The Annual Happy List

I can't believe another year has passed since my last Happy List! There are just so many things these days that make me smile at random moments. Enjoy!

1. Lucas' amazing ability to mimic Fred Astair

2. Darci's Smile

3. Lucas being potty trained

4. How nice our new neighbors have been

5. How happy Craig is with his job

6. Thanksgiving food/cooking thanksgiving dinner

7. Cooking/baking

8. Reading aloud with Craig

9. The noises Darci makes when she's half asleep/half awake

10. Fall weather

11. Food

12. Trying new restaurants and finding out they're good

13. Playing games

14. Talented friends

15. Intellectual and witty conversation that can be shared respectfully

16. Seeing strangers help each other out despite how horrible the world can be

17. Receiving flowers from Craig

18. Feeding the ducks with Lucas

19. Watching Lucas and Craig play together

20. Powerful Movies

21. Eureka moments

22. A clean apartment for longer than a couple of hours

23. Bringing home surprises for Craig from the grocery store

24. Lucas being able to tell me that he loves me

25. Darci's heart murmur closing up

I'm sure there are more, but I've found twenty five is a good number because it's long enough to incorporate a lot of things that make me happy, but not too long as to bore my audience. Thanks for reading!

The World...

...as seen by Lucas. We gave him our old camera and put a memory card in it so he could take pictures...here's what we saw...

This seriously made me so happy when I saw this one

yes...we love to watch MASH...and by we I mean me...

Darci's not quite sure what's going on

Oliver's Makeover

Oliver Queen (aka The Green Arrow) is not just a comic book character, but my beloved Ford Focus.

So FOREVER ago when I had just moved to Utah, I was driving some ward members to FHE up in the canyon. I had parked and was pulling out to straighten out Oliver out but one of the guys in the back opened my door as I was pulling back out. It got caught on the car next to me and hyper-extended my door and put a crease in the seam of the door making it impossible for me to open the door unless the front door was opened first. I tried everything to get it out and finally took it to a friend's dad who did body work and he told me I had to replace the door completely.

Well, four years later and right before our second child was going to be born, I decided to actually get it done (I suspect nesting instincts). So I called around to some junk yards and finally found a door, the guy even said he would put it on for me! So we arranged everything and right before we hung up I asked him, out of curiosity, what color the door was. I was secretly hoping he would say green, but alas he said the opposite...white. I called around to some body shops to get an estimate on how much it would cost to get just the door painted...they estimated anywhere from 300 to 600 bucks. HA! So I was placed with a little project...painting the car door.

There was no way it was going to get done before Darci came so for a little over a month we had to drive around with a white door. I sent multiple emails to my dad to ask what I needed to do and get in order to get this done and when he came down for Darci's blessing he bought us the things we needed to paint the car and gave us further instruction as to how to paint the car door. This last weekend I took advantage of the perfect weather and painted the car door. Below is my progress.

Washed, roughed with steel wool, and first set of tape placed

Rest of Oliver taped off, wiped with acetone, and sprayed with primer

Paint and clear coat

Finished product.

I still need to add another coat or two of clear coat because we didn't have enough, but other than that, our car door looks back to somewhat normal and we love it!

Darci and People

First we have Jennilee Fewkes. She made an impromptu visit to Utah for a funeral and found some time to come and hang out. We honestly never thought we would be able to get a picture of the two together so it was a wonderful surprise!

Lucas requested that he be wrapped like Darci and insisted that I take a picture of them. So I did.

Riley, Darci and Lucas' cousin, has been so excited to have a girl cousin and to hold her that we couldn't help but get a picture of the two of them.

Grandma was very excited to see and hold Darci so that was worth documenting...

...and we can't forget grandpa either.

Daddy and Darci after she was blessed...

...and then some creepy lady just showed up after the blessing and insisted she get a picture with this beautiful girl...so we let her...

Darci Lynn Dell

Born Thursday August 18th, 2011 in Mountainview Hospital in Payson, UT at around 12:30 in the afternoon. It really was a "slam bam thank ya ma'am" sort of a situation.

Our story begins the Tuesday before she was born when we went to our doctor's appointment and he informed us that everything is coming along well and since I did so well with the induction drug last time he would be willing to induce me on Thursday. Craig and I decided that was a pretty good idea since timing was everything for us. We were packing and trying to get into our current apartment as well as wanted to give our friends enough warning so they could come down and babysit Lucas while we went to the hospital. It was very surreal that we were going to have a baby in two days and we had lots to do before she came. We didn't tell any of our family until the morning of so we could surprise them with when it was happening which was also nice because then we didn't get a bunch of texts the few days before hand that we had together just the three of us.

So Thursday morning came and we headed to the hospital around 7:00 and got everything started by 8:00. Dr. Nance came in and broke my water, started me on all the things I needed going into my arm and called in the epidural. I would like to add that our nurse was really nice with a good sense of humor (she would need it dealing with us), however, she had only started lines a couple of times before me so she wasn't very good at finding veins and placing the line. So after two EXTREMELY painful attempts that left two gnarly bruises on my arms for a few weeks she got the nurse that was more experienced to do it and it was done fairly pain-free in under a minute. Yippee. Needless to say, after the epidural was in, my thrashed veins were the only things that hurt during labor. So the epidural was in and an hour later Dr. Nance said Darci was on her way. Within maybe ten minutes, Darci was out sassing the doctor and nurses.

It was, again, all very surreal. We just couldn't believe how fast it all happened. But we love her and are so happy she is here. She's my precocious, brainy little girl.

They call me Big Girl

Ok so we HAD to have banana cream pie the night before having Darci because that was the last thing my mom had before she had me and we wanted to make a tradition out of it.

A very happy and confused little girl....

...that loves to sleep...

...and hang out with her brother.

Wow

This blog is devoted as an apology to the few that read it for not blogging for quite sometime, especially since we've had a new addition to our family and moved to a new place. I suppose those could also be apart of the excuse as to why it's been so long since we've blogged. So officially, I apologize and will remedy the situation by posting.