Monday, September 22, 2008

A Million Pictures (and very little else)

Sorry it took me so long to make good on my promise of pictures. But hopefully this post will make up for my tardiness.

Ryker is growing so fast, and getting really chubby:






Apparently Adam has a very calming presence:



Here is Anicka just being Anicka:



On Saturday we drove up to Fillmore and had a picnic in the mountains with Adam's family. It was so beautiful, we took a ton of pictures. Here are a few of my favorites:







Some pics of my cute nieces and nephew:






Going for a walk to pick leaves:




Ryker snoozing in his comfy carrier:

Adam getting beat up by his sisters:


Adam and Heidi torture Mindy:



A giant wasp nest that was in a tree next to our picnic table:

Mindy's husband waited until everyone else was safely in the car (except for Adam, who wanted to film the event) and then he shot it full of holes and ran like mad.


And, finally, here is an uber cute video of Anicka trying to sing to Ryker. She keeps forgetting the words.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

like the spring we are such fools

Time just seems to fly past.
Ryker is four weeks old today, and starting to get chubby. I'm pretty sure he weighs about ten pounds now. I'll put some new pictures up in the next couple of days.

Having two kids is... different.
The first two weeks were the hardest. Especially because the day that Adam went back to work Anicka got sick and spent two days throwing up. That was... not fun. But we've kind of started to settle into a routine now and things are getting easier. My least favorite part of having a newborn is spending most of my day covered in some sort of bodily fluid. I feel like I'm constantly changing mine and Ryker's clothes and I can't wait to hop in the shower at the end of the day. But he's really a pretty easy baby. He basically only fusses when he's hungry, and he sleeps okay at night. I mean, you know. For a newborn.

Anicka is having a great time. She just loves her little brother and is anxious to help. But that can also be a bad thing. She likes to be as close as possible to him, and often wakes him up because she wants to play with him. She thinks it's funny to see him startle. It drives me crazy. But most of the time she's just so sweet with him. I'm sure they'll have a great time together when he gets a little older. He's just starting to coo and gurgle, and is awake and alert more often. I'm guessing that in another few weeks he's going to be constantly laughing at his big sister.


The good thing about being up at all hours of the night nursing a baby is that I finally have time to read. Books that I've read in the last four weeks include:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - one of my all time favorite books. Adam gave me the 50th anniversary special edition for our anniversary last month.

I am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak - Apart from a rather disappointing ending, this book was pretty good, but I still prefer Zusak's newest work, The Book Thief.

Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Anne Burns - I enjoyed this book much more now than I did when I read it for my high school English class. I'm going to see if I can find the sequel the next time I go to the library.

Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings - This was the first book in a fantasy series called The Belgariad recommended to me by an acquaintance. It was formulaic and predictable and I'm not sure I'll bother reading the rest of the series.

I also read the first two books in a series called The Hearts of the Children by Dean Hughes - This series is about an lds family in the 60s. It's really not bad, as far as Mormon fiction goes. The writing is a bit clumsy and heavy handed in the beginning chapters of the first book, but it gets better.

And right now I'm reading a book called Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brian Sanderson - I picked this book up because the cover art was pretty and a quote on the front said "Highly recommended to anyone hungry for a good read" or something to that effect. I'm always nervous when I pick up a new fantasy series because so many of them are exactly the same, but so far Mistborn has a been a pleasant surprise. Sanderson has invented a form of magic called 'Allomancy' in which some people are born with the ability to ingest various metals and use them to do things such as:
soothe another person's emotions or influence their behavior
make metal objects fly through the air toward them
enhance their physical strength
Enhance senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell)
and possibly other things as well. I'm not very far into the book and the subject of Allomancy has just recently been introduced.

Anyway. I kind of went off there, but I love it when I find such a new idea in a book. love it.

And if anyone wants to recommend more books to me I would be very grateful. I need some ideas. The last time I went to the library I just sort of wandered around and randomly pulled things off of the shelves... Which can be a good way to find new things, but only if you have time to wander. I usually only have a few minutes. Anyway. I'm open to just about any type, genre or style.

Well, the baby is waking up, so that's all the time that I have.
Ciao everybody.

P.s. The title of this post has nothing to do with the subject matter, it's just the lyric of a song that I was listening to at the time I wrote this.