The Amazing Stupendous Miraculous MARK!! (that was Andrew's idea of a great title)

Woohoo!! I have the greatest family. My brother Mark is a professional child photographer (check his stuff out at http://www.brookviewphotography.com/) and was nice enough to spend some of his vacation time taking pictures of Kate (and even more time processing them). He's amazing!--he really captured her personality and different looks. I feel so lucky to have such precious pictures of her at six weeks (my cousin-in-law took for us) and now at 7 months! I have a notoriously bad memory--so now this special time will always be remembered. Thanks Mark! Above are just a few of our favorites.

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

Oh BOY. For anyone who hasn't seen this yet--it made me laugh. Sadly, I think I may have sounded like this during some of my English oral exams. "James Joyce used deconstruction to...build things! and so...this is evidence of a societal issue that started in such as places like in Iraq." Just kidding! By the way, could that really be true--1/5th??

Another Before and After

Yes! We are almost done with our kitchen! Luckily, we have some good friends that were willing to come help us work on our house this weekend. Andrew's dad came again and we were able to get a lot done. We've been living with cabinets all over the floor of the kitchen for so long! It feels nice to be able to walk around without stubbing my toe.

These pictures are obviously taken at different times of day (so the pictures I took tonight are a little dark), but I'm so excited to have it almost done that I wanted to post some pictures tonight. There are still some things to be done, but it's getting there. You can't see in the picture, but the ceiling color (light green) is the same color as the cabinet doors.

For anyone we haven't told, we have decided to sell our house. Andrew is meeting with a realtor tomorrow to get things rolling. It almost makes me cry when I think about it--after all our hard work we will just have to pass it on. But we are doing it because we are hoping to make a profit and then mostly live off what we make from the house so that I can stay home with Kate and Andrew can go to school full-time and graduate! It will be a huge blessing for us if we can sell it for what we want to sell it for.

We are still only part way through our bedroom and master bath, but we will keep working on it and hopefully get finished soon. The hardest part will be putting up all the moulding (we still have to do that for the kitchen, both bathrooms and our bedroom.) It's time consuming and I'm sure the saw will not make Kate smile (considering the blender sent her to tears the other night), but we are hoping with a little luck and a lot of blessings and great friends we will get it done soon!

My cousin had this on her blog--I thought it was cute and so I tried it out. I just picked the pictures quickly, but looks like Kate is slightly more Andrew than me.

Paparazzi

Whenever I Hear...

Tonight Kate and I went to a park near our house (that is now easily accessible because the construction is almost done--yay!). It was so relaxing to just sit with Kate on a blanket and listen to the wind rushing through the trees and the chirping birds (and some random kids screaming at the playground). With the mountains in the background and the sky bright blue, no bugs--it was gorgeous. It reminded me, of course, of the primary song. By the way, Kate has learned to clap! I haven't gotten her to do it for the camera yet, but you know I will! Her top teeth are also coming in (about half way down so far), but those are hard to get pictures of, too. She loves to chew on us and it really hurts.

My Cute Family

Here we all are--all together for the first time in a long time! Who knows when the next one will be. My brother, Mark, took this picture--and despite the difficulties of taking a group shot (and especially with kids), he did an excellent job!

Debate Real-Time Response: Romney On Mormon Faith

Go Romney! I've been watching and reading a lot about Romney lately. I'm very impressed! See for yourself. I think he blows away the competition on both sides.

Our Happy Little Munchkin

Cruisin'

Wow, I kind of went crazy posting things just now--but I'm so excited the videos are working again. These are some from a week or so ago that I could never post. I love her jammies in this one--they glow in the dark! She can't appreciate it, but I think it's cool!

Yay--I got a movie to post!! More to come...

Oh NO!! Are Movies Frying Kate's Brain??

You must watch the slide show carefully. The moves are not many, but they are there. I had Pocahontas on the other night (a friend lent us a bunch of movies the other day--I've never seen Pocahontas until now) and Kate was glued to the TV. I got a little bit worried as her jaw started to drop. I've read that you're not supposed to let your little tiny kids watch TV until they're like two or something. But it's not like I'm going to stop watching movies for two years...and when I have more kids it seems like it'd be impossible to not have a smaller one watch. I hope it doesn't rot her brain!

Ahh...Bigotry.

Sorry--I will not write too much about this. I want this blog to be a happy place. But I was shocked/saddened/angered by what I've read about this movie coming out Aug. 24th. It's about the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah in 1857. It's supposed to be "historical." Everything I've read about it, though, suggests a very unfair portrayal and even demonization of Mormons. I think it's sad that this sort of film would be made today. We are still so misunderstood (though, generally, I think things in recent years have been very favorable to us and much improved) and will continue to be so when movies like this come out. Oh well. I'm trying not to let it bother me so much. We can only do what we can to stop lies from spreading by living our lives as best we can. So ironic, though, don't you think--that so many people accuse us of being intolerant bigots? Hmm.

Deja Vu: More about me

4 things you might not know about me (but probably do)

1. I have almost nightly nightmares about toilets. I don't know why, can't think of anything traumatic that happened to me on a toilet (besides the obvious). Almost every dream I have ends up with me in a bathroom or locker room, going down rows and rows of stalls, searching for a clean toilet. But there is ALWAYS something wrong with them all. Either the stall is too small, so the door won't close, the toilet is overflowing or won't flush, or worst of all, there's no water in the toilet at all. (shudder, twitch). I have yet to come up with the reason behind these nightmares. Ideas?

2. I have a very hard time drinking water. I either drip it down my chin or miss my mouth completely (unfortunately, the latter is usually the case). Just today, actually, at work, it went right past my mouth, down my shirt and under my garments (so it didn't soak through my regular shirt--phew. No one could tell).

3. I was in a bad car accident when I was 16 that totaled the car. The girl in the car with me (Vicki) went through the windshield. She sued the guy that hit us, who then counter sued me. I had to testify in court. They used pictures I had taken of the blood and car for my scrapbook (and had given copies of to Vicki) and blown them up and used them as "Exhibits." Ha. Vicki was trying to make the case that her life was really horrible after the accident, and this is the worst she could come up with, "I had to wear bangs!" 'Gasp.' We weren't very good friends to begin with (if you couldn't tell) and we stopped talking within a couple months after the accident.

4. (WARNING: Not for the faint of heart or easily disgusted) I had a pilonidal cyst on the base of my tailbone on my mission (in my third month in Hong Kong). It was a huge red bump that started bleeding and oozing all over the place in the middle of a discussion. My companion didn't want to "waste" time by going to the doctor because I was getting a new comp at the end of the week, so I had to limp around with an oozing back/bum. It was one of the most painful things I've ever experienced. My new companion took me to the doctor right away (too bad for her) and they made her stay in the room with me as the doctor "examined" me. His wife distracted my comp by asking, "So...where are you from?" as I cried in agony as he cut me open to drain it. It got a lot worse...but I have a feeling I should not go on... it's really pretty funny looking back...my companion and I got to know each other well in a hurry.

4 Jobs I've had

1. Paper route. Though, this one should be on a list of jobs my MOM has had. She got up at the crack of dawn every weekend for years to make sure us kids kept that job. I have really bad memories (and scary pictures--maybe I can find

(It takes a lot of guts to post this picture--just so you know.)

one) of me being weighed down by loads of newspapers, tromping through massive drifts of snow (up to my waist...it was slow-going) in the winter, slipping and smashing my head in on the ice in people's driveways, sweating buckets in the Nebraska humidity, running from dogs, getting caught and gnarled by dogs, peeling invisible spider webs off my face and extremities, and feeling extremely self-conscious every time I saw someone from school. You get the idea. I could go on and on.

2. Inbound telemarketing jobs. Pick one. I had a few. They were all about the same. I answer and hear this over and over until I go crazy: "I want that thang." "What thing?" (we took calls for thousands of companies). "That THANG on tv." "We take calls for more than one thang, m'am." Then the frustration builds (for us both), "I WANT THAT THANG ON TV." "M'AM. If you can't tell me the name of the thing, then just keep watching TV and wait for the commercial to come on again. Call back when you know the name." Click.

When there was a big queue (lots of calls waiting), I was ever the dutiful employee in clearing up that queue. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. There. No more queue. The thing is, when you hate a job that much, you beg to be fired--but it never comes.

3. I worked at a place called "PMSI." I thought that was so funny. The funniest part was that PMSI didn't actually stand for anything. Why in the world would you name your company that? I answered a switchboard and more than once forgot to say the "I"--it was awful. And of course, ironically, my boss has the worst case of PMS I've ever seen. She was MEAN.

4. I worked as a temp before my mission. I had many an interesting job that way. It was great--the company would call up in the morning with a job, tell you what it was, how much it was, and how long it would be, and you could just turn it down. Or you could start, not like it, and tell them to find you something else. For one of them, I worked at this hospital for maybe two months (I can't recall now), but I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. There was another girl there temping and I finally realized she also had NO clue what she was supposed to be doing. People would bring stacks of things for us to do, and we would just pretend to work on it. We both did try to figure it out, but whatever we were supposedly doing--it didn't seem to matter. I eventually told the temp agency to find me something else.

4 Movies I can watch repeatedly:

1. Cast Away
2. Miracle
3. About a Boy
4. Hope Floats

4 Favorite TV Shows (we currently don't have TV, so this list is old)

1. Seinfeld
2. Simpsons
3. 24
4. Star Trek: The Next Generation (my brothers will never believe this)

4 Places I've lived

1. Omaha, NE
2. Hong Kong, China
3. Houston, TX
4. San Francisco, CA


4 Favorite Foods

1. Lasagna
2. Shrimp (I have a compulsion to buy it at almost every restaurant--seafood restaurant or otherwise--even though, it's usually a mistake.)
3. Salmon
4. Chocolate

4 Websites I check daily

1. Blogs
2. Google
3. Bank account
4. ?

4 Places I've been on vacation

1. Southern Utah: Moab, Snow Canyon, Kodachrome
2. Europe: Paris, Denmark, Norway, England
3. Nauvoo
4. Yosemite National Park

4 Nicknames

1. Jenny Penny
2. Taai Taai (means wife)
3. "Jennette, the Best a Man Can Get"--a kid in grade school did actually say this once--I'm not making it up! (you know the Gillette jingle, right?)
4. Jender

I like what my cousin said on her blog: "I don't know who's been tagged so if you've read this and haven't been tagged you are now tagged. ;)"

Kate on the Go

Well, I'm really sad that I can't get the videos to post because I have some really cute ones. And I've been taking more videos than pictures. Oh well.

I have to say that Kate is so fun to take places lately--especially because I can pack her instead of her AND her car seat. She loves getting out of our house and seeing new things. She really likes going anywhere, even if it's deathly hot and she's covered in sweat (hmm...I guess that says something about how fun our house is). Poor thing. She's usually good about it--even if I'm not. But she especially loves grocery stores with air conditioning (me too) and music to dance to. She likes to turn and pick up things out of the cart and drop them on the ground as we go, though. So I'm sure I look like a mess of a mom, bending over most of the time as I'm pushing the cart.

PS By the way, since no one ventured a guess--the "Clever Girl" quote is from Jurassic Park. I think it's the professor that says it about the dinosaur right before he gets eaten.

"Clever Girl"

Kate has really been making some progress lately. A few days ago she started to pull up on furniture. Now, she can cruise around our whole couch. Last night, she let go and turned around, free-standing! I was amazed and a little worried she was going to have a major face-plant, but she did fine. She has been bonking her head a lot more, but she's learning to be more careful in the way she does things. I wouldn't be shocked if she started walking by the end of the month! She's wanted to walk for a long time now.

There are only a couple of things we tell Kate not to touch: the VCR/DVD player and the computer's power button. Of course, these seem to be the only things she wants to touch. When Andrew was home with her the other day, he came in to the living room from the kitchen and saw her messing with the VCR. As SOON as she saw him, she dropped to her tummy and turned in another direction, and started patting the ground...as if to say, "Doo doo doo. What's going on, Daddy?"

She makes us laugh all the time. She's got such a fun personality. I can't believe she's 8 months old today!

PS Anyone know what movie I'm quoting in the title? Hint: nothing to do with Seinfeld or Patrick Swayze. See what you come up with. I think Sabrina knows this.

PPS Is anyone else having trouble posting videos? I've tried photobucket and google video. Can't get anything to work!

Another Family Reunion! (Andrew's Side)

Heber Camp over the weekend.#10: terrified of heights (see picture above)