Daddy's girl

This picture needed it's own post because it's just so stinking cute. I walked into the kitchen the other day and Jon was working on the computer while Shayla was fast asleep on his shoulder with her finger in her mouth. I'm just glad she held this pose long enough to get the camera!
It seems like so many cute things happen but I always miss taking a picture because the camera is never where I need it!
Love them both so much!

My Big Girl

I can't believe how big she is getting! I sure love this little girl. She is a big Momma's girl.

Where does the time go?

Seriously? Where does it go? I seem to forget what day of the week it is. And don't even ask me the date. Sometimes Jon does... I usually laugh and hand him one of our cell phones. I have no need for it unless there is an appointment or birthday coming up.

Welcome to the world of Mom I guess.

Shayla is almost 3 months old now! Sleeping through the night too. I'm a much better Mom and Wife when I'm well rested.

I always think about posting on the blog I promise but then Shayla wakes up and I don't really worry too much about it. Plus there isn't that much to tell. My days all are about the same.

I wake up sometime between 7 and 8:30, feed the baby, shower and clean the house, feed the baby, run a quick errand, put Shayla down for a nap, feed the baby, run another quick errand, another nap, yet another feeding, make dinner, spend time with Jon and find time for a few more feedings somewhere in there.

Well now you know all the intimate details of my life...
Today I actually did go over and hang out with my sister-in-law. We raked leaves and let all the kiddo's jump in them. So fun to be outside in the autumn air and enjoy the sun. It was definitely a pleasant day. I think we're going to try and get together more often. There's just something to be said about having a conversation with an adult every once in awhile. It also makes me a better Mom.
I'll post some new pictures of our little pumpkin too. Sorry to those friends with us on facebook, some of these may be a repeat!

I'm a parent too.

Ok... Just to prove I am a parent here also, I will call for a change of the title to "You know you're a PARENT..."

1) I also discuss the consistency of my child's poop. Quite often sadly...

2) By the end of the day I always have spit-up or drool on my shirt.

3) You definitely sing more nursery songs than I do. You have me here.

4) I definitely know the difference between a warning cry and a hysterical cry. Look out cause she's about to get real mad!

5) I talk in baby talk, but only at home, so the edge goes to you again on this one.

6) Yeah, it's cute. You probably think it's cuter than I do, though...

7) Sleeping in means 7:30 on a good day for me...

8) I'd drive the get-away car.

9) Umm... no comment here. No pony-tails or makeup for me.

10) I know guys can lactate and all, but... this one goes to you.

So, 6 out of 10 apply to me also.

You Know You're a Mother When...

You know you're a mother when:

1. You discuss the color and consistency of your childs poop.

2. Having spit up or drool on your clothes is normal.

3. You sing nursery songs so much you could almost sing them backwards and in your sleep.

4. You know the difference between a warning cry and the hysterical cry and try to get as much done before the hysterical cry begins.

5. You find yourself talking in Baby Talk more than anything else.

6. You even find your babies cry adorable sometimes.
For me it's usually when she juts her lip out right before she starts to cry.

7. Sleeping in means 8am on a good day

8. You know that you would kill to protect your child.

9. Wet ponytails and no makeup is your most common style.

10. You dress for comfort and ease of feeding the baby. A lot of times that means Jon's t-shirts.

At first I was going to title this you know you're a parent when, but then I realized that Jon really can't claim a lot of these. There's something to say about being the Mom. I am the expert on my child. This is something that has been hard to learn. But even Jon has to ask for my advice on what is making her upset or what not. I know everything about her; from the freckle on her head to her little pinky toe.

P.S. I'm really excited because her hair is filling in. But I'm also really sad because she no longer fits in any of her newborn clothes. She has grown up so much in the last two months. It hurts my heart a little.

The Good Samaritan

Last night as I was making dinner I heard some ruckus going on in one of the other apartments or outside. At first I thought it was our neighbors dog barking but after a few minutes I realized it was a woman screaming. I looked out our window to see if it was just people horsing around. What I saw was some guy leaning into a car yelling at a woman as she was screaming for help.
I immediately grabbed my phone and walked outside.
I yelled to the woman and asked if she was okay. The guy turned around and glared at me and barked, "She's fine!"
Without thinking I said, "She can speak for herself, Are you okay?"
After I said this I thought, Oh crap. I'm gonna get beat up. The guy looked shocked and the woman asked for my help. Before I had time to do anything else he yelled some obscenity at me, threw something at the woman and slammed the car door shut and stomped off. I watched him walk away and he kept turning around to glare at me and yell things to me. When he was out of sight I walked down our stairs to check on the woman and helped her pick up her things that he had thrown on our lawn.
He started coming back toward us and she jumped in the car and locked the doors and drove off. He saw me again and stayed on the other side of the street yelling things at me. Again I thought, Oh crap.
But he kept walking. For some reason he was scared of me. Or Heavenly Father was protecting me. Maybe a little of both. I don't know what happened after that and I probably never will, but I feel good that I did the right thing in a scary situation.
I'm also grateful that my dad taught his girls never to be afraid of men. Or anyone for that matter.
What bothered me was that cars just kept driving by as this woman yelled for help. Is this what our society has turned into? To give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they didn't know what was happening, but I'm shocked that on a busier street I was the only one who stopped to assist someone in need. I hope I never get to a point where I am so wrapped up in my own life that I think I'm too busy to help someone out.
Okay I'm off my soap box now.

Even a Girl Knows

Today we went to the BYU football game and had awesome seats. 7th row, in the north end zone. The thing that amazed me was how much more I knew about football than the MALE fans around us. Let me just tell you about some of the things we snickered about through the game.

1. You don't start a cheer when our offense is on the field. A nice loud cheer was going on as a pivotal play was about to take place and it took me to say "Guys!!" before everyone shushed. I know better and I'm a girl!

2. At one point I heard a male fan behind me cheering for "Neal Chambers", "Go Neal Chambers". Ummm... Last time I checked it's O'neill Chambers...
Maybe they should figure out which player they're cheering for...

3. I've decided Male cheerleaders are nothing more than a pretty face. We were on offense and about to punt on a 4th down when all of a sudden I hear a male cheerleader start the "DE- FENSE" chant... I raised my eyebrow at Jon and then full out started laughing when some of the fans joined in. Again wondering if they knew which team they were cheering for.

4. I had sent Jon to get some water for me before the game started so that he wouldn't miss any of the action. While he was gone some guys showed up and were sitting in front of me. The one guy was telling his friends all about BYU football and acting like Joe Cool. Jon showed up and a prominent player on the team, Harvey Unga, had just made a play. I laughed when the guy turned around and asked Jon who #45 was. Again even I know that and I'm a girl.

5. Through out the game I had bouts where I no longer felt like standing. I didn't tell the guys in front of me to sit down. I just sat there until something interesting was happening. The kids standing behind us seemed annoyed at this. I'm sorry I paid for this SEAT. If I choose to sit that's fine, but I won't impose my choice on other people. Goodness. (Personal Pet Peeve)

I can't even remember everything that happened but I do know that there were times when I had to hold back out right laughter at some of the things people were doing. You would have thought it was their first football game. Oh well. For all of you guys out there who made these mistakes I just want you to know that even a girl knows better.

Problems come in three's

So Jon and I took my car into the dealership today to get the timing belt changed and have them check out anything else that's under warranty that needs to be fixed. Jon got a phone call just a few hours after it had gone in and it needs a ton of work done to the engine. At this time we are feeling lucky that I spent an extra $1,000 to extend the warranty for an extra 5 years. Especially since we are coming to the end of that time.

We have a rental car for the next week while everything gets taken care of. I really like that it's an automatic.

So for those of you who know about the fiasco we had when we moved into our apartment you might find this story funny. For those of you who don't here's a little background information on it. We had signed a contract for our current apartment and then just a few days later we were offered to rent the house right behind Jon's parents house. We got out of our contract with this apartment and the next day the people changed their minds because they wouldn't be able to get out in time. (We were in a bit of a time crunch since Shayla was due in about 2 months)
Anyway we had to call back and beg to be let back into our lease.

So today I arrived home from the Hyundai dealership to find a cleaning check-out list on our back door. I called my landlord and after a conversation where he told me that my husband had called saying we needed to move, I assured him that we were planning on staying and finishing our contract. I also told him that it was the people underneath us who were planning on moving.

Had the stuff before not happened I wouldn't have thought much of this, but as I was on the phone I realized that he probably thought that we were the worst renters ever. Luckily the little mistake was corrected and this time we weren't in the wrong. phew.

So even though all of these things could have turned out really bad there was an easy solution for all of this.

The only disconcerting thing was that I think my landlord was telling people that our door was unlocked and they could come look at the apartment... I hope no one came in.

Baby Shay

My Soap Box

So I have had a lot of time on my hands lately. What I mean by that is time when I'm stuck at home with a sleeping infant in my arms. With this time I have started watching the news a lot and I'm REALLY up on current news. Especially in Utah.
With all this news watching I have decided something:

Anyone who harms a child intentionally should be killed.

I will mix the deadly cocktail myself.

I think this would be motivation enough for people to take care of these precious little things. I can't even imagine what I would do to someone who harmed my child. Well I guess you know that I would kill them.

As I watch these stories I find myself crying for these little spirits who came into this world just needing love and what they get is a drug addict mother, or an abusive father or any other circumstance you can think of. It makes me hold onto Shayla just a little bit tighter.

It especially saddens me as I look at loving couples who have trouble getting pregnant and having their own children, and someone who didn't even want a child and mistreats them hurts the child.

That is why I am proposing this new consequence for harming innocent children.
Maybe it would make people think twice before having a child "unprepared" for the responsibility. (Which if you ask me is just a cop out excuse) And they might try and protect their children a little better.

The things we do for our children

Well it's been awhile since I last posted on our blog. Thank you motherhood. But with Shayla eight weeks old and starting to sleep through the night I thought maybe I would try and post real quick during nap time.
It's been an adjustment getting used to only talking to a new born a lot of the time. But I love it and her.
We recently were told that she had infant acid reflux and the doctor put her on some medication to help her not over produce stomach acid anymore. On top of that I have had to modify my diet. It's been pretty extreme at first. I can no longer eat:
Chocolate, cinnamon, chiles, garlic, curry, citrus fruit, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage, bell peppers, cucumbers or cows milk.

Pretty soon I get to add back in cows milk and see if it bothers her stomach. But all the foods I love are big no-no's right now. I'm looking forward to eating more than just card board soon.\
(It will be nice if I lose a little of this baby weight along the way though!)

Among these things it has amazed me how I have gr0wn and had to put myself after her needs.
Who knew that when I was as absolutely exhausted as I was I would be able to get up every 3 hours to feed her and rock her back to sleep.
Or lose the use of my two arms 90% of the time.
There is a selflessness that comes with becoming a parent. I won't lie. It's hard. There are times when you break down in tears because you just can't handle it any more. But there are so many rewarding moments. There is nothing like being the Mommy and Daddy. She knows us already and misses us when we are gone for a few short hours.
I always look at Jon after she is done being particularly pill-y and say "I love her", as she is cuddling me. And it's true.

Babies

July 26th, 9:35 PM

Hey all,

Here's a quick update on us:

We had a fun Sunday! Carrie woke me up around 7 AM and said she was pretty sure she was in labor. I, being the loving and perfect husband that I am, rolled over and went back to sleep. She, being the loving and perfect wife that she is, didn't wake me up again and let me sleep another hour.

About 8:00 I rolled out and guiltily walked into the front room where she was sitting with the huge kitchen wall clock in her lap and was timing contractions. At that point I decided I better start to play the role of good "support" person so I sat down and took over the clock duty. She would say when to start and when to stop and I timed those suckers perfectly. How could I be wrong with such a huge clock? If anyone ever needs some help doing that, just let me know... They started about 10 minutes apart and weren't too intense but after a while they were about 5 minutes apart and getting stronger.

I still hadn't packed my bag because I was still in denial that anything was ever going to happen so I hurried and threw some stuff together and we grabbed the car seat, bags, and jumped in the car. While I didn't doubt Carrie at all, everything felt so unreal and I thought for sure there was no way she was actually in labor yet. So in the back of my mind I was planning the rest of the day and thinking about how I was going to comfort her if she found out that those contractions weren't really contractions.

Well, they turned out to be real and they got stronger as the first few hours at the hospital passed. She was admitted after proving herself worthy to be there by changing (though not a ton initially). The changing then started to happen fast so it's a good thing they didn't send us home. There was a bit of a scare when the baby's heartbeat dropped because of some strong, close together, contractions (thanks to a bit of Pitocin). They had to give Carrie a shot that stopped the labor and then it was a bit of a slow process getting them started again. We got in at 11:30 in the morning and by about 7:45 Carrie made me go downstairs and grab some food for myself. They had just checked her and she wasn't really progressing much and they were actually thinking about a potential c-section if things didn't start moving before midnight or so. I ran down real quick and got back fifteen minutes later and she was feeling like the baby was ready! We called the nurse and she came in and sure enough, to everyone's surprise, the baby was right there and ready. They called up the doctor and Carrie took about 45 minutes to do what they call "rest and descend" where the mom can rest, and nature can work on the baby for a little longer before pushing. She did such an awesome job and the baby was here after not too much pushing and the rest is history!

She was born at 9:35 PM, weighs 7 pounds 1 ounce, and is 19 inches long...

After checking out the little one for a while, we decided to name her Shayla Riis Laudie. Shayla because it's a perfect name for her, and Riis, which is a family name. It is was Carrie's Grandpa Francis' middle name and after hanging up our family history pedigree chart from my Aunt Marilyn, we realized that it's a name on my side also. My Grandpa Dalton's great grandma was a Riis. I think we'll have to do some research and see if there are any connections in our family lines way back there.

We like her name a lot and most importantly it fits this little angel perfectly.

She's perfect.

Not too much else to tell except that as of last night we are home and enjoying having her with us! She's in the middle of a nap right now that is going on 4 hours. If she could only plan those during the middle of the night it'd be awesome!

Lots of Love,

Jon, Carrie, and Shayla

Harry Potter 6

Well, I went on an awesome day date with Carrie this morning.

We went to the first showing of Harry Potter this morning at 9.50 over in Orem at the University Mall Cinemark. We got there a bit late and were planning on catching the second showing but decided that the previews would have probably just finished for the first showing and they told us it wasn't sold out so we decided to give it a try. It was pretty full when we walked in but Carrie found the perfect 2 seats. The handicap ones right at the perfect height and smack dab in the middle. Score for us walking in late, eh? I leaned over to her and said of anyone in the room she was probably the most qualified to be sitting there in those seats. As for me, it was just another benefit of having a pregnant wife.

The movie was awesome! I think it was very well done, though it skipped a lot from the books. Because I read it I was able to fill in the gaps and I think it was great. It seems like the actors dig a little deeper into their characters each movie and they keep getting better and better. There were definitely a few spots that made us jump and I was hoping it'd spur labor or something. No such luck....

Still no baby.

Still not to the due date though, so no complaints yet.

Anyway, we give the movie 4 and a half stars and definitely recommend!

The Humble Abode

This post is for Liz (and everyone else who hasn't seen our new apartment)
The best part of course is the baby's room. We're really excited for her! She'll be here any day!

I would just like to explain to everyone before the read the post below that it was written after my second night of no sleep because of being in pain.
I have now decided not to post to the blog when I'm exhausted and ornery.

What not to say to your wife when she's pregnant

So we had dinner tonight with friends and I told them some of the amusing mistakes Jon has made this pregnancy. I told them I was tempted to write about it on the blog and they asked me to.
Lisa this one is for you.

This post is intended to help husbands out there from making the same mistakes. These comments from Jon were usually met with raised eyebrows, and a questioning look. If he didn't realize at that point the mistake he had made then I would make one of two statements: "Would you like to rethink that" or "What are you trying to say". At that point he had fair warning that he was on dangerous ground.

Here are some rules to follow:

1. The word "bigger" or any words like it are never good in ANY stage of pregnancy. Never, never, never, never, never.

For instance : "You're WAY bigger than so and so". Yes, unfortunately, this comment did happen. Twice. Poor Jon. Somehow it was meant as a compliment. Somewhere in this pregnancy he got confused with the idea that I wanted to be "bigger" than I was.

2. This brings me to my second point: When comparing her to another pregnant woman she always looks SO much better than any other woman does!

3. To clarify Jon's confusion on the "bigger" thing. Early in pregnancy I would often ask him if he could see my "baby bump" (This is a phrase that is good for all men to learn) The reason behind this was not a desire to be bigger but to clarify whether I looked fat or pregnant.

Trust me she knows more than you do that she is getting bigger. Using that word or any like it will have one of two side effects. She will either dissolve into a puddle of tears, or be angry, and you may find yourself on the couch for a very long time.

I am fully aware of the fact that every part of my body is bigger. From my face to my hands to my feet, and everything in between. I do not need anyone else to point it out to me. Unless there is a health concern related to the comment, it is probably best to just keep it to yourself.
Every girls hope is for the stomach to grow and nothing else. In fact, I would be perfectly happy if somehow the baby would grow without ME having to grow.

4. Don't make plans to go out of town the last month of her pregnancy. Jon and I agreed early on that come July we would stick around Utah county since I am a ticking time bomb. Sometime in June he made the mistake of telling his family that he thought it would be a great idea for the boys to go on a camping trip without consulting me. Suddenly I was put on the spot and he missed the fire in my eyes when I said, "Whatever. But if you miss the birth of your child it's your own fault."

Later we had a "discussion" that was our closest to getting in a fight ever. It ended with a nearly hysterical pregnant woman on the verge of tears saying: "I'm sorry that this pregnancy is so inconvenient for you." (If this isn't an obvious one the pregnancy is never more inconvenient for the man than the woman.)

Just avoid making plans and if you want to do something discuss it with her in private. This is a good rule to follow in marriage as well, not just pregnancy.

5. Never assume you know what she is going through, or that you could do it better. Her body is changing in so many ways so rapidly that there is no way that you have any understanding of what she is going through. Jon made the mistake of saying this to me in jest in front of his mother... For those who know Shannon you know that he escaped within an inch of his life.
A few nights later after overeating Jon made the comment something to the effect of how bloated and uncomfortable he felt. My response was "Welcome to my life"

6. Let her nest. Yes nesting is real. Don't think she can put it off until the last minute. First of all who knows when that last minute will be. Second I couldn't imagine trying to shop for everything the week before I'm due. Walking is excruciating at times. The pain I would feel from standing would have taken all of the fun out of shopping for little girl outfits.

This was another time when at between 7 and 8 months pregnant he once again had a nearly hysterical wife on his hands because every time I tried to buy something for the baby he told me to wait. In his brain we had more than enough time and he wanted to wait and see what we needed after the baby shower. In my mind she was coming and I had almost nothing.

7. Don't make fun of her early in pregnancy for standing in front of the mirror sideways and looking at her belly. By the end of pregnancy she'll be avoiding standing sideways in front of mirrors. She is excited for this new little thing and it's usually at this time that you may here her ask if you can tell she's pregnant. You will win big points if you look at her and say something like, "What a CUTE, LITTLE, baby bump." Before she asks.

8. Jon and I are near the same height. At some time late in pregnancy I started weighing more than him. (We aren't going to say when it happened just that it happened late in pregnancy) Trust me it was traumatic. Don't make fun of her. She already feels like an unattractive whale. If anything now is the time to put on the sympathy weight.

** one thing he did right was the next doctors visit when I was weighed I just looked at him and said "You don't want to know" He scored big points with me and the nurse when he said "I don't care. I think you're beautiful." Under her breath we heard her say "good answer". And it was.

In all fairness I haven't given my husband enough credit. Other than a few misplaced comments and a male mindset on money he really has been wonderful and supportive. What I'm not telling about are the countless back rubs and compliments he has made along the way. Along with so many simple acts of love and service that make him wonderful. A few mistakes here and there really aren't a big deal. Plus he lets me make fun of him on a blog.

Utah vs Houston

Ever since Jon created this blog for us I've been meaning to get on here and post something and also make it a little bit more... feminine? or maybe just not so plain.

Well here's the first post at least.

As I'm sure most of you know we did finally make it safely to Utah after spending an exciting day in Madisonville. We walked down "main street" that night to go to dinner and had a little trouble deciding between our 5 options. When we got back to our hotel room Jon spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out a way for us to go swimming since our swimming suits were packed away in our car, locked in a mechanics shop. He really didn't think skinny dipping would be too big of a deal since we were pretty sure we were the only ones in the hotel even though it was "the last available room in town". It struck me as funny that the only available room in town was a King Suite... oh well.

Utah is good. We're glad to be back around our families.

I've been amazed at how much faster running errands is in Utah compared to Houston. I was supposed to meet Jon at 2:oo for lunch one day and gave myself an hour and a half to run two errands. Which would have been cutting it close in Houston. As I left the house I was worried that I would have to call him and tell him I was running a little bit late. I was accounting for all of the crowds I would encounter in the stores. (I should preface this by saying that we never waited in line for less than a half hour to check out at walmart in Houston.) Needless to say it didn't take anywhere near that long so I decided to sift through all the baby clothes at Target and then finally gave up after a bit and sat in the parking lot at Jon's work for 45 minutes.

The baby is quite active and kicking right now, which might account for why it's almost 5 in the morning and I've been up for three hours. This has been a common occurence throughout this pregnancy but usually I feel at least a little bit tired.

My real problem is that I have too much energy right now. I have a case full of strawberries waiting for me in the kitchen to make into strawberry jam and thats what I would be doing right now if only everyone else woke up with a lot of energy at 2am.

That wouldn't be unreasonable... right?

Madisonville, TX??

So we're leaving Texas today. Well we were going to be leaving Texas today...

I went in for my last day of work this morning around 7.30 and had a good time saying good bye to the people I worked with and finishing up some of the projects I was working on. Carrie was home finishing up the little bit of packing that we had to do still and we finished all of the cleaning last night so we'd be all set to hit the road around noon and drive a good 8 or 9 hours of the trip today. In total it's about a 22 hour drive and we planned on stopping in Amarillo tonight and making the rest of the trip on Friday - arriving late Friday evening.

All went well (except that my promise of making it home right at 11 didn't quite work out.. I was a few minutes late thanks to an extra long interview at work) and we got checked out of our apartment around noon. I popped on the shades and we hit the road. Made it out of Houston fine and pulled over about an hour and a half later for a quick bite of lunch in Madisonville.

It's a nice town. Main Street is a few hundred yards long maybe (yes, it's paved) and there are a few gas stations with "half fast-food restaurants" connected to them. Taco Bell's value menu is absolutely awesome and we ate there. More food than both of us could handle for less than 6 bucks! Can't complain about that. Gassed up the car and hit the highway. The AC had been acting up for a few miles before we stopped for lunch so we were a little worried about it, but figured we could survive without the AC -- Carrie made the comment that at least it was just the AC and nothing worse.

Famous last words I guess...

About 2 miles out of town the temperature gauge hit the red line and so I pulled off the freeway and checked under the hood. I always love doing that. Pretend like I know what's going on. This time something was definitely wrong, though, cause there was coolant all over. The radiator, cap, and thermostat blew up. So, we did some crafty coasting back into town and luckily found a mechanic who is going to get it fixed for us. No parts available anywhere near here though, so hopefully by tomorrow afternoon they can get us a new radiator in from somewhere and get us fixed up. This is the second time that the radiator cap has blown on the car in the last 3 years, so it's time to take it into the dealership in UT and see what's causing the issue here. Hopefully they'll pay for any fixes that need to be made so it doesn't happen a third time. Isn't that what a bumper-to-bumper warranty means? I'm just going to go out on a limb now and say that there's no way in heck they pay for anything. Worthless warranties...

Anyway, we're checked into the only available room in town which happens to be a Best Western. I don't know why they only had one room available cause this town is tiny, but it's a king suite. We'll be sleeping in style tonight. Thank you for being the only available room cause otherwise there's no way I'd ever pay more to stay in this room! Not that king suite means that much in a Best Western... I think the only difference is that there's a small sofa and table in here instead of a second bed. Haha. Gotta love it. Gotta increase the margins somehow, right?

So, keep those fingers crossed. We're hoping for a new radiator tomorrow morning and to hit the road around 11 or 12. Maybe stop in Amarillo for the night or push on through to Albuquerque and stay there. Then it looks like we'll get home Sat. night.

Texas is still awesome in my eyes. Unless we break down again tomorrow that shouldn't change!

Check this out

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/oukoe_uk_saudi_divorce

I wonder what he used his other 1,000 texts on this month?

First Blog Post

This is it. First blog post. What is a blog? Why do so many people have them? Why do I have one?

And what's with 'Twitter'?

This whole new electronic communications crap is just weird to me... (says the guy writing on his own blog now)

Don't get me wrong, I've totally jumped on board and have my own facebook account, cell phone plan complete with texting (only 400 a month though...), and now a blog.

I was way excited to get a cell phone for the first time right after getting back from Guatemala. I was really excited to be able to call friends, and most importantly the cell phone made it super easy to get girl's phone numbers. Just casually mention the new cell phone, pull it out, and boom. Getting that number was way easier. Certainly not as awkward or uncomfortable as pulling out a pen and paper and writing down the number....

Anyway, I guess I always thought a cell phone was great for calling people. I do use some of the 400 texts on our plan. Carrie probably gets about 350 "love texts" each month (only from me I hope) and that's about the extent of text usage for us. I only use them because they're there and I won't pay for something that just goes unused. That just goes against everything I believe in. How could somebody possibly use 1,000 or 2,000 or more in a month? Does anybody call anyone anymore? Am I the only Joe Shmoe in the world who still thinks it's nice to actually talk to someone? And no, I don't consider a text conversation "talking". I wonder what it is doing to society. I wonder what high school dates are like now. Do boys call girls and ask them out anymore? Do people even know how to talk anymore? I can see it now.... Boy asks girl out to a "text date" and they both set aside an hour to sit in their respective bedrooms and have a text conversation. I guess it's a good way to get to know someone....

Maybe I just need to just accept the shift in society and try having some more 'electronic buddies'. And hey, it's a lot easier to say something over the keyboard than it is to say it in person. I could say or ask anything I want and not even feel guilty! I wouldn't have to worry about my face turning red or anything!

Come on people, let's dust off the old earpiece on our phones and start using them every once in a while!

Enough of that.

Houston is great. We love it. Baby is kicking hard. Life is good.

Shoot us a call, email, facebook message, blog comment, something with Twitter (whatever that is), or even a text!