The Last Catch-Up: The Speed Racer / Dancing Fiend

This video is pretty long, but very cute.  The speed racer portion might drag on a little, but skip to the next part if you get bored because it gets better.  PS - Try to ignore my giggles.  Apparently I'm a giggly person.

More Catch-Up: Garden d'Lights

One last December catch-up. Last Monday we went to the Bellevue Botanical Garden with some of our favorite friends to see the Garden d’Lights. They use Christmas lights to create all sorts of beautiful things, like a pond, a waterfall, an aquarium, corn fields, grapes in a vineyard, and even a monkey! This picture just doesn’t do the place justice.

However, even with all the cool things to look at, I think Damian’s favorite part was splashing in a puddle while some on-looking ladies laughed at him.

Catch-Up Number 2 - KidsQuest Children's Museum

There's this cool place in Factoria called KidsQuest Children's Museum.  It's basically a hands-on museum full of fun things to learn and explore.  I've been meaning to take Damian for a long time, but the price of admission kind of scared me off.  A few months ago, I found out that the first Friday of every month is FREE admission in the evening.  After a couple first Fridays had passed, I finally put it on the calendar as if it was a real appointment - the only way I'd, A) remember, and B) not be tempted to postpone it in favor of playing with friends.  So we went, but our camera did not.  We forgot to bring it.  Luckily, Marty's phone takes pretty decent pictures.  Just don't look too closely if blurry pictures offend you.

There was a room in the Garage area with a bunch of kid-style hammers, nails, etc., and Damian loved playing carpenter with the tools.  Don't tell him, but he's getting a workbench for Christmas this year.  His fascination with the tools just made us that much more excited for his Christmas present.

I know this next picture doesn't look super exciting.  (And, I guess, neither does Damian.)  It's a chalkboard.  But in the background, there's a gigantic Light-Bright!!!  Damian liked playing with it, but I decided we're going to make one like that someday because I freakin' loved it!!!

Last, but certainly not least, we went to the Waterways area.  Damian totally loves water, and he had a blast.  You can't tell in this lame picture, but by the time we were ready to leave, he was thoroughly soaked.  Just the way it should be.  It was so fun to watch him explore, and we can't wait to go back!

Decking the Halls... 2 Weeks Ago

I was doing so great blogging regularly back in November.  Then, for a while, I was waiting for something interesting to happen so I had something to post.  But then the holidays hit.  So I have a few things that I meant to blog earlier, but today is when I'm getting to it.  So here is the first of my catch-ups: decorating for Christmas!

We decided to buy an artificial tree this year.  Fresh tree every year = $40 per year.  Artificial tree = $80 one time.  So, as long as we use it twice, we haven't lost any money.  And I think we'll get our money's worth.  It was a lot of work to fluff the stupid thing (ask Marty about his ornery wife during the whole ordeal), but I love saving money.  Here's Damian helping to trim the half-put-together tree.

As we were pulling out decorations, we found a wreath and Marty thought it would be funny to put it around Damian's neck like a necklace.  Or a race horse.  But the kid totally freaked out.  Here he is tip-toeing around the horrifying wreath after the traumatizing experience.

The poor thing is gritting his teeth and everything.  :-)  Anyway, it took a full week to finish getting the tree put together and decorated, but it's always worth it.  About a week after that, we finally put up our little 4-foot tree, aka, Damian's tree.  Here he is carefully hanging his ornaments. 

He's loved rearranging the ornaments and, um, plugging in the lights every morning.  It kind of scares me that he understands electricity like that, but at least he's putting a plug in the outlet instead of a fork. 

Snow Day!

Yesterday during church, it snowed for the first time this season!  I was also released from my calling in Beehives yesterday and was called to be in nursery (which was devastating at first, but now I'm actually pretty excited), so I was with the little ones when we discovered the white stuff falling from the sky.  The kids were really excited, and they climbed up on a table to look out the window.  Damian had no clue why there were kids on the table, but he wanted to be one of them.  I was excited to introduce him to the snow, but by the time church was over, it had stopped and there wasn't much evidence.  Luckily, today when we woke up, the world was white again.  As soon as we'd had breakfast, we bundled up and took a walk outside in the snow. 

Damian had a lot of fun exploring in the snow.  He looked up at the sky at the falling snow, he picked it up and dropped the cold stuff immediately, and he took me for a walk through our neighborhood.  But he got cold pretty fast, so we came inside after ten or fifteen minutes.  Then I let him discover hot chocolate, which he is definitely a fan of. 

Here's the messy, happy face as proof.  PS, it's also partly messy because he discovered yet another thing earlier.  Gluesticks.  He thinks they're chapstick.  I should stop him, but it's hilarious.  They're nontoxic, right?  :-)

The Big Event

This last Saturday was a big day for Marty's family. His sister got married in the Manti Temple, and now all of his siblings are married! We always love any excuse to get together with their big family, and this was the best excuse of all.

During the sealing, which was beautiful, Damian's cousins watched him. Apparently Damian hit a clingy stage immediately upon arriving in Utah. He usually gets distracted by other kids and loves to play with them and totally forgets that he even has parents. But the girls told me that after a little while, Damian just wanted to look out the window and say, "Momma? Momma?" over and over again. Then during the photo shoot outside the temple after the ceremony, he was definitely the LVP (least valuable player). Look at his face and imagine him screaming for Mommy and Daddy every time they tried to take a picture. Good times. :-)

But he wasn't miserable all day. Just when we tried to tell him what to do. Typical, right? But just as proof that he did smile at least once during the day...

Don't you love his vest? It's actually more of a sweater dress. It was very big on him. He'll be wearing it for the next three Easters. (Joke courtesy of Becca.)

Now I would like to brag about my in-laws a little bit. Not only are the the most fun people in the world, but they are also incredibly talented. Here are a few samples of their work.

Rosemary (Marty's mom) MADE this dress. You probably can't tell how beautiful the lace is, but it's amazing. Now I wish I had asked her to make my wedding dress.

Dindra (Marty's brother's wife) made all these skirts for all the nieces. Imagine big bows on the bums for the littler girls. Aren't they adorable?

And Jamie (Marty's sister) made these cute little shoes out of paper for favors at the bridal shower. Super cute! And I won't even mention how cute my niece is.

And finally, I don't have a picture for this, but Marty's parents and one of his aunts made all the food for the reception: orange rolls, fruit and yogurt parfaits, and yummy steamers, to name a few. (If you've never had a steamer, it's basically sweetened hot milk with autumny spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, etc. DIVINE!!!) The whole trip was fantastic, and I've never been prouder to be part of their family!

Halloween

So. It's been over a year since the last time I blogged. I've decided to try it again. Hopefully this time, there will be more than one post per year. We shall see.

For Halloween this year, we had a costume party to go to and I had a new sewing machine. Put 2 and 2 together, and I decided to go all-out making our costumes. We decided, after much deliberation, to do a Toy Story gang: Damian as Buzz, Marty as Woody, and me as Jessie. It turned out to be pretty cheap to buy the Buzz costume, so my mission was to create the two cowboy costumes. Here is what the three look like in the movie:

And here is how ours turned out:

I sewed my chaps, Marty's vest, and the yellow parts of my shirt. We spray painted my hat and stitched red yarn into it for my hair, but we didn't get a picture of that part. :-( We used existing shirts, but we got to draw the lines on Marty's. And yes, Marty is wearing my Uggs. :-)

I keep trying to decide if this was really worth all the effort. It was fun, up until about midnight on the 29th with lots left to do in less than 24 hours. I mean, we only wore them for maybe 5 hours. We'll just call it practice for when my kid demands some obscure costume that can't be bought. Plus, I found out how dearly I love my new sewing machine. We look like we had fun too, right? :-)

The Pilot Episode

Finally! I know some of you have been waiting forever and ever for me to post something on here, so here we go! Obviously I'm no good at starting a blog, so we'll see if I'm any good at keeping it up-to-date.

About a week and a half ago we celebrated the 4th of July by going to Vancouver, Canada. Pretty patriotic, right? We enjoyed just relaxing and exploring a little bit. There's so much to do there, though, that we'll definitely have to go back!

On Saturday we went to the aquarium in Stanley Park. Marty was thrilled by the jellyfish, I was brave and touched a slimy sea cucumber, and Damian was just fascinated by everything. We were just hoping that Damian would be a good boy, but he loved staring at the colorful fish and everything. Oh, and we had THE best soft-serve ice cream in the world! I don't know if it's a Canada thing or what, but I'd go back just for that!


Sunday we went to Lighthouse Park. There were signs warning about bears and I've recently become terrified of bear attacks, so I was just glad we survived! :-) But we walked out to the coast and sat on a huge rock in the water. We dipped our feet in the ocean, then decided it would be fun to see how Damian would react to the chilly water. He surprised us again: we fully expected him to cry or at least recoil, but not so! He just stomped his little feet and really liked it.


Finally on Monday, we underwent a self-induced torture session, AKA, the Grouse Grind. Marty was dying to do this 2 mile hike that ascends 2800 feet. I agreed on the condition that Marty carried Damian the whole way. Having been through childbirth only three months earlier, this hike was a little intense for me. Okay, I hated it. But Marty loved it, as I knew he would. Damian loved it too, actually, even after it started raining about halfway up. He was hungry for a good chunk of it too, but he didn't start fussing until we were on the gondola ride back down to the parking lot. (Thank goodness for the gondola, I never would have been able to walk back down!)

Ultimately the trip was tons of fun, and we can't wait to go again!