New laptop

So I have been very slack in my posts lately , but I did not have a working computer at home for a couple of weeks before Christmas I had to use the one at the library. Well now the drought will be over. Yesterday, we got our christmas present from my dad and it was a new laptop. Yeah for us!

iPod

I am playing around with my nieces iPod touch and I just wanted to see if I could blog from it. My sister got one too and now jared wants one but he will have to wait until he graduates.

New York New York

Jared had his last interview earlier this week at UCONN. He was going to be staying with his Uncle in Carmel, NY and they had all these plans like go into the city and see the Rockefeller tree and all the lights. After leaving me and Addi behind for a week and having fun without us we decided we weren't going to let that happen so we went with him. Despite the fact that we got back a day late because of weather and I now only have 2 days until we leave for Utah and I am not done with my Christmas presents it was quite a fun trip.

I learned a few things from this trip. The first one is that I do not want to live in NYC or at least I would not have a car if I did. NYC drivers are crazy. On Saturday night when we flew in we thought we would go check out the city before driving to Jared's uncle's house. I thought I was going to die. There were cars everywhere cutting us off, running us off the road. Despite the law against honking your horn everyone was honking their horn. I don't know how anyone would know if the horn was for them or not. After an hour and a half of that we made it to the parking garage. I was glad to be out of the car, but making our way through all of the people with a stroller wasn't much easier. We did have a fun little trip together despite the traffic. We tried to do experience New York. We got hot dogs from a street vendor, bought a painting of NY for $3 right before the cops shut the guys down, as a police officer where to get the best slice of pizza (turned out to be a very small place that the 3 of us barely fit into with the stroller), looked at all the fun shops, watched the ice skaters and saw the Rockefeller tree. Addi and I had a little photoshoot in Central Park and watched some street performers while waiting for daddy to meet us. All in one weekend we were in a car, on a plane, took the train and the subway and went on the ferry.

We miss you daddy!

Jared has been gone for 5 days now and won't be home until late tomorrow night. Has been interviewing for Pedo residencies. We have missed him terribly especially since first I was sick and now Addi is starting to get sick. Our computer is broken so I have been so bored and had to clean my house because I didn't have the computer to distract me, so we are at the library using the computer. I love the library we are here at least twice a week getting books and movies or just to come play with the toys. Jared got his board scores today and since he wasn't home I got to open them and guess what? He Passed! Did we have any doubt that he would? No
Enough rambaling here are some pictures for daddy.
Spencer came over to play and he kept stealing my crackers, but we had fun. I love to chew on my toes! Mommy lets me eat crackers in bed on your side of the bed.

Santa Clause

Last night was our church christmas party. After a program and dinner Santa came. Addi was a perfect age to sit on Santa's lap. Old enough to sit up on his lap, but young enough not to be afraid of him.
Addi was more interested in Santa's beard than the fact that a strange man was holding her. Plus he gave her a candy cane that kept her entertained for the rest of the night.
We miss you daddy and wish you could have been there hope you are having fun with all your interviews. Love ya!

Thanksgiving

For thanksgiving we drove to Michigan to vist Jared's brother and his family. We have gone there every year for thanksgiving since we moved to Iowa. Collette is a great cook and I always eat way to much.
Addi seemed to like the plates the best. Addi was spoiled by everyone and got to try many new foods she had never had before. Her favorite were the crackers.
Poker like always and Addi got to be on daddies team. She liked to eat the poker chips.
We went to an all Christmas store to get Addi her first Christmas ornament. They have any kind of ornament you could think of. This store was crazy with Christmas stuff and was crazy busy.
Addi enjoyed all the fun christmas lights and decorations.

While I was there I took some family photos for them.
This is how you can find the kids at any given moment. Sabrina is always talking on the phone. Ashley likes to real. And Halen loves his video games and he loved Addi they got along great, playing with toys and watching cartoons in the morning.
This is not technically Addi's first snow since it snowed the morning she was born, but it is her first experience with snow and she wasn't quite sure what to think. Addi was great in the car as usual and we had a fun stress free weekend. Thanks Sorensens!

Mirror Mirror

Addi had fun learning about the mirror today. She kept hitting her head trying to get closer to the other baby. She wanted to grab the other baby and even gave herself a kiss. I don't know if she has it all figured out, but at least it keeps her entertained for awhile.

Bath Time

Addi is a big girl now and can sit up in the bath tub. At first I had her laying down in the bath but she didn't like the water in her ears and she kept trying to flip over. She had a lot of fun once she was sitting up. She kept trying to pick up the water and didn't understand why there wasn't any left in her hand when she opened it up. She would lean forward and try to drink the water like a dog. By the time she was ready to get out her little feet were all wrinkled.

Road trips a flash back to my single days and a leaf eater

I realized I have not posted for a while. Life here has been a little crazy. Two weeks ago we drove to Columbus, Oh where Jared had an interview. It took as about 9 hours. Addi was great. We just kept handing her toys and snack when she got bored of one and then she would fall asleep for a while and then when she woke up we would stop and and get out of the car for a minute and then it would all start over. Addi did learn a new trick while spending so much time in the car. She learned how to click her tongue and spent the rest of the weekend constantly clicking it. Columbus was nice and Jared really liked the program. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures and I am really bummed about it, because there were lots of cool old buildings that would have made for nice pictures. Oh well maybe we will end up there and I can take pictures of them.
Then last weekend we drove to Kansas City to visit a friend from school who recently had a baby (visit my photography blog to see the pictures I took of her baby Abigail.) Jared flew from KC to Rochester, NY for another interview while Addi and I stayed and played with Ashley and baby Abby (Having and Abby and an Addi got a little confusing) Ashley and Jordan took me to a sushi restaurant and I had my first ever raw fish. It was not as bad as I thought and it was fun trying all sorts of sushi rolls.
Jared had another interview on Thursday and Friday in Salt Lake. My mom wanted me and Addi to come out, but we couldn't afford 2 plane tickets. Since she really just wanted the baby and it doesn't cost any money for Addi to go I sent her on the plane with Jared. She was a perfect angel on the plane and loved spending time with grandma and her aunts. I don't think she even missed me and was so spoiled that she probably would rather be back at grandmas then home with boring mom. So during my 3 days of freedom what did I do? I went into work to see if I could get my research project I was doing for school to work. It did work once, but I can not get it to reproduce. Boring I know, but I did do somethings that I did back when I was single. I went to the midnight showing of Twilight and I enjoyed it for the most part. I think it is kind of funny that there was a group of us young mothers at a teen movie. I ran into my 12 year old neighbor. I also enjoyed dinner out with some friends, sleeping in until I woke up on my own and a 3 hour nap on Saturday.
Since I don't have any pictures to show of any of this here is a picture of Addi and favorite thing to do lately, eat leaves. I got her to do her army crawl all the way down the hall by holding a leaf in front of her. If she sees a leaf she is off after it before you can turn around.

Nordic Bo Peep and Long Lost Sheep Costume GIVEAWAY!!!!

This is my favorite giveaway. I hope I win Addi would look so cute in this.
Nordic Bo Peep and Long Lost Sheep Costume GIVEAWAY!!!!

1.99 are you out of your mind

That is right all of you non Iowans can be jealous that we are paying under $2 a gallon for gas. I really hope that gas prices stay down since we are driving home to Utah for Christmas and we are no longer driving a civic that gets over 30 mpg.

Lions and Tigers and Bears oh my

Today was our church Halloween party. We dressed up as characters from the wizard of Oz. Addi was Dorthy, I was the scarecrow, Jared was the Tin Man, Dede was the cowardly Lion, and Tito was toto.
For trunk or treating we decorated our trunk like the emerald city with the yellow brick road leading to it.
Jared and Dede entered the donut eating contest. Dede didn;'t even eat half of her donut before the guys were done, but she was the only girl brave enough to try.
Here is Dorthy and her puppy.

Trick or treat to mommy

Look what I got for Halloween.

We took the plunge and used our insurance money to buy a minivan (our car was totaled in case I forgot to mention that). We got a great deal and it is really nice. It is a year older than our civic so it has more miles, but it has many many more up grades and I love it. I never thought I would want a minivan, but once I looked at them and drove it I wanted it.

Happy Halloween!

Its Addi's first halloween. I made this fun little dress for her. she wore it to our BBBS halloween party where Dede won second place for the pumpkin she carved. Stay tune tomorrow for our fun family halloween costumes.
Here are some pictures from our BBBS halloween party. I didn't get a picture of the prize winning pumpkin.

Wilson's Apple Orchard

Today we went to Wilson's apple orchard with play group. I really just went so that I could take some pictures of Addi in her apple dress that I made her. So here are some of those pictures.






By the end Addi was ready to go home and Jacoby was more interested in the basket than the camera.

Temples, pumpkins, and car crashes

That is what are day was full of. Today we went to Nauvoo for ward Temple day. On our way up there is was very foggy and we couldn't see very far in front of us and then when we crossed the Mississippi river into Illinois all of a sudden it was bright and sunny. We left Addi with the sitters at a near by church so that Jared and I could enjoy the temple together. Addi is always very good for other people so I don't worry about her to much anymore when I have to leave her. Addi loves to see the temple or at least that is her favorite song ("I Love to See the temple" from the LDS children's song book)and I know this because every time I start to sing it she gets a huge smile on her face.
After the Temple a bunch of us with kids stopped at a pumpkin patch on the way home. It is a very fun pumpkin patch with lots of things for kids. Addi was a little to young for most of the things but she did like playing in the giant sandbox of corn kernels. When we got home Jared when to help the lady he works for rake her leaves and on the way home he was rear ended by a SUV that then proceeded to drive away (more details in the previous post). So our day was full of all sorts of entertainment how about your?

Stupid Mean probable drunk people

Jared was on his way home tonight from raking Kathy's leaves (the lady that he works for sometimes)and was stopped at a stop light on the highway by our house when someone in an SUV rammed into him going ~45-50 mph. Jared said he saw it in his rear view mirror seconds before he hit and the guy didn't even slow down. As Jared got his phone to call 911 he notice the guy backing up. He thought that maybe he was just trying to get off the road, but no the guy just drove away. Despite the fact that he just bashed up our car Jared could have been really hurt. The force from the SUV hitting our car had caused our car to run into the car in front of it. The guy from that car tried to stop the run away driver and almost got hit. To bad for the stupid mean driver that his front license plate fell off in the crash so there was a police officer waiting at the guys house when he got home. The people behind the SUV stopped to help and said that the driver of the SUV was swerving so he was probably drunk especially considering that there had been a Hawkeye football home game that had recently ended and for those of you that live or have lived in Iowa City before know that people start drinking at like 6 in the morning on game day.
Jared thankfully still smiling after the accident.
Look at all that crap we pulled out of the car.

So since Jared's car was totaled earlier this year (click here to see that story)we are now with out a car. We don't know if the other guy has insurance or not , but I am betting not since apparently he doesn't even have a drivers license. I am just very glad that Addi was not in the car at the time and that Jared walked away from the accident with only some whip lash. I can only imagine what would have happened if he had taken his scooter like I wanted him to.

Mommy Creations Giveaway

SO I wanted to be like everyone else in the crafting world and host a giveaway on my crafting blog Mommy Creations, so if you want to check it out maybe you could win one of my fabulous homemade gifts for yourself.

I'm a big girl

Addi Always thinks she can do things that we can do like type on the computer, read our book and feed herself, so one day I let her feed her self.
see mom I can do it










all done

Poor Baby

My baby is sick. Sunday night about 30 min after we put her to bed Addi woke up screaming and nothing would calm her down for 45 min. Finally we calmed her down a little by giving her a sock to play with and turning on the tv. That didn't last long about 5 min later she was screaming again and we didn't know what to do. Then she threw up her dinner (peas and applesauce) all over. I didn't know if she threw up from crying or if she was crying because her tummy hurt. After a bath and a few more screaming episodes we got her to sleep. Then on Monday she had a fever and this is what she looked like most of the day.
It was so sad I didn't know what to do for her except give her Tylenol. She spent most of the day in mommy and daddy's bed watching PBS and sleeping. She liked cuddling with her blankie and teddy bear.
On Tuesday she seemed to be doing better more active but still cranky. Then when I was feeding her I noticed puss coming out of her ear so I called the doctors office. It was after hours so I got the triage nurse and she told me to take her to the insta care. Well turns out that because our doctor is not on the insta care's list our insurance wouldn't cover it. The insta care is associated with the university and our doctor is at the university so I don't know why she wasn't on the list. Anyways in short we ended up at the emergency room. We got an antibiotic and some ear drops.
She seems much better today but she does not let me touch her ear and she hates the ear drops, but no more fever. She is also a lot more payful and even found Tito sleeping under the covers.