Royal Wedding

All week I told Bryan I wanted to watch the Royal Wedding.  He told me A. I was crazy and B. there was a 0% chance of him watching with me.  Since sleep is very precious around here I decided not to set an alarm but just see what happened during the night.

1am- Jilly wakes up, eats, and goes back to sleep.  I check the tv and they're still doing pre-wedding show- not worth my sleep.

3am- Jilly wakes up again.  She doesn't usually wake up again so soon so I consider it a sign.  I turn on the tv just in time to see stunning Kate walking down the aisle.  At that point I had no choice but to stay up and watch the whole thing (Jillian only made it through half of the ceremony, then she gave up and fell back asleep on her mom.)  

4:30am- Kate and William arrive at Buckingham Palace and I go back to bed.

6:00am- Jilly wakes up, excited to keep watching coverage of the wedding, our day begins.

I'm sure you're dying to hear my observations (I know Bryan is)
- I LOOOOVED the dress
- When William said "for richer or poorer" in his vows Kate smiled.  Pretty sure there's not going to be too much "poorer" for this couple.
- I kept thinking of when I toured Westminster Abbey and I was so sick.  I was too tired to walk around so I just sat down and admired the magnificent church.
- Hats are fun.  I would be in full support if their popularity spread across the pond.
- I think it was the bishop who said that "every wedding is a royal wedding because we are all children of the King of Creation"- loved that quote.

Please forgive us if we are a little un-princesslike today, we're a bit tired.

Lately

Jilly is now big enough to face forward in the Baby Bjorn and she LOVES it!

It's so comfy that she fell asleep!  

Her first time down a slide

We've started giving her rice cereal- the face sums up how she feels about it

Bryan changed a diaper one day and she came back to me looking like this, she thought it was hilarious to have her pants on her head.

She's finally growing hair!! (Please tell me you see that dark fuzz on top)

(This was right before her bath, thus the jammies on the ground, naked body, and towel)

32 Third Graders

I recently read 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny by Phillip Done and I loved it!  It was hilarious, even if you're not a teacher (I tested it out on Bryan.)  And, it had me majorly missing my teaching days.  I miss pizza parties, fun read-alouds, cool technology, fifth grade crushes, classroom decorations, geography bees, dunk tanks, and warm fuzzies.  (I just realized what I used to blog about before Jillian was born!)  It's amazing how much my life has changed in a year and while I am completely satisfied with my stay at home mom life, I am so grateful for my teaching years as well.

Easter

We had a lovely Easter weekend.  Bryan's parents and his brother spent Saturday with us.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures then (I think Bryan and Jilly hid the camera from me.)  We decorated easter eggs,  played frisbee golf, and ate lots of goodies.  On Sunday we had a nice, quiet day at home.  We went to church, took a family nap, and ate a lot more goodies.  

We made these chicky cupcakes

Our lovely eggs

Some Easter Dress Pictures

Congrats

My sister Katie graduated from BYU today!  We wish we could have been there to celebrate.  She's off to save the world, one tax return at a time.

(Every recent picture we have of our family members includes Jilly, sorry guys.)

Butter Pie

Finding out as I left church at 4:15 yesterday that my brother-in-law and 2 of his friends would be at our house at 5:00 for dinner sent me into a tailspin.  My problems were numerous:

1. The dinner I had planned on would not feed 3 extra people so I had to come up with something else
2. I do all my grocery shopping on Mondays so my food supplies were seriously dwindling
3. I had a grouchy baby who can no longer sleep during church because it's way more fun to smile and play with her many admirers

Luckily I was able to get the babe down for a nap, then figure out what to feed everyone.  I decided to make our beloved Cookie Pie for dessert.  Somehow in the midst of marinating chicken, cooking pasta, and chopping tomatoes I doubled the amount of butter in the dough.  Bryan was mixing it for me and commented that it had a TON of butter.  In my frenzy I wasn't really focusing on little things like the amount of butter and said, "well, it's cookie pie- did you expect it to be healthy?"

Fast forward an hour later- we have finished dinner and I check on the cookie pie.  The oven is full of smoke as excess butter drips out of the pie and down on the burner.  That's when I finally realize my mistake.  Oops.

Want to know the worst part of the story?  We still ate it.

Growing Up

Little Jilly is growing up way to fast.

Asking for a bite of a double cheeseburger  

(don't worry, we didn't give her one!)

Spending her spare time surfing the web with dad

five months

My girl is five months old today.  Wow, time flies.  While last month was the month of her hands, this month has been the month of her feet.  She loves grabbing those ten toes and when she's lucky she can pull them all the way to her mouth for a tasty snack.  Her legs are so strong- she always wants to be standing (with help) and when she kicks or jumps watch out because it hurts!  She's discovered that her feet can splash while she's in the bathtub and get her mom soaked (so hilarious...)  She's happy and sweet as ever and still refusing to sleep more than 4 hours at a time (she just loves playing with us too much!)  We love our little Jilly Bug so much!

This month's photo shoot was the most difficult so far.  Mostly, I got pictures like this:

or this:

When we were skyping with my family on Sunday, my dad said he thinks Jilly looks like Elder Dallin H. Oaks.  While he is a wonderful man, I don't know how I feel about my baby looking like a 78 year old man.

Apparently we're big into celebrity look-alikes.  

Weekend Fun

Bryan's brother Trevor and his wife Kristen were in town this weekend so we had a lot of fun with the Martinez clan.  While the boys were off being boys we had a baby shower for Kristen.

The Martinez Ladies- Kristen is due in May which is completely unbelievable when you see how tiny she is!

Jilly with her great-grandma Martinez.  This was the third baby shower Jilly has been to; I think she's a big fan of parties.

I made a banner for the shower and a stuffed owl to go in her owl-themed nursery.  

Jilly enjoyed testing out her cousin's owl.  I made it using this tutorial.

We also celebrated Jeff and Trevor's birthdays with a yummy dinner.  

Jillian's headband doubled as a napkin holder so Bryan wouldn't drip watermelon juice on her head (I'm pretty sure he still did though.)

 Before the night was over we had to take some pictures of the "kids."  

Bry and me, Trevor and Kristen, Jeff and his gf Laura 

Of course a gorilla face picture was in order.  My gorilla face is always ridiculed for the absence of any fierceness.  I'm working on it.

We were missing Elder Chad (in Japan) so Trevor added him via photoshop.  The boys also believed a black eye on Chad was a necessity so there you have it.  (So glad I had a girl.)

Baby Sad

We checked out a book called Baby Happy Baby Sad by Leslie Patricelli from the library this week.  Each page shows something that makes the baby happy (like an ice cream cone) and something that makes the baby sad (like the ice cream falling off the cone.)  This was our favorite page:

And it made me think of this picture

Crash!

 Yesterday afternoon things were pretty calm around here.  Jilly was taking a nap and I was reading on the couch when all of a sudden there was a huge commotion from my bedroom.  I raced back there to confirm my suspicion that our closet rack had collapsed.  This is the disaster I found:

 

This has happened before (in September) and we were worried it would happen again since the "fix" was to put the exact same rack back up in the same way.  It's so frustrating because we really do not have very much on that closet rack, and when it broke last time they told us that it happens all the time.  If it happens all the time, wouldn't it be logical to purchase new racks that are stronger?  It will be fascinating to see how our apartment complex "fixes" the problem this time.  On the bright side, I have a great excuse to not get dressed today!

Luckily I just got out my Spring decorations so at least there's something in my home that makes me happy!

I love the April bunny and the button egg printable from here.  

The sweet little girl in that frame and my vase full of eggs make my heart flutter.

Happy Spring!

Baby Blake

Lisa is one of my very most favorite people.  We lived 4 rooms down from each other in the fabulous S Hall of DT our freshman year and then we were roommates every year after that.  We got married 2 months and 2 days apart and even though we didn't live together anymore, we did live on the same block for 2 years.  Then Lisa moved to northern CA and I followed a year later.  I had a baby in November and Lisa had a baby 4 months and 4 days later (on St. Patty's Day!)  Basically, we're meant to be BFFs and we couldn't be happier.

Yesterday Jilly and I got to meet sweet little baby Blake Henry and it was love at first sight.

The beautiful Momma and her babe.  Lisa looks incredible, you would never ever know she had a baby!

We've been told that arranged marriages are frowned upon so we'll just strongly recommend it.  Hopefully Jilly won't be 4 times his size forever though!

The Great Baby Swap

 It was so fun to hold a newborn again, I can't believe how big Jillian has gotten!

 Jilly LOVED her new best friend.  We didn't realize she had her hand on his shoulder until after the picture was taken, so sweet!

329 Months

Last month when I posted about Jilly's 4 month birthday Bryan started to get a little jealous.  He asked why we didn't celebrate his month birthdays.  So, today we are celebrating Bryan being 329 months old.  I'm glad he's stuck around for so long because we think he's great.

Bry wouldn't hold still long enough to take a picture with a paper documenting his age, so we'll just have to use this one.  Happy 329 months!!

Conference

We had a lovely weekend watching General Conference. We ate to our hearts' content and then took a long walk to attempt to counteract those calories when it was all over. My favorite talk was Elder Cook's. Lately I've felt like I wasn't contributing very much to our family. It's very frustrating to feel like I'm constantly spending money but not helping to earn money. I also felt like my life was too easy and fun- so much of my day is spent just playing with and taking care of cute Jillian and not really accomplishing anything concrete. I love being a stay-at-home mom, but lately I've had creeping doubts that maybe my life is small and insignificant. As I sat listening to conference, Elder Cook's words perfectly calmed my worries.

“No woman should ever feel the need to apologize or to feel that her contribution is less significant because she is devoting her primary efforts to raising and nurturing children; Nothing could be more significant in our Father in Heaven’s plan.”

I feel so lucky that I get to spend all my time with Jilly and that I have the support of a hard-working husband and wise leaders.

nothing could be more significant

April Fools

For those who are as gullible as I am, April Fools is a rough day.  So this year I decided to do my own April Fool for Bryan for dinner.  But, the trick was on me when Bry came home from work an hour and a half early and my trick wasn't ready!  Oh well, I doubt he would have ever fallen for it anyway.

My cupcakes were really little meatloafs with colorful mashed potato frosting.  They surprisingly tasted pretty good, even though they weren't filled with sugar!

I got the idea here.