I Resolve 2011

I've been debating posting a list of goals I have for the year, mainly because I've only had an informal list floating around in my head.

1. Go to the temple once a month, even if that means going by myself.
2. Go on a date with Matt once a month, be it to the Temple or elsewhere.
3. Chill out and don't stress about Nursery or Preschool so much. Prepare well, yes, but be more concerned about the kids having positive interactions and experiences than about looking like "the perfect and awesome teacher who's accomplished so much" when their parents come and pick them up. I shouldn't make it about me; it should be about them.
4. Plan ahead

There are other things I know I need to improve on, but this is what I'm focusing on right now.

"Hole-jew"

Walter is in such a fun stage. He has a couple of phrases that he uses a lot, but he's also copying a lot of what we say.  In the last few days he's changed from saying "upandown" to "hole-jew" (Hold you) when he wants me to pick him up. He's getting better at saying Dean, and he talks about daddy all day. Any time he sees something he thinks is associated with dad, he'll point and excitedly say, "Dada! Dada!"  Sometimes he'll even say stuff like, "Dada shoes!"

Some of the funny/cute things he says:
Oh boy!
Oh ma(n)!
Bye, bye dada. Yuvyou.
Hamma (Hammer)

At church yesterday he kept straddling the arm of the pew and made engine revving noises like he was riding a motorcycle! I don't know if that's what he was really doing, but it sure seemed like it. Sacrament meeting feels like an hour long wrestling match with our boys.  Neither of them are game for just sitting there with activity books  or toys (it helps for a few minutes, but the boys just have ants in their pants!), and twice in the past few weeks we've had to chase them up to the front and retrieve them. The first time Walt started heading up during the Sacrament prayer and Dean followed after crawling. Walt thought it was a fun chasing game and made it all the way to the Sacrament table before Matt got to him. Dean thought it was a fun game until Dad made them stop, and then he wailed as Matt took them to the foyer so the deacons could actually pass the Sacrament! I have to admit, I laughed. It was that or get really embarrassed for normal little boy behavior. It happened again yesterday when the choir got up to sing a special number. Walt thought it would be fun to follow everyone up. I followed him to grab him. Dean followed us "to do it like Walt."  Kids.

He still loves to climb. This week I found him sitting in the bathroom sink, getting into everything he wasn't supposed to. (On a side note, he dumped an entire bottle of shampoo on one of our fabric couches this week as well. Luckily it's one I got for fairly cheap, but still, the damage toll rises!) Yesterday at one point I heard him crying a distress cry from our laundry room. Since I've been painting, I had our big ladder down and leaned up against the wall in the laundry room. He climbed to the second to top rung and couldn't get down! I'm so glad it didn't topple over!

Walter is almost positively left handed. He ALWAYS draws and eats with his left hand. (Matt's a lefty.)  He loves, loves, loves markers, but unfortunately still likes to put them in his mouth as well as draw with them. He is a master with a fork and will NOT let me help him one whit with eating. I do still cut up his food, but he has to spear everything (including peas!) all by himself. He is as good as Dean is with a fork, though his spoon technique needs a little more work with liquids.

 His hair's getting a bit long and scraggly. The curls are still cute, but I think we're just about ready to give him his first "big boy" hair cut.  It's so much harder with curly hair though...

Here's a funny (to me at least) video of us trying to put our kids to bed last week. It's long, so I don't blame you if you don't watch. =) Walt kept climbing up on Dean's train box and flipping over the headboard of Dean's bed.  Of course when we get out the camera it takes a little coaxing to get it on video since he just wants the camera.  It's a little slow at the beginning, but I think the end's pretty funny.

Untitled from Celia Brasfield on Vimeo.

Beep, beep, beep. The line is busy. Please hang up and try again.

My mom asked if I have been really busy lately since I haven't updated my blog lately. I knew I hadn't really posted much lately, but I didn't realize how little I've posted! Only one post this whole month! Preposterous.

Kid's bathroom before

Kid's bathroom after

I guess the answer is, yes. I've been quite busy. I've caught the painting bug again. I've painted two bathrooms SW Breezy and have started prep on our kitchen recently (SW Independent Gold). So that's kind of eaten up some nights.

Master Bathroom, not quite put together

another from the master.

I also started reading again. I haven't been real great about it recently. I was reading a long Revolutionary war series and got stuck half way through the third book. I loved the first two books and read them quickly, but the third felt more text bookish and was harder for me to get into. I didn't pick it up for a couple of months and then about a week ago I felt like reading it again and finished it in a few days. Then I started book 4 and am about half way in. When I read, I read. It kind of consumes me. That's why I go in spurts.

Matt traveled again this week, and that often leaves me too tired in the evening to blog. He's becoming known as a "travel guy", much to his dismay.  The trip he went on this week wasn't even remotely related to what he does at work, but they needed a software guy they trusted with a new potential client and a 100 million dollar contract that was on the line. Yeah, no pressure.



Oh, and I guess I never really blogged about the horrible month and a half of sickness around here that kind of sucked the life out of me. Starting in early December Dean got the flu, then Walt, then Matt. I had it but never threw up. It lasted about 2 weeks total (more if you count the diarrhea). Then about 3 days after we were over that, Dean started complaining his tummy hurt. I thought it was just Christmas candy, but after a week of him saying that every day, we took him to the doctor to get it checked out. He had strep. Oh, and that same visit Walter was diagnosed with pink eye, a cold, and an ear infection.

Walt's already been "diagnosed" with a penicillin allergy, so she put him  on some other type of antibiotic. Dean was given augmentin. He got the cold from Walt while on his meds, and on day 8 or 9 of his treatment, he broke out in a horrible rash. Matt and I totally thought it was chicken pox because it started with rosy cheeks, then spots on his belly, then it spread across his whole body by morning. We took him into the doctor, and she originally said it was one of the worst allergic reactions she'd ever seen to penicillin. He was basically one big hive. She put him on an oral steroid thinking that would clear things up within a day. While it helped some, his body and legs were still totally covered the next day. At least his face wasn't still swollen. We took him back in, and they said he had erythema multiforme minor. Which seemed to stand for "we don't really know, but it's something more than an allergic reaction. More like an immune system malfunction that was most likely triggered by the penicillin and strep and cold." He had the rash about a week. We racked up a good $200+ in co-pays this past month between all of this. At least we have insurance. It could have been worse.

You can't tell that well, but his lips, cheeks, and ears are all very swollen.

This was after 2 doses of steroids and 2 doses of Benadryl.

On a positive note, after all this, I was able to get a new pair of glasses, a new hair cut, went to the temple, and redeemed my Christmas pedicure. So, it wasn't just all hardships that kept me from blogging...

10 years ago today

10 years ago today I was able to go through the LDS temple for the first time and receive my Endowment. I was 19 and heading out to China to teach English, and while receiving one's Endowment wasn't really "standard procedure" without getting married or going on an LDS mission, 3 different leaders in my life asked me to consider it, and after praying about it, it all felt very right for me.

There had been a HORRIBLE snowstorm in northern AZ that day and our closest temple was in Mesa at the time. I remember being very surprised at how many people came to support me and were able to get through the Rim roads since most of them were closed earlier that day because they were so icy and impassable. Entering the Celestial room with so many friendly, loving, familiar faces already there to greet me was one of the most touching experiences of my life, and was the closest thing to Heaven on Earth that I can imagine. Which is the whole point I guess.

What a wonderful blessing the Temple has been in my life.