Recent Milestones

I wanted to catch up on some things and post a few milestones that have taken place in our home over the past week or so. Natalie has now learned to pull herself up to standing and also (unfortunately) to climb the stairs. This means...the baby gate has returned! However, we can only put the gate up on the second step so Natalie spends her time inventing new ways to injure herself from two steps up.

Natalie also recently experimented with eating with a spoon. I gave her some yogurt in a bowl and she actually did fairly well. There was still yogurt in every imaginable place afterwards, of course.

Just the other day, Elizabeth wrote her first word! The only two letters she knows how to write are H and I and it finally occurred to me that if she wrote them together she would write a word: "Hi". I don't have a scanner so I just took a picture of it. She wrote the I in orange and then again in black over it. She also traced her hand all by herself in the corner. I thought she'd never learn how to draw anything more than scribbles and then all of a sudden she's writing letters and words. She is getting much too old.

I'll finish with another FEM (Funny Elizabeth Moment): We were at the grocery store the other day and Elizabeth was hearing the voice over the loudspeaker. Normally she enjoys talking back to it, which is funny in and of itself, by saying things like "I can't come right now, I'm shopping" or something along those lines. She was doing this again until she suddenly sat up and said "Heavenly Father is talking to us!" The people around us enjoyed this and I thought it was hilarious how the thought suddenly occurred to her. I love moments like these that make me laugh out loud and melt my heart completely, no matter how much she had been whining or throwing tantrums a few minutes before. Motherhood is worth it. I'm thankful for the everyday reminders of that.

Thanksgiving Fun

We had a great holiday weekend up in Twin Falls, ID, at Joe's mom's house. We were there with Joe's brother Tom and his family, his younger brother Richard and our friend Simon from Tanzania who is in Utah going to school. We ate great food, played games and got to watch two great BYU wins (football vs. Utah and basketball vs. Louisville). Joe even got to play in a turkey bowl on his old high school football field. Warning: This post will be picture-heavy.

Hallie & Elizabeth playing with Polly Pockets and Natalie & Christine playing with cups

We also celebrated Richard's birthday over the weekend. Here is his cake, a team effort from Joe and his mom (mostly his mom).

Richard reading to T.J. & Elizabeth

Cute Matt and his bright blue eyes

Christine & Simon (who is taking a break from playing with the kids)

Grandma Marsha & the kids

Thank you, Grandma, for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

When we finally made it home, we realized that we had forgotten to turn our heat on before we left and the house was freezing! This is me and the girls snuggling under blankets to keep warm. Elizabeth's hair is wet because she had a major blow-out at the end of the car trip and needed a bath. I thought we'd outgrown those with her but I guess not (blow-outs, not baths :).

It was great to spend time with family and friends and take time to remember all that I am grateful for. I am truly blessed in so many ways. I'm so grateful for a kind, loving husband and for two sweet daughters who bring me so much joy. I'm grateful for our extended family who love and support us and set such good examples. I'm grateful for all the physical blessings I've been given and I hope that I can always remember that they come from my Heavenly Father and to be generous with those who are in need. I'm so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ and the hope it gives me each day of my life. Life is good and I'm so thankful for that. :)

Family Resemblances

This was fun... I don't know if it's really true.



Shocking, huh? I hardly ever get that she looks more like me.



This one seems about right I guess.

Christmas is Coming

I am officially getting into the Christmas spirit (hence the Christmas songs in our playlist). This is probably because I've been working on making our stockings. Yes, I'm finally doing it. My mom made our stockings when I was growing up. They were pretty simple and made out of felt and I loved them. Since it's what I grew up on, in my mind they are just what stockings should be. So, I am creating some homemade felt stockings for our family. You probably never thought you'd hear my name and the word "homemade" in the same sentence :). I will post pictures when they're finished (as long as they turn out somewhat cute). Wish me luck! Also, there were people wondering about how to post a comment without a Google account and I've finally changed the settings so this should be possible.

I'll add a quick funny Elizabeth story, too. Yesterday, we all went to DI while running errands and as we were entering the store Joe was talking about how great DI is and how when we were in Stockton over the summer the thrift stores there weren't very good (he had been looking for clothes for his African trip). He said "they were terrible". Elizabeth heard this and proceeded to yell out "these clothes are terrible!" in the middle of DI. We both shushed her and then looked at each other and burst out laughing. Never a dull moment with a 2 year old! As a side note, I found some cute shiny-black mary janes for Elizabeth in great condition for $2!

A Little Helper and a Gymnast

The other day I was folding laundry and Elizabeth wanted to come help me. I told her that she could fold the socks. I showed her how to find matches and then how to fold them together. Of course that was a little beyond her ability and I figured she would just play with the socks. She ended up doing really well at finding matches and then proceeded to fold each of the socks in half and made little piles. She would also shake out the socks before she folded them (like I was shaking out the shirts). I thought it was very cute and she was so excited to help. I was excited to find a way to keep her busy while I folded so she wouldn't unfold everything like she normally does :). I hope you can see this from the picture; some of the piles had gotten messed up by this time. For some reason she insisted on folding them on top of a blanket.

Folded socks (literally!)

Natalie's favorite place to be these days is at the bottom steps of the stairs. She tries to climb up but she's still pretty far from figuring it out so she mainly just hangs out. She can use the steps to pull herself up to sitting although sometimes she gets in tricky situations like below.

The splits

Cute sisters

Funny Video

I had seen this video before but I recently rediscovered it. It makes me laugh hard and gives me a happy feeling in my heart every time I watch it. Joe can watch it over and over. We decided it is definitely blog-worthy. Hopefully no one will be offended. :)

Watch this video

Sickness and Teething

These last few days have been kind of difficult around here. Elizabeth and I have had cough/colds since last Wednesday which are being stubborn and sticking around. Natalie is teething and not very happy right now. We've been staying in for almost a week now to avoid contaminating others and to rest. The combination of all of this is not good. Elizabeth and Natalie are especially having a hard time together since Natalie gets upset over little things and this in turn upsets Elizabeth and both end up screaming. Yesterday, Natalie was just being fussy and Elizabeth yelled at her to stop screaming and tried to kick her! I think Natalie barely felt it but I saw Elizabeth's intent and she went straight to her room. It's been a long time since she's done anything like that to Natalie. Basically, I think we all need to get out of the house and back to normal life. We're going to attempt a trip to the grocery store today. Hopefully it will go OK (you never know with shopping trips) and hopefully we'll be over these colds soon.

I am actually very grateful that we're not more sick than we are. It's been a long time since Elizabeth's had problems breathing and I can't help but hope that she is growing out of her problems. Natalie, so far, hasn't really gotten sick and hopefully there will be nothing major this winter.

The kids have actually been doing some cute things lately, too. Here is the non-whiney part of this post. I guess you could have skipped down here to avoid listening to me complain but it's good to vent. Anyway, Natalie has been playing peek-a-boo lately and it's really cute to watch. She doesn't put her hands over her eyes, though, she puts them on the sides of her head. (I hope to get a video of this up soon) She is doing this all of the time lately and even started doing it one-handed while I was feeding her. I thought it was pretty hilarious. She is also folding her arms (for a few microseconds) when we start our prayers. She is such a cutie.

One day, after Elizabeth had been in her room for something, she said that Heavenly Father and Jesus were sad because of what she did. Then, she looked up at the ceiling and said "Sorry, Heavenly Father and Jesus" and then looked at me and said "they didn't hear me". I tried not to laugh and to explain that they did hear her but it's better to speak to them in our prayers. So, we said a prayer and I thought she understood but now she's been doing it a lot. One time she said "come and see me Heavenly Father and Jesus" but she's been mostly looking up and saying sorry after she does something wrong. I think it's pretty cute although I've been trying to reemphasize praying. Also, I recently came across what a friend had written down for us of Elizabeth's baby blessing and was surprised to see that Joe had blessed her to have a "loving heart". That definitely describes her. She is a good example to me already.

Sorry for rambling. Thanks for listening! This has been therapeutic. :)

Halloween

For Halloween this year, we actually cheated and went to the dorms to trick-or-treat even though I think it's technically reserved for people who currently live in Wymount. They needed people to come, though, since they had more then enough candy and not very many kids. It was good for Elizabeth, who got sick that morning, since we could stay inside and cover a lot of doors quickly. She had a great time and refused to let me hold her candy even when it got so heavy it was weighing her down. All in all, it was a very fun night (despite the many people who thought Elizabeth was a pumpkin; come on, vertical ribs=pumpkin, horizontal ribs=carrot, right?).

Ready to party

This is the best picture I got of Elizabeth and cute Libbi who was a cowgirl

Yummy carrot...

Farm Country

On Tuesday, the girls and I went with Luci, Stephanie, Cindy & kids (we are getting to be quite a large group with all these kids) to see some animals and have some Halloween fun.

Ride 'em cowboy

Natalie and Camden being good sports in the strollers while their big sisters have all the fun on the jumping pillow

Elizabeth absolutely loved the pony ride and practically refused to get off

All of us

Elizabeth & Maddie posing

The girls were fast asleep when we got home. Luckily they both stayed asleep while I carried them to bed.