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Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Cute Kessa!


Who can't love a face like that?

She's starting to suck on her finger. She's not a thumb sucker, she's an index finger sucker.

She loves to play piano with Daddy.

This is how we look when Mommy needs two hands, but Kessa needs to be held.

We went for a drive up the canyon on Sunday, up to Vivian Park. We caught the tail end of the colors, so they're not as vivid as they once were, but we enjoyed them anyway.

She seriously is so tall! Here she is sitting on Ellie's lap. Ellie is 3.

She's figuring out how to grab. Here she is with her keys… the first toy she learned to grab.

Recently her grabbing has become comical. Despite being quite content on the inside, she appears to be frightened of her carseat and her swing.

Randomness

Here are two totally random and unrelated to my cute baby girl pictures.

First, we saw this sticker on a car window. Read it carefully.

"My Child at a Charter School!"

Umm… was there supposed to be a picture of the child so that this was a caption? Or did they simply never proofread their bumper sticker to make it a complete sentence? It makes me really not want to send my children to John Hancock Charter School.*


Next. BJ has developed a really bad habit. Remember these shorts? Well, BJ replaced them with another pair of shorts and a pair of jeans. The jeans lasted approximately two months until this happened:

Seriously?! Ok, dear readership, please tell me, what in the world could BJ be doing to tear his pants like this? They're clean tears, so I don't think he snags them and rips them. He doesn't carry a knife in his back pocket. He claims his chair at work is free of knives and other sharp objects, and I don't think it's our car, because I often sit in the same chair with no tears in my pants. BJ's theory is that he pulls his legs up onto his chair at work. I'm not convinced, though, because I do the same thing and my pants are tighter. And I don't have tears in my pants. Any other theories? Help us figure it out so we can break this rather expensive habit of BJ's!


*Other than this, I know nothing about this charter school. I am not trying to slander them in any way. I'm simply commenting on their lack of grammatical skills on their bumper stickers.

General Conference

Saturday morning session Ryan and Mariam came over for breakfast and to watch Conference. It was really fun to see them both again!

Then we went down two doors (literally. We're on the third floor) to our friends, the Ruiz's, house for lunch. It was also quite fun (and really yummy, too!) Miguel is a native Spanish speaker and Kristen also speaks Spanish. They have a little girl, Katya, who is growing up speaking Spanish in the home. There was another couple there that also spoke Spanish and BJ speaks Spanish. Umm… basically, I was the odd man out. haha. Luckily, though, everyone spoke English for the most part.

Then we headed up to Riverton to spend the rest of Conference weekend. Kessa was enthralled by the television. (We already knew this, though. She faithfully watched BYU lose the Florida State game.)



Who do you think she is so enamored by? Elder Robert D. Hales!



The Homers have this adorable little dog named Jax. He is ridiculously jealous of Kessa. Suddenly there is another small creature in the house that takes attention away from him. Kessa has two little rubber toys: a cow, and a cow/duck. (We think it's a duck dressed up like a cow for Halloween. What we're gonna do once Halloween is over, I have no idea.) Jax has a bunch of rubber toys, too. So when he saw/smelled the rubber cows, his jealousy erupted and he wanted them. A lot.



Grandma likes Kessa and didn't want her to play with toys covered in Jax slobber, so she put the cows up on the counter, out of sight. Jax sat the rest of Conference on the back of the couch, staring at them.



BJ's brother, Nick, likes to torture Jax, so he moved the cows where Jax could see them, but I didn't get a picture of that, sadly. (Since then, Jax has managed to get ahold of the cow duck and take off running with it. All I could get out was, "BJ! Jax! Cow! Jax! Cow!" BJ didn't hear his name so he thought I was telling Jax to get the cow. It took a minute, then some quick action to get the cow out of Jax's possession, but we managed. The poor cow duck spent the next little while drying off from its bath in the dish drainer. Poor little thing.)

While the boys went off to Priesthood session, we girls had our own fun. First we bundled up Kessa in her jacket and headed off to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. I wish, oh I wish, that I had remembered to take my camera with us. I had no idea how tired Kessa was until she nodded off, sitting on Aunt Teresa's lap. It was so adorable. She slept through all of dinner (which I was completely floored by. I thought for sure she'd be demanding to eat 2 minutes into it) until Teresa decided she needed to wash her hands, so she carefully handed her to me. The second Teresa was out of the room, Kessa was awake. I must admit, Teresa has a way with Kessa. Dinner was great. I tried pomegranate lemonade. It was good, though rather tart. We had fun just talking like girls do. Catching up on each others' lives, asking the dating-aged girls about their dating life, etc.

We came home to do a craft. Mom Homer and Aunt Jan were quite secretive as to what this craft was, which intrigued the rest of us, but it turned out amazing! Basic idea: melt a tallow candle onto a plastic plate so it stands up straight. Then, grab all your old, broken, discarded crayons and melt them over the flame! At first I focused on getting bright colors down the side of the candle, but after awhile I realized that I was burning down the side of the candle, so no one would see that part anyway. So instead I started working on making awesome puddles on the bottom. (They are made naturally by simply holding the crayon over the candle, but you can have some control by cutting out niches to have the wax run down different sides, or by waiting until it cools just enough that new wax won't mix in with the last color. Or by letting them mix together. Or by using glitter crayons.) It was pretty much the coolest thing I've done in years. Jalin, when you get back on your feet, I'd highly recommend doing this with your kids. Apparently Carol and Jan did this out in their carport all growing up. Seriously. So. Much. Fun.

Sunday was also spent in Riverton, but story and picture wise, it was much less eventful. Conference itself, however, was quite amazing.

Catchup

Wow. It's been awhile since last I updated. I ended up going up to Idaho for Dave's (Stacie's step-dad) funeral. So Tuesday night BJ and I went up to Riverton and spent the night so that I could get up at 5:30, feed Kessa, and head up to Idaho. BJ caught a ride with a coworker from Riverton (only one car, remember?) and Grandma Homer babysat Kessa all day. The funeral was really good. I got to play with Stacie's baby, Megan, during the last part of it so that Stacie could enjoy the funeral. I even got to take a nap with her in the car at the cemetery, disturbed only when they did the gun salute. It was really good to see Stacie, Mama Loy, and Kellie again. They were like my second family growing up. It was also kind of fun to look around the people at the funeral and see so many faces from my childhood ward, before they switched ward boundaries when I was 12. It was amazing how a ward can stay so much the same, even when it changes so much. It was comforting to see all of them there and feel the stability in the support structure of Shelton ward. Even the building brought back memories. As I stood outside the Relief Society room during the family prayer, I remembered coming down as a Primary kid and standing outside those doors wondering, "What do they do in there?" I was sure it was something super fun because we were never allowed to go in until they had said their closing prayer. It made me long for they day I'd be able to go inside. It also made me laugh to see Stacie's cousins, Chris and Cory there and reminisce back to our childhood when Chris stole my shoe and I had to chase him around the church to get it back. Or the time that Cory was pretending to throw me off the rocks into the river, then slipped and really threw me (well, us) into the river.

It was a quick trip. I got to Idaho, stopped at Mom's work to change clothes and visit for a moment, go to the funeral, the cemetery, the lunch, then stopped at Mama Loy's house for a bit so I could pump. Then it was straight back home, stopping only once to get miserably off track in Pocatello, trying to find a gas station. Then it was back to Riverton just in time to feed Kessa and put her back to bed for the night.

So really, I didn't have much time to blog. And then when we finally got home Thursday, it was a bunch of cleaning and unpacking, and generally just falling behind on all things blogging. So now, let's play catchup!

Monday, October 12, 2009

Prayers

Yesterday was definitely a crazy day. I learned of three different sets of people that need prayers.

  1. We got a new bishopric. We'll miss you, Bishop Davies! You were a great bishop to start this ward with. We're excited for our new bishopric, too, though. We wish you all the best, Bishop Bahr, Bro. Snow, and Bro. Barry. Our prayers are with you!
  2. My sister, Jalin, went into labor the night before last. She was 31.5 weeks along. Meaning, her due date isn't until Dec. 9. She has been put on strict bed rest and they're hoping to keep her there for at least 5 weeks. She already has 5 kids, ages 10 and under. Good luck, Brett, keeping the family in line. We love you, Jalin, and are praying for you and the baby. Don't get too stressed in bed. It's for the best. Even if you still have canning to do. The baby is more important than canning.
  3. My best friend from high school, Stacie, called me last night to let me know that her step dad, Dave, died yesterday afternoon. He has been fighting throat cancer and a few months back decided to stop chemotherapy. The doctors gave him months or less. I found out when I was in Idaho last. I tried to stop by but my schedule never matched theirs. I sent my dad over with some soup after I left. I wish I could have seen him one more time; I rather liked the guy (despite my being scared to death of him when I first met him years and years ago). My love, hugs and prayers are with you Stacie, Kellie, and Loy. (And everyone else missing that great man.) I'm super grateful that Dave was recently baptized and is now learning all of the things he didn't have time to learn down here.
So to all of you, I offer you my love, support, and prayers. Please let me know if I can do anything to lift your burden. We love you all.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Project Productivity!

Yesterday BJ and I used Kessa's nap times (and once a non-nap time) to get some stuff done that we'd been putting off for awhile now. First there was some paperwork that should have been done last month. (We still need to find a notary so BJ can sign a paper that will let me get the money from my 401K. Really? I don't have to have a notary, but he does? Weird.)

The big project stuff started when I wanted to put some cereal away. (Macey's has a deal this week where you can get Kelloggs (in our case, Frosted Mini Wheats) for $1.28/box with a $6 coupon from their ad. So every time I've gone in this week, I've bought 4 more boxes. I'm quickly running out of room in my pantry.) I decided the best way to get more room in my pantry was to get all of my cookbooks and recipes out of the pantry. What better place to put cookbooks than on a bookcase? So we moved a couple of movable cupboards to make room for the bookcase in the kitchen. In so doing, we moved the fridge a little and saw the grossness that was underneath. Next thing you know, we've pulled the fridge completely out and I'm sweeping, mopping, and scrubbing the lint and stickiness from who knows what that had gathered under there.

Meanwhile, BJ went to work on our dryer. Our dryer doesn't dry very well. Most loads take two cycles to get dry. This isn't good for our electricity bill. Ages ago BJ's parents loaned us a snake-like-thing that will clean out the ventilation duct, so yesterday BJ pulled out the dryer and started to snake it. I'm in scrubbing the kitchen floor when I hear, "Tianna… come look at this." So I went back and peeked in the ventilation duct. I saw what looked like lint and string. I almost reached in and just pulled it out. But then I saw something else. For those of you who have seen The Village, it looked like the poky/feathery part on Those We Do Not Speak Of. For those of you who haven't seen it… think porcupine quills, I guess. That's when I realized, I don't have to be brave and pull it out. I have a husband for that. So I let him go to it. Glad I did, cuz guess what it was? A bird! Ewwwww! Who knows how long it's been in there, too. No wonder our dryer doesn't dry so well. We're waiting to wash and dry diapers to see if it solves our problems. Hopefully tonight we'll know!

While the dryer was pulled out, I scrubbed the floor under it as well as under the washer. I figured I might as well since it was gross under there, too. (Though, not nearly as bad as the fridge.)

After the scrubbing-fest was over, we started rearranging books to put all of like-genre together. We split it into cookbooks, fiction (which filled slightly more than our largest bookcase all by itself), religion, programming, ANES, and other non-fiction. That way, when we go to look for a book, we have a better chance of finding it. :) We still have some books strewn across our bedroom and living room floors, but by that point we were tired and decided to call it quits for the night.

Though, we did rearrange our living room a little bit to make up for the loss of bookcase… it's bigger, but we're not quite sure how we feel about the new arrangement. Anyone is free to come visit and give opinions as to our new setup. (It's not that big of a change. Don't get your hopes up.)

We then watched Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith because I had never seen it, and remarkably, BJ had only seen it once. I have now officially seen all six Star Wars movies. But Episode III is a super sad movie. (Yes, there were tears.) So now I have to watch the original trilogy again, knowing the history of the dark side, and so I can end on a good note. I can hear BJ protesting already.

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Life update on BJ

Some of you probably heard a while ago that I was accepted to the PhD program in BYU's Computer Science department, and that I would be starting in the fall. In the meantime, I took an internship with Mozy in Pleasant Grove, Utah, working on their Mac Client. (It's true, guys! I got a job writing Mac software!) Even before I was hired, they were trying to convince me to stay on after the summer, even if it were part-time. My boss mentioned it again my first week at work, and it was probably mentioned three or four times within the first two weeks. I told them, though, that since BYU's PhD program essentially forbids students from working outside the department, it really just wasn't an option.

The summer went on, and I really enjoyed my job. Within two weeks, I was a core part of the team, taking on major tasks and making major contributions. This was a big contrast to previous internships, where it took three or four weeks before I even felt like I'd done anything, and I'd never really felt like an essential part of the team. My coworkers at Mozy were young, charismatic, and good at their jobs. And above all, I felt like I was making a contribution. I was still doing some work with a BYU research lab, but nothing there got me excited like work at Mozy did.

Near the end of the summer, I started really considering my options. My dad was asking if I'd considered forgoing grad school and staying at Mozy full-time. Asking a lot, actually. I could tell he thought it was a good idea. Tianna was willing to support me in whatever I chose, but I could tell she liked me coming home excited about my job better than coming home with nothing much to say. (She didn't mind the bigger paychecks either.)

To tell the truth, I wanted to stay at Mozy too. They even made me a full-time offer. My only hesitation was that last year, I'd already turned down a job offer from Amazon because when I prayed about it, I felt like going to school was the right option. (A much more lucrative offer than Mozy's, at that.) If school was right back then, why would it be different now? But I prayed about it, and felt like this one was really up to me; either way would be acceptable. Maybe staying in Utah was the most important issue, and it didn't matter so much what I did so long as I was here? I don't really know, but regardless, I felt okay about staying at Mozy.

So I did! I'm now employed full-time, loving my job, and making big contributions. We recently released Mozy for Mac v1.5, and it's definitely our best version yet. We're making some more big improvements in v1.6 that I've been working on for a couple weeks now, which should make it even snappier. I've always told people that I really want to work on the kind of software that mom and pop can use, something that's intended for the mass market. This is definitely it, and I'm loving it.