Hot Hot Heat

It's HOT.  Actually, It's only 80 degrees outside.  However, when you live in a house with lots of windows that get very direct sunlight and no air conditioning, your living space tends to turn into an inferno.  We didn't actually know until yesterday that we didn't have air conditioning.  Somehow, when we were considering moving in (in September), we were so overjoyed by the sight of a dishwasher and a washer/dryer that we failed to ask that crucial question.  Turns out we don't actually have enough dishes for a dishwasher to make sense--by the time it's full enough to run a load, we've been taking dishes out of it all day and washing them by hand to use since all 6 plates and 8 forks we own are in there.  And. . .the dryer has the unfortunate quality of having a broken timer and will dry our clothes indefinitely if we forget to turn it off.  Sometimes we end up with very dry clothes. And a subsequently high electric bill (not complaining--i love our place and all of the broken things inside of it)  But anyways--no air conditioning!  And seriously, our front room and baby's room may as well be greenhouses (if any of you are familiar with my plant Vinny III, he's thriving hardcore).  So after spending all day wondering why moving the little button on our thermostat over to "cool" and cranking that little number down to 67 degrees had had no affect whatsoever on the temperature of our little home, Tanner sent a maintenance request to our landlord complaining about the broken air conditioning.  His reply, in all its devastating shortness--"you don't have air conditioning."  (apparently it's legal??) If you recall, my husband is a never-summer kind of guy--see here.  In his estimation, we may as well not have a roof.  Not to mention the fact that our windows don't have screens so unless we (and our baby) wanted to wake up covered in bug bites, leaving the windows open was not an option.
It was a rough night.  Laying in bed "thinking cold thoughts" (Tanners words, not mine) and eventually rubbing ice cubes up and down our arms wasn't working.  But then we remembered a glorious gift from Becky and Jim Rawson who, bless their hearts, gave us the fan we registered for for our wedding.  It saved us.  I even considered sending them another thank you card. 
So the happy ending to this story is that we are moving on Friday.  By some series of fortunate events, we sold our contract right before we discovered the lack of air conditioning. . . and the couple who bought it also forgot that crucial question.  They are in for one heck of a summer.  I hope for their sake that they have a Becky and Jim Rawson in their lives.

Camryn Photos

Sunday Best

Her new favorite activity--trying to shove both fists in her mouth at the same time

She's getting really close to rolling over

This is what we see all day long--until we pull a camera out.  And then she just gives us blank stares.  It's rare that we can capture a smile on camera!

I sent my husband to the grocery store this morning to pick up "a few essentials" since I haven't had to time to grocery shop since starting work this week.  "A few essentials," I said.  "just to tie us over until I can make a real grocery list.  Oh, and some snacks."

He returned with milk, cheese, bread, bananas. . .
donuts,
tortilla chips,
chips ahoy cookies,
a giant frozen bag of chicken nuggets,
and those granola bars that might as well be candy bars

Me: "Oh.  You got a lot of junk food."
Him:  "Well you only ever buy produce."

Guess he figured we needed more balance in our diets.

Adams Canyon

There are a few things I missed while pregnant/recovering and hiking was definitely one of them!  Last weekend we hit up Adams canyon in Layton--my all time #1 favorite hike.  Mostly because it's so close to my house and since I've hiked it a million times, it's got a special place in my heart.  But--it was quite a different place than the last time I'd been.  Remember the insane windstorm a while back in Davis County?  I couldn't believe how many fallen trees there were everywhere. 

Not to mention the wind on the day we hiked it!  For some reason, wind now always reminds me of the time I rode the Winnie the Pooh ride at Disneyland with Alissa.  The minute I step outside, I think (and usually say):  "It's a BLUSTERY day!"

We didn't even make it to the waterfall at the top because just before we got to it, my family, who'd I left Camryn with, called to say she was screaming bloody murder for her mom.  I hadn't left her any milk because I didn't think she'd be hungry before we got back.  The whole way down I was pretty miserable thinking I'm a terrible mom!  Hopefully soon, we can just bring her with us on these adventures. 

Gross

Ever had a baby hurl a gallon of spit up down your shirt?  I'm talking down the shirt, not just on it.  Ya, it's gross.

Cousins!

These pictures are from a couple of weekends ago when Tanner and I spent the weekend bouncing around from his parents to my parents house.  This cute little girl in the pink is our niece Ruby--born 3 months before Camryn.  They will surely be the best of friends, don't you think?  So with Ruby, Nolan, and Tanner's sister Emily announcing she's got one on the way, Camryn will have plenty of cousins close in age to hang around with!  Hopefully all of my children will be so lucky--with Tanner and I both being middle children, it's definitely a possibility. 

So, I kind of feel a little bit ridiculous sometimes posting 20 pictures of my baby.  Because really, who really wants to look at 20 pictures of my baby?  I expressed this feeling out loud to all of my sisters last week and 3 of them at once said "that's the reason I even look at your blog."  Awesome.  So here you go!

Ruby's beautiful mother

Loves her Grammy

And her aunt Alison!

This is Nolan, my brothers baby.  Not be to confused with Camryn, my baby, see above.

A little bit of weather smalltalk

Oh random freak April snow storms.  How we hate you.  You always show up after days of beautiful sunny weather.  Days where we bust out our flip flops and shorts and soak up the sunshine.  We open our windows, stop using the thermostat, and pack up our winter sweaters and shove them to the backs of our closets.  We watch our tulips bloom and contemplate putting our plants out on the front porch.  We go on lovely walks and even think "dang, it's almost too warm out here."  And then, you strike.  It happens every year.  It shows up on the 5 day forecast, but somehow still surprises us.  Still makes us drop our jaws in disbelief--because really, there's no way it can drop 40 degrees overnight after this beautiful day.  Silly Kevin Ubank--he's crazy.  But. . . believe it, Utah!  And just pray that this year it's only freak April snow storms and not May and (gasp, please no)  JUNE.

At least Tanner is happy.  He planned on going on a long all-day hike today with his brother Jordan who's in town for spring break (oh the irony).  Any normal person would be bummed out of their mind to wake up to this on a day they'd planned on hiking, but Tanner was thrilled.  ?? (I either married an insane optimist, a good actor, or a real man, take your pick)   In his opinion the weather couldn't have been better.  He packed his hiking poles, clamp-ons, snowshoes, avalanche shovel and was out the door--the first day in a long time I've seen him happy on the backside of 8 a.m.  Cross your fingers he comes back alive!

Fabric Covered Easter Eggs

 

My mom has had a bunch of these cute easter eggs for years that she fills with candy and adds to the cheapo plastic ones in our baskets.  Alison has been dying to make them for a while and we finally did!  What we didn't realized going into it was that each egg was going to take about an hour.  We pretty much spent aaall day Saturday and Sunday making these and making a really big mess.  And now I will have really cute easter baskets!

What you do is put 2 rubberbands on the eggs and make a pattern for these triangle pieces using tissue paper and cardboard.  Then cut out the fabric strips, glue onto a plastic easter egg with Elmer's glue, and cover the seams with ribbon (hot glue gun).  Rick rack works the best.

This is mom's "why are you taking a picture of me"face.  Which is pretty much the face she's making in every picture I've ever taken of her. 

When doing this project it is helpful to have a lifetime stash of more fabrics than you could every imagine in ever color and pattern imaginable.  Thank you mom for providing said stash.  (this picture shows about one one-millionth of the fabrics she has)