She's a witch!

Jarom and I have been pretty lonely this past week because Lix and Jenna went to Delaware for “Halloween.” I put that in quotes because the real reason they went is so that Grandma can see Jenna, and whenever that happens they say it is for whatever holiday or event is closest. So we will be getting baby clothes on Flag Day and have visits for Spring Equinox and the like. Jarom has been pretty bummed without his family, but the girls had a great time visiting and got to see the entire Winn clan while they were there. They got home today, and Jenna doesn’t even recognize her dad anymore. It’s sad.

Jenna's grumpiest face ever

Uncle Jason risking Jenna's life. She seems happy about it.

Frogman, who is now in heated competition with Fufu for Jenna's love

Jenna and Luke

Jarom did get to visit the dentist while he was alone, which was no good. He had one minor cavity to be filled. He hates the dentist and hates the things that they do to him there, but he does very much enjoy the numbing agents that he gets. His dentist in Provo was the best because they would give him Nitrous Oxide, which he highly recommends to anyone and everyone. Here it was just a shot of Novocaine, but the tingly sensation that comes along with it is the same. It is a good thing he is far too cheap to ever consider taking up a drug habit.

Yummmmm

Since it has been a slow week, I will share an interesting thought that I have had. The arrival of Jenna, and really any small baby, has inevitably produced occasions wherein one of her parents will thrust her up into the air in the same way that Simba is held up by Rafiki at the beginning of The Lion King. The interesting part is that this action will always be followed by the singing of the accompanying song. Nobody knows the words to that song, because it is in Swahili or some other African language, but everyone has their own version of the words, and they are all unique. Alixa and Jarom each have a distinct version that they claim is correct. For a fun game, ask some people that you know (boyfriends, neighbors, coworkers) for their version to see if it matches with your own. For easy reference I will give you the actual footage for comparison. You really only need to watch the first 30 seconds, but keep going if you want to.

Places to be

I hope you all enjoyed the video from last week. Along with her newfound ability to spit, Jenna is starting to seem like she has places to go. She refuses to stay in one place if you set her down, rolling over until she runs into something, and doesn’t like to be held most of the time. She squirms and tries to sit up, bounces up and down on her legs, and generally shows an interest in being somewhere else. This is terrible news for the Winns, who recently had a visit from their friends Brad and Amanda and their two-year old Addi. Said visit made it quite clear that nothing in the house is baby proofed in the slightest. Jarom is hoping that Jenna will sit tight for a few more months so they can just worry about it when we get wherever we are going.

Jenna's new Bumbo makes her look even squattier than normal

The many smiles of Jenna

Speaking of wherever we are going, Jarom has been getting a steady stream of rejection letters for all the jobs he is applying for. But he continues to plod along, with much help from his employment specialist, Alixa. She does a great job of finding things for him to apply for, and then he just has to fill out applications and write cover letters and stuff. She seems to genuinely enjoy it, so who is Jarom to deny her that pleasure? But back to the visitors.

Knoxville's Sunsphere

That's birdpoop in Lixi's hair. It was a traumatic experience.

Jenna and her mom, and Alixa

Lix thinks this is a very cute picture

This is where Alixa wants to sit next time they go to a game. And Amanda seems to think she is at a KISS concert or something.

Brad and Amanda rolled in on Sunday evening, upset that the Eagles-Raiders game was not to be found on Knoxville basic cable. At least there was a Phillies game on. Monday morning everyone except for Jarom got up and headed out to Dollywood for a fun day of amusement parking. It was a nice day, albeit a little chilly, and admission was free thanks to Brad’s job at Hershey Park up in PA. The only downside was that Addi was sick enough to merit a visit to the ER, where they were told that she had strep. On Tuesday Jarom joined the group and they walked around downtown Knoxville, climbing the sunsphere and visiting Neyland stadium. The short visit ended on Wednesday when they headed back north by car and Lix and Jenna headed the same direction on a plane. Now Jarom is all by himself in Tennessee while his wife and kid enjoy an eight-day vacation with Grandma. They are enjoying themselves so far, which is good because it makes it a little easier to listen to Jarom crying himself to sleep each night. He is really quite a baby.

Motorboating

Jenna has started to be quite the mimicking robot, and her most recent past time is motorboating. She is still working on it, and mostly just spits all over herself and everything around her. But she lays in her crib at bedtime and practices by herself a lot, so she'll be a pro in no time.

OMG, BTR L8 THN NVR

Some of you may have received a text message this week from an unlikely source – Alixa. If you did not receive a text message, don’t worry – it just means she doesn’t like you very much. After living in the stone age of cell phones for the past eternity, the Winns have finally stepped into the light, sort of. You see the Olive Garden has a little deal with Verizon that gives their employees a discount. When Omi and Opa heard about that, they decided that Lix should get back onto their family plan so they could enjoy the savings. This means that Alixa is now able to send an unlimited number of text messages to anyone other than Jarom, who is still resisting the inevitable. Maybe when he sees how useful the service is to Lix he will break down and spend the extra $10 each month. To make Lix even happier, she got a new phone. It’s a fire engine red Samsung slide phone with a QWERTY keyboard so she can text super fast. It’s awesome.

This was dangerously close to being the last photo Jarom ever took

Jarom is still enjoying his job tutoring football players and trying to keep them from failing out of college. This week he had to pay off a bet that he lost when Florida beat the Vols a few weeks ago. A coworker of Grandpa Winn said that if UF won he would send Jarom a Florida tee shirt to be worn on campus. Jarom did him one better and wore it to the football team study hall, where he received a good many questioning looks and mean-spirited questions. But he survived, and got a free shirt out of the deal. He also got a couple of free tickets for the UT-UGA game from one of his players. So this morning everyone got up, loaded the diaper bag with every conceivable necessity and followed the flow of people towards Neyland Stadium, home of over 100,000 crazy people. It was a chilly, rainy morning but the sun came out a little and the rain stopped in time for the game. Everybody seemed enamored with Jenna, from the security guard who ignored their bag at the gate (if you ever need to get firearms in somewhere, babies are the key) to the ticket agent who gave them seats on the 50-yard line to the fans who were sitting around them. They tried to see if there were any other babies in the stands, but never saw one. I guess we aren’t in Provo anymore. It was a great experience, and a great game. The Vols delivered a beat down to the bullpuppies, which made for as loud an environment as you can imagine. Jenna didn’t seem to mind it too much, and was even able to sleep through a big chunk of the second quarter. Lixi noted that this is the only time she has ever rooted against Georgia, and I feel her pain. Along with the Philly Phanatic, Uga is one of the best mascots in sports, a position he cemented when he attacked an Auburn player after scoring a touchdown. Interestingly, it wasn’t the only dog attack on a Tiger, so I don’t know what Auburn’s beef is with canines. Anyway, they stuck around until after halftime, when Jenna started to get a little fussy.

All thugged out for a chilly gameday

Pretty good seats

After getting home, Jenna got some food and then decided to barf all over Daddy. She needed a bath anyway, so they threw her in, where she promptly decided to poo. Alixa could not have been more horrified, quickly pulling her out of the tub and putting her on the toilet, where she finished doing her business. I guess we will go ahead and call her potty trained now. After all that she crashed and will probably sleep for about a day. She loves to sleep for long stretches of time, and loves to rub soft things like blankets on her face as she falls asleep. These are a pair of typical Jarom behaviors, and along with some other signs they have convinced him that he is definitely Jenna’s dad and that no paternity test is needed. Alixa had so much fun today at the football game that she wants to go to another one. If they do, they will definitely get a babysitter for Jenna so they can stay the whole time and not have to worry about dirty diapers and bottles and stuff. Send Alixa a text if you would be willing to watch the rat!

Post game unconsciousness, with Fufu and her soft green blanket

Alixa's first cross-stitch project for Jenna. It took forever and it turned out really nicely.

Knoxville Chainsaw Annoyance

This week has been highlighted by some yard work going on at Country Club Apartments. Behind our little house are a number of trees that were growing pretty close to the building, at least until management decided to have them removed. I guess that we are now safer because a tree is no longer likely to fall into the bedroom whilst we sleep, but it has meant people with chainsaws cutting down trees 10 feet outside our windows at 8 am. Admittedly, this has bothered Alixa more than anyone else, as there are some pretty deep sleepers in the family, myself included. The worst thing actually happened in the afternoon. Jarom and Alixa were having some samwiches when they heard the now-familiar sound of a tree falling in the back yard. This was followed by the agonizing screams of a man who sounded like he was being eaten alive by a pack of hungry wolves. Due to the proximity of the trees to the building, an elaborate set of ropes was used to make sure no damage was done. In this instance, the ropes somehow managed to pin the logger’s hand to the tree, with a 25-foot section of a pine tree attached to it. We all had to listen for about 10 minutes while the victim tried to get to his chainsaw, start it, and cut the ropes to free the tree, all with only one hand and in the most intense pain I’ve ever listened to. Honestly, it was terrible.

The backyard, only now those trees are gone

On a happier note, the world famous Knoxville fall weather has arrived. The humidity is gone, it is sunny and in the 70’s, and it gets a little chilly at night. It’s perfect. To go along with that, Jenna has gone back to sleeping through the night, a trick she began at the 2-month mark, but didn’t last. She continues to get chubby, and is more animated and fun to be around every day. Her parents have decided that she will have a stuffed animal buddy, named Fufu. They have forced her to like it so that they can take pictures because they think it is adorable. I think it is ridiculous. Jenna has mastered rolling over both front to back and back to front which is very exciting although it makes changing a diaper that much harder. Also this week, Jarom took Jenna in to visit Lix at the OG. This was Jenna’s second visit to the restaurant, but the first time she was in a bad mood and cried the whole time. This time she was so cute and pleasant that Lix’s manager told her that Jarom’s lunch was on the house. Way to go, Jenna!

Assorted shots of Jenna and Fufu. We think she may be the cutest kid ever. You may feel free to barf if our biased familial opinions make you sick.

The Winn’s also began attending their actual ward this week, mostly because Alixa made a deal with God that if we pay our tithing and go to the right ward He would find Jarom a job. I am a little skeptical that even God can find a job in this market, but I guess we will see if he really is all-powerful. Despite attending the other ward, we continue to participate in the old ward’s activities, including basketball, volleyball, and book club, which Alixa hosted at the house this week. The book was the Something Something Potato Peel Pie Society and Lix actually made potato peel pie for the activity, which I thought was cool.

Sad Jenna, Happy Jenna

Chillin' Jenna

The Winn’s other favorite pastime, playing Settlers of Catan online, also had an interesting twist recently. One evening this week Jarom was playing a game when one of the other players, realyellow3261 propositioned him with the inviting line, “Wanna cyber?” Jarom was interested in what “cybering” consisted of, according to realyellow3261. So he asked, and was told that basically dirty messages are typed back and forth between participants. This seemed like the least appealing, stupidest thing in the world to Jarom, and also he is married, so he declined. Realyellow was persistent though, and continued to make offers to Jarom, going from typing dirty messages to phone sex to web cams. All of this made Jarom giggle like a schoolgirl, but he abstained on all accounts. The story was later shared with Alixa, who is now keeping her eyes out for this realyellow home wrecker, presumably to give her a piece of her mind. Jarom doesn’t judge miss yellow though, because he knows how irresistible he is to women, even when they can only see his name and a goofy looking avatar.