Audrey Lynn Casaday b. 5/4/15

First high-five attempt from new sisters - one day old

 

on the news

Elise and I were on the news! A man in our ward is a consumer reporter ("Consumer Bob") for NBC in San Diego. He called a couple weeks ago and asked if he could interview me for a piece he was doing for the afternoon news. Apparently all of his friends/acquaintances end up on his segments at some point. Anyway, you can watch it here. If nothing else, you can check out my 7.5 month pregnant belly, since we don't seem to take pictures anymore. ;)

Lest you think we have no savings, they did cut out the part where I talked about how our checking and savings accounts get the same interest rate, so we keep everything in checking in order to access it as needed.

another photo dump

Since I only seem to post pictures about 6 months at a time, it must be about time for another update. :) Mostly pictures from my phone again, but I'll try to put up better (more recent) ones soon.

 11/28/14 - Family hike at Rocky Mouth Canyon while we were in UT for Thanksgiving. I was about 4 months pregnant at this point.

 12/15/14 - I can't remember for sure, but I think this was the first time I ever gave Elise her own bowl of cereal and trusted her to eat it herself. She ate like a champ!

12/24/14 - New Christmas jammies! (The picture's a bit blurry if you enlarge it, but my pants and Elise's sleeper have penguins.) 

1/9/15 - Passed out on the couch because she wouldn't sleep in her bed for her nap. I suspect it had something to do with the whole "bed rest" thing I had just started. (We may have had her mattress on the floor so she could get in and out without me lifting her). 

1/16/15 - We met the Jacksons at Disneyland. Elise LOVES Minnie. (I'm about 5.5 months pregnant in this one.)

 1/23/15 - Playing outside in her jammies and Sunday shoes.

 1/24/15 - After her first haircut (besides a bang trim I did previously)! I was so sad we had to cut off the curls, but she had a gross baby mullet.

2/2/15 - We were about a month into the bed rest at this point and needed every possible opportunity to get outside. She spent a long time throwing Mickey in, climbing in after him, handing him back to me, climbing out, and repeating the process.

2/2015 - Diana offered to take Elise to the Safari Park with her boys so I could rest like I was supposed to. (I could sing Diana's praises all day - Elise loves her and so do I!)

2/9/15 - Just playing with the tupperware - taking it all out and putting it back. I wasn't even mad because she was happy and entertained. Also, she gets some crazy hair when she sleeps, and I don't always bother to comb it. 

3/3/15 - It was an awesome day for fashion at our house. 

 3/6/15 - Thoroughly enjoying her banana milkshake.

3/8/15 - This girl LOVES shoes. More recently, she has even figured out how to tromp around in Daddy's sneakers, and she thinks it's hilarious (it is). I don't know how I got lucky enough to catch this pose either, but she's certainly struttin' her stuff. 

 3/17/15 - Finger painting! I didn't trust her with clothes on, or inside, for that matter. We got some Vitamin D instead. :) She enjoyed it for a little while then decided it was actually more fun to play with the cups and lids.

 3/25/15 - What's around her feet, you ask? Oh, just her potty seat. Don't worry, I wiped it down (she's never successfully used it anyway) but not before she put it on her head as a hat. (She also has a pajama shirt from the laundry around her neck.)

little singer

I was doing something in the kitchen the other day when Brian came in and asked if I had seen what Elise was doing. Here's the video I took:

I didn't catch it in this one, but she had been putting the little book (a coupon book we got in the mail) in the door track and acting like she was playing the piano. She'd flip pages every once in a while and continue singing and "playing." We think she's adorable. :)

overheard

Not long ago, we had the sliding glass door to our patio open. At some point, Brian looked up and freaked out.
Brian: There's a cat in our house!!
(Our neighbors have an outdoor cat that must have found its way onto our patio.)

*****

Brian (fending for himself for dinner): Where would I find a large bag of [food storage] rice?
Amy: Umm, in the bathroom...

overheard (Primary edition)

When we sing the Hello Song to visitors, I often ask them if they know how to say "hello" in a different language to spice it up a little.
Amy: Do you know any other languages?
Visitor (4 years old?): Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
I had no idea how to respond to that, so we sang, "Twinkle, twinkle...we welcome you today!"

*****

Back in December, I had my sub teach the kids a little about musical notation (staccato vs. legato, pp vs. ff, fermata). It provides an easy way to repeat songs without the kids getting bored, so I used it again with Sr Primary a few weeks ago.
Amy: Do you remember what legato means?
Excited kid in back of room (I still have no idea who): Silently!

****

At the beginning of the year, I found a cute idea to help the new Sunbeams remember to stay in their seats. I put little paper eggs on their seats and told them they needed to keep the eggs warm so they could see what they were helping to hatch by the end of Sharing Time. If they did pretty well, I had little papers to hand out that said "I hatched a ______ by being reverent in Primary" (the blank had a picture of whatever bird or animal they hatched that week. The first week, I handed out the papers and heard a very excited little girl exclaim, "I hatched a chicken!"

*****

When I started teaching Children All Over the World, I wanted to emphasize the ways to say "thank you" in other languages first. To get the kids excited about it...
Amy: Do you know any other languages?
J (4): Dutch!
(His Mom, the newly-called 2nd counselor, burst out laughing and explained that he says that all the time at home, even though he doesn't speak a word.)

*****

I was using some pictures from the Gospel Art Kit (thanks, Mom!!) to teach Follow the Prophet. Holding up a picture of Adam and Eve walking through the Garden of Eden, I asked if anyone knew who it was. The kids (Jr) were, not surprisingly, having trouble identifying them. Suddenly, a younger kid raised his hand.
R (4): It's Adam and Eve!
R's dad (looking at R's mom - they teach another class): Did you teach him that? I didn't!

pictures

Here are a bunch of pictures since I've been so terrible about updates - some older and some more recent. (Forgive the quality, a lot of them are phone pictures.)

 5/22/14 - Looking at pictures in her rocking chair. This girl LOVES reading books.

6/2014 - We went to the San Diego County Fair with some friends from our apartment complex.

6/2014 - Riding the little kiddie tractors at the fair.

 7/13/14 - We wanted a picture of her wearing this adorable dress before she outgrew it, but she passed out on the way home from church. Our Brazilian friends in Columbus brought it back for her from a trip to Brazil.

8/23/14 - I ran the Color Me Rad 5k with some friends. I think Elise was less than impressed. Brian was the only spectator on the course, and people loved it (and his sign).

8/23/14 - These lovely ladies encouraged me to train for and run this race.

 8/29/14 - Watching BYU football with friends. We're pretty sure Elise is the cutest BYU cheerleader around. Go Cougs!

 9/13/14 - Playing at the beach with Grandpa Casaday.

9/28/14 - Rockin' her awesome birthday dress/outfit from Aunt Tami.

10/18/14 - Rock, paper, scissors at our ward's Trunk or Treat.

10/27/14 - Swinging at the park. 

 10/27/14 - Riding the zebra at the park. She had ridden it for the first time a few days before and knew exactly what to do when she got on this time.

10/27/14 - Painting pumpkins for FHE. She caught on pretty quickly.

10/31/14 - My secondary Halloween costume. :) (This is how we announced the baby due in May. I was about 13 weeks here.)

11/14/14 - Our little stinker hard at work spreading hot chocolate all over the kitchen floor. Could've been much worse, I suppose.