Yesterday was Jarom and Alixa’s sixth anniversary. Jarom celebrated by eating dinner with Nate and Kenz and then watching TV on their couch so they could leave Kenna and go see a movie together. Lix went golfing with her dad and brother in the morning and then went to Jackson Hole for the day. Somehow it just doesn’t seem fair.
It has been a little over a week since Lix and Jenna left, and Jarom is very excited to get them back. One advantage of the free time he has is that he has been able to go to the gym almost every day. He very much enjoys working out, but it has been a little depressing to realize how much of a sissy he has become since he stopped lifting weights, which was about two years ago when they left Utah.
Speaking of Utah, Alixa loves it and wants to move back there. She had a wonderful few days visiting President and Sister Winn. She had a wonderful dinner with them and the Souliers, some nice folks who used to live in Delaware. Their son is now married to a Hinckley, and the late prophet’s son was in attendance. Lix said that it was kind of neat but a little disconcerting because the son looks so much like the father, and I imagine it would be a little bit odd to eat a meal with the president of the church.
Lix also got to see all of her old college friends, many of whom now have their own little ones, and she loved it. She took a couponing class and is now trained to save us hundreds of dollars each month, which is very exciting to Jarom. On Tuesday she borrowed a car from Grandma and headed up to Rexburg to meet her parents and see Zak and Sam and their new baby girl. After some initial problems sleeping in the same room with Mimi and Opa, who might snore a little, things have settled down and the girls are having a wonderful time. Apparently Jenna has taken quite a liking to PJ and they have been spending a lot of time together, which is great. It is really nice that Jenna has been able to see so much of her grandparents and cousins, a trend that hopefully will be able to continue as she grows up.
This week’s post comes from a lonely house with no Alixa and no Jenna. They packed up their bags and left town after a particularly hurtful argument on Wednesday night. Fortunately, plane tickets had already been purchased and plans made to visit both sets of grandparents in the great states of Utah and Idaho for a period of 14 days, during which time Alixa will hopefully think about the things that she said and return to Richmond ready to apologize and repair what is left of her relationship with Jarom.
Word on the street is that the girls are having a wonderful time, enjoying the lack of humidity and the abundance of Café Rio. There are old friends to visit, grandparents to take advantage of, and plenty of other stuff to keep them busy.
Jenna was lucky and got her own seat on one leg of the flight
Last week Jenna got some shots, and perhaps they made her a little bit sick, or perhaps she just got a little bit sick and it is unrelated to the shots she got. But one way or another, she was not feeling well and simply refused to go to bed. Lix and Jarom had both taken a shot at rocking her to sleep, and she would get quiet and rest until they left the room, at which point she would start crying again. It was Jarom’s turn to go console her, only this time she wouldn’t settle down even when he was holding her. After a few minutes Lix came up to see why Jarom couldn’t fix her. It was about this time that Jenna began coughing pretty hard, and it became clear that something bad was about to go down. Or come up. After a few coughs Jenna puked rancid, chunky, vomit all over her dad. And while that is certainly gross, it wasn’t the vomit on his shirt and shorts that hit him the hardest. It was the pungent, nose-burning odor that accompanied it. Fortunately it was Jarom who was holding her at the time and not Alixa. His response to vomit is to contain it in as small an area as possible, while hers is to spread it around everywhere. As soon as Jenna was finished they moved to the bathroom where they climbed into the tub and took a shower while Lix removed the offending articles of clothing and washed them or burned them or something. As a side note, at what point does father-daughter nudity become inappropriate? Anyway, they got cleaned up and Jenna seemed to feel better, because she went right to sleep and didn’t wake up for about 12 hours.
At Build-A-Bear with Mom and Grandma
And that isn’t the only trouble she’s been causing lately. It seems that Jenna is as smart as she is portly, and she has figured out how to use temper tantrums to express her displeasure. While sometimes cute, they can also be a little embarrassing. One of Jenna’s favorite things to do while shopping with Mom is to push the carts around the stores. It is pretty funny to watch, because she works very hard and refuses to stop pushing, even when she has hit an obstacle or you are holding onto the cart. So when the shopping trip is over and Lix is in the checkout line, she has to make Jenna stop pushing, which triggers ear-piercing shrieks from Jenna and prompts all kinds of disapproving, judgmental stares from nearby shoppers who seem to be wondering why this lady can’t control her little rat.
But for now the little rat and her mom are enjoying the West and Jarom is seeing what his life would be like if her were still single. He keeps trying to pick up women, but has yet to have any success. Maybe he should start wearing his wedding ring, I hear that sometimes helps. Enjoy the amusing series of video clips of Jenna trying to ride her car.
This week the Winns celebrated cuatro de Julio in style, by inviting themselves to a party being thrown by a family in the ward who was far too nice to tell them they couldn’t come. Said party took place at a house, not a van, down by the river. There was a pool where Jenna could splash about with the many other children who came, more food than you could shake a stick at, and most importantly, a boat and two jet skis. Jarom is always enthusiastic when it comes to water sports, Alixa not so much. But he was able to convince her to join him for a run on the tube, something she can usually not be convinced to do as a result of her fear of skipping across bodies of water. She handled herself superbly, thanks to some fine coaching from Jarom on how to lean into the turns. They stayed on for a minute or two until Lix decided that her arms had had enough and simply let go. They boated and jetskied and swam and chatted the afternoon away, staying until Jenna was exhausted and letting her sleep on the drive back home.
This dog had asthma, which is why it sounds like a pig. Jenna thought it was a hoot and followed it around all day long.
Trying to get a drink from mom
Photographic evidence of child abuse
This week also had two photo shoots, as Lix tried her best to get some cute shots of Jenna near her first birthday. The first round was with her cousin Kenna, and they did not go well. Kenna did fine, but Jenna was a grumpopotamus and almost all of the pictures show her biting her lower lip and giving the photographer a stern, almost angry look. So we gave it another shot a few days later, and the results were far superior. http://searsphotos.com/SessionLink.ashx?n=S41445R1112171&p=KNHCM. Here is the link. You can check them out, if you want.
We continue to love Richmond and are feeling more and more at home as time passes. We are even becoming better friends with some of the neighbors. The Waterses live next door and have been pleasant and helpful as we’ve moved in, so we’ve selected them to become friends with. They are a young couple with no kids, he’s a fireman and she’s a nurse, so we figure that covers a few bases should any kind of emergency occur.
Jenna continues to entertain us on a daily basis. She has learned to identify a variety of animals in the books that she reads 50 times a day, and Alixa is working on her animal sounds. She makes a distinct duck sound and cow sound and will do them on command pretty much any time, unless of course mom or dad are trying to get her to show someone else. Then she just looks at them like they are crazy and won’t open her mouth. Mostly she just won’t stop walking around, whether it is through the mall or at the children’s museum or simply taking laps around the rooms in the house. She is pretty good, but still wobbly enough that it is fun to watch.
On our shopping trip to JCPenney she went straight for the jewelry. Just like her mom.
Trying on some accessories
Reading a magazine in her new "big girl" forward facing car seat
I know this is starting to sound like a broken record, but Jenna has once again smashed up her face. This time she hit her right eye, so she now has one black eye on the way out and one on the way in. My theory is that she very much enjoys doing her animal impersonations, and is trying to look like a panda.
Poor little girl
Other than the child abuse, Jenna’s first week as a one-year-old has been a great one. She got lots of wonderful toys for her birthday, from cousins and grandmas and parents and friends, and she says thank you to all of you who thought of her. Her biggest present is a Fisher-Price barn thing with a whole bunch of buttons to push and games to play. Several of the buttons play music, which is sung by the official Fisher-Price song lady, who Jenna has heard about a gazillion times. But for some reason the first time Jarom set her down to play with the toy she heard that voice and began to sob uncontrollably. It was kinda sad, but also hilarious. For a few hours she wavered between loving her new toy and being deathly afraid of it, but she seems to have gotten over it and is currently working on mastering all of the tricks on the barn. She also got some musical instruments, much to her parent’s delight. She particularly enjoys banging on the drum and shaking the maracas.
She's learning what sound a cow makes
Lix made a cake for Jenna to enjoy, with the hope that she would dig into it and we could get some cute pictures of the kid with food all over her face. I’m not entirely sure why Lix thought that was going to happen, since Jenna has always been the least messy child we’ve ever met, but she did. She was sorely disappointed as Jenna simply looked at the cake in front of her and patiently waited for Jarom to give her some spoonfuls. Nate and Kenz and Kenna came over to help us celebrate, and it was pretty fun in spite of the cleanliness.
That cake might as well be radioactive as far as she is concerned
On Sunday Jenna got to wear her tutu to church, much to the delight of the older ladies in Relief Society. I feel a little bad for the teachers in the classes she attends, because people (including her parents) seem to have a hard time paying attention to the lessons whenever Jenna and Kenna are playing nearby. Also at church, Lix got pulled aside and assigned to speak in a few weeks, so we are all very excited for that.
With her new baby doll. Don't worry, she is giving it kisses, not trying to eat its head.
The birthdays continued all week long, with Kenz turning 26 (I think) and Bruce turning 75 (I think) on Monday, and Kenna reaching the one year mark on Wednesday. So most of the week was spent making desserts and attending parties. Both kidlets are very excited about each other’s presents, and it is a great situation because they both essentially get twice as many presents since they share everything anyway. Mixed in with all the celebrations was a trip to the doctor, where Jenna got some shots and a finger pricked. It made her sad and tired and grumpy for a day or two, but I suppose that is better than dying from M, M, or R. Yea for modern medicine!
Bath time is still one of her favorite times of the day
The heat finally broke this week and the weather has been gorgeous. Since it isn’t sweltering, there were no pool visits, but we did get a membership to the Children’s Museum of Richmond and Lix took Jenna there a couple of times. It is basically a giant play area, which is awesome. Some of the games are aimed at kids a little older than Jenna, but she enjoys watching the other kids and there are plenty of things that she can do. Between the museum and pools, Lix should be set to beat the heat of July and August.
Working out at home
Yesterday the Winns took a field trip to the park to enjoy the wonderful weather outside. There were lots of dogs for Jenna to pet, lots of ducks for Jenna to feed (although they didn’t eat because they are woefully overfed), and a big grass field for her to walk around. She is becoming very health conscious and found some weights that a local exercise group had left out while they did some running. She couldn’t quite lift them by herself, but her dad was happy to give her a spot and she had a great time working out.
Working out at the park
I hope you all have a great time celebrating America’s birthday, just be careful to not blow your hands off with fireworks!
Today Jenna turns one. Looking back on it, we are pretty glad that she came to live with us, because she has been quite a bundle of fun over the past 12 months. I’ll put some birthday pictures up next time, but wanted to make sure and wish her a happy first birthday via the internet.
How old is Jenna?
The past week around her has been a pretty interesting one. It began last weekend when Jarom’s asian work-cousin Karen Nguyen offered to babysit Jenna for a few hours while he and Lix went and played some golf together. Jenna loved Karen and was not the least bit sad when Mom and Dad left or the least bit excited when they returned. Even though that hurt their feelings a little, they are glad that she plays well with others. As for the golf, Alixa beat Jarom 5 and 4, which for those of you who don’t know golf scoring is the absolute worst beating Jarom could possibly receive. The rematch has already been scheduled, and Jarom has promised me he will restore his honor.
Sunday was Father’s Day, and all Jarom wanted was breakfast in bed. Unfortunately, breakfast was pancakes and Lix thought that maple syrup and clean sheets didn’t mix well, so he had to have breakfast at the table. But he did get a wonderful nap and an awesome custom-made tie from his wife and daughter that he will definitely wear all the time, so it was a pretty good day.
I'm not entirely sure why the month and year needed to be on there, but it looks great
On Monday, Jarom got the following text message from Lix - Jenna fell off the bed. Worst mother of the year award. Im sorry. She seems to have recovered. Lix had set her up on the bed while she put away some laundry, and Jenna was a little too quick in getting to the far edge. Alixa almost grabbed her foot, but not quite. So we are continuing to test the limits of Jenna’s durability. So far, so good.
Since the heat wave has continued here in Virginia, the Winn’s have been taking some field trips in the evenings to take advantage of other people’s air conditioning. One day they went to the pet store, where Jenna always has the time of her life. She loves seeing people with their dogs, and enjoys all of the pets, from fish to lizards to birds to mice. They were pretty lucky with their timing as well, because they got to see the hamsters right in the middle of mating season. Even though they felt a little bit dirty watching what was going on, it was just too funny to turn away.
Enjoying the pool on the deck
Another day they went to Dicks Sporting Goods, where Lix needed a headband to keep the sweat out of her eyes while she works out. While they were there Jenna played with an assortment of bouncy balls. They also spent some time at the practice putting green in the golf section, where Jarom putted balls and Jenna chased them down and brought them back. It has also been about 5 years since the last time Jarom got some new t-shirts, so they picked up a few while they were out.
Playing around at Richard's
As far as Jenna’s habits go, she continues to be a very neat baby, perhaps borderline OCD. She loves to put things away, which is nice because her toys are usually in their basket or in drawers out of sight. Unfortunately, she doesn’t really know where anything goes, so Jarom has to regularly check the trash cans, where he often finds Jenna’s toys, or his phone, or other things. Her favorite thing to do is read books. She will walk around the house until she finds a book, then she will bring it to you and raise her arms so that you put her on your lap and read to her. Her favorite book is That’s not my Teddy, which she has read approximately 14 trillion times. But she doesn’t get tired of it, and Jarom and Lix like reading to her, so it’s okay. Lix has also been working on some sing-along songs with hand actions, like patty-cake and open-shut them.
Toys in the basket, reading a book (upside down), happy as a clam
Jarom paid a visit to a local hospital this week to see the Labor and Delivery Unit for work, and it was amazing to see all the newborns and remember that Jenna used to be that size. Alixa is a little bit sad that she isn’t a baby anymore and we have begun to see some signs of independence, like intentionally disobeying and fake crying to get things, but we all love her very much and think that she is a pretty sweet and very fun little kiddo. Hopefully her next year is even better than her first.
In honor of USA Soccer's moving on to the knockout round, a youtube video about "football."
