Cultured! (not the cheese kind)

Tonight was WONDERFUL!

We had the fabulous opportunity to attend a dinner and tour of the Springville Arts Museum put on by the Utah County Democratic Women. The event was for the whole community, but it was definitely a democratic affair. Dinner was extremely delicious; I particularly enjoyed the lemonade (all 4 glasses of it).

We sat with my brother and his wife, and two other ladies: Dorothy (84), and Mary (60ish?). They were great fun. After a bit of conversation, the discussion naturally turned to the Democrat candidates and we learned that Dorothy "used to like Hillary, but she just can't shut up. I don't blame [her husband] for having an affair!" Bahahahha! Oh my. Terrible--but so funny! (It probably wouldn't amuse us about any other woman in the United States).

After dinner, the registrar gave us a private tour of the Utah Artists exhibit upstairs and I loved knowing about all the art history she mentioned in her spiel! She referenced Romanticism, Nature, the Sublime, and how the invention of photography affected art--ALL of which we discussed in depth in my professor in my English 202 class. Thanks Keith!

Anyway, the night was SO fun. Patrick was the best date and Nate and Molly weren't too bad either. :)

Of course, I forgot to get a picture of the four of us at the museum, so here we are at home.
Man, we're good looking! :)

Thanks again, Nate and Molly, for the super wonderful night!!(and the amazingly cute clothes for Christian!!!)

Oh- I cant forget our fabulous babysitter: Lubka. This super cute girl from Slovakia is Patrick's co-worker. She became buddies with Christian when Patrick took him to work during my classes last semester. She had been asking to babysit Christian all semester, so when Patrick asked her to watch him Wednesday night she said, "Yes, Yes! Oh please! Thank you so much!" Christian loves her and she was a fabulous sitter. Though she'll never read this, THANK YOU, Lubka!

Fun Times (no pictures, but still, fun times)

As a record for my own brain...

This last weekend Nate and Molly so very kindly watched Christian so Patrick and I could have a much needed date.

I brought my camera along, but totally failed to take pictures. Alas.

We dropped Christian off at their house and then went for a ride on their sweet and super stylin' tandem bike. We rode to the sports store where we bought a basketball (okay, 2- one for N&M by request and 1 for patrick with his birthday money from last year). It was SO fun. The best was cruising down a semi steep hill riding in the back where I cant see anything of where we're going or various obstacles..scary and super fun.

Then we went to the elementary school and played around the world and a little one on one. I did feel pretty cool of my 8mo preggers, basketball playing, tandem riding self. Then we topped the night of with SMORES at N&Ms.

Thanks a ton guys for watching our kiddo!
Thanks Patrick for a fabulous date. :)


Also, Ive been trying to stay(stay? ha. More like get into..) decent shape and with the nicer weather have felt much more inclined to do so. The fact that sooner or later this kiddo will no longer reside in my tummy and I'll have to have another excuse for its lovely roundness is also lingering on my brain...

So! I started jogging. The first 2 days I tried, It was more of a lifted-foot-glide and I couldnt get more than 2 blocks. The 3rd day I was able to do a full mile non-stop with out any discomfort whatsoever. This is exciting!!

Keep in mind this "fitness' (if we can even call it that) in no way deters me from eating multiple Smores on previously mentioned date, or from helping myself to vast amounts of ice-cream, chocolate, sweets of any kind whenever they are available. :P I still have my priorities.

An Ode to a Freece

Freece. Freece.
What is a Freece?

Freece McGeese.
Only Vard knows the full name.
Only he can pronounce it,
Yet it has risen to Fame.

Freece is my sister,
my dear sister and friend.
As kiddos we hoped our relationship would end.

As the years went by
We became best of friends
She let me hang out with the cool girls and mens.

An inspiration to all
So sporty, So musical
(She thinks i am like a character from Suessical)

She bakes the greatest of goodies
(Though "Tia's cookie Recipe" is mine)
Whenever she mixes sugars it turns out Divine.

She writes poems for Christmas
And sews matching dresses
and so wittily blogs all her kids' messes.

Happiest Birthday!
I wish you the best
As this day we place you above all the rest.

You're getting older
(ancient it seems)
but I hope life grants you all of your dreams.

Bud and Fridge,
Yours I'll always be
I cant wait for you to come VISIT ME!

Happy Happy Birthday, Tia!!

I love you, big sis!

One little monkey jumping on...

His NEW BIG BOY BED!! AGHHH! Have we gone completely crazy?? I think so.

We've been looking for a good twin/bunk bed Christian. We found one we really like, but seeing as how we're still trying to get out of the hole, it wasn't looking too hopeful.

Patrick's parents rocked our world and gave us their old bunk bed. We are super grateful!

So, last Tuesday our dear friend and cousin Devin helped Patrick haul it in his truck back to our house. We put it together Wednesday morning and Thursday we got the MOST FABULOUS SHEETS EVER for it. Christian thought it was the coolest thing ever helping daddy put it all together then bouncing, running, and flopping on it.

The transition has been a bit of a struggle since Christian will climb out of bed and find us if he isn't totally asleep. Even though it isn't smooth sailing, we very glad we're getting a good start on the adjustment before Muffin shows up. Thankfully, the past 2 days/nights have been pretty successful with naps and night sleep. Thank heavens!

Anyway, here are some of the cutest pictures you have ever seen in your life!


And now, by FAR the cutest picture you have EVER seen...


One night while I was gone to a meeting, Patrick let Christian go play in his room. Going in to check on him, this is what he found...

(The book he's 'reading' contains parental advice from the friends and family who came to Christian's baby shower--I guess he wants to know who is to blame for what. Now he knows who to thank and who to... well, nevermind.

A little later...


p.s. we are gladly accepting any wisdom on how to get a kid to willfully stay in their bed (aren't we all?)

Spring Block Party

Man. Gotta love BYU.

Tuesday, the last day of class, BYU had a Spring Block party (or something along those lines). We all went b/c who can pass up free food?? Not us!

It was pretty fun, though I couldn't do some of the activities due to my life-protecting belly. They had awesome pulled pork sandwiches, free ice-cream, COTTON CANDY (woot woot!), lots of tootsie roll candies, and other delights. In the garden court were several inflatable toys/games. One was a giant obstacle course which I LOVE, but there were several parts you have to throw yourself over and I didn't think Muffin would appreciate that much. They also had one of those sweet fight arenas where you stand on a post and whack each other off with the giant padded stick things. Again, didn't think it would be very good for 8month preggo me. But! They DID have an inflated twister game, which was being dominated by babies. We took Christian over there and he and patrick had fun bouncing around.

They had these cool carnival games, 2 in particular i would like to mention.
1) you throw a football through a hole- Patrick got very close, but IIIII got it through. Yesss. The football player behind us teased Patrick a little after that. hehe.

2) A basketball game. We shot first to 3. I won. Same guy behind us. hahaha.

3) A dart/ballon game. I got a balloon. Luckily we were done when said player came over. :)

BUT. Patrick dominated at ping pong.
ANNND. He taught me everything I know. (sportwise.)
ANNNNND. If these games had been anything like the real sport, he would have totally dominated me.

BUT. I WON. yessss. :)

It was a good night. :)

Fort Summerhays

Friday, April 11, we wanted to do something fun and different. Seeing how we're in the negative budget and we needed creativity, the best choice was to build a sweet fort! By 'we' I mean 'Patrick'. Apparently fort building is pretty serious stuff best left to men. So I watched. :) Also, such an event could only take place after Christian was asleep. Haha--I love it!

We also made s'mores! Have I ever expressed my extreme love of s'mores?? I don't think I have. Let me tell you, I have a fetish for s'mores--oh man. You gotta have at LEAST 4-5 s'mores at a time to do any good. Ah, s'mores.




We ate the s'mores while we read from our book The Sword of Shannara, Patrick's choice, under our sweet fort. Man! It was good times.


Christian loved the fort when he woke up on Saturday. :)

Mission Reunion

Friday, April 4, we went to Patrick's Texas Houston South mission reunion with President Lee. The night before he got a call from the President telling him about the reunion (Patrick's old email was broken, so President Lee called to make sure he got the word). It was awesome to see Patrick's excitement as he spoke with his old mission president. I asked him about his feelings and he said "hey, you never lose that (love for the people in the mission, the missionaries, etc.)" which of course, I don't know about, but I think it's super awesome. I love to witness the excitement Patrick has for the gospel and sharing it with all of Heavenly Father's children. It was one of the major attractors for me. :)
Quick memory: As we were going to TX for our wedding open house, Patrick and the Airport shuttle guy started talking. The shuttle dude was pretty funny and just really trying to live life right. At the end of the brief shuttle, Patrick busted out a pass along card and very un-awkwardly bore his testimony. Ahhhh. of course, I fell in love all over again. What a Stud.

President Lee, Patrick, and Christian

Picture with Tina (a friend who Patrick met in Galveston, TX)


Funny thing- we realized that the last reunion we went to, I was equally far along in pregnancy with Christian. I don't think this is a trend we will be continuing... :)

Monkeys, False Hope, and Total Absurdity

These Pictures are old. Oh well.


Christian has become a climber. A totally fearless climber.

This is how I found him after turning away for approximately 2.6 seconds.
Lovely.



Two saturdays ago we were given the joyous false hope that Spring had sprung, so we went to the park to try out Christian's brand-new Elmo kite. We have a handy elementary school park about 28 steps away from our front door. Yess!
It was way fun! I loved being at the park playing with my little family. Ah, the joys of being a mom. (Whoa--that makes me feel old.)


Sadly, we were cruelly deceived as it snowed about 4 different days after this. Booooo.


Patrick's hair had gotten to the point of Total Absurdity.



So I cut it. But I don't have a picture of that. But take my word- it's pretty studly.

Einstein. oh, I mean Christian.

This is a post i've been meaning to make for awhile now- so here it finally is.

For our record of Christian's mad skills at about 15.5 months:

Signs:
Milk
Eat
Please
More
Thank You
Water
Juice

Says:
Mama
Go
Cheese
(semi)Dad
Book (booh)
Ball (Bah)

Other things he's a pro at:
Patty-cake
So Big!
(working on)Itsy Bitsy Spider
Rah Rah Rahrahrah gooooo Cougars (fist pump thing)
Kisses
Loves
Folding arms for prayers
AND BEING THE CUTEST STINKING KID IN THE UNIVERSE

Loves:
Daddy
mom
Doggies
Balls
BALLOONS
fruit
cheese
books (esp. seasame street books)
technology
climbing
making messes
blocks
towers
playing on mom and dad's bed
running around
the keyboard (with all the cool techno-wizardry)
music
a catchy beat
Uncle Nate's house (and all that goes with it)
cell phones


Yes, yes folks. This kid is a genius, AND perfect, AND the cutest kid you've ever laid eyes on, AND It's not just because I'm biased. Its pretty much factual.

GAHHHHH! Im in love! :)

This is more for personal memory than anything else, but read on if you'd like.

The past couple of weeks Patrick and I have been struggling a bit financially. Basically, after receiving our tax return, we thought we had more than we did, and after we took care of various financial obligations, things were tight. Super tight. Negative tight.

Waiting 2 weeks for the next paycheck was not looking pretty with leftover hard-boiled eggs and Ramen. (okay, okay, we did have some frozen veggies...) But it was grim. Not deathly, but unfortunate.

ANYWAYS. A certain Alfredo Gregory* (name has been changed to protect the blesser) stopped by for a piece of cake (okay, we did have cake, too...) and informed us there just happened to be a stellar sale at Albertsons. On everything. Many, many grocery bags later, Alfredo left and Patrick and I were overwhelmed. In the good way. Chicken, Hamburger, veggies, fruit, bread, milk, eggs, cereal, cheese, and a few delicious treats fill our fridge.

We weren't ever feeling desperate or sorry for ourselves,but this was a Major, Major blessing. We really cant express how incredibly grateful we are for those who look beyond themselves and seek for ways to help others. We don't have much financially to share, but we do try to help others through other ways. We hope that we can be more like these good people as our situation changes in giving of ourselves and our substance. And in the meantime, we hope to use the resources we do have to help others in ways that we can.

We will probably never be wealthy with money, but we (as cheesy at it sounds) feel so rich with blessings. We have a wonderful marriage and a perfect son. We have been blessed to bring another baby into our home in a few months. We attend a great school, and Patrick has steady employment. We have wonderful family and friends nearby. And we certainly are a bajillion times better off than our parents were! (mom riding a bike in the winter with Varden bundled up in the newspaper basket in the front....sheesh.)

You always hear about miracles that occur when you pay your tithing, are faithful, etc. and I've always credited it to God reaching down and fixing things or whatever. It really has hit home that we are the instruments in His hands. We need to be attentive and alert to the Spirit so that Heavenly Father can use US to bless others. Hm. It's been a good lesson.

We are so grateful. We love you. Thanks Alfredo and everyone who has and continues to help and bless us.

p.s. We love the strawberry milkshake oreos! :D

Easter Food

1st- there's a new post right under the 'belly shots' post about christian's haircut.

2nd- I saw an "easter treats" article in a magazine about a year ago, and was super excited to make these treats...they make me feel home-makey! :)

sugar cookie 'eggs'

white chocolate/ricekrispies carrots.

yum.

(I mostly needed to document for posterity that i CAN be homey...)

Daddy's best Buddy

Christian LOVES his daddy. This has been apparent from literally the first day of life when daddy was the one to calm Christian.

Well, this daddy-love is starting to get heart-breaking.

Christian can tell when Patrick is getting ready to leave for the day, so he rushes to the door and stands there waiting for Patrick to take him. When Patrick picks him up for a hug, christian turns and waves "bye-bye" to me.

Yesterday, he wouldn't even turn to look at me, knowing that if he ended up with me, daddy would be gone without him. When patrick does leave, there are heart-breaking tears.

Super cute, but SUPER sad.

These are the morning after his hair-cut. Notice the matching outfits?? SO CUTE. Im in love with the handsome devils!

Waiting to leave with daddy...


p.s. I dont blame anyone for being smitten right now..