I'm too tired to be clever

This first pic is a picture of the really warm, really nice quilt that Gramma Richau sent to Emi. It was just so beautiful, I wanted everyone to have a chance to see it.

I've stayed up way too late the last two nights. I've been up til midnight...which is sort of funny because that was an average to early bedtime for me before Emilia was born, but now I'm exhausted if I go to bed too much past 10:30. Of course, no one was waking me up for 15 minutes to an hour 3 times between midnight and 7am before either. I'm sure that makes some sort of difference.

Today was a hard day, too. I had Emilia for the entire day. Steve was doing other things. I love my daughter, but I really struggle with coming up with things that entertain both her and me for 14 1/2 hours a day. By about hour 10 my brain is pretty much spent, but brain spendage has no effect on whether my 5 month old will take a nap or just sit quietly while I do something that doesn't involve her one bit. So, I trudge on.

William: Oi sir, what are you doing?
Chaucer: Uh... trudging. You know, trudging?
[pause]
Chaucer: To trudge: the slow, weary, depressing yet determined walk of a man who has nothing left in life except the impulse to simply soldier on.


Yesterday was a better day, though. Emilia actually took a nap in her crib for 40 minutes. That was a breakthrough. I hope it happens again. I tried today, but she just woke up and then was tired for the rest of the afternoon. She looked really cute yesterday, too. She was wearing another of the dresses from Aunt Jean and a bow I made myself. Oh, and a bib from Nana.We had a couple over for dinner and the ribs I made turned out delectably. Then they stayed and played two games of Settlers with us. It was a lot of fun.

I talked to my boss at Penny's today and she said she wouldn't make me come in for my scheduled 4-6pm shift on Christmas Eve, so we get to leave Wednesday morning to go down to family's. And then Emilia and I are on our way to Arizona for Lavi's wedding. I'm excited for everyone to meet her. Hooray!

curling ribbon, colds, and cutting teeth

First off, I was wrapping a present for Nana today and Emilia was watching. I started curling the ribbon with a scissors and this was her reaction:

Next, I have a cold. I've had a cold for like a week and a half. I thought I was over it and then we went to my parents' this week and it came back for some reason. I wish it would go away.

Third, Emilia has been cutting a tooth for like 3 weeks now. She drools so much! Poor thing gets a rash on her chest because her clothes are constantly wet. If we put a bib on her, she gets a rash under her chin. I can't win. For those skeptics out there, she really is cutting a tooth. I can feel it coming in on the top on her left side. I hope this doesn't mean she's going to start biting me. She's too young to stop breastfeeding. :)

Tough Sunday

Emi had a really rough day today. I'm not sure what was wrong, but she screamed (literally) for longer today than I have ever seen her scream in her entire short life. Poor kid. And we had a busy day, so I'm sure that didn't help.

Steve got called to be the Ward Clerk, so he'll be keeping busy with that soon. Good thing he has a couple weeks of not being in school to learn the ropes and get used to the work load. My new church calling is Ward Photographer. I had never heard of such a thing until they asked me to do it. But hey--it's a fitting calling for me. For those of you out there who don't speak Mormon, a calling is like a job we're asked to do. A ward is just the name for a group of church members who live in the same area -- kind of like a parish, I think.

I found a photography contest for pictures of Logan Canyon and I had some good ones, so I entered them. Thanks to everybody whose opinion I got on which ones to enter. If you want to see them, go to: www.sabrinwattsphotography.com/logan_pics/

And since no blog is complete without a picture of my beautiful daughter, here is one of her sleeping. Steve took them and since the one with me looking like I'm on drugs is the one that turned out better of my daughter, I'm putting that one up. I look really skinny in this picture. Weird.

I haven't had much to say lately. We've been in the same routine for a while. I work 3 days a week, Steve teaches classes and goes to class. Although last Friday was his last day of teaching and this week he has two papers due, but no finals (lucky him!). After tomorrow afternoon, though, he's fun and fancy free until the first week in January. I'm trying to find a new job. Penny's isn't bad, but it doesn't pay very well and I've been getting an average of 10 hours a week, which isn't paying the bills. I saw a job working for the 2010 census that I will try to get. I have to go in and do some testing (make sure I can read and write and follow directions and stuff). They said they'd pay $11.50 to $13.00 an hour and you could do it part time, so it sounds like a great job if it has regular hours. I'm a little worried that if I get it we will no longer qualify for medicaid for Emilia, but really anything is better than being as poor as we are right now.

me and emi yesterday morning.

Steve and Emi on Sunday. Emi is wearing another one of the dresses from Aunt Jean. I couldn't get Steve and Emi to look at me at the same time, so this pic won because you can see the dress better. Sorry Steve.

Still tall and skinny

Emilia had her 4 month appointment on Thursday, so I thought I would report her growth. She is officially 14 lbs 5 oz (50th percentile) and 26 inches (90th percentile).

I was looking for baby photo contests to enter my pictures of her in and the only one that I found that looked legitimate was the Parenting magazine one. Their entry deadline for 2008 had passed already, though, so I'll have to wait until next year to enter. However, I did see that they were having a contest for the cutest baby talk, so I thought I would enter that instead. Here is the video I submitted:

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me!

It was my birthday yesterday. When you have a 4 month old, you can't expect much from a birthday, but it turned out pretty good anyway. My present to myself was to not do housework all day. That was nice. Miss Emilia took a nap in her crib yesterday afternoon, so that was her birthday present to me. I watched an episode of Bones while she slept. Steve made me muffins for breakfast and then took me out to dinner using the giftcard he got for his birthday, which I thought was really nice of him. It was an excellent dinner, although there is all of 1 thing on Chili's menu that I can eat. Literally. The manager was REALLY nice and looked up the ingredient in a lot of the foods and made a special batch of fries without the season salt just for me and sauteed some mushrooms in regular butter instead of garlic butter for my mushroom and swiss hamburger. Wasn't that nice of them?

Emilia hasn't been feeling good all week. She's been very clingy and cranky. She seems to be doing better this morning. Lots of energy and wiggling. Unfortunately she has a doctor's appointment tomorrow where they'll give her some more vaccines and make her feel icky again. Ugh.

We were in Orem and Kearns from Tuesday to Saturday of last week for Thanksgiving. It was fun, though a little weird. I was in charge of pies for our family's dinner and I went all out. I made a blueberry pie (my favorite), a pan of apple bars, and a french silk pie. My mom made a pecan pie that my dad could eat and I was going to make a lemon meringue, but Haylee was nice and made a lemon pie, so I didn't have to.

It hasn't snowed here yet, so it doesn't feel like Christmas time. I have a hard time decorating and putting up a tree when there isn't any snow. Is that weird?

Well, Miss Emi is getting bored, so I guess I'll go entertain her. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was good and happy.