The Book of Standage

Fun in the Snow

2012-01-29T17:04:00.001-07:00

We had a lot of fun in the snow this week. We went sledding down our perfect "hill." Heather LOVED it. As did Josh. After going down a few times while holding Josh, I had Heather hold Josh and go down, and then sent Josh down on his own. He loved it too! No one was happy to go inside that day. Unfortunately, I didn't take photos until most of the good sledding snow was gone. But, you get the idea.

Woohoo!

Happy to be outside exploring

Eating snow.

I think it's time to go in...

Silly day for Heather

2012-01-14T15:12:00.002-07:00

Stephanie snapped a few photos of Heather yesterday after she woke up from her nap. There were a few of her smiling as well, but she made a ton of funny faces for the camera and for the mirror.

Stephanie also got a few of the kids in the bath later on.

My new motto

2012-01-12T14:33:00.002-07:00

Sometimes I look at my house and my to do list, and think about my day and wonder what on earth I did that day, because nothing got done. Then I get a little moody and depressed, and feeling bad about myself. Anyway...I came across this poem and it is a good reminder to help me keep things in perspective. This is what I do all day. This is what I choose to do all day, and I need to be better at remembering that.

Babies Don’t Keep
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing, make up the bed,
Sew on a button and butter the bread.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,
Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo.

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.


Heather


Josh

They've grown up so much already and they still have a lot of years to grow! So, I think I am going to print this out and hang it up somewhere:

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Straight Hair

2012-01-08T18:35:00.000-07:00

We've been wondering what Heather's hair looks like straight, so today I tried straightening it. What do you think?

On another note, I guess we never posted anything about Christmas. It was great! We stayed home and enjoyed our time together as a little family. Heather got a kitchen for her main Christmas present and she LOVES it! So does Josh...and I will admit it's nice to tell her to go cook or wash dishes in her kitchen when I am doing those things in mine. :)

Tasting some of her hot chocolate.

Chef Heather

Josh sampling some of Heather's creations.

Ten things I love about you

2011-12-31T09:27:00.001-07:00

Joshua

watching you nod your head (well, actually your whole body)
that little thing you do with your tongue
your dinosaur roar
the intense look you get when you're hungry
the occasional good nap!
your mad rush for the bathtub
your laughing contests with Heather
our shared fascination for the fridge
your chubby thighs
the peaceful look when you finally, finally fall asleep in my arms

Heather

somersaults
curly curly hair
your infectious silliness
hearing you quote Winnie the Pooh
hearing you try to count to 20 while in time out
the primary song medleys you make up on the spot
your enthusiasm for nursery
hearing you describe the pictures of Jesus in the gospel art book
watching you try to casually put your arm around me
humongous kisses

Stephanie

your hard work at home
your peanut butter chocolate trifle
your soft, smooth, kissable cheeks
your attention to detail
your determination to do the right thing, even if it isn't convenient or popular
your fun date ideas
did I mention the trifle? :) no but really, your cooking and baking are spectacular
your singing voice
your mad photog skillz
your laugh and your beautiful smile make me so happy

Christmas Card

2011-12-17T19:36:00.002-07:00

We sent most of our family and friends a link to our Christmas "card." But, just in case we missed anyone (which I am pretty confident we did...), you can find it here.

We love you all!

A Very Clever Blog Post

2011-12-04T19:35:00.001-07:00

I remember sitting in the Talmage Building some time during the Fall 2007 semester, bored out of my mind in Dr. Solovjav's calculus class. I inconspicuously pulled out my work computer, connected to Blogger, picked out a template, and created the now-famed The Book of Standage. I searched through our wedding photos for one to use as the header image.

Since then we have changed the look and feel of the blog only once. When we graduated from BYU and moved here to Iowa, we changed the header image with a more up-to-date picture (including Heather) and changed "the land of Provo" to "the land of Iowa." Other than that, it has been the same since we created the blog.

Well, Josh has been around for almost 9 months now, and Stephanie took some darn good family photos recently, so I figured it was about time to update the blog's look and feel again. This time I went for the whole kit and caboodle, not only changing the header graphic but also choosing a different template for a fresh new look. I chose a theme based on Iowa State's school colors, and then Stephanie (with her vast design experience) refined the color scheme so that it does not subconsciously incite feelings of anger in blog viewers. It's pretty much a big deal.

Anyway, enough meta-blogging. We didn't take many pictures this week, but the few pictures Stephanie did take you can see on her photo blog.

PS Stay tuned at The Small Plates of Standage for an awesome new ice cream recipe. Stephanie made an absolutely scrumptious pumpkin pie ice cream last night using leftovers from Thanksgiving. Seriously, it rivaled my passion for chocolate and peanut butter. Stephanie didn't use a recipe or take any pictures though, so we probably won't post the recipe until after Christmas when we have some more leftover pie!

Turkey Turkey Turkey

2011-11-27T19:12:00.001-07:00

Iowa State gives an entire week of class holidays around Thanksgiving, so I had lots of extra time at home...right? Well, sort of. To my surprise, we still had one of our weekly research meetings on Monday, so I went to campus during the kids' nap for that. Then I spent all day on campus on Tuesday catching up with a class term project. And then, to my further surprise, we still had one of our other weekly meetings on Wednesday, despite the holiday, so I had to hurry to campus to make that meeting too! Note to self...class holiday ≠ research holiday!

Despite the unexpected meetings and some unexpected sore throats and fevers, it was a pretty good week. We went to the Des Moines botanical center on Monday morning, had friends over for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, and then ventured out for a brief (but productive) Black Friday shopping trip on Friday.

We'll let the pictures tell the story.

Heather really enjoyed the botanical center.

Josh got his first close-ups smelling and touching some exotic flora.

He had a blast.

Hahaha!

The fam.

We knew the little devil had horns!

Heather keeping everyone entertained.

Pose much, Heather?

Taught Heather how to use a mouse. Did not want to get off StarFall.

Thanksgiving, post-turkey, post-walk, pre-pie. Playing some games to pass the time.

Heather and Joshua tickling the ivories.

Sick

2011-11-20T19:38:00.001-07:00

Heather has had a rough week. She has had a high fever for the last 3 days. She peaked at 104 yesterday, but we think that was the worst of it. She was only about 100 today. She has spent the days laying on the couch and wanting held. I have always thought it would be nice to have a couple days where Heather just laid there, didn't get in to anything, didn't whine, didn't scream, didn't tackle Josh...but alas, it is not so great as I would have thought. There were no laughs, no tickles, no bouncing down the stairs, no running, twirling and jumping. I felt so horrible for her. I ended up getting less done when she was sick than I normally do. My poor girl!

She seems to be doing a lot better today, so hopefully we are back to our normal, crazy, happy selves.

Date night: Cars 2

2011-11-13T15:34:00.000-07:00

We had a really fun family date on Friday night. We thought it would be fun to watch Cars 2 together, and I (in my craziness) thought it would be a fun idea to have a themed dinner and watch the movies in cars. I spent the afternoon working and this is how it turned out.

Our decor featured: road plate mats (very useful for keeping tots occupied while mommy was finishing up in the kitchen) and tires (you will see these in other photos, we used the tires for our cars later)

About to enjoy our yummy meal.

Reading the menu. Here's what was served:

"Mack" and cheese. Southwest style...in truth, leftovers.

To"mater" pizza. Pizza with tomatoes, spinach, basil, and cheese...actually leftover pizza Margherita.

Mater's sweet tater fries...Holy Sheeeooot! These were good!

Doc's dip sticks. Carrot sticks with ranch.

Winning race tracks. Homemade pretzels.

Stop lights. M&Ms held on by melted chocolate.

The menu. In order to give credit where credit is due, here is the link to the original menu. I actually used photoshop to change it up a bit. AND although I came up with the general idea myself, as I was looking online for ideas I came across this blog. I got the menu, and some of the food ideas and drink printouts there.

Dinoco Oil, and Fillmore's Organic Fuel. Chocolate milk, and crystal light respectively.

Daniel was super excited to be eating this exquisite, well thought out, planned, and prepared meal. ;)

We got the kids bathed and we all got in our pj's then we had races in our cars, and then sat down to watch the movie...we lasted about 20 mins in the cars.

Most of my time during the afternoon was spent painting and cutting out the cars. It was really fun to race and sit in them, but unless you have older kids that would be able to help, and probably enjoy them more, and take car of them better, you may want to just have toy car races on your table mats, or table runner. (that's what they did in the blog I looked up, but because I had already thought of the idea and started cutting, I didn't do it. BTW, I thought of the place mats before I saw the blog. I guess great minds think alike.)

Ahem...Josh likes to eat tires.

Cozy Cones. Rocky road ice cream, covered in motor oil (chocolate syrup), and topped with a cozy and delicious sugar cone.

Casa della tires. Hostess über-greasy, über-cheap (as in cheap ingredients) chocolate doughnuts.

All in all, it was a fun and relatively cheap date. I had most of the stuff, but the stuff I did buy cost me $11.50. You can't get that kind of entertainment for that little these days!

PS. sorry for the long, detailed post, but it was at the request of a dear friend. ;)

Still tired

2011-11-06T19:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was busy with Josh when I heard Heather wake up from her nap. It was a couple minutes before I went up to go get her. I went in and this is what I found:

She was ZONKED out. I was able run downstairs and set Josh down (which caused a major whine...I was afraid she would wake up), grab the camera and run upstairs to take a couple photos (with crazy flash because her room was dark, and a loud camera) before she woke up.

And she still had a hard time waking up!

Check out those lines on her face! And all that curly crazy hair!

Glad I was able to capture it.

And yes, she asked to wear her pj's for her nap. And yes, I safety pin my daughter in her clothes to prevent undesirable accidents from happening on the floor and because she takes everything off.

Apple Orchard, Pumpkin painting, and Halloween

2011-11-02T20:38:00.000-06:00

Beware. This is a long post, but it's mostly photos!

It has been a beautiful fall here. One day the kids and I went to an apple orchard to get out for the day. But this was no ordinary apple orchard. They had goats, pigs, horses, chickens, and ducks to feed; a HUGE slide, a bouncing bubble-thing, a corn pool, rubber duck races, tractor trikes, an old school house, a hay ride, a mini maze as well as a FOUR acre corn maze (can you imagine getting lost in that?), and of course they had a ton of apple trees, and a pumpkin patch. Although we took advantage of the little store they had and got some fresh apples and cider doughnuts there, because all of the trees were pretty well gleaned of apples within Heather's reach, and I didn't feel like being macho momma. We went with the plan to only stay about 1 1/2 hours and ended up staying there for 4 hours! It was so much fun! Heather's favorite part was the corn pool and feeding the goats

Feeding the goats

"BIIIG goat!"

Chillin' in the stroller

Climbing up to the super slide

Going down the slide

Bouncing bubble

Hay ride

Hungry goats

Still chillin'

Tractor trike

Zonked out

Un-birthday party

Instead of carving pumpkins, we painted pumpkins this year. It was a lot of fun.

Our happy pumpkin painter

Our happy "helper"

Family

We went to a special Halloween party at Reiman Gardens (a local conservatory) it was a lot of fun.

Dancing with the lady bug

Our little clown

We saw an owl up close. It was neat!

Sticking out her stinger

For Halloween we dressed up as Goldilocks and the Three bears. It was a lot of fun and SO cute...in my opinion. :)

Goldilocks and the three bears. (You can also see the finished pumpkins, here)

Family Photos

2011-10-16T19:11:00.000-06:00

We have been trying to schedule family photos with another family for a while, but things just weren't happening. We finally just went out and bought a tripod and did them ourselves. Here are the results. (You may need to click on the photo to see it better.) What do you think?

A plethora of photos and videos

2011-10-02T19:24:00.000-06:00

We've captured a lot of cute pics and vids of our kids this week. We'll keep the commentary to a minimum and just let you enjoy their cute personalities!

Josh likes grass...and bugs...and paper...and cords and shoes and...

Hat hair!

General conference glasses give Heather an eternal perspective...

Enjoying her first dirt puddin' with worms

This is what I get to hear all day long.

Mobile! Agile! Hostile!

2011-09-25T18:52:00.000-06:00

Yep, it's true. Josh is crawlin' proper now!

How did two weeks pass?

2011-09-18T19:01:00.000-06:00

Wow, where has all the time gone? The kids have been enjoying our last precious days of summer by going to the park, playing with our friends, and running around. Josh is pretty much crawling now, and can get just about anywhere he wants to. Our lives are getting a little more complicated...AHH!

Heather pushing Josh in the swing

Josh LOVES the swing!

Heather helping Josh be happy.

Heather being Heather. :)

We went to the temple yesterday. The kids were great! I was just thinking as we were traveling home that some people may think we are crazy for dragging our entire family to the temple once a month. I agree! It's tough. The schedule is messed up for the day. It's hard to keep the kids entertained for 4 hours while mommy and daddy take turns going to the temple (especially when it is rainy...like yesterday). Remembering to pack a lunch and breakfast. Not to mention the price of gas. So...it ends up being expensive one way or the other. It's taxing on our patience reservoirs, there's extra stress on the kids, and it's expensive monetarily. It is easy to look at these things (especially money) and say we can't afford it. But despite all that, I feel that we can't afford not to go to the temple.

We have received more blessings than we can imagine from going to the temple every month. We have been so blessed in many ways. And despite looking at our finances and thinking maybe a temple trip would be too expensive, we have always had the money that we needed to get there and back and enough for the rest of the month as well. I don't want to sound preachy or anything, but I know that because we have made it a point to go to the temple at least once a month our marriage has been stronger, we have always had the things that we need (even a surplus), and the spirit is in our home in greater abundance. I would encourage all of us to make a little more time in our lives for the temple. It's well worth the effort. I am so grateful for the temple, the things we can learn there, and the blessings that we can see in our lives because of it.

Catch up

2011-09-05T20:09:00.000-06:00

Hey, things have been very busy so we haven't blogged much recently. Our kids are growing up so fast though, so we wanted to fill you in on some of the latest. We've captured Josh's pseudo-crawling technique, the "prop and lunge." We've also posted some pictures. Enjoy!

Heather making "dirt pancakes"

Let's count Joshua's chins...

Happy boy...for the moment

"Peas in pod!" as she places them on an apple peel

Enjoying Stephanie's birthday cake

Labor Day barbecue

My days

2011-08-19T14:39:00.001-06:00

Sometimes my days are like this:

And this:

But most of the time my days are like this:

And this:

After getting in the fridge and taking 1 bite out of 2 peaches...

Thank goodness for the small moments, or I think I'd go crazy!

Gah! I went to grab the camera because she had the Five Little Monkeys book in her hand. It must have fallen in the time it took to get the camera.

A tent, a tie, a mess, and some homemade pretzels!

2011-08-07T14:19:00.000-06:00

The title pretty much sums up our week. We really didn't do much. We spent a lot of time outside this week since the weather has cooled off a bit. And by "a bit" I mean, 90° or less. We went on morning walks, and I enjoyed watching Heather's hair curl amazingly in the humidity. Heather and I also built a tent one morning and played in it for a while. It was a lot of fun.

I think this is such a cute picture of her...minus the shadow.

I walked into the kitchen on Friday only to find this:

What you don't see here, is the trail of baby food from the kitchen to the piano bench.

I guess she was trying to feed her baby? After getting a little more upset that I should have, and putting her in time out, I decided to take a picture, because I thought we would probably look back on it later, and laugh.

Josh moved from 3-6mo clothes to 6-9mo clothes recently. We have a few nice (cool) things that he could wear to church, but they all happened to be dirty this morning. Actually, most of his clothes were dirty this morning... So, out of desperation, I grabbed his one and only white onesie and made him a church outfit. It took about 30mins to make. It shouldn't have taken that long, but I had some problems with my sewing machine (maybe she was mad that she had to work on Sunday?). I think he turned out pretty cute what do you think?

Oh, yeah the bow tie is pretty cute too.

Daniel and I are not looking forward to when school starts again. It has been really nice having time to spend alone together after the kids are in bed. Soon we will have to deal with homework, and I will be left alone to twiddle my thumbs while Daniel studies. This week we watched Fiddler on the Roof, did some digital scrapbooking while we listened to a book on CD. We are working on getting a book printed on all of our Utah adventures! The highlight of our weeknight activities? We made some yummy soft pretzels. Watch for them to show up on my cooking blog sometime soon. They were delicious!

Happenings this week

2011-07-24T14:57:00.000-06:00

This week was a little rough. Daniel and I spent the entire week sleeping on an air mattress in the front room because I just couldn't handle Josh's night waking habits anymore, and letting him cry it out with me in there was too much. You roll your eyes at my not being able to handle it, but he was waking up about once an hour (this is no exaggeration, I have witnesses). Since he has been born he has never even slept so long as 4 hours straight, and it has been really...well, tiring! So we finally decided on letting him cry it out, and feeding him once a night. After the first couple nights, he was doing a lot better and only waking up 3 times. But last night he slept from 7pm - 3am! Then slept until about 6:15. It was awesome! We are making small steps, but we will get there.

Josh not only learned to sleep better at night, but he also learned how to roll over! Unfortunately he has been practicing during naptime, and now he sleeps for about 20-30mins before he wakes up. (Grr...)My theory is that he just wants to practice rolling over some more.

Heather started sleeping in the big girl bed last night. She did great! We have been trying to get her to sleep in the big girl bed for a while (since before Josh was born). We would ask her if she wanted to sleep in the big girl bed. She would get excited about it, we would put her in it, but then she would get up and make a mad dash for the crib. She seemed afraid of it. So Daniel and I decided we needed to take the crib out of the room. After her afternoon nap yesterday, we said goodbye to the crib. I thought she would totally flip out, but she handled it very well! She was a little confused at night when Daniel laid her down, but she stayed in bed and slept all night. In the morning she just quietly read books until 7 when we normally get her up. Daniel said she had been reading her scriptures. I guess we are training her right. I was nervous about naptime today, but she, again, stayed in bed and took a good nap. I am sure it won't last forever, but she is surprising us at how well she is making the transition!

So, after a long hard week, all of our hard work is paying off. I was able to capture this cute moment during the week. Heather has become such a good big sister! (Most of the time...)

Things I wish I would have known with Baby #1

2011-07-20T14:24:00.000-06:00

I have learned so much with Josh. He has definitely not been an "easy" baby (Heather was definitely a lot more "easy"). I have learned a lot of helpful ideas that have really helped him and me have a calmer and happier first 3 months (as calm and happy as it can be having a baby with colic). Many of my friends are about to have their first babies, but this post is especially for my sister, Rachel, who just had her first baby.

1. The Fourth Trimester -- This is a newer idea, but basically the first 3 months should be treated as the last trimester. Your new baby is accustomed to being in the womb 24-7. The womb has constant sound, movement, and is warm and snuggly. After being born, we basically deprive the baby of what he has been used to since conception. While we can't provide all of the sensations the baby experienced in utero, we can help them feel more comfortable by giving them some of the things they want and need to remain happy and calm. And that brings me to point number 2: The Five S's.

2. The Five S's -- The five S's are 5 ways that you can help your baby feel more comfortable, and I am telling you, they work like a charm! I suggest you watch the DVD The Happiest Baby On the Block. (It is only an hour long, and it is definitely worth your time.) This is where I get a lot of these ideas, and it was WAY helpful. Some people might say that by giving your baby these things is going to "spoil" them, but remember: your baby has been used to these things 24-7, and really we are the ones depriving them! Even if we did the 5 S's 12 hours a day, they would still be having a 50% decrease in their favorite calming, soothing sensations.

Swaddling--It needs to be tighter than you think! Have you ever noticed that if you are holding a baby and you sit down really fast their arms shoot out like they are desperately trying to grab for something? What you are witnessing is a natural reflex in babies called the Moro reflex. This reflex only happens when a baby feels that it is falling. You may also have noticed that babies will reach their arms out in this way when they are on their back. Why? They feel like they are falling. That's where swaddling comes in handy. It keeps their arms down and helps them to feel snuggled and safe. When you first start swaddling a baby, they may seem like they hate it, like they are trying to break out, that's because they had their hands free and up by their face in the womb, but if you were to swaddle them like that, they would break out in no time. Swaddling with hands to the side helps prevent breakouts. Josh loves to be swaddled. In fact, when he is really upset and knows he is going to get swaddled, he will often put his hands down to his side. Here's a video (notice how happy Josh is to be swaddled):
Shushing -- LOUD, shushing. It is natural to shush your baby. All over the world people shush their babies. Mom's know that this works...However, what many moms don't realize is how loud it needs to be. Recent studies have shown that inside the womb babies where hearing constant sounds as loud as a vacuum! You can imagine how eerie it is to a baby to go from loud, constant sound to your quiet home. This was the magic "S" for us. We could do all the other S's, but it wasn't until we shushed (LOUD) that Josh responded. And when he did, it was like pushing a button. We finally got smart and made an mp3 with white noise on it, and TURNED IT UP! Seriously, Josh is memorized and calms right down when the white noise gets turned on. You have got to try it! I was going to upload the mp3 here, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. So...if you want it, leave a comment and I will email it to you.
Side/Stomach -- Because babies often feel like they are falling when they are on their backs, babies like to be held on their side or stomach. There are lots of positions that put pressure on the stomach to help the baby be more comfortable. Josh likes me to hold him either up on my shoulder, or in the cradle hold (stomach to stomach), but he likes Daniel to hold him in the reverse breastfeeding position. Another position that works well is called the football hold. It's really great for dad's to do.
Swinging/jiggling -- When in utero a baby feels a tremendous amount of movement. Imagine if the mother was walking up the stairs, or exercising, or running to the bathroom 'cause she's about to pee your pants! The baby is used to constant jiggly movement. You can create this same movement by gently jiggling your baby's head. Don't SHAKE your baby, just jiggle it...like jello! Here is another place where I really suggest you watch Happiest Baby on the Block. I jsut can't explain the technique without showing you. I found an excerpt on his website to show how awesome it is.
Sucking -- Sucking is like the cherry on top when you are trying to calm your baby. A baby needs to suck to survive, but some babies need to suck a lot more than you are willing to feed them. For this reason pacifiers come in handy. We went through about 4 different kinds before we found "the right one." It's playtex Most like Mother
This one shown here is latex, but we got the silicone kind. Also, we found it at Target. I don't think walmart carries it.

3. Baby Wearing -- I have already told you, Rachel, how much I LOVE baby wearing. Josh loves it too. I love having him close to me, and I am sure it is nice for the baby to feel safe and secure with mommy...just like in the womb. I put Josh in the wrap and 5 mins later, he would be asleep. You can make your own by buying 6yds of cotton jersey (or any other interlocking fabric, that doesn't fray) and cutting it down the middle lengthwise. You now have two wraps. Yes, they need to be that long. (You could maybe buy 3 yds, cut it in half and sew the two 3 yd strips together too...) You can learn how to tie a wrap at www.mobywrap.com. My absolute favorite wrap for newborns is the Newborn Hug Hold. Unfortunately, Josh is too big for it now.
4. Routine -- being on a routine is SO important for kids. While it is hard to put a newborn on a routine, I would suggest making a routine as soon as possible. When the baby starts to be older, you will start to notice certain tendencies such as, the baby usually will go down at this time, and wants to eat at this time. Your baby can help you decide on a routine that works for her. I am not a stickler for a strict routine during the day (although we do have a pretty rough routine worked out), but naptime and bedtime roll around, and I find that having a routine is the most beneficial thing to getting the kids down at a when you know they need it. Our bedtime routine goes like this. Dinner, clean up, scriptures, bath, story, prayers, songs, say goodnight. (That's the watered down version...)
5. Sleep --We all need it, but kids need it most of all. This is probably the area I have bragging rights with as a parent...at least with Heather. Heather still sleeps 12 hours at night, and 3 in the day. She is a very happy girl, and while a lot of it is personality, I know a lot of it comes from the amount of sleep she gets. We are still working on sleeping with Josh. I don't have any tricks up my sleeve. Teaching a child to sleep is a totally different ball game for each child, and it is hard work, but it is worth it! I recommend the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth.
6. Nursing tips and tricks -- When I had Heather, I thought you just held the baby in your arms (in the cradle hold) and they did the rest. Not so... No one tells you how frustrating (not to mention painful) nursing can be. It's all peaches and cream "I just love breastfeeding my babies..." blah, blah, blah...you've heard it. While breastfeeding is wonderful once you and the baby learn how to do it, breastfeeding takes work. You have to do it right, or it is a miserable experience. I really struggled breastfeeding Heather. We didn't have a good breastfeeding relationship down until she was over 3 months old. With Josh it was a lot easier. Why? I learned these things (unfortunately I learned them the hard way):

Use the cross cradle (or football) hold with newborns. Newborns don't have the head support and coordination they need to get a good latch. If you use the cross cradle hold you can help them stay on longer by holding their head in place. It is also easier to see if the latch is correct.
Make sure the latch is right EVERY TIME! If the baby slides off, or you feel pinching, break the suction, and change immediately. Seriously, it will save you a lot of soreness.
Baby to breast, not breast to baby. This has become my breastfeeding motto. Another fallacy I had was that you stuff the boob in the baby's mouth. It is much better if you wait for the baby to open wide, and then quickly pull the baby onto the breast. It helps you to have a better latch, and it helps the baby learn how to position her head correctly.

7. Let Daddy Help! and don't criticize! -- This is SO important. Most daddies really want to help. They may be scared at first, you know, "I might break it" but they want to help. What they need is gentle encouragement. NOT criticism. The trick is to ask them (nicely) for help, and make them feel appreciated and loved for doing so (whether or not they don't throw the diaper away). Many dads don't have as much experience in taking care of babies. Show them gently and kindly, and then if you can't handle it, leave the room! Why, you ask? Because the whole reason you are letting the dad help is to get a break. There is no use standing there and stressing out that "he's not doing it right" or standing around and watching him struggle with the screaming baby (just like you were, remember?) and then decide to take the baby back. You need a break, take it! It's OK to leave your baby. Really. Let Daddy and baby have some time to experiment. Both of them would probably appreciate it if you weren't there breathing down their neck. Josh really likes when Daniel holds him in certain ways, in fact there were times where I tried everything I could with Josh, and in total desperation, finally handed him over to Daniel. Josh settled down so quickly, I wondered why I hadn't given him up a lot sooner. I am so not perfect at this, but I have let Daniel help more this time around, and it has saved my sanity.

8. Daniel's advice? You can't take too many photos. We love to look back and see how much our babies have grown. They grow SO fast when they are little, document it!

I know this was a really long post but, I hope that helps at least one of you new mothers. It will at least be helpful to me when the next baby comes. :)

July (so far)

2011-07-17T20:30:00.000-06:00

Stephanie has been working on a blog post all week about things she wish she'd known with baby #1. And when I say all week, I mean all week. Unfortunately, Blogger seems to have lost most of her work. We signed in a few minutes ago to add a video and publish the post, only to find that Blogger lost most of what Stephanie has written since Wednesday. Needless to say she's pretty bummed. So she's working on re-writing that, but there's no guarantee it'll be done tonight. In the mean time, I figured I would post some pictures of our recent goings on.

We had a great Independence Day on the 4th. We started with a church breakfast at a nearby park. I (over)loaded up on pancakes and sausage! Heather was happy to run around (and around and around) on the playground.

Joshua doing what he does best...winning hearts!

We made it home just in time to head downtown for the annual 4th of July parade. We got a good seat right in front of the action, unfortunately at the expense of any hint of shade (the more prominent features of my face got a bit burned)!

Josh actually slept for the first bit.

Can you feel the anticipation?!?!

Later on in the day, we enjoyed some outdoor cooking with some friends of ours. Then once the kids were in bed, we finished off the day with the most patriotic movie we own: National Treasure!

Since then, life has been pretty predictable. Stephanie and I have a couple of hours together every evening after the kids go down--we typically play a game, work in the garden, watch a movie, or do some scrapbooking (Photoshop-like). The only times we really have together as a whole family are during breakfast, dinner, and bathtime/bedtime (and the weekends). It's not much, but we enjoy our time all together.

Joshua likes bathtime at least as much as Heather does. He tried on the faux hawk during one of his recent baths.

Duuuuuuude...

Glad I captured this one!

The rest of our summer is pretty much going to be more of the same. We are taking a weekend trip to Nauvoo to see the pageant and to go to the temple, but other than that, we're just taking it one day at a time.

Videos

2011-07-03T19:43:00.000-06:00

We have managed to catch some fun moments on camera lately despite being sick off and on (and on, and on).

Bad news

2011-06-29T13:06:00.000-06:00

Went to the doctor yesterday morning and got diagnosed with this. At first the doctor thought it was this, but I came back positive with this so the doctor gave me some of this.

This morning things finally started to improve a little bit, so I have stopped taking this. Unfortunately, Stephanie now has this and this, so she's on her way to the doctor now to get screened for this. Hopefully I didn't give it to her!

Tonight's dinner plan is now this...hopefully we can eat it without too much pain!

Same old, same old

2011-06-26T18:55:00.003-06:00

The title pretty much says it all. We don't have much going on, but we are busy all the time. There is nothing new. We still have cute kids (most of the time), Daniel is still hard at work with his research, and I am still hard at work at home. Oh yeah...Daniel has been sick a lot since we have been home, but that's nothing exciting (believe me). We have captured some cute photos lately so I guess we will share those.

Heather is a great big sister! She is also becoming a big help to mommy.

Josh has been a lot happier lately! Thank goodness, because I was about to loose it.

Heather spends much of her day coloring. We may have an artist on our hands.

Heather teaching Josh the sign for "Birdie."

Heather loves to laugh and smile. But don't let that fool you, she does have a little rebellious streak.

Aww...

Blessing

2011-06-12T14:01:00.000-06:00

Today we blessed Joshua in church. He is growing up so fast and is really starting to develop some personality. We hope that he will continue to grow in strength and intelligence and that he will be able to continue blessing others throughout his life.

The Colemans say he looks like a Standage.

The Standages say he looks like a Coleman.

What do you think?

Vacation 2011 -- Utah

2011-06-12T13:54:00.001-06:00

After spending a week with Stephanie's family in Washington, we spent this last week with my family in Utah. We had originally planned on starting off the week with a hike up to the Y in Provo, but a mild case of food poisoning struck and I was in no condition to hike the Y alone, much less with a toddler strapped to my back!

Luckily the effects of the food poisoning were gone pretty quickly, and we still had plenty of time to hang out with the family. We ate at the Creamery on 9th with Mom and Dad and Laura, Michele reserved a pool and clubhouse for a family home evening get-together (complete with a game of Nerts at the end!), and we joined Juli's and Michele's families at Temple Square for a visit to the children's portion of the Church History museum. Back at Mom and Dad's house, we did some gardening, watched some movies, played more games, and spent lots of time in front of Dad's laptop paging through his his screensaver with family history pictures.

As always, the fun is better captured in pictures than in words.

Pool party with the Heiners.

Heather signed "Moroni" while she posed for a picture!

Twirly girly.

Posing at the Salt Lake City temple.

We're home safe in Iowa now, and although I am completely sick of driving, we really enjoyed spending some time with family and taking a break from our normal routine.

Vacation 2011 -- Washington

2011-05-30T14:28:00.000-06:00

Stephanie's brother Nathan returned a few days ago from his mission in Anchorage, Alaska. For the first part of our spring/summer vacation this year, we drove out to the Seattle/Tacoma area to spend some time with the family.

Coincidentally, my brother Stephen and his wife flew out at the same time to do some house hunting. We saw them twice while they were here: an unplanned meeting at the Seattle temple, and a planned visit at the Coleman's for dinner last night.

We've really enjoyed our visit and can't believe how quickly it's going. Here are some pictures.

Visit to the cool breezy Washington coast.

The entire clan.

I doubt we're going to be together as a whole family again until someone else gets married. We'll see how long that takes...

The fam.

My hunny bumpkin.

Obligatory sappy shot.

Heather had a great time.

Joshua with his uncle Isaac.

Duuuuuuuude...

Happy Mother's Day

2011-05-08T20:21:00.000-06:00

Flowers, earrings, and a new chest freezer don't adequately say "thank you" for all the good Stephanie does for our family. She is a great mom and wife. I did my best to make it a great day for her: I made breakfast (pancakes) and dinner (ham skillet pasta), and I did the dishes twice. What she wanted most, however, was to be with her family. We went to church, had a photo shoot, ate lunch, took a nap, enjoyed a short afternoon walk in the beautiful breezy 80-degree weather, and then chatted with the folks in the evening it was a great day.

Well, we won't bore you with the details of our Mother's day: we'll just share the results of the latest photo shoots. Enjoy!

Heather and Joshua doin' their thang.

Yep, he's related to his mom.

A close up of that money-maker.

Seriously, we did have some cute pictures of him not smiling, but how can you resist these?

Mom with her fan club.

Heather saying "Happy Mother's Day" in the most precious way possible.

My two favorite girls.

Josh is one lucky man.

Josh is much more of a cuddler than Heather was!

Duuude...

2011-05-07T08:05:00.000-06:00

Heather got into the coat closet put this hat on, and said "Duuuude!"

This is her whole stylin' look today. :)

Finally!

2011-04-18T13:14:00.000-06:00

Josh gave us some smiles for the camera today! Here they are:

Big yawn!

Heather has recently started pulling the couch cushions off and jumping on them. Yep! Takes after mommy...and daddy.

After all the hard nights, and long napless days, it all seems worth it when your baby looks at you and smiles! Or when your tot obeys the first time, and sings primary songs with you in their sweet, happy voice. That's what I love about being a mom. It's the little moments that make me smile, and make my heart happy, and make me feel that it is all worth it!

Lately...

2011-04-13T13:05:00.002-06:00

Lately, we have been a little busy (as you can imagine). Heather has needed a lot of extra attention and has started acting out a little bit. Also, she has become a lot more emotional. For example, she used to always run into nursery and not look back. But now, she has been crying for Daddy multiple times a day. I was even in there last week with her, and she went to the door signing and crying for daddy. She also has a hard time when daddy is doing the bedtime routine (which he did on a normal basis before Josh was born) and cries "dit mommy, dit mommy!" It makes us crazy! Will it eventually go away after she is more used to Josh, or is it always going to be like this?

On a happier note, Heather has been learning so much! A couple weeks ago as she was coloring, she started saying "e" (sounds like "eh") over and over again. I went in to see what she was doing, and she had figured out all by herself how to draw/write an "e!" I was super impressed. I got it on camera, and posted it just for you grandma! ;) Since then, she has noticed letters in her scribbling, but she has not been able to reproduce them like she can "e." It's amazing, and I don't know what we did to teach her.

Although Heather has had her rough moments, she continues to brighten our days with her laughter and overall cuteness. Here is a video of her doing her new water trick. (There is also a snippet of Josh at the end.)

An explanation about the eye: We have no idea what happened! We got home from church on Sunday, Daniel and I were in the kitchen getting lunch ready, and Heather ran into the front room to play. Immediately, we heard a big bang followed by crying. I ran in the front room to find Heather lying on the floor crying. I am pretty confident she hit her head on the window sill going full speed. What it looked like to me is that she tripped on Molly (a little person, and the only thing on the floor at the time). Anyway, it looks really bad, and I'm a little embarrassed to take her out in public, as anyone that doesn't have kids will probably think I am abusive (those that do have kids will know that kids just have a lot of bumps and bruises a lot anyway...still it is pretty bad). Here's a close up:

Still our "happy girl"!

Josh smiled (for real) for the first time yesterday. I tried to capture it, but this is what I got:

"feed me"

"Who is this weird lady, and what is she trying to say?"

half a smile

I promise, I am done blabbing now. :) We love you all and hope that you are all well and safe!

Home again, Home again, Jiggety-jig!

2011-03-18T11:30:00.001-06:00

Well, after a two day stay at the hospital, Joshua and I are home, and loving not being disturbed at all hours! We got home yesterday at 11am, and things have gone well. Heather has reverted to screaming instead of using her words. Probably because that's what Josh does, and he gets attention for it. I hope it doesn't last long. She is excited about the new addition to the family, but I don't think she quite knows how to handle everything.

Here are some more pictures :)

I realized today that we don't have a single picture of just me and the baby. We'll take care of that today.

Josh

2011-03-15T10:14:00.002-06:00

Well, I had hoped to write a blog post today about how much fun we had yesterday with π day, but I guess that's going to have to wait! Joshua Christian Standage interrupted our peaceful slumber last night and after a quick labor, he joined us at 6:31 am this morning. I've posted a few pictures at http://standage.public.iastate.edu/josh/...stay tuned for more over the next few weeks (...err, months...or years...)!

Shoveling

2011-02-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

We recently had unheard of good weather for this part of the country in the winter. All of the snow from the huge storms melted away, and the highs were in the 40-50's. It was a lot of fun to be able to go out and play in the warmer weather (although it was VERY muddy). Heather loved splashing in all of the puddles, but unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures.

It snowed again yesterday (not much), and it is cold and windy again. Heather and I went out to help daddy shovel the snow...okay, I just stood there looking very pregnant, but that's beside the point. :)

An action shot of Heather "helping." This snow wasn't as heavy as normal, so it was a lot easier for her to push it around. The trick was getting her to push it in the right direction. :)

I love this one!

Making snow angels... actually, she fell in a hole in our neighbors lawn (where a tree used to be), and couldn't get up, so she just laid there.

Trying to get out of the hole. She sure got a kick out of slipping and falling back in.

The reason we went inside. Check out the size of her lip!

We don't really have any amazing news. Life is life. Some days are good, some days are hard. Daniel is doing well at school. He is about to start his last research rotation, and we can't believe we are already more than half way through the first year in school. YAY!

I am doing well. I am experiencing all of the normal pregnancy symptoms for this stage...you know, backaches, fatigue, ravenous hunger, ornery for "no reason," nesting, swollen (not half as bad as I was with Heather), weird dreams about the baby, not to mention crying at the drop of a hat...or over spilled water (yes water, but it was for the millionth time!), over-exaggerations, jealous that Daniel can lay on his stomach...Yeah...all those things...and lets be honest, there's probably more. But sooner than we know, it will all be over, and we will have a beautiful new baby boy.

I know you all (ahem...Johannah...) keep bugging me about posting pictures of the pregnancy. Here we are at 37 weeks (and counting...).


I win! I didn't even have to puff my chest, hold by breath, and arch my back. ;)

We love you all, and hope you are staying warm!

Heather's Latest

2011-02-24T10:53:00.000-07:00

I know this video is long overdue. Sorry about that. It is impossible to capture all the wonderful moments with Heather in our lives, but we hope we can give you a glimpse into her happy self here. A warning to those short on time: it's a long video...sorry. :)

Obeying

2011-02-20T13:37:00.002-07:00

Heather has been going through a lot of emotional...development lately (we'll put it nicely). Up until a few weeks ago, there is nothing she could do to raise my blood pressure, even at her worst. Now it seems she's found my buttons and she is pushing them, although most of the time it's not intentional.

During times like this, I try to remember the many reasons I love her. She really is so cute and so smart, and yesterday I had a wonderful reminder. I was washing the dishes when Heather came up to me, dropped a pair of my shoes at my feet, and looked up with an expectant look. I said hi and continued doing the dishes. She waited for a bit, then started trying to pick up my feet and put them in the shoes. Finally, I gave in and started slipping my feet into the shoes. As I did so, her face lit up and she said "thank you for obeying, daddy!"

Caught Red-handed

2011-02-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

I walked into the kitchen this morning, and this is what I saw:

Heather used her "car" as a footstool, and got into the muffins.

She doesn't even look guilty does she...she ate the tops of 6 muffins!

Riding away in her car...

The moment you've all been waiting for

2011-01-26T14:49:00.000-07:00

So basically...we are still alive and nothing much has changed. We are still busy. I am still pregnant, and Heather is still cute. Since the first two of the previous items are boring. I will focus on the third. Heather!

When Heather was a little baby, we started a journal for her. It is a place that we write about what she's doing, how she's developing, and memories that we want to keep. It has gotten a lot more fun recently, because Heather is finally doing cute things that are fun to remember. I mean, who cares how much she weighed at her two month appointment! I want to remember all the funny and cute things she says and does! Here are a couple of recent updates.

Heather puts her firefighter hat on and says "he-er-hi-er-hi-der."

Heather has started singing more. She loves to sing her ABC's and also Old McDonald. This is the best video I could get...

She comes into the kitchen when I am cooking, points at the stove and says, "berry, berry hot, Berrrry hot!"
At the dinner table one night she started signing baby and singing "baby, baby, baby, baby..." then she suddenly stopped and said "Awww...."
When Heather finishes something hard for her, or when she comes inside when it's really cold she'll say "whew!"
When she wants held or just a hug she'll tilt her head to one side, put her hands out, and say "mmeeeerre" (come here).
Heather seems to have a hard time with the "Pl" sound. When she wants to say "play," it comes out like "pbbbbay" (the b's here represent lip buzzing). She does the same thing with "plate."
We had the missionaries over for dinner recently. For dessert we had apple crisp. During the holiday season (in other words, the time of a surplus of pie) Daniel and I would say "Heather do you want some pah?" (pie...southern accent). When we brought out the dessert that night, Heather said "Oh! Pah!!" The missionaries got a kick out of it. I guess we are raising a little southern belle.
Heather has been singing a long during her bedtime songs. I love it!
She is also starting to whistle. Neither of us has tried to teach her, she just started doing it.
We recently got some Fancy Nancy books at the library. Heather has started saying "Ooh, la-la!" at random. :)

Christmas/New Year's update

2011-01-07T13:38:00.000-07:00

This Christmas was a lot of fun. We stayed in Iowa for Christmas. It was sad to not be with our families, but it was great to stay home and have extra time together as a family. We spent Christmas Eve shoveling. We woke up to lots of snow in the morning, and had to shovel two more times that day. We also went sledding down our little hill. It's the perfect size for Heather. Christmas day we burned far less calories, and probably made up for the ones we burned on Christmas Eve. We had our friends over as well as the missionaries for dinner. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of our Christmas:

Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, and the "donkey."

Mary rocking baby Jesus

Our Christmas tree

Heather with the stuff from her stocking

Opening Presents

Heather being mommy to her new doll.

Heather was SO excited about all the doll accessories.

Playing with her "puter."

Twirling in her Tutu.

Getting ready to go outside.

28 weeks pregnant

Christmas Card 2010

2010-12-20T09:36:00.000-07:00

We love you all and hope you have a Merry Christmas!

http://standage.public.iastate.edu/christmas2010

Belated Thanksgiving Update

2010-12-05T19:47:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving in Cincinnati with Stephen and Laura Beth.

Heather at the playground with cousins.

Heather's cousins Michael and Maren.

Family photo at the Krohn conservatory.

Happy to see the Christmas train display at Cincinnati Museum Center.

Stephanie and the girls playing with some toy trains.

Heather looks good in a sari, don't you think?

The Air Force museum in Dayton was pretty amazing. Heather still talks about the "bih bum" (big bombs).

Happy to be home again after a long drive.

Yep, Stephanie's still pregnant!

My due date got pushed back to March 19th after a closer examination of the ultrasound results. Great. This gives us even less certainty about when Josh is coming. If he comes early according to the original due date, he may come at the very beginning of March. However, if he comes late according to the new due date, he won't be around until the end of March. Talk about suspense!

In other news, Daniel and I were sustained today as ASL interpreters in our ward. We have never felt so inadequate for a church responsibility before. Don't get me wrong, we've enjoyed learning so far, but this takes it to a whole new level. Keep us in your prayers!

Heather's Bedtime Songs

2010-11-17T19:36:00.001-07:00

For those of you who don't participate in the Facebookosphere, I posted this note on my profile tonight. It's actually my personal journal entry for tonight, but I thought it was too good not to share.

Stephanie and I have done the same bedtime routine with Heather for a long time. We probably started getting consistent with it when she was about 6 months old, maybe even before that. Needless to say, we've done the same bedtime routine for over a year now. All of us read together from the children's scriptures, then Stephanie bathes Heather, then I dry her off, get her dressed and read her a story. Finally, we say a prayer together and Stephanie sings Heather to sleep. The same 5 songs every night...in the same order! We feel strongly that kids need structure and consistency, and we've been working very hard to provide that for Heather.

Although we have our "assigned" bedtime routine tasks, I've filled in for Stephanie enough times to know the whole bedtime routine very well myself. Between Stephanie's responsibilities at church and our ASL classes, I have been doing the bedtime routine by myself at least once a week for a while. And at the end, I sing Heather to sleep...the same 5 songs each time...in the same order, just like Stephanie!

Tonight I had a wonderful experience as I was singing Heather to sleep. I decided to do a little experiment. As I was singing one of the songs, I decided to stop right before one of the words we've been teaching her to say and sign. "Temple" she filled in. So I sang a little more and came to another word we've been teaching her and stopped. "Day" she said. I must have done this at least 10 times between the 5 songs, and each time she said the correct word--clearly too! I was impressed enough by the fact that she could say the words we've been teaching her ("temple", "day", "heart" to name a few), but she also said some words we haven't been teaching her ("Spirit" and "true"). Mind you, this isn't something we've been practicing--I just tried this out of the blue and Heather was perfect!

I'm not going to pretend this is because Stephanie and I are such great parents. Heather is so bright and special in so many ways. But I can't help but wonder how much the consistency is helping her learn and grow. Stephanie is a wonderful mother and has been so consistent in so many of the things she does with Heather--she is the reason we have a bedtime routine in the first place! I'm so thankful for the two girls that I have been blessed with!

Halloween

2010-10-31T10:04:00.001-06:00

This was the first year Heather was able to really appreciate the fun of Halloween. Our ward had a trunk-or-treat activity on Wednesday, and despite wind and cold, they kept most of the activity outside. the excitement of decorated cars and excessive amounts of candy gave the kids (and adults) enough gumption to brave the blast.

Heather was a clown and mom wore her 50s poodle skirt.

Heather again with daddy in his doctor outfit.

Halloween itself fell on Sunday this year, and the die-hard Iowa State fans would never be happy if they had to choose between trick-or-treating and a Cyclone football game on Saturday night, so the community decided to celebrate Halloween and do trick-or-treating on Friday night. Our neck of the woods didn't get much action for some reason though. Oh well, Heather really enjoyed the 5-10 houses we went to.

Scooping out the pumpkins with mommy. We miss doing this tradition with family!

Heather scoopin' and daddy carvin'. You can see the nice window treatments Stephanie finished sewing the other day.

Daddy and Heather going out for trick-or-treating, daddy as a doctor and Heather wearing a different clown costume!

We hope you all had a fun Halloween! Don't start your Christmas music too early now, we've still got Thanksgiving to celebrate!

It's a...

2010-10-27T10:59:00.001-06:00

I'll let you check it out for yourselves. :)

I think most of us were right! His name will (most likely) be Joshua Christian Standage. We are excited to have a bouncing baby boy to love!

Oh how I love the little toes!

On a side note, my mom had her baby this morning at 6:47am EST. His name is Isaac Stanley Coleman. He weighed 10lbs 5oz! He was 21 inches and some change. (A VERY big, chubby baby.) I still can't believe I have another sibling! I think Joshua and Isaac are going to be best buds...they probably planned it. :)

Half way there!

2010-10-24T19:02:00.000-06:00

This past Wednesday I hit the 20 week mark of the pregnancy. We are excited to find out the gender of the baby on Wednesday. Any guesses at to what it may be?

Here are some pictures of Heather. She loves hats and gloves.

Love you all!

Sibling Memories

2010-10-10T08:24:00.000-06:00

The last few weeks I've been thinking about some of my favorite memories growing up with my siblings. I would like to share a few in this post (special thanks to dad for help with the pictures).

My fondest memory with Stephen is building model rockets. It was a lot of fun to build and paint them, but of course the best part was walking up to the park by Greenwood Elementary to launch them. Stephen had a rocket that he painted black and maroon that he called "the hornet." He bought me one that I painted bright blue and yellow and called "mighty ducks"--how much do you want to bet I had just seen the movie?

Building rockets may not have been the most exciting thing Stephen and I have ever done. Indeed, the picture above was taken during my visit to Utah for EFY in 2000. Sliding down the ice pack on the back of Mt. Timp or the suicide jump at the narrows probably qualify for the most exciting things we've done together. The reason that building model rockets is my favorite memory is because it brings together all of the things that made Stephen a good big brother--his patience and his time when he very well could have been doing something else with friends or on his own.

My favorite memory with Michele is the trip we took to Sedona, Arizona right before my freshman year at BYU. Michele picked me up from Lesa and Eric's and we pulled an all-nighter to get to Sedona. During our few days there, we slept in a tent, we visited the souvenir shops, did some wilderness hikes, and of course, enjoyed some fancy dutch oven cooking. Our pizza crust was a little burned, but it tasted great anyway!

Michele is a great older sister. She was always nice to me growing up, and she was like a second mom. Hearing her play Chopin on the piano is the reason I ever wanted to play the piano in the first place! Our trip to Sedona is one of the few times in my life that we got to spend lots of 1-on-1 time together.

I was almost too embarrassed to share this photo of my fondest memory of Julianne. One year for Easter, Juli "wrote" a "play" that she and I performed for the rest of the family about the Easter bunny--guess who she got to play that part?!?! I don't remember the details much, but luckily mom and dad have a few photos of the ordeal in their archives!

This isn't my fondest memory of Julianne because I had a great time doing it. In fact, I might not have enjoyed it at all! Looking back, it's just funny to remember how good Juli was at convincing me that what she wanted to do was what I wanted to do too. I probably ended up doing a lot of things with her that I didn't really want to do just because I needed some company. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Julianne wasn't a great sister or that I didn't enjoy anything we did together. It's just funny to think back on what she was able to get me to do sometimes by exercising her persuasive powers!

I'll let Stephen tell you his version of the Daniel-and-Julianne story, which I like just as well. You should also ask him about the Julianne-ketchup-on-pillow-while-wresting story!

My fondest memory of Laura growing up is wrestling. We spent a lot of time together, especially after Juli graduated. Sometimes it was hard to come up with things to do together since there was such a large age gap. However, we were able to find some common ground in a few things--Star Wars (which she could quote at a very early age), legos, and wrestling. I taught her a few moves, but her best move (as shown above) is the half-nelson!

Wrestling with Laura is probably my favorite memory because we bonded a lot doing something we both enjoyed. Laura was happy because she some moves and I let her get her fair share of pins, and I was happy because I didn't have to play stuffed animals or watch Jungle Book for the 137th time with her!

Things Heather is up too

2010-09-20T07:23:00.000-06:00

Heather has been learning to sing lately. She goes around say-singing "Baby, baby, baby, baby, baby..." all day from the Baby Signing Time theme song. She also has started singing some Disney and Rock songs. She sing-says "Bibobobo boo!" (Bibity-Bobity-Boo), and "Yi-yi-yi" (Big Girls Don't Cry...she also does it to Sherry.) I love it when she sings. It is so cute, and it makes me so happy because I love singing so much.

Here is an example of Bibity...

And one of "Yi-yi-yi"

I haven't been able to get the baby signing time song on video yet, but I will someday. :)

I Love to See the Temple

2010-09-19T13:50:00.003-06:00

With the Winter Quarters (Omaha NE) temple closing for several weeks of maintenance, yesterday was our last opportunity to attend the temple for a while. Stephanie and I took turns going at 8:00 and 10:00 am, and watched Heather while the other was in the temple. It was pretty chilly and rainy, so we didn't spend much time on the temple grounds. I spent about half of my time with Heather in the car watching Signing Time on the computer, and the other half in the visitor's center trying to channel Heather's energy into some of the fun pioneer activities they have there. We made it back between 2:00 and 3:00 in the afternoon, and then crashed for a few hours to recover from the early morning trek.

We thought we would include a baby bump update. This picture isn't 100% clear since Stephanie's black clothes blend in with her shadow, but Stephanie's not growing very quickly at this stage anyway. If this pregnancy is anything like the last one, Stephanie will stay relatively small until the last couple of months and then she'll get really big. We'll see!

Baby Number 2!!

2010-08-29T08:47:00.004-06:00

Heather is going to be a big sister sometime around her second birthday!! The "due date" is March 9, 2011. We are very excited, but still trying to make it through morning sickness. This time it hasn't been as bad as it was with Heather. Luckily the bad stuff waited until we were (mostly) settled in. (I'm not gonna lie, there are still lots of things I need to do to feel completely at home...like hang up pictures and stuff.) We decided that this time around we are going to take a picture of my growing tummy about once every two weeks. (I was too embarrassed to take so many pictures of me pregnant with Heather, and I feel bad that we don't have very many.) So here's the first one:

I am actually showing a little (tiny) bit...the other show is mostly fat and bloatation. I think I'm showing a bit anyway. I know that there is something growing in there because I am at that awkward stage where the maternity clothes are still too big and everything else is a little too small. I mostly where t-shirts and Daniel's shorts.

We are super excited to welcome baby number 2, and can't wait to see what it will be like! Love you all!

PS. Cameo, when you asked me if I was pregnant at the Holmes' house I was pregnant, I just didn't know (I found out two days later). Sorry for "lying." Also, the reason I said I hoped I wasn't, is because I really did not want to be moving across the country and throwing up the whole way. (I am so grateful that didn't happen) So...that's my little confession. :)

Update

2010-08-22T08:00:00.003-06:00

This past week was the first week we've had a significant change in schedule since moving here to Iowa. I began my orientation, which thankfully wasn't as long and boring as I had expected. In fact, the diagnostic test they offered on Friday was anything other than boring! We had 45 minutes to answer 9 questions on subjects ranging from RNA secondary structure to algorithm complexity to systems of differential equations. My coursework at BYU covered all of these subjects, but a few of them were not fresh in my mind. Thankfully, they allowed us to indicate on the test the things we didn't know at all vs the things we would have to review before answering confidently. The purpose of the test was to determine whether we needed any remedial coursework, and luckily I was among the half of the group didn't!

In addition to my orientation this week, we also had the chance to go to the temple. Our ward organized a pretty big temple trip yesterday. We are in the district of the Winter Quarters temple in Omaha, Nebraska, which is about 2.5 hours away. The ward "borrowed" a local ward building to use as home base. The primary presidency organized activities for children and babysitting for young families so that couples could attend sessions together. The Relief Society organized a lunch after the morning session and youth baptisms, and then the bishop held a small devotional over on the temple grounds. The trip was officially over at that point, although many families remained and took turns watching each other's children so they could spend a bit more time in the temple. Heather was really tired and Stephanie felt sick, so we decided to just go home at that point.

The ward does not sponsor big activities like this very often, so our next few trips we will either have to bring some friends and take turns going in as couples or just go by ourselves and take turns watching Heather. Living in Provo spoiled us bad! Not only did we have a temple within walking distance, but we had a lot of friends that were willing to watch or listen for Heather while we went to the temple. It will definitely be an adjustment to make such a big trip every month.

Flooding

2010-08-13T10:53:00.007-06:00

This is in response to many of your questions. We have been experiencing a bad flood here in Ames. Luckily, our basement did not get flooded. But the water was awfully close to our house. Although our basement did not get flooded, our neighbor's (in the other unit in our duplex) basement did. I don't know how to explain that...except that we were blessed. We have been doing well despite having to boil our water. We are so grateful that we had a little bit of water storage so that we have been able to drink good water and not heat our house up too much. They also recently started handing out water to the citizens of Ames, so we have been ok. Things should be under control by next week. Although we will probably have a lot of standing water and extra mosquitoes for a while. :)

Here are some pics of before and after the flood.

Before (there are also pics of before the flood in the last couple of posts):

After: You didn't know we lived by a lakefront property did you?

Biscuits, Baby!

2010-08-08T19:59:00.004-06:00

Today I decided to make some biscuits to go along with our crock-pot dinner. I pulled out ol' Betty, looked up biscuits, and found a simple recipe for plain baking power biscuits. They weren't too difficult--the only problem is that I rolled them too thin, so there were a lot and they cooked too fast and got too done. All things considered, they weren't too bad--until we tasted them!

Stephanie asked if I put too much salt in, but I assured her I had followed the recipe exactly. To be honest, I hadn't even really noticed the taste, since I took a bite of a biscuit with each bite of the main dish. When I tasted the biscuit alone, it did indeed taste salty--almost metallic. Then I realized that I hadn't made baking powder biscuits, I had made baking soda biscuits! Yuk! I had already eaten two! I had to lay on my back for a few minutes after dinner while the chemistry experiment in my stomach completed. Luckily it wasn't a repeat of that horrible experience near the end of my mission!

Here are some pictures of our new home in Ames--we will have some more of the interior once Stephanie has had a chance to finish making the window treaments.

Heather in our front lawn. We share a duplex with another young couple. We're on the right.

Another view of the front of our house.

The side of our house. We have a garage!

Rickety old back porch. It adds..."character."

Heather loves being outside.

Ioway!

2010-07-25T15:30:00.003-06:00

We are now officially the Iowa Standages--the first in my direct lineage (that I am aware of) that can claim that! We packed up our moving truck on Tuesday the 13th and left the next day. The trip was quite uneventful. We had an army of ward members here in Ames to help us unload the truck Thursday evening, and we had everything in the house 30 minutes after we started! Mom, Dad, and Laura stayed a few days with us, helped us clean and unpack, and watched Heather for us when we needed to make a shopping trip (or take a break). It was nice to have them there. They left Monday morning for Nauvoo and had a good few days there before returning to Utah.

We're settling in ok here. We've got almost everything unpacked and where we want it. Stephanie has even sewn some cute window treatments for Heather's room--they turned out really well, and they have blackout liner on the back, so it's really dark for naps and bedtime. However, we're still waiting on the landlords to make some repairs, so I don't think we'll feel completely settled in until that's taken care of.

We made our first batch of bread yesterday, and it turned out amazing. I will be as bold to say it was as good as one of mom's best loaves! We think what made the difference is substituting applesauce for half of the water. She's tried it before with minimal success, but this time it turned out great.

We have hardly taken any pictures since being here. We will take some pictures of us and the house soon and post them.

We love you lots!

Happy Father's Day!

2010-06-20T16:04:00.005-06:00

Happy Father's day to all of the men I know.

Daniel, You are such a wonderful husband and a wonderful father to Heather. You are my hero! I love you!

Dad, thank you for all you have taught me. You are an inspiration to me. You are the best daddy ever! I love you!

Dad Standage, thanks for being such a good example to Daniel. You are a wonderful man. I love you!

3 Years of...Engagement?

2010-06-06T14:56:00.002-06:00

Exactly three years ago yesterday, I proposed to Stephanie on a bench on the east side of the Provo temple. We were married 2 months later at the Mt. Timpanogos temple. This has been the best 3 years of my life! I love you Stephanie!

Yesterday, we celebrated by doing a rough recreation of that day three years ago. We ate out at Cafe Rio, took a walk around the temple, and sat (and smooched) on the same bench where I originally popped the question.

When life gets crazy, it's nice to take time to remember the important experiences in our marriage. I look forward to the experiences we will continue to have!

A Family Reunion of Sorts

2010-05-31T11:26:00.005-06:00

Living with my mom and dad for the summer has been quite an adventure. We love being around and really appreciate their willingness to let us live with them for the summer (saving on rent has been a lifesaver). The house has been especially busy recently with extra family in town. My brother Stephen arrived for a visit on May 22nd, and it wasn't long before my sisters brought their families over, making it quite a full house. Here are some picture highlights.

Heather loves to be outside every chance she gets. She loved our trip to Rock Canyon in Provo.

Here is the fam.

On Sunday, the granddaughters helped paint each other's nails. Somehow Uncle Ben got wrapped up in it all. He was a good sport.

We also enjoyed having my grandma around, spending time with Aunt Janet, Donovan and his family, and Aunt Lisa and her family. It's been busy, crazy and hectic, but it's always nice to have family around.

Doodle-Do!!

2010-05-23T15:13:00.001-06:00

Heather has learned a new sound...and it is cute!! See for yourself!

Graduation, vacation, and other stuff...

2010-05-16T20:29:00.005-06:00

Wow! It has been a long time since we last updated. (Sorry!) It has been super busy. We graduated, moved, and left for vacation all in one weekend. Now that we have moved in with Mom and Dad Standage (temporarily), and have settled and gotten a routine down, I feel like I can sit down and blog for a little bit.

Lets start with graduation: WE DID IT!! It was five stressful years for Daniel, and four busy (and SUPER stressful last two years) for me. After hours and hours of studying, some tears, doubts and sighs, (and some shouts of joy), we did it! We couldn't be happier...well, maybe when Daniel is done with graduate school we will be happier. :) Here are some photos of the big day:

After a stressful day of moving, we went on vacation to Washington with my family. It was fun to be with them, and a good way to start our summer. Daniel and I were also able to sneak away for a day and enjoy some alone time. It was great...except I got sick the night before. I was so looking forward to having a nice romantic weekend at the beach, but it turned in to laying in bed and watching t.v. because I felt so sick. It was nice to have some alone time though. Daniel left 5 days before Heather and I did, because he had to work.

While he was gone, I did photo shoots with all of the kids. I have been toying with the idea of photography for a while now, and we finally bought a really nice camera. Doing the photo shoots helped me to develop my style and become a little more confident.

I was really worried about the trip home with Heather, but it all went smoothly, and by the end of the flight, everyone was in love with Heather. Whew! We had a great time on vacation! Thanks for letting us come and veg with you all Mom and Dad!

Here are some cute pictures we took of Heather:

I love this picture!

I love Heather's concentrating look. She just has a cute personality.

Sorry this turned into an epistle, but there was just SO much to say. I hope you all are enjoying your summer. We love you!

The Home Stretch

2010-04-11T10:03:00.006-06:00

Sorry about the lack of blogging the last few weeks. We have been SUPER busy. Papers, posters, math homework, presentations, work, a baby, and getting ready to move, have all kept us busy. We can't believe we will be moved out in two weeks! We have so much to do between now and then, but after that, we are free! (At least for a week while we are on vacation...) We are so excited to be almost done, but it is really hard to do the things we need to get done.

Daniel and I have recently been diagnosed with a severe case of senioritis. This terrible disease often strikes graduating seniors sometime during the last semester of their undergraduate education. It is marked by a decreased motivation in studies, increased procrastination, and a greater need to be entertained. They often "just don't care anymore." Experts believe that this disease is caused by a lack of sleep, overdosing on cortisol (one of the stress hormones), and the knowledge that they are going to graduate no matter how they preform their last semester. This disease can be particularly severe in students that have already been accepted to a job or another college...basically they turn into lazy bums and would rather just sleep or watch a movie than write the paper that is due tomorrow.

Ok. Well, enough about us, Heather is doing great! She is learning new animal sounds and body parts everyday. She will be talking soon. She has been a little angel (although sometimes she is a little devil) considering how little attention she gets because we are so busy. Here are some recent pictures:

This is what Heather looks like when she needs a little attention:

This is what Heather does to entertain herself when mommy is busy:

Heather is such a happy girl, and makes all of the "horrible, terrible, no good, very bad days" better:

Heather loves to give kisses...especially fish kisses:

We love you all!

It's Official: We are giving Iowa a try!

2010-03-21T20:02:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I sent a letter of intent to Iowa State University accepting their offer for graduate school. This was a really hard decision because there are so many things that we liked about Georgia. Ultimately it came down to the exceptional research opportunities I will have in Iowa. We never thought we would end up in IA, but we are excited to move on to the next stage of our lives!

Birthday Celebration

2010-03-14T11:05:00.010-06:00

Unfortunately, I was out of town on grad school interviews on Heather's birthday, so we celebrated a few days later with my family. Heather's cousin Emily and my mom also had birthdays nearby, so we made it a triple birthday celebration!

Stephanie went all out for Heather's cake. It turned out really well. Heather's favorite part of the day is bathtime, so this cake was very appropriate.

Stephanie stacked two 9x13 cakes, cut out a tub, frosted the contraption, and added some blue Jell-o to the tub. The knobs are simply mini marshmallows attached to large marshmallows, and she used licorice for the faucet. It turned out great.

We enjoyed singing...

...and then watching her eat the cake. The blue Jell-o was her favorite.

Isn't she so cute?
It was wonderful to spend some time with family, eat a delicious turkey dinner, share gifts, and eat cake! Thanks for all of Heather's birthday gifts--she loves them!

We still can't believe Heather is a year old. She is growing so fast! We love her lots and can't wait to see the surprises she will come up with next!

Happy Birthday Heather B!!!

2010-03-05T09:36:00.006-07:00

It all began on March 5, 2009 at 3:32pm. Heather Breanne Standage was born.

Two days later, we brought her home.

...and sleeping like a baby...when did that change?

Three weeks later, she was smiling.

By May she was developing a lot of personality.

In June we introduced her to the computer.

...and this was such a cute picture I just couldn't leave it out...

In July she was blessed. (Sorry the picture is sideways.)

In August, she started being extra curious (well, she always has been, but this is the first time we caught her on the camera).

In September, she was just as cute (and as busy) as ever!

In October, she carved her first pumpkin.

By November she was learning to appreciate food...YUMMY!

She celebrated her first Christmas in December...She loved all the noise and commotion...and of course all the extra stuff to get into.

This one was too cute to pass up! I should also add: this is about the time she started walking.

We went to her first basket ball game in January.

She also wanted to be outside and in the snow ALL THE TIME!! (She still does.)

She decorated her first cookie in February. She ate it too! :)

And here we are a whole year later with a sweet and talented little girl!

We can't believe it's been a year since Heather was born! She has always been the cutest happiest little girl in the whole world. (We are prejudiced, of course.) She has brought smiles to our faces every day she has been here, and we know she will continue to do so.
We are so grateful for our precious little Heather B. She has brought more joy and happiness (and more patience, and business) than we could have ever imagined. We are so happy she came when she did, and we wouldn't trade these experiences for the world!
We love you Heather Breanne! Happy Birthday!

Bowlicious Bowtique Giveaway!

2010-03-05T07:47:00.002-07:00

I found out about Bowlicious Bowtique from Michele. They make the cutest little bows, flowers, hats, headbands, etc. There is a giveaway on their site this month!!! I am super excited!

Will it ever end?!?

2010-02-28T19:54:00.002-07:00

This past week has been a "week from the bad place" (as one of my good friends would say). I have been SUPER busy with midterms, interviews, and essays, AND to top it all off, Daniel had Grad school interviews at UGA . Daniel has been busy too. He is trying to keep his head above water in math, work, research, and everything else...all while interviewing at Grad schools. He has another interview this weekend at the University of Iowa.

This?

Or this?

We are having a hard time deciding where we will go. It will be a tough choice between Iowa and Georgia. We LOVE Georgia, we love the southern hospitality, and we are already familiar with the area...we have no idea what Iowa will be like. We LOVE the weather in GA, and we REALLY hate winter (which is exactly what we will get in IA). We LOVE the green trees in GA, and IA is really flat, and not very green. We do like the fact that IA is more rural and our kids will get the benefit of learning to work and playing outside all day (which too many kids don't do enough these days). Oh, and the housing is a lot cheaper in IA. BUT as much as we would love to make the decision based on familiarity, weather, landscape, and housing, we are trying to stay focused on the strengths of the programs and what would give Daniel the better education, and (more importantly) we are trying to be in tune with what God wants us to do. Please keep us in your prayers!

Oh, and I guess it will end. I just spent the last paragraph talking about the new beginning (that comes after the end). That MUST mean it is close...I just can't see it yet.

Chopped!

2010-02-14T19:23:00.004-07:00

We had a great week this week. For those of you that haven't heard, I received my first acceptance letter this week--from the University of Georgia! It's still too early to make a decision, but we would be very happy to go to graduate school at UGA. We were very surprised since I was accepted without an invitation to interview on the campus. However, the interview invitation did finally arrive on Friday, so I will have the opportunity to visit the campus, the faculty, and the facilities. I feel much better knowing that!

In other news, Stephanie got to participate in a fun cooking competition yesterday with some of our friends in the ward. The competition was a secret, so none of the 4 competitors knew what was going on until it began. Stephanie was very surprised, but it ended up being a lot of fun.

The competition was done in the style of the Food Network show Chopped. Basically, there were three rounds--appetizer, entree, and dessert. For each round, the chefs are given 30 minutes to prepare a dish that incorporates 3 ingredients not revealed beforehand (they provided the ingredients). Sometimes the ingredients are pretty random, and the chefs don't have much time to make a decision and run with it. It's really exciting to watch and, as we learned yesterday, it's also exciting to participate!

For the first course, the chefs had to make an appetizer incorporating olives, vienna sausage, and swiss cheese. Stephanie decided to go with the pigs-in-a-blanket idea with this course. She made a biscuit dough from scratch and folded in some finely chopped olives. She cut the sausages, stuffed them with swiss cheese, and baked them for 10-12 minutes. While they were baking, she prepared a fry sauce with ketchup, mayo, and pickle juice. Her final presentation gave this simple dish a bit more of a sophisticated feel (by the way, the photo doesn't do it justice).

For the second course, the chefs had to make an entree incorporating turkey, peanuts, and blackeyed peas. I thought Stephanie would go the Southern route with this one, but she decided to adapt the thai fettuccine recipe for this course. She made the thai sauce using the normal ingredients and then added the blackeyed peas and peanuts--they added some nice texture to the meal. She pan-seared the turkey and then sauteed the finely julienned bell peppers with the turkey. She laid the noodles down, smothered them with some sauce, and then garnished the plate with peanuts and uncooked bell pepper. Again, the photo doesn't do it justice, but it turned out well.

For the final course, the chefs had to make a dessert incorporating grits, banana, and dulce de leche. In the end, we called Stephanie's creation a "grit split." The bottom layer was cooked grits mixed with dulce de leche and cinnamon--it was actually really tasty. On top of that she did a traditional banana split with the banana, ice cream, chocolate sauce, more dulce de leche, raspberries, and peanuts. This is probably the best photo we got.

It was a lot of fun, and there was a lot of good food there. The judges were especially impressed with Stephanie's first two courses and accordingly, she won the competition! She said it was a great confidence booster for her. The amazing wife she is, she was still willing to come home and help carry on our Valentine's Day tradition of having a heart-shaped pizza for dinner (we celebrated yesterday--we have church until 5:00 and we didn't want to eat dinner late tonight).

I'm so blessed to have Stephanie as my wife and Heather as a daughter. Stay tuned and we'll keep you updated with everything. Love you!

Ragtime!

2010-02-08T19:34:00.003-07:00

I got some awesome footage of Heather dancing. Heather loves it when Daniel plays the Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin. She gets so excited and dances every time! Enjoy!

Love you all!

Burgers, Fish, and Magazines

2010-01-31T12:08:00.003-07:00

It's about that time of the semester--yes, the time when all of the assignments and exams begin stacking on top of each other. Stephanie and I decided to take a break and celebrate the end of the month on Friday with a burger night. We went to Carl's Jr. and enjoyed some good cheeseburgers there, and then watched Heather while she bullied the 18- to 24-month old kids in the play place. We stopped by Wendy's for chocolate frostees on the way home. It was a nice treat and a fun family date.

After coming home and putting Heather to bed, Stephanie and I continued our family date with a movie (Finding Nemo). During the movie, we gathered all of our magazines, clipped out words and pictures, and made collages for each other. I was kind of skeptical about the idea at first, but it ended up being lots of fun. We recommend it for a cheap, laid-back date idea.

We love you all and hope you have a wonderful week. We're also looking forward to getting together with the whole Standage crew this spring! We can't wait!

Snow Day!

2010-01-23T14:23:00.004-07:00

Heather and Mommy had lots of fun in the snow today! Here are some pictures:

Heather LOVES being outside!

Heather had a hard time learning to pick snow up with her mittens. She eventually just put her head in the snow to see if she could eat it that way.

Mommy finally helped

Heather ate so much snow! Mommy even had some too.

Basketball Game

2010-01-17T10:48:00.006-07:00

Well, school started again...it is already a challenging semester for both of us, but we will be done in 3 months and 5 days! We are so excited. Daniel was able to get his honors portfolio submitted on time (barely) and that was a miracle because originally he was going to wait until June to graduate...which meant a later deadline for the honors portfolio. We changed plans right before Christmas break, and decided to graduate in April. He got it all in on time, and it looks like we are right on track!

Daniel was gone 5 days last week. He went to California for a conference. Heather and I missed him a lot! It was nice to not have to worry about cooking though...Heather and I had leftovers pretty much the whole time (with the exception of one or two nights). I have been busy with my research. I have interviewed three girls, and am working on transcribing the interviews. I love this research and I am glad that I have such a supportive and encouraging husband who was the one that helped me decide that it was worth it.

Heather is walking now. Our house has become much more messy because of it. I can't keep anything put away! She loves exploring and is always busy. She is growing up so fast, and has such a cute personality. Here are some pictures:

Here's what I mean about a cute personality:

We went to the basketball game last night. It was a lot of fun. Heather enjoyed it, and clapped at all the right places. We won 91-47!! Go COUGARS!!!

We hope that you all are having a great new year! We love you!

Heather's Walking

2009-12-31T19:39:00.003-07:00

Well, sort of. Take a look...

Christmas

2009-12-31T08:32:00.012-07:00

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. It was so nice to spend it with our family. We started off this years festivities by going to temple square to see the lights.

Heather stayed nice and warm wrapped in her blankets. She loved seeing all the lights.

It was wonderful to not only see all the beautiful lights, but to feel the wonderful spirit there.

We spent Christmas with the Standages and had such a fun time with all of our family. We went out and played in the snow. Heather LOVES it!

Heather opening presents with Daddy:

Heather woke up from her nap with a crazy hairdo!

Oh...I guess you cant really see it, but it's a cute picture anyway...

We had a great time celebrating Christmas with our family, and are sad that we didn't get to see our other family. We were able to talk to them all and we were also able to talk to Nathan. He is doing great, and is loving Alaska! We love our family! We are so grateful for all the gifts that we received this Christmas, but there is one gift that we are and will always be thankful for, and that is the gift of the atonement of Christ.

(I was going to put a picture of Heather as she played the part of the angel in the Nativity story but I guess we didn't get a picture...this will have to do. She is our angel, and a wonderful gift from God)

As always, the break always seems too short, but we are happy that there is only one semester left. In other news, we just got our grades back, and both of us got straight A semesters!

2009-12-21T13:22:00.002-07:00

Heather is really enjoying mommy being home all day! Here is a sample of what our life is like during the day:

Christmas Card

2009-12-19T09:35:00.005-07:00

In case you haven't already seen our "Christmas Card", go ahead and take a look. http://arclite.byu.edu/dan/christmas2009/

Yay! We are almost there!

2009-12-13T19:00:00.007-07:00

The last several weeks have been SUPER busy! Daniel has been working on his graduate school applications, and has submitted two out of four. We are excited about that, and can't wait until we find out where we will be going. We are taking our finals this next week, and after Thursday at 10am we will be done with another semester! Only one left! Well...undergraduate education that is.
Well, we know why you are really reading this blog...Heather is doing great! She gets cuter and cuter every day. She is 9 months old, and weighs 23.25lbs, and is 28 inches long. She is a chunk. Here are some photos of our recent adventures:

We celebrated Thanksgiving at Mom and Dad Standage's house. Here's a picture of Heather helping to put the whipped cream on a YUMMY peanut butter pie.

After we were done "painting" with pudding, Heather was such a mess she was in bad need of a picture. :)

Heather and daddy dancing to our live music at our ward Christmas Party!

Family Photo at the Christmas Party.

Heather was the first one on Santa's lap, and she was one of the only kids that wasn't scared of him.

Heather learning what snow tastes like.

Pudding Painting

2009-12-03T20:26:00.003-07:00

Today Heather and I decided to paint. I made some pudding, taped some paper to her tray, and pretty soon...voila! Heather had a beautiful (and yummy) painting for daddy. Here is some of the footage. Enjoy!

The last part is my favorite!

Hair Bow Party!!

2009-11-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

There is a friend in my ward that is hosting a hair bow party! For those of you with little girls, or those that like to wear cute bows yourself, this would be a great opportunity to not only purchase a cute bow for a really great price, but help out a friend trying to start a business. It would even make a great Christmas present for one of your friends. Here is a link with all of the information:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=193242168543#/event.php?eid=193242168543

If you don't have facebook, here is the link for her website online:
marciwallace.etsy.com

Hope to see you at the party!

Story Time

2009-11-10T21:39:00.002-07:00

Heather has become a lot more interested in reading books. She still tries to eat them most of the time when I am reading to her, but at night when Daniel is reading to her she seems very involved in the story. She is also learning to turn off the light. Here's a video. Hope you enjoy!

Halloween and other stuff

2009-11-06T12:07:00.006-07:00

To start off our Halloween festivities, we had family home evening with the Standage family. We had dinner, a lesson, and then we carved pumpkins. It was lots of fun!

Heather had a lot of fun helping...

But not so much fun washing up.

Halloween weekend we went up to Park City to have a murder mystery weekend with our friends from Georgia, the Hortons. There were two other couples there, and we had LOTS of fun. It is a lot different when you are the only one with a baby though. We dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood, Granny, and the woodsman (complete with skinned wolf). Here we see little red attacking the wolf.

In other news, Heather is becoming much more mobile and active. I used to be able to do homework when she was awake, but that is becoming much harder now. I have to keep getting her out of sticky situations. Like this one:

She LOVES her baths and playing with a kitchen sponge that I cut in half. (It was new.) It doubles as a toothbrush. :)

Great news! Only 4 more weeks of classes for Daniel and I! We will be done with our second to last semester! We have applied for graduation, registered for our last semester of classes, and are so excited to be (almost) done with our undergraduate education!

The Long Awaited Update

2009-10-12T15:44:00.003-06:00

We are sorry that it has been SO long since we have blogged. There has been a lot going on and the blog isn't at the top of our to-do list...sorry. But since I would rather do anything than study for my Stats 221 exam, I will provide an update. :)

We got the chance to go to a BYU football game as a family. It was a lot of fun. Heather had a hard time at first, but she soon fell asleep (how she could sleep through that is a mystery to me). When she woke up, she was chipper and enjoyed (well, let us enjoy) the game.

To begin the crazy month of October, I got my Wisdom teeth removed. That was a painful experience, but I feel much better now that they are gone. I was in a lot of pain before I got them out. Daniel was a great help, he even got up in the middle of the night with Heather!! (Which he had not done much in the past.) My family also was a lot of help. They came to Utah for October conference this year. Hannah and John stayed with us for a couple of days. That was really nice. I don't think I did my dishes once while Johannah was here. I was way impressed with her willingness to serve. Thanks Hannah!

The Monday after conference, Heather somehow got the flu. She screamed a large part of Monday night. I woke up on Tuesday with a massive sore throat, and Tuesday night, I knew exactly why she spent the night screaming on Monday (though I can't help but wonder if all that crying made her throat a lot worse). My body was achy, my throat hurt so bad, my head hurt, I had no energy, and the list goes on. So I guess we have officially all had the swine flu at our house. No, we did not grow snouts. Yes, we are all feeling better!

Rachel just came up for fall break. It was nice to have her here. We went shopping, and she babysat, we talked, and she babysat, she went to see a friend, and she babysat. She babysat a lot while she was here. I had some things come up and it was really nice to have Rachel here to take care of Heather. Besides her babysitting, we really had a great time together. It was really nice to catch up. It was fun to have "girl talk" (face to face), and to see how much she has matured since she left home. Thanks Rachel for babysitting so much, and for being such great company! Oh, and just so she doesn't feel left out: she did the dishes once too. :)

Heather is really enjoying all of the colors of fall. We played in the leaves last night for part of FHE. It was fun to see her investigating the leaves not only with her eyes but with her mouth. We are not excited for the time when it will be too cold to play outside.

We have been super busy with school. Daniel has also been busy with work. We are just trying to plow through until graduation. We are so happy that at this time next year we will be done with our undergraduate education and silly general education classes (that we really don't want to take...for example Stats221)! We will both be doing what we really want to be doing. Daniel will be working with professors learning and doing what he wants to in research, and I will be a full-time mom. We can't wait to move on to a new phase in our lives.

We love you all!

Family Update

2009-09-13T20:12:00.004-06:00

This past Monday we had a break from school for Labor Day. We made the most of it, hiking Y mountain in the morning with my parents' ward, and then spending the afternoon at their house in Cedar Hills. We also took some time to celebrate Stephanie's 21st birthday. My mom and Stehpanie made a chocolate raspberry cake and some peach ice cream, both of which were delicious. It was fun to see siblings and cousins and have a good time together as a family.

We took some time to do family photos. However, Heather stole the show (in my opinion) with her monstrous grins! This photo is only the tip of the iceberg!

Heather has been eating solids for a few weeks now. She seems to enjoy it, especially when she gets to hold the spoon. Recently we've just been trying to get as much as we can in her before she gets impatient, and then we turn the spoon over to her and she tries to do the rest herself. Very little food actually gets in her mouth, but she's happy to just chew on the spoon. She's cutting her second bottom tooth, so she's actually happy to chew on just about anything!

We love you guys. Have a great week!

New Teeth

2009-09-06T19:37:00.004-06:00

We've been anticipating Heather beginning her teething phase for a while, but we finally have visual confirmation. A little stump of a tooth is poking out of her bottom gums! We are feeling a mixture of excitement and horror--we are so happy she's growing up, but we don't enjoy dealing with the growing pains. Oh well, this too shall pass...but we welcome any suggestions on how to make it pass quicker!

In other news, Stephanie just celebrated her 21st birthday on Friday! Most of the day was a typical day--classes, work, etc. However, we did have a special dinner at Stephanie's request--blue cheese & bacon burgers with homemade fries. It really hit the spot. As an added bonus, Stephanie's sister Rachel came over (for the long weekend) and watched Heather while we went out for a date to see Up. Unfortunately, it was sold out at the theater, so we ended up going to Blockbuster and eventually we agreed on Labyrinth. It has been about 15 years since I've seen that movie, and although we had a good time, I don't think I would mind waiting another 15 before watching it again!

We're excited to celebrate Stephanie's birthday and Labor Day with my family tomorrow! For those of you that aren't so close, we love you and can't wait to see you!

Heather's Laughs

2009-08-23T19:26:00.006-06:00

Heather has been laughing for weeks or maybe even months now. She's always been a happy baby, but she has recently become a big laugher. We put together some video of her laughing...hope you enjoy!

She's also starting to become more vocal. Hopefully we'll be able to post some video soon of Heather "talking."

Anniversary!

2009-08-12T10:03:00.004-06:00

We celebrated our 2nd anniversary yesterday. We can't believe that it has been two years...Life is so short! It has been a wonderful two years, and we still love each other. :)

We actually went out to celebrate our anniversary on Saturday. We started off the morning by going to the temple. It was great to be able to get away from life (and Heather) for a little bit. That afternoon we went to Trafalga and played miniature golf. It was a lot of fun. Heather loves being outside, so she was pretty good. Then we went out to dinner at Chili's. Heather wasn't so happy there. She really wanted to eat with us. She kept diving for our food or our water...I think she's ready to start solids on a more regular basis. We followed dinner up with some shopping. Daniel needed some new pants, and I needed some new shoes (my old tennis shoes died last week), and I wanted/needed a new skirt. [I guess I didn't NEED one, but it is a cute brown skirt that goes with just about any shirt I own, and I guess I do need variety :) ]

Yesterday was a very normal day, except for the evening. We had dinner, and I made a Chocolate Chip Pound Cake for dessert. It was super good and very moist. We put Heather to bed, and then we celebrated by doing pedicures and foot massages at home. I found a recipe for foot scrub that works wonders! The best part about is that it is homemade! My feet feel great! Daniel's reaction was, "I feel like a new man." His heels were very cracked and...well...gross, but they look and apparently feel a lot better now. We will have to keep doing it.

We really enjoyed our weekend and our day yesterday. But we have enjoyed our two years together even more!

PS. We do have pictures, but blogger isn't loading them right now. I will try to load them later.

Home Stretch

2009-08-02T18:53:00.002-06:00

We're on the home stretch--the last 3 or 4 weeks of our summer, and the last year here at BYU! We're much more excited about the latter than the former, but we will be grateful when things cool down a bit in autumn.

It was wonderful to see Mom and Rachel this week. Rachel is about to start her first year at Dixie State, and they stayed with us two nights before driving down to St. George. She seems excited to go, and we think she's going to do a great job. The only thing she's going to have a hard time with is keepin' those boys away!

Yesterday we went to the library to check out a book. Stephanie and I have been reading together this summer, and we recently finished To Kill a Mockingbird. It's fun to read together, and I haven't done hardly any casual reading since before my mission. Anyway, we're about to start A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. It should be fun.

We love our new piano, we love our cute giggly baby, we love the warm summer (when the heat doesn't kill us), and we love you all. Have a great week!

Update

2009-07-26T19:06:00.004-06:00

The month of July has been one big blur to me. So much has happened in such a short period of time, and Stephanie and I are always talking about how quick the summer has gone by. Not too long and we'll be back in school again. Our only comfort in that regard comes from knowing that it's our last year (as undergrads)!

Stephanie did a pretty good job of documenting the first half of the month, with camping, family reunions, Heather's blessing, and the GRE. Recently, I went on a trip to North Carolina for some job training. It was nice to be back in the southeast, but I was really glad to be home with my girls! After picking me up from the airport this last Monday, we went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house and then visited some friends in Taylorsville. Tuesday it was back to the grind again!

We've been saving up for a piano for a while, and a local store had a sale recently. We found a used piano just our size and within our budget [thanks to some help from Mom and Dad Coleman...Stephanie wonders if we'll ever get Christmas again ;) ]. We spent a good portion of the week trying to figure out how to get it from Orem to Provo. Dad Standage got off work early and brought his pickup to Orem, we loaded the piano, brought it home, and carried it up the stairs (with the help of some elders in our ward). The piano goes great with our front room, and we're so glad to have it!

Enough about us adults, we know why you really read this blog...for Heather updates! She is as cute as ever, and she is now a professional at rolling on the floor. She can roll from her back to her stomach to her back again, and that will get her across just about any room in our apartment. She is laughing and giggling and exploring everything with her mouth. She's such a hoot and we're lucky to have her.

Below are two pictures Stephanie captured recently. The first shows Heather showing off her contagious smile, while the second shows the effects of her movements as she naps.

We love you all!

Cow Appreciation Day

2009-07-12T08:58:00.009-06:00

This last Friday for our semi-date, we dressed up as cows for the Chick-fil-A Cow Appreciation Day. We were dressed up enough to get two meals, and a kids meal! What a great deal. Look dumb...get food. I guess we just felt kind of weird because the closest Chick-fil-A was in the mall. It was very fun, and we enjoyed our meals. You can't really see Heather's spots, but she was dressed up too.

The reason our Friday night date was only a semi-date, is because Daniel had to take the GRE Saturday morning. He did very well! We are glad that it is over with.

In other news, my family was here this past week, we had family reunions galore, and we were able to bless Heather. It was a special experience. Here are some highlights.

Camping with the Standage clan.

Grandpa meeting Heather for the first time.

Heather and Uncle John-John. I thought this picture was priceless.

The Grandpa's and Daddy at the baby blessing dinner.

Heather's first swimming trip in St. George.

This is the only picture we got where she was semi-smiling. She actually really enjoyed it.

It has been a great two weeks, but we are ready to get back to normal life. Love you all!

Our Heather B.

2009-06-29T09:45:00.003-06:00

Heather is growing up so fast! She smiles often, and has started giggling. In the past, she hasn't really laughed before, but Daniel has gotten some very hearty laughs the last two days, and it is music to our ears! She has also been rolling over on a regular basis when she is done with her nap, she just hasn't rolled over on the floor for me. She did for Daniel on Saturday. But everytime I go into her room to pick her up from her nap, she has rolled over. So she can do it (for real)! Here are some cute pics!

Heather is really starting to develop more of a personality and it is fun to see her learn and grow!

Father's/Birth day

2009-06-22T12:20:00.004-06:00

This week we celebrated Daniel's birthday and Father's Day. We had a picnic and went to Beauty and The Beast at the Scera with Mom, Dad, and Laura for Daniel's birthday. It was so good! We really enjoyed it. For Fathers Day, Heather and I made some yummy breakfast. Daniel's favorite: sausage, eggs, orange julius, and french toast (He actually likes pancakes better). Daniel only had one meeting at 10:30 yesterday, so it was nice to have him home in the morning.

Daniel is so wonderful and such a great father to Heather. He treats my like a princess, and makes me feel good about myself, he works hard to keep food on the table, and the rent paid, he is so patient, and makes Heather an me so happy! I love you so much Daniel!

Happy Father's Day to our dads! We love you!

Weekend Update

2009-06-14T16:51:00.003-06:00

This week was crazy. Between work, Nathan going to the MTC, a work party, and taking care of Heather, we've been stretched to the limit. Just to give you an idea, as I was packing up to leave work on Friday I realized that I had forgotten to stop and eat lunch. I am definitely not one to skip meals, so needless to say Stephanie and I were really looking forward to the weekend.

Friday morning Stephanie and I agreed to do a mall date for Friday night, including eating out (even though it wasn't really in our budget). Instead, when we got to the mall Stephanie sat us down at a table right outside the mall and pulled out a "fast food" meal she had prepared herself--complete with burgers, fries, fry sauce, and milkshakes. It was very delicious, and a lot of fun to have our own "fast food" at the mall. After that, our mall date consisted of Stephanie and I going to various stores and picking out outfits for each other to try on. It was a lot of fun.

Heather is getting biggerer and cuterer every day. She's the Apple of our i!

Elder Coleman

2009-06-10T11:34:00.003-06:00

Heather and I had the chance to drop Nathan, now Elder Coleman off at the MTC this morning. I was anticipating not being able to say too many goodbyes and stuff, but they really wanted me in and out. They seemed even a little bit reluctant to let us take this one picture. But, Elder Coleman is now safely there, no Swine Flu, and he is ready to go!

We made him a nice last home-cooked meal this morning our International Flapjack and Sausage Breakfast (sausage, eggs, pancakes, and orange julius). We enjoyed it, and he certainly did. He fidgeted around all morning, we went through his luggage again, he talked on the phone to the family, and now he is off. I can't believe my little brother is a missionary! It seems like just yesterday when we were running around in the mountains, building treehouses, wrestling, and of course involving ourselves in the little bit of sibling rivalry that occasionally happened. :) So much is changing! I guess you can't stay young forever. We will miss him, but I know he will be a great missionary serving the Lord in the Anchorage Alaska Mission.

Family Photo

2009-05-25T14:09:00.002-06:00

Well, we finally took a family picture a couple of weeks ago. We want to wait until Heather's just a little bit older before we take her in for professional photos, but these turned out really well. Hope you like them!

She Did It!!!

2009-05-22T08:22:00.002-06:00

Daniel and I walked into Heather's room this morning at 6:30 because Heather started making noises and we thought she might be waking up. We peeked over the bed only to find that Heather had ROLLED OVER! We were so surprised! I am not sure if it was an accident, or if she is starting to figure it out. I put her on her tummy a little bit to see if she would do it again, and she got really close, but she didn't quite make it. We will be doing a lot of tummy time today to see if she can do it again. If she does, we need to be more careful where we put her. If not, we need to be more careful where we put her. She did it once and she can do it again. :)

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

2009-05-17T21:23:00.004-06:00

It's been a pretty good spring/summer "vacation" so far (the mild sarcasm is due to the fact that we are working almost as hard even though school is out). My favorite job is being a dad, and I love the time I get to spend with Stephanie and Heather. I definitely don't get as many special experiences with Heather, but as you can see from the pictures that we have fun together.

Unfortunately, I have a couple of jobs that pay me to spend a few hours per day away from my two favorite girls (ok...maybe 10 hours is more than a few). Regardless, I am loving what I am doing almost as much as I love being with my family. I love finding ways to use technology to advance learning and science.

Speaking of work, I am pretty excited to be going on two trips this summer. In June, I will be spending 3 days in Piscataway, NJ at a conference planning and implementing an open platform for learning/training technology. In July, I will be spending 5 days in Durham, NC at a conference receiving training on how to use software to analyze and visualize genomes. Not only is this exactly the kind of thing I want to do for grad school, but it is also very close to where I want to go to grad school (Duke). This will be a great opportunity for me to network.

The only regret I have about this summer is not being able to bring Stephanie and Heather along. We almost bought a plane ticket for them to come out and visit New York City while I am in NJ, but we would not have had enough time to enjoy ourselves. Oh well, one of these days when we're rich and famous we'll be able to travel the world and visit all sorts of places. For now, we'll just be content with helping Heather learn about her new and exciting world.

We love you all. Can't wait to see you again!

Growing Pains

2009-05-09T15:58:00.005-06:00

I think Heather must be growing this week, because she has been fussy, and eating tons, and not sleeping very well. Today she slept in until 10 (okay 9:40), went back down at 11, woke up at 12-ish (we went shopping and as we pushed her over the tiles as you walk into walmart, she woke up), then went down at 1:30, and has been sleeping ever since. It is nice to have her sleeping so much today because I have been able to get a lot done, but it also has made me realize how much I miss her. Here are some pictures that we took this week. I know it is a lot, but she is just so darn cute I couldn't leave these out!

Heather has been scooting. The other day, she scooted out of her pajamas and her blanket. She left a little cocoon behind her.

She didn't quite make it all the way out of her PJ's.

Daddy showing off his talented girl.

Helping Mommy sort through her clothes. She is already into the 3-6 month sizes, and truth be told, she is a little big for some of them.

She was so smiley and happy I wanted to take some pictures, but you just can't capture everything on camera I guess...

Sound asleep in her car seat. Finally!!

Hope you enjoyed these. Love you all!