snow duck and fox dog

i am a mom

2011-12-21T21:19:00.000-07:00

i sing to my kids all day. not real songs. weird made up songs with their names in them, or about what we are doing, or real songs but with different words. right now they think it is normal. its funny to think that i am raising children and that they are going to remember me as their mom, just like i remember my mom when i was little. i am sure that my memories of my mom when i was two and her memories of herself when i was two are very different. i wonder what my kids will think of their funny, singing mom when they grow up.
anyways here are four random pictures from out photo stream. :)
also look at the baby blog

the tiniest little people house!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it is an ornament on our tree...it actually cost more than the tree (the tree was $15, for reference). this is a family heirloom!

alice and empanadas. jon is into empanadas lately and we have been eating them a lot as he works on perfecting his technique and starting a food truck.

umm.. our grocery list...with paint on it

urban family. on the trax. going to see the christmas lights.

2011-10-18T13:17:00.000-06:00

we have been sick almost every week since this little boy came home from the hospital (but thankfully he hasn't been sick at all! thank you breastfeeding:)

hopefully this week we will fully recover from our coughs (especially alice) and come back to normal life.

for more updates look at the baby blog here

i have actually thought of a lot of things to write on this blog...but do i remember them? not at all.

at random

2011-07-26T14:08:00.000-06:00

this blog is dead. and i can't make any promises that it will come back to life anytime soon. we are too busy living to blog. you should probably just look at alice's blog more often --------->

in the meantime here are some random photos of what we have been up to lately.

pizza night!! every friday night we put out an open invitation to anyone and everyone to come make and eat pizza with us. we make the dough and people bring toppings, and watermelon, and desserts, and whatever they have leftover in their fridge. it is a lot of fun...more fun than this picture shows and the perfect solution to wanting people to come over, and actually inviting/ planning for people to come over. YOU are invited!

alice LOVES pizza night!

my sisters came to visit! (also my mom, my aunts, my grandparents, our friend amber...all at different times) but the only thing i got a picture of was them. we had a lot of fun with them, we dyed shirts, we rode bikes (8 months pregnant!), went swimming, and a lot of other fun things. we are sad that they live so far away and that hannah isn't going to come to school here and be our live in nanny next year.

alice and jon rode on a little bike/car thing. this was on the 4th of july, if you want more pictures see alice's blog...she is so much better at blogging than me.

4th of july!!!

what a cute gingham family

sleepy alice at the balloon launch

i am pregnant

and there you have a random summary of things we have been up too. check back in 6 months for another update :)

we are still alive

2011-05-05T14:54:00.000-06:00

-i am pregnant (6 months)
-jon's kitchen at work is almost done (supposedly)
-alice speaks in sentences now

sick day

2011-02-25T19:31:00.001-07:00

Today was a sick day for all of us... I took off work and Alice got to watch fun videos. The best part (for me and Alice) is that we weren't sick! We had lots of time to play, read, eat and do errands.
Tallia is a different story... poor girl. But, we are trying to take care of her and she is getting better. The cat is being very attentive to her, and also to us (seen in the corner of this photo).

Get well soon!!

merry christmas

2010-12-27T20:55:00.000-07:00

(two days ago)
here is a quick recap

christmas card (yes alice made that face in every picture)

on our way to christmas eve bingo

alice opening her stocking christmas morning (in SLC)

alice in her tube

on the plane

jon putting on dolly's pants

christmas bagel on the plane

alice buried in wrapping paper christmas evening (in seattle)

the trip!

2010-11-10T19:24:00.001-07:00

so we have been home for almost three weeks now and i am finally posting (one million) pictures of our trip to DC.

it was a very good trip that included.

4 people throwing up

12323143 loads of laundry

2 different rashes on alice (one from laundry soap and one mystery rash)

25 rides on the metro (i made that up)

2 georgetown cupcakes eaten

1 julia roberts sighting

and lots and lots of fun ( i thought i could have come up with something more clever than that but oh well)

the first day of our trip we woke up to alice throwing up (as he had been all night without us knowing)

so we started out our stay in DC with a morning of WETA kids (the pbs kids station that we learned to know and love) and trying to get her to rest.

later we walked to the zoo

alice was reluctant to be the president at the american history museum

the capitol!

alice greatly appreciated the modern art wing of the national gallery (the other wing? not so much)

scary metro station picture

yay for washington DC!

eating/stabbing blueberry buckwheat pancakes at eastern market

mmmmm. bread

then i got sick too (luckily everyone only had it for 24 hours and my hours fell on sunday)

alice at the air and space museum (very impressed with the 80s decor)

alice does not believe that this landed on the moon, it is made of tinfoil for crying out loud!

"i've been upstairs in the white house while the obama's were sleeping" okay maybe not (we don't have pilot costumes) but we have been outside of it with everyone else in DC

c3p0!!!!

washington monument

at the reflecting pool, alice appreciated the ducks immensely

yay DC! yay memorials!

alice was afraid of the lincoln memorial

alice of arabia

alice channeling her dad from the 80s

alice and eve ,cousin friends

we had a really good time and were sad to have to say goodbye to everyone.
it was really fun for me to go to DC and see all the things i have seen on tv for my whole life (i feel the same way if not more about new york, which i will write about later). and all of the museums were so much fun! the american history was by far my favorite but they all were so interesting and so free! it was a great family trip. it made me happier to be american.
yay america!!!!!!!!!!
yay DC!!!!

laundry soap

2010-10-12T12:39:00.000-06:00

we are going to washington dc tomorrow! i have never been to the east coast and i am excited.
yesterday as i was doing laundry in preparation for this trip i ran out of laundry soap, and even though i had one million other things to do i decided to make my own laundry soap instead of running to the store. it was really easy! except grating the bar soap takes FOREVER

but the peppermint soap smells sooooooooooooo good.

i shouldn't even be writing this post because have only used it in one batch of laundry and i have not used it on diapers yet. the only thing i really know about it is that it smells good and is prettier than a big gloopy drippy plastic bottle of liquid detergent from the store.
oh and you are supposed the put it in with the clothes, not in the detergent drawer (if you have a front loader) (thanks neighbor ann)
yay for laundry!

stop everything you are doing...

2010-09-23T11:02:00.000-06:00

..and don't go grocery shopping for a week.
or two if you are really brave

maybe other people don't grocery shop as regularly as we do but it is interesting to see what you can come up with as the fridge gets more and more empty. our goal is to not buy food from monday to monday.
it is only thursday and our fridge is actually not even close to empty but it is fun to use our "food storage" and make things from scratch that we would have otherwise gone to the store for.
i have already made bread this week and soaked and cooked dried black beans, two things i have always wanted to do but have never put aside the time to do it because it is so convenient (and fun) to go to the grocery store. i also made rice milk, we didn't really need it but it was an...interesting experiment.

rice milk and granola

in other news:

jon's brother nick got to go to a "town-hall meeting" with president obama (that is him just left of the president's head). he even got to shake his hand afterwards!!!!!

i threw away my old gross toms (they look WAY better in this picture than they did in real life)

alice LOVES grapefruit....

and goats in trees.

utah state fair!

2010-09-20T09:33:00.000-06:00

we went to the utah state fair last thursday and i thought i should put up a few pictures before it gets too late.

i am from washington where they have the puyallup fair (which is the single largest attraction in washington state every year and also in the top ten largest fairs in the US (wikipedia)

so the utah state fair seemed much smaller than i anticipated.

i have always loved fairs, and have been jealous of the 4H kids since i was in elementary school. someone from 4H came to our school and told us all about what you could do in 4H. i wanted to be those kids hanging out at the fair all day next to their animal's pens with their boots on, brushing and combing and fluffing their animals for the show. making cute sparkly glitter signs with their goat's name on it. dragging their animals into the ring to compete against all the other kids from around the state and their carefully groomed animals. even the tiny kids were never afraid that their cow would crush them against the wall or step on their foot because they are so cool and animal savvy.

i still want to be those kids.

i wish i wasn't afraid of cows.

we had fun looking at the animals and eating fair food and planning what baked goods and vegetables we will enter next year.

funny chicken

a pig trying to eat alice

she loves pigs

frozen lemonade

tonight

2010-09-17T16:18:00.000-06:00

is pizza night
beets look kind of like pepperonis don't they?

seriously

2010-09-15T22:34:00.000-06:00

it interests me how seriously people take some decisions
things like
"marriage"
and
"children" (when to have, not the actual beings who should be taken relatively seriously actually)
and
"future"

it probably took me one day to decide that i was going to marry jon, maybe even one hour, maybe even one minute when we were casually discussing trailers and how we could buy one together and fix it up.
i didn't play out in my mind every instance that could possibly befall us in the next 95 years. every conversation, every coinciding and diverging interest and personality trait.
i just knew it (and yes, prayed about it)
and there you go.

it takes me forever to decide wether or not to buy some dumb two dollar plate/shirt/shoes/trinket at the thrift store. i (used to) worry about what the feed baby alice, when to put her down to sleep, and every other temporal care she might have. when i was a kid i remember many many many (many) instances that involved crying in some store because i couldn't decide on what candy or toy someone had offered to buy me. i think about what to make for dinner all day, and delay making a decision until the only thing i can make is tacos (okay mostly jon makes dinner).

but the biggest decision of my life was a piece of cake.
i did a pretty good job on that decision thankyouverymuch.
now if only the rest of my decisions will have as good of payoff

2010-09-15T09:02:00.000-06:00

i think i would blog more if i could just write random bullet points instead of having to think of a cohesive theme (not that anything i write is ever very cohesive)

- i woke up at 5:45 this morning to do yoga (yawn)
- i got stung by a bee for the first time last week
- alice can stand up all on her own, she is so big
- when crate and barrel sends you something they send you four times as much packaging as you would ever need (installation art made of paper and bubble wrap coming soon)
- i feel like our new house/apartment is finally put together
-we went to swiss days to help the hayes
- jon turned 25 on the 3rd
- alice loves to read books
- gertie is afraid of the sprinklers
- it is getting cold in the mornings (i already miss summer)
- we bought our tickets to DC for next month!

haha

in laura ingalls wilder...

2010-08-12T21:21:00.000-06:00

isn't that the cutest thing ever? alice in a tub, outside, taking a bath.
we have been giving her baths outside in this little bucket and she loves it. she has so much fun splashing and looking at the trees and watching gertie run around.
when i was in seattle visiting my family i read a laura ingalls wilder book ("these happy golden years", which i had never read before! i was too busy reading "the long winter" 128989 times). my mom and my sister hannah hate laura ingalls wilder but i (and my sister abby) love them. i LOVE books about pioneers and i have always had a special place in my heart for l.i.w.
anyways
since i have been home i feel like i have started a lot of sentences with "in laura ingalls wilder..." (which is bad grammar but i can't refer to specific books so oh well). one thing i was telling jon the other day was that in laura ingalls wilder they all take one bath a week (on saturday) and all in the same water! the youngest goes first and then everyone takes a turn and then the dad gets the cold, dirty water last.
talk about saving water.
while we aren't that hard core (yet?). alice is helping us get there by taking a bath in a much smaller percentage of water than normal (and we will do our part by only bathing once a week :)

okay maybe twice.

vacation (for alice and tallia)

2010-08-08T17:50:00.000-06:00

the month of july was rather busy for alice and i. we went to san francisco for a week

to visit my friend ariane, and her son liam

i love san francisco. the first time i went there was on our honeymoon and going back with alice and staying with ariane made me fall in love with it even more. they live right next to the golden gate park! every restaurant is good there! it was not 100 degrees outside! we got to wear sweaters! you can walk to almost anything you need and what you can't walk to you can just hop on a bus and drive to within minutes (as opposed to utah buses which sometimes take HOURS to get you where you want to go). it was beautiful and so much fun and we loved it. the only downside was that jon couldn't come :( and that alice was very constipated the entire time.

then we came home for a week

and then we left on our trip to seattle. actually issaquah. i grew up in kent, wa (just south of seattle) but my family just barely moved into a cute townhome in issaquah (just east of seattle). it was really fun to get to know there new town a little bit, visit old friends, and not feel like you are going to be shot when you walk down the street.
okay not really but kent had a little bit of a different feel than issaquah does, i never really noticed it before but going back i could definitely feel the difference, even though kent will always be dear to my heart....sort of.
we had a really good time with everyone and there is a play by play on alice's blog if you need more pictures.

all the pictures with alice in them are cute and no effort is made towards the other ones being cute. obviously.

but here is a good picture of me and abby as barbie dolls

i declined the purple eye shadow

now we are home, and happy to be. back to the garden (tomatoes mostly, and some basil), back to laundry, back to jon, back to the heat (and thunderstorms, apparently), back to our friends, and back to the neighborhood.

and maybe back to writing on the blog more often....maybe.

2010-07-12T13:47:00.002-06:00

we picked this little baby yellow tomato from our garden on saturday. the first tomato of the season. hopefully it is just the beginning of endless and boundless tomatoes all summer long.

2010-07-07T13:11:00.000-06:00

block party

bloc party

two out of three of these things happened this fourth of july weekend. it was great and we have tons of pictures. most of which will soon be put up on alice's blog, and a few on here too.

yay america!

happenings

2010-06-28T13:02:00.001-06:00

we have been so busy lately that if i don't update now i probably never will. a lot has happened in the past week or so and i will try to catch up fast.

1. alice is rich now

okay not really but we had a fun yard sale and made a lot of one dollar bills. so alice had to get a picture with them.

2. alice is learning to swim

and she is so cute doing it.

3. we have little tomatoes growing!!!

the rest of our garden is doing well too. i will have to take more pictures. i am so excited for fresh vegetables from our garden. i had a dream that i was canning tomatoes and only had enough for 2 and a half jars. it was a very sad dream and hopefully it won't come true.

4. in case it does come true (and to decrease the amount of times we have to go to the grocery store) we have also joined a CSA called jacob's cove. it is only 5 (or 7) minutes from our house and they only grow heirloom vegetables. you get a box of produce every week! we are excited for it to start.

5. alice is nine months old today! can you believe it?

i sure can't

animal,vegetable,etc.

2010-06-16T21:18:00.000-06:00

i have only read a few chapters of this book so far and i never want to eat fast food or processed packaged food again. and i am mad at grocery store tomatoes.

you should read it too and stop eating genetically modified cardboard-y things.

now i wish our garden was bigger.

summer!!

2010-06-08T23:03:00.000-06:00

we are back! alice and i.
and it feels like summer has officially started. and i am already too hot.
it was so much fun. we ate way too many sweets, stayed up too late, swam in the pool, got too much sun, took an average of two hours to get out the door every day (8 kids with 8 different schedules will do that to you), and on the way home had two very sad babies that were very very very much ready to get out of the darn car already!
its kind of sad to come home to an empty house but jon gets off work at 11 pm so we (i) will see him soon.
and speaking of jon our anniversary was yesterday. two years! thats it? really? it feels like a whole lot longer than two years.

sorry i don't have any wedding photo montages or lovey-dovey things to say here on the blog (you will have to look at every other blog in the world for those)

but here is another picture of a cute little girl that sure is glad jon and i got married in manti two years and one day ago.

okay okay okay

then

now

yay!

2010-06-01T10:48:00.000-06:00

i finally hung up the clothesline last week and alice's diapers look so cute hanging out in the sun. we have been hanging up most of our other laundry too and it is so fun to hang stuff up and take it down, i thought that everything would be really stiff but it hasn't been that bad. next step: making my own laundry detergent.
i should have been a pioneer...
a pioneer with a washing machine and the internet.

alice in the laundry

jon was home for three days in a row this weekend and it was wonderful. we mostly stayed close to home and went on walks and did a few errands, it was nice to have a quiet, slow weekend. it almost makes up for the fact that alice and i will be out of town for a whole week starting today.

alice ready for vacation

we are going to steamboat, colorado with some friends, it will be lots of fun but we will miss jon. having two jobs doesn't give you much vacation time.

see you next week!

2010-05-28T11:01:00.001-06:00

little baby alice is 8 months old today!!! can you believe it?? you can go here to read up to the minute details on her life so far. and see many many many more pictures of her. she is getting cuter every day, i just can't believe it.

in other news.

the antlers have not found a home yet! they are so big and we can't find a place for them to hang ever so ironically in our house.

and

yesterday was a good free food day. not only did we get these rolls free from provo bakery (day old garbage). but we also spent the afternoon distributing pork loin to various friends around provo.

jon works in a hotel kitchen now and they throw away so much food at the end of the day. he started to just take some of it (they are allowed to take food home but nobody does) and now they are starting to offer it to him before they toss it. yesterday we got about twenty pieces of pork loin, a huge blob of mashed potatoes (the best mashed potatoes ever), a big bag of salad, and a container of yummy vegetables. everything was cooked that day, they just don't store leftovers. it is absurd that they would throw away and waste so much food, it makes me think of all the other restaurants that do this everyday and all the hungry people that could be fed with all this food being thrown in the dumpster every night. when i worked at the cannon center we threw away tons of food every night, they wouldn't even us , the cafeteria workers, eat it. we just had to throw it into the food shredder in the back room. wasteful wasteful wasteful. the restaurant world needs to figure out another food disposal system (one that involves more hungry people eating)

it is kind of awesome that we get so much stuff for free that we can share with friends (and maybe the food bank?do they let you do that?).

it will be a nice freegan summer.

and don't be surprised if we offer you random pieces of meat.

Garden Party

2010-05-22T21:39:00.001-06:00

This morning we all had the day off, so we planted our long awaited garden. We are are growing veggies with our neighbors Tyson + Keera, and hopefully their kids too.

We planted brussels sprouts, five kinds of tomatoes, carrots, sugar peas, green beans, zuccini, spaghetti squash, turnips, green and walla walla onions, orange and green peppers, jalepenos and anaheims, cilantro and basil.

Alice mostly enjoyed eating seed packets and looking at her friend Gunner on their blanket near the garden. She will be looking forward to some fresh mashed veggies in a few months.

Tyson mostly enjoyed doing all the work (quickly), and saying "what's next, boss" to me over and over. He is a boss of people at WW Clyde, so i guess he enjoys getting told what to do on the weekend for some reason.

The best part was a long, on site consultation from our landscape designer, Benjamin Knudsen, LLSMR. He was wearing cool glasses and answered all our cultivation questions (and loaded up our car!). Thanks Ben!

We got all our stuff at the wonderful 'Lindon Nursery' on state street. Here is Tallia being startled at the acres of flowers and veggies while Alice kicked her legs.

home

2010-05-17T17:01:00.001-06:00

we are all moved in (its easy to move in when you already know exactly where the mixing bowls and silverware and cereal and laundry detergent and towels etc, etc, already go)(and when a bunch of stuff is in your in-laws basement still....)

i didn't realize how much i missed this house, ward, and city. we are already having so much fun being back in provo with friends and babies and walkable streets.

jon is working A LOT (two internships) (today he is working from 8 am to 11 pm!)

and alice and i are walking a lot. (library, grocery store, campus, duck pond)

and gertie and molly are so happy to have a yard to run in again.

and we are all adjusting to sleeping in the same room again.

its good to be back.

come to zion come to zion

2010-05-05T10:36:00.000-06:00

we went down and spent some time in kanosh and zion national park two weeks ago. our friends carl and ashley and elaine came with us, we all stayed in the kanosh house, and "hiked" around zion for a day.

it was beautiful and so much fun. alice rode in the baby backpack for the first time and had fun/promptly fell asleep. it was so nice to get out of the city and relax and spend time with friends. zion is so pretty, i don't know how the early saints (who named it zion- a place of refuge) didn't just stay there forever)

alice is such a good little traveler and now that she has a pack and play crib and a hiking backpack she can go anywhere.

there are many more camping and kanosh trips planned for this summer.

who wants to come?

downsizing

2010-05-02T21:13:00.000-06:00

for some reason since we decided to move, and especially since we decided to move into a small one bedroom apartment with our 7-month-old-used-to-sleeping-in-her-own-room baby alice, we have been inundated with cool furniture finds.
this chair being one of them.

and this bookshelf being another

and somehow. somehow. (i still don't know how when i look at the picture). we were able to resist this couch.

but it was really really cool.

(it would have been too hard to recover, thats what i keep telling myself)

every time i/we move i want to just get rid of everything. when i was single i left my whole set of dishes and cups at one apartment. just because i didn't want to have to find another box to put them in. now that i think about it i should have just lived out of two suitcases back then, it would have been so easy. now we try to downsize and go for quality not quantity. but babies have so much stuff and there are so many good armchairs to be found at DI.

downsizing seems to be a trend lately. getting rid of everything you don't love or need. but that is still a lot of stuff, and a lot of stuff to move.

i have also been thinking about emotional downsizing lately. i don't mean hiding your emotions, but letting go of things you don't need to hold on to. like when people are mean to you, or someone offended you, or mean thoughts about others, or arguments. not worrying about things that don't need to be worried about, or things that don't need to be done, or things you can't change. it would be so refreshing to just be able to let go of any emotional stuff weighing you down and respond to situations free of negative influences.

i would like to be better at that.

and at recovering furniture.

reviews

2010-04-28T14:02:00.000-06:00

once upon a time when i was pregnant i had a lot of time to look at baby blogs and read about baby stuff. there is a ton of baby stuff out there and most of it you don't need. i thought it was helpful to read people's reviews and opinions on what they used with their babies so i thought i would do it too. since alice is seven months old now and i am pretty much an expert.

this is by no means all inclusive. just whatever i can think of off the top of my head right now.

stroller:

we got it for $2 at a garage sale. because it was cute and because it was like the one i had when i was a baby! it doesn't have shocks or big huge wheels or anything but that is okay because the number of times we have gone off roading with baby alice is approximately 0. and it is light and folds up small. also it doesn't have any cup holders so alice has to hold her own morning coffee. other than that it is perfect. you don't really need a really fancy stroller, unless you are rich and get a bug-a-boo because those are really really cute. (but also cost as much as our old subaru)

carseat:

we opted out of getting an infant seat that snaps into a base in a car. our friends were aghast. they warned us we would regret our decision. what would we do with the baby at church? the grocery store? a restaurant? when it was asleep? they were sure our world would fall apart and we would wise up and buy one after she was born. but we didn't and we have been fine. alice is actually about 45 pounds lighter than those infant seats. we held her at church, moby wrapped her in the grocery store (now she sits in the cart) and she slept on the booth in the restaurant. we have been fine and now we have a carseat that she will fit in for years to come. so we saved money and our backs.

moby wrap:

okay its not a brand name moby, it is just a long piece of t-shirt material cut down the middle. but it is the best thing ever. she loved it and still does. she falls right to sleep in it and is warm and cozy. wonderful. and now she rides facing forward and thinks it is the greatest thing ever. you can get all sorts of different kinds and colors, even american apparel and the gap.com have slings similar to this now.

cloth diapers:

this is a whole post in itself so i am not going to go into too much detail other than to say we love them. we used disposables for the first month or two and then started cloth and they are amazing and wonderful and great. they are not that much work, they are not any grosser than any other kind of diaper, they are good for the earth, they save you tons of money, and they are cute. if you want to know more you can ask me.

aden and anais muslin swaddling blankets:

you should get these. they are the best blankets ever. they are light weight, huge, and cute. we swaddled alice in them for the first few months and they are perfect because they don't overheat the baby. they fold up really small in your diaper bag and they have lots of cute patterns. when we bought them they were expensive. but now target carries a line of them for half the price.

spoka:

this is the cutest little night light from ikea. it doesn't have to stay plugged in and you tap his head to turn him on and off. he gives off blue light so when you are feeding the baby at night you don't have to turn off a bright light and wake them up all the way. i am sure you could find another night light similar to this one, but he is just so cute!

hotsling:

meh, didn't use it much. having all the weight on one shoulder is not comfortable and the baby wasn't held in by anything.

mesh baby feeder:

i read so many good reviews of this, you can put a chunk of something (frozen or not) in the mesh bag and then your baby can gnaw on it and they love it and are happy. it sounded so gross to me but so many people said their babies loved it (real people, people i know) that i thought we could give it a try. but alice hated it at worst and hit it against the table a bunch and then threw it to gertie at best. she didn't like chewing on the mesh and really who would? if you think your baby might and want ours you can have it. just let me know....

this is getting longer and longer and more boring to anyone who isn't pregnant so i am going to stop for now. if you have any questions, ask.
i am not an expert at all but i found it helpful to read reviews of things so hopefully you do too.
:)

old stuff continued

2010-04-26T16:42:00.000-06:00

so we are still only buying used stuff (except alice because she just demands new things like a pack and play crib that are hard to find used).
and it is going well.
except for in one area.
gifts.
i knew it would be an exception from the very beginning and i was okay with that. and at the beginning of the year we actually did pretty well. i made presents for our nieces (those dolls, remember) and found some good presents for the other people in our lives who required gifts and such. but then as the year sped up and more and more things come up we have realized that it is impossible to get everyone a perfectly unique and wonderful vintage-antique-used gift for every occasion for two reasons.
1. you would have to go shopping all the time in many different places.
2. there are some people who don't like old things

i have a friend (hermana samantha smith) who is so easy to buy gifts for. i could pick up an old fork that was in the road and had been run over by a car (which i have done before but not for sami, i kept it for myself) and give it to her for her "wedding" and it would be the greatest present she could ever have.
but i also have friends for whom i could look for a birthday gift in every DI, antique store, and wacky vintage shop on 3rd south and never ever find one thing they would like.
the rest of our friends and family members fall somewhere between these two extremes.
so
we have created another exemption from the "not buying new things" resolution, and it is gifts.
some of you are very very happy about this and will now invite us to your wedding/birthday part/baby shower.
and some of you are still getting presents from the DI.

this is baby alice in kanosh, there is no traffic there so we can play in the road.

just some stuff

2010-04-21T15:32:00.000-06:00

these cookies came out of the provo bakery dumpster! mmmmmm

this is alice's room

this is farmer's cheese

these are some cute kids

and we (and alice of course) are moving back to provo in may

yay!!!

i never thought yay and provo would be in the same sentence-ish. but i guess things change (and not going to BYU anymore is a big part of that change). and in order to make it very uncomplicated for you all we are moving back into the exact same house we left in august.

we will be a little more squished but we will be fine.

and we will have a few hundred more chairs than we did when we left.

we like chairs. armchairs. a lot.

and we like you, provo, and dinner parties.

yay for summers in provo!!and summer in general.

see you soon!

Ha ha ha hah aha hahaha !!!

2010-04-13T10:45:00.003-06:00

this is probably my favorite alice/ house/ everything picture ever.

placeholder

2010-03-26T22:15:00.000-06:00

i have a lot of things to write about. a lot. so many that it has actually impeded my blogging because i feel overwhelmed about not having enough time to write about everything and so i wait till i have more time and it doesn't happen (meaning i don't let it happen, i am not really THAT busy) and so i never ever write and our blog has been silent for a long time.
so as a placeholder i just wanted to announce!
doo doo dooooooooo!

I FINALLY FOUND A FUNNEL AT THE DI!!!!!!!!!!!

seriously it has taken forever. that or i just didn't spend enough time sifting through the gross plastic section of DI.

all my used things dreams have come true.

okay so i will hopefully be back to this soon.

thanks for standing by.

before and after

2010-02-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

i wish that i had taken before and after pictures of all the dishes i did this morning
because you would be impressed
more impressed with me than you are with
design mom
or
design sponge
or
design anything in the world

and
did you know that brussel sprouts grow like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

can you eat the brussel sprout king on the top?

we are getting to that point in winter where you can just barely see the end of the snow and the cold and you start to get impatient with it. i cannot wait for spring and summer to get here. it will be so much fun to take baby alice outside more often to play and walk and enjoy the warmth. the day after she was born it snowed, and it hasn't been warm ever since. poor girl.

she doesn't even know what she is missing.

look familiar?

2010-02-16T13:58:00.000-07:00

yep. more homemade baby clothes. these little wool pants came from the same yellow thrift store sweater as the little shirt i made awhile ago. they are way cuter in real life. (i made the white shirt too, but it is a little bit less impressive)

yesterday for president's day we stayed home and did nothing! it was great. we caught up on things we have been putting off, watched a little of the olympics, ate pizza, and just hung out. when jon is home for a day we usually take the opportunity to go out and do a lot of stuff, which is fun, but i think staying home was way more fun and also ended up being way more productive.

jon also took this time to make some sausages.

yum!

i am not a big fan of fake meat. and i was never a big fan of sausages when i did eat meat. but these were delicious.

definitely coming to a barbeque near you this summer!

mmmmm. vital wheat gluten.

what is more eco-friendly than cloth diapers?

2010-02-13T21:18:00.000-07:00

buying used cloth diapers!

(okay and probably washing them in a stream and drying them in the sun, but we are just taking it one step at a time)

alice is excited!

cute!

gertie is skeptical

jon's response to used things

2010-02-12T14:11:00.003-07:00

These things should never be made new again, as there are too many of them in the world.

pens
wooden decorations
nalgene water bottles

fake christmas trees
black IHC vests (specifically olympic 2002 vests)
-The 'Quesadilla Maker'

baby alice

2010-02-12T13:41:00.000-07:00

showing you her belly button

tips for buying used and some other stuff

2010-02-12T13:34:00.002-07:00

1. don't go to the mall. especially if you need new jeans. and you go in forever 21 where jeans are like 12 dollars. i didn't buy anything, but it was really hard not to.
2. ebay has pretty much anything you would ever need used. i searched for thermometers, funnels, pizza stones and there were way more things on there than anyone would ever ever buy. so that is comforting.

yep that is pretty much all i have got for the time being. it is kind of nice to not have to go in stores like target or go to the mall very often. not that we don't like those stores. or even that we went a whole lot last year. but it is liberating to just not even pay attention to them. does that make sense? kind of like an anti-consumerist liberating feeling. (anti-consumerists searching for gap skinny jeans on ebay)

oh and do you like yoga? because you can download free yoga videos on the BYU TV website here (click on episodes). baby alice and i try to do it every day. well i do it and baby alice plays on the blanket next to me until she gets bored and starts yelling at me to hurry up. it is fun and if you can put up with phrases like "isn't that a candy bar" or "we have a tendency to go shopping on this one" then you can get a pretty good yoga practice in.
they also have aerobics
but does anyone really like aerobics? really?

this is my foot doing yoga and gertie and her toy

sometimes making cheese is sad

2010-02-10T14:14:00.001-07:00

elaine and i set out yesterday to make ricotta cheese. it is supposed to be easy.
then we decided to be more adventurous and make mozzarella cheese and then make ricotta out of the whey!
one gallon of whole milk later we had a gallon of whole milk in a pot with some curds on the top. and no whey (sorry miss muffet).
so in an effort to at least make something we tried an easy ricotta recipe but had to use skim milk.
and one quart of milk later we had a hard little rock of dry dry ricotta.
that was unfortunately eaten by us, jon and the knudsens.

don't be fooled by the picture. the cheese was gross.

next time i am at the grocery store i am getting another gallon of milk and trying again because i want to make yummy ricotta cheese (and maybe someday mozzarella) at home darn it! and i am not giving up!
it is going to work
and i will tell you about it then.

oh and i really need a candy/cooking thermometer. where do you get a used one?

the hiding place

2010-02-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

my last full semester in school the relief society book group read "the hiding place" , by corrie ten boom. a book about a christian dutch family during WWII who helped jews escape from germany and ultimately were caught and sent to prison/concentration camps. i have never been in a book group and i wasn't in that one. but this book really stood out to me because during a relief society testimony meeting (fast sunday) every person who spoke talked about this book and most of them cried as they spoke. so many people were touched by it so i put it on my list of books to read when i was free from school.
and so i did.
and it was one of the most amazing stories i have read.
it is amazing the capacity for love the Ten Boom family had. and every time they thought they couldn't get through the trials ahead of them, or couldn't find a way to forgive and love they just asked Heavenly Father to help them and then their capacities were expanded to almost infinite proportions. the faith they showed and the way they showed it was very inspiring to me. they lived a very gospel and service centered life and because of it they were able to deal with trials greater than most people could even imagine, and come out without any emotional problems or scars or anything. they were grateful for their trials! grateful for the time they spent in the camp because they got to teach and love so many people. and after the war they continued helping people through the tough emotional times they faced. they loved every single person they came in contact with.
the more and more i think about things the more i am convinced that love is really the answer to everything. the two greatest commandments (love God, love neighbor) are really all the world needs to get going in the right direction. its all you really need.
so everyone should read this book.

this is corrie ten boom who wrote it.

update on old stuff

2010-02-04T15:04:00.000-07:00

before we started our new years resolution (no new stuff for a year) we kind of stocked up on a few things we knew we would want and that we might not get used. i got some leggings and a package of hane's v-neck shirts, some lacy tights, and looked hard for a dress that i have been looking for a long time but have never found. i figured that was enough new clothes to tide me over for the year and was satisfied. jon however did not have as much of an opportunity to stock up. he got a few things but there was one thing her really wanted.

a mandolin (not the musical instrument, the scary knife slicer thing)

but he didn't get one in time.

and kitchen stuff is hard to come by second hand (at least nice kitchen stuff)

and so he was sad (probably he will say he was not sad but i just said it to add to the effect)

but then we went to the welfare square DI (the best one, only don't go there because we don't need competition)

and i found

a mandolin

it is scary and sharp just like it is supposed to be. it is from the 80s maybe.

it slices well and also came with this

who knows what it is but it is also sharp and scary.

so there you have it.

dreams do come true

at the DI

unbleached indian cotton prefolds

2010-02-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

these are what new prefold diapers look like before they are washed

and this is how they look after.

in case you were wondering

work

2010-02-03T16:16:00.001-07:00

this is what i did today at work! talked to tallia and alice on my computer at work. they were so cute, and alice really liked looking at the screen, of course. yay for gmail chat! yay for easy jobs!

new blogger editor

2010-01-30T14:31:00.001-07:00

at first i was really excited about it. but now i am not sure because half of my sentences are cut off in the post below and i can't fix it.
weird.

crafty II

2010-01-27T21:38:00.005-07:00

i am a lazy sew-er( i guess the word would be seamstress). if anything takes more than an hour i don't do it (or abandon it). and if it has more than four pattern pieces i most likely will pass it by. i do not get this from my mom, everything she sews is perfect and looks like it is from a store. everthing i sew is not. i really like sewing though and am currently trying to get through the

big pile of cast off clothing

we have and turn it into useful and fun things. baby alice is the beneficiary of most of my

experiments so far. it is so much fun to make cute baby clothes out of old t shirts and sweaters,

and really easy too since

most of the seams and hems are already nicely sewn for me.

this little shirt and headband are my favorite creation so far and probably took about 15 minutes.

it helps to have a cute model.
i have made a few other outfits too, but they are either too big (bad at measuring) or weird.so i will just show this one so i look like i kind of know what i am doing.

i like this picture because her arms are moving so fast! she is a helicopter

the 25th

2010-01-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

yesterday (the 24th) jon and i had a little mini breakdown. breakdown might not be the right word but it is midnight and i am tired and i just sat with my hands on my eyes for a long time so i can't really see well so breakdown works. but it was kind of a moment like "what are we doing? we have no friends. we are sad. we hate the winter. bah blah blah. it wasn't that bad but i am trying to make a point.
the point is
that january 25th is the most depressing day of the year! as proved by scientists.
i learned this on the 4 o'clock news today (the ksl four o' clock news is my favorite news show because it isn't really news it is a bunch of weird stories and the weather and sometimes real news but disguised by a weird obscure story from the larger more relevant story)
anyways i believe that this is true. december is christmas-y and the beginning of january is fun but by now it is cold and i just think of the spring and summer and how nice it is to be outside and not wear a coat and to have freckles and for jon's hair to turn white blonde again and baby alice get to wear a swim suit and run through the sprinkler and go camping and have picnics and walk to friends houses.
but first we have to get through the rest of winter and baby alice has to learn to walk (then run).
it is kind of nice for the news to let us know that this is THE most depressing day of the year, they also let us know how to combat the depressing-ness of it all. their suggestions are 1. get a sun light bright light thing (available online) or 2. go on vacation somewhere sunny (seriously).
while those are very good suggestions i think i will just go about my own way of battling the most depressing time of the year by hugging baby alice (and jon) and dying my hair.
i hope all of you can find an equally effective way to get through. if not, you are also welcome to come hug baby alice (and jon if you so wish).

bumbo

2010-01-23T14:13:00.002-07:00

bumbo photo series while eating breakfast this morning.
by jon - this is jon typing. my blog username doesnt do advanced things! why??
cutes!

crafty

2010-01-21T23:06:00.000-07:00

okay so i don't normally do this. but it may become more frequent.
i have never really posted about anything i have made before because i didn't want to be that crafty mom blogger. but really when i think about it i love crafty mom bloggers. i love looking at other people's craft projects on their blogs. i get ideas and inspiration and patterns and it is fun. and after reading olivia's post on how jealous she is of moms that get to do crafts i realized that i am a mom at home that sometimes does crafts! and i should be taking advantage of it. so i thought i would show you one fun thing i have been doing.

look at those cute little dolls!

the one in the middle took nine months to make and you could never make one better than her, but the ones on the sides only take about an hour and are pretty cute too.

they are called black apple dolls and you can get the pattern to make them here and you should also check out the designers blog here because her dolls are way way better than the ones i made.

they are easy to make and so so cute. the two i have made so far are headed off to two little girls with february birthdays who hopefully do not read this (one can definitely not read so i am probably safe).

and i am going to make more. because i love them. and you should make one too. they only take a few fabric scraps (and if you need fabric scraps come over to my house, i have a huge box of them, that is all i have actually i don't own any big pieces of fabric at all). i have stuffing too. so there you go, no excuses.

have fun!

is there anything you regret not buying?

2010-01-20T14:56:00.000-07:00

yes, yes there is

while we were in seattle we went to a few thrift stores. baby alice got some cute new clothes, i got some cute new clothes, and we found a native american headdress. it was only $6.50. and we didn't buy it.

oatmeal

2010-01-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

alice is in the midst of a nap that has lasted more than 30 minutes (which is her usual nap threshold)! it is funny though because i feel just as productive while she is awake as when she is asleep, i don't spend my day wishing she would nap so i can get things done, i just take her along for the ride. but this doesn't apply to blogging, i only write if she is asleep.

i have been thinking about oatmeal lately.
actually i have been thinking about it since we got married and my mom gave us a 25 pound bag of it.
we divided it up into smaller bags and have been using it bit by bit for the past two years. for awhile we ate oatmeal every morning (healthy!) but we are over that now and have moved on to more exciting things that use oatmeal. like
granola bars
granola! (but add salt)
clafoutis
it has been fun to find recipes and experiment oatmeal so much that i think i will get another giant bag of it when we are done. (food storage!)
i wonder what else we could buy in bulk that would make us be creative and also be good food storage? (besides beans, we have enough beans to last forever and for some reason they haven't inspired the creativity you think they would) food storage is something that i want to get better at but seems so daunting that i never have really tried. any suggestions???

um, excuse me..

2010-01-16T23:13:00.000-07:00

but we have the cutest baby in the world.

and if you want to see more pictures of her click on baby beluga

i have been thinking lately about how alice is going to think i am old. when i was little i thought my mom was so old even though she was hardly older than i am now. if there is one thing i would say i am surprised about in life it is the fact that i never feel older. i always figured (and still do) that there would be a time when i officially felt grown up, or at least more together and a little adult like. you would think those feelings would come with a husband and baby and a college degree. my mom seemed old (and tall) when i was little and all knowing and in charge. it weird to think that baby alice will probably think those same things about me, but i will just be me (not too grown up and not very knowing tallia). its also weird to think my mom probably felt this way too, because i still kind of think of her as "al knowing" (at least in some respects) and she is so good at being a mom that its hard to imagine her not knowing what to do. i guess that should give me confidence that i will probably do a pretty good job too.

but baby alice. when you can read. and when you read this.

please learn and remember

that i am not old.

new years resolution

2010-01-05T01:09:00.000-07:00

we went to seattle for new years, and took a lot of pictures. more pictures than you probably want to look at and they are mostly of baby alice. i will show some to you as time goes by, or on alice's blog.

but i thought i should quickly write down our family new year's resolution.

we individually have plenty of other resolutions but i won't bore you with the whole list. most of my other resolutions are not restrained by new years, they are continuous and ongoing resolutions .instead i want to outline the one that is actually beginning with the start of the new year (and may end with the end of it).

so for the year of 2010 we are going to

duh duh duuuuuh

not buy anything new!

that is right not any new clothes, furniture, things, nothing. only used and repurposed.

there are a few exceptions of course, anything that can be purchased at a grocery store is one of them and baby alice is the other (she grows out of diapers and onesies and will probably need new clothes from time to time) umderwear is also something that should never be bought second hand. there also may be a few emergencies we run into and that is fine too.

i think that this will be fun and good for several reasons.

1. it will make us more inventive and creative with our resources and with our time (wandering around target is a fun and time consuming activity that will stop mostly, same with the mall and other places we go from time to time

2. we will save money

3. it is better for the earth. we are all for reducing our impact/footprint etc.

i think this will be fun. and we will update you from time to time on how its going.

merry christmas

2009-12-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

from jon, tallia, and baby alice.

we had a great day with aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. mostly we ate a lot of food and enjoyed each others company.

baby alice got the most presents of course.

and does everyone eat crab legs on christmas?

even though she won't remember it i think alice's first christmas was a success.

and we hope you had a wonderful day as well.

merry christmas

2009-12-18T23:15:00.001-07:00

from a baked potato

the ant.

2009-12-18T19:27:00.001-07:00

These are the newest addition to the living room.

Although it was a gross process for someone untrained in taxidermy (me), it was well worth it. Thanks to colleen for the great birthday gift!

So, in more detail; I did not realize how much fur/skin was on antlers of the elk variety. And blood. It was not easy for me, all the scraping and peeling. Also, the instructions i had found recommended BOILING the antlers first, so i honestly kind-of winged it, instead of witches-brewing it. But they are beautiful now, and adorned in christmas treasure by Tallia!

ASLEEP, asleep

2009-12-15T12:04:00.000-07:00

baby alice is the only baby in our ward.

every sunday is like visiting 30 grandmas and grandpas, everyone knows how old she is, talks about how beautiful she is, and how much she has grown. being the only baby she was of course a shoe-in for the part of baby Jesus for our ward christmas party. and jon and i, being her parents, got to play the part of mary and joseph.

this wasn't your every day nativity scene at a ward party, no no. they go all out in this ward.

on the gym stage we sat in the "stable" accompanied by a donkey, two baby sheep, two baby goats, and a CAMEL!

baby alice slept through the whole thing.

cute!

his name is cosmo

sheep!

we have now decided that we need to own s few sheep and goats before alice is grown up. they are so cute! and little kids+ little sheep and goats are even cuter.

2009-12-15T12:02:00.000-07:00

now that alice is two months old and i am a stay at home mom (or SAHM if you will) isn't it time for me to start an etsy headband shop/photography business?

i am definitely slacking

you learn something new every day (and i probably have too many clothes)

2009-12-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

what shirt is that?

where did you get that?

freshman year

i have never seen it before.

really?

how is it possible that in the past two years jon has never seen me wear this shirt? it is one of my favorite t-shirts.

this reflects poorly on me.

thing-a-lings

2009-12-11T00:28:00.000-07:00

the best di so far is the one at welfare square. we got all these funfun pompoms there

1. now that i have a baby i have gotten into the habit of checking people's breathing. you know how people joke about new parents checking their babies breathing all the time? it is so true. and now that i am past the more hormonal part of postpartum i do it less but i still check her breathing at least once after i put her down, i am only a little tiny bit crazy. but i have noticed that now it is such a habit that i do it to anything that is asleep. i will casually glance at jon while he sleeps to make sure his chest is still rising and falling, i put my hand on gertie sometimes in the night to make sure she is still alive (i actually did this before but that was because i was afraid jon had squashed her in the night), or i will watch molly (the cat) while she sleeps. it is a weird habit. and this is making me sound kind of weird, but i promise it isn't interfering with my normal everyday life, just a funny thing i have noticed.

2. we have a christmas tree. it is fun. you should come see it.

3. baby alice is getting cuter everyday (look here)and sleeping less and less every day. but i am getting more and more used to it. she does sleep in so that makes it alright (for me at least, not jon.poor jon)

4. i had a lot of things to say on here, but i have forgotten them all, that is what you get for putting off writing things down for a long time. it is hard to type a comprehensive thought longer than one sentence with one hand. so i have to wait until baby alice is either asleep or jon is home. and by then i am ready to eat, sleep, and hang out with my little family so it doesn't usually happen. sorry.

keith

2009-12-01T09:51:00.001-07:00

this is keith. in response to tallia's note about tiffany and keith- they will be missed. keith and i will probably end up running a taco bell together in Missouri, which says it all. Keith- I love you. Thanks for the good times. -Jon

butter turkey

2009-11-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

in his thanksgiving post jon failed to emphasize the importance of the butter turkeys to him and to thanksgiving for all of us. they are cute. and we got to take an extra one home. you are welcome to visit it.

thanksgiving

2009-11-27T10:23:00.000-07:00

this was a great day. alice looked like a bear. we ate at my doug (dad's brother) and susan's (pictured). we made artichoke dip. alice loved the butter-turkey. it was a good day!

you should ask jon about this

2009-11-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

the tanners

2009-11-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

last week, thursday to be exact, we helped tiffany and keith and violet pack up their moving truck for their trip to missouri. by trip i mean move and by help i mean jon. i just held alice and talked to tiffany, which is a great way to move.

i met tiffany three years ago when she was my roommate at university villa. she got me a job at workmed with her (our boss hired me "on faith" because she liked tiffany so much, thats what she told me)

i was a bridesmaid at her wedding when she married keith. and i have been over to their house millions of times for spaghetti. they met jon when we first started dating and he and keith fell in love and we all four have been friends ever since.

we have been on lots of roadtrips...2 roadtrips. and eaten at lots of casinos

tiffany is the best kind if friend to have because once you are friends there is no going back, its hard to explain but i guess i could call it loyalty for lack of a better word. even when i made dumb mistakes at work she was always on my side. she has always been one hundred percent herself and not afraid to say what she thinks. oh and keith is good too...jon can write about keith if you want to hear more about him.

it is funny to think that three years later (almost four maybe..) we are both married and both have babies/kids (violet is a kid! she is so big). and now they live far far away. luckily we are still in utah, and everyone ends up here eventually. so i guess if WE stick around awhile they are sure to show up.

foam soap

2009-11-17T21:22:00.001-07:00

i have been waiting for the "foaming hand soap" from "bath and body works" to run out for weeks it seems. i can hardly see any left in the bottom but every time i press it down more foam comes out.

when will it just end?

and amber, i am sorry i never called you back. thank you for reading our blog/s. and thanks for being a good friend. and sorry i don't update this more. and call me when you are not busy and i will try try try to answer. because obviously once it goes to voicemail all is lost.

love

tallia

thank you facebook

2009-11-06T12:01:00.001-07:00

facebook is a lot of things to me. a constant friend updater, and photo album holder, an email service. but now it has taken upon it one more important role.

a family re-uniter.

thanks facebook. for helping me reconnect with my father.

poor gertrude

2009-10-17T19:07:00.000-06:00

she thinks she is so sad and neglected now.

two new favorite things (besides alice)

2009-10-17T19:00:00.000-06:00

brussel sprouts

and turnips (and potatoes but they aren't really new)

jon made the best dinner last night. i have only had brussel sprouts twice in my life, and both times were within this year. once at pizzeria 712 and once last night. the ones last night were by far the best (although pizzeria 712 was really really good also) they are my new favorite vegetable. turnips are also something i had never had until this week and i was really pleasantly surprised. we are lucky enough to have a bucket of them upstairs free of charge from jon's grandparents' garden.
if you want recipes you will have to ask jon. really it was the best dinner ever.
speaking of gardens i just realized that we have gone one harvest season without seeing one zucchini. how did that happen?

pictures and lots of info that is probably boring to you but is incredibly interesting to me!

2009-10-14T10:37:00.000-06:00

www.babybelugabryner.blogspot.com

its not private because only 2 people read this blog.

Baby Frog!

2009-10-09T23:59:00.000-06:00

go ask alice

2009-10-06T20:00:00.000-06:00

my water broke sometime in the morning on september 28, 2009. i am not sure what time but i woke up at 5 and realized what had happened. it was kind of surreal laying there and knowing that this would be the last time me and jon would be just two in our house. i called the midwife at about 7 and she told me to go to the hospital around 12 so i could get my iv for group b strep.
jon didn't go to class.
we went to provo and hung out at his parents house.

we watched 'donut paradise' and ate cereal. went to dan's to get powerade/ diet coke. and waited for my contractions to become more regular.
around 1 we went to the hospital.
i got an iv.

and we hung out in the hospital room.

my mom got there about 3. my contractions started getting harder around 4. i got in the tub around 6, when i was dilated to a 6. then the contractions started getting really hard.
i got out of the tub at 830 and thought i was going to die, really i just wanted to be knocked out, but thankfully it was too late to do anything about it. i started pushing at 830.
oh and greg got there about 7. but i didn't see him until i got out of the tub and onto the bed to push.

i was really glad he was there because i had two sets of hands to hold and jon could catch the baby.
i pushed for 25 minutes, any longer and i probably would have died, and alica sage was born at 858 pm.

she was pink and perfect and cried a little but was really calm and alert. jon caught her and they handed her to me and like that we were parents. her eyes were open as soon as her head popped out (so my mom told me) and she stayed awake for a few hours.
i probably should have written all the details down sooner after she was born because now, as weird as it seems, it is hard to remember. i can't remember how much it hurt, or how long i was in labor, or anything like that. i know it hurt because i kept making mental notes to myself to never ever do this again. but now that she is here and beautiful and perfect and cuddly and cute i would definitely do it again and again.

the apart-mint

2009-09-17T19:03:00.001-06:00

this is what everyone has been waiting for. some photos of our newly-put together apartment. thanks! come visit!
Three from the apartment, one of tallia restoring our beautiful late 80's art.

wonderful wedding weekend

2009-09-14T14:10:00.000-06:00

this weekend we had the privilege of attending carl and ash mae's wedding at the manti temple. it was the perfect wedding. one of the very best i have ever been to. we are partial to the manti temple (we got married there last year (in the same sealing room they did!)) and we are very partial to carl and ashley being married.

ryan said once "i don't know carl very well, but i am pretty sure that he is one of my favorite people ever" and that is exactly how i feel about both of them, except i think i know both of them pretty well.

carl and ashley are such good-good-good-to-the-core people that it would be impossible to not be happy for them and excited about everything in store for them. i have always been so impressed by both of them and their wedding was no exception i was impressed with everything. their homemade wedding clothes, the brown bag lunches they packed for everyone at the temple, the singing, the reception, the food, the chalkboard pictures. everything was so happy and joyful, just like them.

i don't think i have ever stayed at any reception for the entire proclaimed time, but we stayed at there's till almost ten (i was kind of waiting for someone to jump in a pool so we could all go swimming in our clothes) it was so good to see so many friends and make so many new friends.

driving home i told jon that those are the people i want to raise our kids around. everyone (carl, ashley, friends, etc) was so friendly and genuine, and interesting, happy, and good.

can we all just move into the same neighborhood please ?

home school

2009-09-11T09:25:00.000-06:00

i am home

and jon is at school

this hasn't happened in a long long time.

i graduated from college

2009-09-10T19:29:00.000-06:00

my last college essay was really hard to write.

it wasn't about anything particularly interesting or difficult. it wasn't very long. i didn't try very hard. but it took me forever for some reason. all i could think was i am going to fail english 315 and have to take it again. and not graduate on time. and i hate this class so much.

but somehow i finished, i passed, and i am done.

and i am glad that most of my college classes were of the non-essay variety. even though i never was too stellar at test taking either, at least with tests though you take it and its over, it doesn't drag on and on and you don't have to read and re write it (at least i never did).

but i am done. really done. forever. or for a few years. whichever i decide.

my family came.

that isn't all of my family, but that is three generations of BYU graduates! both sets of my grandparents came actually. and my family and jon's family. and my aunt and her boyfriend. it was a party. i didn't realize it was so exciting to graduate from college, or that so many people cared. it was really fun to see everyone though.

commencement and convocation (i went to both, hardcore/sentimental) made me a little sentimental for my time at BYU. it was a wonderful 4 years and although i have had plenty of reasons to be annoyed at it i am still really really glad i came to BYU. i almost transferred my junior year, but for some reason i stayed and i am extremely happy i did (because i found a husband :)

oh and hollie and kristi graduated too!! we somehow all started and all finished at exactly the same time and graduated from the same college. how did that happen? one of byu's policies is to try to make you take at least 5 years to graduated but somehow we all avoided that, even with major changes and stuff.

now i am graduated. it is fun to not have to go back to school. to not have homework and studying always looming in the back of my mind no matter what i am doing. for now i am content to not be in school, and have some pretty exciting events to look forward to anyways.

oh yeah. i was seven months pregnant when i graduated.

just like every byu girl should be.

married and pregnant.

although i did wear shoes.

colorado/montana

2009-08-27T17:24:00.000-06:00

as tallia said, we went to montana and colorado last month. it was a great time; we left molly with the cat-sitter and hit the road in the trusty subaru outback (now completely dead, but sold for $700!). We stayed with kathy and lizzy (see photo of our favorite kathy painting). We saw other friends and left on the boring road thur WYoming and made it to billings. We had a great time there, seeing the places tallia grew up visiting, and we loved Red Lodge. After a few days of seeing tallia's family there and in bozeman, we headed home before the car would die! Maybe we will return to red lodge some day...

sorry olivia!!

2009-08-27T17:11:00.000-06:00

we are bad bloggers! we have gone on a colorado/montana vacation. my sisters visited (hannah loves efy). i sewed a bunch of vinyl stuff. a bear lake vacation. moved to salt lake city. i have gotten fatter and fatter everyday. i graduated. my family visited.jon made really good pizza. we saw senator hatch at costco. and no body knows anything about it because we haven't blogged!

sorry.

we have actually been at home a lot, getting ready and just relishing our last few empty days until jon goes back to school full force and i have the baby and our life gets a little crazier.

we will post pictures and stories and stuff stuff stuff soon.

also everyone should come visit us in salt lake.

love

tallia

jon

gertie

molly

my 3 favorite people

2009-07-05T20:20:00.001-06:00

jon's week of....

2009-07-01T10:59:00.000-06:00

i am here at home while tallia is in Seattle with her family. sounds like she is having a good time.
everyone is probably wondering what i have been up too. it has been a long enough time in the dark for everyone: here is what i have been doing. well, what 'the gert' and molly and i have been doing.

-Letting myself go (see photo)
-painting outside everyday.
-Gertie has slept nonstop, and looked at the door for a minute after i come home
-made veggie calzones to freeze
-selling designer jeans on ebay

this may seem like 5 things. i know. it is. i am better at things when tallia is here.

almost father's day

2009-06-21T23:51:00.000-06:00

happy jon!!

welcome

2009-06-21T22:34:00.000-06:00

so updates have been less than regular around here, which is strange because i think we have more to write about and less to do than ever before.

i am done with college. i wrote my last paper, took my last testing center test, and had my last final cancelled! it is amazing and it is strange. not having the tug of homework to do or homework to come in the back of my head all the time is refreshing. it will be even stranger in the fall, when jon goes back to school and i don't. what will i do all day? (take care of the baby?) hopefully i will be busy enough, and i hope someday i have the opportunity to go back to school somewhere, somehow, sometime when i am ready to.

in being done with school i also quit my job, actually i did it before i got done with school. which was amazing. on so many levels. i have been getting so much done and felt so healthy and happy. my job was not particularly taxing (only psychologically) but i was not sleeping well or living well while i worked there. it has been so good to get enough sleep (at whatever hours my pregnant body feels like sleeping) and being able to get things done that i have been thinking about for months. like cleaning out cupboards and sewing projects and other nesting mommy things.

jon hasn't been taking classes this semester, although he may now. i should let him talk about himself, but i will say that he is currently "unemployed" as well. he did have a job for 5 weeks, that he quit for many reasons (one of them being he values his time with his family more than his time at work, apparently there are people who don't, and apparently they were his manager). he was working ~60hours a week though so we figure that is good for 3 months right?

it has been amazing having so much time together, i don't think we will have another chance like this until we are retired so we are definitely taking advantage of it. and i think it is one of the best ways to prepare for the baby coming. we are always busy and it is really nice to be able to work on projects together and not try to squeeze a whole day into the two hours jon is home before bed.

and we are so good at not spending money, it is a fun game.

so, if anyone has any work they need done, or an errand run, or a ride to the airport, or something sold on ebay, or anything just let us know.

love

tallia

2009-06-16T17:54:00.000-06:00

is not going to finish college
because she doesn't want to write her last paper.

what are you doing to do this weekend?

2009-06-11T22:19:00.000-06:00

Jon (and Gertie): Cleaning Gertie's teeth! Finding a good toothbrush too.

Tallia: Buying eggs from scary farmers, writing a paper (her last of her college career)

Molly: I hope there is a blanket on the floor. I wont get off of it.

one year old

2009-06-10T14:10:00.000-06:00

our wedding cake top survived two moves and the great fridge death of 09. but it was still really good! i didn't get any at the reception, besides the piece that was shoved in my mouth, but i am guessing this was better. we still have half of it left, if you want any. maybe we will save it for our next anniversary...

one!

2009-06-10T14:07:00.000-06:00

our first anniversary was on sunday. i can't believe that we have only been married one year! i feel like we have been together forever, and i am very glad we will be.

what kind of dances did you do as a youth?

2009-06-07T13:04:00.001-06:00

Tallia: What does that even mean? i was in a dance festival...

Jon: The Virginia Reel

Mollie and Gertie (Together) : Modern Dance!

do you go barefoot in the summer?

2009-06-01T20:25:00.000-06:00

Tallia: this summer, yes.

Jon: My feet look like meatloaf. i walk all the places with no shoes. they sometimes turn a blacky black.

Gertie: my nails click on the hardwood. yes.

Molly: i dont even wear clothes.

controversy

2009-06-01T13:55:00.000-06:00

i am in a philosophy and ethics class at BYU right now. philosophy is a funny thing to talk about at BYU, there isn't really any discussion when the teacher is explaining different metaphysical perspectives, and absolute truths. everyone in the class pretty much believes the same basic things and they just nod their head along with the teacher. its kind of like sunday school.
while i think it would be a more interesting class if there were differing viewpoints i am fine with the wholehearted acceptance of absolute truths and values that we discuss in the class, because i accept and believe them too.
something i do not enjoy however is discussing "ethical" or any other controversial issue in class, with BYU students.
so far this semster i have had to discuss illegal immigration, alternative fuels, and universal healthcare coverage in america in either my english or ethics classes. the english class discussions actually proved to be not as annoying as i thought. they started with people just randomly dispensing their beleifs (immigrants are sinners!!! kill them!yeah!) but over the course of the hour they ended with people coming to more or less of an agreement (immigrants aren't really taking our jobs, and they aren't evil people, but we should figure out something to do to make them legal or make it easier to become so). i have found that this is the case with most BYU students, at least the ones that don't write letters to the editor. they have a fairly middle of the road view when allowed to discuss it and when they actually listen to other people.
the discussion on universal healthcare didn't go so well. all anyone said was "i don't want the government to take my money" (they already are) or "this isn't our responsibility" (caring for the poor?). no one listened to our arguements, and we didn't even get to finish (or get to the part they would have really liked-anti americare) because people kept raising their hands to say the same thing. the final comment someone yelled out as the bell rang was "communism looks good on paper" (maybe in response to us telling them that universal healthcare in america would entail giving the government all their land and money and possessions).
we never said "let's be just like canada"
just tried to open people up to the idea that US healthcare may be really messed up, and that maybe it could be fixed, or at least better.
the next topic on the discussion agenda: US school systems. i have a feeling this will be a lot better. but i shouldn't underestimate BYU students.

what is your favorite time of the year? feat. Kemarie

2009-05-31T14:28:00.001-06:00

um... saturday.

-did kids ever tease you?

no.

-Describe some household chores you have-

Doing the Silverware. um, i um, i do the silverware kids. the mommy. i do the plates and kid stuff.

- tell about the naughtiest thing you ever did.

ummmm. ummmm. hitting my friends.

- when you played make-believe what did you pretend?

to be sleeping beauty and a prince, prince ali! that is in alladin. and the genie put him in a good jar.

i'm all done.

do you remember the first movie you ever saw? and who starred in it?

2009-05-31T13:51:00.000-06:00

jon: is that a joke? lady and the tramp, no oliver and company with carolyn.

tallia: the little mermaid was the first movie i saw in theaters. i think i saw it more than once, and before there was a preview for the movie "rock-a-doodle". after the preview sam said "that's a funny chicken" really loud and everyone laughed. ariel starred in it.

molly: i don't watch movies

gertrude: my family hasn't watched a movie since i moved in, but at my old house i probably watched touched by an angel a lot. but that is a tv show.

did you ever make a kite?

2009-05-30T20:15:00.001-06:00

Tallia- no, one time i thought of making a plastic bag into a kite. the air would fill it if you tied the handles to strings. its like a parachute. i thought about it a lot when i was little. but never made it. just like filling a ballpoint pen with nail polish and writing on my fingers with nail polish.
Jon-no
Gertie-No!
Molly-Maybe.

is there anything you have now that you have kept from your childhood?

2009-05-29T18:55:00.000-06:00

tallia- i used to have a lot of socks and underwear that i had in 5th grade, but i think i have finally thrown away the last pair of socks. there are some jeans from junior high that still fit ( or did before i was pregnant) i have a lot of stuffed animals and things at my parents house, they try to give me more of my stuff every time i go back and i try to avoid it as much as possible. also now that i am pregnant my mom has sent me lots of stuff, like the outfit i wore home from the hospital, little dresses and bows i had, and my crib! and my parents kept a box for each of us full of special things from our childhood.

jon- i have a hoodie from fifth grade that i still wear (it is camo-tallia does not like it). and i just found a piece of my old mullet. also an invitation to go to a sleepover at my aunt's house. that is about it.

molly- i had a toy mouse but the dog has stolen it, i broke one of my food bowls because i was so excited to eat, and i don't have very many possessions. besides i am only one year old.

gertrude- i brought one thing with me from my first home, a bone. i have since eaten it and moved on to other bones. i also stole the cats catnip mouse toy. i am only 6 months old though, so i have more time to build up the stash of possessions that i have hidden under the ottoman.

best donuts ever

2009-05-26T17:32:00.000-06:00

the provo bakery

its only 4 blocks away and yet i had never been until saturday.

they have the best donuts i have ever tasted.

and if you are in the neighborhood you should definitely stop by.

quote of friday

2009-05-04T12:17:00.000-06:00

"for a second i thought i heard two heartbeats"
- midwife, at my appointment

i can only wish.
one less pregnancy would be oh so fine with me.

gertrude

2009-05-01T13:45:00.001-06:00

creamies

2009-05-01T08:58:00.000-06:00

you know when you go to costco to get refried beans and bagels and the sample lady, who is handing out creamies, asks you if you have a dog and if you want one.
and then she talks to you for 20 minutes about how cute her little puppies are and how sugar would look so good in a dress, and dresses are cheap at the dollar store. and so you get her phone number and call and go look at the puppies. and they are so cute and the sample lady is so nice and loves her dogs so much but has too many and is just giving them away to good homes.
and so you take sugar (who is young enough that you can still change her name). and the lady hugs you and is so happy she asked you at costco, you were the only person she asked all day and it was perfect.
you know?

that happened to us yesterday.

what is a good dog name?

3rd speed

2009-04-28T09:13:00.000-06:00

"of course you didn't catch her, you were running at third speed"
- jon

bling

2009-04-18T14:20:00.000-06:00

i am excited to have a baby because he/she will be more excited to get its picture taken than our cat is. or at least the baby won't be able to move too much at the beginning, or run away from the camera. until then we will make do with molly.

who is really happy about this, as you can see.

fame

2009-04-15T22:11:00.000-06:00

Elder Andersen brought a baby to our house today to say hi.

Just kidding. The people before us living here in the house put this pic on their blog. He is Elder A's nephew. But its fun to see our house is famous!

14 weeks and 6 days

2009-04-15T14:52:00.000-06:00

i checked

pregnant-er

2009-04-15T09:21:00.000-06:00

i do not know how many "weeks along" i am.
every time i wonder about it i look it up on some "baby due-date" predictor online, and then i forget again.
right now i would say i am around 14 weeks, maybe 15, maybe 16. all i know is that i don't have morning sickness anymore, which is great and wonderful. next time i have a baby i am skipping the first trimester.
i also do not know my "due-date" which actually isn't that important anyways since how many babies are born on their due dates.
beginning of october is good for me.
i could get a baby counter thing for my blog.
but then run the risk of being a nerd. (sorry to everyone who has those on their blogs, and by this i mean sorry to everyone who lives in provo)
in provo everyone knows exactly how their baby is developing (this week my baby has fingernails, this week it is growing a neck, this week its gills are going away, this week it can do simple algebra problems)
what i know is this week my baby is alive, and making me sleepy, and giving me a headache.
but i still love it so thats okay.
its also making me so hungry! i could eat and eat and eat. i don't get full anymore, i used to get full drinking water or if i ate an m&m or something. now i just want to eat like 10 donuts all the time and a veggie tempura roll from happy sumo.