Congratulations!

I just wanted to quickly mention a congrats to my talented sister. For those of you who don't know, Autumn finished writing her first LDS young-adult book titled: "The Dating Misadventures of Claudia Spangler" about 10 months ago. After some editing, she submitted her letter and first chapter to Covenant. As the process goes, if they like your first chapter, they'll ask for the rest of the book. Well, what was supposed to be a 6-month wait, turned into an 8-month wait and yesterday found out that they want to see the rest of her book! Wahooo!! This is very exciting because apparently this is never supposed to happen with your first book, so just to get this far is quite an accomplishment. As one of the few who were lucky enough to read her manuscript before submission, I REALLY want it to get published and I REALLY think it should not only because she is my sister and I love her, but it is excellent, entertaining and funny... and I'm dying to find out what happens in the sequel.

Update

I'm posting, yeah!!! As you can see, I haven't written anything in quite some time. I almost feel as though motherhood sucked out all of my creative juices so my only hope to keep viewers interested was my "photo of the week". Meager attempt--yes--but photos are probably far more interesting than anything I have to say anyway. Nevertheless, say, I will! Now that life is getting more situated by the day, I am hoping to post a bit more often. (I really wanted to say 'Now that life is getting more situated by the day, I'm going to blog with a vengeance!' but let's be realistic, I think blogging with a vengeance is something to work up to) With that said, I thought I would start with a little update... To start with our biggest news to date--Ryder--he is doing very well and getting cuter and cuter by the second. Although his mom wishes he would grow out a little more, he is definitely growing looong. He is a string bean who is 50% in his weight and 90% for his height. I do eagerly anticipate his next doctor's appointment to see if we're on par with everything. But besides that motherly worry stuff, he is an angel. I'm not quite sure what I did to deserve such a good baby, but besides a fussy period in the evenings he is very good to us. After each feeding, he is quite content just to sit in his carrier and watch me go about business, until he kindly lets me know he wants to play, where he helps me get things done in the baby bjorn or we bounce and dance and of course, my dramatic efforts to get him to smile. Then, with a couple of naps throughout the day, he'll fall asleep around 11 p.m. for unnecessary amounts of time. After sleeping a couple of nights for 5 or 6 hours (making it 7 or 8 hours since his last feeding) I had to start setting my alarm and waking him up. I know, I know...many moms have told me to just let him sleep, but he falls back asleep for another 3 or 4 hours very easily and until I know he is on par with his weight, I'll continue with a middle-of-the-night feeding. Everyone says once you get used to everything, babies change, so I don't know how long this phase will last... but I'm enjoying it while I can. So all in all, he is a sweetheart. His current interests include making really cute noises, showing off his neck and leg muscles and teasing his mom and dad with every-once-in-a while smiles. Besides our cute boy, Phil and I are rather boring. Phil is still enjoying his job at PWC and his calling, which allows him to get out and play sports twice a week. He is also a wonderful dad and Ryder and I get very excited every day when he comes home from work. I am still figuring out the ropes of motherhood, which I'm sure I'll always be doing. I always feel like I'm so busy, but when I look back on my day, I'm lucky if I got done half of the things on my to do list. ~sigh~ I am always trying to figure out ways to multi-task and use my time to its maximum potential. So that is the rather lengthly update on our little family. We really need to get some good family photos with all three of us...I'll work on that. Love!

Photo of the Week: "Mr. Debonair"

...all he needs is a scarf, a pipe and a really cool library.