Lindy's 2nd Birthday

My girl is 2 - craziness! She's still in a fun stage, minus the obstinate, stubborn parts. She still doesn't eat much of a variety and Gerber raviolis are still her favorite food. She loves to sing and dance and is really in to Winnie the Pooh these days. This morning it was raining and she burst in to "And the rain, rain, rain, came down, down, down, in rushing, rising rivulets. And the river crept out of it's bed and crept right in to Piglet's!" Of course, how she says it is, "Rain, rain, rain, dam, dam, dam, rushing, rushing, Piglets!" Once again, I have to explain that she's not swearing, she's just not saying things right...

We only had a few presents for her - I'm all about low expectations :)... but she loved them. I made her second year scrap book (photo book from Shutterfly), and she got a new puzzle. I've had these wrapped and on the table for a few weeks and she's been so good not to bother them. She knew they were presents and I told her she couldn't open them until her birthday. As it approached I would say, "It's almost  your birthday!" then she would point at the small pile and say, "Presents!" - so I know she knew they were for her birthday, but she was awesomely patient in not getting to open them. The morning of her birthday she was very happy to finally be able to get them down and rip them open.

It was morning, night perm for both of us going on in these photos. She actually really loves reading these books all about her, who wouldn't!

During the first session of conference on Sunday Brett set up the toddler bed we got for free from a friend (yay for free stuff). Lindy loved it! A little too much, I think. She played on that bed for almost the entire 2 hours of conference, or climbing on Brett while he set it up. She grabbed a bunch of her blankies from her crib and "snuggled" with them on the new bed and went to "sleep" complete with fake snoring. We tried to have her in it last night, she wanted to sleep in "little Lindy bed," but when push came to shove she kept climbing out, and back to the crib she went. But I'm glad she likes it, and definitely isn't afraid of it. The problem is going to be getting out and reading books all night...

My brother-in-law Justin made us these shirts for Christmas last year - mine was dirty, so I couldn't join in the multi-colored fun, but I think these two look cute when they match.

We spent Saturday's conference day with Brett's family and she got completely spoiled by her Grandma Marilyn. Lots of fun toys and a blow-up pool for the summer - we will really enjoy that, I'm sure! But of course, her favorite part of the gift was the huge bag it all came in, and she had to be in it. I think she's part cat - she likes to be in small boxes, bags, buckets, etc.

She wasn't super excited by the princess pumpkin wagon, but was pretty struck by the Tonka truck - that's my girl!

Fishies for the pool!

Someone, let the cat out of the bag!

On Sunday we went to my parent's for afternoon conference. I made a Pooh Bear carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. The frosting was a little melty... but it was more tasty than most frostings in my opinion. I'm not a fancy cake decorator (although I think it would be fun to learn), but this cake didn't take forever and I think Lindy liked it, although she didn't seem to recognize it as Winnie the Pooh, she thought it was a "smiley face" but that works too.

A little apprehensive about the candle situation

Instead of singing the birthday song she wanted us to sing the Winnie the Pooh song the whole time...

Yard Projects: One Year House Anniversary

We've lived here for almost a year - holy cow! While we've done a lot to improve the yard, there's still tons to do. I had some fun with "paint" to outline for you some of the projects and ideas that we have. Most of them are way cooler in my head, but this is a good starting point. Any ideas are welcome - though don't be offended if we don't choose yours :).

These are some shots of the house before we did very much. You'll notice less grass, lots of weeds, rocks in weird places, etc.

Gotta love those cheery yellow flowers.

Brett put in a lot of work into the sprinkler system.

Here you can see some of the progress we made last year, and some of our plans are documented. Wish we could win the lottery, and pay for everything we want to do...  (sorry the writing is kind of tiny and hard to read on some of the pictures, and there's typos... oh well).

 Despite the huge amount of work that the yard requires (if we want it to be awesome!), it's really been a lot of fun to work out there with Brett. We've planned out what we want to do, where we want to plant things, etc. It's nice to have a hobby we both enjoy. He does a lot of the grunt "Man" labor and I do a lot of the planting and watering. And we both enjoyed the harvest last year, and this year should be 10X better given the amount of manure and organic matter we've tilled into the garden - plus we've been able to get started on it even earlier since we're not dealing with moving into the house like we did last year.

Even Lindy has enjoyed getting out there this year "digging the dirt with a shovel" as she says it. She helped me plant my beets. And she loves rides in the wheel barrow ("wheel-barrah"... she has an accent sometimes), while Daddy pushes her. She likes taking rides in the bucket as well. Spoiled girl.

Already we've torn out that railroad tie wall and made grow boxes out of the planks - progress!

What you do today?

Lindy has really gotten in to playing and imagining lately. She needs a little help from us to get started, but once she gets going she's hard to stop. This is one of my favorite conversations I hear her saying almost every day. I think she got it from +Brett Groneman asking her these questions when he gets home from work and from when she wakes up in the morning. I don't know what anyone else thinks, but I think she's hilarious and cute.

Our Songbird

Lindy loves to sing. She constantly hums "Nic Nac Patty Wak" (she's never seen Barney, so I know it's not that version) and continues to lead the music at church and to the songs played by any toy. Her first single was "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" which she started humming around 14 months. Now she's throwing words in, which is really fun, and several times a day she will sing, "Morrow!" or "Daddy!" and I know that means she wants me to sing "Tomorrow" or "When Daddy Comes Home" respectively. Unfortunately she doesn't say the "w" sound, but inserts a "b" sound instead, which is why way sounds like bay, and what sounds like...

"When Daddy Comes Home"

Unfortunately Brett hasn't seen her for the last 2 days, and might not for the next 2 days that he's working. She is still asleep at 5:15am when he leaves and goes to bed before he gets home around 7:15pm.

"Rubber Duckie"

Sorry about the wardrobe, but there's no other place suitable to singing this particular song.
 

"Tomorrow"

 

 I know we've already showcased this one on FB, but she's getting better at it, so here's an updated version.

 

I am a Child of God

We learned this on in the car last night. About 10 min. of singing it over and over and she's got the tune and the ending words.

I think she's pretty talented for a 19 month old!

Happy Halloween 2012!

She wouldn't wear her piglet hood to the ward party the other night, but she wanted it while we were getting ready to go to the park yesterday. The other kids left after we got there... maybe piglet is a little more scary than I thought. First time saying "bork" (work) and "noose" (nurse).

Singing one of my Halloween songs from childhood. The end is her "Dracula laugh - ah, ha, ha!" Lyrics for those of you who don't know this one...

Stirring and stirring and stirring my brew!

Oooo-oooo.... Oooo-oooo

Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe...

BOO!!!!

In case we don't see you on Wednesday, Happy Halloween!

Some house pics

So we've been in our home for over 6 months now, and we've "finished" two rooms. I'm pretty happy with all the thrifting and deal shopping we've done to furnish our house in a style that I think we both like. I've learned that I love KSL classifieds, Overstock.com, Ross, and, of course, Pinterest.

Here's our living room:

Still might put a tiny table between these chairs someday.

It's a little crowded, but oh well.

Everything was really quite inexpensive. comparatively speaking, except the well... you know... really expensive piano - But I'm glad I splurged, it's been fun to have it. Oddly enough, all I really want to play are scales and technical exercises. I never really did a lot of that when I was taking piano lessons, and now I have this craving to be actually good at playing the piano. Amazingly, you can hardly hear the piano in Lindy's room if her fan is going, so I usually play in the evening when she's in bed. If I try to play during the day she insists on sitting on my lap, and won't let me touch the keyboard.

Stole the stuff in the vase from the canyon, and the orange and purple silk scarf was my Grandma B.'s

And here's the "Kid Bathroom":

We already had the shower curtain, so basically that's the color scheme I went with.  I got the over-the-toilet cabinet on KSL for $15, repainted it, added the bead board door covers and back, and then got all the glassware from DI for really cheap. The kiwi sculpture in the middle is from New Zealand (the paua shell really worked with the colors), and I have a cool kaleidoscope from New Zealand in there as well (if you ever go to the north island of New Zealand, you have to go to this kaleidoscope shop... it was probably one of my favorite stops). And the other thing in the cabinet that I love is the Erlenmeyer flask I found at DI of all places - yep, I'm still a science geek.

View of the kitchen from the family room:

The kitchen is pretty much done as well (you know... it has cabinets and stuff), although I'm working on a hot pepper wreath that I'm making from the ridiculously hot peppers that I grew in my garden this year (not knowing that they were going to be ridiculously hot, and so there was no other use for them except as a decoration).

I saw a little Halloween banner made of paper that I pinned to Pinterest and thought I'd try it to hang from our alcove between the dining room and the kitchen. I opted to make it out of felt though, since I had a lot of it left over from other projects. I think it turned out pretty cute. Lindy has loved it - she thought it was really cool while I was hanging it. She's also learned the "sounds" of most of the characters on the banner. Whenever I try to get her to do it for the camera, she doesn't, so just try to imagine an 18 month old cackling like a witch, walking and groaning like a mummy, hoooing like an owl, etc. My favorite is laughing like Dracula.

Just because I think she's cute, and this is what her room looks like most of the time. She LOVES to read!

Zit-Be-Gone!

So... this is kind of a random, somewhat personally sensitive issue to be posting about on the blogosphere, but I feel like it's important to give reviews of products that actually work! Brett and I have noticed that most of the reviews of businesses and products are negative, because if you're happy about a purchase, you usually go on your way without thinking about it enough to "review" it, but if you're unhappy then you can't seem to get it off your mind until you write all sorts of horrible things about the unclean restaurant or ebay seller who ripped you off.

And so, putting personal embarrassment aside (well not really), I wanted to give a big shout out to Acne.org for their "regimen" for getting clear.

8th grade - not too bad minus the braces (and Mikayla is still like this in my brain, not 20)

Sr. picture - again, not too bad

I actually didn't have horrible skin in Jr. High and High School - the occasional zit would pop up (usually around school picture time), and I'd do my best to cover it with makeup. But when I hit about 20 my face exploded, as did my sleep (I don't know if the 2 are hormonally related...). I never had serious acne like I know some people do, but I usually had several zits at one time, and was always self-conscious about it. Again, I wore makeup every day to try to conceal them (that's what concealer is for, right?), but it never seemed to do a very good job, or even made it look worse (less red from far away maybe, but still gross face-to-face).

I tried Proactive for a while during college and all it did was dry out my face and make it over produce oils and, bam! More "zits of despair"! (That's what we called them at my house... said with your best Albino voice...).  I think it just irritated my skin so much that I ended up with more problems than solutions.

My face... ick... The flowers were pretty though. May 2008

Bridals... supposed to look good in that dress and with those flowers - blerg. July 2008

Still a problem even with makeup... Dec 2011

February 2012 I was doing some Google-ing, and came across Acne.org. One of the things that I like most about this site is that the info is free - Daniel Kern tells his story and relates his "Regimen" for absolutely nothing. He also tells you what drugstore products to look for and what works well instead of forcing you to buy his "brand" - I thought that was very cool of him. I did decide to buy his 2.5% benzoyl peroxide treatment because it came in a large bottle, which it doesn't at the store, but I used the cheaper cleanser and moisturizer from Wal-mart. He suggests using up that bottle I bought within a month but I'm still using it and it's August (6 months...). Maybe the reason I'm not perfectly clear yet is because I'm not using enough (and because I touch my face more than I should, and can't seem to be gentle enough when washing), but I'm happy with where I am and without spending a good chunk of change each month. Now I only wear makeup on Sunday's and special occasions, and feel comfortable in my own skin (couldn't have said that a year ago...).

Today - no makeup (except mascara... I look weird without eyelashes). A little shiny from the moisturizer and the lighting, but not really as oily as it might look. Not perfect, but believe me... soooooo much better! And excuse the hair... air-dried and no straightener.

So there you have it. I post this because having acne as an adult is lame (I had more than the kids I taught in middle school for goodness-sake!) and just in case there's anyone reading this that needs a nudge in the right direction, I recommend "The Regimen".

Brett (who thinks I'm gorgeous all the time... right, honey?) would think this is a silly post, but I'm still gonna share it!