Paisley - 3 months

On Her Weigh Up

We apologize for being new parents. Not that we're apologizing for being new parents, but behaving like new parents. Our posts have recently been reduced to mostly pictures and little literature. Two explanations for this: A)Paisley is super cute and we can't help but show her off and B)we're so exhausted by the time we get her to bed and have our hands free, we've lacked the energy to put together full thoughts and complete sentences let alone the masterpieces our loyal following expect. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, words can be worth thousands of dollars. We've been following the story of the mom in Chicago who has become famous for her amusing blog and ebay stories about life as a stay at home mom for her 6 kids. We think that with a little more effort, we too will be offered a book deal, a movie deal, and a tv show. Tell your friends, because it's time to cash in.

Anyway. Paisley has been more and more of a handful every day. But mostly because she is eating and growing so well. Today she went to the doctors for her two month check up. That's 60 days and Tim still hasn't dropped her yet. Well, again anyways. Unfortunately, the 2 month visit also included a series of four vaccinations. Four shots in two chunky but still very small legs. Tim totally wimped out with some lame job excuse leaving Brandi having to endure the blood curdling screams all alone. Despite the pain and heartbreak, both the girls were extremely brave and made it through the experience without too much emotional scarring. With the aid of some liquid Tylenol, Paisley is recovering well at home tonight.

Now for the numbers. Paisley weighed in at an impressive 11 lbs. 7 oz. which puts her into the 75th percentile. (It feels strange to be so excited about her gaining weight while watching The Biggest Loser.) She is 22 1/2 inches long which puts her into the 50th percentile, i.e. normal. And finally, her hat size is in the 10th percentile. All very positive news to show that she's thriving despite our care.

In other news, Paisley has started sleeping 8 hours straight at night regularly and sometimes longer. Last night was a near perfect 10. The real challenge now is for mom and dad to get to bed before 10:30 p.m. to really take advantage of her independence. Of course doing so comes at the expense of all the house chores we try and catch up on since we haven't figured out how to hold a baby and change the cat's litter at the same time. Maybe we should just put the cat in diapers too. Squalor never felt so good.

A Big Day For Paisley

The first weekend of September was an exciting one for both us and Paisley. In reality, Paisley probably didn't notice anything special except for the fact that she had about eight different baby sitters. Since we don't know eight people in all of Vegas, that can only mean that we were lucky enough to be surrounded by family on both sides. The special occasion was the Sunday that Paisley's baby blessing took place in church. There was quite a crew that traveled down from the Salt Lake area to help support Paisley for the big day. We borrowed a beautiful dress from Tim's sister in Denver, complimented by a bracelet made by Aunt Becky & Grandma Sue Ann and a headband made by a friend of ours in St. George. Paisley was so excited to be dressed up but we just couldn't stop thinking about worse case scenarios when dealing with non-potty trained beings, white outfits, and an audience. Her diapers haven't exactly been 100% of late, not to mention her new found talent of spitting up all over her mom. When all was said and done, she held onto all of her breakfasts and slept right through the blessing as did most of the congregation. A perfect fast Sunday. After Sacrament meeting, we all rallied back at the house for brunch and conversation.

It was a fantastic weekend and we are so grateful to be able to spend most of it with family. So, with all of the boring recap, here's what you're interested in: the pictures.

09.06.06

Just a few pictures from that beautiful day one year (plus one day) ago.

One Year Down...

As of about this moment, Brandi and I have been married for a whole year. 365 days and 365 life changing events later, we’re still kicking and even a winning. I am grateful to be able to introduce the most amazing and beautiful person I’ve ever met as my wife. Especially after waking up last night with your hand over my mouth trying to suffocate me, at least this time it wasn’t with a pillow. You’ve been a wonderful companion and mother and Paisley and I are extremely lucky to have you in our lives. I love you and can’t wait for all the great moments and adventures that lay ahead. Thank you for being my home, whenever and where ever. I promise to always love you three days of the year: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Happy anniversary, my love.

t.

It's not a party, it's nausea.

When we were in Salt Lake for the funeral for Tim's dad, we had a rather eye opening experience in terms of the difficulties in raising children these days. Tim's 3 year old niece, Natalie, loves to play on the internet. And away from the safety filters of home and a little lapse of supervision, she was able to find some absolutely horrific material on the World Wide Internet. The most concerning aspect of the experience was it all happened on the site Nickjr.com. We're old enough to recall the Telebubby controversies and how detrimental that program could be to child development. How desensitized have we become? We were all sitting around eating lunch (ironically) when Tim suddenly became aware of some strange music coming from the corner of Natalie and the computer. After a little investigation, this two minutes were stuck in his head for days. In the end, maybe it works as an obscure metaphor for the afterlife and coping with death, but probably not.

The experience seemed to get blocked from recollection until a ten second clip on The Soup Friday night brought it all back to the surface. As concerning as all the violence and sex on tv can be to new parents, is this stuff supposed to bring us any comfort? As if this is the best way to teach kids about the digestive system. It's almost enough to make us want to donate our tv to the closest charity. When Brandi lived in D.C., she knew a family in her ward that had a homemade cover for their tv with the letters "R-E-A-D" sewn across the front. Not a bad idea.

Without further adu, we introduce you to "Yo Gabba Gabba." May God help us. View at your own risk.

Happy Birthday Tim!

Yay, Tim finally caught up with me and is turning 32 today! His wonderful employer has given him the day off and so far we've celebrated by Tim making waffles for himself, followed by an hour of Oprah, and most recently him changing Paisley's dirty diaper. Luckily we have a few more exciting things on our list, like making a trip to Costco, Home Depot, the bank, and very possibly the post office. Hopefully our dinner plans will sort of make up for a relatively lame day. We'll be trying out the famous Sen of Japan sushi restaurant which we've heard very good things about. Paisley is excited to eat her first piece of raw fish! Happy Birthday my love, it's been very difficult to top that year we went to Hawaii...maybe next year! (A special Happy Anniversary wish to our wonderful friends Nate & Tonia who chose Tim's birthday to be their special day 2 years ago.)

Pictures For Grandma

Paisley's Food Storage

Now we're just working on stockpiling the breast milk. We may need a larger freezer.

Blue Light Special

This is a public service announcement. Over the weekend, Tim's sister was kind enough to share with us a link to a page full of Target coupons. Normally, a kind gesture. But the point of her email was to draw our attention to a specific deal. $1 off when you purchase 2 Gerber food products. Apparently, unless you've got a little one that qualifies for spaghetti and meatballs disguised as apple sauce, it's difficult to appreciate how good of a deal this is. Brandi took the challenge, printed 20 coupons, and went to investigate. She came home with 40 different meals. The grand total for all of this? Well, at a price of 52 cents each, the trip set us back 80 cents. Granted, not all of the food is as cheap as 52 cents, some of the products were 77 cents, and the really high brow stuff hits 99 cents. That was Monday, on Wednesday she printed off 200 more coupons. This was going to be fun.

That night we ended up at a different Target. Someone must have been tipped off to our mission since when we pulled our cart up to the baby food isle, there was another empty cart already waiting for us. And even though we decided to cut it short at 200 items, we stilled filled both carts. The check out alone took 14 apologies and 30 minutes but we saved over $100. Now we just hope that Paisley likes the stuff. Prunes, pears, chicken soup, vanilla custard, turkey and gravy. Paisley is months away from graduating from breast milk, but no worries, some of this stuff doesn't expire until 2009. So even if we were faced with some natural disaster like 4 more years with a Republican in office, we've got our food storage started. After seeing some of the survival foods on the market, we think we'll stick with the blended peas. Until then, we just need to find a place for it.

So here is the link. Just scroll down until you see the Gerber coupon about 1/2 way down (it expires August 15th). If you do take the challenge, send us your stories, it'd be nice to know that we weren't the only crazies out there.