New Tricks!

I have been meaning to post these pictures and videos for a few days so there are quite a few.  The past few weeks she has loved pulling herself up next to things-the couch, piano bench during lessons, my legs, a basket, the side of the tub, pretty much anything she can.  She always does it one of two ways- She deliberately puts one hand and then the other.  Then she either pops her knees out to a push up position and walk forward or "walk" forward on her knees and then stand. I am sure you didn't want all that detail, but I wanted to remember it.  She gets so excited and looks around to make sure you are watching her when/after she has done it.  Her other new trick is to wave.  It is pretty cute because she will wave when Ryan leaves for work and sometimes if you just go into the other room and come back, or other random times.  She gets pretty excited and thinks she is all grown up.  She is such a happy baby UNLESS she is teething.  I HATE TEETHING!!! She got 2 at the same time a few months ago, but she has been working on this one top tooth for a few weeks now.  We have tried so many different things and they help some, but she still doesn't sleep as well as she usually would.  It is finally all cut through! Hooray! Seriously though, other than that she is always happy.  I love all of her smiles and laughs.  She is so playful and really just makes me so happy! I miss teaching so much, but I am so glad that she is here and I can't imagine life without her! The first picture is one random day when we got home.  Her bow is pulled off (in the middle of the picture) and she apparently was looking at her book before she fell asleep.

She got a little distracted as she was crawling, but I love her cute little laugh.  Please ignore the annoying voice (mine) in the next video of her waving! The last video is her pulling herself up onto the chair.  She thinks she is pretty big-time, but I thought it was pretty cute.  

Like Father Like Daughter

After dinner tonight Alli was getting into Ryan's gym bag and found his sweatband.  Then she pulled out the swimming goggles so Ryan decided to help her and he put them on.  This is what the end result was.  She kind of reminds me of the little boy on The Christmas Story with the super thick glasses.  Poor girl, somehow she is still cute to me though.  The play got better when Ryan was entertaining her.  

I looked over and this is what I saw.  This is just one example of how Ryan is not afraid to be silly to make her happy.  He is such a good father, he really didn't want this picture put up, but I thought it was great.  He can always make her happy and is so good to help with her when he is home at night.  I couldn't ask for a better husband or father for Alli.  Just another reason why I love Ryan!

This was obviously before the goggles, I had to put one relatively normal picture up.  This little girl is so happy and is so fun.  She makes me laugh all during the day!

Then she fell asleep and I tried to wake her up.  She made the grumpiest face, the picture really doesn't do it justice.  Ryan also does not like to woken up (I don't know anyone who does actually) and is quite grumpy so just another way she takes after her father! I love them both so much, they make me so happy!

High School Post

You are probably going to be sick of these tags, but I kind of enjoy writing them because then I keep kind of a journal about some things that I otherwise wouldn't so one of these days I will put up a regular post, but nothing too exciting has happened lately other than new teeth (for Alli, not me or Ryan ha) and her being sick so not sleeping, but she is doing much better now.

1. Did you date someone from your high school? Not real serious ever. I guess for most of my junior year, but he only tried to kiss me once and missed- the first time he asked me out I asked if he wanted me to meet him at the movies-I seriously struggled with the whole dating idea!
2. What kind of car did you drive? My mom's until my senior year then I got the Gray 1991 Probe which my brother lovingly crashed before leaving on his mission. It got fixed, but the headlight never would come up right.
3.Did you pass your driver's license test on the first try? Yep
4. Were you a party animal? Not hardly. I went to stuff at school and hungout with friends, but mostly I was content to watch movies/go out to eat with my mom and lil' bro.
5. Were you considered a flirt? Probably not-remember question 1-I struggled!
6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? A Capella and Show Choir-I had a lot of fun singing and surprisingly enough dancing as well in the show choir.
7. Were you a nerd? Friends with a lot and depending on who you ask. I think no, but Ryan would probably say yes. Maybe someone from my high school can shed some light on this one.
8. Were you on any varsity teams? Does Debate count? I also ran Cross Country my sr. year and played volleyball my freshman and sophomore years.
9. Did you ever get suspended/expelled? Nope. It was nice because you could do a lot of things and miss a lot of class and blame it on student council.
10. Can you still sing the fight song? Nope, I don't know if I ever did.
11. Who were your favorite teachers? Not sure, probably our Sr Council advisor Melissa, Mr. Brough, Mr. Olsen-AP English teacher who regularly played his guitar and sang Bob Dylan for us-it was a realy tough class :)
12. Where did you sit for lunch? In the commons area or I would drive and get lunch or run errands.
13. What is your school's full name? Spanish Fork High School
14. What is your school's mascot? A Don- Spanish Zorro dude
15. Did you go to Homecoming and with who? Yes- My Junior year I went with John Frampton and I went to Payson's with Stewart Fuller, and my Sr year with Drew Tycksen.
16. If you could, would you go back and do it again? No. I like to remember the good times and try to forget the bad, but I wouldn't want to relive it except maybe to relax and live in the moment more.
17. What do you remember most about graduation? GIving my Valedictorian's speech and taking pictures after.
18. Where did you go Senior Skip Day? I don't remember, How lame is that. We had graduation practice in the afternoon so I probably just slept in. I don't know.
19. Were you in any clubs- Yes, but I wasn't the most active. The ones I would usually go to were BLT-business leaders of tomorrow because we had lunch meetings with lunch served and NHS. The rest were more hit and miss.
20. Have you gained some weight since then- Yes definitely during college and with Alli, but most of my clothes fit so I think I have lost it since having Alli :) It is a very exciting time when I try something on and it fits!
21. Who was your prom date? Jr year-Weston Youd and Sr. Year- Adam Bracken
22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Probably, I think it is always fun to see people and see what they are doing.
23. Did you have a job in high school? Yes, I taught piano lessons.
So there you have it, my high school career in a nutshell. I tag anyone reading this because it is fun to read about people's high school experiences!

For Mags!

So I have been tagged a few times and I am a little behind responding, but I think they are really fun. I started one from Mags a few weeks ago so I will finish that one first. For this one you name 6 quirks about herself.
#!: I eat my food in a certain order. I don't know when it started and I don't always do it, but usually if I have multiple things on my plate I eat all of one thing and then I move around my plate clockwise. OCD I know, but for some reason it just happens. Even weirder is that generally if I want more of something I will get more of that food, eat it, and then continue on around the plate.
#2:I haven't ever thought I was particular about food until now. I don't eat fat on meat. Ryan teases me because, in his words, I dissect chicken and bacon before I eat them. I will end up with a nice little pile of "scraps" a lot of which he says is perfectly good to eat.
#3: Before I go to bed I have to put lotion on my hands and elbows and chapstick/vaseline on my lips or it just feels wrong to lay there before I go to sleep. I also usually have to sleep on my side with one arm under the pillow and the other arm holding the covers up by my chin- even in the summer.
#4: Most nights I fall asleep thinking of the words to "A Child's Prayer" and have done this since elementary school. I would get scared or have really bad nightmares so my parents told me to do this. I think of this song whenever I am scared now as well.
#5: I really enjoyed college, minus the tests. I would actually like to go back and get a bunch of other degrees because I think the information is so interesting. I don't think I ever will, but if I did I would get a degree in nursing, piano performance, Exercise Science, business, Interior Design, Culinary school, and Dietetics or Genetics. Somehow these didn't all fit into one degree-hmm wonder why.
#6:I'm becoming a little OCD about having our house clean and getting food storage. Besides putting laundry away (which I do not like) most everything else is actually really enjoyable. I think it is therapeutic to put things away and regain order in my life (symbolically) since it is usually when Alli is asleep. Walking in to a room and seeing it in perfect order is so satisfying for me.

So now that I sound like a nut job who needs counseling for OCD, you know all of my quirks-or at least most of them. I also have a fetish for paper-notebooks, scrapbook paper etc and cookbooks- I enjoy reading the recipes, and I hate it when people pick at things, especially on themselves. I tag anyone who hasn't already done this tag (specifically Natalie, Casey, Amber, Robyn, Cori, Kate, Erin and Staci) because it was kind of fun to think about how weird I actually am when I think I am fairly normal! What quirks do you have?

Quick Question

I need a little advice from any of who you have been to a spinning/cycling class. I am going to start teaching some next week so I would like to know what you liked/disliked about the class/teacher/routine etc. so that I can try to make my class good. I am pretty excited because I taught aerobics at BYU (thanks to Kate G.), but I haven't taught spinning before. I think it will be fun though. Thanks for any input you have!

Cruisin' to Cabo

The company Ryan used to work for does a cruise for their sales guys as a performance bonus so we got to go.  We took Alli with us, which we were kind of worried about, but she did FABULOUS! I couldn't have made her any better or any happier if that makes sense. She slept great, ate great, and was totally happy seriously the entire time!  I was completely amazed.  The last night she got some gas so she was kind of sad during the night, but still she fussed, passed the gas, and went back to sleep.  It was really fun because there were probably less than 10 babies on the ship (there were over 400 kids though) so the staff and passengers gave her so much attention (probably why she was so happy).  The staff members were so cute because they would see her and remember her name so they would come up and talk/play/make her smile.  The one potential dark sport about the whole vacation was that we realized Wednesday night at about 6:00 that we had never gotten birth certificate for her.  Luckily we could get one at the Salt Lake Health Dept. early Thursday morning before going to the airport.  Both flights I just fed her during take off and she slept the rest of the way.  We gave her some medicine for seasickness to start off with to make sure she didn't get it, but on the way back from Cabo we didn't give it to her and she did fine.  I just keep thinking about how happy she was so it made the whole trip fun.  In Cabo we went Deep Sea fishing with some other people from our group and while we were there we saw a pod of dolphins, a sea lion, a marlin jumping out of the water, and Ryan saw a school of flying fish.  Sadly, they didn't catch anything-we came back quick because some of the people with us got really seasick.  We got to swim out in the ocean though while they were waiting for the lines.  Then we went snorkeling-Ryan and I switched off- and I saw a stingray! It was pretty cool. Anyway, then we walked around Cabo and shopped for souvenirs for Alli-two bracelets and two little dresses before getting back on the boat.  One comical (kind of sad though) thing about Cabo is we would get offered bracelets in one hand and cocaine or weed in the other- such a different way of life down there! 

Updates!

We finally got internet today so now I don't have to "borrow" internet that doesn't usually even work! I am pretty excited.  I have written the posts for the past little while, but the pictures wouldn't work when I tried uploading and making the slideshow so sorry it has taken a while.  Tonight Ryan went to the U of U football game with Phillip, but of course Alli didn't go to sleep until LATE-o/well.  I went to the mall with my mom earlier and it was nice of Alli to be so concerned about me that she wanted to stay up and keep me company :) Speaking of which, lately she LOVES if you late her drive the car-pretty much she sits on your lap in the car in the driveway and she gets to pretend she is driving.  Then a few days before Halloween we had the Halloween costumes out-my mom borrowed my rockin' hippy costume so we put Ryan's wig on Alli- I thought it was pretty funny.  When she looked in the mirror and saw herself she was so confused.  She loves grabbing my hair though so she enjoyed having the wig right there for convenient "grabbing."