why you should come visit us:

yep, i'm really updating - part two.

any of you out there that still check this thing and haven't given up hope on me, deserve best blogging friend award. i'll improve, i promise. just be patient with me.

this video is the result of feeling overwhelmed and not having any clue where to start with catching up on the holiday months. plus, it's always fun to try something new. it was pretty much a dumping ground for all my pictures (iphone and all), so excuse some of the quality + editing skills of the actual video... i stole the idea from my very creative, talented, and cool sister. thanks, sisty. :)

enjoy:

oct - dec 2010 from Hilary Gardiner on Vimeo.

phew. now i can move on. what a good feeling.

yep, i'm really updating.

i'm not gonna sugar coat it. it's been a while. the last time i blogged it was july, and sophie was this big:

(4 months)

she was rolling over and sucking on her feet.

and now she is this big:

(9 & 1/2 months)

now stands by pulling herself up to things, sometimes lets go, and has 4 teeth.

so i just don't get how some of you ladies out there can update every day. or even like once a week. or once a month for that matter. sheesh! you're seriously amazing. and so i have yet again, set new blogging goals for the new year. but first, we all know i have a little (or a lot) of catching up to do. i'll try and keep it short and let the pictures do most of the talking. luckily, this residency gig doesn't let us lead very exciting lives, so there isn't too much to report. just pictures, of course.


so he we go. this post is part one of my updating. a quick recap of august and september:

august highlights:

we took a trip to our temple, in memphis tennessee. it's about a 3 hour drive. fun little day trip. i wish we took pictures of the friends we got to spend the day with out there. it's a small world inside the church. jeff knows a buddy that lives about a block away from the memphis, tennessee temple so they were nice enough to watch sophie for us while we went. then we had dinner and hung out at their house. it was so much fun and i wish we lived closer to them. next time we make it out there i will remember to take pictures.

sophie turned 5 months.

and became a real thumb sucker. she had messed around with the idea of it since she was a few weeks old, but it wasn't until she was about 5 months that she really started sucking on it as a permanent thing.

sophie's beautiful bedding arrived from grandma julie!

my mom put in a lot of hard work making all of it (and dealt with a lot of stress coming from me and my indecisive/picky-ness...) i don't advise you to try and do this when the person you are making it for lives in another state... but i absolutely love it. and i will always cherish it.

september highlights:

we had a ward activity at the minor league arkansas travelers' game.

we had our 5 year anniversary!

so... i didn't get any pictures of us, but i did manage to snap this picture while we ate at this really great restaurant on the river. it was a great night and we were just glad we had time to celebrate it with jeff's busy schedule. so weird that we have been married that long! love you, dove!

sophie turned 6 months.

she got her first two bottom teeth, and really mastered sitting up all by herself at this age.

...stay tuned for part two.

maybe you should update your blog

got that message in a text from one of my dear sisters last week. so maybe i should. not sure anyone out there still reads this, or cares really... and i'm not sure why you are still reading this if you do. but maybe before christmas, i will get caught up on this silly little blog that i have. and maybe this year i will stick to my new year's blogging resolution.

post tomorrow maybe? perhaps.

a maumelle 4th

our 4th of july was very low key this year. but it was actually one of the four days that jeff had off that month (or i guess it was actually saturday the 3rd...) at any rate, we were excited to be together to celebrate no matter how small the celebration. our tiny maumelle isn't like every other town along the wasatch front, with their own morning breakfast, parade, and carnival going on during the day. and quite frankly, i don't know who in their right mind would go to something outdoors like that with this humidity here. instead, the festivities don't begin until the evening. starting with the 10 minute parade. we showed up about 2 minutes before it started and had no problem finding a seat. it was awesome. short and sweet and they threw tons of candy for the little kids. i don't think we would've lasted if it were any longer. we were all sticky and dying of heat by the end of it.


we were lucky enough to join our friends, the gardners, for the parade and then a bbq at their house afterwards. it was so nice to have some cute kids help get candy and friends to enjoy the 4th with. we were lame and dodged out on the fireworks since jeff had to work so early the next morning and we had a baby's schedule to keep...

and i made jeff pose for a picture bright and early before he left for work on july 1st, his first day of residency. his first rotation was in the icu, last month was general medicine and this month is general medicine at the v.a. and his first day of this month was another 30 hour on call shift. not gonna lie, it's been rough. he's never home. 1st year of residency is a beast. so it's safe to say, we are counting down the days until his elective month (and vacation month) in october and/or until this first year is over... sad. i know.

first day of being called "dr. gardiner".

he is a hard, hard worker. and i'm a proud wifey.

backyard project

this post was supposed to happen a few days ago, but then our internet decided to stop working

jeff had 6 days until his orientation for residency started at the end of june. and most of those 6 days were spent outside fixing up our backyard since we knew there would be no time to get it done after jeff had started. jeff's parents made the move with us and helped us get it done while they were here. it probably wouldn't have happened without them and would've been really hard. they also helped us unpack and get a little organized right at first, too. it was so nice to have the help - thank you!

before:

that's my mother in law measuring off the dimensions by steps. :)

and here we are getting started... totally oblivious to how bad this arkansas summer humidity really is. are neighbors told us later that they thought we were crazy to be working out there in the middle of the day. yeah. we learned quickly. we seriously couldn't be out there for more than 20 minutes before we were dying and our clothes were soaked through. so gross. i was happy to have a baby to nurse and take care of as an excuse to come in for a break. :)

yeah, it kind of took forever to fill that whole area.

did i mention our backyard is a forest? with lots of critters. we've seen all kinds of things back there. bunnies :), lizards, blue lizards or some kind of salamander (?), squirrels, all kinds of different birds (finches maybe?). oh yeah and just yesterday the technician in my backyard said he saw about five different snakes. FIVE. ya know, i'm not extremely terrified of snakes, but i don't exactly like them...! and FIVE? he said it seemed like they were breeding or something. awesome. and since we're talking critters here, i'll just mention arkansas has just about everything. here's a few other things we've seen (not in our backyard) to add to the list: deer - just down the street, and (dead) armadillos...! several of them. weird animals. i didn't really think they existed, but they do!

jeff replenishing.

here's all of the leaves/dead grass bagged up that we had to rake up before getting started... so much!

after:

all but the very back of the yard got covered with bark. hopefully someday soon we can finish the entire thing...

and just because these pictures are cute and were in the same folder:
this was in arizona, days before we moved. :) she's almost 3 months here.

saying goodbye to friends

we had lots of get togethers with friends before moving and i look back now and think, why didn't we have more?! i miss them so much! a couple of times, my emotions caught up with me and i wasn't able to hold back the tears. (surprise, surprise...) it hit me how short our time left in arizona was and how i wasn't ready for it all to come to an end. all i could think was these were the girls that i was supposed to be a mommy with and who sophie was supposed to grow up with. these friends were our family away from family and we grew so close. i will always be so grateful to them for being such great friends to us while we lived in arizona and hope to always stay close.

here are the med school wives. i think this one was actually a while ago back in february. and a few of us are still preggers in this picture, mind you.. :)

med school wives gno at cheesecake factory.

the boys.

the kiddos.

and here are a few of the friends i was able to have lunch with just days before we moved. i think every lunch was at paradise bakery... :) i was trying to get my fix in before i no longer had the luxury of living in a state that had one on every block. what a wonderful place. i sure do miss it.

at lunch with carrie and the girls!

with kimberly, my personal training client. :)

and my asu girls!