Chow Time!

Over the past few weeks, Tori has finally started eating food! Yay! She is definitely more finicky than your average baby, but we are having meals and snacks and trying all sorts of goodies. While we were in D.C., Victoria really enjoyed the Tomato soup at Potbelly's! Here are a few pictures of her first enthusiatic chow-time!

Mr. & Mrs. Hunter go to Washington...

Okay, I am going to warn to you right now: there are a lot of pictures from this trip as well as lots of comments and opinions from yours truly. You probably won't even be interested in half of them, but I want to document our trip here, so you are just going to have to deal with it! :)
Matt had some training to attend in D.C and was going to be there for about ten days. My Spring Break was about this time, as well as my birthday; so Matt flew Victoria and me out to stay with him for about five days as a birthday present. This was especially awesome, because my dear friend, Marcy, moved to the area last year, so I was able to visit her! Yay!
On my first day there, our plan was for me to drive Matt to his training and then drive out to Marcy's house and spend the day with her. Victoria stayed on Utah time, however, so she didn't awaken until 8:40 that morning. Matt got ready in about 10 minutes ( as per usual) and I only applied half my makeup (quite a sacrifice for me! ) and threw some clothes on so that we could run have breakfast and get Matt to his training at 9. I slipped some shoes on and shoved a pair of socks in to the bag, hoping to put them on in the elevator. We were on the 16th floor, so Matt held the baby while I pulled my foot up in mid-air and started to put on my first sock. I heard the elevator ding at the 14th floor however, so I aborted the sock mission and slipped my shoe back on just as the door opened and in walked General Petraus! He was accompanied by two secret service agents, one of whom was quite smitten with Victoria and they all talked about how cute she is ( of course! ) We weren't quite sure if we should salute or try and take his picture so we just acted like we were on elevators with National Heroes every day. It was pretty cool.
Tori fell asleep on the way to Matt's training so, we went back to the hotel and took a nap! Yes, I said we- that was a great nap. Anyway, Marcy and I were only able to have a long lunch together, instead of the whole day. I can't believe that I didn't take pictures that day, but she fixed a delicious lunch and I go to see her beautiful new home and visit with Aubrey and Will, who are getting so big and are completely adorable.

Later that evening, Matt and I went to the Lincoln Monument, with Victoria of course.
Here is the Washington Monument, which we did not actually get go inside. You have to get there at like 8 in the morning to get a ticket so that you can come back and go inside later in the day and you still have to wait outside for 20 minutes before you can go in. We were way too lazy to get on that train, so we just admired it from outside.

One of the most amazing things about Washington D.C. was how the architects and designers were able to create a sacred and reverent environmet in many of the monuments. We noticed this in particular in the Lincoln Monument and the World War II monument. Although there is a crowd bustling around, they were able to create a serene, peaceful environment that captured our attention. We were both deeply impacted by the World War II monument and hailed it as our favorite. There is a stone pillar with a wreath for each state or province of our country. The most touching part was a wall with a star for each American Soldier who died serving our country in this war. I thought I had uploaded a pic, but the wall is inscribed with the words, "HERE WE MARK THE PRICE OF FREEDOM" We were both deeply moved by the beauty of the monument and the inscriptions on the walls.
Here I am in front of the WWII monument:

Next we walked to the Jefferson Monument, which we both really enjoyed as well....

I am so thankful taht we had this opportunity; although it would have been great if we could have gone just a few weeks later for the Cherry Blossoms. It was quite cold and rainy most of the days.

Here is one of our favorite inscriptions from the Jefferson Monument... We loved this one - it reminded me of a quote from Joseph Smith, “The Saints can testify whether I am willing to lay down my life for my brethren. If it has been demonstrated that I have been willing to die for a ‘Mormon,’ I am bold to declare before Heaven that I am just as ready to die in defending the rights of a Presbyterian, a Baptist, or a good man of any other denomination; for the same principle which would trample upon the rights of the Latter-day Saints would trample upon the rights of the Roman Catholics, or of any other denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves. "

Such an amazing country we live in; we are free to worship as we choose and I pray that we can be more diligent in thanking God for our inspired republic.

The next day, we met Marcy and her family at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Both Aubrey and I were most excited about the Ruby Red Slippers from the Wizard of Oz. Daphne loves this movie so we took a picture of us with them for her! :)

We had reservations to tour the capitol building at 12:50, and parking had been a joke. We could see the capitol building, so we decided to walk instead of trying to park again. This really was a good idea, because parking at the capitol is even worse, but I did not pack appropriate shoes for such an adventure! So we walked and walked and walked some more. Matt even offered to give me a piggy back ride! It ended up taking 45 minutes to walk there! We got there and went through the whole security rigamoroll (very much like the airport). Which was fine and I found completely appropriate and acceptable. (It will be important to understand my opinion on this matter in order to understand the following anecdote!) So we went through the tour, which I thoroughly enjoyed! Here are Matt and I in the section which was supposed to be the tomb of George Washington, but he wanted to be buried at Mt. Vernon... (You can see Marcy's little girl Aubrey posing in the corner! I can't belive I didn't take pictures of them!)

This is the ceiling in the rotunda- You can see George Washington surrounded my a harem of women, Thanks for that, artists!

There are two statues from each state in the capitol building. This one of Brigham Young was the only one from UT or TX that was close by, so we took a picture with the Lion of the Lord!

Now, by the time we finished our tour, my feet were throbbing and our car was still 45 minutes away. Marcy and Robert's car was not quite as far as ours, so they headed out. My most wonderful and generous husband offered to go and get the car while I waited in the gift shop with Tori. We were discussing this as we were walking out the doors and I kissed Matt goodbye and turned to go back into the building, but the doors had closed and locked behind me. I tried to get back in, but the security guards said I had to go all the way back through security again... I was moderately irritated by this, but I went dutifully to put all my bags and items on the conveyor belt. This time, I had no Matt helping me and the baby was fussing, so I was holding her and dealing with the stroller and the camera bag and my shoes and the metal detector kept going off. Now, I am a self sufficient person, but NO ONE was lifting a hand to help me as I struggled with all of these things. The security guard kept telling me to put the baby in the stroller (which was on the other side of the metal detector with the security guards), which I would NOT do- you probably know how I am about being separated from her. So as the metal detector went off for the fourth time, the guard told me to take off my necklace and bracelet and belt ( none of which happened when I went through the first time) It was at this point that I raised my hand in exasperation and said, "This is a joke! I am not getting undressed to go back in there- I was just inside- I'll just wait outside!" (meaning that the situation was silly for me to put myself and the baby through this irriation when I didn't need to go in- I could just as easily wait outside.) Now I know that I can be a tad bit animated and I really can understand that the security guard could have interpreted that to mean that I thought the whole security precautions were a joke. But even so, what the heck does he care if I go back outside? He moved over to me and held my arm and got about 7 inches from my face, so close that I could feel his breath on my face (which means that he was even close to Victoria, who was perched on my hip.) He said, "Listen, Ma'm, Don't make a scene!" Loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. I , of course responded, "I'm Not making a scene! You are making a scene! I just want to go back outside." Then he kept going on and on about what I needed to do to go through. I kept re-stating the fact that I no longer wanted to go inside, which was apparently personally offensive to him as he again got about seven inches from my face and said very loudly, "Ma'm, Calm Down, Don't make A Scene." His tone was accusatory and patronizing and once again, I could feel his breath on my face and his hand on my arm, the arm holding my child. At this point, I lost all sight of my ability to be a peace maker and said, more loudly to him, "I'm not making a scene. Get out of my Face!" He then backed off and let me gathered my belongings and leaving all the while he is yelling things like, "I'll be sure and tell all the congress men that you think our security is a joke!" To which I replied "I did not say that. I said it was a joke for me to go back in there. I was JUST in there! And I will be perfectly happy to wait outside."

Leave it to me to get into an altercation at the Capitol Building. Sigh. I guess I'm not much of a peacemaker at heart. Good thing God is patient with me.

After that lovely experience, we all went to dinner together and finally took a picture! I'm so grateful to them for planning their day around us and to Matt and Robert for enduring much parking, driving, and walking drama so that Marcy and I could be together. I could have spent hours and hours with Marcy catching up and we talk on the phone all the time!

The next day, Matt and I went to see the White House and apparently, Matt found the person taking our picture to be incompetent or baffling or something- I'm not sure why he's making that expression!

We went to the White House Visitor's Center next, which was very interesting... Here is how Tori got around much of the time:

I can't even remember what this monument was for, the First Infantry of something- or -other. I just couldn't believe how tall it was! That's Matt standing by it....

We could have spent five more days there visitng all the historical sites. I loved being with Matt and the baby ; it's amazing how a vacation with the baby is relaxing, but once you have three kids I guess reducing your responsibility by 2/3 is considered a break! Thanks to all of Matt's family who juggled the older kids around and kept them safe and happy while we were away, it was great for all of us!

Germany, Here We Come!

My husband is awesome. I've been certain of this for quite some time. Close to 11 years now. Most of you know that Matt works for the Department of Defense in Information Security, which is referred to as DISA. His office is at the Air Force Base near our home. He loves it and he is learning so much! For his first three years there, he is required to complete various trainings and do rotations with various departments. You can apply for different rotations within your own base, and you are allowed to do one 3 month summer rotation at an out of state location (at one of DISA's locations) Such locations include: D.C., St. Louis, San Antonio, Georgia ?, Hawaii, Germany and Japan. Of course the latter three are the most popular places to apply, and are also the most difficult to get. These options are very competitive, and although we would love to go to Hawaii, we didnt' even attempt applying there. You can only apply to three places andMatt travels to D.C. frequently and we go to Texas often, so we decided to put all our eggs in the foreign basket! Matt put in applications for two positions in Germany and one for Japan. We figured there was no chance we would get one, but it was worth a shot. I mean, he would be competing against other DISA agents nationwide! So, we applied and went on our merry little way. In fact, I don't even know if I mentioned it to anyone- we just didn't expect it to happen. Well, last Thursday, things were looking pretty promising and on Friday (my birthday!) just as I was finishing teaching class, Matt called and said, "Will you go to Germany with me this summer?" I was soooo excited! I am so proud of Matt as this was a very competitive selection process and I think he's awesome. I said that already, didn't I?

So, all five of us will be living in Germany for the summer! We are so excited to see what God has in store for us there! We will probably leave in June and return late August. Matt will be working there for the summer, but he will have every other Friday off, so we plan to see lots of sights! We will be living in Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany (birthplace of the motorcycle and the four-wheeled automobile! We are all very excited! I told Daphne taht she will turn five in Germany and she said ( wide-eyed and full of intense excitement), "Maybe I will lose a tooth in Germany!"

Here is a picture of Stuttgart! We'll send more info as soon as possible!

Salad, Anyone?

None of these pictures is particularly clever, but I did want to share a few details about our last few days with little Victoria. She is particularly interested in anything that we are eating and managed to get her hands on the lettuce we were chopping for salad the other night. She also tasted a cream puff this week, which has gone over much better than the mashed carrots and squash! :)

On a slightly more sober note, Victoria seems to have bronchitis and/ or Reactive Airway Disease, which is basically what they call asthma before two years of age. Isaac has asthma, so we are fairly familiar with the signs of breathing distress. We have a nebulizer, which makes things a bit easier. We have been giving her at least three treatments a day, and these first few nights have been pretty rough. She has the yuckiest cough and is pretty pitiful at 2 in the morning. It has definitely been frightening at moments, babies are much harder to read than 7 year-olds, who walk over and say, "Hey Mom- I need my inhaler." Isaac was closer to age 2 when he started having these types of troubles, also. We are trying to remember that it could be worse- we could be in a hospital with Oxygen stats much lower than she has now. I am so grateful to God for blessing me with the presence of mind to deal with the yucky breathing the past few nights. It can be difficult just to deal with the night-waking, let alone the difficulty breathing. We love Tori so much and we are praying she gets over this quickly! Here she is during the breathing treatment this afternoon. At least she's in that oral phase so she like to chew on the mouthpiece for some of the treatment!

Deep Thoughts by Daphne

Daphne Faith Hunter is a force to be reckoned with. At 4 1/2 years, She is beautiful and brilliant and demanding and challenging and powerful. Sort of like our own little Alpha female. We love her immensely and I know that I talk about her challenges often, but those are never meant to be complaints, merely expressions of thought. I have no shortage of those. The past week has been full of speculative thought on Miss Daphne's part and I just had to share some of the occasions with y'all:
We were listening to the song, "Popular" from the musical Wicked, which Daphne loves. We have tried to explain to her that in the song, Glinda is wrong, that being popular really is not as important as just being yourself and knowing that God loves you. After the song, Daphne said to me, "Mom, Not everyone is popular." And I said, "No, not everyone is popular, but that's okay." Daphne matter-of-factly replied (flipping hair behind her shoulder) "Some people aren't popular. That's just how God made them."I have only trimmed Daphne's hair once before and the ends were getting pretty ragged. So, I trimmed the ends off of Daphne's beautiful curls and Daphne asked if she could take them to school and share them for science time. I agreed and asked if she knew why they are science and said, "When you cut your hair will it stay cut, or will it grow longer?" Daphne very thoughtfully said, "It will grow longer." Then she looked up at me intensely and said ( holding the ends of her hair in her hand), " I will put them in my cubby and I will get them out every day and I will watch them grow longer and longer!"

On the way to school, we were listening to the news and I heard a story about a woman who is being charged with child endangerment for driving while talking on her cell phone and breastfeeding a baby at the same time. I shouldn't have been surprised that Daphne was listening, but a few seconds after the report she said, " Well that won't work." And I said, "what?" Daphne said, "Driving and feeding a baby and talking on your phone. You'd need 3 hands. That's the first reason it's a bad idea. The second reason is that you'd go to jail and the three reason is well, aliens might have three hands to do it, but aliens aren't real. So."

Daphne was eating a snack in the kitchen and said, "Mom- I don't think it is fair for you to love only Daddy and nobody else." I tried to explain the different types of love and why I love Daddy differently than her and other people. After my long oratory, she huffed and said, "Well, Jesus loves everybody."

Some of the questions/comments from just the past week:
"Why do we say Christ after Jesus?"
"What does dissolve mean?"
"Why do we say outer before space?"
"Why did you choose to marry in the temple?"
" I want to go to the sacred grove, but not at night- it would be too freaky."
" What's in a cloud?"

I'm sure there are more that I can't think of, but my favorite is:

"Mom, I don't want to get married because I want to live with you forever."

So Long, Farewell!

I guess the title of our post is two-fold in meaning this time. For one, I wanted to illuminate the cute content of this video; and secondly, It is to describe the closing of one more chapter in sweet Victoria's life. Gone are the days of immobility and contentedness: We have had a big week at our house! Although Tori has been army crawling, scooting and inch-worming her way around for a while, she began the official, traditional first steps of crawling on all fours this week. She also began picking up her own food using her little pincer grasp and, as illustrated in our adorable video, she began waving goodbye! I love that she has been a little slow on these milestones as it has given me a little extra time with a little baby. And truly, I am excited on the one hand, but it is a little bittersweet to watch a little more of her baby-ness fade away into the sunset. She has been waving her hand in practice motions for a while, but whenever we would try to get her to do it when it was actually time for good-byes, she would just stare at all of us like we were incredibly amusing. In the video, Matt just walked out the door and we were all saying good-bye. I ran and grabbed the camera so we actually caught the very first time on tape! She has kind of a yucky cough, but just try to focus on the cuteness. It's really short, by the way!

Eight Months and 24 lbs of Cuteness!

Victoria is eight months old now- actually she has been for a few weeks, but here we are just posting these. Matt's awesome sister, Raegan, took these pics of Tori . She does beautiful work and was so patient with all of our fussiness. Victoria was not in a photography kind of mood, so although we don't have any huge grins here, I think they turned out pretty wonderful. We tried to do some of she and Daphne together, but Tori was pretty much done by then, so we didn't get too many of them together. I can't decide which one of Victoira to hang on the wall, so I'm going to number them and I need your votes! (Numbers are above the pics) Thanks!
1. 2.

3.

4.

5. This one will probably be hung in a small print, but vote on one of just Victoria for me!

6.

7.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great Valentine's this year- we decided to try to make it more of a family affair- so for our FHE before the big day, we had everybody make little Valentine bags and talked about how much we love eachother- then everybody was supposed to write at least one Valentine note/picture for someone every day and put it in their bag. Soon Valentine's Day in the afternoon, we exchanged our little bags. The kids loved it and it was a really fun literacy activity as well as a little encouragement and self- esteem boost for them. They wrote and drew really cute little Valentine pictures and messages for Matt and me as well.

We decided to make our traditional Saturday morning whole wheat pancakes a little more festive today, so here is a picture of my little sleepy heads at breakfast:

Valentine's Day with small children seems to change things, so we decided to evolve with it. We asked our niece, Sydney, to babysit for us during the girls' naptime so that we could actually try and catch a movie. But alas, Victoria ( thick in the throws of Separation Anxiety) sensed the loss of my presence and woke up early. She screamed hysterically until I left the movie halfway through and came home to rescue her! I took her back to the theatre and tried to watch from the wings, but her delightful squeals and babbles of "DaDa DA DA DA" were a little too conspicous. We decided to wait out in the hallway. Matt tried to leave and join me but I made him go back in so that he could tell me how things wrapped up. We took Victoria to an early Valentine's Day Dinner and then made it home to our little munchkins. It really was nice to have dinner with just Matt and the baby- it's amazing how our idea of a night out includes the baby- I'm usually happier if she is with us and it's a pleasant change of pace just to have a conversation that isn't interrupted 50 times. I hope y'all had a wonderful love- day as well!

Happy 7th Birthday, Isaac!

Seven years ago, Matt and I embarked on an amazing journey together: we became parents! At 2:40 pm, we were blessed with the most beautiful baby boy ever to grace this earth, in my humble opinion. God sent Isaac to us on February 10, 2002 in a most miraculous way. I suppose that babies are born every day, but I know that each one of those births is an absolute miracle. I have never felt the Holy Spirit more strongly than when I partnered with God in bringing one of His children to this earth. Isaac's birth was remarkably like his personality- steady and predictable, relatively mellow (compared to the births of his sisters!) Isaac is an amazing boy and I truly thank God every single day tfor the wonderful blessing of being his mom. Some of my favorite things about Isaac:
He loves to help people.
He is quick to obey.
Isaac has a repentant heart- he feels true sorrow when he makes a bad choice.
Isaac's laugh is one of the best and happiest parts of my life.
Matt and I gave Isaac a snowboard for his birthday, which he loves! Matt took him up to Snow Basin so they could try it out and he was so great! Here are a few pics:

Isaac wanted to go to the new Chuck E. Cheese right by our house for his birthday, so off we went! I haven't been to Chuck E. Cheese since I was a kidand I must say, it was not as cool as I remembered. Isaac and Daphne had an absolute blast, though! Happy Birthday, Isaac! We love you.

You want me to eat what?

Victoria does not like baby food. At all. We have tried a wide variety of items: Rice Cereal, Oatmeal, carrots, bananas, sweet potatoes, squash, peas, applesauce, pears... all to no avail. She usually takes a few bites and acts like she is going to gag. Then she figured out how to bend her head over and spit the food out! If she's in a really contrary mood, she will just press her lips together as tightly as possible and twist and turn and try to squirm her way out of her chair. Here are photos from a few attempts:

She is not completely adverse to solid foods, however. Items she has enjoyed: Lasagna, Cool Whip, Raspberry Danish filling, Sparkling Cider and Oatmeal Cookies. Usually, these are things she manages to stick her hand in and then lick her fingers clean with glee. I did give her the Cool Whip: I've never seen her so excited about anything. It's kind of funny- I'm so laid back about it all with number three. I know she'll eat eventually. I never would have let Isaac taste sweets. Somehow, it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Or maybe I'm just too exhausted to care.

Either way.. we love her to bits!

Dancing Queen- more pics!

Daphne's Dance Recital was January 17th! She was great!
Here are a few photos from the night! I let Daphne wear a little lip gloss and she was so wonderful. I asked to take her picture and she went over by the wall and stood like this:

After the recital, I said, "You danced so beautifully!" She looked disappointed and said, "I forgot to have stage fright." Then they gave her candy and she was happy again.

This is my first attempt posting video, so I hope it works! Daphne is on the front row, furthest one on your right. We were a little frustrated because her teacher moved to a different place from where she had been at their dress rehearsal, so for the first little bit she is looking for her teacher. She does great after that. Watch to the very end- that is the funniest part! Okay, unfortunately you can't really see it on Blogger, but at the very end, Daphne flits off the stage as quickly as she can; meanwhile, they cut the lights and Daphne plows over a little girl trying to (more appropriately) walk off the stage. Then there is a big thud. Priceless.

More Christmas Pictures!

My mom (aka GiGi) came to visit on New Year's Day. We had a lovely time and she got some great photos with her new camera!
Matt, Isaac, and Daphne shoveling snow- love the team work!My angel, Isaac!

Daphne's sparkly fairy costime from GiGi...

Victoria is loving Christmas so far:

These two are from Cafe Rio, where we went to celebrate Mom's Birthday! I am in love with Cafe Rio- I would eat there at least 3 times a week if Matt let me. It keeps me sane in the Tex Mex free zone that is Utah!

Victoria loved Christmas! She was completely oblivious to all but the wrapping paper and, etc... but that was enough for her...