Our Bloggings...

Daddy Daughter

2011-11-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

Fun times with Cee and Daddy. In May, a couple of Mark's friend's from school asked him to go caving with them. It was a day I had to work, so Mark decided to take Cee with him. Heather didn't know what else to write so she is having me (Mark) write the rest of this blog. I only have limited time so I will try to be brief yet comprehensive. In Ape Caves we first took the "easy route" which was about 3/4 of a mile to a dead end. This was in fact easy because the cave was huge, large enough to fit cars down. Even though the hike was easy it was dripping to the point Cee said it was raining inside the cave. We had fun turing out the flashlights and experiencing complete darkness, then playing glow in the dark frisbee in the cave. When we returned to the entrance of the cave we had a little more time and so we decided to do the "difficult" route because it said it was only 0.5 miles to the end. We found out later that it was 1.5 miles to the end and the number 1 had been scratched off the sign. The difficult route was considerably more challenging, especially with a backpack with a child in it. We scrambled over boulders and at one point had to scale an 8 foot lavafall. As we descended into the cave it got tighter and tighter to the point that we had to take Cee out of the backpack and pass her through holes to one another. She was quite the little trooper but became so tired that she fell asleep in our arms. On my urging we decided to turn back when the passageways got too narrow to keep passing her through. Looking at a map later we were pretty close to the end of the cave but I think it was a good decision to turn back because Cee was soaking wet, cold, and asleep. On the return trip I wrapped her in my clothes for added warmth. Overall, it was a great outing and a lot of fun. I'm glad I went and Cee had a blast too. Topside there was snow on the ground and Ceci had fun making snowballs and throwing them at Danny and Bjorn.

Bjorn, Danny, Ceci, and Mark at Ape Cave

Inside the cave

Now back to Heather...

In June, I went to Denver for a weekend to do flowers for a friend's wedding and it worked out perfectly that the daddy-daughter campout was that same weekend. Mark took Cee and they had a lot of fun, the highlight being shooting marshmellows from plastic tubes. Cee is a great little camper and had a ton of fun playing with the girls all night long.

At the campfire, looking around at all the action.

Shooting the marshmallow gun.

Riding her friends bike

Picking her nose for a picture (it was the best of the bunch)

Faces of Cecilia

2011-10-24T14:29:00.001-07:00

As I mentioned in the previous Seattle blog entry (just posted below the video if you haven't seen it), Cecilia went through a phase of taking pictures of herself and also asking us to take pictures of her doing silly poses/faces. Here are some funny ones she took back in April. Love this girl!

Last Days in Portland pt 1

2011-10-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

Here's some video from June 25, 2011, part of our last weekend in Portland. We were attending our friends' baby's birthday party.

Third Time's the Charm... in Seattle

2011-09-25T14:46:00.000-07:00

In the beginning of May, we decided to take a little mini vacation to Seattle. We actually had to get some registration and paperwork done at the nearest AF base, which happens to be in Tacoma, so we decided to make a trip out of it and see more of Seattle while doing so. We had only been up there once, during our first year in Oregon, for a concert. You can read about it here if you're so inclined. To summarize, we basically left Beaverton too late in the day (and we didn't even have a kid yet!) to see any of the sites and drove home directly after the concert.

Well, turns out our second trip was even more of a bust. We got a hotel room for a night so we could get the driving done when Mark got home on Friday and have the full day Saturday to see stuff and get our errands done at the base. We got a great deal on Priceline's Name Your Own Price (I <3) and stayed in the Westin, which was lovely and had great views. The next morning, we woke up, went out for breakfast, took a swim at the hotel's lovely pool, and decided to get our errands done with first just to be safe (since things on base close about 4). We drove to Tacoma, arriving around noon, and to make a long story short- didn't get to leave the base until about 4:30 or so. We were about to head back up to Seattle, but decide to scrap it because a lot of the "sites" would be closing by the time we got there and the restaurant at the Space Needle was fully booked that night. So we basically went to Seattle to stay in a hotel (guess I should be happy that it was a nice hotel). I was really disappointed and Mark felt bad that things had taken sooo long on base. He knew he would have to return to the base in about 3 weeks to pick up some things he'd ordered, so we decided we would give Seattle one more try at that time.

We planned things a little better the next (third) time. We arranged it so we could leave early in the day and stop at the base on the way to Seattle so we wouldn't have to spend time backtracking. We got the base and Mark picked up his things and made it to Seattle in the early evening. This time, we stayed in the Hotel Monaco (again love Priceline!). It was also a lovely hotel, but I have to say that I preferred the Westin overall. After checking in, we headed out the Space Needle, where we had dinner reservations that night. We were early, so we were able to spend some time walking around the area where the below pictures were taken. Cee was really into posing and we got some funny shots of that. She also wanted to take pictures of us, and she actually got a really good one of me and Mark.

When it was time, we headed back the Space Needle and they took us up to the observation deck first (included in the price of dinner- which is why we decided to eat there). We stayed out there for a bit and enjoyed the great views before heading up another level to the restaurant. It was a nice place, although we've definitely had better food. It probably would have been better for us not have had Cee (especially since she wasn't on her best behavior), but it was a cool experience with the restaurant doing full rotations as you eat.

Observation Deck of the Space Needle

The following day had gorgeous weather (yay!) and we headed out to the Seattle Aquarium and Pike Place Market. It was a really cool aquarium and Cecilia had fun, although she wasn't as adventurous at the touch pool as she had been when she was younger at the Seaside Aquarium.

Standing at the edge of the touch pool

Cecilia and Mark on a Sea Otter bench

The Pike Place Market was fun, but very crowded. We mainly just browsed, but I had a delicious salmon burger for lunch and Mark had some type of fresh seafood cocktail. We also got a few pastries to try and found wooden rings which we bought for our upcoming 5th Anniversary (which happens to be the year for giving wooden gifts). Mark likes to wear his, although mine is a little bulkier than I prefer. My favorite thing was all of the flowers at the market. It was tulip season in the NW so there were some incredibly beautiful varieties of tulips and I wanted to buy them all (sigh).

Outside of the market where you can see a bride and groom taking photos behind us.

Afterwards we walked back the hotel and began the drive back to Beaverton. Mark would have liked to go to the Experience Music Project, but we just thought it would be too boring for Cee, so we'll have to make it back there some day sans children.

Hawaii!

2011-08-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

As a graduation/5th Anniversary trip, I decided we needed to make a trip out to Hawaii to celebrate (plus I wanted to go before we left the West Coast). We figured we'd need to bring Cee along, as there wasn't anyone in Oregon who we'd want to have the burden of watching her for a week, so we decided to ask Mark's mom, Adrienne, if she'd like to join us (not as a babysitter, but just to help out so we could get a little time to ourselves). Cee had so much fun and I was really glad she came, although I do realize she won't remember any of it, but we will so that's good enough.

Adrienne flew to Oregon the night before so we could all fly to Honolulu together. After the plane ride (which Cee did pretty well on), we got our rental car and headed straight to our first activity because the condo we were renting was on the other side of the island. After some trouble, we found the right beach for the Atlantis Submarine boarding area. They shuttled us out to the submarine and we found we'd been upgraded to the larger, nicer sub, so that was nice because it didn't make me feel claustrophobic at all. I thought we took a few pictures of it, but couldn't find them with the others (I'm thinking they might be on Mark's phone). It was really cool to see the ocean life and along with a sunken ship from that perspective and we even saw a few Sea Turtles. After the sub ride, we had dinner at a restaurant on the beach and then headed to find our condo. It was dark by the time we got to the North Shore/Turtle Bay area, but found the place without too much difficulty.

The next morning, we woke up and headed straight to the Dole Pineapple Plantation. We arrived before the majority of the crowds and were able to get on the Pineapple Express (a train that takes you around a portion of the plantation) right away. Although there wasn't a whole lot to do here, it was cool to see and the pineapple was good. We ate lunch there and tried the famous Pineapple Whip frozen yogurt (not as good as I had imagined though). Afterwards, we headed to a beach on the North Shore and relaxed for the rest of the day.

The following day, we headed back towards Honolulu for a breakfast tour on the Makani Catamaran. This turned out to be Adrienne's favorite thing, but not mine. I normally don't get seasick (as far as I know), but after about halfway into our tour, I was not feeling very good. I'm not sure if I would have been sick had I not also been pregnant but by the end I had made use of their puking buckets, along with 2-3 other people onboard. So much for it being a breakfast cruise! It was really nice in the beginning though and they stopped at one point to feed fish (which you can see in the pic below) and we saw a few Sea Turtles again.

Cee and Grandma stayed here most of the ride

For the rest of the day, we spent our time at Kualoa Ranch. This place is beautiful! They have a number of different activities there, but we decided on the Secret Island Beach Tour and the Movie Tour. This area was used by the military in WWII, but is now one of Hawaii's main filming sites and has been used in dozens of movies and television shows (like Lost). They have a lot of memorabilia you can look at that's stored in an old bunker and then they drive you through the main areas used for filming. It was pretty cool.

A scenic view of the ranch

The famous log/branch from Jurassic Park where the main characters hide at one point.

The Secret Island Beach Tour was one of my favorite things (in part because we were the only ones on the tour that afternoon). They took us on a boat across a large lake to a private area of the beach that the Ranch owns. They leave you there for a few hours (there is an employee on duty as a lifeguard however), and let you swim, play on the beach, relax in the hammocks or make use of the kayaks. It was a fabulous afternoon!

We made sure to make it to the Polynesian Cultural Center for a day. There was a lot to see and do there, and we didn't take very many pictures. We strolled around the different villages and tried out some of the activities and saw a few of the shows before we headed to the Luau. My favorite thing there was definitely the Taro rolls. Yum! After the Luau, Cee fell asleep in the stoller and stayed asleep during the entire Breath of Life show, which was nice so we could fully enjoy it (although we had to take her out of the stroller and lay her across our laps). It was a really fantastic show, another of my favorite things about the trip.

Cee and Mark showing off their tribal tattoos

Adrienne and I learning some hula steps

We didn't get a picture with our leis from the Luau, so we took one from the deck of our condo the next day.

One of the mornings, Adrienne took Cee to a beach while Mark and I went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. I had never been snorkeling before, and it definitely took me a little while to get the hang of it. Again, this place was amazingly beautiful. It was quite shallow over the reefs while we were there and I ended up almost laying on the coral at some points, which was painful and left me with some scrapes. When we found some good areas though, it was a great place to see all kinds of fish/ocean creatures. Even though we did use a lot of sunscreen, we learned it is far from waterproof and ended up with major sunburns on our backs and the back of our legs. It was a a major ouch the next day!

Beautiful view of the bay

After snorkeling, we picked up Cee and Adrienne and headed to the Sea Life Park. We got there only an hour before it closed, but decided to check it out (we had Go Oahu cards so it was included). We were able to catch the last show of the day that featured dolphins, sea lions, and penguins doing tricks and Cee loved it! We strolled around after the show, but most exhibits were empty/being cleaned for the day even though the park hadn't even closed yet so that was a little annoying, but it was really empty in the park.

We were able to get away one evening and attend a session at the Laie Hawaii LDS Temple. This had been one of my favorites from when I was younger and I had always wanted to see it. It was even more beautiful in person, both inside and out.

On our final day, we made it out to Pearl Harbor. While we waited for our tour time of the Arizona Memorial, Mark and Adrienne did a tour of the USS Bowfin Submarine. Young children weren't allowed inside and I was happy to stay out with Cee as I was quite sure I'd feel claustrophobic in there. Mark learned he is definitely too tall to ever live on submarine.

While Cee and I were out and she played around with some of the large weaponry.

We also had time to tour the USS Missouri, which I felt was quite similar to the USS Midway that we had seen last summer in San Diego, but I know Mark really enjoyed it.

The Arizona Memorial was definitely worth the wait. I don't think I'd realized the the memorial is built on top of the ship and you can see it beneath you (oil still leaks from the ship, which you can see, and I thought was fascinating). It was a special place and made me thankful for those who risked and lost their lives during that time and was made even more emotional as we were only a few months away from embarking on our own Military experience.

Love this picture-

On the Memorial with the USS Missouri behind us

After Pearl Harbor, we rushed to Diamond Head before the park closed. We made it in time and hiked up to the top (there were a lot of stairs!). The 360 degree view from the top was awesome and a great ending activity to our Hawaii adventure.

Party On!

2011-05-31T11:26:00.000-07:00

In January, we decided it was time to host another murder mystery dinner party. This one was set in the 1920's abroad a yacht in the Mediterranean. Our group played the characters well and had some good costumes.

I was excited to do a Mediterranean-themed dinner menu, although it isn't one of my favorite types of cuisine. For starters, there was bacon-wrapped dates (yum!), lamb meatballs (turned out really good), Greek salad skewers and a golden onion dip. First course was a Mediterranean tomato bisque, main course was herb crusted salmon with ratatouille (unfortunately the salmon got overcooked because I didn't realize the one I had was probably quite a bit thinner than what the recipe called for- hate when the main course doesn't come out right!), and for dessert was a delicious yogurt pistachio cheesecake with cardamom oranges (at least dinner ended on a good note).

I was able to do a lovely centerpiece with flowers I had for a wedding inspiration photo shoot I was participating in that weekend. I also pulled out our vintage wine bottles from our wedding to use.

A photograph of the bouquet from the shoot

In February, I planned and co-hosted a girl's night Tea Party at a friend's house. We had a good turnout and quite a nice assortment of treats to eat and (herbal) tea to try. I feel a bit embarrassed and sad that I didn't take any pictures of people or the teacups. Each person brought their own teacup and so there were some really neat ones.

Some of the refreshments included: tea sandwiches, onion tartletts, heart-shaped gingerbread cookies, red velvet cupcakes and cake-balls, Oreo truffles, homemade lemon curd, Nutella mousse with strawberries, and mini scones. Yum! Plus, perfect vintage plates for displaying these delectable goodies.

With the beginning of March came Mardi Gras and since I missed it last year, I decided to plan another murder mystery dinner that had a Mardi Gras theme even though it'd only been a short time since we had done the last one. Again, this one was a lot of fun and we had some great accents and character acting going on.

Naturally, southern fare was planned for the menu. The starter consisted of homemade crab cakes with remoullaide sauce, first course was grilled butter lettuce with buttermilk-chive dressing, main course was chicken and sausage gumbo with rice and cornbread and for dessert was bread pudding with rum sauce.

With Mardi Gras masks

And just so you don't feel bad for Cee being left out of all the fun, she attended a couple parties as well and had quite a good time (as you can see).

We also received some big news over these months, which I'm sure you've all heard by now, but just in case there are some people out of the loop...

In February, Mark found out he will be doing his internship at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington DC. We will be moving out there in August for one year.

In March, we found out we are expecting child #2 - due in early November. We are very excited for Cee to have a little playmate and hopefully she will be as well and we won't have to deal with too much sibling jealousy.

A (very belated) Christmas Post

2011-05-18T21:36:00.000-07:00

So, if I start blogging twice a month, I'll catch up at some point, right? I got a little bit of flack for being so far behind from a new reader who thought that the date of the post had to be wrong. No, I'm just turning into a seasonal blogger apparently (one who is still a few seasons behind). But it did motivate me to finally do this post that I've been dreading, due to the length that I'm sure it'll end up reaching.

As usual, we made the trip out to Utah for the Christmas festivities. We had been promising Cee snow for a couple of months by that point and she had big plans for building snowmen and making snow angels. There wasn't much snow to speak of when we arrived, but luckily our promise of snow was upheld as there was a nice snowfall a few days before Christmas (and it was the perfect kind of snow for building snowmen!). We had forgotten our camera however and didn't get any pictures, but I stole some off my sister-in-law's blog. Thanks Lauren!

Snowball Fight!

The Snowman!

(This picture was taken at night because we had to stop by the store and get a carrot for his nose.)

I planned a girls day out with lunch at Bambara (yum!) and a matinée showing of the Nutcracker. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid and my niece, Taya, had never been to a ballet (although Lauren assured her that it was okay if she thought it was boring). I enjoyed it though and there was quite a bit of it that I didn't remember. It was a really fun afternoon.

At the Capitol Theater - Lauren, Taya, Grammy, Me, Adrienne

(I detest this picture of me, but it was the only one taken the whole day.)

Christmas festivities wouldn't be complete without a trip to see Santa at the mall. Cee and I were running late after a day of shopping with my sister and barely made it in time even though poor Lauren had been standing in line for over an hour. Now, last year Cee's experience with Santa wasn't great (though expected of a 1-year old), so I was thinking this one would go better, especially with being around her cousins. However, that was not the case, and in fact, probably was worse. For the past month or so she is now saying that she isn't going to be afraid of Santa this year because "he's nice".

They did manage to get a slightly better picture, but I thought this one tells it all.

We attended the Annual Christmas Eve Seafood Dinner at Mark's aunt's house and had a good time as usual. They went back to the dollar gift exchange this year and Cee wanted to open all our gifts. I was happy with my choice of sham-wows (I'd been wanting some for quite awhile).

Me and Taya (note our festive Christmas sweaters)

Cee and Aubrey

(not the best picture, but the only one I have with the two of them)

Grandma Adrienne and Cee

Family Picture!

Mark was elated (not exaggerating) to find the "latch sweaters" in his mom's closet that had been given to them as boys by a foreign exchange student from Sweden. It's a bit short on the sleeves, and far too boxy for my liking, but he insisted on bringing it home with him.

The Sweater Picture with Mark and Dan in the "latch sweaters"

(for some reason ended up only being the brothers this year)

Decorating (but mostly eating) Gingerbread Cookies

After the party, we went back to Adrienne's and had a family gift exchange and the girls got ready for bed. I had found Cee some cute flannel button-up PJ's with Christmas cats on them. We tried to get a picture of the cousins and told them to say "Santa" when we took it and Cee was really excited and started jumping up and down.

Cee woke up to a stocking stuffed full, which she enjoyed emptying while waiting for all the adults to arise. She was spoiled by grandma with a zhu-zhu pet and accompanying accessories/habitat and a doll with snap on clothing. Aubrey received the same and they had a blast chasing after their new pets until it was time to head over to my parent's house.

We had gotten Cee a couple extra things while in Utah (not that she needed them), and brought those over to my parent's house for her to open. Her second round of goods included a dog on a leash, a bath-time Ariel, a Dora doll, a Leap Frog talking/singing dog, a Color Wonder paint set, a couple of puzzles and a fishing game. Spoiled indeed!

Cee and Janie

Loved her paint set!

Cee couldn't get enough of the snow and convinced her Uncle Ethan to take her out and romp around (and play with Midnight the dog).

Love this picture!

While staying with my family, we took a drive up to Ogden's Christmas Village to see the lights and little houses decorated by companies in the area. It was really cold that night, but was fun to see and spend time together.

Cee and Grandpa Richard

Mark's dad got remarried earlier in the month, but had their reception in Utah a few days after Christmas so that all the families could attend. They had all the granddaughters wear these adorable red dresses that were perfect for the holidays. It was nice being able to attend and see Mark's dad over the holidays.

Trying to fix Cee's pigtail, which she's not happy about.

One of our last nights there, we made it out to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights with my family. Surprisingly, this family picture turned out great except for Ethan who almost blends into the background as you can only see his eyes.

We returned home to Oregon before New Years and as if two Christmas' weren't enough, Cee had a third one here. She'd been saying she wanted a kitchen for awhile and we had bought one a few months earlier and for obvious reasons didn't want to take it to Utah with us. She also got a small soccer ball, a Dora cash register (that I scored at Goodwill and it actually still works!), and some additional Fisher Price play food from the 80's (from ebay- the cheap-o stuff made today just can't compare to the quality and detail of the old stuff). She was a happy girl!

This year it was so much fun to watch Cee with all the festivities and enjoying the novelty of snow. We probably got her so many presents because we love to see her open them and be excited and I'm sure it'll just get better in the years to come.

Give Thanks

2011-05-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

For Thanksgiving this year we decided not to make our usual trip down to California since we had just been there in August. I contacted our friends, the Westons, to see if they had plans to come up for Thanksgiving and was hoping we could have Thanksgiving together. They didn't know what their work schedules would be like yet, and in the meantime we were asked to join the Ashby's for their Thanksgiving since they wouldn't be having any family in town. Mark serves in the bishopric with Bro. Ashby and when invited, informed him that I was looking forward to cooking Thanksgiving dinner. He said that was fine, and that I should cook at their house. A few days before, the Westons found out they were able to make it up for a short trip and so we all had a great Thanksgiving together.

I planned the menu, did the shopping, and spent the day before prepping and making what I could in advance. (The turkey was taken to the Ashby's to cook.) I felt like everything went smoothly, especially with the help of Trinka and Haylie, and it was all delicious! Along with the turkey, the menu consisted of buttermilk mashed potatoes, Brussels sprouts with hazelnut butter, pomegranate-balsamic-glazed carrots, homemade orange-cranberry sauce, green beans with pancetta, mushrooms, and shallots, roasted sweet potatoes with maple pecan butter and marshmallows and for dessert was a pecan rum tart and pumpkin-coconut pie.

The ladies and the food

The Turkey

(creatively trussed with toothpicks by Haylie, Trinka and Nicole)

Trinka's festive table

Serving up the desserts

Enjoying dessert

Lastly, the picture below shows the extent of the snow we received in Oregon this winter (and yes, I believe they closed the schools down for it!). Cee was so excited to play in it, but it melted within a couple of hours. We have gotten plenty of rain though!

Best Month of the Year

2011-02-27T22:11:00.000-08:00

DISCLAIMER: There are a lot of pictures in this post.

I love Fall and especially October. I've always liked Halloween and dressing up and I like that you get to start wearing some of your warmer clothes (for some reason they're just cuter than summer clothes) and the colors as the leaves change are so beautiful. So in honor of October, this may turn out to be a long post.

The first weekend of October, we decided to host another Oktoberfest with the help of some friends (by use of their house). In our trip to Seaside the weekend before, we found the jackpot of gourmet sodas, namely root beer, so we went a little crazy getting a bunch of different kinds. These were used strictly for tasting. We also had the local or more popular brands available for those who wanted a whole bottle all to themselves. We had a really great turnout and had everyone bring a German-inspired dish to go alongside the bratwursts. It was a lot of fun and we'll have to see about carrying the tradition on when we move to new places. (BTW, if you haven't heard, Mark found out he got his internship site in Washington DC where we'll be moving to in August.)

We also took advantage of the local pumpkin patches in the area and ended up going to a couple different ones over the course of the month. Sadly, I only took pictures at one. This was the first one we went to, Lee Farms, with our friends Heather and Acacia. They had delicious apple cider doughnuts (and the apple cider wasn't too bad either). We bought tickets to go on the hay ride, but after doing so we found out that they didn't start till later in the afternoon. Instead, we decided to use our tickets up by letting the girls play in the bounce house and Cee got to ride on a pony. I wasn't sure how she'd react, but she loved it and was so sad when it was over.

As Halloween approached, Cee and I were invited to a mother-daughter witch party. I can't remember if I had already decided to be a witch, or if I decided to be a witch because of this party, but that is what my costume was this year. I was going to have Cee be my black cat, but found this cute witch dress for her and couldn't pass it up. She liked to tell people that she was going to be a "little witch" and mommy was going to be a "big witch" and daddy was going to be a hot dog (we had seen this hot dog costume at the store that apparently stuck with her). Haha. It was pretty funny.

Cee got the hang of trick-or-treating much better this year and for weeks afterward would ask if she could go get more candy in her bucket. She was the cutest little witch around. Needless to say, she's already excited for the next Halloween.

The big event of the month (at least in the planning process) was a Halloween Party that we threw (again with the use of our friend's house - not the same one for Oktoberfest though just in case you were worried). I had actually been tentatively planning this for almost a year when I had seen a Halloween episode of Martha Stewart that had some great ideas. I was worried that if we did Oktoberfest, it would decrease the attendance at the Halloween party because they were both the same month, but we had a few different people request for us to do Oktoberfest again so I gave in. Unfortunately, my worries came to fruition and there were quite a few less people at the Halloween party (they totally missed out!). Part of this may have been due to the fact that costumes were required, but come on people, it's Halloween, get with the program!

Anyhow, it turned out good, although I continually need to work on my time management skills so that things are actually ready when people start arriving. Someday I'll get it down. We didn't award prizes for best costumes at the party, but here are my picks.

Dave and Michelle for Best Overall

(their three kids were Luke Skywalker, Princess Leah, and Yoda and they were so cute!)

Sean and Kim for Most Creative

Emily and Josh for Most Obscure Political Figures

(a few people thought that Josh was Sayid from Lost, but they were actually Fidel Castro and Che Guevara)

Mark's and my costume

(Wizard and witch if you can't tell)

Below are a lot of pictures of the food and decor that I'm posting for a few friends that couldn't make it and have asked to see pictures. Sorry, there are quiet a few.

(those are supposed to be flames on the side, not leaves)

The specimens table behind me followed by close-ups

Birthdays and Beaches

2011-01-29T16:11:00.001-08:00

In September we started out the month by going to the Oregon State Fair on Labor Day with our friends the Darringtons. We did it last year and decided it would be fun to do again. It made it even better that we were able to get some free tickets thanks to our friend who was working at the fair.

It was about the same as last year, but Mark tried a deep-fried Twinkie this time and loved it. It wasn't my favorite thing - a little too much breading. Cee loved the petting zoo again this year and went back in a few times throughout the day. We also saw a couple of shows and did a walk-through of the pitchmen area. If Mark hadn't been with me, I would have spent a lot more time in there; definitely some interesting products for sale.

September is also the birth month of my husband and myself. For Mark's b-day, I made him a peanut butter chocolate cake. It tasted better than it looks, although definitely very rich. If I make it again, I'd skip the chocolate ganache layer on top.

For my birthday, a friend was very thoughtful and invited us for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook (it being on a Sunday and all). I got spoiled this year with a new car and laptop computer. I love our new Scion xB!

Since our birthdays are only a week apart, I thought it'd be fun to get away for a short trip to the coast. We rented a small condo in Gearheart (near Seaside) that you could walk to the beach from. We headed out on Friday afternoon and spent the afternoon in Seaside by eating ice cream, buying treats and gourmet root beer for our upcoming Oktoberfest. We also had delicious fish 'n chips at Norma's for dinner and then spent some time swimming in the pool at the condo complex. We have some cute video of Cee in Seaside that I'll have to get Mark to post.

The following day we headed across the street to McMennamin's Sand Trap for breakfast and then took advantage of the grounds to take some 2-year old pictures of Cee (posted previously). After pictures, we walked over to the beach for a couple hours. It was fairly warm, although quite windy. Cee had fun building sand formations and digging in the sand.

After the beach, we headed up to Astoria to check out the sites. For a bit of history, Astoria was the first permanent settlement on the Pacific Coast back in the early 1800's. It's named after America's first millionaire, John Jacob Astor, who established his fur trading company there.

We took a ride on the trolley that goes around town. It seemed like there were a lot of times when the tour guide would say, "this place used to be a _____". I think Astoria's heyday has passed. Not too much going on there nowadays and lots of empty factories. It is really beautiful though, especially driving into the city, and was worth a day trip.

There were a few movies filmed there in the 80's and 90's, most notably, The Goonies. I didn't see that movie until I was in my 20's and so it holds no nostalgic charm for me and otherwise isn't that great of a movie. Mark loves it though, so we had to make sure and stop by the house they used in the film.

We also stopped by the Flavel House (an old Victorian Mansion), but sadly they were closing in 15 minutes and we didn't have time to do the tour. We walked around the grounds and I peaked in all the windows that I could.

On the way to dinner at The Cannery (a decision based on the strong recommendation of the trolley guide), we made a stop along a dock and walked out to see a very large group of sea lions barking and fighting each other over the limited space to lay out. It was surprisingly entertaining and Cee loved it and got pretty good at doing her own Sea Lion bark. Dinner was really delicious and afterwards we headed back to our condo. We left the next morning to head back.

It was a great mini break to spend time together with our little family. I'm so blessed and thankful for them everyday and made for a wonderful birthday weekend.

2000 Mile Drive

2011-01-02T18:24:00.000-08:00

During Mark's summer break in August we took a little 17 hour drive down to San Diego to vacation with my family who were meeting us there from Utah. Lucky for us, we were able to make stops on the way down and stay a night with Mark's dad in the Bay Area and then a night with his brother and fam in L.A. That made the drive much more bearable, although it was still a little long for my liking.

Cee and her cousin, Aubrey, having fun with dress-ups

It was a lot of fun to see a lot of our family members and relax a little. Here are a few of our California adventures.

SAN DIEGO WILD ANIMAL PARK

Mark opted for the long walk to see the Condors and due to the extreme heat, Cee and I decided to stay and ride the carousel (multiple times). She couldn't get enough!

Cute pic of Cee and her cousin Janie

Cee in front of the mama lion

The daddy lion lounging on top of the car

Cee with her Uncle Russell and Grandpa Richard on the Safari Tram

In the Lorikeet Landing exhibit, we decided to bite the bullet and buy the nectar so the birds would come sit on your arm and eat it. So worth it! Cee loves animals and was really excited about the birds being so close (although she was too afraid to have them actually perch on her arm- good thing there are dads for that).

Cee and dad feeding the birds

LEGOLAND

Lots of fun with my siblings at Legoland. Crazy what they can build with those things! We loved Miniland USA where there are Lego replicas of many popular sites around the US.

Me with my sisters and brothers

(love that we look color coordinated although totally not planned)

Brothers Russell and Kurt at the Sea Life Aquarium

Mark needed a time-out

Cee and Dad having fun

HORNBLOWER HARBOR CRUISE

We took a cruise around the San Diego Harbor. Unfortunately, we had an awful guide who kept advertising the ships bar services the entire time. It also became quite windy while we were out and was pretty chilly. There were some beautiful views though.

Panorama shot of the harbor/skyline

BEACH

We arrived at the beach much later than planned so we didn't get many pictures before it became too dark. Cee had fun playing in the sand and Mark surprisingly joined my brothers in the ocean (he is quite averse to beaches and sand and the whole bit).

SAN DIEGO TEMPLE

Ever since this temple was built, I've always wanted to go. Finally, on my third visit to San Diego, I was able to go through. Unfortunately, they were doing some work on the outside and had all the windows covered so you didn't get the effect of the light inside (which we were told was really beautiful).

U.S.S. MIDWAY MUSEUM

This thing is huge! Mark really enjoyed it. Seeing all the planes was cool, but I couldn't imagine living on a ship. The sleeping quarters are tiny and I definitely felt claustrophobic in the lower levels. There were a lot of interesting facts about life on a ship - especially the amount of food they have to make every meal!

Mark next to the F15

(they were the ones used in Top Gun for all you movie buffs)

Uh oh! Cee's got control of the plane!

LEGOLAND DAY 2

We stayed a couple days longer than my family because Mark had a psychology conference there and since the Legoland passes were good for 2 days, we were able to visit again and had Mark's brother and fam join us. After the first day, I was surprised at how much we still hadn't seen so it was nice to go back a second day. Cee barely cleared the 36" height requirement for a lot of the rides so that was a plus.

Moms and Daughters

In the sand... at Legoland Waterpark

Dad and Cee floating down the lazy river

In closing, I'd like to honor The Big Easy with this scrumptious photograph. We found this little restaurant one night and had the best southern meal ever (Mark had Alligator and the collard greens were seriously amazing)! Sad to say, the restaurant has since closed down. People didn't know what they were missing.

Delectable soft-shelled crab

(for those of you who are unfamiliar, you eat the shell of the crab as well. All of the goodness of crab without the hassle of eating it.)

Ward Camp-out (Yes, this is still July)

2010-11-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

Being on the Activities Committee, I felt it my duty to actually attend the ward camp out this year (I did make some pretty spiffy posters for it, after all), plus we actually had camping equipment for more than just Mark.

The camp out was at Barton Park in/near Clackamas. We arrived Thursday evening and found a spot next to the other couple families who had decided to come up that day. Mark got busy putting up our tent and I got busy grilling our burgers. After we were all settled and had eaten dinner, I put together a blueberry crumble in a dutch oven. It was my first time cooking anything in a dutch oven (outside of the kitchen anyway), but I had done some research and it turned out quite yummy. It was super dark outside and we didn't take any pictures of that night though. We also enjoyed s'mores at the neighboring family's camp site. We learned that the ultimate s'more is made with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup instead of chocolate. Oh yes. Cee loves being in the tent and once she fell asleep, slept really well.

The next morning, we ate oatmeal while everyone around us made big, yummy breakfasts with eggs, bacon, pancakes and the like. We learned we are very light campers comparatively. I couldn't believe what some people brought with them! I guess it's called "Family Camping", but it's just a little bit ridiculous in my opinion, although I was jealous as the smell of bacon wafted over to us.

Cee in the tent after waking up

A playground across from our camp site - Cee couldn't get enough of the swings (as usual)

That day we went down to the river to spend a few hours. Cee and I went a little before Mark and we were told it wasn't a far walk, but with carrying a 30 lb. kid, it felt like it was pretty far (even though it was mainly downhill). Once we got down, I made sure to call Mark and tell him to bring the car cause there was no way I was carrying her back up to camp. Ceci had a lot of fun playing by the water. She found a stick that kept her preoccupied for quite some time.

Unfortunately, I had to work the next day so we had to leave the camp-out a day early (and missed out on seeing the majority of ward who came up on Friday evening). We were pretty hungry as we started to drive home, and on the way there I had seen this little place called "Carver Cafe". I recognized it from a friend's blog post about the Twilight film sites in Oregon so we decide to stop there for lunch. We made just in time before they closed for the day. It had been awhile since I'd seen the movie, so I couldn't remember which table it was that Bella sat at with Charlie, but with Mark's film experience, he picked it out right off the bat based on the place that had the best lighting. Turns out he was right. Surprisingly, the food was quite good and the people who worked there seemed to be good sports about the whole thing and even wore shirts that say "I got a BITE at Carver Cafe".

The table from the movie is the one behind me, in the corner by the window.

Happy Birthday Cee!

2010-10-31T22:37:00.000-07:00

Yes, I do realize this was three months ago, but in my defense, I was waiting on getting most of these pictures uploaded to my laptop. Anyway, it's here at last! I've done a new 4th of July post also, but I've inserted it into the correct order on the blog so you can click here if you'd like to read it.

Cecilia and I arrived back in Oregon the day before she turned two. Her birthday was in the middle of the week so we didn't do anything, but I thought she should blow out some candles so I got a creme cake from the store and she blew out her two candles (a couple of times). She was also able to open her presents from her Grandpa John and Grandma Adrienne that night. She loved her new Fergus books (with matching stuffed animal) and big Legos.

Her birthday party was on Saturday afternoon and was at the Sunset Swim Center. We had the party in their rec room and then went out to the wading pool, which is perfect for kids her age, as it's only like 10" deep.

For the party, I did a fruit/bright colors theme. For the activity, the kids (with their parent's help) decorated canvas bags with stickers, glitter, fuzzies, and their names. My plan was to then place their favors in those bags, but with the amount of glue the kids put on them, they weren't dry in time. The favors included fruit-smelling bubbles, a curly straw, fruit-flavored/shaped candy, a mini pinwheel and squirt gun (it was a swim party after all), colorful play dough, and a "place-mat" with pictures of different fruit that they could color from this book. That was actually supposed to be another activity, but we didn't have time for it.

Decorating the bags

A couple of the bags when finished

I went a little overboard on the food (as usual), but there are just so many cute ideas out there it was hard to choose. Here are the majority of them.

"Ladybugs" made with strawberries and grapes

Jello "Watermelon"

(yes, it actually will stick to the rind if you let it set in an empty watermelon)

Banana Pops

(chocolate-coconut and peanut butter-chocolate)

A Fruit Rainbow w/pot of gold

Enjoying the fruits of my labor (ha -ha)

Cee opening her presents

Cee's Cake (supposed to be a strawberry if you can't tell)

Cee "smiling" for the camera

(her cake eating abilities have much improved from last year)

Swim Time!

The party went well and the kids had fun. Thanks to everyone who came.

Now let's see if I can remember what she was doing three months ago. She's a smart girl and understands a lot, sometimes we can't believe how much. She can sing her ABC's (but often skips m, n, and o) and can even identify a few of the letters. She can count to 12 and get up to 18 if she skips a few numbers. She talks really well and talks a lot (we call her Little Miss Chatterbox), although can't say her S or L sound very well on some words. She is very independent and wants to do everything herself. She plays well and likes to play with other kids and is fairly social (although can be shy at first when she doesn't know someone). She loves animals and wants to touch/pet/hold any kind we come in contact with. Too bad for her since we'll never have any (we are not animal people). At her two-year checkup she was still in 90th for both height and weight and I think head is in the 60th percentile. She is a really fun and cute girl and gives us so much joy. I am very often overcome with how blessed I am to be her mommy and love having her as my little sidekick. We love you so much Little Miss Cecilia!

Cecilia Age 2

2010-10-08T20:42:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago we finally got around to taking Cee's two year old pictures. She wasn't as cooperative as we would've liked, but we still got some cute ones. Here are a few of our favorites.

Riding Bikes

2010-09-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

This video is too cute to delay its posting. On a recent trip to San Diego we stopped by LA and visited my brother Adam and his family. This is Cee riding bikes with her cousin Aubrey. They played really well together. It was fun. Thanks Adam & Lauren!

The Girls Week Out

2010-09-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

In July, Cee and I decided that Daddy/Mark wasn't being much fun at home, what with finishing his grueling term and getting his dissertation topic approved and such other non-fun things, so we decided to take a little trip with just the two of us and visit Utah one last time before we have to start getting Cee her own seat on the plane (totally lame-o).

We pretty much partied it up all week with some awesome peeps who know how to have a good time. Here's a few pics of our wild week.

Aunt Meg and the Janester are always up for some fun.

Apollo Burger is the place to be and Cee would definitely recommend the Mac n'Cheese.

In the rare dull moment, Cee and Janie were able to squeeze in some reading.

Cee also faced off with her arch nemesis, er I mean best friend, Marie.

More cousins, Taya and Beau, were party animals at the swimming pool.

A girl's week out isn't complete without seeing Grandma Adrienne. She rocks our socks!

Grandpa Richard delivered with an early birthday cake

(and relighting the candle three times so Cee could keep blowing it was the coolest).

Cee was even able to steer a pirate ship at Cherry Hill. We couldn't stay too long though since pirates are known to get a little carried away at times, even for us...

After the pirating adventure, I had a night out with the some of my old posse.

Goodbye Rach! Party hard in Japan!

The partying just didn't end. Catching up with Annie at the Rumbi.

Even with all that partying, Cee was the most distraught to leave my parents dog, Midnight.

We returned home just in time for Cee's 2nd birthday... but that's a party overload and will have to wait for another day. Thanks for the memories everyone! Next time, come party in our neck of the woods.

Swings and Sparklers

2010-08-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July this year we were a little bummed that it was on a Sunday since that meant no parade (although we found out too late that they actually did have the parade on Saturday), but we had a great day anyway. After church, we met up with some friends for a bbq lunch at the park. I made Sweet Chili and Rootbeer Spare Ribs along with Roasted Potato Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette and a Strawberry Chiffon Pie with some of those strawberries from the previous post. Our friends brought fruit salad and corn on the cob. A perfect holiday feast! Cee and her friend, Acacia, weren't much interested in eating though and kept themselves busy on the playground.

Cee on her way up to the slide

Ribs and Potato Salad

Strawberry Chiffon Pie (so yummy!)

Me and Cee on the swing

(she'd swing all day if we'd let her)

Mark with Acacia and Cee

That evening, we met up with a few of our other friends for fireworks. It was fun for all the kids to play together while we waited for it to get dark. Someone was smart enough to bring snacks and sparklers (this would not be me). The kids loved the sparklers, probably even more than the fireworks. Almost as soon as the fireworks started, half the kids were already asleep. It was a good day.

Cee trying to get all the icing off her graham cracker

Cee and Mark

(If you hadn't noticed, she's distracted in most every picture we took)

The Darringtons

Janeways and Grahams

Me and Cee with her sparkler

She loved these!

Thanks to some great friends, we've loved our Independence Days here in Oregon and I was sad to think that we won't be here next year to celebrate with them. We're going to miss you!

A Bit of This and That

2010-08-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

I need to post, but not really in the mood so this will be mostly random pictures from this summer (mainly June).

We finally made it to the Rose Garden! So many amazing rose varieties. So beautiful. We sort of went on a spontaneous whim which means we were looking pretty scraggly that night so pardon us.

Cee is really into Dora as of late (along with Caillou and Kipper) and when I saw this little tent at Ross, I had to get it for her. I was going to save it for her b-day, but that didn't work out too well. She has lots of fun in it, although usually asks for one of us to come in with her, which means very tight quarters.

She has finally let me start doing things with her hair (and it is starting to get long enough to do things with it). The first day she let me put pigtails in, I had to get the camera and take a couple pics because she looked so cute!

Towards the end of June, we went and picked delicious Oregon strawberries with some friends. Cee was basically eating them as I was picking them, so she wasn't a whole lot of help, but we ended up picking 10 lbs! I made jam with half of it (turned out better than I had hoped!) and then used the rest for various yummy treats - many of which I will be posting on my recipe blog if you are so inclined.

Cee's favorite summer treat is probably watermelon though. She can't get enough of it! She'll eat it down to the rind (meaning there won't be a bit of pink left when she's through).

Summer means more weddings, which means buckets of all shapes and sizes around our little place (much to Mark's displeasure). When they aren't holding flowers, Cee has had fun playing in them. Once Mark picked her up in one, that was it! Now when they are out, she always cries to be carried around in one.

Well, that's just a bit of this and that going on with us this summer. We had a fun and very busy July that I will post about soon.

Outdoor Fun!

2010-06-27T22:31:00.000-07:00

We are finally beginning to get out and enjoy more of beautiful Oregon. I guess it's starting to occur to us that we only have one year left here and there is still a lot to see. Towards the end of April, we made it out to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival in Woodburn. Obviously, I love flowers so this was especially wonderful. So gorgeous and so many amazing different varieties in every color (except blue that is). Here are a few pics of the fields-

After walking through the fields, we went over to the kid's area for Cee to have some fun. She loved this horse tire swing and the rubber duck races (although she couldn't quite get the hang of the pump) and she went down a big slide with Mark. There was a really cute cow train that goes around the fields, but she kept saying that she didn't want to do that when we would ask her. Maybe next year.

For Memorial Day, we went down to Silver Falls State Park with our good friends, the Darringtons. There is a hike with several different waterfalls - two of which you can walk underneath. So cool. It was a lot of fun, but after 5 miles we were definitely ready to relax a little, especially Mark who had to carry Miss Chubs Ceci on his back. It had been rainy all weekend, but luckily it didn't rain on our hike until about the the last 1/2 mile when it started to drizzle a little.

Since Mark was off from school the following day, we reserved a camp site and brought our little propane grill to cook up some hot dogs and hamburgers. It was my first time grilling and it turned out pretty good - although hopefully someday we can get a real grill so I can get some skills in that area of cooking. After dinner, we wanted to make smores so Mark and Brian set out to build a fire. This was no easy task because everything was soggy and it took quite a while to finally get one going. We also ran into another family from our ward who were staying that night also so they joined us for smores. It was a lot of fun.

By the end of the day, Cee was super muddy. Like caked on. That was not a fun part, but to be expected in Oregon I guess.

After smores, the Darringtons left and we headed into our tent shortly after. We didn't own much camping equipment before this outing, so we had to get quite a few things. Our REI tent was a little pricey, but lived up to it's reputation. It started pouring rain in the middle of the night and the tent didn't leak one bit. I was a little worried how Cee would do, but she slept really good and didn't even wake up to the rain.

Just after Cee woke up

Mr. Camper

Cee on our walk around the campsite while Mark took the tent down

Mark took a few shots with his Holga camera while on the hike and this one turned out amazing. I absolutely love it!

Lastly, I've updated my recipe blog and I'm trying something new. I've posted 5 days worth of meal ideas for you to try and give feedback on. There is even a shopping list included. I hope people try it out (even if it sounds like something you wouldn't normally cook) and maybe find something new that they like. Please check it out!

Catching up with Video

2010-06-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to catch up by posting some of the videos related to Heather's previous posts. Here are a few but I'll be adding more shortly.

Homemade Oven and Ice Cream Face

2010-05-29T10:46:00.001-07:00

I saw this adorable cardboard oven when I was watching Martha Stewart one day last year and decided I wanted to make it for Cee for a Christmas present. I slowly started collecting materials, but didn't get around to making it by Christmas. When I had a wedding in April that I had to spray paint some branches for, I decided I might as well just do the box at the same time. So it was more of an Easter present I guess. I searched all over and couldn't find the right size box that had the attached lid, so I settled for a half-sized version, which is why it only fits two "burners" instead of four. Ceci has really liked it and it fits her little pots and pans perfectly.

These pictures were taken last week when we got Cee an ice cream cone at DQ. I think this was her first one ever. She really enjoyed and I'm glad she was in her high-chair to eat it. What a mess! I guess it will be awhile before she can have one in the car.

Jan-Mar Update

2010-05-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

I'll apologize right from the start that this blog has a lot of pictures - the most I think I've ever had in one blog.

From what I can remember and from what I don't see in pictures - nothing eventful went on in January.

To start off February, our friends hosted a party for the season premiere of Lost. We arrived to find that the people at Dharma had made another supply drop. It was a good time, but despite promises, no questions were answered. We are excited for the finale this month (or at least one of us is).

Later in the month, I hosted a fondue girl's night (with the help of a friend's spacious home). We had four different fondues, a ton of accompaniments and a lot of fun. After we pigged out, we watched The Time Traveler's Wife. I had read the book and was excited to finally see the movie even though I kept my expectations low. I thought they did a pretty good job with the movie (of course the book is far better though).

Also in February, we found out that Mark was chosen for the Air Force scholarship. This was exciting news and meant that all of the months of paperwork for the application hadn't been for nothing. For those of you who don't know, this means that the Air Force will pay for the remainder of Mark's schooling and then he will do his internship with them followed by 3-years of active duty as a psychologist. There are a few drawbacks to this (such as guaranteed deployment for a 4-6 month period) but it has a lot of really good perks.

After we found out, they wanted him to be sworn in as soon as possible and told him that if he knew a high ranking officer in the military, that person could swear him in. Mark's granddad was a Captain in the Navy and so Mark asked him if he would do the honors. Instead of them flying out here for it, they flew us back to Utah for a long weekend.

Our flight was delayed, but luckily they have a little play area for kids

Going that weekend turned out great since it was my dad's birthday, for which I cooked him and my family (with the help of my sister) a big birthday dinner. My mom doesn't cook pork but it something my dad loves so I made him a cornbread-stuffed pork loin with apples, scalloped potatoes, honey-glazed carrots and mini caramel apple pies for dessert. I was glad we were there to help celebrate his birthday.

Being that we don't live in Utah and wouldn't be there for Easter, my sister planned a little egg hunt for after dinner. It was still cold outside so she hid eggs all around her house. Cecilia loved finding the eggs and (with a bit of help) made out like a bandit.

Later that day, our families gathered at Mark's grandparent's clubhouse for his swearing-in ceremony. His granddad looked sharp in his old uniform (that still fit 30 years later) and it was a short but nice event. It was really special that Mark's granddad was able to do it and that we had all of our family around to support us in this next big stage of our lives.

Being sworn in

A good picture of Cee and her cousin Janie

Also that weekend, Mark and I took advantage of the built-in babysitter (Grandma Adrienne) and went out for a night. We went to The Five Alls restaurant near Foothill. This is a medieval- themed restaurant that serves you a five-course dinner. It was a cool atmosphere and the food was quite good, especially the salmon I got. If you live nearby, you should definitely check it out.

For Mark's spring break we took a trip down to California where we met up with his mom, niece and nephew for some fun at Disneyland, California Adventure and Universal Studios. Mark's brother and his family live in LA so they met up with us at Disneyland for two days. It was fun to see all the cousins together and hang out with his family. This was my second time at Disneyland (my first was when I was 19 and let's just say I thought I was a little to cool for it by that time) but it was a much better experience this time and Cee had a lot of fun. It was one of those times when it is really fun to be a parent. Plus, I got to go on both Space Mountain (my new favorite ride) and Thunder Mountain Railroad - both of which were closed last time I went. As with most vacations, it ended too soon and we were sad to say goodbye to the happiest place on earth.

Cee and Grandma waiting for the rest of us to get off a ride

It's a small world after all...

This is what Cee does when we tell her to smile

Cee's favorite ride- the Nemo Subs

Mark and the Matterhorn

Cee and her cousin Aubrey playing in Dumbo

The Haunted Mansion - spooky!

Cecilia was so cute with all the characters - especially the big, soft ones. She would run up to them and just hug them and didn't want to let go.

Mickey's Toon Town

Just Cee's size

Tarzan's Tree House (you'll notice Cee is distracted in most pictures)

All the cousins with Grandma

The group shot

A Bug's Land

Tower of Terror (Mark's favorite ride of the trip)

I wanted to get a picture of us by the "N" for Noakes -but we didn't end up doing it until the last night and it didn't turn out so well in the dark.

Our last day, we went to Universal Studios. This was my first time there. It was fun, but definitely shouldn't be near the same price as Disneyland. The tour was pretty cool and we got to see pieces of the set from The Fast and the Furious, The Grinch Stole Christmas, War of the Worlds, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Psycho and King Kong. There were also a lot more characters walking around than you see in Disneyland.

The DeLorean

Cee really loved Curious George
(even though it doesn't look like it in this picture)

The group shot with Scooby Doo and Shaggy
(I was sad it was with them since I am so not a fan)

A panoramic shot of one of the shows "Water World" - It was really cool

Here are a few other random pictures.

Cee loves to color

Cee and her best friend Acacia playing in her recently converted toddler bed

If you have gotten through this long post, I congratulate you!

Video from Dec. 2009

2010-03-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

In January Cee was playing with the green seat to her toilet by putting it on her head and walking around our condo saying "hat, hat, hat!" It looked like a little sombrero and she was so cute, until it somehow slipped down around her neck. Because of the way the seat was designed we weren't able to get it back over her head. We tried to remove it for about a half hour but each time we attempted to stretch it over her head the non-rounded edges on the underside of the seat would begin to pinch Cee's ears. So after trying to remove the seat non-destructively, I finally had to hacksaw it off. Cee did pretty well during the whole ordeal but it was a challenge to keep her still while hacksawing through the plastic.

50th Post-Merry Christmas!

2010-02-22T13:34:00.000-08:00

Wow- so this is only the 50th post. That's pretty sad seeing that we've been doing this blog for a few years now.

Per the usual, we went to Utah for Christmas. It was a lot of fun to spend time with our families and see old friends. It was especially fun this year since Mark's brother's family was visiting from California. Cee and her cousin Aubrey had a lot of fun playing together. Below are some of the highlights of our trip.

We had the Annual Seafood Dinner on Christmas Eve with Mark's family. Instead of doing the dollar gift exchange, this year each "young person" drew the name of somebody to get them a larger gift. Mark and I got two very cool mugs monogrammed with and "M" and an "H" - his is very manly and mine is more delicate. Cee got a large magnetic drawing pad (there is probably a better name for it, but I can't think of it now) that she loves. Luckily, Mark and I drew the names of his two teenage cousins so they were easy and fun for me to shop for - although there is the downside that I had to get a few things for myself.

We also decorated gingerbread cookies and the boy cousins took their annual bad sweater/shirt picture - not sure exactly what to call it.

Cee and I decorated gingerbread- although she mostly ate them

The aforementioned picture - notice Mark's manly mug

Christmas morning we opened presents first at Mark's mom's house where Cee was completely spoiled by grandma Adrienne. Once the unwrapping began, Cee grew more excited with each gift. It was so cute and fun to watch her. She was especially happy about a baby doll that she had been wanting. Apparently, once they start wanting a doll to play with they no longer can be classified as a baby, or so I'm told. When she started opening the present and saw that it was the doll, she handed it straight to Mark and was excitedly saying "baby, baby" and continued to do so until he had it out of the packaging. Another highlight was a doll house for both her and her cousin- although Aubrey's was a little bit more grown up.

Cee opening her doll house

Busily playing with their dollhouses

We left all the new presents to head to my parents for the rest of the day. Cee was not happy leaving all her new toys. Little did she know that there would be even more new toys for her. What a day in the life of a 1 year old!

Cee opening her "Bee" from her grandparents

She loved her little pot and pan set from her Aunt Meg

After presents, we had a delicious Christmas dinner with all the classics. It was a really fun Christmas. I'm realizing that holidays are one of the best rewards of parenthood.

The following day, we celebrated Grandad's 80th Birthday with Mark's family. We had dinner together followed by cake at his grandparent's club house and made sure to get some family pictures taken- sadly the lighting was awful.

Mark's mom cutting the cake

The Boys

The Girls

Everybody

We spent Sunday with my family. I had made a few batches of homemade lemon curd that I gave out to neighbors and friends and some family, including my mom, who loves anything with lemon. It doesn't keep for too long and I was worried she wouldn't get around to using it all so I decided to experiment with a new recipe for dessert using the curd.

I found this little apron that used to be mine and put it on Cee. So cute.

Family of Cooks -
actually Mark just put the apron on for the picture

My beautiful Buttermilk Citrus Cake!
(with candied oranges so even the peel tastes good)

When we got back to Oregon, we had a small Christmas of our own where Cee got her much sought-after Pillow Pet. We actually found a bunch of these at Hallmark stores (they were completely sold out online) and made some money selling them on Ebay to people wanting one in time for Christmas. There was one left over that we gave to Cee. They are super cute and soft and she now sleeps on it every night.

Ballad of Ceci

2010-02-15T10:08:00.000-08:00

Fall Festivities

2010-01-10T22:10:00.001-08:00

To start out this season's events - Mark and I both celebrated our birthdays in September. Actually, I don't know if celebrate is the right word to use this year. We actually didn't do anything at all - for either of our birthdays. I don't really know what happened; they just came and went. Scratch that. We found the following picture and remembered that we threw another Murder Mystery dinner the day before Mark's birthday- although I did forget to have everyone sing to him. It was a 1950's theme- hence the green glass (not really) coke glasses. It was a lot of fun. Me forgetting about it was just the consequence of being such an infrequent blogger. Mark was photographing a wedding on my birthday so it was me and Cee all day, although a couple of friends dropped off some goodies from the RS broadcast that I couldn't make it to and wished me happy birthday. Before our b-days, Mark and I did go to Borders where I got the new Curtis Stone cookbook for my present. I can't remember what I got Mark.. if anything at all... I know, it's seriously sad. I was reminded by a friend that I did indeed get him a present. It was a stove-top espresso maker that he can use to make this Barley drink that he had been a bit obsessed with since his summer adventure. Next year we'll have to over-celebrate - yes, this is still the case.

The week after my birthday we put together the first annual (R)Oktoberfest, which we co-hosted with our friends, the Alders. It helps out that they actually have a house to accommodate a lot more people than our place. We had 8 different kinds of gourmet root beer to taste and grilled up some brats while the guests brought German inspired (or not) side dishes. Mark and I love gourmet root beer and were happy to introduce some of our favorites to our friends.

It was a lot of fun and everyone went home with a major sugar overload - but not before we got in some Rock Band. Hence the nickname Rocktoberfest. We didn't remember our camera, but luckily got some great pics from our friends.

The Rootbeers

Tasting

The spread, the babies, and some chowing

Rockband!

The month ended with one of our favorite holidays. As Halloween approached, I realized that I didn't have any grand plans for costumes. That just wouldn't do, so I had to begin a mad hunt for coordinating costumes on a budget. Hello Ebay and Goodwill. I had a couple of different ideas in mind but decided on.... Alice in Wonderland!

Cee's costume was the only one I bought from a costume place - the Cheshire Cat - it was pretty cheap and there really wasn't much else I could do. The costume actually looked a lot less cheesy in person than it did on the website so I was happy about that.

For Alice, I didn't want to spend a ton on a cheap pre-made "Alice" costume, let alone the fact that it was difficult to even find any that weren't "sexy Alice" costumes. So I basically assembled the costume from separate pieces. I found the blue and white dress on ebay and thought the colors were right even though it's not exactly a close replicate. I was looking for a pinafore apron to wear over it (but didn't want to pay too much so it proved harder than I thought it'd be) and finally found this cute vintage one that amazingly had blue teacups embroidered on it - so perfect! Also surprising, I couldn't find a decent blond wig with bangs so I ended up with an "Esmeralda" wig that went down to my butt so I had to give it a little trim - oh only about 10" or so. I already had the tights, shoes and headband so that was that.

For Mark's Mad Hatter costume, I bought a bow tie, white gloves, an old-lady wig, some super-cheap green pants at goodwill where I also happened upon the green clown shoes that were the finishing touch. Finding a hat was another story. I looked all over online and checked multiple costume shops before I found a semi-decent one at Party Depot the night before we needed it (they actually have a fantastic Halloween selection).

We took Cee to our ward's Trunk or Treat where everyone parks their car at the church building and hands out candy from their trunks while the kids go around. Quick and easy. It was really fun to see what other people had dressed up as and we ran across some other great family coordinated costumes like Snow White and all seven dwarfs and Dorothy, the cowardly lion, the tin-man, the scarecrow and the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. Cee wasn't quite sure why everyone was handing out candy, but she was definitely happy about it.

On Halloween night, we decided to dress up again (can't wear our costumes just once) and took Cee out to go trick-or-treating to a few houses in our neighborhood. We mainly only went to the houses that were decorated and found that people would give Cee a lot of candy. I'm not sure if it was cause she was so cute and would occasionally say "treat" or if it was because there were hardly any kids trick-or-treating. She had so much fun and got the hang of it really quick. If people bent down to talk to her she would always reach in the bowl to try and get even more candy. It was pretty funny. When it started getting dark and more cold, we headed back home and checked out Cee's loot. Lot's of Reese's for mom and dad - good work!

In November, I worked on a really fun wedding that was held at The Laurelhurst Club in SE Portland. She had an old Hollywood glamour theme so I was able to use lots of feathers and do some fun stuff. Hopefully I will update my Moda blog with more about it soon. The location was perfect and the whole Laurelhurst area is beautiful with amazing historic homes that have been nicely taken care of. On the way home from setting up, we saw an open house going on and I ran inside to take a quick look. I concluded that if we end up in Oregon more permanently, I would absolutely love to live there.

We headed down to the bay area for Thanksgiving with Mark's dad and his side of the family again. We sadly didn't take any pictures on Thanksgiving day, but had a delicious dinner at his aunt's house and were then joined by several other of his extended family for pie later in the evening. Cee had a lot of fun running around in their backyard and jumping on the trampoline with grandpa.

That weekend Cee was able to play with her cousin, Aubrey, who wasn't scared of her this year. We tried again for the Cee and Aubrey picture but couldn't really get a good one even though we bribed them with cookies (which are probably Cee's favorite thing to eat). Here are a few of the attempts-

It was good to see Adam (Mark's brother) and Lauren again and it was weird to think that it had been a whole year since we'd seen them and also a year since Cee had seen her grandpa. We had a yummy waffle breakfast together before they left back to LA.

In Walnut Creek we went to the tree lighting ceremony in town square where we sang Christmas songs and ate cookies (you had to pay for the hot chocolate so we opted against that).

Grandpa, Cee and Mark before the tree lighting

The highlight of the night was that Cee was able to sit on Santa's lap for her first time. As you will see below, it didn't go so well. Even with giving her a cookie right before (can you see a pattern here?) she was quite afraid of Santa. It was sad, especially since he was an authentic looking Santa. We did get some funny pictures before Cee started crying though.

Cee and Santa

Cee and Mom (she devoured her candy cane)

Our last day there we found a children's museum in Berkeley called Habitot that we took Cee to. Mark has already posted the video of this, but she had a blast. It is so fun to watch her play and explore new things. We wish her cousin could have come too. Afterwards, we strolled down College Ave. and found a Sicilian restaurant called Trattoria La Siciliana to eat at where Mark spoke with the owner in Italian and the food was really delicious.

Lastly, here is a really cute picture of Cecilia already playing dress-up with mommy's shoes.

Habitot

2009-12-02T13:56:00.001-08:00

During our visit to California for Thanksgiving we went to Habitot - a children's museum in Berkeley. Here's some video of Cee playing on the exhibits.

Summer Fun - Part 2

2009-11-22T20:06:00.000-08:00

August was a very busy month for us. Mark was on his month break from school so we tried to pack in as much as we could plus I had a few weddings that kept me busy. The first Tuesday of the month we went to the zoo (for $2 Tuesdays). As you can imagine, it was very crowded and was hard to see a lot of the animals - even if they were out in the open (which was not the case with a lot of the animals). It was still a fun day though and Cee especially liked the baboons and the giraffe.

Here we are in front of the Elephants

In the middle of the month, Mark and I went our separate ways for vacationing. He decided to head on a 10-day hike with his dad and younger brother through the High Sierras. This did not sound like the ideal trip to me (or even close, really) so I decided to head to Utah where I left Cee with her grandparents for a few days and headed off to the Windy City where my very good friend Alicia lives while her husband is in med school.

This was the first time I'd been away from Cee for more than about 8 hours and it was quite strange in the beginning. I talked to her on the phone the first night and after hearing my voice, she was calling momma (I'm momma and Mark is daddy) and crying a little. It definitely pulled on my heart strings. I missed her a lot. The next couple of days weren't so bad and I started to remember what it was like before having a kid. However, my friend has two young children, so it wasn't quite like the old days. My parents said they had a fun time watching her and I was glad they were able to spend some time with each other.

In Illinois, we visited a cute little town called Lake Forest that was right on the shore of Lake Michigan. The town was almost something out of a movie, with it's amazing homes (someday when I make my millions I'll live in one of them) , old-time shops and a farmer's market down a quint alleyway. We ate out on the patio of a delicious restaurant and enjoyed the atmosphere. Afterwards, we snuck down to a private (resident only) beach for a bit, which was surprisingly a lot more like an ocean beach than I would have thought.

On the shore of Lake Michigan

Her husband was able to take the kids for a couple days and we headed into the city to stay at a hotel and see some of the sites. I was expecting Chicago to be similar to NYC, but it was actually quite different. It was a lot cleaner and felt newer and definitely more touristy (minus Times Square in NYC). There is a lot of great architecture, due in a large part to the rebuilding of the city after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. Only a few buildings remained from the period before.

We ate at an amazing restaurant for dinner and for lunch I experienced a real Chicago Dog (which I now have to say is my favorite way to eat a hot dog - if you haven't tried it, you should). We shopped on Michigan Avenue and I fulfilled a childhood dream of visiting the American Girl flagship store (too bad it was like 16 years later). That place is seriously crazy!

The next day we had a hard time deciding between going on a boat tour down the river or a double decker bus tour. Last minute, I made the decision to go on the bus since you could get on and off and there were a lot more things to see - plus I got a free t-shirt and some delicious cheesy caramel popcorn - apparently it's a popular thing there.

Here are just a few stops along the way:

This huge statue (American Gothic) - look familiar?

Interesting architecture in Millennium Park

Taking our picture under "The Bean"

LaSalle Street where the semi-truck scene in The Dark Knight was filmed

The original Chicago Theater

On the top of the double decker bus

I would definitely recommend the bus tour to anyone who wants to see as much of Chicago as possible but only has a short time to do it. The tour guides were very informed and had a lot of great stories about the history of the city - they even showed us where Oprah lives =).

After my whirlwind trip, I returned to Utah for a week and spent time with family and friends. I didn't take many pictures but here are some of a fun water playground in Harraman that I went to with my sister and Cee's cousin, Janie. It was such a cute park and was fun once we figured out how to turn the water on (it was seriously a little tricky).

Cee and Mom

Janie and Cee

During Mark's adventure, he had no cell reception so I didn't talk to him for about 9 days and I missed him lots. He had some great faith-building experiences and also some fun (well that might not be the best word for it) and scary experiences out in the wilderness and came back as grizzly adams (as much as is possible for Mark). He's since decided to keep the facial hair around for a bit and I have to say I kinda like it.

Mark and his Dad

Self Portrait

The Men

The Brothers (minus Adam sadly)

Chowing down after nearly starving on the trail

I flew back a day after Mark got back and it was good to be home and have the family all in one place. A few days later and it was back to the grind, but we had one last fun outing to the State Fair on Labor Day with our friends the Darringtons. Cee loved seeing the cows and petting the goats and pigs. We also picked up some amazing popcorn and saw a few cool shows. There was so much to do there and not enough time to do it. I guess that means we'll have to go back next year.

Dad and Cee experiencing farm life

The Fourth

2009-10-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

Here's some video of Cee's first fourth of July.

One Year!

2009-10-15T15:05:00.000-07:00

On July 22nd, Cecilia turned one. I had always thought that birthday parties for a one year old were a little pointless since they don't even know what a birthday is but as with many things, it's different when you actually have a kid of your own. We decided to have a little party for her at a nearby park and invite all her little friends (with their parents) and her most favorite babysitters. Unfortunately, it was a Wednesday night and not too many of them were able to come. I think she had fun anyway.

She got way too many presents...

and her very own cake...
(banana cake = healthy, right?)

which she ate almost half of by herself.

I had also not planned on letting her do this but gave in to peer pressure- apparently it's the cool thing to do. After cake, she opened all her presents with some help from mom and her friends who were also anxious to rip off the paper.

A book from Grandpa John...

Can't quite figure this one out...

After presents there was lots of swinging and sliding on the playground until it started to get dark.

Swinging with her buddy Aedan

It was definitely strange to think that it had been a year since she was born. It's amazing how much they learn and grow in one short year. She is such a wonderful addition to our family and we feel blessed to be her parents.

The weekend after her birthday we took a little family trip to the coast. Unfortunately, the day didn't start off very good. On our way there, Cecilia threw up all the milk she'd drank that morning. Saying that it smelled bad is an understatement. We had to stop and clean her off - luckily I had an extra set of clothes- and then try to clean off her car seat as best we could. She seemed to be ok afterwards and we thought maybe it was due to her shots she'd recieved a few days before or that she drank too much. We decided to keep going because I don't get many Saturdays off.

We visited the Tillamook Cheese factory first. We got to see how their cheese is made, taste some samples, and eat some delicious grilled cheese and unique ice cream flavors (I wish they would sell the licorice one in stores - yum). Mark got a 100th anniversary cheese board and Cecilia got her now favorite stuffed animal, Tilly the cow.

We tried to get a picture with both of them - but it didn't quite work out...

so we had to settle for doing it this way

After Tillamook, we drove up the coast a bit to visit Cannon Beach again. We lucked into a close parking spot and headed down to the beach. The weather could not have been more perfect. It was warm with a slight breeze and overcast. We just layed out on a blanket for awhile before Cecilia decided that sand was ok to walk on and explore.

We had also decided to take Cecilia's one year old pictures and do a family one as well. Unfortunately, the outfit that she had threwn up all over was the one I wanted for the family pictures, but they still turned out good even though Cecilia wouldn't be still. Here are a couple of them-

For her individual pictures, I changed her into this adorable dress that I had recieved at a baby shower and had been anticipating her wearing. I absolutely love all the pictures Mark got and we were lucky to get most of them without anyone in the background although the beach was fairly full. I thought I would post the ones where he caught her making some of her funny faces.

We did get some good smiling ones too - but they aren't as fun to post. As I sat watching Mark and Cecilia play near the water, I was overwhelmed with love and thankfulness for my little family and it helped me remember that this is what it's all about. It was just such a great day and one that I'll remember for many years.

Stay tuned for the rest of our summer fun.

Summer Fun - Part 1

2009-09-14T01:11:00.001-07:00

I need to play catch-up in a major way right now so I'll try to cover the first half of the summer in this post and continue with the last half hopefully in the not-too-far off future.

On June 9, Mark and I celebrated our 3rd Anniversary. Since we don't have family here in Oregon, we couldn't really go stay the night somewhere without bringing Cecilia so we opted for a dinner cruise on the river instead (and left Cee with some friends). The boat we wanted to go on only offers 1-2 cruises per month so we actually didn't go on the cruise till a week or so after our actual anniversary.

On the day of we went out to a restaurant called Le Pigeon. It's this tiny little place where there are just a few tables and a bar. We ended up sitting at the bar, which wraps around the 'kitchen' so you can watch the chef prepare your meal. It was pretty cool and the food was amazing. The head chef had received a 'Best New Chef' award from Food and Wine magazine and he did not disappoint. It's one of my favorites so far here in Oregon.

Below are a few pictures from our dinner cruise on The Sternwheeler Rose. A lovely boat, although just a bit run down. The captain looked exactly how you'd imagine one to look - similar to the captain from The Titanic. We had a table to ourselves and had a nice buffet-style meal that was actually pretty good. It was cool to see Portland from the view of the river and we saw some way awesome (seriously) houseboats along the way. Babe- Thanks for three great years together and I look forward to growing old with you. You are my match in every way (name that movie).

I had a wedding at the end of June; you can see more details about that on my Moda blog if you are so inclined.

I was very excited for the 4th of July this year since last year I was so pregnant that we didn't do a single thing. We ended up spending the majority of our day with our friends, the Darringtons. They have a daughter who is a couple weeks younger than Cecilia so it is fun to get together and see the two of them interact.

We started off the day by going to the Hillsboro parade. The Darringtons went early and saved us a spot so we didn't have to wake up too early (something we're not the best at) and didn't have to wait too long before it started which was really nice. Cecilia loved the parade and even got her first taste of taffy and tootsie rolls, which she also loved.

Cee enthralled in the parade

Getting a view from Dad's shoulders

After the parade we headed over to a Berry Festival at one of the U-Pick farms. We had brats and delicious fresh berry shakes, listened to some bluegrass music, fed some chickens and goats (which Cecilia loved) and picked some fresh raspberries so we could go home and make more delicious shakes.

Cee and the chickens

Cee and the goat

We were pretty tired after that and went home to get a nap in before the fireworks.

There are definitely not as many places here for fireworks as there are in Utah, but we finally found one that looked promising. We headed up a little early to get a spot and ate some burgers while we waited. Never having been there before, we weren't sure if our spot would be a good view, but it turned out to be perfect. Mark got some really cool pictures by putting his camera on a tripod and we also got a video of it that we'll have to post soon. I wasn't sure if Cecilia would get scared or not, but she loved them. The Darringtons weren't so lucky with their daughter who took awhile to get used to them. It was a really good day though and was so much fun to have Cecilia to experience it with.

Over the summer to help pass the time, Cecilia has also....

started up a band

and worked on her mathematics whilst not forgetting to accessorize.

At the park

2009-08-09T00:20:00.000-07:00

Our last post included some pictures of Cee at the park, here is the accompanying video. Also be sure and check out some new video of Cee in the TV in the upper right of the blog.

The Month of May

2009-07-12T19:25:00.000-07:00

I was planning on doing the May post as three separate ones, but realized if I do that then I'll never get around to June and July. So this one will be a bit on the long side. We had a really busy month. As the weather has become nicer here, we started going to the park together and Cecilia has lots of fun. The first time we did the swings, she loved it, but when we brought the camera the next time she didn't give us much reaction. Isn't it always the way. Here are a few pics of the fun times at the park.

Mom and Cee making a wish

Clapping on the swing

Doing pull-ups on the monkey bars

Going down the slide on her own

Crazy Hair!

Going down the slide with Dad

It was my first Mother's Day this year and Mark made me one of his Italian specialty pasta dishes that was good. Later in the day he started feeling sick and at one point was in a lot of pain and started to feel numb all in his arms and hands and couldn't move them. It was really scary and I had no clue what to do. I ended up calling 911 and the paramedics came to our house in a huge firetruck (not to alarm the neighbors or anything). By that point Mark was feeling a lot better and they just gave him a quick check over to make sure everything was fine. We're still not sure what happened, but think it was probably a panic attack. Seems kind of strange, but he has had a couple of really hard, stressful trimesters in school so maybe that was why. It definitely made for a very memorable Mother's Day. Hopefully, next year I won't get a visit from the paramedics. =) I am very thankful he is okay and that he works so hard and still takes time to spend with Cee and I. We love you!

Over Memorial Day weekend, my family came up from Utah for a visit and we stayed in Seaside at a great resort thanks to my sister and brother-in-law. It was fun for them to be in Oregon and have a mini-vacation at the same time. The first day we visited the (somewhat ancient) Seaside Aquarium. It was pretty small but still fun. They had some seals that you could feed and once they realized you were throwing food in, they started doing tricks and splashing all over. It was funny and Ceci liked it. They also had a cool octopus that you could see close up. However, it seemed kind of sad that some of these animals/sea creatures didn't have much room at all. There was a station where you could pick up different sea creatures and feel them and learn about them. Cecilia was very much into touching everything. It was cute and my parents couldn't beleive she would do it. Mark wasn't there with the camera so I had to get a couple pics from my parents.

Looking at some fish

Feeling the Sea Cucumber

The next day we went up to Fort Stevens National Park near the border of Washington. It had several different areas you could go and we did just a few of them such as visiting the old forts used as far back as the Civil War, seeing the "Peter Iredale" shipwreck (a ship that was wrecked near the mouth of the Columbia River in the early part of the century), and heading out to the coast at the farthest North point in Oregon (I think). It was really windy up there so not very pleasant for a long period of time.

Cecilia and Mom at the coast

My brothers and sister in an old Army jeep

Mark, Cee and Ethan at the shipwreck

The next day we took a short drive to Cannon Beach with Ethan and Adriane. We wish the rest of the family would have come as it was perfect weather there (well maybe a little cold, but no wind) and wasn't too crowded. The first time with sand, Cecilia did not like it at all, but this time she just sat right down and played with a few sticks that were nearby.

Ceci and Dad with Haystack Rock in the distance

I love this picture of her little foot

Cee and her stick

A day after my family left, I flew to Utah for my friend's wedding. Mark came up for the weekend but I stayed for a week and a half. We took Cee swimming for the second time and she did a little better than the first time (where she basically wouldn't stop screaming) so that was an improvement.

I was so happy my Grandma was at my parents' because she is usually always in Manti when I come to visit. This was the first time she was able to see Cecilia in person so we had to get lots of pictures.

Cecilia with her Great-Grandma Nora

While I was there I also threw a shower for my friend, Nicolette, who is having a baby boy in September. I did a "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" theme and it turned out pretty good, although it would have been nice if a few more people could have made it. For the games, there was one where you had paper bags and had to try and guess what baby item was in it only from shaking it and one where you had to shake a popular baby tune using a rattle (such as Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). They were fun, but actually a lot harder than they sound. I was really happy with how the refreshments turned out though and thanks to Alicia for helping me bake the cookies and to Megan for letting us have the shower at your house.

Fruit Salad Baby Carriage

Cheese Ball Rattle

I had seen a Martha Stewart episode that had a Baby Shower theme to it and they made these cute "Onesie Cookies" and strung them from some decorative branches and then they could be favors for the guests. I loved the idea and wanted to incorporate it into this shower so I found some cookie cutters to fit the theme (bottle, rattle, and carriage) and tried my best to make Martha-worthy cookies. They were definitely not up to her caliber I'm sure but they were pretty cute I thought. I didn't get a picture of the branches when they were full of cookies unfortunately, but here it is after the party with a few leftover.

As I mentioned earlier, my very good friend, Elisa, got married and I was able to do her wedding flowers. It was a beautiful day and I loved how the flowers turned out and I think she loved them as well. I'm so happy that she is now happily married to an awesome guy. If you are interested in seeing more details of the wedding and flowers you can go here.

She walks!!

2009-06-26T00:55:00.000-07:00

Cecilia has been cruising (walking while holding on to things) for about 3 1/2 months now. Our condo doesn't have a lot of open space, so we figured Cee hadn't made the transition to walking because she could cruise everywhere relatively easily. It looks as if she was just biding her time. On a few occasions we saw her take a step or two. It was rare. Then today she decided it was time to walk. I quickly got the video camera (which was out of batteries) so I had to use the power supply limiting my movements. Here's the video, minimally edited to showcase my fatherly excitement. Excuse the baby talk.

The Mortal Instruments Series

2009-06-19T09:54:00.000-07:00

I'm going to do a post out of the ordinary for me and talk about the books I just finished reading. So after reading the Twilight series I was looking for some books that I could become a little obsessive over again (where all you want to do is read and can't stop thinking about them, etc), which are pretty hard to come by it seems.

I saw The Mortal Instruments series on a email blast from Borders and it had a note about Stephanie Meyers recommending them so I decided to check them out. They each a had holds at the library so I had to get on the list and wait. The first two it wasn't so bad but then with the third, the wait was so long (it just came out a few months ago) I just had to go out and buy it. They are seriously so good though! I think I'll actually go out on a limb here and say I liked them better than Twilight (blasphemy, I know) but I thought the writing was better and the characters better developed and a little easier to relate to and the story is equally good.

I was looking at the Mortal Instrument website and in the FAQ it talks about a movie possibly being made and then has a link to a reader's picks of who they'd want to play the characters if there were to be a movie made. I was not happy with some of this reader's picks so I decided to do my own. I did keep of few of the other person's and thought they were better than who I probably could have found and closer to what I pictured in my head while reading, especially Jace and Clary. Here is a link to the other person's picks if you want to check them out.

Clary - Alexz Johnson

She's perfect I think - at least how she looks in this picture.

Jace - Garrett Hedlund

Also just how pictured Jace to look, especially the hair.

Simon - John Cabrera

I thought the other person's pick was awful for Simon - way too dorky and unattractive. After all, he is supposed to be somewhat good looking even if he is a nerd.

Isabelle - Summer Glau

I didn't really like the picture the other reader had, but after looking at more of her on Google, I actually think she fits quite well.

Alec - Ben BarnesI didn't really have a good picture in my head of Alec, but when I saw this I thought he would be a very nice choice.

Jocelyn - Julianne Moore

She is basically who I was picturing in my head throughout the series. So beautiful!

Luke - John Hamm

A bit of a nerd, but attractive and has a gruff side to him that would be great for Luke.

Magnus Bane - Tony LeungSo I don't think it ever says that Magnus is Asian, but that is just what I pictured from the descriptions of him. I thought this guy could pull it off with some glitter and eyeliner. =)

Hodge - Phillip Seymour HoffmanI'm not entirely sure of this pick, but it's the closest I could find to what was in my head of actors that are somewhat familiar to me. The other person's pick of Ewan McGregor is actually growing on me though...

Valentine - Daniel Craig

Perfect! Handsome, yet cold. Very masculine with the broad shoulders. Brad Pitt just does not fit the bill at all for Valentine.

Sebastian - Jonathon Rhys Meyers

So he's just about right for Sebastian, even though he's a touch too old. This picture is perfect for the series though. haha.

So if you like the Twilight series, you should definitely check out these books and then let me know what you think about my picks to play the characters (all in fun of course).

Update - April 2009

2009-06-10T13:48:00.000-07:00

I think I'm getting worse at this blogging thing and let's not even consider the recipe blog. I'm going to try to catch up here though.

For Easter we hadn't originally planned anything for Cee because we figured she is just too young still for it to matter. We were telling this to a couple in the ward and they insisted on giving us some plastic eggs and an Easter basket. So after church we filled the eggs with Cheerios and puffs and hid them around the front rooms in fairly obvious places for her to find. We had to help her along but it was pretty cute. She loved shaking the eggs once she found them but didn't quite understand the concept of something good inside the eggs. Next year though.

We hid one back behind some books on one of the lower shelves of the bookcase and she actually found that one on her own and it was really cute. She peeked in and saw it and then reached for it but pushed it back and then peeked in again to make sure it was still there. We had the camera taking pictures of it but it would have been better on video so we tried to have her reenact it but it wasn't as cute the second time. She already knew the drill. There's an Easter video on the You Tube channel that's new if you haven't seen it.

Peaking in at the egg...

Reaching for it...

Retrieved!

Joining it with the other eggs

Easter Basket

So far Cee seems to really enjoy anything music related. She loves when Mark plays the guitar or piano and likes to help him out and she loves music playing, especially when it comes from a cell phone. I decided to give in to Mark's pleas of wanting the drum set for Guitar Hero/Rock Band when we found it on a really good sale at Toys R'Us. Cecilia loved those too and didn't like us to try and help her hold the sticks; she wanted to do it all by herself. We got some fun pictures of her rocking out.

Cee and Dad on the drums

The other pictures from the month are just random ones of Cee playing around and getting into mischeif as she does now. Enjoy!

Helping Mom with the laundry
(the first time I tried to put her in she freaked out really bad but then Mark does and she's perfectly fine with it. haha)

Playing with the amp looking suspicious

Wearing one of Mom's hats

I love this little dress and hat that I got at one of my baby showers. So cute. Thanks Rachelle!

Towards the end of April we hosted another Murder Mystery Dinner. This one was set in England during WWII. It was a different brand than we normally do and we decided that it wasn't as good. It was fun though and we love when our guests get into character. Thanks everyone for coming!

Standing Up

2009-05-07T13:19:00.000-07:00

Cee when she was beginning to stand up while holding on to things. She's 7 months old in the video.

Because the quality of Blogger video was so low I've moved all the videos to YouTube. I've updated all the old video blog posts with the high quality versions (if HQ is enabled in player). To view the videos in full size and resolution you can check out my channel (which has some video of Cee you can't find on the blog).

Moving Right Along

2009-04-06T18:13:00.000-07:00

First off - if you haven't checked out the two videos in the post below then do it! We've only got one comment and Mark's not feeling too good about that. I tell him that people watch but just don't leave comments - he's not so sure. He spent a lot of time editing those so the least you can do is comment. =)

The past month has gone by pretty quick it seems. Mark has been getting busier and busier with school as all his final projects and assignments are coming due, plus working on his thesis. After his summer term he'll have his Master's Degree. Yay! At least there will be something to show for the past two years.

I've recently started a "mommy" group that gets together every couple weeks. All of our kids are born within the same year so it's fun to see them interact with each other.

Acacia, Aidan, and Cecilia
(these 3 are within 7-8 weeks of each other)

Cecilia loves her reflection! She'll eat anything (except green beans it seems) and loves to get washed up after she's done (probably cause she gets to see herself in the mirror). She can now wave to people. It's pretty cute. She also loves music and will "dance" when she hears something she likes. Don't let her have your cell phone because she won't give it back, especially if you play music for her on it. She learned how to stand up in her crib a few weeks back so we had to lower the mattress and take off the cute bumper. Trouble, trouble. It's kind of crazy how she seems to be turning into a little girl so fast.

Playing in the sink while mom gets ready.

Peeking up over her bumper

Giving kisses to mom

Lounging in while watching Chicken Run (Dad's idea of babysitting - hehe jk)

Other fun events of March included one of my good friends, Elisa, coming to visit for about a week. We had a good time hitting the city for a few days although it definitely slowed things down a lot to have Cecilia with us. We kept meaning to take pictures, but just never did so there is nothing to document her stay. I guess that just means she'll have to come back again.

The following weekend the YW had an overnighter at the coast planned. We stayed in a beach house in Lincoln City that one of the ward member's parents own. Mark came up as one of the Priesthood leaders so it was sort of like a very short family trip. I was in charge of planning and purchasing all the food for the trip. When I volunteered for the job I didn't think it would be as much of a process as it was. Coming up with recipes for that many people on a really tight budget isn't easy. Luckily, all the food was a hit with the girls. I've been requested to post some of the recipes I used on the food blog. The girls loved playing with Cecilia and she loved all the attention.

Cecilia with all the YW

Cecilia and mom on the beach

Dad and Cecilia

Yeah, I think she was pretty cold so we didn't stay out for very long.

Cecilia is now an expert crawler and cruiser (walking while holding onto furniture). We're thinking she'll be walking on her own in 1-2 months. Aaaah! They are definitely much more of a handful when they can get places on their own. She has her two bottom teeth in now, and two more are about to break through. She's no picnic during this process, that's for sure. Hopefully they'll come up soon.

Say Teeth!

Little Cruiser

I think that's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Peak-a-Boo/Crawling

2009-03-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Some long awaited video of Miss Cee.

Peak-a-Boo

Learning to Crawl

A Month of Milestones

2009-03-03T18:29:00.000-08:00

First off, I meant to do this with the last two entries, but never got around to scanning the old picture of me. Here's me as a baby and then Cecilia in the same walker 25ish years later. I believe we are about the same age (5-6 months). It's kind of interesting to see. She definitely doesn't have my eyes, we think those are from Mark, but I think it's the same nose and maybe mouth. It's a bit hard to see with the great photo quality of the 1980's, but is more obvious when you see it in person.

Heather - 1984

Cecilia - 2008

Cecilia is doing new things every day and it is fun to watch her grow. She's been doing an "army crawl" for about a month now and within the last few days has been getting up on her hands and knees and actually moving forward for a short distance before dropping back down on her stomach again. She can get around just as well on her stomach though and will crawl under the table, through all the chair legs, to reach me if I'm in the kitchen. Mark filmed it when she first started, so we'll have to post that soon. Also in the past couple days she's been able to bring herself to standing when she holds on to something (like her crib). I think we'll have to move the mattress down. That came a lot sooner than I thought!

Getting ready to make her way under the table

Looking mischievous getting into her toy basket

Cecilia got her first tooth in last month and more are on the way we think. She hasn't been too horrible with teething, but there are definitely some days (and a few nights) that she's a cranky pants. We started her on solids about a month ago as well, but didn't take any pictures, only a video. It wasn't too exciting. She didn't get a weird expression on her face or spit it out, but acted like she had done it lots of times before. A natural eater I guess. So far we've tried just about every basic veggie and fruit and she eats them all quite happily. She also loves her finger food snacks too.I'm thinking she's not going to be a picky eater. Yay!

We had some friends over for dinner who have a daughter 2 months older than Cecilia and a son who is 2. He can say Ceci and it's pretty cute. Kids are so funny together. We got some entertaining pictures with them. Here are a few...

Nothing else has really been going on with Mark and I. I've been able to do a few weddings in the last couple months and have toyed around with starting a blog showcasing some of the work I've done for those. Hmmm... I was also informed recently that there are a select few who do check out my recipe blog, so I may actually try updating it more frequently now. We'll see. Thanks for reading.

Walker, Christmas Ranger

2009-02-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

Here's some video of Cecilia's first Christmas.
Cee thanks her grandparents, aunts, and uncles for all the cool presents (especially the paper)!

The Holidays (Finally!)

2009-01-20T20:09:00.000-08:00

Sad, but true, I'm just now getting around to catching up the blog on the holidays. I have a resolution to be better at updating the blogs. So far that hasn't been going so great... Anyway, this will be a long one and there are lots of pics, so be prepared.

THANKSGIVING

We drove down to the bay area to spend Thanksgiving with Mark's extended family. They all still get together every year which is cool since my extended family stopped doing Thanksgivings all together when I was fairly young. Cecilia did pretty good on the usual 9 hour drive (took about 11 with her). She only got really upset for the last hour or so where I think she just wanted to be out of her car seat.This year it was held at his aunt Diana's house. We had two large tables and the food was great. This was the first time that most of them had seen Cecilia, including both of Mark's brothers who also came down for the holiday.

The "Adult" Table

Cecilia with her Great-Grandma Noakes

After dinner was the annual turkey-bowl game. I just watched (of course) and Mark was taking pictures through most of it to get out of playing. We're just not into sports so much - can you tell?

Mark's brother, Adam, soon to be taken down

We stayed with Mark's dad for the weekend. Mark, his brothers, and dad, went to the shooting range on Saturday morning for some manly time.

Mark in full concentration with Adam looking on

This was also the first time that Cecilia met her cousin, Aubrey. We tried a few times to get the two together in a picture and every time Aubrey would start crying and try her hardest to get away. Apparently, Cecilia is pretty scary. Aubrey liked to look at her from a distance though and say "baby". We got some pretty funny pictures though.

Cecilia trying to be friendly

Cecilia unsure of what she did wrong

Cecilia has given up, but offers a comforting pat on the back

Finally had to bring in the daddy's to control the situation

Cecilia with her Grandpa Noakes

One of my best friends, Rachel, moved to the area last year and she lives only about 30 minutes away from Mark's dad, so she came down on Saturday to hang out. We had a day out shopping downtown Walnut Creek with the babies. They are only 5 days apart, but Cecilia is such a chunk compared to Marie. They were funny to watch together and are each others new best friend - at least that's what their moms think.

It was a really good holiday and was great to see Mark's California side of the family and spend time hanging out with his brothers and dad. Maybe we'll do it again next year...

CHRISTMAS

We had tickets to fly to Utah on Dec 22, but due to a completely abnormal amount of snow here in Portland, we were called a few hours before the flight to be informed that it was canceled. That was definitely a bummer, but luckily we were able to get booked on another one the next morning at 7am. We just had to hope that it wouldn't be canceled as well. That night we invited some friends for dinner who were also stuck (they were planning on driving to Utah, but one of the major freeways leading out of Portland was closed). That made for a fun night and helped us to not be so bummed out. Luckily, the flight the next morning wasn't canceled and we had a great ward member drive us out to the airport at like 5 in the morning. It was a tiny little plane and we had to wait for a quite awhile while it was de-iced. Thankfully, we made it to Utah safe and sound.

We spent Christmas Eve with Mark's family for the annual seafood dinner at his Aunt Lindsey's house. It was good food and then we played the traditional gift giving game that is similar to a white elephant game. I ended up with a Christmas dish for different condiments/dips and Mark got a pretty cool beanie. Everyone had a great time with Cecilia and we pretty much didn't hold her the entire night she was so popular. We played some Rock Band and decorated gingerbread cookies. I believe mine was deemed the winner of the informal contest.

Gingerbread Santa

Cecilia with Grandma Noakes

Cecilia with Aunt Carie

The following day we opened some presents with Mark's mom and then headed over to my sister's house to spend Christmas with my family. There had been a huge snowstorm the night before and none of the roads were plowed yet. We made it all the way to the street right in front of her house and then were completely stuck. I ran inside and told all the men to get out there to help dig the car out. It was quite a process with snowblowers and shovels and chains - I think it took them over an hour to finally get it out. My brother Kurt was on the phone from his mission in England during this and so he had to talk with the women for a bit longer than was allotted since the men had to get the car out of the middle of the street first. Luckily, everyone was able to talk with him.

Cecilia didn't quite understand the concept of opening gifts yet, but we helped her open hers and she loved the paper. She got a lot of new toys for us to bring home. I got Mark a new camera bag that was a complete surprise for him so that was fun. He also got Guitar Hero World Tour, which he was thrilled about, and I got a creme brulee set with recipes, so now I need to get making some. Yummy.

Not quite sure what do with it

Cecilia trying to eat her new ladybug from Grandpa and Grandma Hunsaker

Cecilia and her cousin Janie with their matching ladybugs

Cecilia and Janie with Grandpa Hunsaker

My sister, mom and I made Christmas dinner after all the gifts were opened while the guys played Rock Band. It was pretty much the best present for Mark - to be able to play Rock Band for like an entire day almost.

Mark rocking out on the drums

Jason, Ethan, and Russell jamming along

A great picture of my sister Adriane

We went to church with my parents on Sunday and snapped some good pics afterward that I just have to include.

So cute!

One of the few pictures with the three of us

I love her little holiday dress - I found it on clearance before she was born and just had to get it
Cecilia's favorite new toy was not a new one, but a 27-year old one. That's right, my parents still have a walker from when we were babies. For those of you who don't know, these are no longer made because of all the injuries that occurred in them (which were most likely due to the lack of parental supervision). She was loving it! I thought it would take her some time to figure out what to do in it, but it was only a matter of a few minutes before she was cruising around. We got a video of it that we'll have to post later. Here are a few pics. Too bad it was too big to take with us (plus our place is all carpet which makes it a lot harder to move around in).

During the trip Mark and I got a bit of alone time while Cee was with her grandma, and went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and go to dinner. If you haven't seen that movie, you should - it was wonderful. I was also able to meet up with some old friends. First, I had dinner with my friend Alicia that lives in Chicago now and haven't seen for a couple of years. By the time I got to her parents house, her kids were asleep so unfortunately I didn't get to see them. It was really great to see her again though and catch up. Our last day there I met up with a few other friends for lunch, including Rachel who had just arrived in town to see her husbands family. Yay for friends! And yes, I did get my haircut between the first and the second picture (even though you can't really tell it's long in the first one).

Me and Alicia

Me, Nicolette, Rachel, and Mandy

Well I think that's all for our holiday adventures. Sorry it's taken me so long to post about them. I'm definitely going to try for more current updates in the future.

Laughing, Typing, Rolling

2008-12-21T17:22:00.000-08:00

Here's some more video documenting the developmental milestones our Miss Cee. In the video she's about 3 months old.

Dress Up

2008-12-02T19:55:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting around to posting about Halloween. I was really wanting to do it before Thanksgiving, but that just didn't happen obviously. So Halloween was pretty uneventful this year. I dressed up as Cruella Deville three years ago for Halloween and knew that it was just too good of a costume to only wear once so I'd been waiting to wear it again when I had a little puppy to go along with me. I found the cute little dalmatian costume on ebay for cheap (Disney brand and all - not that it was a must), but it was a little big on Cecilia. You can't tell in the picture, but the pants were several inches too long. It was cute and warm for her though.

The YM/YW are in charge of doing the Primary carnival at the church so that was my excuse to dress up (I'm the YW secretary for those who don't know). I think the costumes were a pretty big hit overall, which always makes me happy. On the actual day of Halloween, we didn't dress up and ended up going to a friend's house and playing games with a few other couples.

Cecilia looking unamused

In honor of Halloween, we decided to host another murder mystery dinner. This one was called "Powar and Greede" and took place in 1930's Hollywood. I probably went a little overboard with it but I guess it made up for the last one we did which was when I was like 7 months pregnant and didn't really get into so much. Out of all the ones we've done so far, this was probably my favorite. I actually figured out who the murderer was - a first for me I think. We had some couples from the ward come and it was really fun. I tried out a bunch of new food recipes for it and most of them turned out pretty good. I'll post a few of them on the recipe blog.

The dinner group

Well that's all for now. I've got a lot to post for our trip to Cali for Thanksgiving. Hopefully I'll get to that one before Christmas!

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

2008-11-07T18:21:00.000-08:00

So nothing too eventful has been going on here but we do have lots of pictures we want to post. Cecilia is rolling over from back to front pretty much as soon as we put her down now. She did this the first time around 2 months but it wasn't on purpose - basically it was if she was crying for food or to get out of her crib. I think it was Halloween when she finally did it on purpose. Mark and I were at a friends and she did it when we weren't watching of course. She hasn't quite figured out front to back yet and sometimes gets frustrated when she rolls onto her stomach and can't get back. She is also in the beginning stages of laughing, but it takes something new and exciting to get it out of her. We have a video of the first time we gave her a rattle and she thought it was pretty cool. We'll have to post that in a later blog. Anyways, here are a bunch of random pictures. Enjoy!

Showing off her strong neck muscles

We love this one!

Little smiler (and drooler)

She can feed herself her bottles if you prop them just right...

Playing the Rocket Ship game with dad

The Bouncer Series

Posing with mom

Cee and Dad making faces for each other

Stay tuned for our Halloween adventures.