Ch-ch-changes

Exciting things are happening in our neck of the woods! Trevor just got a full-time job with an engineering company in Sandy and we found a new place to live. Trev started yesterday, and he'll be commuting for a few weeks before we move. I'm trying to pack and clean a few things every day so I'm not overwhelmed in the days before we move. So far so good.
Is it okay to brag about one's husband? I'm just so proud of him. Let's just say that the company he works for didn't have any job openings until they saw his resume. They basically created a job so they could have him. Mmmmmm-hmm.
Also, I am giddy with the thought of having a new space to decorate and maybe even *gasp* money to spend on decorating. Any favorite design blogs/stores/ideas? Do share.

P.S.

Last month I had the brilliant idea of teaching Cassie when her birthday is: "Dune Fif." It may have been a little early, though. I think I've created a monster. She likes to talk about her birthday, what kind of "pehsents" she wants, and she has worked very hard at holding two fingers up and saying "two!" Last week, Cassie announced to the cashier at the grocery store, "my birsday is coming up!" I can hardly get her to say "hello" when we see someone we know, but she happily announced her birthday to a stranger and immediately set to work holding her pinky and ring finger down (it takes her a minute) to show her age. A few days later, we had this conversation:
"I wanna dinosoh fo my birsday!"
"A dinosaur?"
nodding "An' a fog."
"A dinosaur and a frog?"
Where does she come up with these things? She also requested water for her birthday, and I told her I thought we could make that happen. :)

Oh, Cassie

As I may have mentioned before on this blog, Cassie is hilarious. Not intentionally, although I think she's starting to realize since we laugh at the things she does all the time.

Like any toddler, Cassie likes to go pants-free sometimes (not diaper-free, mind you. too risky). When she wants to take her pants off, she tells me "I wanna weaw my wegs" or "I wanna weaw my knees." And when she takes her socks of, she's says "I'm weawing my feet!" It's cute.

Cassie currently says yes to any question you ask her. She doesn't think about it, she just immediately responds with a "yeah." As a test, Grandma Hawkes asked her a few weeks ago if she would scrub all the toilets, and Cassie said, "yeah!" As of last night, there is now one question that she will answer "no" to: "Do we color on the walls?" I bet you can guess what prompted us to teach her that the answer to that question is no. Luckily for us, her artwork was on a non-porous wall surface (those silly pillars that stick out of the bedroom walls, for those of you familiar with the apartments where we live) and scrubbed off fairly easily.

I had another big mess to clean up this morning (too soon after the crayon-on-wall incident last night). I opened the fridge for Cassie to get her sippy cup of milk, and she said she wanted juice instead. I explained that her juice sippy was empty, so she decided to take matters into her own hands and lift the entire pitcher of juice out of the fridge (right when I turned around, of course). And of course, because it was completely full, she dropped it immediately. Juice everywhere. Argh.

Mostly though, she makes us laugh.

Fun Times

Stuff that happened this week:

Trevor's parents and sister Taja came to town on Saturday for a surprise party for his mom's sister, Ruth.

We all went to our place after the party and watched a few hours of 24 (yup, still hooked) before going to bed.

Trev's parents left in the morning and Taja stayed because she just can't get enough of us. We all went on a walk on Sunday afternoon and Cassie made a new best friend.

Trevor had his last college class on Monday! (Can I get a *woot woot?*)

Cassie discovered a new favorite activity:


For Family Home Evening on Monday, we played the "couch-camera game." (Shout out to my freshman roomies!) This game is ridiculously fun and you must play it sometime. Let me 'splain. We each had an object to hide in a certain room of the apartment. For instance, I had an apple to hide in the kitchen and Trevor had a magnet to hide in the bathroom. Once we had hidden our objects, we met in the family room where we had the camera set up facing the couch. We set the camera to timer mode then hurried to find the object that someone else had hidden (I was looking for the magnet Trevor hid in the bathroom). Our goal was to find the object and get back onto the couch before the camera went off. Here's a sampling of pictures:

P.S. We keep Cassie's toys under the couch. On purpose. We are not slobs.

After eating giant hamburgers for lunch and pizza for dinner on Monday, Emily woke up feeling pretty yucky on Tuesday. Thank heavens Taja was here! She took care of Cassie all day.

Trevor's parents drove back into town on Tuesday evening for the championship game of Trevor's intramural basketball tournament, which, by the way, they won. That's right. Out of 164 teams. As Cassie would say, "Oh yeah, baby."

Finished season 2 of 24.

Emily got in touch with her crafty/artistic side and made invitations to a baby shower for her sister-in-law.

Emily's brother came home from an internship in Peru. A nicely timed internship, I might add: he is nicely browned from the southern-hemisphere summer, and is looking forward to the upcoming northern-hemisphere summer.

Trevor and Emily went on a date! They ate at Carrabba's, which they highly recommend. Especially the Rigatoni Martino. Mmmm.

Best Friends

Cassie has a best friend. She enjoys playing with pretty much anyone, but there's something special about this friendship. They get easily excited when they see each other and usually squeal, giggle, and scream each others' name. (Which can be kind of a problem in church. Someone in our ward is nodding and laughing right now.) They play really well together and request play-dates with each other. I'm really surprised that friendship can blossom at such a young age. They sincerely have a connection with each other. FYI, this is what best friendship looks like when you're 2:

Kids say the darndest things...

These stories seem a lot less funny now that I've written them out...maybe I need to work on my comedic writing style. Oh well. Mostly I just want you to know that we laugh at the things Cassie says on a daily basis. She's hilarious.

Cassie is in the habit of asking me to "kiss it better" when she gets hurt. The other day she accidentally sat down hard on the edge of her toy bin and started crying. She immediately cried, "Mommy kiss my bottom!" I wasn't too amused, but Trevor laughed really hard.

Cassie had a friend over a few days ago, and they got a little overexcited playing with Cassie's bedroom door. Her friend, Lily, accidentally hit Cassie's head while closing the door. As Cassie was calming down, she looked at me with a thoughtful face and said, "I neen a hit Wily now," as though getting even was certainly the most logical action. I quickly convinced her otherwise.

About once a month we volunteer at the Missionary Training Center. All the volunteers meet together before meeting with the missionaries. A few months ago, while we were meeting with the other volunteers, Cassie pointed to a teenage boy and yelled, "a baby!" Poor kid. I think she was confused about the meaning of that word for a while. About 2 minutes later during a quiet moment, she stuck her finger in her nose and announced, "a boogah!" I had unwittingly taught her that word a few days earlier, and I knew it would come back to haunt me...

Cassie also currently calls pine cones "ice keem cones" and rubber bands "ban-aids."

Past Present Future

All right, so I'm a lazy blogger. No guarantees about the frequency of future posts. But for now, here's what we've done, what we're doing, and what we're going to do soon:

Past

• We were sick for the entire month of February. Yuck. So glad it's over.
• Just got new carpet! Even though it's basically the same flat stuff, it's cleeeeeeean!
• Emily sang with Deseret Chamber Singers (check out the videos if you want to know what we sound like) in their first recording session. We're recording a CD of the music of David Zabriskie of Savior of the World fame. So cool. (Three links in one bullet! Yowza.)
  

Present

• Trev is playing a lot of basketball- intramurals and a Stake tourney
• Reading some good books: Three Cups of Tea by Mortenson and Relin, and Fire by Kristin Cashore.
• Enjoying sunny weather/wondering where winter went. We haven't any any snow stick since January! Weird. I never thought I'd say that I miss the snow.
• Watching season 1 of 24. I can't imagine waiting a week between episodes.

Future

• Graduation! Sometime this summer when Trev finishes his thesis.
• Moving! Hopefully to a place with a bathroom counter, a dishwasher, and walls made of sheetrock.
• A job! (fingers crossed)