Texamess

SOOOOOOO..... Still no posts by the wife. This whole blog thing was her idea. Let's all leave a comment about how much we wish she would blog instead of boring old me!!!



I've been very stingy about my vacation days over the last year. When you go from a job where you have 4 weeks a year to one where you get a mere 2 weeks a year, you kind of freak out. But it was about time that we took Solei out to meet my aunt and uncle and grandpa in Texas. (Two weeks minus two days...)

They don't get out to visit very often because they have their kids to visit and Jimbo's job at the prison gives him few vacation days (and they use them to plant their Pea Patch). Next time you are in Woodville ask Jimbo about getting locked in a cell...


We had a good a bad visit. It's kind of a long story but let's use these key words to create a mental image:

*10 acres just outside of Woodville, Tx
*Free Single Wide Mobile Home
*No Internet
*Mildewy Mattress
*The Plague

Okay the story really doesn't have the plague in it, but it might as well. After two days sleeping on the item listed before the Plague I felt like I had the Plague. The doctor said it wasn't the plague and gave me antibiotics to treat the sore throat that I got. Although I cannot specifically target the mattress as the source of my illness, Occam's Razor would teach us that it was. No amount of candle or air freshener or fans could stop the smell!

We spent twelve hours in our new van over night the first night. Solei only woke up screaming for an hour. The trip home was better. She loved her time with us in the car (and more so with the "Fishies" on Finding Nemo).

Here is the trailer (painted neon yellow-green to blend into the environment)



The weather and company were amazing. We had wonderful 70 degree, partly cloudy days. Aunt Wendy, Grandpa and Uncle Jimbo were amazing company and Wendy cooked some of the best food I've eaten.

This didn't end up being one of those relaxing vacations. I spent some considerable time underneath the trailer running wire and piping - next to the burrow of some animal that I never identified - thankfully. It was NOT more scared of me than I was of it.

Next time we are going to bring an RV.

Here are some pics:

Solei LOVED riding on Wendy's Golf Cart (Wendy and Jimbo live next door)

Solei had some dessert. The bowl became a hat:

The Stairs on Grandpa's Trailer were a seemingly endless source of entertainment:

The neighbors had goats which Solei had a blast "baaaa-ing" at. The neighbors also had this stone seahorse.

You can see some of the land in the background. We found a golf ball the other day and Solei and I had fun throwing it around the yard.



Here's a pic of Solei with Wendy, Jimbo and Grandpa. Solei had such a great time with all of them!!

Beard, Beard The Musical Fruit

So- nothing is more exciting in life than a beard contest at work. Imagine it, two weeks full of excuses not to hassle with shaving! Can you think of anything better???

Here's my contribution:


As it turns out, I work with someone who is part Big Foot. You'd never guess it by looking at his feet, but those hair genes are unmistakable. (Bigfoot exists and I swear I will prove it some day!).

Once the contest was officially lost by me, it was time to see how awesome I could potentially look with some sort of facial hair.

Here's me sporting the "Friendly Mutton Chops":

This look lasted a full 24 hours. The guy mixing our paint at Wal-Mart was a little disturbed by the look, so were all the other people who saw Creepy McGee holding the hand of our little girl.

The next day was the handlebar mustache! These pictures totally doesn't do me justice. I am actually not entirely opposed to this look. If someday we were to move somewhere a little more rural, I'd totally sport this look (assuming of course my lovely wife goes blind and loses all feeling in her fingers, face, etc.)

In all honesty, this isn't that bad, right?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's the day o' the green, and we celebrated in style.

On Sunday, our valiant hero made a fabulous corned beef and cabbage dinner, traditional Irish fare. And as you can see, like our valiant hero, it was smokin' hott.

Even Wonder Baby got into the spirit. Well, mommy did when she bought her the shirt, but hot DANG that's one awesome shirt.

Then today, I had a show up in Chattanooga and husband actually took the day off and came up with me! In honor of the day, I decided to look like the holiday puked on me.

We had a ball playing...

To.. um...well, no one. For some reason, the people that booked us dropped off the edge of the earth when it came to promotion.

But we still got paid, yo! So we rocked out anyway.

And Jared said I sounded good. And pretended like I didn't look like a raving lunatic. Honestly, this was better than the Ronald McDonald get-up I wore on Saturday, but I'll spare you the pictures.

Our next entry will be dedicated to Jared's face. Or rather, the stuff growing out of it. Feel free to remain at the edge of your seats.

Zoo Zoo Ma Goo

Saturday was arguably the coldest day of the year so far. It was a balmy 33 degrees and snowing. So what did we decide to do? Take our daughter to the zoo.





It all started on Monday when Missy (my co-worker) offered free tickets to the zoo. FREE. (That's my favorite "F" word). The thing was, they had to be used before tomorrow. So, rain or shine we were off to the zoo. (Tickets are normally $20 a piece)





The Atlanta Zoo was the second worst zoo ever (second only to the fake zoo they have in Utah - ATTENTION UTAH: DUCKS, DOGS AND CATS ARE NOT ZOO ANIMALS). At the gate we were told that only the reptiles and the pandas were out. The reptiles are kept in a warm place and the Pandas are apparently used to being cold. In spite of this we persisted. The lady at the gate was about as infomed as the zoo was exciting.

Notice the THRONGS of people behind us.



In spite of the cold we survived well. Solei wore her cute pink hat (she won't ever wear it for more than a few seconds). We hopped from heated (empty) building to building.





Solei did get to see some pretty cool stuff. She insisted that anything with feathers was a duck (especially the flamingos some 20 feet beyond the front gate - how the girl working at the gate missed them was beyond me). We saw elephants. They were huge. We were all amazed by the apparent size of their bladders. If you ever have a medium sized fire to put out and there's no fire hose available, but there is an elephant around, I'd suggest involving the elephant.





We saw the pandas eat bamboo. We saw the Lion on his rock. We saw the reptiles. We saw the Zebras. Luckily on the way out we stopped by the petting zoo. ALL the goats and sheep were out. Solei had a blast with them. Here's some video goodness if you can deal with the forever it takes to watch (Caution it's over ONE minute in length):












After the zoo we all warmed up on the ride home in our van.



We love you Sheep #2!!!

We're breeding a generation of super babies!

Like our Solei the wonder toddler? Then you'll LOVE Sierra the wonder baby! For those who haven't seen it, this video response to Solei's verbosity is now officially my favorite website.

Except for Zombo.com. And maybe emotioneric. But then Sierra calling out Solei is definately number 3.

Go Team Smith!

Alphawesome!

We're not sure, but she might be actually smarter than us. Pardon the nudity.



P.S. She may or may not have learned all these from PBS.

P.P.S. These aren't all the letters/numbers she knows, just the ones Jared could grab in time for the videoing. Thanks to mom for these, Solei is addicted to them!!

SPEAK!!!

Today while I was sitting at a red light at Roswell Rd. and Hwy. 41,when Solei gets really excited and starts shouting "Cuck!! Cuck!! Mamee!! Cuck!!" And she was pointing at...
The Big Chicken. She was yelling "cluck!" in Solei-speak!! She's been paying attention when we read her those animal books!! So we decided to check out all the other animal sounds she knows...

She walked early, now it's just a matter of time before she starts telling off random barnyard animals in their own language.

Political Awakening

Normally I shy away from making political commentary on my blog – although I probably shouldn’t. I’ve had some interesting experiences over the last few months and quite an awakening.

The candidacy of Mitt Romney is something that has made everyone very aware of Mormons and how they perceived in society. During a conversation with a woman I work with the other day mentioned that she didn’t think that Americans would vote for a Mormon. To me that was something odd. I never thought that anyone would seriously discriminate against someone because they were Mormon. People can think you are nuts all they want, but there have been so many successful members of the church that I thought those days were past. I’ve been exposed to SO many successful Mormons that I never imagined that anyone would be discriminated against because of that.

My political awakening began with this conversation. The next step was an editorial piece that I read on the web a few weeks ago. The author essentially stated that if America was not “ready for a Mormon president” then as a Mormon he was not capable of being president and therefore was not a full citizen and did not have the full rights of other citizens.

I thought long and hard about that and the thought really hit me hard – Am I really a second class citizen because of my Religion? I was honestly a little hurt. After all, in Jr High I was voted by the teachers to be the most likely to be the President of the United States. I would never have dreamed that I was somehow deemed incapable of running the country because of my religion.

After some time I stopped and thought about politics in the United States. There has never been a woman elected to the presidency. There has never been a minority elected president of the United States. Suddenly I realized that what I felt was what millions and millions of people have felt. They were all constantly told that someone of their race or gender could never be president of the United States. To me this was a window into the lives of my black brothers and sisters. It was eye opening and enlightening. For a short time I understood a small part of what it was to be a minority in this country. My respect and admiration for the many people who have fought against discrimination grew exponentially.

This election is historic. For the first time ever there are serious contenders for the presidency who are both women and from a minority. While many say they wouldn’t vote for one of these types of people, it for the first time seems like that will not be prohibitive. This is an historic election. This election will drastically change the course of presidential politics, regardless of the outcome.

I don’t like political parties. I don’t really like any of the candidates. My feeling is that Bush has done such a poor job of everything that the Democrats will make it look easy in the next election. Deep down inside there is a big piece of me that is willing to look past some major issues and hope that presidential history is changed and American never looks back.

My money now is on Obama – not because I like him, but because I think he will win.

By the way – when did Bill Clinton go from being an ex-president to being the creepy old guy chasing kids off his lawn?

An open letter to John McCain:

You looked so fresh, so ready to take over the world back in 2000 when you ran against Bush. Your loss was unfortunate, but you took it really badly. You've spent the last 8 years doing all you can to undermine the White House with your nutty legislation to get back at Bush for the nasty fight you two had back then. I'm not a Bush fan, but I'm definately not a fan of your bills and your vindictive attitude.

And now in this race, I'm absolutely appalled at your behavior. And how insanely creepy you've become. You think after your poor performance in the debates and your general nastiness that you can actually win over the rest of the party? I'm so terrified you'll ask Huckabee to be your running mate and then the morons here in the Bible Belt will vote you in, then you'll keel over and die since you're 79 already and we'll be stuck with Huckabee, who has repeatedly made biggoted comments and then apologized like he didn't know if wasn't polite to be a bigot. That will go over REALLY well with Islamic countries.

So Mr. McCain, no way will I vote for you. And if by some act of insanity Huckabee wins the nomination, I'm moving to Canada because I know the South is dumb enough to vote him in, and the apocalyse won't be far behind.

Sincerely,
Rocketgirl

P.S. Vote Floyd 2012.

Sunday Sunday

Happy Sabbath, blog world! Today I was informed by a 21 year old missionary that blogs are for "old people." He was trying to figure out the difference between Facebook and Myspace and blogs, none of which he was familiar with 2 years ago before he left on his mission, so we were trying to help him transition to "civilian" life (he goes home Tuesday. 6 months too late. But I digress.) Anywho, somehow our definition of what a blog is caused him to decide it was for old people.

Hrm... Jared and I have both blogs and Facebooks AND Myspaces. I figure that means we are old but are in denial. Also, we are addicted to the internet. And attention whores. But we all already knew that.

Back to our Sunday. Before I get into the nitty gritty, here is a picture that has nothing to do with anything, except it helps illustrate the points that: A) Our daughter is cuter than any other baby in the history of us having babies, and B) Jared got her to keep a bow in her hair for almost a whole minute.



SO, after Cutest Baby Ever was done being photogenic, we had the Smiths and the missionaries over for dinner. Interesting side note - the Smiths asked if their baby (also known as Cutest Baby Ever in the Smaller and Quieter Than Our Baby category) could sit in a closet the while we were eating dinner. Apparently she likes sleeping in them. Another intersting side note - we have no closets that aren't completely filled with junk, so she slept NEXT to a closet.

For some weird reason, Jared and Joe decided it would be fun to have a dinner made up of Ramen and Spagetti-O's. The Ramen got omited, but we all did have corn dogs -which to my chagrin, our baby adored. Dang it. And butterscotch cookies that Mandy had to make Joe or he threatened to leave her. When he said that he laughed, and I think he was being sarcastic, but he seems like a man who takes his cookies seriously.

It seemed like a good time at that point to take a picture in which Joe looks undead, I look heavily medicated, and Mandy looks creeped out.

I should frame that picture, a memory of how they spent their first wedding anniversary. I'll bet this is how everyone dreams of spending it.

Then, we rushed out of the house to catch a class held at a local Baptist church, with the title: "Mormons, Muslims and Me." - a 6 week course. We'd been curious when we saw the sign up in front of their church, and met our bishop's wife there, mom (she tipped us off about it), the missionaries and some other friends from the ward. We were quite the sight, walking in, dressed up (not a common thing at churches anymore) and with the missionaries - whew!

The topic was Joseph Smith, and was taught by their preacher who had studied the church during his doctorate work. He began his talking by announcing that it was his goal to prove that Joseph Smith was a fraud. He proceeded to attempt it by going through his life, giving half-truths and completly false and widely known refuted falsehoods, with very little documentation. It was so sad to hear someone talk about something so wonderful as the restoration of the gospel, but missing the point completely by only researching the detractors of the church.

His main problems with Joseph Smith were his failings - which he had, just like all of us, and the pastor repeatedly commented how he didn't measure up to Christ. Prophets are people - imperfect, every single one of them. Christ is our example and our Savior, and if God only depended on perfect people to send forth his gospel, there wouldn't be anyone to do it!

One part that did make me giggle though was when he talked about the First Vision and how you should never start your own church if you disagree with yours... good golly, Baptists are Protestants! That's exactly what YOU did!

There are 4 more weeks to go - I may go. We'll see. I stayed in the lobby and kept baby occupied but I could hear over the loudspeaker, and I couldn't help but look at my beautiful daughter's happy face and be so incredibly thankful that I can share with her the gospel - the joyous knowledge that our Heavenly Father loves us, loves his Son and that we can return to him. That he didn't leave us here without a lifeline - we have inspired and wonderful scripture, commandments to follow. As difficult as it can be to follow, I'm so thankful we have a path to follow. We have a prophet on this earth that speaks to us in our day. We have a way to return to His presence. And my Cutest Baby Ever gets to know the joy of gaining and having a testimony of that too.

Now that's some good news.

Our Third Anniversary

It's been a tough holiday season, but the best part about the end of the holidays is our anniversary is right around the corner and I get to make our annual look-back-at-what-we-did-this-year video. Some people can scrapbook, heck some people can even cook and keep their house from being a disaster, but this is what I can do. Special thanks to Jared for not minding all the irritating pictures I took all year, and for also not punching me in the face for 3 straight years now.

and here's a tiny version for non-youtube-abled folks:

What's that funny smell coming from the Christmas Tree??

As you most likely read below, we are kinda into our Daughter. She's pretty awesome. I never thought I'd be okay with cleaning a poo covered rear-end, but here i am.

The poor girl was sick this week. We spent most of the day yesterday chasing her around the house with a box of tissues. Every sneeze sent us running to catch things before they hit the floor.

My job has been even crazier in the last few weeks. I've finally gotten to the point where I know what is broken in the company and how to fix it. It's just a matter at this point of getting everyone else to align themselves. I have a big presentation on Tuesday to launch my plan to our executive team. Hopefully it goes well and I am successful. If not, I might not make it another year...

My stunning wife and I had the pleasure of spending the evening with my coworkers in an inebriated state in what was labeled our company holiday party. It was at a trendy place downtown and there were really good appetizers and an open bar - need I say more? (that's actually what the invitation said). Reva was gorgeous (as she always is) and I wore pants.

Other than that, our life is pretty normal. We are excited for the christmas season and even purchased a christmas tree from a local hardware vendor. We named him Harvey and haven't yet had the courage to tell our daughter that he's dead - so we will just leave him where he is until after the holidays (we figure why ruin her second Christmas with such a gruesome fact).

Harvey has 3 whole presents under his boughs - all of them are for Mommy. Baby is a little jealous (I can tell). She keeps trying to take them and hide them from us.

Our big girl has graduated from Formula to Thin Mints. Here's mommy giving her some of the yummy treats. Yes, she is stoned on them.

Have a great time shopping for presents for me!!

Our baby vs. the world

Today in Relief Society, mom made the comment that her children's blogs were a great way to stay strong and together, and that she checked them twice a day she loved them so much. So dagnabit, I figured I needed to give y'all something to read. No interesting pictures this week, unfortunately.

Tonight dad and I played at the Festival of the Nativity at our old ward building. Playing for half an hour to a MUCH larger crowd than I had anticipated - plus a nice huge introduction at the beginning with an extensive bio - made me pretty dang nervous. We pulled it off and people seemed to enjoy it, so all the education and years of learning to fake my way through performances paid off! Dad was a trouper too and played fabulously.

Afterwards I got to help wrangle Solei with mom and Jared as we tried to maneuver the crowded halls and talked to our friends from our old ward. We saw a few people we'd known that had children around the time Solei was born and I broke a cardinal rule... I KNOW you're not supposed to compare your child to other kids, but hey, how else am I going to tell if she's on the right track? Being patient and reading books just ends up getting me all nervous.

First off - Solei is way more mobile than most of the kids I saw. People say she was an early walker, but really, she had wanted to walk far earlier than when she did, so it couldn't have come a moment too soon for her! And she seems to run a lot more than the other kids I saw tonight. She doesn't really like to stop, poor thing. And when I say poor thing, it's because we wouldn't let her run around like she wanted to (Jared stopped her from demolishing a nativity set just in time).

And second - she's getting a hang of this talking thing kinda fast. She's mastered the words "Pease??" and "Up" and "Down" and she uses them like nobody's business. It's remarkable - she knows what they mean and resorts to screaming way less than she did before she figured out the word "Pease??" meant Mommy will give me Gerber Cheetos if I say this enough!!

And lastly - she's a big kid. I'm not saying she fat or an Amazonian or anything, but she comes up to 2 and 3 year olds to give them hugs, and they only have an inch or 2 above her. Maybe we just have short friends, but regardless, she's no tiny gal. People often ask "What do you feed this kid??" and the answer is simple - milk, croutons, Gerber cheetos and pork rinds. And peas and corn, but we've calculated only 3 pieces actually get in her mouth, so they don't count. Yes, the pork rinds are Jared's fault.

I could be way off on this, maybe all kids are this vocal and mobile, but I swear the kiddos we've been running into lately have been lethargic, mute and short. Maybe I should see if I can hang out with some genius babies to give me some perspective.

(oh, and she's also the most social baby in the history of babies. But that part isn't a surprise, seeing as her mommy is a bona-fide people addict too.)

Happy Thanksgiving!! We celebrated this year in Colorado with my family and are very thankful for it! (and Starbucks by the way - more on that later:)

I was SO nervous for the flight that lasted over 6 hours - just Solei and I, but we pulled through. She was wonderful and we got a few awesome blessings along the way.

Like a row all to ourselves on the second flight - wohoo! And even though for some reason all her formula went MISSING before we got on the flight - (no food for a 6 hour flight?!?!) I said a little prayer and found a Starbucks that sold me a warm milk that she thankfully drank. Woohoo!Then the next night, Jared showed up. He's showing Solei her first snow here!

My parents have LOVED having her here! She loves both of them like crazy (like with most people, but since they love her as much back, she is in serious love mode!) Here's my dad:
And my mom:

Day after, we headed down to see Jared's friends Justin and Dixie.

The visit was lovely, but the drive. traffic was loooong. Lots of accidents, but it gve us time for this Kodak moment:

But then Jared left, oh no!! This is a pic for him to remember me if Solei does indeed kill me on our next 2 flights home:

We were all amused at Solei's amazing connection to music - anytie she hears it - she's up and loking for it, sometimes dancing. Here's a quick video of Solei's Pavlov's dog-type tendencies when she hears my cell phone ring.

Our last pic is of my adorable baby with her even more adorable uncle Dallin. Anyone know any hotties that play piano who wouldn't mind checking out my bro? He plays violin better thanme and is a semester away from an engineering degree. Also, he is incredibly hot and nice and funny and cooler than you. Email me a resume and we'll talk:)

Talking???

Jared was trying out a new recording device and lookit what he caught!! Listen close - Solei says 2 words!!!!

Click here!!
OR just listen to it here:

Octoberation!!!

Before we begin here is a short rant brought to you by Stooped Googles

So, Google hates me. Which is fine with my because the feeling is beginning to become mutual. If you are going to be emperor of the internet - you should make sure that people can access your internet, otherwise you are an elitist snob webempire. My guess is that google would probably want to be a non-elitist snob webempire. But that's just my guess.

And now to the real posting.

So- google hates me. No seriously they wouldn't let me log on or something so there have been no postseses in the last forever. All of our halloweeneeneen pictures are on this computer and it hates google.

Anyway- last month was halloween and we celebrated by putting our very cute daugher in a very cute costume and then trying to keep ourselves from passing out from over excitement due to over-cuteness-stimulation (which can be a very serious illness if not treated properly - stupid owls).

Look away now if you haven't be immunized for cuteness:

The event was brought to you by our ward trunk-or-treat party. Mommy made daddy dress up for halloweenennennenn. I dressed like spongebob squarepantses. I looked pretty cool.

Our real halloween wasn't too eventful. Apparently none of the kids think it's cool to go as mountain climbers so none of them had the equipment to get up our steep driveway. Their loss. We actually had candy this year (unlike the previous years where we gave out pinecones with peanutbutter and seeds that they could put out to attract wildlife). I'm blaming the internet generally and google specifically.

Work has been insane for daddy. People keep leaving and he has to pick up a lot of slack. I do enjoy our time together as a family!

That's all for now.

Parrrtay!

Happy First Birthday Solei!!

Her first little family birthday party was quite the event. I learned a few things about the do's and don'ts of the baby's first cake rampage, which I will share at the end of the post. A few pictures for the fans:

Celebrating with Nana and Papa

The happy family (although mommy is seriously mad that she looks pregnant in this picture - and NOOO I am not!!)
I got one of these for my very fist birthday too!!
Tunnel thanks to Nana and Papa - we loves it!!

And well... you'll just have to experience the cake rampage...

Things I learned about baby's first cake:
* Super moist cake (3 eggs, 1/2 cup oil) turns into pure pudding very quickly when mashed around by an excited birthday girl.
* Not-too-moist cake is way easier to hose off a baby. Pudding?? Oh man, you're just lucky we didn't tape the cleaning "wrath of baby" aftermath.
* A cupcake size is juuuust fine. if your brain says "I could make this bigger for dramatic effect" - whack it, fast! You want to clean up 10 cups of pudding?? Neither did we. (Thanks Nana, Papa and Scooba!!)

After all this, she's still speaking to us. Well - screaming mostly. We still love her lots though!!

Lucky guy...

So- My little girl turns one year old tomorrow. That means that I've been a father for one whole year. It's been an amazing change. It really has been a change. I never guessed that I could love as much as I do now. I have an amazing wife who loves me more than I thought anyone would. I've seen her grow and change so much in the last year. It's been inspiring to watch her bloom as a mother.

Our daughter has been the light of our life. Her mom called her sunshine from the beginning. She is the light of our life and the sunshine in our day. She is such a happy baby and has loved everyone from day one. She definitely gets her outgoingness from her mommy.

I love being a father. I have no idea what on earth I am doing. Unfortunately there is no class for being one. Never would I have imagined that I'd love a child the way I love her. She's loud and smells like a child, but she's mine and I love her like crazy. She has such her own little personality. She wants so much to be like us already. She plays in the dishwasher, eats pork rinds, "talks" on her phone (even though she just babbles), she talks to anything she sees, she is so curious and SO persistent. She loves exploring and figuring things out.

In the last few weeks she's learned how to hug back when we hug her. What a treat to have the little girl you love so much wrap her arms around your neck and squeeze. I do miss her wanting to cuddle me as she falls asleep. She's into putting her self to sleep now.

My heart hurts every time I leave for work in the morning. Leaving my two favorite girls for the day makes me wish that I could find some job where I never had to leave them and could spend all day with them. Suddenly I don't care at all about money, job title or anything. I just wish that I could just retire today and spend the rest of my life with them.

I'm so glad that my wife was willing to have our daughter and be her mother. I'm amazed by the amount of love she has for her and how seriously she takes her responsibility as a mother.

I am one lucky guy...

Photoshoot

What happens when the best mommy friend a mommy can have hijacks your kid and your camera? Best. Photoshoot. Ever. (what I want to know is how in the world did she get that bow in her hair?? AND IT STAYED for 3 hours!!!!)

"Silly paparazzi, no pictures, please!"

"You want attitude?? I've gives you some attitude!"

"You wanna piece of me??"

this one is just too cute, I can't even caption it!!

This is the face I expect her to be making at me when she's a teenager.

Such a money shot...

This is right out of a loungewear ad...

"Kiss ma grits!!"

She's almost a year old... and she looks like she's going on 13 already!!