Mary at 9 Months

I took Mary to the doctor on 12/21/09 for her 9 month checkup and here were her stats:

Height: 29 1/2" (95th percentile)
Weight: 21# 10 oz. (75th percentile)
Head Circumference: 18 1/4"

12/3/09: Mary (aka Stinkerbelle) getting into some mischief. I can't believe she was the one that first unrolled a whole thing of toilet paper...I definitely thought it would have been Josh!

12/8/09: Smiling pretty, showing off her new (then) hippopotamus teeth


12/16/09: Enjoying her first time sitting in the cart without being strapped in the carseat after getting her picture taken with Santa at Bass Pro Shop

Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving this year was with the Flakes, and we had dinner at the ramada outside of Celeste's church building in Lehi. The weather was great! Travis and his family weren't able to make it, since Teresa was far along "with child" (she's now had little Baby Travis, hence the "was"), but everyone else was there, less two missionaires. You know you have a big family when you need a venue this size to accomodate everyone! We had great food and lots of it!

Josh and Mary just chillin' with Daddy

Don't worry, Mary really did enjoy the ice cream...she was just too tired to show much enthusiam for it

Kayla and Jaki were basking in the beautiful Arizona weather

Mindy organized a Stick Horse Rodeo for after dinner, which was good for a lot of laughs. We had a Grocery Race, a Rescue Race, a Tennis Shoe Race, a Wheelebarrow Barrell Race, a Stick Bull Riding competition, and of course the Keg Race (and probably a few more events, but I can't think of them at the moment). Some of the highlights were Crystal pushing Darrell in the wheelbarrow, but having Brady move the "barrells" closer togther so she could finish the pattern, and me totally biffing it as Kayla and I were doing the Keg Race together.

After the rodeo we had a testimony meeting, and it was nice to hear my mom and several brothers and sisters share their testimonies.

That night David got an early start on the Black Friday specials by standing in line at Toys R Us for their midnight opening. After coming home and getting a few hours of sleep he was off again to buy a gun at Dick's. After he come home, Kayla and I met and hit up a few more stores. That was the first time I had really done any significant Black Friday shopping, and luckily by the time I went out things were relatively calm. David said the line at Toys R Us CRAZY, though.

Friday night our family had another get together at Mindy's for some more visiting and food. My family loves to visit!

I'm so thankful to belong to two wonderful families, and especially to have such a wonderful husband and two wonderful children. I am so blessed!

EVMCO Christmas Concert

For the past several years my violin has been gathering some serious dust since it has only been played for a few funerals (too many) and church functions here and there. But no more!

Two of my sisters, a niece, and I recently joined the orchestra of the East Valley Mormon Choral Organization (EVMCO), and a sister-in-law is in the choir. I was a little hesitant to join "just another Mormon music group," but the timing was perfect for me, since I had just been released from YW. Plus, I decided that I really needed to start playing again so that all those years of lessons wouldn't go completely to waste! I figured this would be better than nothing, so I decided to give it a go. I am impressed!

Our premier concert is on Thursday, December 10th, in which we'll be performing several Christmas selections. I really think it will be great and that you'll be impressed, so I invite you to come and see for yourself! Here's the info:

Happy Halloween!

While we were at the dollar store perusing through the Halloween merchandise we gave Josh a few different options of what he could dress up as for Halloween and he chose a cowboy. Oh, he made his mama proud! We decided if he was going to be a cowboy, we'd better help him brush up on his skills. So we took him to Sheplers to ride the bull, and to the Halloween fun day at Bass Pro Shop where he got to try his hand at roping and stick bull riding.

How's my form?

Learnin' the ropes...literally!

Aw Mom, do I have to use the pink rope?

Let me go Dad, I'm ready!

Sweet! I get a s'more for winning?!

We decided he had learned well, and earned the right to dress in his cowboy garb for the ward Trunk or Treat party the week before Halloween. Unfortunately we forgot our camera, so these pictures from David's phone will have to suffice.

Josh had a great time handing out candy before going around to gather his own. After getting his first piece he wanted to eat it. Luckily, his mother was there to explain that there was much more gathering to do before the feasting could begin!

Mary also enjoyed the festivities dressed in her super tight 12 month pajamas and fairy wings. Are the pj's so tight on my 7 month old because they are cheapies from the dollar store, or because Mary is so chubby??? I don't know, but she sure is cute!

We carved our pumpkin for Family Home Evening a couple of days later.

We spent Halloween weekend in Thatcher with David's family, so Josh got to go trick or treating again at their ward's trunk or treat. Good thing, because he really had the "trick or treat" down pat. Joseph was also a cowboy, and those two little boys looked so cute together. We decided to put Mary in Josh's horse costume from two years ago to complete the ensemble.

Joseph says, "Don't worry ma'am. I'll save you!"

Nothing cuter than a horsie riding her daddy!

Alaska Trip Part 3: Skagway, Ketchikan, 2nd Sea Day, Coming Home

This is way late, but I'm finally finishing up my last installment of recording about our Alaska trip. Feel free to skip!

Sunday, 8/30 we docked for the day in Skagway, AK. Brandon & Jen looked up the information on church services in Skagway ahead of time, so they, David & I and some other members of our family went to church. It was interesting, because they have a lot of young adults (single and married) come up to work during the summer, so their branch swells to about 150 people during those few months. During the other months of the year there are only about 15 or so members. Crazy. Anyway, their church building is quite small, with pretty much only a small chapel and a few rooms/offices right off of the chapel.

I had a funny pumping experience there at church: It was time to pump again after Sacrament Meeting, but the bathroom there only had one stall in it, and I didn't want to monopolize it for the entire pumping session. So I asked one of the regulars if there was a classroom or somewhere else I could use, and she arranged for me to use the branch president's office, which was right off the front of the chapel room. Pumping in the president's office was weird enough in and of itself, but soon after I started I heard Sunday School begin, and was really hoping that everyone else couldn't hear my pump going. After I was finished I had to walk out of the office and come out into the front of the chapel from behind the Sunday School teacher (who everyone was facing), carrying my pumping backpack, and find my seat. It was pretty embarrassing for me, but David said no one was really even paying attention to me. He may have just been being nice to me, but I'll take it. Here is the little church:

After church Kayla, Brandon & Jennifer, and David & I continued our scavenger hunt for free stuff. We felt (okay, rationalized) that since we weren't "buying" anything we were okay to do that on Sunday. :)

A view of one of the streets of Skagway:

Kayla (Jeff was doing homework), Jennifer, Brandon, David and me:

Some huge mushrooms we saw growing by the creek:

A couple of salmon that were fighting. They were going at it for several minutes and it was fascinating to watch:

This little waterfall was so beautiful:

Brandon had to go really bad and couldn't wait to get back to the ship. Luckily, we came across this gazebo bathroom right off the highway :) :

More beautiful scenery:

Monday, 8/31 we docked at our last port, Ketchikan, AK. All of the towns were interesting, because you could tell a lot of their economy came from people on the cruise ships, but none more so than Ketchikan. The day we docked there there were three other cruise ships docked there as well.

After finishing up our treasure hunt for free stuff, David and I went on part of a walking tour in Ketchikan. One of the points of interest on the tour was this "street," that is actually wooden stairs (there were lots of those here). If you'll look closely, you can see the street sign where this street meets up with another street.

Here we are in front of "Dolly's," the most famous of the "establishments" on Creek Street, aka the Red Light District:

Gotta love this sign:

Another picture of fish. You have to look closely, but the two dark spots towards the bottom right are two salmon jumping up the rapids. It was seriously so fascinating (and quite frustrating) to watch all the fish work and work and work at swimming upstream, where they would lay their eggs, then guard the eggs for a couple of weeks until they eventually died. A little bit sad, but I couldn't help but be impressed with their selflessness. They give their lives for their kids!

Tuesday, 9/1 was another full day at sea, and luckily we didn't run into any storms this sea day. David and I played a little miniture golf and basketball there on the ship (those ships are seriously amazing!), went on a tour of the galley, and went to Kerry Summers' Elvis show. (Unfortuneately I didn't blog about this earlier, because I've already forgotten a lot of the details of what we did!)

The ship workers were so talented! Check out this detail (those are watermelons):

Elvis lives!

Every night when we would come back to our room we were treated to an awesome towel animal and pillow mints. (Luckily, David didn't like the mints, so I got his!) Such luxury!

While on the galley tour, we saw the menu boards for dinner...

...and more importantly, dessert!

Those menu boards reminded me how very spoiled I had been for the past week. I ate A LOT on this trip, and thoroughly enjoyed it!

We also saw some wild life, from the ship. Here you can barely see the fin of a killer whale sticking up out of the water:

As mentioned in a previous post, our family hung out in the karaoke lounge a bit. My sister-in-law Jennifer (Tyler's wife), got recruited to be Madonna for the Carnival Legends show on Tuesday evening. She was a bit embarrassed that the song they made her sing was "Like a Virgin," and that the male dancers were wearing super short, tight shorts, but it was quite funny to watch. They also had other karaoke stars perform as Garth Brooks, Gloria Estafan, James Brown, Brittany Spears...quite entertaining.

David and me with our waiter (I've already forgotten his name!) and assistant waiter (Elnie?). These guys were great, I especially liked the singing/dancing numbers they would do during dinner. Elnie tried to get me to get up and dance on one of the nights, but I was too embarrassed. The waiter at the other table was able to get JenMarie up a couple of times, though!

Wednesday, 9/2 we woke up early (relatively) and disembarked in Vancouver, Canada, then hopped on a bus that took us to Seattle, WA, from where we flew home.

David and I were again on a flight with several other family members, and we were all lucky enough to be able to get on the earlier flight home, which meant that we got to board about an hour after getting to the airport, rather than waiting 3 more hours. I had a ton of fun, but I was definitely ready to get home. I was so excited to see my kids!

Who wouldn't be excited to see these two kiddos?

Thanks again to David's parents for taking such good care of Josh and Mary for us! Ralph definitely deserves Grandpa of the Year honors!

Locked Out!

Yesterday morning it was time to make bread again, so I took the wheat grinder out to our balcony to try to save our eardrums and started the process. A little later, I went out to check it and heard Josh slide the glass door shut behind me, but didn't think too much of it...until I tried to come back in and discovered that he had also locked it after shutting it. Great. Of course I didn't have my phone with me, I was just going to be out there for a second.

Me: "Josh, can you open the door for me?"

Josh: "Okay." Tries to open the door, but can't get it right away. "Mamy help you?" (Translation: Mama, do it for me?)

Me: I knock. "I can't do it Josh, please open the door."

Josh: Thinking it's pretty fun to play through the window with mom. "Mamy help you?"

Me: I try pulling on the door hard to see if I can get it past the lock. Nope. More begging and pleading with the same results. Hmmm...maybe I can get in through the the other sliding glass door to the kids room.

Josh had recently learned how to move the lock switch up and down, so we put poles in the tracks of both sliding glass doors to keep him from opening them. We live on the 3rd floor and with the climber that he is it's just too dangerous for him to get out there without our knowing about it. I had removed the pole in the living room door to come out, and I was hoping that somehow the pole in the kids' room wasn't in there. Nope, it was there. Rats. That door is unlocked at least, but the bottom of the door won't budge since the pole is there behind it. The top will come out an inch or so...maybe I could lift it off the track and up over the pole? I try for a minute or so and get my hand nice and scraped up. I can't do it with just my hands, but luckily, David's tools are out here. I try prying the bottom of the door up with a screwdriver, then a hammer. Nope. Back to the first door.

Me: I knock again. "Josh, will you please open the door for me?"

Josh: "Mamy help you?"

Me: "Josh, do you see the lock?" I trys pointing to the lock switch through the glass. "Go up, down, up, down."

Josh: Points at the glass by where I'm pointing.

Me: "No, over there." I try pointing again.

Josh: Sees his magnets and goes to play with them.

Clearly this isn't working. Thank goodness Mary is asleep (at least I hope she still is). Maybe I can shove a screwdriver into the key hole and get it to turn the lock. That's not working...maybe the needle nose pliers will work. The end of the pliers just broke off in the lock. Rats. At least I have my wheat and our water-filled soda bottles to survive on (always thinking of food). I bang on the door to get Josh's attention away from the TV and his magnets and try getting him to open the door again.

Me: "Josh do you want to ride your bike?"

Josh: "Yes, bike!"

Me: "Okay, open the door and come and get it."

Josh: Tries pulling on the door.

Me: "You have to unlock it."

Josh: "Mamy help you?"

I go back to the kids' room door. While trying to open it Josh comes into his room. Maybe he can move the pole from behind the door.

Me: "Josh, can you move the broom?"

Josh: Tries to move it. "Stuck. Mamy help you?

For the next several minutes I keep going back and forth between the two doors trying to figure out a way to get back in. More banging. I start yelling and pleading with Josh to open the door. No luck. My face is "glistening" with sweat and my shirt is starting to get wet.

After about 30 minutes or so one of the girls who lives below us calls out from her balcony asking if I need help. Realizing that I'm not going to get back in of my own accord, I ask her to call David to come home from work and let me in.

Finally, about 15 mintues later, my knight in shining armor comes and rescues me. I love David!

I go and check on Mary, she's sleeping. If she did wake up screaming I'll just pretend that she didn't. Thank goodness. What a morning!