Abundant Recompense Copy

My sister Rebecca is starting school at BYU on Tuesday! She and my Dad came out this week to get her set up and ready to go. It was so fun to show them our house and tag along as they shopped and set up and bought us delicious food. This is the first time we've seen either of them since February. Addison cried at first, but he warmed up to them very quickly. Dad and Beck visiting was a good excuse for us to hang out with Shauna and Doug, too. Addison and Gramps Michelle, Dad, Beck and Shauna The best hot dogs on the planet - J-Dogs! Playing with Uncle Doug at Smart Cookie

Along with the Bees game, we celebrated our 2nd anniversary by having a romantic, candlelit dinner for three (it was breakfast burritos), exchanging small gifts (I gave Nate a dashing tie and he gave me lotion that smells so good I have to restrain myself to keep from drinking it), and spending a night at Snowbird. My sister Shauna and her hubby Doug were kind enough to travel an hour and a half up to our house to spend the night with Addison and watch him the next day. This is where we stayed at Snowbird. S o pretty! Today is a big landmark for Addison. I am mourning the loss of his morning nap. I think he's just outgrown it. I can't believe how much he's been learning. He hasn't really done much that's new, but he's better at all the old stuff. He crawls nigh unto the speed of light, knows how to open doors that are not quite shut, and can climb up all the stairs in our house. It's especially cute when he realizes he's been caught, because he starts br...

For our anniversary (two whole years--feel free to ask for marriage advice, since we're pretty much experts these days) we went to watch Salt Lake's minor league team, the Bees. Doug hooked us up with some awesome seats, on the front row behind home plate, about a foot and a half from the home team's on-deck batter. We went Thurs. during the Bees' second game against the Tucson Sidewinders. Since all you care about are pictures of Add (sniff), we'll get to those shortly. But I will first try your patience with two stories. First, we were sitting by two of the funniest hecklers I've ever heard. When they weren't chowing down on enormous hotdogs or browsing their college ward's directory for cute girls, they were yelling things like "Pitcher's a fruitcake!" and "Hear that? That's Double-A calling for your transfer!" Definitely enhanced our game experience. Second, Addison has a new sports hero, by the name of Freddy Sandoval. No...

Never, I repeat, NEVER again will you feed your eight-month-old baby broccoli in any form. It doesn't matter how much he likes it or how good you think it is for him. Never. Why, you ask? How quickly you forget how every single diaper except two yesterday was filled with a special gift for you. And how he cried all the way to WalMart, the whole time there, and the whole way back. And how you had to push the cart and carry him at the same time. And how you had to carry all the groceries in while holding him - yes, this includes the fifteen pound bag of catfood (grrr). And then after offering the him drinks and cheerios, you went to change the poor boy's diaper, and found a diaper rash that made his ENTIRE bum look like he'd had it roasting in the sun all day. After feeble attempts to wipe his poor fanny while he screamed, you had to throw him in the tub with his clothes still on because you couldn't set him on the floor long enough to get them off. And you have Desitin u...

I cannot tell a lie. Sometimes I run out of ideas of what to do with Addison. That is one of the most frustrating things in the world to me. I can think of teeny little 2 minute activities, but those are not particularly helpful when we've got a three-hour stretch of playtime in front of us. On days like those, it is all I can do to survive through the afternoon until Nate gets home. Poor Nate. After a long day of major work, plus about 2 hours and 10 minutes total commute time (which is also often spent working) he comes home to a wife who is a basket case and a little boy that's had to live with her all day. But amazingly, he doesn't even miss a beat. He throws on some playclothes, consoles his stir-crazy wife, and rescues her and the boy from each other. And I think he might even like it! After a day of racking my brain for anything to do with Addison, I am in complete awe at Nate's never-failing creativity. And when it comes to making the little guy laugh, he's ...

Addison and I went on a little outing to the gas station, the park, and the store to get cheese today. Every single stop was fabulous. Here's why: See that sign? It says THREE ninety nine. This one is self-explanatory. A nice old lady gave us a free ice cream cone when we were getting cheese!

Yes, Addison is cute as a button. He's getting more personality every day. We haven't done anything out of the ordinary lately, but here are some fun pictures and videos of everyday life with the cutest little guy around. Good morning sunshine! He's been doing this adorable teeny smile thing lately. It just kills me. The boy gots moves! (The toy behind him is playing music.) You can see almost all of his teeth in this one. Singing Mommy a song while helping in the kitchen. He's wearing a hat and socks because he just came in from the pool. Nap time when Daddy comes home. Playing with the shower curtain. This is, in my opinion, a classic Aunt Megan face. Add is eating big boy food these days. He eats baby oatmeal and a chopped up banana or applesauce for breakfast. For dinner he just has whatever we're having all smashed up. He gets a big kick out of biting the spoon when we feed him. Tickle time! Another one of those teeny smiles. Wow. That is some hair. (Click on t...

Four places I go over and over: 1. The grocery store 2. The library 3. Church 4. The bathroom Four places I like to eat: 1. Cracker Barrel 2. Cafe Rio 3. The Red Iguana 4. J-Dogs Four places I would like to be right now: 1. Georgia 2. The beach 3. Hiking 4. On a picnic Four favorite t.v. shows: I don't watch enough to have any. Three Joys: 1. Libraries with sliding ladders 2. Frozen nutella hot chocolate 3. Tissues that contain lotion 4. (Yes I added an extra one) Surprises! Three Fears: 1. Addison pulling something really heavy over on himself and getting smashed 2. Nate dying 3. Bad guys, including Silas from The DaVinci Code movie Three Short-Term Goals: 1. Free our yard of weeds (this actually might be a very, very long term one) 2. Catch up on Addison's scrapbook 3. Organize our loft and study Three obsessions: 1. Staying in touch with my family 2. Motherhood/domesticism 3. Cleaning out the lint filter on the dryer EVERY time Three surprising facts about me: 1. I've ne...

Finally getting around to posting pics of our trip down Keyhole on Saturday, July 26. Thanks to Roland for the photos. (He has a video on his blog too.) Keyhole is two short slots in a row, up in east Zion. Dustin, Roland, and I had planned to hit it and Pine Creek (which is just down the road) in one fell swoop, but the clouds were getting pretty gray by the time we reached the trailhead. So we decided to go down Keyhole and see how things looked after. The hardest part of the canyon was the approach. In reality, it was 100 times better than the approach to other slots, but me and Roland were still pretty wasted from the Subway the day before, so the hike straight up the slickrock about did us in. We changed into our wetsuits at the top and headed in. Looking back down at the road. "Hey guys, where's the dressing room?" Roland had been down Keyhole a couple times, and right off the bat he commented that there was more water than he remembered. That pretty much set the to...

We have an apricot tree in our yard that gave us a ton of fruit (and earwigs) this year. So we decided to be domestic and make and can some jam. So we got online and found somebody's old family recipe and went to town. Nate and I prepped for the first batch the night before we cooked it, and I did the cooking while Nate was at work and Addison was sleeping the next afternoon. I timed it at the beginning of his nap so there would be no chance of him waking up. Mainly all you do is boil the heck out of it and stir it constantly for 25 minutes. We overfilled the pan, though, so as I sweated and stirred and bailed out bowlful after bowlful of orange foam, I also frantically opened doors to let the billowing smoke out and blew like crazy on the small flame under the burner, causing it to become a large flame. And then Addison woke up screaming. So I sensibly called Nate on my dying phone and asked if our precious jam would be ruined if I stopped stirring it for 20 seconds to run upstair...

Here's what our little 8-month-old has been up to lately: Hiking in Ogden. Really this was more like a month ago. We forgot sunscreen, but he just got a tan. I think he's darker than Nate and I now. Swimming at Grandma and Grandpa W's hotel when they came to visit for 4th of July. Pulling up. This started almost simultaneous ly with crawling. He got a kick out of his bed at Grandma and Grandpa W's house because he could pull up and check himself out in the mirror. His first parade! We had Roy Da ys last week and they finished it off with a parade on Saturday. Addison loved the firetrucks. Dance party with Dad. He didn't even spit up aft erward! Also, back in the day when I said h e got his two front teeth at seven months, I was amiss. It was actually his four front teeth. It scared me when he had one front tooth and one side tooth for awhile (I was picturing baby braces), but the others are finally in.