8/30/2009

{Outtakes} I love this little baby face.

8/29/2009

{Bumblebees!} Mylie started U5-U6 soccer today. Her team did great, the girls all had a lot of fun, and goodness, she looks cute in her uniform!

I decided to test my new lens, the 90 2.8 macro out on soccer today. I have heard it doubles as a portrait lens ... I heard right! I was tickled with the shots I got. I was hesitant to purchase that lens, it was a chunk of money, but I am so happy that I did! I haven't done too much real macro stuff with it yet, but hopefully will before the weekend is over.

8/28/2009

When Mylie isn't looking, Blake likes to sneak in her room and take her toys out. She was in the tub tonight and he snuck in to get her little computer. He loves this toy. And I prefer for him to play with Mylie's toy computer than my real one!

8/27/2009

Blake, with his big boy hair cut, intently watching Mylie on the swing. He looks so big to me now!

8/26/2009

Jeff isn't the only movie junkie in this house.

8/25/2009

So I major splurged last week and bought a macro lens. It was my reward for such a crazy summer of teaching. I used it for some sweet baby feet and even more baby pictures. And I did some outsides ... and I am pretty certain I am going to love this lens. I did just a little bit outsite and am excited to do more! I am going to have to bust out the tripod. One thing I am going to major love about this lens is the bokeh. Bokeh is the blurry, creamy, beautiful background! So delish!

8/24/2009

Back to work and to real life today. The college started so back to class for me. I'm teaching 9 credits this semester. Day 1 went well.

I have litereally hundreds of pictures to go through from our trip. Here's a play on one of the family pictures.

8/23/2009

So happy to be home! We got home around noon. We walked in the house and Blakey was in his high chair eating lunch. He just sat there and looked at me and babbled a little, but then it was like he realized who I was and just jumped out of his high chair and threw his chubby arms around me. I just hugged him so tight and cried. It was a wonderful trip, but 11 days away from my own baby was so long.

Another Lila shot.

8/22/2009

Today we drove from Kearney, Nebraska back to Idaho Falls. My camera was in the back, so no landscape pictures from our drive. But the whole drive was so gorgeous. Rolling green hills in Iowa, corn as far as the eye can see in Nebraska, and just beautiful plains with the largest, bluest sky ever in Eastern Wyoming. It was amazing to see so much country.

Another Lila picture from before we left on Friday. Sigh. I miss her already.

8/21/2009

Awww! My super cute sis as a new mom! They both have dimples, I love it.

We left to head back home today. Even though I miss Blake and Jeff like mad, it was still hard to leave. Mylie and I may have cried. Just a little.

8/20/2009

8/19/2009

8/18/09

8/17/2009

8/16/2009

Apparently a trip to the Quad Cities is not complete without visiting the John Deere museum. Now granted, I am an Idaho girl, but am not a farm girl. I cannot believe the size of some of this farm equipment. Ginormous. Mylie obliged for a few photos.

8/15/2009

After a morning visit to the hospital and some lunch, we drove a few hours to Nauvoo. This statue of Joseph and Hyrum was in front of the Temple. I thought it would be a neat perspective to photograph it from behind with the Temple in the background, as if they were riding up to the Temple.

8/14/2009

Happy Birthday Jeff!! And Happy Birth Day to Lila Kristine!

We arrived in Iowa, got settled in and just waited for that baby to be born. I couldn't stand it anymore and went to the hospital and sat in the waiting room. Little Lila was born at 11:48 pm, weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and was 20 inches long. She is so adorable with lots of dark, curly hair. And did I mention dimples, yep, she has dimples just like Court.

There is nothing like a baby fresh from Heaven. I'm pretty sure with Eliza, Blake, and Lila (and my cousin's children who have been in the last 3 years) that Grandma was the last one to love them and kiss them before they came to earth. I'm certain of it.

8/13/2009

{The road trip begins!} Today was day one of our big road trip to Iowa. Mylie and I left the house a little after 6 to drive to Grandma's. It was a little sad leaving Blake. We got to Grandma's, stopped and ate lunch at Cafe Rio (totally worth blogging about it) and then we were off. We drove 1000 MILES today. I'm not kidding. Boise, Idaho to Ogallala, Nebraska in one day. It was about 12:30 at night when we stopped. The first two towns we stopped in had no hotel rooms, darn Nebraska county fairs!

Mylie was spectacular in the car. She's a trooper. She loves her headphones, which has the Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtracks loaded on.

8/12/2009

We leave for Iowa tomorrow! I'm excited but nervous about leaving Blake. He and Daddy will have lots of fun!

8/11/2009

Blake has the best belly laugh! He is so stinking ticklish, even putting his shoes on makes him laugh. Zerbers by Daddy REALLY make him laugh. His giggle makes ME giggle everytime!

8/10/09

Mylie and Blake sharing an afternoon snack while watching "Jim Rome is Burning." Daddy is home sick today and had control of the remote (for a while).

I'm finishing up some course reviews I am doing for other instructors and we are just anxiously awaiting for Courtney to go into labor. Our bags are packed and we are ready to go!

8/9/09

Well, after 12 hours straight yesterday and a good part of this morning, my course is done and submitted, hooray! My new computer is reformatted. Jeff is sick with a terrible cold/cough and I have a bit of a cough too ... ack! Mylie was the only person who got out of pajamas today. The kids napped and played outside today, Mylie is a marvelous helper with Blake ... and she loves to do it. Jeff napped on the couch and I worked on school stuff and watched a Cary Grant a-thon on TV. Not a bad day.

Not from today, but a happy pic and the new background for my computer ... at least for today.

8/8/09

No energy for a picture tonight ... just a story. So I am developing an online course for the college for this fall. It isn't that I necessarily procrastinate (well sometimes) ... but, it has just been such a busy busy summer. So I have been working like crazy on it finishing it up the last few weeks. I need to have it up this weekend because other faculty review the courses prior to the semester starting. Typically I just load my course directly into Blackboard. However, on one of the courses I reviewed earlier this summer, Blackboard crashed and the instructor lost her whole course. I decided that I would save everything onto my hard drive before saving it into Blackboard, so I would not have that problem.

Last night at at 2 (I don't sleep much anymore), I had just finalized my 8-page syllabus (ugh), with a special section on how computer problems do not justify turning in an assignment late. I had all the sections written and was about 3/4 of the way through loading the into the course site. I decided to head to bed, feeling pretty good I would be able to finish everything up in the morning and have my whole Saturday.

About 2:30 I heard a weird beeping sound. I woke Jeff up and for the life of us we could not figure where it came from. Jeff thought it might be the battery beeping on the smoke detector, so he went and got the ladder (again 2:30 AM) and started to check it out. But it wasn't the smoke detector, it was a beeping coming from my netbook.

In April, I bought a netbook (a mini-laptop). I love it and use it way more than I use our home computer. It has been perfect for teaching, because I really can just throw it in my bag and work on school stuff anywhere. I had no idea why it would be beeping and powered it down again and went to bed.

This morning I sat down to check my email, and guess what, the computer wouldn't work. I called Costco tech line and we tried 3-4 different things and then they conducted me with the manufacturer's tech line (grrr, I hate outsourcing) and after 3-4 tries at different things he tells me that I will have to send it in and it was take 7-10 business days to fix it.

NOOOOOOOOOO! I really live on my computer. That is probably lame, but true. Plus, we are leaving any day for Iowa and my whole consolation about being away from Blake is that I have Skype and Alicia has Skype and so he can actually see us everyday. Plus I have work to do while I am gone and seriously I was starting to stress.

Costco is awesome that they have a 90 return/exchange policy ... but of course it was 120 days since I bought it. I called our Costco and talked to a manager and it must have been my lucky day because they said they would exchange it for me. Seriously, I will now buy every electronics item from them. They have a customer for LIFE!

Luckily I don't save much on the hard drive of this computer (no pictures, etc). I save documents for school, but usually back them up on a USB drive also ... unless of course it is 2 am. So the bad news is, I lost my documents for my class. Amazingly I have almost everything generated again.

I'm working on the home computer while trying to get all my programs reloaded and formatted into my netbook. So much for a laid back Saturday, sigh. But this story has a much better ending than it could have. I'm *almost* done and I have my computer back. And, I need a nap.

Oh, did I mention that my cell phone stopped working yesterday too?

8/7/09

The kids and I had a little birthday party for Jeff tonight. His birthday isn't until next week, but we will hopefully be in Iowa then. We surprised him when he got home from work with presents, took him out to dinner and I'm baking a cake right now.

And yes, that a giant Wolverine action figure ... and yes, he was pretty excited about it. We also have Incredible Hulk plates, cups and napkins. Aren't men just really big boys? Haha! Happy (almost) Birthday Jeff!

8/6/09

This is how I feel. I want to put my head down on the table and just go to sleep! We took Jeff out to lunch today and apparently it was just too much for Blake.

I know how he feels though. I'm tired! I'm trying to finish up an online course I am developing for the college. I am so excited to go to Iowa, but I am worried that if the baby is late I won't be able to go, because I have to be back for school. It breaks my heart to even think about not going. I'm so much older than my sisters (8 years older than Courtney and 10 years older than Bailey), that I really have maternal feelings for them. I can't imagine not being there for Court after the baby is born. I can't imagine waiting 2 months to meet my new niece!

My heart is also breaking about being away from Blake while we are gone. He is such a momma's boy. He just climbs up on my lap and wraps his arms around me or holds my face and open mouth kisses me. I think it is going to physically hurt to be away from him.

There is such a sad story in our community about a little 10-year old boy who was murdered and found in a canal. I just cry every time the news comes on. I've been hugging my kiddos extra tight this week.

8/5/09

This boy loves baths!

8/4/09

{Audible sigh} I really love this man. He is such a great husband and a great dad. Courtney is getting really close to having her baby and so tonight I was getting as packed as I could. Jeff was telling Mylie that anyday she and I would be leaving for Iowa. She went to bed, but soon was laying in bed sobbing. I came downstairs and she and Jeff were snuggled up in the recliner. Poor baby, her heart (and my heart) is hurting at the thought of being away from Daddy and Blake for over a week. I know they will be fine, I know we will be fine ... but we will all miss each other while we are apart!

8/3/09

Kind of a fun perspective shot from our drive on Sunday.

8/2/09

We went on a little drive today to a reservoir in Oregon. Mylie and I will be leaving soon for Iowa. My little sister is having her first baby. Mylie and I are driving over with my Mom to visit/help and we will be gone for over a week. We will miss our boys something terrible while we are gone and wanted to spend some time with them today. Also, I got a new lens yesterday (the 35 1.8) and am trying to decide if I love it or not.

I took quite a few shots today ... and ya know, it isn't always the technical shots that are the best. This one makes me happy, reminds me how blessed I am. I love our little family.

8/01/09

I picked up a new lens today. Mylie willingly obliged for a bit while I tested things out. I need to play with it more, but her expression made me giggle!