Squirrel face

Annabelle talked about squirrels at school yesterday and brought home the needed items to make a squirrel nose, which we put together right away. Isn't she so cute?

A quick Father's Day weekend

Happy Father's Day! It's been a quick weekend for our family. Friday, the girls and I surprised Michael by showing up at the end of his class with Dairy Queen blizzards to celebrate Father's Day. Michael was still in the classroom talking to a couple of students when we showed up. Annabelle ran into the room and showed him a "Happy Father's Day" sign she colored for him. I was hoping we could have a little moment of family time and eat our ice cream together outside. However, there was an emergency at work and Michael had to rush back to the office. So Annabelle and I ate our ice cream and put Michael's in the freezer when we got home. Then, Friday night, Michael came home for about 15 minutes only to turn around and leave again. This emergency he'd had at work that day was still going on and he had to go help his client deal with an issue concerning with her elderly father. He didn't get home until about 10:30 pm. Meanwhile, I got sick with a cold. Not fun stuff.Then, Saturday was spent working in the yard all day. I gotta say that I love my house, but it takes so much time, energy, and money to maintain it. Poor Michael was outside for essentially what was a regular workday. I got lucky and was inside with Jillian for most of the day and got out of any hard labor (sorry, honey). Annabelle also got out of doing yard work (not that we really have her do anything anyway) as the neighbors kids invited her to play. (I should have gotten a before picture. We had weeds growing all the over the place against the house. Now, they're gone, but we're not doing anything else to the yard in terms of landscaping this year. We've already done enough this summer to last the rest of it.)

The evening was spent working on our talks for church today. It's our first time in this ward and we're hoping that we've done our duty and won't be asked again for several years. Yes, I said years. There are so many new people moving in all the time that I know the bishopric is not lacking in new families to ask to speak.

Then, while the rest of us were home taking a nap (for some reason, Annabelle likes to take her naps on the floor), Michael spent the next several hours after church in a meeting. He's now home taking his nap and we'll be having a pot roast and potatoes as soon as he wakes up. Then following dinner, he has another meeting tonight. It's no wonder why both Michael and I feel like our weekends are not much different from the week and seem to go by way too fast.

School and rolling over

This week has been pretty busy. I feel like the number of hours in a day have shortened. Michael has been extremely busy, too, and we've hardly seen each other this week. I'm sure when the semester is over and he's not teaching anymore, he'll have a little more time. I can't believe that there are only 4 weeks left of the semester. That means both Michael and Annabelle will be done with school. Monday, I observed Annabelle at preschool. Her classroom has one wall of two-sided mirrors and on the other side of those mirrors is a tiny little room for parents and university students to observe. It was really fun to see her interact with the other kids. Although I think she's one of the youngest kids, she certainly one of the tallest. In the time that I observed (about 30 minutes), she was nice to the other kids and listened to her teachers. I'm sure she's not like that all the time, but I was very impressed with her behavior and I think she's turning out to be a great kid.

In the meantime, Jillian has started rolling over. I've been emailing a friend who has a baby that is 10 days older than Jillian and her baby has been rolling over for about a month. I finally realized just the other day that the reason Jillian hasn't rolled over yet is because she's never her stomach and babies have an easier time rolling from their stomach to their back. Jillian has a play mat that sits on the floor and it has little hanging mobiles. She likes to lie on her back and reach up and play with them. She has spent many hours on her back playing on that mat while I teach piano or make dinner. But I hardly ever put her on her stomach. I did that just yesterday and within a few minutes, she rolled over. It will take some practice for it to come more naturally, but now I know why it took so long to happen.

Summer recipes

Okay, so I think the weird Idaho weather is finally catching up to the season. We're supposed to have warmer weather this week and hopefully from now on. Our house does not have air conditioning (which is not uncommon for the area, most houses here don't; however, we got lucky and our house came equipped to have it installed very easily). The last two summers we've been here, we've gotten through the summer by opening the windows at night. It still gets cold enough at night that it keeps the temperature down during the day so it's at least somewhat bearable (most of the time) in the house. But, anytime I cook something for dinner, that cold air gets eliminated by the heat of the oven or stove. I am in desperate need of summer meals that won't warm up my house. We don't have an outdoor grill, but we do have something almost as good- a George Foreman grill. =) If anyone has any recipes to share, please post them! I will be eternally grateful.

The new, "sexy" diapers

So, last night I was watching tv and I saw a commercial for something outrageous. I'm not sure if this idea has been around for a long time or not, but it's the first time I've ever seen anything like it advertised. A Huggies commercial came on introducing the new jean diaper. I couldn't believe it. If you haven't seen the commercial, click here. It's actually pretty funny; however, why anyone would buy the product is beyond me. So is Huggles telling me that if I buy these new jean diapers, my kid is going to be more popular? Will he/she have more baby friends? Will their confidence level shoot up? I mean, come on people. It's a funny idea, but let's get serious. Why would you want to have your baby parading around in these, making a spectacle of him/her self? When your out in public, babies should wear clothes. Clothes cover the diaper. So, there's no point in buying them because no one will see them. If you do decide to show them off in public, aren't you teaching your kid that walking around in your underwear is the accepted social behavior? People are already weird enough as it is. Let's not add anymore to the world.

A banquet, a party hat, and a bath

Tonight, Michael and I attended a faculty banquet at the college. For those of you who don't know, this is his first semester teaching as an adjunct professor. I'll be honest, it was kind of weird being there, since Michael's full-time job has nothing to do with the university. Add to that the fact that many of Michael's students are older than I am and I felt a little out of place. However, the food was GREAT! I told Michael that he needed to make sure he continued teaching this class just so we could come to next year's banquet and eat some more yummy food.

On to the kids. Annabelle came home from school yesterday with a "party hat" she made. She has been wearing it non-stop and already it's needed I think 3 fixes (maybe more) in less than 24 hours. Here she is showing it off after school, and then again wearing it today (along with her new favorite shirt, the softball shirt).Jillian does the most curious thing with her mouth. I've only recently noticed her doing it, but she does it all the time. As I was giving her a bath tonight, she was doing it like crazy, so I thought I'd capture it on video. It's like she's chewing on her tongue and then spitting it out or something. I think it's really cute.

Softball

Michael's law firm participates in a city league softball tournament every summer in Idaho Falls. I wish the girls and I were able to attend more of the games, but they are often too late in the evening and the girls would get too bed way too late. However, last week, the game was early enough that we were able to attend our first softball game of the season. It was great game to watch, too. Michael's team smoked the opposing team,winning 20-0. Every summer, the firm buys team t-shirts and this year, we decided to get one for Annabelle as well. At first she didn't want to wear it, but once we got to the game and she saw that everyone else was wearing one, she loved it. It has now become her favorite shirt and she wants to wear it everyday. She loves being twins with her dad and every morning asks if he'll wear it with her so they can match. It's pretty cute. Here's a few pictures from the game.
Annabelle running the bases.
Michael is the pitcher and here's a video of that. He pitched really well that night, getting several strikeouts.

"The wrap"

Jillian has been sleeping through the night since about 10 weeks. Last weekend when we went to Michael's parent's house, I thought she might have trouble sleeping since she would be in a different crib and also sharing a room with Annabelle (Annabelle sometimes talks in her sleep). But she did great. Once we came back home, she was a terrible sleeper. She would only sleep about 2 hours at a time and then wake up screaming. I have no idea why this is going on, but I finally decided that since she was crying anyway, we might as well stop wrapping her up when she sleeps. Ever since she was born, we've swaddled her so that her arms aren't free to move around when she's sleeping and wake herself up. She's getting too big for the wrap and it's getting too warm to be swaddled, so I've been thinking about teaching her how to stay alseep when not wrapped. My strategy was to let her just cry herself to sleep every day during her naps and let her cry at night, if she woke up as well. Well, since she was already crying non-stop at night anyway, I decided that I might as well stop swaddling her now so at least we might be accomplishing something with her crying.

Yesterday was the first day of no swaddling. Her first morning nap consisted of her crying for almost 2 hours straight. I thought eventually she would fall asleep, but she didn't and I finally had to get her up and feed her because we had somewhere to go. Her two other naps in the day went a little bit better. She actually did get some sleep and the crying didn't last as long. As I got ready for bed last night, I mentally tried to prepare myself for be awake all night long, listening to the sound of my baby crying. However, such was not the case. She briefly woke me up only 2 times the whole night. She slept from 9 pm to 6:20 am, and I think she actually slept almost that whole time.

Day no. 2 has been okay. She's taking her second nap right now and both naps started with less than 10 minutes of crying and then a really good nap. I'm liking how this is turning out and hope the success continues.

The little brother who's not so little anymore

This past weekend, Michael's brother Eric came to visit. He just returned home from an LDS mission to Portland, OR and it was great to have time to catch up. He was really popular with Annabelle and even Jillian seemed to enjoy his attention. He's a awesome guy and we've all had a great time. And to end such an outstanding visit (he's leaving tomorrow), tonight after family home evening, we went out for ice cream. Who could ask for more?! (Michael was taking the pictures of everyone and we forgot to get one of him- sorry, honey.)

Lullaby

Here's a video of Annabelle singing to Jillian.

Family pictures

I am way behind in my blogging. There has been so much going on and I just haven't had time to update my blog. So, I'll be catching up over the next few days. Last week, Jillian turned 4 months old and we just went to the doctor for her checkup. She is doing great, weighing 13 lbs 15 oz (54th percentile) and is 25 inches long (80th percentile). She's getting close to rolling over and is getting more and more control of her hands.

We also just returned from Michael's hometown to welcome his brother home from an LDS mission. I'm so proud of Eric's hard work and his willingness to serve the Lord. While we were there, we had family pictures taken. I have been wanting to do this since Jillian was born. Right now, we have pictures from Christmas 2007 on the wall, which are obviously very outdated. I'm including some of these family pictures. I'm very happy with them.