Keys are important...

My mom got a gift card for Mother's day to buy some new clothes, both my sisters were in town and so my mom made a big day of it. Ada would follow my mom in and out of the dressing room and look in the mirrors while she danced and played. One of the times that my mom went in there without her, she looked under the gap between the floor and the door (which she could easily have crawled under), stood up and jiggled the door handle... when it wouldn't open she said, "Locked..." patted her hip and said, "oh, keys..." Both the store clerk and I got a good giggle out of that one.

Exciting weekend

We've had a very busy weekend. Friday night we dropped Ada off at my mom's house for the night (THANK YOU MOM!) and went up to Ogden. We got there, checked into our cheapy hotel then headed off to Union station so that Jer could check in for his very first marathon. Once he was checked in and we had wandered around the booths a while we decided to run to a grocery store for some sun block and find somewhere to eat. We ended up eating at Ye Olde Lions Den... because they have amazing scones and Jer was trying to carb load before the race. We got up at 4 am Saturday morning to get Jer to the buses on time... It was absolutely amazing to see how many buses they had lining the street waiting for the 1700ish marathoners and as many half marathoners. I went back to the hotel, but of course.... the baby was kicking like crazy so I didn't end up sleeping any more. I watched Emily finish her Half Marathon in great time, and then met family and waited for Jer to come in. I was scared to death that he'd be one of those that came across the finish line and just collapsed... but when he came in he looked absolutely wonderful. He even did it in 3.46. I was really mad at the crowd though... I found a really good place to get pictures of him coming over the finish line... and just as he was coming in a little crowd of people decided to cross the fences that they had to keep people back... and park themselves right in front of me. Well, obviously that wasn't the best scenerio for pictures but oh well... we got wrapped up and met Amy, Becca, and Jay at Mimi's cafe to celebrate. Then we headed home. I was planning on going to Jill's baby shower, but I almost fell asleep 4 times in the 1 1/2 hour drive... then I was contracting a ton because I was dehydrated... but it was a good day.

I'm so mad!

So... because Ada is our oldest, a girl and Jer and I had a hard time getting pregnant in the first place... not to mention that I love photography and playing with my camera... I've taken hundreds of pictures of Ada in the last year and a half... including several hours of video (especially since she started talking). We've been keeping all that stuff on a seperate hard drive that we got in case our old desktop decided to crash on us... Well... it crashed and we lost all the pictures and movies that I've done since last April. That's the worst, all the pictures of my baby... but I also lost my entire portfolio, including the last five families that I took pictures for. At least I still have my daughter... but I no longer have a record of the last year.

As long as it's not lead based...

So we had Becca and James over for Family night this last week... I was sick so I didn't really plan anything and we watched Wall-e while the girls played in the other room. We were sitting there watching and talking and the girls were in the other room just giggling. When Jer went to check on them... they were standing on the little kid table and licking the wall... Whatever floats their boat I guess.

Proud of Alll

I've just been so impressed with what everyone around me is doing that I felt like I should take a moment and give them all a nod of appreciation.

Jer has been training for a marathon... he ran 18 miles today. My sister has been really working hard to finish school and will be the President of her honor society next semester as well as applying to do a masters degree. A friend of mine who has never been athletic has just started running and is doing really well. Another friend and her husband just signed the contract on their very first house. My other sister has been working hard to lose weight... I don't know how much she has lost so far but I know it's at least 60 lbs. My sister in law has been taking wedding pictures and is marvelous. My brother is just getting his first salary paid job... and is probably going to be making more than most people make on their first one. Ada is starting to talk in sentences and going to nursery on her own. My mother in law has figured out why she's had insomnia for the last 10 years and has finally been able to start getting full nights of sleep. What great and amazing people to be accomplishing so much! I'm excited for all of them.

More pictures

Here are some more pictures of Ada! My favorites... of course.

Ada was reading books in our entry way and it was fun to watch all of her facial expressions while she read.

Ada and Grace

Cheeser in a box

Cousin Emma and Ada napping

Babysitting again...

I was babysitting again this morning... I think it's a lot of fun because Ada gets to see other people, and because it's fun to get out of the whole routine thing. I watched Ada's best friend Lizzy this morning... it was a little adventurous... not hectic, just exciting. First I ran out of tissue because she's teething and sneezing up a storm (not that I usually have very much tissue to begin with... I keep forgetting to buy some). Then she wanted to watch Mickey Mouse, and our tv doesn't work so I put on a old Mickey cartoon that I have... she thought that was weird because it wasn't Playhouse Disney version, but she was okay with it. Then when Ada woke up I put some cereal out for the two to eat, and at first they were doing good, then they decided that it was funner on the floor than in the bowl. I cleaned that up and started doing dishes when it got really quiet... I went to find them and they were in my bathroom busy cleaning my shower with a toilet brush. Hmmm. I washed their hands and got them out of the bathroom, cleaned up the bathroom a little and closed the door so they wouldn't do it again... and I find them dumping more cereal from the box into their bowl and from there onto the kitchen floor again... sigh. I guess I'll learn one of these days that it's easier to keep an eye on them than to clean up the messes after they've already made them. Oh well.

Newer pictures...

I wanted to put up some newer pictures of Ada... I feel like she changes faster than anything else in my life and it's hard to not forget that she's always growing... here are a couple... I think that the one from Christmas makes her look like her cousin Henry and the one on the piano looks like I did as a little kid. And she's still gotten bigger in the last couple of months... I just don't have those pictures on my computer yet.

 

Finger People

We had a marathon day on Saturday... that meant that Ada was babysat most of the day... she stayed with some friends of ours during the day and then my mom invited her over to spend the night. She had a little bit of a rough night... I would if I didn't know where I was in the middle of the night too. My favorite part though was when we went to pick her up in the morning my mom had drawn little faces on each of her fingers with a ball point pen. That's what she used to do to us as kids to keep us quite in church. Ada was just fascinated by these little people on her fingers! I asked her if she's said hello to them yet... so she looked down at them and using her opposite hand... waved each of her fingers at herself one at a time and kept saying,"Hello!" Then she took her thumb and gave it a big kiss.

Link

Jer posted some videos of our cute daughter on his blog, so here's the link.

http://jergal.blogspot.com/

It's a private blog, so if you want to see them you need to have an invite from Jer. Just ask... he doesn't mind friends and family sooooo much!

Brownies... mmmm delicious

Ada is Jers daughter... she has always liked chocolate, but she's never been able to vocalize it before. My sister, Janelle, had Ada in the high chair and had been feeding her dinner. At the end she cut up a mint brownie and gave her part. Ada gulped it down and asked for more... then when Janelle put the rest of the brownie in front of her Ada clearly yelled, "I LOVE THAT!"