Big News!

In an effort to ascertain how many people actually read our blog, as well as generate some more interest, we decided to make the big announcement here. Alicia is pregnant. Hopefully the "select few" already know about this, we've tried to make the appropriate calls. But in actuality we won't get burned by this because very few people read our blog anyway. She's due sometime around Thanksgiving.

In other Alicia news, her indoor soccer team is undefeated. She is enjoying playing there and is doing quite well. It'll be a shame when she has to stop. She also had a meeting this week for the Mom's Club that she goes to. It was some type of cooking meeting, she brought cookie bars. We're straying into unfamiliar territory here talking about cooking and all ladies groups so she'll have to fill you in on the details.

In other news I've been struggling with our lawn. I applied some winter fertilizer last year but I don't think that I did it very evenly because now there are some yellow streaks in some places in the lawn. I think I also applied it too late. Anyway, I'm deciding what to do about it. It's not too bad so I think I'll just keep watering and hope the green parts take over. Since our lawn is also lumpy I'm thinking of overseeding in the fall. I just learned about it the other day and it seems pretty cool. You basically apply a little bit of top soil over the existing grass and then put grass seed on. It's supposed to work quite well and give a nice look. Now that Trish is back maybe she can advise us, assuming she hasn't forgotten all of her "worldly" knowledge. A friend of ours in the ward helped us this week with my lawnmower. I left it with a tank of gas all winter and the carburetor clogged up. I was pretty worried but when he told me what it was and helped me fix it I was very grateful (it's a new mower). We still haven't been able to sod the rest of our lawn, the weather out here is terrible lately.

In other news I finished my script to grab books from GospeLink.com and prepare them to go on a Palm handheld. It was fun little project and I'm excited to have a plethora of LDS boosk available on my palm.

Elizabeth update time. Can I just say she is so much fun to tickle. She just loves it. I'll start making my tickling sound and she'll pull her arms in close, but she also waits for me to get to her. (I think she has a love/hate relationship with tickling). Then I jump in and she falls to the ground and starts laughing and laughing. It's the cutest thing. She also loves it when I give her piggy back rides. It's getting to where I can't lie down on my stomach without her jumping on my back. She also loves doggies. We took her to the pet store the other day. She just loved looking at the doggies. I keep thinking that maybe with both of us we can convince Alicia to let us have a dog but so far no luck. She also likes dancing. If there's music she'll start waving her arms and twisting her upper body. She definitely got her enjoyment of dancing from Alicia. She's a cute little girl, that's for sure. She has lots of personality and is always doing the silliest things. She's very entertaining and definitely energetic. Makes it difficult during church though.


Here's a cute picture of Elizabeth with my phone (not sure where her scabs came from).


Ayudame Hermana Bartholomew. I know, it's a terrible picture.


Don't look at me, I'm angry 

Spring is in the Air

The weather is finally getting nice out here, it's been mostly in the 70's this week. As a result, we've been spending a lot of time outside, we sure enjoy having a home and our own lawn. Elizabeth is finally OK with the idea of walking on the grass, she was a little shaky at first. We also went for a bike ride yesterday and it was very enjoyable. To top it off we stopped and got some frozen custard at Ritters, very yummy (although I think Nielsen's is better).

In other news this week, Elizabeth is getting more and more grown up (I know, I sound like a broken record). When she had a dirty diaper Alicia said, "Do you have a dirty diaper?" Upon hearing that she walked over to the closet with her diapers. Alicia opened it and Elizabeth got a diaper out. Then Alicia said, "go lie down." So Elizabeth walked over to the carpet and laid down on her back. It's the cutest thing. She still loves it when we read her stories, although she pretty much only has attention for "Hop on Pop," by far her favorite book. She's been a little bit sick this week but she seems to be getting over it.

I, on the other hand, still had remnants from the flu. I stayed home on Monday and Tuesday as the flu had moved into my respiratory system and I could barely talk. On a separate note, however, I got the results of my cholestorol test back and they said I'm okay. I better eat more french fries.

Alicia got started on her garden this week by planting strawberries. We also planted some carpet phlox on the hill. That hill is a mess. It has a wire mesh, probably to prevent erosion and runnoff. They planted some kind of ugly plants on the hill before we moved in. They wouldn't be too bad except they don't cover our hill entirely. Anyway, we'll work on that in the future and post pictures. We're looking to finish sodding our back lawn in a couple of weeks.

I'm also excited because I got my Palm Pilot this week (Zire 31). There's a few reasons I decided it was time to get one. I will enjoy having the scriptures and manuals at church without having to lug everything around in hard copy. With all the stuff we have because of Elizabeth that's an important reason. I am also looking forward to having the scriptures and other books with me wherever I go. It has an mp3 player as well, which is an added bonus. Of course, there's the standard reason of using it to keep track of my schedule and activities. I'm in the process of working on a Python script to get content from the GospeLink site and converting it into a format that can be used by Plucker to make a book that will go on my handheld. I've never programmed in Python before so it will be a hack, but it should be fun and useful.

Alicia just got called as the cub leader (or whatever the title is) for our ward. I'm sure she'll do a great job and enjoy it. The meetings are at the church so it's nice that we're so close. Elizabeth will have to either go with her or maybe I can go in early to work on those days and get back in time to watch her.

We had a good weekend this week and we had a few friends over. It was fun to watch Elizabeth interact with kids near her age (a little bit older). She is finally getting to the point where it really seems like she's playing with other children, although her idea of playing is taking toys away from other kids (we're raising a bully). Anyway, we'll have to work on that one.

The Scourge Fell Upon Them

So, Elizabeth threw up a few times this week, and a couple of weeks ago. Last Saturday and the one before Alicia had a 24 hour bug. I finally got it this weekend. It was like a full flu but in 24 hours (thank goodness). As usual Alicia handled it with her stoic attitude while I whined and complained the whole time. Mostly I was upset that I didn't get to play basketball. Also, seeing as how this was conference weekend it was my chance to have fun and feel like I was skipping church :-). But the good side is that Alicia let me lay in front of the TV all day and I got to watch a rare basketball game (go Illinois!).

Elizabeth is fine now though. She really enjoys when we read books to her. She has her favorites and wants us to read the same book to her over and over and over. It's very cute. She also understands more words. She knows "kisses," "bye-bye," "lunch," and other words as well. She also puts her hands together for prayer and yells when we say "Amen." She is just growing up. She's becoming more and more of a toddler and getting to interact more and more. For a cute new video of her go here.

It's getting to be spring and that's very enjoyable. Alicia and I have already taken Elizabeth out for a few bike rides in her bike trailer. We're planning what to do with our backyard this spring. Alicia's thinking of some vegetables, carpet phlox, and wild flowers. We need to clear off the junk that's already on the hill and sod the rest of the backyard. So that will keep us busy for a while.

Finally, we enjoyed general conference quite a bit. We listened to it over the Internet, which made it easy to handle Elizabeth's naps and energy. Actually, I have an FM transmitter so we got the signal over the Internet but broadcasted it to our stereo downstairs and in the bedroom, depending on where we were. I'm a geek, I know.