We went to the playground on Sunday, and it was blooming with little white balls of fluff. Carly was excited, and as much as we tried to teach her how to blow them, she was more exciting by trying to bite them. Here are some pictures of our little family: 
My stomach is doing blackflips.
I'm so excited...
That's right!....
SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE IS STARTING!!!!!!
East Wall
South Wall 
West Wall 
(you just went in a circle)
Nothing too fancy, we're renters afterall. But I was excited to move around the furniture and get some actual play space in there for her. There is a gate at the door, and a camera in the corner. We can let her play and actually go to the bathroom without her ever being unsupervised. LOVE IT!
Speaking of bathroom, since Carly is a self sufficient walker these days, we decided to get her a potty chair for her first birthday in a couple weeks. Don't worry, we'll go at her pace. We actually just plan to have it in the room and get her used to sitting on it at first. But with any luck, it won't take the whole year. Wish us luck!
[moh-tuh-vey-shuhn] (noun)
1. the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior; "we did not understand his motivation"; "he acted with the best of motives"
2. the condition of being motivated; "his motivation was at a high level"
3. the act of motivating; providing incentive
4. My mother in law
Marshall's mother has a way with him that I will NEVER have.
Londa came to visit earlier this week. We had the carpet relayed in our apartment the day before she arrived, and our house still looked like this:
The entire contents of Carly's bedroom (minus crib and dresser) were in our living room. She was staying at Russ's house, so I wasn't too worried, but she did come down on Wednesday for the morning. The room still looked like that when she arrived (not to mention the pile of laundry on the lovesac).
When I returned from work, my living room was clean. Shocked, I asked my 4'11" mother-in-law if she had moved all the heavy furniture herself. Nope. Sure enough, she had asked Marshall to help and he had. Our house looks SO NICE!
The next day, after Londa had left, Marshall said "I'm glad my mom came because otherwise our house would have never been put back together." I asked, "You wouldn't have helped move furniture if I had asked?" His answer: "Probably not, that's why I said I'm glad my mom came." I need to learn her secret...
P.S. Thank you so much, Londa!
Today I found a centipede and 2 beetles in my house. Okay, so Carly found them and alerted me by pointing and going "ooh! ooh! ooh!" But regardless, they were in my house. Bug season (otherwise know as summer) has begun.
Our house flooded mysteriously on Sunday (yes, almost a week ago...I know, I've been a bad blogger). We woke up to water throughout the hallway, kitchen, bathroom, and most of Carly's room. Even stranger: the water had been shut off the building, so ours wasn't the only unit affected. So we tried to mop it up and determine from the neighbors what happened. Kiernan had been visiting that week, and lucky for her she had just left hours before it happened.
The landlord had to hire a clean-up company to come out and de-water my house. They pulled up the carpets, pried off the baseboards, cut out the padding, and disinfected the concrete under it all to prevent mold. They then sucked as much water out of the carpet as possible, and set up fans throughout my house.
Did I mention that we had to move everything off the wet carpet and into the living room?
So we had no water for a couple days, and had to sleep for 3 nights with the whirring and wind of all those fans. It is expected to be another week before we can put our house back together.
While Kiernan was here we all went to the Tulip festival. It was a beautiful day. I ended up with more pictures of the baby than of the flowers. Here are some pics to enjoy.
We put our kid down for her nap still wearing her Sunday dress- even her shoes- because after church cuts into her nap, she is so cranky the idea of wrestling the dress off is less appealing than wrestling a dress off of a fire breathing dragon.
But despite our poor parenting, no one can deny we have one happy kid!
We had a yard this last Saturday, and we were pretty dang successful. True, we had some interesting "characters" show up, and even had someone try to walk off with a bike without paying, but that just added to the excitement. Besides, living in the ghetto of Provo, it was the kinda crowd we expected to attract. Overall though, we managed to make a couple hundred more dollars than we had even hoped to make! What did we sell to turn such a profit? We have no idea! I mean, the yard sale was supposed to be mainly for Mike and Emily to de-junk before moving. We gathered some old books, clothes, etc the night before (very last minute) and all said and done, we really have no idea how you can make so much selling junk. One man's trash another man's treasure? I guess.
Today I picked up a hitchhiker. Marshall said later that I was stupid and crazy for "doing something so dangerous." But the lady was, like, 50 and limping with an obviously broken foot, carrying 5 bags of groceries while smoking. Quite the sight. I would normally never consider letting a stranger in my car, but she was just so sad looking I felt compelled to stop. Plus, even though I'm not in the best shape myself, I was fairly sure I could take her in a fight.
So I have not blogged in over a week. I last blogged Tuesday the 1st, and Marshall packed up the computer to take with him to Arizona on Thursday morning. He returned the following Tuesday, but I was hosting my parents in town the remainder of the week. My mother went home yesterday. And so here you are, 12 days older but less wise to the happenings of my life. Here is a brief (I hope...No, let's be realistic, this is probably going to be long, sorry) recap of my week.
Wednesday the 2nd I got bit by the spring cleaning bug. I knew my parents were coming into town and so I wanted to have the apartment spotless (or at least not filthy). I needed some inspiration as to where to start, so I actually googled "where to start cleaning." The answer came on the FlyLady's website: "shine your sink." I looked at my sink, got momentarily discouraged because of the mound of dishes, and decided instead to "shine my stove." Just a little edit, but still the same general idea (I think). I got out the 409 and a Brillo pad. I made the white top glisten. I took off the drip pans and scrubbed them until the burned on black spots became reflective. I lifted the "lid" and even cleaned the underneath mess that no one sees. Over an hour later I was just getting into the cleaning spirit when I became incapacitated by the worse, most painful blister I have ever experienced.
....for an hour or so, until my husband made a pizza.
My dad had to leave on Tuesday, but we were able to enjoy a day in Salt Lake before he had to go. We toured Welfare Square, which was very impressive. We also went out to lunch. 
It was sad to see dad have to go so early, but it was nice to still have time with my mom.
Marshall finally got home from Arizona on Tuesday. While in Arizona, my unlucky (and poor planning) husband had to sleep in his rental car in a library parking lot. The family he was set to stay with thought he meant the following week, and since he waited to the last moment to look for housing, he was out of luck. So yes, if you are Gilbert, the local transient you noticed last week was my husband.
Marshall was back to work Wednesday evening, and was unable to go to Russ and Star's new house with us. My mom, Carly, my mom's puppy, and myself all went to Russ and Star's for an impromptu dinner. Their new house is beautiful, but dinner was interesting since they didn't even own a chair yet. By the time we got home, Marshall came home too. He had also been stricken by Carly's mysterious stomach bug. Poor guy.
Thursday, Mom, Carly and I went back up to Salt Lake to take the other tour to the Humanitarian Center. If you ever have time to go on these tours, I would definitely recommend going. Afterward we went to lunch up on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building at the Garden Restaurant. The food was great, but the views were the main attraction. 
We then went down to the temple and watching all the pretty brides made me want to take pictures of Carly in all the same places. Carly wasn't so enthusiastic.
Friday my mom and I (+Carly) went out to lunch with Emily. I am going to miss her when she and Mike move to Boston! Then we went to the Tulip Festival at the Thanksgiving Point Gardens. Sadly, we didn't see even one Tulip. I guess the weather hasn't been warm enough yet. However, it was too fun! The gardens are beautiful, even missing the tulips. That night we all went back to Russ and Star's (Marshall too) and helped them move some furniture in. So now they have papasan chairs, and I even learned how to sit in one.
Saturday my mom left to go home, and Marshall and I decided to go garage saling. LOVE GARAGE SALES!! We found some baby clothes and books, but not much else. Afterward we went to the Blue and White scrimmage at BYU. This is where the offense of BYU's next-year's football team plays against the defense. Confusing right? Well it was confusing for me. The ball never switched sides and the scoreboard wasn't keeping score. I was super confused. Carly kept me too busy to worry much about my confusion, and Marshall really enjoyed himself. So I guess that is all that matters.
That afternoon, Russ, Star, Marshall, Carly and I all went up to Park City. We wanted to try to ride the Alpine Coaster, which advertised being open until 4:30pm. We got there just in time, except apparently at the Park City resort, time doesn't matter and they can just close whenever they want (never mind the tourists traveling from an hour away to make an advertised deadline). So we decided to walk the main street instead and then headed over to the outlets.
On the way home we stopped at the Hub to eat dinner. Eating out with a baby is hectic, especially coordinating puting the baby back in the car/going to the bathroom/making bottles/boxing up food/paying the check. We completely skipped the last one. That's right, we joined the club of the Dine and Dashers. We even made it out of the parking lot before I turned to Marshall to ask how much tip he left. He said he thought I had paid, and I assured him I hadn't. I thought he was joking. He wasn't. We turned around. We paid. So I guess we didn't officially Dine and Dash, but I still felt criminal.
So that was my week(s) in review. Thanks to those who actually read this whole thing! Next time I promise to actually break these up into individual posts.
I love you sweetie!
