In the last decade

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

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

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)

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

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)

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...

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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...