I hate coming up with titles

All is as usual in the Nielsen home. Jon just left again, hopefully not for the whole week this time. I'm really not sure how he can be away from me so often. I must not be as hot as I think I am... Nah that can't be it.

Scarlet is getting rounder by the second. Someone actually asked me in church where my child's beer belly came from... and he wasn't far from the mark. She has always been a chunker, but I swear her belly has doubled in size in like the last 2 weeks! Maybe that means she has a big growth spurt coming... or maybe she just likes food.

Her first tooth broke through the other day, pretty painlessly too. I didn't even notice any behavior change, I just reached in her mouth the other day and suddenly felt the start of a tooth!

Of course reaching inside my baby's mouth has become a very frequent thing. She puts everything in her mouth. The other day I picked her up from playing on the ground and put her in her chair for lunch. She is a really good eater (I guess the belly shouldn't shock me that much) but this time she kept spitting the food back at me. Finally, I thought I saw something in her mouth so I fished around a little and found a 4 inch piece of ribbon she must have dug up somewhere just sitting in there. Lucky for me she doesn't seem interested in swallowing things like that yet, just letting them soak in her mouth for awhile.

Nothing new with my dad. The news is being really harsh, not only harsh but wrong. It's really really frustrating. But we just keep praying and hope for the best!

Oh and I keep meaning to post these pictures and I keep forgetting. Jon's hair had gotten really long and instead of cutting it, he cut himself a mohawk for a day or two. And since Scarlet's hair is pretty much growing into a mohawk, we took some matching hair daddy daughter pictures! Trashy, I know but I still think they're cute.

Poor Dr. Dave

I don't really want to talk too much about it, but as you can imagine life is pretty rough at our house right now. It's hard for me to believe something like this could happen to one of the most generous men I have ever met. I don't want to tell you what to fast for, but just a reminder that this Sunday is fast Sunday and if you feel so inclined, please do.

Even though it has been pretty rough, I do know deep down that it will all be ok. I don't really know what ok means, but I do know better times are on their way. Hopefully soon! I love you all. Especially you dad.

Cause I'm Leavin'

Jon is back in Colorado this week. That really sucks. But moving on...

Right now there are three couches and a long chair shoved in my small apartment living room. I got the new ones as planned, but somehow old piece of crap didn't find its way out yet. It's quite the sight. Of course I think if my family came and visited me right now I would have a comfy place for every single one of them to sleep. No room for anything else of course.

I got to do baptisms for the dead for the first time as a leader on Saturday. I really had a great time. I actually really enjoyed giving them their towels, showing the new girls where to go. But we ended up being gone for 5 hours, making it the longest Jon has ever spent with his daughter alone.

When I left her she was down for her first nap of the day and she got up about an hour after I left. For the next four hours, she did not sleep a wink. Jon claimed he tried to put her down at one point but she wasn't having it. By the time I got home she was so giddy and riled up, I swear he must have slipped a little caffiene or something in her bottle. She would not take another nap. So she went to bed at 8:30 last night after having been awake for 9 hours straight. Crazy child.

My favorite part was when Jon showed me the pictures he had taken. Now when Jon is in charge of getting her dressed she usually ends up naked or in a onesie. Never EVER an outfit. Even when I set one out for her. So then Jon tells me he took Scarlet to the park and took pictures of her and my first thought was 'my goodness I hope she had clothes on." Look at this cute outfit he put her in!

I was so proud!

This week I'm in charge of our big Standards Night activity for all the young women... and I probably made it a little more complicated than I needed to. It's gonna be pretty crazy if I actually pull this thing off. More details later.

I blew it!

Scarlet is already fitting into 6-12, 9 month and similarly labeled clothing. I can still squeeze her into a few 3-6 or 6 month outfits, but I'm pushing it most of the time. So yesterday I was going through some of her bigger clothes to see what sizes I have and I found like 5 six month outfits I had never pulled out! And some of them were so dang cute... I totally blew it. So I have squeezed her into one a day since. And then they've gone immediately into the "too fat for that" bin. At least baby girl #2 will have a few outfits that haven't been totally trashed.

My kid is watching the Baby Einstein video that is supposed to teach her sign language right now. She is enthralled. I have yet to show her any baby movies before, she is lovin it! There is little better in life than a baby who likes tv. Of course with the sign language ones I'm pretty sure they aren't so effective unless I am watching and learning the signs too... Oh well

Oh, and I'm totally buying new couches this weekend! I can't even tell you how excited I am. We have one small couch, and it's the only place to sit in the whole room. Jon bought it at DI before we were married, and it was a piece of crap then. Now it's a rotting, awful piece of crap. But who wants to buy new furniture for an apartment you don't really want that kind of commitment to? There's that little fear in my brain if I actually start buying stuff for it and convincing it that I really do like it enough to make it cute, the apartment might never let us go. So I've kept my distance.

So I found couches for like $300 and they are sweet. There are two couches and one of those long bench chair kinda things, I don't know what they are called but I really like them. They are a little worn which is perfect because then I won't feel the need to schlep them when we move to wherever home #2 will be. And when people come over, they can actually sit down. Maybe people will want to come over now...

Silent Kacey Strikes Back...

Scarlet and I have been living the easy life for the past two weeks again. Jon's company flew us to Colorado because Jon had been stuck there for so long. So I spent 2 lazy weeks in a hotel room eating out for every meal, enjoying the sights (by the way Colorado is so beautiful!), and doing a whole lot of nothing. It was oh so very nice.

The best part about it was this hotel cafe we discovered. Now I'm one of those people who is super annoyed when a hotel doesn't provide free breakfast. I need my breakfast, but I don't really need a whole production. A simple bowl of cereal, maybe an english muffin on the side, I'm one happy camper. But our hotel did not have this little luxury. Instead they had a Swedish cafe built into it. And lets just say I have found two new love of my life's - pierogis and peach waffle boats.

So Pierogis look a whole lot like potstickers but they have strawberries or this really good vanilla cream cheese stuffed inside. They fill the plate with them and top them with whipped cream and cinnamon. Delicious took on a whole new meaning. Of course they were just one step down from the waffles shaped like long ovals filled with the vanilla cream cheese filling stuff and topped with peach jam and whipped cream. Mmmmmm.

We actually had some crazy eating experiences while we were there. We were in Boulder for most of the time which is an absolutely beautiful city... but a little nuts too. For example, every other person had dreads. Not kidding, we actually saw a guy who was totally balding, you know just had the hair rim behind the ears left, who had dreads. Super disturbing... Not only that, EVERYTHING in Boulder is organic, tofu, or soy. And as a meat eating pesticide, growth horomone eatin fool, I'm not sure I totally fit it. Also almost every baby I saw was wearing cloth diapers. Jon suggested we give them a try. I agreed whole-heartedly, assuming of course that he would take over all diaper laundering duties. We got back to the pampers pretty quick.

After that, we spent a weekend in California while Jon participated in a corporate challenge. So he got to play volleyball and run relay races for a whole work day on the beach and we still got paid for it. We also got to go to the beach for the first time this summer. Scarlet really enjoyed herself. Of course I"m not sure how much sand she actually swallowed, but hey, sand isn't that bad for you right?

We got back late Saturday night and crashed. I realized the next morning that my cell phone was dead and I needed to charge it, only to discover my cell phone was no where to be found. We don't have a house phone so when Jon jetted back to Colorado I was left completely cut off from the outside world... except for internet of course. I turned the apartment upside down looking for it, driving to two different t-mobiles trying to figure out what I should do, only to finally find it an hour ago under the refridgerator. How did my cell phone get under my fridge you ask? We may never know...

Two Whole Years

It's true. Jon and I still "believe in a thing called love" (our song) two years later. "That's like a whole mission without trading companions once!" Labor Day was our anniversary. I didn't even realize it at the time but we totally picked the perfect weekend to be married. I've declared Labor Day to be my anniversary (regardless of whether or not it lands on the 3rd) every year. I love when Jon doesn't have to work on weekdays and that way every year we get an extra day of weekend time. We had such a great time. I almost feel like I shouldn't share it though because it might sound really boring to anyone else. Oh well, it's my blog.

Scarlet let us sleep in until 9:30 that morning. That was the greatest. What better gift can your 6 month old give you? We spent a little time organizing the apartment and put Scarlet down for a nap that turned out to be 3 hours long. That NEVER happens. We got to just be the two of us all afternoon, which mostly involved chatting about life and lazying around the apartment. When she woke up we drove out to the Red Rock Loop. It is so goregous! Jon and I had both not been there so we really enjoyed playing tourist in our own city.

Her smile in this picture cracks me up!

Then we had a great Thai meal at a new restaurant we hadn't tried before and Scarlet was a doll through the whole thing. The only potentially moment ruining thing there was this nutty couple that came in. The lady was seriously off her rocker. She kept talking to the people who worked there really loud and slow, saying things like, "You are in my country, you should speak my language." and "I was a vodka martini, you know what a martini is right?" Their english was fine by the way. She also insisted they have a male waiter because women are always slow and they just don't understand her. When she first walked in the door, she came right up to me and asked me how old Scarlet was. Then she says, "make her stay that age forever because when they are sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen... (she counted slowly all the way to 25) they are TERRIBLE!" she shouts at me. Quite the adventure.

But overall great anniversary. I've got a good little family.

So Gross

So Jon and I sat down to watch a little projector movie action last night as if we didn't have a care in the world. A good way into the movie I feel something on my arm. I look down and brush my arm but don't feel anything so I assume it must just be a loose hair. A few minutes later, the same movement on my other arm. Same thing, I brush away don't feel a thing then move on. I feel it one more time and at this point I am in complete denial as I react the same way. Soon after we got up to go to the computer and, this time, I knew what was going on. Quick as lightning I reach down my shirt in between the boobs (can you say boobs on a blog?) and fling out... wait for it... a cockroach that has been crawling around under my shirt. I feel dirty all over again just writing this...

Now I am not a wimp when it comes to almost any bug. I can handle spiders even, but cockroaches are the ultimate symbol of filth to me and they are like the national bug of Las Vegas. Stupid desert. Needless to say Jon got to search through all of my clothing and bed that night on bug alert and our landlord is getting an earful very soon. Promise to blog about something not so disturbing later today.