PaRty!!!

Thanks for all who came and celebrated Lois' birthday with us!  We love you all and are grateful for your friendship and love.  

We ate some good BBQ, enjoyed great company (and weather), kids were swimming - nothing better than great friends and a fun occasion as an excuse to hang out!  

And now for some pictures...

Lois dug right in to her cupcake!  Yumm!

This is before she obliterated her banana cupcake in front of her.  She went for the chocolate first.  I'm thinking she must be Jason's daughter...

Jason, Lois, Aneesha and Sasanka - (Aneesha is only one week older than Lois)

This was at the end of the night and Lois was waaaaaaay tired (if you can't tell!)

Cosette and Gigi

Janae - can you believe this girl just had a baby less than a month ago?  She's hot!

Here's a shot of some of the group hanging out by the hot tub

...And Bridget making sure Magdalena isn't a victim of drowning.

Note to self:  Babies and swimming pools = pain for parents!

Ensigns and Grossarths 

Chad, I think that's the best "hard guy" look I've seen in quite some time.  Nice work!

Avery - so cute in her floatie and feeding herself.  What a big girl!

Shaylee, Miriam and Callie

I had to make sure there was no flash so Callie wouldn't blacklist me as a "flasher" - hence the fuzziness.

Magdalena and Bridget

These little punks are moving to Ithaca and we're really, really sad about it.  Magdalena is  Lois' great friend.  They like to swap toys and binkies down in primary and eat goldfish and cheerios together.  Don't go!  Sniff, sniff...

Miriam - she's another one of those "punks" that are moving to Ithaca.  

We love you Palmers!

Jason manning the grill while Troy and Ken chat it up...

The Burns twinners - Wyatt and Carter - chilling in the hot tub

The beautiful mother of the twinners, Mindy!

Eevi, Bridget and Rosemary with the bebes - both inside and outside the womb!  :-)

Tony, Lois and Tracy - we love the Mistry's!

Thanks for a great party, guys!  We love you all.

I missed getting pictures of everyone who came to celebrate - bummer! I hate it when that happens.  But know we love you although you're missing from this post.

Birthday Girl

& her morning activities...

Here's the result of a little photo shoot we had with Lois on the morning of her first birthday!  Gotta love the high chair pics and her picking her nose!  Sheesh!  I'm assuming this is an inevitable part of toddlerhood...

So happy to be ONE!

Eyes closed.  Check.

Puckered lips.  Check.

Obligatory nose picking.  Check.

Acting surprised while eating grapes and cheese - totally awesome!

Playing with her favorite "no-no" toy - the computer...

Flashing a nice huge grin!  

What a birthday morning!  Up next...party pictures!

Birthday Videos!!!

Good Morning Lois! 

(If you have a hard time getting the above video to start, try moving the playhead a little bit. It worked for me. I don't know why it won't start on it's own. Oh, and I started recording before the light was on in her bedroom, that's why it's black at first). 

1st Birthday Interview

Party Time!

Lili hosted a fabulous birthday party for our little girl.  It was so much fun to celebrate her first birthday with good friends. We wish we could have had family with us.  Can't wait to see everyone in Utah soon!

-Jason

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOIS!!

*And UNCLE MACK, too!*

It's pretty hard to believe that this little chunk-a-monk came out of me exactly one year ago!  The time has flown and we simply feel so blessed to have this bundle of energy in our lives.  We just wanted to get some pictures up to celebrate before midnight...more pictures to follow of her rockin' party!  

Sporting her pensive face.

Conked out!

Did I mention she weighed TEN pounds, EIGHT ounces?  Yep, that's right.  She was HUGE!

And here we are today!  Look at all those chompers!

Eating her grapes and cheese - she's so high class!

WE LOVE YOU LOIS!  

You're the light of our lives!!!

She's well on her way...

A week from Friday, Lois will be turning one year old.  Can you even believe it?  

We can't!

Here are some of her milestones:

• She talks to us all the time and is picking up new sounds everyday.  Some of her favorite things to do are growl (like a lion or bear), and say "poita, poita, poita..."  and is especially chatty in the morning.  We have great conversations about what she dreamt about that night and then we read books and she talks and talks about them.
  
• She has an internal clock that wakes her (and us!) up between five and six in the morning.  Folks, this is killing me.  Literally.  It's brutal.  No matter what time we put her to bed, she still wakes up every morning - chirping away in her crib.  Gosh, I hope this changes - but I'm thinking she's going to be an early riser for the rest of her life just like my mother!  Even blackout shades don't make a difference.  
• She's growing in four of her top teeth altogether.  Shortly after her first upper tooth broke through, the other three quickly followed.  We're glad she's getting teeth!
• She's eating more and more - among her favorites?  Yogurt, grapes, blueberries and cheese.  I wonder where she got her love for cheese from?  Hmmm...  (ME!!)
• She's figuring more things out about her environment like how to open cupboards, how to make her toys make noises and how to open and shut doors.  She's fascinated with them!
• Her hair is getting really long!
• She loves to hear herself "scream."  She'll just sit there and make loud noises because she likes the way it sounds.
• She's OBSESSED with the computer.  Whenever we're on it, she wants in.  She especially loves to "type" on the keyboard.
• She can stand by herself and is figuring out the whole walking ordeal.  She can walk along furniture and I'm pretty sure she'll figure out how to do it soon all by herself.  GASP!
• AND...most importantly, she finally started sleeping through the night (consistently) this month.  Hallelujah!  

She was obviously sick of me taking her picture...

I thought this picture was so cute - 

this was right after she got a bit of a fat lip from a little tumble...

And now some videos!

The first one is Lois fascinated with herself.

The second, Lois walking with the help of a little walker borrowed from my friend Addie.

And the third, playing with her dinosaur toy given to her by my friend Gigi.  

I love how she always points and wants you to touch her finger.

She's the best and we LOVE her!!

May Happenings...

We're alive! After returning from San Diego, Lois and I came down with some rather nasty colds which turned into an ear infection for Lois and for me, a sinus infection.  Among all the fevers, coughs, sniffles and lack of sleep, we are now all better.  Thank goodness!!

This was Lois' first time being sick in her life, and I have to say that she handled it like a champ.  But the goop!  Oh, the goop.  SO MUCH GOOP.  How does that much stuff come out of that little nose?   Needless to say, we went through a lot of Puffs Plus with Lotion (a must-have!) between the two of us.  It will be nice when she can actually blow her nose.  

In other news, I got released as the primary song leader and was called into our primary presidency as the 2nd counselor.  I'm excited for the change in duties, but will miss singing with the little kiddies.  When they are interested in singing, they are a lot of fun!  This will be my first leadership role in my adult life.  Wish me luck!  

I've also joined Weight Watchers and joined a gym because I'm ready to get my "sexy" back.  For so long, I've felt like a total frump-a-dump...and I'm sick of it!  I'm also doing this for health reasons, obviously.  I want to have more energy and strength.  So if you see me eating a cookie, I give you permission to give me a little razzing.  Sometimes a girl just needs a nudge, right?  Keep me in line! 

And the big news in Lois' life is that she's no longer a two-teeth wonder!  At the ripe age of 11.25 months, she cut her THIRD tooth (her upper front tooth) just two days ago.  Now, if you remember, she cut her first two at eight months, so she's basically had no teeth to chew food with!  So we're excited for the arrival of more teeth (but not excited about the whole crankiness that comes with it) and the fourth is quickly following suit...   What's not so nice is the fact that she now grinds her bottom teeth with the little bit of tooth that has grown in and it drives us crazy! Nothing like that horrific sound of teeth grinding!  Ugh.  I try to intervene as soon as she does it, but it hasn't helped.  Hopefully this little practice will stop soon.  Lois has also started to throw mini-tantrums.  Seriously?  She's not even one yet and she has her little moments already!  You can see a picture of one of them below.   

AND...she can now stand on her own and it is so cute how excited she gets.  She has started to walk along furniture and will probably figure out walking here in the next few months.   

And now some pictures!

Look at that face...

This is during one of her tantrums.  Lovely.

We've been going to the pool now that it's nice and toasty down here and Lois loves it.

We went to the park the other day and Lois was loving the sand.  Don't worry, we washed her hands really good after this.

She even went down the slide with daddy!

Lounging in the swing - I love how she just sits back and relaxes.  She loves the swing.

And here is our unicorn baby.  We're kind of in that awkward hair stage.  It's really long, but she won't keep clips in it anymore, so usually it just hangs in her face.  But I don't really want to cut bangs. What to do?

So, this little doo was my solution to keep her hair out of her snotty, runny nose.  After taking a nap with it, it became a hair-horn.  

And just because she's cute.  

Things we are looking forward to:  Trip to Utah in June and in August, Jason's brother is getting married, my brother Mackie is coming home from his mission and we'll be getting a second niece, too!  Woo, woo!  We are blessed.

FAREWELL, Oil-Free Moisture.  

I'll miss you.

Have you ever fallen in love with a product and after many years of devoted use, the product gets discontinued?  Well, today, I'm mourning the discontinuance of my beloved face lotion.   Why have you done this to me, Neutrogena?  WHY?!?

I've been using the same face moisturizer since the eighth grade.  For those of you who don't know how old I am, that means I've been using it since 1997.  Twelve years!  I love this stuff.  It was light on the face, it had a slight tint so once you used it your face didn't look pasty, it had an SPF protection and one bottled usually lasted me a good five months at least (and that's using it everyday.)   EVERYDAY for twelve years I've used this face lotion...and now it's gone.  Discontinued.  Never to be found in a store again.  I think I'm going to cry.   (There are some bottles still out there to be had on the internet, but paying an extra $6 for shipping is so crazy!! Ugh.)

This seems to happen to me a lot.  My favorite drugstore mascara is 2000 Calorie mascara by Max Factor.  About a year ago, Max Factor disappeared from all of the drug and grocery stores. Where did they go? Why did they disappear without any word to their devoted fans?  I tried to find out what was going on through their web site, but never was able to figure out what was going on.   In the meantime, I tried several other brands of mascara but just couldn't find something that I loved as much.  This was another product I had used since middle school.

Wait a second...is 12 years the maximum statute of time to manufacture a product?  Is there a conspiracy that I'm not tapped into here?

Luckily a few months back, I happened to walk into ULTA and found that they carry Max Factor 2000 Calorie mascara.  I could have cried!  But in the midst of my happiness, I couldn't help thinking...Seriously, Max Factor?  What's the deal?  You didn't even have the public relations sensibility to keep us in-the-know on your web site?  And now I have to go to ULTA to buy your product instead of making a quick cruise through the make-up aisle at Target or CVS Pharmacy?  Such a hassle.  Why did they do that?  

This seems to be a pattern with cosmetic products.  Favorite colors of blush, fingernail polish, lipstick...gone into the great abyss as soon as you decide you really like it.

I've watched this happen to William-Sonoma customers many times.  WS sold wonderful soaps and lotions with fabulous scents to choose from. Last year, some guy at the WS headquarters thought it would be pretty awesome to clear out all the old scents and packaging and introduce "new" soaps and lotions with all new packaging.  STUPID MOVE, dude.  Stupid!  We had so many angry customers who had used the same scent for years and years and then all of a sudden, it was gone!  Not to mention the fact that the new packaging didn't fit into the old wire racks.  People were down right outraged.   And I know we lost some customers over it.  They were really that angry.  Over soap.

This same thing happened with their margarita mixes.  Apparently, WS sold some of the best mixes out there and they were HOT sellers.  So what did they do?  They decided to discontinue the production of this awesome product and introduced a new line of mixes.  Seriously folks...I don't drink margaritas but I could even tell that those mixes were C-R-A-P.  They were disgusting!  Not to mention, people were down right outraged (once again) and questioned time after time why they had gotten rid of such a great product.  Good question!

Well, after a year of crappy sales on both of the newly introduced items, they have now brought back all the old stuff.  They have brought back the same soaps and lotions in their original packaging and scents.  They thankfully got rid of the disgusting margarita mixes and now sale the same delicious, top-selling margarita mixes that everyone loved so very much.  After these two very expensive mistakes, I hope they have learned their lesson to stay with what works and sells.  Why mess with something that isn't broken?

Maybe this will happen to my moisturizer.  Please, Neutrogena.  Realize the error of your ways and bring it back!   I can only hope...

Anyway, is there something that you have loved that has been discontinued?  Why do you think companies feel they need to change things that seem to be working just fine?