Memorial Day Weekend

In a nutshell: First, do you see what I see? Those amazing puffs of white in the sky? (Not really puffs... but we'll take what we can get.) If you do, than I don't need to tell you what a happy Saturday we had. Cleaning out the garage when it's 70 and breezy felt like a vacation. (Ok, well checking in every so often while Ross cleaned out the garage... whatever.) It was wonderful. I wish I had before and afters-- it's amazing. But I was too busy taking pictures of Sophia as Ross gave her one swift push up the driveway and she rode it back down. She could have done that all day long.

Two of my babes all dressed up for church. No talks this week. So another good day. Two down, one to go.

( Mila was ready to eat, hence the sad sad face. But I couldn't not snap one of those precious frowny eyes.)

And then we get a surprise call from Ian and Tere saying they're heading through town from Phoenix, and might like to stay over. Hooray!!! Second official house guests in our new guest room. I'm loving it.

And who can resist their camera when there's a newborn nearby. 4 weeks I think...??

She's not fully sitting up yet, still does the slow-mo "timber"... but lasting a little longer. And just getting more beautiful every day.


Wouldn't you agree?

We finished up the long weekend with a barbecue at my Dad's for lunch, and Kodi's for dinner.

Good food, killer company, incredible weather. All in all, it felt entirely holiday-ish. Happy late Memorial Day.

Where do they learn these things?

So last Friday, Sophia is watching some blasted episode of Max and Ruby where Max wants candy... or something like that. (It's taken her watching this episode a few times and asking for candy for me to realize that much)... So the show's over and she keeps asking for candy. "We don't have any candy silly goose," I say for like the eleventh time, and she disappears from my room.

Normally that's a really nice thing for a few minutes. But when I do start calling for her, it's silent. A little weird for her; quiet, still, calm, reverent, none of that's really her thang. :) I notice her door is closed and since there's a child-proof knob on the other side I realize, oh she's just stuck in her room. But when I open her door there's nothing, I check her closet- nothing. Except of course for an open zip lock bag on her bed. Hmm. Strange. But not really. I've found far stranger.

I proceed to check the rest of the house, and every closet going from completely unconcerned, to convincing myself there was no logical reason to be concerned, to tears and frog-in-throat and lots of offers for candy and trips to the park and "ok I'm leaving".... and yelling... lots of yelling. Nothing. Except of course a disheveled pantry. Gasp. We've been robbed. The brooms are everywhere.

I'm sure it was all of five minutes but she was nowhere. All doors locked but of course I still ran out front, back, and into the garage. All these workers in my house, some one's made a copy of the key. They came in and stole her. I'm sure of it for like a quarter of one second and I almost vomit. (Writing inspires a little dramatization in me... ). So I'm still running frantically, wondering who I call, what next, checking every spot a second time, when a little more carefully this time, I check her closet and look behind the door. And she is sandwiched in there, so quiet and still, with full cheeks, guilty eyes and a big bag of marshmallows in her lap.

It all suddenly made a little more sense. And if I'd thought clearly for like a split second I would have known she found something yummy in the pantry and hid from me to eat it.

What a stinker. And how lucky is she that when I'm sort of the "maddest" I've ever been at her, all I want to do is kiss her sticky face and hold her.

An Evolution

So none of this was tile before, only the little original entry. We always thought we wanted hardwood, but apparently it's pretty hard to maintain in the desert with the extreme dry heat, and all the abrasive sand. So since they gave us a little compensation money that we had to use with them, we went through the design center and picked ourselves some tile!

You see so much tile in the desert, I didn't think it could excite me all that much, but I'm loving it! It's a darker shade than the one that was already in my kitchen, and set at a diagonal. They did these cool transition pieces wherever the two shades of tile met (dining, laundry, bath) but I forgot to take a picture of that.... another day.

I feel like it's a whole new house. Or better yet, like it's finally a new house!!! We kind of missed that honey moon stage, what with the raw sewage, concrete floors, and bare studs and all. So we still have that carpet you see in the living room, and the carpet in the family, playroom, and everywhere upstairs (in case you were worried that it wasn't comfortable enough to come and visit) but this just breaks up that living room and walkway SO much better. And of course gives us hard floors in our dining. I'm loving it.

At Six months old...

She's:

- Smiling like crazy... with her mouth, her eyes, here nose, her forehead. EVERYTHING on Mila smiles when she smiles... I love it.
- Always making noise: humming, giggling, gasping, doing that funny sucking in thing while she smiles... like a form of laugh
-Spending a lot of time in the excersaucer and the Bumbo-- I don't know how I didn't need these the first time around but can't imagine life without them now!
- Always trying to get something in her mouth, and yet she refused to take a binky. I think she's teething, she's stuffing the whole bottom of her dress in her mouth as I type.
- Loving her big sister. Sophia can make her smile and laugh doing just about anything silly or nuzzling her face. They really are "playing" (if you can call it that when it involves a 6 month old) now, at least interacting and keeping each other company. I didn't expect any level of that until later, so I'm LOVING it.
- Drooling and blowing all sorts of spit bubbles like no body's business.
-Still spitting up like crazy. No I haven't cut the dairy yet. It doesn't seem to bother her, :) and apparently I'd rather stink of curdled spit-up all day than experience life without ice cream.
- Still sleeping pretty great at night. She'll go down before 7pm but she's up early now along with Sophia, (they both wake up at 6:00. :( ) She goes back down for a nap within an hour of that, but besides that one, her naps are really hard for me to be consistent with, since we have to get out of the house for Sophia. She takes a couple of little naps later in the day. Maybe only an hour each. Not loving that. It's getting harder and harder to time it so they might sleep at the same time. I really loved my breaks.
- Got the coolest hair.
- Usually got both hands up in the excersaucer and bumbo with "spirit fingers" going like mad. (Is that what they were called... fingers extended, wiggling rapidly?)
-Full of SO much light and happiness and exuberance and curiosity. I knew I loved babies but she has just hit a stage that I could not have possibly remembered how much I loved. If so I think I'd keep them coming so I'd always have one this age. She smiles at me and her eyes get big and SO happy, then she looks away really quick like she's shy and snuggles in my neck. I'm in love.


Six months really is SO fun. I think the first time around I was more anxious for everything, crawling, walking, etc... I thought of 8 months as the lift-off age. This time it feels like just before 6 months things got super fun. You just can't find much to be bummed out over when you've got a chubby, little, blue-eyed, mo-hawked angel, with one dimple grinning at you most the day.

The weekend

She's six months old tomorrow, she's been eyeing and trying to snatch my food for a good while now, but I've been too lazy to introduce one more mess and event to the day, until yesterday. She had her first little bowl of rice cereal, and there was no figuring-it-out or getting-used-to-it. She downed it. We had to make her seconds. She seemed so relieved to finally get some action in the eating arena. I guess I'll make it a habit now. I guess I just figured, by the looks of her, that my milk was doing the trick you know?
And the other blue-eyed beauty. Just discussing your average dinosaur-hunt on a Sunday afternoon. It's the only way I could get her to look at me, apparently the dinosaur was going to eat the big leaves coming out of my head. Or something. -- Auntie Sarah, thanks for the cute dress. :)

Doesn't she look angelic. I tell you these cameras can do amazing things. ;)

Melisa and Heath came out this weekend and stayed at a near-by resort while Mike was out of town. (It's hit the triple digits here and we don't have a pool... We've already realized that the size of the house isn't going to be the key to get people to visit us. Need water.) So we got to hang by the pool with her on Friday.

Later that night, Ross watched the kids so her and I could have a girl's night out for a yummy dinner at the Cliffhouse. So fun.

Saturday afternoon, My dad and Marybeth came to join us all and see our new flooring! I almost forgot, I'll have to take pictures of that. I'm SOO excited about it, it looks SO much better.
With Marybeth's help, we even got them to come to church and see us speak in our new ward, now that they live down the street. My dad may have balked a little at the 9 am start-time, but then miss Mila gave him the look:

She comes in handy.

? ( I hate titling)

The last two are not with the new lens, just your average 18-55 mm, and were way darker before, I brightened them a ton in Picasa.... if I can get my kids to sit in one place long enough, I think I'll do a comparison of the same shot with two lenses. It really is crazy how much brighter they are on the 1.4. However, I think I need to realize that an f-stop of 1.4 isn't exactly designed for a 5 person photo... unless you want some out of focus. How do you experts learn to change all the settings so quickly when kids last like 3 seconds?

Now if I could just tame Sophia's hair for long enough and get the flood gates to close on Mila's poor runny nose, I might have my models back for full camera-obsession mode.
How do you like the one of Sophia's sad eyes? That's how she looks just BEFORE she goes buck wild throwing a tantrum on the floor. I can handle that moment, so I caught it, it's the 20 minutes after that are not so cute.

We got a quick visit from Nana and Grandpa B. on Monday afternoon, which is always wonderful. I looked forward to it all day. A change in our routine, Sophia got to play and play and play (it's no wonder where Ross got it, his dad can play for hours too), I had Nurse Nana to help me take care of my poor little sick one, and we got a yummy dinner at Outback-- on them!!! Thanks mom and dad B! We love when you come.

It's so hard to say goodbye.

I'm already feeling it. The post-holiday-depression. This was my weekend. Our anniversary just barely behind us, and my birthday and Mother's Day just a day apart. Ross treated me like a queen all weekend. A doughnut in bed on Friday (he knew I was going to breakfast with friends so he kept it light and healthy :)) Then dinner at Roy's, WHICH I've decided is definitely one of my favorite restaurants. If you have one near you, the Butterfish--- it's amazing. It's the kind of meal where I was already craving it again, as the waiter took my plate, which I so femininely left one reasonably sized bite on. I mean really, the portions... just too big for my appetite, I could only eat like 9/10ths of it. I could see it in his eyes, he thought me so delicate. Even though my pile of Edamame (sp?) was noticeably taller than Ross'. (I hate how you have to leave evidence on your own plate. And you can't scrunch them up and hide them in your purse like candy wrappers.)

So anyway, Roy's on Friday night for my birthday, sushi for appetizer, butterfish for dinner, and the flour-less souffle for dessert. I was just the right level of famished beforehand. Way beyond the right levels of full after, but It WAS the perfect dinner. I love birthdays. I love how the bill doesn't count toward the going-out budget, and the calories just don't count at all. Don't forget... the butterfish.

Oh and when I came downstairs Friday morning, my kitchen table boasted the box with the remaining Bristol Farms doughnuts, a couple of cards and a perfect square box all wrapped up. Inside of which was THIS!!!!!!!!!

He got it. The lens. Long story short, it's a big deal. And I really didn't expect it. NO I still don't know what I'm doing with this camera, but I have stalked Allie's blog enough to know I want whatever she's got. And then to have it confirmed by Sarah... well I'm convinced that now I really do JUST need to actually learn stuff and practice. Perhaps the camera manual to start. But I GOT the tools. At f/1.4, this lens has such a wide aperture, I can capture so much more light (especially since we specifically chose our house as to avoid the sun in this hot place) without, of course, using that blasted flash. And with such a short depth of field, it does an extra good job at the whole 'one thing in focus, the rest out of focus' thing. Allie calls it Bokeh. I may regret admitting I have this new lens, like my pictures should get better, but I'm pretty sure they won't for a really long time. So please no expectations. Just SUPER excited to have the tools. Thank you Ross!!!!!! I got other great stuff from family and friends I didn't take pictures of.... THANKYOU all!

But as for things I did take pictures of, Mother's day consisted of breakfast in bed, these lovely tulips (I'm LOVING tulips these days, they're like the happiest flower in the world... once they get enough water in their stems and they stand up of course), the new book by Stephanie Meyer, I don't know anything about it but am super excited for a new fun book to read. And this very un-photogenic brownie from the ward. yum.

It also consisted of just a happy happy Sunday with the most generous husband ever. SO excited for an excuse to serve. He is an example to me of how to really treat someone like royalty. Seriously, today, a queen. I love him.

And it's mother's day. Let me confess that sometimes, I complain. I think it's hard to stay home with two little kids. I think 2 1/2 is a really trying age. I think being yelled at for a majority of the day can wear on you... more than a little bit. I think not having a completely routine and scheduled life like you did before children has some major challenges. But there are at least a handful of moments every day that feel just like these pictures look. And for those, and the crazy moments, I am SO grateful to be a mother. I have never had so much feeling. They come together you know? The good with the bad. But how wonderful to feel so much because of these little spirits. I wouldn't trade lives with a real queen.

Did you notice the undies. Yup. It's true.

That one's recent but I've failed to mention:

--- Binky bye bye - check

--- Crib bye bye - check

--- Diaper bye bye- check (ok not at night but still)

Hooray!


Far too much for one post. If you've hung in this far you deserve a treat. Have some virtual brownie, un-photogenic but super good.