Communicating: a story with no pictures

So yesterday we came over to Colleen's, Karen's mom's, house to spend some time and play some games. We left her dad's place about 4:30 in the afternoon, planning on coming back when Lois got tired.
We had a fun meal of tuna and sweet potato fries. Lois loves running around and playing with all the toys Colleen has saved since her kids we little. Old cabbage patch kitchen set, pop-up Sesame Street toys, flash cards, connect-together plastic chains...the works. Well, we wanted to play a game with Colleen, so Lois entertained herself with the toys while we played Rummi-Up Uno. It's this board game with the similar rules to Rummi, but the tiles have Uno pictures like the colors, draw two, and whatnot.
So we're playing for a while when Lois comes up to me with one of her croc shoes. She hands it to me and says "eeh go."
I looked at her. "Let's go? Do you want to go?"
"Yehh." (yes) and scurries over to the front door to then bring Karen and me our shoes. A pair of flipflops in each hand, she gives us each our shoes. This girl is ready to go home.
We finished the game maybe a minute later. And it's time to clean up, right? Well, Lois was mo-tivated! She was flying around putting toys away. She not only put all of the giant checkers in their bag, she also carried them to the cabinet, put them in, (well tried to; the bag was awkward) and tried shutting the door. It was really cute.
Oh, and Karen told her we need to change her diaper. So she stops right there and lays down, not moving until I had come over and finished changing her diaper.
We get home and I don't know if she said a peep the whole way from leaving Colleen's to putting her in her bed. We went inside, walked up to her room, read scriptures, prayed, sang and put her to bed - all way faster than it usually was.
It was really funny to have her communicate how tired she was. She's like, "I'm tired, and we're going home. Here's your shoes. Now, come on. Let's go."
She's a smart little one and is figuring out how to tell us what she wants, if not with her increasing vocabulary, then with the ever-important body language.

Lois's First Haircut

Our dear Lois was looking like a little ragamuffin,

Which simply could not do, so we decided to take on the seemingly 

insurmountable task of cutting a 18-month-old's hair.

Indifference turned into 

boredom, which then turned into

"No, I will not hold still or keep my hands down."

Which led to desperate measures.

You know, a pacifier to keep her happy.

But in the end, we all survived without any jabbed eyes or too many jagged hairlines. 

Cute as ever. Maybe cuter even.

Although she's just as sneaky as ever. :-)

ASA presentation, thesis, and graduating

Writing this post is an effort to distract myself from my current tasks. I wouldn't normally indulge in such an endeavor, but I feel it important to document the craziness I find myself in. At least I want to so that in the future retrospection proves funny and hopefully inspiring.

For the last month or so, Karen and I have been working super hard to get me graduated. I started writing my thesis on Saturday April 16 and had an ambitious goal to finish the first draft by Friday April 29. In order to graduate in June, I need to defend my thesis by Friday June 3; so I worked like a mad man and wrote almost a section a day. What I had hugely underestimated was the amount of time it would take to generate the results I would put in my thesis. Instead of the day I had scheduled to generate the results, three weeks later (Thursday 19 May) I had the results finished and thesis submitted to Dr. Gee.

Meanwhile, other deadlines were coming and going. I needed to submit my thesis to my committee by Wed 18 May in order to defend Wed 1 Jun. That obviously didn't happen. So it comes down to my committee having less than the University-defined two weeks to review my thesis. As it is, I question if they will be able to review it all before my defense. Dr. Gee edited my thesis on Sat 21 May, already within the two-week window. Now I need to pump out the revised draft as soon as I can and send it to my committee.

Further complicating matters is the timing of the national conference for the Acoustical Society of America, at which I am presenting a section of my graduate work. It's happening this week (Mon-Fri 23-27 May). When we drove up to Seattle on Sat 21 May I hadn't yet prepared my presentation. I spent all day Sunday after sacrament meeting to start and finish it.

So now I'm sitting here at the beginning of the conference documenting a piece of the craziness that's going on. And I can't finish this post without trying to express how awesome my wife is. Karen is so awesome. This has been such a wild process. And while I'm doing all I can to graduate, Karen has been working so hard taking care of Lois and prepping everything for the move to Georgia. She is prepping everything. She scoped out ways of moving our stuff and found some movers to drive it to GA. She takes care of the food and house and packing. And in addition to all that, she is aware of the needs of her family and maintains a happy outlook when our apartment complex offers less-than-desirable living conditions. (Maybe the happiness comes from knowing we won't live there much longer.... :) I love my wife and am so blessed to be married to her.

So my presentation is tomorrow, thesis is due in a couple days, and I'm hoping to be a BYU graduate (again) in a couple weeks. So I'm moving forward with faith that the Lord will help me get it done.

Onward and upward!

Georgia Trip

Lois and I got to go to Georgia to visit my family a couple weeks ago. It was so fun to see everyone. :)

We went to the zoo.

Lois stole Abbie's boyfriend.

 Just kidding!

Lois loved looking at all the animals. Here we were looking at the giraffes.

The animals she loved best though? The kitties at Grandma's!

And the squirrels at Grandpa's. 

The flying necklaces were fun too.

We also went to the Atlanta Temple open house. They recently renovated it and have tours open to the public before it's rededicated for the use of members of the LDS church. It was great to see it again. I hadn't been to it since David were married here in 2007,

Jobs & Waiting

Yes, I know that the latest picture of Lois on the sidebar is from September. I'll get to that. Some day.

And I have pictures to post from my visit to Georgia last week. I'll get to that too. (Sooner than "some day.")

But I figured I'd give an update. And not just a Lois-centric one (even though I know those are the most interesting ones anyway ;)

David is slaving away on his research and thesis in an attempt to get it finished by June 3rd. Yeah. That soon. Anyway, I don't expect to see him much for the next two months. But I want him to finish it, so I'm okay with not seeing him for a little while.

He's also applying for jobs, which is just one big waiting game. I'm learning to be patient. Sort of. Right now he's got an offer pending from Boeing (where he did two summer internships). But we're also waiting to hear from Motorola in Lawrenceville, GA and he's flying out for a second interview in Cupertino, CA with Apple this Friday. All three really good companies. 

Obviously, I would love to be in Georgia near my family and friends, but as the process goes on and on I keep realizing that I would be okay living in any one of those places. Boeing is a great company and we enjoyed the Seattle area when we were there for the internships. And I'm even warming up to the idea of California. My sister Abbie just got in to AMDA in L.A. (and I'm so proud of her!), so she'd be close enough to see occasionally. And I have an aunt, uncle, and cousins nearby too. 

The Lord knows where we should be, and if it comes down to a decision between any of these jobs, I know He'll give us guidance about where we need to be. I'm glad that He's also helping me to see the good in all the places we may end up, too. That way I can get excited about the possibility of all of them. It makes the process way more fun. :)

Throughout the whole process, I think I've learned a lot about trusting in the Lord. We turned down a job offer without having anything else firmly lined up, but knew it wasn't right for us. And then just waiting and hoping and waiting some more...all of it out of mine or David's control for the most part. That's when we just have had to hand it to God and say, "Ok, David's applied and interviewed, now send us where we need to go. And help us to know which to choose if there's a choice." I'm still anxious to know the final outcome, but I'm getting better at waiting.

Happy 1st Birthday, Lois!

The birthday girl!

We had a small birthday party on the 13th for her actual birthday. We got her lots of fun books--lots of Karen's favorites from when she was a kid--and a little kitchen. 

Presents!

On Friday, we went to Grandma & Papa Krueger's house for a party with David's family.

Cake!

I decided to make Lois's cake, so I made one for the family and then a little one for Lois. I'm pretty proud of my decorating job. :)  Lois didn't want to eat it at first. She touched it tentatively but wouldn't eat it, even after I dipped my finger in it to get her to taste the frosting. But when we dug a little deeper down to the cake part, she decided it was worth eating. Even then, she was a dainty little thing for the first few bites. Finally, she dug in...

The family's cake

Lois's cake

The end result

The post-sugar coma while we watch
Despicable Me. :)

Lois's First Christmas

  Every year, David's family does a Nativity with the little kids. Last year I was pregnant, so I was pregnant Mary, and then this year Lois got to be baby Jesus.

Here she is petting the cow

Runaway baby Jesus! Her swaddling clothes are falling off...

Enjoying her gifts from the Wise Men

***

Christmas Day!

Opening her gift from Great Grandma Midgi

Enjoying the packaging as much as her presents

Getting distracted by her ABC magnets. She was having so much fun that she didn't want to open up her other gifts. :)

As soon as we had her walker all set up, she was off and running. Literally.