This year we had Thanksgiving at our house, it was nice not to go anywhere and a prepare our own feast -- something we've not done yet. Jen prepared an excellent meal of Turkey, Yams, Rolls, Mashed Potatoes, and Pie (pumpkin and cheesecake). I was in charge of the stuffing. Everything turned out wonderful, it was one of our most memorable Thanksgivings yet.

Afterwards we packed up the leftovers (another thing that we were super excited for) and put them in the refrigerator; however, we noticed that the fridge was warmer than usual. We thought it was because our oven was on all day long and was making it harder to cool foods. After a couple hours it still would not cool. Needless to say, our refrigerator was broken and many of our leftovers went to waste. We managed to borrow a few coolers from some neighbors and salvage some of our perishables, but it was just too late for the poor cheesecake -- I was devastated.

The rest of the afternoon was spent taking apart the refrigerator -- checking the temperature controls, cleaning out the vents, coils, and other dusty parts but nothing seemed to fix it. I even resorted to breaking out my multimeter and checking continuity of all switches, dials, and fans. There were a few things that I saw that looked like the problem but after fixing them the darn thing still would not work. Finally after a day and a half of troubleshooting we gave up and called a repair guy. Steve figured out what the problem was, and fixed it. It seemed we had a bad defroster timer and defroster coil. Anyway, we now have a nice working refrigerator and no longer need to haul ice out to coolers on our back porch -- what a time for our refrigerator to go out.

Baby Girl has developed a cough. Poor girl. We feel bad for her when we hear her coughing. She's better when she sits still and takes it easy - but apparently that's impossible for a 14 month old baby to do. She loves walking all over the place, but then she gets all huffy and puffy, then she starts coughing. So, I've been trying to entertain her and keep her still for most of the day. Impossible, I know! So we read books. We color pages. And we watch Elmo. I try to limit how much tv she watches, but the last day or two, we've been watching more. Baby Girl LOVES Elmo. She points to the tv, then points to her Elbow (her sign for Elmo). This video is Baby Girl's favorite of the day. We hope she gets feeling better.

Baby Girl is getting her Christmas wish a little early - her two front teeth. Actually, I'm pretty sure she didn't ask for it, but she's getting them. She is 14 months old and has only 2 bottom teeth - until this week. I've been a little excited for her to get more teeth. She's trying to eat all the same food that we eat - but can't quite chew it. Hopefully more teeth will come and that will make chewing a little easier for her.

Earlier this week, she was starting to get a little cranky. I felt her top gums and sure enough, I felt little poky bumps breaking through her gums. The next day she was just a little cranky and fussy. Then, the next day - she woke up at 3:00 in the morning just whining and moaning. I went in to check on her and she had a fever of 100 degrees. Poor thing. A little Tylenol, some Orajel, and a hug from Mom and Baby Girl was ready to go right back to bed. All day long, she was miserable. She had a slight fever all day. She was tired and miserable. She would just moan softly and whine a little. This is a picture from that day. She put a pillow on top of a folded blanket and laid down to read a book. She kept resting her head and just laying there. This is very unusual for Baby Girl - she rarely sits still for very long. She is always on the move. I put her in her high chair for lunch, and while I was getting lunch prepared - she fell asleep in her high chair. Poor thing. By the time Morgan got home from work, she was acting a lot more like her usual self. And she now has 2 teeth that have broken through the surface on top. As those grow in, hopefully she'll be able to chew a little easier. That way she'll have her two front teeth - just in time for Christmas.

Winamp loves Destiny's Childs Christmas Album

This is a video of our Baby Girl dancing. She loves to dance. Whenever music is played, she's dancing. We got this video a couple of days ago. She turned on some music from the keyboard and was dancing. The video gives you a nice shot of how well she can shake her bum to the music! I love how she sways from side to side. Now if we can just get her to stop dancing in the tub!

I feel like I need to post more blogs to make up for last month. I'll warn you now that this is a tribute to our baby! Baby Girl is not so much a baby anymore. She's now 14 months old. She is walking all over the place. She still falls down a lot, but she walks more than she crawls. I never realized how much of a process it is to learn how to walk. It takes a lot of practice. She is so smart. She has a large vocabulary (even though she can't talk). She understands a LOT of what we say. And she learns so much every day. I've been making a list of things that she knows, and I've had to add to it daily. How can she be so smart? She is learning and using several Sign Language signs. I could teach her more if I were fluent in Sign Language, but my knowledge is limited. These are the signs that she knows: More, Milk, All Done, Food, Water, Piano, Please, Thank You, Sleep, Diaper, Mom, Dad, Book, Baby, and Shoes.

She talks all the time. It's all baby talk, and very rarely understandable. However, she can say a couple of words. These are the words that she can say: no no no, nap, snack (actually it’s just ‘ack’), duck, Mom Mom Mom, Da Da Da, Doggie, Uh Oh!, and Ick (when something is gross).

She has other words for things, but it's not really identifiable. For example, her word for 'balloon' is 'la la la la'. She got a balloon from a nice cashier at the grocery store today. She LOVES balloons. Whenever she sees one she says "la la la la". This is a video of her with her balloon. You can hear her say "la la la la". Doesn't she look cute in her winter coat and hat?

She can also point to several parts of her body. She knows how to point to: ears, nose, mouth, teeth, tongue, fingers, toes, shoes, elbow, belly button, eyes, and hair.

She loves music. She bounces her legs and 'dances' when music in playing. It doesn't matter what music it is, commercial music or church organ, she rocks out to it. It's really cute. She also does actions to a couple of songs. She loves "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "The Wheels on the Bus" (especially the verse about when the doors open and shut), and "If You're Happy and You Know It". She learned all of these songs from Elmo. She LOVES Elmo.

She also can do gestures for other actions. She does signs (or gestures) for washing hands, choking, and 'I don't know'. She can hold up one finger when you ask her how old she is. She can fold her arms. She likes to rub Morgan's back - especially in church or when we read scriptures (he's trained her well). She can give kisses, hugs, and blow kisses. She also knows what a fish says (she opens and closes her mouth). She can also give 'high 5's'. She loves this.

Her newest trick is something that Morgan taught her. It seemed genius yesterday. Today it's not so smart. He taught her to "throw this in the garbage". He can hand her some of his garbage, and she can walk from the living room into the kitchen and throw it in the trash. Genius, right? Morgan doesn't have to get up, and Baby Girl seems to love this. It seemed like a good idea, until today when I had to fish everything she played with out of the garbage. She's reading a book in the living room. Suddenly she starts walking in the kitchen with her book. I have to chase her down and stop her from throwing it in the garbage. She acts so proud when she successfully throws something in the garbage - its so cute.

She LOVES to play the piano. We have a keyboard, instead of a piano, but she loves to play. Several times a day, she signs 'piano please'. She loves making noise, and pushing the buttons that change the sound of the keyboard. We had to take down our keyboard to make room for our Christmas tree. Our house is not big enough to have both up. We're not sure what to do with the keyboard (maybe put it under our bed until after Christmas). For the last couple of days it has been on the floor in our living room - still plugged in. Baby Girl always walks right over to it and turns it on and plays. Yes, she knows where the power button is and can turn it on and off.

Another trick that she has learned is how to open her bedroom door from her crib. She can also reach the light switch from her crib. I don't think we thought this through, when we put her crib there. She hasn't figured out to turn the light on and off (thankfully). She also hasn't figured out how to turn the door knob. I have gotten into the habit of pulling her door mostly shut, but not all the way. So she can grab the door, wiggle it, and swing it open. I don't mind when she does this after her naps. I mind when she spends her time trying to open the door when she should be sleeping. She things she is so smart!

This weekend was absolutely perfect. As soon as the disasters that occurred on Friday (see Morgan's post below) were over, the weekend was lovely. By lunch time on Saturday, I had my wedding ring back on my finger. I had a deep satisfaction that the mouse that had invaded our house was dead. The weather was awful. It was freezing and stormy and it had just started to snow again. It was wonderful, because we could stay inside and didn't have to go anywhere. I asked Morgan if I could put up the Christmas tree, and he surprisingly said "yes". So, after we ate lunch, we put Baby Girl down for a nap, and I immediately began putting out our Christmas stuff (before Morgan could change his mind). We listened to Christmas music while I unboxed all of our Christmas decorations. Morgan started our first fire of the season in our fireplace. It was so warm and cozy. Pretty soon Morgan decided to take a nap. It was a perfect afternoon, both Baby Girl and Morgan were sleeping. Christmas music was playing. There was a warm fire in our fireplace. It was snowing sideways outside. And I was stringing lights on our Christmas tree. I don't think it could have been a better afternoon. Absolutely perfect!

It was our Stake Conference this weekend. We got one of the young women in our ward to come babysit so we could go to the adult session on Saturday night. It was a great session, and fun to get out of the house without Baby Girl. And Sunday, the general session was great. The conference went from 10:00-12:00 (which is the ideal time for church!). We're used to going to church from 1:00-4:00 (awful for Baby Girl's schedule). We were done with church by noon! It was great. We all came home and got into comfortable clothes and spent the day together. We all took an afternoon nap (yay for Sunday afternoon naps).

Now we can start another week - back to work as usual.

Well, we've had a somewhat eventful Friday the 13th this past week. It started out like any normal day, and we thought we just might survive unscathed; however, about 6:30pm things started to get interesting. First we were just getting back from dinner with my folks when Jen was taking off her seat belt and we both heard a "bing, clink, ding, bang". The weather was cold and her diamond ring slipped off her hand and fell between the middle console and the seat of our car. Now, things always seem to fall in this spot, and we always fish them out from under the seat; however, this was Friday the 13th and it sure couldn't be that easy. We spent two hours searching the car, we found Jr. Mints, Cheerios, a slew of Pen's, some money (only totaling about 45 cents, not enough to make up the cost of the ring), sunglasses, coupons, pieces of children's books, and an assortment of half chewed candy and other unidentifiable objects (yes, you people with kids know what I'm talking about), but no ring. Jen promptly reminded me about how losing your ring is bad luck, and recalled the scene from the movie Apollo 13 where the wife drops her ring down a drain. Well, since I wasn't headed to the moon I told her not to worry and we will find it in the morning when we have more ambient light. We withdrew our efforts and planned to resume in the morning, said goodbye to my parents, and tried to finish out the rest of the evening not worrying too much about the lost ring.

We had sat down and found a good movie on TV, and things were pretty much back to normal (except for the nagging notion that our car had just doubled in price), when out of the corner of my eye I saw something scurry behind our entertainment center. Yes, this something looked to have little beady eyes and a long slender tail, and it moved with great speed and agility. First, I thought it was just my imagination, but then I saw it exit from under the entertainment center and run into our hall. This was unmistakably a mouse. Jen hates mice and started getting really worked up. I went in search for the small vermin, but came up empty handed. I did find out though that we did have a big spider living behind out bed -- don't tell Jen I said that though or it might upset her even more. So after the second hunt of the night, Jen left to the store to get mouse traps. Now you need to understand that our house is not very big, however, when Jen returned from the store she had a whole bag full of mouse traps. I think she wanted to cover every square inch of flooring in our home. We researched what to put on mouse traps (it seems peanut butter works the best) baited them, put them out, and waited.

Now in our research we found out a few interesting notes about how to catch mice I would like to share, in case anyone reading this post runs into this problem. The first is that mice, contrary to popular belief, do not prefer cheese, everywhere I looked suggested peanut butter. The second is that when setting up traps you set them up in pairs (why, I have no idea), and the third thing is that mice like to hug walls when running around so you don't put traps in the open, but rather along the base boards or under ledges.

So with these few tidbits of information we set our traps. Jen was constantly telling me that she wasn't going to sleep tonight. About ten minutes of horrifying silence (yes, it was only about ten minutes) we heard the snap of one of our traps. I go into our laundry room, and there was a little gray mouse struggling for its life with its head smashed inside this trap. It freaked me out a little so I decided to leave it until there was no more movement. After a few minutes I took it out to the trash and discarded the little mangled mouse corpse. We slept relatively sound that night.

In the morning we resumed the search for the missing ring. I knew that it had to be inside the seat somewhere, and got out the tools in attempts to remove the seat. The seat is only held on with 4 bolts, two in the front and two in the back. The front two bolts came off without any problem, so I proceeded to the back. These were put on much tighter and required a bit more strength. Well one of the bolts proved to be much more troublesome than I had expected. After failing with a wrench, I got out my trusty chrome molly lifetime warranty ratchet set. I kid you not, that bolt actually ruined my 9/16 socket by cracking and ballooning it out so it could not catch the edges of the bolt. I went down to the store and got a replacement. This time I ended up giving it some hard taps with the hammer, and then the ratchet gave way -- and not in a good way. I had ended up rounding off the edges of the bolt. Getting out a file I tried to restore the edges and decided this was not going to work with the tools that I had. I had the bright idea that a lube shop might have a pneumatic wrench that might do the trick, so I took it down to a local Jiffy Lube (after a bit of a laugh from some of the mechanics there) and they were able to get it loose for me. I took it home, took out the seat and tipped it upside-down on a tarp. I hear something klinck around and a quarter dropped out from the seat onto the tarp. A QUARTER! WHAT! Shortly afterwards, however, a shiny diamond ring followed the quarter and out onto the tarp.

By far this was our most memorable and cursed Friday the 13th experience to date.

I am officially free from my classes! It was nice to be able to take some classes again. I liked getting my brain to think like that again. But I am glad to have my time free again! We've had a beautiful fall the last couple of weeks. It has been pretty warm and sunny and beautiful! We've already raked a ton of leaves off our lawn, and our trees still have tons of leaves left. We even got some flower bulbs planted so we can have beautiful flowers in the spring. I LOVE this time of year!

Last week, we went to a park and took a couple of pictures of our family. It was so beautiful! It's kind of hard to capture the attention of a 14 month old for very long. She got tired of sitting still and looking at the blinking light. We got a couple of good ones! You can click here to see some of the other pictures we took.

We had a fantastic Halloween. I honestly love this holiday. I'm not sure why. Maybe because it's near my birthday. Maybe because the leaves and trees are so beautiful. Maybe because it seems to be the kick off to the Holiday Season! I LOVE IT! I don't like all of the bloody, scary, haunted part of Halloween. I like the trick-or-treaters, cute pumpkins, and happy part of Halloween.

Halloween morning, I had to do some errands, so Morgan took Baby Girl with him to run some errands. Morgan got her dressed up in her Halloween costume. They went to buy some candy for our trick-or-treaters. That afternoon, we went shopping. The weather was BEAUTIFUL! We just enjoyed our time together.

That evening, well late-afternoon, we took Baby Girl trick-or-treating. That's a little misleading. She's so little, she doesn't understand what's going on. We just went to our friends' house that live next to us. We went and said 'trick-or-treat' in behalf of Baby Girl. She grabbed a long, skinny Tootsie Roll from the bowl. We stayed and visited for a minute, while she played with their son. After chatting for a few minutes, we came home to hopefully catch the MANY trick-or-treaters that we hoped would come. Baby Girl still had a good grip on her Tootsie Roll. I put her in her high chair so I could fix her dinner. A minute later I looked at Baby Girl, she had unwrapped that Tootsie Roll and was going to town on it. She had brown drool dripping from her face and hands. It was so cute. So I let her finish her Tootsie Roll, then she had dinner. Dessert first on Halloween - isn't that right? Morgan got some Halloween music, so we were rocking out to "Monster Mash" and "Ghostbusters". After Baby Girl went to bed, Morgan settled in to watch "Night of the Living Dead". I can handle those kind of scary movies - where it's old, and mostly cheesy! We had a few trick-or-treaters, but we still had LOTS of candy left over!