Brief Trip to WA

Last month I went home to Tacoma and saw my childhood home for the last time. My parents were moving and a friend was getting married. Since my parents house was in that in-between-half-moved-stuff-everywhere stage, Little Miss and I slept at their new place with my sister Crayola. I did go through some of my old stuff from the attic. There was so much stuff from myself and my siblings in the attic that just needs to be thrown away, and I ran out of time to get everything done that I wanted to. I feel bad that I left a pile of stuff that needs to be hauled out and tossed for my parents to deal with, since they both have physical limitations these days (hence the reason they are moving to a smaller, one story house instead of a tall, skinny three story house).

 Here are pics from Nan's wedding:

 Ddonn and three of her girls.

 Candid of some of Ddonn and Nan's family.

I loved her veil, so I took a picture of it.

 Ddonn with Little Miss.

 Ddonn and I with our baby girls.

While I was there I visited with an old friend and his cute family.



Little Miss with Grandpa at their new place.

By the end of the trip Little Miss had decided that she really liked her Aunt Crayola.

Grammy even managed to put Little Miss to sleep for her nap once.

I returned to UT for Easter and my birthday. Here is Little Miss in her Easter dress, enjoying a sucker from her Easter basket. Unfortunately, she got sick from the trip, and I spent the day home from church with her, while she threw up everything, even water, and of course, this sucker. But she looks happy, doesn't she? This was the first sucker that was HERS, not her brothers, but HERS.

 Werty bought me a snickers cake from my birthday, since I had no desire to bake a cake the day after flying home...with a sick baby. I was on a chocolate fast during March, so I was ready for some chocolate cake, yum!

Aunt BBug made this headband for Little Miss at my baby shower. Whenever I put something on Little Miss's head, her big brother usually says, "Look, she's a princess!"

 And Spring is finally here! My new daffodil bulbs are in full bloom, and the tulips started opening up this weekend. This is what they looked like last weekend:

Welcome New Nephew!

My SIL BBug had her new little boy on Saturday. I believe her hubby made it in time. He was still driving from Provo to ABQ when she was in labor. When I told BooBear that his fave cousin was now a big brother, BooBear cheered and whooped. About half an hour later he informed me that we needed to go see Aunt BBug. It made me so sad to tell him that we couldn't go see her at the hospital because they live too far away. sniffle.

Congradulations BBug! And the pic you sent with the email wouldn't load for me, so I hope to see more pics soon!

Training

I have started training for a 5k. (I can say that now that I am in the 2nd week of training instead of the first week, right?) There was a short article in the January Ensign about how mommies need to take time for themselves to exercise, and I thought, hmmm, that might be helpful for me. My sister-in-law Klari started doing triathlons last year. She keeps trying to recruit the rest of us to join her. Well, I do not enjoy swimming. I also have a friend in the ward who runs, and gets her kids registered in the Fun Runs for kids that usually accompany a 5k. I have jogged regularly at different points in my life, punctuated by periods of inactivity in between. ahem. And there is an annual 5k that goes right past my house, reminding me every Spring that I have missed another opportunity. But this Spring will be different! I will run a 5k, and I will sign up BooBear for the Fun Run. Klari kindly pointed me to the "couch to 5k" program, which is geared for people like me.

Little Miss 9 Months Update

I'm a few weeks late posting Little Miss' stats from her 9 month check-up, but I wanted to make sure I included pictures this time.
Weight: 19 lbs  50%
Length; 29 in  90%
Head: 18 in  85%
At 9 months, Little Miss can scoot effectively across the room in a sitting position (who needs to crawl when you can SCOOT?). She loves bath time and the feel of water running on her fingers. She eats fruits, veggies, and yogurt. She is currently working on cutting her upper front teeth. She does NOT like getting her nose wiped. She loves music, stacking toys, playing with her big brother, trying to get things to stick to her fingers (puffs do all the time), and putting everything in her mouth.



 We had a little scare last week when BooBear left a foil candy wrapper on the floor and she swallowed part of it. It was a good reminder that while she is a patient, gently soul, she still needs to be watched carefully.


And now for the rest of the month:
BooBear and I made Mommy and Daddy snowmen. Half the snow was too dry and half wasn't, so it was a trick to get it to stick together.



Here is BooBear saying goodbye to his favorite cousin the night before they flew to their new home in NM. We wish them luck with their house hunting and the new job. It will be strange to have them so far away when their new baby comes next month.



On Valentine's Day Werty told me to I should drive the car around the block - so I could see the odometer turn to 222,222 since 22 is my lucky number and all. He knows me so well. 

 

BooBear has been loving his new music class he started in January. He loves the mini drum kit they have. He made his own version at home, complete with a tambourine for the cymbal.

Accidents Happen

Let me share a scene with you from tonight. It was bath night and BooBear is in the tub. I come in to wash his hair. I kneel down at the edge of the tub, and my knee gets really wet. "Were you splashing?" "No." he answers. "Then why is the rug wet?" He giggles (which is always a bad sign). "Little Miss peed when she was getting in the bathtub." "No, it wasn't Little Miss. I was holding her. If she had peed, she would have peed all over me, not the rug." He giggles again. "Yes, she did." Suddenly a light bulb goes on in my brain. "BooBear, did you pee while you were getting in to the tub." "YES." Accident happen, and these are the moments that I say, yep, I am a mommy, and isn't that a wonderful thing? But WAIT, I'm not done with this story...a few minutes later I am getting Little Miss out of the bath and getting her dressed. Just as I am about to put on her diaper, yep, accidents happen, all over my bed this time. So there I was with a wet knee and a wet bed, telling myself that it's a great thing to be a mommy, because the best thing you can do when accidents happen is just smile.

Congratulations!

Congratulations to Sister E.C., my former student, soon to be missionary! Thanks for letting me know about your mission call. I am SOOO excited for you. I hope you have great companions and joy in your service. Remember that the individual days seem long and tedious, but the months fly by. I know you will be a wonderful missionary.

I am going to take this moment to reflect on an experience from my mission. As a missionary, your time is the Lord's and not your own, and sometimes it is hard to know how to best fill your time to be the most effective. I had one companion who was a good woman, but she had some physical difficulties. I think when we were together was the only time that she was placed in a bike area instead of having a car. Her previous companion had belittled her whenever she physically couldn't keep up. Growing up she had also had some destructive experiences in her childhood. I soon came to realize that this dear sister's self-esteem was depleted. But I will never forget the day that I was frustrated because we kept missing our bus connections due to how slowly my companion walked. (We rode the bus because she couldn't ride a bike). I felt we were wasting time just standing at bus stops all afternoon. She suggested we stop by the Elder's apt on our way home, since we needed to drop something off. I worried that this was not the best thing we could do with our time, as some might think of it as a "social" call, but I agreed. As we were standing on the Elder's porch, a car drove up and parked in front of us. The man got out and called to us, "Hey, you guys. Who are you?" All four of us introduced ourselves, and the man explained how he had seen my companion and I waiting at different bus stops all day long. Everywhere he went, there we were. (He drove a lot as part of his job.) He felt like God was sending him a message and telling him he needed to talk to us. We spent the next hour sitting on the porch and teaching this man about the Book of Mormon. As we were together for 6 weeks, this sister and I had other similar experiences. Because of her faith and dedication, people often came up to us, instead of us having to find them. Together we set companionship goals to help build up her self-esteem, and it was a sweet and humbling experience for me. Heavenly Father knew what he was doing putting us together in a "bike area."

January Update

So, here another month has gone by. My resolution for 2013 was not blogging more regularly, can you tell? My resolution was to have more meaningful interaction with my children everyday. So far. we have been having more fun and creativity in our house.

I started BooBear in a music class at BYU for 3 year-olds. The rest of the kids in the class have been together since the Fall semester, but I wasn't ready to add something new to our schedule last Fall. So, instead of feeling guilty about that, I am rejoicing in how much he loves music class now. He spent a lot of time trying out new instruments, like the child-sized drum kit. BooBear has asked to play the rhythm game we learned in the class every day this week.

We have also added storytime at the library to our schedule, which is another thing I am trying not to feel guilt about not doing earlier. He used to go with his Aunt BBug when I was working, but when I had a new little newborn baby, I just wasn't up for it and we got out of the habit. He remembered it well enough that he was excited to start going again.

BooBear is absolutely loving Sunbeams. He has wonderful teachers. I think the reason he was so grumpy about nursery in December was because he was bored. He has been asking all week if one of the other girls in class can come play. They were in nursery together, but never really interacted (parallel play, right?). Now that they are in Sunbeams together they get along really well. So, I guess I need to get in gear and set up a play date sometime. This particular girl has a baby brother exactly one day older than my Little Miss, so play dates would work for both kids.

BooBear doesn't like to get his hair cut. I mean, how many toddlers like to sit still and get itchy hair all over their neck, right? So, Werty has been promising all month to take him to the barbershop or the "hair-cutting store" as we explained it to BooBear. Finally, they went last week.

Before:

 

After: 

We have been having record cold temps, like most people in this part of the country. BooBear and I built a snow fort, which was pretty difficult, since it's really dry snow. We started it New Year's Eve. It's currently 2 levels high, about 8' x 4' and still hasn't melted (in the picture we were building the first level).

Little Miss is rocking on her arms, but not quite getting her tush off the floor to crawl yet. Her increased amount of movement and rocking makes me think it will be very soon.

BooBear with his cousin at play group. For several weeks, he was the only one to come to play, due to his other cousins traveling and being sick. I was sure glad he came because BooBear looks forward to play group all week.