2nd Anniversary

Today marks two years of Andrew and I being "together." Two years ago yesterday, Andrew arrived in the Salt Lake City airport, very late at night, from his two year mission in Rome. Two years ago today, Andrew took me on our first post-high school date. The date was special. We talked about zone conference--which was thrilling. I accidentally touched his knee with my foot when I was crossing my legs and he just about jumped out of his skin. When it was time for us to part, he pulled up along the curb of my house and said, "Well, bye."

Yes...it was love at first sight.

Two years ago tomorrow, Andrew went on a date with Stormie and white-lied about it to me while asking me out on a second date. Oh, that Stormie.

Two years ago the day after tomorrow (which was Saturday back then), we went on our second date. It was supposed to be a triple date. Stormie's date didn't show, so the date ended up being me, Andrew, Stormie, Ross, and Anna. Oh, that Stormie.

Because Andrew and Ross were really good friends and Stormie is Ross' little sister, Andrew tended to "cling" to her because she was "safe." He knew he didn't want to date her. I didn't see that though, so I was probably rather jealous. Ross and Anna all but ignored the rest of us since they were already hopelessly in love, so Andrew and I would have been able to spend a lot of time together, were it not for Stormie. Oh, that Stormie. On the way home from this date, Andrew remembered to walk me to the door, but he did use the "do you have a scripture marking system?" line on me in the car.

It was love at first sight, really.

Sunday was his homecoming. I sat so that he wouldn't be hidden by the pulpit since he was sitting on the stand and I was sitting in the congregation. Stormie is a rather tall girl. She sat diagonally between Andrew and me, completely blocking my view of Andrew's smiling face and leaving me to sulk at the back of Stormie's head. Oh, that Stormie.

We went to a fireside that evening together (with David) and really hit it off. This time we dropped Andrew off and so by the time we got home, Andrew already wanted to see me again. Just as I was taking off my shoes, the phone rang.

"What are you doing right now?" asked Andrew, nervously.

"I'm unbuckling my left shoe..." I said.

"Well...uhhh...my dad wants to know if you can come over and play games," he spat out.

Yes, it was definitely love at first sight.

Andrew was charming. And Stormie...well, I have no problem with Stormie now that she's married, too.

The rest is history. Here we are, two years later as in love as ever and completely Stormie-free.

To celebrate, I made a pie. At least, I started to make a pie. While I was making the crust, however, I realized that we don't own a pie tin. We have three 9" cake pans, a few oblong dishes of varying measurements, two bread loaf pans, a rosette bunt thing, and approximately 7 muffin tins, in addition to a wonderful array of cookie sheets. But, no pie dish.

We opted to use a 9" cake pan since that was the dish that most closely resembled a pie tin.

With that problem resolved, I started the caramel glaze and continued to work on the dough. I had used whole wheat flour instead of white flour, so I had to add an extra egg and some water to get it to be wet enough. Just as the caramel started boiling and I began to press the dough into the cake/pie tin, Rachel's patience began to wear mighty thin.

I sliced the apples as quickly as I could and took the caramel off the stove. After latching Rachel on, I successfully fed her while I finished pressing the dough into the pan. I coaxed her to finish eating, but she would not give in so I forced her off and gave her to Andrew.

By this time, my caramel had all but solidified so I warmed it up again and added some milk...it still just globed on top and just didn't end up looking all that nice when it came out of the oven. I'll have to practice more often--it's a good thing we celebrate two Thanksgivings in our family. Perhaps one day I'll even invest in a pie tin.

Oh, the irony

The crib bumper arrived the other day. It was somehow a lot shorter than I had expected but since Rachel can only roll over one way we figured it would still work.

Before putting her to bed, I tied the bumper securely to the crib, doing my best to cover the area in which she tends to get stuck. After scrutinizing my work and double checking to see if the ties were securely fastened, I went to get Rachel ready for bed.

We've been trying to put her in her crib while she's still awake so that she can practice comforting herself--although she's not great at this, she does pretty okay. We put on primary songs for her and turn on the mobile and put either her hand or soother in her mouth and then we leave.

Some nights she will just fall right to sleep. Other nights she starts screaming the moment I leave and I go in there constantly to rewind the mobile, press the button on her little fish thing, put the soother back in her mouth, feed her again, change her diaper, stroke her hair, walk around with her, untangle her legs from the crib bars, or any other number of things.

This particular night was one of the more difficult nights. We went through our little routine of saying our prayers, kissing her head, tucking her in, cuing the music, and sneaking out of the bedroom. She did great...for about 10 minutes. Then I heard that familiar rattling of the crib mingled with her desperate caterwauls.

I opened the door a crack. She's come to know that if the door opens a crack that mommy is still around so she'll usually calm right down...this time she didn't...so I went in to check on her.

She had rolled onto her right side (something she rarely does) and got stuck in the crib bars on the opposite side of the bumper. In addition, she had pulled off one of her mittens and was working at getting the other one off.


I took her out, calmed her down and fed her, then put her back to bed. She slept all through the night and when we checked on her in the morning we found that she had turned 180 degrees and was all snuggled up, next to the bumper, with her head almost under the covers.

At least the bumper works sometimes!

Mind Reading

At the dinner table Andrew and I were discussing how our days went. Andrew was telling me how he kept doing embarrassing things all day long. He pondered aloud why that was.

"It's probably because you mixed two cereals for breakfast this morning," I answered.

Andrew stared at me and with spaghetti nearly spilling out of his wide open mouth he asked, "How'd you know?" He closed his mouth, chewed, swallowed and continued, "You were sleeping when I had breakfast..."

I have my way of knowing these things and although Andrew is pretty good at cleaning up his own messes, he isn't perfect. After teasing him for a little while about my supernatural powers, I let him on to my secret, "There were two clips sitting on the counter this morning."

Later on in the meal he mentioned that we should play some classical music for Rachel to fall asleep to. For the past few nights we've been using Primary songs, so I figured classical music would be a good switch. After dinner I selected a CD and brought it to Andrew to get his approval.

"Hey!" he said when I showed him the CD, "You chose classical music! That's so cool because I was thinking that we should put some classical music on for her."

"You told me that we should put some classical music on for her," I corrected him.

"Oh, did I say that out loud? Those were inside words*...they must have gotten out," he said, "For a minute, I thought you really were psychic or something!"

I'm not, really--just observant, I guess.

*at about 2 minutes into the clip

Gotta Make the Moment Last

Now that Rachel successfully rolls over at least once or twice a day, she's moved on to a nobler cause: sit ups.


When we put her in her car seat or bouncy chair, she will crane her neck so that her head doesn't rest in the seat. Then she'll pull her fists up toward her face and pull her neck even farther away from the seat. Then she'll start grunting. It's pretty funny to watch.

She's recently started to do it when she's lying on my lap or on the floor. She'll use her elbows to get her upper back off the floor and just pushes with all of her might. She can't quite do it on her own though, so I'll help her by holding her hands. Once she's in an upright position her favorite thing is to gnaw on my hand (or hers, whichever is closest). She makes the funniest little faces when she's trying her very hardest.


I guess we shouldn't be too surprised about this development because since the day she's been born she has been trying to hold up her head independently. She never really liked to rest her head on shoulders but liked to have her head up and looking all around her, all the time.

I do wish she'd slow down sometimes though. Her little friend, Maggie, is only one and a half weeks younger than Rachel and she still looks like a little baby because she's kind of floppy still and doesn't hold herself up really well. Rachel holds herself up as good as the 4 month babies at playgroup. She's so interested in everything that's going on.

When we do tummy time, she not only lifts her head and balances on her forearms, she also will get up on her knees. I'm just glad that she doesn't lift her tummy off the ground yet! She's too little! She's also almost to the point where she can roll over and get her arms unpinned from under her tummy.

There's just no stopping this girl!

In Memoriam, a living eulogy

On this, the eve of my sister's birthday, I wish to share with you a knock-knock joke.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Abbi.
Abbi who?
Abbi Birthday to you!

I talked with Abra today and she has no plans for her birthday. They just celebrated Piper's birthday and are having her friends' party soon, Thanksgiving was yesterday, Deklan's birthday is coming up and so Abra, as the parent, has gotten lost in the shuffle of all the other celebrations.

We, though, have not forgotten, and decided to get together and share some of our favorite memories we have of her. (On a more personal note, we would have mailed you a package, Abra, but the package mom sent a few weeks ago still hasn't gotten there--we are currently lacking faith in the postal system).

Here are some of our special memories about you:

---

Dad says: Abbi was a very dancy child. She loved to dance and spin around. One day, at the stake centre in Burnaby, she was on the stage with her friends spinning and dancing around. She spun herself into the curtain. As she unwound herself (being rather dizzy) she stepped right off the stage and landed smack on her face. Ouch!

---

Mom recalls: Abbi was such a diligent little pianist. Every morning, she was our alarm clock, since she would wake up at about 6 AM and head directly for the piano. We would wake up to a half-hour recital, as she would play every song she knew besides practicing what she was currently learning. One morning Mom got up and stepped into the living room. As usual, no glasses first thing in the morning—she looked at Abbi, and she looked so FAT. Fatter than normal! So Mom went and got her glasses and looked again. Yes, she did look fatter!!

Mom said, “Abbi, why does your bottom look funny? Do you have something on under your pants?”

Abbi, looking guilty, said, “No…”

Mom said, “Well, let me see.”

And there, under Abbi’s pants and shirt was her beautiful, floor length, white chiffon dress. Because it was floor length and white chiffon, she wasn’t allowed to wear it to school—something that children can’t understand but parents can. She had it all wadded up, thereby making her bottom appear fatter than normal—hoping to take off her pants at school and wear her beautiful dress!

---

Kelli and Abra are 361 days apart--meaning that they are the same age for four days of every year. Kelli remembers going to the mall with Abra between their birthdays with the goal of confusing people.

"How old are you?" someone would ask.

"Thirteen," one of the two would answer.

"And how old are you?"

"Thirteen," the other one would say.

"Well, aren't you two sisters?"

"Yes," they'd respond.

"I didn't think you were twins..." the person would wonder.

"We're not."

In addition to confusing people about their ages, Abra and Kelli went through a phase where they would speak quizzical nonsense in front of their friends and pretend to understand each other.

"Smiggity garbonzonataoila mungoondong," one would say.

"Arf glibble smeet," the other would say and leave the room to retrieve something.

Upon returning to the room, they would hand the item to the other and say, "Ghligi smeet,"

To which the other would respond, with gratitude, "Rigadomiguelia."

They convinced plenty of friends that they had their own language.

---

David remembers how Abra took him to his first stake dance and let him hang out with her friends. She taught him dance etiquette and told him "never to miss a slow dance." She and her friends encouraged him on the dance floor and taught him all the latest dance moves, really helping him get into the dancing scene. I guess in a way he owes his love of dancing to Abra, since she was the one who introduced him to social dance.

He also recalls how she once borrowed his wallet...and lost it. He was really upset about it because he likes to keep track of his things. So, being the good big sister that she is, she called the restaurant that she lost it at and got it back into David's hands.

---

Abra and I shared a room for a while. She would sing me to sleep almost every night. I thought she had the most beautiful voice. She would also let me stay up (unbeknownst to our parents) and we would play with make-up together. We'd paint our nails and she'd give me make-overs.

Other nights we didn't get along so well. I was a gullible child and believed everything she told me. One night my dad and brother went to see Jurassic Park. I was sad because I had to go to bed before they got home.

Abra told me, "The reason why they're late is because they didn't go to the movie...they went to the actual park. They've probably just been eaten by dinosaurs. Nothing to worry about."

I was still worried, but we proceeded to our bedroom through our dimly lit basement. Just before I turned on our bedroom light, Abra made the most awful dinosaur noise I had ever heard. I started screaming and screaming.

She definitely had to sing me to sleep that night.

Later when we no longer shared a room, I missed her company and would do anything I could to spend time with her, including: cleaning her room, walking across town to go shopping with her, and getting up at 5 in the morning to go to work at the pool with her. One of the hardest days of my life was moving a thousand miles away from her.

---

When Patrick was 4, he attended preschool at the recreation center near our home in PoCo, which was right across the street from George Pearkes Jr. Secondary School, where Abbi was a student. One day, Mom had to go and get an ultrasound (pre-Josie) and so the plan was that after lunch, Mom would drop Abbi and Patrick both off at Patrick’s preschool, Abbi would take him in to class, and then go across the street to school. Then Mom could leave to get to the Port Moody Hospital in time for her ultrasound appointment.

Well, when Abbi and Patrick got to his classroom, there was a note on the door that class was cancelled. Abbi decided to take Patrick to school with her. He remembers sitting under her desk (to hide from all the big kids) and drawing. Abbi and her friends would lean down and give him different pens and pencils to use. He actually had a really good time at school that day.

Patrick also remembers that for his birthday, Abbi gave him his first Book of Mormon, which he still has. It had her testimony in it, and encouraged him to read it and pray about it as she had done. That gift still means a lot to him.

---

Josie remembers how Abbi was such a good sport about hiring Josie and Tianna to clean her car. They were so excited by the pennies Abbi would give them for a job (more or less) well-done. One day, she really surprised them—she gave them a whole jar of pennies!! They were so happy. They spent hours counting and recounting their loot.

---

Billy says that he remembers how when they first got married she was a compulsive cleaner. The patterns on the dishes all had to be facing the same way in the cupboard and so forth. Now that they have three kids, she's relaxed a little, but he still can't help with the laundry. Whenever he folds the laundry, Abra will wait until he's not looking (so that she doesn't hurt his feelings) and then will take everything back out and refold it.

And just like she would get me to clean her room and Josie to clean her car, apparently she occasionally bribes Deklan and Piper to change Kai's diapers!

---

Thanks, Abra, for your example in our family, for being a wonderful sister, daughter, mother, wife, and friend. We love you!

They're Deceptively...Delicious!

I'm a real housewife now: I watched Oprah today.

I was sorting baby clothes while I did so though, so it isn't as if I'd been eating bonbons. I have a lot of baby clothes. Kelli gives me an abundance of hand-me-downs, which is great...but I only have one baby. It seems like Rachel has twice as many clothes than any other baby on the block. And she probably does; she has duplicates of quite a few things since her next oldest cousins are the twins. We haven't had to spend a penny to keep up with her growth spurts.

As I was sorting the clothes and Rachel was napping, I began to get a little bored so I decided to watch TV while I sorted. It was either soap operas or Oprah and I voted for the latter.

Jessica Sienfeld was on talking about her new book, "Deceptively Delicious." Basically they are just recipes where you use vegetable and fruit purees in pretty much everything in order to get your children to eat healthfully. I'm intrigued, but not because I'm worried that Rachel isn't getting her vegetables--I'm more concerned about that on Andrew's part. I think I'm going to start sneaking vegetables into a lot more things.

After all, it really isn't that hard to pull a fast one on Andrew.

I made borscht on Friday night using cubed beets. Beets have this magical way of disappearing when boiled for 24 hours. Andrew hates beets and said he would never eat borscht.

He came home and asked me what kind of soup I was making.

"A yummy soup," I replied.

"What does it have in it?" he asked.

"Yummy things, of course," I said.

He smelled it, "It smells good."

He tasted it, "It tastes good."

He liked it so I decided to reveal my secret, "What if I told you this was borscht?"

"You would have told me a lie," he said, "You said this was a yummy soup. Did you really put beets in here?"

I did--but it was still good soup. I like beets, so naturally I like borscht (and had a fairly easy time eating beets virtually everyday in Russia). Andrew doesn't like beets, but he likes borscht (so maybe he's more fond of beets than he initially thought).

That's not the only place I hide vegetables. My pumpkin-carrot cookies were a hit the year I made them for Christmas (accidentally). They also raisins in them, and applesauce instead of butter. Actually, my family has been cutting butter and sugar levels in our sweets for years by adding applesauce. We're that tricky.

I put carrots in my spaghetti sauce and have gotten very good at slicing vegetables (like onions) so fine that they are impossible to pick out, let alone notice. I even have a handy dandy little vegetable chopper to help me puree things.

Unfortunately for me, Jessica (we're on a first name basis, she and I) already wrote the book on disguising foods as other foods, but I have another idea up my sleeve. One day I might have collected recipes to make a book of my own.

Wiggle Worm

The first night Rachel slept in her own room, I had trouble falling asleep. It was hard for me not to be able to hear her gentle breathing right beside me. I did fall asleep eventually though and neither of us woke up during the night.

The next night we made the leap from the bassinet to the crib. She slept all through the night again, although I didn't quite make it. She started making fussy noises at around 3 am but never got very upset, so I ignored her and we both went back to sleep. Then she woke up howling just before 7 am. When I went in to get her she was perfectly perpendicular to how we'd laid her down the night before. I was wondering how she had managed this mathematical wonder until I noticed that her legs were dangling between the bars of the crib. She was stuck right up to her thighs.

On Saturday night I was awakened at 4 am. I heard thunk-a-thunk-a-thunk, pause, thunk-a-thunk-a-thunk, scream, thunk-a-thunk-a-thunk, scream, gasp, scream, gasp, scream, gasp, scream, thunk-a, gasp, thunk-a, scream, thunk, gasp....

Obviously she wasn't going to comfort herself on this one, so I got up to check on her. She was once again completely perpendicular to how we had laid her down, but this time she was on her side and both of her legs were stuck between one of the sets of bars. She was doing this wild bucking bronco move and I was afraid she was going to snap both of her legs in two, so I took her out and brought her in bed with us to feed her. We both fell asleep quickly and didn't wake up until it was time for Conference.

Last night I was extra careful about tucking her in. She can only roll one way, so I put her head on the opposite side of the bed so that she would roll toward the wall instead of to the outside of her crib, hoping that this way she wouldn't be able to get her feet through the bars. I got out the big quilt that Karen made for her and tucked it way under the mattress, hoping that Rachel wouldn't be able to kick it off.

Luckily she slept through the night, but when I went to check on her this morning, I saw that my tucking-in job had been futile. She was completely free of her quilt and huddled up in one corner of the crib. Her legs were freezing--we had put her in a nightgown since all of her footed pyjamas were in the dirty clothes basket. She only had one sock on; the other was wedged between the wall and the crib somehow. At least she had gotten her leg free.

Doesn't the crib make her look small?

We looked at bumpers last night on eBay and found one that we both liked, that was relatively cheap. She is such a little wiggle worm that we need something to keep her inside the crib.

It's hard to know what to do as a parent though. Nowadays they are encouraging parents to have absolutely nothing inside the crib: no blankets, no pillow, no toys, no bumpers. Basically just nothing. What you're supposed to do is put the baby in a "wearable" blanket so that they can't accidentally smother themselves with it.

You're not supposed to use bumpers because the latest "trend" of thought is that breathing recycled air can increase the risk of SIDS. Apparently bumpers can reduce the amount of air flow to your baby, or something like that.

Since Rachel likes to sleep with her hands covering her face anyway, as you can see in the picture, I'm not sure if I should be more worried about a crib bumper or the fact that she enjoys covering her mouth and nose with her hands.

Besides, they're now thinking that SIDS may have something to do with genetics. Who knows what they'll come up with next? Sometimes I think they just want to see what they can make parents do. First it was stomach to sleep. Then back. Then sides. Now we're on back to sleep again. Pretty soon they'll be asking us to have our kids sleep standing up.

For now, I think I'll just get that crib bumper and see if it helps keeps all of my baby's limbs in the crib allowing both of us a good night's sleep.

Salsa recall

Reid grabbed an armful of cans and other items, including a glass jar of salsa, and took them downstairs to put in the storage room. Since the next session of General Conference was due to start soon, he was in a hurry.

"We have an emergency!" he called from the basement.

We all rushed downstairs to see what the emergency was; Reid had dropped the jar of salsa and it smashed on the floor. Andrew helped his dad clean up the mess of tomatoes and broken glass.

"We're lucky," said Reid, "I just saved our lives."

"How?" asked Andrew.

"There are shards of glass in the salsa. If we had eaten it, we would have died. I broke it so that we didn't have to eat the glass."

"Wow," said Andrew, thinking his dad was heroic, "Thanks."

Upstairs, Reid encouraged Andrew to tell everyone about how Reid had just saved their lives. Andrew did so.

Unfortunately for Andrew, everyone else understood that the glass ended up in the salsa because the jar broke. He kept insisting that we could have died but after several explanations, he finally got it.

"Oh..." he said sheepishly. There wasn't much else to say really. He's so funny!

Beautiful Babies

For our wedding reception we made some posters that had pictures of the two of us as babies, growing up, dating, etc. I finally dismantled them this week and on them were some nice baby pictures of each of us between 2 and 3 months old.


Even though we've used the look alike meter before, we decided to try it out with our baby pictures--just to see, you know, if Rachel really does look like both of us. She does.

Truthfully, she really does look like us both. She is, once again, making almost the exact same face as Andrew. It's kind of creepy how she's always making the same faces as Andrew--she'll be a very animated child. Yet she seems to have a lot of me in there, too. I'm pretty sure it's the cheeks, but I'm not positive. Maybe it's the eyes.

One thing's for sure: her ears don't stick out nearly as much as Andrew's or mine!

Infansolihypnophobia

Hi, my name is Nancy and I am an infansolihypnophobe.

The time has come to let my baby venture off into the world of sleeping in her own bedroom. I don't want to. In fact, I dread it. I've classified it as a phobia since it is an irrational, obsessive, and persistent fear of mine. There isn't anything frightening or perilous about sleeping in your own room, after all--so it's pretty much an irrational fear. It's obsessive and persistent because ever since we brought her home from the hospital I've woken up in the middle of the night just to check on her, and the one night we wheeled her out into the hallway (because she was grunting so loudly all night long) I was on the brink of hysterics.

It's time for me to get over that though. I mean, look at her:

Her head and feet are just mere inches away from touching the sides of the bassinet. Whatever happened to this little baby?


Tonight we are wheeling the bassinet into her bedroom to see how we both fair after a night of separation. I'm sure she'll do fine; she's a good sleeper. It's me I'm worried about. If only we could get the crib to fit in our room....Somehow I don't think that's possible.

Rachel is growing up in more ways than one. Not only is she getting taller (I just folded up her itty bitty onesies and put them in a box *sniff, sniff*), she's getting smarter, too. She's all but tamed her pesky hands and can keep them from flying up and hitting her in the face--now she can look at them and put them in her mouth and she's starting to realize that she can grab things, too.

She is constantly trying to sit up and roll over. I turned my back on Rachel for one second today so that I could put my viola away. I put her down on her back, but when I turned around I saw this:


She went and rolled over and didn't even let me watch! She's been trying to do this for quite some time but would just get stuck on her side and then flip back onto her back suddenly. But she really can do it now (sometimes). I tried to get her to do it again, but she just lay there smiling--she wouldn't even try to roll again. It was like she knew she did it and she wasn't going to do it again to please anyone.

So I put her on her side (which is halfway to her tummy) to see if it would encourage her to try again. It did, and she rolled the rest of the way over. Maybe someday soon I'll be able to catch her doing a full-fledged roll.

This is the beginning, I suppose. Soon she'll be rolling over from her tummy to her back. Then she'll be rolling all around the room. Then she'll be up rocking on her hands and knees. There's just no stopping her now.

Where do babies learn these things, anyway? I understand how they learn how to talk--by mimicking grown-ups--but did she just think one day, "I wonder if I can roll over?" She certainly didn't get the idea from us. Andrew and I don't go around rolling over all the time. There was that one time she watched Sawyer do it, but where did he learn it? I don't think his parents roll over all the time, either. I guess there is a lot to the "nature" side of things.

Now I wish that I could go back to school and study psychology. I love child development and psycholinguistics and all that fun stuff. Maybe one day...once Andrew graduates and we're settled a little more. And by "settled" I mean "have some kind of a future game plan."

Shoot, I could become an expert on how to diagnose and treat infansolihypnophobia in mothers all over the world. I could write books on the subject and create a 12 step program.

First, though, I should probably successfully get over this phobia myself.