Wedding sneak peek...

I've been working hard on my wedding shoot. It was my first ever, as I usually refer that business elsewhere (Amy G.), but I couldn't say no this time because the bride didn't have many options as she wasn't a year in advance like so many brides plan (I feel her pain, I only planned four months in advance and it was a pain). So...I took the chance, and made the drive to Lewiston, ID for my first every wedding. Whitney and James were a very happy pair.

Anyway, the best thing about being five feet away from a bride and groom is witnessing their joy on their big day. I was so twitterpated by the end of the day!

Baby names...

No, I am not pregnant.

Popular baby names

Social Security just posted their 2008 baby name data, and while I'm not naming any babies, I just obsess a little with name trends.

Everyone thinks that they are being original when they name their baby. Okay, not everyone, I mean...there are plenty of classic names, like my nieces and nephew...Nathan, Sarah and Jane. Classics are classics, that's why you'll still find Christopher and Michael (husband, brother-in-law) in the top ten after all these years, they are tried and true good names.

So there is a lot of research that goes into predicting name popularity, and if you were shocked three years ago when all of the sudden your one and only baby, Ava had lots of Ava company, you could have done your research (if you even care, and I'm not saying you should care).

Maybe only Sommer and I really care about this kind of thing, but I was 100% positive when I was trying to conceive Alice, that she would be Ava. I was going to spell her name Eva, because I speak Spanish and have many beloved friends in Spain, and in Spain, Ava, is spelled with an "E". I figured that if the spelling of her name plagued her with a lifetime being called, "Eva," all was still well, because I love the name Eva too (I'm big on owning your spellings, you can't name your child some phonetically bizarre name and then gasp when people mispronounce it...in my humble opinion).

I thought I was very original. I knew no Ava/Eva's, and Chris was all for the name. I did know that Heather Locklear an Ava, and that celebrity naming does influence name popularity, but I was still thinking I was the only person plotting a baby Ava.

Until...

My sister-in-law Sage was up for a visit and we told her "our" name and she was totally shocked, because she and Mike were also trying for a baby and also loving on the name. She also confessed that her sister, who had us both beat and was already pregnant, was going to use the name Ava if she was having a girl. This is when the light bulbs came on...maybe I wasn't starting a new trend with the name Ava!

I did a little research. In 2004, Ava was ranked 25, a dangerous rank...but I found an article about name trends and discovered that while most names jostle between two or three places year to year, there are a few names that make leaps over a few years and those names tend to wind up in the top ten in a few years. They specifically said that Ava would be ranked in the top ten by 2005, and it was...it ranked 9th the year of Alice's birth. Near miss.

It was hard, but I'm really committed to classic, yet uncommon names. For example, Ruby. Everyone hated the name when I chose it. Chris straight up moved onto the couch over the controversy and my mother-in-law started a campaign to solicit better name ideas from those who love me. In the end, I won. I knew her name was to be Ruby. It was the ONLY name that I wanted.

To this day, I find excuses to say her name in public around other people so that they can say, "What a beautiful name". I just love her name. Now, I was right in the trend. I'm not trying to claim that I wasn't...it did trend up and still is, my taste is right in line with the trend, but I try to stay out of the super names of the top ten. To this day, I've only met one other Ruby, and she's six years younger than my Ruby. I hear of other Ruby's, I hear, "I have a niece, I have a neighbor..." but I've only met one, so I am satisfied that Ruby will never be "Ruby P" (though of course homeschooling kind of lends to a first name basis anyway, right?). (When Ruby was born, it was ranked 208, and now it is ranked 113, a significant jump, but names ranked that far are still obscure enough.)

So Ava was ousted and we decided on Alice (after Ruby announced to my midwife that was going to be her name), thinking it was probably going to ring hideous (and it did) to most, but it was growing on me. So the day after we announced that her name would be Alice (a few weeks before she was born), Tina Faye had a baby and named her Alice. Sommer called me to tell me and I was baffled, but decided from the general public reaction to the name, that I was good to go.

So she's four now, and I've never met another Alice. Never heard of another little Alice...just one 80-something lady at church with her name...and the maid from The Brady Bunch.
Recently, there's been a little more buzz about the name from Twilight and many people compliment her name, and I do love it in every way. Alice has jumped from 414 to 326 during her lifetime, so it is gaining in popularity, and my name choice, again, followed the trends.

Anyway, I love all the popular names too. They are darling and appealing and make for some really cute little people who I love. I just tend to want my kids to have names that aren't invented...ewwwww...I really don't get into the trend of making up names, like...okay, can't think of an example, but there's a lot of that out there. I like classic names, but not common names.

I wanted a "Levi" for my first boy, but now it is gaining in popularity, funny how that happens. At the same time I'm thinking of a name, a ton of other people are also thinking of it.

Together...

Such a basic part of my life is that I get to be where my kids are when they are eating, sleeping, playing, complaining, napping, fighting, mess making and doing all kinds of new things. I was reminded tonight when I got the below email that I take this for granted more often than I should!

It was a simple thing to upload the pictures I took of the soccer game on Saturday to a web album and email a link to the parents, I didn't imagine the following response:

Rebecca,

I am currently overseas and it was probably the best thing that I have ever received while deployed. I cannot thank you enough for the pictures, it has definitely made my time hear easier but eager to go home.

Adam

I'd say I value my togetherness with my kiddos on a daily basis. In the past year alone, I've witnessed enough tragedy drive the "carpe diem" cliche home for a lifetime, but still...I'll pay closer attention to my kids when they play "sister" or "restaurant" tomorrow.

Have I said before how much I value living in a community affected by military deployment? You just can't forget the troops over there when they are your neighbors and friends.

My four to five person...

So, I play house, but I don't really keep house. Okay, that isn't true. After seven years of marriage and seven years of being prodded daily by a clean freak husband, I do keep house. I just don't like it, and it doesn't come naturally to me and it isn't my first priority. My house stays pretty clean because it is Chris' priority, and we don't really do anything after he gets home from work until the house is in the shape he wants it in. I'm not trying to sound negative about him, it is a good thing that I value about him, (even if it is the source of the majority of our marital discord) and I am glad that after 7 years I have become more capable of picking the house all the way up, not just doing the major stuff.

So recently I was gabbing with my friend Mimi about another tiring conversation I'd had with Chris about how to keep up better with the mess all day (these conversations used to occur daily, now they only occur like once every six weeks...amazing progress).

She's well versed in the complexities of our cleaning predicament, and she said, "You need a four to five person."

It didn't seem feasible to me because who really needs a job from four to five, but she was right. I need someone to come in, undo the day, unload the dishwasher, vacuum the kitchen floors, put the laundry away, put the dishes in the dishwasher, put all the shoes back in the shoe basket, help the girls stay on task while they clean the toy room...just before Chris comes home! Genius!

So it's 2:46 and she'll be here in 1:14.

Two wheels...

I know that there are a few too many consecutive posts about Ruby, but she's really been doing lots of things for the first time, so I have no choice! Tonight after church, we went to the park as a family and took the bikes. Ruby started to get the hang of riding by herself, but it was when we got home that she really took off without Chris chasing her down the street. I caught it on my webcam...yes, I was chasing her down the street with my laptop open! This might be a video that only a grandparent could love.

First Swim Meet...

Grrrrr. Every time I move text around, it underlines and looks like a link. It is super annoying, but I'm over it this time. I'm not going to try to fix it this time.

Ruby is a fish. She loves to swim, and is quite good at it! I can't tell you how crazy it was to sit at her four hour long swim meet on Saturday and watch my baby dive into the pool and swim her little freestyle and backstroke heart out! I was amazed at how it doesn't even look like her mouth could get air when she turns it for breaths. She's just a real swimmer, and I was so thrilled watching her! She's in the team's youngest age group, but it is made up of mostly 8 year olds, so she's like a head littler than all her competition. She swam a 25 meter backstroke race and finished third of five, in 30 secs. Then she swam a 25 meter freestyle race and finished 4th of five in 32 secs. Finally, she swam the first leg of a relay, in freestyle again and swam her 25 meters in 30 seconds.I am so happy that she was enjoying the competition, and not stressing about who won or anything. She just had fun and did her best and she is very anxious to receive her ribbons at Monday's practice.

Chris gets the credit for teaching her to swim and seeing the commitment of swim team through.

Ready, set, GO!

Doing the backstroke.

She's in the second lane from the bottom...so little and so alone in that big water!

Love the goggle look.

Those are the girls on her team in her age group.

And she's off!

I thought I'd never have a post entitled: "Soccer"...

So if you have soccer players and I read your blog, you've probably gotten a comment from me at some point to the effect of "I hate soccer and I don't read posts about soccer."

Here's why...I have four brothers, and they all played soccer. I spent a lot of time growing up, going from field to field (hello, in the NW rain) on Saturdays. From game to game, sport to sport. It wasn't always soccer, and I didn't always hate it. Sometimes there were cute older brothers at the games to flirt with, sometimes I was off the hook based on other invites, but inevitably, with four jock brothers, I logged many hours at tracks, fields and courts of every variation.

So...this is my once per season (unless she scores a goal, and I'm not going to hold my breath) post about my baby playing soccer.

Ruby is smitten with her status: soccer player. She beams while she wears her yellow soccer t-shirt around all day, everyday. She wears her soccer shoes until they give her blisters, and when I suggest she remove them, she takes a serious look at them and decides the pain is worth it. She wanted to do soccer last year, and I just kind of ignored the whole idea. This year, there was no ignoring, and it is a great sport, and so I decided to be a good mom and let her try it out.

The good thing is that the team is made up of a bunch of kindergarteners that go to the neighborhood elementary school, so this way, Ruby gets to know the children her age in our neck of the woods. Thanks to my friend Leah, whose daugther Ella is Ruby's friend for giving me the heads up and helping us get on the same team! It makes it more fun to have friends on the team, and Ella and Ruby are full of hugs for each other at practice and the game. It's really cute.

So their first game happened to be against a team that Kiley, one of Ruby's friends since she was just six months old, was playing on. They all played hard, and here's a cute pic of Ruby, Kiley and Ella together after the game.

While Merce was here...

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo behind. So I mentioned that my friend Merce came home with me from UT. While she was here, our spring break turned into "April Break" as we had quite the time doing tourist stuff. I LOVED having her here. She was a member of a ward where I served for over half of my mission, and I loved her then, but was too busy to know her on a deeper level. So we've been in touch through the years, and during those two weeks we laughed harder than I've laughed in ten years. I really needed that, and I didn't even know it. She helped me around the house and raved over every new thing I showed her...pinewood derby cars, the pool at our YMCA, the frogs we caught, Snoqualmie Falls, Pike's Place Market, my kids, the daffodil fields, Easter egg dying, the San Juan Islands...she loved it all.

I took so many pictures while she was here. It was like every five feet she'd marvel over something else, and want a picture. We laughed a lot about this. If we were somewhere totally normal, she'd notice the clouds and need a picture of them. So I took them. Anyway, so I won't be in many of these pictures, but they represent a very, very good time for me. I miss her a lot, even if we have talked every day since she left.

A lot of these were me letting her loose with my camera...

It was a nice day, and Ruby was enjoying a snuggle with Stone on the lawn chair...

Catching frogs...her first time. We caught three that night!
Merce loves clouds and flowering cherry trees...

our house...Merce loves Seattle... and Pike's Place Market...Ruby loves Merce...she even cried when she left...She loved the ferry... The view from Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island...so beautiful!She loves reflections in the water...She loves red bark on trees...She loved turning rocks over to discover little crabs...I love the way the islands in the puget sound overlap and surround you...We loved our little cabin looking over Deer Harbor! We had to share a King Size bed, and I was worried about snoring, so she put in ear plugs and promptly started to SNORE! I wound up on a loveseat in another room for like five hours before she woke up and realized I was gone and gave me an extra pair of ear plugs she had. Then we both snored happily. If only I'd known about the plugs sooner. She loved Snoqualmie Falls... She wanted a picture with this man because he fixed the little paddle ball toy that the girls had. She was sure it couldn't be fixed, but he fixed it!

She loved the Pinewood Derby...

She loved dying easter eggs, decorating easter egg cookies, stuffing plastic easter eggs, hiding easter eggs...she loved the way we celebrate Easter...

I love Merce! I miss her and can't wait to visit her in Barcelona soon (positive thinking).

Trip to Salt Lake City...

Wow, we haven't ever taken such a long road trip before. Somehow the ten hour drive to McCall is nothing compared to the fifteen hour drive to Salt Lake. I have planned this trip for a year, since finding out that there was going to be a really big reunion for the Spain Barcelona LDS missionary alumni. The event was planned for just missionaries that served during the same time period as I did. I was really excited to unite with old friends, and Chris suggested we all go, and of course it is always fun to show off my family!

On the way there, we stayed at Jeff and Mary's house, 9 hours into the drive. Mary and the kids were out of town, so we got to sleep in cozy beds and Ruby was THRILLED to sleep in her cousin Sarah's bed. I wish I had taken a picture of her in the bed. It was nice to visit with Jeff and see their home, as we'd never visited there before.

We made the drive to Bountiful and stopped at my favorite restaurant, Cafe Rio. I love their salads. Anyway, our friends the McMullin's put us up while we were in UT. It was so nice of them to host us and for their son Sam to sacrifice his bedroom for us all.Sam and Ruby had fun playing together.

So the mission reunion was quite an event. I loved seeing so many people that I share such meaningful experiences with. We had a breakfast for families, a luncheon with just the girl missionaries ("Hermanas") and a lovely conference where we heard from our mission president and his wife and we got to mingle and chat for hours. This is the group that was in the Missionary Training Center with me for 10 weeks.

I don't have any proof other than this picture, but we got together with Braden and Amanda and their little Mason (below) briefly. I'm so glad they are moving home and won't be so far away anymore, because it is always so fun to be with them.

So the day before we left, I found out that an old friend from Barcelona was in town visiting her daughter (also a friend) who lives in Salt Lake City now. I was so excited to see them both, so an hour after we arrived, they came over. What fun! My Spanish felt so rusty, I felt like my tongue was wrapped in an ace bandage or something, it just didn't work right. Anyway, after only like three minutes, Merce (the mom) had plans to return home with us in our extra seat. I WAS THRILLED!

Kerry and Jeff (McMullin) made us a nice breakfast on our last morning and we got on the road home. We only made it like two hours before we were lucky enough to meet up with Chris' little brother Doug for a picnic. He brought his sweet girlfriend, Heather with him and it was fun to spend some time with them on such a nice day.

So on our way down, we opted to leave Stone with Jeff in Mountain Home. We drove through to get Stone and got to see the kids and Jeff real quick.

Ruby and Sarah

We pushed forward to Robb and Heather's house, just 3.5 hours from home. We arrived late and left early, so it wasn't much of a visit, but we did have some time with Robb and Heather, and the kids played for a few hours in the morning.

Carson, Alice, Ruby, Hailey and Emma.

Due to some avalanche control, the highway we would usually take to arrive home was closed, so we took the scenic route...it was scenic and we stopped A LOT for pictures. Here is a lake that was frozen over, and just starting to melt. Merce was thrilled. It was fun to go from beautiful Utah to desolate Idaho, through beautiful Oregon mountains, brown Eastern Washington and finally to arrive in the northwest with all the gorgeous greens. Merce kept reminding me how beautiful all the colors of green are.

Challenged...

About six weeks ago, I posted this "Challenge" on my blog. I thought about it a lot, but I'm a skilled procrastinator, and wasn't really feeling the heat of my due date (April 2nd) because I figured I was the only one who remembered my challenge.

I WAS WRONG! My friend Anne, who shares my interest in writing, completed the challenge and posted her essay here and then an edited version here. She did it on time, and I really like both of them.

Anyway, after reading hers, I decided I would not go to bed tonight without getting my thoughts down and sticking to my challenge, even though I'm a week late. Next time I'll look at the calendar when I post a challenge because I was on vacation for my due date!

So here's my essay, which is in response to some essays that I read on Valentine's Day, "How Lucky I am that I Have so Much to Lose." All grammar that I know comes naturally to me. I'm no grammar buff, and at this late hour I don't have anyone to proofread my essay. Feel free to comment with errors or whatever.

The difference between empathy and sympathy was a blur to me until recently. Yesterday after talking to a friend whose husband had been laid-off, I looked around my house and began imagining that everything I had was taken away from me. I started with the couches we had saved for that finally replaced the horrible, overstuffed, blue sectional that my husband had proudly purchased as a bachelor, his only criteria being how comfortable they were for eating Pizza Pockets and watching "The Simpsons". Oh how I loved cuddling with that bachelor on those heinous couches.

After four years of paying off pre-marital debts with every extra penny, we got a tax return in the mail and decided it was time to go buy the couches of my dreams. I already knew what I wanted, the fabric, the style, the color of the feet, the curve of the arm. Chris only had one criteria, the one criteria that made my criteria an impossibility. “The couches we buy are coming home with us today,” he exclaimed. It seemed small, his list compared to mine but few are the retailers that stock massive pieces of furniture. My first choice was out of stock and my second choice required a 10-week wait, so I settled on my third choice, which was on hold for another customer. After some smooth talking, we were out the door, third-rate couches loaded in the back of the truck.

I remember the first time that I really wished the arms of the new , modern couches weren’t fashioned after concrete sidewalk curbing. It was 3AM and my cuddle-resistant two-year-old was suffering an ear infection. I wasn’t going to object to her groggy petition, “I wanna hold you,” so we nestled onto the couch, her sweaty head heavy on my shoulder. Her tears dried, her breathing settled into sleepiness I started to think about sleeping myself. This is when I noticed my neck formed a perpendicular angle with my back. That was a long night filled with groggy dreams of gently sloping, curved, sold out couch arms.

At the end of my second pregnancy, I abandoned hope of sleep. Officially overdue, I decided to sit on the couch—my third-trimester bed—and fold laundry. I reflected on the profound words spoken hours earlier by my mother-in-law, “there really is only one end to your state...and it will come to an end.” At 1:00 AM, I turned on the television. I already have a magic bullet, so I settled on the last hour of “Spitfire Grill”. As I debated over how to pair our mismatched socks, I felt a delicious pain in my belly, a contraction! I casually looked at the clock and waited. Four passed and another welcome contraction came. I quickly moved all the matchless socks off of my leg and bolted upstairs to wake Chris. Ten hours later, my mom moved the laundry out of my way as I settled in with my second daughter and a dozen throw pillows to nurse, burp, and change. Nurse, burp and change.

The couches are now a part of my home; however, they aren’t my home. Even my home isn’t my home. My home is made up of my people: my hasty husband, my independent six year old and my three year old who still loves to keep me waiting. I realize now that the beauty of sympathy is having the luxury to ponder things without the emotion of fully experiencing them.

Anne...thanks for taking the challenge...will you issue the next one?