April Showers...

Hopefully this will be the start of better blogging habits. Hurray for naptimes! I'm hoping it lasts long enough for me to get some pictures on here too. Also provided my computer makes it through the upload- it's been running ever slower these days. I realized the other day that it's around 5 years old. My poor little laptop. It has served me well. Anyway, I've been trying to be more productive with my days since we've discovered a few things that we waste too much time on... (aka mindjolt games on Facebook and www.rinkworks.com, which I spend all too often whiling away my free moments on. Don't look them up unless you are willing to deal with the time you will waste. Or unless you have better discipline than we do.) However, productivity has taken a downturn with the weather- today it is rainy and cold and gray and I felt like laying around all day. But I didn't, I finally got up and at 'em after a lovely morning nap. Which was nice since we stayed up until 1 playing each other at online pool. :)

Things are going well for us- Shoe business is ever booming! Thomas hired my best friend McKenzi's husband, Jonny, down in Provo to be a sales rep for him and Jonny has been doing SUPER! Thomas is really happy to have him on the team with him. Michael is back from his tour with Sound Alliance, and I know Thomas is excited that he is back. It was fun getting to help Qait while he was gone- I was able to go help her with unpacking or watching Ender while she got some work done. Last Saturday we got to play with Ender while she did some work for the managing job they are doing, and we were out in the yard cleaning up the mess of eons past... and tenants past. Our yard had been so overgrown for so long, as we raked out the black and decomposing leaves I wondered which fall they were from, and how long the snickers wrapper or bottle cap had been buried in the dirt there. We also just recently found a broken old aquarium buried in the grass and bushes, and last fall we had found the fish body on the other side of the yard. We've also got quite the quackgrass problem, and we are trying to get it all dug out. We are doing fine in the areas where there isn't anything else trying to grow, but in the north corner of our yard (next to our dear Flower*, may he/she rest in peace, whomever and whatever he/she is) we have some beautiful tulips that are growing (which are starting to bud today- no color yet but pictures will follow as soon as it stops raining) and it has been a challenge to try and get all the grass to stop showing them up. It is SOOOOO much easier pulling it up here in the wonderful Idaho soil, rather than in the AZ dirt. It's actually fun!

Anyway so we were out in the yard reclaiming the earth and I was working over in one of the planters by the raspberry bushes, digging out all the grass Thomas had "clawed" out, and I was using a little hand rake to move the dirt, and then I would grab the grass and put it out in the pile. Ender was watching and once in a while he'd poke me or show me the dandelion he found, but pretty much did his own thing. After awhile Audrey needed me so I put down my gloves and tool and I went to sit with her on her blanket. Ender came over and picked up the hand rake and started poking the dirt like I had been, and then every now and then he would put it down and pick up a piece of grass with his thumb and first finger and drop it over in the pile of weeds. It was so cute! He must have played like that in the dirt for almost half an hour. He had such a good time out there with us- slobbering on rocks, eating dirt, and helping to get the grass out! Here are some pictures I took.

Digging...

Picking the grass out!

It's hard work!

What a cutie!

Audrey hangin out on her blanket!

Daddy working hard!

Cheese!

Our first taste of grass... I'm afraid it was a hit.

*more on precious Flower later. (maniacal laughter)

Springtime!!!

I think i just realized the reason I never actually write here. I get so caught up on catching up on other people's blogs that I never actually make it to writing. Stop being so interesting, all you people! :) Well, Audrey turned 7 months yesterday- which totally caught me by surprise. She can't be 7 months already!? But she is indeed. She has almost mastered the art of sitting up, and falling over. She doesn't even cry when she falls nowadays, just kind of looks around stunned-like for a few seconds, and then is just fine. She still hasn't cut that darn tooth- but so close. It's been giving her a really hard time lately. It seems to come in spurts- she will have a SUPER hard time one week, and then it gets a little better, but then it gets worse again. Audrey is so talkative these days- she makes a lot of sounds that are a lot more like words. She makes the "muh-muh-muh-muh" sound when she is sad or when she needs something (usually food), and she makes the "da-da-da-da-da" sound when she's happy and having fun. She loves her daddy! She is learning to imitate sounds that we make- she discovered the "p" sound the other day and experimented with the word "up". She also tries to make a "hi" sound that we make at her. My favorite is when I'm spoon feeding her, I always make a sound when she takes a bite like "ahhhhummmmm!" and she does that every time she takes a bite now. LOVE IT! She is starting to grow out of more clothes now! I feel like she is growing so fast! She finally is chubbing up a bit- she has a belly now! I love it! Her favorite toys are old apple juice bottles, still loves boxes of all kind, paper, and anything musical. Oh and she always covets our cell phones... Thanks to Grandma Ellen who sent her a little toy phone of her own! :D

I mentioned that Audrey is finally gaining weight at a regular pace- when we took her in for her 6 month appointment, they weighed her and she had actually LOST weight between her 4 and 6 month appointments... which was obviously NOT a good thing. She weighed in at just under 11 pounds. So they had us start supplementing each feeding with a couple ounces of formula. At first she really didn't like the formula and wouldn't take it, and then would only take it if it was a certain temperature, in a certain bottle with a certain nipple. But she got much less picky and in fact, ended up much preferring the ease of bottle feeding. Long story short- she gained a pound in a week (hooray!) and has successfully weaned herself. I'm totally fine with that- I think I was more fine with that than Thomas was at first because nursing her was so much cheaper. But I'm so glad she is doing so well with her weight. And she was so much happier!!! And she sleeps better at night... need I go on. :) She has an appointment on Thursday and we will see how much she weighs now.


We survived the end of the semester! Whew- man it was tough, but we made it! And we all are pretty much intact! :D We have been enjoying the extra time we have to spend as a family- Thomas only works until 2 each day so he has time to do shoe appointments and to get things done around the house he's been dreaming about all semester long. We went out and worked on the yard Saturday- and we worked hard all day long, and did SO much but we have so much left to do. But it looks SO much better! Hooray!

Hey, there are plants growing in all that!

You can see the difference between the bushes that have been trimmed, and the ones that haven't...

We took a walk with Audrey to the park behind our house on Sunday- it was windy so we thought we'd try out our kite we got for Easter. We put Audrey into one of the baby swings there to see what she would do and she LOVED it! She grinned and laughed and thought it was way cool. Thomas took some adorable pictures on his spiffy new phone- so I will have to beg him to put them on our computer so we can post them.

I also think I never really have a chance to finish any post... naptime is over for Audrey! Back to work for me!