What I'm Thankfor For

Seeing that Thanksgiving is a short four days away, I've been ruminating, as I assume most people do, on the many blessings I enjoy. When I stop and think, I truly realize how many things I have to be happy for. I mean I have a husband who loves me, a darling and healthy son who loves me, and I naughty, but generally well-intentioned puppy who loves me. I find myself constantly distracted from my studies and tasks by the mental lists I make of dreams that have come true. After all, not too long ago, I was a single, college student trying to hone in on my pursuits. I'd filled out my mission papers and was getting ready to meet with my bishop when I received a random acceptance letter to BYU Provo. (By random I mean that I hadn't even applied.) I prayed about it and felt it was right, had a wonderful job fall into my lap, and then two weeks before my first semester started I met Travis. Fast forward two and half years and here I am. Without further ado, my reasons for thanks.

A beautiful, expressive son who gives me looks like this all day, every day.

Realizing the wonders of the world through E's eyes. He found this pinecone on the ground during our walk and it was his new best friend for the next couple days. He would turn it over in his hands and say, "Wow!" or "Cool!".

I'm grateful that Lexie and E are friends. Honestly, he came running up to her kennel, poked and giggled at her until she left and then crawled in and made himself at home. I've never worried about Lexie around E and she's always been patient with him. That's a lifesaver.

A child that inherited some of my neuroses.
When T saw this picture the following conversation ensued:

T: What's he doing?
K: Oh, it was so cute! After lunch I gave him a couple pretzels and he started placing the peas inside the pretzels.
T: Wow. (Said in a slightly creeped out manner.) That's how we know he's a Bean.

A daddy that loves to help, even if it means that occasionally E's onesies are buttoned outside his pants.

An exploratory child. I introduced E to play-doh this week and he had an absolute blast. At first he cautiously rolled it around in his fingers, tasted a little, spat it out, but then he played non-stop for about 30 minutes.

Good friends. Our friend B came over to play with us a few days this week while her parents were out of town. E loves other kids and it's always fun to see the way "older" children love him.

Once again, a daddy that's involved. This Saturday T asked if he could take E for an outing and give me some homework time. I agreed and he took him to the Bear River Bird Refuge. There E learned all about various bird habitats and even got to chase ducks around the wetlands. (Below)

Other recent developments of E that I'm enjoying:

• He's now counting to 5 although it frequently goes, "two, two, tee, foh, fie!"
• Singing the first 5 letters of the alphabet song, as long as I don't ask him to. He'll sing to himself while he's playing, but if I ask, no way. His lips are sealed.
  
• Blowing raspberries on our tummies. (This includes Lexie's tummy)
  
• Saying some of his favorite words from his books like: funny, silly, shine, and fluffy.
• Engaging in conversations with me where his vocal inflections mimic mine.
• Playing "Kiss and Go Seek" where he'll hide somewhere and start making kissing noises because he knows I'll run to find him and give him a kiss.
• Helping me cook. Particularly kneading and eating dough.
• Using manners by saying "pleezh" "q-you" and "sah-ee"
• Saying "Buh-bye" when I lay him down for naps or bedtime and then blowing kisses "mmmm-uh" as I leave.
  

Recent developments of E I'm not enjoying as much:

• Climbing. Onto everything.
  
• Learning he can push an object he can climb onto in order to scale an object that was originally out of his reach. (ie: using the kitchen chairs to access the table or the top of the piano)
• Refusing to look me in the eyes when I'm talking to him about something he did. I'll say, "No, Ethan we don't tug Lexie's tail. We love Lexie." and E is looking all around the room, but not at me. So I'll hold his hands and then he'll stare up at the ceiling. So then I gently put my hand on the back of his head and try to get him to look at me and he arches his back. Not so much fun.

In any case, I hope the holiday helps all of you count your blessings as well and realize all the beauties of this life.

Food and Family

Heaven forbid I ever start a blog entry without updating on weekends past. So in keeping with tradition, I give you... two weekends ago! We decided to take a family break from studying on Saturday morning and went to Logan. I've been wanting to take Travis to a fabulous artisan bread shop called Crumb Brothers and a local micro-dairy/ farmstead cheese maker, Rockhill Creamery. We've had Crumb Brothers bread several times before, mostly because the title agency I worked for used it as a gift for costumers and irresistible treat for employees. However, Travis had never been to their bakery because they close at 2:00 p.m. This is particularly important because their building is as phenomenal as their bread. The ambiance of the small cottage with earthy hewn log beams and beautiful xeriscaping is second to none. Somehow, bread eaten in the store tastes even better. If you're ever in Logan, Utah I strongly urge you to go to Crumb Brothers. It is one of the city's gems.

Me and Ethan outside Crumb Brothers.

Travis and Ethan chowing down on Decker Seed bread and peppercorn Gouda from Rockhill that we bought at Crumb Brothers. We also ate an almond croissant, they make their own pastry dough as well, that was to die for.

Later that week, Ethan helped me finish up some fresh salsa.
Mmm... garden tomatoes and cilantro....

The little man "helping" me do the laundry.
He got a little sidetracked.

Just this past Friday, Steve, Suzie, Emi, Tiffany, Tyler, Jenny and Merrilee came up to Brigham City to go to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat and spend the evening with us. I made a yummy butternut squash and spinach lasagna and some delicious herb and red bell pepper focaccia and we heeded Scott's suggestion and watched Meet the Robinsons, a purely delightful movie. Afterwards, Emi stayed overnight and we caught a late showing of Dan In Real Life, which I also highly recommend to anyone in need of a movie to see.

Everyone at the Trunk-or-Treat.

On Saturday, Tammy hosted her annual Halloween party at Steve's house and we made fresh apple cider. It was a fabulous time!

Steve cranking out the apple cider.
Note: This is the old press that my dad found on the farm in Oregon. After my sister, Tammy, lost her finger in the machine, we quit using it. When dad died, Steve brought the apple cider press down to Utah and spent a year fixing it up, making it more safe, and now we get to have fresh cider again!

My men watching the cider pressing.

Ahhh! I hardly recognized Melanie in her costume!

Ethan and Robert wearing their cousin costumes.
Ethan is a tiger and Robert is a frog. So cute!

Emi and I even dressed Barclay, Steve's dog, up in the

butterfly costume I bought on clearance for him last year.
We paraded Barclay outside to see Steve and here is Steve's exact facial expression:

Love it! I'd definitely pay $1.99 to see that look on his face again.

On Sunday Travis wanted to take a picture of me and Ethan getting ready to go to church and it ended up being one of my favorite pictures of us ever. You see, I noticed as I was going through Ethan's pictures that there a bajillion pictures of Ethan and Travis, but not too many of me and Ethan. Sure it makes sense since I'm usually the one taking the pictures, but now Travis is helping me make sure that years down the road Ethan will know I was, in fact, present for his childhood.

I must say, this post makes me so happy. As I look at all the fun things we've been doing lately, it reminds me that we're practically out of the woods, aka: done with school. I've been able to devote more of my energy and emotions towards the things that matter most to me and that makes me so pleased. We've been consistently having quality FHE's, family prayer and scripture study and, sadly, for the first time in a while I've been studying my scriptures every day. We outlined a new budget that I've been tracking and sticking to, we've both been consistently working out, and I've been cooking a lot of new recipes and perfecting others. I often find myself marveling at the blessings I enjoy and the strength I've been given to "fight" for the things that matter most. It isn't easy to change yourself and it certainly isn't easy to stick with those changes. But, as He promised, when we do our best and have good intentions, the Lord makes up the rest. I love my life!

Good Times, Good Times

At the beginning of the month, we had the good pleasure of having Bill and Connie come to visit us. Much fun was had by all and included:

Lexie getting frequent belly rubs and additional loves. I think she especially enjoyed having other people that Ethan's attention was directed towards so he bothered her less.


Grandpa Bill and Ethan enjoyed some good 1-on-1 reading time. (I love this picture) P.S. If you look outside the windows you'll see the horseman of the apocalypse: snow.


I made some wickedly delicious cinnamon rolls. I'm usually the biggest critic of my cooking, but these were honestly the best cinnamon rolls I've ever eaten and I could think of no way to improve them. In fact, they were so perfect that I will not share the recipe. Come on, I have to be needed for something!

The following weekend we went to Idaho for my college roommate's (Melissa) wedding. Travis took a day off on Friday and we spent the whole weekend together. It was blissful.


Here's E looking dapper before we left Friday morning.


The happy couple, Melissa and Phil Kunz, exiting the temple. No, that's not their child, rather an exuberant niece that ran to congratulate her uncle and made some interesting "exiting the temple" photos. :o)


Travis waiting outside the temple. I love the way the sun reflected off the car in this photo. Combined with his intentionally cheesy smile it almost looks like a Mormonad picture. Can you think of a clever caption?


Travis and Ethan outside the temple having a little father and son discussion.

On Saturday we drove around Rexburg and I drank large glasses of nostalgia while pointing places from my early college days out to Travis. That town is booming! It has changed so much since I was there last, and that really wasn't that long ago. Undoubtedly the best thing about Rexburg now is their beautiful new temple.


(Note: Travis pointed out that the sign outside this temple is using the old logo for the church with "Jesus Christ" being the same font size. Interesting, huh?)

On the drive home that afternoon we stopped in Pocatello and played on the playground to break the drive up.

Ethan blowing kisses.


Climbing the slide.

Travis being a monkey. It's a good thing there weren't any thieves around because quite a lot of booty fell out of his pockets when he executed this move.

E walking through the red tunnel.

So what exactly is this a picture of? Funny you should ask. That night, Travis offered to make dinner while I studied and I happily obliged. He served celery with peanut butter and was proceeding to eat the peanut butter but not the celery. I had to let him know that wasn't allowed, especially when you make the meal yourself. Honestly, he could have just but a spoon of peanut butter on our plates if that's what he really wanted. But anyway, he proceeded to make a celery woman who begged me to allow her to live. I caved.

Sheer Cuteness

BYU Football

Two weekends ago, our little family meandered down to happy valley to celebrate BYU Homecoming. My oldest brother, Steve, and Travis both graduated in chemical engineering so we met them at their house and drove to BYU together. We met my mom on campus and she was going to take Ethan home and watch him while we all went to the chemical engineering banquet when the biggest celebrity appeared. We all gasped when we saw him and couldn't believe this was really happening. I mean, we're not big Hollywood watchers or anything, but I think everyone goes a little crazy whenever you stumble upon someone famous. I quickly alerted Travis, "Honey, hurry and get the camera. Maybe he'll take a picture with Ethan if he has time to stop." We asked, he kindly nodded that he would oblige, and since my mom was holding Ethan she jumped right next to him.

Can you believe we met Cosmo? As you can see Ethan was absolutely thrilled! Wait, no, that's the face of complete fear, perhaps terror. Ethan was curious in the beginning, but the minute Cosmos' furry little hand patted his head it was over. He was creeped right out and wanted nothing to do with him. Nothing like traumatizing your 1 year old.

Anyway, we went to the banquet which had surprisingly decent, borderline good food and enjoyed seeing Travis' teachers, particularly Dr. Pitt (who wishes you well Scott and Anne). Then we endured the speech from the alumni president which went a little like this:

"Aren't we blessed to be BYU graduates? Yes, yes we are and it's time you enabled others to have that blessing as well by giving us all your money. (Insert graph here) Don't you enjoy a good career? Others could too if you would give us some money. (Insert graph here)"

In the end it felt more like a fund raiser than a Homecoming/Reunion banquet. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about giving back and we do, but it's a little weird to sit there for 2 1/2 hours and be continually told, almost guilted, into giving money. Anyway, we did get a handsome picture of us together and it's been quite a while since we had a picture of just the two of us.

Then we strolled around BYU with Steve and Suzie, reminiscing of the days of yore when we were all dreamy, youthful college students. It was at this point that Travis interjected, "Wait, Kristin you haven't even graduated yet, you can't talk about it like it's the past." Sad and true. But in only 6 months I'll be done...

In any case, we all went back to my mom's and spent the night and then went to the BYU Homecoming game the next day. This was an especially big deal because it was my very first BYU football game. That's right, I'm graduating in 6 months and I'd never been to a game before. In fact, the only college football games I'd ever been to were the University of Oregon games that I worked at to earn money for choir field trips. The U of O games were fun, but everyone was drunk and crazy which tends to detract from the fun for me. Well, the BYU game was all the fun, hype and obsession without the alcohol. It was perfect! We took Ethan too, so he could also enjoy his first BYU game.
The game was awesome, we won, we dodged the rain for the most part and best of all we had a blast with Steve and Suzie. I think everyone should attend their first BYU game with Steve because he's such an enthusiastic, informed, intelligent fan. If I were blind, I still would have known everything that happened because Steve would mutter the play-by-play. This was highly useful because I really don't know too much about the rules of football. Here are the lovebirds rekindling their flame at the BYU game.

And a shot of the game from our seats.

It was a very fun weekend and a sweet break from all the work we've had going on. Not to mention that I got to cross one thing off my list of "To Do's" before we move from Utah. (Attend a BYU football game) Now I only have 12 more remaining...