Book Suggestions

In an effort to spend more time together as a family and to force ourselves to be more productive we've cancelled our TV. So, because of this, I'll now have time during naps to either take naps myself or read books, the only problem is that I need some books to read. I have very well read friends who, I'm sure, could give me lots of suggestions. So, have any? I'm not that into sci-fi (Twilight was about my limit with weirdness) but will take suggestions on just about anything else. I'm planning a trip to the library as we speak.

Baby #2

Due beginning of June! 16 1/2 months apart, nothing but fun will be had in our house! A few more weeks and we'll let you know if it'll be a brother or sister. We couldn't be more thrilled.

Christmas pictures

More like snapshots really but we think she's pretty cute.

Thank you to Aunt Staci for the Christmas outfit. For those of you who are worried that these are the best Christmas pictures we'll have of her, don't worry, we're going to the mall tonight for her free "Baby's First Christmas" ornament from the Picture People (and Wes and I are still in discussion about going to visit Santa Claus, which I'm positive she'll hate, and I think is a waste of $14, Picture People should be good enough.)

We got our most recent heating bill

and decided that we all just need to put on a few extra blankets. Here is Haley's extra blanket (aka, sack); so far so good. She can't play with it that much (she figures out a way to play with anything) and Wes sleeps okay knowing that it can't cover her mouth and nose. Not to mention it sort of reminds me of a little baby and I kinda like that (and I hope it will allow us to turn down the heat for bank account's sake). Wouldn't we all like to sleep zipped in a sleeping bag every night?

This...

Sorta reminded me of this...

This was Haley before going out to see the city's Christmas tree lighting, for some reason, they always plan city events on the worst weather days of the year.

Walking Toy

This is the perfect gift for under the tree, it's one that she won't lose interest in and she loves. The only problem with that is that we were afraid that she'd be walking on her own if we waited much longer so she got her Christmas gift a few weeks early. I know the video is dark but she's showing off anyway. She's actually gotten much faster with this in the last week or so and unless she's pushed it against a wall she can turn it herself and go anywhere. She's such a big girl, and I think she's starting to figure that out.

This was Haley's reaction when we told her about Santa Claus

Catching up

It's been a while since we updated, I need to get my act together, here is some of what we've been doing.

We went to see Reba at the new Allen Events Center. She is awesome.

This is the best picture we got from someone, they may or may not have been serving alcohol in the suite.

Haley is still a doll face (Aunt Brittnay came for a visit but kept all of the pictures of our adventures on her camera, share please?!).

Just relaxin' after church.

Pretty sure this is Saturday morning since Wes' hair looks so awesome.

Haley turned 10 months.

and learned to read.

We also had Haley's first Thanksgiving. We were planning on going to friends' house but I was getting over some awful stomach sickness so we stayed home and Wes was the hero of the day. we had a great ham, canned corn and packaged mashed potatoes. It was somewhat non-traditional but great. (Wes made me sit in the picture so we could get the full description of the sicky, I now see why.)

Heavy Sleeper

Haley just woke up from her nap, can you tell exactly where her hand was for most of that nap?

Halloween

What can I say, she's kind of a health food nut.



Here are some pictures of Haley with her darling cousins.





I had to add this, one of the most handsome Air Force fighter pilot ever.

Nanny Annie

My nephew Charlie came up with this name in anticipation of my 10 days of being their live-in nanny. I do have to say that 3 kids is a lot more work than 1, but having one of them who is 6 and can entertain babies really helps. Here are some highlights (the common theme among them is clearly my tidy housekeeping).

Baby Leisl is a big smiler, she'll smile at anyone with this big bashful grin, I hope she gave Haley some lessons.

Despite what it looks like here, she is laughing with delight, their sink is the perfect size for a Haley bath and she loved it.

Although we're always glad to get back to our regular routine, I do miss those little guys- why do we all live so far away?!

Haley Crawling

Well, sort of.

Just for him

Ben Basilius

Staci came for a visit which was great. I did come to the conclusion though that D.C. is a whole lot more fun for visitors, in fact, if we didn't have Haley I'm not sure we'd have any real pull to get people to come to Dallas. So, thanks for making the trip Stace, even if we just shopped and ate.

Hair trauma

First time with "pig tails."

She's not a huge fan of what it takes to get the rubber bands in the hair and when Wes tries to protest on her behalf, I insist that this is a must for all little girls- moms pulling hair is just something you have to get used to (you should have seen the fits my sisters pulled and my mom NEVER let up, I understand now).

Haley also got her second haircut. She really needed it, the hair was constantly in her eyes and she was looking a bit shaggy. So, I got out my super special IKEA scissors and I cut it all the way around.

Before

After
(although now that I'm looking at this picture, it might still look a bit shaggy)

We all like making bows

Haley was apparently trying to make bows with me but then got quite annoyed when it started to inhibit her movement (along with the plastic triangle she rolled on right after I took this).

Cougars- 54, The Green Wave-3

side note- "The Green Wave," weird.

The game was super fun. So thankful that the Superdome is closed, we needed a rain break. I felt a little sorry for Tulane because BYU had at least as many fans as they did, and by the end of the game, even their student section was empty.

We began the festivities by going to their traditional "night-before fireside." It was really good, and since it was at the hotel next to ours, it was really good. They had a couple of players speak, the coach and his wife speak, a duet by 2 players and the whole team sing "Armies of Helaman." I had to take a picture and put it next to the one from the game the next day. Ahh, isn't it great?


We went to the Alumni Associations "tail gate" before the game. This is how it went.

1. Yeah! Go Cougars! This is the church parking lot in the middle of the Garden District, kinda cool.


2. $5 for all you can eat spicy sausage, hamburgers, rice and beans. After I saw this, I decided against eating here and got my money back. Wes dug right in. Nasty.
It reminded me of something that might come out of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.
3. This is how our tailgate ended. Haley and me under an umbrella, under a tree. Wes eating his fabulous burger under the tent.

The game was great though. It wasn't that full so I didn't worry about the noise for Haley and there were plenty of open seats around us that we had plenty of room to spread out.


She even managed to get her afternoon nap in, she's a champ.


Wes: "Hey, would you guys take a picture with our kid?"
Cheerleader: "Of course." Grab the baby, assemble themselves into this perfect pose and pass her back, almost in one fluid motion like they rehearse it in practice. Cute though, huh?
Fun times had by all. Wes already has his sights on Tallahassee next year.

Hurricane Tour

On our way out of town we took a little driving tour of the hurricane destruction; it was all the more meaningful with what felt like an impending hurricane that morning (as you can tell by the pictures through the car window).

These pictures are from what was a very middle class neighborhood. The picture of the wall is the levee holding back the water from the neighborhood and you can see the old and new section where it was repaired. It was interesting to see that there are still a lot of houses that are vacant, where right next to them will be a brand new house. There was also a fair amount of construction work going on in this particular neighborhood.


The Lower Ninth Ward was a very poor area of the city that was destroyed, apparently this is the area the media covered most of, people being rescued off roofs and such, this is where we saw the most houses that were condemned and boarded up. This is also where Brad Pitt has his "Make it Right" foundation where he's rebuilding the neighborhood with all of these weird looking houses that supposedly stand up better to storms.

We aren't sure what the spray painted letters on the houses mean, there were lots of houses that way but we assume that it has something to do with the unlivable condition that they're in.

You can't read this sign but it tells the name of several people who died during the storm.

Lots of empty lots like this one, we assumed it meant the rebuilding would begin soon?

Here are the strange looking Brad Pitt houses. I think there are 7 of them total, they are all located on the same street, the first one next to the levee wall.

The Big Easy

BYU playing Tulane in the Superdome in New Orleans was a great excuse to take a little weekend trip. It's only an 8 hour drive so I convinced Wes (BYU football? You all know I didn't have to ask more than once) to take a vacation day and make the trip.

Thankfully Haley was a dream in the car, this is somewhere between Shreveport and Baton Rouge, about 5 hours into the trip.

We arrived a little after midnight.

The theme of our trip was RAIN, lots and lots of rain. This is us waiting out one of the many downpours (just before we called a cab to come get us).


A few hours of dry skies and we went touring the French Quarter. Really cool architecture and I'm sure history, but definitely not somewhere I'd want to be during the Mardi Gras (or night for that matter).

Should I be proud that she could sleep through this or a little embarrassed I took my infant through sin alley?

More randoms of the trip.