Our little helper

I'm so smart. At least, that's what I decided the other day after I discovered a way to keep Cassie occupied while I made dinner. I asked her to be my "helper." I stood her on a chair, gave her a measuring spoon, filled the sink with a few inches of water, and asked her to stir. Brilliant. It kept her occupied for nearly an hour (!) while I worked. Definitely an improvement over having her under my feet, tugging on my pants while I cook. The only con was that she splashed a little, leaving herself and the floor quite wet. Oh, and the other con, that now all she wants to do is be my "hapah!" She's constantly dragging chairs over to the sink and reaching for whatever dishes she can grab, dipping her hands in dirty water and declaring "dah!" (stir). Maybe I'm not so smart after all.

Here's our little helper at work.

On the bright side, I'm much better at staying on top of the dishes these days. :)

Our Tree

Well, I wish it was ours, but for now we're just renting the shady spot next to it. I love watching the progression of the tree outside our giant picture-window through the seasons.

Winter

Spring
I took a picture of the same bud every day. It really did change this fast.
This year the buds survived a spring snowstorm

Summer

We just enjoy the shade and privacy all summer long- no need to close the blinds.

Stay tuned for fall! (At least as exciting as spring.)

What we've been doing...

Emily:

• Being a terrible blogger. Sorry.
• Singing! In a choir! A good choir! Called Deseret Chamber Singers. I'm a little excited about it. (I'm a total choir nerd.) Our first concert is October 27th at 7:30 pm at The Waterford School, which is at 1480 E 9400 S in Salt Lake. (hint, hint)
• Joining Facebook. I know, I'm totally behind the times.

Trevor:

• Giving Emily flowers because "I thought you deserved them." Aw.

• Being super busy with school, work, and research, while still being a great husband and father, and therefore being the real person who deserves flowers. (or at least the male equivalent of flowers...oreos?)

Cassie

• Eating bananas ("manas"). At about 39 seconds you'll see how she usually eats them. "Mah" means more. We hope you enjoy the clandestine camera work:

• Having a cold (Trev too). It sure didn't take any energy out of her, though.
• Making changes: going off the pacifier and taking only one nap a day instead of two.
• Really getting into General Conference: saying "Amah" after each talk and prayer.
  

The Whole Fam:

• Finding deer right outside our apartment yesterday morning!

• Watching BYU football from our comfortable couch. Go Cougars!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

We all love you around here, especially little Cassie.

funny baby, smart husband (aren't I lucky?)

We were leaving town for the Labor Day weekend, Trevor driving, me in the passenger seat, Cassie in her car seat. While we waited at a stop light, Trevor asked me, "Do you know the people behind us?" I looked in the mirror to see a young couple in a minivan, smiling and waving at us. I smiled, thinking they must be friends or family...but I didn't recognize either of them. Weird. I contemplated waving back. They obviously thought they knew us. Then I heard an "Eye!" (Hi!) and glanced back at Cassie. She had a perfect view of the couple from her rear-facing car seat, and she was grinning and waving at them. We just laughed while Cassie kept them entertained for the next few stop lights.

In other news, I have an amazing husband. I have so many reasons to be glad that we're married, and I could write a post about how much I appreciate him and how well-suited to each other we are. But I just want to say that I'm proud of him for his recent accomplishments. He just got hired by a structural engineering company doing real (!) engineering for 20 hours a week. This is potentially a full-time job when he finishes his Masters next year, but even if that doesn't work out, it's great real-world experience. On top of that, after holding our breath for several months, unsure of whether there would be any money available for graduate scholarships, Trevor received a full-tuition scholarship for this semester! *sigh of relief* He's awesome.

Mixed Feelings

With school starting again, I feel excited and disappointed at the same time. Here's my list of pros and cons.

Pros:

• More people! This college town will be bustling again soon. There's a palpable energy that arrives every fall.
• Cool weather! And mostly, the yellows and oranges and reds that come with it.
• The beginning of Trevor's last year of school. *sigh of relief*
• A less crowded library! Right now we're year-round library people. But when we have kids in public school, we'll probably end up being summer library people like everyone else. I was overwhelmed by the amount of people at the library the week after school let out this summer. And shocked at how few books were left on the shelves. And how l o n g the waiting lists became.
• Good TV! Reruns get old. Mostly, I've missed The Office.
• Events! I'm really excited for choir concerts, football games, musicals, art exhibits, intramural sports, comedy shows, dances, and all the other activities that are available during the school year.

Cons:

• More people. At the grocery store, at restaurants, at Walmart and Blockbuster and Target and the mall, walking and biking and driving. More lines and crowds and traffic.
• Cool weather. We'll be spending more time inside and less time playing ultimate frisbee and taking walks to campus and chatting with neighbors while the kids play. I'm truly worried about keeping wild little Cassie cooped up in our apartment on cold winter days.
• Seeing less of Trevor. I've loved having Trevor home every day after work this summer. With all the homework he has during the school year, it never feels like he's really home when he's home.

It's crazy how much school affects me when I'm not even a student. Or a teacher. Here's hoping I'll discover even more pros this fall!

Our Camera-less Adventures

We've been having a great time this summer. I promise! I just don't have many pictures to prove it. Our camera's working fine, I just keep forgetting to take pictures, or forgetting to take the camera altogether.

The last weekend in July was the much-anticipated 24th of July celebration in Oakley, and our last chance to be with Trevor's entire family before two of his brothers moved far, far away. I took four pictures. Two of them feature Trevor sleeping face-down in the front room. I know, awesome. Here's the only one worth showing: Cassie enjoying Grandma and Grandpa's new little pool.
The boys played in the annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament and had fun, but wish they had done better. Good thing there's next year. I went to my first rodeo. Yee-haw! Let's be honest. My first reaction was, "this is a tad inhumane...." Calf-roping was the first event, and the first contestant flipped the calf pretty high in the air when he roped him around the neck. Ow. It got much less violent after that, and was really fun to watch. I was seriously impressed at the control they all had over their horses. The horses obviously trusted their owners and were so well trained. And the highlight of the evening? Driving home in traffic (5 mph?) RIGHT next to a drunk cowboy who was staggering home. Very entertaining. We were glad he was walking home.

We were in charge of a ward camp out last weekend, and I remembered everything we were supposed to take...except the camera. But there were lots of happy people eating Dutch Oven chicken and vegetables, and then lots of scattering people when it started to rain during dinner, and then lots of wet people huddled around a campfire making s'mores after the rain let up. The real adventure for Cassie was in our tent, though. Cassie was acting tired around the campfire, but as soon as she got in the tent and realized it was completely padded with sleeping bags and blankets, she got excited and started throwing herself around. With all that excitement, it took a while for her to fall asleep. But when she did, she was OUT. She slept in the same position the entire night. What do you think of that, mom and dad? (They went on a camping trip when my oldest brother was Cassie's age, and apparently no one got any sleep, since Vaughn was crawling all over them all night.)

Fortunately for you, Trevor remembered the camera on the backpacking trip he took with his brothers and dad. They had to come home a day early (Hooray! For Cassie and me, at least) because of the weather. They all had a good time roughin' it in the wilderness, even though they came home exhausted.






We've also been having fun at home. My parents and Trevor's parents have visited us a few times in the last two months. Those visits have definitely become more frequent since Cassie was born. I guess I can see why they like her so much. Here are some videos to give you an idea of how great she is.