"Snowed-in" in mid-April?

This is why we prune our trees, prune our trees, prune our trees; 

this is why we prune our trees, so we can get out of the garage.

Stupid snow.

Our poor little tulips.  You can do it guys!  Rise above the ridiculous weather! 

Violated

About two weeks ago, Spencer and I discovered a very unwelcome little furry visitor in our home.  Actually, I discovered it.  I was happily sitting at the computer wasting time when I noticed a little, gray streak dart out from our fireplace and head for the hallway.  I, of course, shrieked and jumped up on the couch.  I couldn't believe it!  A mouse!  In MY house!  The house that I had spent so much more time cleaning then any other place Spencer and I had lived in.  A house which, I believed, did not deserve to have a disgusting, loathsome mouse as an intruder.  I know the deserve comment is silly and that having a mouse is not a punishment for some strange cleaning crime (or maybe it IS...), but I felt like it was.  I instantly saw the arrival of this mouse as a painful rebuke of my housewifely cleaning prowess.  I felt violated.  I felt our house was violated.  And I decided right then and there that either the mouse was out, or I was.

Ironically enough, earlier that very same day, my visiting teacher had mentioned having seen a mouse in the living room back when this house was occupied by the previous owners.  I laughed at her comment (and secretly felt grossed out and disgusted) and assured her that we had never seen any evidence of that kind and weren't worried about it at all.  Little did WE know...

After the first sighting, Spencer jumped into action to preserve my sanity and keep me from putting the house up for sale that very moment on ksl.com.  He rigged up a make shift mouse trap using some lettuce, cheese, a garbage can, and some string.  He set it up in front of the offending closet where we were sure the mouse was hiding and scheming and then lay waiting.  His job was to pull the string when said mouse appeared and tried to eat the bait; mine was to lull the mouse out of the closet.  I failed, he failed, and the trap failed.  The mouse had vanished.

Having lost the mouse, we began searching for its secret lair of filth.  Once found, we ammonia-ed everything he could have possibly dragged his nasty paws across and filled in all mouse-shaped holes within and without the house with caulk.  But I still felt violated.  I went to bed having no doubt that the mouse would be running all over the house triumphantly while we were sleeping.  Stupid mouse.

The next day, Grace and I took many, many walks.  I was willing to do ANYTHING to get out of the house and avoid the constant feeling of imaginary scampering paws across my feet and legs.  I still naively hoped that the mouse had left the house while we were on our mouse hunt and was currently unsuccessfully trying to get back in through his now caulked entrance holes.  But, nevertheless, I wasn't taking any chances of a meeting.

Later that night, Spencer and I were sitting on the couch and mouse sighting number two occurred.  This time by Spencer.  I sent him straight to the store to buy a real mousetrap.  I stayed on the couch the whole time he was gone and avoided allowing any part of me touch the mouse-infected ground.  As soon as Spencer got home, he set up the mouse trap and we began our vigil.  I, for one, was NOT sleeping until the mouse was gone!  

It was then that we met our little intruder on a more personal basis.  Mere minutes after the trap was set up, the mouse came out and started sniffing around.  It was baited with peanut butter and the little guy apparently could not resist.  We decided he was either desperately hungry or incredibly stupid.  Or both.  We sat there watching as he inspected the trap and naively decided it was safe to enter.  He crawled into the back and we waited anxiously for the little trap door to shut and lock him in.  Nothing.  The mouse was in there happily and freely enjoying a free meal of peanut butter.  Argh!  

We discovered the problem, fixed it, and again began our vigil.  Only five minutes later, the mouse appeared again and wandered hungrily into his peanut butter lined heaven.  And...snap!  One very humanely captured little mouse!  Spencer then took the trap and let Mr. Mouse out of it a few blocks away from our house, with a promise that he would never return or tell ANY of his friends about our house.  :0)    

We set the trap up in various places throughout the house to catch any relatives or friends that had snuck in previously and have discovered none.  Turns out, our little mouse was a loner.  A rogue mouse.  

It's funny how after the mouse was caught and banished I began feeling sentimental towards him.  I told Spencer what a cute little mouse he had been and that, maybe, had he agreed to pay a little rent (plus utilities of course...), he could have stayed on with the girls downstairs.  :0)  I blame Disney.

Mice are gross.  End of story.    

    

"Our teeth owe so much to the kindness of others"

Spencer and I made the amazing discovery that throughout our little over two years of marriage, we have never had to buy toothpaste.  You may be thinking, "Oh, they've probably just been living off the little toothpaste samples from the dentist." WRONG!  For some reason, people have just repeatedly donated full-sized containers of toothpaste to the cause of the Bardsley family teeth.  How kind it is for others to be so concerned about our dental hygiene.  :0)  

I don't even remember exactly how all of this started.  I mean, toothpaste isn't like baby clothes.  You don't grow out of your toothpaste and decide to kindly pass it on to someone else. :0)  I think it must mostly come from having friends who've worked in the dental field and a mother-in-law who is very random in her generosity.  :0)  At any rate, we can only hope that this lovely little streak will continue.  I feel half-afraid that should this generosity cease, Spencer and I would find ourselves horribly out of vogue and out of practice when confronted with the toothpaste buying world.  I suppose at that point we'd just have to give up toothbrushing all together.  For our sake and yours, may the toothpaste charity go on forever!        

To grow or not to grow...

I finally posted a picture of Grace at six months (since she's now almost seven months...) and realized that she looks pretty much exactly the same in that six month picture as she did in the five and four month old ones.  I thought I'd give a little explanation of that. 

        Grace hasn't been growing much. 

Maybe a little more explanation would help.

Just before Grace's six month appointment, we went to her follow up appointment with the ENT in Salt Lake (about her acid reflux).  He said everything looked fine (really, he just asked me if Grace seemed to have been doing better and I said yes.  Stupid.  Did I really have to go all the way to Salt Lake for that?  Couldn't I have just told him over the phone?  And if he's just going to take my word for it, why do we need him at all?) except that he was worried about her lack of weight gain.  I tried just to blow off his concern.  Grace was happy, alert, active, and sleeping great.  She seemed fine to me.  But just in case, I decided to start with rice cereal before we went to her six month appointment in an effort to chunk Grace up.

However, at her six month appointment, our pediatrician was also quite worried.  My rice cereal scheme had not worked as I might have hoped.  Rats!  Dr. Anderson decided that Grace needed to start power-packing.  Aka, the baby fat diet.  She gave me this crazy program that included feeding Grace lots and lots of food (as well as continuing to nurse) AND sneaking extra calories into her food via butter.  Weird.  So, I melt one teaspoon of butter per ounce of whatever I'm feeding Grace (bananas, rice cereal, prunes, sweet potatoes, whatever) and give it to her.  She seems to like it.  

Really, she's quite the spoiled little baby.  People keep asking me if I've given her anything she hasn't liked yet and the truth is that she's liked everything she's had thus far.  But...I'd blame that on the butter.  Everything tastes better with a little butter snuck in.  I'm afraid she'll grow up with a mom-induced butter addiction.  But, hey, as long as she gains weight, right?  

And...she has.  She's been doing great.  After just a week of the power packing (and a blessing from Spencer), Grace had gained six ounces.  This was after a gain of only eight ounces in two months.  Then, just a little under two weeks later, she had gained another nine and a half ounces.  Hooray!  I've been pretty proud of her.  She should be entered into some kind of baby "biggest gainer" contest.  :0)

I keep wondering if she's going to get stretch marks from growing so fast after having grown so little for so long.  :0)  Probably not.

I guess the good thing in all this is that Grace hasn't grown out of her clothes as fast as other babies.  That makes it easy on us.  Plus, she gets to wear extra cute outfits for extra time.  A definite bonus.  

But, I'm so glad and relieved she's growing.  I wonder if I should have just started her on solid food a little earlier.  Her doctor at her four month appointment told me I didn't need to worry about it until six months or so unless I wanted to.  And, being lazy, I didn't.  I guess I'll just be more vigilant with the next one.  Poor first children.  They may get 100% of mom and dad's attention but they also get to experience 100% of mom and dad's first timer's mistakes.  

"Me? Are you talking about me?"

The continual battle of the bow.  She wants to eat it.  I want her to wear it.

Grace and some of her friends.  

Grace Videos

I finally decided to learn how to post videos.  This one is of Grace laughing and playing with her daddy.  Grace gets so happy when Spencer comes home from work.  She's so excited to be with him and becomes much more generous with her laughter.  It's so fun for me to watch them interact.
 

Tagged

I've never done this before, but I do so love to make lists of things... :0)

Five things I was doing ten years ago:

1. Being an extra in my junior high school play, "Bye, Bye, Birdie"

2. Having a crush on every boy I knew

3. Trying to learn how to speak Spanish from Sra. Curzon

4. Working at Dairy Queen  (I think...maybe it was a little less than ten years ago, but close)

5. Being a truly "great" ninth grader  

Five things on my "To-Do" list for today:

1. Buy milk and bread at Smith's

2. Give Grace a bath

3. Go to the bank

4. Wash all white clothes

5. Call Ellie about how to start Grace on rice cereal

Five snacks I love: (so hard to limit it to just five...)

1. Starbursts

2. Skittles

3. Pink Mints

4. Caramels

5. Conversation Hearts

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1.  Have a house but no mortgage

2. Have a nice car but no car payment (are you sensing a theme....?)

3. Buy clothes that really look nice on me--that I pick because of the look and fit 

instead of the price

4. Travel a lot with Spencer

5. Help people   

Bardsley Family Top Ten of 2008

10.  House Hunting

Though this may seem a strange thing to include in a top ten list, Spencer and I look quite fondly back on the time we spent on our very own house treasure hunt.  Actually, when we finally found the one we currently live in, I felt a little let down that the search was over. This is because when your budget for home buying is quite small, you end up being shown a lot of very...interesting domiciles (Spencer...this word is for you!).  You would be surprised by how many homes we walked into (of course nobody was living in them...) and laughed out loud at what we found.  The following photo is of the bathroom in our favorite "basement" (man-hole) of a house we were shown.  The basement had its own separate entrance and we figured that the wife shut her husband in there when she was mad at him.  (Sidenote: this was actually counted in the house info as a "finished" bathroom)

9.  Spencer and Anna became the returning champions of the HBA (Home Builder's Association) Annual Christmas Party Dance-Off 

Yes; it's true, folks.  After our triumph last year (which brought into our lives the Ipod touch that has been Spencer's constant and beloved companion ever since...), we returned and showed all of the middle-aged HBA-ers how to "shake it" yet again.  Or...ballroom dance, as it were.  Please remember that we are not the champions because of our amazing dancing skills.  We are the champions because we were once again the only ones who "kind of" knew how to waltz, cha-cha, and disco.  And...because Spencer can break dance.  This year we won a $100 Visa gift card.  Hooray!  (Sidenote: We actually got first place and a half because they had to gave first place to a lady (and her husband) who was 8 months pregnant and did a cartwheel on the dance floor.  No fancy dance step can compete with that.)

8. Spencer and Anna celebrated their 2nd wedding anniversary   

Thanks to Aunt Emily Merkley, we were able to spend the entire day of December 27th together doing things that having a baby with us would have made impossible.  We went sledding in the morning and discovered the joys of sliding down hills in black garbage bags.  (I, for one, will never go "sledding" with anything else.) Then we went out for lunch at the Olive Garden, did a session at the Salt Lake temple, and walked around Temple Square a bit.  After that, we headed back to Provo for dinner at Red Robin and finally caught a late showing of Twilight.  Spencer is a good sport.  It was wonderful.  It was my first full day away from Grace and the first time anyone else ever put Grace to bed besides Spencer or I.  Ironically, Grace responded to this change by sleeping from 7:10 p.m. until 9:00 a.m. the next morning.  We're thinking of hiring Emily on as Grace's full-time nanny.  (the following pictures are of us at Red Robin, us in the exact same spot we were exactly two years ago to the day, and us while sledding)

    

7. Spencer was called to be in a bishopric of a BYU singles' ward 

 Best things about this: the wonderful people in the singles' ward we attend AND having one of the two babies in the ward (the other counselor and his wife also have a baby) instead of one of the 500 babies in the ward.  Worst things about this: having to attend church on campus again; having to ascend the 5 million stairs to get the Joseph Smith Building AND having church at 8:30 in the morning.  :0)  Really, this has been a wonderful experience.  The ward was overwhelmingly kind to us when Grace was born (homemade dinners for TWO WEEKS!) and they have taught us so much.  

6. Jacob,Whitney, and Landon Bardsley's Sealing

Hooray!  Spencer and I were so excited and happy to be able to be with them this day.  It was also great to see Spencer's out of town sisters, April and Esther, that weekend.  Hooray for wonderful occasions that bring about little family reunions!

5. Sam and Emily Neil Merkley's Wedding

Yet another wonderful occasion to bring about a family reunion.  The whole Merkley family (including the Warnicks and Bardsleys of course) was able to be together for the reception in Layton and then head down to Mesa for the wedding.  And...just to add a little extra information, one of Sam and Emily's early dates (as in at the beginning of their relationship) was to our reception.  :0)    

4. Spencer became a rugby star

  Back in February (or March?), Spencer met someone from the UVU rugby team in one of his classes.  The guy invited Spencer to come out and see what rugby was like and...the rest is history.  Spencer became a starter on a team for a sport he'd never played.  He's just that good at sports.  I don't think there exists a sport that doesn't love Spencer.  At any rate, with Spencer in tow, the UVU team did better than they had ever done in the history of the school.  They ended up finishing 2nd in the nation for division 2.  Spencer traveled (with a very pregnant Anna) to Albuquerque, NM, for the semi-finals and then to Palo Alto, CA, for the finals (without Anna).  

I became a rugby aficionado. Of sorts.  I do recall that the first game I went to was in Salt Lake City and it was freezing cold and snowing the whole time.  But...I giggled my way through the entire game.  I had just never seen a sport quite like rugby.  It seemed to me to incorporate elements of soccer, football, basketball, and...cheerleading.  :0)  I loved it.  

And now, Spencer carries with him a very distinguished rugby battle wound just under his right eye.  He collided with two other players in an effort to get the ball.  One of them ended up with a matching battle wound under his left eye.  They stitched Spencer up (seven stitches) on the side of the field as play continued.  Ah...rugby.

    

3. Spencer and Anna bought a house

As you can see, the actual buying of the house does rank higher than searching for it.  :0)  I've already written enough about this aspect of 2008 in a previous post, so I won't go too much into it.  We are still loving our house and taking full advantage of the hot tub in the backyard and the fireplace.  We have used our home warranty plan frequently and are still praying that our dishwasher, water heater, furnace, and refrigerator break down irreparably within the next few months.  We're getting used to the three girls who rent out our basement (the noise barely phases us these days) and are just slowly trying to advance with our house "to-do" list.  

2. Anna graduated from BYU

In April, I graduated with a bachelor's degree in social work with a minor in Spanish.  Hooray!  I exited BYU with a much different degree than I thought I would.   The original plan had been to major in history teaching with a minor in geography. But, I'm happy with what I did.  For the last eight months before I graduated, I did an internship at an elementary school in Saratoga Springs.  I worked with teacher-referred and parent-referred kids who needed help with things like social skills, anger management, classroom behavior, coping skills and self-esteem.  I loved it.  It was hard, because I wasn't shadowing another social worker.  I had to figure everything out for myself and pretty much completely come up with my own plans for groups, interventions, and classroom presentations.  It took a lot of organization and footwork, but it was really good for me.  An added bonus to my graduation was Sam graduating at the same time.  We got to sit through commencement together.  :0)

1. Grace Elizabeth Bardsley was born (Stats: July 31st, 7:31 p.m., 8 lbs. 15 oz.)

This easily was the highest point of 2008.  Though adjusting to parenthood and figuring Grace out hasn't been easy, it has in every way been worth it.  We adore her and we'd like to believe that she adores us as well.  She's now five months old and quite possibly the cutest baby on the planet.  :0)  She enjoys growling, putting everything around her into her mouth, and has recently taken up shrieking loudly in an effort to practice her singing voice.  She feels like rolling over is overrated and only does it on occasion--just to prove that she can.  She's getting quite good at sitting up.  Her favorite act is standing on Spencer's hands, showing off her balancing ability.  She has a wonderful laugh and gives pretty much everyone a smile just for looking at her.  And...we love her.