly as much as he does- he's hard to keep up with.)

Hooray for Kenny!

Family secrets

2011-03-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

Camille's ears wiggle when she nurses.

Daniel enjoys watching Angelina Ballerina.

It took until Camille was 15 weeks old for Kenny to change his first poopy diaper.

Flying into Salt Lake city last week with snow on the ground, I nearly teared up. It felt a bit like coming home. (*gasp* I can't believe I said that.)

The task before me

2011-03-03T13:04:00.000-08:00

You may have wondered in my previous post where all Daniel's toys are, if there aren't any in his room (except for Otter sitting on his bed, but, well, Otter has special privileges). Well, I'll give a hint. They aren't on his toy shelves in the front hallway anymore-

Now looks like this:

And they aren't in my bedroom, the car, the living room, or Camille's room. I have removed every last toy from around the house, and put them all in the guest bedroom (aka Grandma's room.) Then put this on the door:

No, I don't mean it as some sort of severe punishment for Daniel, though I did warn him that whatever toy he did not pick up (ie: all of them), he would lose and have to earn back (he wasn't even phased in the slightest, I don't think he'd even miss the majority of them). Mostly, though, I realized we need to go through a toy detox. Want to see why? K, take a deep breathe, this is gonna get nasty.

And to be honest, I don't think the pictures even do the mess justice. Each bucket/bag in the picture is full of smaller, mostly unrelated toys. Most of the mess was that way before I started bringing in toys from other parts of the house. Daniel goes into the "toy" room and doesn't play, he destroys. Plus, we have a RIDICULOUS amount of toys. We've been the happy beneficiaries of many many hand-me-downs and gifts, and while most of D's favorite toys come from the hand-me-downs, it's just too much for one little boy all at once. A good amount of them are no longer age-appropriate, and he THINKS he likes to play with baby toys but really, he just likes to spread them around and stick them anywhere I'm going to step in the middle of the night when coming to Camille's room for a 2 am feeding. He's neat enough that I think he hates hanging around messy toys, so he ignores most of his toys (especially in his bedroom), but since many toys don't really have an appropriate home yet, there isn't a way for him (or me) to "clean them up". So even the toys he loves, and would probably make good use of, get ignored or used as cannon fodder because there is no comfortable space for him to play with them.
I've tried to organize them so I could store some and/or give some away, but every time I tried before I got anywhere they were a huge mess again. So now he has no access to them and I can work on the pile a little bit at a time, and hopefully teach my son (who in all other aspects is kind of a neat-freak) about storing his toys. Then every few months I can cycle some out of storage so he has "new" and age-appropriate toys.

Kid's rooms

2011-03-03T12:01:00.000-08:00

At long last, I think I can say the kid's rooms are "done". Daniel's room:

And a reminder from august of what the details look like:

A huge thanks to sister-in-law Jeanette for the dresser!

Camille's room:

And a close-up of of that last one:)

A Very Sad Day

2011-02-20T12:19:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, we had a very hard week, culminating in one very sad event. Daniel and I were watching a movie inth e guest bedroom (aka "grandma's room") just after waking up, and I had let Patches out of her "cubicle" where she sleeps, thinking she'd come chill with us. Well, Daniel closed the door on her so she was stuck in the hallway with free access to Daniel's room. She hasn't chewed anything for a while so I've been less vigilant, but usually we would never let her near that room without supervision, and here is why:

For those who don't recognize that animal, that is my most beloved Pengwy:

I got him in 3rd grade and he was my very best friend for probably 5 years, I became obsessed with penguins (I knew all 18 species latin names at one point, and planned on being a penguinologist for years), and I held on to that penguin (and my obsession) far longer than a "cool" teenager would have. There are few things in our house that had more sentimental value to me than that penguin did. It was hard enough to let D play with him.

I was not on speaking terms with patches for a few days. We love her to pieces, she's a VERY sweet dog (this is "rodeo month" at school so she's had to put up with Daniel sitting on her, "riding" her while shouting "weehaw!", and she hasn't complained once), but this.... this took the cake. We've made sure she once again ALWAYS has a bone at her disposal so she has an OK outlet for her chewing urges.

(PS I cannot believe my mom let me go out of the house with my hair like that! That pic is from my first plane ride, down to Utah to see my brother Chris)

Silly Faces, pt II

2011-02-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

I've had a request for more pics of the baby, so here goes:
Every morning we watch a movie as I wake up and prepare myself for the day (D is awake at 6:30, so the movie usually buys me an extra hour or so of rest). Lately, he's been requesting to cuddle with Camille:

(D really likes me to take pictures of his feet. No idea why)
He also loves to make her smile by poking her nose:

Here are the two of them just before church this morning:

Chubby legs:

We don't have a lot of good winter gear so when he had a few freezing weeks this was our one option:

And many silly faces from both children:

Lastly, fun with daddy's Nerd Bazooka and gun:

Bayou Wildlife Park

2011-02-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

We had an absolute blast today at the Bayou Wildlife Park about 90 minutes drive south from here. We went with a group of friends from church and I think I can say it's my favorite such activity we've done in Houston- and it was cheaper than the zoo.
They had petting zoos and pony rides then we all hopped and a tram to hand out feed to the animals of the park- ostriches, emus, camels, buffaloes, exotic cows and deer... it was incredible. This video sums it up wonderfully:

Oh look, a gigantic exotic long-horned cow! Watch out, an ostrich behind you! But don't let that distract you from the bison you can feed and touch!

We were greeted by two emus at the front gates, tapping on our windows.

Kenny has decided if he's ever going to be a supervillian or dark lord, he's going to have emus and ostriches as his minions. They're creepy.

This was the "cookie monster" emu. (correction, this is an ostrich, not emu)

We got to feed a LOT of exotic cool animals:

Daniel got a ride a pony:

Camille got to "ride" a deer.

And meet her goat counterpart:

I quite enjoyed the peacock display:

And we ended up with one tired boy:

Honestly, we had so many great pics and videos but I don't want to post them all here. Check out our online album for a lot more plus other pictures from this month.

Happy Noises

2011-02-04T21:53:00.000-08:00

Camille is now smiling and has these cute little gurgly giggles:

And yes, Daniel is always that whiney. It's.... wonderful.

Exciting big plans

2011-01-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

We might be looking at some really big changes in our life soon. It started with Kenny having some time home over the holidays and us realizing not only how much we love having him around but also how much HE loves being somewhere where he is appreciated. His job satisfaction is a bit low right now (don't get me started on his district's passing rate on the most recent finals). So anyways, that got us thinking- maybe now would be a good time for him to take time off to get his masters. In Texas, having a masters would up his salary a whopping 500 bucks a year (*eyeroll*) but if we ever want to move to the NW (which we very much do) then he practically can't teach without one. So we thought maybe he'd take two years off, get his masters online, and I'd work full time (remotely) for a short while while Kenny was home to help with the kids. And since we won't be geographically tied anywhere, it would also be a great time to move.
So I put a few feelers out into my industry (For those who don't know, I'm a web analytics consultant- kind of a cross between javascript programmer and online marketer) and was very pleasantly surprised that not only is there a good job market for me, but I've got a lot more earning potential than we ever thought. So for now it may just be kenny is a stay-at-home dad (though still getting his masters- you never know what will happen in today's market) and I may be the breadwinner for a long while.
So it's pretty much official, Kenny won't be returning to his school next year (hallelujah) nor does he need to apply at other local schools. We'll probably put our house on the market in June and as soon as it sells, we'll most likely move to somewhere in the northwest... no idea where, yet, though one of the jobs I would love to have is located in redmond (I swear I don't MEAN to follow my sister Lori around, it just happens).

And since every post needs a pic, here's Daniel the helper- we went to the store just for strawberries we were supposed to bring to a playgroup activity, and we got one of the mini-karts that Daniel loves to push. I figured I'd just carry Camille the whole time, but Daniel was adamant about her belonging in the cart, just like when we go real shopping, even if her carrier is about the same size as the mini-kart. Daniel was thrilled to be so grown-up and did a good job of driving gently.

So different the second time around

2011-01-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

Mothering two, thankfully, has been easier than I thought it would. Still difficult, but not like I anticipated. The first month was rough mostly because nighttimes with Camille made me too tired to have patience for Daytimes with Daniel. But she's a great sleeper now (8 pm-6 am with only one short wakeup around 3 to eat) and I'm not feeling overwhelmed anymore.
Part of it is Daniel has hit a spurt of independence. I LOVE it. He can take himself potty (which reminds me, I need to go clean the bathrooms. Again). He can open his car door and climb into his seat by himself (which is fabulous since I'm usually putting Camille in on the other side- if only he could buckle himself in, too). The other day I gave him some toys and I *gasp* went to the next room over and sorted laundry by myself (well, by myself with baby Camille. She doesn't require much supervision though). It was amazing! That said he still has a ton of energy and is as exhausting to keep up with as ever.

I can't believe how different this baby is than Daniel was.

First, I don't remember ever being in awe of Daniel's looks. Oh, he was certainly adorable, but also a bit doofy. Even from the very beginning, he just made you smile. See exhibit A (from the same age as Camille is now):

Well, that's not entirely fair. He was actually very cute:

Still is pretty cute and doofy:

But this baby girl is just so freakin pretty. I can't get over it. (Mommies are allowed to be braggy and completely biased, right?)

She looks so like Baby Daniel, but like a prettier, female version of him.

Kenny was kind of... well, indifferent to baby Daniel. Oh, he wasn't a bad dad. Very dutiful. He just didn't get very excited. Newborn baby Daniel was mommy's thing, Daddy took care of everything else. Once Daniel got older and more interactive Kenny got more excited about fatherhood and is of course an AWESOME daddy now.
Whereas this time around, Kenny is completely smitten from the start.

It's adorable. Maybe it's because he knows now what good times lie ahead. Maybe it's because she's such a sweet little girl. Maybe they've got some magic connection like me and my dad. Whatever it is, it's so sweet.

Daniel has light, evenly colored blue eyes, just like Daddy. I think they're beautiful.

Camille has dark eyes with a ring of light in the middle, more like Mommy:

Daniel was very easy going and low maintenance. I had an overabundance of milk and nursing was really easy. Camille, on the other hand, takes a bit more upkeep. She tends to be very gassy, and for the first time ever I've had to put some serious effort into keeping up my milk supply (it randomly died this week but I think I've resurrected it). Last week she was outright colicky. I'm not complaining; she's not a harder-than-average baby, I don't think, but she's not as easy as Daniel.

Last time, within a month of giving birth I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight (but definitely squishier all the same). The weight just fell off without any effort on my part. This time, I lost down to about 5 pounds above my pre-pregnancy, then gained 5 pounds BACK. I may have to actually, like, diet or exercise or something.

Some things never change...

2011-01-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

June 20th, 2008

December 27th, 2010

May 2nd, 2008:

December 24th, 2010

Tell me a story

2011-01-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

Camille likes to always be sitting up. I think I need to talk to the pedi about reflux. I woudlnt' say she's a hard baby, but she's not a super-easy baby like Daniel was either. Definitely a bit higher-maintenance.

Anyways, I was holding her up this morning, probably something similar to this:

But I needed to use the restroom, so I propped her up on the couch and told Daniel to keep an eye on her. I come back to see this:

(I swear, Daniel DOES wear clothes... just seems he only does interesting picture-worthy things when in his undies. To be fair, he's in his undies right now because he took himself potty all by himself today and couldn't get the pants back on. And yes, he is convinced one cannot potty with a shirt on. The happy news is he has decided to be potty-trained again. We only had about one week where he thought making a mess of himself was a great way to steal attention back from the baby. Glad we're over that. Anyways.)

In other news, Baby Camille LOVES grandma:

Funny Faces

2010-12-19T18:55:00.000-08:00

Daniel refuses to give me a straight-up smile anymore. Well, that's not true, I caught ONE on film as a "before" pic for his haircut:

But most of the pics look like this (the "after" pic):

So yesterday at lunch I tried to work a good smile out of him, and these are the results:

(this one is his favorite, he does this ALL THE TIME)

Finally, Kenny tickled him to get this:

Of course, Kenny wasn't that much better:

Camille also loves to make some fun faces. For such a pretty thing, she sure can make some UGLY faces.But her favorite is this cute little pursed lip thing, makes her look so dainty:

Then she undoes it with faces like this:

"Baby 'Mille"

2010-12-19T18:42:00.000-08:00

Life is crazy with two kids, so there won't be as many new-baby update posts as there were with Daniel.

(Yes I'm aware I'm breaking pretty much every SIDS guideline there is, but she doesn't actually sleep in the crib yet, she was there for just a couple minutes while I sorted clothes in her room).

Baby Camille is such a little sweetheart. She's gained about a pound and is "fleshing out" a bit. Her legs don't look so much like bent hot dogs anymore, and her round little belly cracks me up.

She still sleeps during most of the day, but is definitely still figuring out this night thing. We're very very tired.

Still, she rarely cries (just lots of grunting, goat and angry duck noises) and we feel very blessed to once again have been given an "easy baby".

More pics up at our december album.

We also got the professional pics back this last week from Zafirro Images (the same lady that did my maternity pictures did a free set of newborn pics too).

And in case that wasn't enough newborn squishy baby for you, I uploaded a video of her being a boring but cute newborn:

Our kind of Christmas

2010-12-07T15:28:00.000-08:00

The baby's arrival put off our plans for decorating for Christmas, but we finally did get our tree up:

It's our standard red-and-gold christmas tree (and yes, it's an obviously fake tree), with a few additions. See if you can spot them:

A closer look- we have a few of these:

A couple of these:

And Two or three each of these:

.
All topped with one of these:

Kenny bought a bunch of the little candy tins from hot topic and ornament-ized them. I really like it, I hope to add to our collection each year. Daniel likes to get near the bobomb and pretend it is blowing him up. Very dramatic.
If you want to send any nintendo-themed candy tins our way, we're accepting donations (you can even keep the candy).

A few pics

2010-12-04T18:37:00.000-08:00

Just real fast, I wanted to share a few new pics of baby Camille. We're actually going this weekend for her professional newborn shoot (same photographer that did the maternity photos for free is doing a newborn shoot for free) but I wanted a few pics at home, similar to some photos I took of Daniel at this age.
My external flash on my camera died:( so I wasn't trying for anything too fancy, and played with a lot of camera settings so some of them came out funky (plus I no longer have photo editing software), but I just wanted to show off her cuteness:

The whole album is up at smugmug.

Introducing baby Camille!

2010-11-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

Well, my next post for thanksgiving day (the day I hit "full term") was going to be "place your bets on when this baby comes"... but that's the day my water broke:).
Introducing baby Camille Loraine Kunz

7 pounds, 2 ounces. 20 inches long.

Camille was a name suggested by my sister Lori that really grew on us the last few weeks. Loraine is my aunt's name (and my sister is a Lorilynn), so the name is attached to two of my favorite people (and is a beautiful name besides).
Elanor, the name we HAD been leaning towards, was meant for a hobbit child, and this baby is no hobbit, she's just too dainty.

She's a VERY mellow, sleepy baby. She has a dusting of dark hair (much more than Daniel ever had), very dainty feet and hands, and is just very pretty, if I do say so myself. I wish I had more pictures of her with her eyes open, she just looks so dainty.

The story:
My water broke at 4:15 pm on thanksgiving. I prepared some for the delivery, we ate our meager thanksgiving feast, then we waited anxiously for contractions to start before finally giving up and going to sleep around 11 pm. I woke up with contractions a few hours later and we called over the midwife and my "birth team" around 2 am.
We chose to do a homebirth for various reasons. One, since we have no access to maternity coverage (though our regular insurance would cover complications if they arose), it was the cheapest way to go. But really, I believe that the hospital is somewhere you go when something is wrong... and there isn't anything medically wrong with a low-risk labor. I felt completely relaxed and in control and comfortable. I've spent years researching it and felt that it would be the safest and smartest route for us (fortunately, Kenny agreed without needing to be convinced). I may write a post another time with details around choosing a homebirth and why it isn't as risky or crazy as it sounds, but for now... on to our story.
In attendance were my midwife Chris, her apprentice Danniele, and my friends Cristin (who acted as my doula) and Marissa (who lent her support and took pictures). Daniel was asleep upstairs the whole time (in the morning, he went to spend the day at my brother Kevin's- we are SO grateful he was somewhere we didn't have to worry about him).

Chris took my temp and listened to baby's heartrate and everything looked healthy and normal. A huge part of a midwife's job is to foresee any problems so we can take appropriate steps (including heading to the hospital if necessary), but my pregnancy and labor were pretty straightforward.

I got through the first contractions by leaning on the couch. In between, we chatted and laughed. I didn't have any internal exams after my water broke, so I can't tell you how quickly I progressed. Around 2:30 am I got into the birthing tub we had set up in our kitchen.

The water felt wonderful and the tub was obviously designed with laboring women in mind. Things definitely got intense, I made lots of funny noises ("lalalalalala ooooooooooooo"), but never felt out of control. Around 4:05 am I felt the urge to push, and Camille was born into water at 4:17 am.

She was SO quiet and sleepy when she came out. Apparently this is very typical of water births- it's a smoother transition for them- but she's been quiet and mellow ever since. She didn't want to nurse at first, she was too sleepy, but she latched really well about an hour later and seems to be a good nurser so long as she's awake enough for it.

This labor was SO different than Daniel's. For one, the second my water broke I spent every possible minute on my hands and knees to make sure she got in the right position- she had been hanging out sunny side up and I did NOT want a back labor like I had with Daniel. It worked, and I didn't have that horrible back pressure the whole time. In between contractions I could regroup, something I didn't have the first time. I had a very minor tear, just 3 stitches- again, SO much better than Daniel's labor.
This entire labor lasted for less time than I spent PUSHING with Daniel, and you can tell- I'm not nearly as physically exhausted and became a functioning human being much faster. Anyways, it's a GOOD kind of tired:)

After I was stitched up (and while others cleaned up the kitchen), Camille and I took an herbal bath in the clean master bath which she seemed to really enjoy:

After a few hours, we realized that the grayish tinge around her mouth wasn't going away. She'd pink up while on the oxygen my midwife had brought, but then go gray again if we took it away. Midwife told us that cyanosis (gray-mouthed babies) can be a sign of heart issues, and we knew my midwife's O2 tank wouldn't last forever, so we decided to head to the hospital.

I'm a little bummed that after such a successful homebirth we ended up paying the hospital money anyways, but I like to think we're living proof that homebirthers don't take unnecessary risks. Anyways I'm so glad I got to labor at home, our stay at the hospital only reminded me of some of the reasons we avoided delivering at the hospital.

It was fun being the spectacle of the ER- they don't get new babies very often (that's a different department of the hospital) and all the staff were very curious- you'd see people leave their offices to come watch the "homebirth baby" come down the hall. Everyone was super nice, congratulatory and supportive, though we did have to explain to them that Yes, we HAD had thorough prenatal care, and Yes, we'd had an ultrasound and everything looked healthy. It was odd, because even without the oxygen mask her O2 saturation levels would be at a perfect 100%, but her lips were still gray. On paper she looked great!

They did an xray, which led them to question the shape of her heart (NOT something we had wanted to hear), so they sent us up to the NICU and she got an echocardiogram.
Now, technicians usually can't tell you ANYTHING while taking tests like that, but ours was a very friendly man who told me "heck, lady, you're brave enough to have a homebirth and now you're walking around like you weren't even pregnant, I will go ahead and tell you, everything looks 100% normal."
Whew!!! Then they sent us on up to a nice suite in pediatrics where we spent the night under observation. By afternoon she was staying pink on her own.

They sent us home yesterday morning with a completely clean bill of health.

Daniel has been SO cute about his new sister. When he woke up yesterday morning at 5:30 am and came down to a house full of strange people, you can tell he was overwhelmed, but he was still very sweet and excited about his "baby -ter" (baby sister).

Apparently yesterday morning he came down the stairs asking "baby -ter?", then when Kenny explained we were at the hospital he said "baby -ter lost? Lost baby:("
When I brought her home a few hours later, his first reaction was this:

He's been all hugs, kisses, and pats since- perhaps a little TOO affectionate but oh-so-sweet. As far as interacting with kenny and I goes, he's very dramatic right now and obviously trying to figure out where he stands.
We couldn't be happier with how the homebirth went or with our sweet new baby girl. She only woke up once last night to eat, but I suspect she hasn't really woken up to the world yet and it will be a different story in a few days.
Thanks everyone SO much for the many happy thoughts and well wishes. This little girl came into a world of love:)

Nearing the end...

2010-11-18T15:33:00.000-08:00

Today I hit 36 weeks- it's official, I can legally deliver with my midwife now and baby is likely to be in good shape to meet the outside world. Usually at least 39 weeks is ideal, but apparently women in my families bake babies quickly.
This pregnancy has been SO different from my last one. Well, I've still had the weird preterm contractions and all that, but we've been much more laid back about it and in general it just feels like a healthier, happier pregnancy.
For where I am in pregnancy, I feel good! Sure, there are the typical complaints- I'd love to be able to bend over, this whole getting up to pee every 4 minutes at night isn't cool- all in all, I still love being pregnant, I don't feel like a cow, I'm happy to not have any problems with swelling or blood pressure or any of that. It's been an easy pregnancy.

I'm dilated to about a 3 and 80% effaced, but nothing seems to be happening very quickly, and that's a good thing. Last pregnancy at this point I was 5-6 cm, so, things are going slower. My own feeling is that I have at least a week left if not 2.

I'm definitely bigger this time than last time, too. A lady in the area was building her portfolio and offered me a free maternity photo session, so we have some photos to shares:

More up at smugmug. Apparently I become a bit of an exhibitionist while pregnant- lots of bare bellies in there, but I think the pregnant body is beautiful, it's one of the few times in my life I'm not ashamed of my body at all, and you can show off some skin without it being sexual at all. Anyways...

We've got pretty much everything all ready for this little girl, and we feel so loved by everyone who has sent gifts, hand-me-downs, or well wishes. Thank you all.
I'm working up until next Tuesday, it would seem- hopefully I won't accept any last-minute projects (I was supposed to done by tomorrow, but...). Then come early February or so I'll go back to work, and keep working until I simply can't take it any longer.
We'll definitely keep y'all posted as things move along and the baby shows signs of wanting to come out. We're so excited to meet her.

This is halloween...

2010-11-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

We had a very fun halloween this year.
We took Daniel to Old NAvy and let him pick his own costume (for the record they had lots of adorable costumes under 20 bucks). I wanted him to be a dragon, but he really wanted to be a shark. Even at the store trying it on, he was wandering up to strangers and pretending to bite them. He was cute enough he could get away with it though:

He got to dress up for school and also got invited to a friend's party (his first peer invite, from "lela", aka Bella). On the day after halloween when we got to school he was so sad that he wasn't in his costume again.
Saturday we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. My own costume was a bit too gory for it, so at the last minute I grabbed a white maternity shirt and drew a pumpkin on it (apparently my decade-old oil pastels work well on fabric for a temporary effect):

Kenny dressed up as a viking (the beard limits his options). Unfortunately I only got one pic of him, he was leading the parade (he's holding a sword and axe which added a lot to the costume but can't really be seen in this pic):

Then we hired a babysitter (for maybe the 4th time in Daniel's life) and went to a friend's costume party. My costume changed from the pumpkin belly to this:

Yes, that is a two-headed dragon erupting from my belly. :)
We ended up not trick or treating on Sunday because Daniel was a bit under the weather. I had wanted to, just to get to know some neighbors, but... no luck. And we only got two groups of trick-or-treaters ourselves- a bunch of kids Daniel's age, and some random teenagers not even in costumes. I've had a curse for about 15 years, no matter where I've lived I never get more than a couple door knocks on halloween.

These and other october pics are up at our web album.

The Imagination of a Two-Year-Old

2010-10-08T08:49:00.000-07:00

Daniel's imagination has really taken off in the last month, it makes life fun. Some of this has been posted on facebook, so sorry for you FB friends if it's a repeat (but now it has pictures!)

First, the sticks. Daniel's favorite toy right now is a 4-foot-long plastic tent pole (also known as "Deeck" (stick)):

It is a: fishing pole, gun, sword, meal (either hot or cold), straw, light-switch flipping wand, pregnant belly poker, limbo pole, tightrope for small toys, speed bump, balance beam, and best friend. Here is Daniel giving it a good night kiss before putting it to bed (after brushing its teeth and helping it go potty):

His other favorite toy is his "baby", a small pumpkin he grabbed at the store that he didn't want to part with. Pumpkin joins us for family meals, requires frequent kisses, and apparently occasionally bites and needs punishment. The other day I found him thus:

Daniel loves to play-act that he's afraid of things, now, too. We watched Lady and the Tramp the other day and now Daniel runs around all the time yelling "Aaaaah! Rat!!!! Bite! Tooosh! HIIIIT!" (Then smacks it with our afore-mentioned Deeck). All scary things will bite your toosh, so beware. A neighbor has a scary halloween decoration in his yard and without fail, Daniel will approach it, pretend to throw a punch in its direction, then grab his butt and run away screaming "aaaaah! Bite! Tooosh!".

He was consistently waking up at 5:15 every morning and coming down and shouting at my door "momma! help!". He's generally VERY good about staying in bed when it's time to fall asleep, he just doesn't have a concept of morning time. So I bought this clock for him:

30 bucks is more than I would have liked to spend, but it has been worth every penny. We set it up with a red light when it's bed time and that lasts until 6:15 in the morning, when it switches to green. It only took a few nights and he now won't get out of bed until the light turns green (and even then he doesn't usually get out of bed, he sits ont he edge of bed shouting "green light! green light!")... lately he's been sleeping in even more. Today we slept in til 6:45! Glorious!!!

We've had a few spats of terrible twos here and there- usually for 3 or 4 days at a time he'll be a real pill but then we get over it. About a month ago we were both breaking down daily so I whipped out the Love and Logic for 0-6 book and reread it- still, most of the advice seems geared at ages 3+, but it did help remind me to be consistent and follow-through better so I don't repeat something 18 times then lose my temper. Just a few days of one-warning-then-some-fitting-punishment did WONDERS, though it was a rough few days for him, for sure.
This week he's a bit of a fussy pants. Yesterday he had a complete break down because I got a box of cereal out for myself and put it on the table. Still, overall he's a good kid, it's just rough being a 2 year old sometimes.

His language skills have sky-rocketed. He's still a tad behind his peers but he now more than makes up for it with effort. He will repeat what we ask him to and loves to say prayers now:

He's super accident-prone and regularly has at least 4 scratches, 6 bug bites, and countless bruises and bumps. His legs are always this mottled black and blue from bruises acquired in day-to-day exploration. The school had to call me earlier this week because he got scratched by another kid at school, making it the 4th time I've had to sign an accident report because he's drawn blood at school (a few of them were scratches he got from little girls from giving over-zealous hugs to them). I honestly don't mind, though I think the school is worried I'll think they are negligent. No, I understand- Daniel just attracts owies.

He weaseled his way into a playgroup at the park and now we hang out with them almost daily. It's been great, they do a lot of fun things and are all very friendly.

Potty training is going great- we still get an occasional accident but it's pretty rare, and he's not giving us much attitude about it anymore.

He and Patches the dog are still best of friends, though Patches has a kind of haunted look about her these days. He's learned he can command the dogs to sit, and they obey, so the poor dogs rarely get to stand for long in his presence anymore. He loves to take them in the backyard and play with them or just sit on the concrete with them.

All in all, this two-year-old is a blast. Exhausting but so much fun, and I LOVE watching his mind take off and grow and do all sorts of fun new things.

Pregnancy Update

2010-10-04T10:25:00.000-07:00

I'm now a few days shy of 30 weeks pregnant. In case any one out there is thinking "wasn't Jenn on bedrest last time around at this point?" the answer is: yes, yes I was.
See, I am a Ball Girl. And that means early contractions and prodromal labor. This pregnancy is no exception. Contractions started around 24 weeks this time, didn't really seem bothersome until a few weeks ago. They aren't as consistent as they were with Daniel but they have been a bit more uncomfortable... a couple times I've had to stop and breathe through them.
As of Saturday, I'm somewhere between 1 and 2 cm dilated, I'm about 60% effaced, and baby is head down but not deeply so (she's still moving around). I'm measuring a few weeks ahead. In other words, I'm pretty much EXACTLY where I was with Daniel at this point of the pregnancy. For the record, Daniel hung in there another 7 weeks or so and was a healthy 7 lb 11 oz baby, born at 36 weeks and 5 days.

Last time when my contractions started and I was showing signs of dilating, my (perhaps overly panicky) OB put me in the hospital on Magnesium Sulfate for 3 days (which made me throw up for the only time of the pregnancy and even made me lose consciousness once) then sent me home for 8 weeks of FULL bedrest. I stayed near 1 cm dilated until I was 35 weeks, at which point I mysteriously slipped to a 4, then a week later to a 6, until finally we went into the hospital 8 cm dilated and still not in active labor at 36 weeks, 4 days. We may have made it past the 37 week mark if I hadn't let the doctor break my water.
For the record, Lori had contractions starting at 27 weeks and little Simon didn't come until nearly 39 weeks. Becky had prodromal labor for all 4 of hers and only one (Dylan) came before 36 weeks.

Since we now know that I, in true Ball Girl style, can contract and dilate for 8 weeks without a baby falling out, we're a little more laid back this time. Keeping a close eye on things, trying to take it easy (easier said than done with a toddler) and praying that we make it 6 more weeks.

If you want to join us in sending bake-the-baby vibes, please do. I absolutely must make it to 36 weeks if I want to deliver with my midwife (otherwise we'd need an OB) and I want this baby to be healthy and fully baked. Also, if you see me doing stuff that does not fall in the "take it easy" category, call me on it. I'm having a really hard time not pushing my limits.

One month later...

2010-09-01T15:15:00.000-07:00

Whew, what a month! Lots to catch up on.

First the potty training. We've been a month without diapers now, and have even dropped the overnight pull-ups now. He's about 95% there when I'm around, but if he's with someone else (visiting friends or whatever) his success rate is much lower. Overall, I'm super pleased with how easy potty-training was. The first week was AWESOME, but then he hit a spiteful period we're still working our way out of, where he would only go if it was HIS idea, not ours. We're going to start trying some standing up methods this week.

Next, the pregnancy. For those who didn't see, here is our little girl:


She has a Ball nose	I swear she's signing "I Love You"

And here's the belly:

I'm now 25 weeks along. (Bare-belly pics are in my pregnancy album). I've been having a few worrisome contractions, but nothing to put us into panic mode. I'm officially to take it easy, or as easy as one can take it with a very active 2-year-old running around.

Kenny started back at school a few weeks ago and things are going well. He rides 17 miles to work each morning- has to be out the door about 4:30 am- and another 17 miles home each afternoon, in houston heat. He's my hero.

Daniel started school up today. Same as last year- he goes Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 9 to 2:30. He napped well, had one big potty accident (while he was telling the teacher he needed to go) and one other "accident" that was more of an "aiming malfunction".

The month of August was my busiest work month yet. I billed 45 hours, which means I worked closer to 60. I am SO grateful to various friends who have taken Daniel off my hands, often at the last minute, so I could be on a business call.

We finished painting and decorating Daniel's room. I'd love to do more, and received some great suggestions (thanks Anna Rose), but need some time!

Today was my biggest, scariest call EVER. It was a 2-hour recorded training session, with 45 people on the call, for a VERY large client. My boss and the client were both very pleased with how it went, and I'm relieved to be done with it for now.

At the beginning of the month, we competed in the Nintendo Wii olympics. Kenny blew them away with his basketball( I don't believe anyone in the nation has beat him), but the loud atmosphere made it hard to hear mario kart and apparently he needed sound effects to time a tricky jump just right. I'm absolutely thrilled that I didn't do pitifully on the hula hooping- I actually did darn well, 20 weeks pregnant and all. We didn't win anything big, but did take home some fun little nintendo toys.

Other fun news: Daniel and PAtches are the best of friends. They wrestle, cuddle, and race daily. She may be a crazy dog, but she tolerates this without complaint:

Funny story: yesterday, I was on a call with my boss (nice LDS fellow, understands I work from home with a toddler) and Daniel was in the other room watching a movie. He then came in telling me he needed to poo. I had to ignore it, knowing that Daniel often has false alarms, but also that I had no other choice- I was on a call. So I tell Daniel if he needs to go, to take off his own undies and go to his own potty upstairs, thinking all the while "not a chance". Sure enough, a few minutes later, Daniel walks into my bedroom, naked, with poop all over his hands and butt.

Oh, dear.

Well, now I have to excuse myself from the call, and start marching around the house to find where it happened. Not on the couch, not on the stairs... "ok Daniel, where did you go?"

He grabs my hand, marches me upstairs, and shows me with glee his training potty. That's right, he did it all by himself! It was obviously a near miss, but... I couldn't be prouder, nor could he. Man did he scare me though.

PS: I will NEVER AGAIN try to post a blog from within the blogspot "compose" editor. What a mess.

A momentous weekend for Daniel!

2010-08-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

2 big things-
One, Daniel told me a story a few days ago. Most people wouldn't think much of it, but when Kenny asked Daniel to tell me what they did this morning, Daniel told me (with many long pauses for concentration): "Walk. Push Red Car. Help Dog. Frog.". Which means "we went for a walk, I pushed the red car, I helped hold the dog's leash, and we saw a frog". This is HUGE- he's not just telling me he wants grapes or something, he's actually making unprompted efforts at conversation. I know non-parents or parents of children who communicate readily won't see what the fuss is about, but I'm way too excited about this. But not nearly excited as I am about...

POTTY TRAINING!
We started the three-day method on Saturday. I'd been told by various trustworthy sources that there is a short window of potty-trainability at about this age, and if you miss it things get difficult until they are about 3. That and I want to shampoo our carpets and it seems a foolish thing to do if potty training is in your near future. Kenny goes back to school in a week and Daniel goes back to preschool in 1 month, so now seemed a good time.
Daniel helped show his potty doll (which is even an anatomically correct little boy, only 8 bucks at Toys-R-Us) how to pee in the potty, and saw that the doll got a big celebration and candy. We then put away the diapers and whipped out the dinosaur underwear, then started downing the juice and water. We had one big mishap (fortunately in the kitchen) and Daniel just seemed confused by it, so I was worried maybe this was all a bit over his head. He got on and off the potty maybe 6 times in 2 hours (with an M&M each time) with no luck and one very small accident.

Yes, we threw a party for Victor the Turtle this morning. Daniel helped him get on the potty, helped him clap his hands, gave him high fives, and delivered a skittle for his success.

I know this is the beginning of a long road, but he gives me hope that he's not too young, he totally gets this.And then, 2.5 hours into it, he walked up to me, said "pee", so I helped him on the potty and sure enough... he did it! I called Daddy in from the garage, we all got way excited and threw a little party, and when Daniel saw what a big deal we were making, he made an obvious effort to get more into the toilet... and more... and more.. by the end he had a big proud smile on his face and obviously would have done more if he could.
His only other major accident that first day was in the garage- so no accidents on carpet yet.

We had NO major accidents yesterday (one minorly wet training pants, that's all), and 5 successes yesterday- one, he told me mid-shower he needed to go so I ran around the house naked and dripping wet getting his potty and treats, and he held on til I was ready! Then another 2 happened at church (yes, I toted the lid to his training seat to church with us because he's still not comfortable with big toilets). This morning he woke up dry (we're doing pull-ups over night) and has since pottied three times, no accidents at all.

Victor the Turtle is progressing in his potty training efforts nicely. His undies have been dry all day (as have Daniel's)!

I was surprised how many people have told us it wouldn't work, it was too soon... I can't picture the first three days of potty training going better!

PS Daniel REALLY likes telling people on the phone about his successes, so I apologize in advance to my family members who will be hearing from us a lot.

The results are in...

2010-07-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

If you voted "girl", you were right!!! She was measuring right on target, perfectly healthy, and, though I was so worried I wouldn't be able to trust an ultrasound saying it was a girl, this Little One made it very clear.

I'm thrilled, but also... overwhelmed, I guess. It's strange, because up until a few weeks ago I thought it was a girl, I wanted it to be a girl. Then the last few weeks I think my defense mechanism kicked in and I squashed those girly hopes down. And now... well, I squashed too well:)
Don't get me wrong, I'm totally not unhappy- just.... adjusting. I don't know how this caught me so off guard. Kenny is doing a good job of being thrilled- he'll be a great daddy to a little girl.

My thoughts on the matter:
Cons:
-I am surprisingly TERRIFIED of doing little girl hair. True, my child is likely to be bald for the first year, but there will come a day when I need to prepare this little girl's hair for church, and... eek!
-I'm worried we will produce a tomboy. We play video games and legos. We play in the dirt. I don't imagine myself ever happily buying into the Disney Princess stuff.
-Having a boy would have been much simpler, financially. We have so much boy stuff that will be going into storage now.
-I'm not that girly. Oh, yes, I love little newborn girl outfits and frilly diaper covers, but... currently I don't think I own a single purple thing, baby or otherwise. (PS don't buy me purple stuff. Pink is ok, frilly is ok, but we're gonna keep the purple to a minimum).
-Daniel won't have a brother right next to him in age to be friends with.

Pros:
-SHOPPING! I am so excited to be able to easily find adorable clothes for this kid. No, we don't have the money to buy out Carter's like I want to, but... I am SO excited to buy a new little wardrobe and bedding and stuff.
-Names. We have 4 or 5 girl names we really like. I have no idea what we would have done if it were a boy- we pretty much hate all boy names right now. (And no, I'm not telling people our names. It isn't that I want it secret, it's more that I read WAY too much into people's reactions. If you catch me in a brave moment I may try to slip it into a conversation, we'll see.)
-We don't have to discuss circumcision or worry about that. Yay!
-Daniel won't have a brother right next to him in age to COMPETE with.
-Frilly diaper covers. 'Nough said.
-I am actually really excited for an older girl. Like 8 years old or more. I'm excited to be able to be friends with my daughter, to share interests, to read books together, to discuss growing up together.

I suspect that after hitting Carter's tomorrow morning, I will be properly ecstatic over this little girl.:)

Place your bets- boy or girl?

2010-07-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

We have a new poll in the upper right- please place your bets on what you think we're having. We find out tomorrow night, so if you could vote by then, that'd be great (give me a good chance to see how often y'all are checking up on my infrequently-updated blog).
For the record, Kenny would like another boy, I wanted a girl (up until a few weeks ago and my preferences disappeared- there are pros and cons either way), and Daniel thinks it's a girl (that may be because he doesn't know how to say "boy" yet- according to him, he and Daddy are girls as well).

In other news, we have some new pics up on smugmug (for June and July). My pic of the night- Daniel concentrating intensely on spraying a bug to death- he sprayed the poor thing for a good 10 minutes:

Funny Things

2010-07-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

I have lots of fun pics and news to post, but right now I'm cleaning out my server and found a few funny and links I had forgotten.

First, How to Turn Your Hamster Into a Killing Machine (click on pic for close up):

Joseph Interpreting Dreams- with sock puppets:

Funny Calvin and Hobbes powerpoint

Funny want ad:

And my very own new pic I submitted to failblog. A motivational poster at Kenny's school fails miserably with the slogan "Academic Success: It's Not An Option". Click here to see it and vote for it to be featured on failblog.

PS Want to see the website I was super proud of 5 long years ago (but never fully finished)? I'll be taking it down in a couple days.

My mother's day present- late but great

2010-06-23T18:19:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited, we finally got my mother's day present all finished. I had known what it was since mother's day when we bought the bougainvillea, but we had to wait until kenny had enough time to work on it. It was worth the wait.
We went from this:

To this:

The gift included the hand-made cedar raised bed and trellis, soil (since the soil on our property is only 100 years or so from being a rock), bougainvillea, and herbs (parsley, rosemary, dill, oregano, basil, and my own favorite, lemon thyme).
The idea is to train the bougainvillea to climb the trellis and give our bathroom window some cover so I can take baths in our nice big garden tub without having the shades pulled all the way down. It will take a few years, but I'm so excited for the green light to filter through that big window!

Bougainvillea's a gorgeous flower, I've completely fallen in love with it:

Better yet, since Kenny built everything, we were able to build it on a very tight budget. (herbs themselves only cost a couple bucks). Up front I've also planted some lavender, and we're trying to figure out a place to place some mint that we can keep it easily controlled. I still need to buy (and find room for) some sage, some marjoram, and some chives and I'll pretty much have my old garden back!

I was VERY into herb gardening in high school and leaving that garden behind in Washington was the hardest thing about moving out. The smells bring back such memories!

Thanks for the fabulous, work-intensive gift, Kenny!

Ways in which the Terrible Twos aren't so terrible

2010-06-22T20:20:00.000-07:00

We've loved having a two-year-old. Seriously. I'd take 26-month old Daniel over 20-month-old Daniel any day. The perks of having a two-year-old:

I can figure out what he wants- he now has 82 words in his vocabulary! That's HUGE progress for us. Sure, 80 of those words use only 4 consonants- b, d, m and s; and for some reason he's decided "w" makes a good replacement for "k", and I still can't understand him 60% of the time, but I'll happily take that 40% and run with it.
He can now correctly operate a fork and spoon on his own. My days of spoon-feeding him yogurt are over.
He's a great helper with Daddy in the garage:
He can hold his own banana. You have no idea how happy this makes me.
He understands that no matter how much he wants to wiggle during a diaper change, I WILL WIN. Mommy always wins, no use resisting.
His drawings kind of resemble things. I LOVE the intense look of concentration he has as he draws a very random-looking squiggle, then informs me that it is a baby shark. He will then draw a smaller squiggle on it, and tell me with great pride it is an "eye" for the baby shark.
He cleans up his own messes. He will take any dirty dish in the house and throw it in the sink (had a few broken dishes, but, oh well). He does not tolerate video game controllers being left out- he will put them on the appointed shelf, every time. He also does not allow the TV to be left on. (toys on the floor are a different story)
He can brush his own teeth without me tackling and sitting on him... and likes to brush them 6 times a day (I "help" at least a couple times to make sure it's done thoroughly)
He can climb into his own car seat- as I get more and more pregnant, this seems like a gift from God.
He helps feed the dogs- including his own stuffed dog:
He knows how to keep a pen on paper rather than a desk or wall. Not saying he always does, but... at least he knows the difference
He can "read" on his own- mommy is no longer needed to point out things of interest in a book
He understands what we say so well. If we mention pancakes or swimming, even in passing, he will throw his little arms above his head and shout "yay!". Nothing is more gratifying than cooking pancakes for a kid running around with his hands in the air shouting "yay! bapay, bapay!!" ("bapay" means pancake, for those who don't speak toddler)
He is a good playmate. The playgroup ladies were telling me that even though he's afraid to go down the slide himself (remember how he sprained his hip on a slide? yeah still not over that) he likes to sit next to the big step before the slide and help boost all the other kids up there.
He no longer prefers mommy over daddy (this may have a lot to do with Daddy being home for summer, and how amazingly fun he is next to boring, tired mommy- I'm not offended in the slightest).
He takes after his mommy and is very empathetic. A lady was crying while baring his testimony at church this month, and from the back row he started telling me, quite concerned, that she was sad, then blowing kisses and air-hugs at her, and finally offering her goldfish by holding them up in her direction and saying "nom nom nom"
He can notify me of future diaper-fillings. I know having a kid point to an empty diaper and tell you "poo" may not SEEM like a big deal, especially when the "big event" can happen anytime in the next hour, but he knows it is in there. This gives me hope that someday he will be potty-trained.
He does cute things like this- he removes the armrest cover from the couch and uses it as a tailor-made, camouflage blanket:

The draw-backs of having a two-year-old:

Sacrament meeting*. Enough said.

*For non-mormon readers, church for us is three hours long. The first hour and a half, the entire congregation, from newborn to ancient, sits in pews together and (hopefully) quietly listens to speakers and prayers (the second half of church, the 18-month-olds and up get to go to nursery or sunday school and mommy gets some sanity). Keeping a two-year-old still and quiet for that first portion of church is nothing short of a miracle. Fortunately most people there are wrangling their own children (or have in the past) and understand if Daniel occasionally roars like a dinosaur.

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

2010-05-26T08:04:00.000-07:00

I wasn't feeling great so I went to lay down and read- Daniel came in, saw me climb into bed, immediately ran into the other room, grabbed a book, ran back, climbed into the other side, pulled up the blankets, and started "reading" along side me.

Babies and Bellies!

2010-05-20T16:54:00.000-07:00

First of all, Daniel is definitely gearing up to be a big brother. For one, he tries to "feed the baby" now by jamming his favorite goldfish graham crackers in my belly button. The best part is that he then makes a "nom nom nom" sound of the baby eating and enjoying it. He keeps telling me the baby is "sad" (which worries me, maybe his intuition is telling him something I don't know?) and giving the baby hugs and kisses. Unfortunately, he loves to pull up my shirt in public and "show the baby off".
A friend let me watch her 6 month old son last week, so we got to see how Daniel handled a real live baby. Predictably, he screamed at first because mommy was paying such close attention to something other than him, but he quickly changed his mind and decided that mommy was old news and just wanted to be with that baby (who, by the way, is super mellow and smiley and agreeable):

I think he'll be a great big brother!

You know how they say you're more likely to show a pregnant belly sooner with a second pregnancy? Yeah, they're right! Check this out:

That's from today- I'm ten weeks along today! One quarter of the way done!
For comparison, here I am at 4 weeks along:

And here I am from last pregnancy, EIGHT weeks further long (18) :

I'm excited to be showing so soon though, makes the whole thing feel more real! I'm down about 7 pounds from where I started and just beginning to get my appetite back.

Patches (our new dog)

2010-05-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

So, we have our new dog! A family in the ward was moving nearby and couldn't have a big dog at their new place, so we thought we would expand our little family. Lucy has gotten fat and spends way too much time on her couch, so we think a friend will do her some good.

Patches, a one-year-old lab mix joined our family officially the other day. Lucy immediately became submissive and is definitely NOT an alpha-type dog, but they've became fast friends, romping and wrestling in the back yard.

She's been very patient and gentle towards Daniel (pictured here giving her a hug):

We need to work on some manners (barking, sitting, staying) but all in all she's a great dog. She already won't leave Kenny's side, she just loves company.
We realize this officially makes us "dog people", and we're ok with that. Lucy has been such a blessing to our family and we think Patches will too. Now we just need to see if she'll catch a frisbee (our biggest disappointment in Lucy was her lack of frisbee-catching skills).

Silly Boy, so much fun (pic heavy)

2010-04-19T09:24:00.000-07:00

Daniel has been so much fun lately!
First, the talking thing is coming along wonderfully. He now has 12 signs and about 20 words- including a few polysyllabic ones that I love- "uh-oh" and "bubbles" ("bub-bow").

He still loves to help clean up, sweep, vacuum... he even brought me the dirty dishes from the table last night (sadly, he dropped one and broke one of my favorite blue plates:(). He's sleeping really well on his big boy twin bed and most mornings we just sit on his bed and look out the window and point out animals on his bedspread for 15 minutes. He LOVES reading and will force me to reread the same book 3 or 4 times then go grab another. Did you know that Green Eggs and Ham has over 50 pages?!?

He likes to do goofy things like wear his shorts on his head:

Climb into the bathtub fully clothed and turn on the cold water:

Play with dirt (often dumping it in his hair):

Walk the dog while Daddy walks him:

Be afraid of ducklings:

(which, by the way, I am completely in love with:)

And have Epic Sword Battles with daddy at the Frisbee Golf Course:

By the way, I know us washingtonians like to brag about the beauty and greenness of our state, but this time of year I think Houston could give the NW a run for its money:

Of course, I'd still choose Washington any day. I'm a bit homesick.

Lastly, Daniel got a haircut yesterday. Here he is before the cut- I had a woman compliment how beautiful my "little girl" was the other day. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and overalls.

(PS isn't his new "pose for the camera" smile LOVELY?)

4 hours of haircutting and wiggling later (he's pushing the garbage can, helping us clean up):

K, so I'm not great at cutting wiggly little boy's hair. It's not awful, but... definitely room for improvement.

And lastly, and completely unrelated- check out the mushrooms we found growing on an old bag of mulch in our garage!

If you didn't catch that...

2010-04-12T07:37:00.000-07:00

I'm pregnant!
take a look again:

Sorry the text on the video was hard to read- it says "I'm going to be a big brother sometime next december!!!" I had a real hard time not micromanaging Daniel and actually letting him decorate the poster himself, but you can see in the end he made it look just lovely;)
I had grand ambitions of a much cuter video but Daniel wouldn't cooperate on camera, and I was sick of waiting for the perfect video announcement:). If I ask him to point to the baby in my tummy, he usually points to my belly, though sometimes he'll point to his own instead. It's pretty cute.
I'm 4 weeks, 4 days along, due December 16th. We only found out last Tuesday. We were so sad last year when we thought we couldn't afford another baby for a long while, then we were blessed with these consulting jobs that make it possible. I felt very storngly last september that God wanted us to try for a baby in February, but... finances got worse and worse. It wasn't until the end of January that everything fell into place financially and I saw that God had it all planned out all along:) We're extremely happy and excited.
So... I suck at keeping secrets. Especially one I'm so happy, I want to shout it from rooftops. I know it's early for this to be public news, but, I want to share my happiness. If, heaven forbid, we lose the baby early on, I'll probably want public support then too.
Daniel is going to be 2 in a couple weeks, so he'll be nearly three years old when this baby comes along. We think he'll be a great big brother once he gets past his mommy's-lap territorial issues.:)

Daniel's Artwork

2010-04-10T19:47:00.000-07:00

I've loved all the artwork Daniel has brought home from school. In fact, it has inspired to get more craftsy with him. We've been working with finger paints and crayons and stickers lately. In fact, he made this poster he was very eager to show off (if you watch one video post of mine this year, this should be it):

It's not the prettiest drawing, but I think the kid shows a lot of promise;)
(sorry if the text is hard to read)

A Boy and His Dog

2010-04-09T17:22:00.000-07:00

For those who enjoyed this:

And this:

We have a new series:

Daniel putting his favorite necklace on Lucy. (yes, my son likes necklaces. I'm over it)

Our new favorite activity is playing in the backyard. The first thing Daniel does when we come downstairs is start saying "sit sit sit sit" (a rather dangerous thing to say with a lisp), goes to the backdoor, goes on the back "porch" (well, small slab of cement), plops down, and then orders me to sit next to him. Then he plays with Lucy:

Which then moves on to hugging. Daniel will hug any dog he meets. At the park, he will run to a dog the second he sees it and hug it. Fortunately they've all been tolerant so far. Lucy has definitely gotten used to it:

Finally Lucy loses Daniel's attention to anything resembling a flower, which Daniel MUST smell.

(Note that our grass is indeed in the process of looking alive again. Enough so that it needs to be mowed.)

Meanwhile mommy tries desperately to not think too much about the creepy buzzard hanging out near our yard:

I HATE buzzards!

A little bit of catch up

2010-04-05T19:12:00.001-07:00

First, two new web albums- one from New Orleans (k, this one isn't THAT new, I just haven't blogged in a while), and one from this month (I didn't take as many pics in San Antonio, sorry... I will have to steal some from my mom). My favorite from the whole bunch is probably this one:

Man, does that make me laugh. The man had just said not to squeeze the gator and here Daniel grabbed it with everything he had.

Daniel's speech is coming along nicely. I don't know if it's the age he is at, or the speech therapist folks (who, while I like them and their visits, don't do much other than tell me I'm already doing things right), or school, but he finally has the following words:

momma
dadda
sock
shoe
stuck
rock
stick
hot
no (it's actually a very cute "no"- sounds like a cat meowing)
down

He also signs milk, baby, please, thank you, sorry, help, water, eat/food, bird/fly, and down. He's tried Banana a few times, too:). He sings along with me sometimes and understands so much these days.

And check out these curls!

Bucket List

2010-02-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

Things I want to do before I die (some items are bigger than others, and many things are related- and they are in no particular order):

Publish a novel
Teach harp lessons
Grow my own herb/vegetable garden and cook from it
Live in the country
Participate in a theatre musical
Have a homebirth
Become a Doula
Become a Midwife
Own dozens of shoes (and actually like them all well enough to wear them regularly)
Learn how to take professional-quality photos (and have a nice enough camera to do it)
Visit Italy
Show Kenny Paris
Scuba Dive
Visit a coral reef
Swim with dolphins
See a child of mine read and enjoy Les Miserables and/or Lord of the Rings
Send at least one child to BYU
Send at least one child on a mission
Get a full spa treatment
Go on a cruise

I'm editing to add in an important one I forgot: own a duck. I would love to own a duck someday.

Life update

2010-02-25T12:51:00.000-08:00

If you didn't notice in my last post, Daniel is one smiley smiley little man. He is so full of hugs and kisses for the world (including strangers and worse yet, strange animals). We have problems with independence just like any toddler, but he is overall a very smiley, very friendly baby.
He met with therapists yesterday to discuss getting him to use some words. He uses maybe 6 words on a regular basis (and by regular, I mean a few words a day, tops). Mostly, we communicate with gestures and guessing games. I'm not worried about his brain- I think he doesn't talk because I cater to him pretty well without it. But I'm eager for ideas on how to get him interested in talking and hopefully get rid of that annoying "eh eh eh" sound he makes all the time. He's finally started doing animal sounds, so that's some progress.
He climbs EVERYTHING. It is amazing. This kid is fearless. Today he went down the same slide he sprained his hip on, so he is completely over his fear of tunnel slides as of this week. He is definitely happiest outside- anywhere outside. He'd be content to play in dirt or sand or sticks or puddles for hours.
School continues to go well for him, but I'm struggling at home to be motivated with my work. Working at home does not suit me. Still, we've appreciated the extra income.
Schools are finally posting openings so Kenny is applying to area schools.
My parents come down for a week next month- we're going to join them and my brother's family for a trip to San Antonio and Sea World, and we are also planning a week-long trip to New Orleans where our best friend Ben will be joining us from North Carolina. So lots of excitement in March!
That about covers things currently. Sorry for the infrequent blogging!

Picture Update

2010-02-25T12:19:00.000-08:00

I finally have a collection of good pics to post.
First, the haircut:

Note, my hair never actually looked like the before picture. I mean, that's awful. It was ALWAYS in a ponytail. With the new haircut now I need to style it anytime I shower- definitely more high maintenance. But I do like it, and that says a lot- I've hated every haircut I've ever had other than 1.

Next, Daniel going to school:

Daniel loving his christmas present from my mom:

Daniel in the backyard with Lucy (don't worry about our grass, it's not dead, that's simply what Houston grass looks like in the winter, it will be a thick green jungle in a few months):

Random pics from various Park outtings:

Daniel has climbed this all by himself a few times now, no help or encouragement:

Daniel's new favorite game is pushing a chair over to a counter and getting into stuff (like knives, cd players, security systems...) Here he is pretending to roll out dough like his daddy:

Finger painting:

And many, many bath pics (it's the only place where I can take out the camera without him attacking me to see the LCD):

He's finally learned to smile on command:

He drew a perfect little heart with his bath crayons (which are a big hit):

All this and more at our web album.

Day School

2010-02-03T11:44:00.001-08:00

Last week we decided to find a 2 or 3 day-a-week day care for Daniel so I could get some consulting done. I now have 2 consulting jobs and an offer of a third- I feel like quite the hot commodity.
Anyways, I couldn't find a daycare I felt 100% happy about. Then one of the places I called (that didn't have availability) recommended Cypress Creek Christian Preschool, which has a Mother's Day Out program. So I looked into it, and it is PERFECT. It's at the big church next door to the Barbara Bush Library, and it's every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9-2:30 (for only $220/month!). It was the cleanest, most trustworthy, and one of the closest of all the programs I looked at. One of his teachers is LDS, and they said overall about a third of their students are too.
Monday was his first day of school. He took to it pretty well. The teacher's described him as "very affectionate", which I take to mean he's been smashing the other kids with hugs all day. He's good at that. The most impressive part is he NAPPED. He naps great at home in his crib, but this kid NEVER sleeps anywhere other than his bed. But he got a good hour-long nap in with the other kids. And he came home with this awesome finger painting that he made (with help):

It's just about my favorite thing ever.
The program director and his teachers have been so nice. They have called me 3 times to let me know he was doing wonderfully and not to worry (which is great, because I do worry). A mommy could get used to this!

New Car!!!

2010-01-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

I'm sure by now some of you have heard about our new car:

A family in the ward gave it to us and Daniel LOVES it.
Oh, wait... you weren't thinking of that car, huh? Maybe this one?:

That's right, we bought a brand-spanking-new 2010 Hyundai Elantra.
"But wait", you say, "aren't you always whining about how poor you are?" Yes, yes I am. But the last few months taught us we couldn't afford an OLD car anymore. The durango had recently cost us at least 2000, was due for new tires and a $1500 routine maintenance for it's 120k mile mark. For what we've paid for our two old cars in the last 6 months, we could have made almost 2 years in payments on a new car. And we decided to go completely new, rather than slightly used, because we wanted a great warranty. We're so sick of car problems.
The car that wrecked two years ago was an Elantra and we loved it. And Hyundai is just getting better with time- it's got the 4th best resale value on the market. And it only bumped our insurance up 16 dollars per 6 months.
Yes, I am a bit defensive and can go on for a long time to justify this purchase. It took a long while for Kenny to convince me. I don't come from a family that buys new cars. But then, I come from a family with the worst car luck ever.
We're so glad now. A huge weight was lifted from our shoulders. And since I'm going to have to work in one way or another for a while yet just to sustain the necessities of life, we figured we could afford to throw a car into the mix. We got an AWESOME trade-in value on the durango which helped a lot.
So we bought Merlin. He's dark blue, magic, and wears a pointy blue hat:

And yes, it's a decepticon just like the durango was. Merlin-icon?
It's not the gutsiest car- It has a squirrel running on a wheel in the engine. (The durango had a badger. The vespa had a caterpillar. Ask me what kind of engine a car has, and I will tell you it's animal equivelant.) But he's clean, comfortable, and reliable and we're very happy.

(ignore my honkin nose in that last picture).

Busy busy busy

2010-01-17T19:19:00.000-08:00

I figured I should let you all know why you'll be seeing even less of me soon. I just picked up another job. An old client emailed me asking if I want to do contractor work for his company (which in turn provides analytics for other companies). I had worked with them before for about a year while I was still consulting and I remember them favorably. I'll work from home and the pay will be about 6 times more per hour than my B&N job, and they say it'll stay under 10 hours a week (I'm dubious about whether or not that's how much I'll work or just how much I'll bill). It's an awesome opportunity to make lots of money quickly, I'm very flattered that they reached out to me with such a generous offer, and I'm thrilled to once again use the 3/4s of my brain I devoted to web analytics knowledge, but... working from home was hard (there was a reason I quit), and I'm already feeling that nagging sensation whenever I'm at home of "are you sure you shouldn't be working right now". Not only that, but with my B&N job I've already been as tired, busy and sore as I've ever been for an extended period of time. I'm going to try to do both as long as possible- working at B&N is good, it makes me happy, and if I keep at it I could get health benefits at last, saving us about 600/month. It's also more predictable in the long run than consulting. So I'll continue doing that in the evenings, about 25 hours/week, then somewhere I'll squeeze in 10 hours of consulting, 168 hours of babies watching, and hopefully some time with my husband at some point...
As for plans for the future... we're clueless. We know that we don't want to get pregnant until we know where we'll be 9 months later (and whether or not we'll have insurance), so it may be a while before our family expands (a plan I will admit I haven't adjusted to very well, logical though it may be). Kenny is currently searching for teaching jobs- mostly in Texas, Oregon and Washington. Unfortunately very few schools will post opening before February or March. Once we know where he'll teach next year, we'll make the decision of whether or not to move. Even if he teaches locally, we may still downgrade so we can save up to move out of Texas in a few years.
Daniel is so much fun. He's currently under the weather, but today aside he's just been a blast lately. He's a great helper, and loves watching sesame street on the computer or movies upstairs (unfortunately he has learned how to pick out which movie he wants, and it usually ends up being the stupid Super Mario Brothers cartoon from the early 90s). His speaking isn't progressing much (I think it may have actually gone backward a bit), though I'm pretty sure he doesn't speak because he spends all his time with me and I understand his grunts/gestures well enough he doesn't see the point in verbalizing. All the same, if things don't change in the next few months we'll go in for a screening and some advice on how to get him talking before he turns 2 in april. Also, if any parents out there want to reassure me that it's perfectly normal for a 21-month-old boy to have a very limited attention span for mealtime, library story time, or church, it would help me out a lot.

In other news, I have about 3 months worth of news, videos and pictures to post. I promise I will someday. Oh, but this is fun. Kenny bought me this Goomba bag from Hot Topic:

It makes me happy.

In the last decade

2009-12-31T17:28:00.001-08:00

I spent New Year's Eve, 2000, throwing my annual new years party at my parent's place with 20 or so of my great high school friends.

In the last decade, I have:
-Got my driver's license and had a kickin surprise Sweet Sixteen party
-Bought my first car (and 6 subsequent ones- one died, sold two, wrecked one)
-Had my first kiss and first boyfriend
-Had an inch and a half of jaw removed to fix my cross bite
-Grown back an inch of jaw to unfortunately renew my crossbite
-Fought some serious clinical depression
-Graduated high school
-Got accepted to my college of choice
-Kissed seven guys (including the last guy I'll ever kiss)
-Had my heart majorly broken 3 times
-Lived in Paris for 4 months
-Found the love of my life
-Graduated college
-Moved 11 times
-Had 18 roommates, husband not included
-Been to the er/been hospitalized 5 times
-Got married
-Had 8 jobs
-Spent two years in corporate america
-Bought a house
-Spent 8 weeks on bedrest
-Had a baby
-Spent over 1000 hours breastfeeding
-Changed over 3600 diapers
-Found lasting happiness with the best husband and son in the world

All in all, a fantastic decade, and it's only looking up from here.

Still Here

2009-12-20T19:49:00.002-08:00

Life has been very crazy, but good, lately. I've been working 32-40 hour weeks, sometimes going days without seeing Kenny. Most of the time he is wonderful and brings me dinner during my break so we can see each other for at least a half hour per day. And now it's Christmas break, and since I usually only work closing shifts we should be seeing lots of each other in the mornings.
The schedule has also made me lose 10 pounds, bringing me to 15 pounds below where I was when I got pregnant with Daniel. I'm pretty sure my wedding dress would fit me now. So now I am purposefully scarfing everything I see because I don't want to be any skinnier, especially not if the method of losing is stress and forgetting to eat.
We haven't decided how much longer after Christmas I will work, or how many hours. If I keep my average over 30 hours, then we get health benefits. In truth, the job itself is quite enjoyable and I feel well established there now. Much less stressful than consulting- I go home from work I can forget about it and relax. But I'm not sure our family can keep up that pace for too long.

That, and many things are up in the air. In a few months, schools will start posting openings for next year, and then we'll decide if we're moving, and where to (maybe the NW, maybe staying around here), and if we can sell a car (only if we live somewhere not as cut off from the world as our current neighborhood), or when/if we should get pregnant... so things feel a bit up in the air at the moment. There is an opening at Catlin Gable (very nice private school) in Beaverton, Oregon that I've been drooling over, so everyone pray that Kenny gets it. The one thing we aren't considering at all is having Kenny stay at his current school. He deserves to work somewhere where he is appreciated. There are some very hostile coworkers at his current school, not to mention the fact that he spends over 30% of his class time giving stupid tests.

Financially things are improving. We are still in debt, but we're slowly climbing out of the whole. The Durango had another problem (in general the civic is the one with big problems)- nothing that kept it from functioning, but something that had to be fixed to pass inspection. It cost 800 bucks. We were bummed. Then two days later, about 800 dollars appeared in the bank account. Apparently Kenny's whole school got an unannounced bonus for their standardized test scores from last year. So woohoo!

On top of it, our friends and family have been amazingly generous. I won't ever forget all the kindness we've been shown. Someone ding-dong-ditched a bunch of toys for Daniel and a significant chunk of cash and gift certificates a few weeks ago... I still get emotional even thinking about it. Whoever it was, I'm sure they'll be blessed. To everyone who has sent us anything- even something small- thank you so much. The atmosphere of our home has changed from the gloominess of October to joy and love and happiness again.

Daniel has been a blast lately. Not today particularly- it's a sunday, after all- but in general he is so much fun to be around. He has 6 words or so now, none of which he uses consistently- sit, shoe, sock, dada, down, stop- but he's a great helper, loves to clean up, and gives hugs and kisses constantly. I still think my favorite trait is how much he loves to make random people smile. Standing in line with him at the store is so much fun. He's such a little showoff.

I got released from being the Relief Society secretary and I'm now a RS teacher- my favorite calling! I'm so excited! I don't think I'm good at it, but I sure enjoy it!

Kenny and I are on a marriage high right now. Things just keep getting better. Overall, we feel blessed, happy, and just very busy.

It got better

2009-11-11T19:21:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to follow my downer post and let you know we're all feeling a bit better. All of your comments helped a lot- really, I'm just the type of person who feels better simply knowing that it's ok to feel like crap. Does that make sense?

Kenny came home and we all moped around the house for a while, but we're both doing much much better now. I've been working on finances and while things are still glum, they're not as end-of-the-world as I thought. My parents and sisters have been wonderfully kind about listening to me vent and cry and it's helped so much. I have a great family, and I miss thme so much.

Kenny fixed our washer! I'm so proud of him! So handy and fix-it-ish. He's fixed two power windows, one trunk latch, one washer, done two oil changes, made 4 bookshelves... and has a nice rugged beard to complete the look.

Daniel had a brief setback this afternoon and re-hurt his hip, and for a few hours I thought we were starting the process all over again, but after 4 hours or so he seemed to be back where he was with the old man limp. By the way, for those who don't know, this is how he hurt his hip- the tan slide in the picture below (at collin's park, behind the library):

He loves slides, but this one looked a bit intense, so I decided to go down with him on my lap. That proved to be his undoing though, because a mommy in jeans slides much faster then a pudgy left foot in a shoe. His left foot tried to stay towards the top of the slide, wedged between my body and the slide, as the rest of us went down. I barely even noted it at the time. When we got to the bottom, he erupted into screams, but I couldn't tell if he was scared, overly tired, or hurt. So we went home, and he was still screaming, even while I held him (which is TOTALLY unlike him). I couldn't get him to let go of me enough to check his legs. He just fell asleep in my arms (which he hasn't done since he was like 4 months home). After a THREE HOUR nap (also unlike him), he let me poke around his leg and while I couldn't see any problems, I could tell he wasn't able to put any weight on it without collapsing and crying. So we got x-rays (thank heavens for welch's fruit snacks, they can calm my baby down in any situation) and found out it was just a sprain, and sure enough 5 days later he's walking at 80% of normal.

This may sound awful, but another thing that has cheered me up, or more appropriately made me realize how good we still have it, is seeing what some of my good friends are dealing with right now. I have a few good friends battling some serious inner demons right now (bipolar disorder), a family in the ward with a daughter who just battled her leukemia into remission, a lady we are good friends with who is battling with some advanced lupus and epilepsy all at once (I gave her a ride to the ER today because she's hasn't held anything down for 4 days), various friends desperately trying to get pregnant or adopt, friends declaring bankruptcy because of medical bills, and an online friend who just spent weeks on bedrest in the hospital because of pre-eclampsia (but she had a healthy baby boy, yay!).

Lastly, our good friend and roommate, Corinne, for some unfathomable reason can't get a job- she's been looking for months! Hire her, people! She's lovely and smart and a pleasure to be around, and has a year of chef school under her belt. Texas folks, keep your eyes peeled.

In other words, we have it good. I know that. And the thing is, many of the people just listed have been comforting and pitying and sympathizing with me. I am surrounded by wonderful people every day, both virtually and in person.

And above all, I have an amazing, awesome, wonderful husband. I can't stress that enough. He is such a trooper, and takes such good care of me. Through all the crap of recent months, our marriage has definitely only gotten stronger. He's been wonderful about being a single daddy a few days a week while I work, and even still cooks and cleans while I'm gone. Where did I find such a gem?

Even if he is watching Happy Tree Friends right now. (I HATE that show).

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (the vent you've all been waiting for)

2009-11-11T12:24:00.000-08:00

The last month and a half have been a lot for us to handle. We'll start with the Good:

Daniel winning the award at Macy's for best costume. That seriously made my month.
I got a part-time seasonal job at Barnes and Noble. It's the only place I'd applied, about a month ago, thinking "I could enjoy working here, and we could use the money". It's weird working minimum wage again (it's actually a quarter less than my first job was 10 years ago, because Texas minimum wage is so much lower than Washington's), but unlike my last job, when I'm done for the day I can leave it behind and not think about it until I walk back through those doors again. I could go back to consulting (it certainly pays better), but that was so all-brain-consuming, and since I worked at home, I could never just leave it behind. Anyways, I've enjoyed working there so far and I LOVE the benefits- great employee discount, plus I can borrow any book with a dustcover for 2 weeks (so I can be knowledgeable about what's out there). The staff has all been very kind and easy to work with.
Kenny sold his three bookshelves on craigslist, and the buyers were thrilled! Once we get more time, Kenny has some more customers lined up.

The bad:
Where to start? These have honestly been the worst 6 weeks of my life. Our luck has been AWFUL. And since I've been such a drain and so whiny, I figured I'd let y'all know why I'm so glum. Just so you know how we were coming into the month- we had recently decided to save money by doing our own haircuts (requiring a haircutting kit to be purchased) and by changing our own oil (requiring jacks and tools and draining pans). We had also bought me some harping supplies for upcoming gigs, and extra tools for Kenny to build bookshelves to make money. So we had drained our already meager account to make these investments so we could start saving money. We were planning on buying new tires for the honda, as they are currently dangerously bald (and still are).

Then the honda broke down- needed a coolant flush, a new timing belt, new spark plugs, new coil and distributor cap, and some other things I have no idea about. 1400 for repairs.
3 days later the honda power window broke. 6 hours of Kenny's time (when he was already overly busy building bookshelves).
The next weekend the Durango trunk latch broke.
The following week the Durango power window broke. Fortunately by now Kenny has learned a thing or two about dismantling car doors.
My next (second and last) harp gig got put off indefinitely.
And then the washer broke. We looked online and everyone who had our washer had the same problem and fixed it by replacing a certain part. We buy the part for 30 dollars. It gets here and doesn't fix it. So K goes back online and finds some forums that say "oh yeah, for a few of us that part didn't work and we had to buy a different part for 130". We are currently waiting for that part. Daniel has no clean clothes to wear today.
Last week the durango "check engine" light came on. I don't even want to know what's wrong, but today the engine started sounding like there is a small helicopter in there.
And the A/C in the durango started mysteriously stopped working this last week. Fortunately we are entering the three months in Houston where the weather is bleeding hot only ever OTHER week.
On at least three different occasions (twice in the church parking lot), some random person has deeply scraped/gauged the durango and left their car paint in stripes on our car.
Daniel broke my only pair of eyeglasses (I'm blind as a bat without them). We tried super glue and masking tape for a few weeks, but they're beyond repair. I'm wearing my contacts all the time at the moment but had to pay 120 for an appt/prescription and another 100 or so for the costco glasses (which are still being made). Thankfully my mom helped out with funding the new glasses or else I'd be stuck wearing contacts all the time, which hurts my eyes.
Lucy sprained her foot being set down in the garage after barking at a visitor, and has been walking on three legs for 3 weeks or so now. She's putting weight on that 4th foot again, but not fully.
All four people in our house has some combination of sore throat, snotty nose, and/or cough.
I got a toenail and two plantar's warts removed about 6 weeks ago. A lot of billing confusion happened after the fact, and I only just discovered the true cost of getting a toenail removed is 786.31. And that's still only halfway to our deductible.
Our healthcare premiums, which started the year at 381/month, recently jumped up again, bringing the total to 445/month. I calculated it, and by the end of the year, we will have spent nearly 7500 for medical care this year (including premiums, deductibles, prescriptions and copays). That's over 20% of Kenny's post-tax salary. For a healthy, employed, family of 3 where the biggest health problem was toenail fungus. And this doesn't include the baby I would like to have but can't afford.
I've had a UTI and ear infection for about two months that I just can't kick. But we can't afford a doctor, or the medicine, so... I'm still drinking that foul concoction known as cranberry juice and hoping it will go away on its own.
Daniel has had two ear infections, then the amoxicillin to treat the 2nd ear infection gave him a yeast infection and diarrhea leading to the worst diaper rash of his life. Fortunately some activia helped clear that up just in time for...
Daniel sprained his hip going down a slide last week, so we had to get x-rays. He's finally hobbling around again today. He had a very rough weekend, full of energy but unable to run around. He stopped sleeping the night for a while because either his ear hurt or his hip hurt.
Daniel still hasn't adjusted to Daylight sayings and is waking up at 6:30 everyday. Since I get home from work at 11:30, I'm quickly becoming a zombie.
Kenny and I are desperately trying to deal with our losses this month and have cut out dates, our once-every-other-week fast food trips, netflix, and allowances entirely out of our budget.
We've also stopped having "real meals" three times a week to save money, so we are once again eating college fare- pb&j sandwiches, totino's pizza, and top ramen. I've lost 7 pounds I didn't really want to lose.
My new job, which is great, requires me to work a few days a week from 2:30-11 pm. Meaning I have to leave Daniel with Corinne for an hour until Kenny can get home. It also means I don't get to see my husband awake once the whole day.

The Ugly:
In july we switched insurance to geico. I called Chase to let the escrow folks know to send the new premium amount to geico. Apparently the address they had on hand for geico actually took that check to some donut shop in minnesota and geico never got it. I call and all chase can tell me is "we sent it, it's not our fault". Geico tells me "we didn't get it, it's not our fault". So two months later, Geico retroactively cancels my still-unpaid policy and it looks like I've been without insurance for 2 months... meaning my premium went from 800/year to 3500/year (because I've had a lapse in coverage). After spending about 8 hours on the phone with chase and geico (sometimes with both at once, listening to them bicker about who's fault it was), chase admitted fault and geico was kind enough to forget about the lapse in coverage and sign me up for 765 (lower then what they had quoted me for in july). Yay for geico, boo for chase.

It gets worse. In september I called Chase (who (mis)handles our current mortgage, to ask about a refinance. The guy, Eric, was oh-so-kind and helpful and said he could bring our payment down 200 dollars a month. I say "great, but don't obligate me yet, I want to talk to my husband". But the guy goes ahead and sends an appraiser and a filled-out 30-page application. Somewhere in the middle of those 30 pages, Kenny notes that our mortgage payment itself will only be going down about 58/month (definitely NOT worth losing 7000 in equity). The rest of the "savings" are from the fact the guy quoted by escrow payments as being way lower then they currently are.
For any of you who have been following our refi woes... the reason we even want to refinance is because our original loan folks underestimated the escrow so our mortgage payments have bene more than we could handle. Had we known they would take up a third of our mortgage payment, we'd probably have never even moved to Texas.

So I call Eric back and leave a message. Twice a week for 5 weeks. He returned ONE call, but I happened to be in the shower. I'm a stay at home mom with a cell phone- I'm NOT a hard person to get a hold of.
So anyways, I think "fine, whatever, so long as we don't get charged" (thinking a month has passed and they haven't charged us, so we must be good). Then we get a letter from Chase saying "by the way, sorry it took so long, but we're only just now charging you the 750 application fee". WHAT!? I call Eric back more. I call his manager. I send emails. I call billing. I call Eric. No returned calls. I finally call billing one more time and the most they can do is cancel our application, getting us 350 back. But they get to keep the other 400. They're putting it for "review" to see if I had authorized him or not (which I hadn't) but it sounds like we'll not be getting that money back. I'm seriously fuming, I'm so upset about this. DO NOT EVER BANK WITH CHASE IF YOU CAN HELP IT. Unfortunately, it's our mortgage- we can't just pick that up and walk it across the street to our bank of choice.

Both of our families have been very kind and generous and have helped us get through this, as has our ward. I know things could be so much worse, but it just feels like all of our best efforts to save our money, stay out of debt, and be financially independent have only gotten us into trouble. For the first time in our marriage, we will have credit card debt that we can't pay off at the end of the month. Even with my additional salary it will be months before we pay it off- my last hope is our tax return.

Anyone who made it this far into my pity-party deserves an award, but I have none to give. Honestly, I'm feeling a bit broken right now. Keep us in our prayers, that Daniel, Lucy and I will all heal without any more doctor fees; that Kenny and I will find a way out of this financial mess; that there won't be any more mean surprises for us in coming months.

Sorry for posting so much and for it being so depressing. I'll probably regret posting this all later. I just needed to get a few things off my chest.

PS. This is IN NO WAY a solicitation for financial help. Just some sympathy and prayers.

What baby elephants do in their spare time

2009-11-01T15:40:00.001-08:00

In their free time (and sometimes in disguise), baby elephants can be found at the library reading a book:

At the mall (winning 50 dollar gift certificates by taking 1st place in the Macy's Department Store Costume Contest)

Fussing over their cruel fate (let's face it, being a fat elephant is hard, hot work):

Playing with sticks (and moving too quickly for nature photographers to get crisp photos):

Trying to go down slides (it's hard with a backside that wide):

Hanging out with Dr. Kunz after a long hard night grabbing candy out of bowls:

Hanging out with their friends, the gnomes (this one's name is Avery, and he's ADORABLE):

Getting pictures taken with Gandalf:

At the park boldly feeding fearless nutria and ducks:

Getting their faces painted:

And overall having an awesome halloween:) All photos can be found at our October album.

Autumn days at the park(s)

2009-10-24T20:11:00.001-07:00

Sorry this post is so picture heavy, but I FINALLY found my camera charger. So at long last it's cooled down enough to go to local parks during the day. For a while there every time we tried, Daniel burned himself on a playground toy.
A few weeks ago we went to the Mercer Arboretum- basically, an outdoor plant museum. We saw some pretty cool things. Some mario-esque mushrooms:

A big ol butterfly:

Hundreds of tiny lizards:

One very large water snake (you can't tell from the pic, but I'm guessing he was about 3 feet long):

And a wild elephant:

K, I made that last one up. That's just D in his halloween costume.

Then earleir this week I took Daniel to a new park- it was fun, but not worth the 75 minutes it took me to get unlost and get back home. Here are some pics:

Thanks to Becky for the ADORABLE cookie monster sweatshirt.

And my favorite little progression of Daniel going down a slide:

He does great sliding by himself, but needs to work on the dismount;)

He may not talk much, but...

2009-10-21T13:43:00.000-07:00

Daniel just successfully won his first argument. He was coming out of timeout and, as usual, I grabbed his hand and walked him back to the thing that got him in trouble- in this case, he was playing the dog food. I said "this is off limits, you don't play with the dog food." He then points at the dog food and waggles his finger in a "bad dog food" way. I think "great, he understands!" He went on to waggle his finger at the dog food bowl (also off limits), then the water bowl (off limits)... he proceeds to walk around the downstairs and waggle his finger at everything that is "off limits": the towel rack, the stove, the dishwasher, the cupboards, the wall that he banged up with my hairbrush, the washing machine, the computer, the filing cabinet, the stroller, the toy mallet I took away because he banged it on stuff... then finally turns to me and raises his hands with his palms facing the ceiling and yells at me in gibberish as if to say "so what AM I supposed to play with?"

Poor Lucy

2009-10-17T18:54:00.000-07:00

First, as you may have noticed, I gave up on creating my own blog backgrounds for now. Apparently creating them myself means I never change them because I'm too busy. So I'll go the lazy route.

Anyways... there is a rather comcial thing happening in our house these days. Poor Lucy is getting attacked by Daniel ALL THE TIME. Daniel giggles, lucy groans, daniel cuddles, Lucy silently plots his demise... all in good fun.
I look into her kennel and see this:

Now that Daniel can climb onto the couch (the only piece of furniture in the house that lucy is allowed on) with ease, this is a regular sight:

As is this:

And this (note the outfit change- this was taken the following but really could have been taken any day this week because it's a common sight to see)

Oh, I wish you could hear the sound effects involved. The giggles, the commands from kenny- "Daniel, be soft!", and best of all , the deep-down grumbling of a dog who, a short while ago, had the rule of everything 3 feet and down. But she is SO gentle, patient and tolerant, though she lets her annoyance be known I have never once worried that he would hurt Daniel in any way. Usually I'm much more worried the other way around, that Daniel will poke an eye out and pull an ear off or in some other way maim our dear, sweet Lucy.

Let's go ride bikes.

2009-10-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

October hasn't proven to be a whole lot better than september, but things are looking up.
The biggest problem is the *&%@! honda civic. When we bought it, it had around 100k miles on it- which for a honda, usually means it's not even halfway through its life. I always figured the 110k dodge would give us more trouble- sad to say but I have very little faith in american-made cars. But no, the honda has been the one to give us all the trouble. But this is what we get for buying a car on craigslist. This is its third major break down since we bought it just over a year ago.

We were pulling out of our development on a saturday to run errands when all the sudden the engine died, as if it had no gas. In the middle of turning onto a very busy 45 mph street. We took up 3 lanes, just drifting... Fortunately no one was coming at the moment. We got out, pushed it back into our development, called a friend to help push it back to our house down the street, and called the tow truck. Turns out the honda doesn't have the right kind of coverage- only our durango gets free tows. So we agree to pay 80 bucks and wait for the tow truck. For 2 hours. Give up, call the tow company, they forgot to put our info into their queue. So we call another tow company. Wait an hour. They show up but it turns out they only take cash and we're 20 bucks short. By now the mechanic is only open for another 30 minutes, so we give up.
Monday (meaning Kenny is at work, and I'm in charge of the car situation even though I am clueless about cars, and the mechanic knows it), some friends in the ward help tow our car in. The mechanic (who replaced our whole radiator a few months ago) lets us know (and forgive me if I get this wrong, its all greek to me) the distributor cap, ignition coils and spark plugs all need replacing. On top of it the radiator reserve needed flushing, the timing belt was about to spontaneously combust, and the back tires are bare.
*sigh*
1400 dollars later... the mechanic promises us there is nothing else in that engine that could possibly need replacing. The next day, I get a call while kenny is on his way home from work. "Bad news". What could possibly go wrong now? Turns out the power window was stuck all the way down and would need a new regulator and motor (good thing we don't live somewhere that randomly pours rain every few days). But my wonderful husband decided he could take it on- and he did. 9 hours later (and he didn't swear once!) and we have a working window again.

So the civic can't possibly have anything wrong with it, right? Right, for now. No, it's the dang durango now- the latch on the trunk won't open without finagling. Then yesterday the check engine light came on it. I'm pretending I didn't notice it cause I honestly will break if we have one more car problem.

Things could have been much worse. We were lucky to not have been pulling out onto the road at a busier time (like school hours- we live across from a bus barn), and that we weren't going anywhere important. We're SO lucky to have very helpful family and friends without whom we probably would have pushed the civic off a cliff (unfortunately there aren't many cliffs in Houston, so maybe an alligator-infested swamp instead). And hooray for my wonderful husband who has had a crash course in cars this month and who saved us a lot of money by getting heavily involved.

If anyone wants to contribute to our "save morgan" fund, gifts will be accepted through paypal.;)

*morgan is the name of our civic, because he's an old black man like someone else we know and love.

And for getting through my rant, here is a picture of Daniel playing with his new sidewalk chalk:

Spring Harpist

2009-10-03T14:33:00.000-07:00

I did it! I played my first harp gig Thursday night for a Breast Cancer Survivor benefit and fundraiser at Memorial Hermann Hospital, for $200! A month ago, my harp sat unloved and unplayed in the corner, and now I practice hours every day, and have a brand new website (still working on content for it though) and a business card:

The card is nothing exciting, but I'm thrilled with how the logo turned out, if I do say so myself.

(PS, I live in Spring, Texas- hence the title "Spring Harpist". It was better than something lame like "dancing strings" or boring like "Jennifer Kunz".)

The gig went well, I think- I'd give myself a 7 out of 10. I have about 45 minutes of non-religious music I can play and went through that whole repertoire 3 or 4 times. I made a few mistakes here and there, but nothing hugely noticeable- imagine playing a dozen songs (on any instrument) through 3 or 4 times each without errors. My back was ACHING, but I made some contacts and handed out quite a few business cards. At the end of the night they sent me home with a gorgeous flower arrangement of lilies.

Unfortunately, my camera's battery charger is missing. A professional photographer took some pics and hopefully will send them to me when he can so I can post them.

We had to shell out some money for an amp to make my harp loud enough for a room with 100+ people, so in the end I'm still in a little bit of "harp debt"- which I will get out of with my next gig October 29th (for a Breast cancer fundraiser luncheon).

I'm really excited to have found a way to bring in a little extra money, and to have something that will MAKE me keep playing the harp regularly. I actually have callouses on my fingers from my folk harp- I don't think I EVER played enough before now to have big ol callouses just from the folk harp, so this is a great sign.

Almost cut my hair

2009-09-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

First, for those who caught the song reference in the title, Kenny and I got to go see Crosby, Stills and Nash a week ago at the Woodlands pavilion (for those who don't know, CSN was a huge folk rock group in the 60s/70s). It was wonderful! It's an outdoor, covered venue, and there was a kicking lightning storm in the background- practically a strobe light. They all preformed wonderfully, I fell a bit in love with Stephen Stills... AND they did a few songs that made me really happy (like Cathedrals, which is not one of their more well known songs but definitely a favorite of mine, PLUS a cover of Grateful Dead's Uncle John's Band, which was AWESOME). So yeah, happy me. Then in a few weeks we go see Jason Mraz. I'm so excited!

Also pertaining to the title of the post, I gave Kenny his first haircut-by-wife. It had gotten really long (some curls were 6 inches if pulled straight) and we decided we could save a lot of money if I learned how to cut his wild curly hair- it's very different than using a 3 and buzzing up the back. Here's the "before":

The "during":

And the "after":

I think I did decent for a first time, though definitely not perfect. I'm exciting to do it again, I learned a lot, and next time I can do it more even and not quite so short. Fortunately hair grows back quickly.

Also related to hair, Daniel's hair is coming in nicely. He may be getting a REAL haircut this week (his first real one, if you don't count his mullet trim).
It's finally coming in on the top:

And we're getting some decent curls!

(By the way, that last pic is Daniel showing me how he "prays". He mostly does it when he wants food.)
And, here's my latest favorite picture of Daniel, even if it is way too dark:

The pre-edit is here if anyone wants to try at prettifying it better than I did.

Adventures at Walmart

2009-09-04T07:58:00.000-07:00

First, if I haven't warned my readers before, I'll warn you now: sometimes I pass out. I'm not talking headrushes (though I get those too), I'm talking lose-consciousness-even-while-sitting-and-turn-purple-and-green-and-shake-uncontrollably-then-wake-up-and-throw-up episodes. If this ever should happen while you're around me, don't freak out, don't call 911, I'm not dying, just get me something to throw up in and a drink.

So what brings on this ominous warning? Well, it happened yesterday in the Walmart parking lot. I suspected it was coming all day- I have a bad cold (it often happens when I'm sick) and had a toenail removed this morning because of toenail fungus (I'm assuming stress and blood loss had something to do with it). I had even told kenny in the morning that I was feeling like today might be one of THOSE days.
The last time it happened was on a plane in August of 08, the time before that, in the shower getting ready for my first day of work (I had to call my poor boss and tell him not only was I missing my first day, but also, when does my insurance kick in?) Anyways, I was at walmart with my new roommate Corinne and our new friend Emily. Everything went fine, I even checked out ok (even when I'm healthy I sometimes get a little faint in check-out lines). But as we walked to the car, I began to lose it and realized I needed to lay down NOW (fortunately Daniel was chilling in the seat of the shopping cart). So I did, on the hot pavement (it was 95 yesterday) in the middle of an aisle of the Walmart parking lot, which, of course, attracted a crowd (including a nurse). I desperately wanted to get off the pavement and away from the crowd, so Emily was kind and went and got the car and pulled it around, and I got up and got in it. Unfortunately our Durango's front seats don't recline quite enough (though I don't know if that makes a difference at the point I was at), so that's where I lost it. It felt like I was sleeping for hours (I usually manage to squeeze a full on dream in while I'm passed out), but I don't think I was gone for more than 10 seconds. Apparently I turned green and white and shook around a lot. The nurse nearby could barely find a pulse and they were all debating to call 911. Fortunately, I had warned Corinne that this happens and not to panic. So sweet Corinne and Emily gave me a walmart bag to serve as a barf bag and drove me home, stuck me in bed, put away my groceries, and watched Daniel for me. What a HUGE comfort and help. Kenny works late on Thursdays so he wasn't home til 6.
The scary thing is if it had happened 2 minutes later, I would have been driving my two friends and my baby. I do know when it's going to happen, usually by 15 seconds or so, but, who says I could get to the roadside and get parked in that condition safely?
So what causes these little fits? NO idea. The first time it happened, I was healthy and had just graduated high school, so no stress at all. It was at a doctor's office where I was a file clerk, and all my coworker nurses immediately took a blood sample (including glucose) and blood pressure and couldn't find anything weird
After the second time of it happening, we got the full gamut of tests- EKG (heart monitor I wore for 24 hours), an EEG (a brain monitor to test for epilepsy), an MRI, and an echocardiogram... everything came back normal. The problem is that I think we'd need to have those tests done very near to when the incident happens (if not during) and it's not predictable enough. I mean, once a month or so I'll tell Kenny I'm having a "shaky" day (though I have yet to have an episode while Kenny is around), and it only results in a full-on episode maybe one in ten times. So yeah, I'm at a loss for what to do, I'm a little bit terrified of it happening again when I don't have friends around, but we can't afford to get tests done when I can bet they'll be inconclusive because the incident is long gone.
Though, with all that said, things could have been MUCH worse yesterday. I was well taken care of, I managed to not hit my head on anything, and I wasn't holding Daniel.

Hi, old friends

2009-08-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

If I were to have posted more in the last month, they would have all gone something like this:
We're having fun. Daniel is a little ball of fun. Some days my cheeks hurt from laughing and smiling so much. Take these videos for example:

He now understands most of what we say and is great at following instructions like "pick it up", "put it away", "go downstairs", or "press this button". The other day he spilled some milk on the floor, so I handed him a paper towel and asked him to clean it up, thinking "I'll let him pretend to help ME clean it up". He went promptly to the mess and scrubbed it all up completely by himself. I nearly died of shock that my baby is old enough to finally clean up his own messes a bit.

Still no talking. We had a few "dadas" but for the most part, Daniel knows how to babble plenty but not how to put meaning to sound. I'm not really worried, but I am eager for him to be able to express himself more clearly. His feet are fat enough that he barely fits in many size 7 shoes, but of course those are all 3 inches too long at the toes, so he is still usually barefoot.
Kenny went back to school a week ago for Teacher Work days, and next Monday is the start of classes. He's teaching the same class as last year, 9th grade Algebra. Having a car during the days is marvelous and I can already tell a major difference in the atmosphere of our home, not having two cabin-fever crazy people running around.
We are renting out our large upstairs guest bedroom to a friend in the ward, Corinne. Corinne was baptized into our ward last February and she and I have become pretty good friends. When we found out she needed a place to stay, and we realized that we need just a few hundred dollars more each month to make it by, this seemed like a great solution. She's already been a great help around the house and it's wonderful for me to have an adult to converse with during the day. Daniel and Lucy both adore her, more so than any other adult we've had in our home.
The only real "event" of the last month or so is that we went to visit Kenny's sister Jeannette and her family in Fort Worth. They kindly even allowed Lucy to come with us- her first big vacation! We had a wonderful time. We went to a local waterpark where Daniel thought he was just in heaven, then came back home for a s'mores party in their backyard, commemorating national s'mores day (my kind of holiday). Here are pictures of that trip and other recent happenings:

Since we've been home

2009-07-28T19:56:00.000-07:00

We've been back for two weeks, but I'm still in vacation mode. Having Kenny at home has been amazing. We've had a lot of fun, gotten a lot done, and I've been completely spoiled so when he goes back to work I'll be miserable.
The good news is, I'll have a car so I don't have to wallow at home in my misery. We finally bought the Durango. After discovering that there are pretty much no healthcare options that would give us maternity coverage, and that we therefore need to wait maybe a year or so before the next baby, my consolation was a car. Sadly, the car was much more affordable than a pregnancy would be:(. But, I had been debating between having my kids 2 or 3 years apart- this just defaults us to the 3 year option, which is fine- we can take things a little slower and just enjoy being a family of three. And someday when #4 comes along, we'll have a way of getting around in our 2002 durango:

My birthday went well- nice and quiet and relaxing. Kenny bought me some books (I read 6 books in the 7 days after my birthday- I highly recommend the "Percy Jackson and the Olympians" series) as well as some good smelling oils and candles and treated me to a 1-hour massage that was just heaven.

I've been going a bit stir crazy, feeling a bit too lazy, spoiled and unproductive just sitting around reading, so we decided to paint a room. We chose the smallest paintable room in the house, a bathroom, not realizing that small does not necessarily mean easy- with the windows, shower, mirror and light fixtures there was plenty of effort involved. I think we did ok, though. Where the master bathroom used to look like this:

It now looks like this:

Kenny, on the other hand, has been working lots around the house. He just barely finished my new bookshelf- I'll post some pictures of the shelf tomorrow on facebook (where the shelf isn't just a dark blob in the photo, since tonight's pictures don't show just how wonderful the shelf is). I'm so excited to have a husband who can build me stuff!

Daniel has been a blast lately. No complaints there, he's been nothing but fun. Though the other day he did get into the fireplace and eat some ash, but he didn't seem too fazed by it (note his black hands and teeth):

His favorite game currently is taking things out of, or putting things into, other things. Like this- he put my shoes in my hamper then had to climb in to get them out again:

We just went to a free US Army Field Band and Soldier's Chorus show at the pavilion and sat out on the lawn and let Daniel run around and smile and wave at everyone, and this sweet old lady walked over at the end and said "I just had to let you know, you have the cutest baby I have seen in many years". It made my night. He's just such a ham in public.

So there's life in a nutshell. Kenny goes to a (lame) how-to-teach-like-a-robot class next week, then he only has 3 free weekdays after that before going back to school full-time. Having him home has been like a second honeymoon, we've both been so happy. But I always have next summer to look forward to...

Family Pictures

2009-07-25T12:09:00.000-07:00

While at the Ranch we got a LOT of good pictures in. First, the family pics:

Looks great until you realize I'm making this face:

But that's ok. At least Amy and Misha are making these faces:

And Jeremy and Ashley:

and let's not even mention Katelynn's bright pink underpants;). Aren't family pictures fun? (Forgive me for posting semi-embarrassing pics. I must say I think Misha, Amy, Jeremy, and Ashley are all good looking kids. And Kate has lovely underpants.)

Here we are trying to rejuvenate tired smiles:

But I think we turn out alright in the end:

Then there are the pics with just the kids, where Addie waved her booty at Daniel:

and he couldn't help but sneak a peak:

When Daniel is happy or reacting to others who are happy, he claps, so most of the pics include him in some state of clapping:

The kids started losing it, then Daniel's hat attacked him:

We got some decent pics of just the three of us, but Daniel was pretty done with the picture-taking process by then:

Step-cousin Debbie got this great pic in of Daniel:

Lori took these of Daniel and Addie out in a field:

Except Daniel had a hard time staying upright in the grass:

And didn't enjoy the pokey hay:

So I took him up to a cabin where he could easily stand and not be poked. He liked that much better:

Lori and Addie joined us, but keeping both babies looking the same direction was tough, and we were losing our lighting:

Portland/Vancouver

2009-07-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

We ended the trip in my hometown of Vancouver. My parents were still in Canada but let us stay at their house for a few days. We went to the Vancouver's new Farmer's Market, which was fun- apparently it was "Pride in the Park" weekend so I got to see just how many Drag Queens Vancouver has. Then went to downtown portland and saw the Saturday's market there, where we had a delicious Funnel Cake with strawberries and whipped cream (yes, I'm blogging about what we ate- it was THAT GOOD). Daniel quite enjoyed the use of public transportation:

He hammed it up and smiled and waved at everyone on the train.

Then we went to the Ira Keller Fountain in Portland- a fountain that was designed to be played in that takes up a whole city block:

Three years ago, Kenny proposed there, knowing it was my favorite fountain ever (and I really love fountains), so it has special meaning to us. Daniel really enjoyed playing in it- I could barely keep him from diving into it:

Anyone in the area, I'd highly recommend throwing on swim gear and going to that fountain. It's awesome.

We went to the Portland Zoo with my sister Becky and family. Daniel got to pet the goats (I was amazed he wasn't at all frightened of them, compared to his last encounter with farm animals):

And I got attacked by a Lorikeet:

(if I had known my pony tail was failing that badly I would not have gone in public, but oh well).

And last but not least, we went down the railroad tracks on the river just a few blocks from my home, down to the Fish Hatchery.

A train went by:

And nearly blew Kenny and Daniel away:

Our flight home was uneventful (aside from us having to be picked up by an airport shuttle at 4:00 am) and we're happy to be home, with it's quiet and predictable schedule.

Seattle

2009-07-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Kenny had never been to Seattle, so we stayed a few days thanks to my mom graciously letting us use her condo timeshare. We stayed at The Camlin in downtown Seattle (near Pike's Place) and we liked it fine for something in the city.
One of the biggest reasons Kenny wanted to stop in Seattle was to see the Nintendo Headquarters of America in Redmond (turns out it is literally next door to the Microsoft headquarters).

It ended up not having much for tourists, but we got to take pictures and go to the gift shop, where we bought a soccer ball that looks like a chain chomp and a plush bumble-bee Mario.
We also walked to Pike's Place market, where I got to revisit the store where we bought my first harp in 1998. We had a lot of fun just looking around, and I'm very proud to say we didn't buy a thing.
We hit up the Seattle Aquarium as well, but I remember it being a lot bigger and cooler than it was. Daniel enjoyed that he got to put his hand in the water at a few places (though he couldn't reach the anemones that I got to poke):

Walking around Seattle is tough, there are so many hills:

It really tired Daniel out:

The highlight of our stay in Seattle was something I didn't even plan: there was a Jim Henson Exhibit at the Seattle Center.

It was awesome. We got to see this delightful little video of a very young Kermit learning about visual thinking and Jazz:

And Kenny got to be a muppeteer for a live Muppet band (videos will be posted sometime):

We got to see my high school friend Megan Spencer, which was a lot of fun (sadly I forgot to take a pic). It was so good to see friends and hang out with Lori (and see her new house, which I'm way excited about.) Then we headed on down to Vancouver again... (to be continued)

The Return of the Blogger: The Ranch

2009-07-25T10:26:00.001-07:00

July has been a fun and crazy month and I've quite enjoyed disappearing from the world for a while. Many pictures have been posted of our travels, but I'll sum up here:
We flew to Portland on the 1st. We had a layover in Denver, where we arrived in good shape, but the flight from Denver to Portland was AWFUL. It took off 3 hours past Daniel's normal bedtime, and he was exhausted but didn't know how to sleep with all the hubbub going on, so instead he screamed bloody murder for an hour or. Now, I have social anxiety issues, so that's pretty much my worse nightmare. It made a HUGE difference that no one gave us nasty glares or anything (I wouldn't have blamed them), but instead we got many sympathetic looks and well-meaning advice.
We had one day in the Portland area before driving up to Canada, so we went to Oneonta, a waterfall in the gorge near Multnomah Falls.

You have to hike through the water in a narrow canyon to get to the waterfall, which you can then swim in if you can brave the freezing water (which I did:)

It's one of my favorite places on the planet, plus I have many good memories there, so I am glad we got to go.

Then we drove 9 hours or so to my Aunt's Ranch in Kamloops, British Columbia. Daniel handled the drive well, and it's a BEAUTIFUL drive:

The ranch is beautiful and scenic up in the hills and forests:

Yet the second we stepped inside the house it just felt so much like my Aunt Lori (formerly an architect in San Francisco, who's sense of style I've always admired) that we might have forgotten we were 45 minutes outside of civilization.
We had a great time. I got to ride a horse (we cantered up and down the lane, and my butt and thighs felt sore still a week later, but it was SO worth it):

And we did a family talent show and a sing-along. Kenny's talent was solving a Rubik's Cube in under 2 minutes:

One day it rained so we went into town to an indoor swim center; the water was so warm and Daniel had a good time showing off his newfound swimming skills:

And, last of all, we took many, MANY family pictures. My mom and sister Becky made adorable cowboy outfits for all 13 grandkids:

I'll do another post with some more of the professional-style pics in a bit.

After 5 days on the ranch, we pack up and headed to Seattle, with Lori and her daughter Addie riding along:

We even got to stop in Bellingham to see Nick Hatch, who was my best friend/"boyfriend" on and off through Junior High and High School:

He's much shaggier than he used to be.

The ride went well, though Daniel squawked a bit and we got a bit lost just north of the border, but at least Addie was an angel. Daniel got sick at the very end and threw up just moments from Lori's house in Seattle- I should be grateful he waited until we were close. He's not a big vomiter anymore but we had a rough few days there in Seattle- not sure if he was actually sick or all the different foods and situations were just too much for him).

Next post: Seattle.

Return of the Shenanigans

2009-06-21T20:03:00.000-07:00

I keep telling myself that someday (hopefully soon) Daniel will learn about logic and physics and listening to warnings. In the meantime, life gets more and more interesting. For one, few surfaces in the house are safe from him now. He can reach his little hand over the edge of the table, and even thought he can't see what he's getting to, he knows to wiggle and flop his hand around til he finds something to pull down. Like animal crackers:

Which he then eats whole:

even though they are too big for his mouth, which causes him to choke:

and then cry:

He no longer gets stuck between the washer and dryer, but now he knows how to open them and put in items (like hairbrushes, computer mouses, and flip-flops):

(note: the drooliness in that second picture is pretty commonplace around here. I'm pretty sure this kid could hydrate all of Africa with his drool. He just cut teeth numbers 11 and 12, so here's hoping the drool factory slows down a bit).

But sometimes I get back at him, like making him wear a baby bonnet of mine I found in my memory box:

His newest trick is blowing filberts (when you take your open mouth against something soft and blow, making "pbhhhhbbbb" sounds). He does it against my legs, arms, and neck all the time. Better yet, he's discovered our leather furniture delivers a good sound. He continually tries to do this on the dog, usually leaning on her in the process. That alone is pretty comical (filberting doesn't work on hairy creatures), but Lucy doesn't like being filberted so she moves out of the way, causing Daniel to fall on his face. I, being the horrible mother that I am, crack up every time. So funny.

Hand-me-downs

2009-06-21T19:26:00.000-07:00

Kenny and I don't like buying things. This is just as well, since we're living off a starting teacher's salary. We've been very lucky to inherit a good many things for free. Most recently, we inherited this couch and coffee table from a couple who moved out of the ward:

I LOVE the couch, but we're still trying to figure out how to make the coffee table fit our style a bit more. (Any suggestions, particularly from Anna Rose?) The couple that gave it to us used to be mission presidents and told us at least 6 General Authorities have sat on that couch:).

When we married, inherited a LOT of furniture from my deceased Grandma. Including this beautiful teak table:

And this bedroom set, which was meant for a Full, but we had a king... so kenny sawed it right down the middle, spread out the sides, and put some plywood and two-by-fours in the middle (we covered up the gap with some wood- and now we have extra under-the-bed storage):

(note, these pics are OLD from when we first moved into the house). I do secretly wish that my grandma didn't have such a thing for natural oak furniture, but... free is free. She also gave us a natural oak entertainment center, and a natural oak desk.

We also got a TV from Kenny's parents (which has since given up the ghost and is now a glorified alarm clock stand in the extra bedroom), a couch from Kevin and Candace, a queen and a twin mattress for very cheap (we now have TWO guest bedrooms), countless clothes for me from my sisters over the years, and toys for Daniel from ladies in the ward (we've bought maybe 6 toys for him his entire life, and he still goes for the ones we got for free). I think word has gotten out that we need/accept free stuff so we're getting lots of little things regularly. My guilt from mooching is nearly entirely gone- we make good use of what we get and in turn we happily give away the things we aren't using anymore.
And some of my favorite outfits of Daniel's were hand-me-downs from my siblings:

And now, for the happiest news, here is another hand-me-down:

A 2002 Dodge Durango.
K, we're not getting it for free, or even close, but we're getting a great deal on it. We're not completely decided on it, but unless something goes very wrong in the next month, we'll buy it when we get back from vacation.
A good friend of mine in the ward has been meaning to sell it and heard me bemoaning my carless state and offered it to us for a great price. She loaned it to us over the weekend and we fell in love with it.
I'll admit we're scared (terrified, actually) of buying an american-made car, much less one with 100k miles on it, but it's a great deal, we know it's complete history (only one owner, no mechanical problems ever, mostly freeway miles, well maintained) and... well, frankly, I want it. I'm completely biased because the idea of having a second car completely thrills me. It took a lot of budget finagling, but we can afford it even after our recent mortgage fiasco. I must admit I'm proud that we'll own TWO cars with no car payments, even if the cars are nothing to brag about. Now if we could just get rid of my student loan (at a whopping $80 a month), we'd have only a mortgage to worry about.

On a side not, we need car name suggestions. Our black civic is named Morgan (after another old black man.) I bought Kenny an Autobots and a Decepticons decal for father's day (to replace the one he lost in my car wreck), and we're pretty sure Morgan will be the Autobot (how could it be a Decepticon with a name like Morgan?), leaving Green Car to be the Decepticon. Ideas would be appreciated- I don't want it to end up like my Elantra or my Accord and never merit a name. My first car was Mephistopheles, and that was hard to top:).

Such a ham

2009-06-14T13:07:00.001-07:00

Daniel is a huge ham. Any time we go out, he waves, giggles and smiles at everyone we see and is constantly entertaining whoever else is in line with us, or behind us in sacrament, or in the pick-up truck next to us. He just cut teeth #11 and 12 (top molars) and fortunately this teething experience wasn't as bad as tooth #10.
He is just such a joy. He makes me laugh all day long. Really, the only thing I'd change about this kid to get an ideal toddler is I'd teach him how to sleep somewhere other than his crib in complete silence. Vacation will be interesting.

The other day we discovered that the property tax people just realized that they were taxing us only half what they should be and we now need to pay another 400 a month to catch up. This came to us in the middle of me going over our budget (my 5-sheet, 1500-row excel spreadsheet) to see if we could afford a second car. We could buy the car out of our savings but to afford the month to month (and rebuild savings) we cut out our cable television and landline (I have a new cell phone number, by the way- email me if you don't have it). Things looked great and shiney before the tax thing happened, and I was very proud of our frugality. Of course, I was pretty bummed when I finally figured out that the tax people have the right numbers now, it wasn't a mistake, and we're in the hole (even without the 2nd car). So here I am, sitting on the floor sobbing, and Daniel comes in giggling and cuddling. He's never seen me cry like that before and he thought it was hilarious! It sure is hard to cry or be upset with a toddler giggling and burying his head in your shoulder. (the good news is if we refinance we can get back to the same place we were before- no 2nd car, but no debt either).

So we got some video of him being giggly and playful. They're kind of long, but I think the cuteness is worth it:

A Day at the Pool

2009-06-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

Today we went swimming with our friends Josh and Jen at her parent's pool. Daniel and I have been doing swimming lessons together and wanted to show off his new skills.
This is his biggest new skill- the dunk:

Can't you see how much he loves it? Just kidding. Here's a more successful attempt:

He does very well but always sticks his tongue out, which is hilariously cute. He sticks his tongue out pretty mch all the time, like this pic with his BFF Jennifer:

See how well his duck tail is coming along:

I promise we'll cut it soon. I just love the curly hair too much, but I do know the mullet is hardly fashionable right now.

All in all we had a great time. I've posted lots of recent pics and videos on our web album.

Spread the Word

2009-05-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

I'm officially done starting every post talking about what a bad inactive blogger I am. This will be the last mention of it:) I'll assume from here on out that you guys know I'm sorry about my lack of blogging.

On to my post...
An acquaintance of mine recently told me a story about how as a young unmarried woman she made some poor choices and found out she was pregnant, about 6 months into the pregnancy. Quite the shock, I'm sure. But she said "I didn't worry for a second. I knew exactly what was going to happen and where that baby was going. I was friends with a family that was eagerly awaiting an adoptive child and I knew I was the answer to their prayers."
Of course, the situation was hard and sad for her, but can you imagine how much worse it could have been if she didn't know from the start that her baby would have a loving, complete family?

So I'm spreading the word. Kenny's sister, Jeannette, her husband, Jeff, and their 4-year-old daughter, Laura, are eagerly seeking an addition to their family. They're a wonderful family, incredibly talented, tons of fun, and so full of love. Laura is adorable and bright and well-behaved and that little girl deserves to be a big sister.

They've done everything they can and have completed their end of the LDS Family Services Adoption process, and have nothing to do now but wait and hope. Check out their story and spread the word.

How things are coming along:

2009-05-13T12:33:00.001-07:00

The Hair:

He has legit ringlets in the back but is still bald on top.
The Walking:

This is actually from about 3 weeks ago, but you can see he's gotten pretty good at walking. He doesn't "plerp" nearly as often. Still can't get to standing from sitting though.
He's also finally learned how to clap! Yay!
The Yard:

It no longer looks like a checkerboard, though it has some patches that are still "filling in". It's definitely taken root and parts grew up to 5 inches in a week last week. Whew! That's a lot of mowing (thanks, Kenny)
The Novel:
It's not. I've been way too anti-computer, then I lost my copy of MS Word (and all my files are .docx), and I've given up for a little bit. Once Daniel is old enough to understand "please don't eat the computer cord" I might start back up.
The Resolutions:
Well, it's been five months. Which of my resolutions are still going? None!
Well, not entirely. We still meal-plan and only shop once a week, and that's been a good budgeting thing for us. I no longer keep to our weekly cleaning schedule mostly because our place just doesn't require that much cleaning. I clean when needed. Unfortunately, this means there are days when I have no idea what productive (and baby-friendly) thing to do. It doesn't help that Daniel HATES the vacuum cleaner.
I did stop hanging out on my online bulletin boards- I was spending way too much time on them and in the end I got too emotionally involved and when the board started falling apart it hurt too much. It's been 4 months since I've been on those sites at all, though I still miss those ladies and the friendly, useful mommying advice I got there. I still use my internet timer and generally I spend one hour on the internet a day (it may seem like more if you follow me on facebook, but really- I just hop online for 3-minute increments at a time).

A Day Downtown

2009-05-12T07:15:00.000-07:00

I've been bugging Kenny for months to take Daniel and I down to Discovery Green park in downtown houston so Daniel and I could play in the fountain. Finally, Saturday was our day. We had a blast. At first Daniel just hung out on the side, looking a little confused but still interested:

Then he ventured in:

He happily weaved through the fountains (which popped in and out of the ground at random):

And was even a good sport when he got overwhelmed:

In other news, Daniel has learned how to get into kitchen cupboards (no worries, any cupboard with something dangerous in it has been baby-proofed).

The Lazy Blogger

2009-05-10T19:14:00.001-07:00

I am so behind in blogging, I think I'm overwhelmed by all the things to post so I'm just ignoring the computer.

Let's see, what's new?
-If you haven't yet heard, after three promising interviews and an unofficial job offer from a closer (nicer) High School, we learned that that district has a hiring freeze so they simply can't fill their vacant positions, whether Kenny is a shiney teacher or not. I think I took it harder than Kenny- I was excited for him to have less of a commute so we could share the car more. The idea of another year without a car during the day is fairly depressing.
-Daniel is a pro at walking now, and has been for a little while. We've had a good month- he's been giggly and agreeable and is really catching on to things (he knows how to locate mommy's nose now- I tell you, my kids a genius, though we're still working on clapping, "mommy", "daddy", and not running into walls.) He's been sleeping and napping well and loves vitamin-fortified Nesquick (and he tolerates normal dairy milk occasionally).
-I'm done breastfeeding, as of about a week ago. I'd been feeding once or twice a day for a while and didn't feel like I had much milk left, but I've discovered in the last week I had plenty left- and now it's trapped and oh, it hurts! It's been wonderful, being able to take Aleve/Naproxen or sleeping pills when I need. I even drank a caffeinated soda the other day!
-I start this Friday as a respite care worker for an 18-year-old autistic boy in my ward. 5 hours every Friday night all summer. I'm looking forward to it and to the extra cash (which, who are we kidding, will probably go straight into savings).
-Kenny has less than a month of school left- his last day of normal classes is the 4th. He'll be working summer school though, which will take him right up until June 30th, the day before we go....
-HOME! We're headed to Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, and British Columbia in a 2-week trip for a family reunion. I haven't been home since my wedding 2.5 years ago and I'm SOOOO EXCITED.

I can't think of much else, so here are some pictures.
Daniel having fun in the bath:

And after the bath:

This picture demonstrates his proportions well (10% for height, 50th for weight and 90th for head- short, fat, with a big ol noggin):

new blog layout

2009-05-03T16:18:00.000-07:00

It had been a few months so I made a new background. The problem is I'm determined to not use anyone else's stuff for my backgrounds now, so I have to wait til I have time to make something. I made this one out of a picture I took at a park of a tree, turned into a stamp then run through a filter in photoshop. I'm rather proud of myself, if I do say so myself.
I still cheat and use other people's fonts. Don't have THAT much time (or skill) on my hands.

Happy Birthday, Little Man!

2009-04-26T18:01:00.000-07:00

Today marks Daniel's first birthday. I wrote Daniel quite a lengthy letter to serve as the journal for his first year. Here are some excerpts:
My dear sweet Baby Daniel,
Today marks the end of your first year with our family, and oh, what a wonderful year it has been. Daddy and I both agree it has been the happiest year of either of our lives.
You arrived at 8:13pm at Willowbrook Methodist Hospital in Harris County, Houston, Texas. You were three weeks and two days shy of your due date (May 21st), making you technically premature by 2 days, but were a healthy 7 pounds and 11 ounces. We were SO ready to meet you and I was SO ready to not be pregnant anymore.
We entered the hospital at about 5:30 am on a Saturday morning, they broke my water at noon, contractions picked up at 2pm, and I started pushing at 6pm.
It was love at first sight. The first thing everyone noticed was your complete lack of hair.
You are such a happy little man: you love to make people around you smile. We can't go out the door without people commenting on what a happy and adorable baby you are. So far, your personality shows a desire to see those around you happy, a good sense of humor (you laugh more than any baby I've ever met), and a very easy-going and relaxed outlook.
I'm so excited to see you grow and who you become. Thanks for teaching me how to be a mommy:)

Here are the 100 best pics of the first year:

I'll post party pictures tomorrow.

Not ashamed

2009-04-22T12:22:00.000-07:00

Some Jehovah's Witnesses have been coming around every few days to chat religion. No contention or debating or anything- just exchanging ideas, probably to no real purpose other than strengthening each party's resolve in their own beliefs. Not sure if they think they are getting through to me or what, but in fact, each time after they leave I breathe a sigh of relief that I believe what I believe.
I know I whine about Mormon culture a lot (come on folks, we're pretty mockable), I try to disassociate myself from the typical "blind follower" mormon, I go out of my way to establish myself as an "atypical" mormon, I often follow the "spirit of the law" while purposefully disregarding the "letter of the law" (just to show I have my own reasons for obeying, I guess) but what it all comes down to is this: I love my religion. I mean, deeply love my religion. Not necessarily the organization or its policies, but the doctrine, I can't imagine living without.

I know that not all readers of my blog are mormon and they probably don't want to be preached at, and I'll try my hardest to not get preachy. I don't want to start some religious debate, though heaven knows I love discussing religion with people (hence me chatting so long with the JWs). I've just been feeling more and more lately like I need to make sure that my blog readers (both mormon and non-mormon) should know that despite any conflicting signals I may send, there are reasons why I will never leave Mormonism (I particularly want my family to know this). Also, for my own sake, and since this is sort of like a journal for me, I want to get in writing why 99% of my life revolves around my religion. I know it's long, but I put a lot of effort and thought into into writing it and honestly just don't know what I would cut out of it.

The JW's door approach (and really, I have nothing but respect for them, going door to door takes great faith and I hope/suspect they find joy in it) was to ask me if I worry about my child growing up in this sad world full of bad people or if I worry about "the great enemy" death. They wanted to bring a message of hope for me out of the Bible, but the only way that would effect me much is if I was feeling a little despair, and I'm not. I already know the Bible is full of hope. I think they were caught a bit off guard when I explained that I don't despair, I don't fear death or sorrow as anything more than a growing experience (unpleasant though they may be) that is part of God's plan.
They (the JWs) found scriptures that they interpret as saying death is not part of God's plan but rather a punishment for Adam and Eve, that death is some great enemy to mankind. They point to baby Daniel and say "surely you'd be sad if your baby died". Well yeah. Of course. I'm sad to leave him with a babysitter for 3 hours to go see a movie, of course I would be sad to be separated from him for the rest of my life. But that's all it is- a temporary separation. I know that we'd be together again, in the grand perspective our time apart would be short, and that he would have fulfilled a necessary part of the plan by simply coming here at all.

And that's the thing that ties me so deeply to mormonism: what we call the Plan of Salvation, something which is completely unique to Mormonism. The knowledge that I existed before I came here, that I chose to come here so I could learn and grow, gain a body and an eternal spouse (and family), that my overall goal is to become as much like Christ as I can. For this reason, I follow the Mormon "rules": not because I fear punishments or some black mark on my eternal report card (ha, like I ever cared about grades), not because of some sense of guilt (eh, who am I kidding, guilt does play into it at least a little:)) but because the "rules" just make sense considering my eternal goal of being Christ-like (compassionate, charitable, and -most important in my book- knowledgeable) and rearing an eternal loving family. With the knowledge and goals that I have, I would be betraying myself to turn away from the path I have chosen which has already given me so much happiness. For those without my knowledge, experiences, and goals, party on: I could never expect someone else to live by my standards when I know that it is only my experiences which make those standards (or rules) suit me so well.

The same scriptures the JWs had pointed to to show that death and trials are thing to mourn, I interpret very differently: they are things I would mourn if not for the fact I believe Jesus overcame those obstacles. With his resurrection, he gave me a way to overcome physical death, the separation of my spirit from my body. With his atonement, he gave me the ability to overcome spiritual death, or the separation of my spirit from God.
I don't think that God separates himself from us because we sin, I don't think he turns away like an angry parent who must see justice met- rather, I think that repentance and taking advantage of Christ's sacrifice for us is one more way for us to grow, one way for us to realign ourselves with our eternal goal.
I always think of the movie "What Dreams May Come". For those who haven't seen it, Robin Williams is in heaven, his wife commits suicide, and he has to go save her from hell. He's angry that God would "punish" his wife by sending her to hell, but when he finds her he sees that really, her imprisonment is her own doing: the only way to deal with the choices she made is to live in a state of self-punishment and half-reality. I would not be happy living with an omniscient father if I felt like I had not lived up to the potential both He and I know I have, especially considering the blessings and directions he has given to me specifically.

This is a perfect not-LDS example of my own understanding of sin/punishment: we are already so busy punishing ourselves when we do something against our better knowledge, God's punishment would hardly be necessary. God didn't set up this system of sin, guilt and repentance so that his justice could be met; he is merely giving us a way to "unpunish" ourselves, for us to know because of Christ's atoning sacrifice that we are deeply loved no matter what mistakes we make, and use our experience to move forward (perhaps a little wiser, a little humbler) rather than let it be a roadblock.

Whew, I know this is getting long. I wish I could wrap my beliefs in a nutshell and show it to the world in some beautiful packaging the world would have to accept- but then, what would be the point? Coming to the knowledge of the truth is an important part of the process. And what "truth" works for me may not be the truth that best suits others right now, with everyone at their own point in an eternal progression.

Heck, there are a billion things God could do to make the LDS church more marketable. Change the name for one- "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints"- it's like we WANT people to think we're self-righteous and out of touch with reality;).
No, I think that the church on earth is a human organization, meant and decorated for mortals, and that we need to realize that what the world thinks and what the world wants just doesn't matter- it's all about individuals asking questions, finding answers and growing into understanding. Yes, if I were somehow in charge of the mormon religion there are many things I would change. That's probably why I'm not in charge;).

But deep down, it comes down to one question: did Joseph Smith, a young boy confused by the many conflicting views and sects of christianity, go to the woods to pray for guidance? Did Heavenly Father reveal to him that He (god) would restore to the earth the gospel as it was in Jesus's times, that he would restore a line of communication so that his children could seek his guidance directly? Is God still communicating and clarifying about things that Christianity and the world as a whole has been debating and wondering about for 2000 years? Are all my experiences on earth a part of some great plan of happiness, learning and growth?

If it is true, then there is no turning back for me, no matter if I'm feeling a little rebellious or not. If I thought it were false, believe me, I'd happily throw on a tank top, start smoking pot, and sleep in on Sundays.
But I do think it is true, so deeply that if I think deeply about it at all, those things I am tempted by actually hold no appeal for me. Believing is not a decision I have made lightly or in ignorance; I've spent my whole life questioning, studying and researching but in the end I always come back to the same conclusion, no matter how hard I look for a loophole that would allow me to forget my eternal potential.

I could never think for a moment that this beautiful world exists, that my beautiful baby was formed and given to me, that things fall together the way they do, without a loving supreme being (who happens to have a perfect mastery of science and physics). I could never believe that a loving Heavenly Father would stop giving us revelation when the original apostles died, or that his entire guidance for us could be contained in any any single book of scripture, or held by only a few chosen people.
As much as I sometimes would like to, I cannot deny the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And I know that when I follow those beliefs, I'm the best and the happiest Jen I can be.

Oh, I have some new pictures from before Easter of Daniel in his Easter Outfit, and some of us playing in his highchair:

In which we discover...

2009-04-17T12:12:00.000-07:00

...Why Daniel is always hungry and why Lucy is getting fat:

Parents

2009-04-14T19:19:00.001-07:00

I meant to blog about what fun we had with my parents here, but I've been so anti-computer lately that a week has passed and I still haven't.
Anyways, we had a wonderful time with my parents. I'm so glad that I have a good relationship with both of my parents- we're actually very close. Seems like I call my mom 3-4 times a week just to chat.
Before I get into the text that half of you won't read, here are some pics of our fun week-
Dad and Daniel having fun with glasses:

Tuesday, we went downtown to have lunch with my brother Kevin. After an interesting lunch (Daniel had a diaper malfunction for the first time in months), we went to a great park downtown called the Discovery Green:

On Wednesday we went to "Old Town Spring", a delightful 4 blocks of old boutiques and shops. Mom and Daniel had fun walking:

(Yes, my son often doesn't wear shoes. His feet are just too fat. We finally bought him a pair last week)
Then we went over to Kevin's house and played with their new baby Joseph:

Joseph and Daniel are good friends:

They came down for a week- they spent the first half at our house and the second half at my brother Kevin's. The first few days, I was getting ready for a big Relief Society hoopla and was incredibly stressed and annoyed at myself for volunteering for way too much stuff then procrastinating it until my parents were here. One of the things I had volunteered to do was make 75 RS directory booklets- with the name, email, phone, address and birthday of all 90 women in our ward. Considering the church doesn't have a soft copy version of all 5 of those items, it took some creative excel usage, data entry, and a mail merger to get it right- thank heavens for my 2 years of experience as a receptionist.
In the end, we got them all printed and cut down to size, then my dear sweet father painstakingly stapled all 100 copies, being careful not to let the undersized stapler leave any lasting fold damage to the booklets. I would NEVER have pulled it off without them. Most of all, I love that for 2 days I was in my worst possible mood, stressed and irritable, and my parents were nothing but patient and helpful. Even at my worst, I feel so loved.
Daniel LOVED having his grandparents here. He took right to both of them. My mom is amazing with babies and my dad was made to be a grandpa. D was in top form- honestly, I don't think I've ever had a full week go by where Daniel was in that good of a mood. It was awesome.

First steps

2009-04-08T16:29:00.000-07:00

We were hoping he'd do it while my parents were here, but he's a few days late:

This was our first take, and all the following ones weren't quite so successful, though he was very cute and smiley.
I'd imagine we're still a long way off from this being the primary mode of transportation. But still, I'm very excited. I can't wait til I can set him down at the park without worrying about splinters in his knees.

Gators, Turtles and Ducks, oh my!

2009-04-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

First, to answer questions from the previous post: no, we did not do all that grass stuff ourselves. Kenny did a fair amount, but in the end we paid some people to empty the yard of weeds, install a sprinkler system, then install sod. We had to save for a full year to be able to afford sprinkling/sodding 6000 square feet of yard.

Alright, on to the post at hand: I finally saw my authentic wild Texas Alligator! We went to Brazos State Park, about an hour and a half southwest of here, with my parents and my brother Kevin (and family).
We saw probably a dozen gators, one as close as 20 feet or so. Apparently it was the park's 25th anniversary so we unexpectedly got in for free then got to participate in some fun exhibits (petting baby snakes and gators, poking sea anemones). We took a 2-mile-ish hike around a lake, stopping every four feet to take pictures of a gator or a turtle.
Some highlights from the trip...
How cute are my boys:

Gator in the background of the following pics:

Why DIDN'T the turtle cross the road? Because some lady came along and got up in his face with a camera:

Daniel enjoyed riding with Dad:

There were turtles hanging out in the water every 10 feet or so:

Here's the gator that let us get real close:

So much to catch up on!

2009-04-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

First, isn't my husband adorable!? That last post was so sweet.

Second, sorry I haven't been around much. My parents were here for a week and we had so much fun playing, I hardly got near my computer at all. For some reason I've been way anti-computer lately. We had a blast with my parents, I'm sad to see them leave again.

Third, check out what my mom got Daniel to do:

He eats from a bottle! (cue hallelujah chorus) Just in time to be weaned, but... oh well! Keeping his belly full is less of a full-time job now. The secret was the Playtex Dropins system.

Fourth, check out my NEW BACKYARD:

For those of you who haven't seen (our backyard was a shameful secret of ours) this is what the yard looked like last September (when I still had Blue Camera, just before the hurricane):

Here is a google search image of my house last week:

And a digital approximation of my house this week :):

I have a TON of photos I need to post I'll try to get to this week.

My Wife, the Joo

2009-03-24T18:18:00.000-07:00

This post is actually not written by Jenni, but by her husband, Kenny! Jenn is at a book club meeting tonight, and I thought I'd try out this whole blogging thing, I've never done it before. I didn't ask for her permission, I just thought I'd try it out on her blog (I hope she doesn't mind).

Well, I just want to take a brief moment and let the world (of bloggers) know how much I love my wife. Every day, I anxiously look forward to getting home from work so that I can spend time with my wife. Coming home to her is the highlight of my day, and it always makes me happy. Even on days when Daniel has been a grump and maybe Jenn isn't in the best of moods, I'm still happy to be home with her to help her out. And in those cases, she always gets in a much better mood shortly after I get home.

Last week we spoiled each other since it was my Spring Break from work. It was really hard for me to go back to work this Monday, not because I don't like my job, but because I just loved being around my wife all day every day. I told Jenn that some day I'll work from home just doing wood working out of our garage, and Jenn can sell products online for me. I of course don't think that will actually ever happen, but it's a fun thought. I'll be happy if I can simply make things good enough for our home.

Speaking of which, I did successfully make a shelf for our entertainment room. We had one bare wall in the room that needed something to fill the void. I figured a single shelf that I could mount on the wall would be a simple first task to help me become more familiar with all of my new toys. Indeed it was. I learned a lot while making it, and I think that for my next project, I will probably make a very similar (but smaller) shelf for our very bare powder room. When I built the shelf, I didn't have anything in particular in mind that I wanted to display on it. So, until we come up with anything better to display, it proudly holds the 8 generations of Nintendo GameBoys. I'm sure that Jenn could do a better job of taking these pictures, but I thought I'd give it a shot.

Good times, bad times

2009-03-23T19:24:00.000-07:00

Good times- we have a new friend in the ward, Becky. She has a little boy Avery, exactly one month older than Daniel (seen here clutching my leg). I love this little man.

Avery had an early 1st birthday party we were invited to. It was a costume party, but Kenny and I were lame and didn't dress up. I threw together a last minute "costume" for Daniel- Super Mario:

He had fun with Avery (a cowboy):

And got his first real sugar, in cupcake form (see blue frosting):

And enjoyed playing with Daddy and with Avery's fun toys:

All in all, we had an AWESOME spring break. Lots of fun.

Bad times- this is a perfect representation of my day today:

My baby has decided that baby food is old news and he wants to feed himself. I still can't relinquish the control and let him feed himself anything remotely messy, and unfortunately graham crackers and cheerios hardly make full meals. So he won't sleep because he's too hungry, and he won't eat because he's too tired:

Today was a hard day. It may be because I got spoiled by Kenny being home over spring break last week and I miss him fiercely (I am sooo dependent on my wonderful husband)

The V-Day Flight!

2009-03-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

So, it finally happened, after FOUR reschedules due to bad weather. For those who don't the know, I bought Kenny a plane trip/ "flight instruction" back in February for Valentine's day.
First, Kenny got to learn how to inspect the plane:

Then we got in and all set up with our nifty headsets:

When we took off, we were facing south, which was cool because we could see our house (it's kind of behind the third clump of trees on the right side of the main road you see):

We went up over Lake Conroe, which was BEAUTIFUL, lots of boats out enjoying the clear weather, lots of green forests celebrating spring:

Kenny got to "fly" the plane, but only when we were going straight and absolutely no effort was required in any way- he got to rest his hand on the steering wheel:). Still had a great time.

And as always, I just love looking out the window at all the houses and being jealous of everyone's pools:

It was a lot of fun. Definitely worth the wait, I think the anticipation was half the fun.

Nature Day

2009-03-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

First, I found an armadillo. A few months back I thought I saw him hiding in the bushes by our house, but figured I was making it up (just like anytime I see a gully or pond I'm sure I see alligators). So imagine my delight when I looked out our window and saw a little armadillo just outside our fence. This is the only pic I got of him, and he's all out of focus (but the leaves are crisp and clear, ha). I had to stand on a ladder to see over our fence: Hes the blur dead center:

We named him maximilian. Honestly, I was so giddy about finally seeing an armadillo, and the thought still makes me smile.

A few days ago we went to the park and ended up seeing all sorts of wildlife:
geese, who let us get very close. I think they scared me more than I scared them

Turtles all over the place

A crane (and more turtles in the center)

And Kenny's favorite, a squirrel

And my favorite, a wild Danielbaby

PS, note how HUGELY FAT my son's feet are? This is why he doesn't wear shoes. NO SHOES FIT.

And last but not least, this is a nutria:

Creepy little beaver rat. He let us get quite close, though.

Next on my blog: the valentine's day flight that almost wasn't (which was awesome)

New Toys

2009-03-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Kenny has been saving his pennies and working saturdays to save up for woodworking tools. With a generous grant from his parents, he finally got enough for a table saw:

and a bunch of wood and finished his first project- a work bench:

Which Daniel was very happy about:

Check out his dancey dance moves:

More pics at our smugmug gallery

Catch-up

2009-03-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Whew, it's been quite a week. Some highlights:
-Kenny's sister Jeannette, her husband Jeff, and their adorable daughter Laura came to visit for the weekend. We played cranium, one of my favorite board games.
- For the first time ever, I lost at a game of Cranium, but it was a close game (sudden death overtime). Jeannette made a wonderful partner.
-I'm happy to announce Kenny and I discovered we trust each other well enough to play Cranium with just the two of us and promise to try our hardest at guessing for the other person when necessary.
-We all went to NASA together on Saturday for the first time (for us). It was miserable and cold but we had a good time. Definitely a necessity for someone living in Houston.
-Kenny finished the last step to being a permanent, certified Texas teacher (taking a test that could best be described as "beyond lame").
-We just weeded and put down mulch in our front yard, and also put down edging to keep the "grass" from taking over (if you've ever seen Texas "grass" you'd understand why I have it in quotes.)
-This week is Kenny's spring break. It's been delightful. I can't wait til summer.
-I have found a wonderful french bakery/restaurant we went to yesterday for breakfast. I had crepes and Kenny tried Quiche Lorraine for the first time (he liked it, the weirdo).
-We got a new vacuum. It's spiffy.
-Kenny made more delicious Peanut Butter cookies last night, and more pizza today. I'm spoiled rotten.
-I spoke in church two weeks ago. I have a half-written post about it, but in case I never get around to posting it: My talk had two halves. One was on my long road to finally feeling like a part of relief society (and it's NOT because I like fake flowers and bread machines). See, "love" is the thing that connects us all, even if we don't fit the "mold" of a Relief Society stay-at-home-mommy. The latter half was on how sometimes love means ACCEPTING service as well as giving it; sometimes the most loving thing you can do is let someone help you when you are vulnerable. I'll still try to post it if I can sometime. It was the first time ever that I spoke at church with no regrets on how it went- I actually think it went rather well if I do say so myself.

Oh, on a fun note: two sundays ago was the day we were supposed to reset our clock for Daylight Savings. We were going to go a half hour early (8 am) so I could prepare my talk. We managed to drive to church ("oh, that's weird, all these other churchs seem awfully busy for 8 am"), park in the parking lot ("why are there so many cars in the parking lot?"), walk down the hall ("these halls are empty for 30 minutes before church starts"), overhear someone speaking ("is someone practicing their talk before church starts? that's weird") and walk into the sacrament room before realizing we were 30 minutes LATE rather than 30 minutes EARLY. I made it just in time to get on the stand and speak.

New tricks

2009-03-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

Daniel has really taken off the last few weeks. He can climb the stairs, crawls like a pro, zooms with his walker, and is all around just growing up.
Here's a video mishmash of his new tricks:

Oh, and some other new tricks I could do without:

The problem with Big Love

2009-03-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

So I've had received at least 6 "calls to arms" from fellow mormons outraged over Big Love including mormon temple ceremonies in an upcoming episode. (for the non-member readers of my blog, mormons hold their temple ceremonies very sacred and personal. It's not that they have to be kept as some shameful secret; rather, we try to treat them with respect and reverence).
I'm not blaming anyone who is upset or trying to do something about the problem- it's a perfectly understandable response. We have every right to be outraged and disgusted. Unfortunately, I think it is completely counterproductive to let it get to you or to try to publicly denounce the show.
I promise that nothing we do will make the problem better- it will only draw more attention to the series and boost their ratings. If HBO were concerned about offending mormons, that series wouldn't exist to begin with.

This bit of commentary from LDS Newsroom sums things up nicely.
Such things say much more about the insensitivities of writers, producers and TV executives than they say about Latter-day Saints. If the Church allowed critics and opponents to choose the ground on which its battles are fought, it would risk being distracted from the focus and mission it has pursued successfully for nearly 180 years...
As Elder M. Russell Ballard and Elder Robert D. Hales of the Council of the Twelve Apostles have both said recently, when expressing themselves in the public arena, Latter-day Saints should conduct themselves with dignity and thoughtfulness.

Take a hint from the church's official response- oh wait, there hasn't been an official response. Like most times when the media mocks mormonism, the church's official response is to ignore it, turn the other cheek, and concentrate on things that ARE in our control, like service and missionary work.:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an institution does not call for boycotts. Such a step would simply generate the kind of controversy that the media loves and in the end would increase audiences for the series...
As someone recently said, “This isn’t 1830, and there aren’t just six of us anymore.” In other words, with a global membership of thirteen and a half million there is no need to feel defensive when the Church is moving forward so rapidly. The Church’s strength is in its faithful members in 170-plus countries, and there is no evidence that extreme misrepresentations in the media that appeal only to a narrow audience have any long-term negative effect on the Church.
If we're going to respond to the situation at all, it should be calmly and probably not publicly. We should set a good example of Christ-like behavior. We can use this as an opportunity to bring up with friends what the mormon church is really about, and NOT as one more way to show how mormons are just angry victims of moral outrage. I'd absolutely hate it if all the world knew about Mormons is the less-than-calm-and-reasonable way many responded to persecution following prop 8 and this new Big Love incident.

Lucky Jobs

2009-03-05T15:45:00.000-08:00

First, the very happy news: sounds like Kenny has a new place to work next year! A more local high school in our school district emailed him tuesday, set up an interview wednesday and all but hired him Thursday. They pay would be slightly less, but his commute would go from 45 minutes to 13 minutes, and hopefully the insurance benefits will be better so we can have maternity coverage for whenever we decide to give Daniel a sibling.
But the happiest news is he can get away from his current department. Kenny teaches in a Title 1 school currently- something like 97% minority. But they're good kids, that's not the problem. The problem is the school district admin and his own little math department have some stupid and just plain toxic people in them. His daily department meeting is draining his soul away a day at a time.
So anyways, the interview went very well, the lady was VERY impressed, and told Kenny she will make it official as soon as the opening becomes official (two math teachers are retiring but haven't made their retirement official yet). WOOHOO!
On top of that, a lady in the ward (who I barely know) overheard me chatting with someone about how I have some free time on my hands these days and offered me a job as a respite care worker for her 18-year-old autistic son right there on the spot. It won't have a lot of money, and it won't be often, but a little extra money goes a long way. I can bring Daniel with me, and apparently the autistic kid just sits on a couch and reads books anyways.
The same lady heard that I'm into photography and asked me to take some pics for her. After explaining that I'm really not a photographer and am just a beginner, I took some free pictures of her that I think turned out rather well. They are to go on the back cover of a book she is publishing, so now I can say I'm a published photographer:).

So yeah, things are looking quite shiny for us right now. Yippee!

3 hours

2009-03-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

In the 3 hours between one nap and the next, here is what we got into.
First, the diaper change. This is how it always ends up these days, now that he knows how to role over during the split second it takes me to get his diaper ready (warning, baby bum):

If I give him just a second more, he stands up and plays with the light switch. How do you put a diaper on THIS:

Next, nothing is safe. The kiddy gates that once worked so well, he's learned how to get around. The DVDs are the first to go:

So I put him in the guest room which has NOTHING he can get into, right? He finds the "backdrop" (read: black sheet) I used for a photoshoot I did for a friend in the ward. He starts crying and flailing until I save him, at which point he crawls right back:

Next we discover he can now not only pull himself to standing on the toilet, he can reach the toilet paper:

And at last, I can stop worrying about what he will get into next:

Sneaky little smile.
3 very LONG hours.
PS. I'm not a derelict parent who only looks in on her kid from time to time to see what photos she can make of it, I promise. Usually I run interference nonstop all day but today decided to show what happens when I turn my attention away for a second.

The Many Faces of Daniel

2009-02-23T19:06:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a long one, forgive me, I can't help myself:

Looking like my dad:

Oh so noble:

Absolutely shocked:

Dazed and Confused:

Showing those pretty lips:

Determined to be happy:

Inspecting the camera:

Drooling on the ever-present dog:

Looking either macho or worried

My happy boy:

Looking Concerned (probably because I stuck him in a tupperward drawer to keep him from eating my camera:)

K, the last one isn't a face, but I think his backside is cute too. Just look at that Toosh.
I'll have to get one with his leg rolls, they're adorable.

My hobbit-to-be has a mullet

2009-02-21T14:32:00.000-08:00

We joke that Kenny and I want to have hobbit children: big eyes, curly hair, and hairy feet. OK, not hairy feet. But the curly hair. Since I have naturally wavey-ish confused hair, and Kenny has very curly hair, I think it's reasonable to hope for curly-haired children. So imagine my delight as Daniel's hair finally comes in:

You see it? You see those beautiful little curls?

Of course, from the front, he's still completely bald:

Yes, my baby has a baby mullet. But at least it's curly, right?

5 Love Languages/ Please don't burst my bubble

2009-02-20T08:40:00.001-08:00

For book club in relief society this month, we read "The Five Love Languages". I was reluctant to read it, partially because I generally don't read non-fiction (especially "self-help" books), and partially because I feel like Kenny and I are already good at communicating our love to each other. But I read it, and I'm glad I did. The whole book is about how different people feel love in different ways, and what makes you feel loved may not be what makes others feel loved.
We identified that Kenny's "love language" is Quality Time. He is happiest when spending time with his family. Which is great, because Quality Time is high on my list too. But my real thing, I think, is Words of Affirmation: I need to be told frequently that I'm doing well, I need vocal encouragement. I kind of break without it. Fortunately, I've gotten good at feeding lines to Kenny so he knows what I need to hear- it's not that I'm having him tell me lies, but they are things he thinks go without saying (cause he speaks a different Love Language, see?). We both also have Physical Touch high on the list, in a perfectly innocent way: we express/feel love by holding hands, cuddling, and generally go out of our way to be physically near each other. Next on our list was Acts of Service, though while we both think they are nice, neither of us really NEED that to feel loved. The last one makes us laugh: Receiving Gifts. I don't think I know anyone less gift-y than us. If Kenny bought me a diamond bracelet I'd be furious with him. That's just not me.

I'd highly recommend the book to anyone, whether or not you think you need it, as it applies to all relationships, not just marriages.

Anyways, as I read the book, I realized more and more just how lucky I am. I am so head-over-heels in love with my husband. I spend a few minutes each day contemplating how much I adore him. We probably say "I Love You" at least a couple dozen times a day. We probably disgust the people around us, and I'm probably disgusting everyone reading this post.
As the relief society group read the book and discussed it, plenty of opportunity to vent about husbands came up. Honestly, I understand women need to vent, and no husband is perfect (not even Kenny- I'd do anything to improve his hearing and his memory) but I feel so out of place in those discussions. As women go "oh I HATE how my husband never takes out the garbage" I think: I probably shouldn't mention that Kenny is awesome at taking care of the garbage. And he cooks more than half our meals, he does most dishes. He buys me flowers randomly. He never complains about helping with cleaning. If he asks me to clean something, it's usually because he knows I'm happier when I contribute. If I ask him a trick question like "if I HAD to have plastic surgery, where would you want me to have it" he thinks for a moment then answers "on your tummy, but not because I think it needs it, but because I know that for some reason that's something that bothers you about yourself".

Worse yet, I am SOOO SICK of hearing that the only reason we have it so good right now is we're newly weds (which, technically, we shouldn't be considered anymore, since we have a kid, right? we're going on 2.5 years now):
"Oh, he does the dishes and cooking now, but just you wait a few years..."
"He may buy you roses now, but wait til you have a few more kids, he'll never remember..."
"You think he's perfect now, just wait til about year 7, that's when he'll really start driving you nuts..."
"You may think you can't live without him, but after 20 years or so you'll be grateful when he goes out of town for a few days to yourself..."

ARGH! And this is all from women with "good" marriages, who are happy and no doubt do love their husbands very much. But I have no reason to believe that things are not going to keep getting better or that time alone is going to make us not need each other as much. I think of where we were a year ago, and we've grown so much. I don't feel like it's twitterpation anymore, not that honeymoon feeling. We've already gone through a few very rough patches in our marriage and come out stronger for it.
Not that I don't think we'll have trials: especially since we both have different parenting styles and stuff, but I don't think we're going to get worse at communicating over the years. I don't want to be happy when he's out of town. I like to think that I'll still adore him and need him when we're 80. Is that too much to ask?

The biggest redeeming thing for me is one marriage in particular that I get to be witness to: that of my brother Kevin and his wife Candace. They've been married.... I'm going to guess 9 years now, they have 4 children now, and I don't think I've ever seen a couple maintain the googley eyes as long as they have. I've never seen them raise their voices, and I doubt they ever do. It's fairly easy catching Kevin staring at his wife, and I remember a few pregnancies ago overhearing Kevin mumble to himself "I have the most beautiful pregnant wife in the world" (it's true, Candace is beautiful, even barely after giving birth). Yeah, they're pretty cheesy. But it's so sweet, and they give me hope. It is possible to sustain that kind of love.
I'm not saying I think other marriages that change are inferior at all, or that I'm better off. I just don't like people projecting their experiences onto me.
So yeah. Next time some mooney-eyed newlywed gushes about her husband, let her gush. Not all marriages change the same way through the years.

Whew, that's long. Sorry. I've been thinking about it a lot lately.