Some vidjuhs...

Jaime has tried forever to get some videos of her little girl smiling. Here are a couple of her successes:

Tess cries in her sleep a lot. It's not that fun. We think she is waking up, but it's all lies. In this video, she never wakes up, starts crying and then falls right back into a deep sleep.

Tess talking

Tess smiling a little, and then getting very serious when I come in the room.

And the big finale. Performing on command:

Look at those eyelashes!

Synesthesia and Super Powers...

Not long ago, Jaime and I were having a minor dispute about important things like which fruits and juices are the best. Somehow the conversation turned to which letters are better than others. Jaime has always believed that the letter K should be eliminated from the alphabet, since C is "soooo much better." I, on the other hand, know the truth...that K would kick C's trash any day. In the argument, Jaime explained to me that C is by far more masculine than K. I'll let anyone that reads this set her straight on that point because it is a ridiculous argument. Anyway, then Jaime proceeded to tell me that K is more feminine because it is pink. In her mind, K has always been pink. When I stared at her dumbfounded, she then asked me, "Haven't you always thought of letters as having colors?" And said it in an accusatory tone as if to point out that I was the crazy one!

Why am I telling you this? Because I told Keck about this conversation last week, and he sent me a link to Dinosaur Cartoons (click on the image to go to the site and see the rest of the cartoon):



She's not crazy. She just has a super power!!! Wikipedia has a nice long article on Synesthesia and it is pretty interesting stuff. Click here to read it. Do any of you suffer from this super power as well? I want to hear about other peoples' sensory overlaps.

I don't have this particular super power, but I can tell you one thing...K is not pink.

Thanksgiving Weekend and some long lost pictures of Tess...

This last week and weekend has been exciting. Tess had her first non-sponge bath. She finally got a belly button:

And she slept through her first Thanksgiving! Here she is after stuffing herself silly and then trying not to move at all until dessert. She caught on to how Thanksgiving should be spent very quickly. These 2 pictures link to an album of pictures from our weekend.

I also uploaded an album of Tess a while back but forgot to link to it.

What we're thankful for...

This guy:


He's just so special and did that ginger bread house all by himself. Here's the end result:

...and then party all night! Woo!

She's in that kind of mode lately. It's not the funnest for Mom and Dad. But she's still a shweetie. Here are some cute pictures for your silent, daytime viewing pleasure.

Sleep, sleep, sleep all day long...

There has been a demand for more pictures of this little girl. She actually hasn't changed much since the last post. But, I'll comply. Again, clicking on a picture will send you to a picasa album and you can see even more.

Like most babies, Tess enjoys her sleep. Whether she's being swallowed alive by blankets...


Or held by her Mama. She just loves sleep. And she dreams about one thing...


FOOTBALL!!! It's really rather disappointing since I hate that sport. I've started to indoctrinate her early with soccer and made her watch a couple of matches with me this weekend. She slept through most of it, but that's pretty normal with soccer.

Baby Photos

Things have settled down a little bit, and I can finally put up some pictures for everyone. The delivery went fine, although Tess was very uncooperative. Jaime had to push for a couple of hours, and finally the doctor just went in with forceps to get her out.

We got to the hospital around 8:15pm a little anxious that Jaime hadn't really started labor and would be turned away. She had been having contractions all day long. Luckily, she was in labor. She also didn't have to wait long for her epidural which was a huge relief. After the epidural, we basically just had to sit there for hours waiting until it was time to push. I kicked her trash in Blokus. The baby was posterior and pushing went very slow. It didn't help that the umbilical cord was also wrapped around the baby's throat, which caused her heart rate to drop every time Jaime had a contraction. Still, the doctor was able to get her out safe and sound. And Tess looks just like her mother. It's as if Jaime found a way to asexually reproduce.

Here are a few pictures, and if you click on them, they'll take you to a web album with some more. Enjoy!



Jaime is doing great as a mom and is loving all the time with her little girl.







And the hospital setup this website for us as well with a professionally taken picture: click here

SHE'S HERE!!!

Arrived: 1:56am
Weight: 6 pounds 11 ounces
Height: 19.5 inches

Beautiful face. Scary long legs. I'll put up pictures as soon as possible.

My favorite parts of election night...

1. Obama had the lead in Utah...for like 5 minutes...when less than 1% of the results were in.



2. This is when I knew it was all over for McCain:


Wow! Nearly 80% in Maverick County.

3. Missouri didn't pick the winner. I love seeing long-standing winning streaks come to an end. It's the only state I was cheering for McCain to win.

Yeah Maine...

I just found this on Yahoo's political coverage. I don't think they're quite ready to call it a win for Obama since it's such a close race up there. I'm actually hoping these numbers don't change.

"Baby, Come Out!"

This post should be announcing the birth of our dear little Tessa Qudarth, but she already takes too much after her mother. If any of you have spent any time with Jaime, then you know how punctual she is...

Anyhow, on Halloween we spent the evening with the Kecks, which involved some amazing egg nog and cookies. While there, Tiffany shared a childrens book with us called, Baby, Come Out! Jaime got a big kick out of it because certain parts of it are similar to how things have been at our home. Particularly this page:

I play the role of Laura, which hasn't worked at all. That baby, like most people, does not understand that when I yell, things should happen! In the book, the dad is able to coax the baby out by giving everyone in the family a kiss except the baby...for obvious reasons. Ever since then, Jaime has incessantly tried to get me to kiss her stomach to set some sort of voodoo magic trance on the baby to get her to come out. I finally did it a few hours ago, and still not even a little contraction.

Baby's Middle Name...

It's like 2 in the morning and since I went to sleep around 6:30pm, I'm now wide awake. Before I fell asleep, Jaime was asking me for help in coming up with a middle name for the baby. So, that's what I'm doing now. I found this website that will invent baby names. They've invented some real winners, I think. Here's a few:
--Lginarama
--Toow
--Qudarth
--Crbeillan
--Heecheva
--Wnndosuda

Tell us which you think will be best for the baby! I'm kind of partial to Heecheva...probably more as an expletive than a baby name.

My unspectacular quirks

Woo Woo! I came up with a list of 36 of my quirks because Jaime said I have 6 people worth of them. I won't list them all because it will bore you. Here are the most spectacular of my unspectacular quirks. Or maybe the most unspectacular...what exactly makes one quirk spectacular and one unspectacular? I'm not re-listing all those rules, and I'm not gonna tag anyone.

1. When my shower is about to end, I can never remember if I have already washed my hair or not. So, if I can't remember for sure, I wash it just to make sure. I'm positive that 3 days out of 7, I wash my hair twice.

2. I prefer to wear my T-shirts inside out. This is for a number of reasons. Here are 2 of them... I'm too lazy to turn a shirt right-side out if I find it inside out. And I hate serving as a walking billboard for clothes companies.

3. Unlike Jaime, I do not like second-hand clothes. I do not like large crowds because there is a chance of being touched by someone. I hate being touched by strangers...and really anyone who isn’t my wife. Wearing other peoples' clothes is like wrapping another person around me. But I love that Jaime enjoys the second-hand shops and hope she passes that on to our kids.

4. I relive past arguments in my head, especially when walking to school or work. I usually stop when the argument gets SO heated that I catch myself saying something out loud, gesturing, or making a ridiculous expression to show the person in my head that I don't agree.

5. I plan my week around my stories (soccer). I don’t schedule classes from 1pm-4pm because a Tuesday or Wednesday game could be on at that time, and on Saturdays, the world is dead to me until around noon. And then again if there is a game I need to watch in the evening. I love sleeping in more than anything, but I will wake up at 6am on a Saturday morning to watch a soccer match. My dream job is to some day be a soccer club.

6. Finally, I hate math, but numbers are very important to me. I have very strict rules when it comes to their use. First off, prime numbers are the best. That's just a fact. It says so in the Bible...And seven is the King of the primes (maybe the Queen. I'm not sure about number gender). Here is a break down of my rules where numbers are most used:

--For alarm clocks: the last digit should be a 1 or 7 and can never, NEVER be a 5, 0 or a dirty even number. So, my alarm is usually set to something like 11:01.

--Microwaving: I prefer things to cook for 1 minute 47 seconds. This has become a habit and has caused me to overcook many things. Otherwise, the same rules from alarms apply.

Say hi to your mother for me...

This made me laugh a lot. Like a little girl.


This made me laugh even more.

Dancing Baby

Jaime's been suffering lately from Restless Baby Syndrome. Our last experiment in making a video of the baby didn't work too well since the baby wouldn't move while the camera was on her. So last night we were hoping to capture some good movements on camera.


We've also been trying to expose the baby to wholesome music. And by wholesome, I really just mean anything that isn't Miley Cyrus or High School Musical. So, in the car, Jaime's been ghetto blasting KBYU 89 to help familiarize the baby with bumpin jams like "Canon in D", Vivaldi's "Four Seasons", and other Classical favorites. We really like that station. In my effort to keep a pop-free household, I've been making Jaime let me hold a cellphone up to her stomach to pump it full of music I like. And tonight it woke the baby up pretty well and got her dancing. This video is pretty cool. There's lots of movement--just watch the phone bobbing up and down. I think the baby was trying to kick the phone off of Jaime's stomach and at one point if you turn the volume up really loud, you can hear her yell, "Where's my Jonas Brothers?!"


This video is long and I'm not sure it is too obvious, but if you watch the phone closely, you will see that the baby got the hiccups after all that dancing. Every few seconds, the phone jumps a little.

Tag, I'm it

So, I've been tagged. (Hi Tiff!) And I guess I need to share some of my "unspectacular quirks" with the world? To be honest, there are so few things about me that are unspectacular that this is probably a harder assignment for me than for the rest of you out there. I'll do my best, though. :)

Rules:
1 - List the person(s) who tagged you
2 - Mention the rules on your blog
3 - Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4 - Tag 6 fellow bloggers

Here goes:
1) I like being anonymous or semi-anonymous on the internet and in public. Josh has alluded to this in previous posts. I have a hanging parking pass for work that has my name on it in bold print, and I always take it off the rear-view mirror when I'm not at work. And I do use a tiny picture for my public Facebook listing. Maybe I'm paranoid...maybe I just like to think I'm hiding from the world when I'm not....I don't know where the impulse comes from. This whole blog thing kind of contradicts it, anyway. Maybe that's why I don't post as much?

2) I really enjoy flossing. You may think your teeth are clean after just brushing, but you are living a lie, I promise. I'm not above preaching about this subject. And really, it's very satisfying to get out all the food that's stuck in between your teeth. YOU SHOULD DO IT.

3) I'm a political news junkie and I read the New York Times every day. That's more than I read my scriptures. Clearly I'm not a good person. Maybe if the scriptures had a website that updated with new, fascinating articles every day it would be different??? Fine, fine. Not a good excuse, I know.

4) According to Josh, it's quirky that I think black and brown don't match. Actually, I think they can in certain circumstances. He has just been offended ever since I called him out for not matching one day last week when he was wearing brown checkered shoes, navy blue socks, black jeans, and a brown long-sleeved shirt under a green plaid shirt. From this description alone, I think you all should be able to tell that I was right. Right?

5) I like standardized tests. Mainly because I do well on them. I don't enjoy the testing experience, necessarily. I just like to get the results back and have them as a form of self-validation. Recently I talked to someone who took the LSAT and I thought to myself, if it was free, I would totally take it just to see how I did. I really should get a hobby.

6) I love thrift-store shopping. I just read an article in (surprise!) the New York Times about how the financial crisis is forcing families to change their spending habits, and in the article they interviewed a family with bratty teenagers that were grossed out that they might have to wear PRE-OWNED clothes. This just baffles me. Why on earth would you pay full price for new clothes when you can find almost brand-new things for so much cheaper? Even if they smell faintly of moth balls, all you have to do is wash them before you wear them! And you can totally find cute things! And! You can save SO MUCH MONEY!!! (True Story: I looked everywhere in retail stores and online for a skirt I could wear while pregnant, and couldn't find ANYTHING that wasn't short, ugly, or ridiculously expensive. I went to the DI here, and found TWO for less than $10 total. There is no shame in victory, people.)

I tag Josh - really, he has so many quirks of his own he counts as 6 people. If anyone else wants to count themselves as tagged by me then please go ahead.

New Background

In case the big banner featuring our faces didn't make it clear enough whose blog this is... I'm experimenting with backgrounds and thought we needed to draw more attention to ourselves.

Jaime's picture is from the side and doesn't really show much of her face so as to respect her wishes to stay 3/4 anonymous online. If you've ever looked at her picture on Facebook, it is very similar. I asked her about it one time, and she told me how she doesn't want to have her face fully visible because people might recognize her or something. Likewise, she doesn't like for her parking pass to hang on the rear view mirror in the car because it has her name on it. And since she has soooo many enemies in the world, not letting them know which car is hers has certainly saved us from a good ole fashioned tire slashing or car bombing.

My picture just lets you know that if you go down, there is more to read. Until you get to the bottom and then my picture is just a liar.

I see a...uh...frog?

Does anyone else feel like ultrasound pictures are more like inkblots than pictures of a human fetus. I added some color to one of our pictures to see if it would help us see anything better. Remember that sinister looking one-eyed frog I was telling you about. He's definitely in there...peeping over the white clouds that float inside Jaime's stomach.

Here's the original:


And the added color:


I think I would have done alright on the creative section of an art school application.

This One's Goin on the Fridge!

Not to give ebay free advertising or anything, but if you're missing 3rd grade...you don't have to any longer! I got this amazing award in the email today. The last time I got a yellow star award, I was 10 and had just finished the much anticipated sequel to my timeless adventure story, "The Adventures of Zoomaburbamixeliphus. A Story." (He went by Zoom for short). May I never go another 17 years without receiving a yellow star award.

Further Evidence Jaime has a Parasite

As mentioned, Wednesday we had our second ultrasound to confirm the baby is a girl, and here is the evidence. For this ultrasound we took a VHS tape along to record the whole thing. Then we converted that into a DVD. I would post parts of it, but I'm not computer savvy enough to know how to make web videos out of DVD files. I was able to capture a bunch of screen shots to post on here though. The key to seeing something in these pictures is to first tell yourself what you want to see in it (like a leg, kidney, a pair of small scissors, Rhode Island, your future, etc). The next step is to take about 6 steps away from your computer screen. And finally squint and hold your breath until you get dizzy. You'll see what you're looking for or what I tell you you should see! So, let me walk you through the ultrasound...

The first thing you'll see on your left is a leg. Technically babies have two of these, but we only examined one and assumed the other was similar. It's a rather boring picture, but if you click on the picture and enlarge it, you'll see the measurement, she has the legs of a baby a week older. On your right is a picture of the babies stomach. The doctor claims that little dark spot is the belly button. We don't believe him:


.
Moving on, we examined the head size. If you enlarge the image on the left, you will see that, like the legs, the baby has a head the size of a baby a week older. Jaime wasn't excited to hear that, so the doctor remeasured and the image on the left shows the baby has a normal sized head. For Jaime's sake, we'll take the smaller head:


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That brings us to the face. Apparently there is a face in this picture. The doctor tried to point it out to us. I definitely see a face here, but it didn't seem to correspond with what the doctor was showing us. I see a face on the right and little hands on the left. Anyone else? Jaime and I think the hands look like she is praying (probably for different parents as Jaime put it). If you can see that, then you're just as crazy as us:



Finally, we know the baby has a spine. We've seen it. On the left is what looks to me to be the spine, neck and head. Although, I also see a sinister looking frog eating the bones of a fish. So, I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm wrong. On the right, however, is definitely the spine and probably ribs:


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And as you can see from these charts, the baby is growing just fine. That's basically what the doctor told us. He didn't really bother to explain them. I've examined these charts and parts of them still don't make sense to me. But we'll take his word for it:


.
I guess none of this is evidence that she is a girl, but still, the doctor was certain this time!

100% Hamburger

We had our second ultrasound today and our little hermaphrodite is finally all girl! The doctor pointed out to us, "It's all hamburger...definitely no hot dog."

It's a big relief since we've been given a lot of girl stuff to dress her in!

Dinner at the Alleys

In case you missed out on our dinner tonight, here are some of the things that were heard at our table. Go ahead and try to guess who said what:

"I think in another life you were a black girl."

"That milk jug is very outspoken."

"Good. Then I could bite people in half with my jaws."

"I said my name is Tarqueesha. Somethin somethin somethin."

*BELCH*

There was also just a lot of silence as we inhaled our food. I love you Papa Murphy's! And it was a trick...Jaime said all these things. She so craaaazy.

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Jaime has decreed there will be no more running in her womb. You've all been informed.

Now that that is out of the way, here's a nice picture of Jaime for those of you who have asked to see what she looks like nowadays from the side.





Who do you think is farther along?

3 Posts in One Day!

Jaime and I just got back from Chipotle's. I think it's a good restaurant, although I don't think it really compares to my beloved Cafe Rio. And it's definitely not as good as Moe's. But it is 17 times better than dirty Bajio's. Anyway, the reason that I do think Chipotle's is amazing is this:



I put my burrito down to take a drink and it stayed standing all by itself! That's a sign of a quality burrito. I'm no expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure it takes humans well over 10 minutes of life to learn to stand on their own. This burrito did it in half that time. Amazing!

Three Years and Still as Poor as Ever

Jaime and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary this last week (on the 19th). Unfortunately our plans of being wealthy enough to retire after 3 years hasn't happened. Still, we didn't let that ruin our celebrations. So, the romantics that we are, we decided to hike back to Stuart Falls where I had carved "Will You Marry Me?" in a tree over 3 years ago (pictured above--a little hard to read these days, and from this angle looks more like "Will you mar me?"). Actually, I'd never been to Stuart Falls before or ever carved anything into any tree, but I really wanted to see this waterfall. That's why I forced a pregnant woman to walk 4 miles up and down a mountain with me. She sure is a great wife!

The signs say it is like a 2 mile hike to the cascades, and the hike wasn't difficult. I actually enjoyed hiking with a very pregnant woman because we got to take frequent stops, which I needed but wouldn't have taken otherwise.

It's a nice hike and has a lot of interesting plant life to look at.

Finally there! I climbed to the top of the bottom falls and tried to take a picture of the upper falls. The sun wasn't much help but made for an interesting effect.

After climbing so much, I needed to cool down. So, I decided to stand underneath the waterfall. It was a little more difficult than a daily shower. The mountain water was freezing and it felt like someone was smacking me on the head and back repeatedly.

Jaime also wanted to cool down with the water, but this is as close as she could get before the baby started screaming, "Don't you dare take another step towards that waterfall!!"




On the hike back, we walked past a bunch of bumble bees. They aren't the most photogenic creatures, they're too preoccupied to hold still long enough. Anyhow, after the hike, we went home, showered, and then went to eat at the Bombay House (where I actually did ask Jaime to marry me).

Josh Finally Graduates...for Fake

Last week was BYU's graduation ceremonies. Since I missed a couple of measly deadlines, I won't be graduating officially until December. However, there is no graduation ceremony at that time, and because I didn't attend my undergraduate graduation, I decided at the last minute to attend this one.


To be perfectly honest, the main attraction for me was this hood thing that Masters students wear.

My grandparents came down for Commencement and then took us out to dinner. That was probably the best part of the whole graduation.


These are just a few pictures I made Jaime take of me around campus.