Family Photos

Well, Veronica Reeve, who took Dallin's 6 months pictures, took our family pictures a week ago. Here are the one's she posted on her blog. What do you all think. Russ and Dallin look great. I think she took so many of Dallin because she knows I'm a sucker for buying cute pictures of my baby. And if you are wondering why her post is lable the "J" Family, it's because I email her from my old account, Nicole Jenkins. I guess I never mentioned that my last name is now Richins. :)

What I Learned

So today I had a day off from work. I had already paid for daycare, so I thought I would make the most of this day. We all slept in about an hour. Once we got up, Russ and Dallin got ready for the day. I dropped Russ off at the train station, Dallin off at daycare, and I headed home. My plan---clean the house. I did jobs I have been putting off or just didn't have time to do when Dallin was around. I want to share a few things I learned today.

1. Baked on tomato soup is one of the hardest things to clean off. If it's not crusty and completely baked on, forming a hard and impenetrable outer shell, then it is this slimy outer layer that you must clean off layer by layer until you then reach the crusty shell below.

2. You can start your oven on fire when seasoning a dutch over. This leads me to....

3. It takes a good hour to get all the smoke to clear out of your house. In the mean time, your eyes burn and your nose runs and you are freezing because it snowed a foot yesterday and all your windows and doors are open at 9 am.

4. A sign of craziness is looking all over your house for the banana you where going to eat until you realized the oven was on fire, then eventually finding the banana peel in the garbage. I must have eaten it, but I have absolutely not memory of doing so.

5. Laundry multiples in the hamper.

6. The problem with deep cleaning is the more you clean, the more there is to clean.

This is today in a nutshell.

Update: Not long after I posted this, I got a call from the daycare. Dallin was running a fever of 101.9. That put an end to my cleaning day. On a brighter note, after picking up Dallin from daycare, we went to my mom's. Dallin took a long nap while I finished making the sorbet I started yesterday. It was yummy. Get the recipe here.

Cool Story Con't (Pictures)

Read the Cool Story first so you understand the pictures.



So here is the "other guy's" car. I can't believe he only had a broken finger and some bad bruises where his seat belt was. The cop from the scene called my mom tonight. I guess the guy was going 75-85 mph when he hit. He's lucky he didn't roll.

Here's a view of Dan's car from the driver's side door. Notice how the driver's seat is on top of the passenger's seat.

Another view of the driver's side door. We think that in the upper right corner, where the headrest of the driver's seat should be, is the backseat.

And here's a picture from the back end of the car. The back tire is somewhere in the location that the backseat passengers usually put their feet. I think everyone involved was very blessed. Dan told me when he pulled over originally, he didn't think he was far enough off the side of the road, so he decided to coast forward about 10 more feet. And I'm convinced that if the guy hadn't hit the car, he would have flipped, ended upside down, and his injuries would have been bad. And we are lucky my dad and Jay didn't decide to go change the tire when Jay got home after 11pm. They may have still been there when it happened. On a lighter note, when my dad told Jay that it was a good thing they didn't go that night or they might have been killed, Jay responded with, "Maybe that was the plan. Maybe we messed up the plan with our laziness." Count on Jay to have a sense of humor in every circumstance. Thanks for keeping us laughing Jay!

Cool Story (Or At Least I Think So)

So last night Dan was coming to Ogden from Logan with a date, when his Honda got a flat tire on the freeway near Willard. This was strange, since the tires were new last week. Dan got out of the car to see if he could fix the tire, but he didn't have a jack. He called my dad to come and help. Dad showed up in his truck and with a jack, but they could not get the jack to work. After a while, they decided to leave the car on the side of the freeway. Dan dropped Dad off at home and left on his date in the truck. My dad called his cousin Jay to go with him to get the Honda. Jay wasn't home and wouldn't be home till about 11 pm. They planned on going to get the car then, but once 11 rolled around, they changed their minds. They would get it in the morning instead.

This morning my mom gets a phone call around 8 am, before my dad had a chance to go and get the Honda. They caller was a lady in her Stake. She asked if my mom had a Honda that was on the freeway last night. My mom told her yes. The lady then informs her that it is no longer there. What had happened was her son was driving home from a date last night about midnight. I'm sure he was going about 75 mph, and he fell asleep. He crashed right into the Honda and totaled it. He woke up to the the air bags deploying. Her son was able to walk away with nothing more that a broken finger. If he hadn't hit the Honda, I'm sure he would have rolled and who knows how bad off he would have been. As my mom said, what are the odds that he would fall asleep at just the right time so he would hit the Honda and not roll off the freeway?

I thought it was a pretty cool story.

**If Dan or Dad read this story, please correct any info that I have wrong. This is how I understood it from Mom.

Bath Time

Dallin loves to take a bath. And it's been tons esier since a friend on mine lent me her baby bath seat. It's great. He still tries to climb out of it after a while, but that's my cue that bath time is over.



A while back I had a video of when we first put Dallin in his jumper. His feet didn't even touch the ground. Now he's almost too big for it, but boy does he love it.

This Is A Favorite Of Russ

We were watching You Tube this evening and came across this Scrubs song. Russ was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. Since we have a good time watching Ben's Daily Humor together, Russ thought we would share a bit of our own today. Warning: If you are going to be offended by someone singing about poop, you better not watch this video.

Anyone Want To Babysit?

OK, so I found a new website called Worth1000.com. It has tons of tutorials, mostly for Photoshop, but some of them work well for Photoshop Elements as well (which is what I have). I thought I would share with you the products of my efforts. My other two babies.....

First up, my alien baby. Isn't he sweet?

Of course he's cute. Look how good his mom looks.


Next, Dallin's evil twin. I knew Dallin was too good. He had to have an evil half somewhere. I found him.

Thanks to everyone for humoring me. And no April, these aren't real babies. :)