10!

We've been married for ten months! That's double digits! Which is a long time! Okay, so it's not really a long time, but it's the longest I've ever been married... well, you know what I mean.

I seriously cannot say enough good things about our photographer, ETFizzle. She is wonderful. These photos were taken at City Hall the Monday before we got married.

I wanted a windy veil shot SO bad. And there was absolutely no wind. A nice stranger hid behind that pillar and threw my veil to give the appearance of wind.

Again, no wind for a windy veil shot, so we intentionally snagged my veil on the trunk of this tree.

I love how epic this picture is.

Shortly after this photo, ETF asked me to drop my veil from the balcony. I could see it being a cool picture, so I did. Except my veil got snagged on the building three feet past my reach and wouldn't fall to the ground. Eventually it did fall to the ground, but I was freaked out for a few moments.

See the other months: four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine.

A setback in reading

I have this goal of reading 100 books in a year.  I think it's totally do-able. But I'm definitely behind right now.  Generally, I only read one book at a time.  I'm behind because I have been picking dud books lately.  I start them and they are just not interesting so I'm not excited to read them, thus it takes me longer to finish them.  Or I start a book and it is so not interesting that I don't finish it at all.  Here are books (and number of pages I read in them) that don't count towards the 100 books because I have not finished (and don't plan on finishing) them.

"The Thyroid Solution" by Ridha Arem, M.D. - 300 pages - long story about why I read this book, but it had a lot of good information and I skipped around a lot.

"As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner - 50 pages - hard to follow.

"The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers" by Thomas Fleming - 250 pages - not thorough enough and even though these men were very interesting the author makes them incredibly dull.

"The Templars: The History and the Myth" by Michael Haag - 100 pages - lots of boring history before the Crusades and Templars even start - plus he argues that Moses's exodus from Egypt never happened and that the Children of Israel were assasins for hire.

Books I actually finished:

17.  "The Lacuna" by Barbara Kingsolver 507 pages

       I read "The Lacuna" because Barbara Kingsolver wrote a book called "The Poisonwood Bible" that is
       one of my favorite books of all time.  I have tried to read other books by Kingsolver ("Pigs in Heaven,"
       "The Bean Tree," and "Prodigal Summer") and didn't like any of them enough to finish them.  So I
       probably should have known better than to have high hopes for "The Lacuna."  I kept thinking this book
       would get better and it never did.  It took me a long time to finish this book.  I would not recommend it at
       all. 

18.  "The First Ladies" 4th Edition by Betty Boyd Caroli 302 pages

       I like American History a lot so I thought this book (and the founding fathers book) would be interesting.
       But I was wrong.  I was expecting more of a biography about each first lady but it was more of a
       summary of her White House years and parties.  There was no historical context at all.  How can you
       talk about Eleanor Roosevelt and not mention World War II?!  How can you talk about Lady Bird
       Johnson and not mention Vietnam?!  How can you talk about Pat Nixon and not mention her husband's
       resignation?!  It left a lot to be desired.  This one also took me a long time to finish.

19.  "Shoe Addicts Anonymous" by Beth Harbison 327 pages

       Another book that took too long to finish that I wouldn't recommend.

20.  "Breaking Dawn" by Stephanie Meyer 754 pages 

       I liked the whole series and I liked this book.  Again, the books are not literary masterpieces, but they
       are entertaining and that is all I am looking for.  I still think Bella should end up with Jacob, but I was
       more satisfied with the ending (and the whole book) than I expected to be.  

Please tell me what books I should read!  Obviously, I haven't been choosing the right ones...

Fun with babies - much more fun than fun with math and other such things.

Sometimes babies are toys.  Toys you have to be very gentle with, but toys none the less.  They are just too easy to pose.  Some examples with the six month old twins:

America's Next Top Model

Wrestling!

Baby army attack!

Put 'em to work young.

Super big paper weights.  Or people weights.  Let's see some push-ups, T!

Babies make for good off-roading and emergency landing places for Little People. 

Check out those chubby legs!  Agh!  So cute!

I took the previous pictures the first ten minutes we were at T's parent's house.  The rest of the pictures are completely un-posed.

Drool!  Yum!

Baby E eats like nobody's business.  He snatched a handful of angel food cake from an unattended table before dinner even started.

The newest parents don't need a bed.  Just a table.

The twins are five months older than A.  The difference is crazy!

Babies with mommy.

Despite what he would have you believe, T's dad really does like babies. But ask him sometime where babies fall on the curve of usefulness, anyway.

It's never to early to rock.

Don't worry, you didn't miss anything.  This isn't cousin K's baby.  It's T's sister's baby.

Here's hoping we get back to Utah more often than every 10 months.

There's no place like home - s'more

More reasons I love Utah:

Besties H and M

SNOW!!! I even got the big fat flakes!

Mountains

Besties K and E

L, who is in kindergarten, is hilarious. She plays indoor soccer. Of sorts. Mostly she just skips and twirls around and talks to everyone. Sometimes she doesn't even try to follow the ball at all. She is by far the most entertaining kid on her team. She does have moments of real soccer playing.

But there's also a lot of this:

And of course the best part of soccer - the treats!

More mountains!  I can't get enough.  I miss them SO much!

Awesome relatives who helped out with T's project in the cold cold cold.

N is sporting a blazer straight off the NY fashion week  runway - for serious - his sister M worked fashion week and got him this swanky, pricey jacket for free!

Here's the cold cold cold I was talking about:

My awesome parental units.

I love hide and seek.  It's nice that the grandbabies like it, too.

     V counting.                 I hid behind baby R.  It worked.  I have no shame.         Counting with baby C.

Awww.  They're holding hands.

Don't be confused.  You are correct.  My sister M only has boys.  The girl in pink is a family friend, not a daughter.  We're missing J here :( like he's old enough to go to school or something...

Six babies have been born since we got married last May.  It's been a baby explosion.  Luckily, no babies actually exploded.  This was T's first time meeting all of them:

Twin girls on T's side in September (H on the left and B on the right - I think)

Twin boys on S's side later in September (C on the left R on the right)

Please note T's halo.  He's an angel sent from heaven to deliver platinum records unto us.  Oh, wait.  That's Josh Groban...

L (Wolverine) on S's side in January

A on T's side at the end of Februrary

They are all SO cute.  We don't see them very often.  I hope they remember who we are!