A few things I love about Breanne right now...

1. If I ask her to blow her nose, she does! No more trying to sneak up on her and wipe her nose... she does it all on her own. So wonderful.

2. If she falls and gets "hurt," all it takes is a kiss to make it all better. Even if it probably did hurt, a kiss makes everything better. It's so easy, it feels like cheating.

3. She says "cheese" when anyone points a camera in her direction. A few examples of this:





And then just a few other funny shots from the same sitting--Breanne thought she fit in her new baby doll seat that she got for Christmas, so I let her try it out...



She seemed to like it when I told her she looked like a turtle with a shell on its back...


And then we noticed the tag on the back, so we found something else to do. :) Fun, fun girl.

Our First Fire

So last year Cory's family moved out to Utah from New Hampshire, and they built a house out here. Their old house had a wood burning fireplace, but their new one is gas, so they didn't need their pokers and things anymore. Which was great for us, because we bought a house with a wood burning fireplace.

So yesterday we drove up to Cory's parents house, and picked up the pokers and things. We left pretty early, because the weather looked a little bit threatening, but decided to stop at Smith's on the way home to get some firewood so we could light our first fire. We'd already bought a Creosote Sweeping Log (which basically cleans out your chimney and helps prevent unwanted fires), but you were supposed to burn a real fire first, then the CSL, so we needed wood.

When we went in to Smith's, it was just cold outside, and a little overcast. When we came out maybe 8 minutes later, however, there was probably an inch of hailish-snow-rain on the roads. We got home as quickly as we safely could, and proceeded to start our fire. We were able to burn our first fire, and then we started the CSL. I kid you not--not 5 minutes after we read the instructions for and started the CSL, our power went out, for 3 hours. Normally we would've been stuck in a cold house with just some candle light, and one tiny flashlight (which, thank heavens, we had also needed in the fire starting process (to look up the chimney) so I had already found down in the basement where Jake left it...). Instead of that rather miserable and boring scenario, however, we had a happy warm little house (or at least front room) with a cosy fire to provide both light and warmth. Way to go, Cory! Good call on the fire.

This was my first wood fire ever (besides at camp and stuff) so I took a few pics for you--sorry they're a little blurry, but they were taken without a flash by firelight, so the exposure took a few seconds...


If you're wondering about the weird way the fire seems to be shooting out to the sides, it's because of the CSL, we think--the fire burned really big and bright while that was going. It calmed down some when we were using normal logs.


Doesn't our house look warm and cosy? I love it! I also took a picture of this scene with the flash on, and you would not believe the mess it was. I much prefer this picture.

New Bad Dream

So this morning when I woke up, it was in the middle of an awful dream. I was in a college level (I think) English course with my 8th grade English teacher, and we were taking a timed reading comprehension test. Now, normally, I aced reading comprehension--those were always my best on the SAT's and stuff. To make it even easier, we were using these books either used by fourth graders, or four year olds--I can't remember. In this dream, however, everyone else in the class finished, while I was only 1/4 of the way through. I FAILED! After the test was over, I learned that I hadn't listened to all of Mrs. Hunter's instructions, and she had actually given us a way to look up the answers in a different book at the back of the book I was using... imagine my embarrassment. We went on to have a retest for myself and one other girl in the class, but still I couldn't find the answers--I could hardly read, and I just didn't understand what I was supposed to be doing.

It all felt strangely like a MacHeist I didn't understand.

Anyway, this is the stuff (sort of...) my nightmares are usually composed of--I graduated in English over 2 1/2 years ago, but I still dream about signing up for classes that I then forget to attend, and miss tests, or get lost in. And now add to that list fail tests that are way below the level of comprehension I should be at. Sometimes I joke that my husband is my worst nightmare, because he does fail classes or miss tests occasionally on accident... the idea of failing terrifies me, I guess. It's probably good that we ended up together so that he can help me break that fear down a little. Or something like that.

Red Hair

Mandi asked about Breanne's red hair--no, Cory's is definitely not red, and though people like Cory's mom will tell you otherwise, neither is mine. (She claims it has a red tint to it...I'm just not so sure, though). Breanne does, however, have 5 aunts on Cory's side, 4 of whom have red(ish) hair. They all grew up as red heads, and as they've gotten older, some of it has faded to a more brunette look, while others have kept it:



It's said that it has to come from both sides, though, which is pretty much beyond me... Stu grows some red in his beard, I guess, and my dad has some cousins with red hair, but that is about as close as it gets to me.

I have to be honest, though, I have loved having a red-head--she gets so much attention everywhere we go, which has been so fun. I worry, though, about all the red-head stereotypes... there's always someone to tell us how much trouble we're going to have on our hands in a few years... She's already pretty darn stubborn, but hopefully she'll just stay as sweet as she is (most of the time) now.

Breanne doing some of her other favorite things. That include clothing. Sheesh.

Showing me what the chicken does...notice the chicken in her hand.


Sticking out her tongue.


Saying Cheese!


Singing along with "Old McDonald."


Lining up the monkeys on the bar...obviously they don't belong in the barrel.

A Picture of our House

So Stu won't have any trouble figuring out which one it is when he finally comes to visit me...

30% Less Plastic

So we've been buying bottled water to drink for a while now (something about the combination of having 80 year old pipes running through our house and the construction going on downstairs), which has been nice. I really enjoy just being able to grab a bottle when I'm running out of the house, or doing whatever, and not having to worry about leaving a cup lying around the house. I usually just buy what's on sale, and have generally liked the water just fine. This last time I bought it, though, I got the Arrowhead brand. I didn't expect anything different of them-cheap water bottles are cheap water bottles, in my mind. Turns out, though, that their "bottle looks and feels different because it is purposely designed with an average of 30% less plastic to be easier on the environment."


Cool, right? I'm all for saving the environment. Except that what this really means is that the bottles are way thinner than other bottles, so every time I go to open a new one, I end up squishing out some of the contents, usually all over myself, or my bed, or the stroller, or the car...or whatever.

Not that it's a terrible thing, I mean, it's just water. But still--they should at least have one part of the bottle sturdier than the rest so I can hold onto it there while I'm opening it. I'm ok with 25% less plastic, if it means not spilling all over myself.

Cory will tell you that they're fine, by the way. He's magic.

Because I figured out how to post pictures...

So Breanne loves bathtime...especially with a washcloth. Ahh, the simple pleasures.





She'd stay in the tub all night if she could, I think.

Update to "Why I Was Awake..."

Well, things are looking up...ish. To respond in the order of my original post--

Cory found a stray unisom pill sitting on the counter, so I was finally able to sleep, and I got more pills, so I'm feeling much better. Even with all the puking, though, pregnancy is worth it. I'm so excited to have another little girl! Now if only we could figure out what to name her...

The car is fixed and running better than it did before the incident (it should be, because we replaced the bearing that we knew was going bad before). And the fix wasn't outlandishly expensive, either. Not cheap by any means, but not unbearable. We can handle it, at least.

I haven't had any nightmares since the Christmas tree fire ones (not to say that I won't have more weird dreams in the near future, as Brandon said, "pregnancy is weird," and it does weird things to all parts of your body, including your mind. But that's entirely ok with me. Again, it's worth it.)

And Cory is a really great husband who tries really hard not to take up the whole bed--it only happens occasionally. And I certainly would prefer to sleep curled up in a corner if it meant sleeping next to him over not being by him.

Yes, I'd say things are looking a little bit better in my mind.

Blogging Question

So sometimes I want to respond to the comments left on my blog--what is the protocol for that? I mean, do I just leave comments on my own blog? Or do I respond to the person more directly? Especially if it isn't extremely pertinent to the post--I'm just not sure if I should post them on here, or what. Still learning the space that is my blog, I guess.

And as for the html stuff--really what I want to do is change the background color of my blog--I like the green on top, and the white under the writing is fine, but I'd like to do something with the grey background underneath it all, but there isn't a way to do that with the theme I picked. Maybe I'm just stuck. (Cue for Stu to tell me to use WordPress or something.)