Finally May!

Gosh I hate being pregnant. I love the outcome, hate the process. So May was exciting because it meant I was almost done. Not that we did all that much. For your viewing pleasure, some random pictures in May:

Anniversary flowers! 12 years.

Maddie moved up to level 5!

Does getting the car detailed count as nesting??

March 2014

Here are a bunch of random pictures from things we did in March.

Another edition of "what's in the box."

Andrew did great at the dentist!

Lovely park weather. My friend Eileen pushing all these cute girls.

Grandpoppy came to visit for exactly 6 hours before his meeting in Dallas. Of course the band got back together!

I tried to have a garden this year.

Oh Happy Day Goes to Paris!

One of my favorite blogs, Oh Happy Day!, just relaunched, and it is gorgeous, filled with inspiration for everything from kids to fashion to food. But the best part? There is a contest to win a trip to Paris! Check out the contest page here. And if you win instead of me, don't forget who referred you!

Stylish Blogger Award

My friend Ginger (who also happens to be a talented writer) bequeathed me with the Stylish Blogger Award! You can read her often hilarious musings here. Thanks Ginger!


Along with the award comes a few responsibilities.

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share seven random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to five blogging buddies.
4. Contact those buddies to congratulate them.

Here are seven random things about me:
1. I have never, ever broken a bone (knock on wood!).
2. I have been scarred by reading--as a kid, I was running with a Dr. Seuss book, tripped, and it hit me in the eye. I still have a slight scar.
3. I hate activities where they ask you for your most embarrassing moment. Why would I want to share that???
4. I used to be allergic to strawberries. I have since grown out of the allergy, but since I never ate them growing up, I don't particularly care for them.
5. I once scored two meals on the same day from two different guys. Oddly enough, I never dated either of them.
6. I could live in flip flops all year long. Here in Texas I live in them for most of the year.
7. I knew that baby #3 was a boy long before the gender ultrasound because I lost my taste for Coke. None of the men in my family like Coke.

I'd like to pass this along to the following blogging friends:
Random Roberts Ramblings
A Breath of Fresh Air
Chad & Erin
Four Boys & Me (except you have a girl now, Sara! :)
Mom Has the Mondays

Friends of Scouting Fundraiser

Among the things Dave has in common with his boss is a love of fishing and the fact that they are both Eagle Scouts. Because of this distinction, Dave has been invited to the big Friends of Scouting fundraiser held in Dallas every year. Dave feels lucky to be invited (the price of a table is significantly out of our price range, though we do make a contribution). The guest list if often distinguished. This year he was able to see George W. Bush (see the screen in the right-hand part of the picture):

President Bush introduced the keynote speaker, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates (again, see the screen on the right of the picture):

Gates shared a nice story about how, though he was often in the public eye and surrounded by security, he could go camping with his son to fulfill scouting requirements and thus be a little more "normal." A nice event to fundraise and commemorate a program we believe in.

Another Car Conversation

Occasionally when we are driving on the highway we see "chicken trucks." I don't know the technical term, but they are basically semis stacked with cages. Usually when they are heading west (towards Dallas) they actually have chickens, and when we see them heading east, they are empty.

One day, Emma pointed out an empty chicken truck.

Me: "Where are all the chickens? Did they go to Chick-Fil-A?"

Emma: "No, chickens don't go to Chick-Fil-A, just people! They went to the farm."

I think it will be a few more years before I tell her that the chickens went to that big farm in the SKY! :)

When Your Mother is an English Teacher

On days when she has preschool, Emma is allowed to choose what we listen to in the car. Lately she has favored a CD of Disney Princess songs. The following are two conversations we've had in the car recently.

Emma: Do all movies have bad guys? [She doesn't like to watch the actual Disney princess movies, because they scare her.]
Me: Yes. Bad guys are the antagonists, who create conflict with the protagonist, or main character. Conflict creates the plot.


.......................................................

Emma: What is this Pocahontas song about?
Me: A river. Well, really it's a metaphor.
Emma: What's the other Pocahontas song about?
Me: The wind. That's a metaphor too.

Living Scriptures

Post a link to the Living Scriptures Facebook page to get a free DVD!

Who'd have thunk?

I have tamed 34 inner-city teenagers and even managed to teach them something. I have broken up fights and confiscated chewing tobacco and numerous electronics.

All that to be defeated by a toddler.

It is 5:58 am. I have slept for maybe 2 hours. Said toddler has slept for 5 (three of those hours were from 7 to 10 pm, which I would have taken advantage of if I had known what was coming). She is not sick in the slightest, and seems to be fine, except for random short banshee-like screams. After trying several solutions, I can only assume the screams will be cured by putting her to sleep, which I have attempted approximately 112 times at this point.

THe best part? We have to be on a plane in 12 hours. Sorry Northwest flight 657!

How Emma spends her day...

Emma is an independent child, and though she likes plenty of time with Mom, she spends a large portion of her time at home puttering around her room with her toys. She flits from her table to her books and back again. Though I relish the opportunity to do some reading while she's busy, I love to watch her amuse herself. It is quite amusing to me. :)
PS. I have no idea how her pool float got there.

Random Pics

I took these on Sunday. They're not great, but I really like Emma's new fall Church outfit. We went all out: a pair of Mary Jane shoes and even a barette in her hair (though that may be hard to see in the picture). I tried to get her to stand up, but she was having none of it.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. We've been good, just a little boring, and I didn't want to post for the sake of posting. Here's what we've been up to each week:
1) We go to an institute of religion class each Wednesday in Manhattan. We're studying the book of Revelation, which is quite interesting (I must admit I hadn't read it in a while).
2) We've been having a play group on Thursdays. We've been to the Bergen County Zoo, Liberty State Park, and I'm not sure what's up for this week.
3) We go to Stop & Shop (grocery store).
4) We usually go at least one other place: the mall, Target, Costco, etc.
5) And then we have a random day. (If it rains, we usually stay home. See this post.)
Today for our random day we met my friend Jess in Central Park and played at this great playground that has astroturf and a castle that has a moat with flowing water. Emma had so much fun that she slept through the entire train ride home. We are having fabulous weather.

So that's what we've been up to. Exciting, eh?

Come Hell or High Water

I learned the meaning of that phrase today, and I've decided they're pretty much equal.

This morning started off with both Emma and I feeling frumpy. I had a headache and I think her teeth were bothering her. After her 20 minute morning nap I came up with the brilliant idea to get out of the house. Maybe she'd sleep in the car and we'd both get a change of scenery. We headed up to the mall since I need to get her some clothes for the fall. No sleeping, but we enjoyed the change for a couple of hours and found some good deals (25% off baby and kids clothes at Old Navy this week). When we left it started to pour...so hard that I figured it couldn't rain that hard for more than, say, 10, 15 minutes, so we got in the car anyway since it was about lunch time.

Traffic on the 17 was a bugger, and visibility was terrible, and Emma was crying, so about 10 minutes into the ride home I pulled over and fed Emma my emergency Gerber container. When I got back on the road she fell asleep (hooray!) but the rain was coming down like it was a hurricane and I could see maybe 25 feet in front of me. Yes, I know, I probably should have pulled over, but by the time I realized that we were on a stretch of the road with few businesses and I figured I should just keep going, slowly but steadily, and get home. I'm still a good 20 minutes from home (under normal conditions) when there are a few cars in front of me that stop because of a huge puddle--okay, lake--in the middle of the road. I was already worried but at this point I started to freak out. I'm stuck in the middle of a road, it's still pouring, the water is rising, cars are lining up behind me and I can't turn around (thank you concrete Jersey barriers). I call Dave on my half-charged cell phone (sorry, I don't have pictures because I didn't know how long I'd be stuck there and I didn't want it to die) who looks online and tells me that apparently there's a tiny patch of red (whatever the heaviest color rainfall is) stuck over a couple of towns in northern Jersey. Meanwhile Emma wakes up and starts screaming again. I gave her some Tylenol and took her out of the seat, since we'd been there for at least 15 minutes and obviously weren't going anywhere. I'm panicking and I don't know what to do, and I debate calling the police, but since it's not a real emergency (yet) I don't want to call 911 (though I don't want to wait until it becomes a real emergency either). So we're sitting there for another 15 minutes and along comes a police officer walking up the line of cars ("sorry, miss, you're just in a bad spot, you'll have to wait it out"). His solution was to walk up to the car at the very front and talk him into driving through the mini-lake (I have no idea how deep, but probably about a foot). The cars in front of me start slowly moving again, so I maneuver around to get Emma back into her seat and drive through the pond (and a few more) before I make it onto another, higher, road that gets me back to Jersey City.

Jersey City was absolutely dry. We made it home and I gave Emma a bath. I think I forgot to mention that in her crying she was so upset that she threw up. Poor girl. The kicker is that the forecast today was "slight chance of showers, with the heavy rain on Tuesday." Ugh. If you need to find me tomorrow I will be at home, grateful that I live on the second floor.

Fall Goals

I was thinking of these yesterday when walking to the train. I figured I'd put them up here so you could all make me accountable.

1. Work out at least 3x/week (Batting 2 for 3 on this already)

2. Work on writing for 1/2 an hour at least 5x/week

3. Complete one scrapbook page a week

4. Index one batch of 50 names a week for Family Search Indexing

5. Have friends over for dinner at least once a month

6. Plan a family outing once a month

7. Cook dinner 4x/week

8. Submit one manuscript for publication

Can you tell I have a lot of projects I'm working on? I'd love to learn how to sew too, but we'll have to see if Santa brings me a sewing machine first. :)

Back to Life, Back to Reality

Today as working people begin laboring again, millions of kids head back to school and fall unofficially begins. My life isn't going to change whatsoever, but in spite of that I feel the rumblings of a fresh start. (Perhaps that is the result of 25+ years of buying school supplies. Nothing says fresh start like a package of unsharpened pencils.)

We have had a lovely summer--we were able to see both sides of our family, and thanks to Jen for getting married, we were able to see some good friends too. But I am ready to be home for a while and get into some sort of a routine. Here's to organization, new pencils, and the crisp scent of Fall.

I've been tagged...

By my friend Jess.

Jobs I've had:

1. Babysitter (when particularly desperate for money)
2. Data entry for my dad
3. Bank teller
4. Cashier at BYU tuition office
5. BYU writing fellow
6. Editor at BYU Studies
7. Random admin stuff at the Department of the Interior
8. Admin for University Residence Halls at Columbia University
9. High school English teacher

Movies I can watch over and over:

1. Napoleon Dynamite
2. The Little Mermaid
3. Pride and Prejudice
4. Gone with the Wind
5. Legally Blonde

Books I can read over and over:

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. These is My Words by Nancy E. Turner
3. Tess of the d'Urbervilles
4. Harry Potter
5. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
6. To Kill a Mockingbird

Places I have lived:

1. Seymour, CT
2. Sudbury, MA
3. Trumbull, CT
4. Provo, UT
5. Cornwall, NY
6. London, England
7. Alexandria, VA
8. New York, NY
9. Jersey City, NJ

Places I want to Visit:

1. Alaskan cruise
2. Balkan Cruise
3. Machu Picchu
4. Italy
5. Spain/Portugal
6. Austria/Switzerland/Germany
7. Hawaii
8. Carribean--anywhere, really

Places I have visited:

1. Chicago
2. Disney World
3. Colorado
4. Palmyra, NY
5. Cancun
6. London
7. Paris
8. Scotland
9. California

TV Shows I watch:

1. The Office
2. ER
3. Scrubs
4. Survivor
5. Oprah
6. HGTV house shows
7. I can't really remember, because nothing is on in the summer

Foods I like:

1. Chocolate chip cookies
2. A really good salad
3. watermelon
4. steak and potatoes
5. enchiladas

I'd rather be:

1. reading
2. shopping
3. visiting friends/family
4. traveling

Websites I visit daily:

1. email
2. friends' blogs
3. writing websites

People I am tagging:

1. Erin
2. Shelly
3. Amy
4. Maren
5. Jaime

Message in a Bottle-Oh

On Wednesday night Dave and I went to see the Police in concert at Madison Square Garden. I must admit that I had my doubts after fighting traffic for two hours and listening to the opening act that was WAY too loud and annoying. But it was a great concert and a lot of fun. Though we were among the youngest people in the audience (picture a bunch of middle-aged white people--more homogenous than most crowds in NYC), everyone was dancing and singing along. Which was good, because there are some notes that Sting just can't hit anymore (such as the key changes in "Roxanne"). They were all looking a little old; the drummer was wearing a headband and glasses and looked like he was going to play raquetball. The other guitarist had a bit of a beer belly, though not as much as many audience members. It was just as a concert should be--the band was congenial and they played all the "greatest hits". As for us, it was fun to feel like we were in college again, if only for a couple of hours.

Lighten Up!

It's spring (almost summer!) so I thought it was time to lighten up a bit. Perhaps the brown will be back for fall. (If only it were as easy to paint your house as it is to change the colors on your blog).

Not much else going on today. I'm in the middle of re-reading Harry Potter, because I can't for the life of me remember what happened in books 5 and 6. Emma's been a little futsy...teething perhaps?

Check out Sk*rt if you're looking for great links on the web. Warning: it can suck you in. But, it provides entertainment now that there's nothing good on TV.