Packing and Playing

We will officially be moving into our new house on Saturday. I can't wait! We've already started taking loads of stuff over there. We've borrowed Ben's dad's truck and we've basically taken a truck-load each day since last Friday. I spent this morning over at the house unpacking a bunch of boxes and putting stuff away in closets so that we can reuse the boxes. How clever of us. :) We spent a good hour and half at the house and I was so impressed that Becca was able to quietly entertain herself on a blanket on the floor the entire time! What a good little girl she is. She's just so cheerful and sweet (I think I say this in almost every post). I tried putting her in the walker for the first time today. She was so content, just looking around and sucking on the chair... I think she really enjoyed having a better view of everything around her. Emma continues to be a fabulous big sister! She is really so good to little Rebecca. I'm so pleased. She loves to do what Becca is doing and enjoys helping her out if she's sad or in need of something. It was so cute to see her doing pat-a-cake to her in the car yesterday and talking to her in her high-pitched "motherly" voice. Emma has also been loving helping with the packing this week. She even helped daddy reach some pictures on the wall. I really think she's excited to move and I suspect she understands pretty well that we really are going to be leaving our apartment and will soon be sleeping in this new house. Yippee!

Blessing Day

Today was Becca's baby blessing and it was so lovely! Ben gave a beautiful blessing and afterwards Becca just seemed so radiant to me... what a cutie I have. :) Ben's family stayed over at our house for the afternoon after church - we had a yummy lunch with a wonderful cake that Emily brought. We also played a rousing round of "spoons" and took a quick field trip to see our new house that we'll be moving to this Saturday. We didn't stay long because the house currently doesn't have any power... so it was super hot. Power is supposed to get turned on tomorrow, so I can start really spending some more time over there getting our first loads of boxes unpacked and organized. Anyway, it was a pleasant day and I'm just so happy to now have Becca blessed - she's just precious!

Little Bitty Baby Becca

Rebecca turned 4 months old this past Sunday. What a cutie she is becoming! I mean, she was a cutie from the beginning, but her smile is infectious and she is just a real sweetheart and it shows more and more as she grows. She had her well-baby visit on Tuesday. She's a tiny one - only 10 lbs 12 oz, which puts her in the 10th percentile. I was a little concerned when the nurse gave me her percentiles, but the doctor assured me that since she was only in the 10th% when she was born, that she is healthy and growing well. The doctor also gave the go ahead for rice cereal, which we started right away. I was so excited to try feeding her with a spoon for the first time and was anxious to see how she reacted to the new food. Emma helped a little as well, and Becca just loved it! She was so full and giggly afterwards. So, in addition to Becca turning 4 months old, we will finally be having her baby blessing this Sunday. We tend to be a slow to bless our little ones. Emma didn't get blessed till she was 3 1/2 months old... with Becca we're setting a new record. Ben joked that we better take care of it before she's able to say, "It's my blessing day, mommy!" ;)

We signed our lease for the house last night and the Realtor even gave us the keys! Woohoo! We weren't expecting to get them till the last week of August, but he gave them to us now, without even charging us for the extra time. So, this means we have 2 full weeks to start taking boxes of stuff over before we actually have to be out of our apartment. How splendid! I love a low stress move! When we were moving from Utah to AZ, it was a much different experience. We were actually going to live with Ben's parents for a few months at first, to save money and to give us time to find a place near the school... so that meant that we had to put all of our belongings in a storage unit for the summer, which was a little sad and a lot of work. This move will be much easier... thank goodness!

A few triumphs...

Hmmm... well this post is going to be full of a bunch of random items that have been on my mind lately. To start, I'm in the midst of reading Harry Potter. I feel embarrassed to call myself a true Harry Potter fan, when I have yet to finish the final book. Good grief. I'm so lame. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get started with it... Ben read it first in like one day and then the next day I got sick with a cold and it gave me a headache to read... and by then all of Ben's family had finished it already and I was the lame duck out. Oh well... I finally got going with it (and it's just AWESOME!) Don't spoil anything for me... I'm on chapter 26: Gringotts... it's really getting to some good stuff... I guess if I were really a true fanatic, I wouldn't be wasting time blogging, when I could be reading. :/

Heather mentioned on a previous post that Taya was fitting into her "skinny jeans" again. Well, it inspired me to give my good old jeans another try. The last time I tried to put them on was 3 weeks after having Becca, and I couldn't even get them buttoned up... oh man! Well, much to my surprise... I have shown some real triumph over the post-prego fat and could fit into them again! It's a miracle! And I didn't even have to suck it in. Woohoo!

Another piece of good news, is that Emma has started to eat carrots! Some of you may wonder why this is so amazing, because I am sure you all have kids who love eating vegetables and never complain about the food on their plate (wink). Well, I have not been able to get Emma to eat any veggies for ages... so I consulted Ben, who at the time was in his pediatric rotation, for some possible advice. He happened to be listening to some pediatric lectures in the car recently and the doctor on the CD mentioned putting out a tray of vegetables everyday. The idea is to not make a big fuss about it and to not make the child eat any of it if they don't want to... but to just put out a plate of veggies daily, so they get used to seeing the food and is convenient to get at. So, I tried this out, and at first, Emma wouldn't even touch any it... however, I did start including some fruit on the plate because she really likes many types of fruit and this got her to at least start eating off it. And during this whole process, I have been eating a lot more veggies myself, because if Emma doesn't eat any of it in the course of the morning, I start picking at it so it doesn't go to waste. Anyway, it had been 3 weeks of this with no progress, and then all of a sudden, a couple of days ago Emma came up to me with a bunch of chewed up carrot in her mouth and excitedly tells me, "I eat a carrot mommy!" I cheered and said "Hooray for Emma!" She was so pleased with herself... and now she seems to really enjoy eating the carrots. How amazing is that?! Well, I'm still putting out a variety of fruits and veggies everyday, with the hopes that she'll start sampling some other things like peas, cucumber, etc. We'll see where this goes.

In closing... here is a super funny clip from Jay Leno where this little kids calls 911. It's absolutely hilarious! A friend of Ben's emailed it to him recently, and we were just cracking up about it....

Finally... a house!!

So, we're finally moving on from apartment life and getting ourselves into a house! Don't get too excited... we're just renting, but we couldn't be happier! It is closer to our friends, has 3 bedrooms (so Emma and Becca can each have their own room), a garage, a backyard, and a super huge master bedroom and bathroom. We're just super excited for the move at the end the end of this month. Yippee! I just drove by this morning on our outings and took a picture of the outside of the house. We don't have any keys yet, so this is the best I can do. :)

So, we've recently started going to the zoo every Friday. It's been nice... we don't stay too long, just enough to play a little and see a few animals and eat a snack. Then we go home before it gets too hot. However, even with our relatively short zoo visit this past week, I still must have worn the kids out. We arrived at home a little after 10:30 and I found both my girls, just totally asleep. How cute they are - I just love it when they're asleep. ;)

Rainy Days

Emma has been loving the crazy rainstorms we've been having lately. Apparently the beginning of the Arizona monsoon season is upon us and its awesome! Yesterday morning the rain was really loud as it pounded on the outside of the building, so Emma wanted to get a closer look. I opened the front door and sent her outside to get wet. She loved it! She screamed when I made her come back in to take a bath.

On another note, Becca is growing bigger and cuter everyday. I remember when Emma was a little babe and I always thought at each new stage as she grew that she just couldn't get any cuter... but she kept surprising me. Now, I think the same of Becca... she just keeps getting cuter, especially now that she can smile in her darling way and she is always sucking on her hands. She's also started grabbing at her toes a little, which is super cute too. I've recently changed up Becca's eating and sleeping schedule to accomodate an earlier bedtime. Emma has always gone to bed quite early...even now her bedtime is 7 or 7:30. But it used to be 5:30 or 6 for the longest time. Anyway, Becca has been going to bed so late and being so fussy too. I finally realized that she's just tired and needs to be put to bed before she can even start the evening fussiness. So, now she says goodnight at six o'clock and its so much better! :) Just look how happy my well-rested Becca is....

Tummy Time

I took a cute video of Becca. I've been so lame about taking pictures and such... I figured my mom in particular would enjoy this to see how big she's getting! She's actually still such a teeny little thing, but she looks much more like a baby and not so much like a bitty newborn. Oh, my little cutie! We've been trying to make tummy time a routine every day... she likes it for a little while but soon gets tired and flustered. She's fun to watch...



Oh, and as you can see, Emma likes to get in on the tummy time too. What a cute goof! :)

P.S. Ben received his USMLE board scores today! He did awesome! I'm such a proud wife. :)

Pie, pie, and pie...

I imagine I won't be the only one blogging about the pie party last night. It was so amusing... Thanks Heather! You're just so fun to put that together. :) I'll start with a couple videos of the pie-eating contest. It turned into quite the mess (you'll notice upon close observation that Craig started it!)... also my laughter was rather uncontrollable throughout the whole video... pardon my silliness. ;)



You may have noticed that once the pies started to get tossed around, many of the kids got a little upset. Emma started crying and then refused to join in on the kids pie eating contest. I think she was worried she might get one thrown in her direction. ;) This second video is to give props to Cory Brown for his determined effort to finish his pie, instead of just cheating and throwing it at someone. ;)



Anyway, it was a great evening. Emma really enjoyed jumping on the Peck's trampoline all night. She was so red in the face from all the activity. There were also many delicious pies to sample (that weren't thrown at others). My favorite was the lemon cream pie (I believe this was Heather's). I also really enjoyed the two ice cream pies brought by Aubree and Jess. Yummy! You can never go wrong with an ice cream pie! :)

Harry Potter in 3D?... Awesome!

Last night we went to see Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix on the IMAX. It was superb, I must say. First of all, Aubree was a super friend and watched Emma for the evening (Thank you so much... Emma can't wait to play with Addy on Friday!). Ben's family met up with us for the evening and we started with a quick dinner at Macaroni Grill (my favorite was the chocolate cake with a birthday candle). After eating we walked over the theater and got in the MASSIVE line. It wrapped around a couple of times and we ended up right near the emergency exit door... goodness sakes. But it didn't seem to matter much because we still got good seats. This was also one of the special 3D showings of Harry Potter, so we got cool glasses as we went in. The 3D part is just at the end for about 20 during the intense part with everyone fighting at the Department of Mysteries. I thought the 3D was absolutely great! 3D has come along way from the red and blue glasses. It was really well done and I felt it really added some excitement during the finale. Anyway, I liked this movie more the all the rest of the Harry Potter's so far. The villans in the movie were played very well, I thought... ie: Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange (she was super creepy!). Now the countdown continues for the final book! Only 8 more days!

25

So, we've had some fun activities the past couple of days. Yesterday we got together with friends to swim! Emma loves swimming so much... she gets super excited any time we say we'll be going swimming. She especially enjoys her big pink swim wings. ;) I particularly look forward to the day when Emma can actually swim on her own. She loves to be in the water but she gets frustrated if she gets stuck in the middle of the pool and can't get to the side. She screams "help mommy, help!" and I have to pull her to 'shore'.

So, today is my 25th birthday! Wow! I keep telling people that I'm a quarter of a century! That sounds really old, when you put it like that, eh? Anyway, Ben didn't have to go to his rotation shift until 2, so we spent the morning at the Science Museum in downtown Phoenix. It was fun, but extremely busy with several summer school groups or something. Emma looked so small in comparison. ;) But despite the congestion, it was a great birthday outing. I just love my little family... and we're gradually becoming not so little, especially when Becca is strapped into our big sit and stand stroller, we become quite the wide load of people! Below is an amusing video of Emma enjoying a silly spinning contraption at the museum.



Oh, and Ben was so sweet and decorated the house with several flower arrangements. I have lovely flowers in the bathroom, my bedroom end table, and the kitchen table. He said that he wanted to make a my birthday just a little prettier. :) He also made a great french toast breakfast with homemade strawberry syrup and whipped cream! In addition to all this, he is making me wear a flower lei and bow for the whole day (which you may have noticed in the picture above). He wants me to stand out enough so people will ask me why I am wearing a lei and such... this way I can respond, "Because it's my birthday!" How fun for me. ;) And thank you Heather for your thoughtful blog post. I have such sweet friends.

Mickey and Minnie

Here's something new I learned today (did everyone else already know this?): The current voice of Mickey Mouse, Wayne Allwine, is married to Russi Taylor, the current voice for Minnie Mouse. That's hillarious! I wonder how that came about. Were they married first before they started doing Mickey and Minnie voices, or did they meet and marry because they obviously knew each other through their voice work. Hmmm... Anyway, I think the whole thing is rather romantic and relatively amusing.

Who started this game, hmmm?

So I was tagged. I'm going to:

* Post eight random facts about myself.
* Tag eight other bloggers (hopefully those who haven’t been tagged before).
* Post these rules.

Here are eight random facts about me.

1. I used to be a huge fan of the Disney Channel. To clarify: This was between the ages of 17-19. I loved to get ready for the day while watching the cute kids shows- ie: Bear in the Big Blue House. Call me crazy... I guess I was prepping to have little kids, or something.

2. I'm terrified of the ocean! When we were in Mexico a few weeks ago, I refused to go snorkeling with Ben because I am afraid of what I might see! I'm scared of weird fish or stingrays, or whatever else might sneak up and bite my toe! To sum up: I'm particularly scared of deep waters in which I can't see the bottom.

3. I bounce back and forth between super productive and super lazy. If only I could find a happy medium between the two, I would be soooo pleased with myself!

4. I used to be a huge basketball fan! My dad really got me excited about the NBA, particularly following the Jazz back in their glory days with John Stockton, Bryon Russell, and Karl Malone. :) I even subscribed to ESPN magazine for a time... partly because of my odd dream of becoming of sportscaster alongside Dan Patrick. This is why I minored in Communications, I guess.

5. I am so happy being a mom! I taught elementary school for a couple of years before having Emma and I feel like motherhood is everything I enjoyed about teaching (plus more!), but without all the stuff that I didn't like about being a teacher. I get to make up daily routines and organize my home the way I want (which is a lot of what I enjoyed about running a classroom), but I don't have to deal with other people's naughty children. :)

6. I've had a cough for the past 10 months.... I'm in the process of trying to get a referral to a pulmonologist.

7. I am deathly afraid of spiders and other creepy crawly things. Ben once showed me a picture of a scary spider while he was studying about various insect bites. The picture caught me by surprise and I started crying. I'm a mess.

8. I have an aversion to seafood, and any meat that is served with bone. I have never prepared any type of fish for dinner (I told Ben that if he wants to eat any type of seafood or any meat other than chicken breasts or ground beef, he has to make it himself - is that mean?)

Here are the 8 bloggers that I've decided to tag (lucky you!):
Muffin
Brittanie
Taya
Melinda
Aubree
KelliAnn
Aaro
Dadoo

I hope none of you let me down!

Happy Fourth!

Hello to you all! I hope everyone had a memorable holiday. We kept extremely busy with lots of activities. I came home feeling all achy and absolutely exhausted! Ben said that it was comparable to how you feel after a day at Disneyland. So true. However, it was a great day! We spent the night of the 3rd at Ben's family's house. That evening we all went to see Transformers! Ben's mom stayed home with the kids, of which I am most appreciative! I must admit that I wasn't looking forward to this movie much, but everyone else wanted to see it... but, in the end, I absolutely loved it! It was very funny and action-packed. It had a few slow/weird moments... but overall, it was great! So the day of the Fourth, we kept super busy with activities that include the following: tennis, going to see Evan Almighty (which despite its poor reviews, we all really enjoyed... Emma got a little scared during the flood part), swimming, eating, crafting (which consisted of a flag using Emma's footprints and Becca's handprints... how clever!), and fireworks! What an exciting day. My favorite activities of the holiday were swimming and movie watching. We really wore out the kids... Emma and Becca both slept in this morning and Becca is already down for another nap, only 30 minutes after waking up. Oh, and even though video doesn't do it justice, here's a portion of the fireworks show from last night, in case anyone didn't get out to see any themselves... maybe you can still enjoy a little piece of the festivities. :)

A Quick Getaway

What a lovely past couple of days we've had! Ben and I had a little getaway last night to The Boulders Resort and Spa in Carefree, AZ. Ben's parents took Emma overnight (woohoo!) and we kept Rebecca with us. She was a dream, though, and slept through most of it! We kept busy during our short stay. We arrived at about 4:00 yesterday and spent the late afternoon and evening relaxing in our wonderful room, reading, eating out at a great restaurant (The Spotted Donkey), swimming at the pool (which we had all to ourselves!), and watching the stars from our private porch. The views from our room were fantastic. The desert picture posted above was taken from the porch. So beautiful! This morning, we played some tennis, and then went swimming again. After that it was time to check out, pick up Emma, and head home. So, our retreat was short-lived, but absolutely wonderful!

Happy Kids

I've had a miserable cold the past few days. It's been frustrating to get back from a trip and be aching to get back to our everyday lives, but feel too gross to bother. Anyway, I am finally starting to feel better and am getting back on track. Since I've been under the weather, I don't really have much to write about. However, I do have some cute pictures of Becca and Emma. After Becca's bath yesterday, she was in such a giggly, smiley mood... so I took some pictures and a video of her being cute, while wrapped up in her towel. Also, I successfully got a clip in Emma's hair... it stayed in for a record 2 hours before she noticed it and yanked it out. What a goof! This girl has the craziest hair, but she refuses to wear any bows or anything to keep it out of her face. It is soooo frustrating! Anyway, I took a picture before she took it out... as proof that I succeeded for a short time, at least. Oh, and sorry that the video is so dark... it was in the morning before I had opened up the blinds.



Oh, and also... I've made an incredible discovery! Maybe some of you have already figured this out, but for those that have not I thought I'd let you know about the miraculous Google Reader. It is awesome! I don't know about the rest of you, but I've got a list of over 20 blogs that I like to check regularly... but it takes forever and usually most the blogs haven't been updated anyway. Well, with Google Reader you can compile your list of blogs in one place and it will let you know when one has been updated. And even better, I put a gadget for Google Reader on my homepage...so now, I don't have to go to each individual blog... they come to me instead! Marvelous!

Becca Smiles

So Becca started smiling a couple of weeks ago and this is my silly attempt at capturing some cute grins. It was a little tricky to get the camera to to take the picture at just the right moment, however, in the end, I think I got some amusing results. She sure is fun.

Rebecca Photos

I forgot to mention with all of the traveling going on that Becca's super cute pictures are up on Heather's photography site. Family and friends are welcome to order any prints they like! Cover your walls with cutie Rebecca! :)


What an adorable little baby bum!

Mexico!

We returned home from our Mexico trip early this afternoon. It was such an awesome vacation! We stayed in a super cute beach house which we rented with Ben's family. It had bedrooms and bathrooms for everybody... Emma and Adam even had their own bedrooms as well, so it was very spacious and comfortable! We enjoyed playing on the beach, going into town and shopping, eating out, playing games and doing puzzles, watching movies, and watching the stars on the roof! Now Ben will be starting back up with school tomorrow. He has two weeks of classes to prep him for rotations which begin at the beginning of July. His first rotation is in pediatrics with a doctor in Phoenix. We are both excited for him to start this next phase of medical school!



Oh, and I was just looking at Heather's blog. She posted some great, silly photos of our dinner out with our friends and all the kids before we took off to Rocky Point. Look here to see.

And another thing! While I was in Utah, Aaron and Sarah got me started playing Flash Flash Revolution. So, if you're looking to party at your computer into the wee hours of the morning, have a try!

Our little bundle of average....

So, I forgot to mention in the previous post that I took Becca to the doctor this morning for her well-baby visit. She had to get 4 shots! Ugh! I always seem to schedule these things before trips... I hope she'll be okay for the drive tomorrow. I remember taking Emma in to get shots the day before driving to Utah. But, she seemed to be content. Hopefully, Becca will be okay as well. I'll be sure to keep her medicated with plenty of Tylenol! Anyway, she was weighed and measured and here are her stats:
Weight: 9 lbs 4 oz
Height: 22 1/2 inches
Both are in the 50th percentile range.... So, she is just average in her weight and height, but much more than average in cuteness!

Summer fun!

Take the Quiz here!

Well, I'm home now... and obviously frittering my time away taking silly online quizzes. ;) I had a great time visiting my family this past week. It was a lot of fun and we were really busy. I already posted about the first half of the week, so I'll fill in the gaps with the last part of my visit. On Friday we had a potluck (but often called "lotpuck"... don't ask why... I really don't know) with Dad's work - Response Advertising. We met at a local park and ate lots of yummy food. Emma enjoyed the playground, finding sticks, and watching the river. The hit of the party was the yummy dutch oven sweet rolls cooked by the famous "Tooele John"... yes, he is from Tooele and he has some awesome dutch oven skills! ;)


Over the weekend, Aaron came home from Provo to visit. We kept busy swimming at the local pool, watching Emma play in the backyard, and making another trip to IKEA. It was a wonderful week! Emma particularly enjoyed spending time with her Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Aaron, and Aunt Sarah. She loves her family soooo much! She was asking me this morning where Aunt Sarah was... I think she has quite a fondness for her. How sweet. Now I'm procrastinating getting ready to leave on another trip! We're driving to Rocky Point tomorrow afternoon to relax and play on the beach! We'll be driving back on Sunday. So next week, I guess we'll be trying to get back to old routines. In the meantime, we're just enjoying our summer! :)

Aren't I the oldest sibling? How did I end up being the shortest?