Cows, Puppies, and Perseid

Last night Bryan and I went on one of the best dates we've been on in a long time! We put Michelle to bed, grabbed a few snacks, loaded up on the bug spray, and headed out towards Leonard.

About a month ago I was reading a magazine article about inexpensive and romantic dates. One of the things they suggested was cuddling up with your spouse under the stars and watching a meteor shower. Knowing that Bryan is really big into space and stars and whatnot I thought it would be a good date idea for us. The only problem is that you can't see any stars in Plano because of the city lights. So I looked up when the next meteor shower was going to be and found out that the Perseid Meteor Shower was going to hit it's peak on August 12 around 3 am. So I put it on the calendar and told Bryan to start scouting out good places where we would be able to actually see the stars. He immediately suggested we go out towards Jessica's house in "Hooterville", and just like that an amazing date was planned.

I did my research and found out a bunch of really cool stuff about this particular shower; and tried to memorize as much of it as I could so I could impress Bryan. It turns out that he had done the same thing and already knew most of the things I found out. But he was a gentleman and let me "impress" him with all my knowledge before he admitted to knowing it all already.

It was a really good shower! The shooting stars came in bursts, or clumps. We would see three or four stream by all at once, and then have to wait a few minutes before we saw another group. It was so beautiful though. And I think the cows and the puppies on the farm we were next to were watching them too! Every time a group of stars would fly by the cows would start mooing and the dogs would start barking. They would quiet down after a minute, but it was pretty funny. Bryan tried his hand (or mouth) at trying to communicate with them, and was convinced that he could "speak cow" because they would usually moo back at him. Eventually I made him stop because it sounded like the cows were coming closer to our car and... well it kinda freaked me out!

I tried to take a few pictures, but my camera just isn't that cool so they all came out looking like bubbles and dark splashes. But I looked on-line and found a few people who had night cameras that got some pretty good pictures.




It was such a great date! I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to do something romantic, fun and cheap. The next really good meteor shower is supposed to be in December. Bryan and I already have the date booked and can't wait to go visit our cow and puppy friends and watch the stars fall!

What do we do when Daddy is home?

It's a Blogging Miracle

Yesterday I completely ruined my blog! I went into the new design portion of blogger and was playing around with the backgrounds when I realized that there was no way I could get back to the minima setting! And, as most bloggers know, you can't have a custom background without that setting! I was totally bummed and has resigned to having an ugly blog for the rest of my blogging life. HOWEVER! This morning I got an answer to my prayers! For anyone who has messed up their blog in the same way I messed up mine go to The Background Fair's website! She figured out how to get back to minima and she has a lot of cute, and free, backgrounds and headers. As a tribute to her saving my blog I have used a background and a header that she made. Thank you Thank you to the Background Fairy!

I broke my blog!

As you might have noticed not only has my background changed, but my cool fonts have all disapeared. Here's what happened:
I was looking around the blogger website and noticed that there was a new "design" feature. So I decided to play around with it a little and see what it did. Well, as a warning to everyone who has not played with this feature yet- THERE IS NO UNDO! And to make things worse, the Minima setting that almost every blog template requires, is no longer an option! So not only can I not go back to the background I had before, I'm now limited to the backgrounds that blogger provides because I can't set it to the basic settings!
Has anyone else had this problem? Were you able to fix it? I'm totaly bummed, but I feel like an hour and a half spent trying to fix it, without any results, is way too long! What do I do?!

Best Sunday EVER

Today was a really great day! It didn't start out too great, but it turned out to be pretty amazing. So here's how it went down:
Michelle woke up at 5:00. I got up and rocked her back to sleep, and then went back to bed myself. Michelle woke up again at 5:30. I decided to let her fuss for a minute and she went back to sleep. Michelle woke up again at 6:00. And again at 6:15, and one last time at 6:30. I oh so happily threw off the covers and gently reminded Michelle that we don't wake up until 7:00 at the earliest! Bryan, also annoyed with Michelle, got up and let the dogs out. I proceeded to bring Michelle back into my bed in one last, desperate, attempt to get her to sleep just a little longer. Michelle found this to be the perfect opportunity to jump, roll, fall, and bounce on Mommy and Daddy's "big" bed. So we got up and started our morning routine (see previous post titled It Used to be Fun). While Michelle ate breakfast I finished my lesson and put together my handouts.
**Speaking of which- does anyone know how to post a word document into your blog? I've seen a few people do it, but I can't figure it out! The reason I bring this up is because it has been suggested to me a few times that I start posting my lesson's and handouts through Sugardoodle or through my blog, but I'm not really sure how to do either!
Anyway, Michelle went down for her nap pretty early since she woke up pretty early. This gave me time to work on another church project. I put together a Spiritual Thought kit for the Young Women. It turned out really well. I was very pleased, and would love to share it with everyone, but, again, I don't know how! I then worked on a few things for my Beehives and made reminder calls. Michelle woke up and BAM whole new baby! She was sweet and fun and just too cute for the rest of the day! From then on the day just kept getting better! WE actually made it to church on time, and when we got there we got to sit next to Jessica and Clayton! They came down from Bonham to go to church with us. Well, they actually came down to see my dad be set apart as a high priest, but what ev! Thanks to Clayton being at church Michelle had one of the best days at church that she has ever had. She was entertained and had lots of fun all three hours! During the third hour I taught the YW lesson on Agency. It went really well. I was a little bummed because right at the beginning of my lesson my Mom, Katie, and Jess all had to leave to go see Dad be set apart, but I didn't get to go. I heard that it went really well and I'm proud of my Dad for his "upgrade" in the priesthood, but I wish I could have been there. ANYWHO! After my lesson I had three girls tell me how much they liked it and I even had a teacher ask me for a copy of all my stuff so she could use it as a FHE lesson! I was so proud of myself! Then I came home and put Michelle down for her second nap- she was pooped! We had a great dinner and got to spend more time with Jess and Clayton. Michelle loves her cousin so much; they always have so much fun screaming and chasing and just being together. After dinner Jess gave me her Brownie Cookie recipe and, I have to say, I did a pretty dang good job replicating her cookies! Half of them were gone before I could even finish baking. Around 7:30 Jess and Clayton had to leave and it was time for Michelle to take a tub. Bryan took her upstairs and played with her and washed her while I got to sit here and blog away! Lots of family time, good church meetings, a great lesson, a happy baby, time to relax and a loving husband- Like I said, Best Sunday Ever!

Michelle's Update

Michelle is super busy these days. We have been working hard on using our words, and Michelle is doing great! If you ask her, "What does that cow say?" she'll reply "mooo". She also knows that the sheep says "ba", the lion says "roar", the puppy says "ruff, ruff, ruff" and as for the pig, well he grunts! When she wants something she will say "Please", which, by the way, melts my heart! I have a very hard time saying no to anything she wants when she looks up at me so sweetly raises her little hand and in her small little voice asks, "Please?" She also knows how to say "no, no, no." but I don't think she fully understands what it means. Or if she does understand then she is a lot smarter then we thought! She always says "night, night" at bed time, and "hi" when someone walks in the door. She's just so stinking smart it kills me! Oh, and if you ask her: "Michelle, are you a baby wookie?" She'll make the noise (baby girl version, of course) that Chewbacca makes from Star Wars! Daddy taught her that one.

Michelle is getting so fun to dress up! She'll be very patient while I try a bunch of different outfits on her. She will usually make it to outfit number four before she starts protesting. And thanks to her grandparents and a Daddy that lets her Mommy go shopping for her, she has lots of clothes to go through!

OH- and just a word of warning: Michelle will sit with me and blog stalk after she wakes up from her nap. She usually finds one or two pictures that she just has to keep looking at so we have put together a book for her. You may notice, in the picture above, that the two photos she is looking at are from my sisters blog. So, we are no longer just blog stalkers, we are also photo stealers... sorry!

Michelle is her fathers daughter! Every morning she gets something to eat, gets comfortable and watches TV until she feels awake enough to play. She normally does this with a bagel, waffle, or cereal, but Daddy was home and made an executive decision to allow a box of raisins for breakfast! And it's always the same shows: Clifford, then her favorite, Dragon Tales, and if she's still interested after that Curious George.

She had her very first pedicure the other day. She did a great job of picking her color, sitting in daddy's lap and holding very still while I painted her toes. After she was all done she helped me blow on them so they would dry faster and then walked all around the hose showing everyone her "pretty piggies"!

Michelle is still a big reader. Her Aunt Jessica made a book box for her that she uses every day! She will sit a read for a long time, and then bring me a book or two to read to her. Love this girl!