Three Cheers for Trevor!!!

Who graduated in December Magna Cum Laude! (We recently received his diploma in the mail). I get to boast about him because I know he won't say it about himself. I'm so proud of him! He has worked so hard to achieve this honor.

Keeping children quiet during sacrament meeting

I read an interesting article in the Deseret News about helping your children be quiet during Sacrament Meeting at church. I have no experience in this, but felt I needed to start thinking about how I am going to teach my children reverence during church. I thought the ideas sounded promising. Maybe some of the more experienced mothers reading this can also offer their two cents.

Keeping Kids Quiet in Church

It's been too long...

So Trevor has needed a hair cut for a while now and we finally had time to do it tonight. I think the last time I cut his hair was the beginning of December. While it is nice to save money by having me cut his hair, sometimes it is a bit nerve wracking. I'm getting a little more used to it and he's always very encouraging, so I seem to manage somehow. It's great he has curly hair, though, because it hides all the mistakes (in theory, of course...).

I don't know if this picture does it justice, but there was A LOT of hair on the ground!The New and Improved! How can you not love that face!

Friday was Trevor's last day working at Qualtrics. He starts his new job as a research assistant on Monday! Here is a picture of all the programmers who work at Qualtrics. Don't you love their work attire? That's one benefit of being a programmer.

Last Sunday, the Florence clan got together and had dinner at Heather (Trevor's sister) and Cesar's home. We told Cesar he needed to get into the picture (that's him sticking his finger in the picture). (Left to Right: Leah, Hank, Summer, Mandy, Heather). This is the shortest Summer's hair has ever been in her life. I think it looks really good on her!

It's a BOY!!!

Yes, so I realized I should have posted this a long time ago, but I figured everyone would know we are having a boy from the baby countdown on our blog.

So after we found out we are having a boy we started to get more serious about choosing a name. After much deliberation we picked a name! The name of the first Florence in our family is… is… is… (click here to see the name!)

It’s not final yet, but we both really like it. Here’s how we came up with the name:

We compiled a list of about 500 boy names from the Internet and went through each name and removed the weird ones and the ones we knew we didn't like. We narrowed it down to about 40 names that we could choose from for any of our future children (don’t worry, we’re not planning on having forty boys ;-)). Then we narrowed it down again to about 14 just keeping the ones we’d like for our firstborn. We each took a copy of this list and separately ranked the names and added our two rankings. Calvin came in first. We talked about which of the top names we liked, but after contemplating it we started to both really like the name. It's also a family name—Trevor and I both have a great uncle Calvin. It's not something we think people would misspell (that was important to us) or mispronounce (another thing we wanted), but it definitely isn't a common name so he won't have three other students in his class with the same name. I remember having two other Lindsay's in my 1st grade class and so I had to go by Lindsay B., which was hard because there was also a Lindsay P. and those sounded awfully similar (I absolutely love my name, though, don't misunderstand me!). Trevor and I both commented that when we woke up that morning, we never imagined our first son would be named Calvin, but we both really like it.

Samuel is a family name on both sides of our family. It is my Grandpa Walker's middle name and Trevor's Great Grandpa, Grandpa, Dad, and brother's middle name (they are all Henry Samuel I, II, etc.); Henry Senior’s father’s name is also Samuel. Trevor’s brother, Hank, will still name their son Henry Samuel Florence V, but to me it isn't a big deal. I mean, I think I counted 6 people with the middle name of "Walker" in our family? That's just including my generation.

We've already searched the Internet and thought about potential name-calling in school, ex-convicts with that name, etc. and couldn't find anything. I was a little wary because of "Calvin and Hobbes", but we figure kids his generation won't be as familiar with the comic seeing as they don't make new comics anymore, and those who are familiar with it love Calvin!

So as you can see, we have really thought about this, please don't try to make us change our minds. I think it would make us go crazy trying to go through the process again right now!

Here's a picture of Trevor and I comparing bellies.

But, I'm hungry mother... I'm hungry...

Anyone else have this phrase from 101 Dalmatians run through their mind when they were pregnant? I often find myself quoting this phrase to Trevor or even just to myself. While we both laugh when I say it, I'm realizing why that phrase runs through my mind. It's what gets me out of bed at 4:00 in the morning to eat if I'm hungry. It's what gets me to spend 20 minutes gathering/preparing enough food to bring to campus so I don't go hungry during the day. It's what helps me eat nutritious food and avoid food in excess that could possibly harm our child. The list goes on and on.

I am far from perfection in these areas, but I can say that I have tried hard. Even though our child isn't born yet, I am already starting to feel the great responsibility it is to be a mother and care for a child. I know it will compound immensely once our child is born, but I'm grateful for the small glimpse of a parent's love I've had thus far.

New job, new exciting opportunity!

As part of Trevor's graduate school requirements, he has to join one of the department's research labs. His thesis will be related to the research this lab is involved in. Trevor has been searching around and talking to different professors in charge of these labs trying to figure out which one would be best for him.

Well, a few days ago he talked to the Internet Security Research Lab professor and he extended Trevor an offer to work as a research assistant in the lab. On top of a salary, they will pay his tuition (possibly even this current one). This is great for him because he will have a lot more time in his week due to working on campus and getting paid to work on his thesis. This way, he won't be working a job on top of his schooling and research he will have to do anyway. So he put in his two-weeks notice at Qualtrics (his current employer) and will begin research on January 28. I feel a little sorry for Qualtrics losing such a good programmer, but this will be better for Trevor and me (because I'll get to see him more :) ).

Just in case anyone wondered...

I passed my prospectus defense! It was really low-key and only took half an hour. The ones I've been to have lasted at least an hour. I don't think I will get so lucky for my thesis defense, though.

I had a weak moment tonight and craved dessert. It was probably from watching people eat cake, brownies, chocolates, and sweetened cereal today. I satisfied the craving by making some hot chocolate using milk instead of water and only used half the amount of mix it calls for. Hopefully my craving for sweets won't become a common occurrence. The main reason I cut all sweets out of my diet is so I wouldn't get these cravings. I hope this will all be worth it in the end, because it's really hard not to eat dessert. I need a healthy "cookie" or muffin recipe I can make so I don't feel so deprived. If anyone has any they would like to share, please feel free to do so.

Happy Birthday Trevor!!!

I know... I know... I haven't updated in a while. I've been lazy with our blog. I'm not going to give other excuses people probably won't believe anyway.

It's Trevor's 24th birthday today!!! Hooray! Even though his birthday is today (Monday), we decided to celebrate it yesterday because today we were busy with school and work. We made a vegetable lasagna yesterday and were planning on keeping it in the fridge to cook tonight, but after making it, it looked so good we couldn't resist cooking it right then and eating it. You know you have a good recipe when that happens! Believe me, it was worth it--it tasted really good. One nice thing about only having two people to feed, though, is that a 9x13 pan of lasagna lasts us about five meals, so we are having it again tonight anyway!


Here is a picture of the lasagna. We were planning on taking a before and after picture, but apparently we were too hungry to remember to take the "after" picture. It looked the same pretty much except the cheese was melted.

Last night we had a party at our apartment with all of Trevor's siblings, some of his cousins, and Kathryn. We made an apple cake (name is deceiving... believe me it wasn't healthy--although supposedly it tasted really good) and some people brought other desserts as well. Everyone talked, played games, and had a good time. I even let Trevor open his presents on Sunday night so he didn't have to wait until today (aren't I a nice wife?! :0) ). I felt victorious that he didn't know what most his presents were before he opened them. Trevor's a really good guesser at things like that, so it's really hard to surprise him. Well, I'm also a really bad liar when it comes to things like that, so it's hard for me to keep things a secret when he asks questions. I've learned not to say anything at all, but sometimes that doesn't even work because my facial expressions give it away. After the party, I cleaned up a very little bit and then fell asleep very quickly on our couch. I was so tired after going nonstop since 1:00 that afternoon. I'm just glad our son was very cooperative and let me do as much as I did. I can definitely tell I have more stamina than I did about a month ago.

I will talk about Christmas break in a later post. I've got to keep working on my thesis. I'm defending my prospectus (thesis proposal) tomorrow. I hope to do my thesis defense (the big kahuna) at the latest in one more month. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!!!