This is Me on Monday Morning.....Ugh

Attending school would seem to be equivalent to a weekend getaway...

Babies change things.

Long Long Ago

Once Upon a Time....my baby was this small.
These are some pictures we had taken of Noah when he was just two weeks old. It's amazing what a long time ago that seems, and how much he's grown since then.

Livin' the Dream

So...we haven't been doing a lot of terribly exciting blog-worthy things lately, but we do keep ourselves entertained!

This is Noah's first fort...You can tell by the look on his face that he is ecstatic. I mean, what little boy wouldn't be! (we'll show him these pictures later on in life and he'll be sorry he was so indifferent to this amazing creation)It may have looked big on the outside, but we pretty much demolished it while Rich and I were trying to join in the fun, we had to rebuild it around ourselves:)And thats the latest!

I Hereby Tag, All Who Read This

1. What is your occupation right now? Cello Teacher, Mommy, Student

2. What color are your socks right now? All of my socks are white, except for some pink ones with hearts that I wear on Valentines day

3. What are you listening to right now? Colbie Caillat – Oxygen

5. Can you drive a stick shift? No, and it sometimes makes my life pretty difficult because one of our two cars is a stick. I really should learn, but it’s a tiny truck, therefore Noah can’t ride in it. And it just seems like a waste of an outing to get a baby sitter so Rich can teach me to drive stick.

6. Last person you spoke to on the phone? My mother in Law, one of the 3 people who call me (Rich, my mom, and my mom-in-law! I should probably get some friends…)

7. Do you like the person who sent this to you? No…just kiddin’ I love you Kelly Jean!

8. How old are you today? Almost 22! …but yeah today, 21.

9. What is your favorite sport to watch on TV? Hm…I guess I’d have to say soccer, because I played it so I can understand it and get into it. But I’m really working on basketball and football for Rich’s sake.

10. What is your favorite drink? I LOVE MILK!!! But ever since we moved into this apartment that has a fridge with the ice thing that makes crushed ice and has instant cold water, I drink a lot more of that than I used to. It’s not so bad.

11. Have you ever dyed your hair? Actually, no. I’ve only gotten weaves, some people may consider that the same thing. But believe it or not I have always had atleast SOME of my natural color.

12. Favorite food? I don’t know that I have one favorite. If you asked my favorite type I would always say Italian, but I’m kind likin’ Tai food now too. My favorite thing these days is the Tomato Potato chip sandwich that Rich introduced to me a couple of weeks ago (Tomato, Mayo, and Potato chip between bread, it’s Delish!)

13. What is the last movie you watched? The Holiday, but I only made it through half, then I fell asleep.

14. Favorite day of the year? Hm. That question is impossible to answer. I’m skipping it.

15. How do you vent anger? Well, this may make some people question my sanity. If I’m angry with a person than I just have imaginary conversations with them in my head and say everything that I need to say. Those of you who know me know that what I want to say will almost never get to the person who needs to hear it. It’s probably not healthy…
16. What was your favorite toy as a child? My sis and I were obsessed with stuffed animals, they all had names and birthdays, the works. But I also loved my American girl dolls.

17. What is your favorite season? Fall hands down. My dad says it’s an awful season because everything is dying. But it’s got both Rich and My birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, the anticipation of Christmas, it smells good, it’s beautiful with the leaves, the temperature is perfect, and school starts after a summer break so it doesn’t seem quite so terrible!

18. Cherries or Blueberries? Cherries, I don’t so much like blueberries

19. Do you want your friends to e-mail you back? Of course.

20. Who is the most likely to respond? Um, maybe Dani? (no pressure)

21. Who is least likely to respond? Probably Kim since she hasn’t blogged for forever (but I know she'll read this, so there some pressure:)

22. Living arrangements? In my sisters basement right now, but we’re looking…

23. When was the last time you cried? Actually, yesterday.

24. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes, and my backpack.

26. What did you do last night? Took a walk to wheeler farm and then feel asleep at like eight thirty so that I couldn’t sleep once I really wanted to.

27. What are you most afraid of? Someone in my family dieing. That’s a little morbid, I should have found something light and funny to say, but it’s true.

28. Plain, cheese, or spicy hamburgers? Cheesy. Everything is better with a little cheese.

29. Favorite dog breed? One day I’m going to get a Yorky Poodle. I love those little dogs.

30. Favorite day of the week? Probably Thursdays, because I love Fridays….That may only make sense to me.

31. How many states have you lived in? Just good ol’ Utah!

32. Diamonds or pearls? Pearls

33. What is your favorite flower? I love lilies. But it’s probably tied with Roses. I say lilies because it seems more original. Rich thinks roses are overated, and he’s probably right, but I just can’t shake it, I love Them!

34. How did you meet the person who sent this to you? I don’t really actually remember how I met her, but she’s been a good bud for a long time!

Bless that Baby!

Noah was good as gold the day of his blessing. He didn't squirm or cry while the blessing was being performed, of course that might have been because of the extreme bouncing he was experiencing.

This is the adorable little outfit, made especially for him by Grandma Poulsen. Thanks!

Spit-Up

So Noah and I were playing on my bed this morning. Playing meaning smiling at each other. If he's happy and fed, than any little bit of attention will ussually get him pretty excited. And when he gets excited he sticks his arms out straight, flails them around in every direction, bicycle kicks his legs at a rapid rate, and snorts.
So there we were 'playing', and he spits up. Now normal spit up would be nothing worth mentioning, the kind that just over-flows out of the mouth or even occasionally spills all the way down his chest. But this was pretty extraordinary. Somehow he managed to make a fountain! I kid you not this spit shot straight up and out of his mouth, 2 maybe 3 inches, so straight that I thought it might land right back where it came from! It wasn't as exact as it seemed because it ended up covering the rest of his face.
What I wouldn't give to have had a camera right then as he furiously blinked through the messy discharge to stare confusedly up at me, laughing my head off.

I DID IT!!!

Today is a monumental day in my not too terribly exciting life. I've done something that I never thought I could do, and handled it just as horribly as I imagined I would have. This is my story...

It started out as a normal Thursday morning. I had just put Noah in bed for his "nap" that ussually lasts till noon (it's really more of a second nights sleep). I was feeling ambitious this morning so reguardless of the fact that I was not planning on going anywhere or doing anything special I thought I would put on some makeup and, believe it or not, do something cute with my hair! This forced me to be in front of the mirror much longer than is usual in my average day. So there I was in the middle of putting on my mascara when something tiny and black caught my eye from the top corner of the mirror. I quickly realized that i was seeing the reflection from behind me and had just witnessed a GINORMOUS spider crawl from over the top of the shower curtain, I turned in time to see him darting rapidly toward the ground.
So when I mentioned the "tiny" black thing, I had not at the time known this was a spider. In spider speaking this was, as I said, Ginormous. Not the little wimpy spiders with the little bodies and the thin legs, this sucker was thick and black. And fast. And HUGE. And thats all I'm going to say about it because my hands are starting to shake.
I was now forced to face one of my worst fears. You can even ask Rich! When we first moved into our new apartment we must have disturbed some homes because we found quite a few of these giant beauties. But in that first week, Rich was home with me and all I had to do was scream and the mess would be taken care of. I recall the night before Rich went back to work. I expressed to him my fear that I would find a spider while I was home alone and I wouldn't be able to kill it so I would run away and then we would have to move because I wouldn't be able to live in a house with the knowlege of a huge spider lurking in every dark warm place! So far I had been safe, but now, I had to decide...
Well, in the 16th of a second that I paused to consider, I believe it was my mothers instinct that saved the day. I had to give my baby a bath when he woke up, and this beast would have to be dead for me to do it.
I quickly reached for the plastic bucket that I keep all of Noah's bath supplies in, hurridly dumping them on the floor, (it was the object with the most surface area on the bottom to increase my chances of actually hitting this speedy demon), and just as the culplrit was reaching the bottom of the curtain I smashed him and then shook the tub around to break up the pieces. If you can imagine, all this did was wound him. I then reached for the conditioner bottle to apply more pressure and repeated the gesture many times until I knew the spider was mutilated enough that atleast he couldn't run away. All this time I was squeeling at a pitch only dogs could hear.
As soon as I was sure I was safe from the fiend, I ran from the bathroom, jumped on my bed, grabbed my phone and called Rich, near tears, asking him to come home. I knew he wouldn't really come home, but I needed to talk to someone to calm my hyperventilating. He told me how brave I was and that he was so proud of me. Little did he know it would be a couple hours before I could go back in the bathroom to finish putting on my make-up, and that I would only hide the black pulpy spider mess under the bucket so he could take care of it later.
I wanted to take a picture of it for proof on this post, but, thats just going too far. Maybe with my next victory. Maybe.

Another Growth Update

AH-CHOO!!!

Maybe I'm just crazy, but I don't think there is anything more adorable than a baby sneezing. Ever since Noah was born we have been trying to catch him sneezing on video, and we finally succeeded! So I publish this post for all to enjoy:)

Sorry the movie is so much longer than it needed to be, we were hoping he would do it again...

Back to Where the Magic Happened

To celebrate out anniversary Rich and I decided to we wanted to spend an evening where the deed was done 2 years ago, seeing as we are so conveniently close now.
We ate at The Garden restaurant on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building. It was a fun little place to eat, the food was not amazing, but the atmosphere was great. We were leaving just as the sun went down and the temple lights turned on. It was gorgeous!

Rich snapped some really beautiful pictures of the temple. It was really fun to simply walk around the square and actually look at the statues and landscape and things. I've taken it for granted having lived so close to it most of my life, it really is an awesome place.



We had a super fun time reminiscing:)

(The flash made this picture look a little bit like Elphaba's palace or something. For those of you not dialed in, that was a reference to WICKED)