Quigley Quibbler April 2009

Scott and our driveway...
The view from our apartments...
Scott and Jaedyn with 'Bean' and Holly Nault, Scott's cousin and their baby.
Jaedyn and the beautiful blanket from Maris.

Read on for more...

So much to write about! We have started writing down our favorite event from the week so we would remember what happened from one newsletter to the next. Here are a few of our favorite things:

Arren- Getting our home put together!! It's still a work in progress, but of the four favorites I have come up with two of them are about getting our home unpacked, organized and nice. We got a table! For the first time since we have been married (4.5 years) we have a table -in the dining room- that we can sit at and eat from. Our laid-back lifestyle of eating on the couch or at the computer desk was working great, but now that we have a baby and a table, well, I feel like we are on our way to being a "real" family. Next we'll have to buy a house for our table...and get a dog, because that is what "real" families have (so I have said).
The second thing was getting decorations and little furniture pieces to decorate and store with. Scott's parents have some items in storage that they are giving to the kids in town, so after 'shopping' at their place, we came home with a little Bombay chest, some fire irons, our table and six chairs, a rug and about a millionDVD's. With our DVD collection from Dallas, we now have about 15 feet of DVD's. WOW! We also went to Ikea and got matching picture frames and got some prints from the LDS Bookstore to supplement what we had already. It's looking quite nice I think. I wanted to get some green accents for our living room but it is becoming really hard to find the right shade for pillows and a throw and curtains, not to mention a rug! Scott is fixing up one of our computers to be an entertainment center to watch movies and or TV on. So now in addition to a traditional dining room (complete with a table) we will have a traditional living room (complete with entertainment center)!!
My next two favorite things from the past two weeks are all about food. Eating food, with friends to be exact. Conference Weekend we went to our new sister-in-law's parents for Sunday Dinner. It was awesome. Great food, yummy dessert, good conversation and super people to share it with. TheFarrar's were so hospitable to have us over and share the last piece of asparagus and meat with us. :) I had a really enjoyable time.
Probably my all time favorite thing was Passover at the Hansen's. Maris cooked up a traditional Sedar Dinner and we dined in high style! Mav (Dave) read some traditional prayers that Maris got on-line. Their little Jacob looked up at Mav at one point and asked "Daddy, what are you even saying?" Maris also gave Jaedy a beautiful handmade (?) blanket. Jaedyn is sleeping with it as I type. This event was just perfect because I was wanting to do more for Easter. Hunting eggs is great, but not enough to commemorate the Atonement, in my opinion. So we had aSedar Dinner and played with friends, who are so absolutely awesome I can't begin to describe it and went to two Sacrament meetings on Sunday. I wanted to do aSedar myself but I had no idea how to cook lamb or where to find it, so now I have another year to figure it out. When we were at theLDS bookstore I picked up a book on having a more Christ-centered Easter. I am really excited to try it out next year and in the years to come. My idea is that Easter will become as big a holiday for us as Christmas is.

Scott- We moved up here to Washington to be closer to family and its really a whole new world. Yes, I grew up with them all but, its much different now that we are all grown and out of the house and have families of our own. One of the most impacting experiences for me this month was visiting my parent's ward to listen to my dad give a talk in sacrament meeting. He spoke on the atonement of Jesus Christ. The thing that stirred me the most was not actually the talk, but rather afterward when he sat back down and his eyes met mine from up on the stand. He gave me a smile and his whole demeanor seemed to lift and he just seemed to be filled to capacity with joy. I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with it being just me there, but my whole little family unit. Now that all of us "kids" are grown and have kids of our own we aren't really kids anymore and so the relationship that I have always known as a child-parent relationship is now a parent-parent relationship. I don't mean this with any amount of disrespect as my parents are always my parents but in many ways we are now equals and that is weird. Its a good, fun thing, but weird none the less. It isn't just the relationship between my parents that has changed its between me and my siblings as well. I say siblings....well really only James as Megan is gone and Bethany isn't exactly close by. Anyhow, having dad give me a look of gratitude for doing something as simple as taking my family to his ward and supporting him and listening to him give a talk means a lot. There was another event that I thoroughly enjoyed taking a part in but Arren already claimed it so I'll just make a brief mention of it. We had a traditional Jewish passover diner (with all the recitations and all) with a dear mission companion of mine and his family. It was really neat. We had a laid-back (as per instruction not to make a big deal of it) celebration for mom at James and Ate's (call her what you want, but to me she is Ate [translation: older sister]). I was rather worried about our DVD collection as it mostly consists of romantic-comedy and action movies with the vast majority of them rating at PG-13 and definitely not suitable for my daughter. Side note: she is very stinkin cute. Note to self: buy a double barrel 12 gauge. Mom and Dad just bequeathed upon us a collection of DVDs that dwarfs our own collection and is %95 children's movies. Not all of which are Disney. I was trying to figure out how to get a hold of a lot of the classics I grew up on like The Sound of Music and Bed Nobs and Broomsticks. Its very exciting to have them in our house now. We have been watching a lot of them... gotta warm 'em up! ;)
(edit here are some of the other favorite things he mentioned: Taking a family walk at Marymoor Park, finding out that he does NOT have to go through school again to practice massage in Washington, and going to his cousin's baby's blessing.)

Jaedyn- I asked her but my Adamic is not what it once was, and the answer was lost in translation. She is growing. We weighed her at the Farrar's and she is around 11 lbs now. I hurt my shoulder somehow... probably while doing push-ups and was taking Extra-strength Excedrin for the pain.Jaedyn got really cranky and would not go to sleep even when she was exhausted . It took us about three days to remember that Excedrin has lots of caffeine in it. Lots. We have been so good at keeping caffeine out of her diet of mommy-milk that this was quite a rude introduction. My shoulder is feeling much better now and the caffeine is, should be, out of my system, but we had a rough couple of days. Other than that,Jaedyn is a smile-happy and friendly baby. She is learning so quick. When we hold her Binky in front of her, she opens her mouth for it. She smiles when she sees us, has learned to grab toys dangling in front of her and has experimented with gumming her blankets and plush toys. She is also interested in watching TV with Mommy and daddy. Uncle Miles gave me a book, On Combat, that was a good read and very informative. One of the points that Lieutenant Colonel DavidGrossman makes is about the affect / effect watching violent media has on children. I am now informed of some of the dangers it can present and we are not lettingJaedyn watch anything more exciting than Baby Einstein. She will strain to turn and watch when she hears a show and we have to keep an eye on her to make sure she is facing us like she should be.Jaedyn is not a huge fan of bath time but puts up with it pretty well. She loves getting her diaper changed and will gurgle and wiggle and kick quite happily when she knows what is going on.

Enjoy the pictures of our home and family, it is really beautiful here.