The Beginning of Logan

Our last week in Provo Madison and I stopped by the new Provo temple to see the construction.

Right now the temple is on stilts as they are digging up the basement.

Dinner time.

Madison loves corn on the cob.  Unfortunately she might have a food allergy to it.

She also loves watermelon.  Pretty much she loves food in general.

Her hair is starting to get longer.  I like to give her a mohawk.

Helping dad put the crib together.  She is helping hold the hardware.

Mmmm...tastes like metal.

Such a happy baby.

Trying out her new crib for the first time.  I think she likes it.

Some people like prison...

We went to Illinois to visit Tyler's brother.

Getting ready to go to Nauvoo.

Having a taste of her first pickle.

She likes it.

Sitting outside of Brigham Young's house.

Getting ready to walk down Parley Street.

Madison's first night sleeping in her crib...it really only lasted a few minutes before she started screaming and ended up sleeping in my bed.

Our Provo Souvenir

We have a triumph to declare.  We recently turned this:

into this:

Okay, not quite.  But pretty close.  We didn't dye ours a mocha color, Lauren didn't want turned legs, and we decided not to bend the back of the crib.  But we do have the pictures of the crib we made below.

We built it with some ash wood that came from an ash tree around the corner from our house in Provo. Our neighbor saw the ash trees being cut down and convinced the city to give the wood to him and knowing I was planning to build a crib he gave some to us. Thanks, Jeff!  I really enjoyed trying some new techniques on this project such as the laminate bending for the arms, and cutting the molding on the table saw.   Lauren did an amazing amount of work on this crib by putting in hours and hours--tens of hours--of sanding. She surprised me once by sanding the molding all the way smooth and getting out all of the table saw blade marks. When I came home from work I was very surprised. Unfortunately it gave her blisters because she did so much. she was a trooper.

Oh, also, the raised panels are maple. We had to buy some maple to make those, everything else came from the local ash. We were talking with someone about it--though I forget who it was now--and they asked where the wood came from.  We answered, "a tree."  The person gave us a shocked look, then the look turned into, "duh" and said something like, "for a minute I thought that you got it from a tree you chopped down or something.  But of course all wood comes from trees."  We then said, no, the wood really did come from a tree like that.  It came from around the corner about two blocks.  We had to let it air dry before working with it. We have a few figured pieces of maple and Lauren, like me, loves the figured pieces of wood.

What is something unique about you?

So we moved into our new ward a few weeks ago and the relief society asked Lauren to fill out a questionnaire.  One of the questions was "What is something unique about you?"  Lauren wrote down, "my husband and I are both non high school graduates."

Yes, in case any of you did not know, neither Lauren nor I graduated from high school.  And we didn't get our GED either.  I just barely graduated from my undergraduate program at BYU but before that, the last thing I graduated was Junior High--but with flying colors!

In any case, Lauren found our new ward's blog the other day.  Each new relief society sister is highlighted and it gives different facts from the questionnaire about the sister.  Anyone who visits the site will read about Lauren and will read: "What makes Lauren unique?   Both Lauren and her husband are high school graduates!"  Our picture is posted just above.  I'd just as soon have our picture taken down so that no one associates that "fact" with our face.

The blog is http://smithfield14.blogspot.com/ if you would like to see it for yourself.

The conversation that I think will be really awkward for anyone involved is when somebody at church decides to congratulate us on our high school diplomas and we'll have to tell them that we didn't even graduate from high school.  We're frauds!

Madison's Awesome Memorial Day Dress

This is a 12 month dress, but Tyler wanted Madison to wear it for Memorial Day.  We had lots of people tell us how cute she was while out shopping.  Here she is getting ready to spit....yes, a gross habit she has picked up recently.  Beware, she can spit pretty far like a camel.

Tyler has found a better way to change her blow outs.

Eric took Tyler to a Memphis Redbird (The Cardinal's AAA affiliate) game.  Tyler had a great time.  He even got a baseball that the Redbird's 3rd base coach, Pop Warner, flipped out after the first inning.  They sat on the first row down the third base line, right behind the memphis dugout.

Tyler had the chance to talk to some of the players before the game.  This first picture is Tyler with highly touted prospect Micahel Wacha.  He was really friendly and talked with Tyler for a minute or two before moving on.  Tyler is in the stands, while Michael Wacha was on the field.  Wacha is actually 6'6"

Tyler said that during the game Wacha could be seen keeping stats for his teammates, leaning up against the rail as he paid attention to the game, even though he wasn't pitching that night, and even throwing some sun flower seeds at teammates over his shoulder.  He should be a really great clubhouse present for St. Louis, a lot like Lance Berkman was.  We are now big Wacha fans at our house!

Here is Tyler with Kolton Wong.  Again, Wong is on the field.  Wong is 5'9" and has great bat speed.  Even though he isn't known for his power, he has ocassional flashes.  He hit a home run in the first inning off of the billboard that you can see in the top right of the picture that Tyler got with him.  Tyler said that Wong had a much quieter and more reserved personality than Wacha.

Madison now flips over and sleeps on her stomach.

Pajama Party

Madison is waiting for someone to read to her.  She is most likely to pay attention after her shower.  The rest of the time she just wants to chew on her books.

We went and picked Madison up some new 9 month pajamas.  She has been wearing 6 month pj's for about three months and it was getting really difficult to button the bottom part.

These ones are elephants.

You can't see these very well, but they have elephants, giraffes, birds and hearts.

Still working on sitting up.

Madison is more willing to eat new foods if we let her feed herself.

Chewing on a peach.  Usually about half of it ends up on the floor.

For mothers day we put Madison in a new dress.  She received lots of compliments today at church.  Most days we get compliments on her cuteness when running errands.

Tyler really likes french dip sandwiches   I made rolls out of a new french bread recipe and they were delicious.