A New Phenomenon

So last night Derek informs me that a guy in our ward has invited us to a super bowl party at his house. I'm thinking, "Super bowl? Isn't that weeks away?"

I mean it seems to me that usually (at least at our house) these sporting event parties get thrown together at the last minutes. Usually Derek comes home and tells me, "Oh by the way, I invited a bunch of people over to watch the game tonight." And that would be the first I'd heard of it. That's the kinda of planning I'm used to. So to be invited to a party over a week in advance seemed out of the norm.

So I tell Derek, "Wow, here's really on the ball! The super bowl is not for a couple weeks." Derek then goes on to explain to me that yes it is a week away, but this is the SUPER BOWL. He likened it to a high school prom. You have to invite your guests ahead of time before someone else gets to them if you want to have a good party. If someone else gets all the awesome people before you do, then your super bowl party is going to be a dud.

So I guess I figured I better type up a quick post to let you all know that you're too late. We've already been asked to a super bowl party. Have you found your dates for the super bowl yet? If not, you really better get on the ball. One awesome couple is already unavailable. Who knows how many people are left.

My mind is playing tricks on me

There is my sweet chunky baby girl in the dress Auntie Kylie gave her (and me in the background in my fuzzy pink pajamas). But enough of that, back to my point...

My mind is playing tricks on me. I distinctly remember being in the first trimester of pregnancy and nauseated all the time. I remember wondering why I had paid so much money to feel that way as I moaned and grabbed from another saltine cracker. I remember wondering how anyone would ever think of doing that to themselves more than once. I remember thinking it was going to last forever, and I would never not feel nauseous again.

I also distinctly remember entering the second trimester and all the sudden realizing I didn't feel nauseous any more. I remember getting a little further into the second trimester and looking back thinking it really wasn't that bad (how I could think that when I distinctly remember the exact opposite feeling just weeks before--I don't know).

I remember the end of pregnancy vividly. I remember being so uncomfortable--I mean literally not being able to find a single comfortable position. I remember walking around arching my back to unthinkable degrees in order to feel like I could breathe. I remember getting up to go to the bathroom every two hours in the night only to crawl back in bed and not sleep at all. I remember thinking pregnancy would never end--the days seemed to drag on and on. I did all I could possibly do trying to make that baby come out. And now, somehow I look back and think that all went by so fast.

I remember having my baby. (And, yes she really was a pretty good sleeper from day 1). But, I remember getting up every few hours in the night to feed her. I remember being so exhausted each day that my head was literally in a fog. I couldn't think clearly, my head hurt all the time, my eyes stung as I tried to stay awake each day. I felt like my eyes were open, but my brain was always asleep. And now, I honestly look back and think I wasn't really that tired. And, that really wasn't so bad either.

Sometimes I think it was all so easy that I really would love to do it all over again. Heck! I truly tell myself that if I found out I was pregnant right now I would be overjoyed. (And, I probably would be if I managed to miraculously sneak in a free baby without going through ICSI again). But, as you can obviously see...MY MIND IS PLAYING TRICKS ON ME!

What I want to be when I grow up...

I want to be a gourmet chef. I honestly truly dream of going to culinary school. I would love to spend my days making dishes like these. Now that I am home during the day, if I have a free minute, I watch the food network and pretend that I can be like those amazing chefs that just throw things together out of the genius of their clever culinary trained heads. I have no desire to make pastries or cakes or cookies or really anything that would be considered baking. I want to cook gourmet food! I want to drizzle sauces and place garnishes and create culinary art (and then EAT IT)! My vision in the dream world that I obviously don't live in would be to go spend a few years in Italy and France and all the other fabulous countries that gourmet chefs learn to cook in and be tutored under the most renowned gourmet chefs in the world and then come back to the US and live in New York or somewhere neat like that and be the head chef at some 5 star restaurant downtown and spend my merry days just creating fabulous beautiful dishes that people rave about eating. Ahhhh, a girl can dream right?

The battle...

This evening the Oregon Ducks will battle the Auburn Tigers in the BCS Bowl Championship. Of course my husband is beyond ecstatic, and of course we spent Saturday at Costco stocking up on "football food" for the huge bowl game party we are hosting. All of this is very big, but I bet many of you have no clue that another almost as big battle is going on today in the Marshall home. The battle of Livie in her cute Oregon Ducks outfit...
VS.

The bumbo chair.

Livie loves the bumbo chair. And I, have a love/hate relationship with the bumbo chair. I love the chair because Livie will sit in it happily on the counter while I empty this dishwasher, or eat lunch, or make dinner. It's fabulous! I hate this bumbo chair because regardless of how many times my sweet baby girl has filled her diaper with some of that sweet newborn mustard yellow poop for the day, it's usually a given that if she sits in the bumbo chair, she will most likely be filling yet another mustard yellow poopy diaper. And, most likely it will shoot completely up her back and soil her whole outfit. See my dilemma?

Today the pre-game battle has gone as such. Livie is put in the adorable outfit as pictured above. Mommy wants to eat breakfast, so Livie sits in her bumbo chair and we have a nice conversation over my morning granola. Until...she gets the all too familiar red face and starts making the all too familiar grunts which are soon followed by the all too familiar sound of a diaper being filled with mustard yellow poop!

I jump off my stool in an effort to rescue the adorable outfit worn by my adorable girl from the all too familiar assault of the bumbo chair. I rush to her changing table and on the way I'm stripping off pants and hoodie as quickly as possible in order to salvage the cute outfit which I hope will remain intact for tonight's bowl game party. Luckily, I was genius enough to put a white onsie under this adorable outfit today and that was all that was unfortunately overtaken by mustard poop.

Later in the day, when I thought it was safe (BIG MISTAKE: For as I have relearned today, no matter how many times she has pooped, no matter how near by you are, no matter what your ninja reflexes are like, you are never safe when your child is comfortable sitting inside the bumbo chair). So later today, I just wanted to unload the dishwasher. I tried to do it holding Livie because I still had a bad taste in my mouth from this morning's fiasco. However, this became tiresome real quick, so I thought I'll use my ninja reflexes to unload this dishwasher in super speed and place Livie in the bumbo for just a couple minutes while I did so.

And what do you think happened half way through ninja speed dishwasher unloading? THE BUMBO CHAIR STRIKES AGAIN!!! That's right... a familiar face, a familiar grunt, a familiar sound, and all of the sudden my ninja skills were required for an entirely different purpose. Luckily, (and I'm sure this is due to said ninja skills) only another white onsie was sacrificed.

However, it is only 12:15 and the party is not until 6:30 pm my friends. So, this battle continues...but, I think we will avoid the bumbo chair for the time being. A smart Mom would remove the cute Oregon outfit and put it on at 6:30 tonight, but I'm just a dumb Mom with substandard ninja reflexes. Oh and, GO DUCKS!!!

Livie meets Cosmo

Last weekend Derek scored some court-side seats to the BYU basketball game. I'm not going to lie, watching a game from the floor is pretty cool. The seats come with a catered dinner before and every seat has a cooler under it with water bottles and candy bars. At half time, they give you popcorn, cookies, drinks, and more candy bars. All in all--it was a fun night. What night wouldn't be with all those free treats? We were so close that Livie got to score a snap shot with Cosmo! Livie was so cute when Cosmo picked her up. The first thing she did was nuzzle her face into his soft fir.And I had to post a picture of what a caught Livie and her Dad doing before the game. You guessed it...watching football. Derek seems to think he can get away with watching as much football as his heart desires as long as he's doing it with his baby girl. And to be honest, he's sort of right because I think they are so cute together that I let it slide most of the time. He's determined to ingrain a love of sports into this girl, and so far she seems to love watching sports with her daddy.