Ryan and Brittney

I mentioned to Lucy that we could go to the pool, so she ran to go get her bathing suit.  I heard her messing with her diaper around the corner and cracked up when I saw this:

I can't believe how long 26 lasts! :)  Okay so we actually celebrated my 29th birthday yesterday and it was a great day!  It was gorgeous weather- sunny and in the 80's- so we went swimming at our pool with Marci and her kids... and they even made us lunch and brought pool toys that kept Lucy entertained.  Then Ryan was able to skip some afternoon meetings and come home early, so we went out to dinner at Red Robin for my free meal.  After we put Lucy to bed, we ate my current favorite ice cream (double fudge chocolate brownie) and some cookies and relaxed while watching some episodes of Suits (our latest show addiction since we're all caught up on White Collar).  Also, Lucy slept well, which I consider to be the best present of all considering she was up for every waking minute the night before! It was fun getting cards, texts, emails, fb messages, and calls from family and friends all day too!

We have had quite a rainy summer!  As I've mentioned previously, Lucy loves being outside, and no amount of rain will stop this girl.  In fact, I think it kind of encourages her to go outside so she can play in it!  One afternoon a couple of weeks ago, we had a huge downpour that lasted a long time and after a few minutes of watching from our doorstep, Lucy just looked at me and smiled and took a small step towards the rain, then another one, until I just told her to go and she ran out into it.

Ryan decided one day that he really wanted to make homemade cinnamon rolls, which neither of us had done.  So we gave it a shot.  I'd say it was a success, considering we ate 40 out of the 48 ourselves (true story).  Also, Lucy loves to help with anything we do in the kitchen.  She is fascinated by it all.  Anytime one of us is at a counter, she will pull over a chair and watch and/or try to "help."  It turned out to be a fun little family activity that we could all do together.

So this top picture is from the day I had Lucy at 40 weeks.  The one below (my first and probably last belly picture) it is from last week, when I was at 31 weeks.  Yep, I'm about the same size and I still have 2 more months to go!  I think it's safe to say that this baby is much bigger!

We just added a big white flower over the bobby pin and called it good.  It was fun to try and it made her seem so big, as new little hairstyles always do on this girl.  I love having a girl!!

Lucy made it almost 2 months without getting sick!  That is, by far, the longest we have gone since the beginning of December!  She really just had a pretty mild cold and that was it, but since the girl is such a sensitive little sleeper, she was still up all night long for a couple of nights.  I think I need to quarantine her this winter.  I just can't do the no sleep thing.  But the great news of it all is that she barely had reflux, if any at all!  Typically even a mild cold would result in more reflux than we had.  So let's hope that this means she's really growing out of it!

So this post is a rambling of my thoughts, but I wanted to write them down for my own records...

I got called as the early morning seminary teacher in our ward.  My bishop had warned me the week before I was called that he submitted my name to the stake for this calling (it's a stake calling apparently), so when the stake guy called me in before church one day, I was ready and waiting with a whole speech as to why I didn't think it would be a great fit for me right now.  However, that morning they were running behind and I literally had less than 30 seconds before sacrament meeting (which is when they wanted to sustain us) to talk to him, so I didn't get to get into any discussion whatsoever at all.  The only thing I got out was "well, I'm having a baby at the beginning of October and I don't see how it could work for me after that," to which he replied, "Oh.  Wow.  Hmmm.  Okay.  Well if you get into it and it something doesn't seem to be working, you can let us know.  Now the meeting is starting, do you accept?"  I wasn't super happy but I was caught off guard and didn't know what to say.  Anyway, I'm just rolling with it right now, which is turning out that this is quite the full-time job!  I've already had 3 5-hour Saturday meetings, a few shorter ones in between, and have hours more that  I need to spend getting everything ready for our first day.  The other hard part is that because Ryan has to be out the door for work early each morning, we have to start seminary at 5:45, which is one hour earlier than they've started in the past because their high school doesn't start until 8.  Needless to say, we aren't getting much support from the parents on this one, which makes it kind of frustrating.

Anyway, I have been trying to have a good attitude about this calling, but it's proven to be very difficult for me and causing way more stress in my life than a calling ever has.  In all honesty though, I know my limits and even if I have the easiest baby in the world here in a couple months, I just don't think I will have it in me to continue on with this (how will I even have time to prepare a lesson each day let alone be up all night and then out the door at 5:20am?!).  So with that being said, I really am trying to do as much as possible now at the beginning so that things will be set up and ready for someone else to smoothly transition into my role.

As a side note though, some of these meetings I've been to have really been enjoyable and I've learned a lot that I know I will for sure use in the future!  And the other seminary teachers... they sure are dedicated to this calling and really, truly make it a full-time job and I was really inspired by many of them.  Their students are lucky!  I've always thought that this would be one calling that I would NEVER in a million years want, and while I won't ever beg for it, I've actually discovered that I would probably really enjoy doing it at some point faaaar in the future, like when my kids are in high school. :)  So I'm glad that I've at least gotten these few things out of it so far.

One day after folding laundry, I found Lucy just laying in the basket like this for a while watching whatever was on tv.  Doesn't look too comfy to me, but it didn't seem to phase her!  Silly girl.

I knew Ryan liked to play cornhole and although the game is everywhere now, it's kind of a midwest thing.  In fact, it's HUGE in Ohio.  So I thought it would be fun to get Ryan a cornhole set for his birthday.  They are super expensive to buy (hundreds of $$), but we have a friend in our ward who makes them and only charged me for the materials, which made it way cheap.  They even painted it royal "BYU blue" for us, too!  I figured I would order some BYU decals to put on it as well, but I let Ryan choose them after he opened it on his birthday because I knew he'd want to.  He decided to paint one a darker blue, so we had one of each of BYU's blue colors.  He then painted stripes down the middle that look like the sleeve of their football uniforms (or helmets?) and added the decals he ordered online.  He had to do some intricate painting on one of the decals to make it look right with the board.  Ryan finished off the project by weatherproofing them with a coat of varnish.  He always gets into projects and loves having one, so I think he really enjoyed doing this!  Now I just have to figure out how to thread the bobbin on my sewing machine so I can sew the cornhole bags!

The other morning Lucy had her dolls lined up and we covered them each with a little blanket.  I took the opportunity to practice swaddling a baby again and wrapped one up, which, to Lucy, meant that they all needed to be swaddled.  As soon as I brought out the camera, Lucy proceeded to lay down like she was sleeping with them.

Lately Lucy has been asking for me to pull our stroller out for morning walks around the block.  The split second I have the stroller out and ready she will jump in the basket underneath and not get out.  This is how she stays for our whole walk and she loves it.  Now I just look like the weirdo who pushes around a seemingly empty stroller. :)