Glenn and Violet Watch A Movie

Act I

Glenn: Violet, do you want to watch a Disney movie?

Violet: ... (obviously)

Glenn: I'm going to take that as a yes. Which one do you want to watch?

Violet: ... (fixes a steady gaze on The Little Mermaid)

Act II

(Violet actually watched the movie. For a while.)

Neighbors

We have tons of kids who live in our apartment complex.

Every evening, Violet and I wait on the front door step for Glenn to get home from school. One by one, I've been making friends with the neighborhood kids. They LOVE Violet! Everyday they tell me she looks like a doll. Yesterday as I talked to my mom on the phone, they started to show up, and soon there were like 8 kids just hovering right around me on the door step. They kept shushing each other and saying, "Be quiet, she is on the phone!". It was so funny, I took a picture.

When Glenn turned on to our street, the kids saw him, and yelled to me, "The dad is home, the dad is home!"

Soccer Team

Soon I will be doing this again!

This morning I got this email:

Hi Afton,

My name is Arielle. I manage the Sparkle Motion team you approached last Saturday. You spoke to some of the girls and your information was forwarded to me from Erin. Sorry I could not be there myself to meet you, as I was ill and couldn't play.

Why don't you come out this Saturday?

Our game is at 8:30 am (early I know) and play. Let's see how you feel playing with us and what kind if chemistry we all have. This way if you decide we are raging b*****s, you haven't wasted your money, haha. Totally kidding, we are a really great bunch of girls, super fun and warm. Most of us have known each other a long time and have played many seasons together.

Black shorts, white socks, shin guards and cleats to play. Look for us in our green jerseys.

Feel free to call or text me and I look forward to meeting and playing with you!

Arielle

I realize that I probably could have just told you what the email said instead of pasting the whole thing on this post. I censored it for you.

So on Saturday I'm going to the game! Glenn and VIolet are going to come watch. I'm just excited to play again! It's been a little over a year, and I bet I'm SO out of shape.

Hotel

Is this the coolest hotel you've ever seen in your life?

Tomorrow I have to do something really scary:

Take Violet to get 5 shots. I already feel sad about it. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow!

(She has slept 10+ hours for four nights in a row. I love her.)

My new project

I have a new friend in my ward, which is awesome, because I definitely need some friends around here. She said we should get together sometime and crochet, so I started a new crocheting project! I started it last week, and I think we are going to crochet together today.

You will see that in order to take this picture, I had to risk waking Violet up as I laid the blanket over her. Which as any mother of a baby knows, this was very brave, because her sleeping time is very precious to me.

It is white and green. You know how some people spend tons of time making a really cute nursery during the time they are pregnant? I would have loved to do that, but we didn't have a room for her while I was pregnant. Now we have this prefect big room for her, but it isn't very cute. I've been kind of ignoring it since we've moved here. I'm going to try harder to decorate it. I wanted the color scheme to be green, so this blanket it green and white. It is the biggest project I could tackle towards improving Violet's room for now!

(p.s. Violet slept for 11 hours last night! That means I was awake with just Glenn for 2.5 hours before I went to bed, slept for 8 hours, and still woke up before Violet! It was awesome.)

The Bubble Beard

I didn't post on Friday, so here's a bonus weekend picture to make up for it!

Violet's new favorite past time - blowing bubbles:

We call it the "bubble beard". It is even more impressive in real life! My mom was here last Wednesday through Saturday, and we had a wonderful time! I didn't post on Friday because we were just having too much fun doing other stuff!

Photo Booth

You know how it is funny to take pictures of yourself on photo booth?

Well, it is even funnier to take pictures of your baby:

Little Tokyo

Last Saturday, we excited to explore a new part of downtown - Little Tokyo! We looked online for the best restaurant there, and many sources agreed that it was Daikokuya. So we went for lunch! A lot of reviews said it is so popular that there is usually a long wait, so we got there at 11:30, thinking we would beat the lunch rush. We kind of did. We waited about 25 minutes and got a place at the bar, but when we left, there was a way bigger crowd waiting on the sidewalk than when we went in.

It was SOOOO good! We split an appetizer of gyoza, and Glenn picked the "shredded pork bowl" for us to share. The shredded pork bowl was HEAVEN. Seriously, probably the best asian food I've ever eaten. The gyoza was good too. I should have taken a better picture of the food, but this is all I have:

Oh, and Little Tokyo is right next door to this:

Recognize it? I think of the movie Get Smart every time we drive by it.

(It is the Disney Concert Hall)

One last thing: In Little Tokyo, we also walked through a collectors' shop. It was so weird! Every wall was jam-packed with these tiny figurines! I can't believe people would actually buy them, but the place was crowded!

Quinoa - This post is dedicated to Becky

Remember how I went to Whole Foods here? Well, I made the quinoa! And it was delicious!

(And Becky wants to make quinoa, and I'm going to share my "recipe", so that is why I dedicated this post to her. And I really like her.)

I called it a "recipe" instead of just a recipe, because I totally made it up and didn't measure anything. Also, you could definitely add some chicken and it would be delicious, but I've been trying to made vegetarian meals for Glenn and I a couple of times a week. And this was one of them.

1. Cook the quinoa. Basically, you cook it like you would cook rice, but it only takes 15 minutes. Awesome.

2. Make a lemon vinaigrette, with lemon juice, a little honey, and olive oil. Make it in the bottom of the serving dish.

3. The vegetables: I know corn is not really a vegetable, but it the most important thing to include here. You can probably add which ever ones you want. The corn made it so sweet and good though! Cut the kernels off two cobs and saute with red onions. Add chopped fresh parsley to the pan and take off the heat. Add tomatoes and cucumber. I sprinkled in a little feta cheese at the end.

This took me about the same amount of time to make this as it took the quinoa to cook. We ate it warm that night, but the next day we had it cold for lunch, and it was delish! I think I even like it cold better.

p.s. Quinoa is super healthy. Here is what my cookbook, "Super Natural Cooking" says about it: "...thought to promote cardiovascular health, stave off certain cancers, tame headaches and migraines, provide antioxidant protection, and on and on. This is the grain credited with keeping Incan armies strong and resilient." Cool, huh?

The White Coat Ceremony! - and Vi skim boards.

At last! Here are some pictures of the white coat ceremony that I promised I'd share so long ago:

(Love this picture. What the heck is Vi doing with her head??)

Glenn's parents came into town, just for the ceremony, and it was so fun having them here! Glenn's dad is an alumnus of USC dental school, and the photographer was so excited to take a picture of Glenn and his dad together! I wish we'd gotten some pictures of the actual ceremony, Glenn was in the front row! He looked so handsome and legit in his white coat. Did you know that his USC ID says "Dr. Glenn LeSueur" on it? Cool, huh?

We went to the beach the day after the ceremony. This time, it was Glenn's dad who was the only one brave enough to get in the water. The water was much warmer this time, but I didn't bring my swimming suit! I really wished I'd brought it so I could get in. Since the day was so warm, this time we let Violet walk in the sand. And skim board.

Violet Smiles

Violet has been amazingly smiley these days! Sometimes, she smiles while I'm trying to feed her, and it takes her forever to finish eating. Which is kind of annoying, but mostly SO cute. Seriously, probably the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life is when I'm nursing her, and I feel her stop, and when I look down at her she has a giant smile on her face with milk running down her chin.

I'm sure I can get a video of her smiling better, but this is the best I have for now. She always gets a little serious when she sees the camera or video camera out.

Yesterday Glenn didn't have school. We wanted to do something fun, so we took the shuttle to campus, then walked the rest of the way (not very far) to the Science Center! Acutally, first we went to the Museum of Natural History, which looked awesome, but cost money to get in. We thought it was free. So we walked to the Science Center, which is just through the Rose Garden (so pretty and awesome!), and it turned out the Science center was free. We spent about and hour and a half playing there and we only saw maybe a quarter of it. Violet is going to love that place when she is older! This time she mostly napped in the baby carrier. She woke up during the earthquake simulation.

(us waiting for the bus. I don't know if you can tell, but all three of us totally matched.)

Whole Foods

I have been wanting to make quinoa lately, so I had planned to go buy some at Trader Joe's this week. But then I saw a deal on livingsocial.com for 20 dollars of groceries for 10 dollars at Whole Foods! It was kismet.

So yesterday I went to spend my 20 dollars at Whole Foods. I went to the one in Beverly Hills, and apparently it is like the biggest one there is. It was so awesome! They had so much cool food, and I was basically getting everything 50% off (since I paid 10 dollars for 20 dollars of groceries.)

They had every grain, seed, nut, and type of flour you can imagine in the giant bins, and you could buy as much or as little as you wanted. I got forbidden rice (cool name, huh?), quinoa (the grain that started this whole adventure), and pumpkin seeds (because they are delicious.)

I also bought a few other things. Here are some of them.

1. Glenn loves peanut sauce. So do I. And I thought this looked delicious and similar to peanut sauce.

2. If you know me at all, you know I couldn't pass up a pint of multi-colored, baby heirloom tomatoes.

3. My groceries only added up to 19 dollars. This chocolate was by the register and it cost 1 dollar.

My mom is coming to visit next week! I am going to save some of the cool stuff I got to cook when she is here. Like the Forbidden Rice.

Smarty-pants LeSueur

That title refers to Glenn, of course. We don't know if Violet is smart yet.

Glenn will probably be embarrassed that I'm sharing this story, but it made me so happy! This weekend he spent a lot of time working on a homework assignment that he turned in online on Sunday. In his class on Monday, his teacher said, "I've noticed some of you are not doing the assignments very well. But who is Glenn? He did the assignment perfectly! You should all do it like him." He proceeded to use Glenn's summary as an example of what everyone's should be like. Cool, huh? Dental school is full of smart people, and Glenn is the smartest!

I love that Glenn is so smart, but he is also so humble! So, because I'm his wife, I get to brag for him.

(He looked particularly handsome on this day as he left for school, so I sneakily took a picture)

A Video! (Violet Walking)

So I'm a little late posting today! Today we uploaded all of the videos we have taken of Violet from our video camera to our computer, and it was so fun to watch them! I can't believe how much tinier she was when she was born than she is now! It made me so happy to see the very first video, when she was so brand new. I also love that she is now so strong and thriving!

Here is a video we took today, but we could have taken it any time in the last month. Every night, when it is close to Vi's bedtime and she is getting a little fussy, we go sit on the front porch. She is always calm when we are outside. Every night Glenn has Violet practice her walking, and it is so cute. So tonight, I finally video taped it! Enjoy!

(the video is choppy, sorry)

Maybe I'll post about the white coat ceremony tomorrow??

The other day at the park I saw clovers growing everywhere in the grass! Courtney and I always used to make jewelry out of these flowers when we were little, so I made Violet a crown! She look SO cute in it I could hardly stand it!

FYI, I feel like that first picture is a very true representation of what Violet looks like. It is hard to get a picture of a baby where they look normal, and I feel like she looks different in every picture!

I am really really going to try to get the pictures to post about Glenn's white coat ceremony for tomorrow! It happened like two weeks ago, but I still want to post about it because his parents took some pictures of all three of us together! This is rare, so I want to document it.

Apartment Makeover - 2 of 2

As promised, here is the second project we have recently completed!

Remember this picture?

Remember how I said Violet was "helping" me with a project? And that I might show you the completed project "tomorrow"? And how that was like two weeks ago? Well...

Now this:

Looks more like this:

I needed a place to put all our framed pictures, and I thought that random moulding would be a good place for them. They aren't actually resting on the moulding. Glenn hung them on nails because he said if they were just resting on the moulding they would fall as soon as we had an earthquake. (Glenn is really excited for our first earthquake.)

Oh, and this picture is for you mom. She says I don't post enough pictures of myself on this blog, but I just found this one when I was getting these other pictures off the camera.

[At Santa Monica with Violet and Glenn (behind the camera this time). Notice, Violet is wearing her USC sun hat! So much school spirit at such a young age!]

Break in the Action

Sorry, you'll have to wait for "Apartment Makeover - 2 of 2" until tomorrow. The unexpected has happened: they are fumigating our apartment and only gave us a day and a half notice! Violet can't be in the apartment for 12 hours after the fumigation, so we are staying here:

Beautiful, huh? We are so lucky to have family close to us in LA. My mom's cousin Peggy is so nice, and was totally ok with us coming to stay with her for a couple of days. Their house is awesome, and Peggy is an amazing cook. It is a great place to be waiting out a fumigation! I really appreciate family now that I'm living away from most of mine.

Apartment makeover - 1 of 2

Get ready to be blown away by this corner-of-our-bathroom makeover!

Besides picnicking, we spent our labor day doing a couple around the house projects. My wonderful husband built this:

(That last picture is the face he made when I said, "Smile proudly next to your shelf.")

And we put it in our bathroom and filled it with stuff...

So the corner of the bathroom went from this to this:

It is such a relief to get the bathroom organized. It was one of our last few places in the apartment that still needed to get "moved in".

Come back tomorrow for the next makeover - which is equally mind-blowing!

Labor Day

To celebrate Labor Day, we went on a picnic! There is a little park just around the corner from our house. We packed our picnic basket with pita chips, hummus, carrots, and oreos and walked our little family over there!

The weather was beautiful. You can see from the pictures that Vi has a new toy! She has been wanting to sit up so much lately that yesterday we got her a bumbo! (that is the little seat she is in.) She is still getting used to it, but I think she likes it!

Ten Hours

10 Hours.

That is how long Violet slept last night! Consecutively, that is. She ate an hour and a half ago and went back to sleep and is still sleeping.

Our guests left this morning. It was so much fun having Courtney and Judson here this weekend! We played a lot of ticket to ride and four-player nintendo games, and spent some time admiring Violet. Also, I made some delicious vegetarian pasta which was one of my favorite meals I've ever made! I sure wish I'd taken a picture. In fact, I didn't take any pictures the whole weekend!

They are driving home right now. Good luck to you, Courtney and Judson! I wish you a shorter return trip! (Their drive here took 9 hours - yikes.)

Book Review: Poisonwood Bible

I finished a great book a few days ago, Poisonwood Bible. It was recommended to me by Courtney Fanello (Thanks Courtney!) and I loved it!

It takes place in the Congo in the 1950s. An American Baptist family is there with their Preacher/missionary father. The story is narrated by the wife and her four daughters (a different narrator for each chapter). I don't want to give away anything, so I won't tell you more, but it was awesome. It is a pretty long book, but I didn't want it to end! Lately it seems like every book I read is about motherhood. Maybe I just never noticed it before and now it is more applicable to me and I notice it? This one is an amazing commentary on the complexities of being a mother. Obviously I'm really new at being a mom, but this was so interesting to read. (Incidentally, the last two books I read before this were These is My Words and Shadow of a Giant. They both really made me think about how cool it is to be a mom. Violet is sleeping next to me on my bed right now being really cute, btw.)

Since I spend half my life nursing Violet, and even more time holding her while she naps, I have A LOT of time to read. But I'm always running out of books to read! I love it when people recommend books to me, or tell me what their favorite book is. So feel free to give me some recommendations!

(Courtney [my sister] and Judson [her fiance] are coming to visit this weekend! Violet gets to see her aunt and I get to cook vegetarian meals for Judson!)

My Kitchen Smells like Basil

My kitchen smells like basil, which is wonderful, but it came at a high price. Here's a sad farmers' market story for you:

Last time we went to the farmers' market, we spent about 6 dollars on food. We parked at a meter that cost 3 dollars for an hour, and made it back just before our hour was up. However, we found a parking ticket for 53 dollars on our windshield. Apparently we were about one inch out of the paring space. So we spent about 50 dollars more on parking than on food that day.

Today, I went by myself. I drove up to a parking structure right by the market just to see how much it cost. 3 dollars for every ten minutes. Then someone drove up behind me and I was trapped! So I parked there, shopped as fast as I could, and ended up spending $9.40. And about 4 dollars on food. So not as bad as the first time, but it would be cool if we could figure out how to spend less on parking than we do on food!

(Here is what I made for dinner last night. So good!)