Screaming? Singing?

I'm trying to get videos up on here. Here is one of Willa's happy screaming. It's long because I'm too slow at editing right now so don't feel pressured to watch it all (or any of it). She's got a very happy scream/sing that she loves to do during church. Ryan and I are taking a poll: do you take a baby making happy noise out in the foyer? She's not crying, but she's not exactly quiet. The video really isn't a good example of her expansive lung power, but it should give you an idea.

A funny thing happened the other day at Carol's house. She had just finished feeding her kids some delicious taquitos for lunch. When Renee was done we took her out of the highchair and put Willa in. While I was getting Willa's food, DJ gave Willa the empty plate that the taquitos had been sitting on. I came back and Willa was going CRAZY licking that plate! Yumm! That cheesy, salty grease is soo good and taquitos really are delicious. She'd never tasted anything quite like it.

Patience

So many things to blog about!  First of all, my dear freshmen roommate and lifelong friend Shalece moved to Texas!  Howdy y'all!  It feels like I'm seeing more old friends in Tejas than anywhere else.  All worlds converge and collide in Houston, maybe.  Shalece just moved to San Antonio, which is considered a neighboring city - being only FOUR hours away.  Sheesh!  I could be in Island Park in four hours if I were at home, but that's another story.

Being with no job, no friends, an extremely busy medical-resident boyfriend, and seven disgusting roommates, Shal packed up the car and came for an overnight visit to Houston.  It was so fun to have her get to know Ryan and of course to play with baby Willa.  I forgot to take pictures, but here is a photo of us from freshmen year.

Oy, look at that crazy hair!  If you can't tell by the enormous hair, I'm on the bottom left.  Shalece is the girl right next to me.  Good times, I think this is when the boys in our FHE group took us to Betos for their nightly midnight Mexican food run.  We thought we were soooo cool and grown-up going out at MIDNIGHT to eat!  Tee he he he (insert ridiculous freshmen laugh).  At Betos there is a surprise in every burrito and a guaranteed stomach ache the next morning.  Now I wonder, was the stomach ache because of the food or because we were consuming enormous breakfast burritos at 1:00 a.m.?

I had such a great time hanging out with Shalece, I hope she comes to visit again!  If we lived on the other side of Houston and she lived on the other side of San Antonio, we would only live 2 hours apart.  Urban sprawl is bigger in Texas.

Some friends in the ward invited us to a murder mystery party on Friday night.  We enlisted the help of our trusty babysitter Breeze and off we went!  It was a new experience for us, but we enjoyed ourselves. The downside was that we all waited until our kids were in bed before getting together, which made for a later start time. Since I like to go to bed at 9:00 p.m., it was quite the late evening for me.  Sometimes I look back at our time in Los Angeles and wonder why we didn't do more things.  Here is what I remember: A) Ryan was studying ALL THE TIME   B) I like to go to bed at 9 p.m.    C) We had no money.  I think that about sums it up.  I might add in another point about traffic, but that's just cliche.

On a more sober note, we had some disappointing news, recently.  This time in our lives has been very hard and stressful because of uncertainty with Ryan's job.  We both just want OUT of this trial, but I can't really think of any trial that someone doesn't want to get OUT of.  I had a hard time yesterday thinking about where we were and our options.  I came across this talk from General Conference.

https://lds.org/general-conference/2010/04/continue-in-patience?lang=eng

It's entitled "Continue in Patience" by President Uchtdorf and it came at just the right time; it felt like a tender mercy that the talk came up right when I needed some help.  I know that Ryan and I are very blessed.  It's hard not knowing the endgame right now, but our present situation really isn't that bad!  We have so much to be grateful for, most importantly each other and Willa.  I really like the idea of having patience and working hard for a solution, but also working patiently for one.  

There is another conference talk that I really love called "Gratitude: A Path to Happiness" by Bonnie Parkin.  https://lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/gratitude-a-path-to-happiness?lang=eng&query=gratitude

She has this really great discussion of gratitude being an expression of our faith, which I really like.  I don't want to be a drag on anyone, I mainly like to post about happy things.  Still, I don't want to give the impression that our life is oh-so perfect.  We all have hard times!

Here are some pictures of Willa-bear that make me smile:

Helping fold the socks:

Flying through the air - there is this expression of true glee on her face:

I think Ryan might be a father who likes to embarrass his kids because he always LOVES the photos where Willa looks the worst.  Here is a photo that caught her in the middle of a blink, but of course it just looks like she's a drunken sailor.

Adventures in Babysitting

Way back in my BYU days, I had a couple of really good harp friends - Shelley and Tiraje.  We loved the harp, but didn't really take music majoring stuff too seriously.  Before I left on my mission, we decided to have a sleepover, and what better place to have it than in the practice rooms at the HFAC?  It's where we spent most of our time, the rooms had special codes to lock them, and it would be a great adventure!  Well... it was a fun night but we were rudely awakened and "arrested" the next morning.  The campus police were even nice enough to drive us in a cop car all the way from the HFAC to the ASB (note the sarcasm, these buildings were right next to each other).  It was a great adventure and I would never do it again, though I reserve the right to scorn the fact that the music practice rooms aren't open 24 hours a day like at most music schools.  That's the short story - if you want the funny version, you'll have to wait until I can find the photo of Shelley, Tiraje, and me posing behind the harp strings as if they are little jail bars.  Our teacher told the school that she would punish us, but really she was extremely pleased that we had done some harpist bonding.  I think she assigned us to reorganize the string bags or something.

Shelley and her husband are in Houston for the summer!! Huzzah!  We haven't seen each other for six years, but it was easy to pick up right where we left off.  They got a sitter for their FOUR kids and we got a sitter for Willa and decided to have a night out.  It was so nice to get out!  

I think that I am in love with getting a babysitter.  They come to your house and your baby doesn't have to get off schedule at all.  We planned just to go out for dessert so that the kids could all be in bed/ready for bed before we even left our apartments.

I ask this adorable little Beehive in my ward to babysit.  Her name is Breeze and she is probably the cutest Beehive in the world.  She's a little young, but since Willa was already going to be in bed and asleep, all she needed to do was kick back and watch t.v.

Here is a photo of me, Breeze, and Willa at church this past Sunday.  I am in the YWs and Breeze is my favorite girl (shhhh)!  Breeze is very sweet, very cheerful, and a cheerleader at the middle school!  For a YW activity we asked someone to show us how to change the oil in a car.  During the instruction, the boy showing us managed to punch himself in the eye and spill the oil in his face.  Breeze helped urge him along by doing some cheers from school with his name inserted.

Breeze showed up at our apartment 15 minutes before we needed to go.  Ryan showed her around and instructed her on important details like how to search for movies using the Roku and what buttons to push on the remote control.  

We had a fabulous time and came home to a quietly sleeping baby and a cute little Breeze watching Wizards of Waverley Place, which for some reason just really pleased Ryan and me (maybe that she felt comfortable to actually search for something SHE wanted to watch).  Here's the kicker, though, Willa wasn't our little angel that night!  She cried and SCREAMED.  Breeze was a champ, got her up and bounced her in the bouncy chair for a few minutes until she quieted down and let Breeze lay her back down.  Breeze was a pro and we've already scheduled her for this coming Friday.   

You are how you feed

Cathryn brought me Skyline Chili when she returned from her Dayton visit. I guess it was my consolation prize for holding down the fort while she was away. It was nice of her and I was happy to eat it. I could go into the details of Skyline Chili, about its regional greatness, the fact that you can have it in five different “ways,” etc., but in the end it is just food. I eats it, I poops it. It just isn’t that exciting. Don’t misunderstand, I like good tasting food and Cathryn is an excellent cook, but I never think or care about food until I am hungry--If you ask me how my vacation was, I won’t tell you about the food I ate; I don’t understand the word “epicurean”; And food commercials have virtually no affect on me (unless it is the deeply provocative “Mini Sirloin Burgers” ad campaign: Herdin’ cows the size of schnauzers? But they're cattle? Incredbile!).

I don’t mean to say that I haven’t been influenced by the well-known phrase: “You are what you eat.” For example, to prove I am an Ohioan, I eat Skyline Chili. To prove that I am unique, special, or novel, I eat novelty foods like Deep Fried (insert dumb food) and Turducken. Eating something to become something extends back to my childhood when my mom made the following argument at dinner: Ninjas eat rice. Q.E.D. I should eat rice. In fact, I am still trying to figure out what food I would have to eat to prove to the world that I am a refined intellectual with + 25 charisma. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can only be found in a farmer’s market and is described by the words “open raised,” “wild sea bass,” “heirloom,” “organic,” or “whole.” But in the end, eating a Skyline Mini Sirloin Deep Fried Heirloom Turducken is equivalent to eating a ham and cheese sandwich: open mouth, insert food, chew, swallow. Because of my views on food, I have always been more concerned with the lesser known phrase: “You are how you eat.”

When I was a freshman at BYU, I became very interested in survival bars that had all the calories you needed in a day. I thought I could eat one of those bars in the morning and forget about eating for the rest of the day. My dream evolved into intravenous nourishment. To date, the most progress I have made toward my dream has been the smoothie. Every morning I drink a spinach, blueberry, banana, yogurt, and orange juice smoothie. I no longer have to chew and I have reduced my food delivery system from four tools (fork, spoon, peel, and cup) to one tool (cup.) This pleases me. But now that I am a parent, I am becoming even more concerned about the even lesser known phrase: “You are how you feed.”

I have noticed that while feeding Willa, I involuntarily open my mouth and curl my lips back as I present her a spoonful of mush. Lest you think that this is a Babkin Palmomental Reflex resulting from some unresolved frustration I had as a child, consider the fact that Cathryn also does this. I don’t think she notices it and I haven’t pointed it out yet because it is so shocking. I love my wife. I think she is beautiful. But when she feeds Willa, an inner monster surfaces and she curls her lips back and bares her teeth like Mr. Hyde. I considered taking a picture but such things are better left unrecorded.

Now that I know I involuntarily bare my teeth to Willa, I make an extra effort to relax my mouth and maintain my natural and neutral mien. I am not so worried about frightening Willa as I am about coddling Willa’s social intelligence development. I define social intelligence as the ability to accurately discern the hopes/thoughts/feelings/etc. of others through social interaction. In helping Willa develop her social intelligence, I try to measure out the exact amount of emotion warranted for the situation and then subtract 10 emotional units. Because she will have to pay closer attention to facial cues, she will be more skilled at reading people’s faces. It is kind of like teaching your kid to read a book by subtracting 10 words from every paragraph. Not only will Willa be a great book reader, but she will be a great face reader!  Thus, when I feed Willa, I have to suppress Mr. Hyde so that Willa can learn to discern his presence without any facial evidence. It’s like I always say, “Give a Willa emotion while feeding, and you stunt her growth for days. Teach a Willa no emotion while feeding, and you prepare her for life.”

9 Months Old

Today is the important nine month birthday mark!  Willa has now been outside for as long as she was inside!  Look at my little snugglebug with her zoot suit jammies and bedhead.  

Dressed for the day and cute as can be!

Enjoying some yummy oatmeal for brunch

Willa probably lucked out today because I went over to Carol's house to make cupcakes.  The change of scenery and two little toddlers to play with was heaven for her, she was a happy girl there!  DJ liked to show off for Willa and when she was eating applesauce he decided that he would have applesauce for lunch, too.  Her good humor at Carol's makes me think that maybe her increased whineyness at home is merely due to boredom. 

The past month has been huge for Willa.  A month ago she was hardly eating any solids; most days I wouldn't feed her any solids.  About three weeks ago milk suddenly wasn't enough and she became a solids machine.  I'm still trying to learn her new hunger cues because with the milk not quite satisfying her, our feeding schedule is all out of whack. 

Along with feeding out of whack, sleeping has been out of whack.  She's gone from sleeping 11+ hours to only sleeping 10 hours at night.  Not so bad, except that I liked to put her to bed at 7 pm, which makes for an early wake-up call!  I'm not sure if this is just the new her or if she is still adjusting to solids and needing more food.  The good thing is that she has the two naps down!

Willa has had a couple of firsts this month.  She has discovered her voice and likes saying dadada and shrieking a lot.  She really likes to do this during church and got mad last week when Ryan tried to cover her mouth to quiet her.

Willa had her first poop in the tub.  She looooves the tub, especially trying to drink the bathwater.  She screamed royally when she was rudely whisked out of the poop-infested waters before she could give them a sip.

She's just our super fun, super cute girl!  She gets more and more fun every day.  Her personality comes out and she can be quite persnickety if I take too long getting her food ready or if I don't come play with her soon enough.  She will cry if I set her down, but not if I leave and am out of sight.  Sometimes I have to hide out in the kitchen to eat my lunch in peace because once I walk out where she can see me she will start whining again.  I didn't know I was so popular!  It's mostly funny when she gets mad or annoyed, but sometimes it is maddening and annoying.  

Here are a few pictures from the past so that you can see how our Willa-girl has grown.

Newborn, 6lbs 7.5 oz and two weeks early:

One month:

Four months:

Eh, you get the idea, I don't feel like uploading any more photos.

Nine months - you know that I had to show off her new, bigger-size swimsuit. She's such a big girl and has gotten so roly-poly, we sure love her!

Homemade

 Enjoy a photo of Willa in her bikini, I'll probably take it down, but it was just so cute!  I babysat for a girl I visit teach.  She has two girls who are 4 and 6.  We got ready to go swimming, but the only swimsuit I could find for Willa was this bikini.  The little girls both had one-pieces and they asked by Willa's belly showed.  I am a bad example.  

Every once in a while Yahoo, or MSN, or some other news program will run a special on how to save money.  It's so annoying!  I always get sucked in to reading their "Top Ten" ways to save money and it invariably lists things like make coffee at home instead of going to Starbucks every day, or don't order appetizers when you go out to eat, or only order water with you meal.  Does this frustrate anyone else?  It's like, uh doy!!!!

I'm looking for real money saver solutions, not stuff that poor college students (me and Ryan) were already doing.  I want someone to tell me something like if you run your dishwasher after 10 pm it will be more energy efficient because it's cooler outside or less people are on the grid.  Or, maybe someone can write about thinning out the laundry detergent - do you really need to fill the cup up to the "large" load line?  

Since we moved to Texas, I have been cooking and making things a lot more.  I did cook in Los Angeles, but it was hard since I was working and also since Ryan was studying late every night.  He actually asked me to stop cooking dinner because he would study so long on campus that by the time he got home at night he preferred to have a small snack and go to bed instead of a big meal.  Don't worry, he assured me that it wasn't my cooking skillz that drove him to a dinner-less existence.  It was a funny situation because I liked cooking but my husband didn't want me to do it, kind of the opposite of most couples.

Here in Texas, Ryan likes dinner again.  I've also started making all our bread, yogurt, and now Willa's baby food.  It's been not too hard and pretty cheap.  The more I make our own stuff, the more I like it.  It's nice knowing what is going into it.  The biggest thing, though, is that it's cheap!  It's nice to save a little money on things that don't matter to us so that we can spend a little money on the things that do.  I might not always have the time to do things like this, but I have the time now.  Anywho, no real point to this post.  I just thought I'd write about what I do each day and some of that includes making baby food, yogurt, and bread. Ryan's mom gave me some recipes to make my own soap and laundry detergent, but I'm not up to that yet.  If you coupon well enough, you can get cleaning supplies for free.  What's better? Making them yourself or getting them for free?  Discuss.

Willa enjoying peaches (why do we always forget to feed her until after the bath?!)

Hoarders

Ryan and I occasionally watch the show Hoarders. We starting watching it because we were really getting desperate searching the Netflix watch instantly queue for something good and we thought it would be a rather light-hearted choice. Woah, ho ho! Were we ever wrong! Hoarders has got to be one of the most depressing shows on television. We set out for some good old-fashioned voyeurism and poking fun, and at the end of every episode we just end up feeling depressed and sorry for these people. Ryan claims that this show is making him more sympathetic to hoarders. It's so sad to see people who are sooo lonely that they become attached to stuff, which then drives away all other humans from them, which causes them to be more attached to their stuff.

Usually, this show makes us want to clean out our closets and do it fast! However, last week I had my own temptation to hoard when I experienced a wonderful little thing called GARAGE SALES!

Our neighborhood is very suburban and there are lots of young families - the perfect two ingredients for garage sales! Every weekend there are signs everywhere for garage sales. About two weeks ago I was out driving and on an impulse I followed a garage sale sign to see if I could find a walker for Willa. No walker, but two other really great, almost new toys that I knew she would really like! I grabbed those goodies up and swore that I would return to garage sales the next Saturday and get me that walker!

The next week came and I got up Saturday morning and started driving around looking for garage sales. These things are gold mines!! Now I understand why people go to these things! After just a few houses I found the perfect, almost new exersaucer for Willa! I also passed up two cribs, two swings, a jumper, and a million other things. With any luck, Willa will never own another brand-new item for the rest of her life :)!

This brings me to my next point. Garage sales must be like a drug for people who hoard! I came across a toy that had exactly the same function as a toy we already had at home. Plus, this toy at the garage sale was older, dirtier, more worn out, and just nastier than the one we already had. BUT, this toy was only a dollar!!! I seriously considered buying this gross, nasty toy because it was a "good deal"! Woah, I had to take a moment at the garage sale to think through things. And... I can't really think of how to end this train of thought except that I DIDN'T buy the toy and I still prefer throwing things out! Ryan used to dream about owning only 100 items. Sometimes it's fun to think of those mini-houses and how you would live in them. One knife, one fork, one pot, two pairs of pants, etc. No room to accumulate junk, everything there has a specific purpose.

On another note, our Costco coupons came in the mail today and I haven't even opened them yet! I used to love the day that these coupons came in the mail. When we moved to Texas, with all their talk of everything bigger and better, I thought there would be a Costco on every corner (a true paradise); however, there are only two Costcos in the entire Houston area! We have to drive 30-40 minutes and go through a toll road to get to one. Paying the toll, plus gas doesn't quite make it the great money-saver that it used to be. There are, however, Sam's Clubs everywhere. I hate Sam's Club! It's like the poor man's Costco. There is hardly any fresh produce and just aisles and aisles of candy and junk food. Sam's Club is to Costco what Walmart is to Target. No competition! You know how you can just walk through Costco or Target and feel refreshed and cheerful, yeah - not the same feeling at Sam's or Walmart. Here is the worst part! Sometimes I go to Sam's club for big stuff and immediately after go to Walmart to get some cheaper small groceries and I find out that the items I bought at Sam's are cheaper at Walmart. What the what?!! I mean, come on. Okay, I just hate Sam's Club! I'm trying to overcome my aversion and I still like getting cheap gas and buying diapers in bulk, but I miss my Costco.

I think my rant is over. Here is a cute picture of Willa from the other morning. Usually after she wakes up I will put her in some comfy lounge pants and a shirt and we will go out running. I used to wait for Ryan to come back (he would watch Willa while he got ready) but now I just want to get out before the sun comes out, so I've started using the stroller a lot more again. She's so cute. Don't you just love the fresh smell of baby in the morning? I love how soft and feathery her morning bedhead is.

Happy Fourth of July!

Willa in her flag dress for church.  Ryan had on navy slacks and a red tie, so patriotic!

Outfit for the actual Fourth of July.  We are at a friend's house for swimming and barbecue.  We wanted to go to a local parade in the mid-morning so we put Willa down early for her morning nap - but she ended up sleeping over three hours and we completely missed it.  

Home again, exhausted baby and dad after no afternoon nap and lots of swimming and sun.

Excuse the blurry photo, but we had a visitor a few nights ago!  A friend from USC, Jon Harmon stopped by on his drive from Los Angeles to officer training in Alabama.  He just graduated from dental school and is about to start paying back Uncle Sam in the Air Force.  He's doing a mega-long road trip out to Alabama and we were happy to provide a couch, air-conditioning, and a shower - which was a big improvement from sleeping in his car, especially in this heat!  It was so fun to see a Los Angeles friend.  Jon is happy to be done with school and to say sayonara to the dental school.  Having worked there, I completely understand.

Willa seems to have grown into an enormous child overnight.  Nuclear exposure, maybe?  Here she just pulled down her entire play yard on top of her.  I decided that it was time to retire ye olde play yarde.  We've certainly gotten our money's worth with this thing!

Ryan constructed a little sleigh ride for Willa and her friends.

It's been hotter than Hades here.  It's depressing seeing the 7-day forecast when every day has the number 98 or 99 by it.  Sheesh!  On the news this morning they said that the average temperature for June is around 86 degrees, but this June the average was 98 degrees!!!  Ryan and I don't think it's quite as hot as Las Vegas, where he put a cookie sheet and cookie dough in his car and the cookies actually baked while he was at church.  It is, however, quite hot and it is quite early for it to be so hot.  

I have mixed feelings on the heat.  I served my mission in Canada and ever since then I have HATED the cold.  It was so so so cold and we were only allowed to stay inside if it was -40 F or colder, and it got that cold! I think I developed some sort of post-traumatic stress from it because afterwards I hated the cold and would get anxiety from it.  One of the reasons we picked Texas was because it wasn't cold. But this winter there was freak cold spell here and the temperature was in the 20s.  I moved here thinking I could handle one bad season (summer) but not two bad seasons.  I hate being trapped inside, at least when it is cold you can put more layers on and still go out sledding or skiing.   We'll see if we acclimatize here.  We go running at 6:00 am (when it's already 78 degrees) and it's bearable because the sun isn't up yet.