Stuff We Do Sun-Tues

Every Dang Day:  Scarlett and I sleep in 'til about 9:30. Brian leaves for school at around 9 on weekdays.  We eat breakfast, cuddle, talk, get dressed, and then do our thang til Brian gets home between 4 and 6 PM.  When I'm a good wife I have dinner ready.  Scarlett eats her dinner of Whole Grain Baby Cereal, immediately followed by a bath.

 You can see why.

Sunday:      Get this cutie all ready for church so dad can take pictures of her while mom gets ready.

 And let her take pictures of herself too, apparently.

Church 11:00-2:00. Best time ever. This picture is a little treasure we found up on lds.org from our first ward as a married couple.  Love Brian's beach waves.

Come home, snuggle, nap, eat, and Skype family.  Sunday is my favorite day.

Monday: Do the laundry, run the dishwasher, clean the house, run errands. Ya know, stupid Monday stuff.

 This makes Scarlett impatient.  This girl thrives on attention.

So nap time is nice for Mondays.

 This is when I usually get in a nice baby jogger 5k in or go bike at the gym behind my house. U-Ber convenient.

 Oddly, she likes to watch me exercise more than do housework. Similar interests, I guess.

       When Brian gets home we do a makeshift FHE.  Sometimes that means a super cute lesson from the Nursery Manual. Sometimes that means we make cookies.  Sometimes that means we watch The Voice and make fun of Christina Aguilara.

Tuesday: Board the bus as soon as we're packed and ready for the gym downtown.  We have a Free CamBus spot right next to our apt since we live in Campus Housing.  It is AWESOME. 

 We usually get to the CRWC around 11:30 which gives me time to warm up a little or take pictures of the beautiful 4 story gym for this very blog post.

Sometimes there are collegiate divers on Tuesdays and we applaud them secretly from our high window on the 3rd floor.

 The climbing wall freaks me out.

Sooo many cardio machines.

At noon, we head over to Activity Room 3 for Mat Pilates.  Scarlett really blossoms there, probably because she gets so much attention.  Everyone in the class coos at her and compliments me on her behavior/clothing, and our instructor Emily tells me its great having her.  Soooo...we keep coming.  Plus I'm getting super strong.

 

 After class, we usually head downstairs to the leisure pool and swim until it closes at 1:30.  Scarlett is pretty fearless in the water.  I am proud.  

Then we hop back on the bus and take a much deserved nap at home. Scar often falls asleep on the bus.

Tuesday evening is volleyball night.  I play in a city league with some ladies in my stake,  they are so fun!  We have never won yet, but we're getting a lot better with practice.  I'd say I'm a pretty happy loser. Don't know if that's a good thing.

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In efforts to make you stay awake while reading my blog, I will continue my incredibly exciting Stuff-we-do week in my next post...

The Water "Diet"

Hello.  Today I am feeling accomplished because I just cleaned my kitchen, vacuumed my house, and drank 4 tall glasses of water.   For me, getting caught up on housework is like finishing a busy, but smooth shift in the lab or doing well on a test I was ready for.  It gives me a sense of skill and purpose. I'm not saying I love to clean, but it brings me a very ooh la la satisfaction to hang about in a tidy house.

Scarlett helping me fold (and eat) the laundry

Pants on her head. She is so smart.

I also want to brag about my bravery for vacuuming up a huge dead spider Brian fearfully killed last night. Its curled, hairy legs gave me the heebie-jeebies. To me, dead spiders are just as creepy as live spiders are. I'm afraid of killing them- what if their guts splurge out unto your hand or your shoe or your face?!? OR worse, if they have hundreds of tiny spider babies ready to flee the death scene?!  Ughh......it makes me shutter to (re)picture the latter. I must confess that there is a smashed spider on our old apt ceiling that I never had the courage to wipe off.  It was just one of those little opaque ones, but still....sorry Blake and Zoey.  I pray it will never loose its stickiness and fall down as dust onto your heads.

Anyways, the subject of this post was not intended to tell you about how much I love vacuuming or about Brian's cute healthy dose of arachnophobia, although both are true as blue. I wanted to talk about my drinking 4 tall glasses of water, and I am just getting started, baby.

Water

Brian loves to chug it. I love to swim in it. Scarlett likes to kick it and splash it around and suck it up until she chokes on it for longer than is necessary.  I think she thinks she is cute when she coughs.  I also think she is right.

 Point is, I don't drink enough. I believe the suggested amount for an adult to drink is 8 eight-oz glasses per day. 64 oz total.  Not 100% sure, but I Googled it. So, as of Oct. 9th, I have dedicated a new goal to drink at least 64 oz. a day.  IN THE NAME OF HEALTH.  Plus, I have been genetically blessed with high cholesterol and a love of all things eaten so it may help me balance my diet quite nicely. Ya know, like drink more water and eat less crap.

Scarlett enjoying her healthy baby cereal. Little nutritionist.

I figured this would be a good time in my life to really develop some good eating/drinking habits. I am
the head homemaker and nutrition provider in this little home away from home.  And I want me and mine to be healthy. I love to exercise, and I always have, but the word "diet" makes me depressed.  My diet is basically eat all the good stuff for you and then you can eat the not so good stuff. Win-win-win. However I have done some silly things like:DON'T eat after 7:00 PM and DON'T eat desserts unless its Sunday. It didn't really work. Let me tell you, those things led to some glorious guilt eating, all that emphasis on what I wasn't supposed to do and made those bad habits all the more tempting.

Scarlett and I waiting for Pilates at the Gym. She has a very strong core.

So I decided to start here, by DOing something: drinking more water every day. Brian has already turned it into a competition, which His Mighty Thirstiness will definitely win, but I'mma try to hit my goal of 8 glasses a day.  I'm already feeling pretty good after a day and a half. More thirsty, in fact. I have had some incredible urges to urinate at inconvenient times, but nothing I haven't handled before.  I mean, I was pregnant once.

So if you'd care to join our competition, let me know.  It'll give me more people to beat because my spouse is unbeatable, unless we're competing in a spider kissing competition.






























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Scarlett in Words

Loves to cuddle. In fact, she usually refuses to sleep unless we are. (We are cuddling right now while I type one-handed).
Gets really talkative when she's sleepy.
Talks like a screechy baby dinosaur.
Eats everything.  Except her newborn cereal we've tried twice so far.  She eats the spoon, though.
Sucks on her toes.
Laughs, rarely.  It has been a several days since she's laughed. Brian and I aren't as funny anymore:(.
Smiles with her eyes, just like me.  It amazes me that she can still see when she smiles.  From experience and close observation, I know she can. 
Loves plastic and wrappers.
Loves to scratch her nails on the side of her carseat, her bed, pillows, her head.
Grabs really hard.  She grabbed and squeezed my throat skin the other day. Talk about painful. (Please, no throat skin jokes allowed. You know you have grabbable neck fat, too).
Broke the new necklace I just bought.  Will be fixed with super glue.
 Loves bath time and splashing.
Turning into a Momma's Girl.  Sometimes she cries until I, alone hold her and give her 100% attention.  Uh oh.
Wears 3-6 months size clothing.  Size 3 diapers. Weighs 15 lbs. Wakes up twice a night to eat.
Will NOT fall asleep without her binky. Naps 4 to 5 times a day.
Lost almost all of her newborn hair. She has 3 or 4 long whisps and the rest is growing in as light brown peach fuzz.
Baby blue eyes.
Chunky legs, skinny arms.
Cutest Bum.
Big head.
Super cute, happy baby girl.

Scarlett (& Friends) in Pictures

Look Who's Laughing Now

    Brian and I were enjoying some television and chemistry homework one night when Scarlett cooked up a nice poopy diaper for me to change.  We were both pretty focused on our tasks at hand when Scar did something she'd never done before.  A low belly laugh escaped out of  her binky sucking baby mouth. 
     Brian and I looked up and uttered excitedly, "Did you hear that!? Was that what I think it was?"   I looked down and egged her on to laugh again.  It was the coolest, cutest, heart-meltingist thing I have ever seen and heard simultaneously. She has a knack for drama; she definitely caught us by surprise. Scarlett usually smiles at me and enjoys getting a nice bum whipe-down, but I didn't think it would be so fun she'd laugh out loud. Maybe her little cheeks are ticklish.
    Now Brian and I dance and giggle night and day trying to get her to laugh. It is tricky.  She has to be in the perfect well-fed well-rested mood, and even then we're lucky if we can get her laughing.  Now its a competition between us, and I think I'm winning. I don't mind that it's rare because it makes it more exciting, but it is also very addictive. Baby laughter is like a parent's abused prescription drug (Using Meth as a metaphor would have been overkill. If you watch Breaking Bad, you understand). 
    I love that kid.

Wilson's Orchard

Rows and rows of 120 different apple varieties.  Awesome.

We went to this Apple Orchard a couple miles outside Iowa City with some friends (even though we didn't get a picture of them, the Johannsons are real). You just park your car and "Take a Walk, Eat an Apple."  Then you wait in an enormous line to purchase all the apples you picked and haven't eaten already and  buy some amazing apple cider donuts that we wished we bought in bulk.

I was bee patrol while Scarlett sucked on her apple cores.

   After we bought too many apples, we took a ride around the orchard on Ol' Bessy, the tractor & trailer.  We almost got eaten by the apple-gator when we got "stuck" in the creek. Scarlett was so scared, she fell asleep. It was a great time.

I'd eat my apple until I got bored of that kind, or until the bees started competing for it.

Stopped for Scarlett's lunch. Her belly's too full to fit her shirt over it, apparently.