A day in the Life of Us

I saw another friend do a recount of their day and thought it was so entertaining to see how they filled up the hours. So here goes a day in the life of us:

3 AM: Luke's crying...I'm debating whether or not to go and make another bottle for him. Should I just let him scream? Maybe any minute he'll calm down and go right back to sleep. I'm afraid to get up because I know my back is going to hurt. The crying is not diminishing. I get up-make him a bottle, soothe him to sleep and sing him the first of the day's, "I am a child of God." He falls back to sleep.

7:30 AM: It's Luke again. Time for another bottle. I feed him and get back in bed. Can't sleep so I decide to start the routine-get the laundry going, unload the dishes, fill up Luke's bottles, wipe off counter tops and look at the "Must do today" list.

9:30 AM: Luke's awake and ready to play. I plop him in his car seat for half of a long walk, load up my Primary stuff and walk to my Primary Presidency Meeting. I smell like Texas and am grateful that I brought body spray to waft around me before hugging the ladies.

11:00-Time to finish our long walk. Luke's eyes are sleepy. His shirt is completely soaked in his drool. Darn this teething. I see him fading into sleep. Panic runs through me-if he falls asleep now, when I still have 30 minutes to go until we are home, he won't go back to sleep once I open the garage. I try to pick up the pace but my back won't let me. I begin talking to Luke unnecessarily loud to keep him engaged. Two Asians walk by me looking at me very curiously. I decide to quiet down a bit.

11:30-Luke's down for a nap. Time to get the smell of Texas off of me. After a shower, I make breakfast (or lunch I should say)-my customary Protein Drink. What would the world be without Chocolate Royale Slim Fast, Non Fat Dry Milk and Vanilla Whey Protein powder? I take my back med's and sigh with relief as I stretch my warmed up muscles.

12:30 PM-Luke's awake-He kicks in his crib giggling to himself the second he sees me come through the door. It makes me feel like a celebrity. I plop him in the car and we head to Nikki's house for a Physical Therapy session. Thank heavens for Baby Einstein who is Luke's friend while my back gets worked on.

2:30: Time for another nap-I'm recovering from some intense stretching at Physical Therapy, just a little rest on the couch is alright? The medicine for my back begins to kick in. The world starts to become a little fuzzy. Thank-you drugs for taking away the pain...

3:00: Time for a make up Harp lesson. Apologies are said about my behavior or lack of tact: "It's all the medicine's fault," I say. I measured my words very carefully this past week. One time I had to take Theraflu before a lesson. I was attempting to say, "You are playing this at a medium tempo" but instead I said, "You are playing this at a very mediocre tempo." The student was crushed. I didn't break any hearts this past week, I hope.

4:00: Time to work on Primary and my "Things I would like to do this week" list.

5:30: Luke's awake! Time to go to the church and lock up the Nursery cabinets that I forgot to lock up on Sunday.

7:00: Time for Luke's last little nap before night time sleep. He fights it because I bounced him up the stairs. I have to remember to not excite him to much before this last nap. I have a tendency to do that and he has a tendency to not sleep. By 7:40 he has finally stopped talking to himself and drifted off to sleep.

8:30: I woke Luke up this time-can't have him sleeping too long. I bring Luke downstairs and place him in his High Chair. I have a drawer downstairs that has tons of Luke's toys which we have thus named, "The Downstairs Toys." He begins to play with them as I experiment with a new Bread recipe from my Sister, Kim. Luke loves the sound of the Bosch. We get the two loaves rising.

9:00: I notice Luke's nose dripping. I hoist him into the shower with me and try to steam him out so that he can have a "snot-free" night. Instead we end up splashing in the water and playing with the soap suds. He thought the towel on my head keeping my hair dry was hilarious.

9:30: Got the bread cooking and dressed baby Luke. Heck, why not turn on an episode of, "The Office." The old office though-with Steve Carrell-Oh the Good ole' days.

10:00: The Breads done! My house smells delicious. Luke's fighting me because he doesn't want his bottle. I give him a last turn in his jumper-roo while I get the bread out. We finish an episode of the office while he reluctantly drinks.

10:15: Luke's in bed and I'm organizing my schedule for tomorrow. We miss our Daddy tonight but are grateful that he would work hard for us. Our Austin office is going to be great because our Daddy is great.

Below is an old image of Luke. We took him to a fancy restaurant and got him a new shirt. Before buttoning it up, however, we took a picture. Doesn't he look like Antonio Banderez?

The Fall

No pictures this week.
Just a story that is quite a miracle.

I was going down the stairs with Luke on Wednesday.
Bella the cat, was either already on the stairs or she got in front of me while I was walking.
I stepped on her and fell down about 7 stairs.
I held tight to Luke and he came out unscathed.
I went to the Urgent care for X Rays and had no broken bones-just a deep contusion.

How is this a miracle, you ask?
I fell down 7 stairs and Luke doesn't have one bruise.
I fell down 7 stairs and I don't have a broken bone-just a contusion that feels like death and broken pride.
I put my whole weight on Bella and she's even alright.
I fell down 7 stairs and Alex was still home to save both Luke and I at the bottom.
I fell down 7 stairs, got rushed to Urgent care which was EMPTY-that's a miracle.
Did I mention that I fell down 7 stairs?
Lots of miracles at the Parker house this week.

Primary Temple Visit

We had a Primary Temple trip yesterday.
I have been so excited to take the kids to the temple, but this past week I think I might have thought of every single scenario of how this temple trip could go very, very wrong.
Thankfully, none of my fears were realized.
What was even more amazing was that the flowers had appeared. Did you know that the Temple had 8,000 Tulips planted this year!?

Below are our Primary kids with President and Sister Steward of the Temple Presidency.
We are so grateful for them taking the time to meet with our Primary.
After this visit, I couldn't help but feel so giddy to be a part of this church and surrounded by these sweet kids.
If you're in the Houston area, go to the temple-it's gorgeous.

Month 7

7 Months of kissing this face
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We couldn't be more in love with him.

What's Cookin'

I thought I would share some of the recipes that have been a hit in our house lately.
I owe my consistent craving of butter and bread to my dear friend, Ree Drummond.
Ok, she's not my dear friend-she's on Food Network and I have been following her blog since...well a while.
Her blog is: thepioneerwoman.com
Check her out.
She's awesome.
Type in any of the below recipes into her "search" engine and her step by step directions will appear.

Below is Sausage Kale Soup-aka Zuppa Toscana from Olive Garden.

Below is Frito Chili

Ravioli 3 ways below...

Spicy BBQ Beef Sliders

Pork Tenderloin with Peach Preserves. Yes, even this was husband approved.

I've been meaning to post these pictures of my Grandparents with baby Luke. I love them and had to post them.

Finally, I took Luke for a walk today and had to stop midway and introduce him to swings. He loved every minute of it.

Cousins Day

Kim and James went for a date in Austin yesterday so Alex, Luke and I got to play with the Smiths yesterday. Here are some shots captured with Luke and Packer. (The Girls were at school.)

Here is a shot from a long time ago. I got the chance to meet General Primary President, Sister Wixom at a fireside that my dad was presiding at. It looks like I'm crying because...well I was. We had such a nice chat about Primary and I felt so uplifted by her overall presence that I couldn't help but be teary eyed.

Luke and I are about to go to Sams club to buy Grapefruit.
I get to make a sheet cake tonight.
We get to have Chic-Fil-A for dinner tonight.
Life. Is. Good.

A Very Happy Un-Birthday to You!

Here he is!
A very Happy Half Birthday to the little Shnookums.
Take 1:
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Our half-birthday celebration at Market Street:
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Month 6 Photo
Take 2:

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A First for Everything

Seeing as Luke is our first child, we have had a lot of "firsts" around the Parker house:
First full night of sleep,
First smile,
First baby food testing,
First hickey,
First laugh attack,
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Wait, did she just say?...
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Yes, yes I did. First hickey.
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This is my first hickey in my entire life given to me by someone other than myself.
(In college, my roommates and I would sometimes laugh at our inexperience of having or giving a hickey so we would give one to ourselves on our arms-happily surprised every time when a blue and red spot would appear after only a few seconds of hard sucking...I actually think I did this with some of my High school girlfriends as well. I should write an essay on the subject.)
Hickies are quite an interesting phenomenon. But my inexperience with them is some what depressing. I don't even know if I'm spelling "hickey" right!? My spell check keeps wanting me to type "chickey"...

But I digress.

Luke has taken to kissing. It could be because he is being kissed about 648 times a day by either his daddy, myself, or even daring women that can't help themselves. Can you blame them?

Back to the point: Luke has taken to kissing. I have a video of him grabbing my face, pulling it to his and just kissing my cheek-chin area. I can't help but adore every second of it. A couple of nights ago, while watching "Parks and Recreation," I must have not realized the consequences of his incessant sucking. I woke up the next morning with a much brighter version of this:

Look closely. Right on my jaw line.
Alex was mad that we didn't get a picture earlier in the day and he felt that my make up was diluting it. We had to get some record of it, however.

This is a shot showing that the mark goes under my jaw line and onto my neck.
Alex began snapping the camera uncontrollably, hence the giggly smile.

So yes, Cathryn Parker has now received her first hickey.
I just feel a little uncomfortable that it came from my son.
I'll post the video once I figure out how to do that so that you, readers, think it's adorable too instead of (for lack of a better phrase) sick and wrong.

We had another first over the holidays:
I got to meet up with my cousin, Ally and her family.
She has just had a baby herself.
Ally is the closest cousin to my age. When we were younger, I would follow her around, trying to emulate her every move-mood-and beautiful long-blond-hair-toss. (Unfortunately, the latter usually resulted in major neck pain as my hair was never longer than just pass my ears.)
The gist being: I loved my cousin, Ally. Still do.

Brad and I ran down on Christmas Eve for an hour to meet her new baby, Blake.

Chris, Ally's husband, got this awesome candid of Brad while Ally and I were chatting. I think this is how he is feeling knowing that the two of us now have babies. :)

I can't help but start breaking into cheesy yet, fitting songs when I see pictures as shown below.
Songs like, "The Circle of life" from the Lion King,
or phrases from that song from "The Fiddler on the Roof"...goes something like, "Where is the little girl I carried?" (I obviously only know the tune).

Thank-you, Ally for these pictures. Thank-you for being a great cousin. Thank-you for laughing at my stupid jokes and letting me idolize you as we grew up.

He'll go inside someday...

Cousin Jackson came down for a visit.
We got some great pictures of the two of them.
Here's one of them

For a family resolution we are going to have the Temple be a bigger part of our lives.
Once a month Alex and I will go together,
the other month I will take Luke to walk around the grounds.
Today was Luke's first temple day.
He loved it and I loved it.
Here are some shots from the day.

Mellow

We had a very mellow evening.

Alex fed Luke Squash.
I decorated Seminary cookies.
I worked on my budget.
We watched Parks and Recreation.
Luke took a nap.
I looked at old pictures on my computer.

Here are some of them:

This is a picture taken at some of our best friends, Shannon and Jared's, wedding. I was terrified to be around Alex who had openly proclaimed his desire to date. If you look close enough, you might just be able to see written on Alex's face, "I'm gonna get you..." Then on mine: "I'm too young to get married!" :)

This is a fuzzy picture of me at Oxford. This is also where many pivotal scenes in the Harry Potter movie series take place. I'm feeling very lonely for England today. Perhaps my constant listening of Harry Potter novels needs to minimize.

Foggy London town...I took this the first day I was there.
I ran to this tower one day after finals.
It took me three hours.
I have never run that long or that far before or since.
It was a very liberating day.

I still love this Generational picture of my Grandma, my Mom and I in front of Trevi fountain. I still have a coin in that fountain somewhere...so a trip back is destined.