Posted by Jimmy on Apr 13, 2009 in
Uncategorized I love Easter! It’s a special holiday that has just enough commercialism in it to be fun, but not to detract from the true meaning. Unfortunately, we don’t really take pictures of the more religious parts of the holiday, so here are some of the fun parts!
We lured Henry out to his Easter basket. He took a lot of persuading!
Nothing special – some sippy cups, arrowroot crackers, and some squishy baseballs. The cups were his favorite!
Then we went to Jimmy’s parents’ house for Easter dinner and the annual Egg Derby! Everyone was nice enough to indulge me in a little egg hunt for the cousins 
This was the first time the two boys actually PLAYED together! It was SOOOOO cute and made me way happy! Ethan was able to draw Henry out of his apron-string-clinging and they romped around the house!
What is an egg derby, you ask? Think “demolition,” not “Kentucky.” First you decorate eggs and name them.
Then you roll them at each other and see which one cracks.
It goes on from there, tournament style
Posted by Jimmy on Apr 13, 2009 in
Uncategorized 
Posted by Jimmy on Apr 13, 2009 in
Uncategorized One of Henry’s favorite things to do is help me plant things. Or unplant things. We sit out on the front porch and he plays in the dirt of the flower pots while I make sure he doesn’t get too messy. Sometimes he watches the neighbor kids playing in their yard. We love springtime!
He also likes to eat the mail key – supervised, of course!
More porch time!
Posted by Jimmy on Apr 13, 2009 in
Uncategorized
We were driving back from Jimmy’s parents’ house after conference, and luckily the road to the freeway was closed and we stumbled upon this awesome petting zoo! No fees, no place to check in or anything – it looked like it was just somebody’s farm, but there was hay out there for kids to grab and feed the animals. So fun!
Henry took a while to warm up to the animals!
Jimmy learned how to talk turkey 
It was also Jimmy’s birthday a while ago, and it was my first time to try out the cake decorating kit I got for Christmas! It turned out kind of creepy – I wasn’t going for beautiful!
Posted by Jimmy on Apr 1, 2009 in
Baby,
Videos Our boy, Henry, has a secret addiction: he loves wet paper towels the way Simon Cowell loves uncomfortably v-necked t-shirts.
It all started when we started using wet paper towels to wipe down his hands and face after he’s eaten some solid food. He hates being wiped off, but loves the paper towel. His goal is to simultaneously avoid being wiped off while grabbing the paper towel in grubby double fists and jamming it into his mouth. And once there, he’ll keep it there for a long time. Occasionally, we can hear him sucking some of the water out of it (“fffffft, fffffft, fffffft”), but most of the time he just keeps various amounts stuck in his mouth and we can’t help but laugh.
The following video has some toddling in it, but don’t be fooled - the real star is the wet, white quilted-quicker-picker-upper dangling from the young man’s maw.
Binkies? Can’t stand ‘em. Lightly moistened paper products? Now you’re speaking Henry’s language.
Posted by Jimmy on Mar 29, 2009 in
Baby,
Videos He’s done it! Henry took his first steps 2 days ago! At just over 8 months old, our precocious child is mastering the art of bipedal locomotion
Our little baby, all grown up and toddling! He definitely has a mind of his own and likes figuring out how to use his new body. Now that he’s mastered troublemaking at the crawling level, he’s ready to wreak havoc at 2 feet off the ground :) The next video is from a week ago at Grandma and Grandpa Dunn’s house when he was even less stable than he is now.
You know that sticker that comes on the wipes container? So does Henry.
One of the first Spring-like days of 2009, in the Dunns’ backyard with cousins
Posted by Jimmy on Mar 9, 2009 in
Uncategorized,
Updates
This is the letter that I’m sending to HBO and anyone else that will listen. If you know someone who would benefit from reading it, please don’t hesitate to share it with them. -Jimmy
To Whom It May Concern:
My name is Jimmy Dunn, and I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – a Mormon. I learned today that one of the upcoming episodes of Big Love will showcase the clothing and ceremonies that take place within the walls of the LDS temples. Trust me when I tell you that there are few things more sacred to an adult member of the LDS church than these. I know that it is tempting to categorize me as just another offended member of a minority group and simply tune me out, but before you do, please let me try to explain just what you are doing to me.
At the risk of sounding crass, I ask you to think of the private parts of your body. There is nothing secret, strange, or dangerous about them. To be frank, we all have them and we all have a pretty good idea of what they look like and what their purposes are. Yet, we wear clothing to keep these parts of our body private and sacred, hidden from public view. This is how I feel about the temple and the ceremonies that take place there. They are not strange. They are not shocking. And they are certainly not dangerous. They are simply precious and sacred to those for whom they hold meaning. They are an integral part of my religion and of how I define myself and my relationship with my family and with God.
One of the most basic rights we have as human beings is to decide whether, when, and where we will share the most intimate pieces of ourselves, our own bodies, with another person. Some of the most powerful and ugly words in the human language are reserved for describing the times when that right is forcibly taken away: sexual harassment, prostitution, molestation, rape.
I want you to know that when you decided to put the most sacred parts of what goes on in a Mormon temple on TV, you committed an emotional and social crime against my people, my religion, and myself. While I will not pretend to use a word so ugly as rape to describe what you have done, it is, at the very least a sinister and unwelcome violation of the privacy and dignity of an entire people. As a religious peeping tom, you have exposed those things that are precious to me to the world.
And there is nothing that I can do to stop it.
That is why I am writing this letter to you, HBO, Tom Hanks, and anyone else involved in choosing the content of the show, Big Love. If you care at all about social responsibility, not to mention human dignity and religious freedom, you will not air the episode in question. The beauty of social media is that this letter can be copied, posted, blogged, and emailed enough that thousands of people will read it. I admit that I am too jaded to believe that even that will be enough to stop you. I can only hope that it will have some bearing on the decisions that you and others in your position make in the future.
Pleading the Case of Decency,
Jimmy Dunn
PS - I would not presume to speak for the LDS Church or its members. These thoughts and opinions are my own and no one else’s.
Posted by Jimmy on Jan 10, 2009 in
Uncategorized We had a fabulous time in North Carolina this Christmas! I love my family sooooo much! It was a momentous year since the whole family was back together for the first time in a long time. Jeff just got back from his mission, Nicole was back from school, and two of my sisters hadn’t even seen Henry yet. No one had seen him more than once, and that when he was just born.
Suffice it to say, I didn’t even get to see him much the whole vacation! Grandma and Grandpa and all his new aunts and uncles were happy to entertain him
Greensboro is about the most Christmasy town I’ve ever seen. So many people had gazillions of lights! Our neighborhood puts out luminaries around all the streets every Christmas Eve, a simply lovely tradition. No wonder we’ve always had great Christmases - it was probably easy for Santa to find! One neighborhood takes the cake, though. The whole neighborhood hangs these orbs of lights in the trees lining the streets. It’s incredible! The pictures and video really don’t capture the magic of it all, but it really is spectacular.
Christmas itself was great. My family got a Wii, so there was lots of rock band and High School Musical Dance Party going on.
We went up to Virginia and Maryland for my dad’s family Christmas party. That was really great - I haven’t seen them in 2 years.
My family is so cute and so fun! On New Year’s Day, they had a night of competitions. Everything you could think of. Staring contest, free throw contest, standing on one foot, noodle throwing, portrait drawing, arm wrestling, twinkie-eating, etc. There were 15. I was proud of myself for winning the baby food tasting contest. Jimmy stole the show though and won the most. That’s my husband
Posted by Jimmy on Jan 10, 2009 in
Uncategorized No blog posts!
Sorry we’ve neglected you - we’ll try very hard to fill you in . . . thought it might not be in chronological order
Posted by Jimmy on Nov 16, 2008 in
Uncategorized I have a million pictures I want to put up (Halloween, etc.), but it just takes so long to do it, and they aren’t on my computer, excuses, excuses . . . I’ll do it later.
As an update though, Henry rolled over from his back to his tummy today! So now he can make a full turn and mobility is right around the corner. He loves standing up and has incredible muscle tone. He also likes to flirt, making eyes at everyone in Sunday School and generally being the class clown.
We realized this week that he’s having a pretty hard time putting on weight and has fallen to/below the 5th percentile for weight, even though I feed him ALL the time. I’d really hoped to breastfeed as exclusively as possible for the first six months, but you do as much as you can, I guess. Luckily we can start solids pretty soon! My baby’s just growing up so fast!
A lot of people ask me if it’s hard to be a mom in school and how I manage it. Honestly it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. I’ve had so much support from friends and family - I know I couldn’t do it without them! I have a different babysitter for almost every day of the week for class time, and then I manage to do homework when I’m home. Luckily most of my assignments have been group projects which means less work overall. The Lord truly provides a way to do the things you need to do. The hardest part is the inevitable guilt trip you give yourself, even if you know you’re doing the right thing. I’m only gone 3 hours a day, but it’s still hard to leave him with other people, no matter how wonderful they are.
Next semester is only 2 days a week, though, which will be nice. Then I’ll have a whole month of Henry time before I start my stinky full-time internship for 7 months. I just can’t think too hard about that
