My heart floated like a balloon.

The night after Lisa's shower, I came downstairs to find Creed watching TV like this, totally not posed, and it made me smile so I had to share.

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 4 - The Party Favors

This is my last baby shower post, I promise!

I wanted to come up with some kind of shower favor that would be useful, because I've gone home with a lot of cute favors that I had no idea what do to with that eventually had to be tossed. I always want to burn CDs for people, but since we like to keep things legal around here and through I-Tunes you can only burn things seven times, a CD wasn't a party favor option until recently when I-Tunes made it legal to upgrade your songs for a small fee and have a hayday burning as many copies as you like. Wahoo!

For Lisa's shower I put together a list of lullabies that I thought she would love to share with her little one (similar to the list I posted in the past with a few new discoveries).

I figure that even if you don't have a little one, you'll babysit a niece or nephew or grandchild and its always handy to know a lullaby or two. Is there anything that you would have added?

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 3 - What we did at the shower

I knew that Lisa likes baby showers with some sort of activity since it makes it a little less awkward when a lot of the guest don't know each other. I wasn't sure what to do with such a big group, but finally decided to try embellishing onesies with fabric designs since that could be a simple, fast project so people could rotate through. I drew up a bunch of simple designs (most my own, you'll recognize them from some of my prints for Sycamore Street Press, and a few others that I couldn't resist adding). Then Lisa's mom provided the onesies and I picked up some fat quarters of fabric and Heat & Bond. I just laid out scissors, a cutting mat, circle punch, and pencils and let guest go to town.

I think they actually had a lot of fun making them. I even heard a few that were planning to make more at home, which made me feel good.

We hung the finished onesies as part of the shower decorations
Here are a few so you can see how simple and cute they turned out (Sorry they all have horrible lighting, but I sent them home with Lisa, of course, so I couldn't take photos later)


I struggle a bit with baby shower games because I'm not a fan of most of them. They can be gross or awkward and embarrassing for both the guests, and the guest of honor. I spotted a shower game that I loved a while back, available here, and made a similar quiz with Lisa's help. I was happy with the way that they turned out and wish that I got a picture of them all lined up.
The other game that we played was a name game, where guests tried to name some children's book characters that I provided pictures of. I hosted this game at another shower, but this time I blew up all of the pictures and framed them.
Then of course after the games and food, we oohed and aahed over Lisa's gifts as she opened them.

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 2 - The Shower!

So I woke up the morning of Lisa's shower knowing that my house was a mess and I had no party decorations since I'd been busy planning games and activities. Whoops! Luckily, I bought extra paper for the invites so I started cutting and sewing and ten minutes later, I had a simple garland.

I also made a bunch of paper airplanes that I hung around my chandelier with fishing line (Pardon the backlit picture with no one smiling)
I was so grateful that Lisa's mom was in charge of food and I only had to gather drinks. I collected a bunch of different orange drinks in individual bottles and thought I went overboard and had way too many, but ended up with just enough.
And I couldn't resist these adding these blue paper straws.
I used extra scraps of paper to put little flags around one of the cake plates
and little paper airplanes for the mini red velvet cupcakes that Lisa's mom made.
She did such a great job with the food. She even made cookies using only orange M&M's

And had a lot of orange and blue candy.

The other thing that made things look really festive were the big round orange balloons Lisa's mom ordered, because Lisa LOVES balloons.

I hope Lisa felt spoiled on her special day!

Lisa's Baby Shower - Part 1 - The Invitations

Last weekend, I hosted a shower for my lovely friend Lisa, who is expecting a baby boy to arrive in the middle of December. I made the invitations myself, and I had to make 30 of them so I tried to keep things simple (you know I tend to go overboard). For some reason baby girl themes come so much easier to me (ironic considering that I only have a son) so after some brainstorming, I decided to go with paper airplanes because I thought it would be cute to have paper airplanes all over at the shower for decorations, and I've never seen anyone do that.

So here's the invite:

I made everything turquoise and orange because those are the prominent colors that Lisa used to decorate her nursery. I picked up some scrapbooking paper in those colors and cut them up and folded hundreds of tiny paper airplanes during our long drive to and from Disneyland. Then I used them like confetti and stuffed some in each envelope. I even found paper from American Crafts that was orange on one side and had paper airplanes on the other side that I printed the invites on so this is what they looked like from the back.
I designed some quick corresponding labels and printed them on my inkjet printer, but if they get even a tiny bit wet, they run all over the place so I covered each one with clear packing tape and cut them out.

Doesn't it always feel good to look at a stack like this that you have completed?
More shower details to come soon!

Creed takes a Trip to Zions National Park

So the second weekend in October we had no plans and I IM'd Lisa at work to ask her what she was doing that night. The answer, nothing. So I asked if she and Tyler were up for a spontaneous trip to Zions National Park and a few hours later, we were off.

We spent the night at Lisa's sister April's (thanks April!!!!!) and spent the next day roaming Zions. Mind you, Lisa and I are very pregnant and Creed is only two so we only made it through a few hikes, but it was such a beautiful way to spend the day.

Creed was so good about hiking a lot of the way by himself.
The only part I regret is that we forgot to bring along Creed's National Park passport to be stamped. At least Lisa took these pictures so we can remember the trip well.
The weather was perfect!




That's Larry and Tyler under that giant tree. Don't these pictures make you want to abandon your computer and head outside?

The Evil League

For several years in a row in Columbus, we threw big Halloween parties, but last year we didn't because we were new in Utah and pretty much had no friends yet. This year, we decided to start up again, but on a smaller scale since our tiny house only fits so many people (plus, let's be honest, we still do not have THAT many friends, give us some time to work up to that).

This year's theme was villains. We sent the guests these creepy severed finger invites from Martha Stewart with a "Don't Forget!" reminder to come to a meeting on the Evil League of Evil and a blog address for more info.

Truthfully, at the time I sent out the invites, I had no idea what we were going to do and told myself that I could come up with elaborate plans later.

Here are the Villains that showed up to our meeting to see if they could get into the Evil League of Evil (they all did an awesome job). Bonnie and Clyde

Captain Hook and Smee (you have to be impressed with Lisa figuring out a way to incorporate her pregnant belly)
the Kathy Bates character from Misery and the swam of bees that killed Thomas Jay in My Girl (Whit said that was the movie that most traumatized her in her youth so that was the most evil villain she could possibly think of)
Wal-Mart AKA big-box American Capitalism and Big Oil
Tanya Harding and Kirk (who warned us ahead of time that he has a policy against dressing up on Halloween, but we wanted him to come anyway)
Larry was a classic Vaudeville villain
and I was The Queen of Hearts (although I had plans for an elaborate Elizabethan collar that I just didn't have time to finish sadly)
Hannibal and Medusa.
Once all of the guest arrived we sent them out on to prove how evil that really are. I made scratch off lotto style cards with eight evil deeds they had to perform before they could begins their training for the Evil League of Evil. Of course I forgot to take pictures of hardly anything because I was rushing around all night, but I used this tutorial, which gives you an idea of what they were like.

Some of their evil tasks included talking on a cell phone during a movie

Recruiting a henchman (this is my favorite photo of the night)

Rooting for the U (Larry and I both went to BYU and couldn't help giving some of our big U fan friends a hard time)

Once they had all their photos they got a clue that sent them to The King's English, a local bookstore, because every super villain has to know how to research things like where to find kryptonite and what Kim Jong Ill would like for his birthday. There they had to find a cashier and quote the first two lines of Poe's "The Raven" to get their next directions. The cashier gave them each and old book that was hollowed out to hold two tiny cameras and a clue.

It said, "You all need a secret Lair that commoners wouldn’t be interested in entering. Head to Summum Pyramid: the Pyramid of Modern Mummification to see just such a lair, and no we cannot reveal whose lair this is, but we warn you to be stealth, you don’t want them to catch you snooping. We thought these cameras might come in handy for surveillance purposes."

And yes, there seriously is a pyramid downtown where they practice modern mummification on pets.

There they found a bucket with Halloween whistles in it and a clue that said, "Every Super Villian needs to have a suitable secret identity; someone who seems crazy enough to keep people from getting close, but not crazy enough to be a threat. Head to Gilgal Garden for a good example. Once you are a member of the Evil League of Evil, you may use these items to make the League’s secret signal if you are in great need of help. "

At Gilgal Garden there was another bucket with glow-in-the-dark masks, and a clue that said, "The key to creating newsworthy chaos is setting the scene, be sure to pick the creepiest scene possible before you strike; for example a dark empty amusement park. Head to the rides at Liberty Park to see what we mean. In the meantime, we have provided these masks to wear for those of you who do not yet have a foolproof secret identity. Be sure to wear them to your final destination!"

At the empty amusement park they found another bucket full of surprised balls that I made like this that had skull rings in them and directions to head back to our house to be handsomely rewarded.

I think that everyone had fun on their adventure. It seemed like they did. In the meantime, I was home finishing dinner and dessert. When everyone got back, we had a candlelit dinner on our back patio, which of course I didn't remember to take pictures of until the end. We served hot apple cider, pumpkin soup and chili in bowls made from hollowed out pumpkins, and spinach salad, and little cornbread muffins.
with Mummy cookies (thanks for the suggestion mom) and pumpkin cake for dessert.

Then we played our homemade version of SceneIt using famous villain scenes, of course.

It really was a lot of fun and thanks to all of our friends for being up for an adventure!

One more Trip to Disneyland

We had one free weekend in October and after a little bit of debate, we decided to take a quick trip to Disneyland since it might be our last chance to stay at Larry's mom's for free if she sells her house next summer. Creed was thrilled with the idea and my mom ended up being able to come along. My little brother and his girlfriend Brenna were also spending the weekend in CA for the BYU game so they spent Friday at Disneyland too. Unfortunately, do to random circumstances involving Utah's fall break, Australia's spring break, and certain blackout dates for season pass holders, I've never been to Disneyland when it was SOOOOOO CROWDED and to make matters worse, it was really hot. That said, most of the lines moved pretty fast, and it was so fun to be there with Creed who thinks all the characters are real.He got to meet Mickey twice the first day and was shy and excited both times.

He rode the Toy Story ride in California Adventure with us and when he got off, he tearfully told me, "I was terrified, Mama!"
So here are a few pictures of him before he was "Terrified" (How does he even know that word?)
He took a nap and woke up during the Aladdin show. I've never taken the time to see the show before, but we opted for it for the air conditioning and we were all impressed. It was like a 45 minute Broadway Show.
It's always fun to see the whole park decked out for Halloween, even Mickey.
We left after the fireworks show (which Creed is still talking about) and debated about going back the second day or just skipping it all together.
Ultimately, we decided to go back for one more day, but to leave as soon as we all felt tired. It actually ended up being a very relaxed, fun day and we stayed much longer than I thought that we would. We rode a few things at Disneyland when the park opened and then avoided the crowds and spent most of the day at California Adventure. Creed and I started out riding finding Nemo while my mom and Larry went on some grown-up rides.
We had his silhouette cut out since I've always wanted to do that.
we also had some mother/son time in Bugs Land where we rode the Heimlich the Caterpillar train over and over again.
and we met Mr. Incredible
which Creed really thought was very incredible.
He also rode the carousel eight times!
He loved feeling like he could fly on the golden Zephyr so we also all rode that a few times in a row.
And he loved having my mom there to steal drinks from.
I actually took very few photos, but just wanted to note a few of Creed's favorite things here. He still loved the Playhouse Disney Show with Mickey Mouse. He refused to go on Pirates of the Caribbean. He still talks about flying in Boats on the Peter Pan ride and the flying Dumbo ride, but his favorite ride was definitely It's a Small World, although when he tells you about it, he will tell you that it's a "little bit fast!"

Overall, I would say the trip was exhausting, but still well worth it. Plus how can you complain when your trip starts with this
And it ends with hours of this on the way home?

Creed makes a jack-o-lantern

All week, Creed pointed out to me that our pumpkin didn't have a face yet. He was desperate for one by Halloween and the idea made me feel a little sick (yep, 23 weeks and still-not over morning sickness). Since Larry was out of town, I had no choice but to call my dad and ask for some help, and boy did he come through.

We spent Halloween in Provo with my parents and they took good care of us. Creed requested a happy and silly pumpkin and that's just what he got.

It was out on the porch whole we were trick-or-treated and someone came around and gave my dad an award for the best carved pumpkin. Isn't that a great idea? Trick-or-treating can be quite a selfish event and what a good way to help kids get in the mode of giving too. As you're trick-or-treating you could have an award for the best pumpkin, the best costume, the scariest house, etc.
Thanks for everything Dad!

Max From Where The Wild Things Are

This year for Halloween, I made Creed a costume for another book character, Max, from Where The Wild Things Are. Thankfully, my mom came over and helped me make it because it took us way longer to make than we thought that it would and my mom did a lot of the sewing.

I am so happy with the way it turned out so please indulge me while I post way too many poor quality photos.

Creed knows the book well so every time that he wore the costume, he kept quoting Max saying, "I'll eat you up!" and "Be still!"
I loved seeing his long tail drag all night. He looked so adorable.
I had to bribe him to put it on, but it was quite comfy and warm and he wanted to keep it on afterwards.
My mom went trick-or-treating with us and Creed made it to four houses before he said he was done and wanted to go back to Grandma's house so then we trick-or-treated our way back home and were done. Most of her neighbors told him to take another piece of candy and he kept saying, "No, thank you." One told him, "Why don't you take something else?" and he said, "I don't need something else."
We made the hands so they could be mittens or we could slide then off when he needed to use his fingers.

When we got home Creed was content to just sit on the couch and eat one sucker. If only he'd stay this way when he gets older!

Dreams really do come true!

I'm not having the best night (while I was in the bathroom, Creed crawled under my desk and turned off the powerstrip to my computer. I lost some unsaved Photoshop files that I spent a really long time on and it's killing me. There were tears and it was all my own fault for not double checking that they were saved.)

Anyway, I need to take a break and think about something happy so let's talk about how Laurel saved the day by lending us her daughter's peacock costume from last Halloween. You've never seen a happier kid! His dream of being a peacock for Halloween came true! (and it didn't even have to involve a leotard or tutu or tights)

I wish you could have all seen him in person because I promise that it would have made you grin!

Creed takes a trip to Bear Lake

We spent the first weekend of October at Bear Lake with our friends Rachel and Jeff (for free, might I add because Jeff's sister let us use her condo. You'll notice that's the theme of all the places that we went this month: free places to stay, which made for cheap travel).

We spent most of the weekend relaxing, watching General Conference, and eating some amazing food, but the chilly weather didn't keep us from venturing out to visit the lake.

Creed was thrilled with all of the tiny shells all over the beach and didn't hesitate to soak himself in the lake.

We even found a letterbox along our way, which took us along this cool boardwalk.
And of course, many raspberry shakes were sampled since that's what Bear Lake is known for.

Did I say it was fall?

Good thing we took advantage of the fall weather on Monday because Tuesday we woke up to this

I hurried to bundle Creed up to go out and play in our first snow, thinking it would melt quickly, but it continued to snow off and on all day long and into this morning.

Oh, UTAH!

Sampling Utah

Since we don't know if we will always be living in Utah, we've been doing our best to explore while we're here (plus it's just a fun way to live. I really think the more you explore the place you live, the more chance you have to find things to fall in love with). Now that we've been here a little over a year, here are a few of the things we've done:

Ate lavender ice cream and sipped lavender lemonade at Lavender Days

Watched the grand champions at the Sheep Dog Festival

Shopped at Swiss Days in Midway

Hiked to Stewart Falls

Raced down the Alpine Slide

Stayed with the Randalls at their cabin in Kamas

Went on a moonlit tramride at Sundance

Hiked to Delicate Arch and spent a weekend in Moab

Admired Christmas Lights and Temple Square

Sledding at Gorgoza Park Sledding Resort in Park City

Saw a touring broadway production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Took a road trip to Las Vegas and stayed in a posh hotel

Covered ourselves with Paint at the Holi Festival

Took two trips to the family cabin at Lake Tahoe (without Larry both times)

Took Creed to the Dinosaur Museum and Children's Park at Thanksgiving Point

Roasted Hot Dogs in Big Cottonwood Canyon

Kite and Balloon Stampede on Antelope Island

Dipped our toes in the Great Salt Lake

Payson Onion Days Festival

Had Ice Cream at The Big Red Barn in Santaquin (and apple cider slush that makes my heart pitter-patter)

9th and 9th Street Festival

Spent many an afternoon using our memberships at the Hogle Zoo and Gateway Children's Museum so we could ride the train and visit the baby giraffe

Toured Red Butte Gardens (and we really recommend their Halloween event for little kids)

Ate fried food at the Utah State Fair (which is nothing like the Ohio State Fair)

Sampled all the raspberry shakes we could while spending the weekend at Bear Lake

Hiked at Zion's National Park

Sampled tons of new restaurants (new to us anyway)

Mazza

Koko Kitchen

Kyoto

Five Guys

Smash Burger

Crown Burger

Rumbi's

Emigration Market

Trio

Pat's Barbecue

Ruth's Diner

Moochie's

Lonestar Taqueria

Rooster

The Soup Kitchen

The Beehive Tea Room

Big City Soup

Tulie Bakery

Mini's Cupcakes

Les Madeleines Bakery

Vinto

Bruges Waffles and Frites

There are still a lot of things I want to see and do so we'll see what we can fit into the next year while we have a newborn. Here are a few things on my list:

Spiral Jetty

Fossil hunting

Homestead Crater

This is the place

Wheeler Farm

Treehouse Museum

Dinner on the Heber Creeper

Weekend at Zions

Camping in Goblin Valley

Shakespeare festival in Cedar City

Trip to yellowstone

Restaurants

Sawadee

Pizzeria 712 in Orem

Communal in Provo

What am I missing? What's on your list?

A Preview on our October

I'm still behind on blogging because our October has been a little crazy. For the last year, Larry worked six days a week and then on Sundays we were busy with our callings at church so we weren't left with much time to spend as a family. I guess we've been trying to make up for that now that Larry is doing research for most of this year and has a fairly regular schedule. The first weekend in October, we spent the weekend at Bear Lake with our friends the Davids. The second weekend we called Lisa and Tyler on Friday afternoon and asked them if they wanted to head to Zions National Park for the weekend and we were off a couple hours later. The weekend after that we made another fairly last minute decision to go to Disneyland for the weekend and my mom made the trip with us to meet up with Eli and Brenna who were in CA for the BYU game. Then last weekend we threw a Halloween party for some friends in our neighborhood, and the preparations took over a lot of my week.

I feel like I need to catch my breath and just enjoy some of the everyday sites around here. Like the view out of my dining room window.

And the piles of leaves in my backyard.
And here's a little preview of Creed's unfinished Halloween costume. I let him watch way too much TV today while I finished it so more pictures are to come soon.
And PS- for the last month and a half, if you ask Creed what he's going to be, he promptly answers, "A Peacock!" He seriously has his little heart set on it so we will also be borrowing a peacock costume. Luckily, we have a friend who has one and several Halloween events to attend.

And PPS - Do you know how hard it is to find a peacock costume that does not involve a leotard or a tutu?

Creed Takes a Trip to Antelope Island

We decided to live it up over Labor Day weekend and spent Friday night at Swiss Days in Midway visiting my mom and Grandma at their jewelry booth. Saturday afternoon we went to the Balloon and Kite Stampede on Antelope Island. Then Monday we went to Onion Days in Payson and got ice cream at the Big Red Barn in Santaquin. Too bad my camera only made the trip to Antelope Island so that's all that I have to show you. It actually ended up being too windy for Balloons, but not windy enough for kites so the festival wasn't much, but we did have fun exploring the island. I made Larry stop on the drive out to take a picture of me feeling like I was walking on water (the water is shallow for a really long way out from the road)

After we visited the festival and had our fill on cotton candy, we explored the island.
I read that there was a beach with showers there so I wanted to investigate the beach. It was a bit of a hike down to the water and I have never seen so many sandflies or smelled such a stinky lake so I was glad that we were not there to swim, but what little boy can resist a big beautiful pool of water, especially one that will make you float so easily?
I had swimming in the Great Salt Lake on my list of things to do while we are in Utah and I think I'm going to count this. The stinky smell was worth the beautiful view.
And Creed got a lesson in skipping stones to boot.

Happy birthday to us

I made it back from Lake Tahoe just in time to celebrate my 29th birthday with Larry. For the second year in a row he surprised me by making a cake.It was the perfect little celebration. He also treated me to a night out to dinner and to watch the movie Paperheart, which made for a happy evening together.
Then a month later we got to celebrate Larry's birthday. It's funny how as parents, a lot of birthday celebrations are more for the kids than the parents, even if it's their birthday. Creed was SOOOOOO excited to help make Larry a cake.

And he insisted that we have birthday flags up like we had for his birthday, but they needed to be Larry's favorite color, black (which makes for sort of a bleak looking birthday celebration, but we left it up for Halloween). I decided to just make a miniature garland for the chandelier and Creed dutifully stood by me at the sewing machine, handing me one tiny flag at a time.

Then we made a simple card to match.Before we moved from Columbus, Cat made our friend David a chocolate cake with the most amazing brown sugar frosting, and Larry loved it so she walked me through making it. It's called Penuche Icing (I think) and everyone who stopped by to try a piece asked for the recipe so I thought I would share it here.

1 stick of butter, melt then add

1 cup brown sugar, boil over low heat for two minutes while stirring

add 1/4 cup of milk, bring to a boil while stirring

add 1 3/4 to 2 cups of powdered sugar

a pinch of salt

2 drops of vanilla

pour over cake

And Creed decorated the cake all by himself.

And at the end of the evening, we had some surprise birthday well-wishers!

More Freezer Paper Tees

One night at the cabin, Brenna and I worked on some freezer paper stencil t-shirts. I didn't get a photo of Brenna's shirt, but I made Larry a robot shirt to match Creed's.

And I made Creed this firefly shirt based on this one that I love, but is sold out.

Lake Tahoe 2009

My parents go to my grandparents' cabin at Lake Tahoe at the end of every summer so for the second year in a row, Creed and I tagged along without Larry, who was busy at work. This year Candice and her kids made the trip too, along with my little brother, Eli, and his girlfriend, Brenna, so we had a fun group. Creed and Cole loved feeding the bluejays on the deck every morning.

We spent a lot of time at the beach, and Creed couldn't have been happier.
He spent a lot of his time pretending to be an alligator crawling through the water.
(Candice took a lot of these pictures with my camera, which is why they look way better than most of my pictures)
The boys had fun making a sandcastle with my dad.
Creed loved the sand and kept jumping in the water and then rolling in the sand (it made me feel uncomfortable just watching, but he loved it)
We hiked down to Emerald Bay. Creed hiked the whole mile down on his own, but thank goodness I had Eli and Brenna to help me carry him most of the way back up that steep hike.
I think when Candice took this picture of Eli and Brenna, Grant and my dad were under that dock catching and releasing crawdads. This picture is making me miss summer a bit.
We also always have to go miniature golfing while we're at Lake Tahoe. Creed wandered through all three courses checking everything out. He loved this cannon that you load your golfball into.


He was pretty busy during the whole trip, but I did manage to catch a picture of him with my handsome Grandpa Carr.
The only thing that would have made it better would have been Larry making the trip or Marissa and her family.

Thanksgiving Point

We had a few other adventures this summer that I've been meaning to blog about. One was a day at Thanksgiving Point to visit the Dinosaur museum and Children's Garden with my mom, Candice, and her kids when they were in town. Doesn't Creed look so old in this picture? When did he thin down and when did his neck get longer?

Lately, we've been battling a lot about putting on sunscreen because Creed hates it. My friend Annie recommended this sunscreen stick for babies by Neutrogena, and I love it. It's really thick so Creed ends up looking a little pale when he wears it, but he likes to put it on and it keeps him protected (of course he needs a little help from mom to rub it in).
I can't wait to visit the Children's Garden again some time when its a little less crowded, but we still had a lot of fun.

Our morning of thrifting

Lisa, don't even think about reading this post!!!!!!

Creed and I spent part of our morning thrifting at DI (our neighborhood thrift store). Thrifting, with Creed is never easy; I have to have a goal in mind and drag him straight to where I need to look, and I only have about two minutes before he's fed up and makes his escape to the toys (which are usually mostly broken and grimy at this particular location) and then it is impossible to get him to check out anything else.

This morning I needed to find some hardback books suitable for a Halloween project that I have in the works (more on that later). Not only did I find what I needed (although I wish I would have had more than two minutes to make my selection), but we also found some treasures in the toy section.

How could I resist this Melissa and Doug wooden race track in perfect condition, with both of the cars taped to it for $4.00 instead of $50.00?

And then I fell in love with this beauty! I never even knew a toy version of a Polaroid camera existed, and I think it's the coolest thing ever!

I'm not sure how it's supposed to work because the only post that I can find about it is this one from designer Swiss Miss, who is looking for one, but it even came with it's own set of fake polaroids (and I love that some of then have charming drawings on them from a previous owner.

It's destined as a gift for my polaroid loving friend Lisa's baby boy if I can part Creed from it.

Luck, be my lady tonight.

I've never considered myself one of those lucky people, you know those people who regularly win cars in raffles and vacations for being the 1,000,000th customer (Marissa has a friend like that though and so do I).

Granted we do have the occasional strike of luck around here, like a few months ago when I woke to the sound of Creed playing in the bathroom. He usually wakes me first thing, and I immediately knew something was wrong. I ran into the bathroom to find him standing on a stool, sink running, with my contact case half open. No contact in sight. I wear gas permeable contacts that run close to $300 a pair and last about three years. AHHHHHHHH! I panicked and hopelessly searched the floor just in case because I don't have an optometrist here yet and don't have a way to get a replacement lens. It was nowhere to be found.

I shed a few tears as I comforted Creed who clearly knew he did something he wasn't supposed to. Then we said a little prayer together. I gave up on the search and picked up the rug since I noticed in my search it could use a wash and there, underneath the middle of the rug, sat my contact, still in perfect condition. Wow!

And then there was last Christmas, when Larry was heading from my parents' house up to Salt Lake to work and couldn't find his I-pod as he was getting in the car. He was pretty sure it was somewhere in the car and decided to look for it later. He called me that night to tell me that it wasn't in the car after all and asked me to check by my parents' kitchen table. He was 95% positive that's where it was, but there was a slight chance he dropped it in the snow outside. I got caught up putting Creed to bed and forgot to look until the morning, when I discovered the I-pod was not in the kitchen. It was not in the house. I had no hope in finding it in the 6 inches of fresh snow outside, especially after many cars had come and gone and it was probably smashed to pieces anyway, but like I good wife, I trudged out there in my wellies and kicked the snow around. I couldn't find it anywhere and just as I decided to go inside, my boot hit something. The Ipod, case full of ice. I took it in sure that it was ruined for life, but I accidentally turned it on as I pried the case off to break off the ice and it worked flawlessly. Yes, Larry was seriously lucky with that one.

Well, a month ago, I headed to the doctor's office with Creed in tow to hear our new baby's heartbeat for the very first time. Larry had to cancel last minute because he was stuck in a conference so I felt very alone when my doctor's eyes got larger and larger as she listened for a heartbeat and there wasn't one. When she finally turned the doppler off, there was a deafening silence, and I felt almost a sense of relief that at least for a moment, she didn't say the awful words that we both knew she had to say, because I didn't think my heart could take it. She slipped out of the room and came back a minute later, and asked if I could head straight to the hospital for an ultrasound. She said they would be waiting for me there.

I cried the whole drive there. It was all I could do not to loudly sob because I was trying my hardest not to freak Creed out, and from the backseat he kept asking, "Mama, you ok? Mama, you feel better, ok?"

Larry met me at the hospital door with a long silent hug and we headed up for the ultrasound. A chatty girl in the waiting room informed us that I'd be after her and a few other women, and I'm sure she was annoyed when they skipped everyone and asked me to come back, but I just couldn't bring myself to explain why they were rushing me ahead of everyone.

It only took moments for them to bring the baby up on screen and it was immediately clear that it was squirming all over the place. As I watched its tiny heart flutter, I can honestly tell you that I've never felt so lucky in all my life.

I'm due at the end of February and am trying to patiently wait until the 20th to find out what I am having. Just like my last pregnancy, I am still feeling sick (poor Larry has cleaned up a lot of throw-up) and now regularly feeling the baby move around makes the nausea even worse, but I swear, each tiny twitch and pokes makes me feel like the most incredibly lucky person on earth. Now we just have to wait until February to meet this fantastic new little person!

PS- If you see Creed and he asks you about the baby in your belly, please do not be offended, he currently thinks everyone has a baby in their belly.

PPS- I wanted to include a picture of my belly, but it seems I have no recent pictures because I've been the one taking all of our pictures. I tried to take one myself this morning and this was the best that I could do.

So I asked Creed to take one and this is how he did.
And then of course he needed me to take a picture of his belly too.

How Creed Spent His Summer Vacation

Sneaking out of bed and into his parents' bed almost every night

Playing with Play-Doh
Building up his muscles
Blowing giant bubbles
Creating masterpieces
being mysterious
collecting snails after rainstorms

Sitting on the lap of anyone who has time for a good story


Collecting Pixar Cars and driving them for hours at a time

Testing out mom's lipstick to see if it makes good mustaches
relaxing on the couch
discovering that bathtub crayons make better mustaches
making the kitten who lives across the street his new best friend (we won't mention the kitten's name because the kitten belongs to college boys and its name does not mean something nice)
Sharing toys with his new best friend
and trying his new best friend's patience

Getting into messes
Picking up girls at the park (we spent a LOT of time at the Seven Canyons Fountains at Liberty Park)
Fighting Crime
Recovering from Hand, Foot, and Mouth
Finally learning how to ride that trike like the wind
And riding on the back of Dad's bike when his legs got tired
Rooting for the Buckeyes
Cooking all sorts of delicious imaginary things
working on the farm at the Utah State Fair

Raising butterflies
and releasing them
solving mysteries (he thinks that pipe is for blowing bubbles so some mysteries remain to be solved)
driving fire engines

taking lots of trips to the zoo with friends like Piper
and seeing all the new baby animals
and bursting with excitement at every chance to ride the train at the zoo!
I have to say, I think it was a pretty good summer.