The Diggins Universe

We've Been Living in a Bunker...Here's What We've Been Doing

2010-10-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

Chris here, Thanks for reading. No seriously, if you still care enough about us to check on our blog that gets updated once every four months know we're very flattered to have you as friends. I think we owe you an aplogy. Not just for the blog thing, but for the "Diggins family limited social life" thing. We realize we have been blowing off just about everything trying to get some projects done that we have been working on forever. Some we've wanted to do for years. Some we've wanted to do as long as we've known each over. Some we've been working on for over a decade.

Curious? You should be that was a heck of a leading statement. Anyway, we want to give you a full update and let you all back in to what has been going on and let you know we're both really looking forward to hanging out with you again sometime in the near future. Anyway, here's the list

1. Stop for the second and visit http://www.digginsdesign.com/ . Remember those classes that Carrie was taking over the summer? She's done and we have the Web site up for her freelance graphic design work. All of the samples up are stuff she's done for work over the last year or so. I think she's really talented and getting better all the time. If you know someone who needs anything designed give us a call. This has been a great side business for us and with the added skill of Web design Carrie's taken our work from home business up a notch.

Should be satisfied to stop here but we're not. All this has been leading up to a business idea Carrie and I have had for almost as long as we've known each other. Carrie is working late almost every night and during the day when she can to get our samples, marketing materials, and more complex Web site up. I'm contributing where I can until I take over as a the one man sales department in November ( but only in the evenings, OD still owns me from 8-5 for which I am very grateful). That's all the details for now, we'll spill the beans on everything in about 4 weeks. Needless to say, lots of time.

2. While we're following up on the last post. I finished P90X. It works fantastically, it just takes over an hour every night. So in the last few weeks I've backed off and been using the Jillian 30 Day shred DVD. It's not a step down at all, I do her level 3 workout and it's really tough and gets me done in a half hour. Can't ask for more than that. I did hit every weight loss goal I had, I lost 40 lbs, I weight less than I did in college (which is fun to say, but not extremely impressive given I wasn't all that thin in college) and I just ran 10K the other night to see what it feels like. It felt great. I have pictures but they'll never see the light of day because posting that stuff on your blog just isn't right/cool. Anyway, It can be done. I thought I could never make the move to a healty lifestyle but it's really not that hard, and buying new clothes feels great. I've wanted to do this since I got home from my mission. It's nice to finally get it done.

3. Home Rennovation. Our basement was a beast. lots of grey concrete. Not alot of light. Kids are scared to go down there. Spiders. You get it. I always had dreams of sinking several grand down there and turning it into a sweet mancave. Sadly, I came to the realization that having the largest room in the house be a mancave wasn't going to happen, especially with toddlers and more on the way ( Not and Announcement! Just an aknowledgement that we would like to have more kids in the future...at this rate the distant future) So, we decided to finish the basement on a budget, and now have a sweet playroom/office out of the deal. Special thanks to the Coopers for the couch, Carrie's folks for the executive desk, and the Gardner, KS Walmart for having all the stuff we needed on sale right as we needed it. I cannot believe what a difference concrete paint makes when brightening up a room. Anyway, Cami and especially Josh love their new playroom and I feel like we just got half a new house.

4. Republican paper boy. I won an election in August and I am the Republican Precint Committeeman here in my neighborhood. Don't get too excited, I was unopposed. I was unopposed because spending free time going house to house distributing campaign literature isn't on the top of most people wish list. Still it was neat to vote for myself, which I hadn't done since 7th grade ( lost then...complete popularity contest BTW, if those 7th graders had only understood the issues!) We've been trying to get more active within the local Republican party and this year we're getting out a lot more. Still lots to do before November 2nd and I feel things have picked up lately. I'm enjoying serving, it's alot of fun. Try it yourself if you have time because we do really need all the help we can get.

5. Captain Coupon. Since Carrie is booked up in the evenings and we still have a need to save money I've taken over at the coupon shopper in the house. It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. In fact, I find couponing addictive, and extremely easy since there are hundreds of Web site run by obsessive coupon Moms who find all the deals for you.You just have to clip and shop. I do still like finding a few myself, and the feeling of walking out of the store with $100 worth of groceries for $15. Or in the case of a few weeks ago looting Hen House for 31 Cakes Mixes and 45 bags of Frozen veggies for less that one dollar. You heard me.

6. Oh yea, We're still Parents. Josh and Cami are great. I feel like Josh is really starting to assert himself. He's still pretty clam most of the time, but he's gotten in the habit in yelling when he wants attention and slapping the table. Sounds bratty, but its funny the way she does it right now. When it becomes not so funny in six months we'll deal with the problem then. He's also huge and eats a ton, but I think that's part of the bargain with having a boy. I still have high hopes that Josh will, against all odds, be large and athletic. Check with me again in 15 years when I'm sitting through chess club matches.

Cami is still a big fan of princesses, but also of singing and dance in general. If a dancing show come on TV she grabs me from up off the couch and asks for a dance. It's just as adorable as it sounds and it makes my day. Also she likes singing the songs she learns at church and will as for "Family Home Evening" when she wants to sing one. Again, that's even more adorable than it sounds and makes me feel like I'm being a good parent for thirty seconds. ( As opposed to the screaming two year old at Toys R Us that's lying on the ground shouting "MORE PRINCESSES!" . That makes me feel like a bad parents for much longer than thirty seconds)

Anyway, that's what we're doing for the most part and we're still bunkered down. We miss you and we're glad youre still reading out blog.

Perennials, Baby Smiles and other Random Stuff

2010-06-15T12:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I am once again guilty of waiting too long to update the blog. I find the blog is like a friend - if you talk to them daily, you have a lot to say, but if you wait a really long time or don't keep in touch, you find yourself thinking of what would be important enough to mention. So I will take a cue from my sister-in-law and just mention random stuff, numbering it (she usually does 10, but we will see how many I get).

1. Perennials - Last year I got the gardening bug (flowers) and decided I wanted to beautify my outdoors Better Homes & Gardens style. I've always loved the look of perennials, plus not having to replant them every year just seams like a logical bonus, and cost-effective. So I ordered a bunch of stuff, very cheap, from a mail-order site, and when they arrived, in one tiny little box, was shocked to see that my plants were but tiny little strands of green with two or three leaves - not quite as I had pictured (or for that matter, what the picture on the site looked like, but it did state they would not be full-size, so there you go). Well, my Mom came over to help me plant these little things, and we hoped for the best. Granted, not everything survived, and I'm sure my profound neglect could not have helped, but we sure do have some pretty flowers this year. The ones in the backyard are the best, as they get the most sun, but I am appreciating everything we've got. I hope to separate and spread them out next year, to fill in the gaps, as these plants have a taller, more wildflower look.

There are a few more varieties, but you get the idea. I did finally get a hanging basket for the front when the local nursery went 50% off this past week, and that made me very happy too. Lack of a planted veggie garden though, sad - the compost facility has had issues with all the rain, but after a month of waiting, I am very close to picking up the "unsifted compost" and taking my chances - the little plants I have waiting out back won't make it much longer.

2. Cami - in seeking out the best photo to describe where she is at right now, I think this one fits best:

First off, she is in motion - constantly, except for when she is sleeping or watching TV, I guess. I am sure this is very typical for a two-year-old, but I find myself pretty exhausted by nap time, and again by the end of the day. She is doing great though, and I feel her getting older all the time. We are going to try potty-training in a week or two (I am gathering all of the supplies -book, potty doll (dressed up like a princess, as those are the only dolls she will pay attention to), rewards, pull-ups for nighttime, etc.) and will be booking Chris to do all the Joshy-care as we try the "potty training in less than a day" method on an upcoming Saturday. Also, she is outside in this picture - like all kids I think, she likes to be outside. Too bad Joshy isn't big enough to entertain her out there yet -

3. Josh -

Here's the little guy now...

Oh wait, you wanted to see a CUTE baby photo...luckily Daddy walked in and cheered the little guy up. He has some good little smiles -

This is his content smile.

This is his alert smile.

And this is his really, really happy smile. He does it when we make him suddenly happy, and it's basically just opening his mouth as wide as he can with a baby grin. Sometimes when he is close to me it seems he might try to eat me.

As for him, he's still growing like a weed (or perennial :)) and will be six months old on the 24th. He is about this close (picture me holding my thumb and pointer finger really close) to crawling, and can scoot about anywhere he wants, but still can't do it fast, so gets grumpy when he is impatient. As you can see from the little bruise on his forehead in the picture above, he had his first bonk this week when he scooted over to the TV stand and cracked his head on the shelf below it. Later he knocked his head on the wood floor, so I am sure he is learning that not everywhere is as safe as lying on his blanket. Also, since he won't stay on a blanket, I now have little spots of spit-up all over the carpet, that I have to try to scrub out before they dry - TMI, I know. He is a really sweet little guy though, and quite zesty in his own right, so we are having lots of fun with him this summer.

4. Carrie - So I know this was all supposed to be random, but it looks like it's going to be just one number for each member of the family, and then one for the perennials - odd. Anways, so for me, I am mostly doing the same old Mommy thing, and trying to stay ahead of it each day. Some days I feel like I am doing great, and then other days, not so much, but I think at least I will have many more years to try to get it right. I am also taking a class at JCCC (the community college) in web design and learning a lot. It is all summer long, for roughly 7 hours each week, and covers quite a few programs, with Flash being our current subject. I was already quite familiar with some of Adobe's programs, but many, like Flash, are new to me, and I am really enjoying filling the gaps in my knowledge (and hoping that I can use these enough to not forget the mass amount of information I am being fed).

5. Chris - P90X! While I am not sure Chris is ready for me to announce to the world (or the 5 of you who read this blog) his workout plans, he isn't up here right now, so I'll just go ahead with it. He is two weeks into his "90 days to being in the best shape of your life", and is pretty darn sore (and 13 lbs lighter - great job Chris! - disclaimer: that does include the two weeks before that I made him ride the exercise bike 6 days/week to show he was committed before I would let him buy the P90X program on Craigslist). I have been impressed with his dedication and am "this close" again to joining him to get rid of the baby pounds, but it is a pretty intense regimen of home workout DVDs, and I'm not sure if it jives with my class schedule. He is enjoying his wardrobe expanding (by virtue of more clothes fitting :)) and just feeling better in general. If anyone wants to see him do a pull-up, just give us a call & come on by :).

So while I can actually think of a few more things to say, I can't actually think of anything to make for dinner, so I better head that direction (trying to think of dinner at 3:50 - The Food Nanny would not approve - but that is another blog post). Hope everyone is enjoying summer!

The Family Update

2010-04-22T18:07:00.000-07:00

Chris is at Buffalo Wild Wings watching the NFL draft with the Elders Quorum, so I figured it was a good time to post. Whenever you don't post for a really long time, it seems like it should take something important to actually do it, but I will disappoint you now & tell you I have no news to that effect - still, feel free to read on....

Chris: Still enjoying his new position at work, and taking day trips to places like Springfield & Branson, MO (I don't have the driving stamina for this, but he manages). Working in the public sector (selling office supply contracts to schools & gov't accounts vs. businesses) is always a little different, but he's done it a lot now, so he has a good feel for it. He is also always such a big help with the kids, and even with dinner, that I feel pretty lucky to have him most of the time.

Cami: Recently has become obsessed with the Disney Princesses. First it was Ariel, and then they all kind of joined in. She now visits the elaborate Disney princess web site whenever we will let her, and shouts out each of their names excitedly as we visit their respective kingdoms.. oh boy! We've garage saled/craigslisted some My Little Ponies and sets of little dolls, so she now has some girly toys to play with, in addition to her mass of educational toys (she was so into all the educational stuff, that it dawned on me a few weeks ago that we really didn't have to much just "fun" stuff - it's nice to be able to get some so cheaply, though I realize that this kind of stuff also just tends to amass itself over the years).

Also, if anyone has any tips on how to get a two year old to not think that laying down & kicking at you (or doing it during diaper changes) is funny, please let me know :).

Josh: Growing, growing, growing... his nine month onsies are none too loose at this point, at least not in the length. I am actually really need to get some longer sleepsacs for him too, as he only has a couple that don't really hug his little feet. His four month appointment is coming up, and I'm excited to see his stats to confirm that Chris's nickname "Gigantor" really is legit.

He also learned how to roll from back to front a few days ago, and now won't stay on his back for more than a minute or two at a time. This wouldn't be a problem, except for that he would just lay underneath baby gyms for literally an hour at a time before, swatting his toys and smiling happily... and now he grunts and pushes and gets all grumpy because he can't crawl away! At least that is what it looks like he is trying to do, but either way, his disposition has been unusually poor this week. (This may also have a little bit to do with the fact that he hasn't really pooped since Saturday - poor little guy! I have read this is normal, but I'm still not so sure. I called the doctor's office today, but was out when the nurse got back to me, so I think I'll try again tomorrow.)

As for me, I'm just up to the usual child care/housekeeping/graphic design on the side type of stuff. I am planning to take a Web Designer course at JCCC this summer, to learn how to fully produce web sites vs. just designing the layout, and am excited for that. I got a new laptop for this which is great, and have ordered the CS5 Adobe Suite which is coming out next month. Hopefully I will be able to pick it up pretty well, and we'll see where it takes us. At the very least it should help me do work more quickly and easier at my current job, which I'm very grateful for.

As a family, we are also doing some Spring cleaning! We cleaned out the garage a couple of weeks ago, and organized it for the very first time (yes, after 2+ years in this house). Saying that it needed to be done doesn't begin to describe it, and the joy I feel when parking in it, again for the first time, also knows no bounds. We're trying to update some of our photos too, so I made a couple of poster-like collages of the kids for our front office room frames, which are pasted below. Other than that, we just really need to get going on our garden, which has been completely emptied out due to it's former use as a litter box :(. Yes, our cat Peaches has gone to live with my parents for the time being, which is why we can actually use our garage & make our garden again...victory! You never realize what a pet person you are not until you have children. (Nothing against other people's pets - we all just have different abilities when it comes to how much we can handle.) Well, I realize for having no news, this post has gotten really long! Happy Spring!

The Redecorating Bug

2010-03-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

I think it started with the joy at finally finishing decorating Cami's room (weeelll, I do want to get a rug & this cute ladybug beanbag chair still, and maybe something for her nightstand that she won't destroy, but for all intensive purposes, it is finished), or maybe it is the desire for creativity or control when I am in a crazy house with kids all day, but either way, I have been bit by a major redecorating bug!

Here is Cami's room, complete with her new crib & all:

(New crib, why would you get a new crib for a two-year old? Let's just say the cute little toddler bed that Daddy painted wasn't containing her so well for nap time, and Cami after two weeks without naps was driving Mommy crazy! So I went to Toy's R Us and bought the cheapest crib I could find, but at least the white matches... Needless to say, she learned to crawl out of the crib in about 24 hours, just like she learned how to get out of the pack and play, but she will still stay in it most of the time, so it hasn't been a total loss.)

Here are some letters I did for one of her walls - I now have an abiding love for Modge-Podge sealer!

So I just love these vinyl flowers! Target has all of these decals & they are great - you can move & reposition them, and they're really cheap for all the space they cover - maybe they aren't for everyone, but they are for me! (I can tell my lens is dirty- little fingers...) FYI, she has lots of toys in her room - the organizer is on the other wall - and she rarely keeps it this clean.

So on to the point: I have caught the redecorating bug! The only unfortunate piece of the puzzle here is that I have neither tons of spare time or tons of spare cash to work my magic (or what I envision my magic would be, based on looking through all of my Mom's "Better Homes & Garden's" magazines). I know in the grand scheme of things, home decor is pretty inconsequential, but after being in this house for almost 2 1/2 years, I just want to put my own stamp on it & paint a wall or two! So while Chris was out of town this last week, I had a small triumph. Most of the light fixtures in this house look like this: Not terrible, functions, but not really my preferred style. Needless to say, the enormous brass chandelier in the living room was not my favorite, and though I did fail to get a before picture, so you'll have to settle for the after, it was exactly the shiny gold color of this one above.

Well, my sister Becky discovered this glorious metallic resurfacer (basically, craft paint with flair) that does wonders to old light fixtures. I had already used it in my bathroom with oil-rubbed bronze-esque results, so I knew it worked, but it takes great patience to make cover a large surface, as well as some time. Two nights, five hours of work, and two dirty paint brushes later, the results:

So it would be nice to have a trendy centerpiece, great to have fabulous curtains, but instead of just okay, I now actually like my chandelier! (If anyone has any other free or low-cost decor ideas, feel free to drop me a line...)

More of the kids

2010-03-09T06:18:00.000-08:00

So I am trying to keep posting a little more often, and since kids is what I am usually doing, here they are! First some updates on Josh. He is holding his head up really high now, and can roll over front to back in both directions (he is still working on back to tummy & he grunts with discontent when he tries & fails). Most of the time he is cool as a cucumber - just very content. When he cries, I can usually be sure he is just hungry or tired - this is nice.

He is a little smiler - smiles at us, smiles at his toys - you get the picture. Also, he is 10 1/2 weeks now & most of his 0-3 clothes are getting a little snug - many of the onsies no longer fit. I failed to post his 2 month doctor's appt. stats, but here they are:

weight: 12 lbs. 15 oz. - 80th %

height: 24 3/4 inches - 95%

So as you can see, he is a big boy!

Here is Cami in her big sister pj's, sent by her Great Aunt Leslie - very cute (ingnore the laundry on the steps please :)).

This picture proves it is better to catch candid smiles, rather than asking for one - nice.

Josh at 8 weeks & Cami has hair

2010-02-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

Well, Josh is getting past that newborn age & I finally got some pictures that look like him, so I thought I'd post. And yes, I know it is not July yet, but I had to change the wallpaper- anything to encourage the snowy weather to pass & the sun to start shining.

To accompany the pictures, some notes on Josh:

- He really loves toys! When you lay him underneath his baby gym, he will just bat away at the little objects like crazy, often for long peroids of time (Mommy likes :)). I have occassionally caught him giving the toys one of his sly little smiles.
- This baby can eat - and dirty those little diapers. He is doing a great job growing.

- He is starting to make cute little coos and baby noises - you have to love it.

Now for the pictures -

This is pretty much the way he is looking these days. I think he is starting to resemble us more & more. He is continuing to lose hair, & now his old man patch in front extends almost all the way back.

This is a cute little face he makes. He is generally a content little guy, except for when waking up from naps - I can relate to that - waking up from naps always makes me grumpy too.

Here's a good smile - I know I put it in the banner too, but I just love it that he's smiling so much now.

On to Cami - despite her early baldness (forever), she is finally getting a good amount of hair. She's had one haircut, and I am debating getting another, I am just not sure. I want to grow it out long, but I also don't want her bangs in her eyes. I am hesitant to trim her bangs though, because unless I have her hair pulled back (see below - I usually just do one ponytail, but I thought this was fun), they come from WAY back on her head. If anyone has any good solutions, just let me know.

Cami still loves books, with Clifford being her favorite. She is also obsessed with water, and loves all things related, including "The Little Mermaid" and "Finding Nemo". She started a swim class this week, and I'll have to get some pics of her in her suit before it is over.

Chris has a new territory at work & is busy making new sales. I am still adjusting being Mommy to two and can't wait for spring. Josh is letting me know he is unhappy - until later...

Blessing Day

2010-02-07T14:20:00.000-08:00

Well, we haven't been great about posting photos, but it doesn't mean we haven't taken any. In fact, since today was Josh's blessing day, he was happy to pose for a few shots. Chris gave him a beautiful blessing and it was wonderful to have so much family there with us. It was also his first Sunday at church, and we were told by a few that he seemed big for his age (6 1/2 wks), but you'll have to judge for yourself. In other news, Chris turns 29 on Tuesday, and we plan on having a date night this week, both things which are really exciting here in the Diggins household. As for Cami, she is beginning to acknowledge her baby brother, and is asserting her independence as a sassy two-year old with commanding phrases like, "Now catch the pickle Momma!" as she throws it repeatedly around the room (referring to a fake pickle from her kitchen set - she is a funny girl).

Here are some pictures with very little explanation because I fear if I don't finish this post quickly, it will never happen!

Cami is just zany these days - it's hard for any picture to capture her silliness & energy, but you get the idea.

A rare photo of Chris and I together...not bad for holding the camera out in front of us.

Josh & I snuggling - he is a big cuddler.

Another Josh & Momma photo...

Chris & Josh - the boys of the house.

We are enjoying Josh's sweet spirit in our home - he is generally quite peaceful and happy. Having two kids though is much harder in some ways than I would have thought, but we're getting adjusted little by little. In short, life is good. (I will try to post some more coherent thoughts at a later time, but at this hour, my tired clock is leaving my brain very fuzzy. Attaching photos is about all that I can do. :))

Pics from Home

2009-12-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

We've been home for about 48 hours now, so I thought I'd try to post a couple of pics of the little guy. He's doing great, and is actually sleeping in his bassinet right now, which is nice. (He'll do that during the day, but for some reason he just wants to be held all night! I haven't slept in a horizontal postion in over 24 hours, but my body is realizing that sleep is still sleep, so I am getting by sitting up.)

First, here is a picture of little Josh with his eyes open. It's not the best quality, but he is looking at the camera, so you can really see how he looks pretty well. In some ways he looks a lot like Cami did, but in others not so much. I definetly think he looks like a boy & she was much more feminine looking (which makes sense of course).

Here's another, better quality, but not looking at the camera. Isn't he sweet?

Here is a view from my perspective. As mentioned before, this little guy likes to be held, so I spend much of my time lookind down to this. With a face like that though, how can you resist? As you can see, it looks like he is going to have dark hair. The verdict is still out on his eyes.

As for little Cami, she is still pretty disinterested in him, but doesn't mind all of the attention he is getting, at least for now. We are just happy to all be home as a family, and now I better go tend to the little ones! Happy New Year this week!

Joshua Warren Scoville Diggins: Just the facts

2009-12-27T14:52:00.000-08:00

Carrie and I started our adventure as parents of a newborn and a two year old a few days ago. Needless to say, we're adjusting and busy. Carrie will do a full post when we start to catch up on sleep, but until then here are the one sentence answers to common questions and the all important pictures.

Q: Give us the basics.
A: His name is Joshua Warren Scoville Diggins, born 12/24/09 at 12:19 in the morning. 21 inches long, 8 lbs exactly.

Q: Describe his birth in one word.
A: Quick! Labor started at 5 pm that night at our house and he was out shortly after midnight. We arrived at the hospital at 10:45 pm so, this one was super quick. Before we went, Carrie's Mom told us a few stories about women giving birth in the car, she even tossed us a blanket on our way out the door ,"Just in case". None of this was comforting.

Q:How's Mom doing?
A: Like nothing even happened. No drugs, No inducing, super fast recovery. My wife does a lot of amazing things, but this one takes the cake.

Q: How's big sister doing?
A: Again, like nothing even happened. She's not jealous, she treats Josh just like she treats every other child, she completely ignores them and goes about her own business like they don't exist. We've gone out of our way to introduce her to Josh, but as of now she just doesn't care, and that's just fine.

Q: How's the little guy? What's he like?
A: The first completely mellow member of our family. Very healthy, cries in spots, but mostly a very content child. When he's awake he has to be held, that means hanging out with him at all hours of the night. Hold him and you won't have any problems, sit him in the bassenet/bouncer and you will have problems. Other then that I am marveling at our good fortune with this one, and he's a Handsome Devil too!

Q: Any Scholarship offers yet?
A: A few, but we're holding out for BYU and Penn State and then it's going to be a tough call.

Our Christmas Eve Baby!

Dad hanging out with the kids on Christmas Day

Josh is working on his first tan.

Carrie later on after giving birth. Yup, not even 24 hours later. My wife is the Rocky of Childbirth, she can take absolutely anything and just keep going. ( Ivan Drago Voice) She is like piece of Iron.

Our peaceful, mellow child.

Time is Up!

2009-12-22T13:06:00.000-08:00

Well, after months and months of waiting, we have finally reached the due date! And you though I meant we had the baby - sorry, no. Actually, with all of our false alarms this time around, we are both more than shocked to be just a home chilling right now. I had our presents bought & wrapped weeks ago, hospital bags in car, Cami's bags labeled with each item that was in them etc., but to no avail. Over the weekend, we had some pre-labor symptoms that had all of my sisters thinking we'd be done by Sunday for sure, and us to for that matter. I think we are almost to the point of just letting loose here, not constantly picking up & doing wash so their won't be a stitch of laundry, etc. Maybe if the house gets a little messy, then that will be the time to go into labor - who knows? So while we try to keep busy here, just though I'd let you know - I am officially 40 weeks! And Merry Christmas! (As for actual news, we have another doctors appt. tomorrow, where I am sure I'll have to set an induction date, so I'll post that when it happens.)

I'm in labor...just kidding!

2009-12-14T09:01:00.000-08:00

Well, I just wanted to let anyone who might be wondering know....I'm still pregnant! Not that this is a big deal, and not that we won't have the baby in the next two weeks, but clearly yesterday was not the big day. In honor of this, I will post a picture of me still pregnant. This photo isn't the best quality, but I realize I haven't documented this pregnancy as well (guess I had other things to keep me busy...active 2 year old) so there isn't much to chose from in the last week. Alas, this was the same outfit I was wearing yesterday on our trip to the hospital. Chris was kind enough to say that it was just a dry run - now we know we can get there, as well as my parents out to watch Cami, before I have the baby, right? I guess I should have paid better attention the wise warning from my older sister about the severity of pain and closeness of contractions during her false labor. Truly though, you can probably tell I am still confused by the whole thing, but after a day of contractions, we are no closer to seeing little Josh yet. So, oh well...back to square one on the labor front! And Merry Christmas everyone!

Mega Post - and the return of Chris's Thoughts.

2009-11-22T14:15:00.000-08:00

We're back to posting once a month and I think that's pretty darn good! So in honor of our newfound consistency I give you a mega blog post complete with pictures and updates on everyone. We call this picture "Presents Overload" I used to think that if your birthday was in November of December you got jipped on on presents because of the holidays. This is not the case. Cami turned two on the 15th and she was quickly overwhelmed with presents at her birthday party.

Here's Cami and Carrie blowing out the candles on her birthday cake. I'd like to mention that the cake was made entirely by Dad...what a great Dad!

One of Cami's presents was a Little Einstiens sticker book. The book has about 700 stickers, 350 of which she immediately ripped out and pasted all over the house. The first to go were all the music notes. If you want to know what watching this is like just stare at this picture for the next two hours while repeating to yourself ," Music Notes!!! More Music Notes!!" In a toddler voice.

It was sudden and unexpected...but Carrie has been shrunk..

Clifford for Halloween. Thank you Grandma for getting her to stand still and put on her hood.

Cami update: As we mentioned above the Ciabatta Princess ( Carrie's nickname not mine) has turned two. I like to think that when you're two you are making decisions that you stick with the rest of your life. If this is true than Cami has decided to own a large red dog and become an Olympic swimmer.

I'm not sure that there is another little girl that asks for "Play in Water" and "Take a Bath" more than Cami. For her birthday activity we took her to Lawrence to play in their indoor kids pool. Even though we had to wait by the poolside for a half hour while they cleared some kids breakfast from earlier out of the pool, it was worth the wait because she was as happy as could be once she got in. ( And we stayed away from that part of the pool...Carrie always germ conscious, had to be told several times things like , "I think there's plenty of chlorine" and "I'm sure it was all over there, we're good")

The Clifford obsession continues. For those not familiar Cami watches PBS's Clifford every day. It's part of her morning routine, wake up, have some milk & cereal, and watch Clifford. I thought this was somewhat unhealthy until she started repeating the things the kids on the show were saying. Things like , "Thank you", "I'm so sorry" " Excuse me" and " I love you Clifford...the Big Red Dog" Between having a good Mom and watching Clifford we're raising quite the polite little girl, I'm very proud of her.

Carrie update: 36 weeks pregnant....exactly one month to go from today.....I don't like to often share the things I pray about with others but I pray almost everyday for this boy to come early. This needs to end. Their are great things about pregnancy, and baby is doing fantastic, which reminds me......

Mini update: Josh - 36 weeks along and the Diggins boy is healthy and going strong. We've had our baby name for a while now but for those who don't know or haven't asked our son's name will be Joshua Warren Scoville Diggins. Such a long name for such a small guy, but we'll just call him Josh for short, most of the free world will know him as Josh Diggins and nobody will suspect just a mouthful of a name lerks beneath. Josh keeps himself busy sleeping during the day and rolling around in Mommy's tummy at night. Normal baby things....and I'm sure he's dreaming of football right now, probably getting the basic of the spread offense down so he's nice and prepared for the game against Utah in 2032.

Back to the Carrie update: Anyway Carrie has been doing very well this pregnancy, but there are a few things going on right now that might kill her husband. #1 We're nesting on steroid...the whole house is clean, top to bottom. I've repainted four pieces of furniture and counting, our basement which was once all just storage is now a large room suitable for supervised toddler play. We have plans to paint two more rooms that I know of. Josh's room is set up and decorated, we have everything ready for him and a hospital bag ready to go a month away, I've changed out all the lights in the house and replaced them with the spiral kind because that's all anyone sells anymore. I keep thinking the projects will end and eventually we will be prepared, but I'm starting to see that end will never come. It's just a dream until the baby comes...please come soon baby. #2 Gestational diabetes. I'm not even sure Carrie is Diabetic during pregnancy. This time and with Cami we had it, and both times Carrie's sugars were fantastic almost everyday regardless of what she eats...I think the doctors just do this to her to make some additional money selling overpriced diabetic supplies and to torture her in the last two months of pregnancy just to see how she reacts. I think maybe she signed up for some sort of study where they see how far they can push pregnant ladies before they crack. Either way, meal time is alternately depressing and infuriating when you can't have sweets and your pregnant....or your trying to feed the pregnant lady.

On the positive side Carrie is still absolutely beautiful. Also she's been able to do some good graphic design work for her company and She's continued the project of digital scrapbooking the past five years of our life. It's looking great and the printed scrapbook so far is Cami's favorite book. We'll have to post those pages sometime....just not today.

Chris update/thoughts: Last week I was shocked to learn I need glasses. Just for reading.working/driving for long peroids of time. No you may not see the pictures. Events wise I pretty much keep to the work/home/church routine. So here are my recent thoughts:

I recently made a bet that will result in me running 13 miles in St. George at the end of march if I lose. I've never wanted to lose a bet as much as I want to lose this one. Sorry for the lack of detail, most people won't care and I'm not getting into the details with everyone. I just want to say that I want everyone who is reading this that knows Joe Dredge to ask him ,"What is it going to take to get Chris Diggins to run 13 miles?" Just do it...you'll be happy if you do.

I'm not a passive watcher of football, regardless if I am by myself or with others I usually find myself cheering or chanting along. Anyway, one of the positive side effects of this is that Cami has learned a great variety of cheers. My favorite is right now she does the Seven Nation Army - OOOO-o-o-o-o-OOOOO Chant. It's awsome. We get that rolling when Penn State is on Defense and things are going well. Very proud papa.

Speaking of football, somewhat boring season. This season is a lot like one of those years where nothing really bad or really fantastic happens. You're just happily living life and you're a little dissappointed that when it comes time to write the Christmas card there is not much to write that you think someone else would find very interesting. Still, you dodn't recall it being a bad year. Just contently uneventful. This college football season for Penn State was contently uneventful. They won the games they were suppost to win and lost to the teams that were better than them. They scheduled 10-2 and got 10-2. BYU pretty much the same with a few more ups and downs. The Oklahoma game is the best thing I can remember them doing...and then I watch the Florida State game, it it evens out. Solid achievement year after year, nothing to complain about, but nothing to write home about either.

Now for all the women still reading after the football paragraph, a word about So You Think you Can Dance and Twilight. Carrie and I started watching SYTYCD over the summer and we're hooked. I never thought one of these dance shows would do it for me, but this one is filling the American Idol void quite nicely. I'm pulling for Ryan and Ashley. They should both make the top 10 and I like Ryan because he dances like a man. If I had to call a winner right now I think it's Kathryn or Jakob. Haven't seen Twilight yet but hope to do so over the holiday. No Team Jacob or Team Edward here, if it's possible to be on team Volteri then I am on that team and I'm excited for seeing them come out in the movie. What most guys don't know is inside that soap opera/chick flik there is a superhero movie just begging to get out. I hope they get there due.

That's all for now. Until next month....

Picture Pages

2009-10-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

Usually I'm not one to rake a bunch of leaves. It think it's better for the lawn to let them sit....or it's just much MUCH easier for me. Either way I came home this afternoon and found a bunch of leaves in my backyard and a bored two year old. So Naturally...... We raked them up and had a little bit of fun....

Posed for some pictures.....

Threw the leaves around.....

And generally had a good time.

Eventually Cami convinced me to join in the fun....

And then she watched as I finished cleaning up. Very exciting afternoon for Cami.

Also, last week we took a trip to Nauvoo for Katie's wedding. It was almost five years ago that Carrie and I were married there. It was a little less cold this time around, but last time we were a little less busy.

Here's Cami trying to get Mom to hurry up outside the temple.

She did stop running around long enough to take a picture.

This one pretty much sums up the conditions after the wedding. A little windy, wet, and cold.

Here's Cami in the Nauvoo Family life center. It was less windy inside, so she was much more happy.

Riding the pine next to a buggy.

Mommy snagged her for a picture. If you noticed a pattern , you're right, it is very difficult to get Cami to stop and take a picture. For every good one we get there are at least 7 or 8 we can't use.

In the blacksmith shop.

With her Cousins Lexi and Ashlyn.

In front of the Blacksmith's fire with the Coopers. Cami was much more interested in the fire than in the picture I'm afraid. However, after a solid week of picture taking Cami now says ," Smiles!" Every time we take out the camera. I'm glad she's got that down, now if she would only sit still....

It's a BOY!

2009-07-30T18:30:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday we found out that our December baby will be a little boy. Chris is now randomly shouting "Boy!" around the house, or chanting a little "B-O-Y" song. They said everything looked good, and the baby currently weights 10 oz. I'll post a picture later, but just wanted to spread the news, for those who haven't encountered my incredibly excited husband via Internet or real life yet!

Almost Half Way

2009-07-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

So I still have another week and a half till I'm actually 20 weeks, but it is so close that I'm getting very excited! Mingo (that is what Chris calls the baby in utero - actually so do I now too & Cami - she says "Mingo Baby" - it will be easier to consider actual names when we find out the gender) has been very evident for a while now, so I thought I'd post the belly picture too. I actually started feeling the baby move about a month ago too, so I've felt pretty pregnant the last month (though of course that part is great). On the very much upside, I have felt SO much better lately, with only the occasional nausea. My house is finally acceptably clean & I only have to take a nap every few days. We will find out if it's a boy or girl at 20 weeks too, unless Chris can convince the doctor at our appointment in 5 days to let us get the ultrasound a few days early.

As for the rest of us, we have just been enjoying a fun Kansas summer. Over the Fourth of July we went to several museums & enjoyed good family time swimming. Cami really loves the water, but constantly wants in and out if there's no zero depth entry ("out, out" quickly followed by a short run & "backee in water"). It's hard to imagine her getting any more active, but she is very fun. She is talking a lot now & actually speaking in full sentences some of the time. She also recently said all of her ABC's, loves to count (she's up to twelve, which is always followed by "sixteem" - too cute to correct), and knows almost all of her shapes. More than anything though, she adores Clifford the Big Red Dog, and is constantly hounding us to read the same two Clifford books we have to her, or to watch the TV show, which she is only allowed in the morning (or if one of us is really tired - let's be real :)). We are still a long way off from the birth of the baby, but as Cami is pretty much running the show these days, I think it will be quite the shocker for her. Oh, I am also in the process of converting her room from baby to toddler, mostly an excuse for new decor, so I will take pics when that is complete. Here is a swinging picture though, from our family photo shoot a little while back, & something else that Cami loves - such a cheeser.

Another little one on the way...

2009-06-13T08:35:00.001-07:00

Well, as I was checking out everyone else's blog this morning, I though about how long it has been since I updated mine, especially since I have good news that some far-away friends or family might not know (unless everyone has stopped checking to see if we've written anything, in which case, I would not blame you). We are pregnant again (technically more me than Chris, but you understand)! I am 14 weeks along right now, with a due date of December 22. This means that I will pretty much be pregnant for the rest of the year, and that with any luck, the baby will be born on Christmas Day :).

We are very excited, and I am especially pleased that my morning (all day) sickness seems to be waning, and I can actually act like a normal person again. I know Chris will love having meals and a clean home once again! I found a new recipe blog that I like & am excited to try some out. Here is the link if anyone is interested: http://www.realmomkitchen.blogspot.com/ There's a new recipe every day, which for some reason I find very exciting.

Other than that, we are just enjoying going to the park & library (we found a park right next to the library, which has been very convenient) and the swimming pool. Chris will have a couple of days off for the 4th, so if anyone has any suggestions of cheap things to do with a 19-month old in KC, let us know. As I've been interrupted in my attempts to publish this post about five times over the last week, I'm going to call that good for now. Hope everyone is having a great summer!

Idol picks

2009-03-28T11:44:00.000-07:00

This week the American Idol song choices are from the iTunes top 100. I only done a few paragraphs on how I feel about American Idol this year so far, so here is a full on post for all of you who enjoyed those last year.

This is kind of a hard week because a good percentage of top 100 downloads are terrible singer songs or just suck. ( Hint, do anything by " Flo Rida" and you're out. doesn't matter who you are.)

Some contestants match up well with what's out there and some will really be streching to find something. Here's my thoughts.

Alison - Is a mortal lock to sing " My life would suck without you". She'll kill it too. The only way this doesn't happen is if some other contestant wants it and she loses the coin flip. If you are an Idol contestant and thinking of taking this song away from Alison PLEASE DO NOT, just sing something else and let the fans have this one. She's going to do a better job than you this week, and maybe temporarily pull ahead of you in the competition, but you and I both know she's about two weeks away from having a theme week she can do nothing with, saying something akward/embarassing, and then getting the boot. Just let this week ride and then reap the rewards later.

Scott - Will sing "The Climb" or "Don't Stop Believe'n" . He has no choice...his addiction to inspirational songs compells him. I think he should go with the former. Miley Cyrus isn't the best singer, but he will go with the second because of the Piano portion. Either way, I think there is no way to avoid this being a grease fire and we'll probably all have to suck it up and shoot the puppy this week. I wish him all the best though.

Lil - Suprisingly this is going to be a hard week for her. I think she's kind of screwed. I think she'll be forced to Sing "Single Ladies" by Beyonce and run the risk of a mediocre, copycat performance. I wish she'd get creative and take a non- r&B song and put some hip-hop in it, but she won't. Again, we'll all be a bit dissappointed and wonder why.

Danny - Okay, He's kind of in a corner as well. Truthfully I can see him, Matt, and Kris having a death match over who gets to sing "I'm Yours" ( The winner should be nobody, that song has been DONE) In the end he will talk Scott into leaving the show by singing "Don't stop believing" so he can sing "The Climb", he will then cry about how the song represents his struggle, He will go on another week being a favorite in the competition since nobody has the stones to stand up and say ," Wait a minute, this guy is only a little better then average and growls all the high notes....what in the heck are we doing !?!?

Megan - Needs a big week, because Scott and her are clearly the worst and Scott is blind so we feel bad sending him home first. Still, if she hits it out of the park justice will prevail and she may stay another week. I disagree with conventional wisdom and think she should RUN away from Colby Calliet and "Lucky". Just because Megan is coffe shop music and that is coffe shop music don't mean the two are interchangable. Sadly, this week doesn't present Megan a lot of good options but if I have a gun to my head I would say "Hot N Cold" by Katy Perry works for her sound. It's an all or nothing performance that could be really good or really bad, but I think it works for her personality.

Matt- Will be tempted by "don't stop believe'n" but should embrace his inner Elliot Yamin and sing "How do you sleep" No Piano, just sing it straight up and he would probably kill this. This is a big jump for him from singing everything with a Soul vibe do doing straight Pop - R&B , but if the transition goes well he might be able to separate himself from the pack a little bit.

Anoop - Kind of needs a ballad. It's what he does and right now a high energy performance would single him out in a bad way. And average ballend would keep him in the competition, while a bad "bobby brown" esque performance could send him home. If Matt doesn't sing "How do you slepp" Anoop will. But I think he should sing "Use Somebody" by Kings of Leon. This is a HUGE departure from what he does, but it will allow him to sing essentially a balland in a little different style where he can play to his strength and still get props for "Taking a risk" .

Kris - He's going to try to sing "I'm yours" . He probably has a fun story about how he sings that one to his wife and she loves it, and blah blah blah....I really hope he doesn't, Kris is one of only two smart contestants we have when it comes to song choice and I really hope he doesn't go the easy route. Kris joined the group of favorites because he can arrange music to fit his voice, and give the audience something different. I would love to hear something different, like his take on "Only you can love me this way" by Keith Urban or "It won't be like this for long" by Darius Rucker. There are a ton of songs that suite his voice and it would be easy to do one of those, but I hope he takes the more difficult road and gives us something we haven't heard before.

Adam - I really don't want to recommend songs for Adam because he is better at picking songs for himself then I am at picking songs for him. Even "Ring of Fire" suited his voice, despite the song being too flaming for a general audience. I think this is the week to go back to the rock edge and pick "Second Chance" by Shinedown. Also he's the only one who can convey enough emotion to properly sing "Thinking of you" by Katy Perry. I prefer that latter, but seriously Adam is playing all his cards right right now so whatever he wants to sing I'm sure will be fine by me.

Mini Blog Posts

2009-03-22T10:50:00.001-07:00

There are pros and cons to spending three days watching four basketball games on four different TV's all at once. The pros are the basketball, and also pretending to be intensely zoned out and not hearing your wife when is calling for you, allowing me to avoid all sorts of child care duties. The cons are when all four games go to a commercial break, and each channel is playing the same commercial on four different TV's you feel like you're being brainwashed. Over the last three days of basketball I think I've seen the same 10 commercials on an endless cycle. It's been awful. The only one that is still even mildly entertaining is the midget farmer selling mini breakfast sandwiches. He just looks so happy, I like to think that there is an actual midget farmer out there who is as happy as that little fella. Anyway, in honor of the only commercial to make it out of the NCAA Tournament first round without me being completely tired of it I will post a series of "mini posts" in honor of that small dude and his farm.

1. After two days my bracket was already mathematically eliminated from winning Cooper's bracket contest. An all time low. This year I picked my teams based on how far they would have to travel each round. Next year I am going to select the college that I assume would have the best food ( including an in depth analysis of each school's freshman dining plan). I am almost guaranteed to do much better.

2. Speaking of food, I am no longer eating it. I started my diet this past week, and I've already passed on about 4 slices of pizza, two brats, 4 pieces of cake and Ice Cream, some Queso Dip, and several bowls of chocolate snacks. Some count the calories they eat, I count the calories I pass up on. It's a higher number and it makes me feel much better. Also, I did lose 7 pounds in week 1 ( Take that Biggest Loser!) So right now the thrill of success is trumping the constant dull ache for food. Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck.

3. This year I have discovered Dial Idol. They post their "results" measured by how often they get a busy signal when calling for all the contestants. They are very accurate, not completely accurate, but very accurate. Type in "Dial Idol Results" the morning after a show, their actual site won't give you the results for free, but there is some blog that does. Just a tip for all who like spoilers.

4. Quick Idol Thoughts : Alison would be my favorite if she were 10 years older. Danny Gokkey kind of sucks and we're all being fooled. No news could come out about Adam Lambert that would shock me, none, he's talented and can be entertaining, but he comes off fake and it bothers me, no idea who he really it. Kris Allen is my current favorite, if he continues to show the ability to arrange music to fit his voice he will stand a decent chance of being top 2.

5. Cami has decided that she wants to live outdoors full time. She LOVES running around in the yard and we are scrambling to find some outside toys for her, we are in the market for anything and everything Little Tykes has produced. Right now we have a little slide, a huge plastic wagon we picked up at a garage sale and we're still questing after one of those yellow-red cars that looks like an egg, a playhouse with shutters ( or just baby shutters, as that is the only feature on the house Cameron actually cares about), and a baby pic-nic table. I would like to pay $10 or less for all three because I am unreasonably cheap. So I have a feeling that hitting up garage sales will become a consistent practice for us over the next few weeks.

Four Random Things On My Mind Right Now

2009-02-22T08:33:00.000-08:00

1. My poor neglected blog . I haven't even seen it for 6 weeks. Carrie has completely changed the format and at once made it much more attractive and much less manly. I feel like the guy who went away for a week long business trip and came home to find his "man-cave" turned into a sitting room. Not that this blog was ever an online man cave, goodness knows it exists to publish baby pictures and a few family updates. But it does feel much tougher to write about sports knowing that my insightful analysis is now flanked by decorative doily. Just saying.

2. Balloon Animals - Speaking of manly subjects I might as well come out and admit the least manly thing I do. I've gotten pretty darn good at making ballon animals. I've been at it for almost two months now and It's gotten to the point where I can twist anything if given directions and I have come up with a few designs on my own. See the pictures below for a few examples. My big question now is where do I go from here? Do I try and seek out balloon artists to learn from so I can do the most complex stuff? Do I increase my speed so I can knock out hundreds of single balloon animals for kids parties and start a side business? Do I want to endure my college friends laughing hysterically every time I mention balloons for the rest of my life? ( I'm looking right at you Todd) Not quite sure what the answers to any of those questions are yet, but for now I'll just stick to reluctantly admitting that yes I'm 28 years old and I enjoy playing with balloons in my spare time.

3. Old School Shaving - Badger hair brush, shaving cream in a tube, straight razor. I have decided to cast off fruity smelling neon cream and start my day like 90% of the great men of history have before me....with an old school shave. For my Birthday Carrie got me a shaving brush made of fine badger hair and a tube of shaving cream. These past few weeks I have been schooling myself in the fine art of producing and applying hot, warm lather with my brush. Every morning now starts with that soft facial massage and the aroma of sweet success enveloping my face. Soon I will be adding the straight razor into the routine ( I'm waiting until I have a few days in a row off, just in case I'm dealing with wounds that need stiches) To complete the cycle and join the club of those who've gone before me and shaved like real men.

4. American Idol - This season is making me angry. The top 36 format doesn't work for me at all. I feel like this show has gone from 30% manipuled by the producers to 75% with a quick format change. The part of American Idol that I liked was the honest competition portion, it usually began in these first voting rounds, but right now I feel like the only folks who stand a chance of winning are the folks they spent the most camera time on. In that past Folks like Ricky Braddy, who get zero camera time, but sing nicely can stick around a few rounds while we get to know them and see if they can perform week after week. Now, he's just gone. While folks like Michael Sarver get all the camera time in the world, and then advance with an average performance. We won't see him sing for a solid month, and when he does show up again in the top 12 there is a better than good chance we're going to say, "Boy that guy sucks, how did he get through?" He got through because the producers want him through. We get no chance to see how these folks do over the course of 3 weeks time. It makes me angry that you can't advance by just singing well, you have to sing well and be choosen by the producers to have your story highlighted. It really sucks and is killing my enjoyment of this round.

The Busy Snow Bunny

2009-01-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been awhile since we posted, and though I recognize that Chris has more entertaining writing, I can at least give a quick update and some pictures. We enjoyed our holiday break and Christmas, spending lots of time with family and some with friends. We stayed in KC, Chris took quite a bit of time off work, and it was very relaxing. Now we are back in the swing of things, and with our new years resolutions in full-force, we've been going to bed early, putting our dishes right into the dishwasher, and other exciting new things!

As for little Cami, she is growing up fast. She is running around all over the place, sometimes only napping for an hour during the day, and making us very tired (though she is going to bed earlier at night, so she gets plenty of rest)! Still, she is saying lots of new words and it is fun to see her learning so much each day. She has recently learned how to fold her arms during prayers & it is so cute when she reminds us as soon as we place her in the high chair. She still loves books & asks to be read to constantly ("bok, bok!" with whatever she wants in her hands), but her favorite thing is to watch a Little Einsteins video ("rocket" sometimes followed by "no, no!" - because I won't let her watch it as often as she'd like, she for a time grouped the two together), sigh. I like to think she just likes the music, but I don't like to see her staring zombie-like at the TV for too long. Still, the pat-pat and blast-off moves are cute.

It has snowed quite a bit this year, so she also has had a chance to try out her puffy pink snowsuit. She seems very warm in it, but can't walk very well, so after a few waddly steps, she kind of flops over on the ground & we have to pick her up. While she liked the snow okay, she really enjoyed the chance to chase the cat, something she doesn't get to do often. Again, due to her mobility he got away.

So that is about all for now. Oh yes, we also just passed the four-year marriage mark. Don't ask me how, but we both almost forgot! It was actually about 1 PM that day, and as I was taking down the Christmas tree I thought, "January 6th, kind of late to be taking down the tree... well, not really that late... then, isn't that someones birthday or something?...oh wow, it's our anniversary!" So I made a quick phone call, thanks Mom, and we still got to go out that night. I guess you could say the romance is gone - just kidding Chris! Well, I think that is it -Chris just got back from Pinewood Derby - hope all is well :).

Here Cami is, enjoying lounging in her car seat - indoors of course. I think she'll actually be sad when we get that one back in the car.

Here we are playing in the snow, or trying to at least.

Finally, Cami chasing the cat.

Time for Q & A

2008-12-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

You'd never guess it but this little family blog site drives some pretty good traffic. So, as a special favor to our loyal readship I have decided to take this space to answer all of your questions and comments that have come pouring in while I have been non-blogging for the past month. ( By your questions and e-mails I mean, Stuff I just made up so I could put it in this highly entertaining and easy to write format.)

Let's get to the mailbag!

Q: We really enjoy the Christmas Decorations in the front of your house, however the decortations in the back yard leave something to be desired. While from the street your house says, " Merry Christmas" from the backyard it says, " abandoned trailer park". Can you please tell us the meaning of these Christmas cardboard boxes in your back yard and when can we expect them to be removed? Thanks!

- your Backyard neighbors.

A: Thanks Backyard neighbors! Always good to hear from you. It's funny you mention the boxes ( which were removed this weekend incidently), about two weeks ago I piled a large amount of household trash into our garage in preparation for garbage day. That very same day a perfect stranger was coming over to buy our old dryer ( Thank you Craigslist!). In order that this potential customer might not see our garage and reconsider his purchase I decided to hide our mountain of trash in the backyard while the purchase was made. Well, I was so excited to get rid of the dryer I had forgotten about the trash, and a few wet and windy days later our entire backyard was decorated in cardboard and filth. No commentary was being made except one on my own laziness and stupidity. Thanks for the question!!

Q: We've heard you purchased a video camera. When is Cami video going to hit the blog.

A: As soon as we figure out how to post, right now we're still fiddling, ans still filming. Right now we've almost completed principal filming of the documentary Cami Diggins: My life toddling around and around in the living room. We can't decide on posting video of her singing jingle bells ( you heard me), hiding under the computer, or doing the pat,pat,pat Blast off routine from Little Einstiens. Leave a comment and let us know what you want to see. We'll put it up.

Q: Is there going to be a Diggins family Christmas Card?

A: We're in the process of procrastinating that decision right now! If we don't get it together this week it's not going to happen. It's actually much harder than it looks, finding just the right cheesey family photo and coming up with a whole letter's worth of information that won't bore all of you to tears. Actually, at this point I'm thinking of doing a fake Christmas card. Wouldn't it be much better for to get one of those long year-in-review letters full of fantastic lies rather than the standard updates? If you're even reading this you know all that stuff anyway, and in much better detail than I'll put in a letter. I'm completely sold on it, but Carrie is not. Stay tuned.

Q: No recent political or sports commentary. What gives?

A: Okay, here's my lists of one sentence comments on everything in sports and politics that matters.

1. Will someone remind the President-Elect that he should not hold more press conferences than the actual President.
2. I want a bailout too!
3. Why is my 11-1 College Football team so much worse than your 11-1 College Football team?
4. I truly could care less who wins the Heisman
5. If you never thought you were doing anything wrong why are you spending the last three months or your presidency apologizing?
6. The last 4 weeks of the NFL season: Leave it , the last 4 weeks of the Fantasy Football season: Take it!!
7. CC Sabathia will be the most hated man ever to squeeze into a Yankee uniform after he shows up to never year's spring training pushing 340 lbs.
8. Goodbye Fox News! It was while it lasted, but everything is much too depressing now. If you need me I'll be downstairs organizing my food storage and ammunition.

Cami's 1st Birthday

2008-11-16T16:48:00.001-08:00

On Saturday Cami turned 1, so being the incredible parents we are we threw her a birthday party that she won't remember and where she didn't really know what was going on. Basically a weeks worth of work for a 3 hour photo op, but what a great photo op! We had a small party with just family (If you can consider a Rowe family gathering small) Her cousins came over and we had games, and cake, and presents, and a good time. I've decided that kids parties are a lot like fireworks, lots of time and expense in making it happen for about 15 seconds of pay off. Still, she seemed happy and we hope all the kids enjoyed themselves. Here's Cami on her Birthday morning. One year older and wiser too!

Her Birthday party theme was " A Bookworm Birthday" Carrie made the book with the worm cake herself ( very good) and I frosted the cupcakes ( Very bad)

Cami, just figuring out what this Brithday Cake and singing thing is all about.

Here she is enjoying a well smashed cupcake.

We cleaned up the basement and had games downstairs. This is my niece Ashlyn taking her turn on "Pin the Bowtie on the Bookworm" With Claire, Aubrianna, and Ethan looking on.

Story time during the party. BTW, we asked the kids to dress up as their favorite character from a book. Nice outfit Mom Rowe!!

Blog Therapy

2008-11-08T19:33:00.000-08:00

A few hours ago I just watched Penn State's football season go down in flames. I'm trying to look on the bright side, because they will still probably win at least a share of the Big Ten title and go to a BCS game, most likely the Rose Bowl, which has a great time slot on New Year's Day. But, mostly I'm completely depressed and I'm thinking I might not see them win another National Championship in my lifetime. No matter how hard I root, or how much stuff I buy, no matter how good recruiting or what ever is...it's just not ever going to happen. I get a few highlight films from the eighties and that's it...I love my Lions, but It's hopeless, I just can't think about it anymore.

So in an attempt to lift my spirits I'm trying a little blog therapy, just a few short bursts on anything not related to football, just to remind me there is more to life. So here it goes.

1. I've lived in a lot of different places and been fortunate enough to travel all over this country during my lifetime. I mention this because I'm sure that I can say without a doubt the state of Kansas has more vanity plates per capita than any other state in the union. I don't know if it's cheaper here, or if it's a weird cultural thing that I haven't realized yet, but every other car in this flippin place has a vanity plate. They aren't even significant things like last names or college affiliation, mostly it's stupid stuff like , "IGOT12" or "2Fst4U" . It really is crazy, has anyone else picked up on this.

2. If that's Eggland's best then Eggland really has to step its game up.

3. I know that Barack Obama's daughter is allergic to dogs. I still don't know what he means by Change.

4. If Crusoe doesn't figure out that he has everything he needs to build a raft and get out of there within the next 3 episodes I'm out. If he gets caught in a storm, or they come up with some other similarly stupid reason to keep him on the island, whatever, just make the attempt or I walk. This is my final offer.

5. In the Cook vs. Archuleta "who has the better career" contest I am awarding round 1 to Mr. Archuleta. His song , "Crush" isn't in my wheelhouse, but it is very catchy and the sort of thing he should be doing. David Cook's new song sucks. It sounds like he found a guitar riff he liked and then made up some words as he went along. It's truly garbage, but his voice sounds great recorded and I have high hopes that he'll get a better song to work with in the future.

6. This Christmas, "High School Musical 3" is holding the handgun and parents everywhere are emptying their pockets and putting their hands in the air.

7. I live within 2 miles of the best Red Robin in the United States. On a Friday night they were properly staffed. We got our food fast and fries Red Robin hot, "If you've been then you know Red Robin fires have their own level of hot, with the crispy outside and the insides the just about to burn your mouth, but they don't quite burn your mouth so you talk yourself into eating a few more with some Campfire/ Fry Sauce thinking they will soon cool down but they never do and you wonder if they are too hot or not for the first 15 minutes of your meal." Good service, and they even let us take a few cups of the campfire sauce home because we like it so much and we were willing to embarrass ourselves slightly by asking. Great experience, and I'm glad we've got them so close by.

Halloween Facts

2008-11-02T05:46:00.001-08:00

Cami's first Halloween was a great time, made better because it fell on the same night as the Rowe family fall festival. Here are a few pictures, followed by a list of things I've determined are facts.During the Rowe family fall festival Carrie's Dad gives hay rides around the yard with his tractor. Cami was a little worried at first, but once the hayride started she absolutely loved it. She stood and clapped for the last few minutes so you could tell she was really impressed. ( For those who don't know our sweetheart, standing and clapping really isn't as dramatic as it seems. Those are two of the four or five things she does when she gets really excited, so she wasn't so much moved as she was very joyful and trying to find a way to let it out. She also stands and claps for "When you're happy and you know it." )So after the hay ride was over we had to snap a few family photos because she was in SUCH a good mood after being in SUCH a bad mood the hour before. Who knew a cart full of hay could bring someone so much happiness.

Here Cami is trick or treating in her stroller. She rolled along with her cousins as we went around in grandma and grandpa's neighborhood. Which brings me to my list of random and unrelated facts.

Fact: I have absolutely no problem going up to a house to trick or treat when my daughter is less than one and both myself and the owner of the house know the candy is really for me. At the first few houses we went to this sense of slight awkwardness / shame didn't come into play because we hit the door at the same time as the 13 other cousins, so it was mass panic and we were able to "smash and grab" without the homeowner thinking twice. However as the older kids pushed ahead at a faster pace, and we were left with the younger children in the back of the pack, we would have to go to door individually, and caught and evil eye here and there. I will endure that evil eye and any snide remark they may share with their spouse for a piece of candy. Everyone has their price and now at least I know mine.

Fact: BBQ is a right not a privilege. On Wednesday night I had a sudden thought that grew into a mild obsession ," I need a rack of ribs." Needless to say within 24 hours I had my ribs. Maybe it was that I was trying to eat a little less and the forces of BBQ would not let me go on a pseudo/secret diet for one second longer. Maybe it was the great deals we got on Soup and Hot Dogs that causes me to choose to have Soup and/or Hot Dogs one to many times. Either way, I haven't had a fix'n like that in some time. In the end we ended up getting some of " Big Bubba BBQ" a smoke shack 3 blocks from our house because We've wanted to try it and Gates was too far away at the time of said BBQ attack. Overall a quality rib, not quite as juicy as gates but with a nice smokey flavor. Their pulled pork and smoked sides were good as well. Overall a solid meal that took care of the craving.

Fact: You should never blog about food on fast Sunday

Fact: Obama is going to win. I've moved past the ," Oh please don't let this happen" stage of the election and moved on to the ," I wonder if I should take out my 401k to invest in guns and food storage" stage. You know you've got some great candidates for office when your biggest concerns stop being the economy and abortion and start being " Is my tent big enough" and "How much generator do I really need". What makes this year's election so tough is how the media has just out and out stopped serving the people. There has alway been bias...but this bad? They have gone out of their way to make Sarah Palin seem stupid and underqualified. They have drooled over Obama because of his good looks and his ability to speak. Getting a report on how the election is going from any media outlet is like asking a Ford dealer which Chevy to buy. I usually end up choosing Fox news because if the media has deciding to be bias then I might as well choose the bias that I like right? It's a dangerous road we're on, an unquestioned dictator, media that serves only as propaganda, and culture that doesn't allow the questioning of leadership. Prop 8 loses in California and we're heading for really tough times. Just Saying.

Fact: Penn State is playing for the national championship if it wins out. Look, it's a bad system. However it is working out for my team for once so I don't care. Yup there are some really good teams that have one loss in the Big 12 and SEC, but they will not leapfrog and undefeated PSU team no matter what the computer polls do because the human polls will never deny Joe Pa one last chance. There are some people out there that think this is a point to be argued, it's just a fact and if you don't like it it's too darn bad. Folks that argue that it should be th BIG 12 champe vs. the SEC champ no matter what Penn State does are like little kids at bedtime. They may complain, scream, try to bargain , but at the end of the night they're in their room at eight. Sorry Ohio State ruined you on the Big Ten, but that's just too bad because you're going to get the Big Ten in the championship game again. Argue all you want, Facts are Facts.

For the record: Penn State, Florida, Alabama, Texas, USC, and Oklahoma are all probably good enough to win the title this year, but on any given day any one can beat any of the others. Too bad we don't have a playoff to sort that out for us. At the end of the day, Texas beat Oklahoma and Florida plays Alabama, so that takes that out of the mix. If the system was tweaked even a little bit we'd have a four team playoff that included the Big 12 champ, the SEC champ, Penn State, and USC. That's all the playoff I'd need, that's a true national champion. I don't ask for much.

A Day at the Pumpkin Patch

2008-10-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, we took a family trip to Shaake's pumpkin patch in Lawrence to pick out some pumpkins. We had a blast and took some really cute pictures. They took us out on a hayride into the patch, where Cami had her first pumpkin encounter.Here is Cami with Mommy after getting comfortable at the patch. When first introduced to the pumpkin, Cami wasn't so sure she wanted to touch it, so Daddy helped her out a bit...

Then she patted it on her own, and finally, she plopped right down amongst the pumpkins, happy as a clam.

As we are planning on making a return trip next year, we thought it necessary to document how tall Cami was this time around, measuring just over 2 ft.

To wrap up the day, Chris launched a couple of pumpkins 100 yrds into the air... or so he says! As you see, he had perfect technique. Cami actually enjoyed watching him quite a bit.

You might have noticed his Penn State hat, which leads us into our next topic, where Chris will take over...

Thanks Carrie, actually there isn't much to report on the Penn State front other than that win was huge and if we hang on to these last three games we're playing for the national title. However, I would like to make an appeal to everyone reading who doesn't have a college football team or is perhaps a disaffected Cougar fan and doesn't have much to cheer for the rest of the year. ( Quick tangent. When they finally publish the long awaited book ," How to suck at your job" I'm positive that KC Cheifs GM Carl Peterson and Mountain West Commisioner Craig Thompson will be the co-authors. The worst BYU can possibly finish is 10-2 again and what will be their reward? Another fine trip to the ALPO Dog Food bowl, or something with even less prestige. If the Mtn. West is really almost a BCS league you've gotta have better bowl tie ins. Period.) I think you should start rooting for Penn State, if for no other reason than Joe Paterno. at 81 years old he's given his whole life to Penn State, given practically all the money he's made back to the university, has a hard time walking and getting from place to place but can still find the energy to coach a Major college football program. Now at the end of his career and probably near the end of his life he has a shot to win one last title. This isn't a season, it's a major motion picture..."Something for JoePA" I can see it now ( Those familiar with PSU or old movies probably get the movie title, if not then don't worry about it and just move on.) Anyway, I just wanted to put it out there that the PSU bandwagon is big enough for everyone and if you're waiting for an invitation then please hop aboard!

Other than that, Carrie and I Tivo'ed two episodes of the NBC show Crusoe..We watched them both this last friday after an exhausting night for shopping for Cami. Anyway, The point is I have never seen a show jump the shark so quickly. The Premier was alright, medicore action show, but the second show made no sense and was about finding somebody bones and putting them out to sea..crazy. Anyway, after two shows too much has happened to make me take this show seriously anymore. If Crusoe can build a sweet house and booby trap the whole isle you're telling me he can't build a ship can just sail off? Anyway, waste of time and I'm looking for a new action/drama to watch if you know of any good ones.

Chris posts again

2008-10-19T09:22:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some thoughts with everyone after my extended blogging hiatus. For starters I never wanted to stop writing, I feel a bit like a balloon that is so full or air that it either needs to let a little out or pop at any minute. I just had to stop blogging because if I was going to write it was going to be about sports, and if I wrote about sports I would be going on public record many, many times bragging about how good I thought my various football teams were, and if I did that then every self respecting sports fan knows I would be jinxing what I was considering the greatest start to a football season of my lifetime.

Let's think back to a week ago my friends...(Sorry, I've been watching too much politics and I've inadvertantly picked up several McCainism's in my everyday life. I've even started to catch on to the things I do everyday that might classify me as a Maverick. Taking a swig straight from the milk jug...Maverick! Sliding right behind a car that just pulled out to take a prime spot at the supermarket...Maverick!!) The Giants, BYU and Penn State were all undefeated and everytime I watched the TV, radio, newspaper, internet, podcasts ( I have a little bit of a football addication. I'm sure I consume between 3-6 hours of football related media on a weekday with much more on saturday. Some would say I need to re-prioritize my life and I would then tell some to JUST BACK OFF, I'M FINE!!! ) Needless to say it was a a month of perfect football bliss where I walked around with a bright inner smile and made a conscious attempt to not talk up my teams too much. Saying things like ," We're alright" or "there's a lot of season left, let's not go too far." When inside I'm thinking "We're going to win the national title." or " My team would likely smoke your team by 30 points if they played right now, I'm not even kidding." That's something you do when you're team is good, you try not to talk them up too much and do everything you can not to jinx them, like going on a brag-a-thon or writing a post that makes it seem like you're too confident.

Then this week happened. The Giants got blown out of the building by a sub-par Browns team that played like the '89 49ers. BYU didn't even act like it belonged on the field against TCU, and Penn State had a first half scare against Michigan that caused me to have some minor heart trouble before blowing them away in the second half. Needless to say, I don't have to worry about jinxing my season anymore, So I figured I could get back to writing and doing things I otherwise enjoy. (Quick note on the PSU vs. Michigan game. I actually watched this game on TiVo delay because Carrie and I went to the St. Louis Temple on Saturday. We already scheduled this trip in advance of knowing when the game would be on, but considering how terribly the football week was already going for me I figured there was no stronger anti-jinx action I could take to help PSU than to pretend football didn't matter for a saturday and go to the temple. I'm not sure if this is the type of attitude that causes me to lose all the blessings I gain from the trip or just proves I am mildly insane. The point is, on the way home I asked Carrie to look up the score on her phone and when she told me it was 17 - 7 Michigan in the middle of the 2nd I went into a state of shock. Carrie then spent the rest of the 4 hour ride updating me play by play as it was updated on her phone. I have a sweet wife and I would like publicly thank her for getting me through that tough time.)

Anyway, Since the unwritten laws of jinx offically allow me to write again here are a couple of things I've been thinking about lately.

1. Facebook - Some of you already know I started a Facebook account a couple weeks ago. This makes me one of the last 15 people my age to have one, but I figured better late then never. Anyway, totally different experience then I thought it would be. I figured it would be a nice little waste of 30 minutes on a day when I was feeling particularly under the weather. It's actually been like attending a huge reunion of almost everyone from your life and only having to talk to the people you actually want to talk to. I'm quite hooked.

2. Politics - You know, being a Republican right now is like being a fan of Nebraska football. Follow me on this one, about a decade or so we had a great thing going, great tradition , an old fashoned scheme we played to perfection, titles, everything you could want. Then we saw ourselves slipping a bit so we brought in new leadership to blow the whole thing up and start going about things a new way. The new way causes us to lose our identity, and now our leadership is so poor and our record is so bad we basically need to start over from nothing all while watching folks we used to beat easily destroy us. Confused yet? Me Too. the point is I am a conservative and the republicans have not governed like conservatives. When I think of What Bush has accomplished in the last 8 years, this is what comes to my mind. The Tax Cuts, The war in Iraq, Creation of the Dept. of Homeland Security, No Child Left Behind, The Wall Street Bailout. I only support 2 of those 5 things, and that's just not good enough. Republicans need to regroup, find new, promising, conservative leaders, and try to get back into the game in a couple of years.

In the meantime, I hope what republicans are left take a page out of the democratic playbook and whine, moan, complain, and generally make a pest of themselves for at least the next 2 - 4 years while the party reloads. That's how the Democrats treated the republican majority and that's how they need to be treated. What makes me more more mad than anything else it is the double standard in Washington. A corrupt Republican is quickly swept out of office, a corrupt democrat is put into party leadership. We should print calendars, articles, T-shirts and do everything we can to let everyone know how incompetant we think Barack Obama is ( and make no mistake, he is less qualified than Sarah Palin, He's just more ethnic so we look past it) Let's see how they like dealing with opposition that has not interest in doing anything constructive but being a pain in the rear. It will be a sad two years for public discourse but a fun one for those of us looking to have stupid fun at the democratic party's expense.

Our Little Lady(bug) & I LOVE this Country!

2008-10-14T08:54:00.000-07:00

First off, I have to post a few pics of Cami and I at our ward Halloween Carnival. This was our first chance to dress our kid up for Halloween, and we can't help but think she's cute!

Next, I was listening to country music as I drove home yesterday, and I while I know it makes you – or at least me – more naturally nostalgic and emotional, or at least makes me wish I lived on a farm and went to county fairs, it got me thinking. I really love the USA. I mean I really, really do. This is a great place we live in – we have freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the ability to provide and care for our families. We can be happy because our government doesn’t control our lives and we can choose our own destiny, for better or worse.

Well, as far as I can see, as we (the government, which is collectively using all of the money that WE pay in taxes) buy up shares in banks, mortgages and the stock market, things are changing pretty fast. I just want to yell, “LEAVE US ALONE! PLEASE DON’T HELP ANYMORE, REALLY!” Now maybe I am overreacting, as I’ve always been pretty passionate about politics. But part of me can’t see any outcome to this mess that makes us better off than we were before. My greatest fear is that we will be left in such a place/situation that people will start thinking socialized medicine could be a good idea too. What ever happened to freedom of choice and accountability for our actions? I know way, way more people called their leaders and asked them not to pass that bailout. I know they did anyway. I hope I am very wrong about what this will do to our free market capitalism system. All I am seeing is corruption, corruption, corruption.

I could go on and on, but here, in a nutshell, is why I am sad. I LOVE this country. I know that many people aren’t making positive choices, but there are still a lot of good people out there. But have we crossed that threshold? Are we to the point that the evil, or the confused, are going to get their way? I speak to so many who don’t even know what they believe – at least politically, and don’t know if the leader they favor represents their views. In my mind, you can’t trust most of our news outlets to tell it straight, so I don’t even know that the voice of the people could be heard if they wanted it to.

Okay, I’m not that great at articulating my feelings sometimes, and maybe this didn’t make any sense, but it does to me. I want freedom. I want to make my own decisions. I want accountability, even if it seems hard sometimes. I want assistance to be fair and moderate. I want human life and family values to be respected. Does anyone in Washington hear me? I used think we all wanted the same thing -Democrats, Republicans, Liberals, Conservatives – we just disagreed on the right way to go about it, but lately I am starting to wonder. I don’t think we can afford to be cynical in these times, but I do think we can afford to prepare. We don’t have to be afraid, and we definitely should never give up, but maybe we have to stand apart a little bit more. I’ve never respected the political views of celebrities, but their petty hate-speech of late has made me realize even more that we have to be strong on our own, and let our friends and children know how we feel. That is not why I am writing this, more I just need to vent, but we can’t let the powerful make us feel powerless – and how funny that I don’t mean that in the traditional political sense. Okay, I need to clean my house now. If you think I’m crazy, you don’t have to let me know :).

How to Get Free Stuff & Some Great Deals

2008-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, so a few of you asked how to get the free stuff. This is basically how it works by store. As to time, I would say it takes me at least 2-3 hours a week between clipping and filing coupons, planning purchases, and the actual shopping. Some of this stuff can be done by multi-tasking, like clipping coupons when you’re watching TV, but there is definitely time involved. Also, you need to get the paper – sometimes getting the neighborhood paper is cheaper , but just make sure it gets all the coupon inserts (Smart Source, Red Plum, & once a month P&G ). You will also need to get organized – I’ll post a pic of my coupon book at the end here.

If you decide to do it, it is great getting lots of free stuff, but you do have to discipline yourself as to how much time you will put into it, as you could get deals almost indefinitely. Last disclaimer is that some of the girls on these sites I will reference do things that I wouldn’t do and in my opinion abuse the couponing policies or try to scam stores (ex: copying and printing coupons sent to others and using them yourself, using more than one coupon when it states one per customer or getting more than one deal card at stores like CVS). I’m sure none of you would try to do this, but I figure if you’re going to put your eternal salvation on the line for some free stuff, you might be on the wrong track.

Here are the benefits:
- Save 90% or more on your toiletries and cleaning supplies. You will never have to purchase toothpaste or makeup or deodorant or shampoo again.
- Save about 50% on your grocery budget. If you still purchase fresh stuff, it’s hard to save much more than 60% total, because you can almost never get that stuff completely free. But paying half it still much better than full price.

Here are the basic ways to get stuff free:
1. Use the store special programs that usually advertise free stuff anyway, especially at CVS and Walgreens. Using a coupon on these items, you can actually make “money” some of the time.
2. Use a buy one get one free coupon on a buy one get one free sale. The store pays for one item, the manufacturer pays for the other. Most stores allow this.
3. Use a high value coupon on a sale item. Example: Toilet paper is on sale for 0.99 a pack. You use a .50/off coupon and the store doubles it. Your TP is free.

Store to Store
This is the way the stores work. Most of the obvious free stuff comes from the drug stores. Careful examining of grocery ads can get you great deals.

1. CVS: Roll your extra bucks (“extra credit bucks” or ECB for short) to get free stuff every week. You will have to put out $10-20 dollars to get started, but from there will rarely have to pay more than tax. For instance, they have deodorant on sale for 4.99, and will give you back $4 “extra credit bucks (ECB)” at the end of your purchase. You use a $1 dollar off coupon for the deodorant, and so it is free. These links explain it further:
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/03/cvs-101.html OR
http://forums.families.com/cvs-101-everything-from-eb-to-clearance-to-overage,t33611

A good site that matches up deals for you is www.iheartcvs.com. Again, practice honestly when referencing these sites. You can also match most deals up just by looking at the weekly ad (they also have a monthly ECB booklet).

2. Walgreens: Walgreens is a little more complicated, but uses these three things to help you save money.
Register Rewards (RR) - Like ECB, but with restrictions. Register Rewards print out of a little machine next to the receipt printer after your purchase. You can get them on certain promotional items. For instance, this week they had Reach toothbrushes 2/$5, and then $5 RR if you buy 2. So the 2 toothbrushes are free, and if you use $1 off coupons off each one, you can actually make $2 on the transaction. As to RR limitations, you can’t use your RR to purchase the same items over again, and you can’t have more coupons and RR combined than number of items you are purchasing. Also, ECB expire in one month and most RR expire in two weeks (though the Reach ones don’t expire until Dec. – odd.)
Easy Saver Coupons – Each month Walgreens puts out an Easy Saver Booklet, divided in half. The first half is coupons, the second half is rebates. These coupons can usually be stacked with manufacturer coupons for even greater savings. The booklet is at the front of the store next to the ad.
Easy Saver Rebates – This is where you make the most money at Walgreens. The second half of the booklet is where they list all the rebates. These can be mailed in, but the most efficient way to do this is online. You simply register on the Walgreens web site, and after you purchase a rebate item, you check what you bought off of a list, and enter the receipt number. They will give you back what you paid plus 10% if you choose to put in on a Walgreens gift card. The first time you do this, they will mail the gift card to you. After that, you can have the money loaded on your card each month. By doing this, you just spend your rebate money from the previous month each month, along with rolling RR, to get your free stuff. You don’t even have to pay tax out of pocket.

For deal matching at Walgreens, try www.iheartwags.com.

3. Target: Target is much more hit and miss, so I only end up there a couple of times a month. What you’re looking for in their ads is when they give $5 back gift cards on items. For instance, cereal may be 4/$11, but you get $5 back. So then it is 4/$6, and if you use coupons on each box, you can get it down to 4/$4, and a dollar a box isn’t bad for cereal. Given the right deal and coupons, I’ve gotten stuff free this way too. The key is to save those gift cards and “roll” them for the next deal (though if you’re already going to spend money at Target, you might as well use them).

4. Grocery Stores: I’m going to clump all of these together, because these are usually regional. Basically, all you can do is carefully examine the ads, match up your coupons with the best deals, and stockpile. For this reason, I get three sets of coupons each week (by subscribing to our local paper, this doubles my coupons – they drop an insert in Sat. & deliver the big Sunday paper too – at half the cost). So when salad dressing is really cheap, I can get three instead of one. I buy a lot of meat at the cheapest price (under $2/lb. for lean ground beef and fresh boneless skinless chicken breast) and freeze it, etc. The idea is to buy what you need at the price you deem reasonable. When you are forced to convenience buy, you are forced to pay higher prices.

Check to see if any of the stores in your area double coupons. I know that Hen House and Dillons do. This really adds up and often leads to the free items more easily. Never buy anything just because you have a coupon though, unless you really need it, because if it’s not on sale, you might end up paying more than at Walmart. Oh yes, how do you know you’re getting a good deal? If you can beat the Walmart & Sam’s Club’s prices, then you are. When I started out, I made a short list of items I buy a lot, and calculated their price per item (cost per diaper, roll of TP, oz. of Tide, etc.) and that is what I try to beat.

So, hopefully that wasn’t too confusing. Feel free to post any questions. Once you start doing it, it makes a lot more sense and requires much less thought. If you like getting good deals, it can also be great fun! Last thing, here is my coupon book:
(This is not a great pic - it is from the early days - and makes it look a little messy - but it gives you the basic idea. This is a zippered 3-ring binder.)
The first section deals with stores (I store ECB, RR, and gift cards by store, with a spot on top for the weekly lists). These are 4x6 photo pages I got at Office Depot. The sections after that are color-coded by area (toiletries, other non-foods, fresh, boxed/canned, etc.) and use baseball-card pages.

If you don’t have a lot of time, I have heard of some people who don’t clip and file, they just save them by date and match them up with posted deals online. This said, there are countless blogs and sites dedicated to this purpose. Here are a few:

http://www.hotcouponworld.com/
http://www.slickdeals.net/
http://www.moneysavingmom.com/

Well, good luck saving some cash. This is a great way to build a storage, especially for those who thought maybe they didn’t have the $ right now. Just find what works for you based on your time and desire. Let me know of any great deals that come your way!

Pennsylvania Visit, Fantasy Football

2008-09-15T15:53:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lag in posting, but here's what we've been up to. Last week, we visited Chris's family in Lewisburg, PA. Cami had many firsts, including:

- her first plane ride: a perfect darling on the trip there, a little challenging on the return flight.
- her first trip to the hunting lodge: while she didnt' shoot any clay birds, Daddy had a pretty good go of it and Cami got to wear her camo shirt, so Mommy was happy.
- her first tailgate: always a winner when food is involved, followed by...
- her first Penn State football game: a solid victory, they were playing "Sweet Caroline" by the middle of the second quarter. Cami spent most of the game strapped to the front of Chris, who had a huge X of sweat on his back from the baby bjourn (a great visual, I know).
- her first long-term interaction with a dog: Sadie, Chris's parents year-old puppy, loved Cami. Cami had mixed feelings on the subject, but did pretty well.

Here are some visuals from the trip:

We had a great time & genuinely, Cami was a really good baby. Shelly & Warren (Nanee & Pop-pop) fed us well, as always, and were excellent hosts (as was Chris's brother Brian, who picked us up from the airport in Baltimore - Lewisburg is at least 2 1/2 hours from any major airport, so this is a big deal :)). So vacation with a baby is a little more complicated than flying solo was, but I think we will adjust to that over time. Now it is back to the old grind, and as Chris is outside mowing our extremely overgrown lawn, Cami is taking a very overdue nap.

While I know Chris will go into greater detail about this at another time, I have to mention we have a family fantaty football league. And a certain someone's team is 2-0...

One other note - I have become a couponing maniac! I never knew how much free stuff you can get if you will take the time to do it (and I mean time - clipping, planning, shopping...). Still, I was pretty proud of my Friday trip, which brought in this haul - $120 worth - 100% free!

Baseball, Cucumbers, Pioneers, and The Dark Knight

2008-07-26T09:20:00.000-07:00

Big week this week, and fortunately lots of pictures. Starting at the beginning Carrie and I went to the Royals game on Monday and had some great seats. My company rented the Dugout suit and it felt like we we right on the field. Sadly, that was the nice the Royals were blown out 19-4. Still, I we had a great time. Now the pictures. view from the suit.
another suite view
File this one under ," I never win anything so when I win something no matter how small I make a big deal of it." The Royals had folks throw out T-shirts and I caught the one that was thrown into our dugout. I like to think it was because I completely charmed the girl throwing out T-shirts, Carrie thinks otherwise and since she isn't writing this post her viewpoint will remain silent.

On to the next subject and that's Cucumbers. I was out picking them from our garden the other day and I had noticed that one cucumber had escaped my usual harvest for several weeks, and got just huge.

Yup, that's 12 inches of home-grown cucumber.
And there goes 12 inches of home-grown cucumber.
Those were the three cucumbers I harvested that day and how large they are in relation to Cami...who wasn't really certain what Daddy was trying to do.

No general Cuteness. We celebrated Pioneer Day with the family this week by eating hot soup and walking in the blazing heat. What better way to commemorate those who suffered so much for the gospel to go out and voluntarily suffer a little ourselves. Seriously, we did have a good time and some good pictures.

This has nothing to do with Pioneer day, but Cami has started playing with her Doll House and it's really cute.
Cami's first taste of Watermelon...she's a big fan.
Cami with cousins Ethan, Madison,Spencer, and Peyton. This is about 1/3 of the actual Cousin photo but it's the only one on our camera so here it is. We have tons more pictures from Pioneer Day because Cami was in a particularly good mood. I'm sure those will be posted as soon as we get them off the other camera.

So that about wraps up the week, but before I wrap this up I want to say a few words about, "The Dark Knight". I have some minor spoilers in here, very minor, so if you want to go in with a fresh take don't read further. I went on Friday and It's now Saturday and I'm not sure what to think. In a sense I loved it, it was a perfect action movie, the pace was quick and it moved rapidly from one awesome scene to the next. It had me sucked in from the first minute.

If I have a problem it's that the acting was almost too good. The Joker is perfect, everything you've read is true and more. The only question I have is is the Joker a character worthy of a perfect depiction? Comic book villains are one thing, but I believe that this Joker was actually a twisted mass murderer with no personal motivations other than fulfilling his own twisted sense of fun through murder and general chaos. It bordered on disturbing, so I am left conflicted as I am in awe of how "real" they made this otherwise cliche villain but horrified that someone could even think of an individual so twisted.

What really surprised me about the movie was how much I liked Harvey Dent, and how much his fall to become Two-Face was disheartening. I thought his performance was on par with the Joker's. Couple that with Christian Bale turning in the same sort of performance as in the first move and this movie was really well acted, but almost too well acted because of the subject matter. Even though this is a movie about a comic book the subject is fighting crime in a city riddled with corruption, and how that fight can escalate to incredible levels that it only reaches in comic books.

This is not one for the kiddos, but it's not a bad movie. Just go expecting an action/suspense/horror movie because this movie contains elements of all three. If you're not in the mood to watch all three than go see something else, If you're looking for a traditional Superhero movie go see Iron Man. But if you are in the mood for a triple threat movie that is as well done as it gets, even if you are not into Superhero movies than this is the one to see.

Family update

2008-07-20T15:27:00.000-07:00

We have been a little short on Cami pictures that don't involve swimming. Here is a small sampling of what we've taken lately following by a breif family update. Cami has been growing so fast, we figured driving was the next logcal step.
Cami and Mommy, awww.
Cami with her friend Tommy. Sleepy babies.

During one of her many attempted jail breaks.
Daddy does try to feed me sometimes.
go ahead, hide behind the flower. I see the mess you made.

Fourth of July, sometimes you realize that either Mom or Dad is taking all the pictures and you need a decent family photo.

Cami loves her freedom.

Whew. That makes me feel better. Most of the time I feel pretty bad about filling our blog with line upon line of text when we have perfectly good Cami pictures to post which of infinately more interesting. Anyway, Here's the quick hit update on what the Diggins Family is upto

What We're doing: Clipping Coupons and Square Dancing

Carrie has been learning how to clip coupons like a champ! I've kind of gotten into it myself, there are all kinds of blogs and Web Sites on how to do crazy things like feed your family of four for under $1000 for the year. I love the concept, although I'm pretty sure that that family of four LOVES Raman noodles. Still I'm pretty impressed with the deals so far, $3.25 for a case of paper at Office Depot ( a whole 10 ream case) and then $30 coupons redeemed at our last Target trip. It's not bad for starters and most importantly it's been kind of fun to try and see where you can find savings.Square Dancing was a brief moment at our ward Pioneer Day party where we were able to have someone watch Cami for a few minutes while we enjoyed some good country fun! Not much to report on here except it's nice to have a moment to dance with my wife uninterrupted, even if the dancing is mildly ridiculous.

What we're reading: Various

I finished The Foundation this week and started in on Foundation and Empire by Isacc Asimov. Halfway through the book it is not quite as clever as the first book. The Foundation series deals with events over a long period of time so it comes off as more of a collection of short stories around a theme than a series of novels. The first book had some really clever twists that I never saw coming but the second book hasn't matched the first , even though I am enjoying it. Concurrently I am also reading "The Ten Day MBA" by Steven Silbiger. It's a nice overview of the sorts of things they teach you in buisiness school, the kind of book where you have to check how many pages are left in the chapter while you are reading it and reminding yourself that ,"I really want to read this book". It's more of an exercise in self improvement than a pleasure read. It is a ton of information to digest but I am getting some good things out of it like thinking more critically about my business, realizing that I don't want an MBA, and probably never again trying to read an glorified text book for fun. For all of that I am grateful. This week Carrie started a book called "The purrfect murder." a book about a cat that solves crime. Carrie only picked this up because the books by the mystery auther she wanted were out and I handed this to her as a quick ssubstitute. It soon both dawned on us that this is the kind of book crazy people read just before the cops bust in and arrest them for keeping 100 cats in there 600 square foot apartment. Needless to say she put it down about 25 pages in and went on to more worthwhile purrrrsuits ( get it...crazy book about cats, purrrsuits...I am so awesome).

What we're watching: Picture This! the made for TV Movie on ABC Family starring Ashley Tisdale of High School Musical fame. I think I just lost most of you after that sentence. Every couple has some querkie things that they do and we watch bad made for TV movies, primary the ones that involve high school related plots. It must stem from our mutual love for Saved By The Bell, but needless to say we were expecting a bad movie and were not disappointed. I weep for today's youth. A mostly good bunch of kids that has to endure this type of crap from the media telling them that this is what they should act like. Here's the plot summary, every bad high school related movie you've ever watched on this one centers around camera phones. It's like some producer at ABC family came up with the bright idea that if they actually wrote the plot around enough LG phones then the company would pick up the tab for the movie and they wouldn't even have to pay the Tisdale girl the insane money she's asking for. As an informertial the movie worked ( I actually liked the phones) but as a movie please do not approach unless you are out to make your kids noticably dumber or you share that same complusion we have to watch bad High School movies.

Stuff Chris Likes....

2008-07-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Right now Carrie is taking a nap and I am watching the baby in our computer room thinking," gosh I haven't blogged in a while." Since It's critical that Cami stay in this room and away from our poor recovering Peaches* I figure I'll let everyone know a few things that I've really been liking lately.

*Important Side note - Peaches was hit by a car this week. For those of you who are not familiar with our cat Peaches his life has been all sorts of complicated over the past year. After the move and the birth of Cami, Peaches has been living in our garage as an outdoor-only cat with access to the garage via a little kitty door. He has adapted well for the most part, he's become friendly with the neighbors and only sits outside our door and meows for attention on occasion. Regardless, this Wednesday we came back from Dinner at Carrie's folks to our neighbors letting us know Peaches was hit by a car. Carrie found him in some bushes fairly bloody and dragging his left leg behind him. So I collect Peaches, put him in his kitty carrier, and drive him to the emergency pet clinic thinking he's about to be put down. Well, a couple of hours go by and apparently Peaches has no broken bones or vi sable organ damage, so we decide to leave him overnight as see where he's at in the morning. Long story short - three days with the vet and he's really bruised up and limping but has no broken bones or damage that won't heal on it's own. So Peaches is back inside and looking better everyday, just as long as we keep a certain very mobile very curious 8 month old as a safe distance. Anyway...slightly sad story with a little bit better ending, not the best way to start a post about things I like...oh well.

1. Science Fiction - Yup that sound coming through your computer is the nerd alert. Don't be alarmed, it went off for me for a few days when I started this crazy science fiction habit but I've since learned to ignore it. Carrie and I have recently discovered the wonders of the public library and have had a blast taking Cami and getting new books. I started out by renting a Golf book, Tales from Q Schools, a fairly manly topic. But then my eyes caught a glimpse of Ender's Game and I realized I had not read that one and I had been meaning to. So I started reading that one and it began a chain reaction that is still going. In the last three weeks I've plowed through Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow ( Brad Fellows, If you're reading this I still have your book buddy! Give me a call.) ,Dune, A Brave New World, and I'm half way through The Foundation. This may not be many books for some, but for me this is practically a new record. Right now I'm just sucked into reading Science Fiction classics, I don't know how far this addiction will carry me, but I will let you know how it ends. (BTW here are 3 second opinions - Ender's Series - LOVED Them, will read sequels to both books, Dune - Amazing, stunned by the level of detail,will read sequel, A Brave New World - Horrible, I don't like any of the characters and WAY too preachy/pseudo-intellectual. The Foundation - So far so good.)

2. Cucumbers - Our Cucumber plant is the first in our garden to really start churning out the Veggies. Our Garden is doing about 100 times better then I thought it would. Still, after harvesting the first couple of cucumbers and eating them with some Ranch ( ohhhh yeeeaaaahh) It occurred to me that I don't regularly buy cucumbers and I might have too many for our purposes. That was until I found the best cucumber recipe ever. They call it Hungarian Cucumber Salad, but if I had to rename that sucker, and I will, I will call it Quick Pickles!

Here's what you do, take two medium cucumbers, skin them, and slice into rounds as thin as you can get them. Place rounds evenly over a plate, sprinkle with salt ( If you have to layer then sprinkle each layer with salt) Then take another plate and place it on top of your plate of cucumbers, put a 5 lb weight on top of the new plate. Set for 40 minutes ( This is to drain as much water as you can) Before removing the top plate drain the water. Then pat your cucumber slices dry with paper towels.

In the Meantime, prepare in a bowl 1/2 Cup water, 1/4 cup Vinegar (white), a pinch of sugar and a pinch or garlic powder. mix briefly. Put your dry cucumber slices in the vinegar mix quickly and refrigerate for 2 hours.

This is very simple but VERY tasty and takes our excess cucumbers and turns them into a nice snack that tastes like a light pickle. It's also a nice side dish for a BBQ or ward pot-luck if you have a ton of cucumber.

That's about all for now, I also really like the new American Gladiators, Our Ice Cream Gun, and Swimming but I will spare your the blog on those. I hope everyone is having a great summer. leave us a comment and let us know how you're doing. Take care!

More Swimming Pics

2008-07-03T11:18:00.000-07:00

This week, Chris took a couple of days off and we went swimming at Grandpa & Grandma Rowe's house. Cami LOVED splashing around in the water & we thought it was very cute. She also like playing peek-a-boo with Dada as he went under the water and popped out. Here they are! In the second one, you can see her little teeth really well.

At the pool...

2008-06-22T14:34:00.000-07:00

I realize we haven't posted in a while, but Cami is just having to much fun outside to upload her photos to the blog! She went to the pool for the first time about a week ago, and had a blast splashing the water. In the above photo, that is actually slobber on her suit, not water. She's cut her first two teeth already, and the safe bet is that there are more to come...
Cami loves to squeal like this! While it makes sitting though church challenging, it's pretty fun most of the time. She can also say da da, and make a myriad of babbling noises. Just yesterday she started making a clicking noise, which I thought was fun addition to her baby sound-book.
This is her crazy, spunky face. She sticks out her tongue and kind of crinkles her nose, and looks very intent. It is often accompanied by rapid moving up and down of the arms, legs, and often entire body.

These were taken at the John's apartment complex during a recent trip to Springfield, MO (they were excellent hosts :)). As I mentioned, Cami is having a blast outside, and she is also learning to destroy things inside! Since she began army crawling a few weeks ago, she pulls down our DVD's almost every day. We are starting to babyproof things, but still have a long way to go (feel free to leave any tips on this). It is really cute to see her scooting all around the house though, banging on the floors and moving rapidly towards desired objects (remote controls, pieces of paper, etc.) I also have zoo pics to post & pictures of our backyard garden, but we'll save that for later. I hope everyone is enjoying their summers!

Last Idol Post: The Triumph of Now

2008-05-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

I'll make this short and sweet because David Cook won and there isn't much else to say that hasn't been said.

First, a word about David Archuleta. He's a prodigy and and best pure singer in the last 3 seasons of American Idol. He's 17. He still has to finish High School, he's thinking about a mission, his Dad is way too involved in his business. He really should have waited at least two more years to give this a go. It's not because he's not good enough, or because the chips fell this year so that he would only finish second. I think there is a very good chance he might look back and wish he could be just another kid for a little longer in his life.

Career wise he doesn't get a recording contract from the show so he's now a free agent, free to sign with whomever his Dad makes him sign with. I hope he signs with Disney, develops some acting chops, and does a few Disney channel movies and records. He'll me producing wholesome entertainment and be targeted toward the perfect market for him.

As for Cook, He won because of this:

Track 1: Hello
Track 2 Billy Jean
Track 3: World I Know
Track 4: Always Be My Baby
Track 5: Elanor Rigby
Track 6: Time of my Life
Track 7: I Still haven't found what I'm looking for
Track 8: Music of the Night

He's got a pretty good CD ready to go already. Archuleta is all potential but Cook is ready now. That's why I'm alright with tonight, because it's the best choice for right now and that's how the contest should be judged. Who did the best all season long, who is ready to be famous right now, and this year it's David Cook.

The Idol Final: Quick recap

2008-05-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

So I feel like I was wrong and I was right about the show tonight. Probably the biggest wrong of all was when I ended my last Idol post saying that the show would be average and that nothing lives up to the hype. Not only was that the best final I can remember but it was my favorite show of the season and that never happens. If anything put a damper on the evening it's that Simon decided before the show began that barring major catastrophe David Archuleta would be the winner. More on that to come, since I spent time breaking down what might happen last time here's a quick rundown of what actually did happen

Round 1: Archie gets the coin toss and an enormous advantage. When the show's this close getting the chance to leave the last impression is huge. New wrinkle this year, Clive Davis picks the songs for a Round 1, with Andrew Lloyd Weber helping the contestants find their inner child before they perform ( Sidebar: I'm pretty sure that if Mr. Weber wasn't a world famous composer he would be be the creepiest dude on anyone's block. I have a recurring nightmare where Lord Andrew shows up on my doorstep holding Peaches and saying ,"Pardon, but I seem to have found your kitty. He's a naughty one that kitty. Are you alone? Mind if I come in?" Needless to say seeing him again gave me the willies.)

This round was a whole lot better than expected. I thought Cook would crash and burn on the U2 song, because there is only one Bono and he's not coming on stage unless some sort of African relief is involved. However, Cook was great. He choose the perfect arrangement ( not the standard recording but one U2 often does at live shows) and nailed it. Equally as impressive was young David. Don't let the Sun Go down on Me is an Idol standard, not less than 10 idols have already sang it, but surprisingly that didn't hurt him. He really go into the song and did himself proud. I thought this round was a dead heat and I'm more than a little ticked that Simon gave it to the kid. At this point I felt like the singing order and the judges were on Achuleta's side, Cook has a HUGE mountain to climb, even if he does well.

Round 2: They moved the sappy Idol song to round 2 for some reason and gave them a selection of 10 to choose from. This played right into Cook's hands and he made the most of it, taking a horrible ballad and making it an average rock song. It sounded like Track 8 on a CD where I really like Track 4 and 9, so I accidentally hear a portion of it everyday on my way to my favorite song. This may sound like a criticism, but it was a best case scenario for him. Idol isn't set up to reward rockers. Predictably, Archie gave his horrible ballad all he had and made it sound as good as it possibly could. He won the round easily, but we all knew he'd have an advantage here. I'm still ticked that Simon has it 2-0 Archuleta when I have it 2-1 and a close race.

Round 3: Sing whatever you want round went an interesting direction. Archuleta went to his money song, while Cook when with something from one of his favorite 90's bands. If you want to scroll down and look this exact song choice plays out in David Archuleta's perfect scenario. So at this point I'm ready to close up shop and hand the prize to the mighty Mormon midget. However, I was completely wrong about how good Cook would be. Just a beautiful take on a great Collective Soul song. He didn't what he wasn't able to do all year by picking a new, contemporary song for himself and then knocking it out of the park. It wasn't is absolute best but I really enjoyed it and I think he deserves bonus points for guts on this one. Still. Archie did what he does and sang the heck out of his money song. It's really hard to vote against that. I have this round tied up, with maybe an ever so slight edge to Archuleta.

I couldn't vote tonight. Personally, I'll be fine with either of them winning. Archuleta has the better voice, Cook is the better performer. Archuleta has a huge tween following and is ready to light up that market, Cook is better than Chris Daughtry and we'll here his music on the radio even more ( If that's even possible.). Both win in the end, but tomorrow night Archuleta gets the confetti shower and the chance to sing a horrible song. I'm just glad it was an enjoyable show and that one time Idol lived up to it's hype.

Just messing around.

2008-05-18T15:19:00.000-07:00

Digital cameras are fantastic. Sometimes I find myself just clicking away for no good reason, Take shots of the baby, photograph stuff around the house in artisitc ways, e-mail the Doc with a shot of exactly what that spot under my arm looks like...just a lot of great fun. Anyway, Carrie tried to take a nap this afternoon and I came away with these gems. Cami gets more and more excited with less and less supervision.

Cami is just able to have a bite of her favortie meal...coat hanger.

Cami's First Parade

2008-05-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

We spent Saturday at the Turkey Creek Festival in Merriam. This was Cami's first time out for a parade or festival and she had a great time. Here's a few pictures of the day. Dad and Cami having fun at the Parade.
Cami loves hanging out with Grandma in the shade.
Most of Cami's day was spend in the stroller...and seeing how far she could stick out her foot.

Tale of the Tape

2008-05-16T14:15:00.001-07:00

I think it's time for one last American Idol post before the season comes to an end. The David vs. David matchup is just what we were hoping for and Tuesday should be a great show. I'd like to break it down sports style and give a couple "keys to the game" for both contestants, but before that I have a couple of comments.

1. Syesha... I just don't know what to say. I guess there is something to be said for being just good enough. I'm pretty sure she finished third as a result of a conspiracy on the part of the contestants. About week 6 or 7 I think the remaining finalists started to see that the Davids were going to the final and that it pretty much didn't matter what place you finished if you didn't make the final two. So one by one they each decide the throw the game, culminating in Castro not even pretending like he still wanted to be there when he went home a week ago. Everyone who leaves early gets a couple weeks at home to relax before coming back to do the final show then going on tour. What does Syesha get...nothing but the priveledge of being the last one off a sinking ship. I'm not sure if she's a winner or a loser in that deal but I do know I'm surprised she got as far as she did.

2. Fantasia - Not going to spend much time here since I already consider her the worst of the winners ( Taylor Hicks included) . But if you want my opinion on last Wednesday I would say she looked like a cross between a rooster and a sausage, only if the the rooster now crowed in a high pitched scream that petrifies animals.

Now the breakdown of the final. If Idol sticks true to format the show will have each of the Davids sing three songs, one from the season, one they pick themselves, and one truly aweful "American Idol Song" that they will be forced to record and have their name attached to for the rest of their lives. The format really works this year because to win one of the Davids will have to do something they never have done succcessfully this year...pick a song for themselves and have it actually sound really good.

Here's my logic. The American Idol song is going be a win for David Archuleta. I am 100% certain that this song will 1. be a ballad 2. feature at least 10 high singer notes or runs 3. have some sort of inspirational theme 4. be oozing with more horrible cheese than gas station nachos. This is young Davids wheelhouse and since David Cook will not be allowed to change the arrangement to suit him or sing it any other way then the way the writers intended he will lose by comparison and end up losing the round.

In contrast all David Cook has to do to win the "song from the season" round is break out the Mariah Carey "always be my baby" tune he worked up a couple for weeks ago and it will smoke anything Archuleta has done. Achie is almost a shoo in to sing Imagine, again, but it won't hold up against Cook's song which is already a real world hit and should be released shortly after the show is over. So that gives the round to Cook and ties the ballgame.

That means to gain an advantage they have to do it with the songs they pick themselves. Both completely suck at this so it's anyone's game. Another monkey wrench in the mix is the way song choice is staggered in the final. 1st round one contestant sings their song from the season while the other sings their new song. This is done so that each contestant can "win" a round and potentially make the American Idol song the deciding factor. This works against David Cook for obvious reasons.

Personally, I haven't made my mind up yet on how to vote. I'll wait until Tuesday, but here's two ways the show could go. the perfect scenario for each contestant.

David Archuletas perfect show:

He wins the coin toss and sings last.

Round 1: David Cook leads off the show with his new song. He picks something from a current rock band, maybe some Goo Goo Dolls or Matchbox 20. Does an okay impersonation with mixed revues. Archie then belts out Imagine, Randy tells him to go sing the phone book or something like that, lots of praise. He clearly wins round 1

Round 2: Cook sings "Always be my baby", in a perfect world he sings something else and screws his opportunity, but lets say he sings the money song and get praise. David then comes back with something fresh. I recommend "Say" by John Meyer, If he performs this with more focus on the words and less on his technical singing it could be a hit. He has already proven he can sing John Meyer fairly well and the song was originally recorded by a caucasian so that will help us avoid some of the akwardness we saw on this last show. Best case Scenario..round is split.

Round 3: Both of them just sing the song. All of America feels horrible about making David Cook have to record such a cheesey piece of trash. ( The same way we felt about Blake last year) Archie wins in a landslide and we have our first Mormon American idol.

David Cooks perfect show:

He wins the coin toss and sings last.

Round 1: Archuleta leads off the show singing an African spiritual hymn about a child that leads the world out of poverty and hunger. He confesses to Seacrest that he believes that child to be him. Cook sings, " Always be my baby" and blows away the choosen one to win the round.

Round 2: Archie belts out "Imagine" same as always and gets his props. Cook then suprises us by reworking a pop song from the 80's or 90's and once again it turns out great. I love David Cook's sound..but he's not a great imitator, he has his own vibe and he looks weak when he's trying to do someone else's stuff. If I were choosing David's song I would probably go with " We Belong" by Pat Benetar. Hear me out on this one, it's a song that can easily be sped up, has some decent lyrics, and he would give us the fresh take that we look to from him. A successfully reworked song would be a pleasant suprise for the audience and he could easily take the round given a new interpritation of a song sung well beats out just a plain song sung well.

Round 3: A miracle occurs and the Idol song doesn't completely suck. Achuleta sings it well, but Cook is allowed to do a rock version of the song and for some reason it fits a little better. Now that he has an acceptable single and has given us a great show, America votes Cook and he's the first rock singer to win the show.

In truth, neither of these probably happen. Both Davids are probably nervous as heck, both choose new songs that stink, and tie goes to Archuleta and the millions of teenage girl who love him. Not particularly exciting, but rarely does anything live up the hype. This probably is no exception, but I'll keep hoping for the best anyway.

Hair Flowers

2008-04-20T20:40:00.000-07:00

So my sister Becky and I made these hair flower headbands for our babies, and I just had to post a cute little pic of Cami wearing one. They sell for $10 or so at baby boutiques, but only cost a dollar or two to make, so we were very proud of ourselves.

Five Months Old: Cami's New Tricks

2008-04-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

In honor of Cami's five month birthday (no, we're not actually celebrating it, though that would be a good excuse to make a cake...), I thought I would post a little of what she's been up to these days. Cami is getting to the silly age, and it's fun to see her little personality comes out. She loves to squeal and sing, and particularly recently, stick her little tongue out. She will get very excited and spin around in her saucer, knocking off all the toys! She is very happy most of the time, but still has a pretty intense little personality, and knows how to get upset as well.

Cami loves to put things in her mouth and she loves her feet! As you see from the picture above, she has found the perfect combination!

"I can sit!" (Okay, so she didn't actually say that, but don't the picture's say it all?) She still has to totally support herself with her arms, and sometimes she topples over, but she's getting better at it every day.

Well, I have more to post but the little roo is awake (I hear squealing from upstairs), so we'll save them for another time. Happy 5 months Cami!

Cami in Action

2008-04-06T19:18:00.001-07:00

Back by Popular Demand, Cami Pictures!!!!

Conference Weekend

2008-04-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

You probably have all noticed by now that there is on the left hand side of this blog a small strip of ad space. It is a small, trivial piece of blog which stands as a testament to my own arrogance. I put it in there without asking Carrie, and knowing full well that nobody in there right mind is going to pay to advertise on the Diggins Family blog. Still, somewhere in the back of my own mind I must believe there is a possibility that someday a check for 57 cents in going to arrive on my doorstep just for updating our blog. When I first put it up it had a nice little sign about hurricane relief and I smiled at the .0000001% percent chance that our blog would someday produce residual income.

A funny thing has happened to my little piece of blog hope in the last few days. Instead of nice humanitarian messages Google is instead using the space to provide links to sites they think my readers would enjoy. Base on the content of the blog they decided every link should be to a American Idol superfan site or to celebrity gossip site. That's what I've become...according to Google I am now Chris Diggins - your source for the latest scoop on American Idol and updates on celebrity gossip.

Now I don't have to tell you about the horror and shame I felt once this fact finally settled in. So today I'm taking steps to change the little ad window and make it more representative of who I am and who we are as a family. So today I am appealing to the best parts of my nature and writing about General Conference

For our friends who are not LDS, General Conference is the twice a year meeting where the entire Mormon church gets together to hear messages from our leaders and enjoy watching church on TV, from home, and in our pajamas. Cami especially loves conference because she gets to keep her daily schedule and Mom and Dad are both home all day to play with her.

This Conference was a different experience without President Hinkley. Much has been said, and said much better, about what President Gordon B. Hinkley meant to the church and and the unique opportunity it is to see a new prophet and first presidency called. To me, President Hinkley was the only church president I have know. I joined the LDS church in 1998 when I was 17 years old in Pennsylvania. It will be 10 years this August and it's incredible the amount of life that you can pack in 10 years. Going from 17 to 27 is all about changing, growing, and having the experiences that eventually will define who you will become. All that time the church I had just joined was changing right along with me. New temples and programs, New conference locations and new ways to reach out across the world. I felt that while I was always striving to be better President Hinkley was doing the same with the church and making sure that the whole church was better and that we were trying to be better as individuals.

I missed President Hinkley more this conference weekend then I did at his funeral or at the time of his passing. However, I felt glad to sit and the beginning of a new era for the church and what would probably be a new era for my family. I know that God has called a new prophet in Thomas S. Monson and that he is the Lord's servant chosen to lead the church at this time. Listening to President Monson I became impressed once again with the emphasis he placed on people. His memory is a marvel. I feel very strongly that his example is one for the church to follow. President Hinkley gave us everything we need, Temples across the world, programs to lift and educate the poor and afflicted, Materials to educate ourselves on everything we would want to know about the church and share it with our friends. If we take what President Hinkley gave us and follow the example of President Monson by using it to care for others more than we care for ourselves then I know the Lord's work on the earth will continue to progress at an amazing rate.

Sadly I'm behind on this one. Too often I think of myself in terms on my job, my family, my comfort, or rest that I need. I feel the challenge to think of others like the Lord thinks of them. It's a difficult task, but it is one worth pursuing. I am grateful that the Lord gives us leaders and examples for our day, and that he continues to give us the messages we need through his servants on the earth, just as it's always been.

That's all for this week. I'll put some pictures up a little later. I'm more than a little excited to be here for Kansas vs. Memphis. Let's hope everything breaks right for the good guys. Until next time.

Idol Thoughts

2008-03-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

This week I'm taking a break from jotting down my sports comments for a few reasons. First and foremost I'm learning that 90% of the people who are reading this blog are women, and of those women 80% are here for the baby pictures and catching up purposes only. Since my sports thoughts tell you nothing about what we've been doing and typically includes no pictures then I am failing miserably with our key demographic. I have considered starting a separate sports blog, but most of those I've seen started only have one post that hasn't been updated in six months ( I'm staring right at you Jeff Cooper!) and it's most likely that few of our current readers ( Again mostly women) would click over to check it out. At least here I have a disinterested, but a captive audience.

My second reason for not going with sports talk this week is that my bracket is utter garbage and I'm a little bitter. FYI Carrie's bracket is better than mine once again...this will make three straight years... I don't want to talk about it. Needless to say I can already feel the smug, satisfied little smile that all you women who read my last post have. The lesson as always is don't mess with Karma, even on the Internet.

So since my bracket failures will ultimately result in the loss of my man card I decide to go all in this week and give you a breakdown of American Idol. So here's my thoughts in the order in which they are going home.

9. Syesha - She is American Idol's version of vanilla ice cream. You get someone like Syesha every year, looks like she fell out of a GAP ad, sings diva music ( Ugh.) , and is generally plain and uninteresting. Top that off with the fact the Carrie and I are SO sick of the type of music she sings ( last year I think they had 9 Syeshas on the women's side...I detest years where the only decent girls sing Diva/Soul music and they have several of them) and she has to go.

8. Kristy Lee Cook - Saved by the fact that it's country week this week and the only country singer in the competition isn't going to go home on country week..It's unamerican. Speaking of which, I completely agreed with Simon that she made the smartest music choice in the history of the show last week. It's like she read all the papers and said to herself ,"Let's see them just try to vote me off when I'm singing God Bless the USA." Still, she's not the greatest performer and 8 is a good spot for her.

7. Ramielle - I really wish she would be next to go, but apparently she's really popular with Filipinos and they vote en mass for her. I'm glad she has a fanbase and they enjoy her music, but now I have really great idea why Filipino music never makes it big over here. She can leave at anytime and that would me okay with me.

6. Michael Johns - He's been getting better. I have nothing nice to say here because of my steadfast belief that he's been pushed on the audience as "great" when he's average as best. That and I keep thinking of the "Take Home Chef" whenever I watch him ( An amazing show by the way. This single Aussie guy goes to the supermarket and finds the best looking woman in the place and offers to buy her groceries and cook dinner for her and her "significant other". He then spends all day cooking with her at her place and surprises the man of the house with a camera crew at the front door when he gets home, before letting him know that he was just there to cook dinner. I don't know about anyone else, but no dinner in the world makes up for the heart attack I would have by being met at my door at the end of the day by an Aussie soap opera star, my wife, and a camera crew. Just me I guess.)

5. Carly Smithson - I think she's better than this but I'm sure that America collectively hates the fact she's already had a record deal and couldn't cut it. A little unfair if you ask me, but people like what they like. She's been great a few times and I generally look forward to her performances. Nothing interesting to say here because Carly does nothing interesting but sing well. For me she's like a female Michael Johns...only if I liked Michael John's singing.

4. Jason Castro - My favorite quote of the year - " I guess if I'm going to do this I should put some more time into it." Really Jason? You do realize you're in the top ten of American Idol and now you're pretty much forced to record and perform music for the next 6-8 months? Yeah, I'd think that If all you had to do from week to week was pick and perform one friggin song you would want to put some time into it. Here's a hint, if you want America to stop thinking you're a stoner then stop doing and saying stoner things every time you're on the air. That said I love this guys sound. He's mellow and different and very interesting week to week. It's also nice to have someone that isn't so polished on the show, just to make you feel for a split second like it's a amateur competition. Right before you remember it's American Idol.

3. Brooke White - The first of our two Mormons this year. I am so biased on this one that I probably shouldn't say anything. However, I do not believe that it's a coincidence that her worst week was the week she wore the shorter yellow dress without sleeves...just saying. She has a naturally calming voice and if the next two weren't going to be enormous music stars she could win the whole thing.

2. David Cook- I want him to win. He's a rock star and ready to record right now. He's better at this point in the game and Daughtry was at the same stage two years ago. His song choices are always interesting and usually very well executed. I don't think he's smug at all, just a rock star trying to pull off the persona. There's a chance that his act could get old between now and the finale, but he's the one I look forward to listening to every week. His only weakness is that the American Idol crowd isn't his ultimate fanbase. I'm not sure a rock singer can win the whole thing...but I know who can.

1. David Archuleta - Donny Osmond reborn. A Disney Channel star without the Disney Channel. His biggest obstacle at this point is himself. I have this sinking feeling that David A. feels that his music will not only sell records, but cure world hunger, end poverty, and eventually lead to world peace. I'm sure the he sees himself as a mix of both Bill and Ted only without the guitars and the great catchphrase .( However in about two weeks I'm expecting him to bust out with a "Be Excellent to Each Other" on stage and claim the catchphrase for his own) This can be the only explanation for the fact the he feels it necessary to perform a "song with a message" every other week. I'm glad these songs have personal meaning for him, but they are seldom good and are really hurting his chances at winning, especially when David Cook is so good week to week. I think if someone sits down with Archie and lets him know that he'll have plenty of time to solve the worlds problems and be the UN Ambassador to some impoverished African nation after he wins then he should be okay. For now he need to stick to singing popular music and just be content with being the winner of American Idol.

That's all for now. Cami is scooting all over the place and I'm sure we'll be crawling in no time. Between solid foods and all this moving around that girl growing up fast and melting all kinds of hearts. Until later.

How's your Bracket?

2008-03-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick four thoughts on the NCAA Tournament over the weekend. Originally I was going to do five thoughts but I just finished reading the new Bill Simmons article on ESPN.com in which he gave his five thoughts on the same subject. Since I've been trying very hard these days to rip off Bill Simmons in only 50% ( Down from 80%) of my sports related conversations and postings I decided to cut my thoughts down to four in the hope that no one would notice that I'm doing the same subject at the same time...unless I went out of my way to point it out..and even if I thought of this idea for a blog post waaaay before I read the article....oh well, here's what's on my mind.

1. Texas A&M nearly single handedly ruined my whole weekend. As we previously blogged I came into their first round game against BYU knowing that the Aggies were probably going to win. I understood and accepted that as I was filling out BYU on all ten of my brackets. I stuck with my team, I took the beating I knew was coming, I moved on. Then as if ending my Alma Matter's season wasn't enough A&M took it upon themselves to nearly destroy my brackets by coming within an eyelash and a few bad calls of beating UCLA. I have UCLA winning the whole shooting match in every bracket. Thank Christmas they didn't pull off the upset this weekend and send me to my third straight year of losing to Carrie in the bracket contest.

The funny thing about all this is that I actually like Texas A&M. I had a great time on campus in September watching a football game at Kyle Field. The campus has a great feel and they have some unique traditions. ( Like 10,000 unique traditions. You can't attend a home sporting event in College Station without a guide or a manual.) I usually want to see their teams win, but this weekend they just made me angry and gave me a heart attack.

2. If I have to tell the truth I think Kansas is the best team in the country right now. However KU presents a special problem when it comes to picking a bracket winner. There is no way in the world you are going to win a bracket pool in the state of Kansas by picking the Jayhawks to win it all. Let's say by some happy twist of fate you're right and KU is the national champion after two decades of waiting. Now you are one of 100 people in your pool who have the national champion right. So it's completely up to the points you scored in the early rounds, and that's more of a lucky guess then anything.

So I figure that if KU wins I have no chance of winning any local contests anyway, I might as well pick the team I like second best and roll the dice ( This year it's UCLA). It's a sound strategy that I hope will pay off, or will land me in dead last.

3. Speaking of UCLA, I actually like them better after watching them play a pretty bad weekend of basketball. Against A&M they couldn't shoot for beans and they still managed to beat a decent squad on the strength of their defense alone. Kevin Love had 7 blocks despite the fact he reminds me of the guy with six kids who occasionally shows up for ward basketball games and complains about how out of shape he is, right down to the bad back and slight waddle he has when he's running up and down the court. I guess that's why I really enjoy cheering for Love, even though he is an exceptional athlete and a top 5 player in the country he always looks like an average joe that's having one heck of a lucky game.

Still, any team can win when the shots are falling and everything is going right. UCLA is showing the ability to win when things aren't clicking by playing good defense and making plays when they have to. I think that wins championships and they leaves me feeling really good about my pick.

4. As of this moment I have a 2 point lead on Carrie in the bracket contest and it looks like the long night of darkness might finally be over. Carrie hates this. We watched a few games together and every time it seemed that a team I picked would beat a team she picked in the last seconds ( Thank you San Diego and Stanford!!). I think she lost 4 games to me by a total of 8 points. She got a little angry at me for jumping around and celebrating each time her team would lose. Still, I feel an angry wife is a small price to pay for the return of the confidence and manliness I will feel when I retake my rightful place as the family bracket expert.

Cami's First Easter

2008-03-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

The Easter Bunny has made his (hers? Its?) first delivery for Cameron Diggins. Sadly, Cameron will not be able to eat her Easter candy this year due to her just starting out on solid foods. Oh well, just looks like more for Mommy and Daddy. Enjoy Cami's Easter pictures. Cami and Daddy make the same expressions! She was actually pretty quiet today at church and at Grandma and Grandpas. That makes everybody happy!
Cami posing next to Grandma Rowe's Lamb cake.Cami with her first easter basket. She went right for the bunny.
Cami is looking a little overwhelmed with Easter.
Cami and the Easter bunny getting to be good friends.

Cami's First Foods

2008-03-22T10:51:00.001-07:00

Cami just turned 4 months old this week and we celebrated with solid foods. Cuteness ensued. Enjoy the pictures of her meal and how happy she is with Daddy these days.

FYI: We know the Bumbo shouldn't be on the table, but we were right there the ENTIRE time, and are getting a high chair tonight.

Feeling Conflicted

2008-03-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

About 8 months ago I bought a photo cube at Office Depot for one dollar. That's one of the benefits of working for Office Depot, you go in and out of the stores so much that you can quickly glace at all the clearance racks and grab the super great deals before anyone else notices. (In fact we got a really nice chair there for $12 this past month, but that's a story for another time...a time when I need to break some future akward silence by bragging about a chair deal I got several months back...boy is that going to be one uncomfortable silence.)

Anyway, Carrie finally got around to putting the thing together and It's a pretty nice toy. Basically it's a cube that has pictures of Cami at every angle, then you can open it up to reveal even more pictures of Cami. It's pretty fun and within minutes of it's completion the cube has already skyrocketed to the top of my Mom's Christmas/Birthday wishlist.

You may be asking yourself why the cube story matters. First off, you know you're dying to read these little "slice of life" stories that make blogs worth reading? Second, and most importantly the cube serves as a basis for my latest and greatest bad analogy.

See, the NCAA Tournament this year is like our photo cube. Look at it from the outside and you think you see the whole picture, but fiddle with it a little and you discover there is a whole lot more to the picture that you couldn't see of first glace. ( pause to savor that profound moment)
Each year I have certain rules I go by to fill out my bracket ( Always pick at least two #12 seeds to win, Never go with more than 6 upsets in the first round, always pick the team playing within 3 hours of campus to win, never pick a team that starts 5 white guys to advance more than one round unless their name is "Duke".) However, this year I hate my rules. Going by nothing but tried and true principles I have Texas beating UNC in the championship game. This is never going to happen. my gut doesn't even like Texas to get out of the sweet 16. I have no desire to cheer for Texas and I would be mildly depressed having to pull for them for three straight weeks.

This brings up another horrible bracket problem, When the team you naturally root for has no chance of advancing, so you pick against them in your bracket and then you have put yourself in the worst position a fan can get into. I call it Pete Rose Memorial Bet Against Your Team Syndrome (PRMBAYTS for short) , and it sucks. Let's say you support the BYU Cougars (just to pick a random team, just for kicks) and you just watched your team fritter away another Mountain West Tourniment. You've seen this all before, you know it's the first step in BYU having a nice first half in their NCAA game followed by a more athletic team wearing them down in the second half, their shooting gets ice-cold, then they manage to lose a game that was by all accounts winnable. There is no way on earth that this scenario doesn't play out on Thursday, however the joy of picking Texas A&M and getting a lousy extra point in your bracket does nothing to salve the pain of watching BYU get bounced in the first round and knowing it was coming the whole time. Still, you want that point because more than a BYU victory you need to prove your personal superiority in the 10 bracket pools that you participate in. Now, assume the impossible happens and BYU wins. You're extremely excited but you feel like a complete tool for not having them in your bracket. You can't celebrate with your boys because you don't believe in them, because you denied them ten times to one hundred different people on both paper and in cyberspace. You feel like garbage all because you sold your soul for a lousy point. That's no way to win a bracket contest...but constantly losing to your wife in the bracket contest is no way to go through life either.

I can't for sure say how I'm going to fill out this bracket. Considering I'm throwing out my entire playbook on how to do this and I'm obviously dealing with several personal issued connected to fanhood this could be a long process. However I am willing to go through the torture of these impossible choices because at the end of the rainbow is four solid days of basketball where I have a personal, emotional, and possible financial interest in every single one of those games. Highs and lows coming sometimes at the same time and a reason to cheer and get crazy which is worth a little bit of grief. It guess it's just all in how you look at it.

New Baby Photos!

2008-03-14T14:45:00.001-07:00

A Quick update for those who need a baby photo fix.

Here's one of Cami figuring out her blocks. This one's a thinker.

Here's Cami playing with her Cousin Reece. Reece is the youngest of the four Cooper kids and I think she was really enjoying having someone smaller to pick on. Poor Cami!!!

Here's a cute baby with a cute mommy. Yes, Carrie is sporting a new haircut for those interested..OWW OWWW! :)

Ode to Awesome Stuff

2008-03-09T20:22:00.001-07:00

No pictures again ( Bummer!), However I was thinking about three things that have made my life better this week and I wanted to share them. It's just like Oprah's favorites show, only there are around 4 of you who read this blog, and you're not getting anything for free, and It's nothing like that show at all....so moving forward.

1. Spices, specifically Penzeys Spices - They say the variety is the spice of life, which is completely untrue. Spices are the spice of life and they are so good such a good job that they do not ever need to be replaced by something as mundane as variety.

If you are just a salt and pepper man ( or woman) then you are completely missing the boat. About a month ago I stopped in at Penzey's spice shop and picked up all kinds of goodies like Pizza Spice, Greek Seasoning, and Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle. Basically I had some Birthday money to burn and if it smelled good and sounded exotic I took a small can home. The results have been outstanding. Normal meals, even sandwiches had a new special zip that has been making meals even better. To see what I mean visits Penzeys online shop and get some of the aforementioned Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle. Mix it in with some regular ground beef, ball it up and in one step you have some seriously good meatballs. Take it a step further and throw in some chopped cilantro and make it into burger patties. Then grill those bad boys and use put them between two four tortillas that already have cheese melted on them, add your favorite mexican fix'ns for one tasty Quesadilla Burger.

The fun really never ends. If your dinner has been getting dull these days then I recommend going out and trying some new spices. you might like it, you might not, but you'll have fun experimenting and it will get you fired up to cook.

2. Skype and Web Phones - A few weeks back my parents came to visit and turned us to a Web phone and video conferencing application called Skype. It is the greatest thing since sliced bread. My dad and I went out and bought matching Web cams. ( I know, how cute....well I'll just have you know they are very high tech and manly Web cams so just BACK OFF!) . Since we set them up my phone calls home have been much more fun ( and much more free, which is great) My parents can see the baby any time they want and they can comment on my receeding hairline as we catch up for the week. In fact we recently found our friends Todd and Jen Cooper on Skype and it was nice to see them in Alabama and watch their dog do a few pretty impressive tricks. Skype is free so there is no excuse not to have it, so if you have a Web came let us know and we'll get in touch. I'm having way too much fun with this thing.

3. Flylady - I will admit I know next to nothing about this one. Carrie got it from here sister and from what I can tell it is basically some form of housewife bootcamp used to get your house in shape and boost your self esteem. All I know is that our house is now regularly clean and and Life is just that much more pleasant. Guys, set your homepage to http://www.flylady.net/ , see if your wife gets the hint and watch it work. You'll thank me later.

Again, it's late and that's all I got. Later Friends,

Some Random Thoughts

2008-03-02T19:24:00.001-08:00

I just checked my car's odometer and I am a few miles away from logging 89,000 miles on my car in a just about 3 years. I guess that's just part of being a salesman, but driving so frequently gives me a lot of time to think. Usually I'll spend the time listening to sports talk radio , but lately I've been leaving the radio off and developing some pretty strong opinions. Since these ideas do me no good unspoken and I have already convinced myself I decided I should write a few of these down to see if I still agree with myself in a few months. So without any further ado, some random thoughts.

* I have always had a lot of fun watching American Idol, however this year I think they are trying to rig the show and it's getting me a littled T.O.ed. David Archuleta is going to win, I have no problems with this. However I think that the producers, the judges, and even Seacrest are spending an unusual amount of time telling me that the burger I'm seeing is really a Thanksgiving feast. Fact: Micheal Johns sucks. He is seldom in tune and he sounds like the lead singer of a million local bands. Why do the judges keep tossing out the complements when he is so average week after week. I feel like he is being forced down my throat and I don't like it one bit. On that note this is not " the most talented group ever" however, A.I. thinks that if they say it enough we will eventually believe it. Again, don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining.
Other than that I have no problems with the show, it's fun as always and I'm still having a good time with it.

* Since Mitt Romney dropped out I have been completely bored with the Presidental Race. Obama vs. Hillary does nothing for me because regardless of the outcome the DNC is going to force the two to run together in November. However, watching Obama has given me hope, but not in the way he would expect. Obama has proven to the whole world that if you are good public speaker you don't need experience, vision, or a sane plan for the future. You just need to get on stage, do your thing, get the ol' "Yes We Can!" chant going and you can do anyting you want. As someone who doesn't mind giving a speech or two I am thrilled. Not for our country, but for myself. I am now going to actively look for opportunities to speak to groups about subjects upon which I have very little knowledge or expereince. I think if I play my cards right I can be the governor, CEO, or dictator of a small country within a few years. If Barack can do it, then YES I CAN!

*If the NFL Draft is wrong then I don't wanna be right. I have already watched every televised hour of the combine and read nearly 100 online Mock Drafts.I am going into convulsions waiting for the Draft preview magazines to come out. I have a problem.

However, I also have a pretty good idea how this thing should go. First, the Giants pick last in the first round and should be able to get either Dan Connor or Keith Rivers to boost their Linebacking corps. However if they go CB or OL I would not be suprised. Regardless of what they do I know it will be the right thing, and thats why I love Jerry Reese. It's great knowing that your team is one of the top 5 smartest in the draft and they will find a way to reload.

On the oppositve end of the spectrum are the Cheifs and I can't shake the feeling they are going to screw this up. Jake Long is the obvious pick but he won't be there at 5, I think he goes 1 to the Dolphins or 2 to the Rams. Picking the next best OL is not a good idea because then they will reach for a need. Most scout have Ryan Clady rated as the next best at the position but my eyes tell me otherwise. I think that there are four other Tackles who are similar prospects and one of them will probably be available in the second round. Learn a lesson from the Giants, just draft the best talent regardless of the position he plays. Only use position as a tiebreaker when you have two even prospects. At this point the best thing that could happen to the Chiefs is Darren McFadden falling to them. It's no secret Dallas wants McFadden, they are just waiting until draft day to see how far he falls before offering their two first round picks and change for the top hog. The Chiefs would be much better served getting those two picks and selecting a tackle later in the first round and getting that bonus pick.

That's all for now, I've got a few more ideas still stewing but I'm sick of typing and need to get to bed. Later.

Cami in Action

2008-03-01T11:51:00.000-08:00

My mother mentioned that all of my pictures of Cami seem to be of her lying on her back, and generally of her face. I guess the photographer in me usually likes those images the best, because they are clean (free of toys, and yikes!, house clutter) and because she has such a cute face. However, Cami does like to do things other than smile for the camera (actually, it's hard to catch smiles sometimes because when I put up the camera, she gets this look of awe, or basically a blank stare). Below are some shots of Cami in action: (As for what Chris and I are up to, this is basically it as well :)).

This is Cami playing in her "jungle" gym. She is learning how to hit and grab the elephant rattle when lying on her back, and loves to use her feet to grab the toys as well.

Here is a profile shot of Cami. These soft blocks have been great for tummy time and I think they'll grow with her for a while too.

Cami loves being able to hold these rings above her head and trying to get them in her mouth. Daddy helped her get ahold of them this time, and she didn't seem to realize how to let go!

Cami loves being talked to, and will try to "talk" back. She also loves being sung to, and will sometimes laugh hysterically when she particularly likes the song - her laugh is kind of low though, so it's really funny.

Blue eyes

2008-03-01T11:44:00.000-08:00

As I have mentioned to many of you, Chris once said he hoped all of our kids had his personality. I don't think he meant it as a compliment, but I've learned to forgive him! Well, he also hoped that our first baby would have his blue eyes too. I think Cami's eyes are shaped more like mine, but thus far they are very blue. Chris's Dad took these pictures when they were here, and I think they showcase those baby blue's pretty nicely.

Nanee & Pop-pop Visit, Superbowl Thoughts

2008-02-23T20:20:00.000-08:00

Cami playing with Nanee.

Cami sporting a hoodie with Dada. Cami in a cute new outfit Chris's aunt & uncle gave us.

Now for a little bit on what we've been doing - We just finished a wonderful visit with Chris's parents, Warren & Shelly, who live in Pennsylvania. They are wonderful cooks and wanted to sample the local cuisine, so we enjoyed Oklahoma Joe's and Gates BBQ last week, in addition to getting some great home-cooked meals (our home, their cooking :)). Cami also went on her first visit to the Bass Pro Shop, and didn't seemed at all alarmed by the 10-ft stuffed bear and other wildland creatures. We also got a chance to go to Penzey's Spices, so Chris has been sprinkling away, creating delicious new dishes for us to try, and accenting our food with spices such as the "Sandwich Sprinkle".

Cami really enjoyed all the attention from Nanee & Pop-pop, and especially enjoyed laughing back and forth with Warren. He would laugh, and then she would laugh, and then the whole room would laugh at her laughing, and so the cycle continued - it was very cute. To keep in touch better & see one another across the country, we also installed a web cam, so if anyone else wants to see the little one in action, let us know and we'll set you up on Skype. We've only done it a few times so far, but it's really neat to see people as you talk to them.

Now Chris wants to share his thoughts:

I think it has finally been long enough that I can write somewhat coherantly about the Super Bowl. For those of you who don't already know I have always been a fan of the New York Giants. More importantly I'm a fan of sports. Nearly everyday of my life I wake up, grab something to quick to eat for breakfast, and start my day watching highlights on sportscenter. I've been doing this for so long that I've forgotten why I do it. I've spent literally years of my life watching highlights and listening to middle aged sportswriters and ex-athletes argue about sports. All of this time hoping to see something like I saw on that Sunday.

It's pretty amazing when you have a true underdog come back to win a championship in dramatic fashion. When that underdog happens to be the team whose jacket you wore in elementary school, it makes it even more special. Watching the Patriots crash and burn under any circumstances would have been a welcome end to the season, but watching the Giants defense play like it did when LT was there, and watching Eli Manning pull together the greatest 4th quarter in the history of the franchise, it made it something more than satisfying.

It know it's sports and that it means nothing. I know the players and coaches don't care about me and only tolerate the fans because they have to. However, I also know that the 4th quarter of the Superbowl will never be deleted from my DVR, and I can't think about the Giants, the Patriots, or the numbers 18 and 1 without cracking a smile. I know that everytime I watch the play, David Tyree will always make the Helmet Catch, but I still get a little nervous when I watch it and I'm excited all over again when it happens. I know this is why I watch sports, and that this one championship is worth more to Giants Nation then ten 19-0 seasons would be worth to New England.

That's all for now, time to enjoy another 6 months without football. Good thing I've got a game recorded to watch whenever I need it.

Cami Update & Cupcake Pics

2008-02-23T19:58:00.000-08:00

These are some of my favorite pics of Cami so far, and really give you a good idea of how she looks these days (I realize it's been a while since we posted). She's now about 3 mos and a week old, and loving every minute of it (okay, so sometimes she cries). She loves to smile and laugh, especially when we're all laughing with her - she seems very social. On Monday of this week, she rolled over for the first time, and even seemed to surprise herself. She's rolled over about 5 times so far, but not at all in the last couple of days, so I'm not sure if she remembers how all the time. She also moves her arms and legs in a crawling motion and leans towards the toys in front of her, but can't move much further than a couple of inches, which seems to frustrate her sometimes. It is kind of cute though, because I can tell her entire goal is to get the toys into her mouth, which I'm sure is what she'll do as soon as she can grab them. She also has some grumpy times, and I'm beginning to think she has a bit of a temper, but will hopefully learn how to calm down more when she can better communicate her needs. She's sleeping through the night great most of the time, and still takes quite a few naps, drifting off to the sounds of her French frog, "Baby Coa" (For those of you who know what "Baby Tad" is, they've been discontinued & now cost at least $60 online - we opted for the French version, which they were clearing out on the LeapFrog web site - only $20 or so with shipping, and hey, the nightime music doesn't have words anyway.) She's a very alert little baby, and we're having a blast being parents, and feel very blessed.

What we've been up to and more Cami pics

2008-01-17T12:44:00.000-08:00

Well, Chris said it was okay to post just pictures of Cami without writing anything, but I think I'll try to anyway. We are having fun watching Cami get older, smile, coo and really pump her little arms and legs! At two months now, she is starting to push up on her chest and blow little spit bubbles as well. She really is the joy of our lives, even though she loves to cry during church!

Chris and I both have callings now - I am the Primary secretary and he is the Cub scoutmaster. We are excited to get to know new people in our ward and look forward to getting out more if it will stop snowing all the time - a big change from the mild winters in Houston! We're mostly just still getting the house organized, most recently doing the basement (oh the glamor of it all :)).

We've also been enjoying the new seasons of reality TV shows, and Chris has been more motivated to get in shape from watching The Biggest Loser. If you've never seen it, check it out - it's surprisingly interesting (though I'm sure most of you are too busy to watch TV). More than that though, we are getting very excited about the presidential election, especially Chris. I have always been a big political junky, but I've caught Chris watching Fox News, getting on Politico.com and talking politics with just about everyone lately.

And here is Chris now, with some thoughts on the Giants/Packers game:

Okay, Two road playoff wins out of Eli Manning was more than I expected. Probably more than anyone expected. I was also completely wrong about the Giants resting their starters in the last regular season game. Before the Pats game I was pretty sure that playing the starters and going into the playoffs hurt was the worst thing the Giants could have done. Turns out that it transformed the season and now the defense is playing like I used to in Tecmo Bowl when I would peek at my brothers controller to see which play he was going to call.

What does this teach us? I have absolutely no clue how to pick this Giants team this year. Still, I have the urge to go with them this week. Patriot vs. Packers is too perfect a Superbowl matchup. Something has to spoil that and Norv Turner on the road against The Hoodie isn't going to get it done. That leaves my Giants to ruin the fun and I think they will. Prediction: Father time catches up with Favre, and Ryan Grant realizes once again why the Giants cut him: Packers: 17 Giants : 23

Now, for the Cami photos, I think we will feature smiles today (every day is a good day for smiles) -

First off, we have Cami in her pretty white and purple dress, with a sleepy-just-woke-up smile. Next, a couple of content-with-life smiles. And finally, a couple of super-cheesers.

Playing around with Dad, and Cami'sBlessing Dress

2008-01-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

More Cami with Gym...

2008-01-01T12:34:00.000-08:00

So often, I feel like the pictures I take of Cami don't really look like her, but these ones I think do. Plus, I actually caught a couple of smiles, which she's doing a lot more lately (along with a lot more crying :)). In other news, I am finally making some headway on her room, and hope to finish it within the week. Chris is currently enjoying lots of college football and hopes you are too!

Our First Christmas

2007-12-27T15:23:00.001-08:00

Strange as it sounds our first Christmas with Cami has already come and gone. With our recent move to KC we were able to wake up for Christmas morning in our own home for the first time. It was fun to be able to have our Christmas time and then spend the rest of the day with family. Cami made out well as you can see from the pictures above. She loves her new clothes, her new books, her new toys, and expecially her new friend the inchworm ( To be commented on later).

I'm fairly certain she has no idea what went on, but at least we have the pictures to share with her when she gets older.

Cami's Toys

2007-12-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

As Cameron gets a litte older, she is finding great joy from her baby toys. Her newfound love is a little light-up bear on her baby gym that plays music. She also still really enjoys the teddy bear mobile on her baby swing. She is actually starting to make little laughs - it's so much fun!

Chris will now talk about the BYU-UCLA game -

Or as I have come to call it , "The hand of God". What a fantastic finish! Since we were snowed in last night and Carrie grew tired of the subject after an hour our two I spent a good portion of last night on the BYU message boards to get fan reaction from the game and share in the general joy. It was time well wasted, but I came away with knowing one thing for certain, BYU fans have grown spoiled.

When I attended BYU from 02-04 we had the following win totals, 3, 4, then 5. That was it, it was awful football and I witnessed every painful minute of it. We couldn't beat Utah to save our life, we never went to a bowl, firecrowton.com was my favorite Web site, and I wondered if it was even worth it follow the team considering how poorly I felt each Saturday.

Well, those days are gone. Back to back 11 win seasons, conference championships, bowl games, and most importantly back to back wins over the apostate school from the north! All of this in a year were the offense was completely overhauled, our quarterback took his first live snap in 4 years, and our defensive back 4 featured 4 walk ons. You would think fans would respect what a miracle this season was the great finished we had. Nope, all the talk was about how we should have won by more and how playing UCLA was beneath us. I couldn't believe it.

Let's all be realisitc, this year was a huge success. We're not BCS ready this year but we may be in the future if the schedule stays doable and we continue to have breaks go our way. Let's not ruin the memory of this year by thinking we should have been more. Let's be grateful for what we have and enjoy the success and remember what it was like to be wishing we only could play a 5th place PAC 10 team at the end of the season.

That's my soapbox. Now enjoy the Cami photos.

P.S. - PSU -35, A&M 14 and it won't even be close. Tough luck Aggies.

Who does baby look most like

2007-12-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

Let's settle this once and for all. Who does Cami most resemble, Mom or Dad? For the final verdict we will go to the old baby pictures so we can get a snapshot of Mom and Dad at the same point in time. First up, is my baby photo. All the way from 1981 you can see Chris sporting the mohawk right as it just started coming into style.

Wasn't that adorable? Up next is Carrie sporting a pretty pink dress. I'm sure she still has it somewhere. Isn't she a pretty baby?

Now that you've seen the parents , judge for yourself. Here's Cami crashing on Thanksgiving. Too much turkey I guess. Let us know what you think and enter you answer in the sidebar.

Cami likes...

2007-12-17T12:52:00.000-08:00

Cami turned one month old last Saturday, and much of her time has been spent asleep, so in honor of that, here are some photos of her, well, sleeping (I realize she looks naked in half of these, which is funny because she's almost always clothed - maybe these were post-bath, I honestly don't remember!) Her arms are up by her head in a couple of these, and she always does that when she gets startled. I think it is a natural baby reflex, but she throws them up really fast - it's so cute! That's another thing - she really doesn't like to be swaddled arms-in, she has to get them out or it makes her grumpy (and she really doesn't sleep with a loose blanket up by her head either - don't know why it's there in the photo - paranoid Mommy).

On that note:

Cameron Likes: Her purple light-up musical butterfly toy, baby swing, baby bouncer, diaper changes, mobiles, kisses & smiles, Fox News (oh wait, that's me :))

Cameron Dislikes: Her car seat (unless she's asleep, crying almost always ensues when she's placed in it, until the car starts moving), falling asleep (this is a new development, but just the last couple of days, she's starting to fight it), having to wait a few seconds to eat once she's hungry (oh wait, that's Chris - just kidding honey!)

Also as requested, I will post some awake photos soon.

Thanksgiving

2007-12-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

Well, some of you have written us about more frequent updating, and we'll try to meet that request! To start with, here are some Thanksgiving pictures, just one week after the little one arrived. We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at Jeff and Becky Cooper's house (my sister), and Cami slept most of the day, except of course during the actual dinner, where Grandma Rowe was kind enough to hold her long enough for me to get down a little turkey and stuffing too.

Bath Time!

2007-11-21T11:13:00.000-08:00

Cami slept right on through her first bath on Tuesday. She woke up at the end to say hello, but it was a good long while of bath time before she realized something new was going on.

Family Photo

2007-11-18T19:19:00.001-08:00

Even More Pictures...

2007-11-18T14:21:00.001-08:00

Happy with Dada and her first bottle.
All swaddled up with no place to go.
She sucks on her thumb and grabs her ear all of the time. It's exactly like "King John" from Disney's Robin Hood, and she'll do it right before she gets grumpy as well.
Sup my Homies!
Somtimes, even the best babies get a little grumpy.

More Cameron Pics

2007-11-18T11:21:00.001-08:00

Cameron with daddy!
Cameron all strapped in and ready to go home!

Cameron wrapped up as a string bean!

She's Here!!!

2007-11-18T11:07:00.001-08:00

On Thursday November 15th at 3:04 a.m. Cameron Michelle Diggins arrived to join our family. She was born at Saint Luke's South hospital in Overland Park, KS and was delivered by Dr. Martin. Cami was 7 lbs. 13 ounces and birth and was 19 1/2 inches long. So now that you have the stats, enjoy all the pictures of our adorable daughter.

Settled in Kansas: 9 Months and Counting...

2007-10-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

We are finally settled in here in Kansas, and closed on our house in Houston yesterday. We will really miss it, and all of our good friends there! We've only been in KC for 2 1/2 weeks, but it seems like much longer - perhaps because I am carrying a watermelon around on my front!

Earlier this week, I officially reached 9 months. Baby Cami is due Nov. 12, and we are ready for her (or as ready as we can be). As the photos indicate, our childbirth classes have been very enlightening, particularly for Chris! While he denies it, I feel he truly enjoyed wearing the empathy belly :). We take our hospital tour tonight, and I am very interested in exploring what they call the "nourishment room". Once the baby comes, my gestational diabetes should fade quickly, and I will get to taste the sweet goodness of the holiday season, at least in moderation. We'll make sure to post some pics of the little sweetie soon after birth!

Chris is enjoying his job here with Office Depot, where he is developing contracts for education and government business. I have mostly been trying to get our things organized here in our temporary location, my parent's house, and searching the area for a new home. We've also been able to spend lots of time with family, especially my nieces and nephews, who can be very entertaining. So that is life in Kansas - we'll keep you updated about the birth & more!

We're Moving!

2007-08-21T19:43:00.000-07:00

Yes, our time in Texas has come to an end and as of October 1st we will be living in Kansas City, Kansas! Chris took a promotion at work and we are thrilled to be living so close to Carrie's family.

Pictured on the right is our life over the next few weeks. We are still anxiously awaiting Cami to come into our lives and we have quite a few things to take care of before we can pack it up and head out of town. Still, we're really excited and glad to be in Kansas.

A Pregnancy Photo

2007-07-31T19:34:00.000-07:00

It dawned on us today that we have taken relatively few photos of Carrie's pregnant belly. With her recent growth spurt, it has become pretty big, and we though you might all want to see it. Ta da!

Air Peaches

2007-07-31T19:15:00.000-07:00

There is no greater controversy in the Diggins universe right now than the one centering around our cat Peaches. This photo makes him look acrobatic and downright lovable. However, the truth is he like to bite and has taken to destroying our furniture. Can he learn to change his behavior? Will he be safe around the baby? Only time will tell.

Vacation Photos: Bermuda, DC, Pennsylvania

2007-07-31T11:44:00.000-07:00

Check out or recent vacation pictures!

( From Top to Bottom)

1. No visit to Pennsylvania is complete without visiting Joe Pa

2. Chris checking out the view from our room in Bermuda

3. Carrie really enjoys the beach on Bermuda

80's Fashion - lookin' good!

2007-07-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

As per request, I am posting a couple of pictures from a recent 80's birthday party we attended. Chris' mullet wig is quite possibly the most repulsive thing on the planet - a drastic change from his normally handsome and stylish persona...

In the Beggining....

2007-07-29T19:28:00.001-07:00

With three months to go until little Cami arrives, we need a place to store millions of baby pictures - welcome to our solution!

Carrie and I would like to greet you and hope you have a blast catching up on all things Diggins. Please feel free to enjoy our vacation photos, silly moments, musings on life and all the family news thats fit to print. (Also the occasional college football prediction - I'm a solid 56% A.T.S., so pay attention.)

Here's what our situation looks like in a nutshell (somebody please help get our situation out of this nutshell!): We're living in Houston, Texas and it's hot. Carrie is now six months pregnant with our first baby, a girl that we will name Cameron Michelle (she prefers Cami for now). We're trying to get out and see the world before the blessed event, so tons of vacation photos to follow. We will also post our opinion on a variety of topics (wait for Carrie's television reviews and political rants, in addition to my recipe of the month). Glad to have you with us. Take Care!