Sunday afternoon

On Monday morning Ella told our nanny "On Sundays we can't do the things we really want to do." Should I be proud or a little sad?

good eats=good day in san francisco

Ryan and I went to San Francisco this weekend for a quick trip. The weather was great, the company was good (we went with Doug and Janet, Ryan's parents) and the food...oh the food. Almost enough to make us pack up and move.

On Saturday we went on a run to Coit Tower. About halfway up I remembered that I hadn't run for a while (Anna's three months and I didn't run while pregnant. You do the math.) and probably shouldn't have tackled it. But it was fun despite the pain. And I burned enough calories (in my head at least) to thoroughly enjoy the gluttony I had planned for the rest of the day.

After finishing our run we went straight to Bloem 'n Sugar and had one of these:

An authentic Belgian Waffle. Mine also had blueberries, raspberries and...strawberry ice cream. Yeah, really good breakfast food. Ryan ate two. 

Then we rented a car and drove on over to Sausalito and ate lunch at a delicious Italian restaurant. Ryan and I shared a Margherita Pizza and a salad. It was delicious.

Next we headed out of town to Muir Woods. Here Janet found her true calling: nature walking. She had hurt her foot the day before but she blissfully limped along oohing and awing over the Giant Sequoias. Or was it the Coast Redwood? I can never keep them straight. Either way, they were tall and beautiful.

I told Ryan we were taking at least one picture on the trip. This is it.

We left the woods (Janet has already planned her return trip) and headed to Nappa Valley. Unfortunately it was the Saturday before the busiest restaurant day of the year and we didn't have reservations. So we couldn't go where we really wanted. But we made do. Indulge me (as if you haven't already) ; here is our appetizer and dessert.

Potato Dumplin’ Bruleé 

sky hill farms goat cheese, roasted apples, confit meyer 

lemon, creek side ramps, smoked almonds, local raw honey

Lemon Thyme Crème Brulee 

chilled huckleberry stew, little lemon scones, sweet cream

The rest of the meal was good, but the beginning and end were phenomenal. Perhaps the best I've ever had.

A pretty great day, start to finish. Thanks Doug for leading these folks for the past year so we could make it happen.

The pumping every three hours and spilling milk all over myself in the dark car wasn't super, but you can't have it all, right? 

Ella and Anna

Pre-school pics

There are some things in life that you are obligated to buy, even though you know they are a little bit of a racket. The coupon book from the girl next door to support her school. Kitchen gadgets at the Pampered Chef party your friend is hosting. Pre-school pictures of your first child (I think by the time I get to the third or fourth I won't be so sentimental) fall into this category. You know $20 is ridiculous, but how can you say no. And then when her eyes are open, her smile is cute and her clothes are clean you are happy you said yes.

*By the way, none of you have entered my giveaway. You don't have to go to our office to participate. Just comment about our blog or how great Dr. Packer is :)

giveaway...

Check out my work blog for some giveaway action.

blessing day

The Packers were in town for Brad's graduation, so on Easter Sunday we blessed Anna. Ryan did a wonderful job and gave her a beautiful blessing. Anna was sweet as could be and didn't make a peep. It was a great way to celebrate Easter.

Because of the blessing we sat in the front two rows. Near the end of the meeting Ella made her way up to sit with me. She climbed up on my lap and said, "Mommy, I don't feel good. My tummy hurts." Oh no. Oh no. And before you could blink, bam...she was throwing up. Ma Sue was quick on her feet (on her seat?) and grabbed Anna's blanket to catch it in. After round 1 I went in to scoop Ella up and take her out, but then round 2 hit. And round 3. The poor speaker (the Bishop!) was giving a great talk on the atonement, and a vomiting 2 year old on the front row had to be a little distracting. The second counselor looked on, somewhere between being horrified and humored. But thank heavens for that blanket. We were able to keep it all contained and relatively mess-free.

Poor Ella was sick for the rest of the night, but is now doing much better.

Ella hanging in there for the family picture

what she doesn't know...

Yesterday was kind of rainy, and we were looking for something fun to do, so we met up with Avery at the Thanksgiving Point dinosaur museum. We pulled into the parking lot at the same time as a school bus full of kids. Danielle and I tried to talk the girls into something else, but Ella would have none of it. She was told she could see dinosaurs and see dinosaurs she would. While we were in the lobby, a little bit of (evil?) genius set in. "Wow! Can you believe this huge dinosaur? Look at the little baby dinosaurs! Let's go upstairs and see more pictures of dinosaurs, and run around. This is great! All right...let's go eat dino nuggets in the dinosaur cafe."

The girls laughed, played, ran around and had a great time. They were already asking when we could come back. Just think how fun next time will be if they get to go inside to the actual museum :)

*the matching outfits were not on purpose. but we decided it was a good idea--makes them easy to spot when they dart away!

no monogrammed linens for you

In the process of naming our children, we tried to think about the name as a whole. Will it be good as a child? Can you grow into it as an adult? Is it trendy? Is it dated? Do the initials spell a word? Is their name a sentence? (My sister's daughter was almost Ava May Wride until Kimmy [and Taylor] caught it)

But I didn't think of everything. I was putting together a baby announcement for Anna and picked this template:

Anna Elise Packer. APE. Didn't see that one coming. But I really liked the card with the picture we had, so I tweaked it and put 2.10.11 in the yellow box and skipped the whole name calling bit.

Sorry Anna. I don't see any personalized luggage, linens or silver in your future.

{also, I'm sure no one really cares, but I didn't order enough announcements and was too lazy to do it again, so I didn't send them to everyone I wanted to. sorry!}

elephant onesie

With Jamie in town we got our craft on and made matching onesies for Ella, Anna and Ava. Darling, right? If you've never embellished a onesie before, you should. It's a piece of cake and they are oh so cute. Danielle explains it better than I could, so go here to read her tutorial. I used regular thread instead of embroidery floss.

Here's the pattern for the elephant. Jamie modified it a little bit, so if you want her version (with three different sizes) let me know and I'll email it to you.

early easter

What's better than heading outside and taking baby Sally and bunny Lanie for a little walk?





A visit from this guy for your very own egg hunt!





Thanks, Easter Bunny.

videos

Ella went through a phase of wanting to teach me how to say words. I caught some of it on video.

It is really fun to watch Ella's imagination develop. The other day she told me that my closet was called "mom hom" and she took her toys in there and pretended to give them suckers. But my favorite is Jim. One evening she was sitting in her chair, peeking under the table saying, "It's otay. You tan tome out now." When I asked her who she was talking to she told me "I tan't tell you." But eventually it came out that we have a houseguest. His name is Jim, he is a daddy, he lives in the living room, he has 5 kids, and his hair is either pink or green, depending on what color they were painting the building he went in that day. This video's not the best, but still cracks me up.

Cousins

Anna and Ava are 4 days apart. Looks like they're well on their way to becoming best buds.

cleaning and scrubbing...

I found this poem on my cousin's blog. It sounded familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it. Then my mom showed me this, that she made when I was a baby.

I have it hanging in Anna's room and I love it. My house is by no means always clean, but I spend a lot of energy fretting about it. This is a good reminder to calm down and enjoy the fleeting time I have with my newborn.

go cougs

Given that 17 out of 17 of my immediate family members are BYU grads, you can guess who I am rooting for. I'm not sure how long it will last, but I'm loving Jimmer Fever. Gooooooooo Cougars!

sisters