Spring Training

Troy spent the weekend in Florida going to Red Sox spring training games with seven of his friends from his high school in Boston.

They also spent 11+ hours doing 28 rounds of drafts for Fantasy Baseball.

I'm not too bitter about Troy going to Florida without me, first of all because there were 8 guys crammed into 2 hotel rooms (yuck), and second, because I had the chance to go see David live in concert with my girlies!

I don't necessarily love the teen-boppy hits that he has released so far, but I just think he has the most pure voice, he is always spot on with every note he hits, and he sings with such heartfelt sincerity. I definitely preferred his slower ballads.

I even dressed and did my my hair like a 14-year-old so that I would fit in with the screaming crowd. Archie didn't have time to compliment my David 'do after the concert, but I know he was admiring it from afar.

Bebe Shower

I hosted a baby shower last night for my friend Katie. She is having a girl, hence the pink and brown galore.

I hung up onesies in the front window.

These topiaries were kind of an afterthought. I had everything made for the shower and decided I couldn't resist making some of these with my leftover paper. Little did I know they would require the purchase of a mini saw and a late night trip to the store to get different types of pins that wouldn't kill my fingers. I finished the topiaries at 1am the evening before the shower, but I was happy with the result. They added a nice touch and a bunch of the ladies even gathered around while I gave them step by step instructions on how to make them.

My most proud accomplishment was that I sewed for the first time ever. I knew these nursing covers/hooter hiders were easy to make, so I ventured out and bought a teeny, cheap little sewing machine and went to town. Of course I had to have thorough instructions from my mom, but I did it. Now Troy can't give me a hard time about not being able to hem his pants. Because I bet I could do it.

I got to use my little cupcake stand again, and, you guessed it, displayed pink and brown cupcakes and toppers.

Just beverages, I know, but don't they look pretty?

My friend Yuki made the darling mommy-to-be an amazing diaper cake.

I am so grateful for the ladies that helped pull off this shower.

Uh Oh

Blake got caught turning on rap music. I've watched this clip about 20 times. It just doesn't get old.

Spring Projects

Every once and awhile, I get into crazy project mode beyond the typical amount of projects that I usually have. With some spring weather finally arriving, I undertook many tasks this week. I filled every hour of every day with work, and I realized after several days that I hadn't checked my email or blog for almost a week. It is incredibly rare for me to not check these things at least once a day, but I love that I have something to show for my world wide web absence.

I made some canvases to hang in our dining room. We had an empty wall that needed to be filled, and I would much rather create my own art than spend mucho dollars. These were so easy. I just covered canvases with coordinating fabrics, and voilà.

Blake helped me make some spring sugar cookies, which for the first time in 3 years (ever since I've lived at a high altitude) actually turned out. Even though they are just cookies, it was a huge feat to actually bake a batch that I didn't have to throw away.
I also made some Easter buckets for the ladies I visit teach. Target's dollar spot provided the buckets, and everything looks cuter when wrapped in clear cellophane.
I wanted to do something for my parents for watching Blake for a month while I did my yoga teacher training. I remembered how my mom always commented on how much she loved the watercolor painting I did for our house. So, I painted them a similar watercolor, only using more earth tones that would fit their home better . Don't worry, I didn't do this all in one week. I'm not superwoman. I only finished it this week. Now I just have to figure out how to ship it since I painted on nice heavyweight watercolor paper that will not bend or roll.
And last, but by no means least, I tackled some major spring cleaning projects. I spent three days washing all of our windows inside and out, pulling weeds, raking the yard, dusting lofty places that I'm pretty sure have never been dusted, spraying the dirt off of our siding, moving around furniture, and cleaning indoor light fixtures. Our dishwasher also broke (which is thankfully getting fixed tomorrow), which left me with hours of washing dishes by hand.

However, my most noteworthy accomplishment was cleaning our mini-blinds row by row by row. I seriously now loathe looking at anything that even resembles some sort of window blind. Again, in several of the windows, it looked like the mini-blinds had probably never been dusted or cleaned. And our house is 17 years old. One tool that aided in this process was the use of this microfiber cleaning glove. If you are going to be attempting this project anytime soon, I would recommend the glove for at least partial sanity.
After all this, I complain about being exhausted and about how I haven't sat down all week, but the truth is, I feel completely wonderful about myself when I have been productive. It must be a disease I have. I am so grateful for the energy that I have been given, for a toddler that has begun to entertain himself more and more, and for easy access to Home Depot.

Dance Championships

I had the privilege of attending the U.S. National Amateur Dancesport Championships on Saturday. Dancers from around the country came to compete for the top amateur titles in Latin, Standard, American, Smooth and Rhythm dance. I was there for seven hours, and that was only a small fraction of the three day long competition. The choreography was top notch, and so were the dresses. There is a lot of glitz and glamour that comes with ballroom dancing.

My awesome sister-in-law Tricia competed as well. She took a Latin dance course at BYU this semester and a requirement for the class was to dance in this competition. The BYU students only competed against each other, but BYU has one of the largest dance programs in the country. Having never taken a dance class before in her life, Tricia soared above the eliminations into the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals. She made it into the top 6 couples of 125 couples that competed in her Beginning Latin division. Isn't she sassy dancing the samba?

Fifteen Months

It has been a while since I've done a true update on Blake. He is fifteen months old already. 

There are only three more months until Blake goes to nursery at church. Not that that is incredibly significant with our current 1pm church time, which allows for many cranky overtired toddlers, but regardless, Blake is growing up.

He is a riot these days. His favorite word is "uh-oh," which he repeats incessantly like a little parrot a million times a day. It is the first thing I hear over the monitor in the morning. It is what he tells people in the check-out lane of the grocery store. I don't mind because it is fun to hear his little voice.
Blake is a little sweetheart when he wants to be. He knows what it means to give kisses. I was having an emotional day (those post-weaning hormonal imbalances are killer) the other day and he came up to me and smacked two little kisses right on my lips. How could that not make me smile? He also gives kisses when asked to his daddy, babies in books, and his stuffed animals.
His favorite activity is to relocate items in our house. In the past week, I have found Troy's keys and cuff links in the silverware tray of the dishwasher, the downstairs remote control in the upstairs bathroom drawer, a pen in the paper feed tray of the printer, Troy's library card underneath the rug, a DVD we were missing in between the couch cushions, my camera in the lost and found at church (Blake pulled it out of my bag and it was left under the bench), refrigerator magnets in a kitchen cupboard, measuring spoons in Blake's dresser drawer, and a box of nerds leftover from Halloween behind the TV.

Blake begs all day long to play in the fridge. If he is across the room and he hears it open, he rushes over to get into the shelves. He cries and bangs on the door if I shut it before he can get to it. I usually don't let him play inside the fridge because someone in our household gets upset about the energy lost by leaving the door open. However, from time to time, Blake gets there fast enough. If I am trying to make dinner and would rather not have a whiny toddler clinging onto my leg, I sometimes let him have a few minutes in his favorite spot. 
Who knew that Blake would have some eyelashes? I don't know where he got them from because both Troy's and mine are almost non-existent.

Blake's favorite toy of all time is still the cell phone. The cell phone is what bribed him to crawl. It is what he destroyed during his drooly, chew-on-everything phase. Now, it is what he uses as a mode of communication. He has to say "hi" to everyone I talk to, and he usually hangs up on them in the process. He also carries around items like cameras and remote controls and holds them up to his ear as if they are cell phones.

Bumper Pad Surgery

Several weeks ago, I wrote about Blake's attachment to his bumper pad. I'm afraid to report that the bumper pad conditioning has only gotten more intense since that time.

To Blake, the sight of the bumper pad equates to sticking his thumb in his mouth and falling asleep.

Also since my prior post about Blake's bumper pad conditioning, I had an incredibly "dumb mom" day. The bumper pad needed washing, and since it didn't constitute a whole load of laundry, I put it in the washing machine with a door rug that needed to be washed as well. The problem was that the door rug was a dark burnt orange and had never been washed before. Seriously, what was I thinking? Of course the rug dyed the bumper pad orange. I destroyed Blake's one and only lovey! (I also accidentally left my cell phone in his room during nap time that day, which wasn't one of my brightest moments as it rang and woke him up...)

Luckily, the entire bumper pad wasn't ruined. There was a section that didn't have any blotches of orange at all. After some consideration and with the help of Troy's mom, the bumper pad went under the knife to salvage the remains. Although I am sad about the destruction of Blake's prized possession, there are some benefits to the mini-version! It will be so much easier to grab and take with us when we travel or go to Grandma's house for the night. I don't think we could have justified bringing the entire bumper pad with us onto an airplane. Also, since Blake will not be in a crib forever, when he moves into a toddler bed he can just bring his new makeshift blanket with him instead of being buried with padding and strings. So, the logical solution was a bumper pad turned into a blanket of sorts.

Hopefully Blake will never realize the difference, and this will help him on the path to normal childhood loveys.

3

Exactly 3 years ago today, on 3/3, Troy asked me to marry him. Since I started this blog after we were married, I thought it would be fun to tell the proposal story. “3” happens to be a common thread amongst many dates in our lives. Troy unknowingly proposed to me on March 3rd which is the half-birthday of my September 3rd birthday. We were married exactly 3 months later on June 3rd. Beyond the crazy 3’s that run throughout many dates in our family, the story of how Troy proposed is incredibly thoughtful and memorable.

The best part of the proposal was that I had absolutely no idea that it was coming. Troy had told me a few weeks in advance that he wanted to take me on a “Utah” date. A “Utah” date is basically where the guy spends hours planning creative date night activities beyond the typical dinner and a movie. Since I knew that we were going on a special date, I wasn’t suspicious at all when things were a little more extravagant than normal. In fact, I still thought that Troy was trying to figure out if the timing was right for us to get married, so the farthest thing I expected from him was a proposal. Little did I know, this was all part of the plan. It was really important to Troy that I was surprised by the proposal, and he thought of several tricks throughout the night to completely throw me for a loop.

Our date began with a phone call from Troy, informing me that he would be late. I was a little ticked off because I knew that the reason why he was late was that he was bringing a girl from his apartment complex to the airport. I knew how long it took to get there and back, and it was clear to me that in order for him to be this late, he must have taken the girl into the airport and helped her check in. In my eyes, any college girl was completely capable of checking herself in and I selfishly thought that she was taking time away from my date. Troy kept mentioning on the phone that he “would make it up to me later.” As I sat and waited, all ready to go, I just kept getting more and more steamed that our special date was getting delayed. However, when Troy finally arrived at my door with a single long-stemmed red rose in his hand, I quickly forgot about my frustrations.

There was a note attached to the rose with a reason why he loved me. Throughout the evening, every time we got in or out of the car, he handed me another rose with another note. My collection of roses and notes kept growing underneath my feet in the car. Troy took me out to dinner at Chef’s Table, a nice restaurant that overlooked the whole valley. I was impressed by the sherbet we were served to cleanse our pallets, the gorgeous view, and the candlelit romantic atmosphere.

Troy was unusually giddy throughout the entire meal, but I still had no clue what I was in for. One of the biggest things he did to throw me off was taking me ring shopping after we ate. We had been talking about marriage so it wasn’t completely out of the blue, but since he was taking me ring shopping for the first time, there was no way I suspected in any way that he might already have a ring. We went to a few stores and shopped for a few hours, trying on different rings. Troy prefaced the ring shopping activity with the statement, “If I act weird, it is because I am still a little overwhelmed by this.” I found out later that he only said that to cover up any suspicious or nervous behaviors that he might display because he was going to propose later.

Our next stop was the bookstore. We used to go to Barnes and Noble in college when we were first dating all the time and browse the aisles together. This time, Troy had us each pick out a children’s book to read to each other. I picked out a beautiful book that happened to be about love called “You and Me.” I told Troy, “Man, if you ever propose, it’s going to be really hard to top this date!” He wholeheartedly agreed.
He then took me way up into the mountains, winding along many roads, and still kept what was next a secret. When we eventually stopped, he had me wait in the car for what seemed like forever. I re-read all of my eleven love notes while he set up. He finally came to get me and we trudged through the snow to a picnic table. He had set up tons of candles, put all of my red roses in a vase, and had a fondue pot of chocolate and several types of fruit, cake, and pretzels. I found out later that the reason why he was late picking me up was that his mom helped him prepare some of the fondue treats and he had to stop by their house after the airport to pick it all up.

We indulged in the fondue and Troy insisted that we take some pictures of our special date night. Then, he asked me to take a walk with him. You’d think by this point that I would get suspicious but I still had absolutely no idea what was coming. On the walk I was thinking that it was a little ridiculous to be freezing and tracking through all the crunchy March snow. We came to a bridge over a stream of water, and Troy stopped and handed me another rose, only this time it was white. I opened the note that was attached to the rose and as I squinted in the dark to find the print, I said, “I think this one’s blank.” Troy responded, “That’s because I’m going to tell you this one.”

I can’t remember word for word verbatim what he said at that point, but it was something to the effect of “Lindsey, I have loved writing down all of these things that I love about you, and I can’t wait to find out more things I love about you for the rest of my life.” Then, he got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him. I was so shocked and surprised and excited and barely even noticed that he had pulled out a diamond ring. I jumped up and down and of course said “Yes!” as he quickly put the ring box back in his pocket so that I wouldn’t knock it into the stream. Troy said that I looked completely dumbfounded. He actually completely forgot that I would have to give him an answer to his question; he was only focusing the part that he had to say. It’s not like I would have said no though, and he knew that.

We walked back to the picnic table and Troy exclaimed, “You’re going to be my wife!” It was so surreal and so exciting. I had waited a long time to hear those words. We shared some sweet moments of gratitude, happiness, and peace confirming our decision to get married. Troy told me about the experiences that helped him to know that he wanted to marry me, he said a humble and heartfelt prayer, and then we called our parents to share the exciting news. Of course they all already knew because Troy had asked my dad’s permission to marry me earlier in the week, to which my dad responded, “I thought you’d never ask!”

Troy actually bought the ring several months before he proposed to me. He had gotten it in Israel on a trip with his family, just “in case” he would be proposing anytime in the future. I was so blown away with Troy’s preparations for this date and especially for keeping it a secret from me. He drove around the canyon all week in between classes to find the perfect place to propose, and even went to the bridge earlier in the day to scrape off the ice and snow.

3 years later, I am still incredibly in awe of my husband. The proposal was more than I could have asked for, and I have sweet memories of our engagement. Now, we just need to have some children on the 3rd’s so we can keep the tradition going.

All In One Week

Isn't it amazing how there are months before children do certain things, and then all of a sudden, it seems like they learn everything overnight? That is how I felt this week. Within a few days of each other, Blake stopped taking a morning nap and is now down to one nap a day, he gave up nursing completely, and he became an official walker instead of a crawler. I can hardly catch my breath from all the changes he made this week.

Blake's newly found walking skills (and the words to the song are so appropriate).

Blake's mark of genius. He is going to love the "I Spy" and "Where's Waldo" books.

I saved the funniest footage for last. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? I don't know who he is talking to or what he is talking about, but he has sure got the conversation down.