"I want to tell you a story..."

That is what my husband said to me the other evening as we were sitting on the sofa. I had noticed that he had taken the camera and was taking pictures of certain things around the house, but it was not until he showed me the product of his work that I realized what he had been doing.

He told me, "I am going to take you on a tour..."

First he showed me exhibit 1: a picture of our bedpost, and riding on top of it...a chewed up piece of gum...
Then he showed me exhibit 2: a picture of our desk, a mouse, some directions I had jotted down for myself on a 3 x 5 card, and another piece of chewed up gum...

then came exhibit 3 (at this point I was feeling quite sheepish): a picture of our soap dispenser, and what could be sitting right on top of the pump...yep, another chewed up piece of gum.
Thus far, all of these pictures had been in the other part of our apartment, but when he showed me the next picture, I had to laugh out loud.
exhibit 4: a picture of a stack of magazines right next to our sofa and right there in plain view of anyone who would ever drop by to see us...another chewed up piece of gum (I even watched him take this photo but had no idea why he was doing so until we took "the tour")
I felt like an addict that had been caught with a stash! I knew about the piece of gum in the bathroom...I had remembered putting that one there (I thought I would want to chew it again after I brushed my teeth...what can I say), but I honestly could not immediately remember doing the rest of them. But I also knew that Richard would never do something like this (he would probably do something absurd like put it back in its wrapper or actually throw it away).

Richard conceded that he was partly to blame for this...he had bought me three packs of gum recently, knowing that I liked to chew it throughout the day.

That will probably be the last time he buys me gum!

The Radio contest

All week I have been practicing the phrase

"Star 101.5 fm"

just in case I get a call today announcing that I am the lucky winner of two tickets to see "Chicago" at the Paramount theatre along with a $100 pre-show dinner.

I entered a contest online and I just know I'm going to win...

but of course, it wouldn't be very good publicity if, when they asked me "and what station is sending you to 'Chicago' on March 3?" that I blanked or gave them a Utah radio station.

so I have been practicing.

I am also practicing my surprised face and a squeal of delight to go with it.

The best things in life are free...

Good thing too, because living in Seattle is not cheap!
The cost of living is more than made up for by Seattle's awesomeness (that's what I think on a sunny day...on rainy days it doesn't balance out quite that well). This has been a record mild winter, so Anna and I took this week to do some free exploration! I was the self appointed camera woman for our outings, which means that I held the camera out in front of us, and hoped that it caught one or both of us (preferably just Anna). Anna was decked out appropriately in a Sunshine bear hat.
Anna is a good sport. She spends most of her life playing in her bedroom (the only room we really heat in the house), so it must be somewhat overwhelming to go outside to a world that looks remarkably like a rainforest. I kept thinking we were in Avatar (I mean Fern Gully 2)
pretty cool trees huh? Moss grows on all sides of the trees here! I kept expecting woodland sprites to come show us the way to never never land or the shire where we could find Frodo Baggins
Anna is the cutest thing in my life, but I couldn't exactly call her free...we just paid off those hospital bills.
Apparently Washington has more parks per capita than any other state. Its funny, in Utah, I went walking up the same river trail, almost every day for the entire 4 years I lived there. Here, there are new trails everywhere...they are kind of like stray cats. I found this trail off by the side of the road when I was just doing some errands. I could have gone for miles and miles...Anna on the other hand....
I wanted to introduce Anna to trees, so I let her feel different kinds of leaves as we were making our way back.
Here she grabbed a tuft of tree and held on.
Hah! Told you so. Sixty degree days in mid February...and we had some in January as well.
In fact, it has been so warm, that all the trees are now blossoming. All of Bellevue is growing pinker by the day.
There is nothing that represents hope for me more than a tree budding in spring. It reminds me that no bad times last forever. That every cold spell ends at some point. And that life renews itself every year.
Day 2 was even warmer than the first.
So Anna and I went to a real working farm that is free and open to the public year round.
It was so picturesque. If I wasn't so citified I would live on a farm. The smell though...the smell would stop me. There is nothing you can do to disguise manure.

There were a lot of animals that I got to introduce Anna to, including horses


Pigs... (I kept looking for Charlotte to spin her web above this guy. He was "some pig." He was massive. In Orson Wells "Animal Farm" he totally would have been the president)
caterpillars...
...but this was the cutest animal life on the farm!
I wanted to prove that the sun shines in Seattle. What better way than by showing our shadow.
All Anna needs to be happy is to be fed and to have something to chew on.
What beautiful days we have had lately. Our budget doesn't have much wiggle room, so it is nice that Anna and I can have the time of our lives and spend no money at all. Thank you Heavenly Father for making such a nice playground for us. We had so much fun!

Confessions

Somedays...I don't shower.
Somedays...I don't change out of my P.J.s until the afternoon.

I sometimes watch "what not to wear" while I eat my lunch during Anna's nap (definitely slim pickings during the noonhour. It is either "what not to wear" or "wifeswap" and as Richard pointed out, at least "what not to wear" could be considered somewhat educational).

I exercise to "Exercise T.V." using some mismatched handweights I got at Goodwill. If an exercise requires two handweights I switch off which hand carries the heavier weight so that I don't get lopsided.

I sometimes agonize over my wedding pictures, wondering if I should have done my hair differently, chosen a different dress, or hired a different wedding photographer

I make up songs about changing diapers. My recent song is an adaption of "Time to Say Goodbye" only I call it "Time to Change the Dipe!" I also have a diaper changing song that sounds remarkably like a German drinking song.

I actually watched "The Bachelor" for the first time in my life. AFter just a little thought I came to the conclusion that I never would have made it very far on the show:
1. My clothing would have actually covered my body
2. If the Bachelor offered me the chance to stay overnight with him I would have brought a chaperone, my flannel p.j.s, my scriptures, and some marshmallows and popcorn.
3. If I was going to be on any kind of game show competing for a prize, I would much rather fight for money than the chance to be dumped by some guy whose calf muscles are bigger than his head!

To cap off, sometimes I just have unmotivated days where not a whole lot gets done. My friend Amanda gave me some brilliant advice though, to help me handle it. She said "its okay to have lazy days. Anna will never know!"

Valentine's Day: a smorgasbord of goodness

I have ALWAYS loved Valentine's Day.
Even as an awkward 13 year old with braces, glasses, and absolutely NO chance of any secret admirer leaving poems on my doorstep...I still loved Valentine's Day. My mom made it great! She was always my valentine, and she always left something for me to find in the morning when I woke up. Now, as an adult with my own family, my mom still finds a way of making Valentine's Day special.

Brown paper packages tied up with....packing tape. And filled with the most delectable of treats: The big pink sugar cookie!

This is not just any sugar cookie. You have not LIVED until you have eaten one of these monsters. They are addictive and sugary and pink and they last no more than 5 minutes (and that is only with super will power). I know there is virtue in delaying self-gratification, but when you are offered instant bliss, you have to take it...and eat it!
I put myself in charge of planning our Valentine's Day this year. I rearranged our furniture, and with the help of some new plates and cups from Goodwill, I transformed our dining room into a cozy window table at Chez Rose restaurant.
Our friend Kaela designed our menu
First course: Crab cakes with a fresh herb salad and lemon vinaigrette
Second Course: Beof Bourguignon (basically stew meat that braises in tomatoes and red wine for about 5 hours)
I bought wine for the first time. I had heard that you are never supposed to cook with a wine you wouldn't drink....and I don't drink any wine. So there I was in Albertsons standing in front of hundreds of different varieties and looking as lost as a little kid without her parent. Finally a woman took pity on me. I explained to her what I was cooking. She told me that any dry red wine would do. I asked her how I would know if it was "dry." She then put me out of my misery and told me that the bottle I was holding would work.
Third course: Molten lava cakes! (not very molten this time, but the next day we tried again and the lava flowed!)
In addition to the meal, I came up with a game wherein we would draw out pieces of paper with questions we had to answer while we were eating. Some of our Valentine's Day questions were:

what screen or literary couple most resembles the relationship you have with your valentine?
If you were to write a book about your Valentine what would it be called?
What is one way your Valentine has made you a better person?
If you could sing any song to your Valentine, what would it be?
Make up a poem on the spot about your valentine
Describe a favorite moment with your valentine
What is the sweetest thing your valentine has ever done for you?
what is the first thing you fell in love with about your valentine?
What makes this Valentine's Day special
How do you want to be spending Valentine's Day 20 years from now?
What does your Valentine do to make you laugh out loud?

So we had a wonderful Valentine's Day in! I really wanted to show Richard that I can make more than just pasta, casseroles, and stirfry with rice.

Love to everyone!

Blog Envy

I like blogging. I like updating family and friends on our comings and goings and the growings of our daughter. I like to see what other people are up to and I think it is a great way to keep in touch and memorialize our lives for posterity.

However, for me, it has also led to blog envy. You know the feeling. You look at someone else's blog and their pictures are so much better than yours, they have more applications and bells and whistles, their background changes more than once a year, and their family life seems so much more interesting. And they get a lot more comments on their posts. Ultimately I am left with the feeling that I need to blog more, blog bigger, blog better!!

Additionally for me, after looking at other blogs, I usually feel that I am not doing enough with my life. I don't have a business of selling my own hand made baby clothes and accessories. I am not a professional photographer. My home isn't coordinated with the seasons in changing decor. I don't even know how to use photoshop so I can't create my own baby announcements, valentine cards, Christmas cards, etc.

In a humorous moment, I imagined this conversation taking place with my mom (tell me if it sounds like other conversations you have had)

me: mom, my blog isn't beautiful
mom: now why would you say that...I think your blog is lovely
me: well, nobody looks at my blog
mom: how do you know they don't look at your blog
me: because they don't comment
mom: that is probably because they secretly like your blog and they are too embarrassed to tell you
me: but mom, everyone else's blog is more fashionable than mine.
mom: it is not about what a blog looks like on the outside, it is the content that matters.
me: but I have looked at other blogs and they get at least a dozen comments a day, no matter what they post
mom: Rachael, your blog is very special. Nobody else's blog is quite like yours and someday, other people will realize all that your blog has to offer.


I am alone in this? Does anyone else feel this way too?

The literary side of mommy-hood

I used to wonder what I would DO with all the extra time I would have on my hands once I started having children...

hah hah haa ha hah hah hah hah ha ha ha haha....

However one of the many upsides to being a stay at home is that I actually have had more time to read (especially during those first few hard nursing months), and make frequent trips to the library.

As a point of comparison, the books I managed to finish reading during 3 years of law school (other than textbooks) are:

In the Heart of the Sea
The Color of Water
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn
The Host

And yes, I realize that all but two of those books were written by Stephanie Meyer (what can I say, the Twilight series brought me out of my book funk. I don't think I read a single non-school book for the first two years of law school. Nothing can drive the love of reading out of you quite like law school, that is for sure).

On the other hand, these are the books I have read in the 6 months since becoming a parent:

The Guernsey literary and potaoto peel pie society
Year of Wonders
The Madman and the Genius
History of Love
Man Walks into a room
Persuasion
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
The Wednesday Letters
The Hours
Faranheit 451
My name is Asher Lev
The man who ate everything
Shopaholic takes Manhattan
OneL

Additionally, the number of magazines we subscribe to has gone up, in addition to the Ensign (our sole subscription during school), we also subscribe to:

Fitness
Cooking Light
Vegetarian Today
Time
Good Housekeeping (a much more realistic magazine for me than Martha Stewart. As much as I would like to create a home made sprig of Holly Berries picked from among the numerous trees in my backyard garden and create a chocolate cream pie using eggs produced by my own personal flock of chickens, it seems more helpful to learn how to create party decorations out of cupcake liners)

So there you have it. I am actually more well-read now than I have been since I was in high school.

Of course, an upcoming post will tackle my admission concerning television (not quite as uplifting)

Cheese! Another great date idea.

Richard was in charge of date night a week ago on Saturday. Besides humoring me by watching the Miss America pageant with me (hosted by none other than Mario Lopez, Mr. A.C. Slater himself, who, by the way, has not changed since his "saved by the bell" days), Richard planned a cheese tasting night! We went to "Whole Foods" and picked up some petite versions of some of their more exotic cheeses, grabbed some fresh fruit, crackers, and bread, and elevated our cheese knowledge from "mostly ignorant" to "only kind of in the dark."
If you are a person who enjoys American cheese, this kind of date night is not for you. I hate the Kraft cheese commercial that says, in a nutshell "only America could create a cheese like this." I want to agree and say "yeah, a cheese that lacks flavor, personality, texture, and requires chemical engineering. That is sure something to be proud of."
Starting in the upper left we had a kind of blue cheese (it smelled like an old sock but had a better flavor) "Blue Perseille Du Beaujolais," a sheeps milk cheese with peppercorns "Sheep Rustico Pepato", a softer brie-like cheese "Belgian Chimay Biere", a swiss cheese "Swiss Emmentaler", and a sharp cheddar "Cheddar Borough"

I have a long way to go before I am ready to comment intelligently on whether or not any of the cheeses were excellent. Jeffrey Steingarten I am not (a judge on "Iron Chef"), but a couple of days after our cheese tasting I put all the remaining uneaten cheese into some homemade macaroni and cheese and really liked it.

Way to go Richard for a great date night!

Twins

All About Anna

I have a few new blog posts I need to add, but this one is all about Anna. She is doing so much these days that I can barely catch it all, or her! She just hit 6 months and is currently at 16 lbs 7 oz. and about 27 inches tall. She is a tall lanky girl with endless athletic potential. She can sprint across a room in minutes (thats pretty fast for 6 months). She can pound the rice cereal she eats for breakfast. And she stays endlessly cheerful (for the most part), on very little sleep throughout the day.
This is the face that says "okay mom, I am ready, just give me the food and no one gets hurt"
The first try at sipping from a cup (well, technically, its my trophy mug from American Fork Hospital that they give all new mothers...kind of like a door prize for giving birth. Everything tastes better when it comes from an IHC mug!). It did not go well.

No, we do not own a dog. We have a baby with two very sharp teeth now. I always wanted my children to devour books, but this is taking it a little too literally. Anna has shown a preference for religious literature, magazines of all kinds, childrens books, but has strangely turned up her nose at any Washington Bar material I get sent in the mail
The pink army band-aid is from Anna's first set of vaccinations she had at her 6 month check up. She was a trooper (get it, "army" band-aid...."trooper".....hehe). She cried for only about 15 seconds and then calmed down. So far she hasn't seemed to hold it against me that I allowed her to be injected with a large needle.

Both band-aids fell off that night as we were giving her a bath. Richard asked me if we should keep one of them...you know, for her scrapbook. I looked at him and told him, No, we will not be keeping her used band-aids....her first scab however....well that is another story!