My Baby is sooooo cute!

I love taking pictures of my baby.  She is so much fun!

P.S. I took these with my camera phone.

A Land of Immagrants

Secure our boarders but remember who we are as Americans and make it easier for decent hardworking people to come here legally.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles.  From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command 
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips.  "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Hanna Marie's Baby Blessing

Crafts

So I've decided if I wasn't so lazy I really could get into some fun crafts.  Right now I'm really enjoying making hair clips, mostly for Hanna Marie but today I made some for Chaylyne Marie - I hope she likes them. 

I'm also crocheting a blanket for Baby Hanna and working on a scrapbook for Chaylyne.

Mama and Hanna

4 Months Old!

Hanna Marie was four months old on June 18th.  She had her four month doctor's appointment last Monday.  Dr. Ovary said she was beautiful and doing great.  She weighs 14 lbs. 6 oz and is 25 1/2 inches tall.  I'm only 59'' tall so I'm pretty sure she'll be taller than me by the time she starts grammar school.  Dr. Ovary also said we could start her on solids so we went and bought some bowls and little tiny spoons and Sunday we tried rice cereal . . . she didn't have much of a reaction.  She didn't swallow it but she didn't act like she hated it either, she just pushed it out with her tongue.  She liked the spoon though, thought it was a great toy. 

Hanna's new favorite thing.

Last time we were in Salt Lake Grandma Hoggan taught Hanna Marie how to blow raspberries and now she does it all the time.
Video can also be seen at http://www.easysite.com/hjp

 

Grass

I'm so glad that the weather is finally nice!  We love to be outside.  Baby Hanna has already discovered how much fun it is to pull up the grass.  And yesterday we introduced her to leaves.  We gave her a leaf which she had fun holding and feeling for a minute before tearing it to pieces.  

 

Congratulations Mom

June 8th

This past weekend I visited Kaysville cemetery to place flowers on my Grandma's grave for her birthday today.  While I was there I also placed flowers in the vase at her parent's grave.  I never knew them but I've visited their graves with my grandma all my life.  There were still flowers there from Memorial Day so the graves really looked beautiful.  I miss my grandma so much.  I still think of her all the time. 

Hannah

Can anyone tell of the story of Hannah from the scriptures?  Since I named my little girl Hanna I haven't come across a single person who can tell me the story of this great women.  The first person everyone thinks of is Hannah Montana, even the missionaries.  So aside from my mom who taught me the scriptures and those who were in my Sunday School class last week, can anyone tell me the story of Hannah?  Without cheating!  Even Eric had to google it.

3 Month Pictures

Read, read, read, and fun, fun, fun.

Today Baby Hanna and I read Tigger is Unbouncded.  Baby Hanna loves books.  It's so much fun.  I really didn't think she could show any kind of interest at such a young age but she does.  She'll get all excited and move her arms all around when I start a book, then she stares at the pages so intently.  She has started to reach out to the edges of the books too, like she wants to hold them.
Today's story was from our new collection of Winnie the Pooh books.  Hanna Marie only had 3 books to start out but a couple weeks ago Jensen's Wholesale Books here in Logan had a used book sale.  They had a stuff a bag deal, as many books as you could fit in a bag for only $7.  We went on the last day of the sale so they were pretty picked over but we still got 30 books!  Including 8 Winnie the Pooh books and 5 or so additional Disney books.  We also found Dora the Explorer, Curious George, Sesame Street, and The Night Before Christmas!

Our book hunting day turned out to be a lot of fun.  That same day the Applegates called and invited us to go to Willow Park Zoo with them.  We had never been before.  It was so much fun.  It was only $1 to get in and they had monkeys, bobcats, and all sorts of fun birds.  Hanna seemed more interested in the trees than the animals but little Annie sure enjoyed it and it was nice just to get out.

We've had a lot of fun with the Applegates lately.  Just the week before the Zoo we celebrated Annie and Kade's birthdays.

It's been so fun for Hanna to have a friend.  Little Annie loves to touch 'the baby' and give her loves.  And Hanna loves to smile at Annie.  We love just hanging out at Annie's house.

Grateful for Aggie Village

I live in Aggie Village, a tiny student apartment on campus.  My friends complain, I've complained about them and we make fun of them but really I love my apartment mostly because it is mine, my home and I really am grateful to be here.

Aggie Village isn't perfect but it is the longest I've lived in one place for nearly 20 years, it's the most comfortable I've felt in a home in 13 years, the most love I've felt in a ward in 8 years, and I've made the best friends here that I've had ever.

I can't even describe to you the nastiness of the apartment I lived in before AV when I first moved to Logan.  And before that I lived with my all too gracious Aunt and Uncle in Draper and though I loved it there I over stayed my welcome and it never really was home.  Before that was the last time I lived with my mom.  She and I and my brother and sister lived in my grandparent's basement.  The four of us shared a 1/2 bathroom smaller than the one here in AV.  The washer and dryer set up here might not be ideal but there our washer and dryer were in my mom's small bedroom.  We did have a nice big laundry room in one place that we lived but my brother slept in there on a cot, he didn't have a room.  I've lived with concrete walls before too, at least these ones don't have mold on them.  And the floors at AV do bother me but it's better than 30 year old green shag carpet.  The AV kitchens are small, but I've had a hallway kitchen before were we couldn't open the refrigerator and oven at the same time.  And I've lived without a dishwasher before.  I hate parking my car outside but my family has only had a garage we could actually park our car in for 3 out of the last 20 years.  AV may be small but it is clean, the appliances are new, and the neighborhood is safe, all things I've learned the value of.

I am grateful for a big porch where I can enjoy the sun, I'm grateful that I have cable and Internet, I'm grateful I have a place to take a bubble bath, I'm grateful I can hang pictures on my walls (I grew up in apts were we couldn't do that), I'm grateful I have a place to store my own food, I'm grateful I have food, I'm grateful that I have a warm bed, and that my baby has a safe roof over her head. 

We are hoping to move this summer but only because my sister is coming to live with us when she gets off her mission (she has no where else to go, my mom doesn't have a home and my dad's is too small).  If we get into the place we are hoping for it will be the first time in my life that I will have a garage, a laundry room,  a kitchen, a dishwasher, air conditioning, an enclosed backyard, more than one bathroom, and a regular mailbox (not a gang box like you have at apts) all at the same time.  I don't know what I'll do with myself. 

And if after reading this you still can't think of a reason to be grateful for you home or apartment think of all the people in Haiti, Chile, and China who just lost their homes to earthquakes, or of all the people back East who lost their homes to floods, or the 1.2 million families in the U.S. that lost their homes to the recession, or the homeless in general, or those in third world countries where the people that do have homes still live in conditions I couldn't even imagine until I saw it for myself.  But you don't even have to go that far to get a taste of poverty we have plenty of it all over our own nation.

Hehehe

So I had drill this weekend and guess what . . . They let me drive a bus!  A big blue bus, with people on it, on trafficked roads.  I know right?  Those of you who know me know this probably wasn't the brightest idea on their part.  My supervisor told me I had to learn to drive the passenger bus so I can drive poor unsuspecting troops around the base and on the flight line (around big expensive airplanes).  So today a bunch of people from my section voluntarily came along to be my passengers and witness the chaos.

Little old me driving a big old bus, I had to slide the seat all the way forward and could barely be seen over the ginormous steering wheel.  But really it wasn't that bad.  I gave everyone a taste of the seat in front of them the first time I hit the brakes and on my first right hand turn I ran over the curb and nearly took out the stop sign.  I doubled back to try again and when I cleared it my passengers applauded.  I continued driving for another half an hour without further incident.  Sadly no one got a picture of the event.