life lately

i'm trying really hard to not COMPLETELY fall off of the blogging wagon. i haven't written in my journal for a month-ish (!) and i don't want to miss everything that's going on in our lives right now. not that we're doing anything that exciting, unless you count constantly trying to make dane smile and laugh exciting (which we do). but here are a few things that have gone on around these parts lately:

• a few days ago, i was driving down the highway near our house, talking to tommy on the phone and driving to the grocery store, and i glanced up and there was a GIANT SPIDER on the window--on the INSIDE of the window--about six inches away from my face. you can imagine the chaos that ensued--there was some screaming and hyperventilating. (we're lucky i didn't crash.) but i managed to pull over, grab a piece of paper, and kill that spider, saving my life and dane's. 
• one of our christmas presents tommy and i are giving to ourselves is a pair of sneakers for each of us. we ordered them off of zappos (on sale!) and i've now had to order FOUR DIFFERENT PAIRS because each time the shoes are STILL TOO SMALL. there are no words. if this most recent pair of shoes (mens 11.5) are still too small, i'm giving up and only wearing slippers for the rest of my life!
• we've been on a baking binge lately--three or four different recipes of cookies, the leininger traditional christmas almond poppyseed bread, cream puffs, and more. also, tommy made some awesome thai curry for dinner on wednesday. i think it's hilarious when people act all amazed when tommy's made something (which, since i'm nursing a lot of the time while dinner is being made, has happened really frequently lately) because um, he's just as good of a cook as i am. come on people.
• dane has decided to give up on napping unless it's in my arms or the swing, or sometimes in his carseat when we're on a walk or in the car. this is a fun game for both of us--but it may have been a contributing factor to the eleven hours he slept straight last night! although of course i didn't get to sleep until after midnight and then woke up at 5:30 wondering why i hadn't been woken up yet, and couldn't get back to sleep. he's also recently grown out of his 0-3 month clothes and is now snuggling up in the 3-6 month outfits . . . what a big guy!
• we leave for our three-week trip to utah and california in a week and a half! dane's first plane trip, which we are semi-nervous for. it's basically going to be a full day of flying (two stops in the middle) so we'll see how he handles it (and how we handle it). but oh, man, we are excited to see our families and for them to see dane.
• for the last three christmases we've been married, we've only had a few christmas decorations, namely two nativity sets we'd gotten as gifts and two cheap red stockings we'd gotten at the dollar store in provo. but this year i splurged and bought a four-foot tall pre-lit christmas tree where we could put our few ornaments we've collected and under which we could keep our few presents we've already gotten. i love the little christmas corner we have in our apartment now.

having a christmas tree (albeit a mini one) has prompted us to take lots of pictures like this:

if dane had his way (which he basically does) we'd just rock like this in our rocking chair all day long, him sucking on his hands and me smelling his hair (which really, we basically do).

he's got a good life. i've got a good life. we've all got a good life around these parts. 

dane's crazy awesome life

dane is so lucky. he has so many adventures. 

he lays outside on the grass with his mom, enjoying the beautiful fall weather and changing leaves.

he takes naps on the couch with his dad.

he's super thug with his mom.

he PLAYS WITH HIS TOYS! THEY ARE THE BEST! MY LIFE IS THE BEST! (at least, that's what he's thinking right now.)

he chillaxes in his diaper.

he votes.

he hangs out in his pajamas all day, with his mom (who's doing the same thing), and practices his poses for the camera.

he wears outfits that his dad wore 28 years ago, and goes on walks like the great connoisseur of the outdoors that he is.

and, oh my goodness, he's just got the cutest face in the world.

AND tomorrow we head to the outer banks, for his first out-of-town adventure! we're so excited to see the some family for thanksgiving break.

good things

 -fall is coming! the weather here is showing off its best self and the leaves are just starting to change. . . . i love, love, love north carolina fall.
-every day i feel like i'm more getting into the swing of things. our apartment is not in shambles any more, i'm getting used to running errands with the carseat and diaper bag, and dane is getting on a pretty regular eating schedule. (it helps that he's still sleeping 90% of the day.) even though i don't leave the apartment some days, we're learning how to be normal, functioning members of society again.
-after years of searching and trying many, many different recipes, i think we've found the WORLD'S BEST chocolate chip cookie recipe. hallelujah! and we have an entire batch of cookies here for our enjoyment.
-i bought a giant amount of fresh fruits and veggies at the grocery store and we're actually eating them! we are eating so healthy lately (except for the hundreds of chocolate chip cookies), and i feel great about it. one of my recent goals is to only snack on fruits and veggies (although it's mostly fruits, let's be honest). i went to the library and checked out a ton of cookbooks too, just to get ideas and break out of our boring food slump. i was really inspired by this one for great ideas for new and exciting lunches.
-tommy's parents and two younger sisters are coming to visit this week. we love having visitors, especially family, especially the leiningers. and we can't wait for them to meet dane! although we don't have any fun plans for while they're here. . . . we need to get on that. and then we're having dane's baby blessing in church next sunday, which should be awesome.
-tomorrow is the big day: 10/12! okay, for those of you who don't remember this, it's my 24th birthday. and tommy's going to stay home, and we're going to have a picnic, and organize several problem areas in the apartment, and buy ourselves new running shoes (my main birthday wish), and make gyros for my birthday dinner, and get cheesecake (to go) from the cheesecake factory . . . or any combination of those things that dane allows us to do. i am excited.
-i went to the grocery store by myself several nights ago, and tommy sent me this picture text:

 i love you mommy!

now, you can tell me that babies this young don't REALLY smile, and that this is just a fluke (or whatever), but i will not believe you. no way. this picture just warms my heart right up--it's now the background on my phone and i've been pulling it out to smile at it many times a day.

happy, happy day!

what i did this summer

people keep asking me, "so what did you DO all summer?" and since there's not just an easy answer like "an internship" or "working," it's tempting to for me to say, "i just hung out!" and while that's partially true, especially compared to my former grad student life and tommy's busy internship, i could NEVER just "hang out" for three months without wanting to die. i need to have projects and to-do lists or else my self-esteem crumbles and i feel like a slob.

so, lest i forget what i did all summer (other than our day trips and activities that tommy and i did together), i thought i would record it here.

project #1: make a quilt (with AMPLE support and guidance from my mom). this was truly a summer-long project, because i worked on it only about one day a week when i would drive down from santa monica to my family's house. i never spent more than a few hours at a time on it, which i think was the perfect way to be introduced to quilting--i never felt burnt out or tired of it. 

we started with this:

and ended with this masterpiece:

there were plenty of steps in the middle of those two pictures, of course. what? you want some action shots? okay, fine.

check me out! sewing machine master!

 i pretty much laughed at myself all summer long because my mom always used to try and get me to do sewing projects when i was younger and i HATED it. i'd get so frustrated so easily. but i guess i am growing up, because now i'm the one asking my mom if i can sew and voluntarily picking out messed-up stitches. it was an excellent project for this summer, and i'm oh so proud of it.

project #2: make photobooks for each year we've been married. i used the blurb book program, and it took weeks and WEEKS to go through all our photos, decide which ones deserved preserving, and organize them all into the books. i was pretty burnt out on this project by the end . . . but they just came TODAY and i'm so pleased to have done it!

project #3: exercise. i spent the first month of our time there jogging around the park we lived by, but my knees started killing me again, so i switched to swimming. and i worked up to swimming a mile (almost) every day. i would walk the mile to the pool, swim a mile, and walk back. it was so fun, because i'd never swum for exercise before, and it was the perfect pregnancy activity.

project #4: watch all of downton abbey. tommy and i got hooked, and dedicated several full evenings to marathon viewing sessions. (okay, this wasn't really a project, but we did it.)

project #5: hang out with siblings.

project #6: grow a baby. this is what i looked like when we got to california in may:

and this is what i looked like when we got back to north carolina:

and i did a lot of other things too, that weren't recorded in picture form: i read a good number of books, about babies and about other things; we took a childbirth class; we bought a fancy new camera and my mom and i took a photography class to learn how to use it more appropriately; i got into family history indexing; i went to costco and the santa monica farmer's market weekly to get as much fresh peaches and nectarines as were humanly possible; i checked out guidebooks from the library to help tommy and i be the best LA live-in tourists possible. 

okay, okay, and just so this post isn't ENTIRELY about me, this is what tommy was doing most of the summer, one block from the beach and working hard:

what a gem! and WHAT a summer.

this week

tommy started back at school on monday, and i spent all week doing what i do best: making to-do lists and slowly working through them. these to-do lists include things like getting the oil changed in both of our cars, spending hours on the phone with the insurance people asking questions, finding a pediatrician, writing and mailing thank-you notes, and figuring out what baby stuff we still need.

it feels SO GOOD to be doing everything we've been putting off for months! have i mentioned how happy we are to be back in NC so we can be back to our normal lives? yes, i think so.

here's some more proof:

i also made some pesto and sun-dried tomato pizza (and spread the pesto too thin, so it wasn't as good as we expected, but still tasty). and i even wore an apron while i did it!

we went to target yesterday and spent over $600 on baby stuff . . . thank goodness for all the gift cards we've already gotten that meant we didn't ACTUALLY spend that much. but now we are (mostly) ready for this baby to come, with everything from the carseat/stroller, diapers and wipes, crib sheets, stain remover, and so many things we knew we were going to need. then we went over to babies R us, and parked in the "expectant mothers parking"--we actually had to park farther away from the store to park there, but it was well-worth it.

then we came home and crashed for the night, and watched HP5 with our new dvd player. that's right, we finally caved and bought a dvd player to go with our free tv we got from friends in our ward . . . the tv that sat unused for almost a year because we couldn't connect our computers to it and therefore had no idea what to do with it. we figured that if we were already buying all this extra stuff for the baby, we might as well spend $30 at wal-mart on a dvd player for ourselves, right?

and then today, we were craving some dessert, and made these little brazilian brigadeiros:

they have three ingredients:

-sweetened condensed milk

-cocoa powder

-butter

and they only took ten minutes to make. DEFINITELY worth it.

productivity + easy desserts = a recipe for a great week. 

summer, baby, and cupcakes

today, we move out of our nice little apartment here in santa monica. we'll spend a few days down in irvine (with tommy commuting back up here for two more days of work) and then tommy and dallin start the drive across the country. and i fly back to NC on wednesday. there is so much to do once we get back there, but i feel like we're stuck in limbo until then. i could (and maybe should) be feeling panicky about the upcoming month(s), but i'm not. just yet.

i am totally in denial that baby boy is almost here (the due date is just 5 weeks away) (! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ahhhhh!). i feel MUCH more prepared than i did at the beginning of this summer, thanks to the ample free time i've had to read and learn everything i could about childbirth, etc., but it still doesn't feel like he's really coming. also, i've forgotten what it's like to NOT be pregnant . . . it seems like it would be weird to have a flat stomach now. i wonder if i'll miss being pregnant, miss feeling him moving around inside me all the time. because i sure do like that part of pregnancy, as uncomfortable as it can be at times.

this morning was the first time i've ever been woken up by his movements. at about 5 in the morning (i'm guessing by the little bit of light coming through the window), i woke up because he was digging his heels into my ribs. that only started happening this week, so i guess he really IS getting bigger to be able to reach all the way up there. i had a doctor's appointment and ultrasound last week, and she said that he was measuring two weeks big and has a ton of hair. taking after his mama, that boy.

in other news, we've done a ton lately: a trip up to utah to visit the leiningers and go to the murphy family reunion at aspen grove, more sightseeing around LA, a concert at the hollywood bowl, and a pre-anniversary celebration weekend up in solvang and santa barbara, but i'm too lazy and tired to upload the pictures from all of these things right now. here's one of tommy at the famous sprinkles cupcakes ATM in beverly hills (we just bought them from inside, but had to pose with the machine). their raspberry cupcake was probably THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HAD. aloha, sprinkles.

also, the sprinkles is only a block away from rodeo drive. we were standing under the rodeo drive sign and the guy taking our picture didn't include it in the picture . . . so you'll just have to take my word for it that we were there. tommy said, "i only recognize about 1/4 of the stores on this street", haha. we're definitely not the rodeo drive type.

and, that's all folks. stay tuned for more exciting news on the leininger front!

a day in malibu

no city in the l.a. area sounds fancier than malibu. i've never really been there, but i will say that the parts that we saw did NOT seem that fancy (to be fair, we only drove along PCH which has the best and the worst of beach life along it). but saturday, we ended up spending most of our day there. we started off the day by going to the getty villa, a museum for roman and greek art and artifacts that is built exactly like a roman villa buried by the eruption of vesuvius in pompeii. 

the getty villa building and grounds are really beautiful even without the art inside of them, even if you're not very cultured art appreciators like tommy and me. you can see the ocean from the villa, and walk around the fancy gardens. i don't have the energy to 

side note: the villa it's modeled after is called the "villa de papyri," or the papyrus house, and it was owned by julius caesar's father-in-law. when they discovered it buried in the vesuvius lava, they found an entire library of papyrus scrolls that had somehow magically been preserved perfectly by the crazy volcanic conditions they'd been under for 1500 years. so cool!

i hate having to ask people to take pictures of us. why would we want over half of the picture to be of the ground? COME ON, stranger!

and then we went for a hike in topanga state park, in the mountains just north of santa monica and pretty much in malibu (as far as we could tell). the whole hike smelled just like california to me--like all those runs i did in peter's canyon in high school. we hiked for a good long ways--i was really wiped out by the end. my stamina definitely is decreasing as my size increases with this baby.

at the end of the hike, tommy said he was proud of me for not having to go to the bathroom the whole time. that's the low i've sunk to, and i'm not even six months along yet.

it was an awesome weekend day, and we weren't even done yet--we ended it by playing tennis at the park near our house, and watched the 5th star wars. man, we are amazing.