Friday

I can not express how happy I am that it's FRIDAY today! We've had a good week (with a few tears- mostly from my hormonal/emotional self), but we are looking forward to spending lots of time with David this weekend and we couldn't be more excited. Here are some things we've been up to this week:

1- Amy came down last Friday and Saturday to visit us. It was super fun and we really enjoyed it. On Friday we had some dinner, made some crepes, played with Lydia, put her to bed, watched some Agents of Shield, and played some games. We always love with Aunt Amy comes to visit! The first thing that Lydia said when she woke up the next morning was "Amy?" Luckily, we convinced Amy to stay and play with us pretty much all day on Saturday. We went to an egg hunt for Easter, then headed down to Orem for the Women's Expo at UVU. We played a few games in the afternoon, and then met up again that evening to celebrate Kaylee's birthday! We went out to dinner at Zupas and enjoyed celebrating with everyone.

2- I mentioned that we went to the Women's expo at UVU, but I think that it deserves it's own space! I love things like that, and luckily David enjoys them as well. Amy wasn't sure what to expect, but I think she had fun with us! We loved walking around all of the booths to see what they had to offer. I have to be honest though, our favorite part definitely is the "getting free stuff" part. We came away with some serious bounty! A full-sized cherry apron with matching hot pads, two free ice packs (for sore muscles), four darling sets of bows for Lydia, a 10 minute hand massage for Amy and a 5 minute back massage for David and I, a free cleaning/checkup to a Pediatric Dentist, a $10 gift card to Dillard's. That is in addition to all of the samples, candy, and little toys that were being handed out. We had a nice time walking around together - and seriously can't believe the haul of free stuff that we scored!

3- We've really made an effort lately to make sure that we are attending the temple regularly. Luckily we have some wonderful family and friends who are willing to babysit so we can meet our goal of regular temple attendance. Melissa & Blake had volunteered to babysit for us on Tuesday night so we could go to the temple. We were super excited, but then at work on Tuesday David found out that some paperwork for a really big project that he has been working on for weeks (months?) was finally going to be finished around five p.m. and needed to be approved (by him) asap. Meaning, he was going to have to stay and work late. We were bummed, but I decided that rather than cancel with Melis, I'd just go by myself and do the initiatory work for some family names that my parents had asked us to do (the initiatory for the boys had already been done by my dad/brothers). All the sudden - pretty close to the time Melissa was getting ready to leave - I realized that David had my Temple Recommend in his wallet. I was so sad, but called Melissa to see if we could reschedule for another night. She was so sweet and we talked about a few possibilities. While I was on the phone with her David called. I called him back and he said that the lady who was supposed to get him the stuff wasn't online and probably wouldn't finish it at the time she said she would, and that he was just headed home right now so we could sneak out to the temple and he would just work later that night. I sheepishly called Melissa and asked if we could un-cancel. I am so glad that everything worked out to be able to get to the temple, because we had such a beautiful experience. I had the opportunity to do initiatory work for four sisters, a mother and a daughter - all on my mom's Jette side (Marie Loraine Eva Charpentier, Alda Charpentier, Alma Charpentier, Josephine Charpentier and Alma Jette and her mom, Rosalie Charboneau) . The last person that I did the work for was the mother, Rosalie. Just thinking about each of these women and the lives that they lived, and thinking about the blessings that were being promised, was so sweet. The Spirit of Elijah bore witness to me the importance of temple work - not just for the names that the temple provides, but for my very own ancestors. It was beautiful. Of course, I left crying and just happened to run into my entire Relief Society Presidency (I'm so awkward!), but the spirit has stayed with me and I am SO grateful that we were able to go, even though it seemed like we wouldn't be able to.  

4- Sue, my sweet sweet mother-in-law, knew that I didn't have any summer maternity clothes and so she came down one morning this week and took me out shopping to buy a couple of shirts. I ended up with a few darling t-shirts that are going to be great for this summer. In fact, I'm wearing one of them right now and I love it! It was nice to spend the time with her, and so nice of her to look out for me! I lucked out in the in-law department, that's for sure.

5-We've all been hit with allergies at our house. Runny noses, itchy eyes, sore throats. It's bad. Poor Lydia keeps asking us to "wipe her eyes" when we wipe her nose because they are so itchy. The allergies hit Lydia and David a couple of days before they hit me - so I was telling everyone that I only get allergies in the fall and springtime doesn't bother me. Boy, was my memory faulty! David's been taking allergy medicine, but I don't really know what I can give to Lydia or what I can take myself. I need to find myself a Doterra pro and see if there is anything that they can do for us, or so some other research into kid/pregnancy safe allergy medicine. (One of my friends commented on my last post that her nephew takes allergy medicine for kids because his allergies are so bad.) Wish us luck! (Or at least wish us less itchy eyes!)

Happy Friday! 

(These aren't the best pictures, but I love that I was able to snap these candid shots of Lydia and Elsie. They just really love playing together - and I love watching them.) 

Easter 2014

David and I have talked a lot about how we want to do Easter at our house. You know, how to find the right balance between secular and spiritual. We didn't really figure out exactly what we want to do in the future, but I like what Ashley's family did growing up - they did Easter Baskets and things like that on Saturday and then spent Sunday talking about the real reason for Easter. We went that direction this year, and although we didn't do an Easter Basket for Lydia I think we had a really good balance. 

Friday afternoon was Lehi's Easter Egg Drop. It sounded like a fun little Easter Egg hunt for the little kids (they had it separated out into groups so that the little kids wouldn't get trampled by the big kids). I told Ashley about it and we decided to make a little adventure out of it. This is the only picture that we took, while we were waiting for the festivities to start: 

Turns out, it was a disaster! There were a ton of people and the space was teeny-tiny (like smaller than our backyard for the whole 0-3 age group). You couldn't really hear what was going on, but they had a guy in a boom-truck drop a box full of eggs into one giant pile underneath of him and the crowd mass descended on the giant pile of eggs. Ashley and I stayed back with Lydia and Elsie, but Carson headed straight into the fray. There were kids of all ages and many parents right in the middle of the massive group of people and it was complete chaos! Carson came back in tears because he didn't get any eggs - and we all left empty handed. I heard that they changed some things and that it got better for the older age groups, but I'm not sure what they could have changed to make it better. It really was so sad. 

Ashley suggested going home and having our very own egg hunt. We scrounged up some eggs and filled them with candy then had Ashley go out into the backyard to "hide" the eggs. The kids were SO excited.

 I can't get over Elsie and Lydia's faces in this picture - they were SO sad because we told them to stop on the porch so we could take pictures. Poor little kids. Who knew egg hunting was so traumatic? We stopped trying to get them to pose for pictures and let them go to it! Lydia was a champ - she knew exactly what to do and loved finding the eggs and putting them in her basket. 

 Daddy got home and joined in the fun. Lydia loved showing him all her eggs. Our little Easter egg hunt was such a success - I think that we will do that every year from now on! It was much more fun to play with our friend at home and not have so much egg-hunting competition. 

Not to be dissuaded from a large organized Easter Egg Hunt, we decided to go to a community one put on by a local insurance company. Amy had come to play with us on Friday night and slept over (Lydia's first word in the morning was "Amy?" and was so excited when Amy was still here) and we convinced her to come spend the day with us. The egg hunt was a billion times better than the one the previous day! Lydia could barely contain her excitement at getting to find more eggs. 

 

Many of the other kids her age were being led around by their parents "Look at this egg, come get it!", but Lydia was totally into it. She kept going after all the eggs she could find - we had to laugh though, because there were also little candies (laffy taffys, etc...) in the grass and she would just walk right by them. She just wanted the eggs! She was so cute - and I'm glad that we went because she had a really good time. Plus, it was held at a park pretty close to our house and we are super excited to go there some more this summer. Lydia loved going down the slide, and even though she definitely could do it on her own, she loved having her daddy go down with her. 

  

Our sweet little Lydia girl started feeling a little sick Saturday night. I attributed it, and still mostly do, to  a combination of teething (she's still working on her first two molars) and allergies (David gets really bad allergies and she's been asking me to "wipe her eyes" like they are really itching her). She had a little fever and runny nose, but during the night - the mucus got into her throat and she started coughing and didn't sleep well at all. David and I took turns rocking her and holding her and then she spent half the night sleeping in our bed with us (not a common occurrence). We knew we couldn't take her to nursery the next day - but luckily my family came down early and were able to watch her while David and I went to church. Our church doesn't start until 1:30 - so we knew that getting anywhere for Easter wasn't really going to happen. However, my family was happy to let us "host", meaning - they brought all of the food and they came to us. It was so nice to spend the evening with them. It was perfect. I didn't get any cute pictures of Lydia in her Easter dress, because she stayed in pajamas the whole day - but thankfully she was her happy cheerful self for most of the day.  

 (I love my kitchen curtains, but hate the funky coloring that they give to all my photos. I think I'm going to have to get new curtains that act as a better "backdrop" to all the pictures that I take in the kitchen.") Also, the picture below with my mom and Lyida is titled "Cheers". We had been talking about the orange glasses that we were using along with the china plates, and I pulled out a little purple glass for Lydia. My mom said cheers, and held up her glass - and Lydia in her sweet little voice said "Cheers!" and held up her glass too. They did that a couple of times and it was darling. 

After dinner we dyed eggs, and we let Lydia color a few eggs with her markers. It was very fun.  

After dinner - we had a little lesson about Easter. We wanted to find a way to teach Lydia about Jesus, and make sure my family got to take a minute to focus on the Savior as well. I saw several examples on the internet for these Resurrection Eggs - but ended up making my own because most of the ones online were from Catholic-type religions that focused more on the cross, and didn't mention the Atonement at all. I'm including the directions here so that I can make them again next Easter and not have to worry about keeping my little slips of paper for an entire year. (I just hand wrote them).

I filled six eggs with the corresponding items from the list below, and then had each one of us take a turn reading the slip of paper inside of the egg. Lydia liked handing out the eggs to the next person, and I think that next year she will be able to understand even more. (I color coded them according to the rainbow so I could remember which egg came next without having to write numbers on them.)

1-Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, as was prophesied in the scriptures. The people waved big leaves called palm branches, because that is what people used to do when a king walked by. They knew that he was the greatest King of all! (Matthew 21: 1-11) Leaf that looks like a palm frond.

2- Jesus has a special dinner with his friends called the Last Supper. This is when the sacrament began, because Jesus gave his friends bread and water and said that they should always remember him and follow him. (Matthew 26:17-19) Piece of bread or sacrament cup.

3- Jesus went to a garden to pray. There, he suffered for our sins and all our sorrows. Because he did this for us, if we repent we can return and live in Heaven again. (Luke 22: 39-44) Flower from garden.

4- Jesus was betrayed by one of his friends. He was arrested and sentenced to death because the chief priests were afraid of him and thought he was a liar. They were very mean to him and used nails to hang him on a cross. Before he died, he prayed to Heavenly Father to forgive them. (Luke 23: 1-46) Nails to represent the nails they used to hang Him on the cross. 

5- His friends were very sad when Jesus died and they wrapped his body in clean white cloth and laid his body in a tomb. There was a big rock covering the opening of the tomb so that nobody would be able to bother his body. (John 19:40 and Matthew 27:59-60) White cloth or tissue, small rock. 

6- Jesus' friends came to visit his tomb, but they found that the rock had been moved and the tomb was empty! Then an angel came and told them "He is risen, He is not here." The egg is empty because Jesus' tomb was empty. The tomb was empty because He was resurrected! He lives! And we also live again, because of Him. This is the reason we celebrate Easter - and all the hope that comes because of Him! (Mark 16:66, Matthew 28:5-6). Empty Egg to symbolize the empty tomb. 


I love Easter and all the happiness and hope that comes from remembering the sacrifice of our Savior. I saw a quote that really hit home to me about the feelings that the disciples and friends of Jesus must have felt when Jesus died. That day, that Friday, when earthquakes shook the earth, and their friend and Messiah died while being scorned by all those around him. But what hope came, just three short days later, on that Sunday, when the Savior appeared to them again. That is what the Savior brings, hope and happiness.  Because of him, I know that in the Fridays of life - that Sunday will come.

Happy Easter!

17 Weeks: Baby #2

When we were pregnant with Lydia, we documented each week by taking a picture and writing a little letter to her. I love looking back and reading through those letters and remembering the feelings that we experienced. I also think that it helped me (personally) to bond with Lydia in a way that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. It's been fun to look back and compare the differences between pregnancy #1 and #2. I've wanted to do the same thing for this new baby, but I changed a few things that I wish I had included the first time around (like, the date at the top of the day that I turned "-- weeks" so that when looking back I have a good idea of what time of year it was). Saturday marked day one of week 17:

 

I didn't start documenting as early last time, but looking back... I think that I am showing pretty much on the same schedule as before. Week 16, 17, 18 was when my bump started to arrive. It's amazing to think that there is this little baby the size of a turnip growing inside that tummy of mine. I am excited, because I love seeing the results of this tiny baby growing.

Some other things from the last several weeks:
-I felt so much better than I did when I was pregnant with Lydia all through the first trimester. Every person that I met said that meant that I was having a boy, because girls make you much sicker. It might be a boy, but it's just so hard to really compare because my lifestyle is so different than what it was before. (Waking up early and being a high-energy teacher all day vs. Setting my own pace for the day and eating when I want.) For a long while, I was really sad for a while and kept trying to find reasons why it would be a girl - because I really want a little sister for Lydia. But I think I've gotten over that, and now I will be genuinely happy with a little boy or little girl. I've seen some really cute little brother/big sister combos lately - and I just think that whatever happens we will be the happiest little family. I've also started slipping and calling the baby a him occasionally, so I don't know if that means anything. (I do sometimes call the baby a her, as well - but before I never really said "him".)

-I say that I've been feeling really great in comparison to last time, but through the first trimester I still felt nauseous in the mornings and didn't have a ton of energy (especially at first). Last time I hit 14 weeks and almost overnight I felt awesome. I was sick, sick, sick, then one morning I woke up and felt a little better, then the next day I felt even better, and I never really got so sick again. I was really looking forward to that again this time - but if anything, I hit 15 weeks and I started feeling even more sick! Not necessarily in the mornings, I wasn't so queasy right when I woke up, but more of an all day yuckiness. I'm starting to feel a little bit better, but I'm a little grumpy that I let myself get so excited about "magically not being sick anymore" and then right when I was hoping for the magic cure was when I started to feel more sick. I hope that I do start feeling better though. I'll be in my second trimester for most of the summer - and I love that second trimester. I'm hoping that it will be really awesome.

-We scheduled our 20 week appointment/gender check! It's in just over three weeks and we are so excited!

-Lydia is so cute and when you ask her where the baby is she'll say a combination of the words "Doctor. Mommy. Baby. Tummy. Heartbeat." It's super sweet.

-I've been eating a ton of Spaghettios over the last month. However, last time I went to the store I bought the ones with added calcium because I figured if I was going to eat them I may as well make them as healthy as possible - but I had forgotten that the only reason I was eating them is because the way my pregnant body liked the way they taste! Apparently, the calcium changes the taste slightly and they aren't quite up to snuff. However, they still seem to settle my stomach - so we'll survive. I also crave cold pepperoni and was eating bags of the stuff until I realized that it probably fell into the same category as lunch meat (which I also crave). I read some stuff online saying that it isn't really a Listeria hazard because it's been salted and dried like salami (shelf-stable until opened). But better safe than sorry!

(Today is Easter, and we are planning to host my family for Easter Dinner tonight - but I wanted to get this post posted as close to 17 weeks as possible. I'll have another post about Easter tomorrow!)

Weekend (Date Night!)

We've had a lot of fun weekends in the past several months, and some busy work-filled ones, too. But it's been a long time since we've been able to go on a date just for fun. Friday afternoon I started really, really, wishing that David and I could go out on a date. I started flipping through babysitters: Ashley - getting ready for Elsie's birthday party. Melissa & Blake - Need them to babysit when we go to the temple this month. Amy - Need her to babysit for David's "End of Busy Season" party at the end of April. Etc, etc, etc... (It's amazing how many things you need a babysitter for, and how few of those are casual dates.) I finally had the brilliant idea to text my nephews Josh & Daniel and see if either of them would be willing to earn $5 to come watch Lydia for us. It was kind of a shot in the dark, but after a few text messages and a phone call to Wendy it was all set up! I excitedly called David and told him that I found a babysitter (he didn't even know I was looking for one), and asked him how a Texas Roadhouse/Treadmill shopping date sounded. He was in!

It just happened to be David's half-birthday on Friday. We didn't really go out for his half-birthday, but it was fun to pretend that it was a giant celebration of how special David was. In actuality - we've been looking to buy a treadmill for a long time and treadmill shopping with a 23 month old is not the most fun thing in the whole world. Lots of "I want to try it!" followed by climbing all over the treadmill and then running around the store. (Even if she started in the stroller, we didn't have awesome success at keeping her in there.) One of us was always trying to contain her, and it wasn't super conducive to making such a big purchase. So buying the treadmill was really the main goal of the evening (as was using the Texas Roadhouse gift card my parents so generously gave to us after Melissa's wedding). However, I did surprise David with a Bocce Ball set as a little half-birthday gift.

Apparently, we were in a spendy mood and we came home with a bunch of great things:

1 Treadmill
2 Scheels hats
3 bags of jelly beans
1 diaper bag/backback combo
1 bloomin onion
12 Texas Roadhouse rolls
1 20 oz bone-in Ribeye steak
2 mashed potatoes
2 house salads

The best part? We only spent about $70!

Here's the story:

When David's firm merged into Eide Bailly, we found out that they now offered a "fitness stipend" to help their employees stay healthy and happy. It's actually pretty awesome, you get $600 a year to spend on fitness whatever (it can be a gym membership, fitness equipment, etc...) and the only catch that you "use it or lose it" and you have to use it by the end of April. We'd been talking about getting a treadmill for a long time and we'd saved up a couple hundred dollars for it - but this stipend opened up a larger variety of treadmills that we could buy (read: buy at a store instead of KSL). While looking at treadmills we found that one of the features that stood out to us was the hydraulic lift assist on some models. Pretty much every model folds up for convenient storage, but most of the ones in our price range just stayed in place with a steel pin in the side and when released crashed down unless a fairly strong adult was lowering it down. (Those things are heavy!) One child couldn't release it, but I kept having visions of two of my children working together to release the pin and then getting crushed under the track. We thought a lot about it, but couldn't ever make a decision. We couldn't make ourselves buy one without the hydraulics even if it was in our price range. But we also couldn't quite justify spending an extra $300- we could justify it in words, but couldn't ever pull the trigger.

We decided to go to Sheels to check out their treadmill selection. We were instantly woo'ed by their "Free Delivery and Set Up." (About an $80 value at RC Willey and not covered by the fitness stipend.) We'd been looking at treadmills for a long time, in-store, and online. We knew we just needed a basic treadmill with at least a 2.25 motor. The only extra functions we cared about were the easy-lift, and that it had a place to set our ipad so we could watch netflix while running. (Both kind of silly things.) The guy who was helping us kept trying to sell us on the super cool features of some of the more expensive models, but we don't really need "runs a simulation of a trail around Boston" or whatever. After talking with the guy for a while about several other models we found out that they had a model with the easy-lift that was only $599. They didn't have a model out on the floor, but he said that they had several in boxes in the back. We looked at some pictures on his computer and it looked good. We told him we wanted to think about it, and that we were going to go look at some other places and we'd call him back later if we decided to buy it. We took his card, stopped by the outdoor games to look at Bocce Ball and then headed to the escalator. Before we even got to the bottom we decided that we just wanted to buy that treadmill. It was basically everything that we'd been looking for, and for almost $300 less than we'd been able to find anywhere else. We turned around and headed right back up to make our purchase. The guy seemed a little surprised to see us, but we had been looking for a treadmill for so long that we were just ready to make it happen. Our final total? $641.09. Plus, they threw in a couple of Sheels hats for spending over $250. Haha. Awesome. But not as awesome as the fact that our treadmill was only going to cost us $41.09 including delivery and set up!

(Delivered and set up today!)

We finished all the paperwork and were so excited as we got back in our car (around seven o'clock). I called Texas Roadhouse for their "Call Ahead Seating". Earlier we had decided that we'd go to dinner later in the evening instead of right at 6, but when I called they said that they had a 70-90 minute wait. Yikes! We were really feeling TRH, and so we decided that we'd just wait. I texted Josh & Wendy to make sure that he'd be okay to watch Lydia for a little longer than planned and we headed to American Fork to burn an hour while we waited for our table to be ready. We stopped at Target to look at Bocce Ball sets (just in case David wanted a different kind) and walked around for a while. Sometime during this, I started telling David about this diaper bag/backpack combo that I really wanted. We had gone to the gardens with Elsie and Carson (and Ashley) earlier in the day, and I was wishing SO much that I had a little backpack to wear instead of carrying my purse/diaper bag all over. My shoulder was killing me. I had noticed a pretty inexpensive backpack type diaper bag at Walmart so we headed over there so I could show him. I think we were both on a spending-high from our awesome treadmill deal, and I barely had to twist his arm to buy me the diaper bag. (I've never been much of a purse girl, so it makes me laugh at how many diaper bags I've accumulated and how much I love them.) I'm seriously in love with it! It's grey and pink (David thinks that it's red, but it's totally just a hot pink) and it's perfect.

We also picked up a couple bags of jelly beans because they are so yummy (we've gone through like 4 bags in the last month - luckily they are only a dollar). Then we headed to dinner. We basically walked in and were immediately seated, it was awesome. We decided that because we had a gift card we were just going to get whatever we wanted to eat. We ended up with a yummy bloomin' onion appetizer, and then decided to split the 22 oz Ribeye described as "our most flavorful steak", we each added some sides. Our waiter took it to heart when we said that we didn't want any peanuts but that we really loved their rolls. He kept the fresh rolls coming and even brought out four extras to send home with us. It was a delicious dinner, and we had a great time eating and talking. After using the gift card from my parents, the total was only about $1.20 (plus tip). So awesome! We are so grateful to my parents for giving us such a nice night out. It was so nice to be able to go out on a real date and be so successful at getting the things done that we wanted to get done. We got home, and Josh had taken great care of Lydia who was sleeping soundly. *sigh* It was pretty much perfect!

Our Saturday was just as fun and successful. We got up fairly early, ate yummy breakfast, then went out into our yard to do some spring prep work. We turned on our sprinklers and weeded our front flower bed. Lydia was such a champ and she walked around and helped us, never trying to run away into the road (which is real progress for us). She would pick up a weed stem and say "I help" and then drop it into the bucket. It was nice to be outside as a family and get some good things done that we needed to get done. The afternoon was busy, as David went and presented at a Beta Alpha Psi meeting about "The First Audit Engagement", and I had a Red Ladder Design consultation  while Lydia took a nap/chattered up in her bed. After those things, we hung out for a while and then got ready for Elsie's birthday party!

We had volunteered our house to the Coopers to host Elsie's 2-year birthday party so that they didn't have to worry about renting out a church or a park. The kids loved playing on the slides outside, and the adults all seemed to have a great time. Elsie was a darling birthday girl, and Lydia loved eating the birthday cake. She savored every single crumb.

It was a fabulous weekend, especially because it was my last Sunday of doing all of the Primary Secretary responsibilities. An assistant Secretary has been called, and I met with his this week to divide up the duties. I'm so relieved and SO so excited to be able to really be able to feel like I'm fulfilling my calling and not just barely staying above water. Yay for wonderful weekends!

Friday

1- Last week we had a great time with my parents/siblings. I'm really mad at myself that I didn't get any pictures of Lydia with my parents. Or really, any pictures at all. I've been trying to do more "living in the moment" and not worrying so much about trying to capture every little thing. But then when I fail to get any pictures of an event, it makes me really sad. Regardless, we had a fabulous time. Melissa and Blake invited us over for dinner at their new house on Thursday night, and Matthew and Jacob just happened to be around so they came, too. It was nice to chat and hang out with some of my favorite people. Then my parents drove down on Friday to play. We went to the farm and had a great time showing "Mah-ma and Papa" all of our favorite animals. I wish, I wish, I wish that I had gotten a picture of the three of them in front of the horses or the cows or something. *sigh* It was really fun, and we really really enjoyed having them down. We all decided to pick up some pizza and head back to Melissa and Blake's to eat. I was scheduled to sell something on KSL at six, so we switched Lydia's carseat into my parents car and she went with them to pick up the pizza. She loved it almost as much as they did. When David got home from work (and I had sold the sash I made for Melissa's wedding for a profit) we headed out and spent the night visiting and eating delicious pizza.  Surprisingly Lydia and David loved the chicken artichoke pizza as much as I did. (And the pepperoni... and the canadian bacon & pineapple... they were all delicious.) I love my family so much and want them to come down again this weekend.

2-We went to the opening day of the Draper RC Willey (on Tuesday). It was awesome. Some people are the kind of nerds that go to movies at the theater on the opening day. We are the kids of nerds that go to RC Willey on the opening day. (And will probably go back for their "Grand Opening" as well.) We are looking for a treadmill and a chair for my new nursery. I'm so excited about both of these things, and we had fun walking around their big beautiful store.

3- We bought a slide for Lydia at a garage sale last week and I already know it's going to be SO awesome this summer. We've spent lots of time this week outside playing on the slide and tower. I am loving how warm it is and that I can go out in the afternoon in capris and a short sleeve shirt. Lydia has some really cute summer clothes and I can't wait for it to be warm enough for her to really start wearing them.

4- The last two weeks have been so full of things. We've been so busy and had a lot of fun things going, but for the life of my I can't remember anything else to be my #4 on todays post. (General Conference has it's own post and that's the other biggest thing that we did in the last week.) Some things that I thought of that didn't quite make the cut: -Red Ladder Design business has started to pick back up a little bit. I have a set of announcements in print, a consultation tomorrow, and another client that just sent me their pictures today. -We are anxiously waiting for the Children's Museum at Thanksgiving Point to open. Even more so, once we realized that the Children's Garden is now connected to the museum and so we can't go there until May 15th either. -I almost sold the green shutter that we bought for Melissa's wedding, but then decided that I want to hang it in my entryway. Now I need to go get the supplies to make it actually hang on the wall. It makes me really excited to start decorating the living room. -Now that it's getting warmer it's about time to get outside and start working on our yard. First things up: bring our bench and table up from the basement, get a fence to keep Lydia contained, figure out what we want to do with the walkway on the side of our house, plant a garden in the backyard! Also more boring things like go spray all the weeds in the grass, get some good fertilizer down, and figure out how to turn our sprinklers back on.

5-Today is David's half-birthday. It may seem like a silly thing, but I love the chance to celebrate whenever I can - especially when I'm celebrating my handsome husband. Before he left for work I made him some half-pancakes and half-bacon. (Meaning, I made pancakes and bacon and cut them in half.) I have a little gift for him to open tonight and I even called my nephew last minute to come watch Lydia while we go out to dinner and go treadmill shopping. (We've been wanting to do that for some time, and this was the perfect excuse to help me finally make the call to get a babysitter.) I'm looking forward to spending the evening with David and celebrating his half-birthday!


Update: This afternoon we went to the Gardens with the Cooper crew. Lydia and Elsie were being so cute and I just had to include these pictures (complements of Ashley because I haven't uploaded mine from my camera yet). Aren't they darling and the sweetest friends? It almost makes me forget the headache of chasing Lydia all around the pond to make sure she didn't jump in while she was following the goose.