HUGE Savings

Have I mentioned how much I love couponing? I do! I love the thrill of getting a killer deal on stuff. And tonight, I totally scored. I went to WalMart and price matched other ads and then used my coupons. Because I knew I was going to make out like a bandit, I went around WalMart and wrote down their prices for everything I got so I could see just how much I saved. I'm a nerd, I know. Everything in the picture below (all pictures were erased from camera) would've been about $223. After the price matching it was $170. After coupons.....$22!! Granted, I had to pay $11 in sales tax (for the original $170) but it was so awesome!

4 Puffs plus lotion: FREE!

4 Vicks DayQuil/NyQuil: FREE

4 Vicks VapoSprays: FREE

4 Crest Pro-Health Mouthwashes: FREE

10 Nivea Lip Gloss/Chapsticks: FREE

18 Tide Single Loads: FREE

18 Pantene shampoos/conditioners/gels/hairsprays/creme $.75 ea

2 Old Spice Body Sprays: $1.25 ea

2 Colgate toothbrushes: $.49 ea

6 Gillette Proglide razors: $.97 ea! (Normally $9 ea)

4 boxes of Fruity Pebbles $.88 ea

Ok, I confess, it should've been a little bit more, but the coupons weren't going through so they ended up entering them all by hand and I think they entered a few more than they should've. I haven't officially gone over it yet. I'm still enjoying my high of saving over $200! Woot!

Christmas 2010

This Christmas was a lot of fun for us. I think it was mainly because it was Lindy's first Christmas. I thought she'd be far more interested in the wrapping and tissue paper than her own gifts but that wasn't the case. She loved her gifts. It was so fun to watch her play with them. Santa brought her a full lenth mirror for her room. There's one at my parents' house that she loves and always goes straight for so she needed one for her own room. She also got a monster bowling set from us. I figured she can play with the textures for now and when she gets older she can actually bowl with it. She also got new binkies, puffs to eat and some Hot Wheels cars. She really enjoys pushing them around the kitchen. She was happy all day. It was great!

I think this was my best Christmas ever because not only did I get to celebrate Lindy's first Christmas but got the best gift in the entire world! Allan got me a piano. A real piano! It's beautiful! I've wanted one for so long. I would've loved to have forgone a bed for a piano when we got married but Allan wouldn't have it. I cried when I saw it. I also cried everytime I thought about it and tried to tell people what Allan got me. I'm now past the tears so I can blog about it. Apparently Allan's cousins bought a new grand and so they gave this one to us. How nice is that?! I'm so excited to get it moved to my house (it's currently in my parents' garage) so I can play.

Our Crazy Christmas Season

December rushed in and now it's almost over. I can't believe how quickly time flies! It has truly been a month of great trials and great blessings.

It started with lots of studying for finals. Allan is finally done with school for this semester and is so grateful for the break. He did very, very well in 2 of his classes and well, we'll wait and see about the last one. But hey, it's over!..until January.

Last week I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS). It's a form of arthritis that affects your knees, shoulders, heels, pelvis, spine and others and causes random tender spots around your body. The main symptoms are chronic stiffness and pain and fatigue. This is my 4th chronic disease. I'm getting quite the collection here. Haha. This one wasn't a devastation though because I've had symptoms for over 10 years. It just hasn't been advanced enough to be picked up by x-rays and MRIs (they look for sclerosis in the pelvis as the main sign) until now. It's just nice to not be told "We don't know why you hurt. You just do." because that's what I've been told for the last 10 years. At least now that there's a diagnosis they can do things to help me. So it's actually kind of a relief to finally have the official diagnosis.

My singing group, Voices, started to perform and we had 24 performances in just 2 weeks, not including the 6 Christmasgrams we did in just one day. It was a blast, but very tiring. I'm so happy to have a whole week off. We perform at the North Visitors Center at Temple Square on Thursday and then have one last performance just for family and friends on the 26th and then are done...until we start practicing for our singing Valentines in January. :)

I'm amazed I made it to every performance because like I said, a huge part of AS is fatigue. I was truly being sustained by the Lord. In fact, the day after our crazy 2 weeks, I crashed pretty hard. I didn't get out of bed much for about 2 days. Luckily though, I didn't actually get sick. It was a HUGE blessing.

Our last trial was that Allan lost his job last week. Needless to say, we are pretty stressed. It's also been a great blessing because it's truly brought Allan and I closer together and closer to the Lord. We've felt a constant feeling of peace both with each other and in general. It's so nice! But if anyone knows of job openings, please let us know! We so appreciate everyone's prayers.

I'm hoping to post a Christmas card on our blog soon as we just didn't have the time nor energy to get them made and mailed out to people. In the meantime, happy holidays to all!

Downtown Stomp

As many of you know, Allan and I have been helping to run the local dance scene here for a while. It is with great sadness that I tell you that Downtown Stomp has had it's last dance. I'm truly devastated about it. I have LOVED being a part of this. But between work, school and families, it just got to be too much for all of us to do. So we had one last big event to end with a bang. And what a bang it was! Tons and tons of people came for the "Shark Attack" workshop with Shauna and Mark (hence, Shark) from Denver and we had five teams compete at the dance. It was awesome! What's even more awesome is that the Salt Lake Jitterbugs, Allan's team, won the competition! I tried to upload the video but it's just not working. I think it's too big. You can watch it on my Facebook page though. Good job, Jitterbugs!

First Word

Lindy said her first word last Friday (Oct. 12)! She threw her hands up in the air and said, "Ta-da!" It was so dang cute! She's been clapping for a little while now and recently started throwing her hands up in the air after she would do it (I have no idea where she learned that) so I started saying "Ta-da" when she would. On Friday she mimicked it. She did it over and over and over. Luckily my mom and dad got to see her do it. She's such a ham.

Sadly, she hasn't done it since. She doesn't even raise her arms up anymore. I do it to try to get her to and she just stares at me, although she has started shaking her head. The little punk. I'm hoping I can get her to do it again one of these days so that I can video it and post it.

Trafalga

This week Liz asked me if I wanted to take the kids on a play date to Trafalga. I most definitely did so we packed them all up and went. It was a blast! I got to ride the roller coaster with Benjamin and was even able to take Lindy on the carousel. She just looked confused at first and then decided she loved it. She was squealing with delight!

Sadly, Allan's abuela (grandma) died this week and so he decided that he was too sad to work (after finding out we were all at Trafalga) and left and met us there. I was happy to have him. We started all the rides over again when he got there. It's amazing how much playing at Trafalga helped him feel better. ;)

We were literally the only people there so a worker was assigned to us and just followed us around to do whatever rides we wanted. Luckily, we had a manager who was totally laid back and let the adults go on some of the rides they shouldn't have. It was so funny to watch Allan try to squeeze into the little airplanes. I thought the thing might break. Once again, I wish I had pictures!

This manager also let us take Lindy on the lighthouse ride, which is a little kid version of The Rocket at Lagoon. I couldn't believe he let us! She really enjoyed it though. The one she liked the most was the boat ride. It's just like Tidal Wave at Lagoon, only smaller, once again. Lindy would go crazy when we'd get to the top and start going back down. It was so fun to watch! She's such a little thrill seeker. I can't wait for next summer when she'll be a little bigger and able to do all the rides.

Newspaper Fun

As all of you know (since you read my blog religiously...even though I haven't posted in 10 years), I do couponing. Because of this, I get LOTS and LOTS of newspapers each week. I can never bring myself to just throw them all away, although this would be so much more convenient. No, I have to load up all 500 lbs of them and take them to the recycle bin. So I got them all stacked in piles to load into the car and then life got busy and I didn't do it. All the piles were left on the floor in the living room. This is a very bad thing if you have a crawling baby. I was in the kitchen making dinner and when I went back into the living room, this is what I found:



She was pulling them all over and having a ball. She was all smiles. I couldn't help but laugh. I wasn't even upset. It was worth cleaning it all up to watch her. I even left it for Allan to see because I thought it was so funny. I wish you could all see his face when he walked through the front door and saw it. I had to quickly explain that I was going to clean it up but just had to let him see it. He got a kick out of it too. Lindy is way too much fun. :)

Halloween 2010

I love Halloween. I love dressing up, I love trick-or-treating (I went until I was a senior in high school and cannot wait to take Lindy next year!) and I absolutely LOVE candy! Seriously, whoever came up with the whole idea of Halloween was brilliant. I usually go all out for costumes, but this year, I just didn't have the energy. I did try though. We dressed up for Allan's work party and I was going to finish the costumes for the next day, but never did. Because our costumes weren't completely finished for the work party, I didn't take pictures and then didn't dress up after. On the 30th (Halloween in UT when the 31st is on Sunday), I ended up having problems with my pump and my blood sugar skyrocketed. I couldn't get it down for several hours. When it finally did come down, I couldn't get it back up. So like I said, I was just too tired for dressing everybody up. But I'll tell you about our costumes since I don't have pictures.

We went as Earth, Wind & Fire, one of my favorite bands ever! Lindy was earth. I put her in a green dress with brown pants and brown boots. I glued flowers all over her dress and made her a headdress with little leaves and berries all over it. She looked darling! Sadly, she didn't like the head piece much and kept pulling it off. Oh well.

I was wind. I wore a long, sparkly silver skirt with a short-sleeved, shimmery silver top and a light blue, long-sleeved shirt underneath. I also had silver and light blue streamers hanging from my arms. I also had blue eyeshadow that went past my eyes and almost to my hairline (going sideways). I drew wind bursts coming from the sides of my eyes. It actually looked pretty cool and I had someone guess what I was just by the makeup because I didn't have my costume on at the time.

Allan was fire. He had a bright orange shirt on. Our newspaper bags come in red, orange and yellow so I cut them up and attached them to his shirt. He was supposed to wear a bright orange leisure suit (ya know, disco style to matche the times of Earth, Wind and Fire), but it didn't come in time. I was sad about that.

To top it all off, Allan and I had fro wigs and all 3 of us had microphones that I made from a paper towel roll and tin foil. So we dressed as the elements with some 70's disco flair thrown in to authenticate it. It was a blast! I just wish we had pictures!

We did go to my parents' house for chili and cinnamon rolls (a Halloween tradition) and it was delicious! My mom even got me gluten free cinnamon rolls so I wouldn't be left out. She's so awesome!

Every year, my brother, Jackson, makes a haunted house. Due to the high winds this year and everything getting blown down, he couldn't do it. Instead, he built an amazing enclosure going up the stairs to the front porch with walls, caskets, freaky clowns, trees, motion sensored psycho man, black lights, etc. Some kids were too scared to come to the door and just passed by. One little girl screamed hysterically when the psycho man went off and couldn't stop crying. It was sad, but funny. He did a great job. Once again, I wish I had pictures!!

It's not her costume, butBrad did send me this picture of Lindy. How cute is she?! Miranda put her in it when they came to carve pumpkins.

After dinner, we went to Seth & Cindy's house in Provo for games.

Pumpkin Carving

Until this year, I hadn't carved pumpkins in SO long. I'm not sure why. I love doing it. This year we invited Brad and Miranda over for dinner and pumpkin carving. Brad was hysterical (as usual) and brought his bag of pumpkin carving tools. Basically, it was all of his power tools. What's even more funny is that he and Allan used them for their pumpkins!

I was lame and *didn't get pictures of the pumpkins when they were done, but got pics of Brad and Allan having fun with their "pumpkin carving tools." Our pumpkins were awesome though! We used the stencil things from the carving books and they turned out great! I did an owl in a tree, Allan did three skulls and Brad did a spider in a web. Miranda decided she didn't want to use the stencil and did an awesome mummy face. She didn't like it, but I loved it.

Brad's "Pumpkin Carving Kit" and the boys looking manly.

Brad's, Mine and Miranda's. I don't know why we don't have a closeup of Allan's. His was pretty dang cool, too.

All the pumpkins finished (Allan's is front and center)

*Brad sent me these pics of our pumpkins! YAY!

More Milestones!

So I've been a total slacker and haven't posted for a long time. Life got so insanely busy! Allan went back to school this fall, I started working again (and no longer am now) and Lindy has been cute as ever and is hitting TONS of milestones.

She started rolling over and then scooting herself backwards and is now crawling!! It's been so fun to watch her figure everything out. She also waves and gives (open mouthed) kisses. I'll upload videos later, if I can get them. She pulls herself up to her knees but can't get to her feet just yet. If we help her up, she loves holding on to things and standing. Unfortunately, she's very independent and gets sick of having to hold on and pushes off so she can stand by herself. She then falls and usually starts to cry. I'm not sure if she cries because it scares her or if she's just frustrated that she can't do it. Probably both.

She's so busy! She won't play in her exersaucer for more than 10 minutes because she gets bored. She won't do anything for more than 10 minutes for that matter for the same reason. She always has to be doing something. She'll be so blasted tired, but just fight going to sleep because she's afraid she'll miss something. My mom constantly tells me, "That's EXACTLY how you were!"

Canada Quilt

One of my really great friends from Canada came to visit this week. He came down to celebrate his birthday down here with friends. For his birthday gift, I made him a shag quilt of the Canadian flag because 1. He's very proud to be Canadian and 2. It gets to at least -40 degrees below up there so a warm quilt will be useful. I think it's so dang cool.

I found it here. I didn't get a pattern or order the whole thing from them. I just saw the picture and decided to do it on my own. Allan helped out a fair bit too. In fact, there were a couple of places on the leaf that I would've royally messed up without him. It's 54" x 72" just like the picture. This one was a lot of fun to make. I love how it turned out!

The front

The back

Closeup of front (that's red lint on it)

Closeup of back

Lindy's Latest

It's been a little while since I've updated about Lindy's milestones. A couple of weeks ago she discovered her feet. She has had them in her hands and mouth ever since. I wish I was that flexible!

Last week she started sitting up all by herself. Wahoo! She still can't roll over, but she can sit up. It makes me laugh.

And we finally got a video of her laughing. It's the greatest sound in the world! Allan was changing her diaper and jokingly spanked her. She started cracking up! Enjoy!

Here's another. This time Allan pretended to step on her and she started laughing. She laughs at the most random things!

New Calling

Last week Allan and I were called to be primary teachers. I was SO excited. Due to illness, moving and pregnancy, I haven't had a calling since we were married. We will be teaching the CTR 7/Valiant 8 class and I am thrilled! I started today (Allan was at drill this weekend so he'll start next week) and enjoyed every minute of it. There were 8 in my class today. Luckily, they aren't too roudy. Insanely talkative, yes, but respectful when I tell them to be quiet. I love them already. I don't think any person has ever been as excited as I am to be a primary teacher.

I think my favorite part was singing time. I fairly recently borrowed my mom's primary song book so I could remember the songs to sing to Lindy. This is even better! And I surprisingly knew most of the ones they sang today. There's only one I didn't recognize. I'll remedy that very quickly.

Another fun part is that all the kids love Lindy. They kept asking if they could hold her. Even one of the boys wants to! So I've decided to use her as leverage. If they can be quiet and listen to the lesson, I'll let them hold her. I usedt his on one of the boys today who was being...a boy. It worked well. He was quiet and participated in singing time afterwards so he'll get to hold her next week. Love it!

I can tell that this particular boy is the "problem child" of the class, but I adore him. He kept giving me fives in singing time after he'd answer a question right or help somehow. When he left he also (very excitedly) said, "See ya next week!" How can you not love it when little kids are so happy to see you? I left wanting to bake them all cookies & such.

After church, my new visiting teaching companion came up to tell me when we will be visiting our sisters. I was amazed at how overjoyed I was today when leaving church. I've heard that you're happiest when serving others and I can attest that it is absolutely true! I love being able to help the people in the ward and in turn make friends (I'm refering to the kids too) and feel like I belong.

4th of July Weekend

You've gotta love it when the 4th of July is on a Sunday because instead of just one day of the holiday, it becomes a whole weekend. And we certainly enjoyed ours. We went to the Riverton parade on Friday night with my family. What made the parade so fun was that it was all the adults who went crazy for the candy and were yelling for it and running out in the street to get it. After the parade we had a BBQ and played volleyball at my parents' house. We also did that on Saturday & Sunday too. While we played, Lindy sat in her Bumbo on the porch & cheered us on.

At the parade w/ Grandma

Lindy, Uncle Brock & Grandpa

Brock had this thing for the cows at the parade & so I had to take a picture of him with them. It was actually fairly entertaining. He also tried & tried to get a t-shirt but nobody would throw him one. It took a long time, but when he finally got one, it was WAY too small. He put it on anyway & it was a total belly shirt. It was pretty dang funny.

I had some really cute patriotic outfits for Lindy. Sadly, the only picture I got of any of them was her headband that my brother put on. He struggled to keep a straight face and we struggled with keeping the camera still enough while laughing to take the picture. It was well worth all the tries though.


On Monday we went swimming at my cousins' pool. Of course Lindy loved it. She was all the entertainment we needed. She was squealing and splashing like crazy. I told my mom to video it, but it didn't work so well. I'll just have to settle for the pictures this time. Videos to come later. Unfortunately we didn't get to see fireworks, so we'll definitely take Lindy to those for the 24th.

Lehi Roundup

This last weekend was so much fun. We got to go to the Lehi Roundup parade with Liz and her kids. Lindy really liked watching everything. Benjamin enjoyed it even more. Even when we weren't sitting with him by the sidewalk, he stayed by himself just to be close. Abby didn't care much about the parade. She just walked around making friends with everyone. It was really cute.

Waiting for the parade to come

The absolute best part of the parade was getting our picture with Cosmo Cougar. This will be framed and put on our wall. Go Cougars!

After the parade we went to the park for the carnival. Lindy was too small for the rides, but she did enjoy the petting zoo.

Petting the bunnies

Abby & Benjamin enjoyed the bunnies too.

Because Benji & Abby are bigger they also got to enjoy the pony rides, train ride and swings. A good time was had by all.

Allan's Birthday

Last Sunday was Allan's birthday. He turned 28! My husband is getting so old. ;) It was also his first Father's Day. He was kind of bummed that they fell on the same day so I decided to go all out for him. I got him some new clothes for Father's Day and for his birthday...a WII! He also got Wii Fit & Guitar Hero 5 from friends & family. He's been having a blast with it. Actually, we both have. I got the Wii instead of a PS2 or XBox because they're a bit more family friendly. I don't play by myself, but I really enjoy it when we play together.

Luckily Allan has still been pretty responsible though. I threatened him that if he got addicted and stopped getting things done, I'd sell it. So the day after he got it, he came home & did all the dishes before he played. I guess he really wants to keep it. :)

We went to my family's house for dinner & my mom's brother & his family came over too. My aunt is known for making people work for anything, even gifts. Allan was no different. In order for him to get his birthday gift he had to pop balloons with his butt, spell the year he was born with his butt and then have a string tied to his back belt loop and try to get the string in a water bottle on the floor. It was so dang funny to watch! I wish I had recorded it. So he earned his gift which was a cup that they had put $20 worth of quarters in and then filled with candle wax. So he had to melt all the wax to get the $ and the wick was about 1" long.

I had the idea to boil water on the stove and then stick the cup in. It worked great! The entire candle was melted in less than 10 minutes. The only problem was that there was still wax all over them. And all over my counter. He cleaned all the wax off the quarters. My counter is another story. Hopefully he'll do that soon.

Swimming

A couple of weekends ago we took Lindy swimming for the first time with her cousins. She absolutely loved it! We had so much fun watching her. She kept getting splashed and Allan even let her go completely under water. I thought she would cry, but she never did. She actually kept splashing herself and still loved it.

Because of this, we decided to put her in swimming lessons when she's 6 months old. I looked into it and found out that baby's can start that young. It's pretty cool too. They learn to just get used to the water and also how to float on their backs. So she starts in July at our clubhouse pool. I'm excited for her to start.

How cute is she in her little swimsuit?!

Our little family

With Aunt Liz and cousins Benjamin and Abby

Chillin' with Daddy

Couponing

I recently started couponing and just had to share. I know it sounds stupid, but it really is cool. I've gotten so much stuff for so cheap! Last week I got Pamper's wipes for only $.50 each! They're normally $3.00 each. Woot! I also got Sobe drinks for only $.01 each. Today I spent $60 in groceries but saved $90! I got so much stuff too.

Totino's Pizzas - $.40

Scrubbing Bubbles - $1.20

Clorox Bleach - $.99

Bounty Paper Towels - $.79

Dial Hand Soap - FREE

Pantiliners - FREE

Pasta - FREE

Plus much, much more! My receipt is about 2 1/2 feet long because they added my approx. 50 coupons. So now my favorite thing about Sundays is getting my newspapers & cutting out my coupons. I'm a nerd, I know. But hey, I like saving so much money!

Summer Haircut

Once again, I cut my hair. I was losing clumps of it so I decided to just cut it. Then I found out that it's normal to lose a bunch of hair several months after having a baby. Had I known that, I might not have cut it. But oh well. I cut off about 8" or so. I'm still trying to get used to it, but it feels good to be off my neck for summer. Now I'm just debating whether or not to cut it even shorter. We shall see. You can see pictures of it in my upcoming posts.

Voices

I recently auditioned for a singing group called Voices and made it! I am so excited! I didn't think that I was going to make it. They were only taking 9 people and 14 had already auditioned the same day I did and there were going to be more. So this is pretty big.

We had our first rehearsal yesterday. I'm definitely the youngest person there but the other ladies are really nice. I think we'll get along well. We'll be meeting in Riverton once a week for 2 1/2 hours. I'm singing 2nd soprano.I haven't sung that part for a while. I'm always on alto. So this will be fun. We will mainly be doing our performances in December. If anybody wants a performance (family/work parties, community concert, anything), let me know and I'll get you in touch with our director.

Half Marathon

I recently decided that I'm going to run a half marathon. I've always enjoyed running, but am really bad at doing it consistently. Plus, I don't enjoy doing it by myself. My cousins told me that they are planning on running the half marathon in St. George later this year and just a couple of days later my best friend told me that she would like to do a half marathon. So I decided that I'm going to train and do this half marathon too. It'll help me get in shape and lose the pregnancy weight. I'm really excited about it.

This morning I woke up early and ran just over a mile with my cousin. It's definitely not much, but it's a start. And starting is half the battle, right? Hopefully I'll have gotten into the habit before we move so that when my cousins aren't around to keep me motivated, I'll be able to do it myself. Half marathon, here I come!

Thrill Seeker

We discovered this last week that Lindy is a little thrill seeker. She loves to be swung up in the air and loves the sensation of falling. We've had such a blast playing with her! She also laughed! It was so darling! My mom was swinging her up in the air and she just laughed a couple of times. I wish I could video it but she hasn't done it since. And poor Allan didn't even get to see it. But I'm sure it's coming soon. I can't wait to hear it frequently.

Please Help! - A Letter to Friends & Family

Dear Family & Friends,

In December of 2008 I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Adjusting to the new gluten-free (GF) diet has been one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. To have all your favorite foods ripped away, to watch people eat the good foods you can't, to see the commercials on TV for foods that look so good, but you can't ever eat is miserable. But every once in a while, I'll find something new in the GF world that gives me hope. This is one of them.

Jason's Deli is considering adding gluten-free sandwiches to their menu. Everytime a restaurant has a GF menu, I get excited. It makes eating out with family & friends so much easier for me. Mainly because I really don't like salads. They are currently taking a vote to see if they should actually do this. I'm begging you to PLEASE, PLEASE click on the link below and vote for them to add GF sandwiches to their menu.

Jason's Deli Gluten-Free Sandwiches









Thank you!

Lexi

A Place Of Our Own

We are officially under contract! We bought a house! Ok, it's actually a condo. But still, it's all ours. No more paying another's mortgage. We were motivated by the $8000 tax credit and because of it, we're able to do this. We're SO excited!

This has been quite the process. We started looking in the beginning of April so we didn't have much time. The first place we put an offer in on was a short sale and although it was already approved at the listed price, we offered $1000 more just to make sure. However, they didn't accept it. Our agent and the seller's agent were so mad! But we moved on.

The second places we made an offer on didn't work out because the seller was kind of retarded. They wouldn't work with us on price at all and actually ended up raising it above the original asking price. So we walked on that one. We walked away from this one with only a week left to find a place & get under contract to get the tax credit.

Turns out the 3rd time really is the charm. As soon as I walked into this condo, I knew it was the place. It was just a gut feeling (and I'm learning my gut feelings are NEVER wrong). I didn't even need to see the rest of it to know it was "the one." We put in an offer that night and ended up in a bidding war. We upped our offer just a little bit & were nervous we wouldn't get it, but the seller accepted it! And we found out that our offer was lower, but they felt like we would be better to work with. HOLY COW! We are so lucky!

Because we are in a basement apt, we had some pretty basic requirements. Ya know, windows, a bathtub, a full size fridge, etc. We got way more though. This place is super nice. It has lots of great upgrades like super nice carpet, a water softener, tile floors, corian counters (in the kitchen, bathrooms AND laundry room), stainless steel appliances (and we got the super nice fridge as well!), walk-in closet and my personal favorite, a jetted soaker tub! It really is beautiful.

After our first two disappointments, Allan told me he thought God didn't want us to have our own place because he wasn't helping. He was so discouraged and I really can't blame him. It was pretty discouraging. But I told him we couldn't lose faith and we'd find something. And we did! God really is aware of us. So we will be out in Eagle Mountain within the next month or so. Woo hoo!

Keeping Lindy Up

Because Allan doesn't have to go to work tomorrow, I told him that he gets to get up with Lindy tonight. He has decided to keep Lindy up late so that she'll sleep all night. She is so dang tired, but Allan is determined. He started blowing on her face to keep her up and the following hilariosity ensued...

It's so mean, but oh so funny. What makes it even funnier is that she was too tired to even cry. She just accepted it. He did finally let her sleep though and she's looking very peaceful.

New Clothes

Last week a lady in my family's ward gave me TONS of baby clothes. My cousin and I had so much fun looking through them. I'm learning that getting new things for your baby is just as much fun, if not more so, as getting things for yourself. Lindy sure didn't like playing dress up, but we had a blast.

Krystal & Grandma w/ Lindy getting ready to try

on the piles of clothes (no, we didn't try on ALL of them - just a couple)

And yet more clothes :)

Chatterbox

A few weeks ago Lindy truly discovered her voice. She hasn't stopped "talking" since. She is currently in her car seat on the other side of the room & is talking up a storm to herself. I absolutely love listening to her. What's even better is that when she's talking like this, she's all smiles too. It's so darling!

She's even cute when she's upset. If I do something to make her mad, she'll start telling me off. She doens't really cry, she complains at you. She's a sassy little thing! While it's dang cute, it makes me a little nervous. If this is what she's like at 2 1/2 months when she can't even talk, what is she going to be like in the terrible twos? Or worse, as a teenager? :\

Spoiled

This past weekend Lindy was completely spoiled. It was quite fun for me though. My mom took me shopping on Friday for new clothes for her and we had so much fun. We probably spent 15 minutes looking at the clothes we did buy and well over an hour looking at the rest. Baby clothes are just so dang cute and fun to look at!

Then on Saturday my grandparents (they are SO excited to be great-grandparents) took us shopping for her again. This time Allan got to pick out some clothes, which I think he thoroughly enjoyed. He picked a purple set, of course. He loves her in purple. I think he's getting sick of all the pink. Haha! So now Lindy has a brand new wardrobe with lots of purple included (although there's still lots of pink).

With all the new clothes, I love playing dress up with her. It's like she's my little doll. I never get upset when she spits up or has a blowout diaper because it just means I get to dress her in a new outfit. It's silly, but at least I don't get upset, right?

Luckily Allan and I got spoiled too. We went to Texas Roadhouse for lunch. It was amazing. Then my grandma got me an Easter dress. I can't remember the last time I got one. It was so much fun! I've decided that every female, no matter what age, should get a new dress at Easter. If it's the only new thing they get the whole year, they should get a new Easter dress each year. :)

But clothes and food wasn't all we were spoiled with. We didn't forget about the real holiday and loved listening to conference this weekend. It was such a great reminder of what our Savior did for us. I can't wait for the May Ensign so I can go over them again. I love the feeling of peace I feel when listening to our leaders speak.

Lindy & me showing off her Easter dress from Grandma Arnell

Lindy with her new Easter basket

(We'll use it the next few years for treats. This year it's just for pics.)

Allan's favorite new purple outfit

Complete with bunny beanie (try saying that 10 times fast)

Another new dress (from Whitney). She really looks like a doll in this picture.

Smile Pictures

While we were at the Festival of Colors, Liz watched Lindy for us. Lindy finally got to meet her cousins, Benjamin & Abby. They were so cute with her. Benjamin got to hold her and Abby kept coming up to her and saying, "Baby?" Then she'd stroke her face or hand very gently. I was impressed with her. Lindy also got to see Grandma Rosa. And luckily, Liz got pictures of Lindy smiling so I finally have some! She was looking at Benjamin while smiling so Liz was able to capture it. I'm so glad!

Lindy smiling

(Yeah, most of the time she just opens her mouth really wide.)

More smiles

With cousin Benjamin

Grandma Rosa with all the grandkids

Lindy did a great job of putting Grandma Rosa to bed. :)

Festival of Colors

Last weekend we went to the Festival of Colors. It's a celebration to welcome the spring. It is held at the Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. After the emcee counts down, everybody throws chalk at everybody else. It is such a blast! We went with our friends Mike & Megan and Seth & Cindy. It was so great. We were covered in chalk even before the countdown. But after the countdown, it was crazy! The chalk dust was so thick we couldn't see the sun and could only see about 10 ft in front of us. We had to breathe through our shirts for a bit too. And while the chalk bag says it's edible, that stuff tastes NASTY! It was totally worth it though. We're all definitely going next year and the next, and the next, etc. :)

Before the fight

After the fight - front side

After the fight - back side

The four of us

(We lost Seth & Cindy in the crowd.)

The crowd

My closeup

Play Mat

At Lindy's doctor appointment this week the doctor was telling me about the milestones she'll be reaching soon. Within the next month she should start batting at things we put in front of her and at four months she should start reaching for them. The doctor also said we should stimulate her by putting toys in front of her and that the mats with the dangling toys above the baby is a great thing to use. Unfortunately, we dont' have one of those play mats.

I told my dad about the appointment and the milestones she should be reaching soon. He told my mom and she went out and bought Lindy a little play mat. She just can't resist buying her stuff. I think it's funny. I love it though. So now Lindy has this darling pink and green play mat with lots of toys dangling from it. It even plays music. I put her on it today and she was completely mesmerized. She normally hates being on her back and will cry after just a minute or so. But on the mat, she lied there for about 10 minutes at least before even fussing. She loves it! See?

Some Much Needed Sleep

A couple of weeks ago I got an infection and it has steadily gotten worse. This infection causes excruciating pain and so I haven't been sleeping much the last few days. I think I'm averaging about 4-5 hours a night. Last night, after falling asleep on the couch, Allan got me up and sent me to bed. He took my books and phone away from me (and put my phone on silent even - in the other room!) so I wouldn't be distracted by anything. He then stayed up late with Lindy so that I could sleep. I felt bad because he had to get up early and I didn't, but he wouldn't hear it. He insisted I get sleep (at his expense). Although I felt bad, it felt so good to sleep! And to top it off, Lindy ended up sleeping all day long. It was nice to finally catch up.

Because of the medication I'm on, I was feeling pretty loopy today so after Allan got home from work, he went to town cleaning up our place. He did the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, folded laundry & even bathed Lindy. I got to just chill & take it easy. I have the most wonderful husband in the whole world! He really takes good care of me. :)

One Tough Baby

Lindy got her 2 month shots today. Originally Allan was going to take her in for them because I knew that I would probably cry right along with her, but after having to take a sick day, he just couldn't. I was dreading it so much. It's so hard to watch your child hurting. I had a hard time watching her get her heel pricked in NICU so I knew this would be really bad. However, all my stressing was for naught.

When the nurse gave Lindy her shots, she definitely started crying, but it wasn't the scream I was anticipating. It was just a mild cry. And she only cried for 20-30 seconds. My baby is SO TOUGH! I should've known. In NICU she didn't even cry when they pricked her heel. I was so relieved! And to top it all off, when I was putting her pants back on her she was smiling! Once again, so tough!

She is now 9 lbs. 6 oz. & 20 1/2 in. long. She's getting so big! She's now in the 13th percentile for her weight and 1st percentile for her length so technically she's not that big, it just seems like it to us. But she's beautiful and very healthy.

Smiles

As of Wednesday, Lindy is officially smiling! It has to be the cutest thing I've ever seen. I absolutely love it! I've been putting off this post because I wanted a picture of her smiling, but I just can't get one. She'll only smile at our faces so if I'm holding a camera in front of me, she won't. I'm stilling working on it. I'll get one just as soon as I can. In the meantime, here's more cute pictures of her.

St. Patrick's Day

Growing up my mom always did a lot for holidays. Although St. Patrick's Day is a small one, she still celebrated. She would dye our food green for the day. I decided to carry on this fun tradition. For breakfast I made green eggs & ham and cream of wheat. For dinner it was ham with a mustard brown sugar glaze and mashed potatoes. And then of course there was milk for both meals.

Cream of wheat

Green eggs & ham

The completed meal

Mustard brown sugar glaze on ham w/ mashed potatoes

While these all look absolutely disgusting, they were all very delicious! Allan thought it was pretty cool. I love food coloring!