Greetings, strangers.

Hello? Hello?? Is this thing on??

MERRY CHRISTMAS


Love, The Baileys

Convincing the world you're an archaeologist: A tutorial.

Jack takes his Halloween costumes very seriously (see last year). This year in order to truly inhabit the role of Indiana Jones he has resorted to Method Acting for the last two weeks. He's our own little Robert De Niro (in a role originally made famous by Harrison Ford).

This is how Indy intimidates:

In order to rally confidence in his sidekicks/girlfriends the arm pump is essential:

And whip skills? A must. Also a clenched fist, apparently:

Micah didn't tap into the principles of Method Acting to play the role of a chicken. Thankfully.

Blessed.

We spent a busy twelve days in Utah visiting family. Amy and Greg came up from Arizona. Grandma Vandagriff flew in from Iowa. It was fantastic.

I'm still recovering. And not feeling very witty today. So some pictures with simple captions will have to do.

We went to the Museum of Ancient Life:



Went to the aquarium:


Obediently posed for pictures with Great Grandma:


Not so obediently posed for pictures with Great Grandma:


Went on low-key nature walks:

Practiced turning Mom into a puddle of goo:

Pondered whether or not all the attention was overwhelming:


Or under-whelming:


Posed for a Blessing Day photo nine hours after the blessing actually took place (thank goodness somebody remembered):


We also went to the BYU-Washington Game, ate out every single day but Sunday, saw relatives from SLC, ate lots of garden-fresh tomatoes, went to the Alpine Slide, went bowling, sat for hours in the massage chair, and spent our days chatting away...but alas, we don't have pictures of every single event.

Did you really want to see a picture of me eating all-you-can-eat meat at Tucanos anyway? Didn't think so.

Feted.

Last month a dear friend (aka Jack's third grandmother) expressed her desire to throw a party for Micah. I obliged on the condition that there would be no games, no embarrassing spotlight on me, and that the food be good.

Micah is the only baby born in our ward this year. So he's kind of a big deal (maybe I'm exaggerating the big deal part--everyone's lives seem to be going on as they were. Except mine.). When they were forced to cancel Enrichment for the month of July due to some craft machine malfunction catastrophe, the Relief Society president proclaimed that it would be the date of Micah's baby shower. So it was like an Enrichment meeting, but with better food, lots of baby holding, and some out of town guests (oh, and gifts).

Pardon the teeny tiny pictures. I'm still waiting to get the full-sized files. The large pictures I took on my own after I slept off the celebratory Coldstone.

Remember this post about lunching with three girlfriends--three out of the four of us facing mysterious infertility issues? Well, here are all four of us. We all had babies very unexpectedly (save Molly who has a talent of planning her childrens' birthdays far in advance) within one month of each other. Jen had Z. in March, Sara had E. in April, Molly had R. in May, and Micah arrived in June. We still cannot believe the unexpected miracles. The Lord has awesome timing.

The babes.