Computer Babysitter

Rachel often reminds me of Hammy from Over the Hedge, a little overactive squirrel.

First of all, she also loves anything that "tastes shiny," and even if something isn't shiny, her first reaction is to lick it. Second, she is all over the place, all the time. The girl never slows down. And third, she loves electronics. She loves to play with cell phones, to press buttons, to pound on the keyboard, to try and switch the light on and off. She's just fascinated with electronics.

This can be a good thing, like in Elder's quorum when she was entertained through the hour by someone's iPhone--she kept flicking through the pictures and apparently thought it was pretty cool. Andrew used this as a selling point for us to get an iPhone (of course, I could counter it by saying that the boy who sat behind us during sacrament meeting held her attention equally well, but that doesn't mean we're going to go out and adopt some ten year old boy to make faces at Rachel all day long).

Her fascination can also be a bane, though. Like when Andrew sets up his laptop to do homework. It was never really a problem before Rachel could pull herself up, but she's gotten quite good at popping up and pressing some very important key sequence while he's not looking (or even while he's looking) and messing things up for him by closing a paper before he's saved it or opening a program that takes forever to load. She also likes to grab his mouse and play with it. Sometimes he'll go to reach for the mouse and it is no longer on the mouse pad. Instead it is under his desk with Rachel.

The little red light on the mouse is what she's after. She thinks it's the coolest thing, just like Hammy and the pocket laser. She likes to shine it on things and make it flash across her face (I'm sure that's not great for her eyes).

Anyway, Rachel was busy terrorizing Andrew this evening while I was making dinner. She kept pulling herself up on his desk and grabbing the mouse, pulling the cords, and pushing his buttons, both literal and figurative. He finally gave in to her not-so-subtle hints and set up an old dinosaur of a laptop for her to play with--the one he installed Edubuntu on (it's full of educational, and a few just-for-fun, games).


This gave him enough freedom to work on his paper, allowed me time to make dinner without a baby pulling on my pant leg, and kept Rachel entertained. Win, win, win.


It only lasted until she noticed that she still didn't have a mouse to play with...but at least it gave us a few minutes of peace!

New Foods

Rachel has been into shoving everything she can get her hands on into her mouth. This means that she has also been trying things at a more rapid pace than I would perhaps choose.

On Saturday she tried a dill pickle. Grandma (Karen) gave it to her. At first I was sad that we didn't have our camera because I didn't want to miss her first "pickle face." As it turns out, however, she doesn't have a pickle face, so I didn't miss it. She loved the pickle and sucked all the juice out of it and still wanted to suck on it when it was taken away. She didn't pucker her lips or anything.

She also tried red pepper for the first time on Saturday. She snatched a piece right off of my plate during lunch and started chowing down on it--she even bit right through it so I had to scoop a chunk out of her mouth to keep her from choking.

Sunday followed the same trend. Rachel and I had a very long day. We went visiting teaching at 10 AM and then had to be at the 2nd ward at 11 AM. After sitting through an hour of sacrament meeting, opening exercises, junior primary, and half of senior primary, Rachel was just about at her wits ends. Sister Bennett suggested that we visit the nursery for a while, so we did. We arrived just in time for snack time. The leaders were very accommodating and set an extra place at the table right away, complete with place mat and a little cup of water.

The snack was raisins and little cheddar whale crackers. The minute the leader put the crackers down in front of Rachel her little hand shot out and snatched one up. Before I could stop her she had popped it into her mouth and started sucking on it. My initial reaction was to force it back out of her mouth but she seemed to be handling it okay so I let her keep it.

Then she tried to swallow. Before I knew it she had silent tears streaming down her face, which was quickly turning bright red. I flipped her over on my lap and started pounding on her back and after three or four swift blows she covered me with spit up and the whale went flying across the room.

I spent the remainder of snack time biting off tiny pieces of whale to feed to Rachel and trying to keep the raisins out of her reach, while simultaneously keeping seven overly-helpful children from shoving whole crackers or raisins down her throat.

At long last snack time was over and we started the lesson. We learned about the sun and the moon and then colored a picture of the sky. Rachel was much more interested in eating the crayon than she was in actually coloring any silly picture of a sun or moon.

Sunday dinner couldn't come any sooner for me. After an hour of visiting teaching, five hours of church, and an hour of home teaching I was wiped! I didn't have any energy to make dinner so we were very lucky that Andrew's parents had invited us over or we would have been eating PB&J! We had dinner at the Gillespie's and got to see Richard and Diana's little Michael. Rachel, again, enjoyed some red pepper and some fresh red anjou pear slices.

I thought today would be a little less adventurous since we were at home all day, but I was wrong.

Rachel was in the kitchen with me while I was cleaning up and was kind enough to point out to me that it has been far too long since I've swept the floor. I heard her smacking her lips so looked down at her. She had found a little piece of cake that had fallen on the floor and was happily sucking away at it. I think it was a piece of the failed cake layer that we have all crumbled up in a Tupperware container sitting on our counter. At least, I hope that's what it was.

The last interesting thing Rachel tried this week was a handful of macaroni and cheese. She can be so fast and sneaky when she wants to be. It's a wonder she can't get Cheerios into her mouth 100% of the time, although I will grant you that she grabbed a whole handful of noodles and only got a few in her mouth. The rest she smeared all over her face.

It makes me wonder how much non-food she eats in a given day. I know she eats a lot of paper, but I wonder what else gets into her system.

At least dinner was controlled. Rice cereal and Cheerios. She's increasingly uninterested in this combination. She gets so excited when we all assemble at the kitchen table and then I put a Cheerio in her mouth and you can just see the disappointment spread across her face,

"They're having Cheerios again...what else can I find around here?"

Seven Months

Somehow Rachel turned seven months old without anyone realizing it. On Thursday Andrew's boss asked Andrew how old Rachel was and he said, "Almost seven months."

Unfortunately, she was already seven months old on Wednesday. How did our baby get to be so old? She's just growing up so quickly!

Among spitting, shaking her head, pulling herself up on things, crawling all over the place, drinking from cups, making big messes with her toys, taking baths, reading stories, playing with friends, screaming when she should be being quiet, and going outside, one of Rachel's favorite thing to do is to crawl under things and sit. Sometimes she'll sit and play, other times she'll just sit and look proud of herself.

I think she'll like building forts when she's a bit older. She just strikes me as someone who would like doing that.



She also enjoys playing with anything that has buttons, lights, and noise--namely the computer, the DVD player, the receiver. The other day she started playing my yoga DVD, switched the language to French and went to some "how to" chapter. She got on Andrew's computer and made all the tool bars in Illustrator disappear. A few minutes later she made them reappear. She loves to watch slide shows and movies of herself. She will shriek and laugh and point at herself. She also likes pictures of mommy and daddy but finds everything else a little boring right now.

Although she has braved the wood floor, she still does not like getting her hair done, being put in her car seat, or having things taken away from her, especially if said thing is dangerous.

She's so fun!

Running Errands

Yesterday Rachel and I walked from our house to Orem Floral and Gift to get some flowers, to our house to put the flowers in the fridge, to Petsmart to buy goldfish, to the bank to deposit some checks, and back to our house.

All bundled up

It was a pretty long walk--at least three miles. It took us about two hours to complete all our little errands. Rachel was really happy the whole way: napping, looking at things, singing her own little songs, shaking her head 'no,' etc. And then we left the pet store...that's when Rachel really kicked up a fuss. She started howling, and then she added some kicking and head banging and full body convulsions, trying to break free of her restraints.

When we finally got to the bank after what seemed like a long, and very noisy, walk I said,

"Now you have to be very quiet, Rachel, we're going inside and no one wants to hear this."

She buttoned her lip the minute I opened the door (she's very obedient at times) and was quiet the whole time I was making the transaction. The minute I turned to leave, though, she started up right where she left off--at a full-blown wail. I finally took her out of her stroller and held her while I tried to push it. When that got too difficult I balanced her on the handlebar and pushed that way for a while. She was extremely happy when we got home, as was I!

The Haggard Bunch

Kelli and David

Kelli's wedding was a whole lot of fun. The ceremony was a little crazy with her twins not wanting to sit down, but it was over with soon enough. The bishop told them to save some money for a rainy day, to attend their church meetings, and to heed The Family: A Proclamation to the World. He read some key paragraphs from the proclamation, they said their "I dos," exchanged rings and then we headed into the cultural hall for some dancing.

Andrew went around taking pictures while I helped in the kitchen, what little I could with Rachel, and danced with David. Andrew danced with me a little bit, but for the most part he was the cameraman.

Rachel was a very happy baby the whole evening. She went to almost anyone freely and sang along to all the songs while she danced with each partner in turn. She loves dancing and had a great time doing a little boogie-woogie with Daddy. She was squealing and laughing and stomping her feet. Occasionally she'd lift up her feet and twist her hips around, dangling from Daddy's arms.

Uncle Kevin was the DJ and at one point he came on the mic and dedicated a song to Kelli and David--their song, specifically--and asked them to dance for everyone. When he was done talking, Kelli and David walked out onto the floor and waited for their song to play. They were all ready in dance position when a hideous punk rap song started blaring through the speakers. A little confused, they started trying to slow dance to the noise. After a few seconds Uncle Kevin got back on the mic. Obviously he had the wrong song. He put the right song on, which was much better suited to a slow dance.


Dad gave them the toast--and literally a piece of toast. After handing them the toast he explained that it was free of butter, jam, and all else so that they could spread their love on it; that he only gave them one piece because here on out they would have to share. He also wished for them that their love be like a rose. Currently it's a bed of roses, but the petals will soon fall off and all they will be left with is thorns. If they are patient, though, and wait through the winter, the roses will bloom again.

I'm really happy that my sister has found someone to be with. In fact, she found lots of someones to be with...

The Haggard BunchBack: Son-in-law holding Zach, Brandon, David, Christina, Rosie
Seated: Ashlei, Kelli holding Andrew and Olivia, David holding Sabrina, Ryan, Matthew in front

It's the story of a lovely lady, who was bringing up 3 girls and 2 sweet boys. All of them had sweet dimples, like their mother. The youngest were a joy.

Here's the story, of a man named Haggard, who was busy with 5 children of his own. There were 6 of them living all together, but they were all alone.

Till the one day when the lady met this fellow and they knew it was much more than a hunch that this group would somehow form a family.

That's the way they became the Haggard Bunch!*

*Kelli wrote this parody of the Brady Bunch theme song, and then I edited it because I wanted parts of it to rhyme that weren't rhyming before.

Loser Takes All

"I win!" I declared, snuggling my last piece between two others already out on the table and perhaps sticking my tongue out at Andrew, "Best two out of three."

"However," said Andrew, "I told a cool scriptural joke, so in fact I win."

We were just relaxing over a few post-wedding cupcakes, playing Triominoes, and discussing the story of Cain and Abel.

One of those things is not like the other. One of those things just doesn't belong...but it kind of does. It just takes a long story to make it relate, which is why I'm terrible at multiple choice questions. I can make any answer seem like the right answer, even if I know it's wrong.

See, we had a dearth of pieces to play in each our hands and so were just taking turns drawing. It got to be very boring and we began to ignore what we were drawing, which isn't a very good strategy, if you think about it.

Andrew drew his piece and then I drew my piece and then it was Andrew's turn to draw again.

"What piece did I just draw?" he asked, quickly scanning his available pieces.

"I don't know...some piece from the draw pile."

"I know," he pressed, "But which one?"

"Am I my husband's pieces' keeper?"

"Technically, yes."

We then began discussing how 'Am I my brother's keeper?' is a very oft-quoted scripture and is usually used to claim ignorance, and to make oneself feel better about neglecting a certain duty. I mentioned that it is ironic that we so often use it the wrong way since the villain of the story said the line and we say it like he had a good point.

"Yes. Cain was bad," Andrew agreed, "And why did Cain kill his brother?"

I stared at him blankly, "Because he was bad?"

"Because he was Abel!"

Perhaps it was the lateness of the hour. Perhaps it was the four cupcakes that I just ate, in rapid procession. Perhaps it was all the bubbly cider that I had. Perhaps it was because I find my husband absolutely hilarious.

Whatever the reason, I thought this joke was terribly, terribly funny. So I suppose Andrew did win that round of triominoes, for being the funniest player. I won overall though. I always win. And I think I just figured out a way to keep my victory in place forever--didn't Andrew just give me permission to look at his pieces? I am their keeper, after all.

It's over!

The ride to Salt Lake was very stressful for me. I discovered, upon the first turn we took, that the cake was prone to sliding around the board it was sitting on. This was surprising because I could hardly get it to slide off at home, not that I spent a whole lot of time trying to knock it off the board (mostly I actually tried to keep it in tact, go figure). I guess the momentum of the car just made it move easier or something. I dug my fingernails into the cardboard base and did not let go until we made it to the chapel.

At about 5:18 I started to panic. For some reason I had convinced myself that the wedding started at 5:30 when, in reality, it started at 6:30. I don't know why I forgot this detail since I had been telling everyone 6:30, all day. My hands started to sweat making it rather difficult to hang onto the cake. I suffered in silence for a while and then remarked to Andrew,

"We only have 10 minutes to get there!"

"Oh," he said, cool as a cucumber, "I thought it started at 6:30."

"It does!" I nearly shrieked.

"Then we have an hour and 10 minutes to get there."

The rest of the car ride was a lot more relaxing for me, even though I kept worrying about Patrick and David and the other half of the cake with them. Eventually we got right behind them and, while we were stuck in construction traffic for about twenty minutes, David called us on the cell phone. All was well with the cake and we chatted about how to avoid the traffic. Since it was only a block or two away from the chapel, and because we were plenty early, we decided just to plug on through.

I didn't fully relax until I had the cake fully assembled and sitting on a sturdy table. It felt so good to have it all together and sitting with the pretty decorations. Everyone thought it was beautiful--I don't think anyone noticed anything wrong with it (except Patrick since the cake "attacked" him in the car so he knew where some of the lace was a bit messed up).

So, here's the cake in all it's splendor. Cake decorating is a little depressing because you put all this time and effort into it and then someone eats it and it is gone forever. Still fun, though.



I totally guessed on what flowers to get. The delphinium was Doug's idea but I went with the daisies just because they were pretty. As luck would have it Kelli chose daisies for her bouquet so the cake kind of matched.

After I cut all the flowers off the stems I wrapped the stems back up in the flower paper and carried the now-empty bouquet to Kelli.

"Here's your bouquet," I quipped.

Her face morphed through many emotions very rapidly. Confusion. Shock. Fury. Enlightenment. Relief.

I thought it was funny, but perhaps not the nicest thing to do to someone on their wedding day when they are worrying about so many things already.



Now our fridge is gloomily empty but I'll have a lot more free time on my hands to get some things done around the house.


I'll post about the wedding tomorrow. We're all so tired from dancing the night away. Rachel especially so. She was still awake when we got home and was giggling, giggling, giggling all through scriptures, prayer, and getting ready for bed. I was worried she'd be too hyper to sleep but she fell asleep only a few minutes after we put her down, hallelujah!

Wedding Cake Question

I've worked non-stop on my sister's wedding cake all week. Non-stop after Rachel goes to bed, that is. I've learned a lot from this experience. Mostly I learned why we pay people to do this. It's a whole lot of work! I feel like every bone in my right hand is broken. Who'd have thought that squeezing an icing bag would be such a workout?

Cornelli Lace

It's been a lot of fun though. The cake is far from perfect. I'll just throw all the faults out there: one side of the first layer is skewampus because the layer fell apart and we painstakenly glued it back together; the icing was a little too runny so my border on the second layer kind of ran together--I don't know why it worked on the first and third layers; the base layer of icing isn't as perfect as I'd like it to be but I spent hours trying to make it smooth and eventually had to say enough was enough; one of the columns went in crooked; my cake boards show; there are a million other things that went wrong.

As it is though, it looks pretty good. In fact I'd dare say it looks like a real wedding cake. I'm basically finished now--I just have to decide one last thing. My cake right now is in two separate parts. I think that will make it easier to transport it to Salt Lake that way.

I have the two top tiers which will be separated from the bottom layer by a colonnade.

Top layers

Bottom Layer and Colonnade

Obviously the top layers will be put on the stand. What I can't decide is where to put the goldfish bowl. I have a cute little bowl that I've decorated. We are going to fill it with water and put two little goldfish in. We'll have to get new goldfish because the goldfish we bought last week are both too big and rather dead (Buh Buh died about an hour ago, may he rest in peace). I have a board and supports to hold the bowl up so that it doesn't sink into the cake, but I can't quite decide where to put it.


My original plan was to put it on the very top of the cake as a topper of sorts but now I'm thinking that it would look better on the bottom layer under the colonnade.

Perhaps I'll fully assemble the cake tonight and try it both ways...but I'm really leaning toward just putting it on the bottom.

Kangaroo Zoo

For playgroup today we all headed out to Kangaroo Zoo* to let the toddlers bounce around a bit. I got a ride with Bonnie, who was babysitting her grand-nephew, in her five seater, four-door car. It was a tight squeeze but we got all three car seats buckled up safely in the back.

Amy, Rachel, and Jack--all ready to go!

We stopped to get gas and I saw Visanti there. She waved at me and then came over to Bonnie's car and opened the driver's door. Bonnie was out pumping gas and was a little nervous about having a stranger approach her car and open the door while she had three babies buckled in the back, even with me sitting in the passenger seat. She relaxed quite a bit when she noticed the friendly tone that Vasanti and I were using with each other.

"Which one is yours?" she asked.

"That one," I said, pointing to the middle seat.

"Oi, she's so big! She looks like you!" she said, with her perfect Hindi accent (I wish I could type a Hindi accent) and then she left.

Bonnie got back in the car.

"Did you know her?" she asked, a little anxious, "I like to think that strangers are friendly, but still..."

I reassured Bonnie and we were off again. We didn't hear any unhappy noises the whole way to Pleasant Grove. When we checked on them after getting to the "zoo" they were all sound asleep.

Rachel and I (and Bonnie and Amy and Jack) were free because we were just going to watch. We still had to fill out release forms and when I turned mine in the cashier was like, "Just one child, then?"

I told her that was correct. And then she read the form--I'm sure when she got to the part where I wrote Rachel's age (7 months) she decided to check with me to see if we'd be playing. It's a good thing, too! I didn't want to pay five dollars just to carry Rachel around. I was just glad that the five of us walked in the the Schaefermeyers, who followed us on the way, so that we could say we were watching the girls play...and weren't just going to hang out in Kangaroo Zoo with a bunch of infants just for kicks.


It actually looks like a lot of fun. Heather said that we can borrow Ian sometime and take him on a "date" with us so that we don't feel silly going down all the toys without a child. We might just take her up on that offer!


We had a lot of fun watching all the kids run their parents ragged. Poor Kim was really getting a workout with her twins splitting up on her all the time! They looked like they were having a blast though.

Amy, Rachel, and Maggie

A lot of the furniture (and some of the toys in the 2-and-under area that we didn't play in) came from IKEA. Interestingly enough a lot of the kids were really interested in a little green stool. Ian brought it over to us while we were sitting around breastfeeding (like four of us at once!) and Rachel took over it after he left. She liked that it was just her size.


*I should have checked their website for promotions earlier. There is a $2.00 off coupon. Shucks. At least Rachel and I were free because we were just watching. I'm sure everyone else would have appreciated it though. Perhaps we will make better use of their online promotions in the future...

Sweet Ride

One of Rachel's favorite modes of transportation is Daddy. She loves to sit on his shoulders and play with his head. He's so good about having her up there--they both look so secure. She holds onto his hair and/or ears and/or nostrils, she digs her heels under his collar bone, and squeezes his neck with her thighs. All that work and she looks as relaxed as can be.


I'm sure he's brave enough to just let her sit up there but he holds onto her for my sake.

I tried having her on my shoulders and it just wasn't as much fun for anyone. She weighs almost a fifth of my body weight and apparently it isn't comfortable to carry that much weight on your head. Furthermore I have way too much hair for her to pull on. And lastly, I was so nervous I couldn't even stand up all the way--I was afraid she'd pitch backwards and land on her head--even though I was holding onto both of her legs for dear life.


I guess it's just a Daddy thing. I don't mind being left out of this one. They have so much fun when they're together and since Daddy is hardly ever home I'm just glad that they can be such good friends when he is!

The Dismount

Upside Down