Trains, planes, and automobiles

Grace is into trains. What more can I say? She loves trains. She has gotten into Thomas the Tank Engine, but it really doesn't matter if it is the Island of Sodor and some other train, Grace loves trains.

Last time Michelle and Grace came out to SLC they went to the Railroad Museum in Ogden, Utah. Grace had fun, but she was a little timid around the big locomotives. However, she loves anything about trains and when I told her there was a place with steam engines and that we could get on them she was hooked. So on Saturday we headed up to the Golden Spike National Monument where the transcontinental railroad came together on May 10, 1869. After a long plane ride to get to Utah, we then took the 2 hour drive north and then west to get to Promontory Point, Utah to see the trains. Grace was excited and could hardly wait to get up there.

We chose Saturday to go because the park was having their annual Railroader's festival where they bring out games and motorcars and handcars for people to try. The first thing we saw when we pulled into the parking lot was a shuttle made to look like a train. Of course Grace had to ride on that so we had to add that to the agenda.

We were the first ones to arrive and had to wait for a few minutes before the steam locomotives arrived. This is what Grace had waited for. The Jupiter arrived coming to the sight backwards (Central Pacific Railroad came from California) and then the No. 119 from the Union Pacific arrived. All I can say is that the steam engines have loud whistles. Grace didn't mind. She was so excited. I almost think that for the time being the Jupiter and 119 have replaced Thomas as her favorite train.

It really was a nice day. We only spent a little over 3 hours at the park, but we saw and got on board both steam engines. We rode on a motorcar and then Grace, Grandma, Aunt Christine and I got on a handcar and pumped ourselves up and down the track. That may have been Grace's favorite activity. She wanted to go again, but Harriet and long lines prevented us from doing so. She does want to go back however. She has been asking if we can go back to see the trains again. While we won't be going back to Golden Spike, Grace will be lucky to go to a Day Out with Thomas back in Massachusetts.




We all enjoyed the day's events. The only thing I didn't do that everyone wanted me to was participate in the buffalo chip throwing contest. They were real buffalo chips and I decided to pass. I have enough baby diapers to deal with.

Catching a few Z's

Friday night we were hoping to have a BBQ with all of friends from the Southgate ward. Unfortunately, circumstances prevented it from happening on Friday. However, we still wanted to get together with the Zabriskies. The Zabriskies moved into a house on Vidas not too long after we had bought our house on Leslie. We became good friends. Alan and I would go out on bike rides and had fun working together with the young men. It was a great friendship as both Michelle and I really enjoyed doing things with both Alan and Jennie. However, as is common in South Salt Lake, the Zabriskies ended up moving to Las Vegas in 2002. We have remained friends though. In fact, when Grace was born, we were probably stupid parents but we took our 5 week old baby down to Las Vegas and walked up and down the strip and saw the sights and sounds of Las Vegas. Now the much wiser parents waited until Harriet was 12 weeks old to catch a 5 hour airplane ride back to SLC to visit family and friends. When will we learn?

When we and the Zabriskies both lived in SLC neither of us had any children. We both have 2 children now and enjoyed eating some good food (Brookside Broiler and Grill--best beef ribs in town) and talking about the joys of having "the kids". More changes are coming for Alan and Jennie as Alan is probably going back to school next year and they will find themselves in a new locale. Good luck to them. We miss their friendship, but look forward to seeing where they end up.

So what is the first thing you do...

After a long flight that was delayed due to increased security, the first thing I wanted to do was eat. Not just any food, but some good Mexican. After a year and half away and living in an area without good Mexican food I needed some mole! None of this seeing family or friends, I needed some mole coloradito. Luckily the Red Iguana is right there close to the airport. As all the locals here know, it is the best Mexican in Salt Lake. A total dive, but excellent food. It may just be my favorite restaurant. The four of us had some great food and I was in amazement how much better the chips, salsa, and mole were compared to the places in Boston that we have been. New England has some great seafood, but the west and southwest has its Mexican.

Luckily I got a great lunch in because when I got to my parents they had been waiting for me to solve some of their computer problems. It looked fairly minor, but 5 hours later and a bunch of cursing MSN I finally got it all resolved and it is once again running like it should. The next project will be to get a webcam up so that we can have video chats once we are back on Boston. Stay tuned for our great vacation adventures.

You gotta love free wireless

As you can see from the photo I am quite interested in something! Actually I am tired. I slept for only 4 hours last night and woke up at 3 AM in order to get to Hartford for my 7 AM flight. On the way in I heard that a terror plot had been uncovered in London and the terror alert there and here had been raised. What that really meant is no liquids, gels, or anything like that in the cabin area. What part of no shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, etc. do you not understand? I was amazed how people didn't understand that and had to have their bags searched and the offending material removed. It was backing up security, but luckily I was prepared and now I am waiting for my flight.

Things did get better when I fired up the macbook. Free wireless! Yahoo! Literally. I can check my email and fantasy sports. You have to like that. Now if I can only make it through the 5 hour flight. The Red Iguana is waiting!!!

Let the vacation begin!

On Thursday everyone here woke up at 3:30 AM in order to get ready to take the girls to the airport. Michelle decided that she needed more time in Utah so she took Grace and Hattie and left me behind. Luckily I only have 3 more days of work and then I will be having fun with them. Besides the fact that one should only ever experience one 3:30 each day, it all went fairly smoothly. The drive to Hartford was a little long, but the cost savings makes up for the fact that I have to drive there twice. Michelle was not originally assigned a seat next to Grace and the Delta agent wasn't very nice about getting it resolved, but finally the logic kicked in and no one wanted to set next to a three year old on a 5 hour flight. Both kids were great on the plane and are now enjoying time with relatives. Grace immediately warmed up to everyone (even though she won't talk on the phone to any of them) and is extremely excited to have grandpas, grandmas, aunts, uncles, and cousins to play with. She will have a hard time when it is all over and we are back home.

As for me and my week of bachelorhood, not much is happening. I am experiencing for the first time the pains associated with a real job and vacation. Currently I am dealing with getting everything in order so that while I am gone things are getting done that need to be ready by the time I get back. What a headache, and yet the thought of a real vacation (after not having one in a year and half) is keeping my going. My family will probably get the shaft while I am in Utah since I have my schedule pretty booked. I feel bad about that, but so much to do and little time to do it.

Assuming I don't get sick from malnutrition (eating mac & cheese, raman, left over spaghetti) over the next few days, I will see those in Utah on Thursday.

Mac Attack!

For years I have been saying that my next computer was going to be 1) a laptop and 2) a Mac. I finally had the need to get a new computer and so I kept my word and ordered a brand new macbook. It has been a lot of fun playing around with it and it feels so good to be going away from the evil empire once again.

In graduate school I used a linux box and survived the whole time. I wrote my dissertation in tex and learned to live with the few annoyances of not having plug and play with some devices. However, the power and stability of the OS more than made up for any lacking features.

The mac is even better. Not only do you have the underlying unix at the core of the OS but the fine folks at Apple have wrapped a great gui around the core. Things just work and I won't have to deal with dreaded blue screens of death anymore. While it has taken some time to get everything converted over, I am now seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I have gotten my iPods converted over to mac and my gps is working. If only I could get my PDA to work I would be set. I am almost willing to say I'll never go back to microsoft. If I can convince Michelle of the power of mac then it will be the good ol' apple from here on out.

Here's to the super fast, blogging, podcasting, do it all out of the box macbook.

My cute little girls!

In honor of both Grace (years) and Harriet (months) being 3 we decided to have some pictures taken. Michelle wanted some pictures of Hattie at 3 months because that is when Grace had her first photo shoot. Grace is way into 3 right now. In fact she has to sign everything Grace3, not just Grace. She is very excited now about Harriet and thought it was great to have their pictures taken. While Grace is almost a tom boy at heart she really is gorgeous. And I am totally unbiased about that. Michelle and I are both in amazement that 2 ordinary people could have such beautiful children. While Hattie is darling, it is in a different manner than Grace. It is amazing to her parents how different she is from Grace in both appearance, actions, and personality. You can judge for yourself, but I feel pretty blessed to have 2 wonderful daughters.

The picture here was entered into the monthly contest. It would be great to win, but regardless I know that I am a winner thanks to Gracie and Hattie.

Freakin' Wicked!

Grace left little doubt as to the fact that she is a product of her environment. First some time in Utah and now in Massachusetts. On Saturday we were getting ready to drive up to Nashua, NH to do some shopping. Grace kept saying that she didn't want to go in "Daddy's car". When I asked her why she didn't want to go in my car (1997 Subaru Outback) she said, "It's too freakin' old." Michelle and I just started laughing. Once I finally go over the freakin' old thing I asked her how come she likes mom's car so much (2001 Nissan Pathfinder). She said, "Mommy's car is wicked cool!" What more can I say. Michelle and I couldn't stop laughing and we realized that we have one crazy BayTahn for a 3 year old.

Copo de Mundo and the TDF

There are two sports I really enjoy that I can't believe Americans don't get into. Perhaps it is the American arrogance that keeps people from watching soccer and cycling. I have heard all the excuses about why American's don't get excited about soccer, but I have to say that if people stopped watching the World Cup after the pathetic American showing than they really missed out. The quarter finals and semi-finals saw some incredible games. The Germany-Argentina, England-Portugal, and the final of France-Italy were all extremely entertaining. People often say soccer is boring, but in reality it should fit American lifestyle well. No commercials, no breaks, no timeouts. Heck the players don't even know the official time of the game. If people really think that soccer is boring and probably is because that don't understand the game. Before moving to Boston I was a very casual baseball fan. I would watch some of the playoffs and the world series but thought that the game was too boring (and long) to follow during the regular season. Now that I understand the game better, I also appreciate watching and observing the subtleties of the game. Regardless of how Americans do in soccer, I hope that sports fans across the country will tune in.

Another sport, cycling is equally baffling why American don't tune in. Armstrong was a great force in bringing cycling up in popularity, but I couldn't believe it when OLN said viewer numbers were down on its TDF coverage. For the first time in 8 years we actually have an exciting Tour de France. Only 2 real days of cycling left (with a ceremonial last leg) and the yellow jersey is completely up for grabs. An American may or may not win the yellow jersey and it just doesn't matter. The excitement and intrigue of this year's tour as had me at the edge of my seat at work keeping up to date with the www.velonews.com live feed. Here is a sport where people get on a bike for 21 straight days and ride more than 100 miles per day up grueling hills, across flats, and sprint up to 70 kph. For an interesting take from an amateur on one of the climbs they do take a look at this article. This year's tour has seen a guy come from 30 minutes back to claim the yellow jersey. A tour favorite bonk on the hardest stage (Landis) and go from wearing yellow to more than 8 minutes back. Then the very next day he attacks and rides solo for almost 130 km to reclaim all of his time but 30 seconds and be back in contention. Armstrong was great in that he was so dominant, but at least we actually have some intrigue this year. Who will wear the maillot jaune on Sunday in Paris?

A night at Fenway

On Monday night I got to go to the Red Sox game against Kansas City. I kind of lucked out and got the ticket at the last minute thanks to my friend Ben who was unable to go. He has some great season tickets and had planned on going with our friend Peter who will soon be leaving for a small island in the Pacific. Long story short, I got to go to the game with Peter.

It was a hot and muggy night, but the seats were great. Even though it was well over 90 degrees and the seats at Fenway are small to pack the people in. It almost has a MoTab feel with hard wooden seats, no leg room and your neighbor right there. Of course you probably don't get beer spilled on you at the MoTab. Anyway, the seats were above home plate looking down the third base line towards the Green Monster. What a view. The Green Monster is definitely bigger in person than on TV.

I was thinking that it wasn't going to much of a game with KC having such a bad record. However, the Red Sox haven't been playing well since the All-Star break and they needed everything they had to pull this game out. I quickly knew the night was going to be special when the ceremonial first pitches were thrown by Meatloaf and then Will Farrell. That guy is seriously funny. Wakefield was on the mound and he started out strong. The knuckleball was on target and he quickly went through the first three batters in the first. However, I had to call Jared and rub it in that I had beat him 16-2 in our fantasy league and I was now at Fenway. I mentioned that Wakefield was throwing well when things headed south. I must have jinxed him. He hit a batter and walked in a run and soon it was 4-0 KC. Wakefield recovered and pitched a good 3 and 4 innning and I was surprised when he didn't come out for the 5 (later found he has a fractured rib). Things weren't looking good until the 7 inning when the Sox rallied, capped by Mirabelli's 3-run home run and we were tied. The crowd was going nuts. There are no fans like Red Sox fans. With 1 more run in the 8th I knew it was sealed when Big Papi stole second. It was slow motion. It seemed like he was running forever to get to second and yet the throw wasn't even there. The crowd erupted to start the 9th when Papelbon took the mound with "Wild Thing" blaring over the speakers (do you remember the movie Major League?).

I was going to call Jared again during "Sweet Caroline", but didn't have the heart. He had suffered enough and I was reveling in the moment. The only thing I forgot was the camera. Hopefully next time I will have it. Thanks Ben for some great tickets and the Red Sox for a great game.

It's about time...

I started feeling guilty yesterday when I noticed that I had not contributed to the blog in 2 months. What can I really say in my defense. I have meant to, but something else has always come up. In my defense, I did work 58 hours last week and that was with having the 4th of July off. Luckily last week is over with and I should be back to a more normal work load now.


The big news is that our vacation to Utah is official. We purchased our tickets earlier in the week (at a much higher price than last year and higher than what we hoped to pay even with fuel increases). I can't wait to do some camping, hiking, cycling and having a nice couple of weeks in Utah.

While my girls have been off having fun, and with me working too hard this last week, the only real fun I was able to have was on the 4th. At the last minute we decided to take Harriet to her first firework show. One thing that New Englanders know how to do is a firework show. Stadium of Fire might as well be a backyard teenager firework show. It doesn't even compare. I have never seen firework shows like last year and this year at Nara Park in Acton, MA. A small little town and yet the firework show was incredible. We all had a good time hanging out with some friends and eating some good food. Grace had fun with glow sticks and Michelle and I were able to enjoy most of the show.


I promise more random thoughts about World Cup (what a year for soccer--great games), cycling (TDF is looking interesting post Lance, even the Americans (except Landis) bombed the TT), and life in the coming days.

Oh what do you do in the summertime?

Do you know that song? It's a good one in the primary hymn book. Well anyway, we do a lot!!!

Apparently, I'm desperate to get out of the house because we have gone somewhere every single day since last Thursday. Mostly we've gone to the barn, but we've also been to playgroup in Stow, to see the 4th of July fireworks in Acton (Harriet didn't like them much, but the rest of us thought they were way cool), to Rita's place in New Hampshire to ride (she has 20 some-odd horses and girls sleeping over this week at her vacation house there), to Drumlin Farm, and to swimming lessons today!!!Grace has ridden at least 7 times this week that I can think of and has ridden 3 different horses. She's riding Peppe (short for Peppermint Patty) in this picture. He's her second favorite horse after Tink. She also had her first swimming lesson today which was really great. She's taking a mom and tot class and I have to get in the pool with her, so we left Harriet with our neighbor, Jeanne, across the street. It was Harriet's first time being tended by a non-family member. She did great. I found them on the porch in a rocking chair when we got back. So many firsts...I have ridden twice this week - 2 different horses! I haven't ridden since Harriet was born - in fact not since last September. So this has been a banner week for me! I even got to ride on the cross-country course on Rita's property in New Hampshire. I haven't ridden outside of a ring for at least 4 or 5 years. It was soooo fun!

Well, your memories of taking kids lots of places tend to turn into positive ones eventually, but I have to say, at the end of a long day out with babies, you really wonder if any of the effort was worth it and you begin to wish you'd just stayed home. I felt that way every single day this week. But, now that the week is over, I'm glad I did it all. What else would I have done? If I had stayed home, I would have still felt overwhelmed and tired at the end of the day, so we might as well have gone out and done something. We do have a lot to say for ourselves this week, but now I'm too tired and too far behind on house work to be able to sit down and write much about it. Hopefully, our pictures can tell the story.

Fun with Gracie and Hattie

I'm so exhausted and exasperated anytime I have to take the two "bitties" out of the house, that I forget we do have fun together. Harriet is fine once we start the car, but cries the whole time we're getting ready and into the car. The more you prod Grace along, the slower she moves, so my nerves are usually shot before we even leave to go anywhere, and I'm definitely fried by the time we get home and into the house. Like I said though, we do have fun in-between.

On Friday, we decided to go to Drumlin Farm. The weather didn't look too bad at our house, so we decided to chance it. However, half way through our drive, it started POURING rain. I could have dealt with a drizzle, but this was "get you soaking wet in 2 seconds" rain. We pulled into the parking lot of the farm to find families leaving in droves. Drenched kids and strollers were packing up as fast as possible. Soon, the lot was deserted and I started wondering what the heck I was thinking. Then, I decided to just wait it out for a minute since it looked like one of those quick summer storms, so Grace and I sang "rain, rain, go away, come again another day" for about 10 minutes. Sure enough, the rain let up. We got out of the car and we had the whole farm completely to ourselves. It was great! (note to self - the wagon is not fun to take to Drumlin Farm - take the stroller next time!) Our favorite thing to do at the end is to stop at the little gift shop on our way out. They have fantastic things for your house, garden, yard, and for kids. Grace always finds a true treasure there. That day, it was a really nice little book about the "Little Red Hen" to add to her summer reading list. She's signed up at the Stow library for the "summer listening club" and needs to listen to 50 (DIFFERENT!) books by the end of August. She's already got about 17 down, so we'll be just fine. She does like to repeat stories though and we have to remind her to read new ones each night so that they count.
On Monday, Harriet turned 2 months old. She now weighs in at 13 pounds 8 ounces and is 23.5 inches long. She is in the 97th percentile for weight and the 90th for height. Her doctor said she is "a darling, yummy baby." I whole-heartedly agree. I fall in love with her more every day.
On Tuesday night, I was planning to take Grace to Erikson's Dairy for a mommy/daughter ice-cream cone. We both badly need to spend time together sans Harriet. I wanted to leave Harriet behind with David, but I forgot that he was going to a church meeting. So, just before 8pm (Erikson's rush hour), I strapped both kids in the car and headed over to the ice cream stand (rounding to the library first to take back our videos and exchange them for new ones.) Harriet was having her night-time fussiness and hadn't eaten in a while, so I had planned to get one cone as quickly as possible, throw them back in the car, and bring it home to eat it. Grace had another plan. She wanted the full Erikson's experience. So, we pulled up, parked 20 feet from the window, got out and started waiting in line. All of their windows were open and each had a HUGE line. After a good 20 minutes in line behind people getting a sample of this, and two of that, and oh- wait, we need one of the doggie ice creams, we finally got to the window. (Erikson's will give your dogs a free scoop of ice cream on a doggie biscuit if you bring them to the window with you!) Grace ordered a "vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips in a cone." I only had enough cash for one cone, and she was disappointed that I didn't get one for myself. So much for everything being "all about Grace" - she does worry about other people contrary to what she displays during the day. Then, I tried to hurry her back to the car and get her strapped in - nope, she wanted to tail-gate it and eat her ice-cream cone in the dirt parking lot like everyone else. So, I took a deep breath, got Harriet out of her carseat so I could bounce her, and put Grace on the tailgate of my pathfinder. I WISH I had a camera to take a picture of that angelic face with sweaty hair and dirty clothes sitting in the back of my dirty car in the Erikson's Dairy parking lot with an ice cream ring all the way around her face and a smile big enough to fill the ring. She, who has not been good about sharing lately, let me help her eat her cone and made sure I got my turn having a lick.

little harriet or BIG HARRIET

Well, little harriet has turned into BIG HARRIET!!! She is now 8 weeks old, almost 2 months old, and weighs 13 pounds even! On Sunday, I tried to put a dress on her that Emily brought back from the Cayman islands. I've been waiting until the weather was warm enough to wear it. I couldn't believe it when I almost couldn't squeeze her fat little arms and torso into it. It made me so sad because Emily gave Grace a matching one that fits well and they could have worn them together all summer!! Not anymore I guess. Even David said that "we'd have to have another girl now so that she could wear that dress." (We'll talk about having more babies at a MUCH later date!)

I had to take her to the doctor yesterday (5 days before her scheduled 2 month appointment) because she has just had the worst time lately with eating. She is a volcano of sour milk all day long and has recently started crying whenever she's fed. Yesterday morning, I decided I couldn't wait any longer and I took her in. She has classic baby reflux. They did give her some zantac. It's supposed to make things better, but it's not a miracle by any means. I think she has felt better since getting the medicine, but she still does spit up and still does have a hard time eating. They say it might take a few days to really kick in and I'm hoping that things will get even better. Of course, it will get better as she gets older and her stomach matures, but for now, we are stuck with a fussy, gassy, wet baby who goes through about 4 outfits a day (yesterday, I went through 3 myself because I'm always in the line of fire!)

In spite of all that, she's still a doll. I am totally in love with her. She is beautiful and chubby and has a funny personality. I will look down at her and she'll just be grinning at me with a crooked, fat-cheeked, open mouth smile. It's almost like she's laughing at me trying to figure her out. She definitely knows things that I don't know!

Surprise! It's Father's Day

Well, I have to write down what Gracie did to me on Father's day because it was SO FUNNY. Actually, we sort of celebrated on Saturday when my family was here. We did it partly so they could be in on it, and partly because I had hidden David's gift in the garage and he needed the garage on Saturday.

It is next to impossible to surprise David. He has ruined lots of surprises in our marriage. He's famous for downloading my credit card information into quicken 2 days before a holiday or his birthday (not on purpose, but just because he's way too efficient!) I remember one Christmas - we didn't have much money, especially to spend on each other. He had already picked out a couple of gifts and knew what they were. So, I had one tiny thing that I got at Costco that he didn't know was coming. Of course, he had to be efficient and update our finances the week before Christmas and carefully scanned the receipt to categorize it, and found my gift spelled out as plain as day. I still remember how hurt and mad I was.

So, for Father's day, I decided I should get him something he really wanted but didn't have on his immediate radar. He usually has a short list of things he really wants and that he talks about and shops for online every single day (the bike trailer being one of them.) I knew he wanted a grill and we needed one badly, but we hadn't talked about it in a long time and he hadn't thought about it either. I also usually wouldn't spend that much money on a smaller holiday, so I knew he'd never think of it . It would be a bang of a gift and I was so excited.

I took my Mom and Emily to Home Depot with me to help me pick it out and get it home. I carefully hid it in the garage and swore Grace to secrecy. He knew there was a big surprise and he knew that Grace wasn't supposed to tell. He didn't think she would either. She is usually a good secret keeper.

So Saturday morning, I went out in my jammies and started pulling out the giant box on Grace's wagon. Everyone else was waiting inside until I got it in the driveway. Grace was holding David's hand and making him close his eyes. To make a little conversation with her, he jokingly asked her "Grace what did Mommy get me?" or something like that. She looked at him, and with a huge grin on her face, she whispered "It's a gwill." I guess the lot of them bust out laughing and were having a good time watching me as I was still stealthily pulling the gift out of the garage. They knew how mad I was going to be and decided not to tell me. But a little while later, they couldn't keep it to themselves anymore and had a good time laughing at me again.

So much for surprises.

It's Aunt Em!

Harriet and the rest of us got another set of visitors last week-end. My sister, Emily, decided she absolutely couldn't wait until August to meet and hold Harriet, so she came out for the week-end. She didn't want to travel alone, so she convinced my mom to come back too. It was a total treat. They were here just long enough to have a blast with us, and LUCKILY, the weather was mostly nice for them. We have the worst luck with weather and company (just ask my mom and David's mom and dad!)

Anyway, in our two and a half days together, we got a lot accomplished. Emily logged many hours holding Harriet - her sole purpose in coming. We went Father's day shopping and my mom got all of hers done and helped me get mine done for David. It would have been extremely hard for me to get to Home Depot and buy a rather large gift and get it home with my two tiny ones by myself. David also brought home a purchase he's been shopping for forever. He finally got a bike trailer so he can take the whole family on a bike ride. He was so excited about it, I almost just let him have it for his Father's day present. So, anyway, we went shoe shopping. We took Grace to see the movie "Cars" at the quaint little Maynard movie house. We ate ice cream at Erikson's Dairy (that's where the weather didn't cooperate - it was a downpour as we sat in the back of my car eating it!) David actually took Grace in the bike trailer over there and they got pretty wet on the way home. She also logged some good hours on her trike. David even hooked the bike trailer up to her trike for fun. We also went out to dinner, and made some good dinners. It was an action packed week-end. I am just so glad I got to see some of my family again this summer. It really made things nice and gave me the boost I needed to get through the weeks until we go to Utah for a long trip in August.

ok, I give up!

Well, I just spent the last (precious) hour making a new blog entry, only to have my computer get the "blue screen of death" just as I was finishing the last picture upload. So, now, I'm not going to try to replicate what I tried to do before. Does every effort have to be futile? I just put Harriet's FOURTH outfit of the day on only to have her soak the front of it immediatly with a big spit up.

so, to sum up:

*it's raining and has been for days - there are ducks swimming where you shouldn't be able to swim in our yard!!
*watched the animated movie "Spirit" today with Grace and got VERY homesick
for the west - especially for southern Utah. If you haven't seen that movie, you should
at least watch the first 5 minutes of it for the sweeping illustrations of the west.
*we're stuck inside with each other - lots of movies, lots of coloring, lots of anything on the computer
*people keep forgetting to let mom sleep
*started ordering groceries online today - good idea Melissa!!! LOVE IT!
*Harriet eats herself into a bellyache every 2 hours, is growing very fast, getting very fat, and starting to have little facial expressions in response to mine. I think she smiles? I swear it's not the gas. She definitely doesn't smile about the gas!
*Grace wants to be queen bee and is still upset about her demotion to "one of the princesses."
*David and Michelle keep having people tell them that they look terrible and/or wiped out.
*Harriet is now 6 weeks old and mom is supposed to have "recovered" from childbirth. Sure!

Here are a whole bunch of pictures for the fam to google at. I know that friends see one picture and feel that they're all the same, but a Grandma can tell if a hair has grown on a head or if a cheek is a millimeter chubbier. So, here ya go... Love y'all!