The NewleyWatts

Meet the Michelin Wo-Man

2011-11-15T22:13:00.000-08:00

We're staying warm this winter.

What been happening at our place

2011-11-15T22:06:00.000-08:00

In the world of exploration that is our life currently, we have learned a few things about out daughter. She is "re-organizer". This essentially means that she takes everything out of any container or place and put it somewhere else. Seeing only half of her climbing in and out of our kitchen cabinets to reach something for her stash is not uncommon.

Exploration naturally includes eating by herself. This was a particularly exhausting lunch session that ended up restyling her hair.

Want some yogurt. It is fantastic when eaten with fingers. Who needs silverware?

Isla got 5th's Disease right after her bout with the flu for her birthday.
It was a rough month for her. Poor little girl all covered in dots.

Sometimes reorganizing get's messy. Dang Cherrios.

Washcloths in the basket, out of the basket. Wait wait ... heat up by the dryer for a second. Okay, washcloths in the ....

Who saw that?

Halloween

2011-10-31T22:06:00.000-07:00

A monkey was the first animal Isla learned to identify. She is very good at making monkey sounds. Her monkey is a close rival to dog Jared gave her for her birthday so we decided to make her a monkey costume for Halloween, She was a pretty cute little one if I do say so myself.

We got really festive, Watts-style and enjoyed a delicious meal of Monster Guts (green salad) and Ghost's graveyard (Shepard's pie with Ghost-shaped mashed potatoes and olive eyes on top). But the homemade pumpkie ice cream pie with chocolate rice krispie crust really made the evening.

Isla was insistent that Halloween includes candy. Sooo yep, she trick-or-treated to our sweet grandma neighbors house for a Twix. Not the greatest picture but it was for documentation sake.

Happy 1st

2011-09-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

Isla had her first case of the flu on her birthday so our celebrations were a bit sporadic. We fit in what we could when she was feeling well. The morning of her birthday was beautiful outside so we decided to dress up and have a little photo shoot. She chose to bring along her monkey. They are inseparable. Enjoy the photo shoot while I share with you a few things that she accomplished in her first year.

Along with the usuals: rolling over, crawling, and walking, Isla also became a pro at picking rip fruits and vegetables. Her favorites being gooseberries, raspberries, and apples. Though occasionally she did get a few green tomatoes just to make sure they didn't taste the same as the red ones.

Isla took her first consecutive steps out on this lawn and spent a lot of the summer out here digging through and dumping out my pots. She LOVES dirt and rocks and typically tries to eat as much of it as possible before we catch her.

Isla managed to sprout eight teeth in her first year and has the sweetest smile that she is not shy about sharing with anyone.

Isla is mischievous beyond all get out. You can see it in her eyes and in the trail of objects she "reorganizes" throughout the house and yard. It is not uncommon to find refrigerator magnets stuck to our cooking pots, half eaten apples in her toy basket, and DVD's in the kitchen drawers.

She has developed quite the vocabulary in the past few months. Besides generally just being a little parrot she has mastered the following words and mostly knows when and how to use them: ba (ball), mom, dad, yes, yeah, oh yeah, aba (a bath), puppy/poppy, doggy or ruff ruff, no (hasn't quite grasped it's meaning yet), mo (this means no when she has done something wrong and is said very seriously), all clean, all done, more, pees (please), cheese, yum, no dat (tho that), no dis (no this- generally used when she wants more options), uh oh, hello, htsss (hot), amen (mot consistent yet), hi, Isla (she says this alot, sometimes I think she is mocking us), and poo poo. I can't be quite sure but recently I have heard her refer to her blanket more than once as "Norris. " Little concerned about tha,t but oh well.

Isla likes to cuddle for brief moments over and over and over. She is very loving and if someone is crying she always tries to make them smile. She is very serious about eye contact. And makes sure she has it when talking to anyone.

Isla is mostly a good eater as far as variety goes but is a great eater when it comes to quantity. She eats all day long. If we are not on top of the game with snacks every hour in addition to normal meals she loudly and repetitively will announce "more more more" to let us know she is hungry. She likes: avocados, apples, cheese, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, mandrine oranges, asian pears, crackers, cheerios, yogurt, dried fruit, peas, toast, and cucumbers (only if she is eating them from my shopping cart in the store). She does not like meat. Irony anyone?

She hasn't ever really been a big fan of sweets in the handful of times we have let her have some including the New Hampshire celebration. So we made her some delicious peach muffins for her birthday to blow her candle out with. We had been practicing blowing all month. She is really good at it and blew out her candle all by herself.

Needless to say, she loved her muffin.

For Isla's gift/party we bought a swimming pool (that she undoubtedly will enjoy next summer) and filled it full of balloons. It stayed up for weeks she loved it so much. This is her squealing in delight! It was a lot more fun then then new car seat she also got for her birthday.

Off in 'Nampshire

2011-08-31T09:46:00.000-07:00

I am not quite sure I can adequately describe how much I love going to visit New Hampshire, RDC, Squam Lake ... I love it. The humidity was perfectly lovely and warm. We got a lot of rain but when it wasn't raining it was amazing! This was a total vacation. We did almost all my favorite things; like running/hiking up the Rattlesnakes and surrounding areas daily, relaxing on the dock (plus, a lot of vigilance on the dock to with Isla this year), family, and swimming, swimming, swimming. With all that fun there was hardly time for pictures. Here are a few that we snagged.

Hiking up to the beloved West Rattlesnake for dawns first light. Hence the hats, sleepy eyes and strange outfits.

She felt victorious!

Nothing like a corn on the cob, or two or three, for a Wednesday Ball field picnic

Couldn't get her out of the water even when it was raining and cold. No stopping this little one.

Yikes. Not sure why I am volunteering this one.

What child doesn't love pulling out everything from the kitchen cabinets and then maybe or maybe not putting them back in. Again, the outfit? Please don't ask. We ran low on warm clothes for the nights and tie died a few things for warmth.

I think Jared got a migraine from all the water he shoved up his nose diving. Weirdly though he still thought it was worth it.

Isla made new friends.

I think we all know of Isla's fetish with books by now.

This was pretty cool. I couldn't believe how close the duck kept coming. Isla couldn't have been more elated about it. She would even swim right after the duck when we weren't watching.

Once we put on the life jacket she had no limitations.

We celebrated Dad's birthday during Hurricane Irene with a very yummy festive German chocolate cowboy cake. Yep, that's right.

Yee Haw!

Isla joined in the celebrations having a birthday only four days later. She got her first doll to go along with a sweet little rocking crib and bedding my mom and dad made for her. We call her Peppermint.

Thank you mom, dad, Trish and Patrick for such an awesome REAL vacation. A perfect summer trip.

MIA in Utah

2011-07-25T15:42:00.000-07:00

We had a crazy, long, ping-pong-ing around Utah trip to try and get all the family in according to their schedules of being available. It was so fun to be able to spend quality and quantity time with almost everyone. This post is almost as long as our trip.

To recap, we started out in SLC hanging out with Matt and Jessica. We had so much fun and it was so relaxing. It was a really really nice way to start out the vacation. We enjoyed swapping baby sitting time for some fun couple outings and dates, yummy food, and nice together time. Lizzie and Isla were best pals tooting around the house together. It was darling. We must have enjoyed ourselves to much because we didn't even whip out the camera.

Then we were off to Logan where Jared received a much needed haircut from his mother. During this haircut he also got to live out his dreams of being called Nyman when Anita buzzed a big "N" in the back of his head. Isla was mesmerized.

Then it was off to the annual Nyman Family Reunion. Which was, as always, a blast! Jared kicked off the week with his vary own private marathon with me taking him water and Gatorade at each 7 mile mark. We got to finish his FANTASTIC run together for the last 6 miles. He is such an amazing runner. Barefoot and all.

Meredith and Jared after completing all 26 miles

Most of the wonderful Nyman clan

Part of the Kinney family. I love them and miss then dearly.

After Bear Lake we traveled down to Mapleton for a little Wright family time. Mapleton was very festive for the 24th and we had a great time partying it up. One evening I came upstairs after Lucy's shower to find this sweet scene.

For a picnic with the Shupe family we made delicious homemade ice cream sandwiches. It was a little bit warm for making the dough so there was quite a sticky mess, which the girls didn't seem to mind very much.

Then, if you can believe it, we headed back up to Logan again. It was such a great week to play with cousins and family. And believe me, we packed in the fun. We began with a little delayed birthday celebration for Carter.

Apparently we were really enjoying our time on the grass watching Carter open his birthday presents.

Isla checking out if there are any goods for her in the birthday presents.

We had lots of fun at the Watts on the trampoline during and after meal times.

Nothing like a good Ring Around the Rosie

Pausing the fun for a little lunch time.

Yep, the trampoline will do that to you!

We went to the Logan zoo. Isla, with no surprise loved the monkeys. We started the fun off with a great lunch in the park where Sam and Cooper introduced Isla to juice boxes. She would take a juice box every day now I think. Sorry babe.

A post lunch picture and pickle.

Mesmorized by the monkeys

Jared introduced Isla to her current obsession of doing their own monkeying around with funny and sometimes crud noises. Zurberts and these little stunts are her favorites.

Anita introduced Isla to oatmeal one morning for breakfast. She enjoyed it to say the least.

We sure do miss green canyons so we had to make sure and catch a couple of outings and a campfire dinner up in them while we could. Yes, those are Reece's S'mores we are finishing off the dinner with.

Nothing like changing a diaper while camping. It's definitely a team effort.

Andy and Lindsey treated us to some great days together with their little Charlie. One of which we did a series of family pictures. So needed. Isla was into picking her nose and clapping during the photo shoot. Boy, did they came out great!

Getting ready for the big picture event.

Oh so cute!

Here is cute pic of Charlie and Sam. Not quite sure why Sam's hair is soaking wet. They were probably having a water gun fight or something. Charlie is such a cutie.

Caught in the act. We left the Watts' causing no less mischief than we do at home.

Thank you family for such a great trip. Thank you for making us always feel welcomed and loved. We love you and miss you.

Battle Wounds

2011-07-06T15:27:00.000-07:00

Caution: Extreme discretion is advised when viewing the following pictures.

They are not pretty.

We love "barefoot" running. I am not sure Jared's feet agree. He says they do, and that it has changed his life but he also insisted I take these after photos.

And not to leave Isla out we had a terrible mishap with iron and she carries this around. This picture was taken a few days after and some healing, gratefully, had already begun.

For the Dunfords

2011-06-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

Our little Isla is growing up and we wanted to show you here in the beautiful dress you picked out for her. THANK YOU! She looks like a cozy little doll in it.

Dear Tampax

2011-06-23T12:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Tampax,

Thank you for providing hours of long-lasting leak protection AND hours of entertainment.

Sincerely,

A very thankful mommy

Breottle Feeding

2011-06-20T16:01:00.000-07:00

Some breast feed, some bottle feed, some do both. Either way it comes with a variety of "fun" idiosyncrasies; from the babies that is. Isla's top three:

1. "The Spray"

Isla does this nursing or drinking from her bottle. She is going about her business when suddenly she looks at me and I start to see the smile begin in her eyes. As it's creeping her little lips up into a full smile I can't help but smile back. I must have one hilarious smile because then she busts up laughing, spraying milk everywhere.

2. "Peek-A-Boo"
Isla's favorite game in public areas. Such as the plane. I'll let you guess how this game goes down. Your hint is that it involves the hooter-hider. Oh yes.

And last but not least ...

3. "Eat your Boogers"

This is when Isla pokes her fingers up in my nose then jams the same finger back into my mouth. Nice isn't it.

Okay, now it's your turn. What does your baby do?

Home

2011-06-19T14:34:00.000-07:00

I know this picture is you with hardly any sleep for the last 48 hours but I love it anyway. I love you holding our little girl as a father for the first time. I love how much she loves snuggling up to you and knows she is safe in your arms. And I love the comparison of your hand and her tiny body cradled inside. It represents how I love that you take care of us and your incredible indescribable love for us. Thank you.

And in honor of our move to Winnemucca and the many many conversations we have had about moving away from family. I share with you these lines from a song:

Ahh, Home
Let me come Home
Home is wherever I’m with you
Ah, home
Yes I am home
Home is when I'm alone with you

I love you Jared. Thank you for making us your home.

At least someone thinks it's funny.

2011-06-06T10:21:00.000-07:00

Recently, I got another cold. Really? I think I did my time when we first moved here with the worst cold of my life, and Isla's for that matter. Anyhow, Isla get's a total kick out of me blowing my nose. She thinks it's hilarious. Which helps when I feel miserable. So glad someone thinks it's funny.

Portland AIHC Conference + Ami and Poppi + Emi and girls = A whole lot of Oregon love

2011-05-30T19:30:00.000-07:00

Aren't these three pictures the cutest! It was so much fun to see mom and dad. They haven't gotten to see her since she was two months old. I love seeing my parents play with Isla. We had so much fun playing crocket, Rumicube, eating yummy food, visiting the Farmers Market and lots of walks. Mom made a beautiful baby sun hat for Isla to match a cute swimsuit set I bought her while shopping with Emi. Emi, Mila and Sage were so wonderful to join us. We loved having all of us together. You will have to look at previous posts to see the pictures of them. Some how, I didn't get any shots of or with my mother, which is a real shame. I guess we were spending to much time having fun together I didn't break out the camera. Thank you so much for making this a wonderful and special trip for us mom and dad! And thank you Emi for making the huge effort to come down with your girls. We love you all.

Visit to the Watts

2011-05-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

Jared came home a few friday's ago and exclaimed that he was getting a new work schedule. Which meant, that we got a week off of work! So with very little discussion, we packed our bags, madly finished a young women's project I was working on and hit the road at 8 am then next day. Though we wanted to surprise everyone, we decided we ought to give Anita and Kim a heads up. Jared did spend a good half hour making up a an elaborate and totally bogus story about what we were doing while driving and talking to Estee. Needless to say, she was elated when we pulled up at her house instead of the waterfalls we were "looking for" in NV.

Estee and Sadie was so cute with he. She was loving all the play time.

Isla also got to try frozen blueberries for the first time. Delicoius!

We had a nice visit with Ann and Cal. Isla was delighted to play with Ann's remote, glasses, fingers. Anything. I think she wanted to show Ann and call all she could do.

We had a wonderful time together. It was so much fun to sew with Anita and Estee and find the cutest fabrics at Bernina. Lindsey and Andy came up twice with Charlie. It was so wonderful to hold a little new born again. Thank you to Carter, Kim, Anita for sharing your home with us once again. We wish we could have seen all our friends in Logan, but it was fun to catch up with a few of you and share a little time together. You hold a special place in our hearts.

Isla loves babies

2011-05-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

For anyone who has brought a baby around our little baby, you would know that Isla loves babies. She starts shrieking in delight shaking her hands and scooting closer. She can't wait to give them hugs and kisses; something she does more to them than us I think. We got the special opportunity to see lots of family this past month or so. We all got to meet Charlie, the newest member of the Watts' family. He is a sweet little newborn who sleeps like a champ from what I've observed. He is so darling. Needless to say, Isla LOVED him too!

How sweet is this, a daddy and his little baby

Isla enjoyed Sam and Cooper more than ever. They were so cute together. I think Cooper might have been a little jealous of his mommy sharing some love with Isla. Sam was such a good cousin with her. He kept helping her with balloons and other toys and Cooper quickly followed suit. She couldn't have loved all the toys and attention more. It was adorable.

After our Watts visit we got to see a bit of my family in Oregon. Emily came down with her daughters, Sage and Mila. Isla's excitement and love for Mila was so intense that Mila wasn't quite sure how to handle it. Though they occasionally shared sweet hugs, kisses and toys. Isla was a little bit more loving to Mila than she would have preferred, including a few slugs to the cheek in the bathtub (by accident of course) but Mila got her back by teasing her with toys. It couldn't have been more fun to see them interact and learn from each other.

We love our cousins and are so grateful for all our time together! We miss the rest of our cousins.

Mothering

2011-05-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

My feelings on this have become increasingly deeper these past few months as I have felt I was being asked to do a lot of this on my own. I know now that I was wrong on the "alone" part, but that my gratitude for this very humbling and sacred life of a mother is deeper and more real than it has ever been. During this challenging time I have been reading a book, "Expecting Adam" by Martha Beck. In the beginning stages of her very challenging and life-altering pregnancy she says,

“The word mother is more powerful when it is used as a verb than as a noun. Mothering has little to do with biological reproduction – as another friend once told me, there are women who bear and raise children without ever mothering them, and there are people (both male and female) who mother all their lives without ever giving birth. The bad news is that not all of us have the good fortune to be born to our real mothers, or to stay with them as long as we need them. The good news is that, while mothers are often in short supply, mothering is not. Against all odds, despite every thing that works against it on this unpleasant, uncomfortable planet, mothering is here in abundance. You can always find it, if you’re smart and know where to look. … You have to let down your defenses in order to be mothered.” – Expecting Adam, Martha Beck

I loved her thoughts as she was unexpectedly "mothered" by two amazing women in this terribly difficult and painful time in her life. Her words are beautiful and very real. And then just before Mothers Day a wonderful woman and friend in our church sent me this. I wanted to share it with all of you for it buoyed my up and helped me realize how much Heavenly Father has carried me through these past months when I have done much of what Jeffery Holland describes. I love the realization that I have finally come to know this week, that "one cannot see mother and not see God," that more so than any other time in my life I have the opportunity, responsibility, and blessing of joining in His work than ever before. I hope to humbly, reverently, and with all my love, help my children to know their Father in Heaven and of his divine plan and love for them.

From http://lds.org/ensign/1997/05/because-she-is-a-mother?lang=eng

My gratitude to my own mother is trully indescribable. The way she has literally shaped my life knows no bounds. I love her. And I am so grateful to the many many others, mother-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-laws, and friends who have "mothered" me with so much love. Thank you.

Meet 8 months old Isla

2011-05-02T08:02:00.000-07:00

Isla still loves bath time. She waits on the bath tub excitedly as if fills up.

Putting on lotion and playing with dad afterward is right up there in her book with splashing in the tub.

Sometimes she even get's to play in her bathrobe after, until it's time for bed

In addition to the metal grain scoops that she likes to play with in the bath tub;

Thanks to Grammy, Isla got some new, safer, bath toys

Isla's new trick ... push up's!

other favorite (and often dangerous) objects include:

anything plastic, particularly bags that she can now rip open with her two bottom teeth

anything paper, which she also likes to rip with her teeth and and eat (guess we are not to far off when we call her our kid:) ... get it?

pens, also potentially messy
anything carved in wood (i.e. designs in our bed frame, the staircase posts, etc.) which she likes to lick and pick at

an infant medicine dropper (resembling a small turkey baster)

and anything she can lift and tip over, which are now getting heavier and heavier;
i.e. cooking pots or her entire toy basket

Isla also love eating. Infact, she prefers feeding her self.
Not the best thing when baby food is what's for dinner.

She has always been a good eater and is game for trying out anything new. Her fare now includes: steamed broccoli florets

and corn on the cob remnants

Isla seems to be more adventurous with each day and has become quite the acrobate.

Her repertoire is comprised of:

Striking poses while she teeters along holding our hands and going from room to room

Stretching to GREAT lengths to watch anything on the computer (this particular shot is her stretching across half the couch to watch General Conference)

Isla is a great dancer/jumper. She loves to jump in her jumper or better yet, while holding hands. She jumps/dances in sacrament meeting whenever we sing. It's pretty darn cute, how she lights up when music is playing.

And last, she loves gardening. Just like her mom and dad. She looks forward to watering in the green house each day and is adamant about holding the hose herself.

If she is really lucky, she gets to ride around with dad while he prunes and checks the sprinkler system.

Mostly though she gets to play on a blanket while we get our hands dirty. She loves it.

We love this little munchkin. She is the light of our lives. She makes us laugh every day and is usually nothing but smiles. We are so grateful for the greatest little blessing in our lives.

Grandma and Grandpa

2011-04-14T20:40:00.000-07:00

We just got a fantastic visit from Grandma Virginia and Grandpa Rudy. They our second visitors and FIRST family visitors. We loved the stay, albeit short. We hope they can come and stay longer next time. And for that matter anyone and everyone else is invited too! Please come and stay awhile!

Isla really loved getting to know two of her great grandparents. She was enamored with them.

For Adriane

2011-03-28T07:48:00.000-07:00

Thank you for creating such beautiful and fun bibs for us. We use them ALL the time. We miss you!

Biking, Blessing, and Family

2011-03-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

We went to Mapleton this past weekend for Kate's baby blessing and a biking trip for the boys. Jared asked for a biking trip for his birthday and Geoff asked for one for Valentines day. Soo, Leah and I played with the four kiddo's for two days while the boys biked in Moab. The four of us did some major preparation for the blessing, played some serious domino's, and enjoyed some great time with our family at the blessing.

I snagged this shot while we were waiting for things to get going. I love this picture of my grandparents, Lizzie, and Isla. Lizzie Jane and Isla were absolutely adorable together. They sat on the floor for almost an hour "trading" toys, grabbing hands, hair, and anything else they found interesting about each other. It was so fun to see them interact. Made me miss living close to them even more.

The bell of the ball.

All the boys at the blessing.

All the family that could make it but for some reason Jared and Geoff (also present) aren't in this picture.

It was so fun to spend some time with Leah again. We even did each other's hair for old times sake.

One morning after a nice hot bath Leah snapped shots of Lucy, Isla, and I playing on the bed.

While spending a significant amount of time in the kitchen we peaked into the family room to find these little legs peaking out from behind the foot rest. She is getting more and more mobile these days.

We also ended up staying a few days later because our long search for a larger car came to an exciting end when we found this!

Welcome to the family Honda Pilot. We are excited about your roomy leather interior, dvd player, lots of storage space, and extra third row.

Toilet Training

2011-03-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Since, Christmas I started putting Isla on the toilet for the messier numbers. My motivation? Cloth diapers. We decided to cloth diaper and for the most part, it is okay; but I really don't like cleaning out poopy cloth diapers. So far I have only cleaned three, maybe four poopy diapers and the rest have made it in the toilet. I think she has really gotten the hang of it. I am hoping that this will help her not only want to use the toilet sooner and forgo diapers all together, but also resolve any potential toilet fears I have seen in some of my nieces and nephews. Mostly, I just don't want to clean poopy diapers.

Jared's 28th

2011-03-12T21:40:00.000-08:00

Isla must have been to excited for Jared's birthday which we had been excitedly preparing for together for weeks now. So she was up by 3:15 am but we pretended to keep sleeping till about 5am when she was finally allowed out of her bed and down to our room to smother Jared in birthday love. We wiped the sleep out of our eyes and opened presents much earlier this morning than I care to admit. After putting Isla back to bed at 7am we ate up some german pancakes (I grew up calling them dutch baby) with orange concentrate on top and joined Isla in some napping till 9am. After lots of gardening I set out to make dinner and dessert.

Upon request we celebrated Jared's birthday with a full Irish meal; corned beef, red potatoes, steamed cabbage, soft Irish Soda Bread, and ginger beer. We finished just in time for the LDS missionaries to show up at our door and share our birthday carrot cake together. I think this is the first time I have ever made a cake alone and thanks to Anita's good recipes, I turned out three layers of deliciousness covered in whipped coconut cream cheese frosting. I'll share the recipe with some of my minor adjustments.

Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake

3 eggs
¾ cup buttermilk
¾ cup vegetable oil
1 ½ cups white sugar (I use less when doubling for a 3-layer cake)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp cinnamon
¼ cup salt
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda

2 cups shredded carrots
1 cup flaked coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple (this time I pureed some fresh pineapple)

Preheat oven to 350°. Grease and flour an 9x13 inch pan. In a medium bowl stir together all the dry ingredients. Set aside. In mixer combine eggs, buttermilk, oil, sugar and vanilla. Mix well. Add the flour mixture and mix well. In a medium bowl combine shredded carrots, coconut, pecans, and pineapple. Fold this mixture into the batter and mix well. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 1 hour. Check with toothpick. Allow to cool for at least 20 minutes before serving. ***To make three 9 inch layers 1½ times the recipe using 5 eggs and only 1 can of pineapple. Spray three 9 inch pans with cooking spray the line them with parchment paper circles then spray with cooking spray again. Pour batter into pans and shake a little to level the batter out. Bake for 35-38 minutes. Cool, then frost with Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting.

Whipped Cream Cheese Frosting

1½ cups whipping cream

8 oz cream cheese
1¾ cup powdered sugar ( I haved this and it was the perfect sweetness)
⅛ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

more shredded or flaked coconut (maybe 1/2 cup?)

Beat cream until stiff. Set aside. In another bowl blend softened cream cheese, sugar, salt,and vanilla. Beat this until smooth then beat in coconut. Fold in whipped cream. So good on Carrot Cake. ***1½ times this for the 3 layered birthday cake.

Spring Fever

2011-03-11T20:43:00.000-08:00

We have had some really nice weekends here and we have largely spent them working on the garden and yard. Since this big old garden did not get a "wintering over" job we have been avidly working to get it in shape to plant this spring. It has been SO much fun to be out in nice weather together just working away. Something about yard and garden work is just so satisfying. Maybe it is the instant gratification of seeing direct results, maybe it is the nice change up of using your hands (let's face it whole body really) to work and create, maybe it is just the exhilaration felt in the warm sun after months of cold winter, or maybe it is all three. We thought we would show you a few "before shots" as we begin our work so that the full effect of the spring, summer, and fall shots will be as gratifying to you as it will be to us.

Isla passes the time basking in the sun on the picnic blanket with toys

The right half of the garden

Can you see the faint stack of tomato wire stands that we pulled out of the garden and cleaned off?

Piles of leaves that we raked out from just the lining of the yard alone. We chopped them up and they are starting a good compost pile for us.

To the left you can see where we pulled the wire tomato stands out of. In the back are the overgrown sage and cilantro among and astounding assortment of other random plants. This picture is taken even after we have already pulled a lot out of the beds.

Our near football sized carrots that we found in the ground. I realize now this picture does not do justice to their size. I'll see if I can find something to provide a comparison shot.

Isla's head is smaller than these puppies.

One of two wheel barrows full of parsnips that we pulled out.

What we've been working on

2011-02-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

Play

2011-02-21T07:34:00.000-08:00

... It's what we like to do on the weekends when Dad is finally home and awake for more than an hour.

We just love this happy little girl

Wally

2011-02-20T06:55:00.000-08:00

For the first month here we have had a friend come and spend Sunday Lunch/Dinner and evening with us. It has been really fun. But with the offer of a better job he is off to Utah. We hope to see you for some hikes in the Rubies or just for visits this summer Wally! We all miss you.

Wally and baby burrito Isla

Winnemucca Welcome Home

2011-01-30T20:35:00.000-08:00

We have finally arrived safely to our new home in Winnemucca, NV. Oh man, don't we wish we could call this our home the whole time we are in here! Kim and Anita kindly offered to drive out with us and with an enormous effort from the ward here, Jared got the truck unloaded and everything put into the house in like 30 minutes. Anita and Kim had planned to stay the weekend to help us unpack and move in but unfortunately this morning Anita walked down the stairs only to slip for the last half of the staircase and may have broken a rib or two. So she and Kim headed back this morning. Isla and I are still more sick than I care to admit, so we unfortunately had to skip church to spare everyone the illness exposure. On the plus side, in honor of Isla turning 5 months and due to her EXTREME curiosity and desire to try our food, got the pleasure of her first "solid" (I use that turn very very loosely) food meal; a delicious oatmeal mush. Together we shared our first meal in Winnemucca.

Our First Supper

A skeptical first "solid" supper

"Yum! This is good ... see Isla"

I think the jury is still out on this one

Party before the big move

2011-01-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

With our move to Winnemucca being postponed by a month and having moved out on time we were in a state of limbo and thanks to the Watts (again) were not left homeless. We sure our grateful for our family. After partying it up for a while with them Isla and I went to Yakima to soak up a little sister-cousin-niece-nephew time, because our opportunity to have such a nice long visit is usually quite rare. Seriously when do you just have a few weeks with no obligations? With the blessing of Southwest's affordable airfare we lucked out and hoped the plane to Seattle and shuttle to Yakima while Jared was about to leave for Winnemucca to start work. Emily, Ryan, and girls were in SLC, so we got to fly with Emily and the girls to Seattle. Boy, am I glad we road together. It was a long, long, very long day, but actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Luckily Sage just got deliriously "happy" while still staying very obedient and with all the long traveling and layovers that she wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it could be. Of course after eight ours of travel and more wait time in the airport you loosen your boundaries a bit and let the kid roll around of the floor if it makes her happy. Oh well. She's healthy still. Isla and Mila also did well, they mostly just got pretty cuddly when they were tired of traveling, so that wasn't bad either. My favorite part was when both of them fell asleep after eating and with a whole row to ourselves, I had one girl sleeping on the seat to the left and the other to the right while Emily read stories to Sage in their row. It was pretty adorable. Frankly, I was largely impressed with all three girls ability' to cope.

Anyhow, Yakima was so much fun to be all together. I loved that I could actually walk (albiet long walk) to Emily's house from Sara's. I felt totally spoiled to have three of the four sisters together for so long. And yes, at times it did make me wish a bit that we all lived closer. Skype, gmail chat, and cell phones sure do shorten the distance between each member of my family thought, thankfully. We enjoyed cooking, a really fun Indian night, girls night out, painting, earring making, baby clothes shopping, basketball games, FHE's, Ryan's birthday, baby photo shoot, baby shower, and a lot of day-to-day enjoyable time together with all the sweet children. Sometimes it really did end up more referring, feeding and playing with the kiddos than the actual activity we had planned to do, but I sure didn't mind a bit. Here's a few shots from some of the time we had together.

Isla's Photo Shoot by Birch

I really love these shots of her, they just capture her eyes and inquisitiveness so perfectly

The kids all did a great job taking care of her. My favorite was in the morning while I made their lunches or breakfast they would dance to music to entertain her or try to teach her to crawl. It was really adorable. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of her with each of them, but her are two with Alex and Chloe.

She was smitten with Alex and Chloe was smitten with her. If Chloe wasn't taking a bath with her, she was watching her get a bath.

I love painting and was so so excited when Sara asked me to do one for her. It reminded me how much I would love to do some for our home. If only we had a Micheal's or Joann's to get some canvas.

Oh well.

Sara also taught Isla a new trick. That she now, can't get enough of especially when I try to change her diaper. Thanks Sara.

One last shot with the three of us before we flew home.

While we were away Jared had a last few days with his family. They made the most of it by breaking out the nerf guns from Christmas, geared up with a variety of protection equipment and in fun Watts' style had an all out "battle" around the house.

Looks like no one was left out.

Cousin time

2011-01-13T15:12:00.000-08:00

In between all the crazy hustle and bustle of moving, we decided to make use of the time and visit more family. Here's a few shots oh some cousin and sister time we caught while the Andersen's were in town with the Wrights. It was so so much fun to be all together. Isaac and Lucy were practicing being great older siblings for there soon to be arriving baby sister Kate. Curious Lucy got diaper 101.

Mila + Isla

Isla modeling her adorable knit hat handmade from my former boss and her new cute tutu pants.

The whole gang .. Sagelicious, Ike, Lulu,

Isla, and Ginga

So cute together

Oh, and so are we (missing you Sara).

Isla's Opera

2011-01-08T15:12:00.000-08:00

Watch out Sara Brightman, we might have a new and upcoming rival!

Story time with Isla

2011-01-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

Isla love story time. She listens intently as we read each day. Lately she enjoys "holding" a.k.a. grabbing and eating the book as well. She has also become quite the story teller herself. Check it out....

Ghanaian Basket

2011-01-06T14:35:00.000-08:00

I love these Ghanaian baskets and have fond memories of walking down streets and streets full of them in Accra. I came up stairs one morning to find this seen. Guess she takes after me a bit after all.

Isla + Bathtime = Best time of the day

2011-01-05T14:35:00.000-08:00

Isla loves loves loves the bath, or shower, or let's face it, anything water. And this little lady can splash! I guess the good thing about that is our bathtub walls and bathroom floor get "mopped" daily after bath time. It is a rare occasion that Jared or I don't have to change our soaking wet clothes after her splashing. It is so fun to see her light up when the water starts running. In fact, ever since her first bath she has been hooked. She has been able to recognize the water and impending bath since I can remember. Here is a small video of her enjoying her bath after her four month check up and dreaded immunization boosters. Do know though, that this video contains infant nudity. View at your own discretion.

Christmas Morning

2010-12-26T20:27:00.000-08:00

Christmas was more than wonderful. Though our house was less than festive as we packed and packed, battled colds, and tried to feel somewhat normal despite the transient nature of our lives for the next month, it was nonetheless a wonderful Christmas with lots of surprises. Among those surprises was Jared's sneaky nature of purchasing the camera we had been looking at. Here is a snapshot video of Christmas morning with Isla in one of her most favorite toys, the bouncer chair. It's not professional, but we are just learning how to work our camera ... and for that matter iMovie.

Other exciting presents that were received in the family included ...

The Nerf Guns.

Sam, Cooper, Aaron, Carter, Sage, and who knows who else all received these bad boys.

Sadie and Isla enjoying a little Christmas morning snuggle. We had all climbed straight out of bed and up to the tree so most of the pictures are PJ shots. Sadie, you look amazing for just waking up!

Carter and Isla chattin' it up. Isla lights up when Carter holds her. She thinks he is one handsome uncle!

Lindsey's exciting Christmas surprise. A BOB. She is 4.5 months away from walking her baby around in this smooth ride. Glad to have you in the BOB club Linds.

And last but certainly not least, Cooper and his constant grin about opening Christmas presents. Though I have to say, seeing the few presents he opened at Gram's it always seemed to be a toss up between whether or not he like the present or the wrapping paper and box that held the present better. Seriously, Toy's R Us you've got nothing on some good old paper, cardboard, plastic, and bubble wrap when it comes to toys for kids.

Big Girl

2010-12-01T20:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I was over at Anita and Kim's to use their elliptical due to the bitterly cold and tremendously snowy weather that have cause a serious kink in my efforts to go running. While I was using the elliptical Gram and Isla played. Anita took these pictures and I think they make Isla look so grown up.

Leah and Geoff's

2010-11-28T20:57:00.000-08:00

The day after Thanksgiving we went down to Leah and Geoff's with all our Utah family to share the day together. The rest of the weekend we spent at Leah and Geoff's. It was so so nice to all be together for a day. Leah caught these pictures while I was outside playing with Isaac and Lucy. Isaac and Lucy, by the way, are enamored with baby Isla. They are going to be such good big siblings to their new sister due to arrive in three months. Leave it to Leah to get such amazing shots. Thank you!

Thanksgiving

2010-11-25T20:52:00.000-08:00

Aside from Thanksgiving at my grandparents growing up, I think this year was one of my most favorite Thanksgivings. It was small and quiet (usually I like lots of people and busy/happy loud) and we had a fabulous time just all talking together about memories at the dinner table. It really was special. Grandma Ann and Grandpa Cal came. It was wonderful to spend time with them when they were feeling so well and also for them to enjoy time with Isla.

I couldn't' stop taking pictures of the three of them together. It surely was a picture of peace.

Pie Day

2010-11-24T20:45:00.000-08:00

Estee had the bright idea to have a pie day before Thanksgiving. She was in charge of taking pies to her in-laws for thanksgiving and so Anita, Estee and I went to work making pies for both get-togethers. We made; 2 pumpkin pies, 2 sweet potato pecan pies, 2 pecan pies, and 2 apple pies. Estee also wanted to do a lemon meringue, but these 8 were already seriously overboard. We did three different kinds of crust, with the oatmeal crust definitely being my favorite. They were all delicious! While the baking was going, Cooper got into the flour drawer and was sweetly un-messily stiring the flour until him mom came in and then he went nuts. The pictures will do all the talking.

Surely everything is better when naked.

Sunday by the fire

2010-11-14T20:39:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't love cozying up to a nice warm fire.

Isla is sitting up so well now.

Big yawn

Love that little profile

25

2010-11-06T20:36:00.000-07:00

Jared made it such a special birthday for me. From start to finish there were wonderful surprises and he knew exactly what I would want. The day started with a cute purse/bag from Prana filled with goodies that I love and ended with a new surger! I am so excited to break it out. It might not get taken out until we move though, because my sewing table has been overtaken with Jared's school work. I can't wait to put it to some serious use. For dinner we celebrated at a wonderful restaurant (Hamilton's) for a fancy dinner to celebrate my birthday and Jared being hired for our first real full time job! We are so excited to be joining Barrick Gold in Winnemucca, NV this January. Anita also made this delicious apple cranberry tart for my birthday because I don't like cake.

Isla loves to smile at her Gram

She also is VERY talkative

Jared let me put bow in her hair for my birthday. He has something seriously against "gluing" a bow to her head. I reminded him it was just honey, and if anything is nourishing to the skin.

Happy Birthday!

Halloween

2010-10-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

So, not that I am a big expert on doughnuts or anything (considering my last doughnut post), but we made doughnuts for Halloween and these were melt-in-your-mouth dang delicious. I mean seriously seriously good. And the glaze ... WAY better than store bought doughnut glaze. Here's the recipe. I would definitely look for an excuse to have people over and make them. Also, it is nice to be able to do the oil outside if you have a camp-chef or something.

Doughnuts
1 1/8 cup whole milk, warm
1/4 sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons (one package) Instant or Active Dry Yeast
2 whole large eggs, beaten
1 1/4 stick unsalted butter, melted
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
canola oil

Glaze
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cups cold milk (or water, but I would definitely do milk)

While the doughnuts were baking we carved pumpkins for our Monday night Halloween activity with Jared's family. I think Cooper liked the pumpkin guts better than anyone else.

Yes, Cooper is sticking his hands in everyone's pumpkins grabbing out the innards. He was in heaven!

Isla watching the pumpkin carving activities

Aaron, Estee, Sam, and Cooper

Isla winking in her cute Halloween kimno from Ami.

No Relation

2010-10-25T13:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, have a bunch of thoughts and some pictures, really nothing relates other than that I have been thinking about these things at the about the "same" time I was taking the pictures.
First of all regarding the pictures, it has become painstakingly clear to me that we need a new camera. Preferably one that takes great video and action shots. Every time I try to take pictures of Isla they are blurry because she is such a wiggler as all sweet infants are. So, I hope you enjoy the pictures with all their inadequacies, but I can't help it. I think she is so stinkin' cute I just have to take pictures. Plus, we are so amazed and excited about how strong she is getting. I just want to show her off to the world. And a friend from the ward just brought over some baby clothes from her daughters and though most everything won't fit her until next summer I did find a gem that will fit her now. Precious little thick knit tights! I have been wanting some that fit her ever since she was born. And these are finally tiny enough. They are so adorable I don't even want to wrap her up when she goes down for a nap 'cause I just want to keep looking at them. I wish I had a dozen pair so she could wear them every day. The other pictures are her again on her tummy, but in this adorable little dress my mom gave her. And yes, they are way blurry but it is the best I got.
As far as other thoughts go regarding Isla, naps do not seem to be her forte`. We are working on it, but most every book I have read really can't give you much as far as pre-three-months. Guess they are still working allot out mentally, physically, and socially up and till that point. So, I think we have found that a super dark room and the rhythmic ticking of the swing chair (though she is sleeping in her crib), really helps. I am now looking for a cheap, used, noisy, metronome to replace the swing chair. Needless to say, that old phrase "sleep like a baby" has taken on an entirely new meaning.
Jumping to a new subject, I was thinking about pregnancy since I have so many sisters/sisters-in-law and friends expecting. Being pregnant in my opinion is a really wonderful thing. It comes with challenges, but it is so fun to feel a little baby kicking inside and to be able to feel like you are gently holding it and giving it little pats and rubs when you rug your belly. Plus, having a big old belly and it not being fat is sweet. Almost freeing. It is automatically cute to have your belly totally hanging over your pants. I am also amazed at how it has changed me. Sure the little things have changed like I still am not crazy about banana's a strange aversion while pregnant, still gotta go light on the onions and garlic - just makes me feel funny, and I still crave spicy thing. But my amazement and respect for the human body and women has immensely grown. Not that I didn't love or respect the body before, but experiencing so much of it all gives me a greater ability to respect and stand in awe at the miracle of a child growing from cell to person. It almost always brings me a bit to tears really. It is so incredible. I feel so blessed to be a part of starting a family. No matter how they start, it is just a pure miracle every time. No matter how you become a mother, it is a wonderful and overwhelming embankment and an indelible gift to the world. So, yep, that's what I have been thinking about.

So strong

2010-10-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

Isla is getting stronger and stronger every day. Even though these pictures are blurry I had to share because I was so excited. Plus, not all of you have gotten to see her smile so, I wanted to share too. So, just imagine that they are really nice, in focus, etc. etc.

Tummy time

All smiles ...

And an old one that I forgot to post. This was one day while Jared was holding Isla and the sun started shinning through the window but she was trying to sleep. Maybe it was unintentional, but it was pretty adorable.

Baby Blessing

2010-10-17T20:19:00.000-07:00

Isla Ann Watts was blessed October 17th in the Logan 4th Ward building. The same building where her grandfather went to church as a little boy. It was also the day after we celebrated our 2-Year Anniversary. Jared gave her a beautiful and special blessing and we were so grateful to have so much of the family participate. After the blessing we all enjoyed chili (red and white), cornbread, pumpkin cheesecake, and apple bars. Here are some pictures from the get-together.

One Week Old

2010-09-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

Can I just tell you how grateful I am for such a talented and genorous sister, who upon driving two hours alone in her second trimester, hoped out of the car marched upstairs into our house and got right down to business photographing our sweet little daughter? I feel so blessed to live near one of my three amazing sisters! Here are some (okay a lot) of the beautiful moments she caught with our little girl.

A family is forever

Thank you Auntie Leah!

Day 4

2010-09-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

Isla finally got to wear one of her outfits that I made today. I forgot to get a picture of the bum, but what is around her neck, lines her bottom too. It is super cute on her little body. She was having lots of awake time, so we snagged a few full body shots of her stretching.

Love how she crosses her legs

A couple of leftovers

2010-09-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

Here are a few from Anita's (Jared's mom) camera from the day we brought her home from the hospital that I didn't get a chance to share ...

Coming home

A close-up in her cute little outfit from Sara

Carter meeting Isla for the first time

So sweet

Anita holding her at home

Day 3

2010-09-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

After a fabulous night of rest, with her tucked in bed between us, we got a nice lazy start to the day. It started with giving her a both together (she may not have loved this quite as much since water = cold to her) and then took her out for a little sun time (just to help her bilirubin count go down a touch), which she couldn't have loved more.

Don't you just love all the cute wrinkly skin they still have to grow into?

She just loves her daddy time

After that we cleaned up the house. And by 'we' I mean Jared, while I "tidied" up a bit. After lunch, diapers and everything else that makes it an hour or two to get out the door, we headed up to the Watts so she could meet the rest of her aunts and uncles. She had lots of snuggly time with Lindsay and Andy.

Sadie snagged these photos of Isla and Andy with her new iphone.

Thought you would appreciate that Matt.

Day 2

2010-09-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

The first night with her, she was great, but was still working out some of the left overs in her lungs, stomach, airways, etc. So, after trying to have her sleep in the hospital bassinet (or plastic tub) and having these little scary coughing/gagging attacks I finally broke hospital rules and laid her in bed with me. She cuddled up right away on my stomach and we promptly got a glorious 3 hours of sleep. The only 3 hours I got all night. I nodded off here and there later in the morning, but between her eating almost every hour that next morning, her blood sugar being tested twice, vital signs check-ups for both her and me, metabolic testing at 4am, and both doctors visiting at 7 am, those "sleep breaks" were more like 10 and 15 minute pass-outs. I fall asleep quick usually, but man, could I just hit the pillow in seconds! We brought her home right after lunch when we were officially cleared to go. I couldn't wait to get off my duff and eat some real food. Not a big fan of what the hospital has to offer as generous as they are.
Here are some pictures of us putting Isla in her first little preemie sized night gown. Since she is skinny and long, her newborn cloths fit kind of funny. Usually the preemie stuff fits perfect around her waist but falls a bit short when it comes to the legs. She looked so cute though! The pictures are a bit dark because our lighting is pretty low, especially at night.

We wrapped her up in the blanket Ami made for her her first night at home. She loves it!

Day 1

2010-09-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

We just loved our first 24 hours together. She is so cuddly. Like her momma, she does not like to get cold! That is about the only time we hear her mini squeaks. Her dad just can't get enough of her. She loves it when we bundles her up or pretends to kiss and eat her feet.

Welcome to the World Isla Ann Watts

2010-09-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

Isla weighed in at 6 lbs 2 oz and is 20" long. More photos and details to come.

Frugal Woman

2010-08-31T21:14:00.000-07:00

On Friday last week Laura and I attempted to organize our bathroom cupboard and drawers because it was getting difficult to find certain necessary items. I have always been amazed at Laura's drive to reduce, reuse and recycle and after this experience I see how deep it runs in her veins. Many of us have heard the saying, "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without," and after our organizing experience I feel that we could add to the end of that saying, "and if you aren't sure how to do the following place it in a random drawer until you figure out how."

Of the precious treasures that we found some of my favorite treats were:

Old deodorant remains in a worn out plastic bags
Lotion bottles cut in half to get every last bit and than forgotten.
Urine analysis strips from Physiology lab
2 years worth of expired aciphex medication
At least 1o years worth of contact lenses
Broken curling iron that surely could be fixed
5+ Wrinkled magazine cut outs of cool hair dews

"You Are My Hands"

2010-08-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

Love is what inspired our Heavenly Father to create our spirits; it is what led our Savior to the Garden of Gethsemane to make Himself a ransom for our sins. Love is the grand motive of the plan of salvation; it is the source of happiness, the ever-renewing spring of healing, the precious fountain of hope.

As we extend our hands and hearts toward others in Christlike love, something wonderful happens to us. Our own spirits become healed, more refined, and stronger. We become happier, more peaceful, and more receptive to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.

With all my heart and soul I give thanks to our Heavenly Father for His love for us, for the gift of His Son, for the life and example of Jesus the Christ, and for His sinless and selfless sacrifice.

- President Dieter F. Uchtforf

Peaches

2010-08-27T11:04:00.000-07:00

This summer has come "late" this year and favorite fruits like apricots and peaches have yet to ripen. I have been waiting and waiting for peaches to come in season and hopefully they will at least come in September. Likewise, our little peach seems to be needing some extra time as well. At the doctors yesturday she said to not be suprised if she hangs out an extra week or so. We still have a week left till her due date but I am trying to be patient, knowing it is important that she comes when she is ready. On the other hand, my leg would thank her if she decided now was a good time. Plus, how much longer can you wait to hold such a little bundle we have been anticipating for so long? We are just so excited to welcome her the rest of the way home.

In the meantime, I have been using this extra time of pregnancy to be productive for our little one. For teh past three days while Jared goes for his run, I have been sewing. Or perhaps more appropriatly I have been decorating using a sewing machine. I was first inspired by my sister Emily's creations two years ago for her little girl. Since then, I have been wanting to do this for our baby. Now that she is coming and I have a sewing machine, I have been having a lot of fun. Thought I would share some of my latest creations.

A little caterpillar

A little Jcrew style

Some periwinkel flowers

Is there any girl to young for a tutu?

I found some sweet tangerine dye and had a lot of fun with this one. This one I did a lighter than the others, and it turned out kind of peach. I love it.

This one is from an old t-shirt of mine.

And last a fancy little number.

Plagued

2010-08-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't eaten a doughnut since freshman year in high school when our seminary teachers used to bring them at the end of the year for a treat. I'll admit, I enjoyed them but knew they were not good for me. And after that, decided they didn't taste good enough for how bad they were for me, so I declined them. Haven't even had the desire to have one since ... that is until my second trimester. Then, out of no where the desire for a doughnut hit. It comes and goes; but has not completely left since. I have kept telling myself don't eat one, they are not good for you our your little daughter. But today, after just telling my coworker that I felt like this day needed some chocolate and she wholeheartedly agreed, some people in the office next to us invited us over for some fresh soft doughnuts. I couldn't resist. Today, I divulged in half a chocolate doughnut and half and apple fritter, free of charge. Delicious. I hope my stomach and body don't start hating me for my decision 'cause it was pure melt-in-my-mouth delight.

The 4th of July that lasted 4 days long

2010-07-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a smattering of pictures from all of our escapades this weekend. It has been SOOOOOOO nice to have Jared home. We have been playing lots with his family this weekend. None stop parties since every day has been the 4th of July here. It finally cooled down a bit this weekend (70's and 80's) which has made outside activities much more pleasant!

Sadie's (Jared's little sister) awesome cupcakes for our Friday 4th of July potluck and fireworks evening at the Nymans.

Cooper (Estee's yougest son) going in for his watermelon.

Oh yeah. That's good.

A bunch of the boys (Griffin, Sam, Benny, Charlie) having their own pyromaniac show before the fireworks began.

Jared cooking our Saturday 4th of July crepe breakfast. It was delicious. And yes, all the cupboards being open we have definitely decided is a sign of Watt's cooking.
Guess that means I belong in the family too!

Lindsey's (Jared's sister-in-law) birthday hug from all of us. Yes, she loved it.

Anita in time-out from cooking in the kitchen. What lesson did we learn Anita? Just to take a breath when everything goes wrong. It still all tastes good.

Sitting in a circle chatting after out Sunday 4th of July dinner. Apparently, I must have said something real funny. That's me, with the extraordinarily long hair, from the back.

Sweet sweet Grandpa Cal.

Cooper enjoying a face full of apple. Yum.

Carter taking little Coop for a ride on the Watts Family's new favorite mode of transportation, the wiggle car. Carter is such a good uncle to his two nephews. They are always palling around together.

Apparently only half of us got the memo that this was a funny face picture.

Ah, there is a nice face one.

And our last day of 4th of July celebrations were spent at Bear Lake today. It was a GORGEOUS Monday with clear skies. The boys (Todd, Andy, Drew, Carter, Sage, and Jared) spent part of the afternoon in a heated, albeit rather skill-less game of soccer. How much skill can one really have in 7 inches of water?

Yep, proof. Most of it was spent face first in the water. It was hilarious.

What I've Been Up To

2010-06-24T07:07:00.000-07:00

If I am not at work or reading books about pregnancy, labor, and babies, here's what I have been doing ...

A soft and cuddly sleeper for our little one.

I am loving learning how to use my new sewing machine, even if it does take me forever to get anything done. No rush right?

Sleep tight little girl!

"double the pleasure, double the fun"

2010-06-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday night I was missing my man and companionship real bad. Mostly, things are well here. I am staying real busy with work (which I really enjoy!), feel blessed to have us both working, have a wonderful home, feel our little girl growing healthy and strong inside, and enjoy this funny spring/summer weather of rain and sunshine. But some nights I can't help but missing Jared anyway. He is my best friend. Instead I tried making contact with my other increadible girl friends but none were available. So in a great blessing from above Jared just happened to go into work last Thursday morning (usually he works 4 10 hour shifts, mon-thurs) only to have his supervisor request a change in schedule for the following week to come in Tuesday through Friday instead of his usual. Knowing that meant a four day weekend for him, he packed up his bags and headed home first things Friday morning. Can I tell you how elated I was?!!! Seriously, nothing is quite like having the whole day to spend with my husband. We soaked up the weekend together, thanks to my wonderful bosses who let me have the time off Friday and Monday morning.
In addition to this wonderful wonderful and needed surprise, Erica my dear dear friend since high school rang me up for a spur of the moment visit to Logan with her sweet boy Scott. So they spent Thursday night with me and we went for a beautiful morning hike in Logan Canyon coming home just in time for Jared to arrive home.
Here are some pictures: (might I note not the most flattering, but oh well)

The part way up our hike view

A bit of delicate beauty spotted by Erica on the way

At the top! Look at those cliffs behind us

What was behind us

On the way down we saw this sign. I was a little nervous we might see some naked "bums ahead". Erica thought a picture of the sign needed to be taken with my "bump."

Not the best picture, but look who we found when we got home!

By the way, all of these pictures are courtesy of Erica and her talented eye and skill with a camera. Everyone is welcome to come visit, I will take you up our beautiful canyon or out to Bear Lake!

A MAN NEEDS A MAID

2010-05-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

The first time I truly considered the great importance of having a maid was when I heard Neil Young sing about their handiness.

Lyrics (to actually hear the song visit http://listen.grooveshark.com/)

My life is changing
in so many ways
I don't know who
to trust anymore
There's a shadow running
thru my days
Like a beggar going
from door to door.

I was thinking that
maybe I'd get a maid
Find a place nearby
for her to stay.
Just someone
to keep my house clean,
Fix my meals and go away.

A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.

It's hard to make that change
When life and love
turns strange.
And old.

To give a love,
you gotta live a love.
To live a love,
you gotta be "part of"
When will I see you again?

A while ago somewhere
I don't know when
I was watching
a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part
that I could understand.

A maid. A man needs a maid.
A maid.

When will I see you again?

Unlike Neil I don't want anything from a maid other then to have it (not gender specific) keep my house clean, fix my meals and go away. When Laura and I would arrive home after long days on campus with the house a mess and dinner barely an idea I would comment about the luxury of having a maid and how I would love to come home with everything effortlessly clean and a hot meal on the table.

I am pleased to report that as of yesterday I officially have a maid! Barrick is turning out to be a more fantastic company then I originally thought. They have placed me in a newly furnished double wide trailer with my own room and master bathroom, I never thought of living in a trailer as luxury but Barrick is changing my mind slowly. But the best part is that every week a group of ladies show up and clean the whole house, they change the sheets, clean the toilet, wash the towels, mow the lawn, dust the lamps, and make our place smell real nice.

Please let me know how you like the song and yoru general thoughts on having a maid.

Thinking about Mom's

2010-05-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

I just got finished reading all of my blog posts for Mother's Day. With this weekend feeling like a complete whirlwind AND getting the amazing oppurtunity to spend Mother's Day with both my mother's (birth and in-law) I am feeling particularly thankful. Though Mother's Day has passed, I just wanted to take a moment to share with the rest of the world how much I love all the mother's in my life.

My mom is amazing. . . words fail to adequately describe the love I feel for her and the gratitude that is overwhelming. Matt was right, when he said that whenever he calles to talk about her life she always has a way of bringing it around to ask talk about mine instead. She does this with everyone. After anyone I know meets my mom, I always hear for days about how amazing and wonderful she is. It's the truth. Thank you for teaching so much, being patient while I learn or experiment, and finding joy in life and in me. I love you mom. It is the indelible impact that you have had on our lives that is the reason we look forward so much, to passing on your name to our daughter.

My mother-in-law is also, by in every sense of the word, a mother to me as well. I love her dearly. She is so thoughtful, so generous, and so fun to be with. We love living so close so that we can come up any time and spend time with you and your family. Your family has been such an increadible blessing to me as I have lived up here in Logan for the past few years. Thank you for sharing your heart with me to, just as you do with all your daughters. I love you.

My grandmothers as well are such fundamental parts of my life. From the way you raised my parents to the individual time you have taken with me over the years, to grow, learn, share your talents, and life with me. I have always loved our days and weeks we spent together growing up and carry many of your habits and talents on. My mom even noted, that our kitchen smelled like Grandma Virginia and our bed skirt is made from Grandma Howe's special cloth. Thank you for sharing your lives and hearts with me. You are both women with some of the biggest hearts I know. I love you two so so much!

My sisters! How could I ever imagine life without you three? I am grateful for all your "mothering" as I grew and that time washes away the years between us a bit, so that we can share so many of the same experiences together more as peers, now. I look to each of you for so much. I like my cell phone most of all because it means I can call you all throughout the week to share embarrassing moments, fun things, hear your advice, and make me tell you all that you are my favorite sister. I love you three!

And my sisters-in-law. I have so much to be grateful for from you three too! Thank you for bringing me right into the family, even when Jared and I weren't married yet. Thank you for giving me a home (Estee), for studying together (Sadie), and for making jewelry and talking about cupcakes on the beach together (Lindsay). Each of you make time together full of laughter and I just love that! You are all talented, gorgeous women, I look up to so much.

And lastly, to our sweet little baby girl that will soon be arriving, making us parents! I have waited so long to see you again. We can't wait to hold you precious one!

Hot Mommy Walks as Magna Cum Laude

2010-05-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

She Did It!

USU hase given me a lot in the four academic years that I have attended like knowledge, experience, good friends, and lots of fun. That being said the greatest thing I gained during my time at USU was my sweet wife Laura. Yesterday her undergraduate journey came to an end as her name was called and she walked across the stage to get her diploma as a public health education major. She finished her last semester with a GPA of higher then 3.75, a great accomplishment especially with the difficulty of her classes. The ceremony was short and sweet (under an hour with lots of hooting and hollering) and the rest of the day was really special as family and friends combined together to celebrate Laura and her great accomplishment.

Everyone who attended the ceremony

Spiritual Leah, silently meditating over her scrumptious food

Backyard festivities, the weather was perfect for a barbecue!

Little Cooper chillaxin at the party

The Sherry Clan

Today I wanted to honor my beautiful wife Laura. Laura has been preparing to be a mother her entire life and now that we are expecting our first child her love for our future children really shines. Every time we go shopping she always seems to find a cute baby outfit and holding it up so I can see it says, "Jared its adorable, and it's only a dollar plus I have a coupon that will take off another 25% so really after taxes we are only spending about 81 cents." And I would think to myself, "we are grocery shopping sweetheart how do you find baby clothes when were grocery shopping?"

Laura is the women of my dreams! From the very moment that I saw her I knew that if this world were perfect I would end up with her as my wife one day and it only took four years for that to happen. She is loving and selfless, charitable and kind, she seems to see people as heavenly father does, always viewing their potential and strengths and not their weaknesses and faults. I love her with all of my heart and count myself blessed to spend each day with her on this eternal journey.

Laura I love you!

Happy Mothers Day!

A 2-fer-1

2010-04-19T20:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight for Family Home Evening, we listened to General Conference and put together our much awaited crib that arrived a whole month early! We looked a lot into cribs and think we are going to be very happy with this one. So, in today's post you will not only be getting some fun pictures of things we have been doing in the baby's room as of this weekend, but there is also a picture of the belly (yes, I can safely say the bump has now graduated to belly status).

The dresser mom and dad gave to us a year ago, with new knobs I have been super excited about (thanks to anthropolgies hot sales)!

Baby changing table courtesy of Sara and Birch that we made match the dresser with more fun knobs.

I LOVE THEM!

Our beautiful Parker 4-in-1 crib. It looks darker in this picture than it really is. That said, we do like it's richer finish called, coffee. I was really impressed with this crib for it's baby/kid friendly design, materials, and finish as well as how sturdy and beautiful I think it is.

And yes, Jared snaggeda picture of our sweet little one who has been growing! Speaking of which, it is late, past my bedtime, and I still need another before bed snack. Ah, pregnancy!

And might I just add one more BIG thank you to everyone who is helping our baby come into a wonderful home with all the trimmings! Jared said on Saturday while putting in the knobs together, "You know how much love this baby is going to be born into?" We sure eagerly await her arrival and feel so so very grateful, especially as we recognize what special blessings so many are sharing with us that many others didn't/don't have.

Delicious Waffles!

2010-04-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite cooking/baking blogs out there is http://www.101cookbooks.com/ (which this photo is from). She is a remarkable in the kitchen! And from all her other entries seems like a remarkable woman all around, that I would love to spend some time with. I am always drooling at her seasonal recipes, cookbook recomendations, and photography. I want to go to San Fransisco and enjoy walking around all the streets and beaches, love up all the Farmer's Markets, and visit some of the restaurants. Until then, I try out her recipes with, I'll admit, often a number of changes. I don't always have the wide spectrum of vibrant spices or delcious greens or beans, but I do what I can.
As a major waffle fan, I have been experimenting with recipes for a while. This one she recently posted we tried this morning and I think is, hands down, my favorite one yet. It has the whole grain goodness I love from one of my mother-in-law's recipes and the crunchy outer layer, soft inner layer lightness that I love from the whole wheat waffle recipe I grew up on. It is definitely worth breaking out your wheat/grain grinders if you have one. It doesn't take any extra time really! So here it is: My substitutions/adjustments (which were minimal this time) in italics:

Multigrain Waffles

1 1/2 tablespoons poppy seeds
2 cups / 475 ml buttermilk (I cheaply made my own 'cause I didn't have any)
1 cup / 3.5 oz / 100g barley flour (ground in our Nutramil)
1/2 cup / 1.5 oz / 45 g oat flour (gound rolled oats in our blender)
1/2 cup / 2 oz / 55g rye flour (ground in our Nutramil - could subst. with whole wheat or millet flour if you don't have any rye for a good waffle and slightly different tast)
1 tablespoon natural cane sugar or brown sugar
1 tablespoon aluminum-free baking powder
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
3 large eggs, whisked
1/3 cup / 3 oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled a bit (I may or may not have used less :)

If you happen to remember, soak the poppy seeds in the buttermilk overnight, if not, it's no big deal. Just add them to the wet mix later on.
Preheat your waffle iron. I set mine to medium heat (3-4), but you'll have to play around a bit with the settings on your particular waffle iron to settle on the right temperature.
In a large bowl mix the flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt together. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs into the buttermilk mixture, then whisk in the melted butter. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined.

I use about 1/2 cup / 120 ml of batter per waffle. Close the iron, and resist the urge to peek for a couple of minutes, the waffle needs time to set and develop a bit of a skin. After that you can check to see how your waffle is coming along. Cook until deeply golden. Serve with syrup, preserves, fresh fruit, yogurt, peanut or almond butter, etc.
Made 8-ish round (6 3/4" diameter) waffles.

Photo Shoot

2010-04-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, we got treated to the best half hour photo shoot I have ever witnessed (no offense Leah, this isn't the same work you are a master at). Yep, we took a break in between classes to head down and see our little baby, who is so much bigger now! It wasn't until the last 5-10 minutes though we got to see if it was a boy or a girl. Our radiologist was fantastic. She took us through every little part; brain to toes, bones, organs, everything! We loved it. This is a mix of both 3-D and normal ultrasound pictures. Here they are:

Her gorgeous profile.

Thumbs up Dudes! And what a cute little belly.

Already a thumb sucker. And is that a hair line I see? She might be coming out with a head of hair.

Waving.

Notice the light/white colored bubbles in the lower left hand corner, that's her umbilical cord.

Side shot. Can you tell what we are having?

Yep, it's a girl!

Perfect Bedding

2010-04-07T08:45:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to do this blog post for a while, because this project started back in October over General Conference weekend, picked back up over Christmas break until I got what I thought was a wicked case of the flu (good thing it was something totally better :) and was finished over conference weekend this April. I know, I know, leave it to me to drag a 6 hour project out to 6 months. Anyhow, I did finish it and am quite happy.
The duvet cover was a design I saw in Garnet Hill and just fell in love with. I sent it to my mom, mentioning that I thougth we could make this, and if she ever saw any fabric like this in one of the two colors I liked to snag it please. Well not more than a month later, maybe it was less, she acutally did find this fabric, brought it to Utah, and we worked on making the little pinched ball things together. She really did the whole of it though. On the other hand, I didn't know what backing to put on the cover, and spend the next 3 months looking, till Jared and I randomly decided to check at one more Khols while we were down in Farmington. Again, by sheer luck he found a sheet set that was perfect for the backing about the same time I was ready to give up. We got it for a MAJOR steel ($6) and I quickly went to work finishing the duvet cover. Ta Da!

I really wanted a bedskirt though with shams to complete the finished look so I was stumped again at what to do. I had two very different kinds of fabrics and colors that went well together but needed something to tie it all in. At the brink of breaking down and purchasing a bedskirt and pillow shams from Anthropologie (on sale but still somewhat over what I wanted to sink into this project), I remembered that I had this awesome set of batiked fabric from Venezuela that had been left in the cabin for years, was getting eaten by moths, and what not, and rescued in 2008 as we were cleaning out the fabric. It was just two gorgeous to get rid of. So I designed my own pleated bed skirt ....

.... and pillow shams with Anita's help and her lending me her sewing machine once again. I love them. Eat your heart out Anthropologie!

This project was probably entirely to difficult for me, but somehow it got finished, and since I made some sizing mistakes I ended up having to put snaps on the back of the pillow shams to keep the pillow from bursting out of it's cover. That was my project over this April Conference weekend.
Either way, I am one happy camper to have it all done and am quite pleased with it all together. It even goes with our grassy swamp green carpet! Next project .... baby's room.

Spring Break

2010-04-05T14:21:00.000-07:00

With a big thanks to mom and dad I can now post the pictures of our Spring Break together. We had a most fantastic time, that felt oh so needed, but was definetly due to our parents making this a most wonderful time. We spent much of out time at the beach with the most fabulous weather that is even to be enjoyed at the coast. We played lots of frisbee and corquet, ate fabulously,watched Big Business, and even visited Guthrie for some of the best music hidden in the woods of Oregon. Here are some pics:

First, Sara came and we enjoyed a fabulous Sunday together at church, making flower headbands and chattting.

At the beach we took turns giving each other sky rides :)

Jared also found a ton of sea/beach shirmps or something like that. He was catching them like crazy as the tide came in and out!

Yum!

And of course we got in some Frisbee on the beach.

We had so much fun enjoying the sunny little-to-know-wind weather. No pictures are available but we did enjoy some dips in the ocean, Dad and Jared egging each other on at every beach we stopped at.

And last we ended our trip at Guthrie. I sure do I love that music!

Is It Wrong?

2010-03-25T18:21:00.000-07:00

Is it wrong that I check our blog and Emi's blog at least once (okay okay ... multiple times) a day to watch the baby float around on that little babystrology widget she showed me how to put on our blog? It's like getting a little view inside. I thought I have been pretty good at not being an "emotional pregnant wreck" thus far, but perhaps this post proves otherwise? I don't cry, but I don't think of to much else without intermitten glances at my belly or a small rub. I am not even quite half way and I can hardly wait to hold the little one. And yes, I am blocking out all the the realities of sleeplessness, throwup, and blowouts.

Oh, and as far as Sara and Emi's comments go on the last post, Sara might be right. I was starting to think I might be a "smaller-bellied" pregnant lady after everyone's comments, but I think I ate so much on our Spring Break trip in Oregon, that the baby has now doubled in size. And yes, pictures of our trip are shortly to come.

The Bump

2010-03-17T16:55:00.000-07:00

... this is the endearing term we use to refer to my belly and/or the baby. Jared used to come home and say something about needing to see me and give me a hug. Now he comes home and says, "let me see the Bump!" The he proceeds to rub and kiss the Bump.

Even though, our Bump may not be that big yet, according to what some seem to think is the proper month-to-bump ratio; in our house this Bump is a big deal! Case in point: Jared comes home the other day and I am in the kitchen with dinner just ready. He puts his arms around me, spins me around so I am facing him, gives me a big hug and then says, "I feel like I need to bend over so I don't squish it!" Love that.

September 2nd

2010-02-16T09:59:00.000-08:00

So, pretty sure (no offense meant) that we saw the cutest baby in the world today! Little lips, nose, eyes, cute belly, fingers, feet. And this one is a wiggler! As soon as we got the picture going, all we could see was a summer-saulting baby ... kicking legs and squirming all around. Our doctor had a hard time getting pictures, but finally snapped one to be able to measure the head to bum at 5.42 cm, which puts us right as guessed at 12 weeks. What we saw included many more cute pictures than this, but here is the cutest and the following picture shows the heart beat which was amazing to hear at 162 bpm. The last picture is a little strange when the baby finally settled down and then turned over and looked at us ... hence, the slight alien-ish appearance but you can see the umbilical chord (kind of like a pyramid of bubbles near the neck), and two wiggly feet facing us. Pretty amazing. I shed a small tear.

The Real Deal

2010-01-31T20:28:00.000-08:00

Not quite sure how to preface these pictures, so here they are, as is.

It snowed today ...

2010-01-31T09:41:00.000-08:00

... so Jared promptly pushed me in.

Don't worry I got him back

Snowshoeing ... is there even an art to it?

2010-01-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

We had Monday off of school, so Jared asked me if I wanted to go snowshoeing. I excitedly said, "yes," and we rented shoes. Well, Monday was before the snow came, actually exactly a day before the snow came and we had to drive all the way to Tony's Grove to find snow. I was hysterically laughing as we drove up the canyon making jabs at Jared about the snow ... or lack thereof. It was ironic that we finally get out to do something like that together and we pick probably one of the worst snow condition days ... it was funny, come on! Anyhow, Jared didn't think it was quite as funny as I did. But the day got better.
We park at the base, with 7 miles ahead of us to get up to Whitepine lake. We don't see the nicely groomed trail and headed up into the trees. We spent the following two maybe three hours trekking up and down a ravine, up until the trees were to thick and we were climbing over bushes in our snowshoes and then down again hoping we would find a better pathway back up. I was having a blast. It was great weather (minus the looming rain clouds surrounding us). Jared on the other hand was eating more of the snow then the snacks we brought with us. It was hilarious. Mostly because I have never done any winter activity with Jared in the snow and all I ever hear about is his crazy, adventurous, and taleted abilities on a snowboard. So, seeing him, well, on his face more than me, was quite the surprise. After maybe the fourth fall he exclaimed, "Snowshoeing is like hiking Mt. Everest in flippers!" I about died laughing and promptly pushed him over again into the snow. I later regretted that decision, but I sure had a good laugh before his retaliation! Anyhow, we found the groomed trail near the end of our hike and headed down in about 20 maybe 30 minutes. Slightly disappointing, seeing as how we thought we had made a lot of progress. About back to the car, we passed a couple heading up the trail who inquired if we had gone all the way up to the lake. I laughed and said that we had spent most of our time in the ravine. The couple thought this was less than impressive and apparently not funny at all and promptly continued on. Oh well.
Sorry we don't have a picture, we forgot our camera. Nonetheless, I thougth you would all still enjoy the story. And to address my question above, I am pretty sure there is no art whatsoever to snowshoeing, but am I wrong? I am going again tomorrow with my friend Abby to try my feet at it again on quite a bit more snow that has freshly fallen all this week.

I Will Be Found of You

2010-01-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

I was reading the Ensign this morning and after reading a few articles in the beginning, just began flipping through to see what else it contained before I closed the magazine. I read this article on the very last page of this month's Ensign. The analogy was so beautiful and simple; I wanted to share it with you all in case you haven't had the oppurtunity to read it yet.

“ ‘I Will Be Found of You’,” Aaron L. West, Liahona, Jan 2010, 80

At the conclusion of our Sunday School lesson, Sister Hart asked us to turn to Jeremiah 29. She said she would read verses 12–14 aloud, and she asked us to ponder the meaning of the words.
“Then shall ye call upon me,” she read, “and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
“And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
“And I will be found of you, saith the Lord …”
Sister Hart went on, finishing verse 14, but my thoughts lingered happily behind, savoring the promise “I will be found of you.” I was reminded of the times when my wife, Emma, and I played hide-and-seek with our young children. When it was our turn to hide and their turn to seek, we always made ourselves easy to find. Sometimes we made noises or left a foot in plain view so they would find us quickly. Sometimes we hid in the same place repeatedly. We wanted the children to search for us, but we also wanted them to find us. We looked forward to their hugs and their joyful, unrestrained giggles of triumph.
This memory deepened my understanding of our Heavenly Father’s love for us. He wants us to search for Him, but He also wants us to find Him—He knows how happy we will be when we do. He does not try to trick us. Rather, He does all He can to help us know where and how to search: He gives us the scriptures, calls prophets, listens to our prayers, guides us by the power of the Holy Ghost, blesses us with temples and priesthood ordinances and family and friends. And if we have found Him somewhere once, we are sure to find Him there again if we are willing to renew our search.
“I will be found of you, saith the Lord.” What a comforting promise! In a world where trouble and temptations seem to find us so easily, it is reassuring to know that our greatest source of strength is so easy to find.

Adam

2010-01-17T09:25:00.000-08:00

Jared and I watched this movie last night. Definetly my favorite movie I have seen all year and I think it is now an all time favorite. One website said this about it, "A romantic character study examining the obstacles to intimacy and the compromises we make in the name of love." I won't say anything more because I think that is a beautiful description and the rest of the movie shouldn't be given away. I was suprised that Jared wanted to see it too (he is usually more of a high action, danger ... type), but the best part was what he said at the end of the movie. I won't tell you because it would ruin the ending, but if you watch it and call me, I will. Anyhow, you can check out the trailer on YouTube, but I would just go and rent it with no expectations if I were you. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Decking the Halls and Trimming the Tree: ROUND 3

2009-12-26T22:26:00.000-08:00

Sunday we topped off the Christmas decorations with gingerbread-house-making at the Watts's. Here are our finished products and Jared's. Mine ...

Jared and Sam's ...

Sam wouldn't leave Jared alone. Two goofy boys!

Those weren't the only products ...

The gingerbread house making was lots of fun for the adults but the kids apprently needed some other things to keep them occupied. So lucky me, I got Cooper and Jared had Sam (Estee's two boys).

Guess we will keep doing the gingerbread houses even if the kids weren't too interested. We sure had fun!

Decking the Halls and Trimming the Tree: ROUND 2

2009-12-20T17:08:00.000-08:00

Okay, so we really didn't wait really this long to finish the tree, but we were gone this weekend, which was really fun, and I will get to that later. First off, we went to Joann's in the nick of time before closing and snagged two more set's of lights with their sweet 60% off sale (I know, I know it will be way cheaper by January, but we are celebrating Christmas with a tree this year - so I had to feel pretty good about the "deal") and headed home determined to finish up. Jared skillfully finished the tree off . . .

And we finally had our finished product! I have been getting home really late this past week. Due to Christmas present projects and the serious "night owl bug" I got this week. Here it is:

We are sure happy to have a tree and presents to put under it. This year, I was a bit sad not to be in Oregon with my family, but starting out own traditions and being home together without any stress has been absolutely wonderful! I feel so grateful and blessed. Plus, it is just so much fun to start these things together!

This weekend we had a fly-by trip to Draper then Provo, down to Mapleton, Manti, back up to Salt Lake City, and home to Logan. It was ALOT of driving (my least favorite part)! But smooth in our new car, which I am so grateful for and got to see lot's of family and friends.

Draper was good news. I just finished my 15 weeks of going once a week and have just started going once a month. December was my first time waiting three weeks and good news, I am still progressing without weekly treatment. I can't believe we did all that driving without any pain! Yippee!!! That evening we got to spend with Leah and Geoff, Isaac and Lucy. It was so much fun to see them and their new house the next morning. GORGEOUS and SUPER exciting! We had the blessing of seeing Manti in the winter and going through the Manti Temple for one of my mission companion's wedding. The temple is absoluetly exquisit and unique. The ceremony was so sweet. We were so pleased to be apart of it. Then we raced back up to SLC for a wonderful dinner with so many sibilings (Matt,Jessica, Emi, Geoff, Leah), neices and nephews (Isaac, Lucy, Sophia, and Sage) who were so funny playing together, and my wonderful hosting grandparents (Virginia and Rudy). We loved every moment of it. Thank you to everyone who made that trip so much fun and possible for us.

Have a very merry Christmas!

Decking the Halls and Trimming the Tree: ROUND 1

2009-12-16T20:26:00.000-08:00

So, Jared and I have yet to decorate for the holidays, or any holiday for that matter. We even have had trouble decorating our house period. Somewhere between school, work, and well .... life, it just hasn't been on the top priority list for a while. Don't get me wrong, I do want to decorate our house, but I don't know sometimes I feel guilty I guess putting money into our little apartment when I know we won't be there to long. Besides, it sure has a lot of character on it's own. For those of you have been there, not only is it older than Jared's 84 year old grandpa, who put the wood flooring in, but it has since then been covered in kermet the frog swamp green carpet. Anyhow, we love our little tree house, and slowly but surely the decorating has taken stage. It started this summer by finally putting up some picture from our wedding, in frames I had been collecting with weekly Micheal's coupons was further embelished with a wonderful gift from Jared for my birthday, when he refinished six beautiful sturdy old frames, cutting glass for them, and printing pictures, all of which we have placed around the house. Decorating was topped off when we finally got one of my most exciting wedding gifts this summer from the Ditto's. It's a long story, but on my mission I had this vision of a wall covered in favorite scriptures (instead of pictures of Christ only) and must have told Sara about it, because she had four of the scriptures printed and we got it up on our wall in the living room. I will have to do a house tour later, but for now here is a picture of the wall. Just pretend it's straight - these are way harder to do than you think.

Okay, but here is the kicker. We finally decided that, being here for Christmas, we really wanted to start our own traditions and do some Christmas decorating to get in the Spirit. So we got a fresh tree from our forest here in Logan Canyon and then proceeded to buy and apply the trimmings. After way to much searching we found a metal tree stand (everywhere was either sold out or $50 bucks! Who in their right mind?...) an angel (from Global Village made of orange rinds - so cute! - our new tradition of one ornament a year together), and lights. Lights. One question: How do you know how many lights to buy? Answer: Do not use my strategy of imagining wrapping the strand loosely like a candy-cane-stripe around your tree. It will not be enough!
So yep, that is what we did. Bought one strand of 105 lights, 5 yards (seemed like plenty) and headed home gitty to decorate. Well, after sawing the tree in our living room to make it not hit the roof, barely getting it's excuse for a trunk tightened into the stand, and wrapping the lights on, Jared proudly plugged in the string of lights, to illuminate ....

Yes, two feet of the tree a lite. Oh well, we'll get this down.

Being Thankful

2009-11-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

... we are thankful for so many things ... for each other, our eternal marriage and our family..... Really I could go on and on, but something we forgot to post about was our summer. We are so grateful for our summer! Especially, with the unloved stress of school right now! We had so much fun in August driving in our sweet little green golf (we miss you!) out to Washington to visit grandma and grandpa Howe and the Ditto family! Sara posted an awesome summary of pictures, see here! But here are some other pictures for your delight and to remind us of how much fun we had.

Reading stories with the little ones. Jared does great voices!

Learning to walk with the girls and our photographer Birch.

Hiking out of Boulder cave. There was a lot of slipping - good thing we had enough adults to hold little hands.

Everyone together at the hike. I love having babies in a pack! I am looking forward to hiking with out own to someday.

And making friends.

Then we were off to our grandparents for some beautiful Discovery Bay weather, and a peaceful time together. After a couple of days, Jared and I headed off into the Olympic National Forest just a stones throw from there house, to go backpacking. What was planned to be three days, ended up taking us a day and a half. Guess we underestimated our strength :) But we had a blast.

Love those birds!

View from the bay. Gorgeous.

Startin' strong, Feelin' good.

Sorry, turn your heads or your screens. The trails were so lush and green the whole times.

We crossed a lot of water from streams to waterfalls. Couldn't have asked for better weather.

View from 9000 + feet from starting at sea level.

Walking up! I got out of the tent and Jared snapped this. We camped at this beautiful spot that was full of curious bunnies, squirrels, birds, and a bunch of other little critters. It was freezing when the sun went down though.

So yeah, we got to this ridge and the hair started doing the punk rocker with all the wind. Jared thought it was hilarious. Nice.

On the way down from the ridge. It got a bit bare.

Dirty feet enjoying the ride home (a little earlier than expected ... surprise grandma and grandpa)!

Ah, miss summer time. Love the warmth, though the snow is a bit exciting. I still think it shouldn't come till after Thanksgiving though. Snow belongs with Christmas, and I don't like rushing over Thanksgiving. Miss you all, and wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving!

NAET

2009-11-22T19:06:00.000-08:00

... or "Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Techniques,

I was introduced to NAET several years ago by my sister, who's sister-in-law's daughter had severe milk allergies among others, and was treated by an NAET doctor in Utah. After, I believe two weeks, or something, she was eating a bowl full of ice cream, no problem. Part of me pushed it aside, because I was living in Logan, UT and Salt Lake City was a far way to go to the nearest NAET doctor when I didn't own a car. Plus, my insurance would never cover it. I continued to pursue just about every medical specialty out there to try and diagnose and alleviate my 12+ years of symptoms of muscular and joint pains. Since I was three years old, I have suffered from these sometimes debilitating and sometimes just plain annoying pains. There were times where I couldn't sleep for more than a few hours without being awoken by the severity of the pain. Times when I couldn't' exercise because I hurt to bad. And other times exercise and stretching helped. Essentially there were few patterns to my pain. All in all though, I considered myself very healthy and active, though I new something wasn't right. I fit some descriptions of autoimmune disorders like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, neurofibril myalgia ... you name it, but not one did I follow all the symptoms or test positive for. I am grateful that each doctor (as extremely frustrating as it was sometimes not to have answers though) couldn't diagnose me. Mostly I didn't need a name for what was wrong with me, I just wanted solutions, relief, anything!

I wasn't comfortable taking as much aspirin, Tylenol, or Advil as would require to have relief. So, I began researching on my own. I spent a lot of my youth (well still in my youth so I still do!) learning about the body, nutrition, disease, etc. Partly, all of this has interested my for as long as I can remember, part of me wanted to help others with what I was learning, and part of me wanted to find answers that I was getting rather skeptical of every receiving from any doctor.

While in Germany serving a mission for our church, my companion and I were teaching a man who was trained in Shiatsu. During a lesson in my second to last week serving, he quietly asked me if I was okay. I had been trying to conceal some intense pain I was having during the lesson. I don't know why I told him, but I briefly explained what was wrong. (Oddly enough my mission has been the only exception in my life, up until now of having relatively no pain whatsoever. I was actually surprised to have it during this lesson. I realized though as the Spirit softly had whispered to me, that it was the Lord's most merciful gift to me to take away this pain while I served His children, and to have this small episode after almost two years of relief was a reminder that I needed to seek help again. I also believe he was directing me to some alternative health care I had mostly not pursued officially outside of personal learning, nutritional changes, etc.) He took a moment to meditate, and then suggested that I pursue some treatment in the US, but also graciously offered to do some treatments on me free of charge. I thanked him, but declined feeling that that probably wasn't appropriate now, but wrote down some information and recommendations he gave me.

At home I started researching them, but again nothing was available near by. I moved back to Logan to start school, got married and when things started to settle down a bit started looking into options. That is when I remembered my sister's suggestion to try NAET. I looked it up, but again felt like treatment was to far and too expensive without insurance covering it. At the same time I was introduced to a wonderful LPN in obstetrics/gynecology who I began working with. Though she is a wonderful woman, and certainly takes a much more holistic and natural approach then most physicians I have met, she finally came to the conclusion that medically she couldn't help, and ultimately said I would do best to continue my healthy lifestyle and even up my workout intensity. All in all though, I left feeling upset and disappointed. I was now approaching 20 years of pain, had developed sensitivity in my diet and ate a very low grain/starch (though whole grain when I did), low fat, low sugar diet. I rarely ate a piece of bread after some stomach issues in 2006. I also have been a vegetarian officially since 2nd Grade, though my family can attest to my meat aversion since I can remember. It made my stomach hurt and was accompanied by headaches. Fat, starch and/or sugar began causing similar symptoms. Though some may think I sound super health, no grains isn't a good thing, and some fat in our diets is really important.

Anyhow, all this compounding, led me to start researching NAET from my sister's six year old suggestion. Here is a short description of NAET:
NAET "are a non-invasive, drug free, natural solution to eliminate allergies of all types and intensities using a blend of selective energy balancing, testing and treatment procedures from acupuncture/acupressure, allopathy, chiropractic, nutritional, and kinesiological disciplines of medicine...NAET® can successfully eliminate adverse reactions to egg, milk, peanuts, penicillin, aspirin, mushrooms, shellfish, latex, grass, ragweed, flowers, perfume, animal dander, animal epithelial, make-up, chemicals, cigarette smoke, pathogens, heat, cold, other environmental agents."

In my research, and with some prayer, I began calling various doctors in the SLC area that had NAET specialties I might fit under. I learned that what are referred to allergens are not just evident in the anaphylactic reactions we typically connect them with, but can be better described as "hypersensitivities" our bodies develop often like any autoimmune response, after a traumatic or taxing incidence or series of experiences that causes our body (in it's normally amazing defense) to fight against it's stressor but then "loose"control and began "fighting" other parts of our body, like organs. This spiral of events can create many connected, yet seemingly unconnected, problems. I knew something was wrong, I could feel if what a doctor was suggesting was right or just not the real problem, but I still didn't know what the cause really was.

Through, what I believe was Heavenly Father's guidance, by way of peace, I was able to decide on a doctor, and when I called, actually had my call returned by the practitioner himself and just happened to have an opening the following day when we were already driving down to SLC in August. Dr. Allen (also a chiropractor) has been an extremely helpful in explaining what he is diagnosing as problems and treatments not only physiologically but also according to natural/eastern medicine philosophy. I have appreciated this, because though the technique is not your typical western medicine treatment, he does understand what is happening in my body and can explain that scientifically. He uses a series of acupuncture and acupressure treatment (with his hands, hand held machines and high energy infrared light) along with some nutritional supplements to treat me. I have been driving down to his office in Draper, UT every Friday since I started going (14 times) and am happy to report the increadible blessing of two weeks without pain, and counting! With the exception of my time serving a mission, this is the first time I have gone this long with out pain in 21 years. I thank our Heavenly Father every night. If you do the math, yes it has taken sometime to feel the effects of the treatments. I have been suffering from this chronic pain for years though, so really if one treatment is working off a year or more of pain, I have to say that is pretty "quick" and effective.

I am so grateful for Dr. Allen's expertise and commitment to his patients. He is an excellent doctor whom I would recommend to anyone with explained or unexplained problems, disease, pain, etc. Unlike most traditional allergy treatments, most people are told to stay away from what is causing their reaction to, milk, gluten, etc. With NAET though, the idea is to treat you for them, so that your body can be exposed to these substances or situations and react in a normal healthy homeostatic way. If you are looking for a practitioner in your area, click here. I would also be happy to answer any more questions you might have. Just leave a comment on my blog.

Lastly, I would just like to note: Most of our problems are not only physiologically caused or promoted but psychologically/emotionally too. It is so important to take an honest look at all the different areas that could be contributing to your suffering (even if it is minimal) and deeply consider if it may have other patterns. We often don't realize how much our body physically expresses the stress we are receiving and often creating. Understanding this, and working to honestly analyze this, alone, with my husband, and family, has significantly improved the way I feel. I don't mean that we mean to cause the pain we have, in fact I mean just the opposite. A lot of our body's reactions are not our doing, but we can aid it's healing by changing some of our attitudes, reactions, or feelings, internally. We are truly more powerful than we may believe we are. As a dear friend put it this summer, our bodies are the miracles, we just need to give them the right resources and they can often heal themselves.

Happy Halloween!

2009-11-01T16:08:00.001-08:00

Well, here is everyone hard at work carving their pumpkins. We had a fun Family Home Evening together last monday, carving away to get into the halloween spirit. My mind was on other things though. I bought a pumpkin we could eat, Jared and I worked together on the phase diligently, and now it is in the oven roasting fur what I prefer in the fall spirit, ROASTED PUMPKIN PIE! Yes, recipe coming soon, if you would like.
*Note: please excuse the scary red eye of mine. I guess the stress of reading and what not got to me, because my eye ball turned red. Guess, I should tell my teachers to stop giving me so much homework! Luckily, despite the increase in homework load, my eye is healing. I just have opted out of the glasses/contacts and gone semi-blurry for a few days.
* Double Note: For those of you who don't know, this is part of Jared's family, Estee, Aaron, son Sam and Cooper, the Drew and Sadie, as well as Carter. And yes, there was some pumpkin drilling because some of the pumpkins were so hard to carve!

Blueberry-Oat Bars (or in my case Cherry-Oat Bars .... or any other summer fruit)

2009-07-31T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hey, I was just talking to mom about these. I made them last night. They were yummy and warm! I put my adjustments in parentheses. And just so you know agave nectar is a sugar replacement for vegan's. You could use honey or just brown/white sugar) if you don't have that on hand. I never do.
Anyhow, thought you might enjoy! It's like a cobbler crisp in your hands ....

Blueberry-Oat Bars (or in my case Cherry-Oat Bars .... or any other summer fruit)

If you prefer a sweeter bar, add more agave nectar, sugar, stevia, or your favorite sweetener to the blueberries as they are cooking. Or add a sugar glaze on top by mixing a little vegan powdered sugar with water until it's the right consistency for drizzling.

1 pint blueberries (pie cherries)
1/4 cup agave nectar (less than a tablespoon brown sugar)
1/4 cup apple juice (used the cherry juice)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla (plus 1/2 tsp. almond extract)
2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with enough water or juice to form a smooth paste

3 cups oatmeal* (regular, not instant)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon ( I was generous)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 ounces unsweetened applesauce ( I did banana's because I had some that were soooo black)
6 tablespoons (3/8 cup) agave nectar (again, a tablespoon or less of brown sugar)
6 tablespoons (3/8 cup) water ( I through in a little butter milk too, because I didn't have the liquid from the agave nectar or honey)
1 teaspoon vanilla (plus almond extract)

Preheat oven to 375F. Oil an 8x8-inch baking dish.

In a small saucepan, combine the blueberries, agave nectar, and juice. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. When it boils, stir in the vanilla and the cornstarch mixture. Continue to stir as the mixture boils and thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.

Put 1 1/2 cups of the oatmeal into a blender and grind it to a fine powder. Pour it into a medium-sized mixing bowl and add the remaining oatmeal, cinnamon, baking powder, and salt. Mix well. Stir in the apple sauce, agave nectar, water, and vanilla, and mix well.

Spread half of the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing well to cover the bottom of the pan. Spoon the blueberry filling over the batter, and cover the blueberries with the remaining batter.

Bake for 30 minutes, or until the top is lightly browned. Allow to cool some so that they stay together, before cutting into bars.

*Use gluten-free oats to make these gluten-free.

Makes 16 bars. Each contains 117 Calories (kcal); 1g Total Fat; (7% calories from fat); 3g Protein; 26g Carbohydrate; 0mg Cholesterol; 81mg Sodium; 2g Fiber. Weight Watchers 2 Flex Points.

The Watts and the Wrights

2009-07-10T08:39:00.001-07:00

So this is a collection of the few pictures we actually took while spending Wednesday through Sunday with Leah and Geoff's sweet little kids. We had LOTS of fun playing on that swing, spinning around and getting real dizzy. Nothing is funnier than letting Isaac spin Lucy on the swing than having her hop off and try to walk to you! We are so grateful for the opportunity to have so much time to share with them. It was nice and hot, so the wet hair Isaac pictures are from our time playing in the sprinklers with the neighbors. Loved his hair. We miss you wrights!

for the Fathers

2009-06-21T12:11:00.001-07:00

Happy Father's Day Dad! I LOVE YOU SO SO MUCH ...

Kim, thank you for being such a wonderful Father-in-Law. I really couldn't be more blessed with such wonderful fathers. Thank you for your support, wisdom, and wonderful wonderful warm hugs. I love you very much.

Geoff, this is an old one, but a picture I love. You are a such a fun father, and I am so grateful to spend time with you more often. I will never forget the impression of the father I knew you would be, and the father you are, because of Isaac's baby blessing and the things you shared there. Thank you.

Ryan, It has been so fun to get to know you, mostly as a father to my sweet little niece Sage. Thank you for being the father Emily always dreamed of and Sage needs. Sorry to post a naked picture, but ironically it was all I had. We're still friends right?

Matt, I didn't' have a picture with you, but I did of your sweet little daughter. I know she will be loved to the same divine degree she is worth, because you have already shown that to me

Birch and Seth. You two have been wonderful examples to me of Fatherhood. Thank you for also being amazing brothers in my life as well.

Luke, you are going to be a wonderful Father someday.

Dad, you have instilled a life of loving excitement, the out of doors, challenges, people, culture, and differences. Most of all though you and mom have given me a roots in in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and a magnificent tree is developing slowly but surely. Thank you for this eternal gift. We love you.

And Jared my love, I know you love being a kid and want thirteen little ones real soon (wink wink - that is a total inside joke for the rest of you reading this). Even though we will wait a little longer, you can still play with the kids toys, but I would stick with the adult swings.
Sweetheart, I look so forward to that day, when you become the father of our sweet children. I love you, always and forever.

some latest creations

2009-06-21T07:39:00.001-07:00

Can I just tell you how much I love creating things?! These four, though not the best shots (I didn't inherit the amazing photography skills as my sisters or brothers) nonetheless they give you a bit of an idea, what I have been up to for some birthday's around these parts.

gone short

2009-06-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

Yep, so a lot of time has passed and I am just now getting to do some updates. We have started to decorate and organize our sweet little "tree house" as we like to call it. We are renting the top half of a beautiful old white house, Jared's uncle owns. Lucky for us it is nestled in some large tree's so looking out the window, really does make it feel like we are in a tree house. Pictures of our place will be coming soon. Until then, this is a self portrait of me gone short. Jared's sister Lindsay, is an amazing hair dresser. She treated me to a wonderful new hair cut nice and short just the way I as hoping, and a few trims since then. Jared loves it, and regularly asks, "are you going to keep it short?" Funny guy.

finally wedding bells were chiming!

2009-06-21T06:32:00.000-07:00

I love this man ...

Truly there is no perfect combination of words to describe just how life changing and filled with meaning this day was for us. Having so much of our family and dear friends there that could make it was and increadible gift to us. To feel all that we did on that day was the most miraculous gift of all. This was probably the strongest indication to us of the reality and vitality of eternal life and true love beaming from our Father in Heaven and abounding through us all.
Thank you to all who made this possible for years in the making.

The dashing brothers

Grandpa Cal and Grandma Ann Watts

Adorable little items my mother and others made consisting of caramelized spicy Oregon hazelnuts, for those attending the luncheon afterward. They say,
"Oregon girl
meets
Utah Boy =
something sweet and spicy
Laura and Jared
October 16, 2008"

My gorgeous bouquet also designed by my mother with boutonnieres and corsages done by her with her mother, Beverly, and sister-in-law, Jackie, in our little apartment dinning room the day before. It was a fun pre-wedding activity, and a really nice time to spend all together.

and yes, we got engaged

2009-02-22T18:25:00.000-08:00

... it was pretty much a done deal the night we first saw each other again. We had the awesome opportunity to share that day with both of our parents. I drove up to Logan with my parents, we arrived at the Watts' mid-day, got to see almost everyone and then the next couple of days we, and our parents, shared a little more time together. The six of us went to the temple that Friday, also with great friends the Roghaars. We shared dinner together and announced our engagement! The date changed about three times but finally ...

Then we came home ....

2009-02-22T18:15:00.000-08:00

It was incredible to come home, meet so many wonderful new members of the family, just simply hug all those we had missed, and then finally be re-united. This first picture is of Erica Martineau and her best friend Matthew. She is now serving in the West Virginia Charleston Mission. The gratitude for the support and love we have been given, while we were away, the gratitude for the cherished moments we will forever have while serving, the people we dearly love and miss, the time shared through letters, leaves an indelible mark on our lives. We have been shaped and changed forever. Thank you. We will try to live the rest of our lives to share what we have been given.

Then came our missions ...

2009-02-22T18:08:00.000-08:00

First, we met

2009-02-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

Yes, it was pretty much love at first sight. It only took us two years of studying, lots of guidance and miracles from a loving Father in Heaven and, one back surgery, to actually get us together. From that point on though, we could "barely" ever be apart. Okay, maybe we were for two years, but it was only a process of coming closer together .....