Christmas

When we left Ogden for St. George, I was kind of sad there would be so much snow up north and none down south. What a surprise we got Christmas morning!

Here is Terrel excited that he is wearing shorts in the snow, and Mckay reluctant to have his picture taken in his pj's.Lily with her cousin Olivia. She's not too excited about the dress I made her wear. Lily and her favorite person.Jackson was mild as always and started gnawing away on his new teether immediately.

chubbers

Merry Christmas Adam

Yes that is our 25 ft driveway shoveled of 3 inches of snow, although since it was still snowing - I did have a time limit of both kids napping - it got dusted after I was finished. (And yes, I am one of those girly wives who expects her husband to do the shoveling.) I love it when both kids are sleeping!

tv brains

We apparently have 2 of them.
As a side note, Lily has passed the first stage of adjusting to a little brother, and absolutely loves him. She shares everything with him: books, toys, food (although I am the one that"gives" it to him - e.i. I eat it), blankets, binkies. It's so nice. As my Dad would say, I certainly get the "warm fuzzies" when I see her pass up an opportunity to scratch him and instead gives him a hug and kiss. My goodness, what a change from before!

golden girl

Lily turned 2 on December 2nd. We gave her a little baking set from Ikea and my mom got her a mini-apron. It was so cute to watch her copy me while we made sugar cookies for her birthday party.She had quite the drawn-out celebration this year: over Thanksgiving weekend we had a joint party for her and Mindy, our sister-in-law whose birthday is on December 3rd, in St. George (thanks to Terrell for buying all of that pizza and those cupcakes); a little birthday breakfast with my parents before driving home; our own family outing to our favorite Italian restaurant (no it wasn't the Olive Garden) followed by watching Kung Fu Panda while eating ice cream; and finally a little neighborhood get-together. I certainly enjoyed it! I don't think it's hit me yet how big she is getting - in that sense the binky helps me believe she is still a baby.

Adam's solution to multi-tasking with a baby

"Just like an eskimo!"

Lily's To-Do-This-Morning List

1. Point to step-ladder in the kitchen to have Mom unfold.
2. Steer step-ladder over to cupboard.
3. Climb up to where ice-cream cones are, and get them down.
4. Hand them to Mom.
5. Try to open freezer, and cry until Mom does it.
6. Point to peppermint ice cream (not vanilla!).
7. Have an ice cream cone for breakfast.

our stupidity fully apparent

Our hard drive crashed. After Adam dropped our external hard drive last year and broke it, we didn't replace it.
So unless we can retrieve our data, there goes a lot of saved documents and all of our family pictures. And it will be a while before I get back into posting. I guess we had to learn the hard way.
(Don't tell Adam, but he's getting an external hard drive for Christmas)

You know you're a controlling wife when.....

on Fast Sunday you say "Fine! Just eat something if you're going to be so grumpy!" And your husband walks straight to the kitchen and eats a brownie.

our little monkey

My handsome husband.

It took a while to get Lily's binky - she seemed a little traumatized after getting her tattoo.

Tired after giving Mom no naps longer than 20 minutes all day.

rock on

Preparations....



*Idea courtesy of Nathan and Alicia - I told you we would put her in that dress sooner or later!



What a coincidence! Lily's friend Joseph dressed as an 80's rocker. This is Delena's son, who I swapped babysitting with for work, so they are quite close. So cute.

2 months

(Even Jack is surprised he's that old)

Jack's 2 month mark was on Friday. His stats are pretty much opposite of Lily's: Weight was 12 lbs 15 oz (75%), length 24 inches (90%), head circumfrence 40.6 cm (50%). Lily always had a big head and low weight. :)

What a precious boy! I seriously don't know how he's getting bigger he eats so rarely (at least what I remember from Lily). He's been a super good sleeper since his first week home, and I usually just get up once a night. I've been able to take him to work and he's been such a trooper.

The other night I left the kids with Adam for about an hour and when I got home, Adam accused me of spoiling Jack so much that he couldn't put him down. I admit it! He's such a cutie and just smiles and coos for me as long as I smile at him. And my other excuse has to do with Lily: someone needs to protect the little guy from his big sister - the marks on his face just recently healed from her scratching spree last week. Good thing she's such a cutie too.

SLC

We had another wonderful Saturday trip. We hit Ikea (*amazing* children's department - 1/2 of Lily's Christmas is taken care of), Cheesecake Factory (exquisite - I'm still rationing the last precious bites of my chocolate tuxedo cheesecake), dollar movies to see Wall-E (I'm sure Lily will want to go again - the first half of the movie she stuffed herself with the treats Adam got, and the second half she fell asleep on his lap), visited with Liz and her kids for a bit (Lily screamed when we left), then had dinner with our good friends Erin and Seth (Lily was pretty upset when we left there, too), and finally dropped by Z Gallerie to pick up the latest installment of our jeweled bird set for our family: the sparrow for Jack. One thing is for sure - I love spending time with Adam.

equation

3 closed doors = 2 toddlers and 1 baby sleeping = peace

GORGEOUS

I fell in love with the Top of Utah this weekend. Our foliage is so incredibly gorgeous, I can't believe I haven't wrecked the car gawking at all of the bright colors. On Saturday we drove up to Logan for our family tradition of visiting my alma mater and checking out the canyon. I was worried that last weekend's snow would have ruined the colors with too much cold, but we certainly weren't disappointed.

(I made Adam take pictures out the car window)

Other than that we went shopping and got Lily those stylin' boots she's wearing in the top picture, and had lunch at the Mandarin Garden. We usually go to Le Nonne, a nice Italian restaurant, but thought it would be a bad idea with two kids.

Lily's fortune read "A great pleasure in life is doing what others say you can't." I think I'm going to frame it and hang it in her room.

happy thoughts

1. The snow from Sunday melted. I was excited when I woke up to see the ground white, but when it was still coming down at noon? Not so much. Last year's winter memories started flooding my mind and I spiraled downhill so fast that before we left for church I was hurling things around the house, about two minutes away from either losing it completely or packing my bags to live in St. George until next May. (Poor Adam - he seemed okay with it and even took some artistic photos of our roses.)

2. Miracle of miracles: The DMV today had NO LINES. I was in and out in under 5 minutes with Jack. Freaking awesome - and well deserved in my opinion, as obtaining our salvaged title for the honda has had way too many setbacks.

collage

I just picked up Jackson's birth announcements. I like them - lucky for me the photographer let me take over her computer so I got them exactly how I wanted them. :)

father-son time

"It's the only way I can get him to stop crying"

vertical napping

Today I let Lily do whatever she wanted: have her binky all day long, play with whatever she wanted without getting mad (my makeup, adam's shaving lotion), have cookies for an after-breakfast snack (with me, of course), and let her take a nap as late as she wanted. After 5 minutes in her crib I peeked in to see this:


Today Lily was happy, and so was I. (It's been a while - I am completely clueless when it comes to this 2-kid deal).

i feel so popular!

(I was tagged!)

(Eight) Four TV Shows I Love to Watch
1. The Office
2. House
3. Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune (only with Adam, who I totally waste every time.)
4. Bones

Eight Things That Happened Yesterday
1. I cleaned the bathroom before 9:30 a.m.
2. I hosted the upcoming neighborhood play group (no one used my clean bathroom).
3. I went to work.
4. My visiting teachers came.
5. I didn't make dinner for the second time this week.
6. Adam and I suffered through 45 minutes of running errands with Lily whining/screaming/crying for her binky.
7. I nursed Jackson.
8. I had cookies for lunch.

(Eight) Six Favorite Places to Eat
1. Cafe Rio
2. The Pasta Factory (Pizza is OK too)
3. The Spaghetti Factory
4. Quizno's
5. Macaroni Grill
6. Pier 49 Pizza

Eight Things I'm Looking Forward To
1. 6 weeks post partum on Sunday!
2. Playgroup on Tuesday mornings to get established.
3. Family pictures up at Snowbasin next Thursday.
4. Foot surgery next Friday so I'm not limping around anymore.
5. Book club (I might be in another one!)
6. Holidays.
7. Triathlons next Spring and Summer.
8. Adam coming home from work.

Eight Things on My Wish List
1. Vitamix
2. A bike to train for triathlons
3. Basement finished for Lily to have a nice play area
4. School loans to be paid off
5. A prepared square foot garden in my backyard
6. Anything I want from the catalog "The Joyful Child"
7. A new wardrobe that somebody else with fashion and style picks out for me
8. Jackson to nurse off my fat as well as Lily did

(Eight) Four People I Tag
1. Britt
2. Amanda
3. Alicia
4. Krysta
5. And that's about the majority of the people who regularly check my blog

Sunday School Lesson by Adam

Sunday School Teacher: "What is the one word you would use to describe yourself?"

Adam: "AWESOME!!!"

(I agree. Most of the time.)

name and a blessing

Jackson was blessed last week by Adam. Janet bought this matching onesie and tie for my boys - how cute is that? It was a beautiful blessing, and Jackson was apparently awake and just looking around during it. He is quite pleasant.

We gave our families pretty short notice (about 4 days), so we were very grateful that people showed up. Adam's parents, Mckay, Jesse and Mindy, and my parents came from St. George; the Hendershots from Springville; Amanda and Tyler from Orem (with little Henry! What a cutie!); Liz and Jared, Amy and Phil from Salt Lake; and my uncle Dave and wife Lynnette from Layton. All in all there was 19 adults, 2 teenagers, and 14 kids/babies. Lucky for us the weather was beautiful and so we weren't all squished inside to eat. Thank you for everyone that came! And thank you Mindy for taking this picture. We need a new camera so bad.

(the next day at my midwife appt I weighed 143. I can't decide whether that is a good or bad thing.)

I don't know why my husband lets me stay home

I got an email from Adam today with a link to here. Do you think he's trying to tell me something?

thank you britt!

Lily has realized that Jackson is not going away. Her obsession with holding him has evolved from soft hugs to grabbing his shirt and pulling him towards her - she also thinks there is nothing wrong with pulling his hair. She has been manifesting her displeasure in these and other various ways, so yesterday we heartily welcomed a package from Britt just for her! (Just a few more months of this, right?)

cute

my favorite expression(besides the rare times i get these)

pics

The preview for the pictures we got taken last week can be seen here. I like them a lot. :D

haircut

Lily got her first haircut! We're getting Jackson's pictures taken tomorrow and I was super worried about Lily looking okay if she was going to be in any of them, since I have no knack whatsoever in the hair department. I asked Delena, Lily's favorite person, who does hair, and she came over and gave her such a cute look that takes very low maintenance. I was a bit sad to have her cut off her curls, but truthfully it was getting to the mullet stage, so ultimately I was very pleased.

some of lily's favorite things....

Holding Jackson - if you try and take him away, she will repeatedly say "more" and pat her lap until you get her attention away. Cookie dough - she recognizes the hook! Like a true Dabney girl, right Liz and Amanda?
Her own mini stroller to push - this is the best $10 we've spent in a heck of a long time.

after hours accident

Adam got in a car accident last night on his way home from work. He stopped for traffic, but the car in back of him didn't. His leg hit the dashboard and then he slammed back into the driver's seat, breaking it. By the time he got home he was limping pretty bad, but still I had to convince him it was a good idea to go into the after-hours clinic he goes to for physicals. It was a pretty comical visit. The admitting secretary asked if he was in pain - am I weird for thinking that was an obvious question? She asked for his address and he responded "(801) 627..." then our address. She asked for his birthdate and he responded "August....January 1, 1982." I corrected him and said "January 8, 1982." He looked at me like I was an idiot and said "That's what I said." Luckily the nurse was on my side. Then Lily realized a little boy (about 4 yrs old) in the play area sitting at a table had a bag of candy so she went and sat by him. He left and started running away from her - she followed quite dilligently saying "mommy" repeatedly. Adam and I thought it was pretty funny, especially since it lasted our entire wait of about 5 minutes (although I did have to reassure the little boy that she wouldn't hurt him, she just wanted his candy).
Anyways, this morning Adam went to work, despite my suggestion that he stay home and actually follow the doctor's recommendation that he alternate ice and heat on his leg and keep it raised so it would heal faster - I didn't even mention my concern about his concussion-related answers to the secretary last night. Apparently, I'm the one who doesn't know anything!

(me as a wife)

Dabney Grandchildren #6 and #7

Introducing:

Henry Tyler Nay

September 3, 2008

8 lbs 3 oz

Eve Lorelei Dabney

September 3, 2008

9 lbs 2 oz

Before and After