Thursday, September 27, 2007

Who does baby Lance look like?

I went to myheritage.com, inserted a pic of Lance, Spence, and I - and this was the result...

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Tagged

...by Lindsay, so I guess I will do it...

1. Where did you meet your husband? Spence and I met through his cousin and my sorority sister, Mollie Warner Diamond - - - thanks Mollie! :)

2.What was the first thing you said to your husband?
I don't know, probably that he was a big flirt.


3. Where was your first date? The first date was more of a hang out with some of his friends and some of my friends - however, knowing Speen, it was even numbers of boys and girls... we just played games and hung out - - - however our first real date was like the marathon date - he invited me to go to his sister's clayton dance performance at trolley square. So, he picked me up with his sister, we went to Maggie Moo's for ice cream, then went to her dance performance. After, she went with her friends and we went to dinner at Benni Hanna's. For those of you who know Spence pretty well, know that he is quite outgoing, so sitting with a whole bunch of random people at Benni Hanna's, was quite hillarious to say the least. Then we went to this club to go dancing, but didn't stay long, then we went to Ocean's 11 - well, when we got there we noticed the movie didn't start for about 40 minutes, so he said we would have time to go bowling at the Ritz - so we went bowling and then to the movie - - - yeah, what an interesting first date huh? The funniest part was when he dropped me off he said, what are you doing tomorrow and I told him I was going skiing with some of my friends, and he goes "well, I love skiing, do you mind if I come with you!?!" I was thinking - who is this guy!


4. Where was your first kiss? Up at Alta ski resort off some beaten path in the snow... yes, it was the next day when we went skiing, what can I say, Spence is a fast mover!

5. Did you have a long or short courtship/engagement? Long, I loved it. About a month after we started dating, I went on study abroad to London for four months. It was fun to build a foundation of friendship to our relationship while I was away. We got engaged a year after our first date, and then married 6 months later.



6. Where did you get engaged? We got engaged on the coast of Oregon at the Haceta Head Lighthouse at sunset - speen is quite adorable!

7. Where were you married? We were Married in the Salt Lake Temple, June 28, 2003.

8. How did your reception go? It was so much fun. It was an outside reception in my parents backyard. We did not have a line, we just went around & said hi to everyone. We had really good food, all set up under different tents, and we had a great band with a lot of fun dancing. I also had to coolest, most colorful cake ever! I would post a pic if I had any wedding pic's downloaded to my computer.



9. How was your honeymoon? We had so much fun - Life with Spence is always so much fun. We went to Puerto Vallarta Mexico. I remember one day we rented a jeep and went cruising all over. Spence speaks spanish, so we would pull up to bus stops, and in spanish, spence would yell out "free taxi." All of these Mexicans would jump in the back and we would drive them to where they were going - whether it was clear up the mountains where they had no running water, out by the airport, etc. - we drove all over, it was really funny!

So far, the past four years with Speen have been incredible!
Thanks for being so amazing lovebug!


10. Who's turn in next? I'll say - katie miller, tenley branca, suzi barkley, jonna sutterfield, natalie whitney, and becca mauss.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Lance's Favorite Babysitter!

(minus the grandma's of course...) I had to give a little shoutout and giant thank you to Erika Hanks for watching Lance on Saturday. Besides the family, this was Lance's first time with a babysitter, and he sure had a blast with Erika. We are super lucky that Erika is down here and just so dang adorable with babies. She will make a wonderful mother one day. Thanks a ton Er!

Friday, September 21, 2007

FOR THE RECORD...

I do LOVE pictures of Lance, but I really can't figure out how to shrink the picture of Lance above, hence the extra large pic! (any tips would be appreciated! :)

Week in Review

LANCE'S LIKES

Lance loves it when mommy and daddy can go out on a date night! There are so many fun things to do here in Phoenix. Last Saturday night Spence and I went out and got some yummy sushi with some of Speen's classmates.



Lance loves hanging out with our new Thunderbird friends! Nothing like chocolate chip cookies and some liar dice for a good time!



I took Lance swimming for the first time with some cute mom's from my ward. The ward wasn't super warm so when I first dipped him in a little bit, he wimpered a bit. However, floating around in the pool with his cool whale, was quite enjoyable!






Lance loves hanging out with his stuffed bears!



It's true - our baby LOVES art! Those of you who really know Spence and I well, know that we LOVE pictures and our apartment basically looks like an art museum. We have this monet picture behind our bed and if Lance is ever fussing we just prop him up on some pillows facing the picture, and he just loves to stare at it. It is hillarious!



The painting on the wall, is an oil painting we got off the street in Venice. As you can see, Lance is laying on the pillow just staring at it. It is so cute.




Lance also loves hanging out with his daddy! This was right after Lance and Spence were dancing around to a little Gloria Estefan - "Turn the Beat Around" - for some reason, that song puts Lance in a good mood! He is already pretty artsy!


Monday, September 17, 2007

A week of firsts for the coolest baby in the world!

Last week was a fabulouso week of firsts for cute Little Lance. He truly is so amazing and we are so blessed to have him!

Last Tuesday night I happened to take a picture of him before he went to bed, because I thought he looked so adorable in his little pj's. Well, it happened to be the night before his first night of sleeping 7 hours and 15 minutes!!! I heard him crying and looked at the clock and was so excited because it was 6:45 am! I thought it was probably just a rare coincidence, but then he slept 7 hours and 15 minutes the next night as well! Well, the next night he was at about 5 and a half and the next night 6, so he is not quite averaging 7, but we are super lucky because he is a wonderful sleeper and is probably averaging about 6 hours at night!


That same night I also happened to take a picture of him all swaddled up in his little bed. Maybe it helps him sleep that we bundle him up so tight. Isn't he snug as a bug in a little rug?

Another exciting first came that morning. After I fed him, he looked right at me and smiled - his first focused smile! It was honestly the happiest moment. It is amazing how one little smile can make you feel. I was kind of bummed because he hadn't been smiling and then boom out of nowhere it came. He has smiled since he was born, but never when he looked right us and then smiled, so this was pretty darn exciting! He has smiled probably a few dozen times over the past week, but we do have to work pretty hard to get him to smile - picture Spence and I leaning over him with huge grins on our face saying "hi lance, smile little buddy, etc" until we even get the littlest half smile and we are all cheering and everything. It is quite funny. Hopefully in the next few weeks he will even smile more.



Ok, it's true... Lance found his thumb with no help from mom and dad... his first thumb sucking! We were over at the Bishop's house, and Lance was laying on his tummy and then out of the blue his thumb shot right into his mouth like he knew exactly where to put it and he started sucking like crazy. It was quite cute!



My good friend Erika is going to be tending Lance for us this week so Spence and I can go to the temple in Mesa, and so we needed to see if he would take a bottle. So, for my first time I pumped, and for Lance's first time taking a bottle! He ate 4 ounces - straight gulping - and downed that bottle in nothing flat. I guess I will have to give Erika a bit more than that!



And now - for the sad first... Lance went to Dr. West today for his two month checkup and got his first set of shots - 5 in all. It was really sad, he started screaming, but luckily they gave him all the shots in like 30 seconds or less. As you can see in the picture, this is all the first day he has been super grumpy and sad. But, he definitely deserves to be grump and sad today!

Oh, and I was so proud of my little guy - - - he weighed in at 10 lbs 10 1/2 ounces (don't forget that half!) which puts him in the 25% for weight. He has already gained 5lbs exactly since he was born, already doubling his birth weight, so he is doing a great job. He was 22 1/2 inches long (born at 19) and was in the 35% for height. He is doing a great job. We sure do love you little guy!!!

Saturday, September 8, 2007

Shower time with daddy!

This is Lance's first shower with daddy! He absolutely loved it! Once I start taking him swimming, I know he is going to become a little fish!





Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Arizona at Last!


Arizona at last! It has been a hectic 7 weeks to say the least. But, we are finally home to Arizona, and LOVING it! Everything has been better than we could have even imagined! As I was thinking about the past 7 weeks, I realized - Lance has slept in 6 different places, been on four plane rides, and been to three states! We are excited to finally get on a good schedule. Spence started school officially today. (The past three weeks he has been doing intensive bootcamp classes in finance, accounting, statistics, and economics, as well as a week of orientation). He said school was amazing, and he is excited for a great year. Here are some pic's from AZ!


Lance is such a cutie! Whenever I bathe him, or change his diaper, or dress him... he starts crying, cause he is such a wimpie to the cold. Good thing we live in AZ! Hence, when I bathe him, I cover him up in warm washcloths, so he enjoys it more! :)


Here is a picture of the outside of our apartment complex. It is beautiful! It is great cause we still have the palm trees from Cali mixed in with AZ Cactus!


Last night we had a BBQ with some fellow T-birds! The HU family from Taiwan and Charlie and his wife Michelle. Charlie is from Australia (not pictured) and his wife is from Orange County. It was really cute, the Taiwan family brought rice noodles and this Bubba Tea that had tapioka balls in the bottom of it for us to try - what a cultural adventure already!


Lance is such a cutie! We love him to pieces!


Here is a picture of our kitchen - as you can see I have attempted to become a little more domestic down here - I am holding some corn that I dolled up on our way out to BBQ it on the grills they have down by the pools! Thanks Heavens for Baby Bjorn - it is amazing, I absolutely love it.


As you can see Lance loves the baby bjorn as well!


Here is my little GAP guy, looking adorable as usual!


Here is the outside of our apartment complex - we live upstairs, and have a nice covered parking stall for our car.


Here is a view of the pool - sweet. I definitely believe we will spend PLENTY of time here! Please share any advice regarding how old babies need to be before you can take them swimming!