Future Socialite?

So I'm working on my laptop, when I hear Dany come up the stairs and into the living room. I glance up to see this:
I can just guess what she would be saying if you could understand her. "I know Dahling, it's so inconvenient having the Benz in the shop. I have to use the Beamer, and the open top does such murder to my hair. I'm appallingly windblown."

Admit it, you can picture those exact words coming out of her mouth.

Well, maybe not. But here are a few cute words that actually DID come out of her mouth:


And for the things she can't quite say yet, she has her signs:



This is one of my favorite ages, just for stuff like this. You never know what you'll hear or see. And thanks to modern technology, you all can see it, too. Whether you want to or not!

Our WT Adventure!

On Saturday night, my boss tapped me to fly an in-house photographer to Preston, ID. Preston is home of Napoleon Dynamite, farmland, and... demolition derbies. Yes, the company was actually sponsoring a sweet baby blue station wagon, driven by my boss, in the annual Preston Demolition Derby.

Originally, there was doubt that Ree would return in time from her "Rogers Girls Afternoon on the Town" to watch our little ones. (Thanks to all you ladies for not subjecting your husbands to Mamma Mia, by the way. Ugh, I just threw up in my mouth.) As such, I was planning on bringing both of the girls with me. Maisie was excited to fly and "watch the cars crash." It turned out Ree was home in plenty of time and Maisie was just too excited not to go, so I brought her along, but left Dany at home.

The flight was smooth and the touchdown on Preston's postage stamp of a runway was uneventful. We were picked up in short order, and our ride warned us on the way to the arena that there was more white trash gathered there than we'd probably seen in our lifetime. The parking lot alone was testament to the truthfulness of her observation. Trucks, big hair and clever print T-shirts* abounded. Still, we were far too curious to turn back now!

The rules were simple, and we quickly picked up on them:
1. No hitting the driver's side door (safety)
2. Cannot be immobile (stalled, pinned, or otherwise broken down) for more than 1 minute, or else be disqualified
3. If you do not hit a car for more than 1 minute you're DQ'd
4. The last car moving and/or not DQ'd wins!

We were soon settled on the front row awaiting FC's initial foray into this new world of intentional accidents. I remembered ear plugs for Maisie, and once she had acclimatized to her new surroundings, she was clapping for big crashes and cheering for FC in his driving debut. I was shocked to find her truly enjoying the event! I was equally surprised to find I was entertained by the crashes as well! I must sadly admit that there's some sort of odd WT buried down deep in both of us.


FC took 4th in his heat, but felt cheated by a bad "no hit in 1 minute" call. He felt he was a victim of the good old boy network, and was fired up about it. Here he is leaving the arena. Yes, friends, that's my boss, feather boa and all...

He came back for the final Free-for-All last match. Anyone who still had a car running at the end of the night was welcome to enter. FC managed to stay alive after a lengthy battle and won 1st place! This is actually an impressive feat, being his first derby and winning against an estimated 20 other cars or so- more cars than any of the single heats alone. He earned a whopping $100 in prize money. Congrats, FC!

We headed back to the plane and had a smooth and quiet night flight back home. Maisie was asleep in short order and didn't seem to want to ever wake up, dozing with her headset on even as I was pushing the plane back into the hanger. All in all, I must resignedly admit that I had a good time that night. Anyone know where Trailer Trash Anonymous meets?


* A couple of standout gems seen:
"Legalize domestic violence- support your local Demolition Derby"
"I don't need your attitude, I have one of my own"

Free Isn't Always Good

So Teag unexpectedly acquired another four free tickets, this time to Jack Johnson. We invited Steve and Katie to go with us this time, and we were all looking forward to a really good show. Well, let's just say, we're still looking.

The show started at seven, and there were two opening bands. One thing we noticed right off was that the large screens that are usually present on either side of the stage were absent. There were several odd sized screens at the back of the stage though, so we figured we'd be able to see the band on those. The first warm up band, one whose name I can't remember, was alright, and played for a half hour. After he exited the stage, we waited almost another 30 minutes for the next act to show up. The second band, whose name was "Rogue Wave" (???), was downright awful. "Suckfest" would have been a more appropriate moniker. After they (thankfully) exited the stage, we waited ANOTHER half hour for Jack Johnson, who didn't start his set until after NINE! Because we had lawn tickets, we'd left fairly early in order to stake out a good spot on the grass. That means we'd been waiting for 2 1/2 hours already before he even took the stage.
Now let me take a moment to add in some commentary about the sort of people we were surrounded by: to our left we had the typical "high school" crowd being obnoxious, and yelling to their friends. Katie had a special dislike for one of these guys in particular. In front of us, we had a lady that had to be pushing forty but had decided she could still pull off pink streaks in her hair. She didn't bother us though, so all in all, not a big deal. No, the real treat came from the folks behind us, who managed to sneak in bottles of Yaeger Meister (sp?) and vodka. The more alcohol they consumed, the louder and crazier they got, and the show hadn't even started yet. I was blissfully unaware, and only found out later, that one girl threw up on herself. Lovely. I moved Teag's shoes in front of us, just in case.

As the warm up bands were playing, one particularly large, and very drunk, girl started oozing (to quote Teag's phrase) onto our blanket, to which Teag whispered "Would you please just pass out already?"

When Jack Johnson finally came out, we were dismayed to see that the screens behind him mostly showed random abstract pictures of rippling water, trees, and other lame stuff. This was especially bad considering that everyone stood as soon as he started playing, and me, being as short as I am, couldn't see a dang thing. The music was good, he played a lot of songs we all recognized, but I can honestly say that the highlight of my time there was our conversations with Steve and Katie, especially about "Drunk Girl".

Shake & Bake

After some unforeseen circumstances, Tris and Kris called us Friday night and asked if we could pinch hit, and watch their kids for the night while they were were in Heber doing an event for Kris's job. So we were six plus Friday and most of Saturday, which was a real eye opener to how little our house is! Luckily, Avery doesn't care where her port-a-crib is placed, she's pretty easygoing.

Saturday we fed the kids Ramen for lunch because I realized I was out of bread. While they ate, I made the bread dough, and then brought it to the table where I proceeded to 'smack' the dough lumps against the table to shape them and work the air bubbles through. Maisie and Dany are both used to this, and Dany often says "Smack", as I throw the dough quite vigorously against the tabletop. Kolby looked at me like someone should be yelling at me for doing what I was doing, and Avery looked very concerned, until about the third dough ball, when she stared saying "Ack" along with Dany. Kolby, realizing I wasn't going to get in trouble, became very fascinated with the whole thing, and wanted to stick his fingers in the dough. Instead of having him poke my nicely formed loaves, I offered to let him and Maisie make their own bread. I whipped up another batch of dough, and they went to town! Here they are shaping their dough:
And here, they're getting ready to "Smack" it:
Look how proud they are! With only a little help from me, the dough ended up safely in the little bread pans:
And here's the end result. Not too shabby for a couple of monkeys:
Slightly misshapen, but quite tasty! And the kids had a great time both making and eating it, so as far as I'm concerned, Mission Accomplished!

How Appropriate

Never did an outfit match an individual so well as Danyn's did yesterday. Perhaps I should have sensed the foreshadowing in dressing my youngest in a "Here Comes Trouble" t-shirt, but I guess I was naively optimistic.

Shortly after she was put in said t-shirt, I stopped drying my hair and realized that the house seemed far too quiet. I asked Maisie where Dany was, and received the typical, "I don't know." I had just resolved to go find her myself, when I heard the swift rushing sounds of cereal pouring out of a box. I ran into the kitchen to discover that Dany had poured an almost full box (large size, of course) of Crispix on the floor underneath the table. Quite the pile it made. She was surrounded by other cereal boxes that, thankfully, she hadn't managed to open yet, and whose contents remained intact. After sweeping the whole crunchy, powdery mess into the garbage can, I needed a moment to mourn the loss of my cereal. I love Crispix.

That night, after she almost ended up headfirst in the pool several times at Maisie's swim lesson, we stopped at Arctic Circle for dinner. The girls love their mini corndogs, and since Dany loves ketchup, we mix her Singulair into it without any fear of it not being eaten. Now, these pictures really don't do it the justice it needs, but Dany's entire face back to her ears was covered in ketchup by the time she was finished. It was up to her elbows, and smeared in her hair, because she seems to love to use her hair as a napkin. How did she manage that, you ask? Well, it looks as though I underestimated her love of ketchup, thinking she'd simply use her fingers to dip her fries and what not. Well, once they were gone, there was still ketchup left over, and apparently she wasn't willing to let it go to waste. This is the result of her licking off the paper wrapper I'd squirted it onto:
That smile almost makes it seem like fun, huh? Maybe we'd all be a lot happier if we took some time out of our busy days to stick our noses in some ketchup.

Not Exactly a Fish...

Maisie endured her final swim lesson yesterday. For the past seven weeks, she's been going every Tuesday night with her cousin Henry, a plan that both of us moms thought was a spectacular idea. These two are so competitive, they'd try to one-up each other right? Wrong. No, in fact, having a cousin there to watch only served to add to the hysteria. Notice the deathgrips they both have on their very patient teacher:

Now, I don't expect them to be a mini Michael Phelps or anything, but if you'd heard the talk in the car on the way to the pool, you'd have thought they'd both be a little more eager to actually leave the side of the pool, especially as their teacher held them the entire time. "I'm going to be tough, Mom!" "I'm going to jump in!" "Well, I'm going to put my nose in the water!" Look at how "brave" our Little Swimmers are while clinging to the side.









At this point I'm not sure whether or not Maisie is MORE afraid of the water than when we started seven weeks ago. Oh well, at least it was cheap.

Free is Good

So after months of trying to acquire some tickets to see James Taylor at the USANA amphitheater, Teag was given 4 free tickets yesterday afternoon, approx. 7 hours before show time. We invited Kev & Meg to come along, as they are fellow James Taylor fans. It took some doing, but we finally figured out a babysitting arrangement, and we were good to go! They were lawn tickets, but we weren't about to look a gift horse in the mouth (despite what Teag thinks.).

Since grass seating is first come, first served, we wanted to get there as early as possible, which left us with over an hour of time to kill. Kev & Meg spent most of their 401k on a couple of not-so-tasty hamburgers, and we all bought some shirts to commemorate the event. Thanks to Kristen for sneaking in her camera, and taking the pics! :)
It was a really great show, and we had a lot of fun. JT sang some fun cover tunes, as well as many classics that we all love so much. Kevin only wishes he can be that cool when he's in his sixties.
It's funny, I've only ever been to two concerts, and they've both been free, and they've both been James Taylor. The first one, a couple of years ago, we had tickets on row 11 in the center. That was pretty freaking awesome, but this one was great too. I think it helped make up for the disappointment of the weekend. Teag and I don't get to do things like this too often, so we were both extremely grateful for the opportunity. We love you JT!

We Didn't Start the Fire

This past weekend, the extended Baylys were slotted to gather together at Blackhawk campground, on the backside of Mt. Nebo. Teag was once again supposed to pick up his boss's kids, so after packing me up on Friday morning, he and Dany took off for the airport while Maisie and I drove down to Provo to pick him up. We arrived at the campground sometime around 3 pm, and set up our gear with no problems. After a few hours of visiting, and campfire roasted hotdogs for dinner, Teag took off again, driving back down to the plane he'd parked in Provo. Two of my brothers-in-law, Treg and Tom, left about the same time in order to pick up Treg's son Jordan from scout camp. That left all the women, and Doug, Teag's dad. We visited for awhile, until Tristin showed up around 10 pm. Her husband, Kris, was home with their daughter who was sick.

The four of us girls, Tiff, Tris, Carolyn and I sat around a lantern (that's right, no campfire. Oh the irony!) chatting and waiting up for at least some of the menfolk to return. Around midnight, we heard some noises, and figured it was most likely Treg and Tom returning to camp. Carolyn and Tiff went to check it out, and came frantically running back shortly thereafter, informing us that there was a fire, and that we needed to evacuate, NOW. That was about all the information we got.

Needless to say, that got the adrenaline pumping. I'm proud to say I didn't freak out, even when I realized I had no car. In a fortunate coincidence, Tristin had her car seats, and we were able to get the girls squared away. We quickly gathered the basics - clothes, diaper bags, and some food, and left our tents, and other gear behind. And of course, with no men other than Doug around, what are the odds? We decided to meet up at Treg and Carolyn's house in Alpine, to establish that everyone was safe, and meet up with our spouses. As Tristin and I drove out of the canyon the fire was very visible on the mountainside, sweeping up the hill, and around the side of the mountain. I didn't have my camera, but this is very much what it looked like from our perspective. (Pictures courtesy of ksl.com)

I was able to reach Teag before he'd driven back from Provo, and he instead headed to Alpine like the rest of us. We didn't pull into the driveway until 2:30 am. Some brave souls decided to go home, but others spent the night spread throughout Treg's house. Dany wouldn't go back to sleep after I ripped her from her sleeping bag, and stayed awake for the whole hour and a half car ride, and well into the night/morning, finally falling asleep across Teag's neck around 5 am.

The next morning, we tried getting ahold of any authority who could tell us whether or not we could get into the canyon to retrieve our belongings. Teag and Treg finally just decided to drive up there, and call us with whatever they found out. Meanwhile, the ladies had a giant combined breakfast to feed all the hungry, irritable children.Carolyn looks punchy, Tristin looks tired, and notice I didn't include myself in the picture :)

Payson Canyon was closed until Sunday evening, but they allowed us to go up via Santaquin, and pack up our stuff. It was reported that 700 acres were burned in all. The fire wasn't even close to our campground, but it seemed as though they were mostly concerned about our exit being cut off by the fire. Apparently the whole thing was started by an exploding raccoon.

Alas, the only pictures we got from actual camping are of Dany enjoying a bowl of popcorn. Such a little monkey.









Obviously not the weekend we'd planned, and we're a little more worse for wear, but hey! It makes a great story! And the most important thing is that everyone is safe.