Red Letter Day

Yesterday was a red letter day for Andrew. In our (very slowly) evolving plan of potty-training the boy, Andrew managed two important tasks: a) he told us that he needed to go poop (before actually doing it--a first!) and b) he actually followed through with this, by pooping in the toilet. While I realize this is probably TMI for many of you, it was an exciting event for us--and for Andrew, since this milestone meant that he could choose one piece from the tea set we got him as a bribe (a princess tea set, of all things, but he wanted the one with his "dolly").

Don't Mess with Me

You probably can't read the caption on Andrew's shirt in this picture, but it reads "Don't Mess with Texas" (the shirt is courtesy of Laurie and Booty). We figured Andrew looked appropriately untouchable in this picture.

What to say about this week? It's been a good one, by and large. As we've already posted about Monday's excursion, we'll start a little later in the week. Tuesday I managed to spend quite a bit of money through the simple expedient of going to Target for groceries and prescriptions, and then later going to a fabric store . . . . You see, I somehow got this brainstorm that I needed to make Andrew an "Eeyore" quilt (he's currently going through a bit of a Winnie-the-Pooh fascination) for his new bed (the bed he doesn't have yet but will need to have before the baby comes). I think it's likely that I'm nesting, because the only other time I've had any urge to quilt anything was just before Andrew was born, when I made approximately four or five "I spy" quilts for Andrew and his cousins. At any rate, I discovered that when you're dealing with trademarked characters, it's *not* actually cheaper to make a quilt than buy one . . . . Most of the experienced quilters in our audience are probably smiling a bit at my naivety--quilting (like scrapbooking and other crafty hobbies) is clearly not a hobby for the indigent. With any luck, I won't actually lose my drive to quilt before the quilt is finished and I'll be able to display a picture of the finished product here.

On Wednesday we drove up to Salt Lake for the third time in six days to take Andrew to a doctor's appointment at the Primary Children's Hospital. Don't worry--this sounds much more serious than it is. Andrew has a very mild heart condition, and before we left PA the cardiologist recommended that we bring him in again for a six month checkup. The doctor at Primary Children's (a very nice lady who was visibly pregnant herself) told us that Andrew looked and sounded great and won't need another check-up for a year. The visit took much less time than we'd anticipated, so we used the extra time to drop by Sarah and kids. Unfortunately, they had an appointment with the school book fair, so we didn't stay long, but Andrew had fun running around with Katie and indulging in their mutual love for dollies and shiny princess shoes.

On Friday, since Andrew was going through some Jacob withdrawals (it had been nearly a week since he saw his Tolley cousins), I called Jeni to see what they were up to. We ended up meeting them at Sam's Club where we had fun wandering around (well, aside from Andrew trying to strangle/hug Jacob in the cart--we had to separate them) for a while before taking the kids back to Jeni's house to feed them lunch. After Andrew went to bed, Dan and I took advantage of some alone time to finish watching "Meet the Robinson's" and start watching "No Reservations." We really enjoyed "Meet the Robinson's" (our favorite sequence was where the villain--not exactly the smartest bulb in the bunch--is looking for evidence of the hero's movements. He finds a stick, and his AI bowler hat comes back to report what he has found. The villain says wisely, "yes, the time-travel residue near Wilbur Robinson's DNA . . . plus my stick . . . must mean that . . ."). "No Reservations" was okay, but nowhere nearly as good as the German original (translated title "Mostly Martha").

Saturday, of course, was our big adventure day. Dan and I took Andrew grocery shopping in the morning to get ingredients for Pepe salad (also known as "Frog-eye salad") and an oriental salad, since we were assigned to bring salads to a family gathering that afternoon. It was after naps (Andrews and mine) that things got interesting. We piled into the car and drove up to Jared's house. Just as we were pulling down the street, my mom called and asked "where are you?" I explained that we were almost there, and she said, "Jared's at our house. We don't know where Jeni is." There wasn't much to do but turn around and head back to Provo (this after 40 minutes in the car). The worst part about the drive back was Andrew's incessant repetition of "I want to go to Joshie's house." "We were just at Joshie's house. Joshie's not there. He's at grandma's house." "I want to go in Joshie's house." And so on, ad infinitum, until we finally got to grandma's house and he got distracted by the presence of cousins. It turns out that Jeni, too, was at grandma's house, having gotten the memo that my mom and I apparently missed. What happened? Well, Jared emailed everyone about the possibility of getting together, and then he and Jeni apparently decided it was time to get together at my mom's house, but somehow neglected to tell either mom or I about this development, so we (not too unnaturally) assumed that, since Jared had instigated the get-together, and since the last time was also at Jared's house, that his house was the destination for the current shindig. At any rate, everyone eventually ended up at the same place (with the somewhat sarcastic suggestion that next time we should just let everyone pick a place at random and see who ends up where) and seemed to have a good time, if the noise level from the children was any indication.

Jeni and Samuel had to leave early because of other obligations and my parents went to ward temple night (since we were thus sans babysitters, we opted to go another time), so Jared and Mitcee and Dan and I attempted to play a game. Even though we didn't do anything more complicated than the Lake game (also known as the "Expletive game" or "Oh heck"), we had plenty of distractions in the form of Andrew and Joshua, who were struggling to figure out how to share Andrew's toys. It was still nice to get to spend some time with them. And Andrew, as you can tell from the picture below, was particularly enamored of Brielle. He gave her several hugs as they were leaving (that's what he's trying to do below, although it looks more like he's trying to pull her head off). It was pretty sweet--if vaguely alarming about the level of affection we can expect for our new arrival, when she gets here.

Creative Linguistics

Like most two-year-olds, Andrew has his share of creative word formations. Some of my favorites (all of which have been in evidence this week) include jagwater (for jaguar--he likes to play the online Fischer-Price alphabet game which presents animals for each letter of the alphabet), flamingo juice (no, not made from actual flamingos--from mangos), and marshmellons (for marshmellow).

The great thing about talking with toddlers (especially once they start to be more or less intelligible) is that they're seldom predictable and therefore usually funny. After we picked Dan up from work yesterday at BYU, Dan asked Andrew if he wanted to go to BYU. (A strange question for Dan to ask, since he's usually at least a bit mocking of those who went there). Andrew said, "No, I'm too little."

On the (affection) dole

Andrew has recently begun meting out his affection. The other day, when Dan got home from work, he came upstairs to where Andrew and I were playing. He knelt down and watched Andrew for a minute, and then asked Andrew if he could have a hug. Andrew started to say no, but then appeared to be reconsidering his decision. Finally, and with great condescension, Andrew said, "You can have jus' one hug, Daddy." He held up his forefinger to emphasize "just one." After giving Dan said hug, he thought for another second or so, and then added, "and jus' one kiss," again with his forefinger raised. I wonder where he learned that one.

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears--Oh My!

We're trying something novel this week (well, today at least): we figured that maybe if we updated periodically, we'd be less likely to forget the beginning of the week. (Although I did remember what we did last Monday: I went to IKEA in Draper with my mom and my sister. Since Andrew had a major meltdown before we left the store, I might have simply blocked the occurance out of my mind. I did, however, buy some duvets and duvet covers for our bed. That was Dan and my Valentine's day present, and I have to say we love them.)

Anyway, we decided to take advantage of one of the first actually semi-nice days in the last month or so (and, incidentally, the President's Day holiday) to go to the zoo with Sarah, Aaron, and the kids. (We invited Jeni and Samuel to come, too, but apparently they had better things to do . . . actually, I think Jacob isn't feeling well). Suffice it to say, the kids had fun, and the adults didn't get too bored.

We prepped Andrew for the outing by dressing him in his most safari-like outfit, including this dandy little fishing vest that Grandma bought for him on sale at Gymboree. Looks charming, doesn't he? (Especially the tongue hanging out and the squinty eyes).





This next picture didn't turn out so great, but it's one of the few we got where you can actually see one of Hogle Zoo's newest acquisitions: a baby giraffe. Believe it or not, the smaller of the two giraffes in this picture is less than three months old (born the end of November, I think) and is a mere six feet or so in height.


Lydia was funny about the outing--she was so placid and content to stay in her stroller the entire time. Andrew, on the other hand, insisted on walking as much as possible, although we'd brought the stroller (mostly we used it to cart his diaper bag).

After an hour and a half or so, we decided we'd had enough fun in the sun (and snow) at the zoo, and headed out. We stopped at Granato's for lunch, which made the outing worthwhile for the adults as well. The kids chowed down on meatballs from the meatball subs, and, of course, we had to get some canoli and napoleon's to go . . . I'm sure Poppy would be jealous.

All Aboard!

Since neither Dan nor I can remember what happened for the first part of the week, we've deduced that nothing noteworthy happened. Rather than rack our admittedly feeble brains for more details, we'll proceed directly to the highlights.

On Thursday, I took Andrew over to Jeni's house while Jacob was at Joy School and Andrew and Emi made valentines (with much help, of course). I think it says a great deal for Andrew and Emi's respective personalities that Emi divided *all* of the candy hearts in front of her into envelopes for her grandparents, while Andrew grudgingly allotted a meager three hearts per envelope and refused to consider more (he was much more interested in trying to eat all the hearts himself). For the most part, he and Emi played well together, but we (Jeni and I) were thwarted in our plan to have Andrew stay until Jacob came home by Andrew himself, who (possibly under the influence of too much sugar) hit Emi with a wooden plane, pulled her hair, and, his crowning achievement, tried to push her down the stairs. At that point, I took him home. I'm not sure if it's Andrew, his age, his sex, or what, but he's become quite agressive in the last week or so and we're constantly having to tell him not to hit, bite, kick, etc. He does show some promise of his mother's linguistic interests by claiming, when we tell him not to hit, that he was "smacking," not hitting.

Thursday evening, our fancy Valentine's day plans included making stir-fry for my parents (a stir-fry that included shrimp, I might add, which I do not like and would not normally include in my menu for a romantic evening out), putting Andrew to bed, and then putting the finishing touches on my dissertation (me)--I've finally turned in the completed electronic version and I'm just waiting on a permissions letter before sending in my remaining stuff to the PSU graduate office. And then I'm done!!! (I'm just a little excited, if you can tell).

We did celebrate Valentine's belatedly, by taking Andrew to dinner at the Macaroni Grill Friday night. We rarely go out to eat, so this was a special occasion for us. Dan and I both enjoyed our respective pasta dishes, but Andrew seemed to particularly enjoy his spaghetti with a giant meatball--he made funny little excited noises as soon as he saw his food and put a substantial dent in the pasta. It's nice to have a kid that enjoys his food so much. :)

Saturday morning Andrew walked right into the corner of the door. He didn't cut anything--or even bruise his forehead--but he was pretty upset so we put a bandaid on it to help him feel better. So he walked around with Jar Jar Binks (courtesy of an old box of Star Wars bandaids) on his forehead all morning.


That morning we drove up to Salt Lake City to spend the day with Sarah and her family, the more so since Robert and Trisha came up for a spontaneous visit. We had lunch at Olive Garden--Robert was *not* impressed with our service, but you can read about that on their blog, if you're interested. All the other adults ordered the unlimited soup and salad, I had pizza (apparently I'm still not on board with the Eves family fetish here), and the kids had macaroni and cheese or pizza. Andrew ate nearly everything in his bowl--and this after an entire breadstick. Andrew kept us (me, Dan, Robert) entertained with his constant chatter on the way to and from the restaurant. On the way to the restaurant, Andrew did his usual questioning of where people were that he could see (i.e., "where's my daddy?"). To give him a hard time, Robert reached over to Dan and said, "This is *my* daddy." Andrew responded with an instant and vehement insistance, "No! You've got Bubby."

Andrew pre-food.

Afterward, we took the remaining breadsticks and some old bread Sarah had on hand to a nearby park where the kids had a wonderful time feeding the Canadian geese, ducks, and a score or so of sea gulls who swooped in on the crumbs. Unfortunately, we don't have any pictures of the big event, because we accidentally left the camera at the restaurant and Dan had to go back and get it.

We had a wonderful dinner of sandwiches, chips, grapes, and carrots--the sandwiches were made with yummy fresh bread and fresh vegetables, a hard combination to beat. After dinner, we headed back to Provo and put Andrew to bed. Dan decided to finish cooking the rest of Thursday's shrimp before it went bad, with the result that, when I went downstairs, the entire basement smelled like shrimp. (The basement tends to concentrate the smell of anything we've cooked down there). Not a bad thing, if you like shrimp. But if you don't like shrimp and you have an oversensitive olfactory organ (pregnancy induced, of course), then this poses a problem. We (I mean Dan--I couldn't stay in the basement b/c of the smell) fumigated the place with some febreeze and then boiled cinnamon on the stove before I could stand to spend any time downstairs.

Our final event of the week was the blessing of my friends' (Karin and Mat Bean) baby, Nolan Mathew Bean. Since the blessing was in Alpine at 3, and we had church from 11-2 (and I was teaching the Relief Society lesson), Dan got Andrew out of nursery early and put him down for a nap. We then left him sleeping happily with grandma while we went up to the blessing. The blessing itself was at the Holmes' house, and it was a beautiful little blessing. Nolan was alert and quiet for the entire blessing. Afterwards, I had a nice chat with Karin (well, aside from the five minutes we both spent in "time-out," where Karin had been put by her almost three-year-old, Ezra). We returned to Provo, expecting to rescue grandma from Andrew, only to find that both Andrew and Grandma were still sleeping! That must be the easiest baby-sitting gig my mother's ever had.

After dinner, Dan and I helped entertain Andrew by putting together grandma's train set (bought for the grandkids, of course), and Andrew had a wonderful time playing engineer. (Even if I couldn't get any good pictures of it).

p.s. Justin's blog this week concludes with a note about singing "We are a Happy Family," which reminds me of our recent discovery that this is one of Andrew's favorite songs. It's actually rather endearing to listen to him try to sing "I love Mommy, she loves me, We love Daddy, yesiree . . . " except for the fact that he usually insists on us singing about every single member of our family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins--Eves and Collings) before we can quit. (That's twenty-seven people, if anyone's counting. Twenty-eight, if you include our coming baby, which we sometimes do to make verses even). If we forget anyone, he reminds us. In fact, sometimes he has us sing about the same person twice, just to make sure we don't forget anyone.

on babies and shots

I had a funny conversation with Andrew the other day while I was changing his diaper that I thought I'd share (the conversation, not the diaper changing!). To distract him while I was changing him, I handed him a little cookie monster shot that's part of a Sesame Street medicine kit. Andrew immediately pulled up his shirt and said, "I need a shot in my belly." (For those of you who don't know, I'm on heparin shots twice daily for the pregnancy--thus the belly shot.) I explained that mommy has to have shots because of the baby, so Andrew followed up his announcement with: "I need a shot for my baby sister in my belly." Poor kid. He was so pleased with himself that I didn't have the heart to explain that his baby sister is NOT in his belly (nor is she ever likely to be!).

Dragon Wheels

This week has, if nothing else, removed all possible doubts about Andrew's two-year-old status. He seems to delight in testing us (and himself) to find out if the limits are really as firm as we say they are. For one thing, he's started to try and drag out his bedtime routine by insisting that he "needs someping" and then taking five minutes to explain what that "someping" is. Once we finally got wise to that (we're ashamed to admit how many days it took), we've tried to be a little firmer with the whole bedtime routine. But he also likes to see whose more stubborn: Andrew or his mom (and unfortunately, I'm not always sure of the outcome of this particular battle). Friday morning he pulled all of his books off the shelf and then refused to pick them up. Then, in one dramatic sweep of his arm, he knocked all of his tea party accoutrements onto the floor (which, incidentally, are not insignificant--his "tea party" keeps increasing in size so that he now has cups and saucers (of various shapes and sizes) for four toys, in addition to a place setting for himself and mommy and daddy). Well, a serious contest of wills ensued. I packed up the tea party settings and put them in "time-out" for the duration of the day, but I insisted that Andrew pick up all of his books. He would pick up one or two, and then deliberately knock over a chair or throw a few more books to express his displeasure with being forced into obedience. So, then, of course, he'd go into time out. I knew things were looking bad for me when Andrew started to voluntarily put himself into time out rather than put books away--I had to resort to (and carry out) one of the more dire threats in my book: I had to put dolly in time out. I also got a chance to appreciate some of the disadvantages of Andrew's increased vocabulary--periodically, he would throw himself on the floor and insist "I don't care! I don't care!" (which is, unfortunately, what I often tell Andrew when he throws a tantrum . . .). When I asked him what he didn't care about, he explained "the books." Well, after much trial and tribulation, we finally got the books put away. I considered this a minor victory (after all, I won--if after a long, drawn-out skirmish)--especially since I would much rather have just picked up the books myself. Sigh. I can foresee a long year or two ahead of us!

There were some positive notes of the week, however. Monday night we took Andrew up to see the Provo temple and had a short lesson on the importance of temples for family home evening. And even though Andrew loves to see the temple, he didn't waste any time in informing us when he thought the lesson was done: "I'm done. Let's go now." So we went to the BYU creamery for some ice cream, which Andrew thoroughly enjoyed (although I think the remnants of his ice cream are still in the freezer).

On Tuesday, I finally took Andrew to the photographers to get some two-year-old photos taken. Unlike the last time we were in a professional studio (at eighteen months), when Andrew refused to stand still for more than two seconds, this time he was actually pretty cooperative. I think he likes having his picture taken--and he definitely knows how to cheese it up for the camera (although we need to work on getting him to smile normally when he says "cheese"--he must have inherited some kind of genetic inability to smile on cue from his dad). Supposedly I'll get an electronic link for the pictures in about a week, so I'll have to post a link here. One of my favorite pictures involves Andrew wearing a cowboy hat, boots, and an old, old toy gun holster that I think used to belong to my brother. Andrew and Jacob usually use it to hold a little toy dagger that no longer has its handle. Anyway, the photographer asked Andrew to show her what he had in his belt, and Andrew proudly pulled out the dagger and showed it to her. Unfortunately (and perhaps to compensate) for being so cooperative *during* the shoot, Andrew refused to stay put while I was trying to look at and order pictures--at one point, one of the studio workers had to chase him down the hall outside the studio before he disappeared!

Friday morning (after the book incident), we went to Jeni's house and Andrew had a great time playing with his cousins. I think my favorite moment (unfortunately, we didn't have a camera readily available to capture this) was when Jacob, Emi, and Andrew all emerged from Emi's room wearing sparkly beads and princess shoes. Andrew was especially proud that he was wearing "my dolly's" shoes (i.e., Belle shoes). After an early lunch, we took the kids up to the Bean Museum, where they had fun running around looking at the animals, but were rather disappointed that the upstairs portion was closed (Jacob was particularly disconsolate).

Saturday morning Dan and I attended the Worldwide Leadership broadcast for the church with my parents. The young women in our ward kindly offered babysitting for kids so that parents could attend together and we took them up on it. I thought the broadcast was wonderful--in particular, I liked Elder Oaks distinction between homemaking (which involves creating a nurturing environment where families can grow together) and housekeeping (baking, cleaning, etc.). Like the speakers pointed out, you can delegate housekeeping, but you can't delegate homemaking. The distinction also made me hopeful, because, where I'm a pretty lousy housekeeper (what can I say--I find most of those tasks boring!), I think I might actually be able to make a home. With some help, of course. And that brings me to the second thing I appreciated about the broadcast--the repeated emphasis that the duties of making a home belong to *both* parents, and that the division of labor in the home is a matter for the individual couple to decide. Anyway, I came away from the meeting energized and hopeful about our little family.

That afternoon, after Andrew's nap (and, it must be confessed, mine), we drove up to Salt Lake to have dinner with Sarah and her family. They did themselves proud with some excellent chicken and beef fajitas, and the kids had cheese enchiladas. I think Dan was excited to have some real Mexican food--since my mom is allergic to peppers and my dad doesn't like anything "spicy," we're kind of limited in the kinds of Mexican foods we can make here. Andrew, of course, always enjoys an excuse to be with his cousins, and this was no exception. It's nice to see how well Andrew and Katie get along--as long as they're not competing for the same baby doll or bottle. They had a very nice tea party in the basement--Bubby would be so proud! Andrew also insisted on using the bathroom about five dozen times while we were there, only to poop in his diaper just as we were leaving. So apparently all those trips weren't to much avail.

One final note: my dad told me I needed to post about the "dragon wheels." A couple of days ago, we made a baked pasta dish for dinner, using wagon wheel pasta. Andrew helped me mix all the ingredients together, and he was especially excited about the noodles. At dinner, he ate a big (even by his standards) portion of pasta, but I noticed that he'd only eat the noodles that were still whole (or mostly so) and left the rest of the dish untouched. Then he would insist loudly that he needed "more dragon wheels!" Not surprisingly, it took us all just a minute to figure out what "dragon wheels" were--Andrew's charming mispronunciation of wagon wheels.

(Andrew, in batman pajamas I picked up at a yard sale, with milk all down his front from his breakfast cereal).

Andrew's House on Poo(h) Corner, indeed!

(Incidentally, for anyone keeping track of that sort of thing, this is the 100th post for our blog! So happy centennial post, I guess).

We had a funny little incident with Andrew tonight that we thought some of our readers might enjoy. (Warning, this is not for the squeamish.) We've been slowly working towards potty-training Andrew for a couple of months now (or so it seems). Today, after his nap, I decided to give Andrew a little test and we put him in some big-boy underpants (Elmo, to be precise), and he was as thrilled as could be--in fact, he refused to put his pants back on, so the first sight that greeted his dad when he came home from work was Andrew running around in his little underpants with his chunky bare legs exposed. (It's official: Andrew has inherited a pretty spectacular pair of thunder thighs.) Anyway, that actually went pretty well--no accidents through dinner, etc. It was after dinner that the trouble began. The tag on the underpants was bothering Andrew (he kept scratching at it), so my mom offered to take them upstairs and unpick the tag. She had the foresight to take him to the potty first, but then Andrew followed her upstairs, bare bum and unmentionables and all exposed for the world. My mom, thinking, naturally enough, that he'd just gone potty and should be fine for a few minutes of exposure, let him follow her. A few minutes later, she came rushing down the stairs, carrying Andrew in her arms, and deposited him on the potty again. Apparently, while she was working at her sewing machine, Andrew went over to play with the little toy kitchen that's upstairs, and, not so incidentally, to take care of some "business." Her first clue that something was wrong was when Andrew came over to her and announced that he had "someping" on his foot. "Someping" turned out to be two nice little piles of poop that Andrew had left on the carpet.

Anyway, we got him cleaned up, got the carpet cleaned up, and put him back in a diaper. And decided that we will never again let him go roaming bare-bummed through the house. Too dangerous. After we got him into his pajamas, my mom was trying to explain to Andrew that the proper place for poop is in the toilet. So, she asked him where all the grown-ups go poop. Dan, who overheard this conversation, was profoundly grateful that Andrew's answer to "where does grandpa go poop?" was "know" (short for "don't know"). Somethings apparently are just too much information about your inlaws.

photos of everyday life

some peace and quiet

After the excitement of last week, it was a nice change to spend most of the week at home (some of this, of course, was enforced by frequent snowfalls and the need to let our checkbook recover from last week's extravaganza). Unfortunately, this means we don't have much of interest to report.

One of Andrew's new favorite activities is shoveling the sidewalk with his mommy and grandma (and he got lots of practice this week--it snowed measurable amounts pretty much every other day). Of course, this usually means that he tries to use one of the snow shovels for approximately thirty seconds, then exchanges the snow shovel for my mom's gardening shovels and diggers (which invariably get lost in the snow). Also, he hasn't quite got the idea that we're shoveling snow *off* the sidewalks--he often shovels snow off the piles back onto the sidewalk. I finally broke down and got him his own shovel (a plastic kid's shovel at Target) and he was in heaven. Now the snow piles along the sidewalk all have little pock-marks in them, courtesy of Andrew.

We did get out a few times this week. We went to the Bean Museum on BYU campus one day and Andrew had fun running around and looking at all of the (stuffed) animals. I have to admit that I find all the mounted heads just a little bit creepy, but it gives us a chance to work on identifying animals (Andrew unerringly identified the caribou, zebras, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros, among others).

On Friday, we watched my friend Karin's little boy, Ezra, while his parents had an appointment on campus. Ezra was a little alarmed at being left here, but was quickly pacified when we put in Finding Nemo. Andrew actually watched some of the movie with Ezra, and then spent the rest of the morning being alternately solicitous of Ezra's comforts ("Ezra wants some fruit snacks") and possessive of his toys ("No, it's my horsie!"). And he's spent the rest of the weekend telling us that "they find Nemo." At least he got that much out of the movie. Karin and Mat came by after the appointment for lunch and I got to admire their new baby, Nolan (approximately one month old).

That evening, we had an unexpected opportunity to play games with some old friends from PA, Natalie and Corrie Nichol, who were in town for the weekend (they emailed us Friday morning just before leaving). We had a lot of fun catching up with them (Natalie is expecting again in March, apparently, and since we were both pregnant there was a little more labor and delivery talk than Dan normally likes to listen to). We also played a fabulous game called Ticket to Ride, a game we would recommend to anyone who's a fan of games like Settlers of Cataan, etc. I lost pretty spectacularly, but it was still fun.

Saturday afternoon we headed up to Salt Lake to play games and hang out with Jared and Mitcee, who have finally finished moving into their new house. We got to watch the amusing spectacle of my parents competing against each other on the Wii (riding cows, of all things), ate too much pizza, and enjoyed spending time with my family (Jeni and Samuel were also there with their kids). I also had the chance to go "shopping"--much to my delight and Dan's chagrin--since Mitcee gave me the chance to go through their baby girl clothes, etc., and take home what I'd like. Since Jeni also told me I could have Emi's old clothes, and Sarah has said much the same thing, this baby will definitely not lack for clothing! (Not that this will keep me--or my mom--from buying at least a few thing).

We do have a few pictures from the week, which we'll post shortly (I hope). But now, it's time for Andrew's bath, so I will close for now.