Grandma's Kitchen

Hannah loves the kitchen.  I mean, she loves it - everything about it.  

She likes helping me bake.  

She gets excited when the mixer comes out. 

She loves her spot on the stool helping me.  

She likes the water - just turning the faucet on is lots of fun.

She really likes washing dishes - mostly because of the soap suds.

She loves to play in my pots and pans, stacking and organizing them.

Let's just say she's had fun in Grandma's kitchen.  She has lots of fun cupboards and drawers to play in.  Here she is playing with the different mixing bowls. 

Cousin Fun

We made it home for Christmas.  Hannah is thrilled with the new house to explore and all of the toys.  She has had fun playing with her cousins.  Here's a picture of her and cousin Ellie practicing their piano skills.

And here they are giving luvs:

18 Months

She had her 18 month check up a few weeks ago and here were the stats:

weight: 98 %

height: 50%

I had the sock drawer open 

 while I was packing and she climbed the ladder of her new bed/play pen and crawled right into the sock drawer.  I actually had the camera in hand so I snapped a quick picture before getting her out.

Yes, that's our little chunker.  She's officially been demoted from whole milk to 2%.  She has finally recovered from all the shots.  Not only did she have her immunizations, but also the flu shot, a tb test, and had her blood drawn to be tested for lead.  It was a rough couple of days for her.  Apparently she takes after me and has very small veins that are hard to find.  After 2 unsuccessful attempts at the doctor's office they sent us to the lab, where they finally got her blood.  It was not fun for either of us.  She screamed and screamed and screamed while I got to hold her down.

I'm just glad it's over, but I'm afraid she has a fear of doctor's offices now.  A week after her doctor's visit I went to my prenatal checkup and brought her with me.  She was perfectly content until we entered the examining room - then she started to scream.  My entire appointment and ultrasound were completed with her in my arms.  It wasn't particularly fun, but it was the fastest doctor's appointment I've had yet. 

Whew

Hot water.  We finally have HOT water.  After it being gone for 4 days, it is so good to have back.  We missed it profusely.  I know we don't have freezing cold temperatures here, and we lived without it for 2 years, so I shouldn't complain.  But, when we didn't know it was going to be turned off or when it would be turned on, we got pretty cranky without it.  Now we can go back to clean dishes, and long relaxing showers in warmth!  hooray.

Winter

The weather is our favorite thing about LA (the only really redeeming factor).  The mornings and evenings are pretty cool, but the days warm up and are usually nice and pretty sunny.  It's great!! We love it, but my morning runs with Hannah are pretty chilly.  So, I decided we needed to make a hat and mittens to keep her warm.  Here she is trying them on for me.  I couldn't get her to stand still, so it's a little blurry.  She really liked them at first, but now I have a very hard time keeping them on her.  Oh well!

The Newest Addition to the Family....

Our double jogging stroller!!!

Our double jogging stroller!  I know it might seem lame, but I am pretty excited about it.  We were planning on buying one, but they are so expensive so we haven't done it.  Plus, it takes up lots of room and we had to find a spot for it.  Anyway, thanks to Craigslist we got a decent deal on one.  It's definitely been used, but it was just what we were looking for.  We decided to test it out with Hannah and her baby doll in the infant harness.  They seemed to like it.   

 

Here's the rain tarp.  It doesn't rain very often, but when it does I hate not being able to go outside or get any exercise.  So, we made sure we got one with a rain cover.  Hannah thought it was pretty funny.

Our Little Climber

This post is about a month overdue, but we don't have much else to report on.  Several weeks ago Hannah entered the climbing phase.  One day she just decided to start climbing out of the blue.

  

She first discovered the chairs.  We quickly learned to push them in so she couldn't stand on them.  

 

She then crawled from chair to chair under the table until she bonked her head and decided it wasn't fun anymore.

She has since learned to move the chairs and we've given in to letting her stand on them to reach the table.  She's also started trying to feed herself and absolutely loves being in the real chair like a big girl. 

We've learned that we can't leave anything out.  Well, we still forget now and then, but luckily nothing of major importance has been destroyed...yet.  I've also learned that the computer only comes out during nap time and after Hannah's bed time.  She loves getting her hands on it and we haven't figured a way around it other than not using it.  HEhe.

I guess that's life.  Not to exciting, but that's all we've got!!

She's Back

After a very very long week of crankiness, whiny-ness and general orneriness she's back to her happy self.  Honestly, this whole time change thing was not fun.  Benjamin Franklin obviously did not have children when he came up with it. We're seriously thinking Arizona is the place to live.  All I have to say, is I'm glad it's over and I'm not looking forward to it again in the Spring.  Maybe we can boycott it.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween!  Here's Hannah in her costume.  It was the easiest and cheapest thing I could think of doing.  Considering she doesn't know what Halloween is and she's not going to be doing trick or treating I didn't feel like doing anything elaborate (or maybe it's just laziness) :D.  But, she seemed to have fun in her tutu.

 Here she is modeling the costume.  We went to a retirement center with some other kids to visit some of the elderly.  She had lots of fun and the old ladies adored her.

Here she is the night of our ward party.  She didn't understand the concept of trick or treating for candy, but she sure liked to carry the bag around.  It looks like we definitely have a girl on our hands.

Our Little Baker in the Making

Last night James needed to do some studying before Hannah went to bed. It was a cooler evening, so we decided to do some baking. Hannah was such a big help.

She had so much fun stirring all of the ingredients. I'm pretty sure she ended up wearing as much flour as we used, but she seemed to enjoy it. I think her favorite part was the mixer.

I personally love the flour mustache.

Here she is enjoying the finished product.

So Sad

We are currently transitioning from 2 naps a day to 1.  This is the face I see looking up at me quite often throughout the day.  What a sad little face.  I'm afraid we'll be seeing this until she gets adjusted to a new routine.  So fun.

AMAZING

This Sunday the Bishop told us we could try taking Hannah to the nursery.  She's only 16 months old, but the nursery is so small they could handle another little one, as long as she did okay.   She did great.  I thought I might have to stay with her, but she saw the toys and ran.  Can I just say church was.....AMAZING!

Hannah's Blanket

Here's a rag blanket I made for Hannah a few weeks ago.  It was starting to get cold and the 2 we brought with us aren't going to be enough for the winter.  However, since I made the blanket it's been HOT...go figure.

Reasons Why We Love LA

Sorry about the sarcasm - I really try not to be sarcastic generally, but it's not working so much.  Anyway, these are currently the top reasons why we love LA:

1. Traffic. We are learning to live with the traffic, but we've never experienced it on a Sunday before.  We left for the church Sunday morning with just enough time to get there and sit down before conference started.  The 2 mile trek usually takes about 10 minutes with no traffic Sunday morning.  However, a major street was closed due to a bike race.  Eventually we got to church - 40 minutes later.  On the way home we thought the road would be opened...but no....apparently it was a really long bike race.  It took us over an hour to drive 2 miles.  Yikes!!

2.  Theft of Bikes.  James came with 2 bikes:  one he likes and another, older one.  He's only been riding the old one to campus because he decided the other one is too nice.  We were planning on bringing it home at Christmas time and leaving it there.  We figured it was just a matter of time until the other, old bike got stolen on campus.  However, we weren't really expecting both of them to disappear while locked in our own secured parking garage.  That's what happened today--BUMMER.

3.  Theft of Newspaper.   We ordered a subscription of the LA Times for the Sunday edition to be delivered back in August.  The first 2 weeks we got the newspaper without problem.  Since then, we haven't received it, although it has been delivered each time.  Every week we notify them we never received it and sometimes they deliver another copy and sometimes they just credit our account. 

Anyway, these are the top 3 reasons why we love LA at the moment.  Ok - don't get me wrong, we really do like living here some days more than others.  I'm feeling especially guilty about my bad attitude especially after President Monsons' talk on Sunday.  We really do have a lot to be grateful for, it's just been an annoying couple of days.  Oh well...that's life.

Simple Fun

The other day I was cleaning out our dresser (It's time to make a drawer for my maternity clothes/baby clothes).  Anyway, I left the bedroom to get something and came back in to find Hannah just sitting and playing in the drawer. 

Good Corn

Here is the first successful attempt at eating corn on the cob.  She loves this stuff, but has a hard time eating it on her own.  She finally figured it out.

It looks like our little guys is really a little gal.  At the first ultrasound the doctor said he thought it might be a boy, but it was to early to tell.  At the next appointment he confirmed...it's a girl!

Girls Weekend

I just got back from our 2nd annual girls weekend.  This year we took advantage of my parents time share (convenient how we get to use their things while they're a few thousand miles away) and spent 3 nights in Breckenridge, CO.  It was a beautiful town with lots to do.  We mostly spent time doing girlie crafts and chit chatting.  It was fun, but I have no pictures to show for it.  I didn't even take our camera.  My sister, the family photographer, has us squared away in that department, but no pictures to post yet.  Sorry.  My sisters wiped me out.  So much for me being the young one with energy.  Usually every night by midnight I had to go to bed, while they stayed up for several more hours.  I don't know how they did it.  I'm still recovering.

Hannah's New Dress

Here Hannah is sporting her new outfit I just finished making.  I got the pattern from here.   It was pretty simple and I think it turned out okay. I made myself a matching skirt with the elastic thread so that it will grow with my expanding waistband.  Anyway, it was kind of a fun project.

I liked the dress, but I'm not to sure how I feel about the headband.  It's a little much for me.  But, isn't that a great cheeser!


After I made the dress I realized I was going to need to make those bloomer things to go underneath.  I didn't have a pattern so I just took a pair from another dress and tried to copy it.  Here she is trying them on:

and being super baby

I just liked this picture.

A Little Organization

This is the spot where all the odds and ends are placed:

 

The mess has been driving me crazy.  It took me forever to finally get to, but it's now a little more organized:

James even promised me he would hang his keys up.  Hooray.  I feel so much better about life with that clutter gone.  Let's see how long it lasts.

Labor Day

For labor day we made the trek out to WINCO - a pretty awesome grocery store.   It's kind of like a cross between a normal grocery store and a Costco or Sams.  There are some things in bulk, but a lot of things are normal size.  Every thing's a little bit cheaper there, but the best part about it is you can use coupons.  We stocked up on lots of things like meat, bread, LOTS of cheese, veggies, etc....

Anyway, after spending 2/3rds of our monthly grocery budget we returned home.  James spent the rest of the day studying while I cooked meat, chopped veggies, shredded cheese, shredded some more, and got all of our food stored in the freezer.  

Sadly enough, this actually excites me.  I like having things organized.  Here's a picture:

I used Hannah's shoe boxes to separate meats, veggies, and some of the cheese.  Looking at the picture now, it's not very neat, but at least I know where everything is.  Now I want to make cookies - the hard part will be finding space. 

Car Alarms

We hear lots of car alarms all day long and during the night.  I swear some of them are set off if you look at them for too long.  Anyway, we're pretty used to them, but there was one so loud this morning, at around 4 am that it woke us up.  I counted - there were 117 horn honks before it shut off.  Grrr.  Well, at least we got an early start to the day.

We're Expecting....

So, I was thinking I'd do something cute to post about this - but our camera is out of commission and I don't have any other creative ideas.  So, this is as exciting as it's going to get. 

We're having a baby.  We found out almost 2 months ago....BUT....we have had a very difficult time working out insurance and finding a doctor.  Luckily, I think everything's figured out.  I had an ultrasound yesterday and everything looks good.

Our expected D Day is February 19th.  We don't actually know it's a boy for sure....but we think it is.  Here are two of the ultrasound pictures:

 

This is a profile view.  The thumb is about to go into the mouth.  Apparently he's going to be a thumb sucker. 

 Here's a shot looking at him straight on.  I told James it kind of looks like Pinocchio.  Anyway, I can't believe the amazing technology there is.

1st Day of School

James left this morning for his first day of school.  He wasn't too excited about the picture, but I made him take one anyway.  Here he is.  Good luck hon!

Lazy Sunday Afternoon

A couple of Sunday's ago I was getting dinner ready after church while James was putting Hannah down for a nap. This is what I found:

Good Books

Does anyone have any good books to recommend? 

James is starting school next week and I have a feeling he'll be doing a lot of studying in the evenings.  So, I need to have something to do that's quiet and won't wake Hannah up.  I'd love any suggestions.

14 Months

I can't believe she's already 14 months old.  That's crazy to me.  Here's what she's been up to:

* she is now a screamer - when she's happy, angry, or frustrated she is very vocal about it.

* she walks all over the place and is learning to run from us.

* she loves to transport things, particularly from under the bathroom sink to the bathtub.

She recently discovered the toilet and we've had a hard time keeping her out of it.  I usually just try to keep the bathroom door shut, but when I'm in the bathroom getting ready she's usually in there.  I looked into a toilet lock, but those things are like $10, so we now have James' toolbox on top so she can't open the lid.  I'm hoping that cures her.

Gunshots

Around 3 this morning we woke up to the sound of a few gun shots.  We don't generally here that, but it didn't seem odd or out of place to me.  I thought to myself...hmm.. someone just shot a gun.  Oh well....then rolled over and went back to sleep.  Yikes!

Walking Frankenstein

About 2 weeks ago Hannah started walking all over the place. I guess she just decided it was better than crawling. She's getting much better at it each day, but she still has her arms up and looks like a little Frankenstein. Here are a few pictures to prove it:

Ant Invasion

Just in case you were wondering, I hate ants. HATE them. After living with hordes of them in Thailand (massive fire ants, big black ones, brown ones, little fast ones, etc....) you'd think I would have learned to handle them. I did learn to cope with them, but I never thought I'd have to live with them again. Apparently, that was not correct. We have ants here. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. We were free of them until last week. There's a litte space at the entrance to the apartment complex where all the mailboxes are along with a garbage can. I don't know what someone put in the garbage, but it attracted ants. Lots of them...for several days. It was so yucky to me, that I would go out of the way and walk up the stairs so I didn't have to go through that. This may seem like a simple thing, but when you're carrying Hannah and groceries those stairs get very long. Anyway, after those ants appeared, we found some in our place. Yuck!

Day 1: A few were found wandering around. That means trouble. We learned in Thailand if there's 1 you might be okay - it could be a scavenger. If you see 2 you're in trouble - there are lots more hiding somewhere close.
Day 2: We find the motherload - they're coming out of a little whole in our wall near our door and walking along the floor boards trying to find somehwere else to go or something to eat. James kills them. Hannah and I evacuate while the fumes fade.
Day 3: We find a couple in our bathroom. Bathroom? Stupid ants. There's nothing for them to eat in the bathroom...and it's easy to just wash them down the drain. Anyway. James found another hole where they were coming in from the floor below us.
Day 4: I'm on the lookout and don't see any. We think we've beaten the battle.
Day 5: We find some in our hall closet. We pull everything out. Fumigate. Let the fumes clear out and then put everything back in...

We are now to day 7 and I haven't seen one since day 5. Hoorray. I'm still on the look out. Actually, I'm always on the lookout. I have the eyes for ants. I can spot them accross the room with my glasses off. It's a talent I've had lots of practice developing while James has become a professional exterminator. I'm hoping we're clear of them, but we shall see. I do take some satisfaction in knowing they never found any little crumbs to feed themselves off of in our apartment. However, it does make me a little nervous about the people the live below us and what we have crawling around in the walls...I'm not going to think about it. Anyway, this may seem like a very long post about ants. It is. Because I HATE them, and we have nothing else going on to report.

Random Pictures

We've been sick....and I'm sick of being sick. We've had colds and coughs and sore throats for the past week. James has been going to work but comes home exhausted. Hannah and I stay in the apartment all day and we're pretty sick of it, but don't quite have enough energy to go out and about. I think (maybe it's just wishful thinking) that we're on the mend. So, we haven't done anything lately. Here are just a few random pictures of Hannah from the past few weeks.



She loves playing with our pillows on the bed.


Here's our little jungle gym. :D


We successfully received our first mailed package. Our intercom works and I was home when the UPS guy came. Hannah loves playing with the box. It was the best toy for about 2 days.


She also loves playing in front of the mirrors. Good thing we've got lots of mirror with our closet doors. I'm pretty sure James is never going to see them clean. I clean him during the day when he's at work and there are always lots of handprints on them by the time he gets home from work. Oh well...she's having fun and I'm pretty sure he doesn't care.

Our First Outing

So, today Hannah and I had our first real outing outside the area where we live. We were on a mission to go to JoAnns and Michaels. The closest fabric store is about 13 miles away. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. The Michaels store was on a busy road and all the metered parking was full. There was a parking complex for $5 a day. There's no way I'd pay $5 to shop for an hour, but it was full anyway. So, we bypassed Michaels and headed to JoAnns. We finally made it, but it was a little dissapointing. They don't have the best selection of anything. That's okay, but the downer was that I had looked at the sales ad for California and what they had on sale didn't match the sales ad. So, I didn't end up getting much. I have a feeling, that if it's going to take 45 minutes to get there, we won't be making that outing very often. This is probably a good thing - maybe I'll spend less. :D

Cell Phone

I have a new, local, cell number. I sent out a text to everyone in my phone book with the number, but some people didn't get it. Let me know if you need it.

Back in America

So, this weekend we decided we wanted to get out of the city and see something besides buildings and cement. We took a scenic drive along the coastline for a few miles. We got out at an overlook to take a picture and walk around. It was so nice - you could actually breathe in fresh air. It was really pretty.




We then drove to the largest park in North America. We took a little walk along a trail and stopped to take some pictures with the Hollywood sign in the background. It's kind of far away, but you can see it.





It was nice to get out of the city. We drove through some nicer neighborhoods and actually saw other white people - in fact the majority we saw were Caucasian. It was kind of nice - it felt like we were back in the US for a while. :D Anyway, it was a nice little trip we took.

The Move

Here's a shorten, condensed version of the move from Logan to LA. It was only a 2 day process, but felt like much longer. Here's our trailer:


To give you a better idea of the size, here it is attached to the truck. We actually had plenty of space. It was the weight we were worried about. Anyway...




Here's Hannah at the beginning of the trip:


I wish I could say she stayed that happy the entire way, but not quite. She actually did pretty well (all things considering). We had a few good cry sessions, but survived. I thought the forward facing car seat would be a good thing, but it just let me watch her as she cried. Not so fun!!

We arrived in LA the second day and saw our apartment for the first time. It's pretty much what we expected, except maybe a little smaller. But, we spent the afternoon unloading everything. We had a disaster. Here are a few random pics to show how bad it was:











We spent the next day trying to get everything put away. I'm happy to report that it is much more organized, but it's still ugly. I'm trying to help it out with curtains and that kind of stuff, but it needs a lot of help. We're kind of in the ghetto - not quite East LA, but still not the best neighborhood. The complex where we live is good. There are lots of kids and 2 other lds families (hooray!!). But the surrounding area is pretty ugly. But for now it is home. I'll post some picture when I get some decorations up.