The Big 3-0

You have a birthday shout hooray,
We want to sing to you today,
One year older and wiser too,
Happy birthday, to you!

I nearly neglected to wish my little sister a happy birthday on my blog today. She is one of the most talented people I know. She has the outward, creative, theater type talents that really shine. She is a costume design major and when I’ve seen the things she has designed I have been completely and totally amazed. Don’t get me wrong, I know she has talent, but she’s my sister so I don’t really see it until it’s staring me in the face like when I went to a show she’s designed for. I think she should be a designer Cirque Du Soleil show. Have you seen any of their shows? I’ve been lucky enough to see Mystere and O and I would highly recommend either one of them if you ever get the chance. And, I think my little sister has the talent to design for one of their amazing shows. Anyway, Happy Birthday Brandee, I hope it’s been a good one!

Do You Bumbo?

Have you seen these things? Molded foam in which to stick your child to try and help them develop their trunk and neck muscles?

There are so many gadgets and gizmos today to make your child better, smarter, taller, more angelic or any number of things really. And yes, I do at times subscribe to this notion that anything we can do to help our children succeed the better. I mean when it comes time for our children to enter college do I want to be the mother who didn’t buy her child the one and only toy that enabled her child to enter college as a Masters student or to be the youngest Olympic gold medalist?

So, back to the Bumbo, our latest and greatest purchase that will ensure that Devyn has un-humanly strong trunk and neck muscles and will thereby be able to put herself through college on a full-ride offensive lineman scholarship. Ari, I’m sorry we didn’t have one of these when you were a baby as you will forever be stunted in your muscle development growth, *sigh*!


Do make sure you read the instructions carefully though, as this little South African made beauty has been known to send children to the emergency room when their parents placed them in a Bumbo on a table or countertop. Do parents take no responsibility for leaving their child unattended on a table or countertop? The website now has a whole page dedicated to pictures of children sitting in the Bumbo “safely” on the ground. (Yes I know the pictures I have of her in it are not safely on the ground! They are in the middle of my bed which seems even better to me if she happens to fall backward and smack her head! Where would you rather hit your head? On the bed or the floor? I say the bed, but that’s just me.)

But really, I do like the Bumbo because Devyn has gotten to the point where she likes to be sitting up. She can’t quite sit up on her own yet, although she is trying as hard as she can, but this way I can sit in front of her and it allows me to have two hands free to play with her. Plus, does she not just look adorable all snug as a bug in her Bumbo?

And the winner is...

lisasco!

Congrats Lisa, you know your Oscar talent. Email me your address and I'll get your gift card in the mail.

I hope everyone enjoyed the contest and the Oscars if you watched.

Year of the Rat and other stuff

I’ve been meaning all week to post a couple of things from last Saturday so here they are!
Are you aware that it’s the Year of the Rat?
We went to a Chinese New Year celebration at our church last Saturday that was kind of fun. They had a Chinese dinner and entertainment by the Newstar Chinese School. As soon as we got there Ari saw a couple of her friends from school (twins) Penny and Annie that were going to perform. It was fun for her to see them perform.





Davis also has a neat little carousel at a downtown park. The carousel itself isn’t anything special, but what is really cool about it is that it is bicycle powered. Leave it to Davis to have a bicycle powered anything. For those that don’t know anything about Davis it is very into bicycling. It has been called the best bicycling city in North America by Bicycling magazine. It was also the first city in the U.S. to have bike lanes on the roads. I have never seen so many bicycles in my life. Anyway, I should have gotten a picture of the guy on the bike making the carousel go round and round, but I didn’t so you’ll just have to look at the pictures of Ari and Devyn enjoying a relaxing ride when we went to the farmers market on Saturday morning.

Also, did you see the lunar eclipse last night? Luckily we did! They thought it might be too cloudy here, but it wasn’t and it was neat to see since there won’t be another one until December of 2010.

And the Oscar goes to...

There are so many things that I have wanted to post about but haven’t had time. Right now however I’m just going to post something fun. I love it when people have contests on their blogs so I’m going to have one in honor of the upcoming Academy Awards. I can never sit through the entire show, but I enjoy watching the Oscars in between doing or watching other things so I’ve created an internet pool on who will win the major categories to make it a little more fun. Whoever wins our pool will get a $15 gift card to Borders Books mailed to them. Our pool name is Leaches Clangor. I used one of those anagram creators to come up with a name using the letters in the words Oscar Challenge so it would be something different and unique.

I’m not sure that anyone other than my mom reads this blog, but if you do, go ahead and enter whether I personally know you or not. It’s all just for fun anyway. I’ll post the winner on Monday the 25th and get their bookstore choice and address at that point.
Go here to enter. Good luck and have fun!
Pool Name: Leaches Clangor
Pool ID: 101
Password: someday
Pool Creator: djasay

The pool is through cnn.com so our contest ends when theirs does at 2 pm Pacific.

SWF

So, I've been informed by DH that I'm not allowed to talk about him or post his picture on my blog so I guess as far as the blogging world is concerned I'm a SWF (Single While Female)! I'm a little annoyed by this because this whole blogging thing is supposed to be all about my life and my family of which he is a major part, but to keep peace at home he will have to be left as an International Man of Mystery. Have a great weekend.

Have you entered?

Have you heard of the HGTV Dream Home? Every year HGTV picks a new location and then they build a Dream Home there. Usually the homes are really pretty in my opinion, but this year I personally think the home is kind of ugly, but it’s worth over $2 million and who couldn’t use a little extra cash in their wallet? I think all the winners have sold the home almost immediately anyway! (I mean really, who can afford the taxes on the thing?) Anyway, if you have a few extra seconds head over to the HGTV website and sign up, what could it hurt? The contest ends on February 19 so you only have a few more days!


Now that I’m done being selfish and wishing I could win a $2 million home so I can turn around and sell it, I want to share what I signed up for to be unselfish. Not quite a year ago I was feeling sorry for myself for some reason or another and decided I needed to get over myself so I signed up with Women for Women International. I had heard about it quite a while ago on an Oprah show. It’s an organization that helps women throughout the world get job training and puts a few dollars in their pocket so they can feed their kids, or send them to school, or get out of an abusive relationship if needs be. They match you up with one “sister” and you can either choose a country or you can just choose to let them give you a sister wherever there is the greatest need (that’s what I did). My sister lives in Afghanistan and her name is Nazanin. They send you profile on your sister and the country where she lives, and you are welcome and encouraged to send your sister letters of love and encouragement. It has definitely been a wonderful experience for me for the price of what it would cost to go out to dinner once with my family ($27 a month). Once your sister has completed the job training and is on her feet they give you the option to receive a new sister or to stop your commitment. If you want to learn more about it go to the Women for Women International website or you can catch the Founder and CEO Zainab Salbi on NPR’s All Things Considered tomorrow, February 16. (Go here if you want to check out a station in your area.) It is an amazing thing when you can help a woman a world away to hopefully not have to struggle so much. Sometimes I do believe this is a wonderful world we live in.

School Lunch

The computer people at work were loading Vista and the newest Microsoft Office products on my computer today so I took an early lunch and we went to Ari’s school to have lunch with her. I love being able to do things like that because she still loves to have her mom and dad around. She got so excited this morning when I told her that we were going to come and have lunch with her. I know that will change as she gets older so I like to do things like this while she still appreciates my company. She was so excited to show Devyn around to her friends.


Yesterday after school I was asking Ari about her Valentines party. She told me about some of the things they did, but then I asked if she got any “special” valentines. She said “no, well one I guess” as she got a shy little smile on her face. She said that she got one from B-E-N, and she spelled it out rather than actually saying his name. It was too cute! She showed me the valentine and it was homemade out of construction paper. She said all of his valentines were homemade. On the inside he had written that she was “a smart, fun girl” I think was how he worded it. Ari said she wanted to hang it on her wall because “Ben said that about me mom!” Then she said, “mom, the next time you see Ben will you ask him if her likes me?” I tried to keep from laughing as I explained to her that even if Ben does like her, he is certainly not going to tell me, her mother. It was just so cute how she wanted to know if he liked her the way she thinks he likes her, but of course she just can’t ask that herself. I love that she talks to me about this stuff and I think it’s so cute that she has a “crush” on Ben.
When we were at her school for lunch she had to show her baby sister to her friends and Ben was one of those friends that she had to search out. I don’t know what it’s like where you’re at, but yes, shaggy hair is really “in” with the elementary school boys here.

Valentines and such!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day. Last Monday for Family Home Evening in honor of both the recent World Leadership Conference for the church and it’s emphasis on strengthening the family and for Valentines Day we cut out paper hearts and then we each (DH, Ari and I) wrote what we loved about each member of our family on a separate heart. DH and Ari also wrote one for Dante as he is definitely a part of the family. They are hanging on the front door to remind us why we love each other. It’s fun to look at them every time we walk out the door to face our day!


So, I’m not so good at getting pictures of both of my daughters. The only pictures I have of both Ari and Devyn was when I took Devyn into Ari in the morning and asked her to watch her while I was making crepes for breakfast. Last year I decided I wanted to do something fun and festive for breakfast on Valentine’s Day so I made strawberry crepes because they are red and white. DH and Ari loved it so much that I decided to make it a tradition. I snapped a couple pictures of the girls in Ari’s bed together before I went down to start the crepes and that was really all I got of Ari.


DH and I went out to lunch at one of our favorite Thai restaurants, Thai Nakorn, and got a couple cute pictures of Devyn while there.




Later on in the day I tried to get a good picture showcasing the cutest part of Devyn’s Valentines sleeper, the feet, but do you think she would cooperate? I have a dozen pictures of where her feet should have been and then she moved them just as I took the shot. Oh well, maybe you get the idea.



Ken made london broil and baked sweet potatoes for dinner so our day was pretty much centered around food, but it was nice just spending the time together.

Pounds Per Square Inch

A few weeks ago I found this old picture of Ari sitting on a scale when she was 5 ½ months old. If you look really closely at the picture (probably can’t see it too well posted here) you can see that she weighed about 14 pounds.
We took Devyn to a local store yesterday called Mother and Baby Source where they have a scale that they will let you weigh your baby on. She was right at 15 pounds and she is only 3 months old! At her two month appointment she was right around the 95th percentile for height and weight so she is just a big girl. Ari was always around the 75th percentile for height and 50th for weight.
I just hope that people don't expect her to be more “grown up” than her age because of her size rather than what she is mentally ready to be doing. As far as I'm concerned she is perfect in every way...can't tell I'm a mom can you?

Lincoln's Birthday

Ari didn’t have school today because it is Lincoln’s birthday. I’m not quite sure why they get Lincoln’s birthday off and then exactly one week later they get Presidents day off too, but it’s quite the life if you’re in elementary school. Not so great as a parent when you are trying to figure out what to do with your child, but luckily for us DH is home all the time with Devyn right now, so he is able to be home with Ari too. Not wanting to miss out on all the fun I had them pick up some take-out and then pick me up for a picnic. We went to a park that is just around the corner from my work and in true Ari fashion we had KFC for lunch. Ari took Devyn on her first slide and she was really rather unimpressed. It is windy here, but at least it is nice enough that we can play at the park…not something I was able to do too often on February 11th growing up in Idaho.

Janitor?

DH pretty much leaves Devyn in a sleeper all the time because he says he wants her to be warm and comfortable. I prefer to put her in outfits because she looks so cute when she is dressed in cute outfits (not that she doesn't look cute always, but that's another story). So anyway, I found these little one piece outfits that I thought were cute and would fit into his comfortable factor, but he says they make her look like a janitor.

So what do you think? A janitor?

She sure doesn’t seem to think so!

Well maybe a little, but she’s got to be the cutest janitor on the planet!

Super Tuesday!

GET OUT AND VOTE...if you are in a Super Tuesday State that is.

I normally steer clear of talking politics because I feel it is a very personal thing and people need to make up their own minds about who they vote for, but last night I actually volunteered for Mitt Romney's campaign. Some friends of ours were running a volunteer calling station here in Davis for Mitt Romney and I believe in him so DH and I tag teamed it. I went for about an hour and a half, then he went for the next hour and a half so I could spend some time with the girls. Up until a month or two ago I wasn't completely sold on Mitt, but now I am. I figure he is the best candidate out there with beliefs closest to mine so why not make a few phone calls the night before the election and remind people to vote, right? It was an interesting experience and we'll see how today goes.

I feel completely lucky that we live in a country where we get to choose our leaders and am appauled at the low percentage of people that vote. So, no matter who you are voting for, just get out there and make your voice heard. That's what makes America great!

Three months already?

Devyn is officially three months old as of yesterday. I’m having a hard time ever imaging or remembering a life without her. It feels like she has always been a part of our family, yet it also feels as though she was just born yesterday. I’m not sure how that works, but I’m sure any mom out there understands what I mean. She is such a precious little girl and we feel truly blessed to have her sweet little spirit in our family.

Sleep is a beautiful thing

I feel completely lucky, and yes I’m almost bragging, about the fact that our almost three month old daughter slept for 10 HOURS STRAIGHT last night! She really has been a pretty good sleeper for quite some time now, usually sleeping 6 to 8 hours in a row, but 10 hours, WOW. I never knew I could be so lucky. Oh, and I AM knocking on wood right now knowing full well that posting this will probably put some sort of jinx on her good sleeping habits, but who can resist posting pictures of a precious little sleeping baby.
These pictures aren’t from last night, but I much prefer blog posts with pictures and I figured they would go with the theme.


In order to get her to sleep that well we have to swaddle her up tight making sure her arms are strapped down. It’s like her arms have a mind of their own and as soon as she wiggles them free they start flailing about and wake her up.