"Don't You Just Love Las Vegas in the Spring?"

Well aside from the wind Vegas has reached the wonderfully pleasant time of year (right before it consigns us all inside). So we are loving being outside as much as we can. Trustin put in grass about two weeks ago and it is heavenly! While we still have to remove shoes, clothes (If you are Zeke), and extraneous accessories before re-entering the house (the yard is still a lot of dirt) it is so great to have a way to play besides digging. Zeke has never said he wants to go outside he always says "Dig". Dig and Backyard are synonymous around here, but maybe not for long.

So here is our grass! Don't you just want to roll around in it? I do.

And last week Trustin found this sweet swing that a neighbor had set on the curb for the garbage truck. Zeke is a fan. He doesn't like to just swing on it though. The word associated with the swing is "big" as in "big push" He wants to swing big wide fast circles and if the ride starts getting too mellow he says urgently "BIG."

This is our jerryrigged garden death-prevention system. Again installed by the Trustin handyman.

These next few photos are from a hike Zeke and I went on today with a bunch of friends from the ward.
Zeke is quite the hiker. He rode in this backpack thing for a lot of the time which was certainly faster but I'm not certain it was entirely safe. It makes him sit so high up my back that I was completely top-heavy, (on top of being "middle heavy"), which made me feel rather un balanced as we walked along rock strewn, skinny footpaths lined with pointy rocks, drops offs, and cacti. I was literally praying "Please don't let us fall, please don't let us fall". Prayer answered!

Why am I holding that hat there? Ashlynn is looking pretty cute, and pretty big these days. (Wahoo, only three more months!)

Zeke did do quite a bit of the hike on his own. He was very into it. He didn't want me to lift him over difficult parts but would do them all by himself (with a lot of grunting and sound effects).

We made it to the waterfall at the end and a strange thing happened. Zeke did not want to get wet or even splashed.

You can't totally tell what this picture is but I will tell you. He found this dead tree with the uprooted funky looking roots.

Me "Oh, did you find a tree?"

Zeke "No, ROAR!"

Me "A monster?"

Zeke "Ya, ROAR"

Silly mom thinking that monster was a tree.

Basketball

Zeke loves to play basketball! He was playing with Trustin the other afternoon (using golfball sized wiffle balls) and he decided to make it a little easier. He found a little chair, and put it right under the basket. Slam dunk every time!

Just like Mom and Dad

Zeke was such a big helper getting ready for church yesterday. He watches Mom and Dad get ready so he knows just what to do.

The first step is to find Daddy's gel and go to town.

When you have as much hair as Zeke, it might take a few scoopfuls of gel.

And shoes are a must for church.

Mommy's will do nicely!

Medicated Maniacs Make Miserable Mothers

So I was going to do a quick catch up blog but I realized that we have practically zero new pictures. Trustin's new phone has a decent camera, which is nice except that I never remember to download the pictures off it. So our catch up post will have to wait. I will say for those who I haven't spoken to, our baby girl has a name! Ashlynn Kaydean Anderson (A.K.A. our daughter, or as Trustin and Grandpa like to say AK47). We are naming her after her two grandpas who we love and admire so much. For today I decided to share the joy of "The Bradley Method." So I have decided that I would like to try natural childbirth with Ashlynn. I am telling myself that the plan is to try natural but to not be disappointed if I don't succeed (but we'll see how that goes). With Zeke I thought that maybe we would try natural but I naively went into it without any preparation whatsoever. I had a friend who said it is super easy I believe her description was "It is just like a really really hard workout, but the secret is just relax." I like working out and relaxing that sounds pretty easy. Apparently I wasn't used to "working out" my uterus in the hardest work out ever, and relaxing on cue....not so easy. So we want to prepare a bit better this time. We don't like any of the methods out there. We decided to go with The Bradley Method because I like the idea of "husband coached childbirth" and having Trustin totally helping me along the way. However, reading this book is totally hilarious and you definately can't class us among the avid Bradley promoters. We are taking what we like and laughing at the rest. The title of this post "Medicated Maniacs Make Miserable Mothers" is practically a quote from the book and I'm pretty sure this is the overall message. It is so ANTI medicine and never mentions medicated childbirth without included words like "maniac" "zombie" or "miserable." According to the Bradley Method "Bradley mothers" are laughing and walking and joking and loving their baby while medicated maniacs are resentful, tired, poor mothers. Hmm... Here are a couple of my favorite lines

• "Women have babies; that's their job" (Hmm Mr. Bradley, I guess you can get away with that because you practiced in the 20s)


• "The placenta is a magical organ" "What's the main physical difference between these animals(cats, dogs, horses, and cows) and your wife? Somebody taught your wife at a very early again to walk on her hind legs, that's what" (are you kidding me? is he really trying to say that we are meant to be quadrapeds but some silly person taught us to walk?!)


• Speaking about women who get epidurals and other medications during childbirth "Would they let their kindergartner have similar narcotics?"


• "we have found by actual esperience that there is a 'background music' that beats all others and there is no substitute for it. It is th familiar, beloved voice of a husband, a lover, gently, softly, endearingly whishpering in his sweetheart's ear that same line of love gobbledygook" (gotta love love gobbledygook!!)

So maybe these are only funny to Trustin and I as we've been reading them, but I hope you have enjoyed them too.