Our Grad-Dad

Well we made it back to brrr cold Milwaukee (it was in the 30's when we got off the plane Monday night!!) after our 5 day trip to Utah for Merrick's graduation and Camryn's baby blessing. It was a whirlwind trip, packed with places to be, things to do almost the entire time we were there.

The flight there wasn't too bad. We flew through Detroit, strangely enough. We got three seats to ourselves from Milwaukee to Detroit and it was a quick easy flight. In Detroit we had to go to a different concourse and pretty much booked it there just in time. We went up to the desk to see if we could get an extra seat again and they said we had to be on separate rows for some reason having to do with the oxygen masks, so we both sat in the aisle seats, with the middle seats open, one row apart. It wasn't too bad we just each had a kid and it was a long 3 1/2 hours with no nap for Avery, but we made it through. The only scary part was that they were having a hard time pulling up Merrick's boarding pass so they told me to go on the plane with Camy and he'd be right behind but then 10 minutes passed and he still wasn't on. I started to have a panic attack that he and Avery wouldn't get on the plane, but luckily they did and all was well.

It was actually quite emotional for me to land in Utah. Seeing the mountains and all the familiar scenery really made me realize how much I have missed it there. It was my home for 6 years and I really grew to love it there.

Wednesday night we spent with Merrick's parents at their house. Thursday morning we decided to go check out the new Kohl's store in Centerville and to see if we could get Merrick a new white shirt for graduation. We brought both kids... big mistake. Let's just say I think all four of us had a meltdown at one point or another in the hour or so that we were in the store, and we ended up not buying anything.

Thursday afternoon we drove down for Commencement. Merrick picked up his cap and gown and then took it back to his brother Brett's apartment to iron it real quick, only to find that there was a hole in it. So we drove all the way back to campus to find that they didn't have any other gowns his size so he had to deal with the hole. We drove BACK to Brett's, ironed it, and made it back to campus just as one million other people were arriving. Traffic. My favorite. Luckily Brett had come with us so he could rendez-vous with Merrick's parents who were arriving at the Marriott Center just as we were. That way I didn't have to park the car. I got out at the Marriott Center with Camy and started walking in only to collapse on the sidewalk, almost dropping the baby!! I heard gasps all around me as I was going down. Someone ran up to me and asked if I needed help and I quickly gave over the baby while I assessed the damage- a 2 inch hole in my brand new black nylons and I had skinned one of my knees. Bummer. Well I met up with Merrick's family quickly and his mom carried the baby in while I held back the tears and made it to a first aid station and got the biggest bandaid they had, hiked up my nylons and made it to my seat.

Commencement was really good, highlighted by Elder Bednar's talk on a lifetime of learning, one of my favorite subjects to discuss. And then we had a nice reunion with Merrick afterward, took some pictures, and later went to a Chinese Buffet in Orem.


Friday we drove up to Sandy to my grandparents home to spend some time with my parents and sister who had flown in late the night before. We then drove down to Provo again and got stuck in some traffic in time for the 2pm Convocations. Merrick graduated with the Marriott School of Management, which turned out to be an even bigger graduation than mine was in 2005 because of all the MBA graduates. Eventually "Merrick Douglas Smith" was called and he got his nice diploma cover.

After graduation we went with the group up to South Jordan to Carino's Italian Restaurant. Avery only spilled one full cup of water all over the floor. Then we went up to Merrick's aunt Tracey's house for a Cannon/Smith/Farnsworth family game night where we played Scruples. We left a little before ten with two exhausted baby girls and stopped at Nielsen's Frozen Custard to sample our favorite - the Oreo Almond Concrete - and we all crashed after a long day. It definitely was a lot more activity than Camryn is used to. Lots of time in the car, and not nearly as much naptime as she was used to. Avery didn't get a whole lot of napping either, but both of them did pretty well considering.

Okay I'll wrap up the trip next time, with more details on the baby blessing, etc.

One Month, Two Kids

Well Camryn is one month old today and we survived being parents to two demanding little girls. It's been fun figuring things out but we've gotten into a good rhythm now although things of course will change every day. Our next big challenge: Flying to Utah with both kids on our laps. Yikes! Two seats for four people... should be quite the adventure. We're going back for Merrick's graduation, so he has a chance to walk and we'll also be blessing Camryn while we're there. We leave this Wednesday and get back the following Monday. Should be fun to get back there and see some family and friends again.

Hooray I actually got Avery to keep pigtails in her hair for longer than two seconds.

Below: A precious moment of both the girls sleeping at once. My favorite time of day!!

Idol

I must say that I've gotten quite into American Idol this season so I thought I'd do some commentary for fun. It's actually been fun to see some real talent compared with the past few years which seemed to lack any real excitement. But this year it seems like almost everyone left has had a really great "hey they could win this thing" song, except for maybe Kristy Lee, who for some reason has not been kicked off yet. I really liked Brooke's "Let it Be", Jason's "Over the Rainbow", David Archuleta's "Angels", David Cook's "Billie Jean", Carly Smithson's "Come Together", and Syesha and Kristy Lee have had some good ones, but not really lately in my opinion. Bummer about Michael Johns leaving last week because I think he's way better than them but in the end I don't think he had the guts to win the whole thing.

I was kind of excited about Mariah Carey coming on as a coach last night since she was like the first pop singer I ever followed, back when I was in the fifth grade my sister Britney got me into her. I think we even sung some of her songs in my little 5th grade choir hehe. Well I totally agreed with what Simon said at the beginning that the guys would have the advantage because it's way easier to make a female artist's song your own original version when you're a guy, and the girls just had to deal with paling in comparison. Plus the three guys have an easier time in general with coming up with original versions. The girls really are starting to struggle...

So anyways that's about all the rambling you'll get today. I created a poll for all you American Idol fans out there to vote on who you like the best. Just out of curiosity. Maybe I'll do another post about Idol again later and I'll tell you who I like best.

Cutie Camryn

Look how cute she is!

Avery Update

Since I've been writing most about Camryn lately, I thought I'd fill you in on some of the interesting things Avery has started doing in the past week or so.

1. She takes her clothes off and says she wants a bath almost every day. Sometimes several times a day.
2. Going along with that one, she'll often take off her diaper with her pants still on somehow. One time Merrick went in her room and found her diaperless and the diaper she had removed had a little surprise in it (number 2). Luckily she hadn't taken the diaper off before nature called. Although yesterday she did pee on the floor... Does this mean she wants attention, is it a phase, or is she getting close to being ready to potty train? Who knows.
3. Oh my personal favorite is she started going in my closet and pulling all of the clothes off the hangers one by one and making a huge pile in there, along with all over the house.
4. She's been learning her numbers so this week we started having her count to ten whenever she's in timeout (which seems to be quite often now that she knows just how to get into trouble!). "Two, free, four, hive, sis, seben, eight, ten." That's pretty cute.
5. She loves to try to put the binky in the baby's mouth whenever Camryn's sad. Partly cute, partly scary that she'll shove it in there too hard!
6. Oh now when she cries out at night she just says "Daddy daddy daddy!" over and over until she finally goes back to sleep. The other night Merrick counted and it was 43 Daddy's in a row. I think last night was even more but I didn't count.
7. She's become obsessed with this one JoJo's Circus episode called "Charlie the Clown Baby" where JoJo helps babysit her baby cousin. I have it saved on the DVR and she watches it at least 5 times a day (it's only 10 minutes long). It's got a cute lullaby song that she likes. Plus she loves helping me take care of Camy so I think that's why it stikes her so. Speaking of clowns...

(Another ketchup mess... I thought it resembled a cute clown face though!)

Well that's all I can think of. She really loved spending time with both of her grandmas when they came out. I think she really just craves the attention now and is trying to make herself heard. She's learned so many words in the past few months it's been so fun. She knows most of her letters, numbers, shapes, colors, animals, etc. Plus she can even recognize 6-7 words when we write them out. It's such a fun age I'm so proud of how smart she is!

2 Weeks Old

Camryn turns two weeks old today. She's starting to be not quite so sleepy as when she was first born, but she's still really cute and fun. Here is a picture I took of her today.

And of course Avery wanted to hold the baby and get in a picture. So here's them together.