Wah-wah

Today I made a lemon meringue pie.  (It's still chilling, so results are still up in the air.)  Kessa kept herself entertained while I did so by drinking her water via a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon.  It took her awhile, which was great while I was cooking.  :)  Here was the process:

Dip 

Drink

Laugh

Cinderkessa

We sold our washer and dryer today.  Our laundry room (closet?) is now empty.  This is exciting because now we have room for the NEW washer and dryer that we bought and is sitting at the store waiting for us.  This is super exciting.  I've been waiting for this day for a long time.  And now it's here!

After the old machines left, I decided it was a good time to wash the floor, because it was gross.  Kessa decided she wanted to help me.  So side by side we scrubbed the floor.  Kessa loved it.  Even after I'd finished, she kept dunking her washcloth and scrubbing the floor for probably 10-15 minutes.

Adorable.  Seriously.

Happy birthday, Hunter!

Hunter is fantastic.  He always cracked me up whenever I'd babysit.  He's a poster child for "Kids Say the Darndest Things."  My favorites are:


1. I was pregnant and babysitting.  I was giving Hunter a piggy-back ride, and he wanted me to go upstairs and then back down. It took me a bit to get up there, since I tend to go a lot slower during pregnancy, and by the time we were on the way back down, he informed me that I could go faster.
Me: "Well, the baby in my belly makes me tired faster, so it's hard to go fast."
Hunter: "Oh."
Me: "Did you know I had a baby in my belly?"
Hunter: "No. Did you eat one?"

2. Instead of Tabasco sauce, Hunter says Tabasketball sauce. hehe

Seriously.  The kid cracks me up.

Happy Birthday, Hunter!

Happy birthday, Kim!

Well, it's 11:45 pm.  But it's still Kim's birthday! I was going to blog this earlier, but since today became a blog catch-up day, I didn't want Kim's bday blog to get buried.  So here it is.  Right at the last minute.  It makes blog #26 today.  Yipes!

The first time I met Kim was at Big Juds when she asked me to be her bridesmaid.  I had fun at school the next day telling my friends that I went out to eat and a girl I didn't know asked me to be her bridesmaid, but she wasn't even engaged yet.  They all assumed she was drunk.  :)  But she wasn't.  She was just in love with my brother. :)  Kim is my closest in-law to my age and has been around for most of the major events in my life, such as graduation, going to China and receiving my endowments (thanks again for helping me pick out that dress!)  Man we all look so young in those pictures...

Kim has been an excellent support for Damian.  Sometimes physically :) and sometimes in every other way.  I know DJ appreciates all of the work she does for their family.

Kim is cool and will play video games with her kids and the nieces and nephews.

Most of all, Damian loves her.  A lot.  Like, head over heels.  And has been since the very beginning.  Even if she did go to the U.  ;)  She has been good for him, and he for her.

Also, don't they just have the cutest kids?  I mean, seriously.  Look at this family.

Happy birthday, Kim!

We're so glad you put up with Damian so you can be in our family!  :D 

Misc. round 8; last of all misc. posts

Uncle Shawn was teaching Kessa to dance.  (Oooh! I took this video today!  I must be catching up! (Though, these videos are not in chronological order.))  It was adorable.  She just kept mimicking him.

Like I said, sometimes, Kessa can just be a goof.

Aunt Jessa and Daddy/Kessa playing a duet.

Uncle Travis taught Kessa to play Angry Birds on the iPad.  She had a hard time getting it to go in the right direction.  So Travis kept having her switch hands to her left hand which usually worked.  (Just not so much in the video.)  She'd also try out different figures, which was adorable.  You can see her in her using non-traditional fingers (like her ring finger) to push buttons.  (Warning: it's kind of long.  If 2 minutes is considered long.)

Kessa wanted to wash her hands in the drinking fountain.

Misc. round 7; second of three video posts

Look!  I can finally (sort of) eat with a spoon!  I only spill half of my milk!  (Btw, she is much, much better now.)

Daddy trying to get Kessa to organize by color.  He was succeeding until I turned on the camera.

One day Kessa didn't want to get down from her high chair, so I gave her two of my ponies from when I was a kid and showed her how to walk them around.  I had about 30 mins to myself after that.  She loved them!

Her favorite shape is a "kirkle!"  She can find it on the keyboard… and basically anywhere else in the world.

Speaking of circles, here she is running around in them.

Misc. round 6; first of three video posts

Sometimes Kessa is just a goof.  And is adorable because of it.

Didn't you know?  Cows are meant to be worn on your head!

Despite this chair belonging to our neighbors, Kessa loved to make herself right at home in it.

Time to build a tower!

Kisses!  Nothing better than getting a baby kiss.

Dancing queen!

misc. round 5; end of the Kessa still-pictures version

Holy cow, some of these are old.  Are you sure I didn't blog these before?

This is our neighbor's chair.  But Kessa loved it.  If she saw it, she'd crawl over to it as fast as she could and pull herself up into it.  She tipped herself over twice though, which kind of ended her love affair with it.  But seriously, when the weather warms up, I wanna get her a little chair to put out on our little balcony there.

Aww… she loves her Uncle Damian.  During the rare moments when he's not teasing her.  :) 

She loves clothes.  Period.  Shoes and socks are her favorites and she'll wear them anytime.  Even over her pjs.  A jacket means outside which she loves.  Same with hat.  I don't know why she has her Halloween ears on, though... 

Mmmmm.  Fudgesicle.  

My… nerdy diva? 

Turns out that babies don't forget about binkies just because they haven't had one in a year.  She found a couple of outlet covers and walked around using them as binkies. 

Two forks are better than one! 

We've been doing lots of smoothies lately.  (From the lots of fruits from Bountiful Baskets).  Kessa loves them.  All over her face. 

misc. round 4; almost the end of Kessa version

This just made me laugh.

You can't tell in the picture very well, but Kessa has a tissue in her hands.  She had a runny nose for a couple of weeks and got really good at letting us wipe her nose.  (We are so lucky with her!)  One day she found a box of tissues and took it over and started wiping BJ's nose. 

I babysat one of my counselor's boys.  Kessa and Joseph (one day apart) had bonding time while watching Veggie Tales. 

Heh.  One day I was folding diapers.  While I did so, Kessa start gathering up inserts and putting them in a line.  When she ran out, she started gathering covers and putting one on top of each insert.  When I ran out of diapers in front of me to fold, I moved over to that line and she helped me pile them all back up so I could start folding them again. 

And then she started all over with a new line.  Except she got distracted and put two covers on the middle one and left the last one cover-less. 

Uncle Travis is somehow a bad influence and gave Kessa a humpback.  

I'm not sure how that works. 

I told you Kessa loves her headbands.  She even got Daddy to wear one.  :) 

This is one of my favorite pictures. It's the background on my lock screen on my iPod right now.  Daddy reading to Kessa; Kessa totally sucked into the book; Mommy watching.  It's just a cute, happy family. 

Misc. round 3; middle of Kessa version

Fauxhawk!

She loves pomegranate seeds.  So sad that season is over.

Sometimes Kessa likes to sit on our lap and eat our food.  Sometimes she'll even help us eat our own food in between her bites.

Yes, we're nerds.  BJ is playing Zelda: Twilight Princess while Kessa is draped over his lap playing the iPad.

Sometimes, Kessa decides she likes our shirts and wants to wear them.  I love this one with BJ's polo on.  Though, it does kind of make her look like a boy.  :)

She loves blankets.  A lot.  And if she had her way, they'd always be in her crib (unless she's carrying one around).  I'm not sure why, though.  By the looks of it, she doesn't put them on her nor even use them as a pillow.  Just makes her sleeping surface smaller.  :)

This was Mommy and Daddy's really big uh-oh.  We've been meaning to attach those shelves to the wall forever.  But we've never had a problem.  Well, we had a problem.  See that empty space off to the right of all the movies?  That's where Kessa was sitting when she pulled the shelf down.  I was across the room.  I was scared to death.  So was the lady doing a survey on the other end of the phone.  I am soooooo grateful that all is well and nothing was damaged and that Kessa wasn't hurt.  [shudder]

I don't know where Kessa got the idea to stand on the Wii Balance Board.  Heaven knows that BJ and I haven't done Wii Fit in months and months.  But Kessa loves to pull it out and stand on it.  We sometimes even let her play soccer.  And sometimes she even likes to take the wiimote with her.

See?  Kessa playing soccer!

What do you think… future acrobat?  She did this all the time for about 2 weeks.

Misc. round 2; beginning of Kessa version

I have so many misc. pics and videos that I figured I'd do about 10 to a post.

Kessa loves the chess table at Travis' house.  He made it himself!  So talented.  We'll walk in and she'll go straight over to the chess table and sit on the little stool next to it and start moving pieces.  Sometimes she'll even add her own toys.

Aww… family picture first thing in the morning on the iPod.

Hmmm… this isn't a Kessa picture.  But I'm too lazy to move it to the misc. post.  This was one of BJ's turns at Dominion. At the time we thought it was amazing how many action cards he had played.  Now it's a normal turn for him.  It actually makes me laugh to see that and think that it was once amazing.

Kessa wanted to drink her bottle and suck her fingers at the same time. 

More cheese please! 

I haven't blogged this yet?  Really?  Well, I brought all my stuffed animals back from Idaho.  Kessa loved to get on the chair and have us pile animals all around her.  My favorite part is that this is what my bed used to look like as a kid.  I'd put all my stuffed animals on my bed (which, btw, are many) then crawl under the covers and try to sleep so as not to knock any off. 

She was just so tired.  But she wanted to hold the WiiMotes! 

Oooh!  Kessa's first drawing!  Isn't it precious? 

Ok, I swear I've blogged this.  Please forgive me if you see some pictures twice.

She loves Wii Remotes.  A lot.  All three of ours are hooked around her wrist here. 

BJ's cousin, Amy, watched Kessa while we went to the Ogden temple.  Her favorite part, I think, were those balls.  She'd carry them around on her wrists and got very upset when we took them off so we could go home.  But I love the look on her face here. 

Misc. round 1; the non-Kessa version

I love this picture of BJ.  It cracks me up.  Frisbees are thanks to Kessa.

I had about a billion pears from Bountiful Baskets.  Desperate for what to do with them, my friend, Lauren, suggested a pear pie with cheese in the crust.  Here is the result.

Lauren agrees that it was fantastic.  Mmmmm… Definitely will make again.  (Except next time I'll use cornstarch instead of powdered sugar and then maybe my filling will actually set up instead of being really runny and really sweet.)  (Note to self: label your new storage containers.)

Kessa is learning!

Kessa has been learning so much lately.  It's crazy.  I seriously love this stage where she's picking up words and signs left and right.  I took this video the other day on the spur of the moment.  The first part she points out body parts.  The second part she is counting, though it sounds a lot more like she's saying her vowels, and the last part is her signing.  I really wish I would have thought it out beforehand and wrote out a list of words that I knew she knew, because I definitely missed several that she for sure knows.  Oh well, here you see several.  And isn't she adorable?

Here's a much shorter video with her just pointing out body parts.

Eyes, Ears, Mouth and Nose

You thought this post was going to be about Kessa and her point at body parts to music, didn't you?  Well, you were wrong.

BJ has been doing a bunch of iPod programming on the side.  He loves it.  He goes to work and does one of his favorite things all day, then comes home and keeps doing that same favorite thing all day.  It's like if I got played to play board games all day or something.  (Except he also gets to play board games at lunch.)

One of the programs he's working on is currently named Eyes, Ears, Mouth and Nose.  (That is subject to change.  Please tell us if you can think of a better name.  That's not already taken.)  Nick (his brother) came up with the idea for a marketing class and BJ programmed it for him.  But he ended up taking it a lot further and still has yet to upload it to the Apple Store because he keeps adding new things.  The basic idea is that it takes several pictures, cuts them into thirds, and mixes them up.  He even has face detection on it so that it can line up the pictures a lot better.  It's fantastic.  I've been beta testing for him and it's given me lots of laughs.  Here are some of my favorite results:

And possibly my favorite ever:

Hmmm… turns out we like Kessa's cute chubby cheeks for the bottom picture.  It made it on here twice.  :)  

Stay tuned for the app actually going onto the Apple Store!