Monday, April 28, 2008

Monster Blog

Be prepared for a long one folks!

First gas stop. We have a happy baby! Things are looking good! Hopefully it will hold for the whole trip.

We stopped at Walmart to pick up a few things in Montana where there is no sales tax and Mommy can use her 10% discount card! It never fails, I end up at Walmart on all my days off, despite my efforts to stay away, hehe.


The first swim! She was dead tired here, but she loved it! I feel bad that her suit turned out to be a little bit too small for her. We squeezed her in anyway though. She didn't seem to mind. I almost tried it on before we left, but I ignored the thought and assumed it would fit. I should have bought the 18 month size. Oh well.

Cheese! I'm such a big girl! I can stand in the pool without my floatie thingy!

Are we girly girls or what? We have matching nail polish! I know I look ghostly white, but hey, it's April. Everyone is supposed to be white at this time of year. At least in ND.

Wrinkled feet! I always had wrinkled fingers and toes after swimming growing up. Looks like I'm not the only one!

We bought a pack-n-play for Chels to sleep in on the trip. It's a good thing too. She doesn't sleep so long if she can move around and find something to play with.

We drove through Rexburg and met up with TWO of my old roommates from college. Lynsey is in the green sweater and Berkley is holding Chelsea. I'm the strange on in the middle. I need to learn to be more photogenic. Is that a skill? Is there a class I can take?

We visited Red Robin, mostly for Mommy's sake. I wish there was a Red Robin around here. Then again, I'd probably eat there way too often! I think I gained at least five pounds this week from all the yummy food we got to eat! It was a nice change for Chelsea too, who got to eat gourmet Mac and Cheese, one of her favorite dishes. It sure beats a steady stream of animal crackers, doesn't it?

We picked up a loaf of bread and fed the ducks while we waited for everyone to come to play crocket (spelling?) Chelsea loved it! I think she was saying ducks and duckies. We have a couple cute videos, but this is the only photo. She wanted to walk into the water and see them!

What a cutie!

Here is Jeff, Lois, and Reed playing crocket with the gang. What a cute little family. Reed enjoyed moving people's balls around. Sometimes it was helpful!

This picture is hilarious. Chelsea looks simply horrified, doesn't she? Well nothing bad was happening. No blood, no tears. She's just talking. Maybe looking at one of the ducks, who knows. But she was just vocalizing something and this is the expression I caught. I love it!

We visited many game stores while in Utah. We brought home a total of six new games to add to our collection. We have a ways to go before we catch up to the Stutz's, but I have no doubt that we will get there eventually. This is a funny picture because Chelsea was carrying a toy in each hand and pushing the stroller around at the same time. She fell down, of course, but she held on to the toys and pushed the stroller from her knees. What a silly girl.

Look! This kids are actually playing TOGETHER instead of just next to each other! Actually I would bet that Reed was playing with this toy and Chelsea saw it and decided she wanted to play with it. But I wasn't there. Michelle and Greg were babysitting while we did a temple session at the Provo Temple on Wednesday.

So tired! I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing? Why am I so tired all the time? I just can't keep my eyes open...

We are watching the second premier of Forced Intelligence. Chelsea was a little noisier this time around. Though we did catch a few snuggles while watching together. :) So cute!

The happy couple 36 hours before the wedding. I hope there's not trouble already! Yikes! (hehe just kidding)

Rick served his mission in Brazil. So while in the area, we were sure to dine Brazilian at Tucanos. It was very yummy. Difficult, however, to control the amount of food intake when the food they bring by constantly looks and tastes so yummy! Even the little one enjoyed the food.

Here is the happy couple, plus a few. Poor Reed looks like he'd rather be asleep. Chelsea was fighting to get the hat off, but needed a little breather, hence the weird pose. I wanted to get a picture of her with the hat ON, so I didn't wait till everyone was really ready to snap the photo. But what a beautiful Bride, and a handsome Groom! Congratulations you two!

The hat returns! Too bad she's holding the bottle. I didn't dare take it from her because she needed to take a nap, but it was going to be awhile before she had the chance. Once she is cranky, it's difficult to make her get happy again without a nice long nap.

Watching the remainder of the photo shoot with Daddy. There was three different weddings being photographed all at the same time, just at varying distances from the temple. Interesting.

Ah, the echoing cup trick! Every kid must discover it at some point. Chelsea did very well entertaining herself in the hours between the family luncheon and the reception. I had to take her dress of and rinse it in the sink to even out all the drool spots on the front, which covered her dress from the moment she put it on. (Teeth coming in, her left tooth broke through either yesterday or today for the second time) But she liked carrying things around and pushing around the plastic totes best, as well as yelling into cups.

What the heck, I'll stick a picture of me on here. I look a little weird, but it's nearing bedtime at this point. I had eaten lots of good food and was entertained by the family at the reception. Chelsea was busy checking out my buttons (her favorite!) instead of smiling for the camera.

Here is the strawberry that Greg dipped and dipped and dipped and coated in peanuts and dipped again and dipped some more. I have no idea how many layers it ended up being, or if he even ate it in the end. But the chocolate fountain was a big hit.

My sleepy girl on the morning before our final day of travel. I picked her up from the pack-n-play and she was out cold. I shook her and jostled her a little bit. Still out cold. I finally put her on her BACK on the bed and bounced a little while Rick turned on the TV and flipped channels. How do yo NICELY wake up a kid that's so far gone? (We wanted to wake her up to change her and feed her and give her some awake time so she would sleep better and longer during the trip. And it worked-she stayed in the car all the way until Bismarck before needing a stretch and play break.) Well she gradually woke up (luckily) and entertained the other guests at the hotel during breakfast. Then we headed for home.

What a wonderful trip. We are all glad to be back home and in the swing of things, though. We were very blessed and watched over on our trip. We were safe and comfortable, awake and alert, and well fed and cared for. We had various fortunate events (aka blessings) on our trip. Some minor, others maybe not so minor. On the road between Bismarck and Minot we were flagged down by a lady frantically waving her arms at us from her vehicle. We pulled over and she turned off on a different road and kept driving. Weird. So Rick got out and checked out the car. Our back left tire was very low. So we filled it up in Washburn. Drove to Cole Harbor and checked again. It seemed fine so we kept going. It remained fine until Rick's lunch break today when he discovered that the tire was again nearly flat. Turns out we drove over a metal spike of some sort that went completely through the tire. We had to replace it. It's amazing we were able to drive on it. But the Lord looks out for us. We remain safe and happy!

Oh yeah, and Chelsea said Reed! It comes out just eed, but it's Reed nonetheless! I'll have to see if she will say it tomorrow, or if it was just for the wedding day.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Vacation Time

Hello Gang!

We are in Utah! We are having a great vacation so far. Chelsea was a champ travelling down here. We hit the road at 4:30 Saturday morning. We hoped to get in a good 4-5 hours driving before the little one even woke up. She didn't sleep until we wanted, but she was great. She was able to mostly entertain herself during the awake times (with the help of Mommy giving her an endless stream of animal crackers-half of which ended up soggy and in the carseat, but oh well). We went as far as Bozeman, Montana Saturday. We made great time so we were too early for check in at the hotel. Where did we go? Well Walmart, naturally! We picked up a pack-n-play to keep Chelsea captive during nap/bedtime, otherwise she tends to wake up and not go back to sleep if she discovers she can go somewhere. We got some cute pictures while we killed time as well as enjoyed no sales tax and 10% off discount at Walmart. (We are currently staying at Steph [Lois' sister] and Andy's apartment and so I will have to add pictures/video later.)

At the hotel we took Chelsea swimming for the first time! She was so tired by that time, but refused to nap, so we took her into the pool. We got a little floaty tube that she can sit in and hand out in the water without being held constantly (thanks for the suggestion Laurie!) She had a ball! I was looking forward to putting her in her new swimsuit. It turned out to be just a little bit small for her, but we squeezed her in anyway. :) It was definitely worth it.

Chelsea got to eat a bunch of new foods for breakfast at the hotel. They served hot breakfast with the continental breakfast, so Chels got to sample eggs and pancakes and hash browns and muffins all for the first time. She liked them all. After eating mainly animal crackers for most of the previous day, I bet the warm stuff was a welcome change! So Sunday we headed out for the second leg of our journey. Rexburg was our lunch stopping spot. We explored my old campus a bit and met up with a couple old roommies to eat and show off the little one. They loved her! I miss you Berk and Lynsey! You guys were so fun to live with!

So after lunch we headed down to Provo to meet up with Jeff and Lois. We knew their apartment complex, but we didn't know which apartment was theirs; so our plan was to look for their car and then knock on nearby apartments hoping to either find it or find someone that knows. (We did try looking it up on the BYU site, but it turns out that they give out far less information then they used to) We parked and saw a Jeff-and-Lois-ish car nearby. Then we saw a Lois-looking girl digging in it. So we came near and started calling for Jeff and Lois and then they appeared! They were just on their way to Roger and Brit's for dinner. They left us a note, but it would have been hard for us to meet up with them, since we didn't know where either family lived. So we lucked out. We all went together and had wonderful yummy food. Reed had shoes on that squeaked at each step, it was really cute.

Yesterday we went and explored Rick's old campus a bit. We met up with Michelle and later ate at the Cougareat. We didn't see Chris or Amanda there. We hadn't even seen them yet. We went to the BYU bookstore and picked up a few things. And we went to the mall and hunted out a swim suit for me. It took awhile, even here in Utah, but I managed to find one that I like, despite having to evacuate the store. No joke! Just as I discovered my suit, a lady asked me to leave quickly because they were smelling gas. So I went out to Rick and Chelsea, who was pushing her stroller around the little rest area outside Sears, and we went on our way. Later we came back and the store was open again and I made my purchase. Later Rick and I played Carcasonne. We tied the first game and he throttled me the second. It was fun. We picked up an expansion pack for that at the mall too, so be ready to play when we get back, Elizabeth!

At the end of the day, we went to the duck pond to play crocket with Jeff, Lois, Reed, Chris, and Amanda. We see the happy couple at last! The main reason we are in Utah! It was lots of fun to feed to ducks and to play. Amanda's family joined us later. It was nice to meet them, too. They are niceys. Chelsea has discovered to joy of pushing the cooler around the floor. It was pretty cute. After we put Chelsea to bed, Steph and Andy were nice enough to babysit while Rick and I went to Jeff and Lois' to play some Wii. We were all pretty tired, but it was way fun. It was my first experience with the Wii. I think I'd be open to doing it again. :)

Monday, April 14, 2008

Happenings

Hello all!

We had lots of fun this week enjoying the weather that is finally warming up! We went to the park and we even went geocache-ing. Not sure how to spell that. It was Mommy's first experience with it. We didn't get anything at our destination, but we did leave a deck of phase 10 cards behind for the next group to go. It was fun still, even without the spoils.

Chelsea has learned how to slurp noodles. She loves to mooch ramen noodles the best. Her walking is improving in leaps and bounds. I was watching a video earlier of her Igor walk. She doesn't walk like Igor anymore.

This is Chelsea helping do the dishes. Such a sweetie!

We call this the fat face. She makes it when she is trying to get out of her high chair, carseat, or in this case, out from underneath a pile of laundry. She was having a blast playing Peek but she decided she was finished just as I got the camera ready. Figures.

The bouncy paddle ball/string continues to entertain. She's bouncing herself as well as speaking.



We made a trip to another park and tried out a different type of swing. I think she liked it!



Daddy took Chelsea through the tunnel! What a thrill seeker. The higher the better, the faster the better.



Yes, once again, unable to resist the bathtub scene. She was trying to crawl up the back of the tub at first. Of course she was sliding right back down. She's just cute. Enjoy!


Sunday, April 6, 2008

Heit Productions Premier

Hello gang! I hope everyone's weekend has been great. Ours was wonderful. The biggest news of the week was the movie premier on Friday! It was a great success. It didn't have to be postponed or anything! There was video AND sound, and it was great! Guess how many fans came out to watch...Over 300! Yes that is over 300! That is the biggest Heit premier to date. I am looking forward to the DVD director's cut and extras. It will be a little while yet, but well worth the wait. I'm glad I got to be a part of this one, even if it required *gulp* being in front of the camera for a bit. It was also lots of fun to see the progression from being pregnant both in the film and in real life. Only one scene was out of order. In the movie I was supposed to still be pregnant, when I had already had Chelsea (aka "Paige" in the movie) in real life. I was still flabby enough to pull off looking pregnant though. :p And Chelsea was really good during the premier. She actually sat on my lap and watched for probably the first 20 minutes. Amazing!

We can finally do pig tails! Yes, they look a little like horns, but it's cute still! I have to have her captive in her high chair in order to get her to hold still enough to get them in, but it's worth it. We got many comments when we went to the mall about how cute she looked.

Chelsea likes to play video games with Daddy. Holding the controller seems to keep her from playing with the cords and/or pulling the whole unit out of the cupboard.

Here is a couple from General Conference Sunday. We went to Grandma and Grandpa Kelly's house and watched on TV. Chelsea was patting Daddy's face.
She has also gotten into an almost-somersault position a lot recently. She'll stand with her feet on the floor and fold in half so her head is on the floor. She can't go any further on her own. She just flattens out on her tummy and gets up from there.
You can see her new top teeth in this picture!

Daddy is helping Chelsea do a real somersault. She gets a kick out of that.



Go Speed Racer! I didn't get much on video, but Chelsea does these cute little bounds when she runs with Daddy's help.