{Art Museum}

On Saturday we decided we wanted to go down to the new Perot Nature and Science museum downtown. As we drove past the museum to find parking it turns out that the museum was sold out for the day. So we decided to just go to the Dallas Art Museum. They recently started having free admission so that was wonderful.
That whole trip was wonderful. My heart was so happy. I was with my little family at an art museum - 2 of my favorite things. To top it all off, Evette loved the museum - no joke. We would look at all the pictures, talk about the animals, make the animal noises, talk about what the people were doing, how they were feeling... It was like one massive book spread all over the walls. She was so excited running around and asking questions about everything. My heart was about to burst. She is so smart and inquisitive and just stinkin adorable.

 So after about an hour of strolling around the museum, Evette was about done. But, then we saw the kid's section and we were there for another hour and a half. They had toys and blocks and magnets and duplos and books and markers - it was awesome.

  

Sean had fun conducting his own science experiments with the duplos. 

Evette loved playing with these beads!

It's days like this that cause me to pause and marvel at my blessed life.

xoxo

{Friday Five}

5 Things this week that I have loved:

Evette and I celebrated Martin Luther King Jr Day by having a special FHE. We sang "Love One Another", read "Global Babies" and talked about how everyone is a child of God. We then enjoyed chocolate cookies and watched a couple youtube clips of MLK. Grateful for his courage.

My Baby turned into a Kid this week. She just grew up all of a sudden.

My mom got me an amaryllis for Christmas and I love watching it grow!

  

My inner tween self is super excited about finally learning how to make friendship bracelets. Evette and I now have matching bracelets :)

This is Evette showing off some of her animal sounds. She also knows Dinosaurs, tigers, cows, and birds.

xoxo

{2 years!}

Yesterday was the 2 year anniversary of finding out that we were pregnant. This was one of the happiest days of my life and I will always celebrate it. Evette has been in our life for 2 years now and I can't imagine life without her.

Womb

Birthday

 1 year mark

Birthday

2 year mark

xoxo

{Wipe, wipe, wipe!}

We make a lot of messes at our house. By "we" I actually mean Evette. When Evette spills milk/water on the floor I have her help me clean it up. We go and get a rag or paper towel to "wipe, wipe, wipe!"

The other day we had some visitors who accidentally got some mud on the carpet. I was going to ignore it and just clean it up later, but Evette came over and said, "Uhdat!" pointing to the mess. I told her we'd clean up the mess later. Instead, she ran into the kitchen and grabbed a cleaning rag and went to town "wipe, wipe, wipe!" How great is that?!?!

I've tried to get Evette to help out around the house already, so that when she's older, she'll grow up knowing that we all help around the house.

Some of her "chores" are throwing away her diapers, wiping up messes, helping to set the table, putting away  toys, handing me silverware out of the dishwasher, handing me clothes out of the basket to fold, and helping swiffer the house. She loves to help! She gets excited about it and gives her self a round of applause after helping lol

Here she is cleaning up some water she spilled on the floor - too cute!

{Wife of a Consultant}

Well, I have now been a wife of a consultant for about 8 months now.

Here's a typical conversation with someone we just met/a new friend:
So what does your husband do?
He's a business consultant.
Which means.....
He travels around and works will all sorts of companies helping them improve. Anything from electrical plants and potential risks with a new power plant to retail store doing who knows what.
Well that's cool! So does he travel a lot?
Yes
Like Once a month?
Like Every week.
Every week?!?
Yup, flies out early morning Monday and gets back Thursday night.
Every week.
Pretty much.
How is that.
Not bad.
Really?
Really.

And it's true. It's not bad. There are definitely some pros and cons to this job, as there is with any job.

Pros.

He loves what he does. He's on a new case every couple months and works with tons of people all over the country/world. He learns new things all the time and gets exposed to all sorts of new information. He's a junkie for learning [awesome] so it's great for him.

His job is constant networking which could be potentially helpful if/when we decided to start the next chapter of our life.

He is racking up the frequent flyer/hotel points which means free travel for the rest of us. We also have the option of having me fly out to him instead of him flying home to me for the weekends. That means that I also get to travel the world. Our schedules haven't worked out to do that yet, but I'm planning on heading up to Seattle in the next couple months with Evette in tow to visit family and that beautiful part of the country.

When he's home, he's home. Back when Sean had the internship in Chicago he would work the normal 8-5 shift, come home for dinner, and then have to put in more hours. That was horrible. I waited all day for him to come home so we could play, go out, have fun, etc... but he would eat and then go back to the laptop to work for a couple hours. Awful. Now when he's gone, he works ridiculous hours, but when he's home on the weekend, he hardly ever has to do work. That means lots of good quality time without having "homework" on the back of his mind. I hated having him home but not being able to be home. It was hard on both of us.

In between cases there can be these magical weeks called "beach time." "Beach time" is where the husband gets to stay home and work play with us until he gets put on a new case. Back around Thanksgiving time Sean had seriously about a month off. He had to do a little work here and there and show up to the office occasionally, but he mostly just stayed home and partied with us. It's was glorious.

I don't have to cook real food every night for dinner. I feel obligated to cook when Sean's home and I'm glad I don't have that pressure [none of which he puts on me] every night of the week.

The pay. Let's be honest folks, it's a pretty great deal.

We only have need of one car. Since he is gone all week he doesn't need to drive the car to work which means we don't need another one til we outgrow our current vehicle.

I have a lot of me time, which I think is important in a marriage. I get to put time into things that I like to do like reading, crafts, watch tv, etc.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder. 'Nuff said.

Keeping a strong and happy marriage when you are apart for half the week is difficult. Working through it has made our marriage stronger and has helped us focus on what is really important.

When the weekend comes around we really treasure it and treasure the time together. We don't take for granted the time that we have together because it doesn't happen all the time.





Cons.

It gets lonely.  I do have Evette to "talk" to and keep me company during the day, but let's be real folks, it's not stimulating, intellectual conversations we're having. Sometimes I go all day with not talking to anyone else but Evette - and that gets rough. Thank goodness for great friends who look out for me, my mom that listens to me, play dates with other kids/moms, and just nice people at the grocery store/park that will have a conversation with you.

Communication with Sean during the week is a lot harder than I had expected it to be. First off, I hate talking on the phone. Always have. I'm not good at talking on the phone so when Sean and I do talk, it's about nothing really. But, I am getting better at it. We like to video chat as well so that Babbs can see Daddy - she loves. Unfortunately  with him traveling all over the country and different time zones and lots of meetings and an early bedtime at home, that doesn't happen quite as often as we would like.

Sometimes I get scared at night. We have security system and we live in a great neighborhood but I do need to get to bed before my mind starts to play tricks on me. One time I really thought someone was trying to break into my house but it was actually just branches brushes against the window.

I don't eat real food. I see little benefit in cooking meals for just Evette and I. If I go to all the trouble to actually make a meal there better be leftovers, and with Sean not around, that means leftovers for 4 days 3 meals a day. Not joking. Seriously one time we made a big ol' pot of spanish rice to go with some enchiladas one Sunday and I was eating spanish rice with my breakfast burritos, for lunch, and with my leftover enchiladas for the next 4 days. FOUR. Sean wanted Mexican food again that weekend - I think not. No real meals means sandwiches, salads, yogurt, and crackers. Basically I am just lazy. Maybe I need to make a bunch of those freezer meals but in 1.5 servings so Evette and I can eat during the week.... now that's a thought....

I can procrastinate big time. Why do the dishes if I'm the only one home? Sean won't be home for 2 more days, that's 2 days that I don't actually have to do the dishes. Bad mentality. I should clean the house because I like it to be clean as well and Evette and I deserve to have a clean house even if Sean isn't home. Writing these out makes me realize that I just need to be less lazy.

Sometimes I am afraid that I will have a heart attack and die and no one would find out for hours and hours and hours and poor Evette would be here all alone. Sean and I devised a plan so that we communicate [call, text, email] at 3 various points throughout the day just so he knows I'm alive. If you don't see me post/comment/like something on facebook or instagram in a couple hours call me to make sure that I'm alive.




So there ya have it. Life as a wife of a consultant. Not a bad gig. Do I like it? Overall, yes. Do I hope he'll do it forever? No.

We're at a great spot in life and it's awesome. Just learning to make it work as best we can.

And a'course a picture of the Babbs. This is her blinking/winking while eating her dinner - too silly to pass up. Notice how little Mac n' Cheese is left compared to the peas.... hummm :)

Sean's 2012 book list

I read all of the time. I read on buses, trains, airplanes, waiting at airports, sitting in my hotel room. Books serve as a meaningful occupier of my time between my many tasks, something I'm proud of doing. I love my books. During 2012 I managed to finish seventeen books, listed below with short reviews:

1. Shadows in Flight - The most recent of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series  specifically being the most recent addition to the Shadow sub-series. While I was glad to see beloved characters again, I have to say this book was maybe 1/4 the length of what a novel should be - roughly comparable in length to a pre-teen novel. It felt like an intro to a longer story, which made it very disappointing when I turned the last page and failed to see "Chapter 1" printed on the next.
2. Red China Blues: My Journey from Mao to Now - Admittedly, this book was required for my Comparative Politics of China course at BYU, but I loved it like a book I'd chosen to read on my own. Fascinating auto-biography of a Canadian woman of Chinese decent who went to China as an exchange student during the 1960s and 1970s, absolutely caught up in Mao's take on communism. She walks the reader through her ecstasy of living the Maoist dream and then her experiences as that euphoria crumbled as she slowly realized how terrible Maoism was not only for the Chinese people but also for herself.
3. Yes or No - Short, semi-goofy business-ish book on making better decisions quicker. The jist: in order to make good decisions, one must listen both to his heart AND his mind. Neither input should ever trump the other. The book got the point across very well but I felt like I was watching a poorly scripted and acted training video.
4. Wild Grass - Also required for my Comparative Politics of China course, but, again, I loved it so it's on the list (books I trudged my way through don't make the cut). Fascinating compilation of several shorter stories of common people's struggle to get equal rights and fair treatment in China. Most of it was very sad... Chinese communism <> power of the people. 
5. The Great Divorce - Amazing book by C.S. Lewis. It's a drawn out parable of what matters in life: letting go of yourself (divorcing yourself from the World) and accepting the love and grace of God. Beautifully written, very thought provoking. Certainly my favorite example I've read yet of why some people who were "great" on Earth may not choose to follow God in the here-after and why many whom are less than great will. I listed to this in audiobook form.
6. The Abolition of Man - A complicated philosophical treatise from C.S. Lewis that was anything but enjoyable to listen to. I think he was defending the concept of morality, but I'm not quite sure. The premise was C.S. Lewis' attack on a grammar book that had a morally ambiguous statement in it. I only listed the whole way through because I was driving in the middle of nowhere and had nothing else to listen to (Eastern Oregon / Western Idaho following our Washington trip) and so it could be on this list. Is that shallow?
7. The Great Divorce - Loved it so much I listened to it twice. It's short.
8. Good to Great - The pre-eminent business book, both in terms of content and in dryness. Basically, the author identified a number of good companies that became great and described their turnarounds. I might have enjoyed the book more had half of those companies not gone belly-up in the 10 years that have followed since the book's publishing.
9. The Life of Pi - Read at the suggestion of many a family member and friend (although my mind gives my sister-in-law, Natalie, the credit for some reason). If you haven't heard of the story yet (in either book or movie form), repent. It's a beautiful if heartrending story of faith, determination, and love. 
10. The Night Circus - Enthusiastically suggested by my lover after she read if for a book club she's in. Honestly, her description of the book sounded so odd and convoluted I started reading the book just to rectify my confusion more than out of interest in the story. I was soon enchanted by the story and I can't say enough good things about it. I'll tell you the premise if you promise to read it if it sounds even remotely intriguing - you won't regret it. It's about two magicians competing to the death who, predictably,  fall in love, all told in the backdrop of a rather magical circus travelling among us Muggles (to quote JKR, not EM). Great read.
11. Pastwatch - After being disappointed by Orson Scott Card's "Shadows in Flight" I decided to try one of his non-Enderverse books. I was well rewarded. I'll spare you the premise because it's pretty confusing, but basically Card's characters and plot lead a fascinating discussion on the impacts of the European colonization of the Americas, focusing on the slaughter of the natives and the enslavement of Africa. His plot unfolds a world that might have been if Columbus hadn't made his great discovery, or if he had, what the world would be like if he hadn't made it in such a "conquering" way, but rather as an equal. The book has many moments of fuzzy science and simplifies many points for argument's sake, but it was deeply moving and eye opening nonetheless. It was especially impactful since I read this only weeks before going on a cruise to central america and seeing so many natives living on the droppings of us Westerners...
12. We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance - Another first for me: a non-fiction war novel. The tale of a Norwegian who fled Norway in the wake of Nazi Germany's invasion, who returned to Norway on a British mission to lead a sabotage effort against the Nazis. His team was quickly caught and destroyed, he being the sole person to escape. The story of his survival in the unforgiving Norse winter, possible only thanks to the help of many kind strangers who risked their lives to help him. Gritty, sad, and inspiring all at once. A great read.
13. A Heart for Freedom - The incredible auto-biography from Chai Ling, the young woman who led the protests at Tiananmen, who miraculously escaped the slaughter there, who equally miraculously escaped to America, who had to forgive herself for being raped by friends, for having several abortions, for "abandoning" her comrades at the Square, who ultimately came to God and finally found peace after years of intense inner-personal struggle. Eye opening to many worlds beyond my experience, heat wrenching, sickening, inspiring, faith building. I was expecting to read the story of the massacre at Tiananmen but instead I found myself reading a book about a very broken woman finding healing by accepting God and forgiving herself.
14. Earth Unaware: The First Formic War - Another Orson Scott Card book (I'm a fan, if you can't tell), this one being in the Enderverse again, serving as part one of the prologue to Ender's Game. A little on the short side but a fun read. That said, it, like most of OSC's recent Enderverse books, seems to be void of the deep-thought philosophy and human poetry that made the first four books so great.
15. The Alchemist - Read this one in Spanish. Going into it I didn't know it was a "self-help" kind of book... The message: follow your dreams. Thankfully, the "self-help" content is very well wrapped up in a long parable about a boy seeking his treasure, and, because of his diligence in doing so, finding far more wonderful things along the way.
16. Cat's Cradle - In stark contrast to "The Alchemist"'s optimism, "Cat's Cradle" proved to easily be the grittiest, most sarcastic and pessimistic book I've ever read. That juxtaposition was not intentional, but it is kind of funny in hind sight. It's the story of a journalist piecing together the lives of an eccentric family after the father (a famous, if mad, scientist) died and really finding nothing. The author seems to be arguing that life is meaningless and even when supposed great life lessons appear, it's all a farce and won't come to anything (for good or evil). I don't support that message, but it was a hilarious book and I often found myself lol-ing.
17. The Hobbit - I read this in middle school, but I had to re-read it before I'd let myself see the movie. Mission accomplished. Fun story, fun characters. If I can be a critic, though, of this great work, I did find the "sheer luck" of the company to be rather trying. Bilbo and company were often little more than stubborn, blind idiots bumbling about on their quixotic quest to recover lost treasure and seemed to only make it "there and back again" because of a lot of dumb luck (and eagles). I still loved the book and am currently reading "The Fellowship of the Ring" but I feel like Tolkien cut a few corners in this story.

--From me, the adorable one--

                            zxzzzk,mkmnjzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzkkkkkkkkkk zzz                    zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz       gfggggggggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh66            ,mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,f

 ,mnj7 ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ gbfggggggg                    ;

 wa2s766TYGGGGGGHT6Y75   MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM  c CCCCCC

 

XOXO Evette

{Dinner Tonight}

We had pasta - which is Evette's favorite. We also had green beans - which are sometimes not her favorite.

Here she is trying to eat those green beans.

Here she is signing for "more" pasta. Her fourth helping, to be exact. Yes, you read that correctly, her fourth serving of pasta. 

 This was her face when I told her that she could have more. She did it more than I did for dinner tonight.

 She also spilled milk all over the floor.

And we had a candy cane for dessert.

 And she looks like me :) Evette 15.5 months - Me - 20ish months

Love this face.

Hope your dinner was as delicious but not as messy :)

{Happy 15 Months!!!}

Oh how much our Baby Girl has grown in these past 3 months! She turned 15 months on Dec 28th.

She sleeps 12-13 hrs at night and does either 1 or 2 naps during the day each for 1-2 hours. She never fights going to bed and usually asks for her naps with her sign for sleep. We lay her down in bed with 1 pacifier in the mouth, 1 in her hand, and either her stuffed lion or baby doll in the other hand.

She drinks whole milk, and uses her 12 [yes, 12] teeth to chomp through everything we eat. She uses a spoon and we are working on forks. She can eat a bowl full of cereal all by herself and then can pick it up and drink the milk out of the bowl with minimal mess. Seriously amazing. She loves all sorts of foods [except tomatoes] and is not scared of a little spice. She also eats a ton of food. She eats at least as much, if not more, than I do for breakfast and sometimes for lunch and dinner, too.

She says "Dada" and "ahht-sigh" [outside] and "nana" [banana] and "yes" and "uhs dat" [what's that? she points to everything and asks "uhs dat?!?"] and sometimes "mama." Her favorite sound effects are dinosaur roars [If you ask her what a dinosaurs says she will roar/growl for you] and blowing spit bubbles. We are also working on other animals sounds and have gotten monkey and snake a few times.

She has also picked up some sign language after the prayer/food incident. She can sign "food", "prayer", "more", "milk", "sleep", "pacifier", and we're working on "please". She loves using sign and being able to communicate with us. It's wonderful to see her eyes light up once she realizes that she conveyed and we understood the same message. [We are definitely planning on using baby sign for real with our next children instead of starting it so late in the game. It really is helpful].

She has also learned Spanish. There is some serious Spanglish going on in this house and so she knows the Spanish words just as well, or better in a lot of cases for the following: beso/kiss, comida/food, leche/milk, zapatos/shoes, venga/come here, ven aqui/come here, vamos/let's go, quieres mas?/do you want more?, etc.... lots of basic commands. So smart. A common phrase in our Spanglish would be, "Baby-sita, go find your zapatos because es la hora de salir." and she would understand me and go find her shoes. Brilliant.

Whether she is actually saying words or signing or speaking Spanish [soon...] or none of the above, it's usually pretty easy to know what she wants. She babbles constantly and asks all sorts of questions. I never understood how moms knew what the nonsense coming out of their child's mouth was, but now I totally get it. If we don't get it right away, she will grab our fingers and drag us across the house to what she wants to talk to us about, the bathtub, the Christmas tree, the piano, the snacks, etc. While I was sitting on the floor and not wanting to get her food out of the fridge, which I knew is what she wanted, and would not budge when she was pulling on my hand, she tried to slide her fingers under my backside trying to pick me up to get me moving. Silly girl.

We're also working on learning body parts. She can usually point out her nose, eyes, hair, belly button, and bum and she sometimes gets her eyes, fingers, and toes.

She is also very into the arts. She has recently picked up the skill of coloring. She loves loves loves to color with crayons and pens. She also loves to play my trombone with me. I have it out in our living room next to the piano and she goes and stands next to it pointing to the mouth piece and babbling until I come over and help her play it. She puts the mouthpiece to her mouth and sings through it. Seriously so cute. It's pretty amazing that she has learned not to ever touch the trombone with out Mommy's help. She is also continuing to grow into quite the accomplished little lady by keeping up with her singing and piano practicing. She loves to do both, and she loves to do both at the same time. Her dancing skills are also improving everyday. She loves swaying back and forth and bouncing. She has also tried to snap her fingers after seeing Sean and I do it while grooving out to Michael Jackson in the car the other day.

She can also read. She can sit by herself and just read for a long long time. Sometimes when she doesn't want to nap she still gets quiet time which means a pacifier and lots of books in her crib. She can stay in there upwards of an hour just reading. She points to all the pictures and asks lots of questions and narrates it in all of her babbles. She and I also read a lot together and she loves to pet the doggies on the page or pretend to eat the banana or give the baby a beso/kiss. She loves books and has never ripped her paper books. Amazing.

Her favorite toys are her dolls, her blocks, her little dinosaur, her big dinosaur that she rides and plays music,  her blocks, her new puppets that she got for Christmas, and every stuffed animal.

She has quite the little personality. She is so so so funny. She is the funniest person I know, true story. No one has made me laugh harder than this little munchkin. She is such a tease, such a flirt, such a quirky sense of humor. She teases us, makes jokes, sneaks up on us, tickles us. Seriously hilarious. Also, she makes the silliest little scrunched up face when she does her cheeser smile. She's quite the little firecracker. She is very stubborn, persistent, and independent.

In the last three months she has moved to size 18 mo clothing, size 5 shoes, and size 4 diaper.

The doctor again said that she was absolutely perfect in every way and said that my friends probably don't like me for having a perfect baby. He probably was just making me feel good, but I do think she is pretty perfect. She obviously has her moments like everyone does, but she's pretty splendid.

She is now 32.75 inches - thats 2 inches in 3 months, people! Growth spurt! No wonder she eats so much! That puts in her in 97% for height. Her weight is 24 lbs - 75% [ she actually got to stand on the big person scale and not the little baby one! Big girl] and her head is 46.4 cm [70%]. Perfect in every way.

She makes my heart sing.

{End of 2012}

We threw a Christmas party for our Sunday school class - we had ugly sweaters....

White Elephant gift exchange

and sugar cookie decorating

other happenings...

and some more pictures

Matching dresses and cute pigtails.

finally caught some Zs while running errands

Our future photographer

Making a fancy dinner with Daddy for New Years Eve - Tagliatelle with Spring Lamb. Seriously deliciously amazing. Also cute Baby Girl in her Great Great Grandmother's apron :) 

We rang in the new year with our friends Jared and Emily and lots of bubbly and games.

2012 was great!! Cannot wait for all the adventures 2013 hold!