Excuse Me?

**Warning--this is a big ol' rant.

I just got off the phone with a woman who doesn't know me--she'd like me if she did right? That's what Tobey said once after she cut a woman off in traffic, I loved it. 'Eh, they'd like me if they knew me.' The conversation went a little like this: 'You and your husband are adults. You have a family. Someone needs to be working to support yourselves.' I told her our situation and she said 'You do know you have to pay student loans back at some point, right?' Yes. Thank you. I am aware and planning on it. To which she said 'You have a kid. How can you expect not to work? You need to be doing at least 30 hours a week.' To which I said, 'Well, that's not going to happen.'

I tried to be polite and get through the business I needed to talk to her about in the first place. Albeit difficult as she repeated the 'Someone needs to work' phrase another six or seven times with an accompanying snicker.

She didn't make me feel bad. I made the choice to start our family, I made the choice to be home with her. I am completely satisfied and not a bit ashamed of that decision. So here's to you women who stay at home with your babies when the world can make you feel so inadequate or lazy because of that decision. Understandably, every family situation is different. I can respect women who choose otherwise--I don't know how they do all that they do. What incredible energy. I can also feel sadness that they don't get to be with their amazing children day to day. And some lucky women figure out how to do part-time at home during naps or have family to help. And I know I'm blessed that I don't have to work. But I wish some people could understand that we don't stay at home because we are uneducated, unmotivated, or unemployable. Give me a break. Thank you to all you intelligent, witty, interesting, creative, talented, exciting SAHM's who make me proud to do what I do.

When J got home and I was still annoyed he reminded me of something a guy in our ward said this week: 'A fool takes offense when none was intended. An even greater fool takes offense when it was intended.' Something like that. So I'm done thinking about it and taking offense to it. And thank you 'woman who will not be named' for reminding me to take the opportunity to say 'You Rock' to awesome women who inspire me.

Had a fun day with my baby today...

What A Nerd

Says 'I'm not nerdy, but not hip.' Sad. I feel luke warm. I want to be one or the other!

Comin' Atcha

My plan was to bombard you with scrapbook pages today. I put all the pages I scanned onto a CD before we moved and now it has disappeared. I always lose one thing when we move. Last time it was my weights and exercise band--drove me crazy. Of course, I found them as we were getting to move here. So I guess my scrapbook CD is the one thing for this move. Perfect. So I'll post them in two years when we move again.

Luckily I put these two pages onto my computer before the move. It is one of my favorite spreads in her baby book. The journaling on the second page is on hinges and opens up to more info because I had a LOT to say about the day she was born. The tabs say 'The Day Before', 'Labor', 'Finally Here', and 'Visitors'. The first page tabs are your basic 'Weight, Hospital, Doctor, Date' info. I'm very into paper that looks like wallpaper that would be in an 80 year old woman's house. I hope it doesn't look cheesy when I finally let Abbey look at this book in five years.

It Was The Summer of 07

See ya later, Summer. Try not to be so brutal next August.

It's weird to feel like summer can be just as oppresive as winter. I've never felt that way until I felt a good, midwest, humid, hot, summer. (I'm hearing a guffaw from my sister. "You haven't felt humid heat until you live in Texas. You haven't eaten real Mexican until you live in Texas. You haven't seen bugs the size of your head until you live in Texas. :) Just kidding, Koryn, love ya!) But what's not to love about summer, especially this summer. How many adults get over a month off to just play--no worries, no work. I want to start a countdown to the next break like this, but I think it would be something like 2,125 days. Would that bore you?

This morning: pants pressed, white coat clean, pocket PC in pocket, cell ringer off. Party's over, folks. J's back to school. Usually I feel guilty as he leaves to work his buns off and we stay home and play. But not this time. His first rotation is obstetrics. Hello! He gets to go have my favorite day over and over and over. I'm so excited for him to really be in the hospitals now, they're going to love him.

Now it's 8:15--breakfast is cleaned up, beds are made, scripture study done, we're both dressed. Now what? Abbey's playing with a box of change on the floor, I'm obviously blogging. We've gotta get this figured out now it's just the two of us.

But for now, here's my farewell to a great summer.

Blog Banners

OK, I've had a lot of e-mails and a few posts on how to do blog banners. I don't know all the ins and outs of this program, but I just went to the 'Template' tab in blogger. You can choose 'Page Elements'; click on 'edit' for the header and upload the banner you've designed. Then I think there was an option to put it 'behind title and description' or 'instead of title and description', so just click on the latter.

I made up this banner today for my sister's new ward blog. I just make them in photoshop. I love doing it, it's so fun. So if you really want one and don't have a photoshop program, e-mail me! You're my friend, I'll make one for you. You could send me a few pictures, give me an idea of what you want, and then you could be patient for me to get it done :) And you can be brutally honest, I can take it.

The New Do

What do you think of the new look? Can you see the whole title? Everyone's computers format these blogs differently. I can't tell if the entire picture will show up--how does it look on your computer? And now excuse all past posts as the formatting on them is all messed up now. Grrrr. It's free though, right? Can't complain.

No Title

One More. Only because yesterday was my favorite day in a long time and this outlet is the best journal keeping I've done in years. We have been going nonstop since we moved here. Justin is not one of those people who can hang out, relaxing at home for more than an hour.

We had big plans to go on a bike ride around a lake then visit a cool, historic town nearby. It started pouring--when was the last time it rained here? I was so disappointed and annoyed and it just rained harder, so Abbey and I got out and did a rain dance to appease Mother Nature. She was pacified and the rest of the day was beautiful--much better than the 100+ degree weather we've had.


We shopped around fun little stores and ate at this charming restaurant for lunch.
















This is where I really wanted to sit, but I had to admire from the window. I guess we could have sat on wet chairs, but I'd had enough of wet pants for the week, thankyouverymuch.











Then some window shopping. Abbey has a fetish for shoes. It's actually one of her five words right now.

Just one pair Mom, pleeeeease? Sparkly, fuschia ballet slippers. The girl's got style.

The rain let up just as Abbey needed a nap. So we drove back to the lake where she and I took a snooze in the car. Then after a lovely encounter with a man screaming obscenities at us so loudly and out of control that a lady called the cops to arrest him, we went on a great bike ride. It was perfect weather, perfect trail, perfect scenery; ahhhh, sigh, I wish we lived closer to it.
We stopped at this gazebo (partly to rest, partly to wait for the cops to do their thing before we returned to the parking lot). All right, side note. This man got out of his car using the most obscene, racist language I have ever heard. Seriously, I exaggerate not. A runner came by and asked him to stop because we had a kid and that just set him off more. He started yelling about his freedom of speech and how we 'didn't fight on the desert sand' for this country. I felt bad for him. J was pretty sure he had post traumatic stress syndrome. I couldn't help thinking he was probably a normal guy that went through some pretty horrible stuff. Could that really cause you to lose control like that? It made me sad.

That night for FHE we rode our bikes to this unbelievable place I found on Sunday. It's practically in our backyard. It has a sand volleyball pit (SCORE) two playgrounds, a bike trail, and a gazebo. What is with this place and gazebos? Here are the views from my favorite bench.

The funny thing is there is no parking for this place, so every time we've been there it's been deserted. I've always pictured myself having a peaceful spot like this in my yard when I grow up, who would have thought I'd have it now.
Lest we burn too many calories in one day, a ride to the ice cream shop. Here's Abs and her zoolander face.

Monkey Business

I almost forgot the best part! These monkeys were cracking us up at the zoo. Pretty good dance moves, don't you think?

Poffertjes Party

I'm on blog overload. I feel like I've been in a non-stop party for weeks now and there is something new to post on here everyday. Am I overwhelming? Well, it's partly for my journaling, so enjoy if you'd like. And once J goes back to school next week, my party will be over and my posts will dwindle.

Katherine, Bobby, the girls, and Katherine's little sister, Annie, came down to visit for the weekend. I made poffertjes one morning-a dutch treat. Katherine brought me fresh blackberry jam which went perfectly with them. I loved having a full house, they were so nice to come down.

Franny rockin' the new cast on the merry-go-round at the zoo.
It worked out perfectly for us all to catch Nora's birthday party at the zoo. Jodie, you did a great job, thanks for the great party favors!

We went to a children't museum the first night they were in town. This electro-ball made me giggle like a little kid. Do you love that J's hair looks exactly the same? I was the first one to go and they forgot to mention that I needed to let them know when I was ready to get off. I got a pretty nasty shock. I guess I need to improve my working knowledge of physics.

Do You Hear The People Sing?

I did. On Wednesday. For free.

My city is awesome. We're never moving away. For our anniversary we went and saw Bourne Ultimatum and while it was totally awesome I secretly wanted to go see Les Miserables instead. I mustered up the nerve to ask the same couple to watch Abbey again so we could go see it.

There's a great outdoor theatre here with hundreds of free seats every night. Yes, they are nose bleed seats. Yes, it was 103 degrees at 7:00 that night. Yes, the man behind me insisted on humming along to all my favorite songs. But can you beat free seats to see incredible musicals? I think not. We went a few hours early to sit in line with the other free loaders. But a subway and capri sun and my sweetie by my side and NOT chasing a toddler made the time fly by.

Ah, Les Mis. I bawl like a baby every time. (Here's me--not bawling. Just being goofy.)

Parenting 101

You don't put a grabby one-year old in arm's length of water glasses. You don't, you don't, you don't.

Not 24 hours before the incident, Katherine and I were talking about our embarassing moments. I really had a hard time remembering mine (although, I still remember one doozie) because I think I tend to block them from memory. You know, kind-of a survival technique. I'm archiving this one because the first thing I said when I sat back down at the table with everyone was 'So...do I just take a picture and laugh about this?'

It was one of those moments. One of those times when you feel like you are trapped, there are no options to make it right, everyone is staring at you, you want to melt into the wall. We were eating lunch and just as I sat down with Abbey she grabbed a glass of water and poured the entire thing on herself and only managed to get me in the 'oh dear! she peed her pants!' area. There were no good bathroom hand dryers and I was even more mortified waiting in the bathroom line. I felt it just brought more attention being in the line you WOULD be in if you DID pee your pants. Ahhhh, parenting. Here's to more embarassing moments to come**

Tour of My Home

The blogger powers at be will not let me rest. I've been putting off posting pictures of my place because I feel like it's just not quite there. There are a few more things I want to do, we're getting new doors this week, I need to hang a few more pictures. But a little taste of Casa De Pace: Ab's room, bathroom, and our itty bitty office.

Yes, it is that pink. The room glows. It is very youthful, very girlie, very Abbey. I painted the dots in different shades of pink; I thought doing the whole room would be overwhelming--both in execution and in observation. So the dots cover one whole wall and spill a few feet into the next wall. And just this week I finally found a use for the cubby hole cabinet. I've held onto it for a good three years now thinking there HAD to be something. Baby shoes. Perfect.


J and Mom did the moulding in the bathroom, doesn't it look great? It makes our tiny bathroom look a little more spacious somehow. J found that mirror on an unbelievable deal--I need to post a picture of the one that used to hang there. Blah.
And the office. Another re-do. There was this horrible wallpaper border and the walls were painted the color of...oh, I don't know...red brown burnt casserole?

But while I am blogging, I might as well throw in some scrapbook pages. The first two pages in Abbey's book, The Baby Showers. These were the only two pictures I had of my baby shower in Ogden. Horrible pictures. I'm chewing food in the top one. Oh no, don't look. You're going to look now, aren't you.

I sewed a pocket onto the second page so I could put in the list of the baby gifts I received. I kept track of all of them and wanted to somehow incorporate it into the page. It seemed silly to make a page just of the list (how boring), so this was a good way to keep it in the Baby Shower page but still have all the info.

Sheepy Sheepy Sheep

Did you know J and I have been married for FOUR years now? Ah, four years. I didn't put a big mushy thing on here about him for the anniversary mostly because he views my blogging as an addiction. It just didn't seem right to go on and on about him on here since he despises it so.

But, I will say, I love how we get in and out of arguments. Case in point-last night. I mentioned to him that he had embarassed me in front of some new friends and he apologized. I wasn't mad over the incident, but a little irritated that he could not, for the life of him, apologize with a straight face. He'd say sorry and I'd say 'Really? Try it without laughing' which of course would set him off even more. I finally gave up.

A few minutes later he came to me and said 'When I was in high school I had an art teacher who would always test me to see if I was lying. He'd say ''Look me in the eye and say sheepy sheepy sheepy without laughing". I could never do it, even if I wasn't lying. That's what's happening here." We sat there looking at eachother for a few seconds, one of my eyebrows slightly raised in 'that look'. Then he said 'Sheepy Sheepy Sheepy'. Sent both of us laughing. That's how most arguments end, I love it.

Here's a great picture he took of Abbey at the park yesterday.

Pretty Girl

We'd hate for her confidence to get too high...

I Spy

Do you need an acitivty to keep 40 kids entertained? My mom was in charge of a craft and came up with the cutest idea. I Spy Bottles. You put a dozen or so trinkets in a washed gatorade bottle then fill it up with salt or sand. Then you keep a list of what's in there so your kid can shake and turn it to find the items. Super cute. Well, this craft turned into much more.


She gave each bag of trinkets to a different member of the family. So Justin had the bag of footballs, I had the bag of violins, you get the idea. Then she would give the kids a clue about who had the next item and they'd have to run around and find us. It kept them entertained for over an hour! It was a little scary when they were attacking you, but really cute. I love the picture of all of the kiddos bombarding my grandpa.

You Are The Dancing Queen

'Let's do a dance at the reunion!'. Ok! Sounded like a good idea at the time. Until we got in front of our large, extended family and realized how ridiculous we looked. We made it about halfway through when Koryn and I started giggling uncontrollably. You know the giggle; the stifled kind you can't stop during inappropriate times. We made it through and everyone loved it. (Al, I put that great picture of you up as recompense for coming up with the idea in the first place!) Mom bought tons of glow sticks and made everyone come dance with us to get one. It was a party.

Next Stop

On to mi familia. Here's a picture of me and my sisters getting down with our funky selves. Hey Fields, you can't see it, but rest assured, my finger is pointed. This is actually pretty atypical for us.



Abbey and Grandma getting in some light reading on the front porch.














My favorite times are just sitting around the dining table. We got in a mean game of Hand and Foot with Al and Noah. I won. I killed them. I literally could not wipe the smile off my face after the second round.

Then it was off to the lake for the family reunion. My grandma has more posterity than any other living woman I personally know. Abbey was her 63rd great grandchild, I believe. She also has great great grandchildren. All of us get together every other year for a big bash at the lake.
Our all-star team won the Survivor Challenge thanks to Austin's incredible pudding eatin' skills.

My little brother and nephew on the raft.

Cute little skippers.

These were my favorite pictures of the day. My nephew, Spence, was riding the boat like a cowboy. I wish you could hear his excitement in this picture.

The In-Laws

First stop on the trip, J's family. We stayed with Amber at the Ultimate Kid Party House.

And when the kiddies were in bed, plenty of fun for us as well.
On a hike behind Am's house, go kart races, and for you Gob lovers...

I feel really lucky that I actually enjoy spending time with my in-laws. I married into a great family, they were so welcoming. After Am's, it was off to J's brother, Ryan's, house.











Cute cousins. Abbey meeting Ry's new baby for the first time. I love this picture, Devon's like 'What's up, cuz'.



Ahhh, it doesn't take long in this plush living to make me realize how poor we are right now. Good thing a can of paint can keep me happy for weeks :) Great to see you guys.

I'm Outta Here

Moving Day: went much better than anticipated. I think we had over a dozen guys come help us--Mel and Paul even cut their camping trip short to be there. I felt so bad, but it meant a lot. Erin watched Abbey all morning, little did I know she was 'super babysitter' for the morning. Here's a picture of all the guys--I know they don't look like they're doing much now, but they had our whole place cleared out in less than 40 minutes. It was almost TOO fast, I didn't have time to adjust. Bobby and Katherine were awesome that day. You know you have good friends when they'll put three big bags of your trash in their new car, drive forgotten house keys down to Justin 15 minutes away, stay and help clean until I'm literally leaving the house myself.




We've been having fun exploring our new city. We went to the zoo Saturday and I loved the penguin display. Mostly because it was 40 degrees cooler than it was outside. I thought they were lame robots when I first walked in because they were so close to where you stand.

By the way, you're NOT supposed to touch them. But he did. So did I. We might be banished from the zoo soon.