For Those of You Who Don't Know...

Please put the phrase "For those of you who don't know" before each line or new paragraph of this post. I'm putting the "..." at the appropriate places, so you don't forget. Thank you and enjoy.

...my husband is deaf. That's how we were drawn together. I was a Speech Pathology and Audiology major and at the time we met, I was in a hearing tests and measures class. That class covered, among other things, much of my hearing aid knowledge....which isn't THAT much but, I do find hearing and especially hearing aids fascinating.

...aside from his dashing good looks, his hearing is one of the first things that fascinated me about Nathan. Besides his hearing aid he uses no other aid for communication. He reads lips and uses environmental and speech cues to understand and speaks very clearly. Since then he hasn't stopped fascinating me. And when I met him he had served a mission and was a college grad. I was impressed!

...the first time I saw him, I was on assignment from the Institute Council to visit two classes. My assignment was to pass on information to both classes and to attend one of them. I got to choose which one. I was actually planning on attending the "other" class (not Nathan's) but, I had found it so early (I thought it was going to be hard to find) and the class officers were actually there THAT early, so I passed on the information and ventured out to find the other class, two towns away. I was so happy that I'd be able to get this assignment done in one evening!

...I was a little late for the next class (Nathan remembers!) It was kind of embarrassing because they had me introduce myself, even though I was late.

...that's it. That was the first time we saw each other. We didn't talk to each other but we were both intrigued by each other.

...I find that interesting and a little romantic.

...we both wanted to talk to each other.

...that's amazing for Nathan because he's not a big talker...he's kinda shy.

...we couldn't talk to each other because there was actually a Sister there that served in the same mission as me but, when I wasn't there. She had just gotten home about a week previous and I had been home for a little over 18 months. Well, she was all talky talky about the mission and I was watching Nathan walk slowly but surely out the door.

...about a month and a half later Nathan showed up in my ward. Before that he was in a ward in the town next to mine.

...sadly, the day he came to my ward, I wasn't there!

...thankfully, he knew a different girl in my ward. He knew her from Utah State.

...he wasn't going to stay for Sunday School (which is NOT like him) but, weirdly this girl asked him if he was going to stay (which is NOT like her) and so he said, yes. He stayed and she didn't. HA!!!

...I'm glad he stayed.

...I'm glad she didn't.

...I guess he liked the ward. He was looking for a ward he would mesh better with. He had given that other ward a good fighting chance. But, after 6 months and still no calling or assignments or genuine friends he decided to go ward hopping.

...the first ward he hopped to was mine.

...he went to the FHE the next day. And, thank goodness I was there!!! We watched the Polar Express, projected onto a wall in one of the classrooms in the church. The guys moved all the couches in the building into that room.

...I recognized him.

...he recognized me.

...that's when it really started. I thought he was SO handsome. But, for some reason I had gotten in my head that at 26, I might never get married (silly), so I had decided that I was just going to be friends with EVERYONE!

...Nathan became my best friend.

...we went to EVERY church activity. Not together. But, we were two of the faithful and steady ones. That is another thing that first fascinated me about Nathan. He was so quiet and seemingly shy and yet so involved and "active". At the activities, I took many opportunities to ask him about his hearing and his hearing aid. He didn't seem to care so I kept the questions rolling.

...our friendship and beyond really blossomed in institute. He began to attend my institute class and we had THE BEST teacher! Sister Pulley! I'm so glad we had that class together because I already loved her and I'm glad he has the opportunity to know and love her too! She had all the students staying after institute to tie quilts and make other items for humanitarian aid. Nathan and I tied quilts together and colored picture books and made bracelets. And these items were sent all over the world. Something I loved was Sister Pulley said that whenever we finished a quilt we had to hug it, so a hug would be sent with it.

...I saw Nathan hug a quilt once.

...after spending so much time together each week at church, ward activities and institute Nathan finally asked me out for some alone time.

...I remember the exact words he said when he called and asked me out. "I was wondering if you would be interested in going out with me to dinner and a movie?" Seemed so formal and yet romantic.

...it's an even longer story from then until now so, I'll quit with the "For those of you who don't know..."

...there's one more.

For those of you who don't know...it's my wonderful and loving husband's birthday today! I'm so glad he found me!

Happy Birthday Sweetheart!!! You're finally the same age as me again...the world is right once again.

...Nathan is a Renaissance Man. Stay tuned! It's gonna be good post and it's gonna be A LOT of pictures!

Everybody is Invited!

You are lovingly invited to join Nathan, Marlayna and Becky for a Party in the Kitchen! It's clean! Hurry over before it gets messy again!

Everybody has the household chore they loath...well, lately for me it's been the kitchen. Every time I get everything clean in there, it's time to make another meal, and TUDAH!!! it's messy again. SO, I've been putting off thoroughly cleaning for a week or so.


Our dishwasher, I'm guessing, is 30+ years old. Now that the kitchen is clean, I'm going to report the inferiority of our dishwasher to our managers. It hasn't worked since we moved in, I'm not sure why I haven't reported it sooner. I guess I figured that since it sprays water and actually goes through the cycles then it should be working. But, when a "dishwasher" doesn't "wash" the dishes then there's a problem....right?

A Bunch O' Pictures

These pictures are all out of order but, what can ya do? We start with Marley standing up using the open dish washer. This makes me nervous because 1) though she is very steady when it comes to straight legs and a strong kung fu hand grip she still doesn't have the balance. And 2) she is getting into everything! Everytime she does something new I have mixed feelings. YEA! She can roll over, she can roll ALL over, she can crawl, and now she can stand. And then there is the saracastic YEA! Oh no! and BONK! or BANG! But, we keep a good eye on her and make sure we are constantly re-baby proofing our little apartment.

Here she is wedging herself between our big ol' pumpkin and a box...so she can look in the box. She is so nosey and she's always up in other people's bizness.

One last week I could hear the shrieks and yells and laughs that let me know when Marley is awake. I came in her room to find this...

Reminds me of that old 70's song by Otis Redding, Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay. I LOVE that song and it has the best whistling part! (Becky is singing now) Sittin' on the edge of my crib watchin the sun shine through my blinds. (Becky is now whistling).

These are the hot cocoa cup pj bottoms Nathan got me for our anniversary. We have a tradition of giving each other pj bottoms each year. And to think...I got him some boring old plaid ones. Oh well, I guess he has opened the door to getting wild and crazy ones. I love them! They are flannel too.

Marley has found a friend in the kitchen. It's actually her reflection, but she just thinks there is another baby that lives in the kitchen, whose life purpose is just to wait until Marley is in the kitchen so they can stare into each others' eyes.

Sorry, I went a little over board on the kitchen pictures, but she's just so cute! This was last Sunday, after church.

There is that kitchen friend again.

This is Marley's cupboard. It has the plastic-ware in it. She loves to pull it all out and drool all over it.

And when I get the camera out and she sees the flashes she likes to turn around and strike a pose.

When the debris she has caused, touches her she likes to push and kick it way from her. Far away, until her body is twisted, arm in cupboard, back against oven, and legs sprawled out. And THAT's entertainment.

This was laundry day last week. Marley takes a ride in one our various laundry receptacles.

Chillaxin' in the bouncy with a nice warm bottle of milk.

Nathan's effort to take pictures of me...because I'm the one always taking the pictures.

Another lovely sleeping position. Should I be teaching her to keep her arms and legs inside the crib at all times?

Kneeling position.

Ok, so I read most of the Twilight series. I'm struggling through the last book. I guess I'm not a HUGE fan, but they have been entertaining. The best part about reading the books is being invited to a Twilight party! My friend Amy organized a delightful evening with quotes, trivia, and food! It was so fun!

I brought these creme puffs and someone hollowed out apples and put candles in them, cute!

Here is Amy Trebek...ok, that's not her last name but, she made a Twilight Jeopardy game.

This is Megan and I think she GOT all of the Edward questions right. She was so funny!

Here's the group!

Here's another laundry day picture.

I put Marley in this bucket from the hospital, we keep her toys in it. She LOVED it!

Another Twilight Party pictures...sorry, these are out of order.

My friend Celeste got this idea from another blog, where they made werewolf and vampire cupcakes. She invited me over to help her make them and I thought we did a pretty good job.

These ones had been hollowed out and had strawberry jelly inside!

Marley never falls asleep while she is eating but, this day she was wiped out!

She looks like she is up on all fours crawling, but she doesn't do that yet. She just acts like she is going to and then goes back to her belly crawl.

THE END!

We love you!

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things...

My husband is my favorite! "Your favorite what?" you say? My favorite EVERYTHING! He is my favorite person, my best friend, my favorite cook, my favorite handyman, my favorite student, my favorite teller of jokes...my favorite everything. He is the love of my life and I'm so grateful to be married to him for eternity!

We just had our second anniversary. It was wonderful!!! The past two years have flown by and I couldn't be happier, in the now. I feel like we are where we need to be and things are going smoothly. And I'm looking forward to the future.

My favorite food right now is pizza. We like to make homemade pizza and make it just the way we like it. This one we tried green olives as a topping...it was ok..but, not my favorite.

Something interesting...I used to REALLY not like onions. I hated them raw or in any way crunchy. I have been this way all my life and it wasn't just a food snob thing, they would actually give me a headache if I ate them. ALL through pregnancy, same. Then I had Marley and BAM!! I love onions! I still can't handle a TON of them, but who can?

I guess I would have to say that my favorite thing is looking out our peep hole. I look through it about a million times a day...ok, not that much. But, everytime I pass it, I like to look though it. And I pass it a lot because it's on the way to the kitchen. I don't know if it's an obsessive compulsive thing but, I just want to see if anyone is in the hall. We hardly EVER see our neighbors, ANY of them, so maybe I'm just trying to see the life forms that live around me?

My favorite baby is definitly Marlayna. Duh! She is the best! She has slept through the night since she was about 3 or 4 weeks old. She is a pretty happy and content baby. She has her moments but, that's just it, they just seem like little moments. She is definitley one of my best friends! We do EVERYTHING together...well, she doesn't help me clean the bathroom because I'm afraid she'll eat the cleaner...but, pretty much everything else.

Isn't she precious in these pictures? My favorite thing is to go in her room when she's asleep and just watch her sleep. She's always in crazy positions. Sometimes crammed head first into a corner or just totally spralled out or sometimes smashed up against the bars. This night she was in the cute little bottom-in-the-air position. If you look close at the first picture of her above you can see a wet mark on her back...yea, she pooped as she was falling asleep! I noticed as I was in there spying on her, but I didn't know if I should change her and wake her up. SO, I didn't. But, I'm thinkin I should have. In the morning she was a dirty nasty baby...I never want to see her like that again. Next time I'll risk it.

She went to the doctor this week and she is thriving, healthy and strong. She has been army crawling all over the place! And she even half stands when holding onto her car seat, bouncy chair or these pillows we have. I've tried to get a picture...I'll keep trying. It's only for a few seconds.

Well, some other random things....

I met this very nice old man named BOB. He's about 74 and he works at Nathan's school, semi-retired. He LOVED Marley, but unfortunately and for some reason she was scared of him. The only other thing she has even showed a sign of being scared of is my blow dryer and it might just be my hair flying all over the place? Not sure. Anyway, this guy was SO nice.

I made homemade chicken pot pies this week and they were SO good!

It's getting colder here, but we haven't turned our heat on yet. I wonder how long we can go without turning it on. My prediction is, sometime this coming week. I don't like the winter...there is so much less to do when it's cold outside.

I think that's about it, for now. We miss all of our friends and family in Utah but, we'll be there in about a month!! I'm getting excited!!

We love you!

YESSSSSS!!!!!

We bought gas at Sam's Club for $1.96! Wahoo! I just hope it keeps getting lower or at least stays under $2.00 for a long time! Because I'm really tired of THIS!....

An interesting thing about the gas here in the Lincoln, the Plus is less than the Regular The Plus is 10% ethenol so that must be why it's cheaper than Regular. Interesting.

We hope all of your gas is going down too!

We love you!

Watch Out World!

Marlayna can get out of her car seat by herself! This is when I thought she was about ready to do it. But, she loves playing with her bottle once she is done drinking, so I think she was still preoccupied with that. About a minute later she did it. See below. She does it all the time.

She is such a smarty pants. And when she was 2 months old and already scooting herself across the doctor's table the doctor said, "She's athletic!" Nathan and I thought that was a weird descriptions for a baby but, she's been proving it ever since.

Ther you have it. Here's another video of her drinking her first orange juice. Maybe we should have started with apple juice. ( For some reason I've had a hard time getting this video clip to download to the post. Finally worked!)

Army Crawl

I mentioned that Marley started crawling on Friday. Sammy and Julie want to see it. Her she is...

Her prize in this video is a book and/or my phone. She will bust her way through blankets and toys to get to one of our books if we leave one down. She goes a little slower to get my phone but both are top priorities for her to get her hands on.

This one shows her more from behind so you can see her graceful movement. This video actually doesn't do her justice.

At the end of this video she gives up the phone and reaches for the camera's wrist leash. She's too cute. And scarily mobile.

Happy Halloween!!!

Got up early and got ready...usually don't get ready before taking Nathan to school...too early, but, today we had a PACKED day! While we ate our early breakfast Marley was on the floor, as usual. She saw a stack of papers and she decided she would start army crawling today. She is fast and as graceful as a skilled ice skater. Paper motivates her to MOVE!

We dropped Nathan off at school...he also had a busy day, including a meeting with his TA for his project in Remote Sensing class. He had to take the camera with him, to take pictures of his experiment so I didn't get the camera for our Halloween party...and there were so many cute little cuties in cute costumes. Ah well. What can ya BOO! (scared you!)

We, Marley and I, then busted over to the store to get our bat wings (blue tortilla chips) and monster brains (salsa). For two of our THREE Halloween parties today.

Side story: The closest grocery store to us is a Super Saver so I went to that one. That parking lot is so stupid! It totally bugs me AND at least once a month I turn too early and end up on this lame street with an island that won't let me turn. So, I have to go all the way down to the next light (not actually THAT far) and flip a U-turn. AND I ALMOST made it through October with out doing that...but, the last day of the month!!! Argh.

ANYWAY!!!

After the store we went to Hobby Lobby. When I put Marley's costume on her yesterday I realized that she needed a few more puff balls for her hat, thus the trip to Hobby Lobby. It is dangerous for me I love that store!!! All of their Halloween stuff was 40% off already and I found this cute dish that looks like a monster with and inverted head (a bowl) PERFECT for SALSA!!! I MEAN MONSTER BRAINS!!! I bought it but, I don't have a picture...sorry. IT'S CUTE!!!

We dashed home and put the finishing touches on Marley's costume. Made sure I had all the supplies we needed to share our bat wings and monster brains. And then headed off to our first Halloween party. It was so fun! Fairies, bugs, dinosaurs, pumpkins, clowns, witches, etc. So cute! We had bread sticks that looked like monster fingers and really yummy cheesy potato soup. And LOTS of Halloween sweets! The little kids even got to go on a ghost hunt, which were tootsie pop ghosts stuck in the grass. They loved it!

After that party we were off to meet Nathan on campus for his School's Halloween party!!! More FOOD! More fairies, bugs, dinosaurs, clowns, pumpkins, witches, etc. They even had a costume contest and Marley got Most Original in the children's costume contest! Everyone loved her costume and lots of people asked if they could take her picture. It was so fun!

After that party we busted home to meet the missionaries. We had them over for soup in a bread bowl. The new elder was SO excited to have soup in a bread bowl. He had never heard of that before. We even let them cut the bread into bowls and they really enjoyed that. We have great missionaries!

Then we busted over to the church for our trunk or treat party! It was so fun! I just LOVE seeing all the costumes! Especially the littlest kids! Some of them would say...Twick or Tweet!

Marley didn't really have anything close to real naps but, she was a trooper. Happy all day! She is such a delightful baby girl and she is definitely growing too fast!

Here are the pictures!


This one was taken the day before Halloween...see she totally needs more kernels of corn on her head.

Marley LOVES looking at herself in the mirror! Here are a few pics of her reflection as a bath towel beauty.

This very nice couple in our ward said we could borrow their exersaucer because they haven't even had their baby yet (their baby boy is due on Sunday). I thought it was a hand me down but it was actually brand new and wasn't even out of the box yet. I put it all together and Marley is enjoying it. There are a few pictures of her eating the attached toys.

This is me at Nathan's office. Waiting for the next party to start. Ya, I'm in Marley's car seat and I have her candy collecting receptacle on my head. I"m a party animal!

Marley, chowin' down on her lunch!

These are the marks my stylish hat left. Man! That picture is NOT flattering.

Marley after her lunch and in her costume again, ready for the next party. She's such a poser.

This guy was not real but he was creepin' me out!

More pictures of the corn cob baby.

Oh yea! I forgot to mention Darth Vader and Yoda were at the party too!

This is Marley and Nathan in the costume parade!

I thought this one was kinda funny...this lady was pregnant in real life and she was a Prom Queen for Halloween. Pregnant Prom Queen...definitely scary!

This little girl was a pink poodle...cute!

More pictures of our voguer. Strike a pose!

My posers posing together...

Lately, Marley is likes to play with Nathan's left ear. Often times it looks like she is holding it open and is ready to shout...DAD CAN YOU HEAR ME!?!?! And in that ear he wouldn't be able to. So cute and funny.

Cuttle bugs....

And back to the ear.

This was her prize for most original costume. It had a little Halloween puzzle, tons of stickers, Mc Donald's coupons, and a note pad. She'll have to grown into all of those. I'm sure the coupons will expire before that.

Exersaucer...more.

And the Finale...Marley's first taste of carrots. Not that eventful of a video but, what the hay.