First Time on a Slide

Okay, she really didn't slide down it, but she really wanted to. Someday soon.....

Peek-a-boo!

So I was going to do a great posts with really cute pictures of Abby, but as I was writing it, I decided it was too much information for outside viewers of our site to know. I hate it that I feel like it's not safe now. I will find out more on how to secure our blogs and I promise I'll pass the information along. Meanwhile, here's a cute picture of Abby greeting Daddy after she woke up.

Ready for Fall!

I bought some really cute warm clothes for Abby at the consignment sale we went to last week. It was so cool and overcast this morning I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to take pictures of Abby in her new duds. Abby wasn't all that excited about it though.

Isn't this sweater and hat adorable? I got it for $4! It doesn't make her look very girly though.

Cedar Chest

After my grandpa passed away my family went through and divided his estate, and I was lucky enough to get this! It's a very old cedar chest with the price tag still on it. It's from the art-deco period, so I'm guessing it's around 60 to 70 years old. It's emmaculate on the inside, but the outside needs some work. Because it's so perfect on the inside, I wonder if we should refinish it, because it decreases in value when it's been altered. But it already looks like someone did a crap job of refinishing it already, plus, we don't ever plan on selling it. We want to make it beautiful so we can pass it on to our kids.

Anyway, Brian and I are looking forward to refinishing it. We'll keep you posted on the progress.



Don't you love the "Moth Insurance?"

I wonder how much $32.50 was back then?

Tweaking your Photos

Have you ever priced Photoshop? It's SO expensive! So instead we use this FREE program called Triscape FxFoto to improve some of our pictures. It doesn't work miracles, but it does have some cool features like reducing red eye, feathering pictures, like the one of Abby below. It also allows you to lighten and darken, crop and frame your pictures. Here's a before and after:

Before

After

Here's the website: http://www.fxfoto.com/

Cold

Abby got her first cold while we were on our trip. It's mostly just a congested, runny nose, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for her mother who wipes it and drains it out all the time. She HATES anything going near her nose. I'm such a mean mommy.

Divine Consign

If you don't mind buying used baby and maternity stuff, then this is the sale for you! Divine Consign is a huge consignment sale that they put on two times a year, and all the stuff there is very good quality. It's not your normal garage sale junk (well, at least most of it.)

The Plano sale is this weekend! Check it out!

http://www.divineconsign.net/

Our Trip to Salt Lake City in Five Entries

Travel

Wow! It's great to be home! We were only gone five days, but we really missed Texas!

Abby was an excellent traveler! She ate as we took off, slept for a while on the plane, played well on our laps, and chomped on her pacifier as we descended so there was no drama. Our only hitch was that we were staying in Heber, which is 45 minutes away from everything we were doing each day, so we were constantly in the car, performing, or walking around. Therefore, finding times and places for Abby to nap was pretty tough. It's crazy traveling with a baby!

Thank goodness my mom came with us to help out so things were a lot easier! Thanks a TON, Mom! She and Abby are bosom buddies now.

All Abby needed was her blanket and she was out.

We almost needed a barf bag on the way home. There was a big storm that came in over DFW so they put our plane in a holding pattern for about 30 minutes. The pilot was doing some pretty tight circles up there and many of us got wobbily legged and queasy, including Abby.

She won't fall asleep unless she's in her car seat or in a crib, so a couple of times we had to stop what we were doing and take her to the car so she could get a nap.

Abby got pretty used to hanging out in her stroller.

What We Did

Our trip was super fun, but very busy! Before we left I thought we'd be pretty bored cause we didn't have a whole lot planned, but I forgot to take into consideration that a baby takes up the rest of the down time. Poor Abby hardly got to take a full nap the whole trip because we were always on the road. But she was such a trooper and we realize even more now how blessed we are to have such an easy-going, wonderful baby! Here are some of the things we did.

One of my cousins just happened to be getting married the same weekend we were in SLC, so I got to see cousins I haven't seen in 15 years!

We thought these two pictures would be good for Abby to see when she's older.

We went exploring around Heber and saw some interesting things. Utah's not quite like Texas.

The Concerts

Our concerts went great and we were well-received. We performed at the American Fork Tabernacle, (which is like a stake center for us) and at the Performance Hall on Temple Square. There were at least 400 people in attendance at the Hall, which is the largest audience we've ever had. That was exciting! On Sunday we all went to Music and the Spoken Word and afterward, Craig Jessup, the conductor of the Mo Tab spoke with us. We were in awe, because he is one of our idols in the choral world.

This is Craig giving high praise to Dave, our director.

Grandparents

We had a great time staying with Grandma and Grandpa Edwards. We were so glad that they got to meet Abby and we really enjoyed the time we spent with them.

They live in the Heber valley and this is the view from their front porch.

I'm not sure I could live there, however, because of the ever-present cow and horse smell.

We also got to visit the McMurdie Grandparents who are living in an excellent nursing home in Salt Lake. They aren't doing so well, so Brian felt it really necessary to spend time with them, because we never know if it will be the last time we see them or not. Grandpa was enthralled with Abby. He wouldn't eat his lunch and insisted on playing and holding her. It was SO cute!

Choir Tour

We're headed off to Salt Lake City next week for our Evening Song "Tour." We're super excited cause we get to sing on Temple Square. This is our biggest gig yet and we hope to impress. We'll make sure to post lots of pictures. Meanwhile, listen to two of my favorite Evening Song songs.

http://media.putfile.com/I-Will-Not-Leave-You-Comfortless

http://media.putfile.com/My-Heart-is-Longing-To-Praise-My-Savior

Sigh

Thank goodness I haven't spent a lot of money on new toys for Abby, cause she would rather play with my stuff. Her toys are interesting to her for a few minutes but then she gets bored with them. However, I can give her a ladel or an empty bottle and she'll play for ever with it.
Poor, lonely toys.



Abby's real friends... A cup, cooking spoon, belt, hairbrush and mixing bowl.

Pooped

We went to playgroup this morning which was at the pool in our neighborhood this time. Since it's so close we walked there and back. We had a great time swimming and talking to our friends but I guess I really wore her out.

TV Ban

In efforts to improve ourselves and our quality of life, Brian and I have decided to try no TV for a week. A month ago we downgraded the number of channels we get on Dish and so we lost a lot of programming including Brian's beloved ESPN. Since then we've watched less TV and so we thought we'd challenge ourselves and see what our lives would be like without it completely. We've gone three days without it so far and I think I'll survive. It's the summer anyway and nothing is on. Who knows... maybe this will turn out to be a permanent thing... gulp.

Anyway, I think I'm gonna need a good book to read. Anyone got any recommendations? Something happy and non-depressing, please.

Block Captains

Brian and I were asked by the HOA to be the block captains for our street. The duties of a block captain include getting to know the people on your street, encouraging neighbors to get to know each other, inform others of the neighborhood watch program, etc. An easy job, but we're excited to do it! We feel that getting involved in our community will give us ample opportunities to make friends and share the gospel with others.

I'm also serving on the Social Events Committee for the HOA as well, which I'm super excited about! I love planning parties! Our cute little street... okay. Maybe not with all the construction, but some day...

Toofers

Abby and I like to do our own photo shoots every once in a while. She's a good subject to practice my photography on.

Abby's second tooth is about to pop through! I think she smiles differently since she got those teeth. Show off...

Of course, every photo shoot ends up this way.

Crabby Abby

All was well on the McMurdie Farm yesterday until Abby woke up from her afternoon nap. She was inconsolable for about an hour. She was in so much pain from her throat. She was also super hungry but it hurt to eat. So I called Brian's sister, Jill, who was a pediatric nurse and she told us what to do to make her comfortable. Then Brian's brother who lives down the street came and helped give her a blessing. She calmed down for the blessing and didn't cry at all after that. It was a relatively peaceful night. aah..... What would I do without the Priesthood?

I thought after her fourth dose of medicine that she would be pretty much pain free, but I guess not. She still doesn't feel good and she's super grouchy and will cry at the drop of a hat. I just put her down for a nap and she cried herself to sleep, which she never does. I'm so afraid what she's going to be like when she wakes up. It breaks my heart to see her this way and I just want to make everything better! I want my sweet, happy Abby back.

This is a picture of her this morning...before she turned crabby.

Fever, Tempests and Skewered Meat

Last night Mom took all of the girls and their hubbies to Texas de Brazil. The food there is brought around to the tables by guys in gaucho pants carrying skewers of meat. Mmmmm! Good! We should do that more often... but maybe at McDonalds next time. It was quite a tab.

In the middle of dinner we got a call from Mark and Michelle who were babysitting Abby. They said she had a fever, which was total news to us! They said she wouldn't eat her food and was fussy so they checked her temp. and it was 100.2. She was totally normal the whole day, happy and wiggly, so I didn't think anything was wrong. Abby's never been sick or had a fever before, except for when she got her first set of shots, so I was worried about her through the rest of dinner. We took her to an urgent care place today cause her fever peaked to 102, and guess what? She has STREP! Generally babies don't get strep, but ours did. Woo hoo. So I gave her the medicine today (1 tsp is a LOT!) and I guess I gave it to her too fast cause she threw it up everywhere, plus probably everything she had eaten that day. Never a dull moment. Gratefully she still seems like her entergetic normal self, which makes us believe that she's not in a lot of pain.

Along with dinner, Mom had a suprise for all of us. My grandpa who just passed away was an aspiring artist when he was younger, but none of us had ever seen his artwork. So Mom copied one of his oil paintings and had it framed for each of us. Wasn't that thoughtful? The title of it is "Master, the Tempest is Raging."

Horror Story

I THINK nature is out to get me. There have been some literal "freak of nature" occurances at our house lately and it's really disturbing.

Okay, so first it was the ants. I guess with it being so hot outside they're really bad this year, but we didn't think we had to worry too much cause we have a new house. Wrong. We got ants in the kitchen, so Brian fixed that and we made sure to keep the house super clean so they wouldn't be attracted to anything we left out.

I WOKE up one morning this week and reached for a pillow (that was left on the floor overnight) only to discover hundreds of ants all over it! The only thing I can think of is that sometimes we feed Abby on our bed, and formula must have dripped on to the pillow and that's what they were after. Anyway, Brian was at work, and so I had to take care of it... I don't think I will ever be the same person again after that... Oh, it was awful!

Since then we've had the whole house treated so I hope nothing like that ever happens again.

THEN we noticed mud on the door frame leading from the garage to the house. We didn't think much of it until I walked out (the day of the ant occurance) and saw a wasp building a nest out of those little mud splashes. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. I HATE wasps because of some traumatic childhood experiences so I wasn't happy about that. Brian knocked them down and we wiped it clean. But guess what? When we came back from practice last night, that evil wasp had started all over again with the mud splats. What is it with that door frame? What is it with this house? I swear we've never done anything to nature deserve the bad karma.