RIP old friend.

Here's how it happened.  I had my phone in the outside pocket of my breast pump strapped to the back of my scooter.  I don't usually put it there because it could easily bounce out.  So... yup.  Forgot, left it there, and it bounced out.  I heard something drop and looked back to see it cartwheeling into oncoming traffic.  After cursing and then turning quickly into a parking lot right near-by, I was headed to my phone when I watched as a freaking full sized tour bus ran it over. 
Both wheels.
It was a gonner anyway, but it was WAY gone after that.
I'm so sad.  I love my iPhone.  It takes pictures and videos and fuels my healthy addiction to Facebook and other ridiculousness.  But mostly the pictures and video and texting...

Until further notice, I will be generally difficult to get a hold of. 

Sick Day

Last week we had some rough days. We have been so blessed that Malcolm is such an easy baby.  And from that blessing comes a little bit of being spoiled.  I don' t know how mom's with kids that are colicky/sick/don't sleep through the night forever, do it. 
At about 4 pm last Thursday, Malcolm was cranky and felt a little warm to me.  Then as time went on, he remained pretty sensitive to any sort of meltdown and felt hot enough I took his temperature.  It was a mild fever--really could hardly count as a fever for a kid. Then he started getting a runny nose. I figured he must be getting sick, and probably got it from being passed from girl to girl to girl during YW the night before.  I don't usually let that happen, but he was so well behaved!
He would sleep, but kept waking up and so by 12 am, I had called in sick for my shift the next day so he wouldn't be home with Laura all day stressing her out.  He woke about every 2 hours until I finally just slept with him in my arms in the recliner in his room. (Seriously the best idea we ever had was that recliner.  Especially because I'm so not a co-sleeper.)
The next day he continued to be a bit cranky.  I started to really miss all those happy smiles and flapping arms I usually get from Malcolm.  But I did finally decide it was just teething.  Teeth!  Why do baby bodies have to freak out when they are just getting teeth!? We've been spoiled that this was one of the only times Malcolm seemed to even notice he was teething.  and boy am I GLAD! 
By the end of the day I needed a break, and our nice neighbor girl was willing to watch Malcolm while Ryan and I went out to dinner.  Sadly, Saturday was one of the only days I've ever thought to myself, "Hallelujah!  I get to go to work!"  By then he was back to his normal happy self and had a great day with Dad.
Like I said, we're totally spoiled/blessed to have such a happy/easy baby.  But I won't be forgetting those couple of days for a while.  Or taking the good days for granted either.

He had a hard time sleeping during the day except in my arms too. He fell asleep while nursing more than once. Isn't he darling?  Love those eyelashes, they kill me!

Bath time was one of the only times he seemed like normal Mal.  Perhaps it was the new bath toys we'd gotten days before?

Recliner hair.  Mine was much worse.

See those sad, red, tired eyes?  :(

The teeth count now comes to a whopping 7!  #8 is just about to peek through too.

Quinn's Blessing Day 4/14/12

 Our new niece Quinn was blessed a few weeks ago.  They did it at the Sano's (Brenna's parent's) house on a Saturday.  It was very low key and nice.  I had worked the night before, and after I got up from my nap, we headed to lunch and then to City Creek Center--the new mall downtown Salt Lake-- with Laura and Andrew and Jordan and MiQuelle.  It's a pretty fancy mall.  I really like it.  Though I doubt I'll ever spend much money there because most of the stores are pretty pricey.  Especially for me now a days.  I'm such a cheapskate lately.  We were there for only a short time.  Just enough to wander through maybe 2 stores and then we had to go to the blessing.  But we made plans to return after the blessing.

Jordan had his hands full, but put his shirt pocket to good use.

View from the skywalk across Main Street

Like I said, the blessing was low key, but really nice.  So nice to see all the priesthood holders gathered around that sweet baby girl.

Proud Papa Mikey

Mommy and Quinley

Soooo sweet

 Seems I only got this picture of big sister Bridget showing off her Muppet finger puppets.

Great Grandpa McAllister  (I've felt compelled to take picture after picture of my grandparents since Grandpa Dearden's passing.  It made me sad I only had a picture of him from 2009, and not a good one at that.)

The Titensors

Everyone hanging out.  Ryan's a nerd.  Who does that with their tie?  Aaron?  JD?  Brad? They all think they're so funny.

Grandma, Great Grandma, and Mal

Grandpa! 

 We did end up returning to City Creek.  This time with Mom and Mike, Brenna, Quinn, and Bridget in tow.  It was crazy busy.  That's what we get for going to a new place on a Saturday.  We wandered around for a while until we all petered out and went home one by one.
We spent a significant amount of time in Restoration Hardware.  That place is so cool.  I will never buy anything there, cuz it costs a fortune, but I'll admire it and steal ideas.

now you see me, now you don't...

Laura was very very done walking.  Kell was too.

 I wanted to see the mall without so many people and not so much craziness, so not even two days later, I took Malcolm back there to stroll around.  I even bought something!  (two shirts for me and a hat for Malcolm from H&M)  I like that the City Creek Center has brought so much life back to downtown.  I remember it bustling like this when the old malls were downtown.  I like it being so close to temple square.  and of course, since it's on church property and part owned by the church, it's not open on Sunday!  I know.  Weird Mormon's ruling the world of downtown Salt Lake, ah!! :)

 

See his hat?  It has a flap in the back to cover his ears and neck.  Super cool for hiking! and at $4, who can argue?

The End!

Blog Recovery

I have been such a terrible blogger!  Look April 13 was my last post?   How sad.
I neglect my blog too much these days.  I blame social networking.  I can easily post pictures and thoughts to facebook, instagram, pinterest, etc, that I don't feel the "need" to post things.  But none of those get saved into blog books, and they are also more censored because they are so much more public.  Well, my blog is public, but I only have 8 "followers" and probably a few more not official "followers".  Lets double it for an optimistic 16 people that regularly read my blog.  It's not google-able enabled either.  Though Facebook is not either, I still have 288 "friends" and therefore 288 people getting updated on the blather I spatter all over my wall.  So anyhoo... I should make it a goal to update my blog daily with whatever I put on Facebook--at least anything that is remotely interesting or a sign of the times or a good indicator of what's been going on in our daily lives.  My blog is my journal of sorts, and memories are being lost!  ah!

So without further ado... Here's a smattering of mini posts all in this one big post.  I plan to do a few more larger posts afterward too.

Ryan saved up his penny's (like literally, from change in his pockets in a jar in the living room.) and bought himself a lawn mower.  We'd been using my dad's because my mom had hired a lawn service last year.  Ryan always felt bad and didn't like being dependent on their charity, so he bought his own mower, which he assembled in the garage, then nicely posed for a picture with.
See?

And now comes a smattering of random pictures.
Ugh.  Blogger has changed their formatting and stuff.  I can't quite figure out how to do the pictures.  Just when I get all the stupid quirks of blogger to work for me... Now I'll have to figure out new tricks.  So annoying.  So seriously, It will be majorly random. enjoy!

Cute bum bum waiting for the bath to fill.  I can't remember if I'd posted this one before.

Love the dimples!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Party!

Chillin with Auntie Laura in the front yard

Grandma and her Grand babies (minus Quinn)

Behold... Malcolm's pooping face!  Ha! Ha!  He always poops during breakfast, and I actually caught it on camera!

My Hubby is funny.  He sends me funny texts all day that remind me what a silly man he is. 

For example:

 

 

Grrr... I can't freaking put space between my pictures to add words.  

 Here we go... a random space to type in.  Ugh.  I'll get his thing figured out one day.

On Easter, I had to work a night shift.  Ryan was in charge of bringing a dessert to my sister's house for dinner.  He got a hankering for one of his favorite things: Yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  So he made one.  All by himself!  He posed with it too--as seen above.  (Where I can't seem to move it from. It used to be helpful to just load every picture and add words later.  It seems with the new blogger, it would be better to load each picture when I want it.  hm...)

Turns out though, I got put on call for the first several hours of my shift.  Since we're now a one car (two scooter) family, that left me here at home.  It was sad, but kind of nice.  I had a nice quiet evening home alone and did whatever I wanted.  Mostly read a book outside in the warm.

Our Easter spoils from my parents:

Why yes, I did eat all the candy. Actually, Ryan ate some jelly beans. This is why we don't have junk food at our house.  I eat it. Ryan doesn't.

 Malcolm can feed himself a bottle, I never have him do it since I breastfeed. However, I've started to more.  I seem to always end up pumping too close to the end of my night shift, so I don't have as much milk as Mal is used to in the morning.  So I'll give him a small bottle of formula too. 

This was him on the way to grandma's with his bottle.  He's so cute.

Another random one.  He's so smiley all the time!

and a random grocery store shot.  He is big enough now to sit in the cart.  I like it better than hauling a big seat.  I avoid taking him in his seat as much as possible.  It's too heavy and annoying. Plus he stays more entertained when he can look around more.

 We sat outside watching dad mow the lawn later that same day, and got this photo.

Aw, what a sweetie.  Plus my hair looks nice.  :)

I'd really like to intro this picture rather than caption it down here, but oh well... enough whining about blogger.

 

 I prefer to drink out of water bottles.  I find I actually drink water if it's not in a glass.  So I tend to have bunches of water bottles roaming around the house.  Ryan LOVES it--not--but understands it helps me, so he puts up with it.  Anyway... I was gathering them up to fill them when I noticed a strange phenomena, as see above.  I never empty them completely.  I always think I need to save that last bit in case I get thirsty later.  Then I save it, and save it, and never drink it.  I found one more bottle with the exact same amount left in it after already taking this picture.  I know, weird, right?  

It rained for a few days last week, and we found we have a water problem.  A small pond gathers in our flower bed.   Then it drains down and makes little puddles in our basement.  Yay!  We seem to have fixed it at least temporarily by extending the drain, and also we added some dirt to the flower beds to make them more level and not have so much of a nice trench to fill with water.  It seems to be working.  Sigh... home ownership isn't always awesome.

Ryan has been hard at work in the lawn since it's been warm.  We have dandelions like nobody's business.  If it were me, I'd just let the lawn be ugly and yellow.  But Ryan is determined, and has been out there pulling up individual weeds for days now.  Malcolm spent one evening out there with him.

 While we were out there, some random dogs came for a visit.  They were old, but nice.  They nicely licked Malcolm's face over and over and whipped him with their tails.  But he pulled their hair and ears in revenge, so it's all good, right?

 Ryan called the number on the tags and asked for Keisha--who he thought the owner was.

"Who are you looking for? Keisha's my dog."  Ha!  Awkward.  Tender-hearted Ryan kept the dogs in the yard until their owner could come get them from him.

Then one last immovable photo.  Malcolm spends lots of time in his stroller while I "train" for the Triathalon I'm doing in 2 weeks (!!)  I say "train" because I've really slacked off lately and I'm going to be so screwed come triathalon day.  Luckily it's only a sprint!  I just don't have the time.  actually, I have the time, I just don't have the motivation to fill it with running and biking and swimming every day.  I don't always want to get up early because it seems I'm either about to work a night shift or I'm recovering from a night shift.  Thank goodness my new schedule has started and I no longer have those stay awake days.  Anyhoo... Malcolm seemed bored of his toys in his stroller, so I handed him a dandelion, knowing they are edible.  He did give it a few tastes, but mostly held it and shook it around for the whole time.  We got home and he still had it in his hand.

So there you have it!  The random catch up post is over!  Now I've gotta put together some of the one's that get their own post.  We'll see how this picture stuff goes next time.  (*sigh* ugh *grrr* sigh*)

Behind Curtain Number One...

It's a BRAND NEW CAR!!! (cue fanfare music)

On the way to the hospital to visit Grandpa, our car became overheated and was making terrible noises. Long story short... the repair was going to cost $2000. That's after the new transmission last spring, the giant oil leak three months ago, and the air conditioning repair two weeks ago. I was done. We were done. No more money in this car. It has exceeded it's worth to me and really, to anyone else.

We traded it and Ryan's car in for a used Ford Flex. Actually, it's a rebuild/restored Ford Flex, but Burt Bro's said it was restored perfectly and they can't find anything wrong with it. We really really like it. It's loaded with fancy extras that make us feel fancy. Like a rear back up camera, GPS, heated seats, and Sony Sync (it'll sync with our phones via bluetooth).

It had crazy low miles for it's year, so we were pleased about that. We can also grow into it. It seats six people. Pretty much, it'll be with us for a LOOOONG time.

We are happy with our purchase, but less than happy with the process. I think we will both not be returning to buying a car from a dealer. They make you feel special and awesome at the beginning and then when it comes to wheeling and dealing with prices and trade ins, they are suddenly your worst enemy and giant **[enter your favorite expletive here]**.

We ended up not really trading in my car, as it was not in working condition, but sold it to one of the mechanics on the dealer's staff.
Here I am saying good-bye to my first car. It was a good one. Though the break up was made hard by the dude hovering over me like a vulture as I cleaned it out. Ugh. It was the guy that bought it and he totally got it for a steal since he could probably fix it for way less than I could--seeing as he needed only parts and his own hands. It was all just so... unsavory. Let me paint you the picture: Hair like a cockatoo--no joke. Rings on almost every finger. HUGE puffed up muscles (think steroids), I think his shirt might have been bedazzled. It had wings on it somewhere for sure, and "tattoo" type art. And he just stood there hovering as I was trying not to get visibly teary over my old car. He kept asking me about it and about what we bought instead. "Oh, a Flex? I saw one of those with big 24" rims, it looked SO good." My response was probably like a, "oh..." "Oh, not really your style?" "No, not really." Hello dude, my last car was a Subaru with a Jackson Hole MOOSE in the back window. Does it look like that would be my style?

Ugh. It was just lame. and made more lame by the bank messing stuff up, but it was soon fixed. The dealers were jerks about that too.

Anyhoo... wheee! We have a new car! It's totally cool! We'll take you for a ride. And this Flex was built for road trips. It just screams "Take me camping! Take me to California! Oregon! Somewhere! Anywhere!" So--- we should go. The. End.

Green Cousins

Ryan's Dad just recently emailed this montage of all his grand-babies. They sure are cute! Can't wait to get them all together in June! Uh... the bear too, of course. :)

How 'Bout Eggs?

During the Sunday afternoon session of General Conference, we dyed Easter eggs at my mom's house. It was pretty awesome. Dying eggs is truly one of my favorite holiday past-times.