Happy Anniversary!

I know it's a couple days late, but I wanted to post a wedding picture to celebrate our 3rd anniversary. I really lucked out and got a good one. I love you, Blake!

I want that!

I've been wanting to mention some of my friends' businesses for awhile now, hopefully to send a little business their way, so if you are interested in supporting stay-at-home-moms, they have some really great products!

Embellished Ink & Paper
First, is Heather. She just started a business making homemade greeting cards.They are really cute and unique. Her cards range from $2.50 for a single card to $10.00 for a set, like invitations. I personally like the Thank You cards. She has put a lot of time and effort into her business, and I wish her the best of luck.

Limabeanhome at Etsy
Second, is Kristine. She makes some really great bags from new and "reclaimed" fabrics. I have really been wanting to buy these. I've seen some of her bags and they are really well made, and she can even do custom orders.

Kelly Color Portraits
Third, is Kelly, Blake's brother. Okay, he's not a stay-at-home-mom, but I admire his work, so he's on the list. He started a photography business aside from his career and going to school for his Masters. He is a great photographer, he has taken our family's pictures a couple of times and they turned out great. See this and this post. He lives in Layton, Utah, so if you live close by there, look him up.

Parker Takes A Swim

Every fall one of the local pools allows dogs to come swim the day before they drain the water for the season. We decided it would be a good opportunity for Parker to learn to enjoy water. I know what you are all thinking, I better be up on my vaccinations, right? We made sure we were there first so we weren't swimming in dog broth. And for all you sickos out there, no we did not make Owen swim with the dogs. In fact our friends were nice enough to take him for a couple of hours. Actually, there were more humans in the pool than dogs, hardly any of the dogs wanted to get in.

It was really fun. Parker doesn't like to be in water that much, but he took it with a level of maturity that you don't find among dogs anymore. There was the fiasco where he found the open gate and ran around in the parking lot for a while. Luckily neither man nor dog can resist the wonderful taste of Kraft American Cheese Singles.

Parker must have been swimming really well because a news reporter asked me about him. I was featured on the evening news talking about swimming with Parker. Now before you all rush to the phone and request an autographed dvd of my interview, I must remind you that this is local Eugene news and it was Parker that caught the cameraman's interest. (I don't think he mistook my crazy swimming for Micheal Phelps). That being said, I tried really hard not to look stupid on camera. Unfortunatly, the news station rotates their videos quickly and now I can't find it anymore. Therefore I have also posted our own Parker footage just because I can.


Our video footage.

Family Portraits

My brother was kind enough to take some family portraits for us. We are really happy with the way they turned out. Owen was being a little reluctant to pose, but with enough Gerber fruit puffs, any baby will sit still. Here are a couple of sample shots. Kelly does a lot of interesting things with photography. I recommend checking out Kelly's photo gallery.

The magic behind a calm baby during a photo shoot.

Just like daddy, he likes books with pictures.

The Whole Family (minus Parker)

Our Trip to Utah

I reserved a couple of weeks at the end of summer to go home and visit friends and family in Utah. We have had a really fun time so far. This vacation is far better than our winter break because Owen is older and Parker has been with my parent's dog ever since we got here. We've had more time to do the things we want to do. We camped one night, went to my cousin's wedding, had a photo shoot with my grandparents, rode Frontrunner down to SLC, went boating, hiked, and even went to a demolition derby. This coming week we plan to go swimming with nieces and nephews, barbecue with friends, and go boating again. We have managed to pack each day with something fun. Here are a few pictures from the past week.

Owen at the Demolition Derby with Nick and Lynnsey Owen and Daddy boating at Pineview The family swimming
Owen hanging out with his friends, Austin and Zack
We had a lot more pictures from our trip on my laptop, but Owen managed to break my screen and I had to ship it off to be repaired. We had all of our camping and hiking pictures on there, so we'll post some later assuming I get my laptop back.

Expanding Waistline?

Over the past few years I have noticed a considerable number of pants becoming too tight for me. The mystery lies in the fact that my overall body weight has not increased significantly. I have racked my brain trying to discover the reason behind this change. Much to my excitement, I believe I have discovered why people get big waistlines...they're too smart. As we each grow older we acquire new knowledge that becomes packed into our little brains. I hypothesize that as our knowledge increases, our brain becomes more dense, causing a shift in our center of gravity. This causes a lack of stability and balance. Further evidence can be seen in the loss of balance for the elderly (they're too smart). Luckily our bodies have a way to lower that center of gravity by reallocating some fat down around our middle region (for some it goes even lower, perhaps because they are extremely intelligent). Some experts argue that doing ab crunches "burns" the fat away, but I argue that the horizontal position spreads the fat back to its origins.

This being said, I imagine school is only exaggerating the effects of "waistline gravity distribution" upon my body. So wives, next time you notice your husband's belly squeezing out of the top of his pants like it's trying to escape, just remember how smart he is.

On a completely separate and unrelated topic, Oregon is in full berry season. We now have a freezer packed full of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries that we picked at local fruit farms (blackberries are almost in season). We have made some really good stuff lately like fresh berry key limeade, raspberry ice cream, and berry chocolate cake (see recent post). This morning I made fresh blueberry sauce for our pancakes. I have been cooking quite a bit of food lately. Let me know if you have a good berry recipe.

Memories

It's always fun to be reminded of memories that we haven't thought about for awhile, or heaven forbid, forgot about. So please, leave a memory, I'm excited to see what you come up with. I might even learn something about my husband that I don't even know.

1. Leave a comment below about a memory that you have about me and you, or you and Blake. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next (if you choose to), re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.