Some of the people we visited in Utah

Our trip to Utah was great. 

I apparently like visiting it a lot more than living there. 

Madeleine and I had so much fun. 

We went on so many adventures and saw many of our friends. 

It was just about the right amount of time, 

because I have to say that we are so happy to be home.

The most important people Madeleine got to see were her grandparents!

Both sets! (I don't actually have any though with my parents. They are apparently all on my mom's camera...so hopefully I'll get one of those soon. Same for her Aunt Rosa and Steele.)

We also saw lot of friends.

We ran into Logan randomly the first time we went on campus.

We purposely met up with him and Erin though on Sat. :)

Also, Ryan and Ariel, but apparently I forgot to take a photo of them. :(

We also saw our friends Brittany and Bridgette. 

Last time we saw Bridgette, she was so tiny!

Now she's a lot bigger and could actually play with Madeleine.

(We'll use the term "play" loosely. 

It was more like Bridgette had a toy, and then Madeleine would take it.)

We also got to spend a lot of time with Baby Annalise.

That sweet baby was born the same day we moved from Utah,

so we hadn't met her yet!

Surprisingly Tiny loved her.

Each time we came over Madeleine would crawl straight over to her!

And then she would talk or grab at her foot.

That's surprisingly social for Madeleine.

Usually she just hangs out with older kids,

so I was pretty shocked.

(By the way, doesn't Bridgette and Annalise have the cutest headbands?)

We also saw Nathan and Brian!

I was so excited to see them, especially since Brian just got off his mission.

It was awesome seeing everyone that we did.

We didn't have that much time, so we squeezed as many people as we could in.

Outtakes

These are just some of the outtakes from our spontaneous photo shoot in American Fork Canyon.

I'm just going to say it...my baby is crazy.

A Farewell to Cambridge

On April 29th, Matt and I said goodbye to our first apartment almost 2 weeks ago.

It was really hard for me.

After almost 2 years living there that apartment had gone through a lot with us.

June 28, 2011 My parents' basement flooded, which had all of our things in it. We showed up to the office and asked them if we could move in the next day. They said sure, but your apartment isn't ready yet but there is another one. After discussing it for a few minutes, we decided that #150 was going to work just fine for us.

July 4, 2011 Matt and I spent hours on the floor of our apartment talking and putting on tiny tiny jewels all over our wedding invitations.

August 11, 2011 Matt came over and ironed all of our temple clothes in preparation to our wedding day. I remember looking at him and thinking how lucky I was going to marry him.

August 12, 2011 I woke up at 4:30 AM, I got ready for my wedding. As I did my hair, Matt came in and made breakfast for me. It seemed so natural that morning for us to share that space together. A few hours later as we got sealed in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple, my heart was completely at peace as I thought back to that morning.

August 23, 2011 We finally got home from our honeymoon and reception. While Matt and I both loved traveling, we were so so excited to get back to our home. I called it my "house of dreams" later looking back.

October 2, 2011 We listened to conference while painting all the doors in our home. I was mid-stroke when Elder Neil Andersen's talk came on about children, and we both knew it was the answer to my question about what the heck to do with my life.

May 1, 2012 I cried against the bathroom door as I held a positive pregnancy test. Then I proceeded to rip apart the house trying to find my cell phone to call Matt. (I didn't find it for another week)

December 25, 2012 I cuddled with Matt lamenting that our baby would never come while enjoying the last Christmas of just the two of us.

December 26, 2012 I poked Matt awake at 6 am telling him I thought there might be a small chance that I might be in labor.

December 28, 2012 We brought our baby home.

March 25, 2012 Matt decided we were moving to Princeton, and I danced around the living room with Baby.

 And those are just the major days of that time. That apartment also served as a backdrop to our fights, DIY projects that didn't quite turn out as planned, dancing in the kitchen, quietly doing homework together on the bed. So many sweet memories happened.

The day we moved out, different friends stopped by. Our sweet next door neighbor Marco stayed with us, until we shut the door.

I had such a hard time saying good-bye. Even though I am excited to move on to our next adventure, leaving our home was so bittersweet.

Graduation

We did it!!!

We are done!

So how was graduation?

Really, really boring.

The graduation ceremony wasn't that big of a deal.

They just read off a lot of names.

The Phd part lasted for-ev-er.

One guy had every single paper he published and what they were about, read.

The Masters part was nice and short.

Then the Bachelors were read.

Chemistry was the 1st major to walk,

(I walked with Matt), so we didn't have to wait too long. 

This is what I was thinking about while waiting in line to walk.

*sigh* 

We could have only wished the speakers were that short.

After it was over, we got to celebrate with the Chemistry department!

Here is us with Tyson. Madeleine is quite taken with him.

(He's going to be a Doctor.)

We took a few pictures. Baby really loved my nails.

BYU colors. :)

After that we went to lunch, said good-bye to our families, and went home and napped.

Then packed.

It was pretty uneventful for such a big day,

but I'm really proud of us for graduating.

I'm really grateful for the chance I had to go to college.

I'm happy I ran into Matt again, and we got married and had a cute kid.

I'm excited about moving to Princeton in a few months.

I just really can't believe it's over.

A Post about a Happier Day

Today we didn't do anything exciting. I was glued to the internet waiting for updates about what happened in Boston. Poor baby was a bit confused why we stayed indoors all day, but when Matt came home, he took her on a walk. (We are trying to get her used to the sun.) So life returned to normal for our tiny human, but all the same, today was not good for blogging.

But we had few great days last week that definitively deserve a blog post.

One was last Thursday. To help Baby get on a "normal" sleep scheduled, the internet suggested taking her on a walk right after she woke up. That way she can see the sun and think "Hey! It's daytime!" (It seems to be working by the way.)

I had mentioned this advice to Matt the night before, but when we woke up, the sun was not out. It was really gloomy day and had rained the night before. We were still determined to take her out. So we grabbed a towel and headed over to Wyview, where I lived my freshman year at BYU.

Baby was still pretty sleepy-looking when we arrived.

First, Matt helped her up the rock thingies.

where we found a cryptic message at the top.

We then wrapped her all up in a towel before putting her down the slide.

But then Matt walked all over the slide...

So then I went down the slide with her.

Keeping her jeans clean>keeping my jeans clean apparently. 

Right before we left, we tried to take a family photo...

I think we need a bit more work on taking these.

It was a lot of fun family event and was a nostalgic place for me.

It was neat playing with my baby just days before I graduate at BYU at the same place where I played as a new Freshman at BYU.  

Pets n things

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled* as it came!

Michele and I were discussing possible pets that we might allow our children to own. (Personally, I wouldn't mind avoiding the whole pet thing altogether, we already have a pet named Madeleine, a person-pet. But after three and a half months, I guess the novelty's worn off.)

Michele really wants a dog. I don't. I like animals that stay in cages. I don't like animals that desecrate both hearth and home. Michele's parents have a very special dog named Jasper. He can only turn left. Michele's parents make a special effort to clean him every time we visit, otherwise Michele's eyes turn an angry red and she can't breathe. Jasper loves human food, especially cheese, but he has also has quite a tooth for products from Victoria's Secret (and used baby diapers... ughhh!) Michele finally found the perfect dog last spring in Tennessee, a cute little Yorkie... that ate our camera charger! Since Michele wants a beautiful home full of nice furniture and undevoured undergarments, that means no dogs.

When I was a kid, I had a hamster. Hamsters are great! They are fuzzy and adorable. You can spend egregious amounts of money on elaborate hamster tunnels and habitats and then watch the creature run to and fro. Who needs a McDonald's playplace? (Although hamsters seem to chew holes in the tunnels a lot faster than toddlers do.) Michele hates hamsters. They are rodents. They have itchy-scritchy toe-nails and an uncanny ability to find themselves under your shirt. And worst of all, their average lifespan is two years. Michele hates death. Personally, I think two years is about right. I was so excited to get a hamster when I was 10, but at age 13, I had already grown out of it and moved on to skateboarding and drums. My poor sister decided she wanted birds instead, and the darned things haunted her through middle school and the rest of high school. I think they're still alive now. She couldn't do homework in her room because any time the light was on, the birds tweeted like they were brokers on Wall Street. Pets dying is actually a blessing in disguise. Kids get what they want. Then when kids lose interest, the parents aren't stuck taking care of the darned things for the next twenty years.

So obviously, we have had some difficulty finding common ground. So far, we have only found two possible candidates:

1) Lizards

When Michele lived in Florida, the girl next door found a five-foot lizard and decided to keep it. Somehow, she coaxed the creature into the bathtub where she fed it and kept it moist. Unfortunately, she forgot to tell her mother who decided to take a shower. Later on, they managed to sell the lizard for around $600. Heck, if my kids can turn it into a business, I'll be pretty pleased!

2) Hedgehogs

Aw... c'mon!

Anyways, we have decided that the pet will be named Jabberwocky. Hopefully it is a Boy, since Jabberwocky is not a very good name for a Girl.

Speaking of the Jabberwocky, today we went to the BYU Bookstore (a horrid place that charges through the roof and preys on unsuspecting alumni and visitors) and bought something (you think we'd know better.) Actually, we only spent seven cents. I somehow wound up with a $10 BYU gift card. The bookstore also had a promotion: if you could recite a poem from memory, then you could get 30% off of a children's book. I memorized The Jabberwocky for the occasion, one of the greatest works of literature the world has ever seen. I'm pretty sure that it pokes fun mercilessly at Beowulf, but I could be wrong. Anyways, my recitation went fairly well. I think I forgot a few words, but since most of them are made up anyways, I didn't feel guilty inserting a few of my own. Anyways, we got the discount. Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! We chortled with joy! *(I'm not sure what "burbled" means, but I'm pretty sure baby does it, whatever it is.) Anyways, after eliminating Tuesday, Shark vs. Train, Pingo, and some book about a ballerina mouse, we ended of getting Tea Rex, a practical guide on etiquette when inviting large extinct reptiles to tea parties. Apparently it was released on April 9th, so we are pretty up-to-date on current literature.

Friday night we celebrated Jake's birthday. Jake is Michele's favorite brother who isn't currently serving a mission. Since it was his 18th birthday, naturally we took him bowling at Fat Cats. It was really fun! About halfway through, they dimmed the lights, turned on a bunch of crazy lasers and UV lamps, and blasted really loud music. And best of all....

Yep! That's right. Baby Madeleine weighs MORE than the bowling ball. Way to go, Madeleine!!!

TRADITIONS!!! (for conference)

This year my goal was to start traditions. With tiny offspring now in existence, I figured we needed to actually start getting our traditions started. We tackled Valentine's Day and Easter, and this week we started a few conference traditions.

We started the weekend with Matt's mission reunion. Matt had been avoiding going since we got married, but since it was at his mission president's home, we decided to go.

After that, we dropped Baby off at my parents' home, so Matt and I could go on a date. We grabbed some food and talked about all the events coming up in our lives. On the drive home, we discussed what questions we wanted to ask God. According to our prophet, if you have questions in your heart, they will be answered during conference. It has worked so far for us, so I told Matt mine and he told me his, so we could help listen for possible answers for each other. 

Then we got home we googled "conference traditions". Matt and I needed some. While we are really good about having conference on for all 4 sessions, I think we have slept through at least half of conference since we've been dating.

So we picked out an easy but awesome breakfast.

eggs cooked in ham in a cupcake pan. 

so easy, but really yummy (even when the ham burns a little, apparently was Matt's favorite part)

We also had snack jars. Every time one of the words on the jar were said we got to eat on of whatever is in the jar. Matt's favorite was "sin/temptation" which are flaming hot cheetos. I thought it was even more appropriate since it makes our fingers "like scarlet". 

It worked like a gem. Matt and I stayed awake and alert the whole time. 

A small miracle after how much sleep I got last night.

(and we are totally going to have to pick less frequent words when our kid can eat solid foods)

And now in between conference sessions, we finally took our naps (as you can tell, tiny creature isn't so good at this tradition yet.) 

Do you have any conference tricks of staying awake? How about traditions? 

All smiles here!

 This is the 1940s hat we got baby at the vintage flee markey. 

We think she looks like a baby version of the Greek God, Hermes.

Since Baby can sit up pretty well, Matt decided to put her up on his sholders.

They were having a swell time until Baby got so excited that she goo-ed all over him.

Baby in the process of gooing

All smiles here!

When we were getting discharged from the hospital, one of the other moms asked how we would know if our babies were okay. The nurse told us that babies make plenty of noises in their sleep. 

Madeleine is an especially squeaky one. Here is just 30 sec of her sleeping.
I'm not sure just how normal that is for a 11 week baby, but Matt and I really like this feature of hers.

Family Candids

Matt and I both hang our jackets on chairs.

I guess we started hanging baby's there too.

Bath Time

Food time with Daddy and Baby Dino

Staring at toys so I can get dishes done

Sunflowers Matt got me.

Early Valentine's Day

Matt and I desperately needed a date night, since Valentine's Day and our year and half anniversary are next week. Matt is leaving the morning of Valentine's Day to New Jersey, so we ditched our baby at my parent's house and went snowboarding. (Yeah for great snow and a Dr.'s okay). We had so much fun, even though neither of us can really move today. Our muscles are so sore.

A few high points...

I lost one of my gloves on the ski lift on the way up to our first run. Matt swore I was going to freeze but I did just fine. The sleeve to his sweatshirt that I was wearing was frozen stiff by the end of the night, but it kept my hand warm.

I was run over by some random guy. Poor thing somehow got his snowboard wedged between my legs and my snowboard. He was so embarrassed but we were both fine.

Matt winning the admiration of some younger kids with his jumping skill in the terrain park.

We were pretty excited though at the end of the night to cuddle with baby. :)

And eat cookies.