Happy Padres Day!

Dearest Daddy,
We love you so. We know you don't read mommy's blog much, but we had to get creative since we got home late last night and you left early this morning. We're hip little babies and decided to use the world wide web to show our love. We're sad we don't get to spend our first father's day with you. You're better at holding us sideways on your arm than mommy. We like when you try to make us laugh. It's nice when you overcome your fear of changing our diapers and get us nice and clean. Thanks for taking us with you across the country, we would have missed you too much! We want to celebrate Brad style when you're back- whatever you want. Burgers, ESPN, it's your call. You're the best daddy.
xoxo,
Lyla & June
Ps- We miss you. Hearing the young women tell why they loved their dads today got us a little teary eyed...maybe that was mom.



Unless you're our daddy I'd just ignore this video or listen to it muted. He's stuck w/ our mom so it doesn't matter how ultra lame she acts sometimes.

birthday boy

I already could do about 100 blog posts about the babies, the delivery, and this extreme life adjustment- it's just a little too overwhelming for me to even think about right now in the short periods I have between feedings. I'm excited to share more when I get my feet on the ground. But this one couldn't be skipped.

Happy birthday! to our favorite man on campus! Daddy got 2 very special presents for his birthday this year:

We like to call them Lyla and June. :)

I had a special gift I wanted to make Brad for his birthday, but it fell out of the running on my ever growing "to do" list before the babies were born, and we've been a little...um, shall we say, occupied over the past couple weeks.  Unfortunately, daddy can't participate in the demanding task of nursing these babies, but he helps out how he can:
We're big skin-to-skin fans at our house, here's daddy snuggling June:

and burping Lyla:

I can't begin to express how much gratitude I feel for my life right now. I feel so undeserving of so many blessings. I scored the best husband in the world and have been blessed with the 2 most precious, beautiful things I've ever seen. These little girls are our lives now, I couldn't do this without Brad (obviously...) but seriously. I couldn't get through life without him. He is such a great man. He is so talented, kind, and generous. I'm so glad Heavenly Father made me wait for him because I couldn't have pictured a better life. Brad is already such an amazing dad. I love him so much for everything he does for our little family. He makes me want to be better. He makes me want to get my hormones under control so I can quit crying over everything. :) He's my favorite person, and I get to keep him forever!
Here's to you mi amor!

Last year's top 10 tribute to Brad

all i want for christmas is...

a fancy camera so I can take adorable pictures of our kids!

So brad spoiled me and got me this for Christmas.
But, it's not all I got- I was so spoiled this Christmas- in a way that it was thrilling opening awesome surprise gifts, but also made me feel like I needed to give 1/2 of it away to orphans to put the universe back in balance (except orphans probably don't need a new ipod, prenatal massage, or lens for a DSLR camera...) We agreed that beyond the camera I would only get a couple little stocking stuffers, but Brad found so many cute surprises for me- it was seriously like being a kid on Christmas. Thank you babe, and Santa, and family for such generous gifts. I'm sure we'll be all about the kids for all future Christmases so I'll keep my loot- just this one time... :) Plethora of gifts aside, it was really just a great Christmas, one full of fun memories that I won't forget. Here's a sampling of post Christmas mess:

But I meant to be talking about the camera...
I've only ever used a point and click, and I've been very loyal to Canon, but after doing my research, I felt like everyone was telling me to get a Nikon: our amazing wedding photographer Scott Jarvie, the infamous pioneer woman, and informative reviews like this. Although I'd never actually taken a picture with a DSLR camera I felt confident in going with Nikon. Even an older model Nikon seemed to outclass the latest Canon and finding a slightly older model made the whole thing much more affordable as well. I surely hope I can figure out all this fancy camera stuff. As long as I can I think I'm going to love it!
The desire has been there for a while, but really ignited when I randomly saw these cute pictures on project nursery: I thought, I want cute pictures of my babies too. Brad thought they were weird, but I think they're sweet. (and not tacky and not just your average newborn shots)

(don't worry, I won't experiment with hanging my babies from trees..)

Then my friend Brooke posted about these pictures on her blog, and I could immediately tell it was the same photographer (she has great style). I was so excited, I knew who took the pictures now and they were in Utah so I could theoretically get cute pictures of my own babies just like them!
Until i saw the price. If I'm going to pay $500 (yes, 1/2 of a thousand dollars!-no prints included) on one little photo shoot of newborn babies, I may as well buy a nice camera with that money and learn how to take cute pictures myself for years to come. So that's exactly what I'm doing. Teach a man to fish, my friends.
So I was going through the manual for a while trying to figure out how to take pictures, formatting memory cards, all this new stuff, but it still wouldn't take a picture. Brad finally figured out we didn't have the lens attached quite right, the camera suddenly perked up and was ready to shoot. Brad pulled it up to his face as I said "nooooo....I want to take the first picture!" But it was too late, so these are the very first pictures taken:

ESPN and ungroomed feet. Yup, sounds about right. So Brad took a pic of me pouting, he hates when I make this face.

my first picture:

Thanks for the awesome Christmas gift Brad, I love you! xoxo

a man of many talents

Our family puts together gingerbread houses over Thanksgiving every year. My mom, sisters, and I only got around to baking them and getting the basic structure together. So we've had this charming, but bare little house sitting on our table for a while now, and I decided decorating it would make a good FHE activity.

Brad is actually really good at this stuff- he's very creative and sometimes we're both working on things and I notice his is just a little cuter. I think to myself- hey, this is my thing...I'm supposed to be better than you at this. (at least he wouldn't know how to roll out/bake the dough or do stained glass windows, right?...) Oh well. It's so backwards- I built the house and he decorated. :) Luckily I get to do most of the decorating in our life-size home! Notice the snowman sledding and the ivy growing up the house? Yup, Brad did that. He truly is a man of many talents.

He is...the most interesting man in the world. XX

Food Loco

We're on a diet this week. My sister Julie likes to call weight gained after marriage “happy weight”, but the problem is you eventually realize you are slowly becoming a less attractive person, which isn’t so happy. So I'm going to go ahead and reminisce about food we won’t be eating this week.

On friday I wrote a "rigerously graded" book report on "Mountains beyond Mountains", because I'm in Jr. high. I also made 9 bundt cakes for Brad's missionary reunion, and took pictures as I thought of how I was making my own mountains beyond mountains instead of writing about someone else's more meaningful ones. Mine tasted better.

Flavors included: Southern Strawberry, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip, Coca-Cola, Lemon Poppyseed, Red Velvet, Chocolate Fudge, Pineapple upside-down cake, and vanilla. I wish I had a pic of the pineapple one right when I took it out of the pan, it was pretty.

For our St. Patty's meal we had glazed corned beef, colcannon, and Irish soda bread. The flavors were wonderful.

I realized I forgot to post anything about Brad’s birthday meal, and I really went food loco on brad’s b-day. It was our first birthday married and he was turning 30, kinda a big deal so I wanted to make it special. For breakfast we had waffles with homemade buttermilk syrup, scrambled eggs, and candied bacon. Yes, I skipped most of my first class. Dinner on the other hand, is where things really got crazy. I had class till 4, then I got home and made mint chip ice cream and oreo brownies to have for dessert.

I decided for dinner to attempt my own take at Papalote’s triple threat burrito. (a SF winner that I’ve never even tasted, I’ve got no clue if it even resembled it.) A large tortilla filled with everything: Carne asada, achiote chicken, grilled prawns, homemade papalote roasted salsa, guacamole, jack cheese, refried black beans, guacamole, sour cream, Mexican rice, and Brad’s favorite jalapeno chips on the side. It was fun learning to use some ingredients I’ve never worked with before: pepitos, achiote paste, chilies del arbol, California chili pods, etc. Too fun!


After all that work I ate the fabulous concoction with gusto, but was haunted by the fact that Brad would have been just as satisfied eating a café rio burrito and store-bought mint ice cream. He does recognize when things taste yummy and is quick to thank me, but he’s also a boy, just barely learning that burger king is gross. I think next time I go to all that work I should make sure there are some girls to appreciate it, unless of course it’s Brad’s birthday. :)

Brad’s big 30 Birthday!

He’s just so wonderful, and I want to make sure you understand why.

Top 10 things about Brad: (Just in the order I happened to come up with them, not ranked by importance)

1. He is all my nieces and nephew’s rockstar, he is going to be such an amazing dad. Associated with this one is his ability to give my babies real Latin blood.

2. He is literally young at heart…okay, not literally, but seriously. He has the sense of humor of a little boy most of the time, and most of the time…it’s actually pretty funny.

3. He’s not satisfied with ordinary. In any aspect of his life- work, school…(although this one might not be a good thing), church, romance (hello, he proposed under the Brooklyn bridge without so much as asking me if I might be interested in marrying him at some point). He’s passionate about life, me too. I love that!

4. He’s smart. He called me from work once and just said “I thought you should know you married a really smart guy. I’m smart.” And he can do that, because he IS smart. Not just nerdy book smart, but street smart and all aspects of smart. I have confidence that this is the year he will earn his degree, this may never affect his success, but it’s still important, and I know he’ll do it. : )

5. He’s adventurous. Who else gets arrested in China while scalping tickets at the Beijing olymics, sneaks into Cuba with his future wife, and takes her to ride camels in Morocco for their honeymoon? I’m sure one day we’ll do some normal vacation, a cruise or something, but we both have the same desires to get off the beaten track when we travel, and I love that.

6. He’s smooth. He somehow managed to convince me he didn’t mind “just being friends” at the beginning of our dating relationship, I was so surprised by it, it made me want him.

7. He’s confident. Did I also mention after saying he was cool just being friends that he told me I’d one day realize what an awesome guy he was and want to date only him, and that he would wait around as long as it took me to figure that out? Because I was worth it? This goes back to the smooth one. But he’s so confident, without being cocky or trying to bring down others.

8. He’s a guy. Look up the definition of guy, it is synonymous with Brad. Loves to play sports, loves to watch sports, loves to watch other guys argue about sports. Leaves the toilet seat up. Is entertained when I accidentally sit into the inner rim of toilet because of this. Thinks logically, easily disconnecting emotion from decisions and conversation. Is perplexed when I am upset by his logical answers and statements. Thinks it's okay to lightly rinse his cereal bowl with water and use it for weeks.
I’m still getting used to living with a guy, and even though sometimes it makes me want to scream and go find some girls to eat chocolate with, shop, intimately discuss our lives and offer one another laughs and emotional support because we know just how each other feels, I’d have it no other way. Obviously, because I like guys. And brad is one of them. The best one, really. In my opinion. It’s a learning and growing process for us both and it’s fun. I live with a boy. It’s the way nature intended it to be, you see, we balance each other out. Together we make one awesome human being.

9. He’s a hustler. He’s got some of that red personality in him that makes him a leader. He makes things happen. (check out Zinch, he's a founder.) He’s not afraid to talk to anyone, about anything. He’d defend me if I wanted him to, even if I didn’t deserve it. I think this is important to me because its how my dad is and it’s awesome. When guys aren’t like that it makes them seem so wussy to me.

10. He’s cool AND spiritual. I was always looking for that. Not the "cool guy" RM who reverts back to lame highschool ways while forgetting everything learned in the mission. Maybe fun, but the clearly skewed priorities are a problem. Not the good-but-ultra-nerdy BYU boy with khaki cargo shorts, high white socks with tennis shoes, and a BYUSA t-shirt. A good guy, but not outside of the box enough for me. Brad- just right. Takes the gospel seriously, but still cool and fun. My vocab has gotten way less nerdy since marrying him. “I’m down with that.” (yeah, I'm a nerd...)

Happy Birthday mi Amor! I can’t believe I found someone with all the qualities I need in a guy to keep me happy forever. You know how to put up with me and my crazy ways, and that makes you a saint. You deserve an awesome birthday, and I will give that to you the best way I know how, with food mostly. : )