Here's a little info about our cute daughter Sydney. Sydney is learning new words everyday. She imitates anything you say. She heard "Wombat" on her baby einstein video and repeated it. She can now say bye and blow kisses with a "muh". When we put her down for naps she'll talk to her self forever. She'll wake up talking to herself in the morning. She use to crawl up the stairs and cry because she wanted down, but was unwilling to crawl down, She's a very cautious girl. She still refuses to walk, she prefers crawling or walking along the edge of the couch (for support). She loves stuffed animals and has many of them. She also loves going outside. If the door is open she'll crawl outside and off the steps. Sometimes she prefers boxes and other assorted trash items to the toys that she has. I'm thinking that our family could have saved a lot of money by going to the back of stores and just getting the boxes for her, at this point she would have been just as happy. She's a funny kid, and I'm not sure what she's going to do when she's no longer the center of attention in February when her sister comes. She's going to have to learn how to share in a quick hurry. Overall, Sydney keeps us very busy, and we love her to pieces.

I've noticed that unlike many other blogs that I read, I really don't talk about my feelings any where here. My wife would probably point out that I don't talk about my feelings at all, except on the rare occasion. I'm sure my readership is significantly high, so it might not be a big deal every so often write a blog post like this.

I've noticed that I'm always dreading to do one thing or another. I'm dreading to go to class or to see a clinic or this or that. I'm not really "enjoying the day", and because of that I'm often not a happy person. Last week I had a test to dread, studying to dread, clinic to dread, etc, etc... When I had a job I seriously dreaded going (mind you it was a call center). I don't like living that way, that is always looking to the future negatively, but I've created myself a bad habit. When I get thinking about what Christ would do, I get the feeling that he would "enjoy the journey". How do I get to that point? Does anyone else struggle with this?

I'll get back to my regular posts next time.

Extreme Home Makeover down my street!
Well, extreme home makeover has taken camp just down my street. There was a Tongan family, the Pauni family, that has light 9 people, whose father died two years ago who are getting a brand new house this week. There were millions (well, maybe not millions) of volunteers out working on the house. They started tearing down the old house on Tuesday and their almost finished with the new house already. There are so many people coming to see the work as spectators. The family is on a cruise in Virgin islands right now while they do it. Here's an article on it at that I found on google. Well, we these guys are going to have the nicest house on the block, and no one deserves it more.

Sydney continues to point out what we need to do in regards to childproofing our home. 

Sydney discovered that the shredder is full of fun paper. Her are a few pics of her fun discover. It's amazing watching her grow. Everyday she discovers a new way to make a mess.

 

I'm trying out Picasa from google. Here is a random pic of Sydney, with enough hair to almost put in pony tails. 

Wow, I haven't written anything forever. Does anyone check this out anymore. My blogs haven't been too interesting lately. I would have given up on my a long time ago. Well, I have a test next week and I should be studying for it, but I some how manage to avoid it. A sign that I need to get out of school.

Well, I'm at an elementary externship working with the speech-language pathologist. I've been surprised that I like it. Its nice to find out that you like your profession. Especially since I've only been taking classes in this field for the last four years! I'm working with kids with either speech problems or language problems. Most of my kids are working on "R" sounds and "S" sounds. Apparently those are pretty hard sounds to make. Facinating for all of you guys, I'm sure. I bet if Nate was reading this he would have stopped reading because I mentioned my major. Whenever I say anything about things that I'm learning at school he makes fun of me, says that I'm trying to sound smart. Whatever.

Anyway, I'll try to write more on here for all of my loyal fans, both of them.

Who knows what they'll do next.

Subject: Teacher Arrested in New York

NEW YORK, NY - A public school teacher was arrested today at John F.Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he

believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement. He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.

"Al-gebra is a problem for us," Gonzales said. "They desire solutions by

means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute

value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves

as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are three sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted

us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more

fingers and toes." White House aides told reporters they could not recall a

more intelligent or profound statement.

Sydney is getting a little sister!!!

3D Ultrasound 1
Originally uploaded by bob jb.

Sydney is getting a little sister!!!
This morning we had our ultra sound for our new baby and we found out that we are having another girl!!! She's health and everything is going fine. Sydney will be about a year and a half older than our next baby. We haven't decided on a name yet.

This was the first time we got to do the 3D ultrasound. You can see that the 3D pictures are orange. Sydney must have thought her sister looked like a lion because she started roaring at her. Goofy kid.

Apparently according to my sister-in-law, Heidi, its "International Talk Like a Pirate Day"... Arrr. Well, I didn't believe that it really exsited, so I googled it. Apparently Dave Barry helped promote the holiday, here's his article about it. Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day. And here is another webpage about it http://www.talklikeapirate.com/. Well its bigger than I thought.

OH, and to help you out here are a couple of English to Pirate translators: Pirate Translator, Pirate-to-English/English-to-Pirate.

Arrrgh, Shiver me timbers.

The boy dinosaur explains credit cards: (from the http://www.thedinosaurboy.com/)

I got a credit card in the mail! A credit card means you can buy whatever you
want! You can buy anything and you don't even have to pay any money! I got that
credit card for my birthday. I buyed a parasaurolophus with it.

I wished credit cards worked that way, apparently he got credit cards and gift cards mixed up.

I just read this today. Its amazing where technology is going these days.

The first bionic woman by ZDNet's Roland Piquepaille -- Claudia Mitchell lost an arm in a motorcycle accident, but she's now using a 'bionic' arm that she can control with her thoughts. This bionic arm was designed at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago with funds from DARPA. This artificial arm could provide hope for many soldier amputees as well as civilians. But read more...

What will they come up with next.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has always been encouraging its members to live within their means and to get out of debt. Well, they just came up with an on-line free financial calculators that can help figure things out like "How much should I save for emergencies", "How much should I save for retirement", "How long will it take me to pay off this loan", etc. May sound like boring stuff, but it could be useful for those like me who don't know how to figure this stuff out (not like my brother Brad and his wife Heidi, they're both accountants).

Anyway, here is the web site: http://providentliving.org/content/display/0,11666,6657-1-3438-1,00.html

I just that this blog entry by Lindy's 4 year old cousin was priceless: (You can read more like this at The Dinosour Boy's Blog:

Do you know what things would be fun to do on family fun day? Eat a yummy breakfast, like cereal; Get a couple of drinks and watch a show; Play the Land Before Time game for two minutes; put our train set together; go to Dinosaur Days; go to Dinosaur Park; play dinosaurs; talk about dinosaurs; read dinosaur books; pretend to teach a class, like dadda takes a turn, then me, then west. I would teach about dinosaurs.

We could even play computers or go hiking on a trail and look for clues to dinosaur treasure. Maybe even go camping in the jungle. I love party day because you don't need to go to sleep, you can just stay up and watch shows. And dadda doesn't even need to go to work.

Camping photos posted

Sydney in her Camping Chair
Originally uploaded by bob jb.

We started to try to post some of the camping photos from our family reunion at the MMR (Matthew Marrington Reunion). I would have posted more but I ran out of space on Flickr.

Here's a pic of our first ultrasound (no, we don't know the gender yet.) We're scheduled to find out the gender on Sept 19th. We're pretty excited. For more info see the previous post.

Well, I went with Coral's advice and got rid of the snakes. Apparently snakes caught in the wild frequently have paracites which could easily kill off the rest of my animals. We'll see if Lindy lets me have any more snakes. She's already said no spiders (not trantuals). We want to get ourselves a Tom lizard once we get into a house (a tom lizard is our name for a Chinese Water Dragon).

Okay, our big news is that we are going to have another baby!!!! Lindy is due Feb 4, 2007. That means Sydney will be about 1 1/2 older than our next one. Kind of close I know. We are going to find out if its a boy or a girl sometime this month. We're still picking out our boy and girl names.

Next semester we'll be moving back to the greater Salt Lake area where I'll be doing my externship and finish my defense for my masters degree in speech pathology. I'll be at the South Davis Community Hospital doing speech rehab. Then I'll actually be done with school (two kids later).

Here are some pictures of Sydney that we recently had taken. This is the first time she actually smiled for pictures at the portrait studio. The photographer like the bathtub one so much she entered it into a contest. We love our little cutie. By the way, if you want to see more pictures of this girl and be able to open them in a bigger size (printable size for the fam) go to this website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobbateman/. For Grandma and grandpa in particular, if you go to this website click on the picture you want to print, then click on the "all sizes" icon above the picture. After that there will be a "Download the Large Size" link on top that should allow you download the picture for printing.

I'm actually going to start posting again. I took Jim's advice and got my self a Wi-Fi card and now I have a decent connection speed.

So, last week I almost steped on a Garter Snake right in front of my apartment. What did I do? Well, I did what any boy would do, I went out and cought it. Then I found another one. I assume that they were just babies because their so small. My wife isn't too excited about the idea, BUT she didn't make me get rid of them. Now my animal collection consist of two fire belly toads, a fire belly newt, an African dwarf frog, and two baby garter snakes.

As some of you may know, Lindy's brother is serving a mission in Spain for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We just got our weekly letter today. Apparently he got to play with monkeys on his p-day. How cool is that. Here's his little blip on that.

Well other than that P-Day was really cool today, because, 1) We left the country (sort of) we went to Gebrotar which technecally is British, and 2) (And most improtant of all) I got to play with wild monkeys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was so cool, like I would just lean over a the monkeys would just hop onto my back. Only the smaller ones thougth because the big ones were mean and chased us. For those of you who are wondering Gebrotar is or I guess was one of the English strong holds during WWII So there are cannons there and everything. But what made it so hard to attack is that it is up on these huge cliffs. It was cool, except for the walk up there, I almost passed out, and then I had to buy water up there at the top and it was 2 Euros!!!! 2 Euros for a 10 oz bottle of water!!! But I must always remember that playing with monkeys was worth it.

Now why don't they let us play with the monkeys at Hogle zoo? Or maybe other animals like the bears or the lions or alligators? Probably its for our own good.