Quarter Centurion

I turned 25 yesterday. Happy birthday to me! I honestly don't feel old at all...Yet. I am now the age Darwin was when we got married. That's kind of weird, but totally cool at the same time. Yes. You read that correctly, and if you did the math right after reading that Dar just turned 31 on Friday, you just figured out that I was 19 when we got married. Young, I know. But I wouldn't change it for anything! I can't believe how fast time flies, but life is absolutely wonderful.

Yesterday was as good as could be. Dar started a new job (more to come on that later) so I got to hang out with Rori and then when Dar got done we hung out with him too. We took our Aussie friends out to dinner at 5 Guys (or we ate with 3 boys, which is what their daughter, R, told her grandma on the phone when we were done eating) and then came home and hung out some more. Perfect. But my favorite part of the day was opening my birthday present from my awesome hubby. He got me one of these beauties:
I can't even tell you how happy I am! I've been wanting one for a while and it was totally a surprise when I opened it. Thanks, Babe. You're seriously the best!! And thanks for the birthday wishes everyone. Now that my birthday is past, only 6 more months until CHRISTMAS!! Not that I'm counting down or anything....

Happy Birthday, My Love!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, my love!

You are 31 today.
I love you more and more with each passing day.
You amaze me.
Thank you for being my best friend and the best husband a girl could ask for.
You have brought more happiness and sunshine into my life than I could ever hope for.
You rock!
And I think you're pretty hot too.

Love, Wifey
xoxoxo

I am a Mormon mommy + Followers

I was recently made aware of an online article called "Why I can't stop reading Mormon housewife blogs" and ventured over to read it. I thought it was interesting that the author of the article who knows very little of our beliefs finds reading about LDS women so fascinating and it started me thinking about the readers of our blog. I know our blog doesn't even come close to being as fun or entertaining to read as the Mormon housewives she mentions in the article, but we know that there are people who read our blog who don't know us and who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as we are. We do know many of you because you either went high school with Darwin or me, or we just grew up together. You are our family. You are our friends. We have gone to church together over the years, we've worked together, or maybe we know you through other connections. And I'm betting that most of you are complete strangers who we've never met, but you venture over to read our blog anyway, and we'd like to thank you for visiting. We're not trying to toot our own horn, but we'd like to find out why people visit our blog. Leave us a comment. We'd love to get to know our readers better!

We also just wanted to let everyone know that we added in the "followers" gadget on the right hand side of our blog again. We know from our globe just above it that people from all over the world have at least visited our blog since February when we added that gadget to our side bar, but again, we'd like to get to know our readers better. Don't be shy. Leave us a comment!! And of course, feel free to add yourself as a follower! If you're already a follower that's awesome, thanks. And thanks again for visiting our blog, especially if you're a frequent visitor. Oh yeah, I'm not sure if I said it already...leave us a comment and tell us a bit about yourself! :)

1st Father's Day!

I love these two more than I could ever express in words. I am so grateful to have Darwin as my incredible husband--he is the perfect man for me! He is the best daddy to our beautiful baby girl and she loves him so much already! They have such fun together and I can't wait to see how their relationship flourishes and blossoms.

Thank you, Dar, with all my heart, for being far better than the man of my dreams and for being the best daddy in the world to our precious princess! I hope we were able to show you on your special day how very much you mean to us. Happy 1st Father's Day, babe! We love you!!

Firsts

It's been a fun week in terms of new things happening and experiencing firsts. Aurora rolled from her back to her belly for the first time on Wednesday (although she's been rolling onto her side and from her belly to her back for quite a while now). She discovered her tongue and will just let it hang out of her mouth (hilarious!), and she discovered that the feet she's been staring at and talking to are fun to grab onto now. I love watching her grab her cute little piggies. What am I saying? I love everything about this little girl who has become so much a part of our lives in the last 5 months!!

A few other firsts...Aurora experienced her first hot air balloon festival. We got up bright and early last Friday to go watch some hot air balloons launch for Art City Days. It's one of our favorite things to see in the summertime, although it was the first time Dar & I have been to this particular balloon festival together. We usually go to the balloon launch for the Freedom Festival around the 4th of July--mostly because it's bigger and has a lot more balloons :)

Rori slept through most of it. Probably not a bad thing.

We had to get a picture of Dar with this balloon because it's MSU colors & he was wearing his MSU attire. Go Bulldogs!

Just happy to be outside

Aurora also experienced her first campfire/outdoor barbeque. So fun! It'll be even better when she can enjoy the delicious food and more importantly, s'mores!! I'm glad I can actually enjoy barbeque's this summer--it was one of the worst smells for me last year with morning sickness. So not fun.
And most important/exciting is that Aurora tried rice cereal for her first time on Tuesday!

She wasn't sure what to do at first and I had to help her open her mouth.

Mmm! I definitely think she was more interested in the spoon rather than the food.

So we eventually just gave her the spoon to chew on.

I'd say it was a success for being her first time. She did awesome! We can't wait for more fun "first adventures" to come!

6.11.11 - 5 months!

Another month has passed and our little sweetheart is 5 months old! She gets more and more fun every single day as her little personality continues to surface and she's seriously such a joy to be around. I'm so glad I get to hang out with her every day...I'm so blessed to be a stay-at-home-mom! We love watching her grow and learn new things. Maybe it's just first-time-parent-syndrome, but every little new thing she does is so exciting to us and she's learned to do a lot of new things this past month.



At 5 months:
-Rori has been blowing raspberries for about a month now. She LOVES to blow raspberries and makes a big slobbery mess while she's at it. Sometimes she sticks her fingers in her mouth while blowing raspberries and it looks like she's trying to whistle.
-It's getting MUCH easier to make her laugh and she laughs a whole lot more. Can't get enough of that little giggle!!
-She is ticklish and loves to be tickled.
-She prefers to stand when someone is holding her and everyone comments on how strong she is.
-She's REALLY good at rolling from her belly to her back and rolled from her back to her belly for the first time on her own last night! Yay!
-She is becoming much more vocal (we think she likes to hear her own voice but we love it too so we're not shy about encouraging her) and she has even learned to "sing" a little bit (watch the video if you haven't already). She makes our hearts happy!
-She likes to try to suck her thumb while drinking her bottle. It's quite hilarious but extremely messy too.
-She tried rice cereal for the first time on Tuesday!
-She's still working on holding her bottle by herself.
-Her hair is growing in much more fully and it's much lighter than it was when she was born. We think she might be a blondy like her Mom with blue eyes like her Daddy.
-She has really discovered her feet and will hang on to those cute little piggies while she talks to them. So cute!
-We think she's teething, but nothing showing through yet.
-We also think she's going to be a Mommy's girl.
-She loves when we hold her over our head and tell her she's "Super Girl!"
-She's pretty petite and mostly wears 0-3 month clothes still.
-She knows she's a princess and will smile when we tell her she is. Love it!
-Words she has managed to say but doesn't know it include: Mom (see our 4 month update post), poop, and ow. Last night she even signed Mom (I think she was really just trying to get her thumb in her mouth, but I can pretend, right?). I think she likes me! ;)
-She's getting better at grabbing for things and will probably be crawling before we know it! Time to baby-proof our house!
-She loves to watch TV but we try to keep her distracted with other things so she doesn't watch it too much.
-She's such a good little snuggler and I can't get enough of it!
-She loves to give her Momma smooches & I love when she comes at me with her hands on my cheeks and that little mouth wide open....priceless.
-She lifts her legs when we change her diaper & LOVES to have a clean bum.
-She loves when Daddy comes home from work and she gets the chance to play and hang out with him for a little while after hanging out with Mom all day.

And of course some pictures of our darling little munchkin.

Yep. I'm pretty sure she has all 5 fingers in there.

I absolutely LOVE this one. Our peaceful little sleeping girl.

Rori and her Roo from our best friends.

Hanging on to Kate, her giraffe.

I think she was excited or something. Haha. Dar was trying to get a picture of her eyes because they look metallic sometimes when the light hits her dark blue eyes just right. It's super cool.

She loves this little ribbon blanket (thanks, Paige!), I love her grin :)

Her face cracks me up in this one.

Our little jester. What a cutie.

Practicing holding her bottle by herself.

Farewell to Union Middle School

In June of 2007 I interviewed at Union Middle School. I was looking for jobs after graduation at UVU and there was not much to be had in the Nebo, Provo, and Alpine districts. My next best options was in Salt Lake County in the Jordan district. There were two science positions opened at the time at; one at Indian Hills Middle School and the other at Union. I applied for both. Shortly after I found out that my colleague that I graduated with, Jen Muir, just been hired at Union. She let the principal, Mary Anderson (best principal in the world by the way), know of my interest and put in a good word for me before my interview. The interview went great and I was hired before I even left the room. Thus began the first four years of my career. There have definitely been ups and downs. What could you expect from young teenagers?

There were pros and cons to be at Union. The greatest cons were the drive and the insurance. Living in Springville, Union is about 40 miles from home, making the daily commute 80 miles total. In a school year I would commute 14,400 miles. The drive took nearly 45 minutes each way. This totals 270 hours worth of driving in a school year. The insurance premiums were very high, $455 to cover my family for medical insurance. It was a hard decision, but I thought it best to find a school closer to home rather than move closer to Union.
Cleaning out my room was filled with the memories of the past. These walls echo the voices of students and teachers. The oo's and ah's of science demos, the excited looks followed by "I get it now!", the laughter from a teacher's goofy personality. In this room lives have been changed, hearts have been touched, and courses altered.
As I sit in my chair and look around this room, tears start to fill my eyes as I know I will never see it again as the teacher. I think of my hundreds of students that have passed through here, some that still come back to visit and declare that I was their favorite teacher. My heart will always long for them and wish them the best success in their lives. I am now a part of these walls, posted as if a piece of a collage with all the other teachers that have served here, and with their legacies, forever a part of this school.
My time here now has ended and a new stage of my life has begun. I will be now teaching at Mount Nebo Jr. High in Payson. But for now, this is Mr. Deming...room 709...signing off.