An Army of One

Adin apparently wants to join the Army! He has really been perfecting the "Army Crawl" lately! The other day, he decided he wanted the laptop chords that he saw dangling on the other side of our coffee table.
He got a little stuck for a little bit,
but figured his way through eventually.And of course, as mean as we are, we took the chords away from him as soon as he got there... terrible I know ; )

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo. . .

We decided to take a little day-trip today down to Tucson - only about an hour-and-a-half drive for us. We went to the Reid Park Zoo, his first time to a zoo. I have been to this zoo once before with Paul and Kerri and their kids... almost 5 years ago (can you believe that?!?!) Miah had never been to this one. It is a small zoo, and all the animals are pretty close together - so we were able to see all of the animals in about 2 hours. Although everything is close, they have a lot of animals, and overall the zoo is very interactive. Adin actually enjoyed a lot of the animals in the exhibits. We of course took a ton of pictures, and even a few short videos.

Adin trying to touch the fish in the Caiman cave.
Can you find the black panther?
Adin and me in front of the giraffe Adin and Miah in front of the giant turtles - all lined up
Adin and me in front of the polar bears


A few more videos:







Just for Craig and Camille... do you recognize this??????

Messy Adin

The other day, I gave Adin a Gerber biscuit to "eat" (more like suck, and gnaw on!). He has had them before, but he made a particular mess out of it this time! My favorite is when he tries to share with me... yum! yum! (If you look carefully at the second pic, you can see his two little teeth on the bottom)

Feeling Sick

Yesterday I was feeling not-so-well. Mostly, I think I was just plain exhausted. Miah got terribly sick last week, and so I spent a few days babying him, until Thursday afternoon, when I had to go to a family in our ward to babysit/house-sit (they won a trip to Hawaii!!!). Miah stayed home, so he wouldn't spread whatever he had (the doc wasn't sure what he had, but gave him antibiotics anyways). At Three in the morning, their son came into my bedroom, because he was having a terrible Asthma attack. I got out of bed to administer a breathing treatment. By morning, he was still wheezing, so I kept him home from school, and by afternoon decided to take him to the doctor. Low and behold, he had contracted Pneumonia!!! (Good thing his mom was prepared, and left me insurance info and money... money intended for us to have fun with- the doctor is fun, right?!?!?). Poor kid, I had to fill FOUR prescriptions for him! If that wasn't enough excitement for me, on Sunday, Adin started having diarrhea - the blow out the diaper, change the clothes, and give him another bath, again, diarrhea! He is barely getting over that today! And of course, on Monday, I came home to a HUGE pile of dirty laundry, and gross sheets (who wants to sleep in the sheets of someone who was sweating terribly with a high fever?!?!), and a house that just smelled of sick. So I spent most of the day doing laundry, cleaning, and doing more laundry! Yesterday, I finally cracked. I was so exhausted, I felt congested, dizzy, and mostly, tired! I decided to do NOTHING! Of course, I am a mom, and I can't just call in sick, but every chance I had, I was laying down- either sleeping, or watching movies. Miah went to the store to get me some chicken-noodle soup in the evening, and I was pleasantly surprised to find a vase of beautiful tulips next to my bed! (Which I have no idea how he got in there without my seeing, I was sitting on the couch when he came in, and he only made one trip... I must have been more out of it than I realized!) I have never received flowers when I was sick/down, and I realized how much they really lift the spirits! So I want to publicly thank my wonderful husband for his loving and thoughtful gesture!!! I truly feel a lot better today. Support and love go a long ways!!!
This morning, Adin is finally feeling a lot better. I set him in his high chair to eat some cheerios (his new FAVORITE thing!!!). I went over into the living room to check something on the computer, and once his cheerios were gone, I noticed him playing peek-a-boo with me, so I had to capture a shot... it was so cute! (Just so you know, the entire box of cereal is not on his tray, even though it looks like it in this pic!)

Fun with photo editing

Adin will be seven months old tomorrow... it literally seems like yesterday that he turned 6 months! Anyways, I decided to have a little fun with the camera, and then with photo editing. I don't have any sort of fancy editing software, but I had a lot of fun none the less. I just have the HP Photosmart, which came with my printer, and then I used Picnik, which is an online editing program (partner of flickr)



So I know that I admitted it when I created this blog - that I knew it would really be all about Adin, which is why I have finally changed the title of my blog (Maria helped with the creative name).

Family Ties

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a new calling as MiaMaid Adviser. As a part of this calling, it my responsibility to teach the lesson. I found myself with a great struggle this week, as the lesson is on honoring your parents and sustaining family members. How could I stand up there, as a hypocrite, and tell them how to love and support their family, when my own personal relationships are lacking friendship, support, and forgiveness?!?!
I had the opportunity to attend the temple tonight for our ward temple night, and had some time to ponder these things, when it occured to me that I needed to make more effort in the relationships with you all. I realized that having an eternal family is the core of my belief. The core of my faith. I want to be with my husband and my child (hopefully children eventually) forever, and I want to be with my parents, and each and every one of my brothers and sisters. I don't care what has happened in the past, I want to spend eternity with each and every one of you.
I have been grateful for, and inspired by those of you who have had the courage to speak up recently and share your love, regrets and forgiveness for one another. I want to add my voice to the kind words that have been shared. I want each and everyone of you to know how much I love you. I know that I have a lot of faults of my own, including poor communication (especially when it comes to expressing my emotions), I can also sometimes be "blonde" (forgetful, airheaded, etc), among other weaknesses. This is what life is for, to recognize and try to learn from these weaknesses, as we learn in Ether 12. One thing I would like to make clear though, is that no matter what, despite my faults, I love you. I hope that you would know that I am always here for you. I know I live far away, but I hope that you know you could turn to me whenever you need me.
I know this can be a touchy subject for some, but I want you all to know that I don't care what your last name is (or was)! I love you all the same. Perhaps some of us are closer with certain siblings than with others. I think most of that has to do with age and opportunity. For example, I am not bitter that Peter and Paul are best friends because they grew up sharing a room, and many wonderful and even not-so-wonderful experiences together. In fact, I am more than happy for them, I think they are so fortunate to be so blessed to have one another. I am not going to go through every relationship here, but the point I want to make is that I love you, and I want you to be happy in this life, and forever. I pray that you can forgive me for any wrongs I have commited against you at any time in my life. And hopefully, you can desire to be with me and the rest of our family in the here-after.

PS I ask that you be respectful of my blog and those that I love, if you have anything negative to say about me or anyone else in this family, I ask that you first stop and reconsider. And if you still feel the need to share such thoughts, that they be done on a personal level, rather than on my blog. Thank you.

Tummy Time

Adin has been spending a lot of time on the floor, rolling around, and wanting desperately to be able to be more mobile. Just yesterday, he actually got up on all fours for the first time... so I know crawling isn't too far off!!! (I don't know how ready I really am for that!!!) I love how proud he looks here!

And don't you just love this goofy face?!?!?







PS Just FYI- I now have a link on the side to a website called "Sugardoodle"- it is a FABULOUS lds help website. I learned about it for my new calling as MiaMaid Advisor (yay!). It has links to ideas for all types of callings and has FHE and general family ideas too. I definitely recommend it to anyone who has to teach anything! Check it out!