As a little thank you to my niece Elizabeth for helping with Colin while I was in New York, I offered to come down and take some photos of her and her friends. Colin had fun running around and playing peek-a-boo from behind the reflector. He has not let the orange car out of his hands for about 3 weeks now. He even takes it to bed and for bath time.
Brian contemplates the light. He is my lighting designer and photo editor. We should hire out his skills, he is really good.
Here is Elizabeth and her friends. They have all gotten an apartment together for their sophomore year. They seem like a very nice group of girls. I thought it would be fun because in 1994 when my friends and I found our first apartment at BYU, we had a little photo shoot. I set up a dorm sheet as a backdrop, put my camera on a tripod and bounced my flash off the ceiling. Below is the (now somewhat embarrassing) result. The photo was taken March 4, 1994. I do not feel too much older than 18 sometimes, but I sure am.
My niece Emma was in town with her Mom and sisters this weekend. Since she is in a performing arts high school, she needed some head shots. She was a great guinea pig since Brian and I were trying out some new lighting strategies. She is very easy to photograph. I realized (by my photo counter) that I have taken about 5,000 head shots in the last few years.
Colin has loved to play with plastic eggs since last Easter, but realizing that a bunny put candy in them and hid them was very exciting for him. My brother throws a huge Easter party on the Saturday before Easter and it was a great time. Colin got really tired from all the excitement and after a while was just staggering around with his Easter bucket, still eating as much candy as he could.
Cousin Evan came for a visit with his Dad. He is just a few months younger than Colin and they had a great time together. He is supper mellow (quite a contrast to Colin) but they are both good-natured and played really well together. The day after Evan left Colin was still looking around for him. If only they did not live across the country.
31 weeks pregnant. I can no longer bend down.
My parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this past Thursday. As a big surprise, my four siblings who live across the county came into town. It was fun to coordinate things with everyone and to pull off such a big surprise. It was amusing also to tell my parents all of the things they thought I was doing all week when I was actually getting ready for the anniversary. My sister asked my Mom if she thought we could be so thoughtful and she said "No!"
My sisters and I gave my parents some beautiful pasta bowls. We tried to focus on gifts that had to do with family stories or memories. Back before I was born (but I think my Mom was pregnant with me) my Mom had had enough with her six kids who were acting like pigs. She made a big pot of spaghetti, put a plastic tablecloth on the table and dumped the entire pot on the table. She told my siblings that if they were going to act like pigs then they were going to eat like pigs also. Half of my siblings were offended and left the table and half happily stayed at the table to eat like pigs. Our personalities are somewhat summarized by those who stayed at the table and those who left. Everyone agrees I would have stayed. The new bowls are to show my parents we are a little bit more grown up now.
My Mom could not stop smiling all weekend.
Brian took this nice photo of all of my siblings. Brothers and sisters came in from Minnesota, Chicago, Connecticut, and Seattle.
Here are a few photos from last weekend. We had some lovely weather on Saturday which was nice because all week weather.com said it would be raining. We headed over to Union Square to enjoy the little farmers market (although it was a high-end, organic farmers market.) We got tickets to a play near there. We saw "The Seagull" by Chekhov- you know, some light Russian fun. We were considering seeing "The Seagull" or "Xanadu" and we decided to make the more mature choice. We thought we might respect ourselves more in the morning. All the complicated situations made us feel good about our functional relationships. I am quite sure our little girl is not hearing impaired because during the play there was a gunshot and my baby jumped.
Our dear friend Megan came from Washington DC to play with us and see the concert on Sunday.
Cherry Blossoms on Union Square
We have had a few crazy days and they are kind of not over yet since Brian is back in Paris until later this week. Sadly I do not yet have photos to post because Brian has our laptop in France.
Last weekend I was able to travel to New York to be in town for his concert. The craziest thing was that Colin stayed home with my parents and niece and I traveled alone (but I did take my 30 week old fetus). It was the first time I have left Colin for more than 4-6 hours and it was strange but easy. He did mostly great while I was gone but was happy to see me on Monday. Our friend Megan came up from the DC area for the weekend and my brother and sister-in-law came down from Connecticut. We were also able to see some great friends from the NYC area who we wish we could see more frequently.
I'll post more later, but Brian did great in his concert on Sunday. He was one of the soloists with the American Symphony Orchestra's US premier of "The Destruction of Jerusalem". It was fun to have him sing at Lincoln Center and Brian had some of the most beautiful things to sing in the piece. Then a few hours after the concert, Brian was on a plane to Paris for another concert tonight. He'll be back with us by Friday morning and then we have a few weeks before his next engagment in Boston and shortly after that we should be having a baby.
Today we finally felt the promise of spring. It was a beautiful sunny sweater weather day. Colin is clearly going to be an outdoor maniac. He wanted to be outside from the time we got home from church until it was time to go to bed and threw a pretty great tantrum because he had to come in for dinner. He was collecting rocks for a good part of the evening and presented daddy with four if his best finds. You can see some of his treasures in his blurry hands above. Vive le Printemps!
Colin was very excited to help open presents, and a little disappointed the presents were not cars and trucks. Yesterday was my birthday, and thank you for all the voice and facebook messages, and even a special dedication from DLF. I am happy to only be divisible by 3 and 11. Brian pointed out how great it will be to be 37 in a few years since it is a prime number again. We have not been prime numbers since 31. With three prime numbers to enjoy in our 40's that should be great too. Brian and I also look forward to being 36 because at that point we will have known each other as long as we have not known each other. Tender.
As a special birthday surprise, Brian booked me a special spa package. I think the package was called "Mother Nurture" and included a 1 hour prenatal massage, a 1 hour facial, and a 1 hour pedicure, including snacks and a food basket with plenty of time to relax in the tea room. It was quite amazing and gave me about 4 hours to think about what a wonderful and thoughtful husband I have. Later that night my Mom watched Colin so Brian and I could go to dinner like grown ups. Very fun. This more than makes up for my kind of sad birthday of last year. Brian was in North Carolina for an opera and I was home alone with Colin trying to pack up the house to move. Colin had a double ear infection, reacted poorly to antibiotics and caught a stomach virus which produced amazing amounts of vomit and diarrhea. It was also the week of my niece's funeral which I was unable to travel home for. Luckily, my friend Mandy flew out to help me pack and many other people lent a hand too. It was still a bit traumatic.
I am getting more and more pregnant (as evidenced by the photo) and the baby has been very active recently. She gave Brian a good kick last night. At our prenatal appointment this week the midwife had Brian feel her head since she was still head up as of a couple of days ago. She is still small enough to flip around, and I feel like she is flipping around all the time. She just needs to be head down and stay that way by 32 weeks. I am 28 weeks and 3 days pregnant, which I kind of cannot believe, even though it is quite obvious.
I received a complaint from my brother that our blog is boring now we are in Utah. Yes, well, life is at times a little boring, especially with Brian gone. I try to keep Colin entertained, some what clean and fed and that is about it. I am also trying hard to minimize some pregnancy complications (but it is not polite info for a blog). Anyway, while I was on someone else's blog, I found info on the Bureau of Communication. I was quite entertained, and if my brother had sent his complaint on an unsolicited feedback form or an airing of grievance, maybe we would be inclined to do something more exciting to post about. It is pretty funny, so check it out when bored or to send a formal email.
