Flies, now ants

Why don't we learn? Last summer we got a fly infestation after not taking our trash out for a week. Now we take the trash out right away, but we've gotten lax about picking up Katrina's food that she throws on the floor each meal. We have a plastic circular mat that most of the food is on, but she can throw her cheerios pretty far, so it's spread out a bit. Anyway, this morning I found a bunch of ants in the dining room all over the food. Yuck. Luckily they haven't spread to the kitchen or anywhere else. I actually called Adam and had him turn the car around to come back and help clean everything up. Katrina was clinging to me like a leach, so it was impossible to vacuum or anything without him.

Well, there are still a bunch of ants, even without food. I went to the store and got some ant bait traps that are basically worthless. I haven't seen a single ant crawl in. We'll have to get something else. At least the ants are only along one wall of one room, so that's nice, and they are little tiny ants, which aren't as gross as larger ants would be.

I got Katrina to nap again, so I need to go get my nap in now because she'll be awake again in 30-45 minutes. Have a great Thursday!

Best birthday song

I got a phone call today from Natasha. I briefly wondered why she was calling me during the school day, but I wasn't really sure what the time was or whether she was still teaching. We talked for a moment and then she had a surprise--her 1st grade class sang Happy Birthday to me! It was really cute. My favorite part was the "cha-cha-cha"s that they added. So thanks Natasha! It made my day. I told the kids it was the best birthday song I've ever heard. It was so cute.

I'm 23 today! I think that's a good age. When I was younger I used to think 24 would be the perfect age, though I'm not sure why. I did recently find out I am the youngest woman in my ward who is not one of the Young Women, who are all under 18. That's kind of weird.

I just forced Katrina to take a second nap. She was just being so unhappy while awake. I feel super bad because I made her just lay in there crying for awhile. I am just so exhausted and under-the-weather, and since she woke up from her nap three hours ago, I really wanted a break. Of course, now she won't be able to fall asleep tonight until after 9, I bet, so I probably shouldn't've made her nap, but I didn't know what else to do. I might nap myself. However, lately when I try to nap, I inevitably lay there for half an hour, finally drift off, and then have to get up within a few minutes, which is not fulfilling. I might just zone out in front of the tv now that Katrina's asleep.

Adam came home at lunch at brought me food! It's always so nice seeing him during the day. I stopped by his work yesterday after going to the pediatrician because I like seeing him whenever possible. Katrina gets sad when he leaves, though. She's having major separation anxiety issues. Even if Adam is holding her, if I walk out of sight, she starts wailing. She doesn't care if I walk into a different room at home, just when we are out. But when Daddy leaves each morning, she starts crying. It's endearing.

So we're going out for dinner on Friday! Any ideas? I'm trying to decide between this Indian restaurant we really like and Olive Garden. And actually, I kind of want a Chipotle burrito more than anything. It would definitely be cheaper. We'll see.

One of the best birthday things that's going in is an awesome episode of LOST tonight. Yes, I am addicted to LOST, and you should be too. :] I seriously am so excited for that I am counting down the hours.

12 Month Appointment

The pediatrician visit today was fairly simple and easy, and we didn't have to wait nearly as long as usual to see the doctor. Katrina is measuring at 20 3/4 lbs, 29.25 inches, and a huge head still. Her percentiles are 40th for weight, 50th for height, and 80th for head. The doctor had no concerns. Katrina did need three shots, so I brought her blankie to the appointment for that part. I'm not sure if it helped though. She got pretty mad, but then quickly became rather lethargic. She's had that reaction to shots before. I'm pretty sure she'll sleep all the way until I wake her up to go pick up her daddy from work.

This week is so slow. I can't get up the motivation to do anything, even exercise, because of the 90 degree heat outside. We are planning on celebrating my birthday with family on Thursday and with each other on Friday while my visiting teacher babysits Katrina. She is really nice about that. I think she's babysat Katrina on two or three occasions for us, and it's always been her idea. She much prefers doing service for me each month than visiting, which is fine by me. That reminds me though that I forgot to make appointments with my visiting teach-ees on Sunday, and I was planning on Thursday anyway, so that's out of the question now. Hmm. Maybe I can get one during the day, though I'll probably not be able to visit the other sister.

I really am having serious motivation issues these days. My house is super dirty. I haven't even swept the bathroom floors in weeks, let alone cleaned everything. A large part of that is because I've seen centipedes in our bathrooms a couple times, and it's seriously skeezed me out, so I'm afraid to clean. The kitchen is in a constant state of half the dishes in our kitchen on the counter while the other half are in the dishwasher. I haven't vacuumed in weeks. I keep trying to do other productive things, but have no interest in finishing the other quilt or any other sewing project. Right now I'm just considering taking a nap. Anyone have suggestions for getting out of my rut?

That said, a nap sounds so good right now, so I'm going to do that. Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Weekend rundown

The hours between 6 and 8 are so tough sometimes, namely when Adam leaves and I need to get Katrina to bedtime alone. We often go out driving or on walks. I could go on a walk now, I suppose, but Adam already took her to the park so I could nap earlier. When things get really rough, I give her some goldfish crackers to eat off the floor. Smiles all around!


We had a nice trip to Washington D.C. yesterday to go to the temple. Adam had been planning it for months. He has been doing a lot of family history work and had 41 sealings to get done. We planned on going with his whole family, and were still able to go with his sister and her family. The whole family couldn't make it, but we definitely forgive them, because they were with Adam's aunt who is in the hospital after a bad car accident. We are very happy that she will make a full recovery.


We had arranged to do sealings with our stake, which was also there yesterday, so we had to rush a little in order to switch off babies in between, but it ended up working out just fine and both children were at their best behavior. Here's Adam juggling both kids:



Unlike most temple trips, we ended up home while the sun was still shining and there was plenty of day left. That felt so weird.


I pulled out my violin for the first time since the Messiah to play with the church choir. We practiced today and will perform again in two weeks. I can't really say it sounds that great. Partially it's me needing to de-rustify my fingers, and partially it's the violin part. When people who don't play string instruments write violin music, it's obvious.


Church is much more interesting now that Katrina has figured out she can leave the pew and visit other pews. All the other kids have more interesting toys. But I try to keep her in the pew for most of Sacrament meeting. It's distracting when five little kids are wandering everywhere, so I try to keep her from being the sixth. She can be pretty vocal when upset, so I have to strike a fine balance.


Oh, speaking of upset, yesterday Katrina got stuck between the sliding doors at the temple. We were in the lobby waiting for Adam's sister and husband. I watches as Katrina cruised along the couch and over towards the automatic doors. I was just thinking about getting her but must have looked away, because when I looked back, she was standing against the glass and the door was opening towards her. I watched, horrified, as the door trapped her arm in between the doors and tried to keep opening. I ran over to her, snatched her up, and quickly got the heck out of there with her only letting out one wail in the reverent lobby. The poor girl had a nasty red and white pinched spot on her arm and I was afraid it was broken, but she wouldn't let me look at it and could move it just fine. The mark disappeared eventually and she doesn't have any swelling or bruising, but I just keep seeing it in my head over and over. I'm so glad she wasn't seriously hurt.


It's tough finding toys for kids sometimes, and she only is mildly interested in her birthday toys, but I think we found one that will be fun and long-lasting (other than the package of three IKEA balls that she loves to death). We got this toy that goes on the fridge. It has five different animals that are split into two pieces. You can mix and match them and the toy sings little songs ("You've got a cow in front and a pig behind, put them together and what do you find? A cow-pig? Mooo-oink! That's silly!") We've had it two days and I already have the little song stuck in my head, but she likes it.


Oh, one more thing. Katrina is getting much better at pulling herself up on things! As in, she couldn't do it last week but can now. I called Adam earlier this week and said, "Katrina was on the floor next to the elliptical machine and now she's walking between the couch and coffee table." He thought it was cool, but wasn't nearly as impressed as when he saw it happen today. ("Wait, how did she get there?") She also practices standing. Sometimes I'll catch her standing next to the couch and throwing her hands in the hair while she balances for a moment, and then she will lean back against the couch. We're convinced that once she gets standing down, she'll be walking that day. For now though, she only walks between us.

A baby and her blankie

First, some blurry pictures. Katrina really loves her rocking horse, which is actually a unicorn with a jewel for an eye and a pretty pink mane and tail. She's getting good at rocking it by herself.

Also, she is what I like to call, a Baby Shark.

I have relaxed my rule that the blankie stays in the crib because so often lately she's been inexplicably sad and the blanke makes it better. Sometimes I even think she calls it her "baba." I can't tell. When she says that, she won't repeat it.

Here she carefully picked up both sides of it so it would be wrapped around her like a cape.

She especially loves to cuddle into us while cuddling her blankie too. And she likes to suck her thumb through the blankie.

Now isn't that just the cutest little girlie in the world?

Anosmia and the Perfect House

Just got back from the doctor. I need to wait a couple of weeks and then go to the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist. He said if I felt concerned enough about it, I could go right away. I almost made an appointment right away, but then I decided to wait out the month of April first, just so I can be sure that it's not coming back on it's own. He agreed with me that it was probably the decongestant nasal spray that caused it.



So, we found the Perfect House. We liked it so much last night that if we could have bought it on the spot, we would have. Here is a picture.

It's about 20 minutes north of us. You have to drive through Valley Forge National Park to get to it. In fact, Adam would drive through the park every day to get to work. If you've seen Valley Forge, you know what a sacrifice that would be. :] As in, it's pretty much the most gorgeous National Park in the U.S.

Our enthusiam is tempered by the extra distance to Adam's work. Now it takes 15 minutes, and if we lived there it would take 30. I would still be stuck at home with no car, but without the option of buying Adam a bike to drive to work. We would have to change our pediatrician and doctor, which would be sad. We would be in a different ward, which really makes us sad. And I think our ward boundaries would be even more spread out and large, which I didn't think was possible. Church would be a little farther away, and the stake center would be a lot farther away, which makes it unlikely that I would want to drive all the way to participate in stake events, like playing again in the Messiah. We would be about ten minutes farther away from Adam's family, but that's all.

As for the house itself, it is virtually perfect for our needs. Three beds, a small living room and a family room, a utility room with washer/dryer, and even a floored-in attic with lots of space. Everything is newly done. There is a big back yard. It's near a park and a grocery store. The biggest downside to the inside is the size of the kitchen. It's pretty small, and once we add the fridge, we'll have to squish to get by it to go downstairs. It's a split level home with four levels, and it has about the same square footage as our apartment. Somehow, it seems much large than our apartment, though. It also only has one bathroom, which we could get used to again without too much problem.

We've been going through this housing search thinking that we probably wouldn't find anything, but now that we have, we're seriously considering trying to buy it. Of course, there's that whole credit crisis going on now that we'd have to deal with. And all of the upfront costs of buying a home. And it has such high taxes that we would really want to get the price down $10-15,000. It's only been on the market two months, so I don't know how desperate they are to sell.

Anyway, Katrina is sleeping. She woke up early, was super cranky, took an early nap, turned into a huge cranky-pants at the doctor, and is now sleeping again. Even though this will probably make bedtime a nightmare, I'm grateful for the break!

Rainy Day Walk

I'm not sure which is harder--dealing with Katrina between 9:30 and 11:00 am or between 5 and 8:00 pm. The first is before her nap. She's always difficult to entertain and gets bored easily. The second is hard because she gets really cranky, a result of only taking one nap a day now, and she also is hard to entertain. At night, though, Adam is there to help, and we often leave the house to distract her.

This morning, it was 10:00, and I was dreading the remaining hour until her nap. So we trekked on outside for an early walk rather than our typical afternoon walk. It's a rainy day, so I draped a blanket over the stroller shade, and we headed out. Unfortunately, it was colder than I thought, so it was a fairly chilly experience. I took off Katrina's socks and put them on her hands since her feet were well-insulated by a fleece blanket and her hands were much more exposed. It's also really windy, and Katrina ended up with a blossom stuck in her hair, while I had one blow into my mouth.

I go to the doctor tomorrow and I'm going to try to find out about my loss of my sense of smell. I hope it's not permanent! I suppose I'd rather lose my sense of smell than my sight or hearing, but that's not much consolation when I can't smell the spring blossoms, Katrina's head, or carbon monoxide. :[

I'm going to Texas!

I just booked a flight to my brother's reception. I'm pretty excited. It would be cool if Adam and Katrina could come with me, and I suppose I could bring Katrina if I really wanted to endure four flights and a night in a hotel with her, but really, does that sound fun to anyone? Unfortunately for her grandma and aunt, she'll be staying home with her daddy. I was waffling about going, but then my mom said she and my sister bought tickets. That settled it. I figured I would buy tickets with me arriving and leaving at approximately the same times so that they could take me with them in a rental car or whatever they used for transportation (I can't rent a car for another two years). We'll share a hotel. When I went to book tickets, I found flights leaving and arriving at exactly the same times as my mom and sister. I think that since I have a layover in Dallas, we'll be flying on the same airplanes between Dallas and College Station. Pretty fun, huh! Plus, it will be Stake Conference so I don't have to find a sub for the piano in Primary and Adam won't have to be worried about teaching his deacons while holding Katrina.

We have a park near us. Yesterday we headed over there and I got a couple of pictures of Katrina.
She wasn't too sure about the swing.

But then I started pushing her and saying "booga booga" whenever she came toward me. She started giggling.

Today we went on a walk and on the way home stopped by the park. There is a balance beam there that is perfect Katrina height.

And here again with her favorite rattle.

Got to go take care of the crankypants girlie. Instead of one long three hour nap, she just woke up from her second short 45-minute nap.

Small feet

I just was measuring Katrina for some shoes and I realized for sure what I've suspected for awhile--she has super small feet. In fact, according to the ages on the website I was looking at, she should be in size 4 or 5 by now. Instead, her feet don't even measure at a size 3. Every shoe that I have bought her has been too big, and plus, she can kick them all off in seconds. We have this one pair of boots that are soooo cute, but they are practically worthless, because they don't stay on. A church friend recommended Robeez to me, and she claimed they stay on, but after buying several pairs of shoes of other brands that failed, I'm afraid to spend more money. Instead, I just enter blog giveaways for baby shoes whenever I see them. :] I think once Katrina is walking more and we start going outside more, then I will make sure to buy her some shoes.

So it's a beautiful day outside, perfect for a walk, and guess who doesn't have the stroller? Yep. Me. Adam got it out of the trunk for me earlier this week, but it rained everyday, and then we went to the mall and took it there. So now, it's a nice day and yet I'm stranded once again. If I get too stir crazy, I might just carry Katrina over to the park near us. I can bring a blanket or something and we'll sit and watch the geese and squirrels. She really loves geese. I try to get her to swing on the swings, but they seem to terrify her. Looks like I really will be raising a little scaredy-cat child. Oh wait, that's genetic! I was a scaredy-cat child/adult. :]

I gave Katrina some whole milk for the first time this morning. She only was willing to try it twice, and each time she only took one swallow before throwing the sippy cup while milk spilled out of her mouth. I don't think she likes it much. If she still hates it after a week or so, maybe I'll try soy milk. She still nurses once a day, so at least she's getting some milk.

She likes to curcuit the apartment now. I close the bathroom doors so she won't be able to rifle through the trash cans, but I let her into the other rooms. We've already baby-proofed some things in our apartment, but I can tell it's time for another round. One hard thing is that a lot of things have to be screwed into the cabinet doors. But since it's an apartment, I would feel bad doing that. I'm still looking for other options.

Oh, and one other thing--I just found out a few days ago that my brother got married! I'm so excited for him. We knew he was serious with his girlfriend, but I was under the impression that things hadn't worked out and that she had gone back home. To my surprise, he announced this week that they have gotten married. I haven't met her yet, though most of my family has. They are having a reception next month, and I really want to go. We still haven't figured out yet whether we can afford it or not. Unfortunately, I'm thinking no, even if we just got me a ticket. But it's important to me to support my brother and be there if I can, so we still haven't decided for sure. Anyway, I just wanted to share that good news. For those of you who know my family, it's my brother Josh.

Playing with birthday presents

Happy Birthday Katrina!

A year ago I was happily reclined in a hospital bed in Orem, Utah, enjoying the effects of my epidural and my first break from the painful contractions of the previous fifteen or so hours. I was chatting with my mom, sisters, and Adam. I was super tired, and because of a common infection they made me wait significantly longer than I wanted to begin pushing, in order to get enough antibiotics into my system and for the convenience of the doctor. Finally, at 9:41 that night, Katrina was born! This year has been such a rollercoaster ride, and I can't believe I now have a toddler instead of a little baby. She's even making it "official" by increasing her confidence in taking several steps at a time. I'm pretty sure we can say that she's walking at this point, though no more than 6-8 steps maximum, and then only between me and Adam.

We had a fun party/Easter celebration on Sunday. The meny was delicious--berry soup, lamb, asparagus, etc. And the cake was phenomenal! My mother and sister-in-law should sell their creations. They made Katrina a pink carousel cake that even spun around like a carousel! It was darling, and yummy. Katrina gobbled down her slice in record time. To top it all off, we had an Easter egg hunt, though Katrina wasn't too good at it. Her cousin, who is a year older, had lots of fun finding all the eggs "hidden" in the living room. Katrina managed to shake an egg open and popped a black jelly bean into her mouth. I gagged a little at the black gooey drool that consequently poured from her mouth while she ate it, but she loved it. Ick. I hate black jelly beans!

Unfortunately, I realized halfway through that my camera had no memory stick. It was still in my laptop from the previous day. So no pictures of the egg-hunting, present-opening fun. I snapped a few picture of Katrina when we got home, playing with her new toys. I will upload them after she goes to bed and it's safe to use the laptop without interference. We're very grateful to our friends and family who love to gift her with fun toys and clothes! She especially loves her toy xylophone, and though she is a bit wary of her unicorn rocking horse, she seems to enjoy riding it if I am close by for sudden changes of mind. My favorite gift is the toy box, which we definitely need now! Though Katrina is just as likely to spend hours during the day walking around clutching easter eggs with cheerios inside and a film cannister with a button inside.

Katrina is exerting new independence each day. A few days ago she figured out how to cruise into the kitchen when we are in there. Yesterday she figured out how to do that when we're not in there! Luckily, I can normally just call for her and she comes back. Today I watched her cruise down the hall, and a minute or two later I heard banging. She had made her way into her room and was hitting her monitor against the diaper pail lid. I'm glad she's learning independence and I'm trying at the same time to figure out new activities to do, since she also has mostly dropped her afternoon nap. My sister-in-law gave me two books with ideas of games to play with toddlers, so I plan on utilizing them a lot. We tried drawing today, but the crayons are more fun to eat than draw with, so that ended quickly. I also tried to show her how fun it is to sort blocks by color, but she thinks it's more fun to throw them all over her shoulder. Heck, that sounds more fun to me too!
Here is the first morning after she was born.

Her baby blessing not quite two weeks later. She's still kind of yellow after a rough bout of jaundice.

Four months old.

Five months old. She's got much more hair now!

I'm on the computer that doesn't really have pictures, but there are plenty of recent pictures on the blog that show what she looks like now. I love Katrina so much and am very grateful to my Father in Heaven for entrusting her to me. I keep trying to be a better mom so that I can teach her to live a happy, righteous life. Thanks to all of you who have helped us along the way this first year with love, support, and advice!

Slow Saturday

Well, our Saturday plans were cancelled because of rain. There is a national park near us called Ringing Rocks Park that we planned on visiting. Apparently there is a field of boulders there that ring when hit with a hammer. Apparently it's pretty cool. But instead we vegged at home. Adam has cleaned a lot and I cleaned the vacuum with the hope that it will start working properly again. The filters were horribly clogged, so hopefully it will work once they have dried off. Oh, and I cut Adam's hair! I think I did a pretty good job, too. It looked a little crooked when I was done, but once the hair dried it looked fine. It took me really long, so Adam's back hurt by the end, and our clippers are cheap, so they pull on his hair, but hey, we saved $20! My sister is the real hair expert after cutting so many men's hair, and she is the one who taught me how to cut it, but I managed all right without her coaching me. I've done it before, but it's been over a year, since my last haircutting ventures were pretty stressful.

Tomorrow we're celebrating Easter and Katrina's birthday. Should be fun! I had these plans of buying chocolate molds on eBay and making her a little chocolate carousel to match the carousel cake Adam's mom and sister are making, but I kept putting off buying the molds until too late. Oops. That's all right. The party will go on.

Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter filled with remembrance of the true meaning of the holiday! Have a great Sabbath.

Recipe for a fun day at Linvilla Orchards

Begin the day off right with fifteen minutes of screaming on the way there because it's naptime. See the tear?
Look at baby animals, like these chicks and ducklings.

Look at pretty flowers.

This is your expression the whole time:

See funny animals like lambs,

and emus, goats,

chickens,

sheep, horses (look at the weird sign), pigs, deer, peacocks.

Go on a ride with Daddy.

It takes a while when the maze is hard to navigate.

Wave in triumph!

Cuddle with Mommy.

Slide down slides!

Chillax in the stroller with your feet up.

Simple as that.

My sense of smell

I am beginning to be nervous because my sense of smell and taste aren't returning. After all, I really only have very few remnants of the cold that Katrina and I had. But I still can't seem to taste things with as much flavor as I remember them having. And also, I seem to have selective smell. What's weird about that is that I have typically such a good sense of smell. You know how pregnant women are supposed to be able to smell things a lot better when they're pregnant? Well, I didn't notice a single change. My sense of smell was already that good.

So, I'm getting concerned, though I really don't mind at the same time, that I cannot smell Katrina's dirty diapers. I went into Katrina's room yesterday and Adam was behind me. He caught a whiff of the smell from her diaper pail and almost gagged. I usually hate the smell from her diaper pail whenever it's opened or when it's getting full and I can smell if from all around the apartment. Well, even when I was removing the full bag and replacing it, I couldn't smell it at all, I just could smell the glade deoderizer thing at the bottom of the pail. I just sniffed Katrina's diapered bum, and I could not smell anything but the diaper itself, even though I know it is currently dirty.

Is this a blessing or something serious that should be looked into? After all, I can still smell most things, and I can taste things, just not as strongly. And if I never have to smell a dirty diaper again, well, that sounds good, right?

Baby steps

Just a little too late

After this house sat on the market for about nine months, the weekend that we decided to schedule a visit, it sold. How awful is that? We are very down about it. The biggest downside to it would have been square footage, but we still saw a lot of possibilities. Plus, it had just been rehabed, so everything was brand new and beautiful. I really wish we had been able to see the inside, and then we would have seen for ourselves how small it was. As it is, we just keep thinking about it and idealizing. We're pretty sure at this point that we won't find another house quite like it, so we might as well quit looking! You can see that both Adam and I can be a bit dramatic when disappointed.

Katrina is taking a long nap, which is a relief to me. She's been in such a bad mood lately, and I don't think I can really chalk it all up to her lingering sniffles or even to frustration from not being able to move around by herself. She actually doesn't seem too bothered by that. But this morning, after we woke up, she didn't want to walk around with her lion, she didn't want to cruise, she didn't want to sit on my lap. She was happy eating breakfast, but that's about all. I finally put her down for a nap only about an hour and a half after she woke. This sort of frustration is pretty normal for us these days, it's not just today. I'm really looking forward to her birthday, when we'll be giving her some new toys that I think she'll really like. I'm super stumped about what's going on. Teething? She is drooling. I don't know. It's been several weeks of this.

Sunday evening

Bedtime has encountered new difficulties. Why would Katrina want to go to bed when she knows she can walk around in her crib? Yesterday she had such a hard time napping that she finally took a late nap and woke up around 6:30, then didn't want to go to bed until she finally did out of exhaustion at 10:00. The trouble is she can stand up, but won't lay back down unless she falls, and no matter how much she's yawning, cruising around the crib rim is more fun.

So it's 8:30 and Katrina is cruising around the living room while Adam reads and I blog. We just had a fun time practicing walking with her. We sat a few feet apart and let her walk back and forth between us, scooting apart as she got more confident. By the end she was voluntarily letting go of my hands to walk to her dad. I think that's major progress! She can take a few steps before falling forward. The confidence is the most important part, though. Once she's not scared of standing, she will be much more willing to try walking.

General Conference has been great this weekend. I have several talks to reread because they were so powerful, and many more talks to reread because I was distracted during them. We watched it at home yesterday. Adam connects the computer to the tv and we watch it there. Other than the two minute time lag, which only mattered when the prophet announced temples in our area and several people called us before we heard the news! Today we went and watched it in New Jersey with Adam's family. They have a DVR, which is nice when it's time to put the baby down for a nap and we don't want to miss watching the prophet speak. And for those watching, wasn't Elder Holland's talk amazing? It doesn't matter what denomination you are, that was an amazing sermon on the Savior and his Atonement. Also, it was really cool the whole time to think about my parents who were in the the translation rooms of the Conference Center working their magic as missionaries for the translation department.

Adam and I have been completely preoccupied with a house we visited on Friday. We haven't seen the inside other than through the windows, but we really love it. It has major downsides, like square footage (um, and the entryway that passes for a living room), but we really like it. Hopefully we will go with a realtor this week to see it.

I have another blog post to write on my other blog about 2 Nephi 4. That's one of my favorite chapters, so off I go!

Uh-oh, there will be no peace

There's no going back. I heard Katrina crying earlier and found her doing something very cool and yet scary at the same time. I made her do it again for the video.

See? Crazy! And yet very cool. I will have Adam lower the crib when he gets home.

Today there are more bugs, specifically huge centipedes. There was one that chased me in the bathroom and one that chased me in the kitchen, but that one I conquered with Adam's shoe. I think they might have been the same one, since centipedes travel fast. I hope so, 'cause it's dead now. But I'm still way grossed out. Plus, I rarely vacuum the house except the dining room and living room (to get the cheerios), so I keep seeing pieces of thread or other debris and thinking they are bugs. It's definitely motivation to pick up the clothes on the floor in the bedroom. Also, I never let my pillows touch the wall after looking to my left while nursing and seeing a huge centipede there last summer. Now, as soon as I'm done nursing, the pillows get pulled away from the wall. Centipedes may eat all of the other bugs in our apartment, but they are still so gross.

Oh, so we actually went with a realtor to look at a house yesterday. We really liked a lot of it. However, it was definitely a fixer upper, and we decided that some of the things were too much for us to deal with on our budget. Namely, the plumbing leak and the mold problem in the basement. Other than that, it was in fairly good shape. It just needed new carpet, painting, and maybe some other things. But we were also concerned about a crack in the foundation. But it was on an acre of land.... We went back and forth, however we ultimately decided no. And I am back to thinking of ways to decorate our apartment and make it into more of a home! I think our dining room wall definitely needs something, like some plants.

Blankets, Quilts, and Big Fat Spiders

Katrina has a blanket that she loves. My friend gave me the blanket at my baby shower and it matches Katrina's froggy theme in her room. It's chenille and so soft, and since day one I've used it in Katrina's crib, along with a blanket my sister crocheted or a fleece blanket from my mom. We didn't really realize how much Katrina was attached to this blanket until a couple of months ago. When going to Utah for Jolena's wedding, we brought it with us. Without fail, she would grab it and stuff it in her mouth whenever she saw it, and it always calmed her down.

Normally the blanket stays in the crib. But on very special occasions, like when the baby is very sick and sad (or just nimble and grabs it while daddy is taking her out, like this morning), she gets to carry it around outside of her crib. This is from last week.
Two sickies.

And this is from about half an hour ago. See? Blanket in hand, afghan next to her, Victor-clone and her new thrift store froggy pillow to her left. And a huge grin on her face because Mommy came in.

Now this is the finished product of the quilt I made for the living room. I still plan on making another one, but I sure need a break. Plus, I have to buy new machine needles and thread. I only have one, super heavy duty needle left that works for seams but not for quilting.

It needs to be ironed so the sides lay flat.

I don't like showing a close-up, because the quilting is pretty awful in some places. It ended up with really uneven stitching. But it was an adventure, I suppose. First I handquilted circles all over, and then I machine quilted stippling. I ended up having to hand quilt some stippling too, and I think I might just do that for the next one.

The back looks kind of cool.

And here is what happens to huge spiders that come into my house--imprisonment!

You can't tell, but it's really big. So big that I could barely bear to get close enough to put the bowl on top. I am really distrubed because it is the second one like this in the last couple of weeks. The first one I killed by throwing shampoo bottles at it. This one will hang out all day until Adam can take care of it.

Katrina is coughing up a storm in the bedroom, so I think this nap pretty much failed. She is not going to be happy today. I better go get her.