Another great Family Home Evening

We took Gracie and Ruby to the temple on Monday night for FHE. We thought it might invoke some spirituality. There we were, on the lawn of the Timpanogas temple, on the bench surrounded by flowers and Jake asked, "Gracie, what are you thinking about right now?" She honestly answered, "I am thinking about TOY'S R US." Wow. ok.

ummmmmmmm

I've got a 14 month old baby who is not only down to one nap per day, but is trying to skip that as well! She wakes up at 8 a.m.... by 1 or 2 I try to rock her, she just laughs at me and shows no signs of heavy eyelids. hm... Then I let her walk around for another hour or so. She is a little fussy, but I let her get her wiggles out. Then around 5 she'll get a little tired, but she can't handle me rocking her and does not fall asleep. She might get a 30 minute nap in the car if we leave somewhere, but that's enough for her. Then she is fully awake until 9:30 if we let her be. Uhhhhhhhh...... Anybody?

Little Thing

Just a beautiful girl in the world.......

Hanging Out (literally) at the Park

We were at the park yesterday... Rubygirl got wet in a little puddle and her shirt and pants had a few splash marks on them but she patted them with her open palm and said "uh deh uh deh deh", which means, "take these off, they're wet!". We got the problem taken care of... but there was a new problem... WE'VE GOT A NUDIE AT THE PARK!!!!!!!!!!

Gracie's Gap

Today Grace's friend Ava was concerned about Grace's baby teeth. She came to me in confidence and asked in a low voice, "You know that space in Grace's teeth? Is another tooth gonna grow there?" What she said was funny, but even funnier was the position of her hand to her own mouth and the furrow of her own brow, as if she felt the pain that Grace must feel having her teeth so painfully far apart.

Sad Story

Jake and I were at the park yesterday evening.. a woman was there with her three little blonde kids, ages 5,4 and 2. They would play and come over and sit on their mom's lap and hug her and talk to her. I thought, what a close family. What a truly close relationship these kids have with their mom--I looked over and saw that they had ridden their bikes to the park. The two youngest in a bike buggy that their mom had pulled and the oldest boy on his own bike. We started talking to her, she asked about Jake's job and so in turn, we asked about her husband. It seemed a bit odd, for a mom to be out with her kids alone so close to twilight. She paused a moment, then told us her husband had passed away three months ago from Leukemia. He had been through a year and a half of chemotherapy and finally lost his battle. Jake and I felt her spirit so strong it was tangible. We both fought back tears while listening to her struggles and picturing her raising her children alone. She was smiling the whole time and also had tears in her eyes. It really brought things into perspective for us... we are so lucky. She also told us how she looked forward to seeing him again and how excited she was to be sealed to him forever. And SERIOUSLY she was smiling the whole time. She was the most amazing person. Jake looked over at me as we left the park and said, "looks like we just had the best family home evening lesson in a long time".

A nice clean poo story

One more thing... Grace has finally mastered the task of going poo in the bathroom. Now let me be clear... in the BATHROOM. I left out the word "toilet" on purpose because she leaves that part out of the task itself. Anyway, the other day she had just finished doing a poo in her 'special place' (something involving a chair near the toilet but I wouldn't know, she closes the door for privacy). She and I usually try to flush down the evidence in the toilet "where it goes" as part of the potty training experience. I flushed it down this particular time and she looked at me with compassionate eyes, touched me on the shoulder and said, "She [the poo] is going back home to her family! She is SOOO happy!!!" This of course followed by a fast skip out of the bathroom leaving me laughing tears. She seems to understand the world so well.........

Our little Gracie

Gracie used to be so little, but she is HUGE now. She's so heavy, I can barely carry her in my arms anymore. She likes to make me be the prince and she gets to be Snow White or any other beautiful princess. No matter the fairy tale, it usually includes her becoming a cat and then falling asleep and I have to kiss her to wake her. Then she shoves some sort of figurine toward me and commands, "Be HER!" Which of course means to make up exciting and eloquent conversations to and from her character. All the while she is correcting me because she has already thought of what I am 'supposed' to say and I rarely read her mind and say it quite right. She loves to drink her cup empty and then go toward Ruby's full juice cup saying, "She wants to trade Mommy!" She was a newborn baby, and then we blinked.

Ruby won't say "Dad"

Ruby is one of a kind. She walks like a baby dinosaur and you may laugh, but it is so true! She completely refuses to say Dad and Jake tries every single day, believe me! He asks her to say it and she just says "Mam!" and grins at me. Yes, we do have a secret language. She talks gibberish to us and her eyes look at us like, "I hope you understood that because life is hard enough without you guys pretending like I'm talking a foreign language".

The Beach

Just a little Fruit of the Loom surfing if you know what I mean... Florida in April.

So...

This will be an ATTEMPT at something networkish-internetish-and-high-techish. It seems I have jumped on the bandwagon and am going full speed ahead.
Love to all---