Girls' Week

I just got all the pictures that we took on Nancy's camera while she was here a week or two ago. They pretty much tell all that we did...

We made lots of baby burp cloths for Nancy's soon-to-arrive baby girl.

Now she can burp in style and we hope she spit up lots! (j/k Nancy!)

Peek-a-boo Alice.

This is Alice in a front pack on my tummy--talking and smiling at me. What a cutie!

A friend gave Nancy a darling baby outfit while she was out here for her baby...Alice was kind enough to model it for her soon-to-be cousin.

We went to watch Dean's boys (Nathaniel & Ethan) play their soccer games on Saturday morning. Then had a picnic lunch in the park.

Nancy and I shopped (with our helpers Maya and Alice) all afternoon then we met Dean & Kristen & kids at an Indian Resaurant. Dean thinks that Indian food is "Celestial"! We felt privledged to be able to enjoy his favorite place. Plus eating at a restaurant with 6 kids is always a fun memory! Thanks Dean! Fun day.

Pictures after church with our pretty girls.


We had to take Nancy to our favorite fast food place here: Five Guys. It's this great burger and fries place and every day they display where their potatoes came from that day. It's always somewhere in Idaho...so thanks for traveling thousands of miles to enjoy Idaho potatoes Nance!

Hayley's home! This was the longest Hayley and Maya have ever been apart. They were so cute when they reunited! After a high-pitched scream and big hug Maya quickly turned some loud music on and they had to dance together. Then they both gave each other a present...isn't it great to have a sister!

Nancy and I had lots of fun shopping 'till we dropped! This is Maya in Michaels with us...she was a good little sport to tag along. When Hayley got home she got some good time with Aunt Nancy painting extra fancy nails.

A quick tribute to my Grandma Jolley. If she were still alive I think I'd send her a whole set of these books. I remember when Nancy was born (in England) and Grandma Jolley came to visit. From day #1 she called her "Foncy-Noncy" with her British accent! These Fancy Nancy books have become really popular recently and so we check them out from the library and I read them to my girls. Of course I say it just like Grandma..."Foncy-Noncy" and the girls think of Aunt Nancy. I think Nancy better wear her feather tu-tu and big high-heels the next time she visits!

All in all it was a fun week...let's do it again soon!

Blogging Recommendations and Credits

I've had several people ask me what I used to use to do various things on my blog. I know so much less than most of you but the following is a list of sites that I found useful in personalizing my blog and several other recommendations. I'm still such a beginner in all this and would love any of your suggestions too!

Blogging Tutorial Website that a friend of ours wrote. Has some great start-up tips (thanks Ike!):
http://www.mybloggertutorial.blogspot.com/

Website that helped me learn how to do a lot of the fancy stuff and referred to some good sites:
http://brookie-wookie.blogspot.com/2007/10/dressing-up-your-blog.html

This one is where I got the code to make it a 3 column blog (I like having the extra space for more permanent things):
http://www.thurstemplates.com/

This site has tips on different ways you may want to change your blog template (this is how I added the "recent comments" section. They've got instructions to do other cool things that I haven't tried yet like peekaboo posts:
http://hackosphere.blogspot.com/

I didn't actually use this site but I looked at it and it has some easier ways to put a different backdrop on your site without uploading your own "paper":
http://cutestblogontheblock.blogspot.com/

This is where I uploaded my paper images for the background to:
http://pages.google.com

This is a great site with free downloads available if you need paper backgrounds (there's lots more sites like this if you want to search around...but not all free):
http://www.shabbyprincess.com/

I really like Photoscape for making photo collages to put on the blog. I'm still figuring it out but there's lots you can do. It's a free downloaded program. (Google Picasa does a similar collage-thing but I like photoscape's a lot better)
http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php

I used slide.com to make my slideshows then posted them as a new page element in the columns. I selected “text” then “add to blog”. Once in there I selected edit HTML and copy and pasted the code from slide.com into that space and saved the changes. (there’s lots of other slide sites…this was the first one I tried and I was happy with the options it gave me)
http://www.slide.com/

I used Adobe Photoshop Elements to make my header.

The only way I can keep up with all the many blogs that I like to watch without spending all my time checking them is Google Reader
http://www.google.com/reader

I haven’t actually tried this yet but I’m interested in a website I found that prints bound books of your blogs for a very reasonable price. You can download the software to set it all up for free. I’ll let you know how it goes whenever I do get enough content for a book. I’m sure there’s tons of sites like this one so let me know if you have one you like better.
http://www.blurb.com/

Alice's Blessing Day

We blessed Alice on Sunday, May 4th. It was a beautiful and happy day. We felt so loved and supported by so many friends and family that are in the area and came to share the day with us.

Somehow in all the happy and friendly chaos we only managed to snap a few pictures. I need to put Alice back in her dress and take some good close-ups...but for now I just zoomed in on the group shot.

In the picture below: My brother Dean and his three boys (Nathaniel, Ethan and Jonathan). My cousin Darrin Thiriot and his wife Monica and 4 kids (Kaitlyn, James, Madilyn, Jacob). Our friend from SLC Anne Rowley and her husband Blaine. Our friend from BYU-days, Scott Larson. Not in the picture--Andy & Krista Allphin and thier kids Carly and Parker were also there.

We had fun going to church together then enjoying dinner and an attempt at conversation with some pretty wound up kids running through the house! They were all best-buds really fast. Guess "loud" get togethers is what we get at this stage of life! Thanks everyone for your support.

Goodbye Ryan & Hayley....Hello Nancy!

Talk about a great daddy-daughter date...Hayley got to go to Texas with Ryan for about 6 days last week. Ryan's dad has cancer. He wanted to go spend some time with Veldon without the chaos of all of us tagging along but didn't want to leave me stranded with all the kids either. So we came up with a happy medium. Hayley went with Ryan and my little sister Nancy came and had a girls week with Maya, Alice and I. We all had a great week!

Goodbye Daddy & Hayley...

saying goodbyes at the airport...such cute sisters!

Hello Nancy...

I'll start with a report on the Texas side of the week...all pictures (and collages) must be credited to my mother-in-law, Joyce.

This was Joyce's narrative on the following pictures...I couldn't come up with any better...."Just look at this concenration. Writing a story using words with three or fewer letters is tough work. Reading what you wrote is tougher."

Hayley got spoiled by Grandma and total attention for the week. Ryan got to spend time at Home Depot, trying to complete a "honey-do list" for his mom. He learned some great stuff that I'm hoping will benefit my honey-do list someday! Thanks Joyce!

Back here on the home-front Nancy and I played so hard we wore ourselves out. Nancy is expecting her first baby (a girl) next month so we had lots of fun baby-projects to work on plus some post-baby clothes shopping for me! Ryan had our camera in Texas so as soon as I get the pics from Nancy's camera I'll post more about what we did. It was a fabulous & fun week....thanks for visiting Nancy Fancy.

Bird in the house!

About 3 weeks ago we had a dove fly into our house.

It was a beautiful day so I had left the back door to the deck open and was out in front of the house visiting with a neighbor while our kids played. When I heard Alice wake up I started walking into the house to go get her. Suddenly I heard a bird flapping in the kitchen! Instead of remaining calm I screamed and ran back out of the house doing a "panic dance" (not good for all the kids watching!) Then then mama bear in me kicked in and I somehow got worried that the creature in my house was going to find his way upstairs and into Alice's room...so I quickly did a panic dance up the stairs to rescue my baby. Not a good move...Maya was freaking out at the sight a of a crazy mommy. I was telling her not to come in the house as I ran up the stairs and our neighbor was keeping her out. I have since realized how much my panic traumatized her.

Once Alice was out, we had a hungry, crying baby on our hands plus a screaming Maya that thought we were going to die. Thankgoodness, my neighbor, Irene was there to help me figure out what to do. Whenever we tried to creep towards the kitchen to assess the situtation we would hear the bird flap and crash into the windows. At one point I thought it had fallen behind the kids computer--alive but injured--oh, ugg! But thankfully he wasn't injured and after a while seemed to calm down. Eventually, we got 2 windows open but I couldn't get the screens out (the door was around the corner and the bird couldn't seem to find his way back there). So, while I went and tried to feed a starving Alice, Irene got the screens out and the bird flew away to safety!

Moral of the story #1: don't leave your door open without a screen!

Even three weeks later we are paying the price for my not-so-calm response to the bird. Maya now thinks all birds want to come into her house. Whenever she sees a bird on the tree that is right in front of our big front room window she takes whatever toy she is playing with and bangs as hard as she can while sternly reprimanding the bird. Her new terror of birds has also been transfered to all bugs and squirrels. "Bird! You no come in my house!!!" It's funny at times but also sad that the same birds that we used to love to watch eat from our bird feeder are now such a threat to her safe little world!

Moral of the story #2: a mom must always remain calm!

Weeds and love

I know that someday I will miss the little vase of weeds that so often sits on my table. I love you too, Hayley and Maya!

Professional Pictures

I'm going to go back about 2 months and do some catching up on pictures and stories...these were pictures taken the beginning of March when Alice was 1 month old (in her blessing dress). Since the girls' birthdays all fall between the end of Jan and April we just go in once somewhere in the middle and get everyone's annual picture. So these also count as Maya's 2 year old picture and Hayley's 5 year old...pretty efficient, huh?