One Small Step for Man...but Won't Your Parents be Proud

I (Paul) was looking through some recent pictures, and there was a repeated theme of our kids' sense of triumph while performing tasks that for most people aren't a big deal, or even desirable, but for them the tasks might as well be lunar landings.

Madeleine has followed Asher's lead in the can stacking art, but she has some catching up to do since Asher has had a head start on her. Check out her concentration in this picture.
Sorry its a bit blurry, but her pride is unmistakable, and why not? I doubt I could stack cans to my height.
About the same time, my company was moving offices so I was kicked out of work on a Friday afternoon. We spent the afternoon at Country Mercantile. It is a few miles outside of Pasco and its a cross between Tillamook Cheese Factory (except its Chocolate), a fruit stand, and country craft store. I imagine it is a little like Thanksgiving Point in Utah (although I have never been there) except more rural. In fall they have a harvest festival with hay-rides, corn mazes, pumpkin patches, petting zoo...Vanessa has claimed the "Pumpkin Patch" post so she will tell you all about it, but one of the attractions for the kids was a hay-stack for the kids to climb. Asher was one of the smaller kids trying to climb it and it was a little out of his league as shown in this picture.It was a tough go since some of the blocks were taller than him, but when he finally reached the top he was as proud as any one summitting Mt. Everest.
Finally the other day I caught Madeleine doing this.
Better yet is when she noticed I was taking her picture. Note the look of triumph.

It is a feat of coordination for an 18 month old, but she is going to love these pictures later in life.

Tagged

This is the Fourth Picture in My fourth file. I just wish it was a better picture, at least it has a funny story! This is Asher at about 4 months old. Paul had been holding him upside down to make him laugh and he spit up all over his face. Nice, huh? Notice Asher was missing a neck and hair as a baby. His big round head sat squarely on his shoulders, I miss those days.

If you want to be tagged, I hereby tag you!

5 Years!

our engagement picture

I remember being a newlywed at BYU, counting how long we'd been married in months and meeting people who had been married a year or two and being impressed that they had been married that long! I couldn't fathom what it would be like to be married for years. If I had a crystal ball to tell me what was in store, I could have seen what an amazing man Paul was and how he only gets better and better the longer I know him.

5 years ago we were married in the Mesa, Arizona temple on October 11, 2003.

I want to say that it was the happiest day of my life, but I don't think that's true. I wanted to be married to Paul with all of my heart, and I appreciated my wedding and the family and friends who came to support us, but I couldn't wait to get the wedding over with so we could start our lives.

We got engaged in the middle of July after dating since the beginning of July and thought the prudent thing was to set our wedding date for December 20th, in between semesters and to give us a lot of time to plan, and sell our housing contracts.

Then around the middle of August, we knew that the only thing that mattered was being married, we didn't care if we had to get married in a whirlwind weekend and be back to class the next week. So, we called up our parents and told them we had changed the date. My mom planned nearly my whole wedding and reception from Arizona while I was in Utah and I was too busy being smitten with Paul to care about any of the details. I think she did a great job without me!

The temple was 45 minutes away from our house and I was supposed to be at the temple at 8:30 am for wedding pictures. Advice to any future brides and grooms, if you have time, do not do your wedding pictures on the morning of. I was 45 minutes late and the photographer took 37 spectacular pictures of Paul nervously wondering if he had been stood up. By the time I got there, there wasn't much time until the wedding so we had to hurry and take as many pictures as we could.

Isn't he so handsome? No wonder I was smitten

The rest of the day was wonderful though. I was so happy that Ocober 11th had finall arrived.

I can't believe everything that can happen in 5 years! I graduated from BYU April of 2005. Asher was born in October 2005 and we became parents and came even closer together through all of the trials becoming parents bring. We left Provo when Paul graduated from BYU in 2006 and moved to Washington. We bought our first home and Madeleine was born in May 2007. I am so grateful for the blessings that Heavenly Father has given me. Everything good in my life has come from him and through following his plan for happiness. The road I've taken hasn't been easy, but I am so happy.

I Love You Paul!

If anyone cares about our engagement story, you can find it in this back post

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Asher and Madeleine love to dig in the dirt and I don't mind when the dirt is outside. Asher thought it would be really cool to dump a load of dirt onto the bathroom floor. At least it wasn't the carpet, right? I couldn't tell if he was sorry that he made a horrific mess or was just sorry that I was cleaning up his fun.

You know it's been a fun day when your kids require a bath before afternoon. On the bright side, after their bath they were literally begging to take naps, and now my house is quiet.

Princess Madeleine and the Ghost Busters

I served my mission in Sweden, where they still have a reigning monarch, King Karl XVI Gustaf. He is married to Queen Silvia and they have three kids: Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip, and Princess Madeleine. She is where we got the idea for the name, and now I have my own little Princess Madeleine. The original Princess Madeleine is a beauty, but I think my Princess Madeleine will give her more than a run for her money. The funny thing about the picture of Maddie, is that Vanessa got her dressed for church and thought she was so cute so she took a picture. But before we could get her to church she got ahold of a bar of deoderant, took a bite, and threw up all over her shirt. Maybe next week.

Yesterday I was cleaning the office and found some promotional pens from Peter Grossnickle's drug sales repping. I discovered that they had a pen on one end, and a little light on the other and I knew that the kids would love them. So tonight I busted them out and let the kids go Ghost Busters in Asher's bedroom. Here is some of the video.

This was a fun pic of the kids. The extended exposure makes the lights look like Ghost Busters beams, and makes the kids look like they are getting hit by those same beams.

A bit early....

I couldn't resist posting this picture. I bought Maddie's Halloween costume today and she loves it! I was surprised that she even cared, she's growing up too fast.

For those of you who think I am worrying about Halloween costumes too early (mom). There is a sort of weird thing here in the Tri-Cities. Everywhere else that I have lived (Phoenix, Provo) the stores have always been well stocked well into whatever season we happened to be in, and once the season was over, the leftovers went on clearance. Not here though, and I get burned over and over. When we went to buy a kids pool one July the store clerks at Walmart laughed at us when we asked where they kept them. I went to buy Asher a life jacket one August and even the expensive specialty stores were sold out. The same thing happened in the middle of December last year when our Christmas lights went out and we tried to buy replacements. Christmas lights in December? Try October next time. The store shelves in the Tri-Cities were also bare of canning supplies this year, I ended up buying most of what I needed when we went to Seattle. I didn't get Fruit Fresh (for canning) though and I went to several stores all over town to find it and 6 different stores were sold out. Even this Halloween costume shopping trip I had to go to 2 different Targets to find Maddie's size and both stores were already picked over. Paul and I joke about this all of the time and we've learned to shop early in the season if we anticipate a need, but seriously what is the deal?

Domestic Bliss

I have been learning so many new homemaking skills lately! Trust me, this is so not like me. I have never been interested in these things before, and I can't explain why I am suddenly interested.

I've been practicing my bread making skills and now it looks like real bread! The secret to my new found success is letting my stand mixer kneed the dough. Apparently I am a failure at kneading. Is it still homemade if you let a machine kneed?

I was also inspired by a Relief Society enrichment activity to learn to can my own fruit. I've never done it before so it was a bit intimidating. Sorry my pictures are so blurry. This is applesauce and peaches. No one would accuse me of being a martyr, I made Paul help me with the peaches after the kids were in bed, and during nap time with the applesauce. It was really fun to work together on this project. We listened to BYU crush UCLA on the radio during the applesauce canning. (Paul actually enjoyed himself!)

Maybe now I'll learn to sew. HaHaHa