Bowling with the Fam.

First things first. Bowling shoes are not cute.

But when they happen to match my socks (which I'm wearing over my jeans because I had been wearing boots) they're actually awesome. Right? (Also, between my green striped socks over my jeans and my colorful Native American themed sweater, I gave the conservative female BYU students in the next lane plenty to whisper about.)

My family's trip to their local bowling alley. Lola was very interested in the game.
Blurry, but the only photo I got of Ryan's victory dance.
This sister is really good at bowling. That's because when Tennis is in its off-season, her team goes bowls for their P.E. hour. She's also really good at funny faces.
This sister is also really good at funny faces, although here she's just annoyed at me for taking her picture after a not-so-good bowl.
The parents...or grandparents I guess.
And moi. Notice I'm strategically blocking the view of my lane lest the viewer of this pic sees that I failed to actually knock any pins over. I may have come in last place. I'm not sure I even broke 60 to be honest.
And, for a parting shot, enjoy my backside.
You're welcome.

Not just a crawler, but a climber, too.

Sweet Dee took advantage of all the coffee and end tables at my parent's house to really nail her climbing skills, which served as great entertainment for us all weekend long (although the face-plants were hard to watch).

Poses like this were my favorite.


She was pretty proud of herself. And rightly so.

Craig Park in January 2011.

Who loves Sunday walks through the park?

This girl.
And her parents.


This particular walk in January had it all: cool weather (finally), chasing ducks, a giggly girl in a funny hat, some time on the swings and slide, and an epic sunset. Magic.

Have I mentioned?

...that for the past month we've had a crawler?

It's pretty cute.

Being married can be pretty great.

I'm especially grateful for Husband today.

Our girl is especially grateful for her Daddy when she's sick on rainy days and she's feeling the need to cuddle.

i also love those fatty feet.

It's not you, it's me.

This blog is not a place I like to air my dirty laundry. It is where I document key events, journal about our activities (for our own records and to keep our families updated) and share my random thoughts. I purposefully keep things - for the most part - light hearted and even deliberately shallow as I am not comfortable with the vulnerability that would come from really "opening up" so to speak. That's true also in my personal life -I keep most of my person-to-person interactions fairly surface level. Even my blog-rants (which are oftentimes my most passionate posts) are usually about fairly banal and insignificant things. Truthfully, I have very little dirty laundry to air. Life has been good to me. And I like to focus on the positive. Mostly.

That being said, I must say that I'm in a funk. It's lasted longer than I really care to admit. To battle it I think I need to follow some wise counsel to simplify and focus on the essentials. Without divulging personal details, I will say that doing so is going to involve some fairly drastic changes for me. For my family, too. Some such decisions I've/we've been struggling with for some time. Part of my effort will be to stop reading blogs. For awhile anyway. While this is hardly a "drastic" move, I feel its necessary in my effort to refocus. Blogs (at least the ones I read), while often innocent and inspirational, are also full of non-essential things, activities, and adventures I can't have or do right now and, frankly, I'm not a big enough person to spend time reading about it all while being content with where I am in my life.

So I'm done. For awhile. I'll continue to update this little ol' blog for the same reason I started it - to have some record of our lives and to keep our families updated. But no more blog-hopping. For awhile.

So if I have to ask you to fill me in on what's been going on in your life next time I see you, please understand. It's not that I've been uninterested, I just need a clean break. It's not you, it's me. Totally.

On the plus side, I foresee a considerable spike in my productivity!

Business Casual - a new low.

I believe I've documented my abhorrence of "Business Casual Friday" (here). Basically I maintain that the combination of dress slacks and Hawaiian shirts is the 8th deadly sin. You can then imagine my horror when my company took this to a new level at its most recent officers' meeting. Some context first: there was some sort of rock and roll theme. (I didn't bother with the particulars as I wasn't invited. It was only for SVPs and up and I'm just a lowly AVP. But I digress.) Anyway, a memo went out stating that the meeting would be business casual, particularly no jeans allowed; however, to go with the theme, all attendees were to wear their favorite rock band tee shirt. So...think business slacks, dress shoes, and concert tees.

Wow.
Some higher ranking officers, of course, wore their suit coats, too. You know, to class it up. Or something. (I took the high road and erased his face to protect him from potential embarassment. That, and I didn't really want to get Dooced for posting this. Because, you know, my bosses totally read this blog. Wink.)

I'm actually sad I wasn't required to attend this.

Okay, not really.

My Valentines.

They only ask that you excuse their matching"bed-heads" and their respective "i-just-woke-up" faces.

I love those faces. And that hair.

I love any day that warrants them sending me photos like this while I'm on my way to work.

Oh, and I really love them.

(Although on this particular day, I'm particularly fond of that guy on the left.)

more vicarious bragging

Check THIS out.

Elise was just featured in the OC Register in an article titled "She burns calories so she can eat them." The gist of the piece was about how she judged the LA cupcake challenge last Saturday night and then ran the Surf City half marathon the next morning - fast enough even to set a new personal record.

She may not be human.

Also, I should mention that while I went with her to judge that contest - and yes, I sampled all 32 entries - I did not run that half marathon to justify it.

Crystal Cove ... in January.

This was actually a recent outing. The weather this January was nicer than it was all summer (or so it seemed) so we teamed up with the Brewers, who are always up for last minute adventures, and we ended up in Crystal Cove for a nature walk. Of course we ended the outing with Malts from the Shake Shack.

We had originally discussed doing an actual hike, hence the hardcore gear we're sporting. Well, the gear that Kristi is sporting, at least.

The tide was way out, which made for some fun exploring. There were lots of tide pools to keep the kiddos - or us - entertained. Let's be honest, Lola didn't really care what we were doing and Keilana was content to chill in the Kelty with her blanket and snacks.



The grand prize of finds: half a lobster. Yum.

Thanks for the fun day, Brewers!

And thanks to Paul for remembering a camera and for taking all the photos (which I stole without permission; sorry).

Husband's been busy.

One of my favorite things to do here is to brag about the doings and accomplishments of friends and family. It's time I turn the spotlight on Kenny.

A little over a year ago Kenny started a company, Fotofafa, offering post production services to professional photographers - mainly to wedding photographers (given the high volume they shoot). We personally know a lot of photographers, mainly through his very talented sister, Amelia Lyon, and we knew that many of them outsourced this step of their work flow. We figured, well, why don't we do it. However, no sooner did Kenny get the ball rolling on this new venture when the "we" part of the equation quickly became "he" as my trying to balance pregnancy and a full-time, corporate job left me a little burnt out at the end of the day. So Kenny was left to start this thing on his own. And he's done a great job, thanks in no small part to the support and assistance of friends and family who have helped him develop his editing abilities (ahem, amelia) and have spread the word. Jon and Christian, his now business partners, are a great add in the business development part of things, while our friend Scott has helped with the company branding and website design. My Uncle Greg has provided legal advice and Fotofafa's in house and off site editors do a great job.

But this is about Kenny. I'm proud of the work he's done and am so excited for him to be experiencing success with this relatively new venture.

The timing for this post coincides with Kenny's recent relaunched of the Fotofafa site. Scott (with FriendorFoe) did a great job on design and branding. In short, it looks fantastic. And while I admit I may be biased, I say that as a matter of objective fact.

Great job, Honey!

I should probably note that Kenny doesn't process the images on our little blog here. No, this blog, despite its title is just me. His work is WAY better.

Check out the site. It's pretty to look at. And when you see Kenny, throw him some High Fives for a job well done. He deserves it.

Belated

This was going to be the photo in our Christmas card. we never got around to formally taking a family photo so we ripped this one from Angie's birthday card. Lola looked cute and that's all that mattered anyway. I envisioned saying something about Joy...however, when we failed to mail such cards, it became the photo for new year's cards. Then that never happened.

So...yeah.

Pretend you received this in early December and that it was printed out on the cutest little Tinyprints card ever with a perfectly worded salutations and wish for a joyous holiday season and successful new year.

You're welcome.

Solids

This was Lola's reaction to her first taste of something other than breast milk. She had just turned six months old and I believe it was squash...
Despite what this face suggests, The Girl has been pretty great about eating. I credit Ella's Kitchen baby food pouches for making that happen - their stuff is the best (with Plum Organics baby food pouches a close second).

Actually, I should say that she WAS pretty good about eating until a recent ear infection seems to have "refined" her palette. She's refusing all kinds of traditional baby food and has seemed more interested in whatever we were eating and so I finally gave in. I can officially tell you that she LOVES the following foods:

White Chili (loaded with onions and jalapeno. Seriously.)
All fruit and spinach smoothies
Parmesan and red pepper risotto
garlic roasted cauliflower
pineapple, mango, and cara cara orange salad
and (this is so far her favorite) Tom Yum soup.

As much as I hate this word, it seems our girl is an amateur Foodie. I watched her closely, and she's been fine. No crazy BM's (or lack thereof), no stomach aches, no gas, no rashes, nothing. Again, I credit Ella's Kitchen Baby 1 baby food pouches. They're Organic and have lots variety and interesting mixes. In other words, Lola was eating better than we were most of the time. More perks: they're easy to travel with and the veggie combos always have at least one fruit mixed in, giving it just enough sweetness that she'd eat every single mix Ella's offers. The "Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Blueberry, Apple" combo was The Girl's favorite.

Should be getting paid for this endorsement?! If only I had the readership that would merit that...oh well; I'll sing their praises anyway. Like I said, Plum Organics offers a similar product with some good mixes, but not as much veggie variety. Boon also makes spoons that you can screw right onto the pouch, but I found the spoons to be too deep - Lola struggled getting the food out.

Wow...I just rambled on for a whole paragraph about baby food. Does that officially make me a mom. That's my cue to end this. Good night.