Quick Catch-up Post

Just so that an entire month doesn't go by without a new post, here are some random pictures of stuff going on around here. First, I am so in love with this table! I neglected to get a shot of it before I sanded it so you'll just have to imagine its boring, old, stained oak finish. Stay tuned for the after shots. I am really eager to move it into my breakfast nook but I want to give the finish plenty of time to cure before subjecting it to daily use by our kids.

Spencer took the kids to a Santa breakfast at Madeleine's school and miraculously captured this wonderful photo. How cute are these three?? I can hardly stand it! Of course there are times I take all three to the grocery store and reality hits. Cute isn't everything.

Yet another furniture project. I am absolutely DYING to get started on this one!! But alas, there are too many other pressing items in line ahead of this. Anyway, this is going to become our new media console. Stay tuned for the after pics. Hopefully soon!

Upon downloading our most recent pictures, it appears that this is the last one Ian took before he broke our camera. Again. Second time this year. What are we going to do with that kid?

This is one sweet baby! We all adore her so much! I hope she is not getting too spoiled. Believe it or not, she is "skinny" for her age. I still can't quite wrap my brain around how this chunky little thing isn't big enough, but at her four month doctor visit we found that she had only gained 6 ounces in the past 2 months. So, although her weight itself is in the 50th percentile, in conjuction with her height and age she is too skinny. So she's eating cereal now (and loving it!) and nursing a bit more frequently throughout the day. I kind of liked having 4 hours between feedings but doing it every three hours instead is not only helping her gain weight, but helping me lose weight. It's a win-win!

It turns out Madeleine's even more far-sighted than Ian. We got her new glasses today. She picked them out herself and I think she looks quite stylish! I am trying to figure out where this far-sightedness come from. Any family members have any ideas? They say that it's possible to grow out of it so we are hoping for that for both our kids.

I love this picture! This was at the end of the Warrior Dash I did the weekend before Thanksgiving with my friend, Nicole. It was similar to the Dirty 6 I did in 2009, but way, way better. It was so much fun! If it happens to be coming to your area, I highly recommend it!

Console Table

I saw this table outside a resale shop on Monday and it caught my eye because we have really been wanting something like this for our entryway. I jumped out and quickly inspected it but since my car was full of a few other pieces of furniture I had found on craigslist and I was in a rush to meet a friend, I decided to pass on it. I spent a good bit of time on Tuesday thinking about it and its potential so after school I loaded up the kids and went back to see if it was still there. Obviously, and lucky for me, it was. Upon further inspection, I have come to the conclusion that this table is pretty much awesome and was precisely what we were wanting. And it was a steal since I found it second hand.

After some TLC, here's how it turned out:

I'm not very patient when it comes to these projects I take on, so the paint is not perfect. I gave it a distressed finish so it will do for a while, but I may revisit it at a later date to see if I can get the paint done a little better. But don't get me wrong, I absolutely love it and I'm counting my lucky stars that I found this diamond in the rough.

Alayna update

This girl loves her mama. This is the face that greets me most times I talk to her. So cute!

A friend let us borrow her Bumbo seat and we are loving it! It's so fun to see her hanging out so big all by herself.

We have so many pictures of Alayna in her carseat and they are all so boring, but she's cute no matter what so I'll throw it in. We took this when we went miniature golfing recently. Maybe I'll get around to posting about that sometime too.

Talk about being big and sitting all by herself, here she is trying out a highchair at Ikea. I don't think she was super excited to be in there, but it made for a cute enough picture to share.

She recently had a bit of a cold so she was sleeping like this with her mouth wide open since she couldn't breathe through her nose. Very sad, but kinda cute too.

She is almost 4 months old and unlike her cousin who is just days older than her, she is not rolling at all. When she gets upset doing tummy time she just cries and cries into the floor instead of flipping onto her back like her brother and sister did. I am trying to appreciate her immobility instead of wondering when in the heck she's going to roll over! Anyway, she has been missing out on the blog love lately so I thought I should catch up on her. There you have it!

Honor Roll

We are so proud of Madeleine! She got all A's on her first report card so she made it on the Honor Roll. We let her pick out some sparkly shoes for her reward, which she is absolutley thrilled about, of course!

The school PTO put on a breakfast for all the Honor Roll students to celebrate their achievement. In addition to the breakfast, she got a coupon for a free pizza (I'm sure we'll be cashing in on that pretty soon!).

For good behavior that goes beyond normal expectations, students can earn Star tickets and the students who have earned a certain number of Star tickets (5 maybe?) each quarter get to be in the Hall of Fame. [sidenote: Spencer likened our first grader being inducted into her school's Hall of Fame to Pres. Obama being given the Nobel Prize. haha!] Parents were invited to come and watch as the Hall of Fame students took the Walk of Fame around the school to dance-y music. All the other students sat outside their classrooms to cheer the Hall of Famers as they went by. It was pretty cute.

Here she is holding the second tooth she lost last week. That's 8 teeth she's lost already! This girl is growing up way too fast!

Halloween 2010

Madeleine chose the "Spanish Princess" costume this year. Her blonde hair might not totally go with it, but she loved it and looked super cute.

Ian as Batman. Very cool.

I'm not sure when Madeleine wrote this at school, but I thought I would throw it in with the Halloween post since she drew a picture of a graveyard. I love that the gravestones say R.W.P. instead of R.I.P. And I don't know who she feels ok for. I can't get enough of this first grade writing.

(In case you can't enlarge the pictures to read it, it says:

How I fele by: Madeleine
I fele bad for the peple who are dead.

I fele happy for the peple who are good.

I fele ok for the )

According to Ian

Our conversation this morning went like this:

Ian: "Someday we're going to move back to Arizona."

Me: "Oh, yeah? Well, I guess if Dad gets a job there we will. But he has a really good job here. Did you know that?"

Ian: "Yeah, we get to go to good gas stations."

Apparently to Ian, the best perk about Spencer's job is the discount we get on gas.

Happy Birthday, Ian!

Today we celebrated Ian's 4th birthday! In a way I can't believe he's already 4, but at the same time I can't believe he's ONLY 4. Does that make any sense? He truly is such a little man in so many ways. We didn't do a party with friends this year but we made the day special despite that. We played at his best buddy Ashlyn's house where he was welcomed with a homemade Happy Birthday banner. Then, over a decadent lunch of Lunchables and Doritos, the two of them made wedding plans.

He and I chose this cake recipe together off of food.com (formerly recipezaar), and Madeleine helped him blow out the trick candles.

He's been wishing and hoping for this Batman building set for weeks.

Madeleine enjoyed breaking in the SpongeBob Fishing for Clams game.

Spencer and Alayna enjoying the festivities.At his request, we had McDonald's for dinner. He was so full after he ate that he hardly had room for cake. Isn't it nice that he got the one bite he ate all over his face so it looks like he devoured his birthday cake? Such a sweetheart.

Happy birthday, Ian! We love you!!

Bubbles!

Alayna is a very drool-y little girl. She is constantly producing spit bubbles that run down her chin. I usually wipe them off before she has a full on spit bubble goatee but I was a little slow in getting to this one.

Ian got a hold of the camera again. Can you tell what this is?

Galveston/Moody Gardens

Spencer took a couple days off work the week of our anniversary and we spent them as a family down in Galveston. We went down there very briefly last year and we were not impressed. The parts we saw were devastated from recent hurricanes and we didn't see any beaches that interested us. We wondered what the appeal was to people who liked going there. Maybe it's because it's been so long since we've been to the beach in California, or maybe it was that we stayed in a pretty sweet condo, or maybe that we were desparate for a little break from everyday life, but this trip was fabulous and we now think Galveston is a pretty cool place. Moody Gardens was pretty fun. Unfortnately a bunch of it was closed so we couldn't experience it all, but we liked what we saw.

We went to a few 3D IMAX shows. They were good, but just a little too long for the kids to be interested the whole time.

This was on the paddlewheel boat ride. I'll be honest, it was kind of lame. It was long and boring. We thought that at some point someone would get on a speaker and talk about Moody Gardens or possibly the sights around the bay, but we were wrong. All we learned from the paddlewheel boat ride is that we don't ever need to do it again.

Here we are at the condo pool. It was on the 6th floor of the building overlooking the coast. The kids are sitting at the poolside bar and me and Alayna are standing in the outdoor kitchen. This place had it all.

We all loved the beach! The water was so warm! Even at hottest part of the year in L.A. the water at the beach was still pretty chilly so this was nice. Ian got in right away and just loved playing in the small waves. Madeleine was reluctant at first but quickly learned how much fun it was.

After playing in the waves for awhile they built drip castles while I fed Alayna.

She slept through most of the beach fun but we'll just assume she loved it too.

And just because I had this picture, here's Alayna sporting a mohawk. Gotta love all that hair!

Did you know...?

Did you know that I gave Spencer a full body massage the first day we met? Sounds pretty intriguing unless you know that I was in massage therapy school at the time and was giving full body massages left and right.

Did you know that after that day we met, Spencer and I became a couple almost immediately? He probably thought he would keep getting massages. He was wrong.

Did you know that after dating exclusively for about 8 months and talking about getting married Spencer broke up with me just after New Year's? Yes, he did. All the best couples go through a break up, right?

Did you know that while we were broken up we really and truly became friends? None of that friends with benefits garbage. For real friends.

Did you know that Spencer confessed his undying love for me on a drive up to Salt Lake City from Provo? Five months after breaking up with me, he realized he couldn't live without me ;) and he concocted a plan to tell me so. The plan involved him and his roommates picking up me and my roommate to go hang out with a bunch of mutual friends but making me ride with Spencer without my roommate. Very sly. It completely took me by surprise and I didn't know what to think about it at first, but within a couple weeks we were back together.

Did you know that very shortly after getting back together we started planning our wedding? We just picked up right where we left off.

Did you know that on September 16 we celebrated our 10 year anniversary?

Happy Anniversary to us! The time we have been together has been wonderful and I wouldn't change a thing! Not even the break-up. Love you, Spencer! Thanks for being you!

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

...of the Year!* I know, it's not anywhere near Christmas yet. It's football season! BYU football season to be more precise. *According to Spencer, as observed by Rachel.

Baby Blessing

Spencer blessed Alayna in church this past Sunday. We missed not having any family here for it, but we had a few really good friends come and that was really great! We feel pretty lucky to have great friends from our college days nearby even though we have moved so far from where we've spent most of our lives.
We didn't get a picture of our whole family that day, but isn't one of the kids more important anyway? They were originally lined up oldest to youngest, but Madeleine was not on board with that idea. She insisted on being next to Alayna.

Shortly after the blessing, I had to take Alayna out to feed her so I missed a little excitement, including a little tiff between Madeleine and Ian which may or may not have ended with him telling her that he was going to cut her head off. And when Spencer whispered to Ian that Ian needed to whisper Ian said (definitely not in a whisper), "Your breath stinks!"

Spencer and his baby girl. Any thoughts on who she looks like now that she is a little bigger?

We neglected to get a picture with Jeff and Jeanette, but here is their litte girl, Laura. She seemed to really enjoy playing in Madeleine's dress up clothes. Both Madeleine and Ian absolutely loved having her over to play! They have already asked if we can go to her house and play sometime. Yes, we will definitely have to do that!

Preschool, Glasses and Cheerleaders

Ian started preschool this week. What do you think of his new duds? He goes for a few hours two days a week and it is just what he needs. He has loved it so far! His teachers were very impressed with a blue/orange pattern he made yesterday all by himself. Alayna and I have enjoyed being able to run errands that I wouldn't attempt with more children accompanying me.

And our handsome little man got his new glasses. These ones seem to fall down his nose so we might be exchanging them. We'll see. Pretty cute, though, don't you think?

Spencer's boss gave him tickets to the Texans/Cowboys preseason game last Saturday. We were in one of the ExxonMobil luxury suites, hence the visit from the cheerleaders. What I really should have gotten a picture of is all the yummy food. There was a delicious spread of fajitas, pulled pork, taquitos, etc. Yum! That was easily the highlight of the experience for me. No surprise there. Alayna was ooh-ed and ahh-ed over by all the other people in our suite, which of course she deserves. I don't know when we'll make it to another NFL game so we are sure glad we could go!

First Day of 1st Grade, etc.

School started for Madeleine on Monday. She is thrilled with her new school! It's directly across the street from us (behind us). A short and sweet walk there to take her and pick her up. Ian still complains about the long walk, but I think that's mostly because it's quite hot in the afternoon. Anyway, Maddie said her favorite thing so far is her new teacher. Get this: there are 9 first grade classes at her school. Is that crazy or what?? We know quite a few other first graders but they are all in other classes. Not surprising when there are that many classes, right?

Our days at home are much quieter now with Maddie at school all day and next week Ian starts preschool (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) so it will get even quieter. I'm excited for Ian to do preschool. I know he's going to love it! And I won't lie, I'm going to enjoy my time with just Alayna. Look at the chubby cheeks on that girl! She seems to be getting so big! Other people still comment on how tiny she is, but I think she is really getting huge. She's still such a good baby. Last night she only woke up once to eat in the night. Little angel!

Can you tell that Ian's eyes are dilated? We noticed recently that he seems to cross his eyes sometimes and one eye seemed to be kind of lazy so we talked to the doctor about it and she referred us to an opthalmologist. That's where we went today. We've had this appointment set for a few weeks and Ian has really been looking forward to it. He thought the doctor was really nice except for when she put the drops in his eyes to dilate them. She was really great. She agreed that he crosses his eyes sometimes. The reason is that he is very farsighted so at times when he is trying to focus, his eyes cross. Also, his vision in his right eye is a little worse than his left, so that eye gets lazy sometimes. He needs glasses and hopefully that will take care of all of it, but we'll go back in a few months to see how his eyes are doing. He picked out some very handsome glasses so be on the lookout for pictures of him in glasses.

Alayna

There's not a whole lot of exciting things going on with Alayna. She's a month old now and while she is awake and alert a bit more, she still spends most of each day sleeping.

Madeleine built a wall of pillows around Alayna one day on the couch. There was very little chance of Alayna going anywhere, but Madeleine wanted to be sure her baby sister was extra safe.

And since this is what she does most, here's another picture our little sweetheart sleeping.