bon appétit

I'm still savoring the taste of those chocolate brownies that Joe
baked... the ones I ate right after the delicious italian cuisine he
made us for our Sunday dinner... which was right after our traditional
Sunday afternoon walk that I love taking together along the trail and
through the neighborhoods. Let's face it, I'm very blessed. For the
record, as well as being a good cook, Joe is also a loving father and
a helpful spouse in many other ways. He's faithful in his priesthood
duties and more than anyone else, I know I can rely on Joe. And we all
know he's a smart cookie to boot.

Last night we watched the movie "Julie and Julia". Before bed he
quoted Julia Child as he told me "You're the butter to my bread".
Thanks for the sentiment Joe. We do make a pair. I can't think of a
food that better fits your character than bread. You're my bread, my
daily staple.

Does the Tooth Fairy Bring Teeth As Well As Take Them?

There must be something magical about San Antonio--Whenever we have
visited, Miriam has grown a new tooth! Her first two appeared during
our May visit, and now tooth number three (on the top this time)
appeared this past weekend while in San Antonio for our friends,
Flavia and Richard's wedding. Now don't put your finger in this baby's
mouth or you'll be liable to lose it. *toothy grin*

In other Miriam news;
She's walking along furniture with some adeptness now.
She's been sleeping much better now that she's out of our bedroom.
Her favorite food is banana, although she eats mostly anything now.
She thinks apllesauce is sour, but she'll eat it anyway.
Her fuzz is still getting longer and we're wondering if she might
become a strawberry blonde or perhaps a light brown. Her eyes are
definitely blue though.
Her favorite activity is playing with the silverware when I'm packing
the dishwasher.
She gets excited when she sees dogs (She had fun playing with Rocky
over the weekend).

We've also come to believe she's spoken her first word; Several times
this week when I've walked into the room, she's broken out saying ma
ma ma ma... especially if she was upset. We're practicing da da now.
Although she's been saying those sounds for a long time, it's never
been in context until now. She definitely understands a lot of words
though. For example, when we were walking out on the trail last week,
Joe said "Look Miriam, a doggy" and she immediately swivelled her head
around to find it.

8 Hours

of uninterupted sleep last night. :)

Convention, Kindle, & Cool Tricks

I just got back last weekend from my annual NFB convention in Dallas.
Had fun seeing old friends--It's always a bummer that there are so
many meetings getting in the way of the real fun stuff. Braille
testing went smoothly, so that was a relief. I guess I've finally
reached a point where administering the exam with all the boxes of
confidential materials and important procedures no longer give me the
heebie jeebies, and thank goodness for that!

Joe's itching for the mailman to come and deliver his new generation
three Kindle. He pitched me a proposal about how he could study his
medical textbooks on it and I relented. Happy unbirthday to Joe. Did
you know it's also my unbirthday today too?

As for Miriam, she's already nine months old! I just can't believe my
baby is now closer to a toddler than to a newborn. I held my friend's
one-month-old on Sunday and just couldn't believe how tiny and floppy
he was. Surely Miriam was never like that! She's starting to take her
first steps along furniture and sometimes does the "look mom, no
hands" trick. She's currently having a trial run sleeping in the
living room rather than our bedroom. This is in the hopes that she'll
some day sleep through the night. She's such a pleasant, happy, good
natured girl, but waking up in the night is her one bad habit. No
doubt my bad habits are worse... Perhaps a little extra sleep for us
all will improve things.

Lull

I'm beginning to wonder about myself and my habits; It's starting to
bother me that I haven't done anything recently that I can think of to
write about. We even skipped our usual Sunday walk last Sunday, so I
can't even write about that. Well, I suppose there are two things:

Joe took me out to lunch at a rather unique location downtown. It was
a Subway sandwich shop that was... How do I describe it...? It was two
stories with a kind of loft-style dining area with walls of glass that
looked over the passing cars. The cars were passing between the Subway
store and an adjacent parking garage, but there was also a big
building that stretched across the Subway, the road, and the parking
garage, making the road like an underpass. Joe would, however, have me
mention the romantic lighting. *smiles* It was fun experiencing an
unknown nook of downtown.

Secondly, there's an article in the current (July 2010) Ensign about
some members in my home ward and stake. It's titled "A Tale of Three
Families".

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?locale=0&sourceId=86fbad9ec2c49210VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=ccb1d48fa58db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

In particular, Peter and Geni Barr are close friends of our family.
Geni was one of my YW presidents.. Peter recently rode his bike with
my brothers in the final leg of their cross-country bike ride and he
wrote an awesome poem about the experience. Their son, Matt was the
seminary teacher who issued the challenge to read the Book of Mormon
every day for 100 days. By day 99 I had received a very clear wittness
that it was true.

I'm really grateful for such good people in my life, and the Barrs
definitely rank near the top of my list. I'm especially grateful to
them for the friendship they've shown my parents through thick and
thin over the years.

Terri Little was also my stake YW president, and I was sad to hear of
her recent passing. I don't personally know the Lenehans, but I know
they've been a help to my parents in recent times too.

Reading that article made me want to do better and be better.

Fathers Day

Joe just had his first Fathers Day. Miriam gave him a card with her
little pink footprint on it. As a side note, my informal experiment
revealed that it takes roughly two dozen attempts before getting a
decent print of a baby's wiggling paint covered toes.

We went on our customary Sunday walk in the afternoon. Joe wondered
out loud whether this PhD program was a mistake and if we ought to
have just gone for med school. I told him of course it was a good idea
and life is great. (Gotta be positive to survive). I don't remember
Joe's exact response, but suffice it to say that he quickly tossed out
his EARLIER WORDS. i GUESS WHILE OUR FRIENDS ARE ALL OFF BEGINNING
THEIR MEDICAL RESIDENCIES, WE JUST ENJOY BEING GLUTTONS FOR
PUNISHMENT. I suppose time will tell whether it was worth it, but I'm
fairly confident right now.

In other news, we ate loads of cookies this weekend.

Update on Miriam at 8 Months

While on a Sunday afternoon walk at Trinity Park here in Fort Worth,
we were passing by some trees near the duck pond when the following
uncanny event occurred:

Joe: There's a rabbit.
Louise: What? A real rabbit?
Joe: Yep.

The next thing I know, he has a rabbit in his hands showing Miriam.
Miriam wants to touch its eyes of course, but we direct her to the
fluffy parts. So, Miriam has now touched her first rabbit, not
including the one Grandma gave her for Easter.

Another exchange occurred last night before bed.

Miriam: (tugging at my shirt, presumably wanting food)
Joe: (in his Miriam voice) Come on--this store's open for business...
and the customer is always right.

And last week while I was holding Miriam, Joe took out my old penny
whistle. The moment he made a few random notes from the whistle,
Miriam's binky came spilling out of her mouth as she stared,
slack-jawed at Daddy, at which point, we both busted up laughing.

In other Miriam news, while in Australia the fuzz on her head (some
day we'll call it hair) got just a little longer and she got a little
bigger. She also learned to sit reliably without help. She had been
threatening to crawl for a month or two, but now she's got the
left-right coordination down and is crawling all over the apartment.
As if that weren't enough, while in San Antonio at the end of May, her
two bottom teeth magically appeared. Now with the crawling and the
teeth, she's got the makings of mischief--a pair of headphones were
the first casualty.

Before Australia she had just begun sleeping through the night, but
alas, it's never happened since. It doesn't help that she's still in
our room because Grandpa's got the second bedroom. We love having him
but we're just now starting to look forward to a change in Miriam's
sleeping arrangements. In the meantime, I think the more solid food I
can give her in the evening, the more she'll sleep. It's a bit
slow-going right now though.