resolutions

tommy and i finally sat down for FHE last night and wrote down our resolutions for 2013. since we're always still on christmas break for the first half of january, it's hard to get a start on any resolutions we have at the new year like everyone else. so we've decided to just start them in february, since january's basically gone!

every year, i make a bajillion resolutions and then end up about completing half of them. but i prefer to look at the glass as half full and think about how much better it is that i got those goals done. so these are mine for 2013:

• Healthier habits: Keep up our habits of fruits and/or veggies at lunch AND dinner and drinking 64 ounces of water a day. Also, only have dessert three times a week (it's pathetic that even as we were making this dessert resolution, Tommy kept saying that there was no way we'd keep to it. But I really just want to cool it on our current habit of having dessert every single night.) Exercise 4x per week (at least one time running outside per week). Wake up by 7:30 a.m. (still debating how serious I am about that one). 
• Spiritual habits: Read the RS and SS lessons for scripture study each week. Index 2,013 names in 2013 (Tommy's idea I stole). Say morning prayers (which have been getting forgotten since Dane was born and he started waking me up int he morning). Be a GOOD visiting teacher: pray for my VTees and find ways to serve them.
• Personal improvement: Do a 15-30 minute power clean each day and then stop--don't get overwhelmed by cleaning all day, and do one extra cleaning project per week (like cleaning the windows or the shower or something). Find a service opportunity to contribute to regularly (possibly something I can do from home, or at least do with Dane). Make a family budget and really work to sticking with it.
• My favorite one: Make a list of skills I want to learn or improve and work on them for a month or two this year. This was also Tommy's idea, and he's doing a lot of school-related computing skills and such, but I'm thinking about incorporating sewing (I'm taking a sewing class at the community college starting next week!), photography, yoga, and cooking. Random things that I want to learn more about. I'm interested to see how/if this idea works.

i feel like i should make some resolutions having to do with dane and mothering, but it's really hard for me to anticipate what changes this year is going to bring for us with him changing so much. i'm just really enjoying our life right now, and i think some of these resolutions will help me to continue enjoying it even more (not worried about cleaning all day so i can spend most of my time with him, still getting some personal improvement in while i'm staying home with him).

oh yeah. i'm excited for 2013. 2012 really was a great year for us, and i see no reason why 2013 shouldn't be equally as awesome. 

a question

why is it, whenever i mention that tommy made dinner (which he does pretty often), people are shocked and amazed and say things like "he is so sweet to cook for you!"?

i mean, i agree--it is sweet of him. i appreciate it 100%. but let's just look at this logically, people. he's just as good of a cook as i am, so there's no reason to be surprised that he can make anything. (people have said things like "wow, tommy made this? i'd better be careful...") and of course, when i make dinner, nobody says, "that's so sweet of you to cook dinner for tommy!" even when i take out the trash, nobody thinks THAT'S especially amazing of me or anything. and if i weren't here, he'd be making his own food anyway, right?

it's not some kind of power play; it's not even like he's doing it to be especially sweet to me. it's just what has to happen in our house if we ever want to eat with everything that's going on (DANE). like tommy has said, it's a partnership. i guess i'm just grateful to be married to someone who thinks it's equally his job to get the food on the table as much as it is mine.

lotr

i finally read all three of these books (isn't it pathetic that it took me this long??) and i totally have a book hangover. i can't stop thinking about them. SO GOOD. highly recommend to all of you.

sleeping woes

total mommy post right here: fair warning.

now, while we all know that dane is the most amazing baby to grace this earth (or at least close), he has developed this aversion to napping that has tried my very soul (don't worry, i've accepted it now). i read in a friend's christmas card that their baby always takes "three two-hour naps every day, and sleeps regularly from 8pm to 8am!" and i wanted to smack them for such nonsense. for the first two months of dane's life, he would nap all day long, and i had hours and hours to exercise and shower and clean and read and get everything done that i needed to. and then he turned some corner and started taking two, maybe three half-hour naps every day. he seriously has a 30-minute timer in his body and will wake up, TO THE MINUTE, half an hour after he went to sleep. 10:29-10:59. 1:14-1:44. every time. it would be hilarious if i didn't get my hopes up every time he went down that he might last longer.

he will sleep fine when he is snuggled up with me or tommy:

or if we're running errands, in the car or in the stroller:

and sometimes in his swing:

(we borrowed two different swings while in utah and california, and he didn't really like either of them. he'd just cry when we set him in them. then we got back to HIS swing here at home and he peacefully sat there, fell asleep, and slept for an hour and a half. we took this picture after he woke up--so happy to be back in HIS swing! little stinker.)

but he doesn't believe in normal, standard naps like other babies do it. however, he DOES sleep amazingly at night (he usually does an eight-hour stretch and then another three hours after that) so it all doesn't really matter after all. he just wants to play all day instead of sleeping, and who can blame him?

christmas break recap: california

and guess what? after this post, i'm just going to try and blog business as usual from now on. aren't you excited?

as usual, after utah, we went to california to visit my family. we went from one awesome party to another! we flew into LAX at 10:00 at night (and had a minor panic attack when it appeared they'd lost dane's carseat. . . . never fear, it showed up fifteen minutes after all the rest of the luggage on the carousel) and left early the next morning to drive down to alpine for my cousin elder grant myres's homecoming from his mission in chile. we had a great time seeing all the cousins (with two married in each family, plus dane, minus austin on his mission). it was awesome. 

dane was very festive in his new year's tuxedo . . . he was the best dressed of all of us, hands down.

after he went to bed, though, we all hit the TOWN and went to the irvine great park to watch the orange balloon drop--at 9:00 p.m. probably our most crazy and festive new year's yet. OH YEAH! but really, it was fun to get out of the house for a little bit at least.

showing off our festive flashing new year's rings that we got for free for showing up to the great park party. really, we just went there for the free stuff.

and then our favorite new year's tradition: fondue dessert!

our other big outing was a walk around balboa island a few days after new year's. they've always got the best christmas decorations and it was fun to see them still up, even though they weren't lit up during the middle of the day.

c and b and baby d

however, most of our vacation in california consisted of a lot, a lot, a lot of this:

just like in utah, everyone was so, so, so excited to see dane that he barely got put down for the whole time we were there. especially while camille and brandon were there, it was just like there were hordes of followers wherever dane went. and he LOVED it--he was so talkative and excited with all these new faces looking and smiling at him. we were worried he would be so bored when we got back, but he seems to have adjusted to normality just fine. we don't have even half as many pictures as we took because we were using my parents' two cameras and their iphones to take a lot of pictures, but we'll hopefully be getting them soon.

we had just such a great time visiting both our families, but it's good for us to be back.

christmas break recap: utah

okay, i have been horrible about blogging lately. and there is a reason! our photo collection on our computer has been in total disarray because around the time dane was born, my computer died and tommy's needed an OS update and we lost iphoto. so we need to develop some sort of organizing system to sort through our giant pile of pictures on tommy's computer, and it's been too intimidating to do. . . . but it's one of my goals to do it in the next month or so.

it's so funny how much dane changed over this trip! three weeks is definitely a long time in the life of a baby. by the time we left california at the end of the trip, he was doing a whole bunch of new tricks, like gurgling, holding and sucking on toys, standing on his legs, loving books, grabbing his dad's glasses off his face, smacking his lips when he sees food, sticking his tongue out of the side of his mouth (only the right side, haha). he is SO fun right now. everyone has told us that four months is a really great time, and we TOTALLY agree.

dane's first ugly sweater party in north carolina (although, let's be honest, his sweater isn't ugly. it's adorable--like everything he wears)

and then we hopped on dane's first plane flight! he went on six different flights this christmas--he's averaging almost 2 per month of life now. he was really great on the way out to utah--not so much on the way back.

and dane got to meet all these new friends! including auntie melissa and cousin zach--who is two months older and made him look like a tiny little skinny guy.

also, uncle troy! who he LOVED. (and he met shane and kiley and kristen, although no pictures!)

he also had to do physical labor in the kitchen. no getting out of working in this family!

we went one night to temple square and the city creek mall to look at the lights. dane was a champ and it was totally worth it. this was our big outing for the trip in utah (other than going to see les mis with all of tommy's siblings and without dane).  

loving uncle troy, his own reflection, and his christmas pajamas. he was actually pretty sick on christmas eve and christmas day (a really bad cold!) so we didn't take many pictures... and he was sleeping while we opened presents. a pretty sad first christmas for him, but luckily he didn't even notice. 

the leininger traditional christmas morning picture:

we also got to bring dane to meet both of his sets of great-grandparents (on my side, anyway). i was so happy we got to go see them! we had a really nice afternoon at the myres', and a good evening with the murphys. the great-grandparents myres:

and the great-grandparents murphy:

what a difference two months makes! zach was grabbing at dane and dane was pretty much just oblivious to zach's existence. it won't be that way next time they see each other!

we came in from watching les mis (and leaving tommy's mom with both babies!) and the four of them were just hanging out like this. they looked like they had a good time--hopefully we weren't just imagining things.

other than dane's post-trip fussiness and cold, we had a really lovely (white!) christmas in utah. everything was so much more fun with dane, and he didn't even know what was going on yet. it was so awesome.

2012

2012 for us could be divided into three distinct parts.

january - may: school. tommy passes his prelim. i write my capstone. i graduate in may. 

may - august: drive across the country to live in santa monica for the summer. act as tourists in la. tommy works at RAND. i hang out. move back to durham and get ready for baby dane.

 september - december: have dane. take care of dane. watch dane grow.

sept 15:

dec 22:

pretty crazy . . . we started 2012 with no idea that it was going to turn out this way! and man, it's been SUCH a great year. dane has made our lives so much more exciting. so we're excited for 2013!