The Haggard Herald

Here Matt and I are last Thanksgiving with Grandma Carbine; I was about four months pregnant here: This year all of Matt's immediate family came, plus Auntie Mimi and her husband, Richard.  We mostly hung out at Grandma's house; Mimi taught me how to juggle (which made Madeleine laugh) and she did balloon animals with Meleah and Aaron.  I wish I had pictures of that but we don't.  Matt and I also managed to go for a short hike in Snow Canyon Friday morning with "junior grandma Melory." Thanksgiving day, Alisa and Matt were our photographers most of the time.  Poor Steven was falling asleep or grumpy-faced most of the day.  Isn't he so sweet though?   Grandma had this very cool box to play with.  It had secret compartments, keys, washers, locks of different shapes and sizes, a calculater, and a water spicket (sp?).  The boys filled the compartments with rocks and grass and leaves; it was very fun. Beautiful Kri...

Hmm, where to begin... I've had a handful of blog post ideas over the past two months that haven't really matriculated.  Madeleine was a cat for Halloween; Matt was a tourist who looked like Bill Nye; and my last-minute costume was a scuba diver, minus the tank... and the mask... and the fins... not our best year of costumes for Matt and I but Madeleine was pretty cute. Then November came.  I bought 40 lbs of chicken from a company my mom buys from.  When I picked it up I had a hard time remembering why on earth I would buy that much chicken at one time.  Forty pounds is a lot of chicken to figure out what to do something with, even if it is cheap.  So I canned about 30 lbs (I never thought I would can meat, but it's actually really good).  And I marinated and froze the other 10 lbs.  We've had the marinated chicken 4-5 times already this month.  It's so easy just to defrost and bake along with rice and vegetables. Then right before our bel...

In the brown rocking chair, 4 month old picture Matt took a picture one afternoon of her sleeping like this (from September) She used to love eating rice cereal and then about a month ago she started teething and forgot how to swallow solid foods.  She coughs up anything I give her that isn't milk now, even if she likes it (I gave her homemade apple sauce this afternoon and I could tell she liked it but she still was choking on it).  Maybe she'll like solid food again when she finishes teething. We all watched general conference together.  I actually got to hear pretty much all of three sessions and a good portion of the fourth.  We've been going on walks occasionally when Matt gets home from work.  This if often how Maddie looks when we get ready to go.  Notice her little dolly that she's carrying.  the little feet are just the right size for her to gnaw on when her mouth hurts.  Last Saturday we went to the Centra...