E-I-E-I

Jax loves singing with me. His latest favorite song is "Old MacDonald." Watch below to see if you can figure out his favorite part.

Nothing to Hide!

Does anybody else have this piece of uncooperative hair? This is its biggest triumph yet over my hairspray. Don't worry, I'll get you to stay down, small fried piece of hair. Just you wait!

My First Day as a Mom

Well, the day has finally arrived.  JD got up and went to his first day of dental school today, and thus, I had my first day home as a mom.

I realize that I've been with Jax for the past 3 months, but it is different when both parents are around.  It didn't quite start off as I pictured.  I was up 3 times with Jax last night, then he woke up for good at 6 am.  He was congested and had a runny nose.  Sweet.  He was grumpy and fussy and didn't want to be put down. Then I realized that he just had another tooth break through.  Teething.  That would explain why his sheets are soaking every night the past week where his face is laying, and why his shirt is drenched all day, and why his mouth is like a running faucet. Well, I guess at least there is a cause.  Then I change 2 diapers in 5 minutes, then feed him breakfast that he doesn't want.  He finally went down for a nap at 11:30.  Heaven.  I really felt accomplished getting so much done in those 3 peaceful hours.  Its interesting how much I can do when I have uninterrupted time by myself.  I showered and got ready (yeah, that's an accomplishment with a sick child who's up at 6), reorganized the storage room, cleaned off my scrapbooking table, hung pictures (that's right-multiple.  By myself.), cleaned the kitchen, and did some laundry. And I still have the rest of the day.  Wahoo!
I love it.  I love being home by myself with Jax, watching him play and also getting things done.  What a wonderful thing it is to be a mom, and how lucky I am that I can stay home with my little boy.  I see a different side to him when I am watching him every minute, changing every diaper, feeding him every meal.  And it scares me how fast he is growing up and how much he knows and understands.  Can it just stop?  Can time just stop moving?  I want to hear every babble and watch every snooze, and smile at every giggle.  I don't think I have a little baby anymore.  I have a little kid.

I found Jax sitting like this watching a movie in his room.  Love this kid.

New friends and lots of LOVE

Hooray for friends!  We went with some new friends today to some sites down in town.  We are so glad to have so many good neighbors here.  

Wahoo!  Rocky Steps! Don't you worry.  We both ran each and every one.

We were so thankful whenever we saw a fountain, so we could dip Jax's feet in and cool him off.  I even got to dip my feet in one of them. :)

Ah, true love, in the city of Brotherly Love.

We found a big area full of game pieces... Monopoly, Bingo, Dominoes, Chess, and others.  Here are my boys in a Monopoly piece.

Good Lookin' boys in front of City Hall. So much to do here!

One more for the Road...

Disclaimer:  Jax was getting into things in the end-table, so I put the laundry basket there to block him.  I decided to lay inside the laundry basket when he figured out how to move it out of the way.  I played with him while I laid in the basket, him sticking his fingers through the little holes.  Well, then he moved on and played with something else, and I guess I was tired.  JD snapped one while I snoozed there. Oops!

Who's almost 1?

This cute kiddo!  

Alright, he's still got a couple months left, but I have been thinking about his party, and cakes also.  Any good ideas out there? I hope we can celebrate with some friends out here who also have kids turning 1 the same week as Jax.  I wanted to experiment a bit with cakes to see what I could do before the actual day rolls around, and this was one of my ideas.  What do you think?  (Please tell me you can tell what it is...)

An Expedition, Constitution, and Perspiration

Well, our big expedition started out at 6 am.  Whoo hoo!  (Check it-that is 4 am your time, Utah people!) We got to drive through Maryland, close to the area where my brother Spencer served his mission.  Cool.  About 4 hours later we arrive.  In the hot. crowded. city.  We headed over to the Lincoln and Washington monuments first--before the day got too hot. So much for that, I was sweating the second we stepped out of the car.  They are so big, and neither of us had ever seen either of these monuments-so it was really neat to be there together.

Jax was a happy camper most of the time, even though he didn't have a nap the whole day long!  Jax's favorite part of the day: DUCKS!  Yes, as we walked along the reflection pool, there were lots of ducks, and even more Canadian Geese.  But for the 10-month-old's sake, we called them ducks.  Love, love, loved them, he did.  He got out, walked by them, talked to them, and wanted to stay there the whole day.  So it comes time to keep walking, and leave the 'ducks.' We put him in the stroller and we get TEARS.  As we walk away he is crying hard, turned around reaching for the 'ducks' saying 'Du! Du! Du!' This scene was repeated every time we saw ducks the rest of that day.  Seriously.  Funny.  I guess we have a new favorite animal.  I guess we better go visit ducks more often.

Here I am as part of a totem-pole.  Sweeet! (Natural History Museum)

No pictures of our super-fast trip through the American History Museum, though, sorry.

 JD and Jax both really loved the Air and Space Museum.

Funny Story of a shoe: First of all, I have no good walking shoes.  None.  So, the morning of our big trip I am standing in front of my closet at 5 am.  Flip flops: no support. Cheap white strap shoes: cute, but no support.   Tennis Shoes: Squish my right pinky toe (a lot).  My hasty choice: Cheap white strap shoes.  Bad choice.  So,  blisters come first.  The only bandaids on the premises are $1 per bandaid.  Did you hear me? $1 PER BANDAID! If you know me, I did NOT buy those bandaids. So my solution was to stick (okay stuff) napkins in the back of my shoes. I was a sight.  Well, to add to the problem, we walked seriously, 10 miles.  This was because the parking garage was far away, and did you know that the stretch between the capital and the Lincoln Memorial is 2 miles?  Yeah.  Crazy.  I don't think my feet have ever hurt that bad.  I was hobbling back to the car.  Really hobbling.  JD was embarrassed.

 

 This is Jax's newest trick.  We don't know why he does it, but he squishes up his whole face, and breathes really hard through his nose.  We really like this one.

This is a good one.  Look close at the description on the little post behind me for a good laugh.

Also while in DC, we went to the National Archives Building.  That was the last stop, so we were a bit tired, but I would have loved to spend more time there.  The neatest part was seeing the original Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and also the Constitution.  Too bad we couldn't take pictures in there, though.  Bummer. 

We had so much fun, and just love all there is to do close to where we live.  After a long day of walking, seeing, riding elevators, pushing strollers, sweating, and enjoying ourselves, we drove past the White House (which is visible from the road for all of 2 seconds) and went home.  We got home after 10pm and crashed hard. A long day of fun deserves a long night of rest.  

Hope you enjoyed the recap of this little adventure!

The Mystery of the Multiplying Towels

"Multiplying Like Rabbits"  ...Those were the words I used the other day trying to explain to JD what was happening with our kitchen towels.  I would put out 1 towel over the oven handle, and 1 on the fridge handle.  I would come back later in the day and this (or worse) is what I would find.  

3 here, 

and 3 more here.  I inquired JD as to how these towels were multiplying so quickly.  There must be some reason why he needed 6-10 towels out at a time?  He was just as stumped as I was.  But then we discovered the culprit.  

Jax loves pulling all the towels down from the handles.  We knew this, and would just pick them up off the floor and hang them back up.  What we didn't realize was that he also knew how to open the bottom drawer where we keep the towels and pull out others.  MANY others.  They also would end up on the floor, and we (not knowing this had happened) would pick up the towels and hang them back up.  Well Jaxeroni, you pulled a good one on us, but alas, 

mystery solved.

Spicin' things up!

Cupboard space is limited here.  We have uber-amounts of storage closets, but all in the wrong locations.  We have had to get creative with how and where we store things.  Case in point: Our kitchen does not have a pantry.  So, we placed our bookshelf in the kitchen.  Viola! Instant pantry.  However, it's not quite big enough.  So we had to put most of our pantry in items in the.... you guessed it... linen closet.  Sweet, huh?  They do have to share the closet with some linens, though. So..food in the kitchen, food in the linen closet, and we also have food in the storage room.  (I sure get my exercise when I cook!)  

   Anyway, the reason I say all this is actually to show you one of my ideas.  I need to explain some things first, though.  I am short.  5'3'' to be exact.  Our cupboards, are high.  And I mean high.  I can't hardly reach the bottom shelf, not even to mention the top shelf (I have to keep my 1st grader step-stool in there so I can reach things).  My spices were on a shelf, but I have about a billion  30 different spices, and they are always falling over, and getting disorganized, and I always have to pull all 30 of them out to find the ONE that I need.  So, here is my new idea.  I went and bought THESE beauties from IKEA the other day.  Love them.  And I am upgrading all my spices into nice glass jars with metal lids.  Are you catching my drift?  Magnetic.  Metal.  Brilliant.  I mounted the strips underneath my cabinets, and now all my spices are visible and easily accessible.  How wonderful.  

My To-Do Wall

There sure is a lot to see and do here.  The more places we go, the more flyers we find, the more places we want to go!  I didn't know what to do with all the scraps of paper that we had collected, but I wanted to somehow remember to do all these things someday in the next few years.  So here is my solution:  a To-Do Wall!  

As you can see, our "Done" Wall is starting to fill up a little bit, but we still have a long way to go.  Hurry and come visit before its full!  Quick!  Do it now! P.S. I'll let you stay at my place!

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness

Today was another adventure day!  We drove down near downtown Philly to see some of the historic sites there.  They claim to have the country's "Most Historic Square Mile."  Well, we didn't walk a mile, but we did see some neat things.  

This is in the signing room of Independence Hall.  Behind JD is the chair of none other than George Washington, himself.

Here is the a copy of the Declaration of Independence, which was signed here. (Not the copy, the original... okay, you get it).

This is the old room Congress met in.  In this room, John Adams was sworn in as the second President of the United States, and the first 20 or so amendments were ratified (among other things).

I'm not gonna lie, this part was not as exciting as I was anticipating.  Here I am next to one of the original copies of the constitution.  Oh wait.. did I mention that it is just the 5th and final page of the constitution?  Apparently they rotate which page of it is on display.  Today just happened to be day 5 I guess.  There is like.. nothing on it.  The ranger there even said,"I don't know why they even put this page on display. There really isn't anything on it."  Sweet.  We drive 2000 miles to see the Constitution of the United States and we get the 5th page with "really nothing on it."  Okay, thats a bit of an exaggeration, but people really do drive far to see this thing.  They should put only the really good pages out.  It was all pretty interesting, though.  The room has other important documents, like the Declaration in there, too.  You can't use the flash on your camera and the room is kept really pretty dark to preserve the documents.  But it was neat to see.  Maybe we'll have to drive down there again soon and see if we can catch it on.. oh, say.. Day 1?

Behind JD and Jax you can see Independence Hall, where the Liberty Bell used to hang, and where the Declaration and such was signed.  JD and I loved feeling like we could be detectives finding clues in these historic sites, since we love the movie "National Treasure."  Good times.. good times...

Hooray!  Finally, the Liberty Bell.  It is interesting to me how much of a National Icon this bell is, especially since it cracked almost immediately, and then cracked once more and was never used again.  It really gave people a lot of hope in America, even though its life was so short.

This place was really cool.  This was Benjamin Franklin's entrance to his estate.  Yeah.  Someday I want a tunnel that leads to my house from a main street in the 6th biggest city in America.  Yeah, yeah.  No really, it was neat.  He had this big courtyard, and now there is a museum there, and also the frames of the buildings that used to be there.  In the museum there are a bunch of Ben Franklin's inventions, things famous people have said about him, and some other really neat artifacts and stuff.  We were really hot at this point, so we didn't stay long here, but we'll have to come back again sometime and see everything there is to do here.  

Here is a video for the road.  Jax was giving me lots of high-fives today.  Check it out.

What a neat place to live in.  Come visit us, you'll see!

Valley Forge

Today our adventure was Valley Forge National Historic Park.   The walking/biking trails are incredible and today was the perfect day to go.  The weather was great.  Jax learned how to load heavy artillery,

we learned how to keep cool while appearing to look like you're sweating to death,

we took a super self-portrait,

and learned how to be tree-huggers (grow longer arms).

No really, we did have a blast today driving and walking around the park. There were people there at the park trying to get us to go online and vote for Valley Forge as our favorite National/State park.  All the while I was just thinking...  **lady, you're gonna have to really impress me with this park, because I'm from Southern Utah and have some pretty high expectations...**  I'm not sure they win over the Utah Parks, but it was fun.  Good adventure today, I say.

P.S.  Today Jax learned how to give high fives, and on Thursday he said his first real word- 'banana,' while eating one (okay not RIGHT when he was eating one, but you get my drift, right?)  He is just growing up so fast!

Viney, Green, and Old--Welcome to Pennsylvania!

Okay well, I just wrote this big amazing post about how amazing things are back here, and then the whole thing was deleted after an error occurred during posting.  So here is the shortened version:  We live on the edge of a HUGE park (wooded area).  There are rivers, ducks, trails, roads, bridges, and restaurants among other incredible things in this park.  We went for a walk yesterday and here are some of the neat things that I get to look at everyday...

Vines!  Yep, like George of the Jungle, coming from every tree vines.  They are everywhere and look so awesome just hanging in every available space.

Rocks!  These aren't just any rocks.  Rocks here take on a whole new meaning.  They are always covered in green--moss, ferns, plants, trees, or little green bugs.  Everything is green and beautiful in Pennsylvania, even the rocks!

Old Things!  I used to think of old things and falling apart, yucky, and useless.  But here old is different, because everything is that way.  Oldness just gives things character, and makes them all the better.  I have to flip my perspective because old is good here!  And look how pretty "OLD" is!

100th post!

Hooray for my 100th post on this blog!

I thought I'd add this awesome picture of my family.  We miss them already and hope they can come visit real soon.

4 years

Today JD and I have been married for 4 years.  How time flies.  We just love life, and couldn't be happier with the direction it is going for us.  Happy Anniversary JD!

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Love you, babe!

Laugh attack

Love that kid.

9 feet

Okay, I promised a picture and then I forgot to post it.  When we packed up all our stuff in St. George, JD was SURE he could fit everything we owned (including a LOT of furniture) into 10 feet of truck.  I laughed.  A lot.  Well, I hate to hear the phrase, but **I told you so** rang through my ears.  He did it.  And not only did he fit our stuff into 10 feet, he actually did it in 9 feet.  Many of you have asked-by 9 feet I mean 9x9x8'.  How did he do it you ask?  Well, see for yourself.  Enjoy.

Philly and the Zoo

We are lucky to live in such a wonderful place!  The first day we were here, a bunch of neighbors came over and helped us move all our stuff into our home.  We also were invited over to dinner by some great new friends. This place is already feeling like home.  There are so many people here that have been so kind and friendly to us.  If you are one of them, Thank you, thank you, thank you!  We were invited to the Zoo by some of our new friends and we had a blast!  Jax didn't quite understand the whole.. looking at the animals thing, but he did like the carousel.. I think.

     After the zoo we went to a ward picnic and got to meet some of the members.  Fun stuff.  Then we went to see where our ward building is located (not in a super-great part of town, but its okay), then we drove down into town a bit.  It sure is different here, but so beautiful.  I think we are really going to like it here.  We hope some of you back home can come visit sometime, soon!