Merry Christmas

This year was an eventful one. We began the year jobless, with $2,000 in credit card debt, and 7 months pregnant. Cody had three different jobs, we lived in 4 different apartments (including Laura’s parents’ basement), we were both full and part-time students throughout the year, Mariah was born in March, and miraculously, we managed to get out of debt, just to get back in this Christmas. Obviously, the most significant event of the year was the birth of Mariah Jane. She has reminded us of the most important things in life—being right, getting what you want for Christmas, having a lot of disposable income, going to the most prestigious schools (go BYU!), and having the biggest and best of everything (including wedding rings, houses, cars, cameras and TVs w/ HDMI, expensive clothes, and fancy vacations). Having the cutest kid in the trendiest clothes could also be added to the list of which we have a daily reminder (see below). We really do have the cutest kid. But seriously, Mariah has taught us that the most important things in life are loving relationships with family and friends. Merry Christmas!

We're Still Alive

Hello all! In case you are wondering, we are still alive and we still have a blog. A lot has changed since our last post on October 9. It is now December 4, 2006. We live in a new apartment, in a new city and Cody has a new job. We are back in Orem living in a basement apartment. Cody works at US Synthetic and Laura is barely scraping by with her classes. Mariah now crawls, stands up, walks along side of everything, and is more hyper than ever. We think that she'll walk by Christmas. She is almost nine months old. More later.

Books Books Books

Cody got a supplemental job at Pioneer book in Provo. It's just a few extra work hours a week but its enough to save our financial life and to ruin our routine. It's great though because Cody has been able to trade in his old books that he doesn't want for a bunch of his favorites. The other night Mariah and I went to pick him up from work. While we were waiting, she spotted a Cinderella book. I picked it up for her and she carried it around as she smiled and kicked with delight for about 20 minutes. The employees told me she could just have it. Here she is playing with it.

More of our Ham-Child

Elevator Trouble

This semester Cody has an 8 o'clock class and I have one at 10:00. So we all have an hour together to hang out on campus. We push Mariah around in the stroller so we have to use elevators. On Monday, we got on the elevator as we were leaving the bookstore when it was time for me to go to class. We pushed the button and then there was a big thud. The elevator was stuck! My fear of that happening almost equals my fear of clowns. But I didn't freak out. We pushed the button and they had us out in about 10 minutes. I had a pretty good excuse for being late to class!

Hot Springs, Cold Night

I (Cody) went on an overnight, short backpack trip with my buddy Matt to the hot springs inbetween Sheep Creek and Diamond Fork roads. It got really cold but the hot springs were quite nice. The colors were beautiful as you can see from the below photo. I came down with some sort of fever the day we returned which created quite the miserable day because Mariah was already sick (she had been for a few days already), I was sick, and then Laura became sick. We're all over it now. I still can't believe the beautiful country-side there is right in our back yard.

Six Months Old!

Mariah is 6 months old today. Wow. Time flies. Since she can sit up so well now, she has graduated to the big bath tub.
She just gets more curious every day. She wants to see and feel everything. Today, I heated up some soup for myself. I held her in one arm as I stirred it with my free hand, she reached for the bowl and slapped her little hand right in the soup. It wasn't too hot, but she cried anyway. I think it scared her.
I feel like she just wants to be grown up right now. She gets very frustrated when she doesn't know how to do something, but she figures it out fast. She has mastered picking things up with her feet when they are too far away to reach with her hands. I think she is going to be a ham like her dad. She always puts on a smile show for relatives and strangers as if she knows they think she's cute.

Difficult But Getting Cuter

Cody and I started school on Tuesday. I hope this works out. Doing homework with Mariah around is quite hard. I'm predicting that she'll be crawling in the next few weeks and that won't make things any easier. It's a good thing that she gets cuter as she gets older. She laughs a lot and she just started saying babble words like ah-DEE-tah and uh-DEY.

Mariah still loves to play with newspaperI think I have the same picture of me in a rocking chair.

Isn't she so cool?

One of Mariah's favorite movies is Pride&Prejudice (A&E version). When we were watching it last Sunday, she kept smiling when Mr. Bingley came on. Here she is playing with the DVD case.

Finally! A Crib

We finally got Mariah a crib. She has yet to sleep in it but it's there. She's been sick with some sort of cold and a very stuffy nose so she either sleeps in her swing or the bouncy seat placed inside her crib. She seems to be getting over it little by little. Today she had some fun playing with dad's face.

TV

We try not to let Mariah watch TV,
but she still does and this is what
happened last time she watched...

First Bite

Mariah has hit an all new stage. She is cooing all the time and sitting up quite well. For awhile now she's been eyeing and grabbing for our food. So yesterday we let her have her first cereal. She INHALED it!

5 months old

Mariah is now five months old. On August 8th, she met her new cousin, Max Kendell (son of Melissa and Cameron Kendell, congrats!). He weighed 8lbs 13 oz and its hard to believe Mariah was ever that small. I still am amazed how fast she learns and grows. She's figured out how to put her foot in her mouth and she loves to play with newspaper. The other night, I put her in her bouncy chair so I could play the piano and sing. She loved it! She smiled at me nonstop and she joined in with some high pitched cooing. We had a great time.

It seems like Mariah is doing something new every day. She can hold a bottle now and she rolled over to her tummy on Tuesday. She also makes new sounds using her lips, so that means lots of b and p sounds and, of course, the raspberries (you can see and hear it on the video when we figure out how to upload it). She mainly does raspberries when she wants to complain or when she wants to practice distance spitting. We're still working on sleeping through the night though. I hope it will be tonight.

Lions and Tigers..NO...Moosen!

Randall (Laura's brother) and I did an overnighter up at Maple Flats last night. Maple Flats is just below the peak to the south of Y mountain. The quickest (and most strenuous) approach is from the Y parking lot. From the top of the Y you head south up the mountain to Bear Flats which is similiar to a hanging valley, above seven peaks resort. Then it's just up a couple hundred feet to Maple Flats. Well, we both got about 3 maybe 4 hours of sleep max. Besides the mosquitoes and flies zzzzz-ing around or ears and other extremities all night (we had no tent) we had a large visitor. Klump, Klump.....pppppppppppp he went. (The pppppppp sound is suppose to be like that of a horse flapping its lips.) He visited a few times scarin' both of us out of our sleep. All in all it was fun. As we descended down Y mountain the next morning we had a good laugh remembering how frightend we really were.

Can't stand the heat!

Dad and babe exhausted after a long day of diaper changing, feeding and putting up with Utah's hellish heat wave.

Four Months Old

Look how much Mariah has grown! She had her four month check-up yesterday. She weighs 13 lbs 13 oz and is 24 inches long. It's crazy how fast they grow and develop, and it's so fun to watch. We are so lucky to have her.

Here is another one I wanted to share with everyone. She's just so teeth-grittin' cute!

Mariah laughed for the first time today! I was singing "Blue Shadows" from the movie Three Amigos and when I got to the "bum bum bum bum" part she just giggled. It was adorable!

Mariah just gets cuter! Her personality gets more distinct every day. She is a very happy baby. She loves to smile at herself in the mirror and she loves to be outside. Her latest interest is playing with Mom's and Dad's hands. We love her!

Finals are over!

I finished my first semester since Mariah was born. It was a good way to get my brain working again after the pregnancy. I took two psychology classes. One was a joke but the other was quite difficult. I turned in my final paper today and I get a break until next semester...which starts on Monday.

Almost 3 months old!

Mariah is now almost three months old. Her personality is starting to come forth and she has recently found her hands. She enjoys licking the back of them and rubbing her eyes. She brings an enormous amount of joy to our home.

Mariah Jane

Need I say more?

I am incredibly internet illiterate. I took a basic HTML class in 10th grade but I can't seem to remember anything. I am going to try a few things out.

Some of my favorite books from the past year:

Dialogues With Myself, Eugene England
Open Space of Democracy
Approaching Zion
A Consecrated Life
Walden
Sophie's World
Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism
The Backslider
A Thoughful Faith: Essays on Belief by Mormon Scholars
John Muir: Apostle of Nature
Small Wonder Essays
The Monkey Wrench Gang
The Journey Home
David O. Mckay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism
Rough Stone Rolling

Still testing. This is pretty fun. Time to start ranting and musing like all the other bloggers out there. Oh, nevermind. This is a family friendly blog about us and our lives. We'll post what were reading, thinking, doing, maybe even what we're fighting about. Have I caught your attention? This is baby Mariah Jane. She makes some of the funniest faces.