My View of Heaven

Jim has been gone since Sunday to a conference in Pittsburgh. It's been fun with Lily and I, but the hardest part are the mornings. It's typically tough to get up and going in the mornings with Jim here, and especially difficult with him gone. Lily has been waking up at about 4:30 and not wanting to go back to sleep. That was the case this morning as well! She woke up at 4:30 and I fed her, but she was just bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and did not want to go back to sleep. I tried rocking her, and letting her fuss, and letting her sleep in my bed. But all she wanted to do was get up and play. I'd go in when she was fussing and she would just look up at me and grin like, "Hi mommy, I'm awake!" So anyway, between the hours of 4:30 and 8:30 she had 4 feedings and didn't go back to sleep at all until 9:00. I guess she must be growing, which is evidenced by her pajamas. She's wearing 3-month ladybugy pajamas and her feet are stretching out the ends. (You can kind of tell in the first picture.) So I suppose it's time to move into the 3-6 month clothing and start to phase out the 0-3 month clothing. She was 3 months old on the 22nd, so this shouldn't be a surprise, but I guess in my head she was premature so she shouldn't be growing as fast as she is. But she is!


Time for bigger pajamas!


Even when she wakes you up at 4:30, you can't be mad at her because she's so stinkin' cute!
At 3 weeks old. A litle bitty peanut.

At 3 months old. She's grown over 4 inches and doubled her weight. I was trying to get a picture of her stretched out in comparison to me. Don't you love my lovely Patriots pajama pants?

Yesterday in addition to walking downtown, we wandered around the mall for a bit. I wanted to get the book "I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today" but they didn't have it at Walden Books. BUT they did have another Dr. Seuss book that I had when I was a kid, but had forgotten about. It's called "Oh Say Can You Say?" and it's a book of tongue twisters. So I got her that one instead. Here is one of my favorites:

Eat at Skipper Zipps
If you like to eat potato chips
and chew pork chops on clipper ships,
I suggest that you chew
a few chips and a chop
at Skipper Zipp's Clipper Ship Chip Chop Shop.

It's summer! Hurrah! Even up here in northern Idaho it often gets too warm to cook/bake in the summer. So I will share five of my favorite salad recipes with you! That way when it's really hot you can just make a salad for dinner and call it good. Yum yum yum!!

Chicken and Apple Salad (from a friend of mine, Jennifer Miller's, mother-in-law)
*Use any amount for any size salad*
Cooked chicken cut up (you can use canned)
Seedless grapes, halved
Celery, chopped
Onion, chopped
Apple, cored and chopped
Dill to taste
Garlic, crushed
Parmesan cheese
Mayo


Broccoli Salad (again, from Jennifer's mother-in-law)
1 lb crisp bacon
1 red onion
1-2 cups grated cheddar cheese
3-4 cups raw broccoli, cut into florets
(Raisins and walnuts optional)

Dressing:
16oz miracle whip
1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

Greek Bean Salad (This recipe is from an ex co-worker of mine, Torrey Beeson)
4 cans any bean (rinsed and drained)
1 tub feta cheese
1 can kalamata olives
Italian dressing

Spinach and Strawberry Salad (A lady from church, Lara, made this for us once... yum!)
1 bag baby spinach
1 pint strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup almonds, sliced (optional)
1 cup any other berry (optional)

Dressing:
4 parts mayo (i.e. 1 cup)
2 parts sugar (i.e. 1/2 cup)
1 part raspberry vinegar (i.e. 1/4 cup)

Apple and Feta Salad (My friend, Peggy gave me this recipe from her mother-in-law)
*Use any amount to make any size salad*
Baby greens
Apple, cut up
Feta cheese
Sunflower seeds
Dress with olive oil and balsamic vinegar


OK! There you are! Try one or try them all! Here are some pictures of Lily!!


She's thinking, "Ooh, who is that pretty girl?"


In one of her cute little summer outfits.


We went for a walk today, so she was slathered with sunscreen and had her hat on.


I don't think this picture correctly depicts how steep the 6th street hill is! It's especially difficult when your belly is full of Moscow Bagel and Deli food!

A friend of ours from church is a master bargain hunter and she found a baby swing at a thrift shop for $1. Not bad! So she bought it for us and Jim cleaned it all up and made sure it worked. Today was Lily's first ride in the swing. She seemed to like it, or at least was indifferent to it. I put toys in the try to see if she would play with them, but she just kind of looked at them. She's not so much into toys yet. The only toy she loves so far is her Carebear mobile. I like the swing because I think sometimes when we're eating dinner and we put her in her bouncer or her jungle gym, she doesn't like it because she's all the way on the floor, removed from the action. So hopefully when we eat we can put her in her swing and she'll like it. Jim is in Pittsburgh for a conference, so I posted this video so he could see Lily in her swing.

When we first moved to Moscow, we noticed that many of the local businesses sold a DVD called "O Palouse!" We didn't know what a Palouse was, but "O Palouse!" was an endless source of joking between Jim and I. The longer we lived here, the more confused we got about The Palouse. We heard of "O Palouse!", and we heard of "Palouse", and we heard of "The Palouse", but we couldn't figure out exactly what a "Palouse" was. After some serious investigatory work we found out that Palouse is several things. First of all, Palouse is a town in eastern Washington, about 20 minutes from Moscow. Several people I used to work with live in Palouse and I've been there several times. They have a great haunted house at Halloween. Secondly, The Palouse is the geographic region where we live. It is an area in northern Idaho and eastern Washington where there are rolling hills, rich farmland, and mild winters (at least that's my description of it.) And thirdly, "O Palouse!" is a DVD that documents the beauty and history of The Palouse. So anyway, after living on The Palouse for two years, Jim and I wanted some sort of artwork or photograph to remember it by. So when we were at the Farmers' Market and looked through the photography of Alison Meyer and found a print that we really liked. I couldn't find the exact one we got online, but this is nearly the same picture. Ours is just wider. (My second choice of photographs was Canola Country.)

Anyway, I know what everyone is really interested in is Lily, but I haven't taken any photos of her today, so I'll post some later!

Most little girls' favorite Disney character is one of the princesses. Not me! When I was a kid, my favorite Disney character far and away was Ursula from "The Little Mermaid." Not only was she sassy and conniving, but she also had some really great advice! For example:

1. Don't underestimate the importance of body language
2. It's she who holds her tongue who gets a man
3. If you want to cross a bridge, my sweet, you've got to pay the toll
4. You can't get something for nothing, you know
5. Life's full of tough choices, isn't it?

And above all the most important thing I learned from Ursula is:

5. We mussn't lurk in doorways; it's rude. One might question one's upbringing.

It wasn't until I saw "The Little Mermaid" that I realized that it really IS rude to lurk in doorways, and now I am amazed at how many people in all walks of life choose to have their conversations right in a doorway so that people have to keep sneaking around them, and they just stand there in everybody's way! If we would all watch "The Little Mermaid" more often, the world would be a better place.

Today Lily was a little mermaid. We bought her a bathing suit. Why the make bathing suits for 3-month-olds, I'll never know. I don't know too many babies out there swimming the English Channel. But nonetheless we got her one and let her "swim" around in the tub. It was a combo play time/bath time!

We just put on her swimsuit, now it's play time!

Starting out in her bath while the water runs.
She looks scared to death in her "boat"!


It looks like she's puffing out her cheeks like she's trying to hold her breath.
Play time is over and the swimsuit comes off. It's bath time now!

I saw an episode of What Not To Wear recently where a woman had a skirt with pink pineapples on it and it was her summertime "party skirt". Stacy and Clinton had a good laugh about how middle aged women will have a skirt or something that has a crazy pattern on it like pink pineapples or martini glasses or flamingos and will call it their "party skirt". However, pink pineapples may be a "don't" for the forty-something crowd, it is perfectly adorable on the 3-month-old crowd!




















Sometimes Lily will wake up from a nap and be perfectly content to just lay there and flail about quietly until I discover she's awake. This usually means she's in a good mood and wants to see her Carebears. She has a Carebear mobile that she likes to watch so I turn it on and she just smiles away!

So from time to time people ask me who Lily looks like. My aim today is to answer that question with pictures!! Lily's middle name is Landi, which is Jim's mom's maiden name. So we thought Landi was a cute middle name, so there you have it. Who does Lily look like? Appropriately enough, she looks like a Landi! When she was first born I thought she kind of had my sister's pouty lip and my best friend, Peggy, said that she has my forehead, but that is about where the Blackketter family resemblance stops. She looks the very most (in my opinion) like her cousin Carter with the high Landi cheekbones and the shape of her mouth. The first picture is of Grandpa Landi, Jim's mom Linda, and Jim.... a very long time ago. But hey, it was the only picture I had of Grandpa Landi! So there you can see the Landi cheekbones and shape of the mouth. The next one is of Lily when she was first born where I think she REALLY looks like a Landi. Next is a picture of her cousins, Grant and Carter. Carter is on the bottom and I think Lily looks an awful lot like him. Next is a somewhat recent picture of Linda. I tried to find a picture of her when she wasn't smiling because that is when the Landi mouth is most obvious, but it was difficult to find because she's a happy lady. But in this photo she was concentrating so she could get a butterfly to land on her head. Hey, it was the best I could do! The next photo is of Jim and his two older brothers, Robert and David. Wasn't Jim a cute little kid!? And the last picture is the only picture I have of me as a little kid... just to prove that she really doesn't look like me at all. So there you have it! Lily looks like Jim. She looks like a Landi!












Hopefully you can see though these pictures that Lily really does look like her Daddy! Enough of that! Here are some cute Lily pictures and a video from today!









P.S. I almost forgot! Lily does have my crazy monkey feet! She'll be tying shoes with her toes in no time!

Of all the phenomenon of the Northwest, my favorite by far is the Coffee Kiosk. What is a coffee kiosk, you ask!? Well, a coffee kiosk is a tiny hut in which they sequester college-age girls and train them to make delicious beverages of the coffee persuasion. The coffee is comparable with Starbucks and MUCH cheaper! Around here they are ubiquitous and wonderful! My favorite coffee kiosk is Jana's Java which is, coincidentally, the closest kiosk to my house. Yay! It is probably my favorite mainly because my cousin, Britni, used to work there. I would go there and not know what to order and just say, "Make me something yummy!" And she would always make me something...and it would always be yummy! So earlier this week I was passing my dear Jana's Java, thinking about how I should write about it in my blog, when lo and behold! Jana's Java had been replaced with Java Bug!!!! Well, not actually replaced, it just had a new sign. But it worried me! Would Java Bug be any good? Would they brew delicious Cravens Coffee? Would they serve me a Coffee Toffee? (my favorite drink of all) The next day Jim and I set out to investigate. As it turns out, Jana had just sold her Java-the-Hut to another lady who was going to keep the menu the same. Whew! I drank my Coffee Toffee with giant gulps or relief.

Now, you might be the type to whom coffee does not appeal. But there is something for you too here in the northwest! Observe Exhibit A: The lemonade stand! I didn't want these kids to think I was a crazy lady taking their picture from my car, so I did actually stop and buy some lemonade. You want proof? Here ya go!








Kid #1 is pouring my cup of delicious lemonade, while Kid #2 is playing banker.












Yay for lemonade!!














On the way home, I decided to take a picture of our house. Besides cutting off both ends, I also inadvertently honked at a passing car as I tried to brace the camera with my elbow against the steering wheel. Not a great idea! I'm just glad they didn't beat me up!














And last but not least, the cutest baby in the world had to make an appearance today. Her hair is getting long in the front and will soon be in her eyes, so today when I gave her a bath and blow-dried her hair, I blew it to one side. I didn't want it to look too boy-ish but it ended up looking pretty cute!

So I have been working on getting Lily to sleep in her crib for the past couple of weeks and it's going pretty well. I haven't attempted crib-sleeping at night, but it is soon to come. It takes a little bit more work to get her to sleep in her crib, but once she falls asleep she's been sleeping for an hour and sometimes two at a time! BUT there is a particular position that she has to be in when sleeping in her crib. I don't think she likes to lay on cold sheets, so I put down a fleece blanket and then I roll it up on either side so she feels nice and snug. She doesn't like having her legs covered with a blanket at first because she likes to kick them around, but if she wakes up a little cold, she likes to have the blanket. Refer to the picture above to see optimal sleeping position. Also, ever since she was a couple of weeks old she has hated being swaddled. She likes to sleep with her arms up over her head. To each their own! She also got her first shoulder ride today. I don't think she knew what to think of it.



This is a demonstration in Lily's love for food. She is fussing and then I pick her up and feed her and as soon as the bottle is in her mouth, she is content!

Confession: I gained 40 pounds during my pregnancy with Lily. The recommended weight gain for a person at a healthy weight (which I was) is 25-35 pounds. So technically I only gained 5 pounds over the "recommended" amount, but 40 pounds is still a lot of pounds! The first 20 pounds came of easily in the first couple of weeks after Lily was born, but those second 20 are hanging on for dear life. I even broke down and bought several shirts, shorts, and jeans because I was tired of wearing A) Maternity clothes that make it seem that I am still pregnant because of my pooch and their billowy nature B) Sweats....well I wasn't really tired of wearing them, but I felt guilty for running around in essentially my pajamas all day or C) Clothes that are too small. So anyway, the point of all this is that I went for my first real life honest to goodness jog today!! I had been walking quite a bit and had been to the gym to "pump iron" and use the cardio machines (I favor the bikes because they have tv's on them...I could work out for hours if I get to watch tv!) but I had not yet been for a jog. So this morning I woke up, fed Lily, pumped (if you don't know, don't ask) and then went for a little 2 mile jog. I didn't go very fast, but I didn't have to walk! I remember that when I was pregnant one thing I missed was exercising to the point of exhaustion. Not that it takes too much to exhaust a pregnant woman, but it's really not recommended to push yourself very hard. So it really felt good to have my lungs burning. Anyway, in honor of my first jog, I will show you what 40 extra pounds looks like on Alyson and show you pictures of me just before having Lily. The week before Lily was born, Jim and I went to Seattle and hung out with our good friends, Peggy and Grant so we have some pretty good Giant Alyson pictures.

Jim and I at the flight museum in Seattle.
Jim, me, Grant, and Peggy at Pike's Place Market.
Peggy and I at City Center at the Space Needle.

Up close....woah! Look at that belly!

Grant, Peggy, me, and Jim at the Space Needle. Yay for timer shots!!

Me in the hospital doing my impression of my Granny Best. She always wore house coats, so for some reason I felt like her in my hospital clothes.

And one gratuitous picture of Lily at 4 weeks...... because she's so stinkin' cute!

Today was Jim's and Lily's first Fathers' Day! Yay!! We got up and had eggs for breakfast and Lily slept right on through (she'd been up at 4:00 to eat, so she was zonked out). So then we gave her a bath and got ready for church. We have a onesie for Lily that says "Daddy did my hair" and we thought that Fathers' Day would be an appropriate day to wear such a shirt. So after her bath, Daddy actually did Lily's hair and we got some good pictures of the end result. After church we came home and had a steak dinner then we had a softball game (which we won by forfeit, but scrimmaged anyway) and we are ending the evening by watching the Celtics beat the Lakers (hopefully). That would be the perfect end to Fathers' Day for Jim!


All I have to say about this picture is.... Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting!