Abundant Recompense Copy

when Mommy and Daddy forget to take the leftovers off the highchair tray: And this is a very cute bonus picture:

I've been puzzling over why September has been a slow blogging month for us, and I think I've got it figured out. Projects. I think I am one of the most ambitious people on earth (normal people - not like Napoleon or anything) when it comes to projects. I love getting an idea and tackling it. But I am very extremely bad at following through with what I've begun. It's not that I don't want to see it through to the end, it's just that there are more exciting things out there to get started on. Laundry is the same way. Every Monday and Thursday I push it through the washer and dryer like nobody's business. Once it's time to fold I've undoubtedly lost some steam, but almost always finish at least half of it. And then I have to put it away? You must be joking. I think it might be some sort of disorder. I hate to think I'm just lacking self-discipline, although that's probably the case. The extent of my starting-without-finishing issues are far-rea...

Nate and all his coworkers are officially sending the first volume of the journals series to press very very soon. Hooray! They have been working their fannies off on it for a long, long time. However, there was a major, major headache at the last minute called "the index." To make a long, dramatic story short, Nate and the other editor (whose son ended up in the hospital in the middle of this mess) had to try to rebuild the thing in about two weeks. That means that Nate worked almost 24/7 for about a week and a half. This is Nate: This is me if I ever get ahold of the responsible parties: I can't believe I just posted that picture. Anyway, in order to give Nate a chance to work those hours without being completely guilt-ridden, and to keep Addison and I from driving each other crazy, the two of us took a little trip down to sunny St. George. We had such a good time visiting the family and we canned a ton of peaches with Ma Waite's guidance. Addison had a great time w...

He's back into thumb-sucking these days. We've been practicing standing up. Sorry about the end of this one, but I wanted to show his tongue-clicking skills and this is the only video I have of them. The next two show Addison in a state that my family calls "beyond repair," meaning really, really tired and emotional.

Several weeks ago Nate inspired our family to go find the Great Salt Lake. It's huge, it's wet, and it's close by, what other reason do we need? So we hopped in the car and drove. And drove and drove and drove. Alas, we didn't get there. We actually looked on Mapquest, and there are no roads that go all the way out to it. The closest one is to Antelope Island, which we'd go to except it's like $10 per car just to cross the bridge. So I guess you could say our first mission to find the Great Salt Lake was foiled. But we will prevail. And we ended up having a blast. The weather here has been amazingly pleasant for the past few weeks, so we stopped at a bird refuge and walked around (fearing that we'd be shot the entire time). We saw pretty rocks, tons of birds, gigantic dragonflies, some friendly fishermen, the smallest catfish I've ever seen (like 1/2 an inch) and a beautiful bay. Despite the smell of skunk, it was wonderful. Our journey also took us thro...

It's true, we snipped a bunch of Addison's sweet baby hair. It was kind of sad, especially on the part around his ears, but it was turning into a mullet. What else could we have done. Nate and I took turns holding/entertaining the boy while the other one snipped. And remarkably he only ended up with two bald spots and they're on the back of his head. Before During (A couple weeks) after Note the bald spot on the bottom left Come to think of it, we never actually finished the haircut. By the time we got to the left side, Addison was definitely not appreciating it. Oops. Guess we'll have to finish up sometime. Since we cut his hair, though, more than one person has commented that he really looks like he's getting bigger and older, and that's before they knew about the haircut.

Yesterday Nate turned the big 2-6. Despite a pretty crummy day at work, Addison and I were able to cheer him up a little with a fabulous birthday party. We made him chicken rollups and pasta-roni for dinner, gave him millions of presents, and chowed down on cake together. I think Add and I had more fun practicing the birthday song, baking the cake, and wrapping the presents than we actually had at the party. But it was a good time - it's all about the anticipation, after all. And let the record reflect that I am so glad to have Nate. He's such a good hubby and person and I am insanely lucky that he's mine. He's so good-natured and fun to be around, even though he has a crazy life right now with work and grad school. And he tries so hard to do what's right. What can I say, I love my Natey. And Add does too. Mama's little helper Tuckered out at lunch time after a busy morning Very fancy lettering on the cake Twinners

Ever since Addison has come along I have been absolutely terrible at managing my time. I've always got either too much or too little; too many shirts to iron or too few ideas of how to entertain the boy. I'd get to the end of the day (we're talking every day) and wonder how I could possibly be so tired when the house was still a pigsty and I'd run out of fun and educational activities for Add by 9 a.m. It really stunk. That's all there is to it. I felt like an unproductive slacker slob. And I was kind of sad. And then my mother rocked my world. This is her with Add: My mom has ten kids. Five of them still live at home. The oldest is 25 and the youngest is 4. She's slim and trim, smart, taught each of her kids to read before kindergarten, knows how to work and doesn't mind getting sweaty, and grows a mean tomato. She is also the most organized person I know. So as I was telling her of my woes (see above) one day, she told me about a secret book that makes you...