{ Some Enchanted Evening }

This is where I spent my evening last night while Rob went to play basketball with the boys. Just me, "The Poison Wood Bible", and some delicious summer rain. It was probably 85 degrees at 9pm and there was a downpour, lightning included. So I snuggled up under the twinkle lights, a recent personal touch to our small porch, and enjoyed some good thinking time.

Now I just need to make a pillow for that chair, since I recently purchased this!

And this is what the weather is like this morning and has been since 7pm. There are winds that sound like they will knock the whole complex down, so much rain I think we will all just wash away and thunder that continuously sounds like it's right on top of us. I think we're giving Seattle a run for their money.

Well yesterday was a wonderful day, mostly because Peanut had another first. He decided to laugh! We were playing peek-a-boo while he was laying on his changing table and he started laughing hysterically for a few seconds, which made me laugh, which made him laugh again. Oh what a joyful noise!! I can't wait till we can recreate this on a regular basis. Then we can post a video!

Now let's change topics for a minute, and talk about three people. I came to the realization last evening that here in the apartment complex I only seem to make friends with foreign folks. They are delightful! We are becoming fast friends with a family from Bejing. Their twin boys are just a couple months older than our bundle of joy so we have fun comparing. I'm sure they will be wonderful play mates in a few months. We also found that we moved here at the same time because of employment at the same company! The reason I met the wife is because she stopped me specifically since I was wearing my Bejing Olympics jacket and asked if I knew about any child care since I was carrying the baby. How fortuitous!

Another lady, I met at the park, is from Guatemala, and she also has a little boy (or may I say giant boy) who is just a couple months older than Peanut.  I realized once I left the park that I had no idea where she lived and didn't have the slightest inkling as to when she would return to the park. I had been telling Rob about her for weeks and trying to reenact the way she gushed about her beautiful baby. Then lo and behold she was out practicing her parking skills in front of our apartment last night and Rob was able to meet her in person and we exchanged phone numbers.

The reason I saw Rosa practicing was because we were coming from a meeting with another man we had met in Target. He is not from the apartment complex which means, according to my track record, he is not foreign, but he wanted to tell us about some foreign concepts...AMWAY. He's trying to get us to join. We'd had a nice long chat about our families, life, religion, college all in the baby aisle, and we exchanged phone numbers. I was so excited when he called Rob thinking we may have made a new friend. Nope. He wanted to set up a "meeting" so he could tell us a little bit more about the "marketing company" he works for. Bummer. Oh well. It was nice to get out of the house.

And just for fun, since pictures of The Peanut are the real crowd pleaser's on this blog, here is a picture of the most recent hand me down we received. It came from a baby girl, hence the purple, but he doesn't know the difference. That means his scrap book will be all the more embarrassing when we meet his future wife. YAY!

{ Happy Easter! }

 Happy Easter from our little family to yours! We hope your day celebrating the Savior was magnificent.

{ All Grown Up }

I'm talking about us, not the baby this time. Last night we hired our first baby sitter. It was the strangest feeling when she showed up. I felt like I wasn't any older than she was, I just had a baby and she didn't. Then I was reminded of the 10 year age difference. Hmmm. What a strange growing experience and what a way to double the price of a date.

On our date we decided to see a fabulous  movie, "The King's Speech". It has joined my list of top 5 favorite films. It was inspiring and motivating and really made Rob and I realize we need to learn a little bit more about the world's history. It was one of those wonderful films where you walk out of the theater feeling like a better person. Like maybe I could make a difference in the world. This quote from Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" was a major theme and a thought for you all to ponder for the day:

"Be not afraid of Greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

The acting was incredible and the script was superbly written, it was smart, witty and emotional. That's probably why it won four Oscars this year, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay. Oh and every main character in the film was nominated for the award. No big deal. So please give it a look. You will not be disappointed.

{ Fish }

We finally got our goldfish! Meet some of the rest of the "LOST" crew, John, Sawyer, Jin, Sun and Hurley. I felt it was only appropriate to continue the theme. 

{ Easter Eggs }

We love coloring eggs every year...OK make that, Anna loves to color eggs so that means everyone in our house should love to color eggs. Here are this years creations. The above egg dinosaur is this years favorite. For the festivities, we invited over a couple from our ward who has a 3 year old and a 9 month old, so we made sure plastic covered all of the carpet and the table. Adding little kids to the mix always makes this activity more fun. I'm sad to say though, my little friends would not pose for a picture so you'll just have to look at us and our fun creations.

{ Watch This }

SF to Paris in Two Minutes from Beep Show on Vimeo.

A man on an all night flight from San Francisco to Paris, set up his camera, not his video camera, but his point and shoot, on a tripod, to take one picture about every two miles of the trip. So he took 2,459 shots out his passenger seat window and made them into this sweet video. Look at all the sweet things we can do with our cameras.

{ 85 }

That was the temperature today! It's been spring here for weeks now and it's wonderful. We have lots of rain but absolutely no snow. Can't say that much about Utah. Utah could never decide quite what season it wanted to be in. Anyways, this is what it looks like outside my apartment  window and everywhere basically(photo thanks to another Maryland blogger). It's delightful.

{ Not What I Expected }

I took this video because Peanut had been babbling away and I wanted to catch some of his conversation. This is what I got instead. Hope you think it's at least half as funny as Rob and I did.

{ Sit...Stay...Roll-over }

I'm sorry, not everyone wants to see every single thing Peanut does but I know the Grandparents do...

Peanut will no longer sit or stay because he can roll over both ways! That almost sounded like a line of Dr. Seuss. I caught his first tummy to back roll, on camera, by accident. I was filming him lifting his head and surprise, he decided to be a movie star. He practiced all day after he figured it out. He fusses and fusses until he rolls over. Then he realizes that the world looks different from this angle and is completely entranced with his new trick. Then once he's tired of that he fusses and fusses till he gets back to the other side and realizes yet again that there is something different to look at. He also fusses when he lands on the little toy car. Oops! This too was the day Peanut made the decision to start lifting his head for minutes at a time and pulling his knees up underneath him. Up until yesterday he has just been interested in sucking on his hands during tummy time. I have a feeling one day, out of the blue, he's going to go from immobile to crawling across the room and I'll have no idea where he went.

I hope you enjoy the Taylor Swift in the background as well as my words of encouragement. I always forget the point and shoot has a microphone.

{ Welcome to Our Home }

We are officially all unpacked and we thought you might like a tour...

To the left of the entry way is the master bedroom with walk-in closet and attached bathroom. In case you wanted to know, the herb garden in the window is growing splendidly.

The apartment comes with a small child, as seen below.

The armoire was free to a good home (ours) and works quite nicely to add some much needed linen storage.

The door next to the armoire leads to the master bathroom. The first shot is to give you a perspective of the massive square footage of the master bath. The master bath includes a cozy shower that, I'm sad to say, leaks all over the floor with or without a shower curtain on it. We are getting quite good at sticking the curtain to each side, immediately upon entering, so as to limit the water flow on the high quality linoleum. At least the shower curtain is pretty.

The entry way leads straight into this spacious family room.

Decorating on a budget means you combine all of your cheap frames to make one giant piece of wall art. Do you like the new couch?

Here is our dining nook. We finally made it to IKEA where we purchased this fantastic book case. That took care of helping us unload the last of our boxes. We are currently waiting for a warm enough day to finish painting the chairs for the table. 

Our kitchen is the one room I just can't get used to in a positive way. There is not enough counter space to really cook dinner...even without our appliances on them. Low selling point, as we have learned from HGTV. HGTV also tells us that granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances are a must, along with updated cabinetry. Good thing we don't have to make sure it sells when our lease is up. The great thing is that those metal doors lead to a laundry room. Hooray!

Here is our second bathroom. It looks very much like the one we had in UT. I'm glad we have a bathtub for my bubble baths and for Peanut. Peanut already enjoys his baths so we're looking forward to him being able to sit up soon in the tub and play with the many rubber ducks he was given.

Lastly here is the little man's room. The decoration above his crib will soon frame pictures of all his extended family. There is a labeled polka dot for each set of grand parents and each aunt and uncle, so even though they are far away he will be able to see their smiling faces whenever he wants. This was my mock up to make sure I liked the layout.

Here is the amazing changing table that Rob designed and made for us. It's so helpful. Peanut quiets right down when he gets his diaper changed for some reason.

This wall has the measurement chart and the bowl that will soon house some gold fish. Our first family pet. Maybe our only family pet. I think this will be fun until he tries to knock them over. Then we will have to find a new spot. The shelf also holds his books, that is, until our collection grows.

Last but not least here is a terrible back-lit photo of the curtains I made before he was born. Good thing I kept them gender neutral.

We hope you enjoyed this quick tour of our home. One day our photography skills might improve, and by then we won't live here anymore. Come visit us!

{ Look What I Made! }

Pop-up Birthday Cards

  Birthday Cakes 

This was a shameless marketing plug that I brought to a one year old's birthday party. We'll find out if it worked when I get a phone call for paying customers for their sons/daughters birthday parties.

The thing on the top is my stab at a cake-pop "1" with sprinkles

Shabby to Chic

Updating our dining table with the miracle known as spray paint.