Happy Birthday Spencer!

Make a wish! It's your birthday!

I hope you get everything you want.

10 months old!

This sweet little girl turned 10 months old. I didn't intend to go all out polka dots, but it kinda ended up going that way.


This is flying by. Are you getting sick of these monthly posts? I think she looks pretty much the same as last month, and she'll probably look the same next month. But I feel like I need to at least document her somehow during the first year.

BIG flower from Aunt Carrie.


Abby's loves haven't changed much. She loves to eat (all manner of vegetables and most fruit-baby food is comfortable to her. She hesitates to eat a lot of new table food and needs to play with it a lot before eating it the first few times it is presented to her).
She loves to sleep. She is such a wonderful sleeper and goes down at night without so much as a peep.
She loves to read with us. She looks at each page and rarely gets bored. We go to the library a lot.
She loves to play.
She loves to take a bath.
She loves to look in her closet and pull out her clothes.
She loves the pictures we have hung around the apartment. She has very good eyesight.
She loves her mom and dad.

A few other things about our Abby:
She has developed a little freckle on her tummy. Other than her "stork bites" on her face and the back of her head, this is her first little mark. It may possibly develop into a mole, but it is tiny and flat and very light brown. I like it.
She is thisclose to crawling on her knees. She still army crawls everywhere.
She likes to pound against any surface that makes noise. I realize that all babies like to do this... I have also caught her several times sucking the glass of our sliding glass door. Okay...


She'll be 1 before I know it.

Laughing

I got Abby laughing pretty good the other day. We were nursing and I think she had a little of the tired jollies, and somehow I figured out that she liked it when I pretended to sneeze. She was really laughing hard, but had slowed down once Spencer decided to try and get it on camera. That's usually how it goes with this girl- she gives us a good show, and when we try to film it she stops.

I love it when she laughs. She doesn't do it nearly enough.<>

Nine and four-fifths

For some reason, Ogden has a surprising number of vacuum stores. And I'm not talking about Sears or Target or other places normal people buy vacuums. I mean places that only sell vacuums, like "Don's Vacuum Villa," to name one. Well, last week, Bonnie decided to take advantage of this fascinating anomaly by calling several of these places up and asking if they'd buy our old vacuum (which had been sitting on our deck for months because it's broken). Just our luck, the fine gentleman at Vacuum Exchange agreed to take a look at the vacuum and tell Bonnie if it was worth anything to him. Unfortunately, when Bonnie took the vacuum in, the man from the phone was not there, and the dude who was there told Bonnie to leave the vacuum and call back later. So she did. When she called back the next day, the proprietor told Bonnie he would give her "seven and a half" for the vacuum. "Dollars?" Bonnie clarified. "Yeah, seven and a half dollars," the guy said. Needless to say, Bonnie accepted and traded our broken vacuum for a cool seven and a half.

On a totally unrelated note, I paid a visit to Smith's yesterday, and here's what I came away with:

Normally, all of this would have cost $58.19. But thanks to some excellent couponing by me, I walked away with everything you see here for $9.80. After you finsih gasping in awe, consider this nugget: just the Breyers ice cream, milk, and bread cost $8.20. So the other 20 items cost a whopping $1.60. That's $.08 per item. Yeah.

Goings on

Abs enjoyed some yummy homemade pancakes that her dad made yesterday. I'd like to post a video sometime, but it may be only funny to me...


We love this sling that my friend made for me. We've used it to take walks, hang around the house, and to go get the mail. Unfortunately for the later part of this week we've had to bundle up like this to go outside:


This is us yesterday:

Merry President's Day!

I want me some Shabby

I have found a few Shabby Apple giveaways lately, but I've not been a winner. :( Here's to hoping I win this one! www.fingerprintsonthefridge.com

I love Shabby Apple, even though I've never owned a garment of theirs before... they are so pretty and feminine.

I just discovered their little girl dresses yesterday, too! I think they are so cute.

I love this girl's sassy little pose.

If you aren't willing to pay the full price (these dresses are kind of pricey), this giveaway I found also has a coupon code for 10% off:

fingerprintsonthefridge10off

This giveaway ends on February 20th! Go buy Abby something for her birthday! Haha!

Valentine for my daughter

Dear Abby,
I love you.

You are such a good sleeper. I love that about you. You sleep all night. We’re talking 8:30 to 8:30. I love it.

You are so special.

I love how you make me feel.

I love how your little spirit helps make our apartment feel like a home.

You love to nurse. Thank you for being so good at it. I love to feed you.

You let me feed you AND you also feed yourself. You are so funny when you feed yourself with your chubby fingers.

You are even better than we expected.

You nurse quietly and then babble to yourself when you are done. You like to talk to no one and wave your arm around, like you are conducting music only you can hear. You grab at my face, my check, my lips, my teeth, my hair.

You like to play with your books- you love to play on the ground by yourself, but you squeal with delight when we get down and play with you. You love to take apart your diaper bag and eat everything inside it. You also play with my pump bag. You LOVE to tear the DVDs off of the shelf. That is a daily activity.

A lady at the store thought you were so cute when you were with your daddy the other day that she gave you a balloon. You are playing with it with the string off, and it confuses you to no end when it will suddenly floats away from you.

You totally go with the flow and accompany me on errands and out to dinner. Thank you for being so chill.

You say Mama more than anything else, and I LOVE it.

I love how you have made our lives better.

Thank you for being so wonderful.

You are so sweet… if I could only use one word to describe you, it would be that.

You are so tolerant of us and our being new parents.

You love TV. I kind of hate that.

You have changed my life forever.

I love you so much it hurts.

I love holding and kissing and cuddling you.

I love watching you sleep.

Your daddy loves you so much. He calls us “his girls.”

I love your hiccups and sneezes, and I already miss your newborn noises- I never thought a
baby could be so noisy when they slept…

I love how you get excited when me or your daddy come home.

Those are certainly not the only things that I love about you. But it's a start.

Love, your Mom

Valentine for my husband

You are my Valentine. I love that you like to cook. I love that I get to spend every day with you. I love that you are so smart. I love that you are so generous and kind. I love that you take care of me when I am sick. I love that you are funny. I love that you love to eat and enjoy food as much as I do! I love that you love to coupon. I love that you are such a good father. I love that you love your daughter. I love that she is excited to see you when you walk in the door. I love that you helped me every night after she was born, staying up with me even though you were just watching us nurse and bringing me snacks and water. I love that I get to be with you forever. I love that you love me.

Those are certainly not all of the things that I love about you. But it's a start.

I love you!!

Love, your wife

(image found here)

Right Now

Yes. Sometimes we play with spatulas.

Have a great day!

Flashback and crazy weather

Here's a little mother-daughter portrait from exactly one year ago today. I was 29 weeks pregnant with the little miss. I took a picture every week (almost) of the two of us.

Here we are a few weeks ago. I like us better this way.

In other news, it is crazy windy here all of a sudden. I am going to work tonight and am slightly worried I'll be blown away.

Anniversary

Today is my and Spencer's 9 year dating anniversary.

We met at the Glenwood apartments in Provo while we both were attending BYU. I remember the moment I met Spencer, although he actually doesn't remember this. When we actually met the first time, my roommate Shannon and I were at church and sat next to our friend Jason, who was a freshman and one of Spencer's roommates. It was the beginning of fall semester. Spencer was sitting a few seats away from me, and Jason quickly introduced us all around before sacrament meeting started.

Spencer doesn't actually remember meeting me until a few days later when I walked over to his apartment (which was down the hallway from mine) and he was sitting outside the door on the phone. That time I was with another freshman roommate of his, Jed. Spencer was on the phone with someone from Brazil. He had just gotten off his mission a few weeks before.

I didn't like him.

I mean, he was a nice guy, but I wasn't interested in dating anyone at the time. Not at all. He liked me right away, though (naturally, of course) and started making it known that he liked me over the next few weeks. My roommates were friends with his roommates so we still saw a lot of each other. After a lot of hanging out, a double date or two, and a painfully awkward confrontation over some unwanted hand-holding, Spencer started to take other girls out.

I was jealous.

I still feel embarrassed admitting that. I was embarrassed then- to the extent that I wouldn't tell him that I was jealous and that must mean that I liked him, and one of my best friends Ruth had to finally ask if she could please tell him, because it was driving her crazy that I wouldn't. I am lame, it has already been pointed out to me. Ruth was our go-between for the next day or two, and Spencer cancelled any other plans he had made with the other girls. We finally had our first one-on-one date on February 1st. Followed by our first kiss later that night.

We've been dating ever since.
We dated for 20 months straight and celebrated February 1st as our anniversary, eventually to be replaced by our wedding anniversary.

I love you, Spencer!