Peanut Butter and Boots

This week has been pretty good. Nothing great to report on, just little updates about Mary. She's the most exciting out of all of us!

Mary LOVES, absolutely LOVES, playing the piano with her Daddy. She races over to him if he is playing and will want to climb up on his lap. Or she'll stand next to him and reach up on her tippy toes to play any keys she can find. It's very sweet. It's fun that they have something that's just theirs.

Mary tried peanut butter for the first time this week and loved it, of course! I put it on some graham crackers and what did she do? Licked it off and left the cracker. She's such a little stinker sometimes!

The other day was beautiful! I opened the front door and Mary crawled over and stood at the glass door and just stared outside. So I decided we should go for a walk to the mailbox. So I bundled her up - when I saw nice day it was the the 50's so we still needed coats. And put on her super cute boots that her grandma gave her for Christmas and away we went. In case you didn't know, Mary can't walk on her own yet. So I held her hands hunched over as we slowly made it to the mailbox. 

She did awesome! She walked most of the way. She stopped a couple times to look at things. Like the fire hydrant in the picture above. She was still in a good mood when we got home. I had her sit on the steps so I could take some pictures of my cute girl.

I love this picture!!! She's so fun! She loved being outdoors and walking around. She has walked on her own, but only up to about 8 steps and then she'll crouch back down to the floor and walk. In the past we've had to push her to take steps, but this week she's been doing a lot on her own. She's getting too big!

I just liked how big her eyes look in this picture. She is looking more and more like a little toddler. It's fun, but I miss my little baby! 

She has been exploring more and more in her room. She found this and started playing with it. I laid her in it and turned on the vibrator. She thought it was really funny! As you can see, she's a bit big for it now.

Mary has learned the she really likes waffles. So I was fed her some for dinner yesterday. I got it warm and ripped up half of the waffle into smaller pieces for her. I turned and started to do the dishes and would check on her. She was eating them just fine. The next time I turned around she had eaten all the ones I gave her and instead of waiting for me to give her more she reached and grabbed the other half and just started chowing down. When she saw me looking at her she got this big smile on her face. She was so proud of herself. I tried to take it to make it smaller for her, but she wouldn't hear of it. So I let her keep it and just watched her. She is so funny! I love her little personality that is coming through and how much she is learning.

She has learned that at night when I walk her upstairs that it's time for bed. So what does she do? Drops to the floor and races back down the stairs to play. Usually, it's to play the piano with Dad. She loves to play pick-a-boo and will often hide herself and them peek around a corner at us and laugh. She has learned that if she touches our noses we well say "peep!" She is so fun to be around! I love being a mom - who wouldn't with this beautiful little one!?!?

YW, Hayden, Karaoke, and Mary (of course!)

This last week has been fun! (And a little crazy.) The first part of the week was spent getting Valentine's Day ready, as you read in the last post. Wednesday came around and I had my first Young Women's activity. In case you didn't know I am now the Beehive's Advisor in our ward. So far it's been fun, just a little crazy! I taught last Sunday and I think it went alright and then we had mutual that Wednesday. We went and heart-attacked the YW President's house. It was fun. The girls really liked it and seemed to have fun.

They named the activity "Secret Agents". That's why we're pretending to have guns.

 Then Thursday rolled around and my friend has fallen and hurt her back. So I offered to take her little boy for a few hours so she could rest. So, Mary had an impromptu play-date. I think Mary had more fun than Hayden. Poor guy just wanted to be held. But that didn't stop Mary from offering him toys and stuff. It was very cute. After there naps Hayden got a bottle while Mary was eating. As soon as he was done he wanted some of the good food...

Mary did a good job of sharing. It was very sweet. 

I think Hayden was jealous.

He's a boy all the way. See the football he's holding??

Lately Mary has decided that she is Miss Independent and that she wants to feed herself. Luckily, she has yet to stab herself with the pointy forks. We finally gave in and bought her some of her own. So, hopefully, she will like using those this week!

Can you tell she's very proud of herself???

She is always so happy to make a mess for us! Jake can't stand watching babies eat spaghettio-type foods. It's really funny!!!

In case you couldn't tell that's an olive in her mouth :) We had some in the fridge so I decided to see if she liked them and she does! (For the most part.) She doesn't like eating a lot of them, but she'll eat a few. I put one on her finger and tried to get a picture, but she took it off too quickly. I thought this picture was hilarious of her though!!!

Jake has found this karaoke channel on Youtube and gets on occasionally (okay, probably a bit more than occasionally.) And he'll sit there a sing different songs for quite a while - it's funny sometimes. Well, Mary loves music and so she'll find a way to get on his lap and just hang-out.

They tend to have a good time together!

On a great note, Mary has rediscovered how great baths are! YAY! She had so much fun the other day!!! Love it! It was really fun to watch her play. This was after the Spaghetti-o's. She was really dirty!!! 

Valentine's Day!!! (plus some)

Jake has been wanting to check out a flight school he found a little ways from us. These schools usual offer a introductory/discovery flight. It's where you get to take the airplane up for about an hour at a discounted rate. He's taken one before at another flight school, but wanted to check this one out. He's been trying to set it up for a while, but hasn't been able to. So, I thought it would be fun to do it as a surprise for Valentine's Day. Being the sneaky person I am I contacted the guy at the flight school and set it up without Jake knowing and I asked the guy to not let Jake schedule one before than. So poor Jake kept trying to get in contact with this guy and couldn't do it. (But they did finally make a time to go after V-day.) So, I took care of that, but there was still a little girl to deal with. So I called Mom Beckstead. She was very nice and very willing to take her very cute little granddaughter for the afternoon. And she was VERY helpful in making sure Jake could get off early from work. 


Valentine's Day morning came and I was talking to Jake about what he was going to do that day at work and he told me he was going to go on site inspections. SITE INSPECTIONS!?!?!? If you don't know what those are it's where Jake goes to people's houses and watches deliveries to make sure everything goes smoothly and correctly. Which means, he would not be in the office ALL DAY! I quickly called Mom B., who called Dad B., who called the guy Jake was going on these site inspections with and told him Jake had to be back in the office at a certain time. The best part was that this guy totally made up some bogus excuse which didn't make sense at all, but he got Jake back to the office in time. 


I got to Jake's office, sat in his seat and waited for him to come in. He was very surprised (and I think a little embarrassed, he shares an office with two other guys) to see me. I told him we were just going out to lunch. He, of course, chose to go to the restaurant at the airport across from where he works. Can you tell he is a little obsessed with planes???? But I do have to say, they have REALLY good food there. So I was happy. We ate and left and he thought I was going back to his work, but I turned and he was very confused. He asked me where we were going and all I did was hand him a blindfold :)

He wasn't extremely happy with me, but he played along and was very nice about it. He did guess pretty well where we were, but didn't know really where we were going. 


About 2 miles out from the airport I told him he could take it off and figure out where we were. It took him about 2 seconds to ask if we were going to the airport. When I told him we were he was very excited. At that point I did apologize to him for lying to him for a while about this whole thing. I think he forgave me before I even said anything. 

We got to the airport and met Burt - the instructor who was going to take us up. He was quite the talker!!! He had flown for a LONG time! He flew with Continental Airlines and for an oil company in Saudi Arabia. And now he teaches at his sons school (although he, Burt, did start the school). Anyway, so we listened to him for a while and then went on our flight. He was really great!

This is right before he started the plane. He is giving Jake some instructions on what to do. And Jake, of course, is listening intently.

Here we are taxying to the runway, he kept complaining about the stupid people that parked their cars where he's suppose to taxi.

Jake is now flying the airplane. Burt said that Jake did a great job and kept the plane steady and right where it should be. I guess Microsoft Flight Simulator is paying off!

Burt kept putting his arm around Jake's seat. I'm sure it was more comfortable to sit like that. (The airplanes are quite small.) I just thought it was funny!

Jake flying again, you can see him holding the yoke in this picture.

We flew around downtown Denver. It was really fun! That's the baseball field that you can see.

More of downtown Denver.

I had a lot of fun looking out the window! A different view than what I'm use to.

This is the airport we flew out of - Front Range Airport.

Here Jake is turning to the right. Burt kept getting mad at Jake because he would look at the instruments to fly instead of looking out the window. So, Jake obediently, is looking out his window this time.

We're coming in for the landing!!! It was really smooth!
       Jake is very happy!!!!!

We went home, made homemade pizza - that was soooooooo delicious!!! And watched a movie. It was the perfect end to a perfect Valentine's Day!!! 

Also for Valentine's Day Jake's parents gave us these. There are suppose to be 8...but I got a little hungry on the way home :D They are very yummy!

My parents sent this cute card to Mary. The picture didn't turn out well, but it was still fun!

Other news....

I took Mary to the doctor the other day because of this redness that you can see on her face. They said she has eczema...yuck! So now we put lotion on her twice a day and around her mouth all the time. Poor girl!

It's getting much better, thank goodness. We put a humidifier in her room to hopefully help with it too. 

As you can see it hasn't slowed her down much. She still happy and fun!

Church and naps

So, like so many church times, ours is right when Mary is suppose to take her afternoon nap. (Our church is at 1 p.m., Mary usually goes down about 2-4 p.m.) Needless to say she can get really fun during church. And to top it all off I have just been called to be the Beehives Advisor. So, Jake now gets to take care of Mary during the 3rd hour of church. Well, this last Sunday was the first time Jake has had to take her. When Jake picked her up and started walking away she started screaming and crying. Poor girl, it was bad enough that she won't sleep during church and now I had to leave her. But Jake calmed her down and she did okay for a little while... Then she started getting upset again in the middle of Priesthood, so what does he do? He takes her out to the car so she can be as loud as she wants. And what does she do? Falls asleep in his arms. I came out of church to this:

 Which I thought was very sweet. Jake was loving it because she rarely falls asleep in anyone's arms and it's even rarely to have it happen to him. If you look closely at this next photo you can see that her foot is in the steering wheel. I guess Jake didn't even notice she fell asleep. He said she was playing with a toy and then next thing he notices is that she has fallen asleep. So sweet! I love my little family!

So a while ago I got some mittens (they came with a hat that I liked) for Mary, but she has never worn them. I always forget to put them on her. Well, the other day I was switching diaper bags and they fell out, so I thought it would be fun(ny) to put them on her and see what she did. So I did. It was very comical to see her look at them and then try to pick something up and wonder what was going on. She kept looking at me like she wanted to say "Hey, what happened to my fingers?!" She eventually figured them out. 

Mary is growing so fast! She is learning all kinds of things. She can go up and down stairs, say "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" - when she wants something, can sign 'milk', can completely stand on her own and could probably walk if she wanted - I don't encourage that though, and does a ton of other stuff. She loves to hear her Dad play the piano. If he goes over to play she will crawl as fast as she can over to it, stand up and reach on her tip-toes to play with him. And then she'll start dancing. It's very cute to see!!! She loves music and anytime music comes on she'll stop what she's doing, listen intently and then (usually) starts dancing. We love our little Mary she is so fun to be around!!! She surprises us everyday!!!