From Pride and Prejudice...to the Zoo!

This past weekend we went to a wedding for one of Eric's classmates. Unfortunately I forgot the camera so these pictures I found online don't do a lot of justice. But this house was absolutely gorgeous. It felt like we stepped right into Pride and Prejudice! We had a fabulous time.



The main hallway in the Cairnwood Mansion.


The grounds were gorgeous, and the rain was nice and waited until we were all inside to start!


The Mcneil Avian center just opened at the zoo so we went to check it out. It was pretty awesome. In one of the rooms the birds just fly free, unfortunately that means they poo wherever they want. All the employees working there carry around wet wipes for those unfortunate visitors!


I think Eric and I were more into this particular visit then Lilli was.
(check out that hair, it gets lighter all the time..we may end up with a fair haired child on our hands!)

Don't look at me to close! I'm not exactly looking my best these days.


This little green bird right behind Lilli was pretty cute.

You can't end an enjoyable saturday without a delicious slurpee! It totally hit the spot.


Yay, I have only 3 1/2 weeks to go! At my last appointment the doctor was saying we should cross our fingers that Carmen will come early. We're hoping for week 38-39..I guess we'll see.

The Biggest...Eater!!

We enjoyed a really nice Father's Day. I made a recently discovered recipe for enchiladas, yum! And of course I always enjoy an excuse to make some sort of dessert. I tried out a new recipe for Carrot Cake, which I actually think I like a little better then the one I have used in the past. This recipe has a lot less oil.





Lilli has never been a huge eater, she eats just enough to keep her going I think. Well yesterday she completely outdid herself, it was pretty funny. All in all she consumed an entire can of peaches (yes, the big 29 oz can! minus a few that I ate!), cheese, ham and crackers, and two single tortilla quesadillas. Wow! I kept expecting her to let me know she was done but all she did was keep asking for more. Nothing wrong with that, it will definately help her weight gain :) Oh, and she has also become extremely proficient in using the fork. She ate every single one of those peaches with the fork, surprisingly none of them ended up in her lap.




mmm, peaches!



Mario Kart anyone? Lilli started out just enjoying the music, she dances around whenever it's playing, but recently has showed an interest in driving, with Dad's help of course. She'll be a pro by the time she's 5!

Rain...And more rain

I really do have a good excuse for not blogging in awhile! Not really, I'm just to lazy to take pictures...but this is what we've been up to.

A lot of rain! We've been rotating between gallons of rain and extreme humidity when it's not. Not very fun for an extremely pregnant woman. But I do have to laugh, and laugh again. A week or so ago I dropped by a sister from the wards home, and as I was coming out of her house (while holding Lilli) of course it was raining like crazy, I totally missed the step and fell! I was fine of course but Lilli just started wailing. This poor sister was so upset, I felt really bad. She speaks Portuguese, and very little English, so in what little she knew she told me her house was bad and she was worried the baby would be hurt. It took a lot of convincing to tell her I was fine, Carmen was fine, and I was just extremely embarrassed! (After all, I am the one back in the day that fell off my high heeled shoe and broke my foot! I am forever accident prone! hehe)
This week Carmen has started moving down, which means I really have trouble keeping my basketball shorts on! I was taking dinner to a sister in the ward, and had to park about 20 feet from her house (gotta love street parking!) So here I am, Lilli on one arm, a box on the other and every five steps stopping to pull the shorts up. I really do need to start wearing a jumper or something!
Hope this was good for a laugh for all of you. :)


Eric stumbled over this idea somewhere online (it's called an earthbox)...Basically you get the big plastic storage box (I think they are like $5 at Wal-mart/Home Depot/etc. You cut around the lid so it will fit and stick it in the bottom of the box, get a pvc pipe and cut a spot for it. Then you cover the whole thing with soil and plant your choices (we did tomatoes and cucumbers), then cover the entire thing with a large trash bag (we used the heavy contractors bags) and put the edge you cut from the lid back on to hold it down. The pvc pipe is for watering. This method is supposed to help your plants grow faster...which is DID! We neglected getting the tomato cages for several weeks and during that time the tomato plant had shot up and broken over in the rain storms twice. It is actually looking okay and we think it will survive the third time! The cucumber plant is of course looking awesome.


I'm still plugging away at my organ class. Believe it or not, practice DOES work! I am actually progressing, I still have a lot to learn but I have impressed myself with what I have accomplished.


When we bought this house the owners had a security system, but they took everything with them, and we had just never bothered to get a new one. Well one evening several weeks ago there was a knock on the door. Turns out it was a guy representing Honeywell (based out of Utah!) and he was offering a really fabulous deal on a wireless security system, that way the thieves... or whomever.. can't cut your telephone line and disable the system. We have never really felt the need for this, we have always felt really safe in our neighborhood. But we decided it couldn't hurt, since we do live in the city after all it's better to be safe. It turns out the salesman was LDS, from the Cache Valley! And the three guys that showed up to install the system later that night were also LDS from the Salt Lake Valley! This was their summer job and they all went to school during the winter and didn't have to work. It was fun to visit with them.


Yay! We have painted! Eric had his little hiatus from home improvement and finally caught a few minutes to finish painting this room. It turned out very nice, a little more yellow then we expected, but no worries. Now all we need to do is sand the floor! Especially considering that my family will be here in a little over a month, they now will have a room to stay in..

More beautiful walls, Eric is really good at painting!

And best of all:
5 weeks to go!
(Well hopefully) And Carmen will be here. I went to my appointment today and was talking with the doctor about how big she thought this baby would be. She said it was just a guess, but she thinks Carmen will be smaller then Lilli's whopping 10 lbs! I sure hope so, 8 seems like a golden number right? I am actually thinking that she will be on time too.

Seven weeks left...more or less

This past saturday we had a huge ward temple day,
I thought I would be able to take more pictures but
it ended up being so busy I only got this one of Eric
and Lilli at the Visitors Center (oh and by the way, my silly
husband put up the black whatever you want to call
it, it was actually okay for him to be there!). It was an
awesome day, a couple in our ward was sealed as a family,
just in time for a new baby coming next month. We had
over 100 ward members attend, this included all the primary
children! Considering the length of the drive this was quite a
remarkable thing for our ward.
The session was just indescribable, I knew about 80% of the
people in there. Besides The Spirit being just incredible, also being
in a room full of people that you know and love is awesome,
I had to keep dashing away the little tears the entire session.
What a fabulous day it was.

I made this delicious cake for our Anniversary, it is an Italian Cream Cake (3 layers). Soo delicious, I just had to post a picture because I was so proud of my decorating job! I'm a little weird about nuts, I don't really like them mixed with things, but this cake is definately an exception!


My cute little girl! check out her little "fashion!"

June 2, 2005

Look at those innocent faces! Little did we know what married life would bring! We were married right after Eric graduated from Utah State so the first year of marriage was pure bliss and fun, just two of us, no children, no school...no super huge responsibilities....
It's sure worth it though! Because even though we have more adult responsibilities now, and more challenges (it seems like it anyway!) but all it's done is bring us closer together. And the best part, we are just barely getting started! I love you Eric!!