Discovery Museum

It was a wonderful adventure!!! Some of our friends gave Evelyn some free tickets to the Discovery Museum at the Gateway for her birthday and we just barely took advantage of that amazing gift today. We took Rico, Sokimna, Erin and Eli with us at it was a blast. Evie loved having friends to play with and the museum was just her size. These are just some pictures of the journey.

Michael enjoyed the life-light helicopter so much that he had a heart attack and Rico had to necessitate him.
Showing some skin on the Channel 5 news is the new thing.
This horse was taller then a ... horse. It was huge and Evelyn loved it.
There was a little grocery store for the kids to play at going shopping. Eli found the best thing of all, my baby.
Becca made a sandwich and Evely was very sad that it wasn't real.
We thought we'd try some strawberries while we were there.
Rico is doing something that I am going to censor and Sokimna is enjoying a day in the forest.
What can I say? I look good and should be on America's Next Top Model...yeah.
This is Mike being a beaver. I can't really say anything about that either. :)
She is the cutest turtle ever. She was so much in character that she hated being on her back just as much as any real turtle.
I had a little turtle. Her name was tiny Tina...
There was even a water center for the kids to soak themselves in. The apron was so long and she so tiny that she was stepping on it when she tried to walk.

We loved spending time with friends today and watching our little girl play. The Christmas season is always a blessing just like the people in our lives. We love you all and wish you a merry Christmas.

Cooking Experiments

It has been a week of experiments for both my husband and myself. I spent my time with a dough called fondant and Mike with five huge racks of ribs and a home made dry rub to go on them. The above cake was the crowning jewel of my week. I've also included some pictures of some mini cakes Becca and I made and then a picture of the dry rub for the ribs before it was mixed. The ribs were a little strong and the fondant a little greasy but all in all, both projects were edible...

Okay, the point is that we had fun and are learning by trial and error. :)

Emergency Room...maybe

I'm being over dramatic, but I believe that when one's child gets hurt the mother is allowed be dramatic after the child is safe. Enough ambiguity. Evelyn was in the family room at my mother-in-law's house. She has recently become an expert climber, even making it on top of our counter top high chairs. (Its pretty high up there for a child that's only 30 inches tall. Well, what we think happened was her attempt to climb onto the couch in the front room. All I saw was her holding her mouth and a red liquid. At first I thought that she had knocked her teeth back into her head but her lip was just swollen. She just has a cut on the inside of her mouth, upper lip. There was no trip to the emergency room but I was ready to go.

Crazy children trying to grow up and do big kid things. Mike and I talked about it last night as we went to bed. I'm sure that most parents feel this at some point, but there was just a moment of utter helplessness. I couldn't stop the pain immediately and it broke my heart. That is one of the most horrible feelings in the world. Our consolation though is that children are terribly resilient. She was just fine after a frozen go-gurt and a diaper change. She is healing just fine and has returned to her antics.

Fetish

So I turned around one day to find my daughter standing in side my husband's shoe. And yes, she can fit both of her feet into one of his. She was just so cute that I took some pictures. My daughter has a fetish because not only does she climb into Mike's shoes but my shoes litter the floors right now. I have a red pair that are her favorites. But she doesn't try to walk in them. She just likes to climb in and climb out. Aren't the habits of our children fascinating?

New Camera

Now call me crazy, but my Christmas presents growing up were always kind of a surprise. I would convey some of the things that I might expect but what was under the bright, colorful paper on the a happy Christmas morning was always a fun and welcome surprise. Not so with my husband it seems. He always knows exactly what he would like and refuses to just let me surprise him! This year, he requested a more sophisticated camera then I knew existed. Its a D50 or other and we found an amazing deal on it. So to spite him for knowing what he's getting I got him something that will be a surprise and then I'm going to use the camera as much as I want. These were the pick of the day. It really is a good camera. To bad the only thing I know what to do with it is point and click. Waste of good technology. :)

Side Note: It was an amazing hair day for the both of us. This is a singular occurrence.

Yes or No

With our baby being with her grandparents in Arkansas this week, we've had a lot more time to ourselves...to blog. This is a video that we took about two weeks ago. The family has been practicing the shaking of the head for a little while and then it hit the father and I that we haven't been practicing yes. Here is Evelyn practicing a new motion for her neck. Lets just say we need some more practice. :)

The first holiday dance.

We were at the Target, when we saw an entire room on the side of the store dedicated to Christmas. We went in and found the music-testing machine. Taylor Swift is a favorite of Meg's, so I pushed the button to listen to her music. Apparently Evie was in a very festive mood, because this is what we saw...

Happy Halloween

Meet the cutest Utes Cheerleader ever!!!

It was a wonderful Halloween. We spent the night at Tom and Reyna's and then trick-or-treating with Rico, Sokimna, Erin, and Eli. The booty was well received. Evelyn had no idea what the basket was for when we started. She just stood in front of the door with the pumpkin and looked at us like we were crazy. She didn't think that once the colorful wrapped candy was placed in it. When she finally figured out that she could take the holiday themed candy out of her basket we couldn't keep her hands out of it.

We feasted on Reyna's wonderful meal that she spent all day putting together for us. The night was ended with a scary movie, Ghostbusters. :)

One more fun thing that Evelyn enjoyed: The trick-or-treaters. Before we went around the neighborhood ourselves, we had a few visitors at Tom's house and Evelyn loved it. There would be a knock at the door and she would dash to the door, help whoever was handing out the candy to open it all the way and then steal some candy as the door was closing. Happy Halloween, and now on to Thanksgiving.

Hair we are

Evelyn's hair is finally long enough to do something with but her mom is also less worried about it being pulled out with a pony tail. Due to these two events coinciding, Evelyn has been wearing pig tails. They look like antenna. She is now our cute little bug most days. The only down side to this adorable new Evely is that when the pony tails come out we are still left with our little bug's hair sticking straight up. It dries that way and is stuck till we wash it again.

More adorable then the bug look are the curls that are emerging. She has gotten her daddy's curls and I am thrilled about it. Most of the time it ends up curled up at the ends leaving her mother jealous. We love our baby. She is the joy of our life and yes, she will regret her parents being computer literate when she grows up.

Jobless...

So...I was just let go from my job on Tues. I put in a full day of work and then at the end of it I was kindly told that the business was going in another direction and there wasn't time to train me properly. I was then handed my last pay check and left the office.

It wasn't until I was at the bank and the deposit was in the hands of the teller that I found out the check wasn't even signed.

Now I'm not blaming anyone, this is just a new development in our lives. I'll find something better and we'll be okay. But I thought this picture suited the event. Love you all and thanks for the support.

Etc...

So, life has been a little hectic of late. But to explain our last post first. I was on one computer and Mike was on another. I was finally sitting down to do some blogging. Now because of recent events, like forgetting the camera every time we go out, we've been using Mike's phone to fulfill our picture needs.

Well, on this night of blogging Mike decides to download all of the pictures that we have taken over the last few weeks and then delete them so that I could only blog from his computer that he is doing homework on. I called him a loving term of endearment and his post was in retrobution. There is is.

But to the hectic part of business...
I recently started a new job with a wonderful dentist in the Bountiful, UT area. Its been a bit of a challenge. I've had to learn a few new computer programs as well as things like reconciling bank statements. Now some of you may have learned how to do that with your first bank account, but it was completely new to me. Quickbooks and a program called Dentrix are now my daily companions.

My loving husband is currently sick with a cold and in bed. He has been in school for about 2 weeks now. He truly loves it. His classes are things like College Calculus and Microbiology. He has like 3 different labs a week and has a 1 hour commute both ways. Needless to say our time together is prescious.

Evelyn is almost a year old now. She started crawling at about ten months and is now running at 11 months and 1 week.
-She also broke three teeht in one week. One day she had just the one bottom one and the next there were two on the top and the fourth one came in about two days ago. She really has been good compared to the first one. She ran a high fever for a few days on the first one. And its been barely a fuss with these other three.
-She bonks heads now.
-Pushes furniture around just like her mommy.
-She has said 'Hi' to me a few times in the morning and I also heard an 'O-tay' one day.
-She climbs up and down stairs and she has also purposly rolled down them a few times.
-She makes the indian noise with her mouth. You know where you make a sound and then put your hand over your mouth and pull it away repeatedly. That's the best description I can give this morning.
-She also has a shoe fettish. She'll pick up or shoes and we find them all over the house now.
-Evelyn also enjoys pulling her clothes out of her drawer and trying to put them on. Mostly they just touch her head and then fall to the ground. But pants, shirts, skirts, they all try to sit on her head.

Well, this is where we are at. The years are short but the days are long.

Oh, Mike and I also celebrated our 2nd year anniversary a few weeks ago. We spent it in California at San Francisco for a day. The Ghirradeli Chocolate factory was hecca cool. But we love you all and will try and be better at this blogging thing again.

Meg is officially a bum!

Pho King.

Feed me!

This is a video that Meg and I put together with the power of Macintosh. It isn't Hollywood quality, but it is better that any of the junk on the Disney channel. Also, Cake is the artist of the song, and we are hoping that we are not infringing on any of their rights.

Holland Relatives

So believe it or not, there are other people in the world besides LDS members that do genealogy. The family reunion that we attended this summer is a testament to that.

The story begins with my great, great, great grandmother having a dream that one day two men in white shirts with black name tags would come to her house with a message and that three of her sons would listen to it. Well those three sons were Abraham, Willam, another man that is a distant uncle to me and I can't remember his name right now. So these three brothers picked up their families and moved to the united states. Abraham, my great, great grandfather had about 9 or 10 kids, my great grandmother among them. She then had my Grandma Lila who then had my mother, who of course was blessed to have me. And so goes the family line.

So these relatives from one of Abraham's brothers or sisters (he also had 7 or 8) wanted to meet the lines that had left Holland. They flew over for about a week and we had this wonderful little barbeque.

The video above is my little girl taking her first swing ride. She was holding on very tightly to the sides until we put the camera bag behind her. Then there were no reservations. My sister is the one in front of her and I'm in the back pushing. Unfortunately, the ride ended during this video because Evely bumped her mouth on the swing. She really enjoyed it up to the point.

One of those days...

It had been a long day. Evelyn had and still has a rash that just won't seem to go away. So, I decided to let her air-out...during a nap. I laid her down in the crib with just a shirt on and left her that way. Then...I forgot about it. I had planned on putting one on about half way through the nap and then just plain forgot.

I then went out on an errand with Mike. We received a call from his sister who was watching the baby when we were about 15 minutes away from the house. Mike said emphatically, "What happened?" I immediately grew concerned. I had visions of my resourceful daughter having found a way to fall out of her crib or something disastrous. He quickly told me that nothing bad had happened. Which of course did nothing to sooth my nerves. When he got off the phone he was laughing. "Did you put her in the crib without a diaper on!?!" My immediate response was one of defense. "She needed to air out. I meant to put one on later!" He still just looked at me with a big grin. "Well, she was playing with her poop. You let our daughter play with her own poop!" The car exploded with laughter.

Once that subsided though and I thought about what I had done; its just became one of those days that you wonder how you are ever going to be a parent. If you can forget to put your child's diaper on what else can you forgot?

To add to the failure of the day, Michael was playing with a little ball that Evelyn has. Its motion censored and had fun little songs. But my point in telling you what the does is that because of the hardware in it, they have made the plastic protecting it rather hard. So Michael is playing with it and kicking it around. He started trying to pop the ball up in the air...right next to Evelyn. And would you believe it, the ball popped up and decided to conk our daughter in the head. Mike felt so bad.

So in day, we allowed our child to poop in the crib and play with it and then just a few hours later we kicked her in the head with a ball. Can we be parents or what?

PS: There have been no mishaps since that day...two days ago. :)

Watermelon Face

My daughter has a special affinity for getting whatever she is wearing dirty. And seeing that watermelon has a small red-ish tint, we decided that leaving the fabric off the baby was a good idea. And it was.

This was one of the funest feedings yet. Evelyn absolutely loved it. She just kept opening her mouth over and over again. She often looks like a little bird when she tilts her head up at us with her open mouth. In fact, that's what we call her a lot of the time.

The real hilarious moment was after she had received about five small pieces of watermelon within a minute. We just figured that she was chewing them a little quicker. Mike went to give her another piece and all of a sudden the five little pieces came tumbling out of her mouth.

She just smiled at us with her big grin that melts all hearts and the laughter rolled out of us. Cute little peanut...what would we do without you. :)

Box Baby

We went to Sam's Club and bought these little fruit cups for Evelyn to make snack time a little more easy. But the box is just awkward in her cupboard. So I took out all the fruit cups and set the empty box on the counter. I turned around to throw some trash away and found my daughter sitting in the box. Her daddy thought she needed to experience being in cardboard. She is pretty cute wearing a label.

Glee of the Diaper

Our beautiful baby girl never ceases to surprise us with her inginutity and sneakyness. I was being a thoughtful and loving mother when I allowed Evely to hang out in her new, clean diaper before I put her in her outfit for the day. Like most babies, she loves the freedom of no clothes; so I reiterate that I was being a thoughtful, kind mother when I allowed her to crawl and stumble around the floor with only her diaper on.

To my joy and fears, my sister-in-law Becca, or Aunt Bex as we have dubbed her, squealed a minute or two after I placed my semi-nude daughter on the family room floor. There stood my daughter in all her glory with an unattached diaper in hand and a look of shear glee on her face.

Evelyn had smartly and quietly removed the disposable diaper from her clean bottom and then had remained quiet about it so as not alert the parentals to her deed till we were paying attention.

I am contemplating buying duct tape now. :)

A Compendium

Because we have ample free time at home as both Meg and I do not have jobs, we have chosen to forget our blog completely.
We offer, as recompense, a compendium of videos etc. for your viewing pleasures.

This is the baby being cute for Mom!

Evie has began to flap her arms and constantly tries to fly away.

Mom and baby wish a Happy Mothers Day to all women. Evie is beginning to cruise like this on any available furniture.

We are happy here in Utah, but still need jobs. I am going to finaly start going to school full time this fall. I am in the Biomedical Engineering program, and plan to go nonstop until I am done. We do miss Idaho, and hope to see our friends as often as possible.

A little stress, and a new home.

Michael, Meg, and Evelyn all had a heartbreaking experience the other day. We had to leave our home in Rexburg and move down to Utah. Mike grew up in Utah with his parents, and Meg has had her entire extended family there her whole life. They also both hate Idaho, but there is no substitute for the friends that we have in our little apartment building up there. All we have down here is a BBQ. So we will have to eat our ribs without you.



Someone unwittingly packed away our Evie, but later found her on the bread shelf.



Needless to say... She wanted OUT.

Graduation!!!

The day has finally arrived. Meg is going to graduate. We are all so proud of her. She finished in 4 years, and in the mean time had a baby and got married, although not in that order. She has had a very busy 4 years, and can now relax... wait... jobs are stressful?
We shot this video of her walking, and her name was the only one the announcers messed up.

Happy Birthday Aunt Xelie

Today is Michelle's birthday. Well, technically it was April 6, and we are just late. We have been meaning to give you a birthday blogging, but in our later posts you will see why that was difficult. Our dear Evie knew about your birthday, and she decided to celebrate by having a birthday cookie.
We want you to know that we love you, and support you in everything you do... except drugs. Don't do drugs. Happy 19th, Xelie.

Little Race Car Driver

We went shooting the other day and because Evelyn's ears are stilla little sensative I get to sit in the car with her while Mike shoots and then roles reverse when I'm ready to shoot.

Well, I was shooting and when I got done with my clip, I went over to see how my family was doing in the car and found this...Evelyn has her little feet through the holes in the steerwheel and is holding onto it too.

She even honked the horn at us at one point. I guess we should be grateful that she's going to be more interested in her driver's license then boys, or so we hope. :)

My Hero

So this semester has just been one of the worst. Who knew that graduating college would be so hard. Its only a degree right?

But it has been tough and my sweet husband has been there every step of the way. He might not like being around me all the time, but he's still right there. Well, there was one day in particular that my responsibilities were weighing on me. It was around 10 at night and our next door neighbor Rico came over to see if Mike wanted to go to the store with him. He just looked back at me from his spot on the floor and asked really nice. I couldn't say no.

So he left with Rico and I sulked around the house for a few minutes. He had wanted to spend time with Rico and not me. I had to get over myself. I wasn't the funnest person to be around right now. He needed some time away. By the time Mike got home I had talked myself back into a rational state of mind. And what should I find when I turned around from putting a load of laundry in the washer but this beautiful bouqet of flowers bursting in my vision and my husband's beautiful smile right behind it.

Mike always knows when a gorgious smelling flower will make my day. I love you sweetheart, with all my heart. Thank you.

Binki Victory

Mike was working on his homework one evening. Evelyn and I were just sitting on the couch waiting for him to finish. (A rare occasion that we were just sitting.) She just looked so cute sitting underneath her blanket that I couldn't resist getting her on film. You can hear some of the fun new sounds that she is making. And of course she has become an expert at taking that plug out and putting it right back in. We love you Sihaya.

Trying so hard!!!

When they say that a baby's laugh makes your heart fall in love... they weren't lying, and I'm a guy. We love to make little Evie laugh. The problem is that we are constantly having to find new ways in which to make her giggle. I can imagine someone standing outside, listening to the zoo they didn't know existed. Today, Meg found a new thing that makes the baby absolutely happy. What's more is that we got a clip of it before she saw the camera and shut up.

Going Shopping

Our Friday night activity was to go shopping at Winco with the Pascuals. Evelyn wore her little tennis shoes. At first they were to heavy for her to lift her feet with. But she is adjusting just fine now and really enjoys being put on the ground and helped to walk. We got some cute ones of her sitting in the cart just being her happy self.

Mike is the background buying snack packs by the way. They were 92 cents for 4. It was just to good of a steal. I don't like pudding for the record but we got some other things that made the trip worthwhile, including pictures of our Booger Bear.

Tights Monster

It was right after church. Evelyn was in for a routing diaper change and Mike had graciously chosen to take this one. To get the diaper of course he had to take the tights off. He grabbed the toes of the tights and pulled them off really fast. Evelyn happened to think that was hilarious. So to tease her, he started waving the tights gently all over her face. This was also received joyously. It is now one of her favorite games. Whenever I change her diaper or wipe up her face after a meal, I make sure I grab a clean baby wipe and gently and playfully scoot it around her face. She giggles, waves her arms, and longingly looks for more as soon as we stop. Aren't babies funny? :)

Up and Down

We never knew that such a small child could have such an opinion on where she was. This is just a small example of the many times a day that we go up and down. She's so opinionated.

Mommy Kisses

Evelyn has become so active to the point where its hard to just hold her on your lap. She goes in circles in our arms all day long. This was one of the rare moments when she held still but I got spit up my nose and a few scratches on my face and camera for it.

We love you Sihaya.

Killer peanuts

The other day, I was sitting on the couch with The Sihaya eating my favorite binge food... peanut butter on a spoon. I had just cleaned all the peanut butter off the spoon with my mouth, when the baby grabbed the spoon from my hands, and with great temerity popped the thing right into her mouth. I thought that with no peanut butter left on the spoon, Evelyn would have no problem, and hopefully be entertained for a few precious moments. As those moments passed, my husband informed us we needed to go to the store. We removed the spoon, and as we placed her into the car seat, we noticed that the area around her mouth had broken out into splotches of red, with tiny little bumps. Apparently the baby is allergic to trace amounts of peanut butter. The rash abated as quickly as it had come. We decided to keep the peanut butter on the top shelf from now on, and is not to be trusted.