"that they might have joy"

I feel like I need to express just how good life is. It amazes me to know that we have a loving Heavenly Father who is aware of us and our daily challenges and activities. I love that nothing in my life goes unnoticed, nothing is too mundane or trivial for Him. Since Erik left Sundays at church haven't gone very well. The first two Sundays were pretty difficult, and last week Reid just howled all second hour (very unlike Reid). Then on Saturday the ward had a Pioneer Day celebration and as soon as I walked into the cultural hall he started crying. An hour and a half later (he cried for 95% of that time) I figured I might as well go home and by the time I got to the car he was back to sweet and mellow Reid. It was pretty hard. Everyone kept asking me, "What's wrong? What does he need? Is everything okay? How are you two getting on with Erik gone?" It was a pretty pathetic scene...wife with husband deployed, crying baby. I didn't know what to do, other than to resolve myself that it may be hard, but every Sunday I'm going to be at church from 1-4, even if I'm holding a screaming baby in the foyer for all three hours. I prayed all morning yesterday that things would go well at church, but I didn't even really believe that it would go well, I just prayed that it would. Yesterday was a dream, Reid was his normal, perfect self all day. I fed him before we left, about halfway through sacrament meeting he was getting sleepy so I held him and rocked him to sleep, and then in the 3rd block I fed him again. He was an angel all day. Heavenly Father knew how much I needed that positive Sunday experience, and I'm so grateful He blessed me with it. I have been praying for so many little things, and I am so amazed and grateful for the blessings I'm receiving. I pray to be more productive and to accomplish more during the day and somehow Heavenly Father enables me to do it. I don't know how it happens, or why it happens, why I'm so blessed, but I feel like all my prayers are being answered. It's an amazing feeling to know that your prayers are heard and answered. Of course life is better when Erik and I are together instead of when he has to be gone, but it's incredible to see all the ways that Heavenly Father blesses us in these times. I know that Erik is doing the right thing, and that this is the right thing for our family. It puts joy in my heart to see that Heavenly Father gives us hard things to do, and then qualifies us for that hard thing. He somehow makes us equal to the task. I love that Heavenly Father makes "all things work together for our good." I can really feel that. So amazing.
To our friends and family who frequent this blog: Thank you for your love and support. We can really feel it and it makes a difference. A big difference.

Reid + thumb = BFF's

Reid has discovered that his thumb can be used as a built-in pacifier. He doesn't need a pacifier most of the time. He doesn't need one to fall asleep, and if he's fussing a pacifier doesn't really pacify him anyways. Sometimes he'll take it but keep jabbering at me all frustrated-like anyways, with the pacifier bobbing in his mouth. But he definitely needs more time suckling and so I don't have any parental objectives to a pacifier (I know some parents do, and that's okay). I've even seen him dead asleep and moving his mouth like he has a pacifier in it, but he doesn't. Lately he's been gumming his hand and getting it all slobbery...it's pretty cute. And finally, he has discovered his thumb. It's not really a comfort thing, so I'm not concerned about having a thumb-sucking kindergartner. He just needs more time suckling and his thumb seems to do the trick. Here's a cute shot of it plus some others that are just plain cute.

the Tanana Valley State Fair

"Our State Fair is a great State Fair, don't miss it, don't even be late! Our State Fair is a great State Fair, it's the best State Fair in the state!"

Have you seen the musical "State Fair"? It's pretty cute. Very Rodgers and Hammerstein. Today I entered two exhibits to the Tanana Valley State Fair. I got the idea to do it earlier this week and I'm glad that I actually did it. That's Erik rubbing off on me. Somehow he's able to keep my feet on the ground just enough so that I can get something done. I daydream all day about fun things to do and come up with silly ideas, but Erik's good influence helps me make some of these daydreams reality. Hopefully soon a degree will materialize as well. I entered a small quilt that I finished earlier this summer and a children's sweater. The quilt was a project that I never quite got around to finishing and when Mom was here for the baby she encouraged me to get it done. Goodness, I seems like I need a lot of prodding, huh? The sweater was made from an old sweater of mine. I felted my sweater (basically just intentionally shrinking it), cut it into a cardigan, put ribbon binding on the edges, made toggle closures with buttons, and embellished it with scraps of wool felt. I have a felting machine that did the felting of the little floral pieces for me. I entered the sweater in the "Recycle, Reduce, Reuse" category because I figured I'd have a better chance for a blue ribbon. That's the goal...a blue ribbon. Today was the day to enter non-perishables and I think I'm going to try and enter the cake decorating competition next week. I've never really done cake decorating, nothing fancier than a regular 2-layer cake with icing. But it's worth a shot, and it'll be fun anyhow. Oh, and one last entry. There's a Baby Contest and I'm going to enter Reid. He's a blue ribbon winner for sure! I can find all sorts of silly little ways to have a good time and this week it's the fair!

What's that you say?

Reid loves bath time. I love bath time, too, because he is just heavenly after a bath. His skin just glows and his sweet baby smell is pure heaven. I bet that any mother you ask would say that heaven must smell like newly bathed babies, I can't think of anything more heavenly. He looks like an angel in hippo's clothing. This cute hippo towel is from Uncle Nick and Auntie Jan (they recently shared a picture of their Kate with a pink bunny towel, so cute!) Reid is growing into a stout little guy, so I think it's so cute to wrap him up in his cute hippo towel. What an adorable hippo!

Much less adorable is this actual hippo. We took this picture at the Denver Zoo. I'm pretty sure that I've seen a real, live hippo before, but that day at the zoo I was completely disgusted by the hippos. It's like a whale with legs. I was on the verge of losing my lunch. My mutant power is that I have a VERY keen sense of smell, and between that and the not so cuddly appearance of these animals I had just about had it. I was just so repulsed. Now, months later looking at the picture, I don't see what disgusted me so. But believe me, they were so foul. When we went to the zoo I was about 4 weeks postpartum and seeing these massively fat animals was inspiring for me to lose baby weight. Obviously I realize that the baby weight didn't make me look like this ugly thing, but I was inspired nonetheless.

Okay, back to the sweet and endearing hippo. (Now I feel bad, I'm really not an animal hater, and I'm sure that hippo's mom thinks he's pretty cute, but hippos just plain gross me out. Not as bad as ostriches, though. I can't even look at them, I get creeped out big time. Hippos are like a train wreck, fascinatingly horrible, but ostriches I avoid altogether. They weird me out, it's like they have a head on the end of a long arm. I don't like animals that have long, arm-like necks...it's creepy. Imagine if you had a head on the end of your arm...creepy, right? See what I mean? This imagination of mine coupled with my sense of smell makes me exhausted by the end of a trip to the zoo. Sensory overload.) That was a long side-track, sorry. Back to the picture...Reid and I seem to have real conversations. I'll talk to him while I change him, bath him, etc. This is a picture of him responding.

This is a picture of him listening. He's lying on the changing pad looking up at me. I love this little face. So earnest and genuinely interested in what I'm saying to him. Children are such beautiful people. He makes me feel like the most interesting and important person in the whole world. I wish that as adults we could give each other the focus and attention that children give so easily.

I like this picture because of the obvious reason, his cute little shirt, but just as cute is that round belly. Check that out, so cute! He turned 12 weeks yesterday and when people ask how old he is and I tell them, they say, "Ohhh........wow.......12 weeks? He's big!" That's right people, Reid means business. He's listening to me talk at him in this picture as well. What a blessing. For people that don't have much to say, you may not understand how hard it is to not have someone to say it all to. I feel so grateful to have this little bundle of joy to share my days with and to talk to all day. Erik is a great listener, and we're a good match because I like to talk and he likes to be talked to. Being a good listener is another good thing that Reid got from his dad. So far all of his good traits are from Erik and his feisty streak is from me. Good thing for Erik filling in the holes in those genes.

How To: be the favorite aunt

I saw this cool paper flag banner on the Papersource website. Great stuff. Check it out at http://www.paper-source.com/ I'm going to watch Matt and Ann's children for a week at the beginning of December and I've started to put some things together for us to play with. It'll be fun when Reid is old enough to do this sort of stuff, but I can wait for it...he's growing too fast already. So, I don't know if I'm actually my nieces' and nephews' favorite, but if I am it's because I love playing with children. Children are still excited about paper and crayons, and they still know how to make-believe and dream up impossibilities. I'm so glad that I have Erik to help me survive in an adult world when I'm not really an adult at all. Long story short, I have some fun ideas of projects to do with the kids. Matt and Ann, don't spoil the surprise, and if David and Darian check out this blog (which I wouldn't be surprised if they do, they are very savvy) you may remember some of these tricks up my sleeve.

I liked the paper banner and figured, "I can do that." (my Arnett Self-assured Syndrome kicking in) I went through my scrapbooking patterned paper and was a little embarrassed at how much I would be willing to give up. Crafters are notorious for hoarding, and it's a sad sign when you've purchased so many of the DCWV stacks at JoAnn's that you are happy to get rid of some of it.

As I was going through these I kept thinking, "but these don't match each other! The colors clash, and they are totally different themes." Then I happily remembered that children don't care. I bet that all this silly paper is going to delight those little ones to no end. In the cookbook "How to be a Domestic Goddess" by Nigella Lawson, she has a recipe for sugar cookies and icing. When she talks about icing the cookies she states, "remember with gratitude that children have very bad taste." Man, isn't that the truth. They don't care if things match, if they mix too many colors of icing together and now it's brown, if things are well-designed or not...they don't care, they're too busy having fun. Thank goodness for the children in our lives.

I also found this little paper stack that I must have thought I had to have last summer and haven't touched since. I think I'm going to try using this paper for a banner to put in our house. I have some Chinese lanterns that I think need to be hung up, and I think a banner would be fun, too. The thing about Erik being gone is that I almost never have company over, I remember that part from last time. I'm sure Reid won't mind lanterns and banners, and by the time Erik gets home I'll probably be ready to take them down anyway.

I am also planning on making paper shadows with the children, painting rocks into people and creatures, melting crayons into stained glass art to hang on the windows, and painting on pre-stretched canvases. I think that when Matt and Ann get home we'll have an Art Show. We could make treats and they could invite their friends over. The little ones could play and look at the art and the adults could hear stories of Matt and Ann's adventures in Hawaii. That sounds pretty good. If you've got great ideas of fun things to do with children that secure your standing as the favorite, I'd love to hear them.

Welcome.

Welcome to Alpha Bravo Designs. We currently offer nothing. Hopefully soon we'll offer something, but we'll see. Maybe just some funny stories or ideas of fun things to make. Actually that sounds pretty good.

the Alpha Bravos

While Erik is gone Reid and I are going to do quite a bit of traveling. So much so that I joke that it's like we're a band on tour. So much so that I'm now taking the joke too far. My brain is always wasting time daydreaming about something, and oftentimes I think about cool band names. I have a few favorites, one of which is Guillotine, but I figured that would definitely have to be for a very fierce rock band. It seemed a little to severe for a mother/son non-band outfit. So I went with another favorite which is a much better fit. Introducing...the Alpha Bravos. I think it's a cool name, cool words put together, and it's in pilot language (which is cool). Erik has given me permission to make it "Emily and the Alpha Bravos" once he gets home. I love band names like that. You know, like "Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band." "Emily and the Alpha Bravos." I like it. In true Emily fashion, I'm taking this daydream to strange but fun levels. Annie works with an awesome chick Kristina and I pretend that I'm friends with her. Actually, in my head we were roommates at BYU, I have a habit of daydreaming to the point where it's hard to remember what's reality. I think the call that delusional...oh, well. Back to the point, I've asked her to design a logo for the non-band and I'm going to make shirts with the logo on the front and the tour schedule on the back. I think it's pure nonsense, and that's why it's funny. There's a website (cafepress.com) where you can have shirts made, and even baby onesies. That's the cutest part. Little Reid in a non-band onesie. Cute. If you would like to purchase a shirt, I will eventually be taking orders. Oh, and I've taken the nonsense to another unhealthy level. I also daydream about my own business someday, and since right now my business is more of a non-business, I think I'm going to call it Alpha Bravo Designs. I've created a blog for my unbusy business where I plan on posting things I make. I like to make things. Eventually those things will be inventory for a real business, right now it's just blog fodder. So check out the new blog at http://alphabravodesigns.blogspot.com/ Someday it's going to be big, like David Hasselhoff in Germany kind of big. And because every post is better with a picture, here's one of the magic talking baby. He really does talk, he doesn't speak English yet, but he talks. Loudly. He's got Traynor/Arnett blood in him, for sure. If you're on the phone with me as much as Annie, then you would hear plenty of it. He jabbers all day, happily jabbers...sometimes at the top of his lungs. Cute, and loud. I definitely don't have to worry about things being too quiet around here now that Erik's gone for a while.

Family Pictures

On Thursday we had some family portraits taken at Sears. For what our options were (not many choices of places to get portraits done around here), I'm pleased with how things turned out. We got some good shots of all of us together before Erik left, and some cute ones of Reid. Here are a couple of them and if you are one of Reid's Grandmas or Grandpas, or an aunt or uncle, you've got some pictures coming your way once I get them back from Sears. Doesn't Reid look like an angel in the first one? And I love the shot of Erik and me. Oh, by the way, check out my hair. I have been struggling to find a stylist here that I like and every time I get my hair cut I end up feeling like a chump for paying so much money and not really liking the cut. So about a month ago I figured that I'd give it a go myself. It was pretty much all one length and I wanted some layers. I googled "how to cut your own hair in layers", found a few good instructions, and went to it. I think it turned out pretty well. I'm just as pleased with this as I am when I leave a salon after paying $40+, and this cut was FREE! I'm becoming very DIY, anti-establishment...very Alaskan.

Summer Love

Last Monday (the 9th), Erik and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary. We had a great weekend in Denali the few days before, so on Monday night we had dinner and watched a movie that I had been excited to see (we rented from Netflix the movie "An Unreasonable Man" about Ralph Nader. I want to learn more about him, interesting guy that Nader. I definitely recommend the movie.). This is the fancy anniversary dinner: roast, rice, broccoli, and heart-shaped cornbread. I love broccoli, and rice too for that matter. You'll notice that on my plate (the one with the cherry Kool-aid in the glass next to it) doesn't have any roast on it. Why you ask? It wasn't just any roast, it was a moose roast. Yes, you read that right, a MOOSE roast. A friend of Erik's shared his bounty with us, and Erik was excited to try it. I did taste some, and even with my VERY discerning tastebuds I wouldn't have been able to tell it wasn't beef if I didn't know. I also made Erik a berry pie that looked great going into the oven but came out as a big soupy mess. I think that the problem is that I didn't use fresh fruit. I used thawed frozen fruit. I think that makes a difference. Alas, the middle of nowhere, Alaska is not really the place for great fresh fruit. Except at the Farmer's Market...I guess I'll try that next time...which will be in March, I guess. Oh, well.

Can you find the sweetest baby ever?

Getting closer.

A little closer.

Look at that sweet little face. He's dressed up for church, happily napping with a full belly.

This is my favorite kind of shot of these two. We have quite a few, which proves how great a dad Erik is. Reid loves being snuggled up to dad, and I can attest that it's a great place to be, snuggled up to Erik.

Absolute Perfection!

The family enjoyed a lovely weekend in Denali National Park and Preserve to celebrate our 2nd anniversary. What a beautiful place! We took a bus to Savage River and went on a little walk. Perfect.

Here's the train coming into Denali to pick us up. We took the train both ways and loved it. It was comfortable and not very expensive...and we didn't have to drive! I love that part!

Reid is hanging out in his carseat, out of view, but he was there. He did a great job letting us drag him around all weekend. I think that he's a pro at adjusting and adapting. I guess the key is starting early. He can fall asleep just about anywhere, and he's getting better at eating a full meal when he's not in the comfort of the boppy as I'm rocking in the glider.

Here's the pair of them, my two boys. Best two boys anyone could ask for. Reid has solidified his standing of "Best Baby Ever" by sleeping for 8 hours straight last night! I've been telling him all morning that he is the title holder and grand champion of babies. It was a great night and it's turning out to be a great morning. Later today the three of us are going to get pictures taken at the very fancy Sears Portrait Studio. Sears is about as fancy as you get around here, but I'm glad we're doing it...these two are too handsome to not be photographed!