Spooky Cutie

Halloween hasn't arrived yet, but Griffin has had plenty of opportunities to dress up. His Aunt Rachael got him this fantastic set of skeleton pj's.

They have quickly become his favorite pj's. Luckily, when we packed all of our belongings into boxes for the moving van, we kept these with us. Our boxes have yet to arrive here in Virginia, so last night when our ward had a Halloween party, Griffin went in these pj's.

At the church Halloween party

Griffin as skeleton as Groucho Marx

Griffin love playing with Landon's ties and thought it was hilarious when Landon put one on him. He kept running around the house saying "Dad's tie!"

No, no one is dressed up in this picture, but it's a good one anyway. We went to the National Zoo on Saturday. Griffin liked seeing the panda bears, but he loved the elephants most of all.
We showed up for an afternoon stroll around the zoo, but it was closing early for Halloween festivities, so we only spent an hour or so there. Luckily, the zoo is free here so we'll just have to go back later to see the rest of the animals.

Confessions of a Nomad

I'm sorry.

To all of you whom I did not contact during my life's most recent upheaval, I'm sorry. There have been a million and a half time during the past month that I've thought to myself, "I really need to blog about this!" Sadly, I never did post and so now I can't remember the exact instances that inspired me enough to create a blog post inside my head. Be assured that they were nothing short of blogging brilliance and the world is currently a less enlightened place because of my inaction.

But I digress...

Back to discussing the upheaval: I'm back in Washington, D.C. Well, McLean, VA to be more precise. We are living for the next 6 months in the home of an 86-year-old woman whose late husband was a former British Ambassador. She dislikes east coast winters and so is renting her home to us for 6 months while she goes to New Zealand.

About a month ago Landon submitted his resume for a job out here on a whim. That whimsy turned into 3 weeks of home repairs, placing our home on the market, finding a place to live in the DC area, 1 week of packing, 3 days of driving, and a bucket load of anxiety.

Is your head spinning yet? So is mine.

We're here, we're excited, we're exhausted, and we're happy.

To all of our friends in Denver, thank you! Thank you again and again. To the guys who came over the night before the Open House and helped mow our lawn and paint our banister and paint the bathroom: thank you. To the friends who offered hours of babysitting and countless boxes: thank you. To our neighbor who showed up with a chainsaw and offered to get rid of the dead tree in our backyard: thank you. To the guy who lent us that amazing compressor nail gun and miter saw: thank you. To the friend who showed up the night before we left and helped me figure out how to fit everything into the car: thank you. To the dear friend who offered to rent our house on an as-needed basis: thank you. To that same friend who later agreed to oversee the delayed moving company load our stuff onto the truck so that we could leave on time: thank you. To the friends who brought us dinner when all of my dishes were packed away and I was too frazzled to cook: thank you. To friends who threw a fabulous going-away party for us: thank you. To my sister who made the 26+ hour drive bearable by volunteering as our backseat babysitter: thank you.

We were sad to leave such great friends and we will miss you each. Thanks for everything!

Where did the summer go!?

I really don't know where the summer has gone. I turned around and suddenly August is here, and almost gone. Yikes, I've totally let down Griffin's fan club. So here's the summer rundown...

• We've had 7 guests stay with us this summer.
• We've taken 3 trips to see family.
• Took an 8 hour road trip
• Gone on 1 family camping trip.
• Pounded and patched one hole in our basement wall.
• Made 1 amazing birthday cake
• Saw numerous oddballs in our first trip to Boulder
• Started, abandoned, and restarted potty training.
• Learned how to make delicious bread.
• Watched Nemo, Toy Story, and Bob the Builder countless times.

That about sums it all up. I’m following this up with a few posts to expand on some of the items on this list. Enjoy!

Happy Campers

We've been talking with some friends of ours about doing a camping trip together since April when the weather was just beginning to get warmer. As the summer has zoomed by we simply hadn't ever sat down and made plans. Then suddenly August is upon us and the nights are getting cooler, especially in the mountains. We decided this was the last of the camping weather and we'd better make the best of it. So we went on a last-minute camping trip this weekend. We packed the car Thursday night, I picked up Landon from work on Friday afternoon and we were off to the mountains. His first camping trip, and Griffin loved spending all day outdoors.

Two boys setting up the tent. Griffin really thought he was being a big helper

Griffin and I playing in the little creek near our campsite

Nothing says outdoors like cooking food on sticks. This is my favorite picture from the trip, just look at how happy those two are!

I was pleasantly surprised that Griffin slept way better than Landon or I did on the hard ground in a tent. We loved the friends, the s'mores, the campfire, the creek...and best of all, the telescope! Our friends, the Fredericksons, had brought their enormous telescope (about 4 feet long and 10in diameter) to look at the stars. And I cannot tell you how very very cool it was to look at the moon through that thing. The Sea of Tranquility never looked more tranquil. Incredible! Landon and Nate had a lot of fun trying to find star clusters and galaxies. Julie and I preferred to keep warm by the fire and then come over and look when they'd found something interesting. This was probably one of my favorite camping experiences ever!

Hiding, Seeking, Demolishing

This is what comes, dear friends, of playing hide-and-go-seek with a toddler. Allow me to explain.

Recently Griffin has loved playing this game that closely resembles hide-and-go-seek. He chases us and we run behind a corner, into another room, or behind the couch and then jump out at him when he turns the corner. He squeals in surprise and then runs around so we can do it all over again.

The other day we were playing this game down in our basement when Griffin ran into the basement bedroom and shut the door behind him. He'd done this already several times in the course of the game, but we started getting suspicious when he didn't rattle the door handle to get back out immediately. After about a thirty seconds of playful calling to him, we realized that he'd locked himself in the bedroom.

As has been discussed on this blog before, our home is full of re-po surprises. We had one such surprise when we examined the door handle (which he had never before paid much attention to) and realized that it had a locking mechanism that required a key. A key that we did not own. We spent about 10 minutes trying hangers, credit cards, windows, and careful instructions to Griffin before we finally realized there was only one way to get our son out of there: cut through the drywall.

Meanwhile, Griffin thought all of this was hilarious. "Haha! I've found the best hiding place. Haha! Mom and Dad are so funny wiggling their fingers under the door like they are going to get me. Haha! isn't it exciting to knock on the door with Mom and Dad?" It wasn't until we started pounding a hole in the wall that Griffin went from curious to nervous to scared to hysterical in a matter of 20 seconds.

Once we finally got through the wall and opened the door, Griffin was glad to be out of there. Poor guy! Luckily, it hasn't deterred his enthusiasm for hide-and-go-seek

The cabin

For the 4th of July, we took Griffin on his very first road trip. He did great on the 8 hour drive to Alpine, Wyoming, where Landon's grandpa has a cabin. We met up with Landon's family there and had a much-needed extended weekend. We played games in the woods and rode around on an ATV during the day, and played board games and roasted s'mores at night. Griffin loved seeing his aunts and uncles and playing with his cousin Addie. It was such a fun weekend and I can't wait for the next Huber family cabin trip.

This was a huge mining crane we saw on our drive to the cabin. You can't tell from this picture, but this is the most giant crane I've ever seen in my life...and I've been around my fair share of construction sites. To give you a feel for the size, that spec to the left of the crane is its bucket, the much smaller spec to the right...that's a semi-truck. If a semi looks like a spec, you know that thing's huge.

Here's a picture of everyone who made it to the cabin. Don't be surprised if you see this on a Christmas card sometime in the future.

Griffin learns about dirt

Two cute cousins sharing a snack

I thought these were rather clever self-portraits I took while Landon and I took a sunrise ride around on the ATV. It was freezing cold, especially once we got going fast.

Another self-portrait. We look like characters off of Mario-Cart

Addie and Griffin enjoying an afternoon swing. They were both grinning right before I took this picture. I think they were confused when I made them stop swinging to take the photo.

Griffin and Uncle Bubba

this was the coolest tire swing I've ever seen. It swing back and forth and side to side. Griffin would have spent all day every day in this swing if I would have let him.

Griffin's Grandma Huber was much more patient than I and would push Griffin in the swing to his heart's content.

Take the cake

Last year we were in Greece for Landon's birthday. It was amazing, but I missed out on making him a proper birthday cake. So I felt that this year I had to compensate for last year's cop-out of a pre-made sponge cake and nutella. I think I succeeded, you be the judge:

Relent, Recoil, Reupholster!

I am so proud of myself! No really. I'm hang-it-on-the-refrigerator, I-deserve-a-medal, blinking-applause-sign, spell-it-out-pommie-style P-R-O-U-D! Proud!

Perhaps, this feels slightly over the top. And no doubt it is. But please, allow me to explain.

Just before we first moved to Denver, Landon's Grandma graciously gave us two chairs that she no longer needed. As we had almost no furniture at the time, we were very very grateful for anything that meant we didn't have to sit on the floor. This is what the chairs looked like.

I don't know if you can tell or not, but these are very comfy chairs. However, as you can tell they had seen some wear and tear. And so I decided that I would reupholster them eventually. A couple of weeks ago, when my fantastic friend Becky was visiting, we decided that "eventually" had arrived and it was time to attempt the task. Tear off the old fabric, slap on some new, a few staples and we're in business. Seems pretty straight-forward, right? Not so.

Truth be told, I had no idea how to reupholster before I started tearing the old faux leather off. (Thanks, Becky, for your help on this part). Only then did I begin to realize what I'd gotten myself into. Here's a picture of one of the chairs completely disassembled.

After I took this picture I realized that it's actually missing several pieces including the arms of the chair and the hardware that holds the buttons in place, along with two missing fabric pieces, but I'm guessing you get the idea.

This is Griffin laughing at me, he liked poking at the disassembled chair with a screwdriver and fought with me for whatever tool I was using at the time. Yeah, he thinks he's a big help.

I'm sorely tempted to go into the nitty gritty detail about sewing technique, staple guns, and unexpected hand-stitching, but instead I'll just say that this was a lot of detail-oriented work with a mean learning curve. Anyway, after a few weeks of work (the most productive work getting done during Griffin's naps) I'm happy to unveil the finished product:

DRUMROLL........

Ta-da!

Seriously, I couldn't be happier with how these turned out. Don't they make a nice little sitting area for our bedroom? Here's a close-up of the fabric:

And another angle, just for fun...and to stroke my ego a little. Tell me what you think.

Little MOUSE on the Prairie

One week ago I got ambitious and started a garden. We're planning to have a little vegetable patch outside our backdoor. I had visions of a bountiful harvest and delicious salads. I'm guessing most of the world agrees with me that there is nothing better than a garden-fresh tomato.

Since Colorado is still toying with freezing temperatures, we started with an indoor garden tray to cultivate our fragile little tomato and bell pepper seeds into plants before moving them outside. I was thrilled when a few days after planting we saw minuscule sprouts shrugging out of the dirt. "Hoorah!," I thought, "I'm a horticultural genius!"

However yesterday disaster struck sometime in the night. We woke to discover that something...some creature had dug up our seedlings. This disturbed me for several reasons which I choose to present in no particular order in the list below:

• I am not a filthy person and I was frustrated to have a filthy rodent in my home, which challenged my self-image of cleanliness
• My garden was ruined
• I really didn't like to think of Griffin 'discovering' a mouse in the house
• I disliked all of my options for disposing of the little beast
• I've heard that mice never come alone...they bring their friends

Ew! It gives me the Heebie Jeebies just thinking about it. Lucky for me I have a very chivalrous husband who bought traps and other mouse-exterminating paraphernalia. After Griffin went to bed we baited our traps and patiently waited...for about 15 minutes.

One quick snap and it was all over for our furry little house guest. Again, my knight in shining armor stepped up and disposed of the carnage and I didn't even have to look at it. I feel a little wimpy and ashamed of being so prissy but those mousey guillotine things really gross me right out.

Hopefully, there was just one. But we are not taking any chances, we've got another trap ready and waiting for any other potential house invaders.

What a helper

I've been meaning to post for several weeks now, but it just seems to fall to the bottom of my priority list. In a head-to-head competition sleep, dishes, laundry, diapers, and (let's be honest) a batch of cookies have won out over blogging for several weeks in a row.

However, here's a brief update on the goings-on here in the Huber house:

At the end of March we had a huge snow storm blow through and dump almost a foot of snow. Bummer, because that meant that it was freezing cold. My dad called me and told me that AZ was sitting at a glorious 78 degrees that week, I think he's trying to convince us to move back to the Grand Canyon State. On the bright side, Landon wasn't able to drive into work because of all of the snow. So he worked from home. We had a fun lunch break playing in the snow.

I'm sure you remember Landon's snow sculpture of George Washington last year. Well this year what started out as a snow slide for Griffin turned into a snow sculpture of a dog. Griffin is always saying "woof, woof" to our neighbor's dogs and so we thought it only appropriate to give him one of his very own. Sorry Griffin, that's about as close as you're getting to a pet for now. Feast your eyes on this:

As per usual for Colorado, three days after the snowstorm we were sitting at 70 degrees. And with the warmer weather, spring seems to be shrugging out of its oppressive winter coat. The grass has turned a promising shade of green and our neighborhood is sprinkled with budding leaves. As I predicted, this year the dandelions are back. Some of you may remember that last year I spent several hours and lots of energy weeding my backyard. Lucky for me, now I have a helper:

Yeah Griffin, that's how I feel about them too.

Stuff to do...

Tonight is book club night. I just finished reading this month's book called 2001 Things to Do Before You Die. The host for this evening also told us to bring a list of 5-10 things that we want to do with our lives.

I enjoyed this book for some reasons, but the person who wrote it had a distinctly different world view from me. I therefore felt that some of the things on his list I would rather die than do. But reading this book did get me thinking about my mental list of things I want to do before I die. Some of them I've accomplished, some of them I am working on, some of them are distant goals, and yet others are near impossibilities. Here is a sample:

• Become a published author
• Make my own pasta from scratch
• Live on the East Coast long enough to receive mail there
• See Michelangelo's Pieta
• Live outside of the U.S.
• Work in a press office
• Design and sew a wedding dress that someone wears in an actual wedding
• Visit the Taj Mahal
• Raise kind children
• Learn to make the perfect soufflé
• Learn how to install a toilet, a ceiling fan, and hardwood floors
• Reupholster a chair
• Live in a house with secret passageways and a hidden room
• Enjoy opera
• Get a pilot's license
• Finally become conversant in Spanish
• Get a Master's Degree...in anything
• Go on a cruise
• Own a Dyson vacuum
• Build a tree-house
• Grow a lush garden
• Become a certified rock climber

What's on your list?

Check that attitude!

I was taking pictures of Griffin yesterday and this is what he gave me:

Talk about attitude. This little guy's personality is coming in full force. He's often sticking out his tongue to be silly or laughing at himself for no apparent reason. Truthfully, I suppose this should not come as a great surprise to me. Griffin comes from a long line of easily-amused and self-entertaining progenitors. It's nice though for Landon and I that we have a built-in source of amusement with Griffin around.

On Wednesday this week the weather was gorgeous (for the first time in what feels like ages). So Griffin and I decided that we'd have a little picnic in our backyard. We spread out a blanket on our dead grass and ate popcorn for a while.

Then we put on our shoes and tromped around in the crunchy leaves and dead grass. Griffin loved munching popcorn and crunching leaves. The only problem was that when he fell, he wouldn't get back up because he didn't want to touch the pokey grass. So he just sat in the grass until I got up to save him. This happened several times over.

And speaking of personality, I really don't know where Griffin gets it:

I've mentioned before that I work in the children's organization at church. Well, this last weekend we had a church "So You Think You Can Dance" Party. This is the Primary Presidency all decked out for the kids' dance number (I'm the one with the tuft of orange hair coming out of the back of my head). The kids all dressed up like rockstars too. And you know that we took first place, with costumes like that how could we not? Actually, I think the parents' votes really pulled through for us. So far I've dressed up as both a pirate and a rockstar to fulfill my church calling...I wonder what's next?

Movin' and Groovin'

This one is especially for Grandma Huber. Enjoy!

Lemonade at the Griffin's

This week and next week Landon is traveling for work, bummer. But making lemonade out of the lemons in this scenario, Griffin and I decided to take a two week trip to Arizona to visit my family. We arrived yesterday and we are already having a great time. It's great to be here in Arizona's 70 degree weather while Colorado is hovering around 30-ish.

We wish that Landon didn't have to leave town, but since he has to go, we might as well make the most of it. My family is way cool and Griffin loves getting all of this attention from his aunts and uncle. Yesterday, Spencer took some great pictures of Griffin learning about the piano.

Isn't he a virtuoso?

In other news, my sister got a huge lemon as a gift from a friend. This thing is enormous! It's almost as big as a football. She's still trying to think of ideas for what to do with it. Lemon meringue pie? Lemon cookies? Lemonade? Whatever she ends up doing with it, she has a whole bunch of lemon to deal with.

Now who sounds stupid?

This week has left me feeling utterly idiotic. First and foremost, Griffin and I have both had a bout of the stomach flu. I'll spare the gory details and simply say that I never imagined that there could be anything more miserable than being sick with the stomach flu. However, being sick with stomach flu at the same time as your infant really tops the misery charts. Landon has been making chicken noodle soup and folding laundry and generally being Superman, which of course leaves me feeling grateful and useless.

Also, earlier this week I had a telephone conversation that went something like this:

ME: (Dialing my sister's phone number, and waiting for her to answer)

NOEL: (in a voice that sounds like she's got her nose plugged) Hello?

ME: (amused by Noel's silliness) Hi there. How are ya?

NOEL: (still with the weird voice) Um, good. And you?

ME: Good, what's up?

NOEL: (in the increasingly obnoxious voice) Not much, I suppose.

ME: Noel, you sound stupid. Cut it out.

NOEL: (persisting with the annoying voice) I sound what?!

ME: I said, You sound stupid.

NOEL: (still with the voice) Who is this?

ME: Wait, is this Noel?

NOEL: No.

ME: Really?

NOEL: This is NOT Noel. Who is this?

ME: Uh, this is Noel's sister...Are you sure you're not Noel?

NOEL: This is NOT Noel.

ME: Oh, ummmmm. Okay. I'm so sorry. (awkward pause) Well, bye.

In my defense, what are the odds of me accidentally calling a woman whose voice sounds exactly like my sister with a plugged nose. Furthermore, my sisters are often trying to make me believe I have dialed a wrong number when, in fact, I haven't. And lastly, I've just switched phone plans and I'm using Landon's old phone while we wait for mine to arrive, so I'm now dialing all of the phone numbers I normally have on speed-dial.

None of this changes the fact that I told a random stranger that her voice sounds stupid. Sorry, lady. But truthfully, you did have kind of a stupid voice.

Play it again, Griffin!

Griffin celebrated his 1st birthday with a flight to Utah. That's 15 flights for one baby in one year. This kid is a trooper. Mere hours after landing in Salt Lake City, Griffin was ready to party. And party we did. The first night we were there, we attended two parties, one for Griffin's birthday, and another for Christmas. The Huber family knows how to party and I think we had some sort of gathering, pow-wow, hoopla, brouhaha, or get-together every single night that we were in Utah. We loved getting to see all of Landon's family, and Griffin loved all of the attention. Here are some of the favorite moments from the trip:

At first, Griffin was really more excited about the flame than the cake

But pretty soon he got the idea. Who needs a fork? Or hands, for that matter?

He was even gracious enough to share with his dad, who apparently

likes squished birthday cake.

Griffin's cousin, Ben, teaches him about static

Christmas morning at the Huber's

After a little practice, Griffin figures out that it is fun to tear wrapping paper.

After a week in Utah, we flew down to Arizona on the day after Christmas...that's flight #16, for those of you who are counting. I don't know who started all of this business about dreaming of a white Christmas (I think perhaps Bing Crosby had a hand in it), but I'll take a sunny 65-degree Christmas when given the chance, and Arizona provided exactly the chance I was looking for. We spent a week in Mesa with my family and it was spectacular. My family isn't nearly as good about taking pictures as Landon's family, so you'll have to settle for these pictures:

Griffin and his Grandpa reading a story.

For those of you with a good eye: yes, that is a Care Bear

book that I've had since circa 1985

Noel got some foam swords for her birthday, and Griffin was a natural.

We're considering signing him up for baby fencing.

Griffin's first desert hike

Not pictured: Mom challenged Landon to a Roller Coaster Tycoon build-off. This rivalry ended in a draw after approximately 5+ hours of cut throat competition, at which I could only sigh and roll my eyes.

And to all of you who gave Griffin birthday or Christmas gifts: Thank you so much! He loves them all, especially the ones that make noises. There is one in particular that sings a song about a puppy in a red truck; I don't think he's stopped playing with it since we got home. I may have to find the off switch on these toys eventually. But for now, I'm willing to listen to that song all day long if it buys me enough time to get the dishes done.