pumking carving

most of you know that i'm not a huge fan of halloween, but i'll have you know that i'm not a complete grinch. last night, some friends invited us over to carve pumpkins with them, and even though randy had to stay home and study, i still took madeleine over and engaged in halloween festivities. so what if i completely avoided traditional pumpkin designs and carved a "p" in ours?

here it is, lit up:



all of our pumpkins, sitting in a row:







madeleine showing randy our pumpkin when we got home:

pictures

madeleine loves to put on randy's hat and run around, but i'm not exactly how she sees when she does so:

last week, madeleine was having a rough morning and really wanted to pick out her own clothes, so i let her. this is what she selected:

a t-shirt and some bloomers that go under a blue striped sun dress that she has. mind you, it was about 40 degrees outside. the only reason these were out is because i was packing them. there was no deterring madeleine from this outfit, though, and i figured that it's good to let her be independent as much as possible. here's another shot, in case you didn't get the full effect before:

on saturday, randy took some pictures of madeleine helping him out in the yard:

i was trying to get some cleaning done yesterday and the girls obliged by climbing into some boxes that i had out and entertaining themselves for almost an hour while i got work done. why do we buy children expensive toys?

a new bed for madeleine

a few months ago, i saw a post on design mom about building your own toddler bed and decided that i might try my hand at it once madeleine was ready for a toddler bed.

well, madeleine started to try to climb out of her bed shortly after that, and with the baby coming, is going to get kicked out of the crib soon anyway. my inlaws came to town a couple weekends ago and my mother-in-law is an expert upholsterer, so i decided that i would make the bed and finish it while they were here. how nice of me to put them to work on their vacation, huh?

before they came, i went and bought all of the wood for the frame and assembled it myself. not that any of you really care, but if i could do it again, i would probably use 5/8" plywood instead of 3/8" plywood. here is the finished frame:

when my father-in-law got here, he agreed with me that it was still a little flimsy and we planned a few structural reinforcements to beef it up. i'm glad that my dad and my father-in-law have so much in common, including a desire to engage in sturdy woodworking (in my dad's case, read "earthquake proof") . we went to home depot and got the needed materials and then he and i made a few additions to the frame:

this is when my amazing mother-in-law stepped in to help me upholster the frame. similar to our beefing up the frame, she beefed up the upholstery and we did a few more layers of batting than the plans called for so that it would be a softer frame in case any children run into it or fall off the bed. the upholstery project actually ended up involving the whole family and i found out that randy is pretty handy with a staple gun.

and here is the finished product. i am really happy with how it turned out:

apparently we made the bed just in time because on saturday night, madeleine climbed out of her crib for the first time. it was actually a pretty traumatic experience for her, so i could probably get away with keeping her in the crib a while longer and she wouldn't attempt an escape again, but we figure that it's better to be safe than sorry and besides, she's got to switch soon regardless. she's spent the last few nights in her "big girl bed," successfully, although getting her to fall asleep has been a little bit of a process.

pictures

this is how i frequently find madeleine: perched on the piano bench, with the children's songbook open and playing the piano and singing tunes that are unrecognizable to anyone but her. it's adorable. she also often insists that i sit next to her and play requests, which are hopefully a little more recognizable. she is actually really good at finding the songs that she wants me to sing based on the pictures above the songs. here are a few other pictures from the past week:

cinnabon

i have been craving a cinnabon since the beginning of my pregnancy. there used to be a cinnabon in the local mall, but it shut down a couple years ago, so i tried to look up the next closest cinnabon. their website said that there was one in the salt lake airport and i went so far as to try to enlist my cousin, who is a flight attendant, to pick one up for me (it is inside the terminal and you have to have a ticket to get to it, otherwise, i would have just gone myself). unfortunatey, the cinnabon in the salt lake airport has also shut down. supposedly, there is one in ogden, but i wasn't willing to drive an hour and a half just to get one, and who knows, maybe it is shut down too.

and then, my mom and dad went on a trip last week and my mom picked one up in the cincinnati airport for me yesterday morning. i brought it home from sunday dinner, warmed it up, and quickly devoured it. i did offer randy a bite because he has never had a cinnabon before, but he didn't enjoy it enough for me to squander any more on him. it was delicious. not quite as good as straight out of the oven at a store, but pretty darn close, and as good as i'm going to get here in provo. thanks, mom!

jackpot!

apple boxes are highly prized in the linford extended family for their use as moving/storage boxes. they are sturdy, a good size, and you don't have to use packing tape with them, which makes it easier to access items during the moving process. similarly, orange boxes are good, and useful in moving books because they are slightly smaller and don't get so heavy. banana boxes are nice for slightly wider items.

after my first year of law school, i did an internship in the bay area and lived with my aunt and uncle for six weeks. they were getting ready to move, and thus, trying to acquire apple boxes en mass. we found a local grocery store that was happy to give away boxes and even had a few employees who would specifically call my aunt when there were boxes to be had. i remember coming home from work and having my younger cousins excitedly report a good haul, especially if it was a new record.

"we got 10 boxes today!"

well, we are going to be moving at the end of the month and so i too, have been trying to acquire apple boxes en mass. i have found that my best bet is our local smith's grocery store and usually get a few when i stop by. last night though, i stopped by and there were 11 boxes. i was very excited about my find and felt like my little cousins when i came home and exclaimed to randy, "eleven boxes!"

i don't think he quite shared the full level of my enthusiasm, but acted excited for me nonetheless.

happy birthday randy

randy turned 26 today and to celebrate, madeleine and i went to campus and had lunch with him. we stopped by the creamery on the way and bought randy a balloon, which was mostly intended to entertain madeleine during lunch. which it did:

hmm... not the best pictures i've taken lately. randy's not that into making a big deal about his birthday but it was fun to have lunch as a family and let madeleine run around campus a little bit. happy birthday randy. we love you.

vitus

randy and i watched the german film, "vitus," this weekend and loved it. it is a film about a young child who is a piano prodigy and his quest to balance his talent with normalcy. i know that we probably enjoyed it a little bit more because of our musical interests, but i think that it is a film that anyone would really enjoy. randy and i keep bringing it up and talking about it, so i think that is a good sign for how good the film was. we got it through netflix, so i'm not sure how readily available it is elsewhere, but i think that it's worth finding a copy and watching it.

conference weekend

six months always seems to fly by and conference weekend came and went yet again. this time, my parents were out of town, but my siblings decided that we would still all hang out together at their house, even if they were gone. i forgot my camera, so the only evidence i have of the weekend is this picture that randy took of madeleine on his iphone. it was a typical weekend - eating good food, playing games, and most of all, listening to conference and being spiritually renewed. but it wasn't quite the same without my parents there; they were sorely missed.

football game

i used to have an all-sports pass throughout college. i wouldn't call myself a huge sports fan, but i did enjoy going to byu sporting events a lot. in fact, the first time that randy asked me to go on a date, it happened to be the same night as a home football game. he hadn't planned the date yet, so i suggested that we go to the game together. he went along cheerfully and i had no idea that randy isn't exactly a sports fan. i have since figured this out and am fine with it (it actually has a lot of perks), but i do miss going to the games. occasionally, i tag along with my family and randy enjoys a quiet evening of practicing.

that's why i was surprised when randy announced at the beginning of the college football season that he would like to attend a couple of home games and follow byu's progress in general. this last weekend, my parents were out of town and very generously let randy and me use their season tickets. they were great seats and randy and i got to go enjoy the game together. the weather was perfect - crisp, fall weather, without being too cold. byu beat the aggies fairly easily, but the game was still exciting to watch. i am really glad that we got to go to at least one game this season. thanks to mom and dad for the tickets, and thanks to randy for going to a sporting event with me.

business as usual

our computer started having troubles about a week ago and randy diagnosed it as a problem with our hard-drive. we got a second opinion from our family computer doctor/guru, and sure enough, that seemed to be the problem. randy ordered a new harddrive and last night, randy and dan performed open hard-drive* surgery. our computer is good as new, and up and running with all of our old info on it. now, i wasn't involved in restoring it, but it seemed relatively easy and painless. thank goodness for apple's "time machine," program. i am completely sold on macs.

now that i have my computer back, i should be uploading pictures and posting again soon.


*is this the point when this post "jumped the shark?" too much? perhaps. perhaps it's just a reflection of 5 hours of sleep.