Urgent Care

A couple of Sundays ago Elizabeth woke up with eyes sealed shut. I was pretty scared, but once we washed them out she could open them. But her eyelids were still very swollen and her eyes a little bit bloodshot. I wasn't very familiar with pink-eye but it turns out that's what she had. So we had a visit to Urgent Care that morning and got her some antibiotic eye drops. That cleared it up right away. Although, a friend of mine in medical school says that well over 90% of pink-eye is viral. They just give the drops anyway because "it can't hurt." But now I've got pink-eye, although I don't think it's from Elizabeth.

On to more Elizabeth news. We're trying to teach her to say Mama. She has the "d" sound down but she can't seem to make any other consonant sounds (besides "no no no no"). She says "dada" for both Alicia and me. It's pretty cute though, when one of us walks in the room she gives a definite "dada" sound.

She's definitely a smart girl though. Whenever she gets ahold of someone's keys she tries to go to a door handle in the house and stick the keys in. I am amazed because we never use the keys in the door, we just use the garage door opener. I don't know where she learned that.

We also got another comment today about how cute of a face she has. Of course I'm biased but I really think she's a cute baby/toddler. It just seems like her face and body are so much better proportioned than most kids (maybe because she's tall and a little bit thin).

Alicia's indoor soccer team won their tournament and she got a T-shirt. I'm pretty jealous, she has like 3-4 T-shirts from wining intramurals and the like. My basketball team lost intramurals in the final game once. I think that was the hardest loss of my life. I don't have any intramural t-shirts. I guess I shouldn't complain though, if I would have just stuck with volleyball I would have had a few national championships, and I've got a few other victories under my belt.

For our anniversary we went to this huge international supermarket called Jungle Jim's. It was fun. We also went a saw a movie (Revenge of the Sith, what else?). Alicia asked for a family picture so we'll be getting that soon as well. She knew the only way I would agree to that was if she asked for it as her present for some special occasion.

Not much going on in my life, besides the usual busyness. I mostly stained our back deck, it looks pretty nice. Our grass is growing nicely and I had to trudge through the lawn the other day with the lawnmower. I've been riding my bike home from work when the weather has been cooperating, which has been nice. I just finished reading The Davinci Code (I know, I was probably the last person on earth who hadn't read it). It was a fun book and I enjoyed the new twist on the age old plot. Obviously I didn't agree with some of the material, and it was obviously arranged to maximize the "conspiracy theory" but it was still entertaining.

Today (Memorial Day) we went to the ward picninc. People were playing softball and having a great time, even though it was drizzling. We enjoyed that. Elizabeth fell asleep in my arms so I held her for a while so Alicia could talk to her friends. Elizabeth is getting to be a good sleeper in noisy situations.

Then we went for a bike ride. Alicia dropped me off near my work and I followed a trail out to Xenia. It was a good ride of nearly 18 miles. I think riding to and from work is helping because I made the ride without too much difficulty. Alicia rode to Xenia with Elizabeth and started the other way on the trail. She probably ended up riding 6-7 miles, which is a lot trudging Elizabeth behind.

Elizabeth with her favorite aunt (until the next one visits, that is). 

And there was much rejoicing

Well yesterday Patricia went home (and there was much rejoicing...Just Kidding)! Actually, it's the other way around. Yesterday afternoon was worse than a funeral, I could practically smell death in the house. Patricia, you are missed. I found it interesting how quickly Elizabeth took to Trish. Usually Elizabeth is kind of shy and reserved around people she doesn't know but she sure warmed up to Trish right away.

Alicia performed in a classical music recital put on by our ward on Friday night. She performed the opening theme from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto Number 1. It was very good, but Alicia is insistent on focusing on her mistakes. This is my chance to get a word in edgewise and say that she did a great job. I enjoy that piece a lot and she played it well. It was especially impressive considering that she had to perform right after a sister in our ward who is studying piano performance or something like that.

In other Alicia news, she had her first doctor appointment this week. They said that the approximate due date she gave them doesn't match with what they think it should be. They think the baby will come earlier. So they are going to do an ultrasound and see what's going on. It took me a few minutes but I finally realized what was going on...Twins! Alicia wants me to say that I'm just kidding...probably so that it doesn't come true.

So, back to Elizabeth's cute doings. She still loves the animal book, and now she can make more sounds. When it gets to elephant she makes the elephant sound now and moves her arm up like the trunk of an elephant. One of the letters on the book is ice cream for I (it's not all animals). We usually make licking sounds and she's picked up on that now too. It isn't a fraction as cute when I write about it as when you see it so I'll take a video and post it soon.

This chair is too big! 

Instant Lawn

In big news this week we finally finished sodding our lawn. We got a pretty good crew from the Elder's Quorum over and got it done in just over an hour. It's nice to have a lawn in the back and we're excited to be able to play with Elizabeth on it.

I other news, Patricia (formerly known as Hermana Bartholomew) has been out visiting us this week. It's been nice having her here and we immediately put her to work. She rolled the dirt in our lawn after I tilled it and she babysat the other night while I took Alicia out for Mother's Day. I told her it's for her own good. I remember coming home from a mission. You're used to all of this productive hard work that lasts all day. You enjoy serving people. It's hard having unstructured time and thinking about yourself so much for a change. So I made sure to give her a service oriented environment. It's nice having a sister in law :-)

On to the good Elizabeth news. There are a few things I want to mention. First of all, she is getting to where she can understand if I am asking a question by the tone of my voice. Whenever I ask a question she answers by saying "Na," with the a as the same sound as in apple. The only problem is that I have no idea if that means yes or no.

This week I got a live trap to get the groundhog in our backyard (I caught an opossum but no groundhog yet). The first night I was working on putting it together I had to get a hammer and bang on it for a minute. Well, she loves working with daddy, and as soon as I put the hammer down she rushed over to get it and she started hitting the trap with it. She does the same thing when I try to sweep or mop the floor, she usually grabs it from me before I start, let alone finish.

One final cute thing I will mention this week has to do with a book that we read to her. It has the letters of the alphabet and an animal or other object for each letter. We usually make the animal sound for each animal as well. When we get to M, which is monkey, we make the monkey sound and put our hands under our armpits and heads, like monkeys do. Well, today I read that book to her and just before we got to monkey she curled both hands under her armpits. It was so cute.

Oh, don't forget to check the videos link on the right side, there's a new video. That's all for now.

Read me a story, now!

Read me a story


Whatcha lookin' at fool?