Pinchy Cheeks

A friend of ours from our ward is a photographer. He came over and snapped a few pictures of Avery while he was here and told us he'd email what he did. It turned out AMAZING! This pic really makes me want to pinch the heck out of those cheeks!

If you want to check out more of his stuff, his site is michaelririe.com and his blog is at michaelririe.com/mrblog

Thanks SO much for sharing your talent with us, Mike!

In other news, happy Valentine's Day! I actually entered a drawing in a local store to win a free V-Day getaway to a Salt Lake City hotel for two. We'll see if crossing my fingers worked! I usually don't win these types of things, but heck, part of the fun is just the imagining! :)

Interfaith Dialogues

This past weekend a group of students from Biola University (a private evangelical Christian university) took a trip from southern California to Utah to brave the cold and learn more about Mormons. They toured Temple Square, and they even got to meet with a leader in the Church (a member of the Quorum of the Seventy) and ask him questions. We were so jealous!

While they were here, they participated in several dialogues with members of the LDS church. The goal of the dialogues is to understand the others' doctrines and personal beliefs. Last year Nathan and I participated in other dialogues with evangelical university students from Biola University (California), North Central University (Minnesota!), Wheaton College (Illinois), and others. It's nice to be in a comfortable, relaxed setting where you can just ask about whatever's on your mind.


On Friday night Nathan, Avery, and I went to a local evangelical church to hear a short sermon, listen to some popular Christian songs played by a really good band, and then have some really fun conversations with some evangelicals. We had so much fun! It was good to be with a group of people who were very honest and open, and yet were not critical of our beliefs.

There was also a really yummy potluck beforehand with some delicious chili (you can kinda see it in the background below). My favorite was the white bean and chicken chili. Yummy! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. They even gave us leftovers to take home! Everyone was nice enough to be willing to hold Avery. She basically got passed around from person to person the whole time! They were very accommodating to say the least! Avery seemed to love it! :) She's been drooling buckets lately. She drooled all over Kate (holding her below), but Kate was so patient and didn't seem to mind too much. Thank goodness for bibs!


Below is the Communion, which is an evangelical practice we'd never seen before. During the singing, any believer could take it as a recommitment to follow Christ. Their idea of Communion is very similar to our sacrament. The pic is a little blurry, but it was unleavened bread and grape juice.


After the singing, we broke up into groups and took turns asking each other questions. We sat with two girls and talked about several different topics that we wanted to understand better, like their concept of the Trinity, or our understanding of prophets. We also shared personal experiences of at what point(s) in our lives we developed our own convictions and what difference that has made in our lives.


The two girls that we dialogued with, Vanessa and Sarah were sooo nice! It was probably the best experience I've had dialoguing so far, actually. There wasn't any discomfort; just honest talking and trying to come understand each other, and patience and humor whenever someone had trouble putting into words what they believed. We stayed until about 11:45 pm—for about 4 hours! Above are Nathan and I with Vanessa (middle) and Sarah (far left). They were so kind and I loved hearing their experiences and getting to know them better. They are truly remarkable ladies!

The Biola students come out every year, so we're looking forward to hopefully meeting up with them again!

When Life Gives You a Lemmon, Make an Avery

My maiden name is Lemmon. The other day, we were talking about learning lessons from life, and I said, "When life gives you a Lemmon, make an Avery." We laughed so much we wondered if we ought to post this saying on a cute little plaque in Avery's room, but in the end we decided against it. Instead, we have it as a title to a post. I guess that's almost as good.

You can decide who she looks most like.

I'm on my mom's lap

Here's Avery

Nathan

You, the reader, can decide.

Since I'm on the topic of comparing people, here are a couple more comparisons. Here's me feeding Avery when she was 6 months.

My favorite pastime

I had to pin her arms down with my feet because she would inevitably stick her hands in her face and wipe it EVERYWHERE. Pinning her on the ground meant that not only was gravity on my side when she decided to spit, but that she couldn't wipe her hands everywhere. :) We have since purchased a high chair.


One last comparison. I saw a picture of my niece, and for some strange reason, the first thing I thought of was Tori Amos.

Leah

Tori Amos

I guess I'm ok with Leah looking like Tori Amos, but I hope she doesn't grow up to be like Tori.

Yes, My 31-year-old Husband Wears Heelys in Public

Every time Nathan and I are in a store and he sees kids wearing Heelys (shoes with wheels in the heels), he says, "Oh my gosh, those shoes look so fun!" So, being the observant little wife that I am, I made several mental notes and was able to find $20 Heelys for him for Christmas (usually they run about $60)! (On a side note, I was also surprised to find that the plural of Heelys is not Heelies...)

For our date night last week, we decided to go to the mall so he could practice. This was one of the funnest dates we've had! I was actually so embarrassed that I made him practice in a secluded corner in the food court before we went to the rest of the mall. It's a good thing we did because he almost biffed it several times. :) But by the end, he looked like a pro! We even showed them off to the guy at the Journeys Kidz store where I bought them. He was nice enough to give Nathan a few pointers. These things are a lot more difficult than they look. I now have a deep respect for all those 10-year-old kids riding around in their Heelys.

While he would push the stroller, I'd sneakily stand out of the way and watch people's heads turn as he went by. Here's what they saw:

Too bad I never filmed anyone's head turn. Some of the reactions were pretty funny. I think they were just jealous. It's every woman's dream to have a husband taking the baby out for a stroll.

Some guy said to Nathan, "Hey! I didn't know they made Heely's in adult sizes" Nathan replied, "You're right. They don't." :) In fact, Nathan's feet are only a half-size bigger than mine. That means that we can shoe-swap...which is pretty darn cool if you ask me.

We also came across this really fun store that had way cheap games and toys ranging from $2.50 to $5.00! Nathan found several cool dragon and medeival toys that he wanted badly. It was fun to see "little Nathan" in Nathan come out when he laid his eyes on them. His jaw dropped, his eyes got wide, and he ran over to the dragon/medieval section. He was in heaven:

We totally splurged at that store. We spent a whole $16 on some fun games! We got them for $5-$10 cheaper than anything we could even find on the internet! Here's the loot: Chronology, a " Kidz Cardz" tin that includes four card games in it (Old Maid, Go Fish, Crazy Eights, and Animal Match), Tumble, and a little bug catching/observation kit (Nathan insisted we get this one for him, not for our children).

As we were walking down one of the hallways we met Tuti, an girl from Israel, who wanted to hold Avery. She was hilarious! My favorite is when she says, "She do poop! She toot on me!"

Avery Harmonizes with Nature

Here are a few pics I didn't add under my last post about Christmas, but here's Avery's first time seeing Santa and Mrs. Claus at Costco! She didn't really care about Santa. All she wanted to do was stare at Mrs. Claus!




Before Christmas, I, Nathan, and Bethany (my mission companion from England who stayed with us for 3 weeks) went up American Fork Canyon. It was so beautiful because it had just snowed about 6 inches!


There was a frozen lake that we played on. It took Nathan a good 5 minutes of convincing before I would walk on it. I really thought I was going to fall through the ice. Too many movies, I guess!

We also walked up a nice trail. We didn't want to carry Avery in her car seat because the trail was so steep, but we didn't have anything else to carry her in to keep her warm, so Nathan carried her in his "pouch" -- his nice warm jacket that we zipped up over her. It looked so funny; I was kinda glad we didn't see anyone else on the trail. Avery didn't seem to mind a bit.

While we were walking on the trail, we wanted her to have her first experience eating snow. Here's what happened:

Now Avery has the strength of the beaver and the swiftness of the fox. :)

A Kissing Christmas

I grew up in Minnesota.

Minnesota is cold.

In Minnesota in December, you stay indoors and stare at the Christmas tree day in and day out (mostly) because it's freezing outside.

This is my sister's family in Minnesota playing outside in December.

Contrast that with me and Nathan, also in December, below.

Christmas this year was very different because we went to Nathan's parents' house in California! The weather there was the equivalent of Minnesota's fall weather. We even went to the beach a couple of times (although it was a little too chilly to swim)!

I'm the little black dot. See me smiling?

This year I was even lucky enough to sit at the adults' table for Christmas dinner! Yay! Being an adult sure has its perks! Also at the adult table were Sarah, Josh and Kelly, Jason and Jasmin, and Nathan's parents (Darwin and Nina). It was so fun to see Nathan around his brothers. They all sound the same when they laugh!

For Christmas, Nathan got me a gift certificate to a salon and spa! I'll get a hair cut, massage, and a manicure. I can't wait! This was the look of disbelief on my face when I was reading the brochure.

Avery had lots of fun because she got to eat big peoples' food that had been mashed up. She also got to eat organic baby food all week because there was a buy-one-get-one-free special at the grocery store in California. Her favorite was Blueberries with Roasted Apple. That was actually my favorite too. Here's Avery just after eating it.

Oh, and Nathan's dad also took some family pics of us in a park near their house. It was so pretty!

All of my nieces and nephews found tons of newts! It was my first time seeing a live newt (I saw a dead one in Idaho last summer). They were so slow and squishy! The kids found them all over the place.

I decided to try my luck with one of the newts and look what happened!!!!!

It went from this ...


... to THIS!

HUBBA HUBBA!

It was incredible! I told Nathan's parents to send me a box of newts so I can try my luck with the rest of them. :)

I tried it again at the beach...

but all I got was some nasty sand on my tongue. Oh well. Maybe next year.