Family Pics

One of the best parts about being a stay at home mom is that I have lots of time to learn new hobbies.  My newest project is photography.  I really want to learn how to take amazing pictures.  I took a one day class at Dixie State to learn the basics about my camera and photography.  For my birthday this year Dillon bought me an awesome new lens for our camera and other equipment like a tripod.  Over the Christmas holiday our family was all together so I took some family pictures of everyone.  It was my first attempt at taking pictures like these, but I think some of them turned out all right.  I need to figure out how to take pictures outside in direct sunlight.  I couldn't seem to figure it out  Either everyone was in shadows or they were staring straight into the sun.  The blinding reflection from the snow didn't help either.  I guess that's why I'm just going to have to practice, practice, practice!

There's a Moose in this Hoose

This was an amazing Christmas, probably the best I can remember.  I loved spending time with family, and it was so special to be able to spend the holiday with Autumn.  She is the best gift we could have received this year.  Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last few days.

Laundry Day

Our Weekend in Pictures

A surprise visit from Grandpa, skyping with Grandmas, playing as a family by the Christmas tree, and of course obsessing over the new camera lens that Dillon bought me for my birthday...life can't get much better.

p.s. come visit us in St. George (you know you want to, Krystin Jo)!

Lucky Lady

I have an amazing husband.  This week I got a delivery and inside were the most beautiful flowers I've ever seen.  The note was what got me.  Autumn and I are so lucky to have Dillon.  In two weeks it will be six years since our first date.  I'm so glad that I said yes.

Moolah

This week I got two checks in the mail from Alpine School District for collaboration and CRT results from last year.  It totaled almost $1400. It was a total surprise. I thought that I was going to get about $500 and I had even forgotten about that.  Dillon and I decided to do something fun with the money.  We've been working really hard to save our money lately for grad school, and my intense sense of money guilt was telling me that we should just put the money in the bank, but I know that if we did that it would just get spent on a hundred small things and we wouldn't even really notice that it had been there.  So we decided that we'd spend at least part of it on a trip (I had to satisfy my money guilt by putting most in the bank). I was trying to think of different options and then Southwest came out with an amazing sale: 40% off all of their flights.  So I spent a few hours working out options and looking at a thousand flights and we decided that we're going to San Francisco at the end of January.  It's going to be a blast!  We're going to fly out there and then try to figure out the metro system.  No rental car! That will be an adventure on its own, especially when you add a baby into the mix.  It will be our first big trip with Autumn and it's hard to know exactly how she'll be. She'll be almost 7 months old by then.  That's so crazy how fast time goes.  I'm super excited.  We've been looking up things to do and places to eat because let's face it - when Dillon and I travel it's all about the food.  Any suggestions from those of you who have been San Fran before?

Can't wait to see this...

A little ingenuity

Autumn is getting too strong for her own good. She's in this stage where she'll only sleep well if she's all swaddled up nice and tightly. If she gets even one hand out she'll wake up and won't fall back to sleep. Lately she's been going from this:

To this (in a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes):

And inevitably she'll have one of her hands shoved deep into her mouth and once she starts sucking all hope of sleeping is out the window. No matter how tightly I try to swaddle her she manages to break free through the layers of Velcro. And every day she seems to get faster and better at it. I tried for a few days to get her to sleep with her arms out, but that was a failed project that resulted a few sleepless nights and extremely bloodshot eyes. So I decided that I needed to find a solution. With Dillon's help we came up with the following solution:

Sleeves! I made sleeves out of a pair of baby pants and sewed them onto her little swaddler (her snuggie as we call it) so that she wouldn't be able to get her hands in her mouth anymore. After a three hour nap I came upstairs to see that she still had both arms in.


Success!

Here's Autumn telling you how excited she is about it:

Adios muchacha

Sometimes it's hard being honest. Yesterday UPS dropped off a package from Babies R Us on our porch. It's a power wheels motorized four wheeler toy for a little girl. It was addressed to the people who lived here before us. I don't know where they live now or who they are. I looked up the toy online and it cost $100. It would have been really fun to have for Autumn when she gets a little older. She would have loved it. I could have rationalized that it wasn't my problem that it was sent to the wrong address and just kept it. But I know that if I was in the same situation I would hope that whoever got my package would send it back. That's a lot of money to lose out on. So after being transferred four times to different parts of the Babies R Us customer service line I finally found out that I can just take it back to the UPS store and they'll send it back. I hope it gets to the right people. Moral dilemma averted! I'll miss you Dora.

She's on a roll!

Autumn rolled over for the first time yesterday!!  Dillon and I were both there to see her first time.  It was awesome.  I pulled out the video camera right away to try to catch it again, but she wouldn't do it.  So today I decided to give it another try.  I put her on her tummy and she rolled over almost immediately.  She rolls to both sides from her tummy and she'll do it almost immediately when I put her on her stomach.  I can't believe that she's rolling over so soon.  I've hardly given her tummy time so I figured that she wouldn't learn how to roll over for quite a while.  She usually just buries her head in the carpet when I do give her tummy time.  I didn't know that she was getting so strong.  I can't believe how proud I am of her.  What is it going to feel like the first time she has a piano recital or the first time she brings home an A in math? I'm going to explode with pride.  I love her so much.  I just wanted to watch her roll over a thousand times.  I'm sure that's all Dillon and I will be doing this weekend.

Vegas Baby!

Last weekend I got to go on a weekend trip with some of my friends from home (Kelsey, Kaylynn, and Chandra).  I was a little bit nervous to go because I had to leave Autumn behind with Dillon for a couple of days.  I knew that Dillon would do a good job with her, but I just hadn't been away from Autumn for more than a few hours at a time since she was born.  We left for Vegas on Friday with Autumn in tow.  Dillon was going to come pick her up from me after he was finished with work.  We spent the day shopping at the outlets in Vegas.  It was a really fun day.  I overcame my intense money spending guilt and actually bought myself some fun things.  There are so many outlets down there.  I'm excited to go again someday with Dillon.  Autumn was so cute coming along in her little sun bonnet. She liked the new purse that I bought.  She's already stealing it from me.  This is going to be a problem...

Kelsey's mom got us a great deal on the Monte Carlo hotel.  I've never stayed right on the strip so that was a cool experience.  The pool was awesome.  There was a wave pool and a lazy river.  Too bad it was kind of ruined by all of the hung over partiers who were drinking and smoking in the pool.  I kind of had a hard time getting past how gross a lot of the people in Vegas were.  The room was nice though and the bed was super comfy.  We had so much fun staying up late at night talking and laughing.  It reminded me of all of the fun times we'd have in high school together.

On Saturday we played at the pool for a bit and then took the bus to the Stratosphere so we could ride the thrill rides at the top of the building.  It was fun to take the bus and see Vegas in a different way.  I'm glad that we were able to go to the stratosphere.  They weren't the funnest rides in the world, but it was fun to experience them.  The view was amazing.  




Later that night we got to eat dinner at "The Olives" at the Bellagio.  We had a table out on the patio so we were able to watch the Bellagio fountain show while we ate our fancy dinner.  It was definitely the fanciest place that I've been to before.  The food was really yummy.  I was proud of myself too because I didn't order the cheapest thing on the menu! Whenever I go to an expensive place, my money guilt flares big time, but I didn't succumb this time.  It was really fun to dress up and go to a fancy place.

The next morning Dillon came to pick me up and he brought my baby back to me.  I missed her so much.  I was so excited to give her 1000 kisses.  Luckily we didn't leave Vegas right away, because a couple of hours later Kaylynn gave me a call.  She was supposed to be flying home from Vegas because she needed to leave a day earlier than Kelsey and Chandra because of a certification class she had to take.  There ended up being some mechanical problems with her airplane and they didn't think they would be able to fix it.  There weren't any other flights to SLC that day.  Luckily she was able to get a flight out of St. George, but it left 3 hrs after she called me.  We had to rush to the airport and pick her up and drive to St. George as fast as our little car would take us.  It was exciting to try to beat the clock.  We made it to the airport in St. George 15 minutes before her flight left.  It was nice to be able to have an opportunity to help a friend out too.  I know that Dillon was kind of bummed that he had to leave Vegas early, but he is always happy to be of service. I want to take him back sometime soon to make it up to him.  Luckily we're pretty close.  Next time I want to do a fancy Vegas buffet.