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It is obvious from her thighs that LE really likes food. She also loves phones as is typical of girls. These two items have helped motivate her to crawl!!! Some of her baby "friends" were crawling away so LE couldn't take their toys, but now we have to keep a better eye on her. Here are two crawling videos for your enjoyment taken her first day of crawling on January 7, 2011. She is the only person in the family who has reached most of her New Year Goals already.

Winter Wonderland

You have a lot of firsts when a baby is born. First smile, laugh, TOOTH(which we had our first sighting of this week), eating solid food, the list goes on. Today's first is sledding. We were on Old Main Hill at USU, where sledding is quite popular. There are people doing crazy things on this hill (like doing backflips as you shoot the stair gap) so the university posted a sign that any activities are at your own risk. With LE's dad around, I'm surprised they weren't trying to ride down the stairs.

LE wasn't quiet sure of the snow. She didn't cry or smile, just looked at it, and tried to eat it. I have fond memories of sledding as a child at Murray Park. When it comes to cold weather, I am a wimp. I remember throwing up several years in a row because my body couldn't handle being cold. I still get sick if I am too cold, and I think of those sledding days on Murray Hill.

Now a word from the doctor..."Now, the Star-Bell Sneetches had bellies with stars. The Plain-Belly Sneetches had none upon thars. Those stars weren’t so big. They were really so small. You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all. But, because they had stars, all the Star-Belly Sneetches Would brag, 'We’re the best kind of Sneetches on the beaches.' " (We might have a biased opinion about our little Sneetch.)

Thanks Auntie E for the wonderful Snow suit.

Scared of Santa

I have seen many kids cry when their parents force them to go sit on Santa's lap. I think the solution to this problem is to have a Mrs. Clause. Everyone likes a nice grandma. LE was really interested in Santa's bells, but had no interest in actually sitting on his lap. I am sure she will go through a time when she doesn't want to do it, hopefully that time comes in the summer. I am just glad there were some interesting ceiling fans to keep LE distracted.

This Santa was pretty authentic; a little overweight, a full white beard, little glasses and belt of bells. I was thinking he probably could haul in quite a bit of extra cash during the month of December. I wonder how much money they earn for getting sat on for several hours.

Christmas Tree

Every Christmas that we have been married we have headed up to Idaho after Thanksgiving to cut down a tree for the season. Usually this pine tree will start as a Christmas tree, turn into our winter tree, then out Valentine Day tree. This year it didn't work out to go north, so we thought we would make our own tree. It is made out of a cardboard box with pieces of wood taped on the back so it would stand up.

Of course it looks better when you turn the house lights off. One plus is that a 2D tree doesn't take up much of our limited space.


A "friend" left a huge box on our porch with a note saying that this tree has seen a lot of years of use, but it is still in decent shape. All we know is that it once belonged to "Ron & Peggy ".We were very grateful that someone thought we needed a better tree, so now we have two, and we love it. Actually we have three, but one is only a foot tall for LE as seen above. We are grateful for thoughtful friends and we hope everyone can be a little more Ron&Peggy-ish.

Meat is on the Menu

LE tried chicken and gravy tonight. It is the first time she has had a chance to eat something that was not a fruit or vegetable. Wait, I need to clarify that a bit. This is the first time that LE's mother has intentionally fed her something that was not a fruit or vegetable. It was all mashed up and in those small glass jars but it sure didn't look like chicken. I am sure it was some sort of processed ground up meat (probably SPAM). Here is her reaction.



Mmmm... delicious.

Tomato Fight

We don't have pictures to post right now, but we would like to share a wonderful family tradition. As for background, Ba and Ry really don't like to eat tomatoes, but they do have their uses.

Ba's side of the family gets all their old, moldy, rotten tomatoes and seperates them into buckets. Teams are then randomly choosen by selecting slips of paper out of a hat. We were on the same team this year, so no one will be sleeping on the couch. We gather in the garden with our buckets of amunition and the brawl begins by flinging the bad (all puns intended) vegetables at the other team. There is usually a centerline that is not 'supposed' to be crossed, and guidelines about hitting below the shoulder. No permanent damage was done, but by the end tomato guts were everywhere, including down pants, in pockets, and splattered against an ear. It is hardest to get it out of your hair, but everyone who participates knows what they are getting into and it is a pretty fun time. I guess the only good thing to do with tomatoes is throw them at your relatives.

Old school is the best way

Our society has hit a new low. I thought the whole idea of Halloween, and dressing up is fun. When I was a kid we would print off maps of our neighborhood and plot our route with a highlighter so we could get the most houses in the time we had. Now parents and kids are too lazy to even walk around (curse those trunk-or-treats). Last night was raining (like that would stop us as kids) and we only saw three groups of kids going door to door. Not only are we collecting candy that is very unhealthy, but we aren't even getting our exercise before we poison our bodies with a sugar overdose. It is almost as bad as our favorite habit or pigging out on ice cream while we watch Biggest Looser. Many people say that is is much safer... I don't know anyone who lives in the bronx. If you live in a sketchy part of town, then trick-or-treating seems like a great way to meet your sketchy neighbors without a fruit cake. Going door-to-door seems like the only way to go, but nobody went. What is the world coming to? Now that I am stepping off my soap box here are some pictures of our holiday that we really enjoy.

Ba is using her long tongue to eat the doughnut off the sting at a ward party. She was lightning fast.

Ry dressed up like a tin foil dinner. When we carved pumpkins, we would pick an expression and someone else tried to capture that emotion on the pumpkin's face.

Bobbing for apples made Ry get tons of water up his nose. He was also lightning fast.

A friend party celebrating pie night. LE is a s'more (because she looks like a marshmallow when she wears white) and Ba is a hot dog. Ba made LE's gram cracker crust with chocolate oozing out. It was a family theme of camping food items.

We are ready to go door-to-door trick-or-treating. Remember when your parents made your costumes super big so you could put them on over your coat...