family stats

Just want to list some things about ourselves lately...



Oscar
-now always has dirty hands, knees, and feet from crawling
-sticks anything and everything in his mouth
-loves being independent; for example holding his own spoon while eating
-he has super man strength
-loves to escape the diaper change, it's super annoying because of his super man strength
-his hair is getting longer and as it grows some curls have developed. it's also getting lighter
-he always sounds like an animal or a dinosaur. he grunts, growls, and screams noises that resemble a bear or a pterodactyl
-he's so wild and crazy in the morning when he first wakes up. he wrestles with nate in the mrnings
-he has his daily poop in his bouncer/jumper thing while jumping for joy, it's really funny
-he's ticklish everywhere but his most sensitive tickle spot are his inner thighs
-he's discovering his own privates
-just learned how to stand on his knees in his crib. he's so tall that even while on his knees, his head is above the top of the newly lowered crib

Me:
-I finally got the emergency preparedness bug and am going crazy trying to stock our house with a 3 month supply of water, food, medical supplies, etc. My eyes have been opened to a whole new world of food storage, and I'm overwhelmed. If you have any tips for beginners, I really welcome them
-I've learned a lot from the show Intervention. People give me grief for watching such a "depressing" show, but it's allowed me to realize that my neighbor across the street is either a heroin, meth, or crack addict.
-I've been mixing up my pronunciation of B's and V's in English. I know people that go on a mission and learn a new language sometimes exaggerate and say they've forgotten how to speak English. It's not like that. I just developed this recently and it's bizarre. In case you don't know, in Spanishs a B and V are most times the same exact sound, and even Spanish speakers misspell things like cerbeza, when it's cerveza.
-I've been working for months and months doing interviews, making videos, writing essays to apply for this show on BYUtv called the Generations Project and just finally got denied. I got really far in the process so I thought I was going to get it, but I didn't.
-I've been really interested in the Wisdom literature of the book of Proverbs and, as always, the grace vs. works issue. Nate and I started Romans
-I've given up on insisting on finishing a book just for the sake of finishing it; i.e. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Hilarious voice, but doesn't grab me. Thanks Alison.
-I'm always into sort of t.v. personalities for their influence and ideals. Right now they're Ellen, Suze Orman, Rabbi Schmuli, and Matt Damon
-I still wear my bra at all times, including while I sleep, and I'm pretty sure I'll keep this habit until I die




Nate
-Really into interior design and trying to learn anything he can to fix up our house
-Gets hot very easily
-Still always trys to surprise or scare me or oscar in some way and is currently trying to teach Oscar the art of surprise
-Is very open minded, considerate, kind, thoughtful, passionate, and humble when it comes to his ever changing and forming ideas of the world and politics around us
-Has to drive if we go somewhere together, kind of a machismo thing
-Finally feels up to speed with knowing what's going on in sports and keeps up with it, but when it comes to music, he sticks to his tried and true favorites such as Simon and Garfunkel, Kings of Convenience (the modern day simon and garfunkel,) Justin Timberlake, and Hall and Oates
-Really good at flossing and not getting cavities, leaving the toilet seat down for me, and leaving his socks everywhere
-Has crazy pains/numbness/tingling in his face sometimes, like shingles, that we are investigating. And he also has chronic terrible migraines.
-Really into saving and IRAs right now
-Loves Coke Zero almost as much as cookies
-Doing really well in school these days as he juggles a full time job and a part time job

we've got a little crawler

At almost 10 months old, Oscar finally decided to crawl. He also has bronchitis:(

a few projects

I haven't really documented any of the progress we've made on our house so far and I need to do so. We definitely bought "a fixer upper" with the intention of doing one project at a time. So basically, it will be years and years before our house is up to par with my idea of a great looking house, but we're alright with that. Nothing good should come quick or easy right?

For my birthday my mother in law gave me a great gift. The gift of wallpaper for one of my kitchen walls, as well as the huge gift of helping me tear down the existing mess and helping me put up the new wallpaper. This is a wonderful gift for someone like me because I love to feel like I am skilled, and learning one more skill (how to put up wallpaper) just makes me feel good about myself.



At some point someone that lived in our house wallpapered directly onto the drywall without any prep to the drywall. Then, someone else came along and decided to texture over the old wallpaper instead of taking it down. So my mother in law Laurel and I were left with the huge task of getting through about 4 layers that seem to be made of cement, only to get to the drywall and realize it's coming away with everything else that we're tearing down.



So that's what my kitchen will look like for a week or so until Laurel gets back from Utah to help me hang up the new stuff. I will be cleaning up all the scraps you still see there in the meantime. And then we can hang this stuff..



It's kind of a grey blue with a gold geometric design. I have blues in my house so it works. I will post the finished product as soon as it's done. I'm really excited.

And our tax refund brought us our next project-the roof. When we moved in, our house inspection stated that our roof needed to be replaced this year and that it was a big fire hazard. I guess in the 80's it was cool to have this kind of wood roof called "shake." So we ended up with a 25 yr old pile of warped wood shingles just waiting to catch on fire in the 120 degree AZ heat and send the whole house into flames. It wasn't really a fun project, it was more of a necessity. Here's the before..


And the process..







And the finished product!

dirty vegas

The shields girls plus mom Christy were going on a girls only/no kids trip to Vegas. They invited me along and and after a drawn out decision making process filled with anxiety and stress, I finally decided to go. I was scared and sad to leave Oscar for the first time but I am so glad I went. Nate basically forced me to go and I am glad he did. Christy is such a fun mom to be on a trip with and we all spent so much time laughing that I nearly peed my pants once. I knew it would be a good trip when Amy mass texted all of the girls telling us not to forget our slutty shoes and lip gloss. (Not a single one of us had a shoe with a heel higher than one inch) We stayed at the Planet Hollywood hotel in a Legends of the Fall themed room. There were pictures of Brad Pitt all over our room, and a steamy one of him directly above the romantic over-sized bathtub. Here are the highlights of the trip...



Friday night we went to a piano bar to see this killer piano duo that took requests w/tips from the crowd all night. We all thought we were big shots when we each gave him requests with $5 attached to each request, until they started announcing their $20, $40, $60, and $100 requests. Turns out $5 won't get you "Only girl in the world" by Rihanna- they totally ignored that request.


Sister slacks purchases. Sooooo much shopping went on in Vegas. ( So much, in fact, that we became delirious from shopping and didn't notice the thief that pick pocketed Tara's purse and stole her wallet right from under our noses. Passport, cash, cards, license. I HATE thieves.) Vegas shopping is a little different in that it entails being attacked by SUPER loud and aggressive club music no matter where you go. Actually, not just shopping, I think there is some kind of city ordinance in Vegas that tourists MUST be bombarded with absurdly loud club music at all times, in all things, and in all places.


Christy was really antsy to go to a club the whole trip. I think mostly it was because she genuinely thought us girls wanted to go and that her "old mom" self was holding us back. We tried to explain to her MANY times that we truly had no interest in going clubbing, but she thought we were just being nice. Finally we decided to educate her on what actually went on in a club so that she'd lose interest in going. We asked her what she thought happened there. She said, " you know just dancing" and then she did a little dance kind of like the mashed potato or the twist. Then we taught her the horrors of what kind of dancing actually went on there. (The sneaky bump you feel from behind you while your minding your own business dancing.) She laughed so hard she almost peed her pants but she didn't believe us. So later that night we get "VIP" passes to go to some club JET for free, and we decide to finally just show her what really happens there. All we had to do was walk down the dark corridor of the club entrance and be attacked by some Pitbull song and she finally understood it was a whole different ball game. We wanted to go in to show her what it was like but we had forgotten Tara no longer had an ID. So here she is after being traumatized by the realization of my generation's filth.


Yes Sally is doing the splits in this picture. We got to go to the The Beatles LOVE Ciique du Soleil show! I almost didn't get to go because I was a last minute addition to the Vegas group and there kind of was no way to just add on a seat next to the group. But Christy worked her magic and got me a ticket and i am SO GLAD she did. Thank you SO MUCH Christy, it was truly the best show I've ever seen. I've been to so many concerts and I really think this was the best show I've ever seen. The music sounded so incredible. It was almost like the amazing sound of a record but more perfect and way louder. They had such good song selection. I think we all were expecting the same old hits that are over played, but they did a great job at choosing Beatles songs that haven't been run into the ground. I also think I loved this show because I have never really found The Beatles appealing. I know, I know, I'm un-American, I understand that. I get that they are the original of everything, but I just have never found their music appealing. This show FINALLY made it click for me, I finally get it. I get the Beatles now, and I love their music.




Cute mom and daughters in the glitz of the mall with the crystal ceiling. Giant drapes and walls of crystals. Glitz, glitz, glitz.

We ended the trip with a bang though. As we were leaving the parking lot of a strip mall off the Vegas strip, I was driving with Sally caravaning with the other girls. I had my window down and was driving slowly through the parking lot as a man runs right past me on my side of the truck. Sally and I both laugh and say, "woah, he for sure just robbed some place. he's running from trouble." He was truly running for his life, sweaty and panicked, but we just kept going and then saw two men that were chasing him. We told them which way he went. We go a couple hundred more feet and see cops zooming into the gas station in front of us and there is a dead body on the ground. Immediately in seconds, ambulances and tons of cop cars swarm into the gas station. There was a woman screaming crying and people everywhere. I almost turned around to go follow the guy without really thinking, but Sally said no, we probably shouldn't. We told the cops what he looked like and what direction he went. No one really seemed too interested and no one of authority was really moving at all. Sally and I were really frustrated that no one went to go chase him. We looked up the story in the news and it turns out the victim who was shot multiple times, hasn't died but is is critical condition and they haven't gotten the guy that did it yet. SO FRUSTRATING. I had such a fun time with the girls and we made some great memories, but I think Sin City is a pretty accurate nickname for Las Vegas.

lezlie

Lezlie came to visit a couple weeks ago and it was such a treat. She stayed with us and just had a good time hanging out and doing nothing cool with us. I love Lezlie more than I can say here and she always gives me a new reason to love her more. You'd think we'd have taken a single picture of ourselves together, but all the documentation I have is this secret filming Dave caught of her just being wagslovnu. One of the reasons I love Lezlie is because she's high on life, she LOVES life. She loves it so much she doodles "love life" on papers at my house. I love her because she loves every app for the iphone, especially ones that have to do with exercise, because she LOVES to exercise in any way she can. So here she is showing us, unbeknown to her, her enthusiasm for her new nike workout app, and showing us some of the moves from that app.

mommy's little piggy

Have you seen this scene from "A Christmas Story?" Here is Oscar recreating it. I was feeding him a banana. He usually focuses intently, using his little index finger and thumb, to pick up food and put it in his mouth. But, yesterday he realized there was an easier method.

spring cleaning

Cleaning isn't that fun but somebody's gotta do it. After a great conversation about cleaning with Alison, I've decided to list my inspirations for keeping clean and tidy belongings so I can get motivated.

1. An ex-bf of mine from the deep south used to say, " My momma always said, 'You can be ugly and you can be poor, but you can always be clean."


2. "Be grateful, be smart, be clean, be true, be humble, be prayerful." Gordon B. Hinkley

3. My memories of mornings in Argentina. Every morning when we'd start walking the streets, EVERYONE had their front doors open and was sweeping and mopping the inside of their homes and the sidewalk in front of their homes. People played their music and had their mate steaming while they went about their daily routine of getting the house in order. We'd definitely consider these homes to be very humble, and some people had dirt floors or dirt front walkways. But they swept and wet them in attempt to keep what they had looking nice.

4. diana ross songs, specifically "I'm Coming Out"



5. My grandma. She has some obscure cleaning project going on every day when I call and ask her what she's doing. "Oh nothing, just wood polishing all my kitchen cabinets and oxi-cleaning the cabinet handles."


What are yours? I need some more so I can get started on my chores.