Thursday, January 31, 2008

Daniel

I had fun taking pictures of Daniel before our FHE on Monday. :)

Mischievous.


Laughing.


Bashful.

I wouldn't mind if Baby got his Daddy's good looks.

For all of you who know Daniel, what would you title the above pictures? ...besides darn cute.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Our memorial to President Hinckley

I have noticed two great things recently. First, all the major news syndicates have agreed that the passing of our Prophet was important enough to report on their front pages. I was proud to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints when I saw the respect that this man has generated throughout the world.

Second, I am happy to see consistent messages of love and admiration that have appeared on the blogs of our friends and families. I, too, believe that this moment in history marks the passing of one of the greatest souls to have ever lived on the earth. Today, we are hard pressed to find someone so good, so pure, and so full of love as President Hinckley. This is obvious by the testimonies of those whom he has touched written on blogs around the world.

BYU put together a brief sideshow that I want to share. A higher resolution version can be found via BYU Magazine.



I am happy that he is able to be with his beloved companion once more. Being a newlywed, I am only starting to feel the value of this bond. I don't know about you, but at this time, I am feeling more eager to stand a little taller and to be a little better. Let us continue this great work of God and in so doing, we will honor President Hinckley.

Monday, January 21, 2008

A Day Off

I keep hearing how I won't have any time to do things once the baby comes. So today I decided to get things done.

My 'day-off' in pictures....


My first time using a #10 can to cook.


My first time using bulk food storage and finding ways to store it.


Dinner for a week, hopefully.


My first attempt at using the bread machine.


All the dishes.


All the laundry...


including all the linens.


Online research and resulting pages of questions to ask on our labor and delivery tour at the hospital tonight.



More research and eventual ordering of baby essentials to be shipped to our local store. This took more time than I thought it would.

Sorted, cleaned, went through, and organized my childhood scrapbooks and children's books. (I have been saving these for my children since I was eleven. Boy, are they heavy!)


Cleaned off, sorted paperwork, and in general organized my study space/craft corner.


Call it nesting or whatever you want but I call it tiring. As Daddy says, "When can I go back to work and rest?"

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Food, Glorious Food...

This post is to pay homage to the good food that we have had recently.

Last Friday we had a date at home. I made strawberry-banana-peach smoothies for our treat and we watched a couple episodes of Babylon 5. It was delicious and quite fun. A very nice return from my business trip.


Last night we had friends over and I made Red Thai Curry Stir Fry. It turned out very well. Very spicy, hot, and full of vegetables. We served it over white rice and it was a hit.

The real culinary achievement, though, was the sushi rolls that we made to go with the stir fry. It was our first unsupervised attempt to make sushi and we think they turned out pretty well. I was so proud of myself when I was able to turn the egg-sheet over in the pan on the first try. Yay!

The only thing missing was some good old wasabi. We looked up how to make it online and will be scouring our local Asian market to find wasabi powder soon for our next try.

Dinner was a success and we played some Wiisports to burn off some calories before we indulged in our guests' fabulous pineapple-upside-down-cake with homemade whipped topping. Unfortunately, we consumed all of it (the cake that is) before we remembered to take pictures. They certainly take the cake for the best dessert....or should I say they really know how to whip up a good dessert.... hee hee....

Have I mentioned that I have been feeling hungrier recently? I'm sure the baby is the one that is fixating me on food and, therefore, this blog is probably much to his liking.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Pictures

So, I have had requests for pictures of me and my baby bump. It isn't that often that I feel cute enough for pictures, pregnant or not, so when I told Daniel I wanted to take pictures last night he grabbed the camera.:) I think he did a good job.

We are doing well and, despite an increasing discomfort on my part, are very happy. I am officially 28 weeks along and am happily making calendars, charts, and graphs to keep track of our progress.
This little one is someone very special, as I'm sure every parent feels about their baby. However , let me give some examples anyway. Baby seems to be very in tune with the Spirit. He jumps, kicks, and squirms when Daniel and I say our prayers and read scriptures together. When we attend to our church responsibilities he punctuates important doctrine with his kicks. He seems to love primary already and of course, he loves his Daddy. When Daniel gave his testimony in church last Sunday, Baby seemed to be especially proud. I could almost hear him saying, "Hi Daddy! That's my Dad up there! " I'm sure we'll get to see how vocal he can be in sacrament meeting later.

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Charity is away on business.

Charity is going on her second business trip. She is going to gone only tonight, but I hope to get a lot done. I have here a tentative schedule of things I am going to do:

Work: 8:00am to 5:00pm
Stare at the corner with a solitary look on my face: 5:30pm-7:30pm
Stare at my phone in anticipation 7:30pm-9:00pm
Play Solitaire 9:00pm-1:30am
Collapse from exhaustion and mental exertion 1:30am-5:00am
Look under the pillows and beside the bed for my wife 5:00am-7:30am
Work: 8:00am -4:00pm
Wander the streets of NY looking for a purpose to fill the void-4:00pm-10pm
Shave 10:00pm
Give Charity a big hug and kiss when I see her 10:00.01pm

As you can see, I hope to accomplish a lot over the next few days with my "personal time" Why does feeling productive not seem so appealing anymore?