Little Changes

June, it seems has been more eventful than the last few months for us. Although, looking back on all that we did, it really doesn’t seem all that exciting. Jason and I had the opportunity to hear Glen Beck speak at our Stake center. He did a wonderful job and even Adri enjoyed herself. There was a baby in the pew behind us and Adri kept crawling under our pew to give the baby gifts (a kiss, some Cheerios, my shoes). We have been trying to spend more time with our friends in our apartment complex because all of them (seriously, ALL the friends we made in our apts) are moving away! Our Mormon neighbors are moving back to Utah at the end of July. My Muslim friend just moved back to India and my Hindu friend will be moving to Georgia. Now we’ve got to start all over! We were also able to spend some time with some extended family. The Winns, along with several cousins and aunts, all took a trip to Amish country. We took a tour in a horse and buggy and the kids thought that was just the bees knees. Which, as it turns out, it was. Last week we were able to join the family for Grampa Bruce’s birthday dinner. We promised to give him a granddaughter who wouldn’t whine every time he tried to hold her. With just our little family Jason and I mostly like to hang out at the library or park, go window shopping or visit Longwood Gardens (a really big botanical garden in PA that my mom refers to as “Lawnmower Park”). We also found out we were signed up to clean the church on the last Saturday of June. We were disappointed to be the only ones to show up, but soon found out that it didn’t matter since someone had apparently come the night before and done all the cleaning. We think it was a blessing because we have done so well with paying our tithing. I’m sure the three Nephites had something to do with it too.

Below: Devina and Dyuman, Annie and Adri, Hanisha and Amaan

Below: Dyuman, Adri and Amaan





I have been using my writing skills this month by expressing to our apartment management why I think they suck. Sorry, but they do. Remember when I said we didn’t have any running water for 24 hours? Well there have been plenty of other annoyances too. I’m hoping they’ll respond soon and we’ll be able get some of the nastier problems taken care of. Aside from the bad things, this month I was invited to my very first tea party. My Indian friends served me juice, but I liked the idea of calling it a tea party anyway. I made them some salsa with the hottest peppers I could find so they would stop saying I liked bland food. While making it I kept tasting and frequently had to grab a glass of milk to put out the flames in my mouth. My friends didn’t even flinch when they tried it. One tried to make me feel better by saying, “Maybe we didn’t get any peppers in our bites.” Jason and I found that to be quite hilarious and I conceded that the food I eat must be incredibly bland. I don’t mind it though. Mostly I just complain about still being pregnant. It feels like this kid is doing the salsa in there sometimes. I keep telling myself I only have one month left, but that doesn’t really help when I actually have one month and 7 days left. I’m just hoping this one will come as early as the last one did. I’m trying to start up with my prenatal yoga again and I quite like it. Mostly I like when Adri comes to see what I’m doing and tries to do some of the moves herself. I have been reading a lot lately and, at the request of my sister, I have been reading about people falling in love with vampires. It's not Shakespeare, but it's good enough to read while spending time at the pool. Speaking of my sister, my mom (Gramma Joyce) and Cat have made plans to visit us in August when the new baby arrives. They won't be staying for nearly as long as we would like, but we are very excited to have them visit.

Jason’s birthday was on the 5th but we celebrated a few different days. Adri had a great time making a birthday card and I bought him the new James Bond DVD. That weekend we had a nice birthday dinner at Nancy’s where he got more DVDs and some new shirts. He also used some birthday money to go to a concert with our brother-in-law, Jesse. Not a bad haul for turning 29. For Father’s Day Adri made him a card and learned the “I’m so glad when Daddy comes home” song. She didn’t sing it for him, until a few days ago, but the fact that she knew it was worth something I guess. We also got some pictures taken of Adri and myself. Despite Adri’s non-photogenic nature we were able to get quite a few good pictures and Jason was more than happy to hang them up at work. Recently Jason bought a gym pass and has been going about every day of the week. He has also been frequenting our local chiropractor, so hopefully he will be in some kind of shape in the near future. Work has been going well since he decided to put a little more effort into it. In fact, his supervisor asked him to be a coach, which means he just has to listen to a trainee take all of his calls for him and then tell him what he did wrong. He’s doing so well at it that they’ve asked him to continue as a coach until the end of July. He has also been learning about different departments in the company he’s working for so he can find where he might like to transfer when the time comes. Then he signed up for a mock interview and did so well that the interviewer couldn’t find anything to criticize. We are very proud of his progress and excited to see where it takes him.

Adri’s new routine of climbing out of her bed was becoming a bit more than I was willing to deal with – especially after sitting with her for an hour one night and she still wasn’t asleep. The solution? It’s called a crib tent. Basically it’s the top of a tent that is velcroed to the top of the crib. It keeps baby in and keeps mommy sane. Adri didn’t like it at first but she’s okay with it now and is back on her normal sleeping schedule. And me? Let’s just say if I weren’t already married to Jason I’d be announcing my engagement to the crib tent. Jason complained that it was too expensive but I reminded him that his concert tickets cost about as much and he only gets about two hours pleasure out of those. I believe I will get months of pleasure out of this contraption. Besides relearning how to go to sleep Adri continues to learn new words. This month her favorite has been “Meemo.” Needless to say, we have watched Finding Nemo a ridiculous amount of times and she never gets tired of it. Little by little she is getting less shy with family members, which makes us happy since we see them so often. Since June began Jason has been excited to take Adri out to see the lightning bugs and we frequently keep her up past her bedtime so they can go catch bugs in a jar. I think Adri likes it almost as much as Jason does. She has also started eating more lately and Jason and I couldn’t be happier. We’re even optimistic that she will break 20 pounds in the next month or so. Soon she’ll be legally sitting in her forward-facing car seat! Her small size has also given me an excuse to postpone potty training as I am unable to find underpants to fit her. At this rate I won’t have to potty train until she’s 5.

Below: Adri measuring her growing waistline and then modeling a shirt worn where there should be pants.