Family Pictures

One of our anniversary traditions is to take family pictures. I like having them, and I think it will be really cool to have lots of them over the years. We want to take some of just us too. This year it was a little chaotic getting them done, but I think we are both still glad we did it. Hopefully after we've done this 10 times, we'll know the best places and the best deals and what kind of things we like in our pictures.

JC Penney emailed us all the shots we took and said we could post them. So here they are. (As a disclaimer, the photographer makes up different possible sheets with the pictures. We really only picked a few of these. Some of them are really cheesy. Those aren't the ones we picked. Just so you know.)

Happy Anniversary!!!

I see a lot of you blogger friends posting anniversary greetings to your spouses on your blog. I am just a little slow, but here's mine. (Our anniversary was Monday, the 26th.)

Happy Anniversary Matt!!! I love you!!!

We were too busy on the actual day to bother with blogging so now it is time to tell you all about our wonderful anniversary.

Here is a slideshow of engagement/ wedding pictures as well as pictures from our first anniversary. There aren't actually any pictures of our second anniversary. We forgot to bring our camera so we borrowed my mom's, but then we were too busy playing and rushing around to use it.

More Rememberful and the Voice of the Persians

Matt and I know better than to try to have a good scripture study late at night. Yet we often find ourselves not getting around to scripture time until it is late. Tonight was just such an occasion. And here the result:

To give a little background, we like to start out scripture study with a song and a prayer. Matt always remembers the song, but pretty often he forgets about the prayer. So I remind him. Tonight when that happened, he told me that I was a better person than he was (which just isn't true.) I replied that instead I was more rememberful than he was. It was one of those things that slides right off your tongue and THEN you think about it. And we happened to think it was a funny thing to say. (It's past 11. Maybe it won't be as funny if you are reading this in the middle of the day.)

A little bit later (after we had our prayer) Matt was taking his turn reading. This was one of the nights that he managed to be more sleepy and incoherent than me. We take turns. This meant that I was the one in charge of keeping us awake and moving forward. So I was following along as he read, perhaps a little bit in lala land I confess, when I heard something out of the ordinary:

Mosiah 24:13 in Matt's Book of Mormon apparently reads - "And it came to pass that the voice of the Persians ..."

I interrupted, the voice of what?

He confirmed that he had in fact said Persians.

Now if you are wondering where on earth that came from, you are not alone. What in the world? He comes up with funny things when he is sleepy.

Like the time in our prayer before bed when he told the Lord that he was thankful for spreadsheets. At the time I was caught off guard and amused, but I managed to maintain reverence. The next day, when I told Matt what he had said - of course he didn't remember - we were hysterical. I could barely say it.

So this is what happens when the Parks stay up too late.

He did it again!

Can I just tell you all that Matt rocks! His awesome cake batter cookies have won another contest. This time it was a cookie contest at work. He said there were about 15 entries, and his won!!! Our prize is 4 day passes to Lagoon. Sounds super fun to me!!! I am so proud if him. He's awesome!

My Two Favorite People

Amy and her Towel

Boring meetings & consequences

So the following is the consequence of multiple boring meetings at work. I'd started many full-paper size mazes like this in High School, but never got around to finishing them. I'm proud to have finished this one. Take a whack at it - it's a good, hard, fun one! (There's no easy trick like "always choose the right" or anything - it's much more sincere than that!) Enjoy!
(I recommend you download it, print it off, and use a colored pencil.)





(This was my first maze. My second one is here.)

Funny Kid Pictures

I read Baby Center stuff. Sometimes it just goes on and on, and I think it is rediculous. Other times I find it helpful. I saw this photo gallery today and thought it was funny. However, a lot of these pictures of "bad mommy" moments show scenes that I think are perfectly ok. I would let my kid play in the suitcase before or after a trip for instance. I think that if moms are feeling guilty for some of these kinds of things that is sad. I like to let Amy do whatever she wants that is safe for her and for important objects in our home. Not that I want to always indulge her, but I think that sometimes if you have to choose between a spotless house and a child who is having a good time, forget cleaning and make a big mess together while playing.

(By the way, my mother is a huge advocate for playing fun things with children. She was a lot of fun to have as a mom when I was a kid - still is really - and is even more fun as a Grammy. She is where I get a lot of my belief system. I'd love for my children to have as happy a childhood as I had.)

My favorite picture is the Pooh Bear head.

This is a ...

Today and yesterday we had Stake Conference. It was great. I have to confess that my favorite part about it all was that Amy and I got to be with Matt all day! Wahoo! We even walked to and from church together. It made me really happy. Tonight we decided that we wanted to play with Amy and focus on her for a while. We usually do that a little right before she goes to bed each night, but it's not often that both of us play with her at the same time during the day.

So I looked up in this magazine I have with ideas of games to play. And this is what we found:

We got out a bunch of stuffed animals and brought them to the living room. One of us would hold up a stuffed animal and say what its name (Matt often included English and Spanish names.) Then we would act like that animal and make the noise that it makes. Sometimes I was laughing at Matt too much to keep doing anything. He did a very good job being these animals. Amy enjoyed watching us too. Then we put all the animals in a circle with Amy in the middle. When she would crawl over to one and play with it, we would remind her what it is called.

Knee Scoots & Chipmunks

Amy is as tired as a bear in mid-January. Bonnie just put her down in her crib and she started to fuss as she rolled over onto her tummy. This is common, but usually some quick shushing and light back-rubbing calms her right back down and she's out for the night. It seemed to be working tonight as well. She rolled onto her tummy and tucked in her legs which nicely propped her bum in the air (her favorite sleeping position). However, this time she decided to not calm down as I shushed her. She promptly pushed herself up with her hands into crawling position and, realizing she would have a hard time calming down quickly whilst in this position, I tried to remedy the situation. I grabbed each of her hands and pulled them forward to try and pull them out from under her, causing her to return to her favorite sleeping position. She, however, outsmarted Daddy on this one. As I pulled her hands forward, she scooted her legs forward and remained on her hands and knees. I tried again, and she continued. Next thing I knew we were all the way against the end of the crib. (It was kind of like doing a backwards, mixed-up wheelbarrow with someone.) I couldn't help but laugh and feel love for my little smarty-pants girl.

On another light note, Bonnie told me today that sometimes she says things to me because she wants to "look better in [my] eyes". I told her she was being silly and said "that's like an acorn trying to look better in the eyes of a chipmunk!" Yeah... how would that work?!

What Princess are You?

You Are Snow White!

Pure and trusting. You are a gentle soul who can get along with just about anyone. Everyone you meet instantly falls in love with you. How can they resist? You have a pure, lovable nature that's irresistable. Just don't trust everyone who comes across your path.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Thanks Tawny!
(I hope I don't sing like Snow White.)

She Did This All By Herself

We went to get Amy out of the car, and this is what we found. That was 10 minutes ago or so, and she is still sucking on her binkie like that. LOL

Happy Birthday James!

My nephew James:















had a birthday party today. Tomorrow he turns 3. So Matt, Amy, and I headed up this morning to Salt Lake to pick up my mom and then to Logan to James' house. He had over quite a few friends - there were probably 10 kids there and nearly that many adults. We had a great time.

Highlights:
Making hats
Dressups
(Samples below)



















My mom the clown (in more ways than one)



















































Hot dogs and cupcakes
Music and dancing
Musical instrument parade
Opening presents
Gift bags for all the guests.

Andy and Nita did a great job putting the party together, and we had a great time! I'm so glad we got to go!

Yes, Another Sleeping Picture

So I know I post a lot of pictures of Amy sleeping, but she has some great sleeping shots. I hope you're not sick of them. I never am. This one made me laugh a lot.

I bought Amy some new pajamas today. She is not too far from growing out of the ones she has, and I want to be ready with the next ones. In my excitement over cute new clothes, I put her in one pair of her new pajamas to sleep tonight. It's still a bit big on her. After a while of silence coming from her room - she talked a lot after I put her to bed tonight - I went in to check on her. This is what I saw:

Crazy Multitasking

My friend, Toni was over at my house for a little while today, and we started talking about the crazy things you can do while nursing a baby. I wondered out loud what the craziest thing all of you mothers have done while breastfeeding and decided to ask. Please comment so we can all know how cool you are.

Mine: Chopping onions.

I don't remember why making dinner couldn't wait, but it couldn't. And of course Amy's dinner couldn't wait. I hate chopping onions; I cry a lot. And I was a little nervous about the knife right by Amy, but we managed. She got her meal, and I finished dinner.

OK, you're turn. :)

Amy Eating

Is That Her Foot?

That's what Matt asked when he saw this picture. And the answer is ... Yes! The little white thing next to her head is Amy's foot. (She had on a pair of polka dot socks that didn't match.) How many of you can sleep that way? It looks to me that she was somewhere between sitting up and lying down - she moves easily between them these days - and just lost ability to stay awake. And she really is lying flat on that leg, not up on her knee at all (in case you can't tell.) Crazy, huh?

Our Big Girl

On Saturday we finally started Amy on rice cereal. I haven't decided how she feels about it. I'm not sure she has either. She sits there letting me put it in her mouth (when she's not too busy grabbing the spoon), but I am not sure how much actually gets swallowed. She pushes most of it back out of her mouth with her tongue. We haven't tried anything else yet although I am sure she could handle other kinds of baby food. We'll see how she likes it.

On a much more exciting note (although a little scary), Amy is crawling!!! She's only gone a few "steps," but she has begun. The cool part is we both saw her do it. For the last few days Amy has been perfecting the process of moving from hands and knees to tummy to sitting up and back and all over the place. She's also been rocking back and forth on hands and knees (my sister calls this revving up). So we knew she would officially crawling very soon. And she's off.

Working Backwards (This post is not for the faint of heart)

I am going back in time as I publish my sporadic blogging today. Last Saturday (as in 8 days ago) I slammed my finger in the door. It hurt so incredibly bad. I thought the pain would subside after a short time. It didn't. It hurt all night long. Bad. Not trying to whine, just trying to be honest. I kept waking up in the night because my finger hurt too much to sleep. Luckily Matt was here to take care of Amy. Sunday it still hurt although it was slightly better. Amy had been coughing a lot in the night so Matt requested that we stay home from church. It ended up being nice for me because I got a lot more sleep than I would have if I had gone to church, and I needed sleep.

Monday it had gotten to be a dull throbbing pain, I little tingly like being numb. A few days ago I realized I could use it and that I didn't have to cringe anymore any time someone would come near my finger. It's so nice. Now I use it as normal. However, it still looks TERRIBLE! Like ET. And I'm afraid that the fingernail is going to fall off. That grosses me out and scares me. I think it will hurt a lot again. But I think it will happen anyway. We'll see. So for now I get this swollen finger with a black fingernail. Enjoy:

The Real Reason Matt Took the Day Off

In the post below I explained how Matt took the day off work on Tuesday, and we went to Gateway Mall. Why? you might ask. Free Cone Day. Every year Ben and Jerry's does a free cone day where anyone can come get free ice cream. It has been Matt's dream for a long time to go to Free Cone Day and stay all day. We didn't really do all day (Matt's ice cream eating abilities are not what they used to be.) But we had sooo much fun. Through the course of the day, he did eat 13 ice creams. I had 6. Delicious! I didn't know it was going to be so much fun for me. Amy was great, and we had fun being with her too. It was awesome that Matt got to be on the news as well! As we were leaving, I saw a woman taking a picture of her husband and daughter by some flowers. I asked if I could take a picture for them so that she could be in it too. I didn't really look too closely as I was talking so I was quite surprised when the person I was talking to said, "That would be great, Bonnie." Then I realized that I was talking to an old pageant friend. (I'm from Manti where every summer you get the chance to hang out with lots of people from nearby towns as you all participate in the pageant.) Then I realized that her husband was another one of our pageant friends. I had no idea that they had gotten married. How crazy! It was fun to see them and catch up. Yay for random running into friends! And yay for free cone day!








When we got home from the mall, there were two ducks in my mom's yard just sitting under her tree. I was so excited! They flew away after I got two pictures because they didn't like me getting so close. We were excited to tell James who loves to go across the street from my mom's house and over a couple of houses where there is a canal with ducks to feed. Yay for ducks!

Amy Cuteness at the Gateway Mall

Here are some pictures from earlier in the week with family. Monday I drove up to Salt Lake, and Matt took the bus up after work. We had Family Home Evening with my parents and spent the night. Tuesday my Dad and my Mom went to work (a high school for Dad and an elementary school library for Mom). Mom brought Scott with her. He was teaching the kids about Antartica which he visited a year and a bit ago. Matt had the day off, and we headed over to Gateway Mall. Mom only ended up needing to work a half day so they met us at the mall. We had a lot of fun hanging out there (not something I usually say about the mall). It was just nice to have a day off.

When the Family Gets Together

Can I just say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE it when my family gets together. My sister flew to Utah (from Ohio) with her 18 month old daugther, Lillianne, on Wednesday and flew home yesterday. Her mother was presenting a lecture at Women's Conference, and she came for that. Here are the highlights of the trip:

Thursday - My brother, Scott (aka Pepe, aka Ryan, aka T.H., aka T.H.E - He really goes by lots of things and we never know what to call him) came over to my house to help me babysit Lillianne and James and Finn. My sister-in-law brought the boys and left for one class at Women's Conference. My mom and Laurel (my sister) went all morning and into the afternoon. Then we dropped the girls off at Kim's house, and Scott and I headed to Provo. I went to Laurel's mother-in-law's class (which was about forgiveness and was outstanding) and then stayed for the last session with my mom. Laurel left before the last session to go pick up Lillianne and go play with her inlaws. Matt had gone into work early so he could come home early enough to take care of Amy while I went to the last session. It was wonderful! We especially loved the musical numbers which were performed by a brother and sister duo plus accompanist. They both sang one song, and the sister played the violin in the other. They were incredible! The Batemans (currently temple president and matron) spoke about the temple. My favorite part about it was likening the temple to how our homes should be. Still working on the house of order, although I think we do pretty well at the love thing.

My mom slept over that night which always makes me happy. Scott hung out with us a little more too.

Friday - Mom went to the morning sessions of Women's Conference while I did some work at my house - preparing to spend the night at her house. That entails a lot of work and planning because I have a baby. In SLC, we bought my mom a pac n play. Mother's Day present. That was helpful because there were three babies at her house and until that time we only had our pac n play. Andy and Nita (my brother and sister-in-law) picked up Laurel and Lillie, and we spent the rest of the time playing at their house. When we got to my mom's everyone was out on the porch playing. James (almost 3) kept dancing for us as long as someone would sing and clap. It was hilarious! We played Puerto Rico 3 times in the course of the weekend. Friday night we went to the park and to a place where you can feed ducks and goats. Lillianne and Amy sat in the same swing at the park. Matt came on the bus Friday night to join us. We had a great time and stayed up too late. We always do.

Saturday - Yard Sales. Playing games. Family book club. Those were the highlights. My mom and Laurel and I have been planning all month to have family book club. We read The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks (thanks BriAnne for the recommendation) and The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery. (I'm still reading that one.) It was so fun to have this family book club since we all talk about books so much anyway!

That afternoon we took Laurel to the airport, and Andy and Nita went home. We were going to head home so Matt could do some calling stuff, but he realized there wasn't anything he really could do that evening because other people weren't available. Good for me anyway. My parents were going to a play so we decided to go mini golfing. We saw our friends Heather and Gavin there enjoying the same activity. Amy had fallen asleep in the car and was totally lethargic and mellow the whole time we golfed even though I think she was a little cold. But when we were finally ready to put her back in the car, she let us know what she really thought. It wasn't pretty. So I fed her in the car. It was a wonderful evening to end a wonderful week.

I love being with my family sooooo much. They kids are adorable and so much fun. (I love watching both my husband and my dad playing with kids. They are hilarious, and the kids just love them.) My mom is really funny too. She plans things to do just because her grandkids are coming over.

Sorry this is long. I'm gushing. But it was great! The only drawback was that I forgot to bring my camera. But Laurel got some great pictures.

Amy's New Milestone and other ramblings

I decided that today at church Amy reached a new milestone, one that many of you moms reading this are way more familiar with than I am. I explained it to Matt by calling it the first stages of the I-can't-wait-until-my-child-goes-to-nursery stage. She wasn't bothering me today. I quite enjoyed her. However, she has reached a new degree of squirminess.

Now that she can stand up next to things if you put her there or help her up with your fingers - she has pulled herself up on things without assistance a few times but doesn't have the skill mastered yet - she wants to explore more things. Like Isabelle and Eliza and also Aubrey's toys. Scratching the wall is fun since it is so scratchy. Snuggling with Mom is ok if she is really tired but it can't last forever.

In Sunday School the fun continued as she got to enjoy her toys AND Rachel's toys. Rachel was most interested in Amy's binkie (which she put in her mouth of course so I took it away.) She was content when I gave her the little clip that keeps Amy's binkie attached to her dress. So Amy pretty much had free reign on Rachel's toys. They played well enough together for a while. Amy also liked walking around a bit behind the piano. Miraculously, she slept through all but the last few minutes of Relief Society. That was a nice nap, especially since she slept over 2 hours this morning. Only problem with the super long RS nap was how sore my bottom was getting from not moving. (I was holding her throughout that nap.)

Actually I probably handled it without getting bothered because for one thing, Amy was happy almost the whole time. That was nice. Not that I was able to listen to the Sunday School lesson that much, but at least she wasn't screaming. The other reason I'm not totally worn out is because of her awesome nap this morning. I had such an enjoyable, peaceful time reading scriptures, doing a few things for my calling, showering, doing hair and make-up, etc. That's right. I wore makeup. That's how much free time I had this morning. It was great.

Totally different subject but also about today: Matt conducted Sacrament Meeting for the first time ever. He did well. He didn't stumble over any parts or switch the order of things. Nothing embarassing. He just was a little quiet. He always gets that way when he is being reverent. Only problem, some of the older people don't hear so well. Oh, and sometimes when he talks quiet he mumbles. He did great though. So as an unusual treat today, Matt was able to come home and get Amy and me and spend a little bit of time helping get Amy ready. As soon as we got to the church Matt realized that he had left his backpack at home. It had all the notes and things in it that he would need to conduct the meeting so I had to go back and get it. I know it seemed a little silly to Nancy and Andrew for me to wave as we passed them just walking out of Orchard Creek, then to wave when they were halfway to church and I was headed back home and then to get out of the car at the church right when they were arriving. Hehe. What do you do? So that was our day. Time for dinner. Yay!