Just Ducky

Just Ducky...

I just love this little dress of Delphia's. It got mixed up in her closet with some bigger sizes and so she wore it for the first time today. Her Aunt Amanda bought it for her and I just love the duck pockets!

Shane even got a couple of cute smiles out of her.

Shane and Delphia are taking their Sunday nap and I need to go scrapbook. I want to get a page or two done today because this next week is going to be busy! Tomorrow, Tuesday and Wednesday I am going to Salt Lake, Thursday Delphia has her 2 month appointment, I have an appointment with the podiatrist on Tuesday, Shane works late on Tuesday, we need to go grocery shopping on Thursday and my mom and I are going to the BlueGoose Boutique on Thursday. Whew!

I am searching for some apple recipes since my parents sent quite a few home with me yesterday since they got a case for 25 cents a pound. I'm in a baking mood, so I thought I would try something new!

A Late Boo!

Yesterday was a fun Halloween. I spent the day at my moms visiting with her and my sister and Ruby. I made sugar cookies in the morning (I really shouldn't have made them!) They are one of the things that I can't resist eating and eating and eating. It was fun though. We had little bats, pumpkin and ghost cookies. Delphia wore her Halloween outfit that my mother-in-law bought her. Shane thought it was cheesy, but I thought it was cute. I really didn't think dressing up a 2-month old was going to be an easy thing. Here are some pictures of Delphia:

Shane took the pictures while I was making the cookies. It was a good thing he took them early or we wouldn't have gotten pictures at all. She was sitting in her chair cooing during dinner and just being smiley (which is unusual for her since she had the hiccups). She started crying her fake cry and I would talk to her and she'd smile. Shane was on his way home from work since they gave him the option to leave early. I finally picked her up when she wasn't just whimpering and realized that she was poopy and she was leaking through her outfit. I went down to change her and unsnapped her outfit and she has poop halfway up her stomach, up her sides, basically everywhere! My first thought was,"Where is her dad?" He got home shortly after and helped me clean her up. However, the outfit and onesie were a total loss!

The Finishing Touch

I finally have a minute to sit and finish my post from earlier today, so where should I begin......

Let me start with my finishing touches for the day. Delphia would only nap in her bouncy chair this afternoon so I sat down to scrapbook and got a good start on a page. She was happy after she woke up so I put the finishing touches on the page, and here it is:

The next finishing touch has been in the works for 7 years. How to make the perfect finishing touch for a lemon cake. Shane loves 7-minute frosting and I can't make it like his grandma. I saw Paula Deen make it awhile back and looked up her recipe and Shane and I made a lemon cake tonight and he told me it was just like his Grandma's. Look at the finished product:

Here's the recipe:

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar or 1 tablespoon white corn syrup
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup water
2 egg whites
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Place sugar, cream of tartar or corn syrup, salt, water, and egg whites in the top of a double boiler. Beat with a handheld electric mixer for 1 minute. Place pan over boiling water, being sure that boiling water does not touch the bottom of the top pan. (If this happens, it could cause your frosting to become grainy). Beat constantly on high speed with electric mixer for 7 minutes. Beat in vanilla.

It was really easy, except Shane said it was frying his hand off from the steam coming out of our makeshift double boiler.

The final finishing touch for the night is that Delphia is in bed and sleeping soundly! She went to bed at 8:45 and was exhausted. Parts of the day have been rough and parts have been really good. I guess it's all about the little successes (like 8:45 bedtimes)!

We took these pictures at my mom's the other day and they make me smile. Ruby is so cute with Delphia and loves to hold her. She likes to tell me if Delphia needs me, she shares her cold (blanket) with her, hands her the binkie and just is so sweet with her! Her favorite phrase is, "She sad?" always with a questioning voice. I love it when I get to see her and her mom.

Just What I Almost Needed...

Last night I went to check the mail when we got home and I was surprised to find 2 Parents magazines in the mailbox. On the way into the house I was reading the cover and as I was reading I was getting really excited to read the magazine because a lot of it applied to me. It talked about the latest burping techniques, what to do when your house feels like a swamp and when wipes are just too small. I thought it was weird that there wasn't a real baby on the cover. This is what it looked like:

I opened it up to read about burping since Delphia is a really hard baby to burp, only to realize that it was a fake cover as an advertisment. It kinda upset me because the real magazine wasn't nearly as interesting.

This is Delphia's frog outfit from Costco by Little Me. She cracks me up! Yesterday she was wearing this and I was making dinner, so she was sitting in her carseat and she was as happy as could be. Ashley was watching her and she said, "She's watching her feet." I started watching her and sure enough she had noticed the cute little frogs on her feet and was wiggling them all around and just a grinnin'.

Delphia loves her bouncy chair. She sits in it while I eat breakfast. I watch her and talk to her while I eat. She has just started to notice the spiders that go up and down and she will just sit there and grin. She is a really happy baby in the morning. I grabbed the camera this morning because she was just smiling and grinning and the second she saw it no more smiles. What a baby!

She has just finished smiling in this picture. She sure was a happy baby most of the day, especially for being up at 6 and not napping, and not going to bed until 9:45.

Well, off to bed....

Here Comes the Snow!

Here Comes The.....SNOW

This is what we woke up to this morning! We were supposed to get snow yesterday and we only got a little rain. I woke up this morning and looked out the window and this is what I saw!

Delphia doesn't really like tummy time at all! We lay her on her stomach and she either cries or just lays there and sucks on her hands. We can't even get her to lift her head. My mom says it's normal and that all babies do things own their own time table. She will lift her head off our shoulder and look around and she's pretty good at holding her head up, just not when she is on the floor.

This Saturday is our Super Saturday. They had a lot of fun projects planned. I signed up to do a tile with a monogrammed vinyl "F" and Freeman underneath, a FHE book with ideas for the whole year and a stitchery. My mom is going to come down and spend a couple hours.

Our lesson in Relief Society was really good. It was on Women and their role. She played this song by Hilary Weeks, which really went with the lesson and spoke volumes to me, paticularly as a new mom.

I know you wonder if you'll ever have a day
When the kids stay calm, the laundry's done and the dishes are put away
And sometimes you feel like your days are spent and gone
And the question running through your mind is what have i gotten done?
And when you finally have a moment to slow down
At the end of your day
I know Father would say

Believe in what you're doing
Believe in who you are
Hold tight to the truth that you're a daughter of God
Believe in who you're becoming
Believe in who you are

It may seem simple--all the little things you do
But the lives you touch matter so much
And there's no one else like you
And Father needs you to stand tall and faithful
To be all you can be
Oh, if you could see what He sees, you'd...

Beleive in what you're doing
Believe in who you are
Hold tight to the truth that you're a daughter of God
Believe in who you're becoming
Believe in who you are

When it's hard to believe in yourself
And you feel like you're beginning to doubt
Remember...

He believes in what you're doing
He believes in who you are
Don't lose sight of the truth that you're a daughter of God
That He believes in who you're becoming
He believes in who you are

Pumpkin Cookies and Blessing Pictures

Yesterday I was at my mom's visiting with her and my sister Ashley and we decided to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. One of my favorites, but since Shane doesn't like pumpkin I never make them. We used this recipe:

Wendy Sue's Pumpkin Cookies
1 cube butter
1 C brown sugar
¼ C white sugar
2 eggs
1 C pumpkin (canned)
1 t lemon extract
2 C flour
2 t cinnamon
½ t salt
½ t cloves
½ t nutmeg
½ t ginger
1 t baking soda
1 C nuts/chocolate chips
1 - Cream together butter, sugars and eggs
2 - Add pumpkin and lemon
3 - Sift together and add dry ingredients
4 – Add walnuts/chocolate chips
5 – Drop by teaspoon on greased cookie sheet
6 - Bake @ 400º for 12 minutes
*Makes about 28 cookies

They were delicious! We added white chocolate and dried orange flavored craisins! My mom sent a plate home and I will throughly enjoy them. I ended up eating 4 at her house yesterday! Mmmmmm! They have me craving pumpkin. I just might try Ashley's recipe for pumpkin pancakes this weekend!

We took Delphia to get professional blessing pictures done on Tuesday and she is a professional! She was so well behaved other than she kept turning her head to suck on her hands. We ended up putting a binky in her mouth and pulling it out right before they took the picture. We got 2 8x10's because we couldn't decide between the smiling one and sthe sweet angelic sleeping one. We also got 12 birth announcements free, so we sent those to great-grandmas and other family. Kiddie Kandids did a great job! All I have to do is look at the pictures and I find myself smiling!

I went to my mom's Super Saturday last week and they had this for dessert. It was excellent!

Pumpkin Cake

Crust:
1 yellow cake mix – save 1 cup for topping
1 cube butter
1 egg
grease bottom of 9 x 13 pan, press into pan

Filling:
1 lb. 14 oz. Can pumpkin
2 eggs
2/3cup milk
2/3cup sugar
2 tsp. Cinnamon
blend well, and pour over crust

Topping: 1 cup cake mix (from crust)
1/4cup sugar
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2cube margarine
Bake at 350 for 45 – 50 minutes. Serve warm or cooled w/ whipped cream.

Last night we had a jungle party at my mom's. Precious Auntie (Ashley) and Spencer were trying to entertain Delphia and the were making bird sounds and cackling. She was okay with it for a minute and then she had enough and Grandma had to take over after Ashley told Jed he needed to comfort her. I ended up shaking her rattle all the way home for the second night in a row.

These are her 8-week pictures! She is growing so fast! She thinks she doesn't need to sleep, except at night. She can be dead asleep in my arms so I lay her down and 5 minutes later she is awake. It doesn't matter if I lay her in her crib, carseat or bassinett. If I lay her in her bouncy chair she will sleep as long as it is vibrating! Hopefully, a routine is in the future! We love her, she is so much fun!

I got three new projects yesterday at Pine Needles. Just ask Shane, I am the Queen of Unfinished Projects! I just need to get fabric to do these. Maybe I should finish my other projects first, maybe....... Here is what they look like:

Here is Delphia in her girly camo outfit from Costco. Shane has just been waiting until it fits her!

These are pictures I took of her is her blessing dress for Grandma.

The Blessing Dress That Never Was and Other Misc Info....

This is the blessing dress that was......

And this is the blessing dress that wasn't......

Ever since the time I was in Young Women's I have wanted to make my daughters blessing dress out of my wedding dress. Fast forward 7 years and I finally get the oppourtunity to do so. I have a friend in the ward that made her daughters dress from her dress and when I found that out and told her I had always wanted to do that she said that she would help me. I chose a dress that I wanted to copy and she found a pattern similiar to what I wanted. We got together and cut out the pieces one day and another day we started to sew them together. Last Tuesday it was getting down to the wire since we were blessing Delphia on October 14th. We finished the dress and I just needed to hem it, add the ribbon on the sleeves and bodice and put buttons on the back. On Tuesday I took it to my mom's and she helped me hem and do the ribbon.

It was then that I noticed the collar was starting to fray in 3 places. I didn't know how to fix it other that cut and sew a new collar. I didn't have my dress with me and I started to have a melt down because it's what I had my heart set on. My mom tried to figure out how to fix it and finaaly told me that we should just go buy a dress and that this wasn't worth stressing over.

Then it was just figuring out where one finds a blessing dress, especially because I am picky and wanted it really simple, with NO LACE! My mom suggested White Elegance or the Jordan River Temple Clothing Center. We went and looked on the White Elegance website and found a couple that were reasonably priced that I really liked. So, we hopped in the car with the baby and headed down to see what we could find. We found a dress that I really liked and then just had to decide whether to get it in newborn or 0-3 months. We ended up going with newborn because she is still just a tiny thing!

I felt so sad that she didn't get to be blessed in the one out of my wedding dress, but I didn't have the time to fix it! My plan is to get it fixed for the next girl and to bless her in it!

This was taken yesterday at my mom's. Delphia has a ton of clothes in 0-3 months that she is just getting big enough to wear, but they are starting to get to short pretty darn fast! Shane's Aunt Mary got her this outfit.

It has a little orange jacket that goes with it and she looks so grown-up in it!

On another high note she slept through the night Wednesday night! It hasn't happened since, but it was so nice the one time! I woke up thinking that it was close to 1:00 and that she would be waking up soon to eat and I looked at the clock and it read 3:51! I woke up Shane to go check on her and she was fine. It was pretty funny because just that morning Shane said, "It will be the biggest blessing when she sleeps through the night!"

This is her 7-week picture! I still can't believe she is getting so big! She is cooing more every day and she is starting to smile! She loves to stretch, and boy does she stretch! My dad says she stretches more than any baby he has ever seen. She is the hardest baby to nurse when she wakes up in morning because she is so busy stretching that she forgets she needs to eat!

She is defintely not a binkie baby. If she wants her binkie she will take it and if she is not interested she spits it right out or makes a funny face when you try to put it in her mouth! It will be wonderful when she can find her thumb consistently as shown above! It really calms her down.

Blessing Delphia Day

Blessing Delphia Day

This is the only picture from Delphi's blessing that I took. (Oops!) No fear, we are taking her to Kiddie Kandids on Tuesday for pics in her blessing dress.

The day was wonderful and she was an angel! She is 7 1/2 weeks, but we had Stake Conference, Chloe's blessing and General Conference so it just kept getting moved back!

Shane blessed her an it was awesome. He said that he wasn't nervous, but ther was a long pause before he started because he couldn't remember how to start the blessing. He said that it finally came to him. The blessing was beautiful and Delphia didn't cry at all. When Shane sat back down he asked if I heard him mess up and I told him that I hadn't. Apparently he blessed her to be a righteous son and then hastily added daughter. I think he was a tad nervous.

We had family over afterwards for dinner. We had sloppy joes (Shane's favorite, but not mine so I never make them. He has decided that he will have to make sure Delphi likes them.), green salad, jello salad, raspberry fluff, chips, pea salad and chocolate chip cake and pineapple cookies! Whew! I was sick of cooking on Thursday when I baked the cakes, cookies, 5.5 lbs of sloppy joes and homemade bread!

After everyone left we got her in a different dress and believe it or not I got her first smile caught on film! Here it is....

then she kinda kept half smiling.....

This one is one of my favorites with her and daddy...

This next picture illustrates a cute story from the other day. We were getting ready to feed her and Shane said, "Who wants milk?" and she proceeded to do this....

She never fails to make us giggle! She brings such a sweet spirit into our home and makes it feel wonderful to be starting our little family!

You'll Laugh About This Later

On Friday my mom, sister and I were out and about and Ashley was telling us that they were going to Cafe Rio for their anniversary. I said that I wanted to do something fun next year on our anniversary because this year on our anniversary we were coming home from the hospital from having Delphia. I was telling Ashley how it was a horrible day. They released me from the hospital and we went to my mom's so that Shane could go pick up some nursing bra's. I was sitting on the couch and my mom came in and noticed that I was crying. She asked what was wrong and I in my post labor induced state proceeded to tell her that I was a horrible wife because I had just realized it was our anniversary and I hadn't told Shane so or that I loved him. Thankfully those wonderful hormones are gone now! Ashley told me that I should write about it because I would laugh about it later.

This is Delphia at 6 weeks! I can't believe how big she is getting! Life is getting back to normal and she is getting on a routine. I think she inherited my inability to take naps, as most days she gets up at 7 am and doesn't sleep until 10 pm. Then usually once a week she is so tired she will sleep all day. However, it is usually on the day Shane is home, when I already have the extra help! Oh well, I love her and wouldn't know what to do without her.

This picture was taken today, isn't she cute!

I have to share a new addiction with you. It's my new favorite breakfast with toast.

Well, I better go get the potatoes on to cook to go with our roast and finish listening to General Conference.

The ABC's Of Me!

Well, I saw this on my sisters blog and I decided that it looked kind of fun.

The ABC's of me

A-Attached or Single: Married for 7 years

B-Best friend: Shane

C-Cake or pie: Pie, I would have to say my mom's Grandma Opal's Apple Pie

D-Day of Choice: Depends on the week, as Shane has a different day off each week

F-Favorite color: Red

G-Gummy bears or worms: Gummy bears

H-Hometown: Sandy, Utah

I-Indulgence: Reading in the tub, sugar cookies, checking blogs and scrapbooking

J-January or July: January, because it's too darn hot in July

K-Kids: Delphia

L-Life is incomplete without: Books, church, family and music

M-Marriage Date: August 25, 2000

N-Number of Siblings: 4. Todd, Ashley Spencer and Dallen. I am the oldest.

O-Oranges or Apples: Apples that are nice and tart as well as crisp.

P-Phobias or Fears: Matches, fire and ferris wheels, especially the one at California Adventure.

Q-Quote:

"Teach your children when they are young and small, and never quit. As long as they are in your home, let them be your primary interest."

Gordon B. Hinckley

R-Reason to smile: Delphia is sleeping, the weater is getting cooler, dinner is made, Shane will be home in less than 4 hours and I got to watch Good Things Utah today.

S- Season: Fall, because I love the temperature and the changing leaves. I like having my windows open and the nice fresh air.

T-Tag three: Erica, Amy B and Amy G

U-Unknown facts about me: I like to eat flour by the teaspoon plain. I like instant oatmeal, better that regular oatmeal.

V-Vegetarian or oppressor of animals: A little meat and some other sides.

W-Worst habit: Leaving my clothes on the floor instead of hanging them up.

X-Xrays or Ultrasounds: Ultrasounds!

Y:Your favorite food: Cafe Rio Pork Salad.

Z-Zodiac: Virgo.

Picture Of The Day

3 Weeks!

3 Weeks

Updated pictures of the bean! The last picture cracks me up because this is how she sleeps! Even when she is awake her hands are up by her face.

Today she is 3 weeks and I can hardly believe she is that old! People say that grow up fast but I honestly didn't believe them! It seems like it was ages ago that I was even pregnant (not that I am ready to do it again anytime soon)!

It is hard to imagine that you can love a little thing so much, yet I can explain how much I love her! Last night she was fussing because she was hungry and we were driving home and Shane stopped to put to water in her bottle so I could feed her a little bit and he came out and I was just in tears because I hate it when she cries and I can't do anything about it!

Tomorrow we are going to the fall work party and everyone is excited to see her. We will just have to bundle her up since it is starting to cool down.

I found a picture of the blessing dress I want to try and recreate out of my wedding dress. I have a friend who is going to help me with it and I need to get busy since we are planning on blessing her October 14th.

Well, I better go get dinner started while Delphi is sleeping!

2 Weeks, 2 Days and Growing Like a Weed

2 Weeks, 2 Days and Growing Like a Weed

We took Delphia to the pediatrician yesterday for her 2 week check-up and amazingly enough she put on 1 lbs 2 oz from the day we brought her home! She now weights 6 lbs 11 oz and is still too little to wear her 0-3 month outfits! She also grew also 0.75 inches to 20.2 inches from 19.5 inches.

She is so much fun and just a little angel! She is especially an angel when we are at her Grandma's house. She eats good and sleeps well and then when she is at home with me she doesn't seem to be on the normal schedule. I suppose it will get there and we will keep getting used to each other and know what each other wants and means.

Well, I need to go get pineapple cookies made while she is a asleep. Shane's family is having an 80th birthday party for his grandpa tomorrow and I am supposed to bring 3 dozen cookies. I also need to give Shane a haircut tonight and figure out what we are wearing for our family picture tomorrow. I thought I had it all figured out but little Delphia won't fit in her outfit. It absolutely drowns her!