Outside is Awesome

The weather has finally warmed up a bit, and to celebrate we took Alex to the park. We began humbly, bundled up in the carseat, content to be entertained by watching Lance play tennis.



For a lover of physical comedy, this sight was hilarious.



She thought it was so funny that Lance decided to include her in the action, and the tennis game turned into baby Wimbledon.



Baby tennis turned out to be a hit. Each time Lance or Rob would hit the tennis ball, the babies would go into histarics. And so a new sport has emerged.

Next it was on to the playground, which turns out to be much more fun if you can walk. However, it was delightfully dirty, which for Alex meant plenty of new things to taste which also managed to successfully sick me out.



Emery touched poop (poop pictured below) and was quickly captured for decontamination.

Who doesn't love a good swing?

An innocent shoulder ride which turned into a baby chicken fight with Aunt Maren and Cousin Emery. Of course. Why wouldn't it.

After Alex and Lance worked their butts, it was time to go home, which after so much merriment was sure to be met with much disappointment.

However, with warm weather here to stay we will have plenty of park days in our future.

MAC eyeshadow

I was recently informed that I was missing out on one of life's little jewels. Apparently, MAC eyeshadow will not only make your eyes look delicious but also has been shown to help you lose weight, solve the nation's energy crisis, and cures cancer.

As one who has always purchased cheap cosmetics, I was a little wary of the price tag. But, with a friend's wedding in the future I decided to splurge so that I could bat my beautiful blues at my husband while we danced in the moonlight, sweeping him off his feet. So off I went.

Located in fancy department stores, this brand was world's away from my normal eye wear purchases, and I felt a little out of my element. Thankfully the cosmetic assistant was very helpful as she told me the wonders of this product. When I voiced my concern about picking the right color due to the higher price tag, she couldn't have been more surprised. MAC products are significantly lower priced than other similar department brands. With foundation $$ and lipstick $$ and mascara $$, you could buy your whole face for a mere $250. FANTASTIC!

Well, I did end up buying two different eye shadows, and have been experimenting ever since. I haven't been blown away so far, and do not feel the need to exclaim "Once you go MAC you'll never go back!" as the lady at the sales counter did, but that is more likely due to my own inexperience rather than the product. So with tools in hand, I march forward, hopefully to a more beautiful me.

Oh yes, and Lance was smitten at the wedding.

Easter Fun

This Easter, Alex went on her first Grand Easter Egg Hunt, made possible by our lovely neighborhood. Navigation was provided in part by Me, and then by Lance after 5 minutes of complete failure. Transportation was also made possible by Lance utilizing the versatile, and very manly, Snugli.

Alex loved the hunt, and she even held her own Easter basket (as shown above) for much of the trip. After visiting (nearly) all of the houses we returned home to enjoy the fruits of our labor. The following is documentation of said fruits. However, you may notice that something is wrong with this picture. No one is holding onto the basket. At the precise moment the picture was taken, Alex had apparently decided that the hunt was much better than the treasure of having the actual eggs, and promply let go of her basket sending the contents, much to our disappointment, speedily to the ground. She however, was delighted.

Now don't be silly. Although slightly more crumbly than desired, Lance and I still ate the candy.

Easter morning brought even more goodies. The Easter Bunny did not disappoint, and brought treats for all to enjoy. Alex loved her new toy, Lance loved his too, and I finally got to eat the Peeps that have been sitting on my counter for a week getting hard and delicious.

Grandma's house was also full of Easter fun, an Easter Egg Hunt with all the cousins, which was spent looking on with BFF Emery, sucking on eggs (which ended up not being so bad after all) and looking very pretty in her new Easter dress.

We had a lot of fun, but truly I am grateful for the meaning behind this reverent holiday.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Christmas Day

Now that it is March, I finally received my Christmas present. A brand new washer and dryer. You may remember a post awhile back detailing Lance's man shopping adventures the day after Thanksgiving. We are just now receiving the benefits of that blessed day. Thank you Sears for having my parents drive an hour and a half with a trailer to pick up a machine that wasn't in the store just hours after confirming its presence. Thank you for then going the extra mile and deleting our order out of your system not once but twice, and for lying to me about it so that I wouldn't know you messed up. Thanks for losing our shipping information on multiple occasions and for making us wait at home all day on the first promised delivery date for a machine that never came. We appreciate all of the promises you never kept, and the many treasured hours spent on the phone getting things worked out. Looking forward to doing business with you again.

Lance and Lindsay

But truly, I am happy they are finally here and working. My laundry never looked or smelled sweeter.

Skills

Parenting skills that is. Being that I have now been a parent for 7 and one half months, I would like to share some of my pearls of wisdom that I have gained along the way.

Skill #1: Be sure to underestimate the reach of your child as well as their determination to obtain things they should not have.

Recently, I left Alex playing on the bed while took a few personal moments to get ready for the day. Before leaving I noticed a pen was sitting on the bed. It was well out of Alex's reach and with her current motor skills she would need to fall over and inch forward on her stomach in order to reach it, which process I could see from the bathroom. Considering all the other toys and equally intriguing items that were in her reach, I decided that the pen was safely out of harms way and decided to leave it. Good decision.

As I was getting ready, there were delightful little squeals and similar happy noises coming from the next room and not once did I see her move from her original spot. Never suspecting she had actually reached the forbidden ink pen, I thought she was busily playing with her toys, while in fact she was actually drawing happily all over her face and hands. I came back into the room to find a very slobbery pen and a baby with a mustache. I still can't figure out how she got the pen. The laws of physics contradict the entire incident. However, I am currently very thankful that both Lance and I are cheap, and have never owned a pen that actually works. Three dozen pens: 10 cents. Infant damage control: priceless.

I must apologize for these pictures. You can't see the ink very well around her lips and nose. This is because these pictures were taken after her bath were I was halfway through washing the evidence off when I decided that it might not be so bad to remember this event after all.

Skill #2: Hairstyling

Alex's mohawk is now too long to retain much curl with our velcro rollers and too short to wrap multiple times around a sponge roller. If left straight down it hangs very sadly in her eyes, and if combed to the side she resembles an old man with a comb over (a very cute old man, but still). Solution, the ponytail. Here are the efforts of my first attempt to wrap an elastic band, which I recently discovered to be much much to large, 31 times around my daughter's 3 hairs.

This is a slightly more triumphant second attempt utilizing the beauty of distraction and a slightly less wiggly horizontal position.

Next we have pigtails and then bangs. Oh the possibilities.

We are certainly making progress, but we are still trying to deal with the aftermath.

Diamond in the rough

Apparently, one man's trash was my treasure. We found this little jewel at the ever wonderful D.I. and quickly snatched it up for a mere $15. Lance nonchalantly carried the chair, along with our murder mystery costume accessories, to the cash register at the front of the store, where he casually placed our new found treasure at the feet of a surprised cashier. It was at this point she decided to inform us that we, "could have just brought the tag". Yes thank you, but we don't often get attention, so we like to go to stores and carry large items around above our heads just to make sure we get noticed. I will admit, our decision making skills were questionable at this point since we were attempting to purchase some suspenders, a hat, a belt, and oh yes we'll take this armchair as well. However, there was method to our madness. We were planning on taking the chair with us right then and we were parked out front.

In summary, although thought to be insane, we were allowed to purchase the chair, which now resides in our living room with all of the other mismatched furniture. It matches our orange wall for now, but some day when we actually get nice furniture, we plan to recover it in plush leather or something equally nice, like crushed velvet. Who knows? Eat your heart out IKEA.

Bigger

You may remember this photo from a previous post demonstrating how small Alex was. Well, that view has changed a bit since then. I am still not quite sure when this happened.

Halloween/Valentines Day

One might argue that these two holidays could not be combined with any degree of success. How wrong you are. Admittedly, I used to be one of these people, an antiHallowtineite. I have since been convinced of the error of my ways. Consider the facts that on both days you receive treats, often from people whose identity may be somewhat questionable, and on neither holiday do we receive time off of work, although they are both widely considered to be among the more major holidays, and you'll see that they are not all that dissimilar. This point was proven further by the chosen festivities of this past Valentine's Day where my sister-in-law hosted a murder mystery dinner on the day of hearts. We all dressed up in accordance with our assigned parts to enjoy an evening of fine dining, wonderful company, and the occasional murder.


Aside from the murder victim, the rest of the party was not exempt from peril. Before the dinner even started we had a tiny incident with fingers and superglue. Ashley, ever willing to be helpful, was trying to help her dad, Brian, glue an earing to his ear to complete his bad boy ensemble. Unfortunately, the combination of a 12 year old girl, some superglue, and an unsuspecting earlobe was too much for Murphy's law to resist and hilarity ensued.


The two were eventually separated with a little help from Shelley, a cotton swab, and some finger nail polish remover.

The rest of the evening went without incident, you know except for the murder, and fun was had by all, again with exception of the victim. Poor man. So you see, Halloween and Valentine's Day can be mixed with delightful results. In case you were wondering, Lance was a German wine seller and I was a non-slutty(despite my pose hinting to the contrary) but equally bratty version of a Hollywood movie star.






Happy Valentine's Day!!

Milk mustache

Alex has graduated to a number 3 nipple, minds out of the gutter please, I am referring to a bottle nipple that has three holes instead of two. (Shame on you) The benefit is that the milk comes out much faster than it did before, which means she can finish an 8 oz bottle in half the time! Yes, that does deserve an exclamation point. This is very exciting, especially since she is coupling this achievement with another, that of holding her bottle by herself. She still needs supervision with this if you want the majority of her food to end up in her stomach rather than on and around it, but it is progress. Soon she will be totally independent in this area. And while I won't miss the wrestling matches we often have during this time, I will miss the precious time I get to hold her while she eats in between the pile drivers, suflexs, and body slams that had us in the running for the WWF. Just check out how happy she is about her new eating habits.

Precious moments

Alex has begun to recognize herself in mirrors.  It is delightful to watch the recognition spread across her face as she realizes that that it is her own lovely face looking and smiling back at, well, herself.  She is also obsessed with reaching for and grabbing things that she ought not touch. What do these two things have in common.  Well, the following video of course.  Lance's computer has a camera built in which shows you a picture of yourself, usually used for video chatting, etc.  It is also not necessarily a toy that you would want to let a 6 month old baby slobber all over.  Hence the following.

Alex's has also discovered the genius of physical comedy.  If you are willing to make a fool out of yourself and possibly do yourself bodily harm by jumping and throwing yourself around, she will reward you with a happy giggle.  But you have to work for it.  No sissy stuff.  However, it is well worth the shy, half scared, half delighted chirp of a laugh that melts my heart.  To give you an idea of what is going on off screen, Lance is twirling, jumping, falling to the ground, hiding behind doors and popping out, and flailing himself about in every possible manner.  Yes, I thought you would like a visual of that.  This has become our new exercise plan.  At first she is reluctant to look away from herself on the computer screen as we just got done playing the try to suck on daddy's computer game and she is still trying to figure out how to get that baby, but she is eventually distracted by daddy's antics.  I must also explain myself in this video.  There is a rather long awkward section where I am staring stupidly at the computer screen.  I was only trying to make sure that you could see her face in the camera since she was kind of turned to the side.  While in the moment it was beneficial in nature, it still ends up making me look like an idiot.  So enjoy two parents looking like idiots in order to make their darling child laugh.

Battle of the templates

Lance and I cannot seem to find a template for our blog that we agree upon. While I will admit, Lance is the more creative, artistic, and a much more qualified individual to be making this decision, I still think that I am right. So with that said, here is my latest pick for our blog template. I hope you find it visually stimulating and highly enjoyable, and do not be surprised if it changes on Monday when Lance gets to stay home.

Mr. Mom Mondays

This is Lance posting now. 

I love Mondays. I get to stay home and take care of Alex because Lindsay goes into work in Salt Lake on Mondays. Luckily she can work from home all the rest of the week. Anyway, I recorded Alex in her bouncer awhile back to try and send to mommy at work but she couldn't view it. So I am just going to post it on the blog to see if she can see it on here.

Also, is that me wearing Lindsay's bathrobe in the morning like a cute little housewife? Yes. Yes it is.

Some missed pictures

Here are some family photos from the Harris family reunion. These turned out amazingly well considering they were taken by ametuer photographers, in natural lighting, with limited direction of our positioning, and lots and lots of kids. Great call on the white and khaki whosever idea that was. They get a gold star for making us all look great.

The immediate Harris Family

The extended Harris Family in its entirety

Our little family

Precious.

4 kids on a couch and showing their individual personalities quite well. I am sure Alex was thinking to herself at this point why her loving parents had placed her in such a precarious circumstance and then just stood there smiling and cooing in her face while she slowly fell over. It was totally worth it though.

This is our little monster baby. We went to go see the lights in downtown Ogden (who knew?) and Lance had Alex bundled up in a snuggly on his chest. Everyone kept looking at us and laughing the entire night (well alright they were looking and laughing more than usual) and thought Lance was the "cutest daddy on the block" with a snuggly warm baby sticking out of his coat. Then like we always do, we decide to take it one step further and see if we could cut Lance entirely out of the picture. And what do you know, if he ducked down just right you end up with a 6'10" baby walking down the street.