Jenny's Trip to DC

 Alan has had some extra time off these past few months due to a very generous amount of paternity leave his company gives him.  He went on a trip to Mexico City with some mission companions a few months ago, and he is also going to spend some time in NY in May.  He said would be happy to take a few days off and be Mr. Mom so that I could go on a trip, too. My friend Ann-Marie knew that Alan wanted me to go on a trip, so she invited me to go to Washington D.C. with her in February!  Since Abby still needs her mommy, she got to come along for the ride, too.

It was an amazing set up.  Ann-Marie knew an awesome family that let us stay with them, so we didn't have to pay for accommodations.  Also, since Ann-Marie lived near DC for three years, she knew how to use the Metro and was my own personal tour guide. It was sweet!  We spent about half of the time doing sight-seeing, and the other half of the time visiting with Ann-Marie's old friends and co-workers.  I think it was a win-win situation, all in all.  :)

Forgive my pictures--they were taken with my old crappy camera...

This was Abigail's first (of many) rides on the Metro

I need to take a moment and say what an angel Abigail was for the trip!  She was awesome on the airplane rides and the Metro rides, and she was perfectly happy to switch between the baby carrier and the stroller during all of our sight-seeing.  She was flexible with naps, too, and even fell asleep in my arms for both airplane rides (which she never does at home!)  Except for some sadness late at night in our rental car, and a little reluctance to sleep in the pack-and-play, she really was amazingly happy for most of the trip.

One of the hardest things about our trip was finding all of the stroller-friendly entrances and exits (i.e, wheelchair access) for the museums and Metro stations.  We got totally turned around several times and did lots of extra walking in the chilly and windy weather.  Ha ha! At least it wasn't snowing!

Ann-Marie and I saw all angles of the Washington monument with all of our walking around

 First we went to the American History museum. My favorites were seeing the Stars and Stripes, Lincoln's top hat he wore the night he was assassinated, the First Ladies' Inaugural Ball gowns, the original Ernie and Bert, and Dorothy's slippers.

Dorothy's ruby slippers

By a complete coincidence, Alan's little brother Mason was in DC with some friends the exact same weekend.  When Mason called me to see where I was so we could meet up, we happened to be in the same corridor on the same floor in the same museum at the same time!
   

Abby and Uncle Beef

 I am missing some pictures here and need to get them from Ann-Marie...

Next we went to the Natural History Museum and saw the Hope Diamond, other gems and minerals, and their awesome animal exhibits.  


The Air and Space Museum was fun, too.  I touched a real moonrock and saw the Spirit of St. Louis!  I also bought my kids overpriced astronaut ice cream as a souvenir.

Model of the Starship Enterprise.  I took this picture for Alan.

The Wright brothers' plane from 1903

 Ann-Marie and I also went to the wax museum because neither of us had been to one before.  I was amazed how lifelike all of the celebrities looked!  (Yeah, I sat and nursed my baby right next to Tom Cruise.  It was awesome.)

Abe and I chillin' at the theater together

I couldn't go all the way to DC and not take my picture with Donald!  Note that I'm not too excited to be with him, just like he's not that excited to be with me.

We didn't have time (or energy) to see all of the different monuments and memorials, but we did go to the Lincoln Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.  It was so cool!  The last time I had been there was when I was 12 years old.

View of Washington Monument from Lincoln Memorial

On a different day we went to the National Gallery of Art.  My only wish was to see the impressionists, which were amazing: Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, and Degas.   I love Degas' ballerinas!! (I really like ballet, if you haven't noticed that about me.)

Yet another view of Washington Monument, with a sunset in the background.  It was beautiful.  

Ann-Marie was awesome to put up with the all the complications of taking a baby on this trip.  She is seriously such an amazing person!  And Alan was so wonderful to take time off work and stay home with the other three kids (and I think it helps him appreciate more what I do every single day!)  I love my hubby.

Fall Happenings

This post has a bunch of random stuff from the past five weeks.  I'm just throwing them all together.  Ha ha.  

Four years ago Alan performed the Napoleon Dynamite dance at a ward talent show.  Well, last week he was asked to reprise it for our Stake Talent Show.  Alan spent a week and a half re-learning the dance and then did a beautiful job performing it. The crowd went wild!   Here is a link to the original performance four years ago. 

This video has terrible quality, plus I was holding Evelyn (who had fallen asleep) on my lap.  It is hard to hold a sleeping 3-year-old and try to film at the same time!

 I just had to take a picture of Abigail all bundled up when I went on a walk one chilly morning.  She is so cute!!!!

 At the end of September, Maggie learned how to ride her 2-wheeler with confidence!  It was really hard for her to learn and took many hours of practice.  Even when she had finally learned, she didn't feel confident for another month or so to ride anywhere but the empty church parking lot.  But then she has since seen the light.  She and Jared love to ride their bikes to school, and they have both gone with Alan on really lengthy (6-miles!) bike rides a couple of times.

Evelyn wanted a picture on her bike, too.  

This past week I gave Evelyn a proper haircut and Maggie a trim.  Here they are showing off their new 'dos!  

It is hard to tell, but Maggie is also missing her two front teeth right now!  Maggie and Jared have lost a combined total of 5 teeth in the past month and a half.  Plus they both have more loose ones!  I joked that the tooth fairy is going to go out of business.  

Random picture of Maggie and Abby in jammies

 Here is a picture of Jared with his Utah desert diorama he made for school. It took him many hours of work to make this!  Fourth grade seems to be the magic year when projects are more numerous.  (It is the first year I have been a little bit stressed trying to help him with all his homework!)  Jared's diorama has three desert plants and three desert animals he made, plus he colored the Delicate Arch background (I printed off a coloring page for him.)

Here is a video of Abigail giggling at about 3 months old.  

Pinewood Derby

One of the necessary evils of being a cub scout is having to participate in the Pinewood Derby.  Seriously, I wonder what the benefits of such a competition are...

In August, Alan and Jared put together Jared's car.  They didn't do anything super fancy, but it still took a lot of time.  Well, Jared's car got 10th place out of 21 total cars.  We were pretty happy to be in the middle somewhere and not come in dead last or anything. :)  The guy who was in charge of the track said at the beginning of the race that it was pretty good to have your car come in under 3 seconds, so we were proud of our 2.94 average time!  

Jared got the "Greased Lightning" award

And....a random picture of Maggie and Evy before church one day

Happy Birthday to Alan

We also celebrated Alan's birthday this month!  I don't have as many pictures of his birthday as Evelyn's, but we had a wonderful day.  Alan requested chicken enchilada soup for dinner and his favorite ice cream sandwich cake.  Alan and I also celebrated his birthday that week by eating out at Cafe Rio and at Los Hermanos.

new wallet and belt

Alan and his loot--some of his favorite treats and new jeans, among other things

I love you, sweetie!  Thank you for being mine!

Birthday presents (and surprises)

Last week I had a birthday.  It was lovely.  My mom took me out to brunch in the morning, and Alan and I went out to dinner (alone!) in the evening on the way to the airport.  (Alan left that evening to fly to Seattle to visit his Washington family for a few days.)  

However, I found out in the early afternoon, that our painter we were hiring was going to be ready to come the very next day!  That was a bit stressful, but we were excited to finally have the job done.  I spent all afternoon removing things from the walls, moving furniture to the center of the rooms, and taking off outlets and light switch covers.  

Here is the finished product.  Our front room and hall are now gray instead of green. (I have not finished hanging pictures or decorating yet.)

Our basement TV room and hall are now light gray instead of taupe. Yuck, I need to organize this TV stand.  Don't judge. Ha ha.

It was totally worth hiring out the painting instead of doing in ourselves this time (been there, done that!)  They were done in a day and a half, and I feel like it was a really good deal.  Plus, we have a really high ceiling above our staircase.  Not fun to do ourselves.

Alan bought me a 6-qt. crockpot I've really been wanting, plus we bought a new yellow storage ottoman for our living room.  It arrived right on my birthday!!  (See living room picture above.  The ottoman is in front of the fireplace.  It fits all of Evy's toys so nicely, so now our front room is more organized.)

Alan also wrote me a sonnet for my birthday.  I LOVE these poems he writes for me.  They have so much thought and time put into them, and it is a special gift he has to write them:

Inheritance

I often contemplate our life ahead,

When we will be together without end.

It is magnificent that we, though dead,

Will come forth from the grave and live to spend

Eternity in love as man and wife!

We've been endowed with sacred priesthood power

To magnify the Father's Plan of Life;
Creating worlds where we will teach to our

Posterity all things that they must do

As they progress along the narrow path.

As equal partners, we will go forth to

Inherit everything the Father hath:

Eternal lives and endless worlds above,

With hearts and hands entwined in holy love.

(To read more sonnets by Alan, click here and here.)

Alan's Birthday

Alan's birthday was fun.  He got some of his presents a couple of weeks early, but then we had a yummy dinner of chicken enchilada soup, fruit and dip, and ice cream sandwich-cake closer to his actual birthday.   Alan has requested this cake every year for the past 5 years or so.

This present was some new white shirts!  How exciting!   :)

We got a basketball hoop as sort of an early birthday present for Alan.  I am excited for Jared to get into basketball, because I would really like to put him in Jr. Jazz when he is a 3rd-grader.  

It happened!

After about 3 1/2 weeks of two wiggly teeth, Jared lost both of them on the same day!  One of them accidentally got knocked out by Aunt Angela's elbow while we were waiting for Aunt Rachel to finish her half marathon.  Then, later that day Jared asked me to just pull out the other one.  I was grossed out, but happy to oblige.  I thought the Tooth Fairy would enjoy only having to visit once to get both of those teeth!  Jared received 4 quarters and was pretty excited!

This is just a random video I found of Alan playing the "Couch Game" with Jared and Maggie a couple of weeks ago.  (Shawna: "I played the Couch Game with Jared.  What is that?") This game has existed for about three years and pretty much consists of the kids jumping off the couch onto Alan.  Yeah, it's a blast.

Alan "Dynamite" Stout

I still need to blog about all our Halloween festivities, but I just had to post this funny video.  Last night our ward had a talent show, and the final act in the show was Alan doing the Napoleon Dynamite dance.  It was so hilarious!  This isn't a super great video I took because I was trying to film with one hand and hold Maggie with the other.  

This next video is kind of underwhelming compared to Alan's dance, but I also participated in the talent show.  A lady in my ward organized four women to play "Stars and Stripes Forever" on two pianos.  It was actually a really hard song for all of us to learn, and I only had three weeks to learn it.  I think it turned out pretty well, though.

Father's Day

Yeah, I'm behind on my posting.  (What else is new?)  We had a delightful Father's Day.  Alan had church meetings all morning, so we couldn't do a fancy breakfast, but Alan opened up his presents: a book and some new work shirts.  Jared also made him a couple cute things in his primary class.  Then we had a lovely dinner with most of my family at my brother's house.

I'm so grateful for Alan!  He is such an amazing dad.

Alan's Bday

OK, so I'm way behind on uploading pictures.  We have a newer laptop we've been using, but we haven't transferred our picture program from the old laptop to the new one yet.  So, I have to find time to get on our old (SLOW) computer to upload pictures.

I regret that this is the only picture I have of Alan's birthday last month.  Wow.  I know, I'm lame.  We had a fun day, though!  Alan loved the presents we gave him, I made one of his favorite treats, and we also had parties with my family and his family (on different days).

On Alan's actual birthday, we hosted a dinner group from our ward over and had Cafe Rio-style pork salads and I made a Tres Leches for him.  The next day was Saturday, and we went out to lunch to Tucanos with my parents (using his birthday coupon!) and then had his family over for our 3rd annual fondue party.  It was super fun.

I love Alan so much!  He is my hero and my true love.

Day-Old Child

My day-old child lay in my arms.
With my lips against his ear
I whispered strongly, "How I wish--

I wish that you could hear;

"I've a hundred wonderful things to say
(A tiny cough and nod),
Hurry, hurry, hurry and grow
So I can tell you about God."

My day-old baby's mouth was still
And my words only tickled his ear.
But a kind of light passed through his eyes,
And I saw this thought appear:

"How I wish I had a voice and words;
I've a hundred things to say.
Before I forget I'd tell you of God--
I left Him yesterday."

~Carol Lynn Pearson

Crazy or Smart?

When Alan and I were first married, I was just about to finish college and start working full time, and Alan was in school full time and working part time. Since we were both super busy, it was hard to find time to prepare dinners every night. My friend and neighbor Jennifer then saved the day by doing a presentation at a Relief Society activity on how to prepare and freeze tons of dinners all in one day. Hallelujah! Anyone who knows me well will remember how Alan and I did this every so often during those years that I taught high school. It was tons of work but well worth it!

Since I stopped working full time and have had more time to cook, I haven't really cooked freezer meals as much (although we did it right before Jared was born and also as soon as I found out I was pregnant 7 months ago--anticipating many days of morning sickness.)

Two days ago my INCREDIBLE husband and I devoted most of our day to cooking and freezing meals once again. (We also spent several hours prepping the night before--chopping vegetables and assembling things, etc.) We were completely wiped out by the afternoon, but we did it! And I'm sure in the next couple months after the baby is born, our stomachs will thank us daily! Our freezer is now stuffed to the brim--literally--with 35 or so delicious dinners waiting to be thawed, cooked, and eaten (not to mention that almost every meal has enough for Alan to take some to work for lunch as well!) Some of the items we made: lots of lasagna, 2 kinds of chicken enchiladas, lots of sweet and sour chicken (thanks, Billy Ashley, for the recipe!), chicken and pea soup, apple curry chicken, lots of saucy pasta with ham recipes, raspberry glazed chicken, cheesy hash browns with ham, sloppy joes, and I can't even remember what else!

This picture doesn't even begin to show the extent of our cooking!

Hello, deliciousness! (And thank you, thank you, Alan, for being the best to do this crazy thing with me!)

Yearbook Photos

Alan's sister Amanda created these pictures of Alan from a website called Yearbookyourself.com. I think I will be wasting a bunch of time on this website in the near future.

A Little Late

Happy Birthday to my husband and the father of my little boy! Here's to another year of love, joy, and fun! What adventures we will have!

Great News for Alan

We have some very exciting news! Alan just accepted a new job! That means he is going to leave public accounting a year or two earlier than we had planned, and he will have a more normal job with MORE NORMAL HOURS!! He is going to work on an accounting team for a smaller company, and he is so excited about his job description and the people he has met so far. As for me, I am excited to see Alan more!

In conjunction with this new job, we will be looking for a HOUSE in a new city, since the job is 40 mins away from where we currently live. This is much sooner than we had planned on house hunting, but we are excited (and scared to death) for this new adventure.

I wish I could post more details, but since this is a public blog, the information listed will have to suffice. If you care enough to know more details, email us and we can fill you in!!

I am so proud of my hubby!

Reading with Daddy

Reading with Jared just keeps on getting more and more fun. He definitely has his favorite books! I just love these pictures of Alan and Jared together.

Anniversary, cont.

My husband is so sweet! On Thursday he came home from work with these:




and also a beautiful sonnet that he had written for me on his lunch breaks at work. (For another example of one of Alan's sonnets, click here.)

Another year has quickly passed since two
Were sealed as one. In this short time the love
I have has changed, improved, and grown for you.
The joy that I will share with you above
Is happiness that I do not deserve!
The question that I often ask is why
You gave your hand to me. But I shall serve
You, love you, hold you, keep you, and shall try
With my whole heart to dedicate my life
To you. I vow to change, improve, and grow
To be the man who can deserve a wife
As wonderful as you. My love, please know
That I am yours and that I'll always cleave
To you; this truth you simple must believe.

I have the best husband ever!

Happy Anniversary!

Every day I am thankful to have Alan in my life. How fitting that our anniversary is so close to Thanksgiving. I love you, Sweetie!

2 Days Left...

Alan has been studying so hard since April to take the CPA exams. He has taken (and passed) three of the parts so far, and he takes his last part this week. We are so excited for him to be done! It has been pretty lame for Alan to have to come home from work and "study," even though he has been done with school for a while now. There have been all kinds of things we have been putting off because of these tests, so I am so excited to let the fun begin!

Oh, yeah, and I am so proud of my cute hubby. :)

Summer Days, Drifting Away

I sort of feel depressed as August draws to a close. Last night I noticed that it was dark by 8:30. I hate when summer ends. Well, at least we don't have the definitive end to the season by the start of the schoolyear! (At least not until The Buddy starts school several years down the road.) I am still trying to let it all linger...

Here are some pictures from our latest summer fun.

We recently hiked up to Donut Falls with our friends Christian and Suzanne and their little boy Benton, who is only a few weeks younger than Jared. It was a fun little excursion.

Up at the top of the hike


Alan and Christian climbing up to the top of the "donut" part of the falls
(Christian is right in the middle of the photo and Alan is on the right)

The Buddy liked to put his chubby fingers in the river

Alan's sisters hosted a swimming party at their complex's swimming pool. It was Jared's first time swimming (I know, long overdue.) Jared seemed to hate the water at first, but then he enjoyed splashing and splashing everyone! It was so much fun.

Jared and his Daddy

Jared and Aunt Rachel
(I love this picture because some of our siblings are about
to launch Alan up in the air in the background!)