Emma Update

DOO doo doo DOOO! Announcing Emma Jean's six month mark! She's gone from this:

to this:

She's eating solid foods, bouncing on her knees, rolling all over the place, and just barely, crawling!!! Life happens fast around here. I can hardly post something or write in my journal before it's yesterday's news and Emma is doing something else. She's such a doll, we just love her so much. She LOVES to babble, especially right before bed time. Also, she loves to stand. Last week in church, she spent at least half of Sacrament meeting standing on the bench holding on to the back rest. It's adorable because she does this little wobble where she shakes her hips in and out. She does it with the biggest grin on her face. :) You should check out her "fish" crawl. She looks like she's doing the worm! Whatever the case, it's quite effective, and very adorable. I've been trying to upload a video of it for days, so, I just post now, and perhaps, later, I'll get the video.

Puzzled

A couple months ago, Andrew bought some items at Savers, a second-hand thrift store. At the cash register, when one of the items rang up more expensive than Andrew expected, he asked the sales clerk to remove the item, he decided he didn't want to pay for it. She said she couldn't, and because Andrew was in a rush, instead of pushing it, he just asked her for the specs on the return policy: Return within 7 days, with receipt and tags. Okay, fine.

Well, within those seven days, I went back to the store to make the return. After waiting in line at a register for 10 minutes and then being directed to a different line to make a return (apparently register 4 is not as cool as register 1) the sales clerk asked me, "Where are your items you are exchanging for?" I told her I didn't want to exchange, just return, please. "EXCHANGE ONLY." What!?? So, first, they ring up an item for my husband, and when he asks them to take it off the total, they refuse, and tell him he can return in, but really we can't?!!! Kinda feels like a sleezy way to get 40 bucks from us. Since I didn't have anything to exchange, she agreed to give me credit, but it expires in 7 days. She also agreed to keep my items, and just write the credit amount on my receipt. So, if I didn't return within 7 days, they'd get to keep my money AND the items we originally bought! And seeing how I didn't have the items with me the THIRD time we visited the store, the next sales clerk was suspicious of me. Nice.

Andrew and I went back the THIRD time to find $40 worth of merchandise to use our credit before it expired in, yes, 1 week. Okay, this should be easy, we thought, just find some things we want and spend $40, kinda fun. I saw a bunch of games and puzzles I wanted, so we started putting them in our cart. The puzzles were $0.99 a piece. Oh dear. This was going to be a long climb to our goal of $40. Well, to keep a long story from getting to much longer, we actually found a few nice pair of shoes that Andrew got, and I DID end up with a few puzzles, just not 40 of them! So, at home, I have recently enjoyed putting a puzzle together. I wondererd, of 1000 pieces, how many would be missing, since this was from a second-hand store. Check it out:

Not a single piece missing! Pretty good for $0.99. So, if you like puzzles, check out Savers, but buyers beware, you may not end up SAVING like you think . . . .

Recent Adventures

Lately people have been asking me, "What have you been up to lately?" I don't know why this question seems to leave my mind blank. Maybe it's because a list of: practicing violin, doing laundry, tutoring, doing laundry, teaching, etc. doesn't sound interesting. Well, the truth is: my life IS interesting! And here are some pictures of the intereseting things I've been doing with Emma:

Last week admission to the Tracy Aviary was free, so Emma and I went with our friends Ethan and Michelle. Emma was quite attentive during the bird show, and perhaps she picked up on facts about barn owls; I found these quite interesting, too. Did you know that an owl can turn its head 300 degrees? Or that it has twice the neck vertebre of a human (14 vs. 7)? Well, it must have been too much for Emma, because she was out cold for the rest of our visit, except, of course, for the cute picture at the end.

Old McDonald had a farm . . . I don't know about that, but I know Old Man Wheeler did! :) For playgroup with the med wives yesterday, we visited Wheeler Farm. I wasn't sure if Emma would take interest, but she definately noticed a lot of the animals, including the goats, pigs, and chickens (which she wanted to feed her fingers to).

Check out this crazy, dirty pig! He was not your average Wilbur!

For Grandma Warren

We love you!

Harvest Time

You know it's harvest season when, within TWO hours, your friend, mother, and mother-in-law all offer to give your their tomatoes. It's really a fun time of year. In fact, since peaches went on sale at Harmon's, my mother-in-law taught me how to can them. When I finished canning peaches, I stopped by my mom's, only to find her baking zucchini bread. I enjoyed a slice, but didn't take any home. Good thing, because the next morning, my good friend left a loaf on my door step. Yep! and it was delicious! So much goodness and so little time. Last week, I made a "Harvest Soup," which means, I made up a soup that contained home grown corn, zucchini, and onions. Not too bad for an invented concoction. We ate it for two days.

And now for the peaches . . .

We turned these:

into this:

And here's how:

First we blanched the peaches (blanch, as I learned is a fancy word to describe the process where you stick peaches in boiling water to make the skin come off more readily.

Here are the jars, sitting in the oven to remain sterilized until we cut the peaches.

Here are the jars filled with peaches, just before we put them in the canner:

When the peaches were done boiling, we took them out and waited for them to cool. It's fun to listen for the "pop" that lets you know the lid has sealed.

Thanks, Karen. I had a great time! Now I know how to can peaches. I wonder what I will learn next. Any ideas anyone?

Sleeping Like a Baby

So, as I peeked into the crib today, this is what I found:


She was holding still, sleeping just like it looks!

Babies at the Zoo

Here is a picture of me four week before Emma was born:

And here is a picture of Emma and me this week:

We went to the zoo for a playgroup activity with the med wives on Wednesday. It was so much fun! I thought it was very interesting that I have had a baby since I last went, and so did an elephant, giraffe, snow leopard, and tiger (three baby tiger cubs!). Emma was very interested in the mama giraffe when she stuck her neck out over the railing to look down on us. I can't wait to take her again and again!