The Mommy Do

Those who have known me for a while probably know that I've had some version of the same boring layered haircut for years and years. Yes, I tried something a little shorter on my mission (only because the hair dresser messed up) and I've had varying lengths from shoulder length to halfway down my back--but let's face it, it was always the same haircut. Then a few weeks ago Ella discovered my hair. She decided it was her new favorite toy. It was so interesting to tangle in her fingers and she loved to shove fistfuls in her mouth. My head couldn't take the yanking so I decided it was finally time for a real change. I took the plunge and here's what happened! 

Side view

"Give mommy kisses!"

It's much harder for Ella to find my hair now. Change is good. 

Discoveries

We have discovered that:

Ella might actually overcome her dislike of tummy time and eventually learn to crawl,

Ella's post-bath hair is pretty rockin',

and Eleanor looks more like her daddy than I wanted to admit. Do you see the raised eyebrow? The slightly cocked head? The smile? I'm just glad I can still claim those brown eyes...

Three Years

Blair and I celebrated our three year anniversary last Tuesday! Time has flown by yet we feel like we've been married much longer than just three years. Maybe it's because we've really known each other for almost eight years. To celebrate we went to the Draper temple open house in the morning and then went out for a casual dinner that night. Blair happened to look at the time when we were in the sealing room at the temple open house and it was 10:20--which was also our sealing time on our wedding day. It was a neat coincidence and a really poignant moment as we stood together holding our little girl and looking into the mirrors that go on for eternity. I don't think we could have planned that. 

For dinner we went to Springville and ate at Art City Trolley. The atmosphere was fun and funky and the food was delicious. Ella was a jewel. Blair and I decided to not exchange gifts but Ella decided to celebrate our three years by giving us three diaper blow-outs in one day. One was at the temple open house, another on the way home, and a third in the afternoon right after I had put her messy clothes in the washer. Impeccable timing!

What else is there to say about our anniversary? Not too much. We love each other more now than we did three years ago and I look forward to an eternity together. 

Preview

Here's a preview for Emily and Jake. Thanks for putting up with the snow!

More Practice

This cute family from my ward let me get some more practice with pictures this past weekend. The toddler was sure full of energy but he did really well and the baby was sweet for most of the shoot, too. I, of course, had lots of fun!

Mom Ate My Toy

Check out my new toy! Mom says it's named spaghetti squash. 

I like to kiss it... 

And pat it...

And sing to it...

Mom's going to do what to it?

What do you Google?

A while ago I placed a free counter on our blog and I discovered that it could tell me all sorts of neat stuff about what kind of traffic comes to our site. One of my favorite features is the report I can get of keyword searches and search engines that lead people to our site. Not surprisingly, an occasional search for my name or Blair's name or our names together brings up a link to our blog. But I was pretty surprised and amused to find that we get more hits for a different line of keywords: halitosis nose, halitosis from nose, garbage halitosis, weird smell in nose and mouth, halitosis coming from nose, strange smell in nose, odor busting toothpaste, garbage smell through nose for a long time...

Well, you get the picture. These search terms typed into google inevitably lead to our blog and to a post I wrote last year. And as a follow up to that halitosis post, let me just say that my nose is back to normal now. 

We get several hits a week from these types of search terms. I had no idea so many people had this problem and I'm not so sure they'll find answers to their problem on our blog. But it sure does make me think more about what I google. What do you google? (And is that really a verb? Just asking...)

Official Pictures

I finally got around to taking some "official" six month pictures of Ella. The lighting in our apartment is not great and the weather has been too cold to take Ella out for pictures. So, I grabbed the opportunity to sneak in some shots of Ella after photographing my neighbor's baby on Monday. Yep, we still love her!