Ring Out Wild Bells

Happy Valentine's Day

2012-02-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

Libby

Elliot

Sibling Love

Kisses

I love you this much!

My little cuties!

Libby didn't really want to sit for pics, but I got a few. By nap time, both kids had a change of clothes due to spills or spit-up so glad I took them when I did.

Libby writing letters

2012-02-12T17:11:00.000-07:00

I forgot to add these to the last post. Libby gets very intense and focused now when she does art projects. It was really funny to watch her making valentine's cards, which I forgot to mail, so sorry everyone, they will be late, but hopefully we'll make up for it by putting in a cute picture or two :)

Sick Day

2012-02-12T16:41:00.002-07:00

Elliot had these jammies when he was preemie size and Richard has been bugging me since he outgrew them to buy them in every size, but they were out at Walmart until last week so I got him some new ones. Apparently argyle on a baby is the best thing ever according to Richard. :)

Elliot looking so daper in his plaid shirt

I love this picture of Libby!

Early birthday present from Frauntie Jennifer. She loves her new sunglasses and she insisted on putting the giraffe jammies on immediately too! (worked out well cuz it was bedtime when I got the mail)

He's so happy! I love this little guy

Libby pretending to sleep next to Elliot in our bed this morning.

Elliot giving loves to his lion that Libby kindly brought him.

She also decided he needed a hat, blanket and more toys. So helpful and he loved it.

Elliot like 5 minutes ago sleeping holding onto his lion.

Today we are having a family sick day (yesterday too I guess). We all have bad colds and Richard has developed a horrible case of hives. We stayed in our bed most of the morning. Libby and Elliot joined us too and Richard and I finished re-reading Hunger Games while Elliot mostly smiled at us and Libby jumped around and played on her toy laptop and watched a little Elmo. Anyways, I figure since we're just hanging around I should post some pictures since we've taken some really cute ones lately.

I'm feeling random cuz it was a long day, so here's some of my thoughts...

2012-01-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

No nap turns Libby into a little stinker butt. But I still love her more than anything (well maybe it's a tie between her and Elliot and Richard, I can't choose favorites).

I cannot get used to the smells that come out of this adorable little boy.

Elliot hasn't pooped all week and I am scared for when he does. Maybe I should put him in his green jammies, he loves to have blowouts in those ones.

I love doing taxes. Why on Earth did I study psychology? I should've become an accountant like my mom. I love math and data entry. I'm pretty darn nerdy and I'm totally okay with that. (I do love psychology books though, so I guess that's why, even though it's practically useless unless I get a masters which I have no intention of doing) I also love seeing the amount increase on my tax return as I input more information. So glad we don't owe anything this year, i think :)

I think we will use our tax return money to go to Texas for Orson's graduation. I've never been to Texas so I'm excited. It will be interesting traveling w/ 2 kids though and hopefully not too miserable and hopefully we can work it out with Richard's school schedule...

I am sick of moving. Our apartment is full of stuff I don't know where to put. Why do we have so much stuff and why is it so hard to throw things away? I am afraid we won't get our other apartment as clean as I'd like to b/c we only have a couple hours each evening and only one of us can go at a time so the other can stay with the kids, unless we get a babysitter which isn't as easy as it sounds.

Why is it so hard to ask for help? I know if I turn the situation around, I'd be happy to help someone else, but it's still hard to ask. I don't know why.

I hate it when people brag about how wonderful their lives are. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but I really don't feel super happy all the time. I feel tired and grumpy and I'm sure other people feel that way, but sometimes people's status updates make me feel like they have these perfect lives and I am doing something wrong if I ever get annoyed at my husband or children.

Is it bad that I really wanted to punch this girl who told me her 1 year old takes 3 long naps everyday and sleeps from 7 pm to 9 am every night? I can barely remember Libby taking 2 naps. Did she ever take 3 naps? I guess when she was a baby. I can't believe she'll be 2 in less than a month, but at the same time I feel like she is so smart she should already be 2 or 3.

I love that I usually only have to get up 1 time in the night with Elliot. I make sure he's nice and full around 11 when I go to bed and don't have to get up till 5ish and then he goes back to sleep for another 2-3 hours. I am still pretty grumpy about getting out of bed though, I am thankful for his sleeping habits though. I don't think I could make it through the day if he woke up much more than that.

I love chocolate so much. I don't think I could ever cut it out of my diet. I feel like my day is wasted if I don't eat any. Someday I am afraid I will become really fat. I hope it doesn't happen, but since I don't believe in dieting, it probably will. I believe in exercise though, so maybe I will be safe.

The weather is being really weird. Usually there is a few feet of snow piled up, but there is only a couple inches. Unfortunately I still feel it's too cold to go on a walk with Elliot, so I feel confined to the apartment. I think I may go insane soon.

Our shower is leaky and our floors are squeaky. I need to fill out a maintainance request for the shower, but I'm too lazy to bundle the kids up to go get a form.

Today Liberty sang me some songs, it was happy. She also discovered that it's really funny to blow her hair out of her face. I love hearing her giggle.

Last week I had to go to nursery with Liberty and the teachers were telling me how smart Libby was and how much they will miss her when we go to our new ward. It made me happy to hear that, I am sometimes afraid I am biased when I talk about how smart and adorable she is, so I'm glad others feel the same way. I think Libby will miss her nursery buddy, Jace. I am also worried the new teachers won't be as good, I can tell the current ones are really doing a great job. I should write them a thank you note or something.

Baby smiles are my favorite thing to look at.

THE END.

Elliot's smile

2012-01-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Libby Photo Shoot

2012-01-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

I took Libby to Sears for a photo shoot cuz I had a good coupon and we haven't had professional ones done of her since she was 9 months old. We got the rights to 1 picture (part of the coupon), so we can print as many as we want of this one. You can take a look at rest of them here.

http://www.SearsPhotos.com/ViewSharedAlbum.aspx?ShareID=3ee9bf68-783d-4c0e-a88d-c7024337ae8d

She got scared part way through b/c one of the backdrops was electric and she did not like it rolling up and down on it's own, so it was hard to get some good ones after that. The yellow background ones are my favorites (1st ones they took), we got some prints of the close up yellow background one.

Yesterday was pretty fun. We took Richard to work and then Julie babysat Elliot while Libby and I went on a "Mommy Libby date". We took pictures, went shopping and got a pretzel and smoothie. Then we went and played with Julie and baby Zach all afternoon. When Richard got off work Julie and I left the 3 kids and walked the mall dressed up in crazy clothes. A teenage boy told us we were beautiful. He probably would be surprised to find out we had husbands and children. In his defense I'm pretty sure we looked like we were in High school. Another person behind us in line at walmart tried to be sneaky and take a picture with his phone, so if you see us on Facebook, let me know. We looked pretty ridiculous. Julie, you'll have to email me the picture of our outfits.

Another fun thing last night was Elliot smiling at me and Richard for probably 10 minutes. He does that for me a lot, but Richard is gone at work so much he hasn't seen it quite as much as me. He's such a happy baby, I love his sweet smiles. All you have to do is talk and smile at him and he smiles back with his adorable gummy grin (granted he is fed and rested of course). My kids are so cute.

Life savers

2012-01-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

Swaddle blankets and binkies are amazing inventions. Elliot slept like 8 hours straight last night and most nights averages about 5-6, which is way better than Libby who refused both things slept until she was probably 9 months old. I also love the way he looks in this picture, a little blue baby burrito

Funny Things Libby says

2012-01-08T09:53:00.000-07:00

Liberty talks pretty much nonstop now. It's very adorable (except when she's shoving her cup in your face yelling "mommy juice" while you are nursing...that gets old very fast) and usually quite comical. It's especially fun to listen to her when she's in her bed (supposed to be sleeping) or when she is drawing on her magnadoodle thing. Here are some things I've heard lately:

"look Libby is-a hat!" (she was drawing pictures for herself)

"mommy draw cookie cutter?" (she loves gingerbread men and asks me to draw them about 100 times a day, maybe more)

"Eww, gross elliot." (not sure why she said this, she just walked up to him and said it this morning)

"duper why" (super why--one of her favorite shows, even though we never watch it anymore)

"baby elliot boppy chair" (she says this when she wants me to stop holding Elliot)

"baby elliot poop" (I asked Libby if she was poopy or if I was smelling Elliot....she is already blaming him for foul smells, poor kid. It was in fact Libby who was stinky)

"Hey Maya, hey Elmo" (She frequently has conversations with these two during naptime. Maya is her beloved monkey/best friend.)

"Group hug!" (She gives group hugs to people and animals. I heard her talking to her animals during naptime and she said it.)

"Yesssh" (Everything used to be "yeah", but now its "yessh" and really cute)

"Sank you Mommy" (Thank you--I really love it when she says this. Sometimes she reminds me to say it to her when she does something nice too, it's kind of funny)

"oval" (I don't know why, but I love it when she points out the oval in her shapes, it's her favorite shape)

"curly hair, daddy" (we tried to teach her the difference between curly hair and straight hair are; we're not sure she understands, but she likes to point it out and also makes sure we draw curly hair on all the people in her pictures. )

"baby elliot blue binky" (she loves to find him binkies....and tries to shove them in his mouth.)

"maya sleeping, maya cry" (then I tell her she needs to rock her and sing her a song and she runs back and sings twinkle twinkle to her)

"I lub you daddy, bye-bye daddy" (while this sounds very sweet, she actually was shoving daddy out of her room when she said it)

"mmm, yum yum!" (really cute and usually if she thinks she is getting a treat, but sometimes about random thinsg like corn)

"libby eat the oatmeal" (oatmeal is her favorite food and lately she's had me draw pictures of her eating it)

Libby prounces Elliot like "Ell-we-weet". Very cute. She sure loves that baby.

CHRISTMAS Spoils 2011

2012-01-05T18:42:00.000-07:00

Daddy got Libby an Elmo Potty chair. She loved it. She also loved brushing her little dolls hair, which she named Tangled after her favorite movie.

Richard :)

Mr. Elliot with all his spoils. He got very excited when we told him he had a present and started smiling and cooing. It was really adorable.

Me and Richard posed almost exactly like on our first Christmas together. Can't believe it's our 4th this year.

awesome dolls from Tomi Ann. I love them, especially baby Elliot

Libby modeling the shirt from Grandma Sue. Also notice the candy in her hand I had to bribe her with to sit for a picture.

Probably my favorite present :) thanks Orson!

We really got spoiled this year. Especially Liberty. She loved everything, even the wrapping paper. She also got play food/dishes and a little stroller to push her dolls in and a kid laptop thing from Grandma Sue/Grandpa Coplan. I honestly can't tell you what her favorite thing was, she loves it all. Richard also surprised me with using his b-day money to buy us a Wii. We have been having lots of fun with that. Richard is trying to get good enough to beat Penny at Tennis. It was a pretty fun Christmas. We are thankful that since we weren't able to be with our families that we could skype with a lot of them. It was fun to start our own traditions this year as well. You may have noticed our matching pajamas in some of the pictures. I maybe didn't wait till Christmas to use the sewing machine....I made us all pajama pants, even Elliot, but he spit up on them before we got a picture of him in them. Another tradition type thing we did was wrap up 25 books and let Liberty open one up at bedtime every night starting Dec 1st to count down to Christmas (most were books we already had, plus a few new Christmasy ones). It was kind of cool to have church on Christmas too, a good reminder of what the season is about. We all went together, since it was just sacrament meeting. Liberty was amazingly good too. Probably helped that she got to bring along her new little "tangled" doll and Ernie toy.

2 months

2012-01-03T22:12:00.000-07:00

Elliot is 2 months old today. He had to get a bunch of shots at his appointment today. NOT FUN. He was so mad. Then he has been so sleepy the rest of today. Poor little guy. He is growing very well though. He gained 2 lbs in 3 weeks! They still want us to give him high calorie formula 2x a day until he is 4 months, then after that he should be fine with just breastfeeding or regular formula. The doctors office gave me this huge bag of formula too, which was pretty exciting cuz that stuff is expensive. I actually love that he can have formula. Libby refused a bottle no matter what was in it. I tried 3 or 4 different kinds of bottles with her. Now during the night if I am feeling particularly exhausted I can make Richard get up and feed Elliot a bottle. It is wonderful, even if Richard doesn't agree. It's also nice when we have company over; I don't have to try to feed him under a blanket (which can be very difficult sometimes) or go hide for half an hour. We can also have a babysitter and not worry so much about being back in time for a feeding. We are spoiled with this little guy. I guess he's making up for the trouble he gave me by coming so early.

Height: 21 1/4 inches
Weight: 8 lbs 1 oz

Fun things about Elliot:
loves getting his cheeks kissed--big smiles
loves his binky
has the stinkiest farts (probably from the formula)
loves showers with mommy
loves his swing (he hardly ever sleeps in his bed, just like Libby)
Usually really awake and wanting to play around 8-11 am and pm.
Usually sleeps around 5 hrs straight a night! (amazing)
Tries to grab things to put in his mouth
Very happy unless he is hungry or farting.

Just realized I should do a christmas blog....coming soon I guess.

Shoes

2011-12-18T18:57:00.000-07:00

Lots of posts lately. I can't help it, this kid is so cute!

So I might be a little biased, but I don't think so. My baby is the cutest thing in the world! I love baby shoes. Despite the picture of him crying, he loves them too. Plus I found they keep his socks on really well, which is a miracle since his legs are too skinny to keep them up

Due Date

2011-12-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

Today was Elliot's due date. Crazy to think I could've still been pregnant. I'm happy to have a healthy happy 6 week old instead! He is over 6 lbs now and 19.75 inches and looks like a regular newborn and can even fit some newborn things without looking like he is drowning in them. He is starting to "coo" a little bit and make cute little baby noises (besides his nearly constant grunts). It's pretty adorable. He is fascinated with one of the baby toys we have, which is basically black and white check fabric with ribbons attached. It's funny to watch him stare intently at it.

snuggling the giraffe i made him

sleeping in his big boy carseat after our trip to Idaho falls

To give a little perspective on how small Elliot was/is: This is a newborn onesie next to a preemie onesie. He can still fit into the preemie ones, but they are getting tight, so I've been putting the newborn size ones on him the last couple days.

Libby helping put up Christmas lights...or dance with them, whatever works

Libby thought she was pretty hilarious when she put a swimming diaper on her head and wanted to check it out in the mirror

Libby taking care of her and Elliot's animals.

She's so grown up and so cute!

Evalyn Andrus (Libby's BFF), Elliot and Libby. Libby wouldn't pose for a picture

Gross, right? I didn't think Richard would believe me when I said Elliot spit up a lot, so I took a picture. Poor guy was covered in it and not happy.

I am really thankful that neither of my babies cried a lot. I was reading that pre-mature babies can cry up to 2 hours more per day than a full term baby and that it's still considered normal for a full term baby to cry up to 4 hours a day! (4 hours isn't 4 hrs straight, but all the crying in a day added up) I would go insane if I had a baby who cried 4 hours though. So I am extra thankful that Elliot probably only cries about an hour a day total. He is a really good baby. He only cries when he's hungry or farting. He really hates farting and we all hate it too b/c he can stink up a whole room. I didn't know a baby could stink it up like he can, must be the formula we give him.

Janae and Julie holding Zach and Elliot who are 2 1/2 months apart in age.

Liberty is still a really good sister. She gets jealous of him occasionally when she wants to snuggle with me and he is eating. She's not a huge snuggler though, so this doesn't happen very often. She does get mad if I try to let him use one of her blankets and tries to pull it out from under him. Even ones she doesn't use, she knows they are hers and she is not about to share them. She knows which ones are Elliot's blankets and won't even touch them (besides to put them on Elliot). Silly girl. I am getting used to having 2 kids though and it's getting easier and pretty fun. Our house is a huge mess most the time, but it was that way most the time when we just had 1 kid.....Clean houses are over-rated, right?

p.s. sorry the pictures are in such a weird order, I can't get them to move where I want. Stupid blogger.

They have matching santa suits, so we had to take some pictures. They are such cute little boys!

Primary Program

2011-12-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

On Sunday Libby was in her first primary program. In most wards the nursery is not part of the program, but most wards have more than one primary age child. Yep, our ward has one 5 year old and 2 nursery kids. I didn't think we were going to have a program at all. To my surprise when we walked into sacrament meeting, one of the primary presidency asked me if I though Liberty would sit up on the stand or if I wanted to bring her up when it was her turn. I had no idea what she was talking about. Liberty pretty much went back and forth between sitting with her leaders and sitting with me on the front row. Basically the program was the primary teachers giving talks and then Noah (5yr old) said a couple short parts and sang 2 or 3 solos. During his solos, Liberty and Jace held up pictures of the temple, etc to go with the song. That was all they did, but it was so cute to see her up there. In between their parts, all the kids sat on the floor between the podium and the chairs and colored pictures. It was funny to see the Noah interact with Libby. I could tell he thought she was a baby, he kept doing baby noises to her and would make silly faces at her, which she of course thought was hilarious. I kind of wish I had known ahead of time that it was happening so I could've tried to teach Libby the songs. She loves book of mormon stories and does all the hand motions. Every day before nap/bedtime I have to sing it about 5 times and help all her stuffed animals do the hand motions. It's pretty funny, but I have to put my foot down eventually or she'd have me do it for hours.

One Month

2011-12-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

look at that smile!

stretch!

not a fan of the naked photo shoot idea....

but he's so cute naked, i couldnt help it

Santa baby

This is newborn size and huge on him. It was the first baby thing I bought after we found out we were pregnant with a December baby. It was on clearance. It was suppose to be the outfit he came home from the hospital in. I never thought he'd be born so early or be so small though.

Libby needed in on the photo shoot. One of the only pictures of her smiling for the camera on purpose.

I really don't believe it was a whole month ago that Elliot was born. I guess its because those 2 1/2 weeks at the NICU made it seem like he wawsn't really ours. He is so cute! Lots of pictures today. Some interesting things I have learned about him (and preemie babies in general): He is a very noisy sleeper. I am starting to sleep through it a little bit, but it really is ridiculous (and a little obnoxious at times-like when I am trying to sleep) how much noise he makes. When he is crying, the usual walking around, patting, bouncing thing you do with most babies, does not work. The best thing to do when he crying is just sit down and snuggle and try not to disturb him. He loves to be held. I guess he decided that he was tired of being in a bed with only a little holding for 2 1/2 weeks. It's fun but sometimes makes it hard to get things done. I still can't believe how little he is. The preemie clothes still fit, mostly. Some are getting a bit tight on him, but everytime I try to put newborn clothes on him, he drowns in them. It's weird to think I would still be pregnant if he came when he was supposed to. I'm glad I'm not pregnant, it's not very fun and having Elliot is lots of fun. Okay, picture time!

"Here mom, I'll mess up the bed you just made for the photo shoot." Little stinker. She's so cute though.

Sweet Libby moments

2011-12-01T16:23:00.000-07:00

I sure love my Libby, especially after moments like these:

A few days ago we got an awesome wooden nativity set from Annaliese. It's perfect for Libby to play with, so we set it up in her room. While we were playing with it, I decided I should talk to Libby about the story of Jesus's birth. I told her that Jesus had to sleep on the hay b/c he didn't have a crib. She picked up baby Jesus and put him through the slots of the crib. I asked her if Jesus could have her crib and she excitedly said "yeah!" It was adorable.

Elliot started crying while on the floor a couple days ago and Libby went over to him and started singing twinkle twinkle little star. He really likes it when she comes and talks to him and started to calm down. Such a good sister.

Libby really wants to play with Elliot already. I think they are going to be good pals (or Libby might boss him around a bunch). She already tries to play with him. Her favorite game to play with him (and only him so far) involves her getting a measuring spoon and then pretending to scoop soup off the floor or a bowl and feed it to Elliot. Luckily he doesn't seem to care that she is shoving a spoon in his face over and over yelling "soup! eat soup!" Most the time he's actually asleep when she does it. I'm so glad that she likes Elliot, we were a bit worried about that.

p.s. sorry about the lack of pictures. Our camera button is refusing to work. We bought a new one as an early Christmas present to each other. unfortunately, now I'm not sure where the old one is so I can transfer the SD card into the new one...working on cleaning the house, one continuous mess at a time.

first family photos

2011-11-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

Libby meeting Elliot for the first time

Isn't he just precious

His hat says "little buckaroo" and has cute cowboy things on it, including boots :)

Richard and Elliot

Libby giving Elliot a big kiss, the first of many

Our whole Family together at last!

Me and Elliot

Elliot came home Tuesday Nov 22 weighing 4 lbs 10 oz and measuring 18.75 inches long! He is quite the eater too. He'll down a bottle in a few minutes. He is mostly breastfed, but we are supposed to give him 2 bottles of this special preemie formula that has extra calories and nutrients. Having him home is wonderful. I could just watch him all day. Liberty loves him and wants to watch him and check on him too, which is cute, but frustrating b/c she is a bit on the loud side. She is a good helper and will fetch diapers for me and throw the dirty ones away. She has even tried to help wipe his bum and put diaper rash cream on him.... Adjusting to having 2 kids will definitely take time though. The first night I didn't get to sleep till about 5 am and Richard was only asleep half hour earlier than me. Liberty wouldn't go to bed till about 10 pm and the last part I think was screaming, then she was awake from 3 till about 4:30 and screamed herself to sleep in the crib (I'm sure our neighbors just love us). Elliot was pretty fussy and wanting to be held and then needed to eat and get changed and all the wonderful stuff newborns do. Luckily last night went much better. We are making Libby sleep in the crib now till we get a reasonable bedtime routine re-established (She kind of went haywire after my hospitalization and we have to rock her till she is completely asleep, which can take hours and is exhausting for us). wow, this ended up being very long. Hope everyone had a fun Thanksgiving. I have so many things I am thankful for this year, but that will take a long time to write and Elliot needs to eat.

Happy Birthday Richard

2011-11-20T15:44:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to Richard! We got good news today. Elliot should be able to come home this week. The Dr said he should be home by Thanksgiving! He is in an open crib now instead of his little incubator and he's been maintaining his temperature just fine. He also weighs 4 lbs 7 oz now! He sure is growing just fine. Yesterday he ate 80% of his food from a bottle or breastfeeding (the rest through the feeding tube). The Dr said today to try not letting him get anything out of the tube and to just let him eat regular and see how he does today and if he does well, the feeding tube will be taken out tomorrow! He's been awake a little bit more for us and that is really fun to see. He is super cute. I feel bad that I don't have any new pictures to show you. I'm so excited for him to come home.

Liberty is getting smarter and smarter. My mom got her some little work books for preschoolers and lets her make all these sticker pictures. She will also repeat almost anything and remembers the words later. Her vocabulary is gigantic. Probably one of the funniest words she will say is "weird". She is starting to use words like "and" and "is". Today she said "Ernie, Oscar and Elmo" while she was pointing to them on her diaper. The most common sentence she says and we aren't sure why is "baby cry". Any time we talk about a baby or she sees a baby, she insists it's crying, even if it's not.

Pictures

2011-11-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Libby showing her crazy face to Grandma. She has had so much fun with Grandma this week and is getting so spoiled! She's going to miss Grandma a lot.

Libby made that hat at story time and wore it all day. We took her on a big sister date. She got to play at the play place, eat french fries and ice cream and got a special Elmo present (backpack, book, movie). We wanted her to feel special since life has been so crazy for her. It's finally getting back to normal. She slept through the night the last 2 nights! Wahoo!

Here's a big yawn from Elliot! He's gaining an average of an ounce a day. He's getting close to 4 lbs! Hooray.

Opening his eyes for a second to see what's going on

All snuggled up in his robot blanket from Grandma Hill. Don't you just want to kiss those little cheeks? I do.

All comfy in his bed

Liberty coloring her instruments Grandma made her. She will sit and color (with markers especially) for up to half an hour sometimes. That is a long attention span for her age.

One of Elliot's nurses made him the hat. He had another one, but it was too big so she made him one that fit. His nurses take such good care of him!

We have some cute videos of both kids, but they take about a decade to upload to the blog....maybe I will try to put them on youtube first and link them. Liberty can sing twinkle twinkle little star and we caught it on video and Elliot is sucking on a binky. Both are very adorable. Be excited

Initiation

2011-11-10T22:48:00.000-07:00

Funny Elliot story. I guess he decided I needed to be initiated as his mom. While I was feeding him through his tube, he spit up a massive amount all over the blankets and my pants. After the feeding I was changing a really nasty diaper and he started to pee on me. I caught most of with a wipe, but some got on my hands. While I was wiping that up, he projectile pooped all over everything, including my hands and all the blankets, etc. It was pretty funny even though it was really gross. Then while I was lifting him up so the nurse could remove the poopy blankets, he sneezed a few times and a booger came out. I felt like a real mom.

Also, some more great news. He has finally started gaining weight. The last 2 days he's gained about an ounce a day, which is what they want him to do! The measure him at midnight so we don't know if he's kept it up today, but I think he has. He's so smart. Richard took some pictures on his phone, so you should all bug him to post them to facebook and here. He's so cute.

Snuggles

2011-11-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

Right now I am snuggling with the little guy. It's wonderful. He doesn't have the Iv as of yesterday morning and he thinks he doesn't need a feeding tube and has pulled it out multiple times. He has actually drunk from a bottle a few times but it wears him out so they also have the feeding tube. Today he even tried to breast feed which was very impressive. He is kind of an overachiever according to the nurses. I guess he really wants to come home ASAP and that's fine with me. I can't wait for Libby to meet him

Elliot Nelson Bell

2011-11-05T23:03:00.000-06:00

Elliot Nelson Bell joined our family Thursday November 3, 2011 at 1:01 pm. He was 3 lbs 12 oz and extremely adorable. Even though he sounds really tiny and he is, he really doesn't look too small. (probably just prespective) He looks a lot like Liberty did when she was born. He definitely has the Bell nose and mouth, but his eyes look like they are more shaped like mine, plus he has a my earlobes (Richards are attached). Most important though, He is doing GREAT! He is totally off oxygen and breathing on his own, and just has an IV in and is being closely monitored in the NICU. We get to go see him a few times a day (whenever we want really). We like to go see him when the nurses feed and change him and we usually get to hold him and help with those things. The doctors and nurses tell me he is a little fighter and keep telling me how well he is doing. His billirubin was up, so in some of the pictures it's bluish, which is just a special light that helps him get better. He sucks on a pacifier really well which surprised me and is really adorable too. It will help when he starts eating without help (he has a little feeding tube that goes up his nose down to his little tummy). It's interesting learning about the differences in preemie babies. Some of the things that feel natural to do with a newborn aren't recommended with preemies since they need to use all their energy to grow. Rocking them and stroking and rubbing aren't recommended and its hard not to do those things. Holding him and touching him without stroking and talking to him are good though, so it's not as if we there isn't any interaction.

I am doing really well NOW. It has certainly been an interesting and hard week in every way. I get to go home tomorrow though. It's amazing how my body seemed to get better just by getting little Elliot out of me. I was diagnosed with severe preclampisa before Elliot was born and then it changed to another severe form of preclampsia called HELLP after I delivered because my liver enzymes went really high and my blood platelets went really low combined with the high blood pressure. They did transfusions on me that came from Salt Lake. It was pretty crazy and horrible and I am soooooooooooo glad that everything is pretty much back to normal now. The doctors are pretty confused at why this happened to me since really there was no warning signs or risk factors. I guess I am just special and now I will be at higher risk for any future pregnancies (which will probably be a long way away after this ordeal, as much as I love this little guy it has been the hardest thing in the world). I also have decided that nurses are the closest thing on earth to angels. I don't know how they do it and how they can seem so happy and calm and helpful all the time when the things they are dealing with would both stress me out and gross me out. I love them and am serious about how angelic they are.

Liberty has been doing well in spite of all the craziness. I can tell she misses me and I miss her so much. A few hours a day in a weird room mostly sitting in a hospital bed is not enough time for me. I know it's been good for my body and stress level to be here recovering but it is also really hard to be away from home and to try to let her know why I am here. My mom and Richard and the Andrus/Higginsons has all been great help.

update-ish and weird dr story

2011-11-02T20:33:00.000-06:00

So the only things I can get on to are email and blogger, so it kind of cuts out time wasters like facebook and pinterest, which is a little annoying and I get a litte bored. I did a quick update on Facebook using Julie's phone yesterday and now I'm curious to see the million responses that I'm sure have entrailed. Well, most family know the little bit of updates we've had (which aren't much today). The drs are pretty baffled by my body. My blood tests have gone back to normal levels, I don't have any more pain, I don't fit any of the normal risk factors for pre-clampsia, etc, but then the 24 hr urine tests were off the charts for severe preclampsia. (300-5000 is considered preclampsia, anything above 5000 is severe, I was in the 6000 range). Today, since I had been doing so well otherwise they cut my magnesium dosage down in 1/2 today, which was wonderful. It made me really weak and contributed to the blurred vision, which is much better now. It was really a relaxing day. Libby and my mom came for a few hours this morning which was awesome. Brittany and Evalyn stopped by for a bit and Richard came for awhile (where we were once again unsuccessful at naming this child). I watched some movies and was generally pampered all day by the wonderful nursing staff. Last night I got a blessing and all the drs and nurses have been pretty reassuring and good at explaining things to me so I feel pretty calm about the whole ordeal and I feel like everything is going to be fine. My blood pressure is still a bit higher than normal, but mostly stablizing, and I feel pretty relaxed. The day went by really fast.

So one of the drs here is really socially awkward and has horrible bedside manner. One of the times he was asking how I was doing he started asking me about heartburn. During my 1st pregnancy I had horrible heartburn everynight for more than 1/2 the pregnancy. This pregnancy, I've had a little but not every night and not as bad on the nights i've had it. I explained this to the dr when he asked and he wanted to know what I took for it (tums). Then he wanted to prescribe something a little better that would be more effective and was trying to tell me the horrible stabbing pain I had was related to my heartburn and he was going to get me medicine. I was confused and insisted this was not heartburn. Luckily no one ever brought me any heartburn meds b/c I would have probably refused. He also will just stare at me for long periods of time without saying anything, it's super awkward and I witnesses who agree to the uncomfortablness, so it's not just me being awkward. Yesterday I think it was, he came in and stared at me for awhile when I had a bunch of visitors here and finally was like "so you're feeling good now?". The nurse was standing right there and promptly replied "look at her, does she look like she's feeling good? no, she feels like crap!" it made me laugh a little and I'm glad she was there. It's not like I was dying in pain or anything, but obviously I'm not feeling great if I'm in the hospital on bedrest. I don't think he really said anything else the whole time he was here either. It was weird. Anyways, the other dr I see is much more relateable and easy to talk to, so I'm trying to request him to deliver me. I'm sure they are both competent and good doctors, just one may lack a few social skills.

the kids room

2011-11-01T00:41:00.000-06:00

I know Libby will be a good sister. She loves her babies and is always making sure they are wrapped up and fed and their hair brushed, etc. I love seeing her snuggle them. So cute.

Somebody really liked graham crackers with frosting on them. Any guesses who?

I'm really liking how the kids room has turned out, so far. I made the curtains, crib sheet and bumper and repainted the bookcase (not pictured) and dresser. We found the rug at Ikea (which I realized is not pictured, but it's royal blue and kind of shag) and Libby's bedding is from Grandma Sue and Grandpa Coplan, which obviously is a big hit with this Elmo fan. It's a fun bright room and I like it.

Trick or Treat?

2011-11-01T00:32:00.000-06:00

I clearly remember always choosing treat in this situation, but today has not turned out quite like that. But first we will show some fun treats and Halloween festivities b/c Libby is cute. Monday for FHE we carved a pumpkin. Richard was unfortunately gone for most of Halloween festivities b/c his Geology class had a field trip early Thursday morning till late Saturday night. They went down to Utah and dug for fossils and camped, etc. Anyways, Saturday we Libby and I got to trick or treat around a little shopping center in Rexburg with the Higginsons and Andrus's. Libby was pretty thrilled about the candy and free cookies, apple cider, and pumpkin bread (I was too, delicious). We got to see some cool pumpkins and other kids dressed up. Libby was creeped out a bit by a lady dressed up as a witch, but mostly enjoyed it. Later we had our ward Halloween party which was pretty fun, I got a few pictures of that.

Liberty LOVES pumpkins. She will talk about them all day, I'm serious. We can't go out the door without saying hi to the pumpkin.

She enjoyed playing with the pumpkin guts but was too afraid to stick her hand in the pumpkin

Ward Halloween party in her Monkey costume

All the one year olds loved the pumpkin bowling set up and carried the paper towel bowling pins around the room. Libby actually rolled the pumpkin over to them and would knock them down one at a time.

The bean bag toss was a huge hit for the toddlers as well. This is LIbby with her best friends Jace and Evalyn

Libby is "helping" me make chocolate sugar cookies for our halloween play group party to take place Halloween morning. After she punched a shape in, she immediately tried to grab some dough to eat.

Picture from the Halloween party at our house. (that I sadly had to miss)

Me and Libby yesterday Oct 30, before any tricks happened. I can't access facebook to put up a picture of me in my awesome costume, so maybe i'll add it later.

SO on to the TRICKS. (sorry if it's jumbled, I'm on drugs and it's pretty late) Halloween morning around 1:45 am I woke up, which isn't terribly unusual b/c this happens a million times a night b/c being pregnant is very uncomfortable. At first I thought I was hungry, it had been quite awhile since I'd eaten anything, so I went to eat a bagel. After walking to the kitchen I felt like someone stabbed me in the gut (not the preggo belly, but just above). It hurt so bad. I thought it was a sudden onset of the flu or something b/c I had that a couple months ago and I did feel pretty nauseus. After a couple minutes I decided this was not the flu and woke Richard up. He called the dr and gave me a blessing. The dr wanted me to come in in the morning, but said if it got worse we could go to the ER. I tried to lay down and get comfy and walked around a bunch b/c I felt like my heart was racing. After an hour I told Richard I couldn't handle it any more and we were going to the hospital. Luckily we have great friends who are willing to come sleep on our couch at 3:30 am so we didn't have to wake up sweet Libby. My blood pressure was really really high (which it's never been) when I got in and I was in a ton of pain. (way worse than labor with Libby). They didn't want to give me any meds till they did labs and waited for the dr. I think it was about 2 more hours and I was not myself. Once I got some meds though, I felt like a person again. At first they thought it had to do with my liver and was form of pre-clampsia called HELLP, which can be really serious and dangerous. I'm not sure exactly why it was ruled out, but now they have decided it is Toxemia which basically means my body is fighting the pregnancy. The drs said this is weird since i have already had a kid, I guess it's more normal for a first pregnancy and basically all the other risk factors do not fit my situation at all, guess I'm just special. The whole time though the baby has been fine, moving around with a nice strong heartbeat. He's a little trooper. So I am probably going to have this baby sometime tomorrow. My blood pressure has been all over the place today and my kidneys are leaking too much protein in the urine. I don't really think I can explain everything b/c most of it has gone over my head. It's been quite the stressful day and definitly not what I had on my agenda for the week. It was kind of weird b/c last week i felt like I really shoudl read up about c-sections just in case. I've talked about them with people who've had them, but really never read exactly what they do when they cut you open. I know they are pretty routine and I wasn't worried about it too much, but I feel better having read what I did, especially b/c that is most likely the route we'll take this week.
The little dude still needs a name, but I'm sure it will come. He'll be 6 1/2 weeks early and probably weigh around 4 lbs and have to be in the NICU for 2-4 weeks so he can finish developing. I got a steroid shot earlier today to help his lungs develop faster and they said that should really speed up his time in the NICU. I can't wait to see the little guy even if we aren't even close to being ready for him. Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll stay inside me for a few more weeks.
I sure miss Libby though. I only saw her for a few minutes today which is sure a change from my day. I am so thankful to have great friends to watch her and also am so happy she's such an easy going kid and was so good for everyone today. Oh and I'm very very happy my mom was able to switch her schedule around and is coming tomorrow to help out. We are pretty lucky around here.

Bowling and black light mini golf

2011-10-09T21:40:00.000-06:00

On Friday we got together with some good friends and to Fat Cats. there was a good deal where you could get 1 hr of bowling, a round of mini golf, pizza & soda, so we all pitched in. It was quite fun. I think we were all amazed at Richard's hidden bowling talents. He seriously schooled the rest of us. I'm pretty sure I was the worst as usual. Anyways, fun pics.

Matching bellies!

Libby thinks she's strong enough to hold a bowling ball by herself

Jeffrey, Brittany and Evalyn (Libby and Evalyn play together almost everyday, it's fun)

Michael, Julie and cutie patootie Zachary

Janae and Zach

In the black light golf course

30 weeks

2011-10-07T13:42:00.000-06:00

Today I am 30 weeks pregnant. That means in less than 10 weeks I will be a mom of 2! I admit, I am freaking out about that a little bit. That's really soon and I don't think I'm ready for 2 kids. I'm ready to be done being pregnant though. I feel huge and uncomfortable and my fingers and toes are starting to swell up a little. I get to have another ultrasound in 2 weeks to check on baby boys size. (still working on a name for him) I'm excited for that. I'm sure he's fine, but the Dr said I was measuring small at my last appointment so we're just gonna make sure everything is good. At my other ultrasound they told me there might be a little extra monitoring b/c he as a 2 vessel umbilical cord rather than the normal 3 vessel cord. They also said this is rarely a problem though and most babies are just fine; reading about it seemed to say the same thing, not to worry. I think this little guy is just hiding inside me well and that's why my belly measured small. Here's a picture of me at 28 weeks

In other news: It snowed yesterday. It was 80 degrees on Monday....Idaho has stupid weather. What happened to Fall? I was looking forward to at least a few weeks of 60 degree fall weather. Rude.

I started making a list of words libby can say. I'm up to 125 words and that doesn't include the letters of the alphabet she knows or any animal sounds.....Genious child, right? or just very talkative. :)

Big Girl Libby

2011-10-04T22:47:00.000-06:00

Liberty is getting so big! We can hardly believe how much she's changed. Things she can do now.

-Identify the colors correctly: red, orange, pink, yellow, green, blue, black, purple (pretty much adorable)
-Starting 2 word sentences ex: "cool daddy", "baby walk"(meaning there's a baby on a walk in a stroller), "blue block", "pink yogurt"
-Probably says close to 100 words (at her 18 mo check up they asked if she could say 7-20 words....that day while I was cooking I thought of 65+ off the top of my head and she's learned a bunch more since then....so I think we're good there)
-Identifies about 5+ letters of the alphabet
-Repeats everything (now we really have to watch what we say, right)
-Doesn't cry when I take a shower (she seriously cried everyday for months when I'd shower, even if Richard was home....it was ridiculous and I am SOOOOO happy she's over that)
-Almost always feeds herself, sometimes with utensils, but often with her fingers. She is mastering the fork and spoon though, when she wants to. She also drinks out of a cup-hardly ever spilling
-Can sit through a decent amount of a disney movie. Probably not a great thing, but if I can get dinner made without her climbing my legs, I can't help but turn one on sometimes.
-Understands most things we ask her to do
-Helps pick up her toys or food she's thrown....most of the time
-Goes to nursery happily and plays well with the other kid (yes, there's only 1 other kid in our nursery, sad but true)
-Makes funny faces on command
-Favorite thing to do is throw rocks in the canal and bring rocks home. She also LOVES going on walks in the stroller and asks to go on them all the time.
-Plays hide and seek with Daddy.....kind of. She thinks it's funny even if it's not really how you play.
-She loves bathtime. She will "swim" in the bathtub and thinks it's hilarious to lay on her back with just her face above water. It makes washing her hair much easier and it's funny to watch her.
-She loves the toilet.....sometimes in a good way, meaning she will go potty on it and sometimes in a bad way meaning she throws everything in it and dips her hands in it, which is disgusting. We have a toilet lock on there now, which is helping when I remember to lock it.
-She loves the halloween decorations and is currently in love with pumpkins. She is also very excited to wear her costume. I'll probably let her wear it sometime this week, since it's cooled down finally. I made (with some help from my mom) a monkey costume for her. Since deciding to make it she has discovered a love for Curious George, which is perfect. She is going to be George (which is probably my favorite word she says) and Richard is going to be "the man in the yellow hat". Still need to find some yellow rainpants or something for Richard (maybe dye some ugly pants from DI). They will be pretty cool together. Sadly there aren't really any other characters for me to be, but I'll think of something. I have a few easy ideas.

Liberty also now sleeps in her toddler bed! During the day she loved climbing on it, especially after getting the elmo bedding from Grandma. At night though if I tried to lay her in there instead of the crib, she would cry and climb off and I would give in and put her in the crib. It's not like we even have a baby to put in the crib anyway, so I wasn't too rushed about it. We are planning on getting a new crib though since everytime I try to move it, it kind of comes apart.....not really the safest thing in the world. Richard decided it was time to really try though and tonight is night 3 in the bed, plus 2 naps. The first night we didn't think she'd sleep in there. Richard had to hold the door closed while she cried and tried to get out. Then we could tell she was still crying, but figured she was laying on the floor by the door. She quieted down within 5-10 minutes and an hour or 2 later we decided to risk peeking in on her (her door is very squeaky and she's a light sleeper, so I don't allow this very often). Upon peeking, we were surprised to see her in her bed with her head on her pillow!!! She stayed there all night and in the morning she didn't get out until I went in to get her. I let her chat away in her bed for 15 minutes or so like always and one of the first things I heard her say over the moniter was "ice cream, treat". I had told her that if she slept in her bed all night she could have ice cream.....I intended on giving her some, but I did not expect her to remember in the morning. She's a smart girl though, so I shouldn't have been surprised. Now when we put her in there, she jabbers for awhile, like usual, then goes to sleep and stays in the bed till we get her after she wakes up. It's amazing! We are proud of her, but it is a little sad to think our baby is growing up.

Sorry for bragging a lot, but we are really proud of our little Liberty. She is so cute and smart and hilarious. She makes us laugh all the time. So it's not always pure joy in our house. She sure knows how to test my patience, especially when I'm exhausted from being pregnant, but it's all worth it to see her grow and learn new things. To fully make her a big girl before the baby comes, we need to potty train her.....something I'm not really looking forward to. We have sort of tried already and she likes it, but it's kind of exhausting. she seriously peed through 3 pair of underwear in an hour and went a few times on the toilet during that time, how much can that little bladder hold? Anyways, I'm on a different computer than normal so no pics. Soon though. I want to show pics of Libby and "baby boy"'s room transformation. It's coming along nicely, mostly just need to paint over the pink bookshelf and dresser.

Utah/Washington Trip

2011-09-25T22:44:00.000-06:00

So basically there are a ton of pictures from our trips to Utah and Washington. I tried to narrow it down a bit....but we had lots of fun and my mom takes lots of pictures (which explains why I can't find any with her in them). I am too tired to organize them into any sort of order, so I guess you will get the gist by just scrolling through. Canning, cousin love, Point defiance Zoo, Puyallup Fair, hanging around with grandmas & grandpas, etc.

My mom, sister and I canned 8 boxes of peaches and 6 boxes of pears. Pretty much 3 days of straight canning....I admit that out of the 3 of us, I definitely got off easy. I wasn't there for the whole process b/c of other plans with in-laws and friends. I did help quite a bit though and am so thankful my mother has taught me that skill. Libby goes through a jar of peaches/pears about every week. Delicious.

Silly Girls in their matching dresses with Libby's doll also in a matching dress. These girls are so goofy. We couldn't get a picture of them both smiling. (well, one of Libby smiling at least, Laila is better at posing)

I don't know if you can tell, but Liberty's sweater has little Owls knitted into it with button eyes. It's probably the cutest sweater ever made. Her awesome Grandma Sue made it for her. Grandma Hill is planning on making a little jumper to go under it out of owl print fabric. When we get it, there will be more photo shoots.

Liberty put on a concert for us

Liberty and Papa

Libby wearing the Davy Crocket hat.

Libby looking "cool" in some glasses she found at Uncle Dan's house

point defiance zoo/aquarium. Looking at all the fish

Libby and Richard

Grandma's are also good for shoulder rides

Playing hide and seek with Grandpa at the Puyallup fair

Libby with some random kids at the zoo

Petting the dogs at the fair

brushing the goats at the zoo

feeding the goats!

Might not be the greatest picture, but here's us with the Serads (minus Zack)

The kids watching cartoons in the morning

Libby with Grandma Sue, showing off her awesome sweater grandma made

Liberty loved Magellan (my parents cat) and he was surprisingly tolerant of her. She is pretending to feed him cereal here.

Watching football with Grandpa

In preparation for the BYU football game, my brother Dan mowed BYU into his lawn. Sadly it didn't help them win

At the fountain park

Libby and Laila chasing poor magellan. While he was tolerant of Libby, he was not too keen on multiple children gaining up on him and chasing him. The kids were still delighted

Liberty and Magellan soaking up some sun. Libby is wearing her cool super hero cape and a tutu....

3 kids in a tub is maybe a little too crowded for Libby's liking. They look hilarious though

Liberty's new favorite person is her cousin Cody. We visited them in Utah before our washington trip and they walked around holding hands a bunch. It was adorable. She still talks about him. They are about a year apart.

Sam reads a book to Josh, Eliza, and Liberty

Conducting lessons for Penny

2011-09-19T22:24:00.001-06:00

Apparently Libby has taken it upon herself to help her aunt Penny succeed in her conducting class at BYU. She was kind enough to make these technique videos. Enjoy

Fun Pictures

2011-08-23T21:45:00.000-06:00

Libby showing off some ballerina moves

eating a dinosaur shaped sandwich

Libby loves to wear the goggles we got at disneyland

I forgot how much i love footie pajamas and libby is adorable with her baby doll

We have to make libby's food fun if we want her to eat it.....

Wow! look at my amazing artwork

Libby's first time painting, very successful!

I can't believe summer is almost over. I realized the other day that if baby boy decides to come as early as Libby did, he'll be here in less than 14 1/2 weeks! That sounds so soon. December sounds far away still, but 14 weeks sounds a little too soon. If he comes on time it's still only 16 1/2 weeks. Crazy. Still deciding on a name. Richard insists we are naming him Boot. I insist we are not....That can be a nickname I guess, but not his legal name and I still probably won't call him that. Anyways, Liberty gets more fun everyday. It amazes me how quickly she's picking up new words and how well she mimicks us. We taught her some ballerina moves since she loves to dance and she loves it. She can reach the cd player in her room now and loves to turn it on and dance, twirl, and do ballet kicks. It's adorable. Libby is in nursery now and doing GREAT! she loves being around other kids, playing with toys, and eating snacks. Pretty much all her favorite activites combined into 2 hours, although after this week there'll only be her and a very shy boy in there. I love how happy Libby is. If someone takes her toy or has one she wants, she doesn't cry or try too hard to get it back. She simply finds a new toy and goes on her merry way. Some of the other kids don't react quite that well. (Note: If she really wants a toy and someone is trying to take it, she doesn't give it up easily, she usually runs away with it) If a kid is crying, she brings them a toy and gives them a little pat/hug. I think she'll be a great sister. I'm so proud of her. I really didn't plan on writing this much...I mostly wanted to post some funny pictures.

Libby's first conversation

2011-07-31T22:08:00.001-06:00

Libby: Hi!
Me: Hi!
Libby: How are you? (how ah ya?)
Me: Good. How are you?
Libby: Happy!

She is very good at this new rehersed conversation and gets overly excited to answer "happy", barely letting me finish asking her how she is. It's pretty adorable and her first real conversation.

Also, I got Libby skinny jeans for $4 and they are pretty much the best idea ever for her. I think they are the only pair of pants (besides stretchy, elastic waist pants) that don't require a belt. They stay up perfectly and look really cute b/c she is so skinny.

I made Libby this crayon/paper carrier to take in the diaper bag and she loves it. I kind of love it too. It's very handy although she wants to color a little bit on every single page which sometimes drives me a little bonkers, but oh well it keeps her entertained for about a minute at a time.

Ultrasound!

2011-07-29T13:05:00.000-06:00

So it's a BOY! We are pretty excited. We didn't know we'd get to see him in 3D, but it was pretty awesome. I always thought the 3D pictures were kind of creepy, but watching his little face in 3D was pretty awesome. He is really cute already. He was very cooperative and showed us everything we needed to see. He's in the 57th percentile for weight, which means he's slightly above average, but lucky for me his head seems to be a little bit smaller than normal which is very comforting. I would love another small headed child like Liberty. My mom always tells me how I had a huge head when I was born and it's sort of scared me a little. Everything seems healthy and good, it's amazing all the things they can tell using those machines. Also, feel free to suggest boy names. Right now Richard wants to name him Norhinkle or Boot......ummmm, yeah not really excited about either of those and will use my veto power against them.

Birthday and Sewing projects

2011-07-16T15:27:00.000-06:00

Libby on my b-day at Julie's house. I love her outfit (thanks aunt sarah!)

Me and my delicious ice cream cake! (i'm usually all about the funfetti cake, but since it was 90 degrees, ice cream cake sounded like a better choice)

Libby eating an ice cube--her new favorite thing

Me and Richard with the cake he picked out for me

my b-day present from richard--a bathroom rack. i love it. Libby gets into everything and this is amazing and saves me from wrestling things like hairspray away from her. i don't care if it looks a little cluttered. I also treated myself to a shopping trip and found a couple cute things for me and Libby and got to spend the day with my BFF Julie! Overall a great b-day.

the cute little nerd outfit i made for baby Carter! I think it's adorable.

Libby in her cute fancy onesie from Aunt Sarah! I love it and so does she! She kept saying "pretty" all day!

I made dresses out of this fabric for all 3 of my nieces and Libby. I'm not sure why, but I love this fabric (which is actually from a sheet i found at walmart for $5). I think the dresses turned out really cute too.

Front view of the dress

pregnancy update

2011-07-09T19:06:00.002-06:00

I guess we can start taking guesses on the gender of baby #2. We have our ultrasound on July 29th! Less than 3 weeks away! We are very excited. Here's some belly pics. I actually have a really decent tan (well farmers tan) and I'm pretty impressed with myself b/c I don't tan. I guess WA sunshine isn't as effective as Idaho's b/c I spent 2 summers working at boys and girls club where I was outside a lot. Anyways....pictures

16 weeks, showing off my farmers tan

17 weeks (Fri July 8)

Swimming

2011-07-05T22:33:00.001-06:00

Liberty has decided she loves swimming. She swims in the bath, her pool, and on the kitchen floor. On the 4th of July we went to the new water park in Rexburg. I was worried Libby wouldn't like it b/c of her fear of the splash park, but she loved it! We all had a lot of fun. Liberty really tried to swim on her own and loved going back and forth between the two of us. I have a really cute picture of her outside in her pool, but it's on my phone and the cord is in the car, so I'll post that later I guess.
Here's a funny video of her swimming in the bathtub.

Camping

2011-06-29T12:50:00.001-06:00

The river by the campground

We look like we've been camping :P

Juile helping Libby roast a marshmallow

So our camping trip wasn't quite as awesome as planned, but we still had some fun. We went with Julie and Michael up to Riverside campground somewhere near Ashton Idaho. Libby loved being outside and finding all the cool rocks and sticks to pick up. She liked looking at the fire too which we kept having to keep a close eye on her so she didn't get too close. After we were all set up, we made foil dinners and ate smore's. We got a portable toddler bed/cot thing for Libby and had that set up in the tent... We made sure she had her favorite blankets and toys too. She would not go to sleep though. So she stayed up with us. She learned the word "moon" though which was cool. She isn't usually up late enough to see the moon but she now will recognize it in pictures. It was quite impressive. When we decided she definitely had to go to sleep we went in the tent with her and tried everything we could to get her to lay down. She randomly would start crying for Julie and was yelling "JUGEE! JUGEE!" like Julie could somehow save her from the tent.We finally decided to just lay down and pretend to go to sleep in hopes she would too. She thought it was great fun climbing over us and sitting on us and poking us and probably fell asleep around 11 pm. It was freezing in there and since Libby was sleeping with her head leaning on me, I felt like I couldn't move to a more comfortable spot or she would wake up and got very little sleep. Libby woke up a few times in the night and was up with the sun around 6 am and was a big grump the rest of the morning. Eventually, Libby and I went and sat in the car with the heater on and ate twizzlers and crackers to calm her down, while everyone else took down the campsite. She fell asleep in the car before we had even gotten out of the campground though. Then we went to Mesa Falls and took turns looking at the falls while someone stayed with the sleeping baby. She slept a good 2 hours and was a happy girl the rest of the day. Here are some pictures.

Libby having fun (and not sleeping) in the tent

Mesa Falls

Julie & Michael are good camping buddies

Libby enjoying her time with the Higginson's

after the nap in the car we stopped for a picnic

Happy Father's day.......

2011-06-19T11:43:00.000-06:00

Liberty wants to tell you something...

She's gonna be a big sister!

This little guy should be here around Dec 16th!

We probably should've posted this awhile ago....but what better time to do it than Father's Day? Richard is a great father. Libby is always so happy to see him and he sure knows how to get her giggling. We are 2 lucky girls! For those interested I am about 14 weeks along. The first trimester is officially over. I felt pretty yucky for awhile, but now I'm mostly just tired. Growing a baby and chasing a toddler all day wear me out! Oh and we don't know the gender yet. We are thinking boy, but we won't know for 6 more weeks!! When it gets closer to ultrasound day we'll post a poll and you can all make your guesses.

Liberty is already a great sister. She will point to my belly and say "baby!" and pat it and give "the baby" kisses. (she won't kiss my face, but she'll kiss my belly, guess it's better than nothing, lol)

Also since it is Father's day, I am so thankful for my awesome Dad. He's always been there for me and supported me in all my decisions. I am so lucky to have been in a home with a faithful priesthood holder to guide us. I am also grateful for my Grandpa's too! They are wonderful, sweet men and great examples to me!

Sad Start to Summer

2011-06-10T12:40:00.000-06:00

The weather here is a bit crazy. It will be nice a few days then stormy a few and then nice again. It's kind of annoying b/c we go a little crazy being stuck inside all day. Libby and I have some new friends and we have started hanging out with them a little more. Libby is so excited to see Emmie and squeals for joy, but then they don't really play together (unless stealing each other's toys, snacks, and sippy cups counts as playing). It's kind of funny watching their interactions. Anyways, Monday morning was really nice (72* by 9:30 am) so we took the girls to the Splash Park. The water should've been on when we arrived, but it was broken or something, so the kids were playing in the puddles left from the day before for 20 minutes or so. All the kids there that early were about 2 yrs or under, which was nice. Libby thought it was hilarious to see the other kids stomp in the water and really enjoyed splashing in it too. Some of the kids were climbing the playground/big toy thing and Libby finally decided she was brave enough to do it by her self. As soon as she got to the platform where the slides were, the water turned on without warning. The platform has 3 water shoots that come up from where she was standing. I ran up there as fast as I could, but she was traumatized. It was so sad. She was soaked, crying and shaking for probably 10 minutes. That was all the water she played in. Emmie had a great time though and it was fun to watch her run through the water. I think Libby was starting to warm up to the idea of playing in the water near the end. She would walk around the outside of the water area and then run back to me, but if I tried to help her touch the water she would cling to me and hold her legs up as high as she could so it was impossible to put her down. We're gonna keep going back once the weather is nice again and hope she decides it's okay. If not, at least I'll get a good walk in and some time to chat with the other moms. I was too busy holding Libby to get a picture of her in her cute swimsuit.

new words this week: Emmie, peaches, honey, milk. I don't remember if i mentioned before, but Libby loves to pray. She walks around the house with her arms folded saying "amen" over and over again. It's probably the cutest thing she does. It makes me so happy.

We're going camping today with Julie & Michael. It'll be the first time camping with Libby! wish us luck! It's suppose to rain tonight of course, but it looks lovely right now, maybe we'll luck out! (fingers crossed). We'll post about how it goes next week.

Aminal Sounds

2011-05-29T22:27:00.000-06:00

15 months

2011-05-27T20:44:00.000-06:00

Libby's 15 month stats: 31.75 inches or 87% for height and almost 19# or 3% for weight.....She keeps getting taller and taller (and cuter and cuter). Although today she looked short at her playdate next to her new friend who is the same age, but that girl has 2 tall parents and Libby does not. Anyways, Libby had pigtails today and it was the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life. I can't believe I hadn't tried to do her hair like that before, I didn't think she had enough hair though. Other new Libby things: she loves footballs and carries her toy one around all the time; new words: pasta, Anna (annaliese), ne-ne (penny), hip-hip (hip-hip-hooray)...I can't think of the others; she loves putting money in her piggy bank; she seems to be left-handed (almost always puts the money in the bank with her left hand); she dances ALL the time and acts really goofy when people come over; does hand motions to the following songs: head, shoulders, knees, & toes (except shoulders), wheels on the bus, itsy bitsy spider, skimerydinky dinky dink, happy and you know it, and tries to sing the ABC's (which sounds like "ABD....jabberjabberjabber...."); she knows pretty much all the animal sounds I can think of;

I feel lazy and don't want to upload pictures. maybe tomorrow cuz there are some cute ones that you all should see. : )

Tautphaus Park Zoo

2011-05-24T16:42:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago we decided to take advantage of the lovely weather on Richard's day off and go to the zoo in Idaho Falls. We all had a great time.

peeking at the baby camel

Libby "bock"ing at the chickens

Riding a chicken

She didn't want to move on to the next animal or "aminals" as Libby would say

A very friendly monkey

This lion was eyeing Libby, like he wanted her for lunch. Kind of creeped me out

school

2011-05-15T20:09:00.002-06:00

School is going well. i am taking a math class, 2 computer science classes(one programming the other is user interface design), book of mormon, and bluegrass ensemble. I really like my programming class. it is challenging and requires that i write a new simple program 2 times a week. most of the time the particular subject required to do the program isn't discussed until after the assignment is due, so it requires that I really study and figure the concepts on my own. I play banjo in the bluegrass band. i don't really like any of my other classes too much though. I work for Sprint selling cellphones. I am pretty good at it. I was the most profitable salesman in the company my first full month working there. By the whole company i just mean the retail company i work for that owns 14 stores, not the actual whole company of Sprint. we bought stuff to make italian cream sodas last week. that was good. libby is just getting cuter. libby's favorite word now is "no." she says it in a funny voice and make a funny face at the same time and sticks her hand out in a talk-to-the-hand kind of way. and she says it all the time. especially when she is doing something we have told her not to do a lot, she will just automatically start saying no while doing it. she likes playing with/eating sidewalk chalk and bubbles.

Easter Pics

2011-04-29T19:26:00.000-06:00

Basically Liberty looked adorable on Easter. She loved her easter basket which was full of Elmo things and bubbles and a chocolate bunny that Daddy ate. We had a lovely dinner with Julie and Michael with delicious ham, funeral potatoes, rolls, etc. Then we dyed easter eggs.

Chasing Ducks, etc

2011-04-17T21:22:00.005-06:00

I believe it was mentioned before, but Liberty loves ducks. Enjoy our crazy toddler terrorizing the ducks at Nature Park.

Other Libby updates: She is getting her top 2 molars right now, which is terrible for everyone. She didn't get grumpy when she got her other teeth in, but molars are a different story. She has been pretty grumpy for over a week. She also decided 2 naps are unacceptable and so by the end of the day she is grumpy and exhausted. She still manages to be insanely active. Today at church she was so tired, she could barely stand herself back up after running through the halls and being as noisy as ever, but she still managed to jump and sing in the crib for 20 minutes or so before actually taking her nap. It's so fun to see her running around and we are very proud of her, but who knew how much more work it is to have a toddler! The only time she slows down is when we put baby einstien on. We don't understand why, but she will sit perfectly still when that is on and moves nonstop the rest of the day.

New words for Libby: tree, grass, bird, turkey. She loves to look out the window and point to the trees. She also loves being outside, even though it is always windy here. She's so funny. Here's a video Libby climbing. We moved the box so she doesn't get into so much mischeif.

Richard starts school on Tuesday! He is pretty excited. He can fill you in on that later.

Car fiasco

2011-04-07T19:45:00.000-06:00

About 2 weeks ago, Richard let me take him to work so I could have some freedom and do some shopping. (Let me tell you, having no car all day and it being freezing outside really gets a person stir crazy, at least some good projects have come out it). Anyways, I took Richard to work and got some things at Joanns and Target and then went home. On my way to pick Richard up from work (about 35 min drive) the check engine light went on. This used to happen all the time in my old car, so I didn't worry much. Then I happened to notice the temperature gauge was pretty close to H, I was about 1/2 way there so I thought, "i'll be fine till I get to Richard". 5 minutes later it was past H, so I decided, I better get to a gas station. Then the car started slowing down as I approached the exit....to the point I was going 45 instead of 65 when I got there. Then the car died as I stopped at the end of the exit. The teenage boys behind me pulled over and told me they could see it smoking. (oh, Libby started crying about the time the car started slowing down...so that really helped me stay calm....). The boys looked under the hood and using their vast amount of knowledge told me they didn't know what was wrong, but that my oil was really black and I should let the car cool down and put more oil in. They also kindly pushed my car to the side of the road, while I held the screaming baby. It was very cold and very windy. Luckily, earlier that day I had dropped off a bunch of baby food to my friends Jamie who happened to live 5 minutes off the exit I died at. So I called her for help and her husband Bryce came and took me to the gas station for oil, put the oil in my car and let me stay in his warm car while we waited for Richard and his boss to come. Bryce also got me a number for a towing company. We had the car towed back to a Rexburg auto shop. The auto shop gave us a quote/diagnosis. I think we blew a few head gaskets and something was wrong with the coolant system. They estimated at least $2500, but they said it could easily be A LOT more. So after much deliberation and opinions from many people, we decided instead of spending that money to fix the car we would put money down to get a new(er) one. We got a 2005 Chevy Impala with only 66,000 miles on it (which is WAY less than any car I've driven). It's pretty gangster looking, which is funny. Gold, with black stripe and tinted windows. It has a screen for a DVD player in it, but we have yet to figure out how to play a DVD. There aren't instructions and we can't figure it out. (the cd player did not work as a DVD player). They took off $1000 for giving them our broken car. Anyways, it was quite the fiasco and Libby was up more than an hour after her normal bed time by the time we got home and was quite the grump.

libby report

2011-04-04T19:15:00.002-06:00

well this is richard, just updating everyone on libby's progress. she walks almost everywhere now. she hardly crawls anymore. so that is kind of neat. on mondays (my day off) we like to go to the nature park and let libby chase and feed ducks. she screams with delight when she sees all the ducks at the park. Annaliese, i guess libby likes addie more than i thought, because she will say addie on command or if she sees a picture of her. she said penny a couple times. her obsession with elmo has increased greatly. if she is watching sesame street and it goes away from elmo to a different character she screams elmo desperately until he comes back on screen. anyways she is really cute and is growing really fast.

Finished UFO's

2011-03-31T11:37:00.000-06:00

Okay so this is a follow up to a post a few weeks ago. (you can see it here) Here are all the projects I finished in March. I was a little lazy on the picture taking.....sorry.

1. Take khaki's in. I bought these really cute khaki's a little too soon after I had Liberty and they were always falling off since I lost a ton of weight from nursing. No before picture. I unpicked the back of the waistband and the center belt loop. Then I put 2 darts behind the pockets. Then I cut a couple inches off of the waistband (behind the belt loop). Then I stitched it together and sewed the waistband back on and put the belt loop back on. They fit so much better and I don't think it's very noticeable when they are on! I was so afraid that it would turn out terrible, but it was a success!

2. Bow holder for Libby. I started this last summer, but there was no way to hang it on the wall and the board that I covered was ridiculously hard to put a nail or thumbtack or anything in. I fixed the ribbons on it b/c they were loose and not as evenly spaced as they should've been. To hang it on the wall I glued little loops of ribbon on the back and hung them on nails. They seem sturdy. I also made this banner for the wall. it was an unplanned project.

3. Libby's b-day book. I designed a book that goes month by month through Libby's first year. I planned to do it shortly after she was born, but obviously couldn't do it till after her birthday. I found a site where you could get a hardback 8x10 book and only had to pay shipping. So it was 7.99. It came yesterday and it's super fun. I like it and so does Libby.

4. Hem plaid dress. It's the dress I wore in our engagement pictures. The hem has slowly been unraveling for years and I finally fixed it. No picture, it's kind of boring.

5. Doll pants. Libby got a doll for her birthday but it only had a diaper and shirt, so I decided it needed pants. If you remember my V-day outfit for Libby. well, it didn't start out so good. I made the mistake of making a pattern off of stretchy pants and didn't allow for seam allowances or the fact that my fabric was not stretchy. So basically I had pants that were so skinny there was no way they'd fit. Richard laughed a lot at the result. well, I luckily didn't throw them away and I was able to cut them off (a lot) and make them into pants for the doll. Here's a picture of the matching babies.

6. Belt for Libby. The problem with Libby being 70% for Height and 3% for weight is that pants do not fit well. 6 months are too short and 12 months are too baggy. I had this elastic belt from a long time ago and I just unpicked it and made it smaller. Way cuter than if I had started from scratch. It took about 5 minutes and most of that was fighting with my sewing machine (which is kind of a piece of crap). Also Libby loves it and her pants don't fall down.

7. Pretend money for Libby's wallet that I made in January. It was fun to make. Just green paper, stickers, and colored pencils.

8. Card for Grandpa. I had a 4 generation picture printed for him in December and never made a card to send it in. I didn't take a picture of it before i mailed it though.

9. T-shirt dress. I put this shirt away instead of giving it to DI awhile ago after seeing some cute t-shirt dress tutorials on various craft blogs. It turned out way cuter than i expected. I love it. I might do another one and write out step by step directions. It probably took 1-2 hours. I'm not sure exactly b/c I didn't do it all in one sitting.

10. T-shirt quilt. I've been holding on to old t-shirts that I love for years. The oldest one on there is from 5th grade (red softball shirt). About a year ago I cut them all out into squares. Then in December I finally sewed them all together. I wanted to put flannel on the back but never got around to it. I looked for a flannel sheet at walmart a few weeks ago and couldn't find a single one, but I found this really cute striped sheet and it was $5! I fell in love with the fabric. I have enough left over to make a sun dress for Libby (I think). I think I'm gonna get another sheet to use to make myself a skirt. So if you want some cheap yardage, I recommend walmart top sheets (they have just about every color and some cute polka dots, striped ones too). I guess this project isn't 100% done b/c i haven't tied it. I realized I do not have a needle that is big enough to put yarn through. Our car broke last week too, so I haven't had time to go to the store to get a needle. But it's 90% finished and I have used it a few times.

11. Quiet book. I've been working on this since January. I completed a few more pages. Clock, bead-pattern page, mailbox, apple tree (which I need to mend now). I also got rings to put through and sewed some of the pages back to back. Hooray! (also, I know the clock creature is kind of creepy)

The rest of the projects are getting there. The skirt I'm taking in is mostly ready to put the zipper back in, but I am embarrassed to admit even after all those years of 4-H sewing projects, I have no idea to put the (invisible) zipper in. It seems that I relied a bit too much on my mom for that. The skirt refashion project is going really well, but I decided other things have been waiting longer, so I put it to the side, but I'd say it's over 1/2 done. The diaper bag should really be fixed in about 5 minutes (the lining is coming unstitched where the straps go on), but that would mean that I would have to empty it all out and it just seems really boring. Next month maybe. The artwork for the bathroom is still a blank canvas, but I have sketched out what I want to paint. It's just a matter of deciding what colors and sitting down and doing it. Our house is a disaster though b/c we emptied out our dead car and everything is on the kitchen table and living room. That is today's project.....maybe.

Some fun pictures of Libs

2011-03-27T22:17:00.000-06:00

I think she looks super grown up in this picture

Libby in her Elmo shirt

feeding the baby in their matching zebra pants. she is a good mommy

in the stroller at the nature park

Chasing a duck with Julie. She was so sad when we left the ducks. "Ducky! Ducky! Ducky!" It was pretty funny.

She felt very fancy in mommy's scarf and hat

Having fun with Daddy and "gigi" (her name for her blanket). She thought Daddy was hilarious


Libby giving her giant Elmo a kiss. She seriously loves this guy (from her awesome cousins Sam & Josh)

Running away from "gigi" and about to collapse onto that pillow

Conversations with a 1 year old

2011-03-20T15:18:00.000-06:00

Some conversations with Libby this week:

me: "what do you want to do today?"
L: "cracker"

L: whining and trying to climb me
me: "honey, what do you need?"
L: "cracker"

L: standing up in her high chair and trying to climb out
me: "Libby! What do you say when you want out?"
L: "cracker?"
me: sigh, "Up, you say up"
L: "up!"

me: pointing to a picture in her book "who is that?"
L: "elmo"
me: "no, that's Penny, can you say Penny?"
L: "cookie"

I seems cracker is the answer for almost all questions, even when she really does not want to eat a cracker. Elmo or cookie (cookie monster) are the next most common answers. Her vocabulary is continuing to grow rapidly, it amazes me how many words she says.

My UFOs

2011-03-18T15:43:00.001-06:00

My sister told me about this UFO (un-finished objects) contest and I have actually been working on some of the items and I finally wrote out a list of all them. There were a surprising amount more than I had previously thought. I will probably keep updating the list w/ pics and completion dates instead of writing new blogs. March is almost over but here's my list (start=when it got on my to do list, finished= 100% done:

-take Khaki's in {Start: June 2010 FINISHED 3.8.11}
-bow holder {Start: July 2010 FINISHED 3.3.11}
-libby's b-day month book {FINISHED 3.19.11}
-hem plaid dress {Start: Jan 2009 FINISHED 3.21.11}
-pants for doll {Start: Feb 2011 FINISHED 3.21.11} (Libby and the doll match now)

-belt for libby {Start: Jan 2011 FINISHED 3.21.11}
-pretend money for libby's play wallet {Start Feb 2011FINISHED 3.21.11}
-card for gpa {Start: Jan 2011 FINISHED 3.21.11}
-quiet book {Start: Feb 2011 this is probably going to be in the works for awhile since I keep having ideas for more pages, but I did complete a couple more pages this month 3.4.11}
-t-shirt dress (Start: July 2010 almost finished (just needs hem 3.23.11) {FINISHED 3.26.11}
-skirt (Start: Nov 2008 needs taken in and new zipper, but it's complicated)
-fix diaper bag (Start: Dec 2010)
-Artwork for bathroom wall (Start: Jan 2011)
-skirt-refashion into new skirt (Start: Mar 2011, 1/2 way there)
-t-shirt quilt (Start: Jan 2009) {FINISHED 3.26.11}

Libby's Birthday

2011-03-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

Liberty turned one! She is getting so old. Here are some fun pictures from her birthday. (there are more on facebook, but i feel like I should put at least a few on here too. Richard got her the balloon and it might be Libby's favorite present.

She was a bit cautious about the cake. I thought she'd dive right in, but mostly she wanted to throw it everywhere.

Got to wash down that cake with some milk! She knows what's good.

Here she is playing with her presents after we got her cleaned up from the cake

Modeling her awesome birthday crown (made by me) and making a silly face...as usual

Liberty thinks it's really funny to pretend to go "nigh night" and will say "nigh night" and lay her head down on blankets, my lap, the couch, her bear, anything somewhat soft. It's really really cute.

awesome

2011-02-21T19:49:00.000-07:00

so i just wanted to post that a few seconds ago libby stood up without holding onto anything and started walking about 5 or 6 steps. that is the best she has done at walking so far, now she is taking a few more steps. i think by her birthday (friday) she will be a champ. here's a video of her walking.

It looks like she falls at the end, but becky catches her.

Also, check out the blog becky wrote earlier about all the words she can say. she said something else new today, but i can't remember what it was.

Words

2011-02-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

Libby is becoming quite the talker. I thought I'd share some of the words she can say. Some are prompted and others she says all the time.

favorite words to say (unprompted): dada, mamma, baby, car, bear, wow, peek (peekaboo), Becky (she won't stop saying this today-elmo is now becky), gr cracker, elmo, ball, night night, moo, roar, uh-oh

prompted: kitty, duck, bath, Jesus, juice, Cole, tree, knock, eat, snow, dog, Jana (nana), Addie (she's said it twice, so I'm not sure if it counts), Laila (which sounds like blablah most of the time, but she really tries to say it)

things she signs: more, please, all done, wave, clap, kiss, "5", peekaboo, points to: head, belly, ear, and sometimes nose or mouth

If your name isn't on here yet, we're working on it. :) Jana got lucky and has a very easy name for babies to say. Libby seems to learn a new word almost everyday. She's very smart ;)

She is also almost walking. She'll let go of things voluntarily now and stand for a few seconds and will sometimes walk a couple steps if mommy is there to catch her. I'm so proud of her. She loves
to stand up and fall down in her crib or on our bed. If there's a soft landing she's very brave.
This is my current favorite picture of Libby. I had fun editing it on picnik.com. If you haven't done it before, it's pretty fun (basically free photoshop). Can't believe this little monkey turns 1 on Friday! Stay tuned for birthday pictures. We're gonna have a small party on Saturday (since Richard doesn't get home from work till 8:45pm on Friday).

Happy Valentine's day

2011-02-13T15:08:00.001-07:00

How cute is Libby in her Valentine's outfit? Simply adorable. Hope you all enjoy this celebration of Love.

little miss mischief

2011-02-06T15:29:00.000-07:00

Don't let Libby's sweet smile fool you. She is full of mischief. At church today she was full of it. Things she did that she shouldn't have: Stole things from people's purse's, touched a quite a few bums as she pulled herself up onto the backs of people's chairs, stole binkies and toys from other babies, dumped cheerios all over the floor, crawled as fast as she could all the way out of relief society....2x, threw a graham cracker at the people in front of us during the prayer, and grabbed 2 water cups from the tray and dumped them on Daddy as the sacrament was being passed. She also danced very adorably to the hymns much to the people behind us' enjoyment (and ours). She sure knows how to make people smile. She also points to Jesus every chance she gets, which makes me feel like maybe we're doing something right. We love her, but sometimes Sunday's can be exhausting. (It doesn't help that nap time falls right in the middle of church, so she gets a bit grumpy by the end.) I know most of these things are pretty normal for a baby, but Libby seems to be one of the busiest/noisiest kids in our ward. I just don't understand what it would be like to have a child that snuggles on your lap during church or even takes a nap.
We just got called to be ward librarians today, so hopefully Libby will have more fun and freedom crawling around the library. Hope you enjoy all the pics richard posted yesterday.

2011-02-04T18:56:00.000-07:00

Liberty is cute.

Rexburg!

2011-01-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

So, pretty much skipped out on blogging in December...oh well, it was very busy and filled with family and fun and packing... We moved to Idaho this month. Richard will be starting school in April. Richard drove the moving van and moved in on the 3rd and I drove the 7-8th with Liberty and my mom. (she was nice enough to come with me and take turns entertaining Libs on the long drive, don't think i could've done it without her). It hasn't been as cold as it could be here. Still below 30 most days, but it hasn't gone into the negatives. We are mostly moved in now. Our bedroom seems to be the only place that isn't organized and is where we hide everything we don't know where to put. Our apartment is very nice. It has good windows and carpet and great closet space. It's smaller than our last place, but big enough. Liberty seems to like it well enough. She is obsessed with the bathroom. She always wants to take a bath and she takes one almost everyday. We have to keep the door shut or else we'll find her playing with her bath toys or trying to get into the trash, etc. She's learned how to knock and if she knows one of us is in the bathroom, she will knock on the door and scream until we open it, (even if the other one of us is willing to play with her.
Libby is getting closer to walking. She walks pretty well only holding one hand and can walk pushing her car push toy thing by herself. She seems quite pleased with herself. She continues to be extremely goofy and makes the funniest faces and noises and little dances. It's very cute, but can be very disruptive during church, but she's not the only noisy one there. Lots of babies and pregnant ladies in our ward. One of these days i'll have to set up a play date. Libby is also obsessed with graham crackers. She likes them enough to say it, which sounds like "ga ca" or "ga cra ca" and points to the cupboard where they're kept. She eats several a day.
Richard and I were able to go on a date yesterday. My best friend Julie lives a couple blocks away and offered babysitting services in exchange for the use of our washer/dryer. It was nice to be able to go to the temple (about a 3 min drive). Afterward we went to the Cocoa bean which is a cute little hot cocoa and cupcake shop. They make amazing hot cocoa. Quite a brilliant idea for a pretty much non-coffee drinking town.
Richard is still looking for a job. He had a couple interviews last week, so hopefully something happens with those. It seems like he's applied everywhere.

Busy

2010-11-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

Libby is a pro crawler on both carpet and hard wood floors. She can pull herself up on almost anything and walks around the furniture. She really likes it when we help her walk too. She has stayed standing without holding on to anything for a few seconds. She is a busy girl and keeps her mommy busy chasing after her. She is also an expert peek-a-boo player. She will play it with just about anything: bags, burp rags, table cloth, stuffed animals, teething ring, etc. It is probably the cutest thing she does right now. She waves to everything now too and says "hi" which sounds more like "ha" sometimes. Other words she attempts to say: "kitty" or "KKKKee", ball, dada, mama, and occasionally "moo". She understands a lot more words too. So cute. She really really loves cats, so that is the word she tries to say the most and we chase poor Magellan (parents cat) around the house a lot. Yelling for attention is also one of her favorite things right now. Especially at dinner time (girl likes her food I guess). She knows what the monkey and dinosaur say and she will usually imitate them if you ask her too. She also has 3 teeth (2 bottom, 1 top) and another on the way in on top.
Richard will be getting his associates degree at the end of this quarter! He is doing great in his classes. (Spanish 1, Logic, and digital music). He got onto the Spring/Fall track at BYU-Idaho, which was a bit of a surprise. After much deliberation and pros/cons lists we have decided to move over in January as planned and hopefully find jobs and get settled before school starts. We are excited to go, but not really looking forward to driving a moving van and our car in the snow. yuck.

I have kept quite busy lately. On Dec 4th I will be a vendor at a craft fair in Port Orchard. I have made 20 tutu's so far and over 100 flower clips (in various stages of completion). I'm excited for it, but it's been a lot of work. I still have a lot to do.
We got family pictures done last week by my friend Sydney. We went down to the Fountain park by the ferry and got some good pictures around the cool rock sculptures. The weather was actually decent too and Libby was such a good girl. We are excited to see how they turned out. So stay tuned for pictures!!
Speaking of pictures I should put some Halloween ones up. We were all dinosaurs (surprise). Libby had 2 dino costumes one from Gma Sue and one made from jammies from Aunt Jana. She looked adorable in both! Our pumpkin is supposed to be Libby with a big smile & one tooth (which is all she had at Halloween)

Richard turns 24 and 2 year anniversary

2010-11-21T21:16:00.001-07:00

I wrote a long post a couple days ago (incl. Halloween and other happenings), but I am lazy and haven't gotten around to downloading pictures off the camera to finish it (b/c what's the point of a blog with no cute Libby pictures?Here's one of her in uncle Matthew's hat)

Anyways, yesterday was Richard's birthday and today is our anniversary! We had a pretty fun day yesterday. I brought Richard breakfast in bed of eggs, toast, & juice. After Libby's nap, we went to K&G in Tacoma and bought Richard a spiffy new suit for his birthday present. He's been wanting a new one since we got married I think. (I also found an awesome red pea coat for $10 there! I love it). We wandered in guitar center as well. Then we had a delicious dinner at Red Robin. After that we went home for a few hours, put Libby to bed and headed to the Galaxy theater to watch Harry Potter. We got to be in the VIP room, where they bring whatever you order up to your seat, which was cool. (the time worked better than the regular room, and that's why we went in there). Harry Potter was awesome. I recommend it to any HP fans.

Since today is Sunday, we didn't really do anything fancy for our anniversary. It snowed today though which was pretty cool. It didn't really stick much, but it was fun to watch. We ate some delicious beef stew & biscuits made by Grandma and visited a little with Richard's cousins. Then for dinner we ate waffles with strawberries and had some sparkling cider (which is what we ate when Richard proposed to me). Now Richard is serenading me on the guitar and eating fruit snacks while I write.

Utah

2010-10-24T16:42:00.001-06:00

Libby and I went to Utah Oct 6-11th so we could go to my best friend Carrie's wedding, meet my newest nephew and see lots of family! We had a lot of fun and I apologize for the length of this post! We got there Wednesday (Libby did awesome on the flight) and stayed at my brother Dan's house. Libby had a lot of fun playing with her cousins Sam, Josh, & Eliza. Now that she is mobile, she really likes playing with other kids. All of the cousins adored over her too, which she loves.
Thursday we spent most of the day at BYU with Penny. We got to see her dorm room, eat at the Canon, explore various buildings on campus and get caught in some crazy rain storms. Diane joined us in the evening and we watched Penny's volleyball game, (which she won, bytheway). Libby got very into the game and was waving her fists and squealing, it was quite funny. Afterward Ryan joined us for dinner at the Canon. Liberty was very curious of Ryan.

Friday was spent in Midway. We got to meet Isaac! (I just realized I don't have any pictures of him, I'll have to steal some from my mom later). He made Libby look so big and grown up. It was hard to believe she used to be that small. I miss the days where she would fall asleep in my arms and snuggle. We got a tour of the fish hatchery that my brother Chad works at, went swimming with Chad and Cody at the condo (Libby and Cody got along really well, Libby seemed to enjoy watching him and crawling after him) and later that night we had a birthday party for Chad with family. Lots of fun and delicious cake.
Saturday was a long and fun day. We left really early to drive down to Manti and pick Jessica up on the way. There was an obnoxious amount of road work on the way that made us a little later than expected. When we got there we couldn't find parking and then were led astray by signs telling us how to get to the entrance of the temple. When we finally got down there, I couldn't find Janae, who was going to watch Libby during the sealing. I had pretty much given up, but then I found her, pretty much threw Libby down and rushed inside the temple to change. It was a beautiful wedding and it was so happy to be with my 3 best friends in the temple. (I really wished Richard was there though).

After the wedding and pictures, Julie & Janae rode with us up to Sandy where the reception was held. They had a ring ceremony beforehand which was pretty cool (more like the traditional wedding you see in movies, made me wish I had one). The bishop gave a really good talk. We had milk and brownies at the reception which was cool b/c I always want milk not punch. The reception was outside, so we had to go inside for awhile b/c it was a bit chilly and Libby was a little antsy on my lap. I think this is a funny picture of her playing. (and check out the tooth!). Again Libby had fun with all the kids there. During the dancing, she got so excited and was dancing and squealing and clapping her hands. So cute. She was such a trooper all day. we didn't get home till 11 pm. Luckily she slept in the car.

Sunday Isaac was blessed. Chad did a wonderful job. After church we had nice lunch at his house with everyone.
Monday we returned home! Richard picked us up from the airport where we went to dinner at Red Robin. It was delicious of course! We found out Liberty likes lemons (a lot) and got to take her picture with a mini statue of Liberty!

Lost the baby weight

2010-10-04T11:00:00.000-06:00

So, I just feel like bragging right now. I weigh 10 lbs less then I did before I got pregnant with Liberty. What is my secret to success? .....I have no idea because it certainly is not dieting or exercise. (unless chasing Libby counts as exercise) No wonder my pants are always falling down though.

7 months and crawling

2010-09-26T17:12:00.000-06:00

Libby turned 7 months old yesterday. Above you can see her funny monkey face. it's really funny and cute. She also learned to crawl last week. (which is pretty early for those who haven't been around babies recently). We also noticed her gums looking rather swollen yesterday and sure enough, this morning we could see the bud of a tooth starting to poke through. She doesn't seem to mind though. (probably b/c Richard let her suck on an otter pop).

Here is a picture of her in these ridiculously cute boots my friend Joni is letting her borrow. They are a bit big, but there are so cute I had to put them on her. She did a little jig in them, which was funny. I'm not sure why, it is underlined and blue above, but I'm too lazy to fix it....

Liberty loves green beans

2010-09-09T16:08:00.000-06:00

Liberty prefers green beans over applesauce. What a silly girl. She actually prefers green beans to any other food we've given her besides otter pops. (She's had carrots, peas, rice cereal, oatmeal and applesauce). I tried to put in a funny video of her eating peas, but it won't upload. I've tried like 4 times. :(

On Thursday we went to music makers which is a mom club put on by some awesome ladies in my ward for all the little ones. We were excited to see Carrissa and her girls there too. Libby loved every minute of it. We were late so we missed most of the story time, but we got to do finger plays, sing fun songs with actions and play a kazoo. Libby was dancing and jumping and trying to play with all the other babies and kids (and sucking like mad on that kazoo). I think we will try to go more often. (not sure if it will happen every week once we move though). I am going to miss our ward.

Liberty learned to sit herself up. It is quite impressive. She rolls to her tummy, pulls her knees up under her, pushes up with her hands and untucks her feet out and ta-da she is sitting. That is how I found her this morning. Sitting up in her crib sucking on her blanket. Silly girl. I imagine that is how she is now since she is supposed to be taking a nap and I can hear her blowing raspberries and jabbering away. (hey, at least she's not crying, right).

In other news, we rented our storage unit and will be moving our stuff in this week. Then we get to clean clean clean. Oh and in case you hadn't heard....Richard got into BYU-Idaho!!! They haven't given us his track, but it will probably be Winter/Spring. That is why we have a storage unit. We are moving in w/ family to save up some money until January when we will (hopefully) be going off to school! We are both very excited for this opportunity. (not too excited about the snow though, bleh).

6 Month Stats

2010-08-29T18:19:00.001-06:00

Liberty's 6 month stats:
Weight: 14 lbs 5 oz (18th percentile)
Height: 26 1/2 inches (78th percentile)
Head: 16.25 inches (18th percentile)--last time she was 5th percentile, getting bigger, but still pretty small headed

New things Libby does: Take baths in the regular bath, which she thinks is awesome. Eat baby food. We'll have to put up a video of her eating peas. She thinks they are gross and has some funny reactions. Pick up Cheerios and eat them (although I'm not sure she really likes them that much). She has also started making this really funny face that Richard calls her duck face. If I capture it on camera, I am definitely posting it.

Summer Fun

2010-08-25T15:55:00.000-06:00

We've been having a lot of fun on Richard's days off lately. Bellingham 2 weeks ago and Great Wolf Lodge last week. This week though is dentists and doctors...lame.
We had fun in Bellingham visiting my sister and her family. Libby and Laila are getting to more evenly matched now that Libby can sit up. Libby kept stealing Laila's toys. I'm pretty sure Libby is going to be the bossy/mischievous one out of those two. We went to a really pretty park on the water and had a picnic and drank delicious hot cocoa. (yes, hot cocoa...in the summer...in 80 degree weather). Richard and Zack had fun talking about police stuff and watching you tube videos and Sarah and I had fun talking coupons and crafts and watching the So you think you can dance finale. :) Richard and all the 10 yr old neighbor boys had a big water fight. Zack joined in for part of the time, but wimped out. lol. Richard couldn't pass up a good water fight. Us girls and babies watched safely from the porch.

Last week, we were planning on going to Ocean Shores and invited Penny and Mom. Kind of last minute, we all decided Great Wolf lodge would be at least as fun. Basically it is a cool hotel with a big indoor water park. Libby loves swimming so we thought everyone would have a good time and with it being a hotel we could just go upstairs at nap time, etc. It was awesome. Penny, Richard and I had fun going on the Tornado water slide, which was like a funnel. Pretty scary, but very fun. The kiddy pool area was nice. Libby could sit in the shallow part and splash.

Richard and Libs worn out from all the fun an me and Libs in the kiddy pool

Just finished going down the water slide & Richard and i getting soaked by 1000 gallons of water

Other happenings in our lives. Libby is 6 months old today! Which flew by so fast. She loves to jump in her johnny jump up, which is very funny. She laughs a lot too, which is the best (if you haven't already, check out the videos on youtube/facebook). She really is the cutest baby ever. Just started her on baby food, I have to fight her for the spoon, she is very grabby. We are also planning on moving out of our apartment and in with family at the end of September so we can save money for Richard's college. We are still waiting to hear from BYU-I, (the deadline to turn in applications isn't till Oct 1, but he's finished w/it already). Hopefully we'll be there in January. We are excited.

Libby peaking at me when I came to get her in the morning and Libby wearing dino outfit

My Etsy Shop

2010-08-14T16:49:00.000-06:00

I sold 2 adorable baby tutus (top 2 images) last week on a website called Etsy. It's been pretty fun making little things to post on the site and I was super excited to have a sale. I really can't take that much credit though for the sales because I had Libby model them and well, as you can see she is the cutest baby on the planet and it's no wonder they sold. :) The pink and orange one is my favorite.

Here's a link to my shop (although not much on there, i need to take pics of new projects): www.etsy.com/shop/beckysbabyballerina

Goodbye Gordo

2010-08-08T12:35:00.001-06:00

We gave our poor cat Gordo away. He was fun for awhile, but it became hard to take care of both him and Libby. He was always getting into everything and then he got fleas really bad somehow and as hard as I tried, I could not get rid of them and finally he peed on some stuff, which really was the last straw for us. It was a bittersweet farewell. Mostly sweet when considering the recent events, but he was awfully cute when he'd play fetch and chase the laser pointer and sometimes it was nice to have him snuggle up on my lap. Libby really was starting to like him too, but the fleas were liking her too, which was unacceptable. A nice young couple found our ad on craigslist and wanted him. I hope it turns out well for them.

Video of Libby sitting

2010-07-31T09:14:00.000-06:00

Here is a much better video of Libby's sitting skills. She can sit up much longer, but i think she is camera shy.

Otter pops, Sitting up, and couponing

2010-07-21T14:09:00.000-06:00

Liberty threw her first tantrum....because I would not let her eat my otter pop....I suppose it is partially my and Richard's fault. We've let her have a little taste of the otter pops on the tip of her tongue because it is funny to watch her facial expression as she processes the cold. I have realized though that she must like the taste too b/c whenever one of us eats one (which is quite often now), she reaches for them and whines/cries when she doesn't get it.....I am concerned about the future if she is throwing tantrums already. She's only 5 months.
For Libby's 5 month b-day, she decided she could sit up on her own! That is until she tries to reach for a toy that is a little out of reach. It was hard getting a good video of it.

Libby and Gordo (0ur cat) have also become friends. Libby loves to pet him and grab him. She hasn't really learned to be gentle, but the cat is very patient. Unfortunately for everyone, Gordo is pretty much infested with fleas. It is terrible. I have gotten a new flea collar, a flea comb, and flea spray. I have also given him a couple baths. He is an inside cat so i'm not sure how he got them in the first place, but I am doing my best to rid our home of them.
I made some little storage boxes for the changing table, it looks so much less cluttered. I love it, and they cost hardly anything to make! I have also decided to try and become a coupon lady. My sister got me this book by "the krazy coupon lady" and it teaches you how to use coupons in the most effective way in order to save the most money and buy things for almost nothing. It's all about being prepared and building up a stockpile (aka: food storage). I feel inspired, Richard thinks I am crazy.

Swimming

2010-07-16T12:42:00.000-06:00

We took Libby swimming last night for the first time and we had a great time. Libby is a little fish. She loved it, kicked away. We were hoping she would b/c she seems to love bath time. We went to the YMCA and it happened to be family swim time and free (at least we hope it was free, there was no one at the window to pay and the doors to the locker room were open and the life guards didn't say anything...). There were only 3 other people in the pool while we were there, which was nice. We are hoping to go back every week since she had so much fun.

Rolling queen

2010-07-13T17:08:00.000-06:00

Libby has mastered rolling to her tummy! She loves it too. I am sitting here watching her roll and make all sorts of funny squeals and blowing bubbles with her spit (another new thing she learned recently). It's surprisingly entertaining to watch her. Libby is very social and loves it when people talk to her and tell her how cute she is. She definitely knows she is cute already, she smiles and kicks whenever someone comes over to admire her. we didn't do anything too exciting for the 4th of July, but Liberty sure looked cute. So here are a couple pictures. When I steal pictures from my mom I'll put up another really funny one of my dad with Libby and her cousins Eliza & Laila. All three girls are crying in the picture and it's really cute. Well, Libby can't figure out how to roll back to her back and is protesting very loudly now. I better rescue her.

Seattle

2010-06-29T13:59:00.000-06:00

On Richard's day off we went to Seattle to visit mom. Here are some pics from Libby's first ferry ride.
p.s. what are your opinions about Richard's shirt? I tried to talk him out if it....

Libby Updates

2010-06-19T09:55:00.000-06:00

So we've been kind of lazy this month when it comes to blogging, etc. Liberty is 4 months old now. She some how gets cuter everyday too. She has started to roll a little bit. She did it twice last Monday and twice Tuesday on her own but hasn't been able to do it since. Now whenever she's on her tummy though she tries to roll and then gets frustrated when she can't. She has pretty good control of her hands now and grabs everything and promptly puts it in her mouth.

She's discovered her toes too which she finds quite fascinating. It's very cute. When I get ready in the morning, i copied my sister and let Libby sit in the sink. She usually just watches me in the mirror. She has also started laughing a lot more. Aunt Jana was amazing at getting her to laugh. (we're sad she lives so far away). Libby laughed at Laila for about 10 minutes, the video below is about half way through her laughing spell.

May

2010-05-21T16:54:00.001-06:00

It's been a busy month. Annaliese, Addie, Spencer, Diane & Ryan came to visit for Liberty's blessing. (pictures below). We had lots of fun playing games and had a fun trip to Fort Worden (see Annaliese & Diane's blogs for more about that)and some good times at Illahee . Annaliese, Carrissa & Becky made tutu's (see post below for pics). The same day that Annaliese & Addie left, Liberty, Becky & Becky's mom all flew down to California. In California we visited Grandma & Grandpa Olive. We got to see cousins, aunts & uncles too! Everybody loved Liberty and she was an angel. She really started to be vocal while we were down there. She also is getting more active too. She loved playing with the toy grandma bought her as you can see in the video. Grandma Olive spoiled Liberty with clothes at the outlet stores. It was a great trip! We are so glad we were able to visit.

Liberty's Blessing

2010-05-21T16:33:00.000-06:00

Liberty was blessed on Mother's day May 9th! There's a picture outside of the church and a picture of all the people who helped make the dress: Ruth Ann Hill (grandma), Janet Olive (great grandma), Becky Bell (mom).

Tutus

2010-05-21T16:29:00.001-06:00

2 months

2010-04-29T12:24:00.000-06:00

Liberty is 2 months old now! At her dr's appointment she measured 23.5 inches (90th percentile) and 10 lbs 10 oz (50th percentile). I don't know how she got so big. I am not sure the height is totally accurate b/c she was squirming around quite a bit. The Dr was very impressed by Libby and said she acted more like a 3 month old. (But who isn't impressed by Libby's awesomeness?) She is starting to grasp things a lot more, like rattles, monkey's and mommy's hair

She also likes to suck on her fingers, it's so cute. She still likes tummy time and tries so hard to crawl. I'm sure one of these days when I'm not looking, she'll crawl away. She is also sleeping much better. Only a few nights all the way till morning, but lately I've only had to get up once to feed her, so we're getting there.

A good night's sleep

2010-04-16T11:19:00.000-06:00

Last night was amazing! Liberty slept from 11 pm till 6 am and then after a short feeding and a clean diaper, she went back to sleep until 8:30! I am a happy mommy today. Haven't gotten that much sleep uninterrupted in a really long time. I'm hoping she makes this a regular habit. She hardly napped at all yesterday though b/c we went to visit my grandma who is recovering from surgery and so Libby basically only napped during the car trips there and back (an hour each way). She was very good all day though for being so off her schedule. (Probably b/c she had her uncle Matthew there to make funny faces at her)

Play Time

2010-04-14T17:47:00.001-06:00

Liberty has decided she likes tummy time. She is so funny. When I roll her on her tummy she starts moving her legs like she is trying to crawl. If I put my hand against her feet, she pushes off and scoots across the floor. If I stop doing it, she will fake cry until I do it again. It is pretty funny. She is starting to make really cute noises and smile a lot when we play. She seems to really like music and rhythms. Everyday we listen to music and I help her dance/jump/pretend to run. Here's a cute picture of her on her tummy at Grandma Hill's house. She fell asleep like this and took a nice long nap. She looked so comfy, I couldn't move her.

Here are some more cute pics from Sunday

Digital Scrapbooking

2010-04-14T17:35:00.000-06:00

Recently I discovered that Digital Scrapbooking is really fun and also quite addicting. I think it is much easier than regular scrapbooking b/c they have design templates you can use and if it looks weird you don't have to worry about wasting expensive paper. It's nice to just use the pictures from the computer too, so they can be any size I need them to be. I've had a lot of fun this past week making scrapbook pages on the computer with a free program I downloaded (scrapbookflair.com). They have all sorts of papers, templates, and embellishments that come with the program and more that you can download that people post. I haven't done any scrapbooking at all since we've been married, so I've been able to keep pretty busy. I am actually almost up to date with the last 2 years, starting with pictures from when Richard and I were dating.

Happy Easter

2010-04-05T15:55:00.001-06:00

Happy Easter from the Bells

Cousins

2010-04-05T15:50:00.001-06:00

These pics were from a while ago. Liberty is 10 days and Laila is 4 months. Amazing how big a difference 4 months can be. So cute

One Month

2010-03-29T18:45:00.000-06:00

I can't believe Liberty is one month old already! Here are some cute pics of her on her one month birthday. She can really make some funny faces.

Pampers vs. Huggies

2010-03-29T18:37:00.000-06:00

I have been using Pampers diapers for Liberty b/c they were recommended to me by family members and that is what Harrison hospital used. I have been pretty happy with them, but I had some $3 off coupons for Huggies, so I thought I might as well try them. How different can Huggies be from Pampers right? Very different is the answer. They are terrible diapers. Just today I had two different leakage problems while she was wearing Huggies, which means Libby is wearing her 3rd outfit today (and that does not include the pajamas from last night/this morning). Huggies are also weirdly shaped making it harder to wrap up after being used. The lesson here: stick to pampers for now. (I've heard target store brand is good in the bigger sizes, but I'm not taking chances for awhile, I do enough laundry as it is.)

Gordo & Libby

2010-03-17T22:50:00.001-06:00

When Libby was born, I was very worried about how Gordo (our cat) would react to sharing the attention. He does get jealous, but he does pretty well with her most of the time. Today he tried to clean her hair for her. It was pretty funny and also kind of gross. I would've taken a picture, but I was actually feeding her when he did it. I don't think she even noticed. He tries to snuggle her and even dropped his sparkle ball next to her for her to throw for him. (Unfortunately it will be quite awhile before she will be able to play with him much). Libby doesn't seem to mind Gordo either (except the one time he swatted at her foot when she was in the swing) . She watches him a lot. Gordo is much more interested in her toys than Libby is, so when I try to entertain her by dangling toys or shaking her rattle, Gordo gets pretty excited and Libby watches him play with them. Gordo has destroyed 2 binkies so far, I was not happy about that and now have to make sure to hide them when they're not in Libby's mouth. He also thinks the stroller is his, he loves playing in the basket underneath. Here are some funny pics of them

Happy St Patrick's Day!

2010-03-17T22:45:00.000-06:00

isn't she just so cute in her St Patrick's Day outfit!

2 weeks

2010-03-10T17:27:00.001-07:00

Today Libby had her 2 week check-up. (Technically 2 weeks is tomorrow, but this worked for the doctor). She is up to 7 lbs 4 oz now and is 20 1/2 inches long. That means she's grown an inch in 2 weeks! Crazy. She is very healthy. At the appointment the first thing they do is weigh her, so I have to strip her down. While she was on the scale, she peed everywhere--the scale and the counter were covered. It was just lovely. The nurse assured me it happens often and cleaned it all up. Last time we were there she also peed on the scale, only not as much. What a little stinker. At the appointment they had to finish up the PKU tests, so that meant they poked her foot to get some blood samples. They had to do both feet b/c they couldn't get enough out of the first one. Libby was not happy about any of this. She cried almost the entire visit, it was very sad. She seemed very happy to be dressed and put in the car seat.

Her hair is lightening up a lot and it looks a bit curly on the sides. I am hoping it's not just b/c she really needs a bath b/c the curls are really cute! Libby is a very sweet baby. She is staying awake more now and is looking around a lot more, it's lots of fun. She makes the funniest noises (sometimes a weird grunting noise and also these weird squeaky noises) and makes lots of funny faces, especially while she sleeps. Makes me wonder what she dreams about.

Liberty Ann Bell!

2010-03-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

Liberty Ann Bell was born on February 25, 2010 at 9:57 pm! She weighed 6 lbs 11 oz and is 19.5 inches long! She is so beautiful and so sweet! We are so happy to have her! She is doing very well. Eat, sleep, poop, snuggle, repeat! The day she was born we went to the hospital at about 6:30 am. Contractions were about 5 min apart. Labor was very slow from there. They almost sent me home, but luckily my water broke and I got to stay. It was a very long day, but totally worth it! It was love at first sight! Enjoy some pictures of the little cutie!

The Nursery

2010-02-24T20:42:00.001-07:00

We just need a baby to put in here! Dr made it sound like she will be coming this week! Keep your fingers crossed that she will!!!

Gordo vs. the Bathtub

2010-02-22T23:07:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, I was really tired, so I tried to take a nap. Richard decided he wanted to take a bubble bath to relax. So he's in there for like 10 minutes when I hear a loud splash, laughing and richard scolding the cat. Apparently curiosity finally got to Gordo. He always is interested in the shower/bath, but still too cautious to get in. He sits on the rug outside the shower almost everyday while I'm in there. (I think he thinks I'm going to drown or something, he seems very concerned). This time Richard thinks he may have thought he would float like the bubbles or something. Well, he didn't. He looked pretty hilarious all wet and covered with bubbles. Richard got lucky and only got some minor scratches on his leg that didn't hurt really at all. That could've been a lot worse had that cat landed elsewhere. The weird thing is the cat didn't seem terribly phased by the event afterward.

Yesterday Gordo also figured out a way to get on top of the door in the bathroom. I thought he was up on the water heater b/c I noticed he'd figured that out. I went in to check b/c I heard him making some noise and he was on top of the door trying to figure out how to get back down. He did it again today. I'm not sure why. He is a very entertaining cat to say the least. Always doing something weird.

2010-01-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

I thought you might want to see a picture of my pregnant belly! Looks like i'm carrying a basketball under my dress, but i'm not, it's my baby.

Nesting and other pregnancy updates

2010-01-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we set up the crib and got a mattress for it and put all of the blankets and stuffed animals in it from the baby shower. Richard even got into the nesting. I also bought some paint on Friday and on my day off I will be hopefully painting the book shelf and dresser for Libby's room. We aren't allowed to paint the walls so we are still figuring out how to decorate the room so it's not so boring. I'm very excited. I am kind of bummed that I still have to work another couple weeks. (I trained someone to take over my receptionist job for 4 weeks and told them after 2 that she wasn't catching on, but they didn't listen until after 4 weeks when she still hadn't caught on, so I get to train someone again starting Tuesday, but this time I am only giving them 1-2 weeks). I really want to stay home and do a million projects and get everything ready for the baby, but I guess I'll have to stick it out at least another week. I'm pretty tired these days. The baby really doesn't like me to sleep though. She will go up under my ribs when I try to sleep and kick me, plus it's almost impossible to find a comfortable position with this basketball belly. I've had a few Braaxton hicks contractions, but nothing really exciting or major going on. Dr appointment tomorrow and every 2 weeks after that till the baby comes! 49 days and we'll be parents.

Gordo

2010-01-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

For Christmas, Richard got us a kitten. It has been a lot of fun. He is kind of a crazy cat sometimes, but we love him most of the time. He is amazing at playing fetch. Better than most dogs and the ball isn't covered in spit when he brings it back. He even puts the ball back into my hand after he retrieves it. Pretty smart cat. Unfortunately like a dog, he wants to eat anything we are eating. He will jump up on the table, your lap or even right onto your plate and attempt to steal food. I even caught him licking some strawberry jam that had spilled onto the table cloth. One day he climbed my leg to try and get some cheese. He loves plastic bags and ribbon and anything that rolls or moves quickly (like toes). He isn't always hyper though, which is nice.

He really likes to cuddle and sit on our laps, which is cute. He even let Richard practice his swaddling techniques on him. I don't think most cats would tolerate that. It will be interesting when the baby comes and he has to compete for attention though. I'm a little afraid for that. (and only 49 days until Libby's due date!)

ride-along

2010-01-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

so, a few weekends ago becky and I went to bellingham to visit her sister and family. zack is a police officer there and i have tested/applied to some departments around bremerton, so he let me go on a ride along. it was pretty neat. so friday night i met up with him around ten and that night we did some traffic stops and went to break up potential bar fights. so it was pretty fun looking up people license plate numbers to see if the car is stolen or license is suspended, and watching drunk people try to drive down the wrong way on a one way street and then cry when they get pulled over. and then because it was fun i went with zack to work on saturday night also. most of that day was really slow, but then at like 2am zack tried to pull someone over, but it ended up becoming a high speed chase. anyways, it was fun.

1 year Anniversary

2009-12-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

For our one year anniversary we decided to go on a cruise. It was a 3 night cruise from San Diego to Ensenada Mexico! First time for either of us to go to Mexico. We left on Richard's birthday Nov 20th. It was a very stressful day. We left Seattle and had a lay over in Oakland, CA before continuing to San Diego. It was suppose to only be about 1 hour for the lay over, so we thought it would be fine. We'd still get there around 2:30. Unfortunately we didn't know our plane from Oakland was coming from Reno where there was a blizzard. Our flight was going to be delayed until 4:30 or so! Not getting us there till after the cruise boat was suppose to be leaving port. This was not going to work. After standing in the customer service line 3 times, Richard and I were finally able to get someone to do something for us. All the planes were booked and they didn't have a back up plane. This very nice Korean guy took pity on us and booked us onto an already overbooked flight leaving at 2:50. He handed us the boarding passes very discretely and told us not to tell anyone. The unfortunate part was that our luggage would not be coming on the new flight and would be staying at the San Diego airport

all weekend, we decided it was worth it. When we finally got to the boat we relaxed for a bit, ate some food and waited for the gift shop to open so we could buy a change of clothes, underwear, deodorant, etc. W watched Star Trek in our cabin to relax after the stressful day. Saturday, our anniversary we were at sea all day.

Since we didn't have our swim suits, we didn't get to try out the cool water slide and pool. We went mini golfing and ate lots of yummy food and played some cards and just relaxed. In the evening, we watched the show, which was called Spin. It was fun, lots of singing and dancing; They sang songs from different parts of the country. Sunday we were in Mexico! Yay! We decided not to do any of the tours and just wandered the town on our own.

We went into lots of little shops and bought a couple souvenirs. There were street vendors about every 10 feet selling almost exactly the same things. Kind of ridiculous. On our way back to the boat we bought some delicious churros and almost had them stolen from us from some little kids. We felt kind of bad for not sharing. Back on the boat we indulged in some more yummy food and enjoyed another show. This one was a hypnotist/comedian. It was very entertaining to watch. When we got back to San Diego on monday we had a few hours to kill, so we found a movie theater and watched New Moon, which was the only thing playing at the right time. It was pretty good, we enjoyed it. The flight home was pretty uneventful. It was nice to be home and with Thanksgiving that week, we only had to work Tuesday & Wednesday! I wish it were that way every week.

Octoberness

2009-11-04T19:40:00.000-07:00

October was a busy month. We finally moved out of our crappy house. No squirrels in the walls at our new apartment and no mold and there is heat and warm water! It's great. We really like our new place. It's a nice 2 bedroom with washer/dryer and dishwasher and a gigantic bathroom. It's a great layout and will be perfect when the baby comes. We had a halloween party a week after we moved in. It was fun, but very busy. We made some cool haunted graham cracker houses.

Also, this month we got a new neice! Sarah & Zack have a new beautiful little girl named Laila. She is so adorable. We got to go visit them on Sunday and it was so fun.

Baby Girl

2009-11-04T19:37:00.000-07:00

In case you haven't heard, we're having a GIRL!!!! Yay! We're so excited. We've already bought a bunch of cute girly clothes. We're so excited. She is such a squirmy girl. Kicking all the time. My belly is getting big. I'll get around to taking a picture of it sometime. LOL! :)

Ocean Shores

2009-09-13T21:31:00.000-06:00

For Labor Day weekend, we decided to take a little vacation. We went camping on Friday night. Our campsite was walking distance from the beach in Ocean City. By the time we set up our tent, it was dark, we took a stroll on the beach anyway. After we played cards for awhile, we went to sleep and were woken up several times by the rain and the wind. In the morning there was a line between the two of us. Richard's side was completely soaked and Becky's side was perfectly dry. Kind of mysterious and funny. :) We bought a cool kite in town at Ocean Shores and spent a good deal of time trying to get it up in the air. Richard got pretty good at it. It was a fancy one with 2 strings. The beach was nice. The weather was really nice, it wasn't too hot or too cold, just a little windy, perfect for kite flying. We also found a cool Arcade that also had mini golf and bumper boats. We played a nice game of mini golf in which Becky cremed Richard. An all time first for Becky at golf. There was also this cool shop near the beach that had a shark's mouth as the entrance. We bought some delicious salt water taffy there. Saturday night we decided we didn't want to go home and stayed in a place called Weatherly Suites. It was set up like an apartment inside except there was a jacuzzi tub in the living room so you could watch t.v in the tub. There was a thunderstorm that night and in the morning it was still pretty rainy, so we hung out a little and then headed home.

CANASTA tournament scores

2009-08-09T17:47:00.000-06:00

#8 Penny: 7,775
#7 Maili: 8,025
#6 Becky: 8,460
#5 Thomas: 9,025
#4 Adam: 9,460
#3 Kenneth: 9,790
#2 Orson: 10,705
#1 RICHARD: 11,250

Saturday night we had a big Canasta tournament at our house. We had 2 games going on at once and each round we switched partners. There were 10 rounds total. Kenneth took the lead for the majority of the game until the championship round in which Orson and Richard overthrew his rule by getting 6 Canastas in one round and an astonishing 2,980 points. Perhaps an all time high score.

day in the life...

2009-07-19T17:22:00.000-06:00

so what do richard and becky do day-to-day. an average day consists of me working at teletech from 0600 to 1430 in bremerton. right now i am in summer quarter at oc. so, on tuesdays and thursdays i take an english class and i also do an online business class. fall quarter i will probably take another english class, recording techniques(mostly for fun), and a biology or math class. becky works at her dads law office as receptionist. anyways, when we both get home we have dinner together, which is usually macaroni and cheese or grilled cheese sandwiches. sometimes we actually cook something like soup or enchiladas, but not very often. after dinner is our scripture reading time, we are reading genesis. although since we have moved to this house we havent been very good at that, we'll do better, i promise. and then pretty much we play cards together or watch the office. we like canasta, idiot, speed, skip-bo(if you are uncultured these are card games bytheway). sometimes we invite penny and thomas over to play cards. sometimes we watch lost online, we just finished season 2. when we were in bremerton we were ward missionaries, so we would do stuff with recent converts and go out with the missionaries and stuff. oh, and if we have a good book we usually snuggle and read for an hour or two. but we dont have a good book right now to read, any suggestions?