Lydia's One-Year Photoshoot

A couple weeks ago we had a little photoshoot for Lydia that we're counting as her 1-year-old pictures. Thank you to our friend Autumn Curry for taking the time to be our photographer and editing most of these for us. These are just a few of my favorites. There were so many to choose from!

Two of my favorite things in the world!

These are for you Lizzy! Squid with her squid :)

Squid eating her squid :)

I think this picture is so fun!

HAHA! I think her face in this one is saying, "When will these crazy people stop taking pictures of me?!?"

Thanks again Autumn!!!

Little Eliza Kate

This angel I'm holding is Eliza Kate DeVore. She was blessed this past Sunday. The DeVores have been amazing friends to us since we've been here in Utah (Natalie DeVore and I go back a lot further than that). We are so glad we were able to be in attendance on this beautiful day.

Finals are Done

We had a week of Robert's finals, and then a week of my finals. It was a bit stressful, but we made it!!! I finished with an A- average in all my classes and Robert got A's in all of his. We feel pretty satisfied with how well we did considering we had Lydia, I was in my first trimester almost the whole time, and other things we had on our plate. We feel both our grades are a family accomplishment that we would not have been able to achieve without the Savior's help. We made it. To celebrate we went to Chili's for dinner after my last final.
Lydia was asleep in her car seat for most of the time, so it felt like we were by ourselves on a date for the first time in a long time. I got a little sentimental. Chili's is where we went for dinner on our first date after Robert got home from his mission, and feeling like we were just the 2 of us again we started talking about that night. The night before that date, Robert had taken 45 minutes of hemming and hawing and driving around in circles to tell me he liked me and we held hands for the first time (Keep in mind we had more than 5 years of great and not so great history behind us, so this was a long time coming). At Chili's on our first date I ended up asking Robert, "So what exactly are we now?" After a cheesy comment of "You mean if you were to introduce me to somebody and say, 'This is Robert. He is my _____' what would you put in that blank?" And me saying yes that was what I meant, Robert said and I will never forget, "I would love to be the guy that is lucky enough to have the privilege of calling Heidi Wilcken my girlfriend." With that, I knew this was my guy - a guy who would treat me like one in a million, that would be just as crazy about me as I was for him, and the rest is history. I have yet to be disappointed :)

Happy finals being done to everyone! Looking forward to a great spring/summer!

I looked out the window and what did I see??

Popcorn popping!!

Spring is here! Minus the occasional lingering snows, spring is here and it's BEAUTIFUL!!! Our apartment building is surrounded by these trees. I love when they bloom. The flowers don't last long, they've already started to fall off and get tracked into my front room. But for 2-3 weeks they are GORGEOUS!!

It's a Girl!!!

We found out April 20th that we're having another GIRL!!!! Her name will be Mary Eliza. We are so excited!! I really thought it was going to be a boy, but didn't think I cared either way until the start of the ultrasound I all of the sudden kept thinking "I want another girl! I really REALLY want another girl! Don't be disappointed when you find out it's a boy (that's how sure I was it was a boy)" Then when we found out it was a girl I immediately started crying and was SOOOOO happy :)

Mary is doing great. She moves A LOT LESS than Lydia did at this point. That's not hard to do Lydia at this point was constantly flipping around to the point that I could never sleep at night, so I'm crossing my fingers that Mary will be a more mellow baby to balance out Lydia's spaziness :)

P.S. I just realized I never said on here, but we are staying here in Provo for the summer until after the baby comes. It just was meant to be that way, and although I had initial disappointment that I wouldn't be spending the whole summer in Mesa, AZ with the majority of both mine and Robert's families, I am happy that we are staying. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to our home in Provo quite yet. This has really become our home. There is so much I love about being in this area. We in no way hope to end up settling any where but with our family in Mesa, but Provo, UT will always hold a special place in our hearts.

Easter Happy Times

We had a fabulous Easter! Among the festivities were the usual egg dyeing, Robert getting me beautiful tulips, and Lydia looking cute as could be in her new Easter dress (Thanks Mom/Grandma Richardson!)

First, the egg dyeing supplies

Lydia thoroughly enjoyed being able to scribble on her name egg until she tried to eat the crayon and I wouldn't let her. She didn't think it was fun after that.

And the finished eggs - The Name Eggs

And the others. We had several eggs crack while boiling so we ended up with hardly any to dye, but it was sufficient for our needs. The bottom right egg is Robert's annual equation egg. I forget what the complicated equation was, but the answer was "(Eggs'Eggs)^-1" Which in real math terms I guess means X transpose X inverse... whatever that means. My husband is a nerd and I love him for it :)
And my Easter tulips :) Robert snagged a BEAUTIFUL bunch this year, but I guess they're always beautiful every year.

And Lydia's Easter outfit. She was a hit at church.

Our little ham.

And our family on Easter. Lydia's new favorite thing is to point at people. At first we attempted to take this picture by me putting the camera on timer and running to get in the picture, but a merciful angel of a woman was driving by and saw our troubles, pulled over, and offered to take our picture. Thank goodness for charitable people!
I feel like I should or am supposed to take a moment to talk about Christ's atonement and the real meaning behind Easter, but I feel inadequate to do it justice. So I will just say I have a testimony that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He suffered for our sins, died for us, and rose again. Because of this we all can return to live forever with him after this life. I know He lives! (For more on Christ, the atonement, and more go here)

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Everything Is Always Changing...

But some things stay the same...
Lydia, 2 and a half months old, watching Robert play the Wii.
Lydia, a week ago, watching Robert play the Wii
It's nice to know there are some things that remain constant in my life ;)

Celebrating April 15th

You might be thinking, "What holiday is on April 15th?" Well, I'll tell you, but first a little back story (skip to the next paragraph if you don't care for a back story). A few years ago I worked at a little teaching supply store. At this store we had a little calendar that had random but real holidays for everyday on it, and there was a chalkboard that we would update with what that day was. They were super random holidays like Limerick Day and Popcorn Day. I always thought how fun it was and would think of random things I could do to celebrate that obscure holiday. Anyway, life went on until this past April 3rd I saw that Google changed their logo for that day as they sometimes do to commemorate something that had happened that day. This time they were recognizing the 119th anniversary of the first documented ice cream sundae. So that night we were sure to eat some ice cream to celebrate that monumental occasion. This reminded me of all the fun random holidays I had been made aware of at my old job. Then I had a thought. I thought I would love to make myself some sort of calendar that had several of the random holidays and anniversaries on it, and think of creative ways to celebrate them either with Robert on date nights, with our little family, or with my kids when they get old enough to do random things like that. Long story short (too late, I know) a blog is in the works, and I'm very excited about it. Hopefully in the near future I will think it's ready enough that I can share it with you lovely people and get your input on it. I'll save more boring details about my thought process behind it til then.

So back to the original question, What holiday is on April 15th? Well among other things, (Rubber Eraser Day, First McDonald's Opens in 1955, Tax Day, Titanic Remembrance Day) I'll have you know that it is Art History Day and Leonardo Da Vinci's Birthday. To celebrate Art History we went to BYU's Museum of Art. They have an amazing Carl Bloch exhibit there right now that we've been meaning to go see, so this gave us an excuse to do just that.
Lydia was all excitement and smiles on our way in but...
After only 10-15 minutes of waiting in the standby line she had already had enough! So we looked at another one of the exhibits for a couple minutes, but then just had to cut our losses and leave. (Sidenote: We were able to successfully go to the Carl Bloch exhibit this past Thursday and it was wonderful. I would highly recommend people attend. It's only here til the 7th.)
We went back home to start the next part of our celebration. In honor of Leonardo Da Vinci's birthday we watched Ever After since he is one of the characters in it.
While watching the movie we explored our own painting talents - finger painting to be exact. For an added fun twist, we each made random scribbles on a piece of paper and then exchanged them and the other person had to paint a picture using the scribbles. I drew these scribbles for Robert.
And he turned them into a funnel thing that you drop marbles down that hit a switch to turn on a light bulb (the way his mind works truly baffles me sometimes)
Robert gave me these scribbles...
And I turned them into a mountain/desert landscape and a snake.
I'm sure you are all truly jealous of our mad finger painting skills ;)
And that was our April 15th. If nothing else, we think this holiday blog idea of mine will lead to many fun dates and family activities in the future and we look forward to them all.

Ms. Independent

So here's a small update on Lydia since I haven't done one in a while.
Ever since the first attempt at meat incident, Lydia has not had any interest in us feeding her. After many a failed meal and several different plans of attack, we finally decided to just let her eat on her own.
As you can see, she thoroughly enjoys it :) This does mean that we have a huge mess to clean up 2 or 3 times a day, but at least she's eating.
Just having fun with Daddy.
A few weeks ago she was constantly doing this cheesy grin. I'm glad we got a picture of it before she stopped.
This picture was a few weeks ago and shows her teeth really well. Her top 2 teeth have come in even further since then, and with one that just started cutting through tonight, she now has 6 teeth (4 on top, 2 on bottom).
I can't believe she is just 3 weeks away from turning a whole year old! It's been a great first year!!

Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point

I had to go to a museum of paleontology or something of that nature for an outside assignment for my Geology class. So for family night back on April 4th, we loaded up the baby and went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. We started out the tour of the museum with Robert helping out the excavators. They were most appreciative.

I got nerdily excited when I saw this. It's a fossil marking called ripple marks that I learned about in my geology class. I did a mini presentation for Robert on how it's formed. I just felt so cool that I actually knew what it was and its significance.

We built this fabulous looking dinosaur and named it a Totemsaur. The question is, is it eating Robert or is Robert eating it?

Lydia was quiet most of the time and just amazed and intrigued at all the huge dinosaur bone structures that were standing over her.

However, she did eventually get a little restless in her stroller so we let her out to play with a smaller dinosaur.

We ended the trip with Lydia taking the world in her hand. So much responsibility for such a little girl.

Bettering Talents

We lowered the keyboard so Lydia could start working on her piano skills. It's one of her favorite toys.

 

Robert finally beat all of Super Mario World. It was a proud moment in our home ;)