"Rose, that is a lovely name, Happy Thanksgiving." (name the movie!)

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all! And if you can name the movie the above title is from, you win. . . .ummmm. . . .a nice wet kiss from our little girl? Ok, so the title isn't ver batum, but it's a short conversation, and it's funny :) This Thanksgiving, we took an impromptu trip to Salt Lake. I was a little hesitant to go because I had to work the day before and 2 days after, and I hate not having enough time with family. But, we drove up after I got out of work (at 7pm) and little girl was in bedtime zone so she slept pretty much the whole way. We went to Aunt Siri's house for dinner, and my contribution? A very super yummy authentic and rather out-of-the-ordinary-because-most-people-don't-think-to-make-it pecan pie. It was beautiful! I made it at Trine's before dinner, and the only thing I forgot to put in was the brown sugar! Yeah I know, I had JUST popped the pie in the oven, and Kris looked at the unopened bag of brown sugar and asked, "did you not need the brown sugar?". Oops! I whisked the pie out and decided to just sprinkle the sugar on top. And yes, it was super yummy and delicious.

And, this week was my first week back at work. Am I alive and sane? Yeah, can you believe it?! Not me! Leaving Marin for 14 hours with her (capable) dad just seemed an insurmountable task for a new mommy who is loving her new calling. I prepared my big bag that I usually take to work, but this time I had to stuff a bunch more toys in there. My breastpump with all the trimmings, the little lunchbag thing for the milk with the cold pack, a lunch to feed an army (I get hungry!) 2 liters of water (I can't tell you HOW gross the water is here in Las Vegas. I swear it has arsenic in it, it's gross! So, I bring my own filtered stuff), all my gear for work, (stethescope, scissors, pens, hemostats, chapstick, tape, random stuff), and a sweet note from my hunny. That bag weighed like, 40 pounds, I kid you not! It was soooooo heavy! I needed wheels to haul that sucker around! But, I should just start parking on the top level of the parking garage so I can do the stairs with my back breaking bag o' fun, that'll get my bum back into shape :)

Speaking of back into shape. . . I have been lamenting and whining to Kris for about 2 weeks that I have been in a slump and I hadn't been losing any more weight because I had stayed the same weight, even with all my exercise! So, I started to eat more salads, at least one a day (I've pretty much been on an everything-with-little-reservations-diet since Marin's been born. I lost my appetite BIG time nursing her, so anything was better than nothing). I think that's helped bunch. I stepped on the scale this morning, and had lost 3 pounds! Yay! I now have 12 pounds to my goal weight. It's been a lot harder to cook healthy food having a time consuming baby (any mom can attest to that). So while I LOVE to make healthy food and veggies, it just takes longer! Working on it!

Oh, and in FUN news. . . . guess who's coming to Atlanta! Marin and I (unfortunately sans Kris) will be making the trek before Christmas! We'll be heading back on Christmas eve though. We'll be together as a little family for Marin's first Christmas, plus, I work the day after Christmas, so I need to be home for both. I am excited to see my family and show off my little Marin monkey :)

And this is just funny. I'm laughing at my husband because he is looking through his sophomore year book, and seeing all these girls who signed it, and left their phone numbers, with a perplexing resounding message of "call me". He must not have understood what that meant, because he never called any of them! Silly boy! Number of girls looking for a date?:8. Number of dates?: ZERO! Number of lessons learned?: One freakin HUGE one. :)

Picture time!




Here's Marin this afternoon.
A little finger sucking time. She LOVES her fingers!

I am so sad! This is one more little outfit she is too big for! She wore it for the last time to church today. :(

This is adorable. She got some sunglasses at my baby shower, and I put them on her the other night, she looked like she was ready to try out for the air force! Cute girl!

Ready for action!

Ah! The remants of my pecan pie. Keep in mind there were 4 other pies and 3 other desserts there, so I was surprised this much was gone.

Oh, and our little niece has her own princess playroom down in the finished basement, it is soooo cool, I totally want one.

Kris is always the one the kids want to wrestle, he's just that much fun. They kept begging him to come wrestle during dinner, and this is our nephew Mattias getting what he asked for, a good tickle!

Marins' aunt Melodie!

A little smirk from our bald cutie.

This is Kris's bestamor (grandma in Norwegian) and she is Marins oldamor (great-grandmother), she's serving a mission in SLC.

Snuggle time with daddy! She loves her papa so much, it's wonderful to see your husband be a dad.

That's it for now!

Bodies will be rolling. . . . well almost.

Monday, Monday, la la, la la la la la. Just bumming around today, nothing in particular. Kris and I went to the gym this morning, and I hopped on the treadmill to run my little (*ahem*) legs off. I went for about 2 miles, (in a shameful 30 minutes)
before I had to cut it back to a walk. But, a run is a run, no matter how slow it may be ;)

Wednesday is back to work! I think! I AM kind of excited to do something that get's me out of the house, but I know I'll miss my little girl. :( That's ok, she'll get to hang out with daddy all day! It'll be good for Kris, he's a great dad, but there is something to be said about what it's like to get up during the night with a baby and then be an "everything" during the day. Doing everything, singing everything, changing everything, burping, feeding, all with a smile on your face. It's a lot of work as any mom can attest to, even with just one baby!

Some new developments with the little squirt. She is trying DESPERATELY to roll over. She tries sooooo hard! I put her under her jungle gym and she arches her back and pushes with her feet while she swings her arm really fast over to the other side. She can't quite make it yet though. She doen't know what to do with that pesky 2nd arm, and that rather large noggin of hers presents a very heavy challenge! It's really cute to watch her try sooooo hard, she just keeps on trying, and then has a finger sucking snack in between:) You'll see in the pictures.

And, as I think I have mentioned, one of the things I love about my little Marin is her double chin, who doesn't love a chubby baby? Her little double chin has a little friend! A nice red rash! Yuck, poor girl! Kris noticed it when she was sitting in his lap and looking up at me. It was tucked waaaaay up there behind the third fat fold, and we had to pry her head up to get a good look at it (which she complained about quite loudly by the way). I cleaned it out and slapped some hydrocortisone cream on it. We'll see how it is tomorrow.

Ok, picture time!

This is after mama help her roll onto her tummy.
Here is our little acrobat hoping to squirm her way onto her belly.

Her head is so big. I say it so much, but look at it! No wonder she struggles to roll over!

We sat her up in the boppy so she can learn to sit on her own, she likes to try and stand, so she'll push herself waaaay back and we have to sit her up again. A total candid shot here, she's starting to look like a little person!

That's it for now!

Go Take a Hike!!

Pheww! (I am wiping the sweat from my brow by the way) Our friends from the ward called yesterday and invited us to go hiking today. They are big hikers, and have done some pretty extreme hikes, so it's a good thing I've been working out, so I can keep up! We went to Red Rock Canyon around 11:15 and started hiking. I wasn't sure how long the hike was, and I didn't want to be the pansy and ask. You always seem like a pansy if you ask how long the hike is, WHILE you're on the hike. So we started out. . . uphill, and continued uphill until we reached the summit, imagine that! That was pretty rigorous hiking, just the first part, and we had to take a break before we got to the summit. Marin was in her Kelty Kids backpack, and she was just hanging out! Daddy carried her most of the way (I know, I know!) We kept hiking, and hiking and hiking, and then. . . we hiked some more! I was getting a little tired. Kris and I ate our granola bars and apples, and we just kept hiking. Finally, we came to a picinic area, and I looked at the trail map on the side of the trail, and we were in the middle of a 6.5 mile hike! Yikes! No wonder I was starting to get tired! I am no stranger to exercise, I have always been active, but I usually keep my hikes to around 2, maybe 3 miles. I think it's because I get bored. I have to shake up my exercise routine quite a bit because I get bored. Anyway, I did carry Marin for a stretch, maybe a mile and a half, I think that just killed me. My poor hips were just DYING! They're still pulling back together from the big stretch of baby delivering (did you know that a woman's hips stretch, well, spread, up to 33% during chilbirth?! Crazy!) The last mile was killer, and it was uphill too, so that didn't help. Nevertheless, we made it! I think Kris's body was hurting too, and we were STARVING! I could have eaten the entire questionable contents of our refridgerator! But, home we sit right now, and I am going to take a nice warm bath :) That makes me happy. Just a few pics, mostly of landscape.

Picture time!
Marin's face was in the sun, she didn't like that, so she has a very unhappy look on her face.

These next ones are of the mountains. I was thinking of you dad!

Would you like some chicken to go with your garlic salt madame?

Well, yesterday turned out to be quite an intersting day for culinary...*cough* creations? In the morning, Kris made me breakfast, the sweetie! He made me some Eggo Waffles :) and scrambled eggs, with "fresh pepper". It was really quite cute. I started to eat my eggs and noticed that instead of pepper, I was eating poppyseeds! Kris wanted to make sure he used the "fresh" pepper, and had grabbed the jar of poppyseeds instead. Oh well, they were delicious ;)

For dinner last night we had some chicken fajitas, and as I was cooking the chicken, I went to spinkle on the garlic salt, and opened the wrong side of the top, and out came nearly half of the large 16 oz container of garlic salt onto my poor unsuspecting chicken strips. I had to scrape out the pan and rinse of each strip, an even then, it was still pretty potent, but tasty!

And for my final trick! This one actually turned out great. I needed to use up a couple of small avacado's last night. They were too little to make guacamole, so I decided to make a tomato and avacado relish, and it was soooo yummy! And what makes me so proud of myself, is that it's completely original! Not from any cooking show or cookbook! All made up by myself! So, if you want to give it a shot. . . here it is:

Avacado Tomato relish:
-2 small avacados, cut into small/med chunks
-1 med tomato, cut into small/med chunks
-2 TBS cilantro, fresh or or 1TBS dry
-1 TBS lemon juice
-1 tsp cumin
-1 tsp chili powder
-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
-1 TBS honey
-1 tsp garlic salt
-salt and pepper to taste
*Combine and put on burritos, fajitas, browned chicken.

Oh and. . . . Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's off to work we. . . WAIT? Today was supposed to be my first day back to work. . . hooray. I have been pumping myself up for weeks now, trying to get excited? Maybe? Ok, more so I can keep from crying and breaking up over the fact I have to leave my little girl, and not get one glimpse or sound or sniff of her cute wriggly little chubby body, for 14 hours! I know it's only 2 days a week, but my poor mama heart is just breaking. Anyway. I had my stuff all packed and ready to go, my breastpump, my lunch, my work stuff. Kris got up with Marin last night and my alarm went off at 5:05 this morning, and the hospital had called and put me on standby! That means they don't need me to come in right now, but should they need me later in the day, I have to come in. Basically, I can't go far :) And, to top it off, I get compensated a whopping $3.00 and hour to sit by the phone and wait anxiously for their phone call (generous, I know). No calls yet though :) (Don't tell anyone I smiled at that thought).

Kris is off to another interview with the University of Phoenix right now, things have been going well, so hopefully . . .

And picture time!
Here is our little bald cutie in her rolley thing.

Tummy time under her jungle gym. She really doesn't like tummy time, so it usualy lasts all of 2 minutes, but nonetheless! Tummy time is Tummy time!

One of Kris's former co-workers bought us the cutest winter outfit, with a little hat. And it would't be a complete outfit if Marin didn't drool on it, see it hanging from her chin?

Here's her outfit!

And I have officially been crapped on. That's right. Yesterday she was standing on my lap/belly while I was sitting, and Kris asked me if Marin spat up on me, and I said no. And she didn't. Then I looked down at my shirt, and saw a nice big pool of quite effervescent orange goo. Then I looked at her leg and saw it continuing to spill down onto my clothes. Yuck! Kris whisked her away and up into the bath, and I was left to figure out how to remove my gooey shirt without smearing baby poo all over face . Ahh the joys of motherhood! I still love my little girl though ;)

Here is a pic of the shirt! You can see it on my pants too. So gross.

This was the other night, Marin was sitting with some help from daddy, and looking at Kitty cat! It was really cute.

This was my favorite picture! She was getting ready to try and grab her, and Sadie was sniffing Marin's slobbery fingers.

That's all folks! Have a good one!

A day in the life. . .

Baby Hair! Above left is Marin just a few hours old. Look at all that light brown hair! Above right is Marin just a few days ago. The poor girl is losing all her hair! She practically has a comb over! Her hair (well, the remaining hair that is) has lightened quite a bit too. I can feel her permanent hair growing in though, and even though it's juuuust barely starting to come, it looks pretty light.

And now. . . .A Day in the Life of Marin! Presented by: Her Mama

(appx times by the way)

7 AM: Rise and Shine! I coo and squeel in my basket until mama or daddy pick me up.

7:05: Diaper change. My diaper is nice and FULL, so before I do any playing, I get my pants changed

7:10-7:30: A little bit of playtime! Mom and Dad will wiggle my legs and help me stand and I give them BIIIG smiles!

7:45: Time to get dressed! Usually mom gets me dressed, but sometimes daddy does too. That's always fun when daddy gets me dressed. He sometimes puts some funny clothes on me.

8:00: Breakfast! Mama nurses me :) I like that MUCH better than those silly bottles!

8:45ish: I'll play until now, then I am ready for my first nap, and I will FUSS FUSS FUSS until mama wraps me up like a burrito and puts me in my crib. Then I'll usually sleep around 45", sometimes I'll have a sleepy day and sleep for 2 hours or even 3!

9:30: Up again and PLAYTIME! I like to play under my jungle gym and look at all the bright colors. Mama will play with me and help me stand and make funny noises and faces. I like that, it makes me smile. Oh, and another diaper change or two, depending on the day :)

11:00: Lunchtime! This time mama or daddy will heat up some mommy milk and put it in a bottle. I don't like bottles, I like mama better!

12:00: Time for another nap! This time I'll sleep for around an hour or more. I need time to process all that playtime from this morning!

2:00: And it's snacktime, another bottle. :( I can't wait until nightime, mama nurses me at night. But after snack, it's playtime again!

4:30: A few more diaper changes and it's time for dinner! Another bottle . . .*sigh*

5:30: And it's time to get FUSSY! I will fuss until it's bathtime. I know it's almost time for bed, and I have so much learning to process from the day, it gives me a headache!

6:30: FINALLY! Time for my bath! I LOVE my bath! It feels so good and warm on my belly. If I'm lucky, daddy will take me in the BIG bathtub with LOTS of water for me to stretch and splash in. I also have some fun bath toys I like to look at and try to grab. I can't grab them yet, but I'm trying!

7:15 to 7:45: Mommy or daddy rub lotion on me and get me into my jammies. Sometimes I'll get a bottle, but most of the time, mama nurses me and then time for my bed! I usually get rocked for minute (I'm pretty much asleep anyway) and wrapped up again and into my crib.

11:45 or midnight: Mommy changes my diaper and feeds me and back to bed!

4:45 or 5:45: Time for a snack! And back to bed again, until it's time to wake up!

Houston, we have a laughing baby.

No pics today, sorry! This is going o be a quickie post while Marin naps. I have some stuff to do around the house.

Anyway! Some fun news. . . I think Marin has reached yet another milestone in her devolpment. Yesterday I was playing with her while she was laying on our bed, and I would take her arms up over her head say "Streeeeetch!" and she started to laugh! It was definately the beginnings of a laugh, but a true, honest to goodness exhale-while-grunting-intermittently laugh! I yelled for Kris to come listen so we could be amazed together. It was just adorable.

Last night Marin did great. I fed her at 11:30 and then she woke up at 5:15 to eat. It's been nice to get a little more uninterrupted sleep now that she's older.

This morning was my stroller class, and then afterwards I took Marin to the childwatch and hit the gym to do some weights. I was there for about 45", and I am feeling it already! My poor litte muscles are just exhausted after almost 2 hours of exercise. It's been good for me though. I know I'm losing inches, even if the pounds aren't coming off as quickly as I'd like (though they ARE coming).

That's all for now. Kris just finished an interview and baby and I are going to meet him at the library and hang out until his next one. I'll have more pics soon. :)

13 pounds and growing!

3 months and 13 pounds. Our little chunk-a-licous Marin is getting so big! She really is starting to develop a personality, she's actually a lot like her mama. She likes to be with people and loves to be active and stand and move around and bounce. She does not do well with just sitting. She'll get really frustrated pretty easily when she can't get her toy on the first couple of tries, and when it's time to sleep, she wants to be left alone!

I dressed her in one of the dresses I bought a while ago, but she finally is big enough to wear it. It is SOOOO cute! You'll see it in the pics. I also found some sretchy material (I won't say where. . . ) and stitched it to make a little headband for her, and tied a thick white ribbon on the top to make a bow. She looked adorable at church! I could see everyone sneeking a peek at her cute chubby cheeks :)

Today we had a couple from church over for dinner. They just moved here from Mississippi and they have a 2 year little girl and a 4 month old baby boy. They are the age as Kris and I, and are sooo nice. We really all got along pretty well. Nothing fancy for dinner, I made some spaghetti and homemade bread. The spaghetti sauce was interesting. It was good, but I kinda was experimenting, and then I accidentally used fresh cilantro instead of fresh parsley! I didn't even realize it until my guest said it was really good! It was a yummy meaty sauce with all the usual stuff: dried oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, bay leaf, crushed red pepper. Then I added some other yummy stuff to experiment. A little sugar, honey, cinnamon, and the accidental fresh cilantro. It was really tasty, but I still have some more experimenting to do before it's perfecto. Our friend made a tasty salad with spinach, mandarin oranges, sliced strawberries, crushed walnuts, parmesan cheese and a yummy red raspberry vinaigrette. It was really delicious. For dessert, we had vanilla ice cream with some almond falovored chocolate fudge that I made. I also took some salted mixed nuts and some chocolate chips, put them in the cuisinart with some cinnamon and sugar and roughly chopped them for a yummy topping.

Anyway, kitty needs some shots at the vets tomorrow and I need to do some pilates tonight, so here are some pics!

The bow! TADA! Here's Marin playing under her jungle gym.

Sitting on daddy's lap.

The cute dress!

There's a full body shot.

Hanging out with mama.

Have a great Monday tomorrow!

"The hardest part, was letting go, not taking part. . . "

Coldplay (my favorite band, by the way) really hit the nail on the head! "It really broke me heart..." I took Marin to the Y yesterday . . . . . . . and I put her in the child watch for the first time. SO SCARY! I knew the day would come, and I have been fearing it for so long. Marin turned 3 months on Thursday (yesterday) and was eligible to go to the child watch at the Y. I took her in and handed her over to AJ, a nice 40 ish lady, and walked past all the kids yelling "MOOOOMMMMM!"and out the door to my Ballet Burn class. I had to force myself to not think about her for the duration of my 30" class, that was hard. I finally half scampered back down the hall to get my little girl, and she was sitting in a bouncy chair half asleep...with a few little cracker crumbs in her hair. AJ said some of the older kids had wanted to "pet" the little babies, and one had broken through :) Ahh well. No harm no foul I suppose right? That was however a very. hard. thing. I am getting better I hope! Does it ever get easier for mama's to leave their babies?

This morning little girl was up VERY early. Well, I say very early, but it was just. . . early. She was ready to start the day at 6 AM! She ate at midnight, when we went to bed, and then at 4, so I put her in her basket next to our bed, and at 6 AM, she was cooing and making little happy screams. I finally took her out at 6:45 and fed her, thinking she would go back to sleep, but she was happy to see mama's face and ready to play! I pushed her over to daddy and rolled over. I was waaay too tired to play. Daddy took her downstairs and I got to sleep in.

We put Marin in her in her little walking scooter thing, and we got the cutest pictures. She was trying so HARD to grab her toy, it was soooo cute!

Picture time!

Here she is looking at her toy, the one with the big red bead in the front there.
She would open up her hand and wave it across to grab the toy, but that toy she has her hand on in the picture would get in the way! Poor girl, she would lt out little yelps of frustration evey now and then.

Not sure if you can see it, but here is our little bubble blower with a nice big bubble on her lips. She LOVES blowing bubbles.

Still trying hard!

Say hi to the camera!

Oh! And I almost forgot! I had a GREAT missionary experience the other day! I went to Office Depot to make copies of my eclair recipe and chatted with the nice copy lady there. She was raving about the picture of the eclair, and I told her about the recipe swap and invited her. She was working the evening shift and couldn't come though. Well, I thought about taking her an eclair after the recipe swap was over, but there weren't any left (no surprise, they ARE quite delicious). So the next day I kept thinking about her and wondering if I should go back, and I made up my mind to go and see her. So I put together the recipes we all swapped, a pass along card, a RS calendar and a note with my number and an invitation to church, packed up my little Marin and headed over to Office Depot! We chatted for a little bit and I verbally incvited her to church and even though she was working, the seed has been planted! We'll see, maybe someday!

That's it guys! Have a good weekend!

Pilates for post-preggo pudgies

This morning I was supposed to go to my pilates class at the Y (YMCA), but after baby went down for her nap, I fell asleep, until 10:30! That's when my class started! Ahh well. I put in one of my Winsor Pilates DVD's and worked my pudgy buns and thighs until they were screaming for mercy (and air!). I have been doing pilates for about 6 years, and getting back into it has been. . . painful. Let's hope we'll see some results though :) Today I put on a pair of jeans Melodie gave me (I brought them back from Utah) and while I can't button them, I can zip them and put a belt on! I must say though, Marin's nap this morning was a 3 hour one, and sleeping in, was WONDERFUL!

Tonight was the recipe swap at my house with the relief society. It was really fun! I got to do a demo and show everyone how to make chocolate eclairs, one of my favorites. Yum! They told me I should have a show like Rachel Ray! Such nice women :) Here's the recipe. . .

Chocolate Eclairs (SOOOO EASY!)

*The Pastry Dough:
-1 cup water
-1 stick of butter
-1/8 tsp salt
-1 cup flour
-4 eggs
>combine water, salt and butter in saucepan and melt butter, bring mixture to a boil (Med high heat). Reduce heat to low Vigrously stir in flour all at once. This will look scary and lumpy, but keep stirring until mixture forms a ball that kind of slides around inside of pan.
>transfer your slippery dough ball into your kitchen-aid mixing bowl, let cool for at least 5 minutes, with paddle attachment, add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one and scraping down sides of bowl when necessary. DON'T OVERBEAT! Mix this until the mixture sticks to the sides of the bowl and looks smooth.
>You're ready to bake! Take a gallon size ziplock bag, cut a corner off and spray the inside with ccooking spray. Fill with the doughy stuff. On greased cookie sheets, pipe a line about 3 inches, double back on top of that line, and then back again. So you'll have a very flat, squished "S" shape, I guess it looks like a duck. too.
>Bake at 400* for 35 minutes, remove, and cut a little slit in the top. Reduce oven heat to 375, bake again for another 10 minutes. Use your judgement, pull them out if they are getting too brown on top.

*let them cool, fill with nice thick chocolate pudding, or chocolate mousse if you're ambitious. Frost with some nice ganache frosting and ENJOY!

Someone try the recipe and let me know how they turn out!

Picture time!

This was this morning, little girl was sleepy again, but I want to take some pics with her, so here we are!
I love to kiss he fuzzy little head, it always smells good:)

Yesterday, helping dad on the computer.

Bathtime! She LOVES LOVES LOVES her bath! Look at that little Buddah (Buddha?) belly!

I love this pic, she has the funniest expression on her face!