Snack time!

The other day while I was showering, Walter decided he wanted a snack. So he got himself one.

Time Out for Women 2010: Saturday afternoon - shortest and last installment!

Hillary Weeks
Sometimes we take on more than we're able to handle, but we don't realize it until we're in the thick of it.  When we are feeling overwhelmed with what is on our plate, do as Christ did with the 5 fishes and 2 loaves of bread for a multitude. 1. Give thanks for what you do have. 2. Your abilities and resources will be magnified and you will find a way to make it through the seemingly impossible.

We can finish what we start. Believe in who you are. Heavenly Father know who we are. Believe in what you're doing. Believe in who you are. Believe in who you're becoming. Believe in who you are. If you could see what he sees, you'd believe. He believes in you.

Wendy Ulrich -- I loved this talk
Ask yourself: Do I want to be happy? What do I love?

1. Stop worrying about your weakness.
1. People get more happiness from living their strengths.
2. Try it: What do you know by experience and the spirit to be true? What is a new and creative way you could use your strengths this week?
3. Each of us has been given a gift from God that we are obligated to share with others. It will bring happiness when you do.
4. Here are a short list of possible gifts: curiosity, love of learning, open-minded, creative, larger perspective, brace, gratitude, leadership, loyalty, loving and accepting of love, perseverance, appreciates music, creates music, etc.
2. Don't try to get motivated to exercize (or do other things you know you should do but don't want to)
1. Motivation FOLLOWS action. 
2. Start with 2 minutes of exercise, cleaning, etc. TODAY
3. Make it social
4. Trick your energy-conserving mind (I'm not putting on my sweats to jog, I'm putting them on because they're comfortable. I'm not going outside to run, I'm just getting the mail. I'm not going for a jog, I'm just going to see if the neighbors are out. By the end you may just find you've walked/jogged because you STARTED.)
3. Stop trying to find friends.
1. Instead, develop skills of friendship.
2. There are always people who need love.
3. Make and respond to bids (that just means, say SOMETHING. Just start to talk and ask people about themselves!)
4. The things that count a lot in the eternal perspective are interpersonal service and friendship. Smile at others. Say hi to someone. Thank others. Give sincere compliments when you think them.
5. Do I pass on opportunities to bless the lives of others?  Do I pass on opportunities to let others bless my life?
4. Don't try and feel happy
1. Instead, look for things to be grateful for.
2. Write down 3 good things each day and why they happened.
5. Celebrate failure
1. Failure often means we are taking necessary risks to grow, stretch, serve. 
2. Learn from mistakes. Become a better person because of failures, don't wallow in misery over not being good enough. 
3.  (There was a quote on our bullitin board all growing up that says, "It matters not if you try and fail and try and fail again. It matters much if you try and fail and fail to try again." Thought that fit in well here.)
6. Don't (just) endure to the end
1. "Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured." (Gordon B. Hinckley)
2. Savor every day delights: loved ones, nature, home, good, comforts, music, art
3. Find one thing you can try this week to cultivate happiness.

 Brad Wilcox
Our lives are interconnected and build on each other. 

He spoke on turning weakness to strengths.  His whole talk was centered on 2 Nephi 25:23 "For we labor dilligently to write to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and be reconciled to God; for we know it is by grace that we are saved,  after all we can do."


Grace is not just a finishing touch.  Grace is our energy supply. He is the enabling power that gets us through the tunnel. We may receive His grace before, during, and after all of our own doing.

Because God loves us, He accepts any offering, even if it's not our best or all because He's more concerned with the offerer.

Everyone must pass through mediocre (middle of the mountain) to reach the top of excellence. At least you're not at the bottom refusing to climb.

Geral Lund said, "Stan's strategies with some people is to make them thing if you're not perfect, you're not good enough."

Try putting emphasis on different words in the scripture.

After all we CAN do.  After all, what can we do without God?  Man is nothing. Nothing doesn't mean worthless. Moses is God's child/ Nothin doesn't mean worthless, but powerless.  Speaking of that poem footprints in the sand, he said, "there were never two sets of footprints. Christ carries us the whole way."

After all we can DO. We're not human doing, but human beings. Doing is to help us become. The song should go, "Teach me all that I can be, to live with him someday."

No unchanged being will want to live with God. Unless we partake in Christ's atonement and repent, we would feel far too  uncomfortable to live in the presence of God.  He often has friends who ask, "Have you been saved by grace?" And his response is "Yes! But, have you been changed by grace?"

Heaven will not be heaven for those who choose not to be heavenly through the atonement of Jesus CHrist.  We don't gain exaultation by a point system, but by who we are.
Those begging to enter the House of the Lord will not be the unrepentant sinners, but Jesus begging them to change and be cleansed.

We don't earn our way to heaven. We're in the business of preparing to feel comfortable in the presence of God.

After all WE can do. Not we as in you and me. We as in God and me.  Our individual works don't supplement Jesus' grace. It's a relationship that is greater than the sum of the whole. It's not about height, but growth.  We can't do our best without Christ by our side.

A student once asked, "If Jesus fills the gap between my all and the rest, who fills the gap between where I am and my all?"  It doesn't work like that. Jesus doesn't make UP the difference. He makes ALL the difference.

The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can go home to live with Christ, but that we can feel at home with Him. 

He asks us to do things not to pay our debt to Him, but that we might change and become more like Him.

Without faith and repentance, there would be no desire to change.  We need to practice being heavenly.

How do we get to heaven? Holding hands. (Think of the Temple here) No one walks through the veil alone. Every one of us must take the hand of the Savior and together, hand in hand, we enter into His kingdom.  There will be no Him and no Me but only WE.

"For we know it is by grace we are saved, after all WE can do." We are not alone. We enter heaven held in His grip and there we will feel His embrace.

Time Out for Women 2010: Saturaday Morning

This one is the longest, most intense set of notes. All of the talks were good, but if you want your life and perspective changed, at least read the last talk by Mariama Kallon from Siera Leon, Africa.

Saturday Morning
When the spirit speaks, we need to follow with exactness. God is interested in the details of our lives and will be as much a part of our lives as we let Him.


Wome women give birth and never really mother. Some women never bear children, but mother their whole lives.


Sometimes all it takes is to change our perspective.


Hope is an abiding faith and trust in God.


Deann Flynn

• No matter where you serve, it's how you serve that matters
• You don't have to be a child prodigee to be successful.
• Where there is Christ, there is hope.
• Often times hope is the only thing we have to offer others.

The Lord Gives us patterns in all things so that we will not be deceived by Satan. We are daily exposed to good and bad patterns.

• Pride and competitiveness are traps and are patterns of the world we ought not follow
  
• Family prayer, consistent scripture study, family meals and gatherings together, attending meetings are all good patterns we can follow and model for our children.

Obedience is non-transferable, but we can set good patterns for our children to follow.


She talked about how the observance of the Sabbath has changed over the years. It used to be referred to as the Holy Sabbath, then the Sabbath, then Sunday, and now it's most commonly just referred to as "the weekend".  Are our Sunday activities centered around Christ and the Holy Sabbath?


God has given us a pattern. We give our children patterns to follow, but we and they have agency.


Shortcuts rarely pay off.


3 Nephi 11:29 "He that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another. But behold this is not my doctrine, to stir up the hearts of men with anger, but this is my doctrine that such things should be done away."


Look to the scriptures for patterns that will give our lives direction and hope for parenting and marriage.


Challenge: You will feel a daily renewal of God's love by having a morning devotional of prayer, scripture study and meditation, even if it is a few minutes. We will be deeply blessed by the Lord and will feel his power.  Are we in too big of a hurry or too busy to be blessed by the Lord?


Family Meals will help effect improvement in all areas if you meet 3 or more times together as a family.


We can't be casual followers of Christ because Satan is abroad in the land. We need to follow the patterns of happiness and optimism.


What light are we shinning? What patterns are emerging from our lanterns?


Hillary Weeks had lots of musical and speaking presentations throughout the day. She was really great.

• We might want to ask God to help us stop gossiping and find good in people. If we do we will find more love for others and more love for our self.
• 1 Peter 3:10 "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile."
• Be kinder. Give the benefit of the doubt. Everyone yo umeet is facing something difficult.
• Gordon B. Hinckley, "Many of you think you are failures. You feel you cannot do well, that with all of your effort it is not sufficient. We all feel that way. I feel that way as I speak to you tonight. I long for, I pray for the power and the capacity to lift you, to inspire you, to thank you, to praise you, and to bring a measure of gladness into your hearts. We all worry about our performance. We all wish we could do better. But unfortunately we do not realize, we do not often see the results that come of what we do." (Ensign Nov. 2003)

Emily Freeman
Began with a story about going skiing for 3 days straight on a vacation and was so sore by the end, all she wanted to do was climb into pjs by 4pm on the 3rd day. She realized she needed to run to the store right after she got in her pjs and was too sore to want to change again.
She went to the store, returned 3 dvds, and began to check out a dvd while talking on the phone with a woman who needed help.  Though she had a specific plan for her movies, the actual machine was quite slow and a line started to form. A woman came up and tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, but you're not supposed to be on the phone while using this machine!"  She thought the lady was joking, gave her a quick wink, and finished up what she was doing. When she left, the lady approached her again and said, "You are RUDE and you're wearing your pajamas!"  As she walked through the store to get what she needed, her thoughts kept spiraling out to the point where she felt she was the worst mother and she was in tears by the time she got home.

Her point was, it only takes 1 person questioning us and our world can seem to come crashing down.
In our moments of discouragement, where do we turn?
Learn to see a good day

• change your perspective
• love life
• compare the perspective of Nephi and his brothers Laman and Lemuel.  Nephi had "seen much affliction...but knew he was favored of the Lord" whereas Laman and Lemuel complain unceasingly, "Behold these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy." (1 nephi 17:21)

What do we see? A field of 1000s dandelion weeds or 1000 wishes ready to be blown.

1. Hope will come when we learn to see good in our lives
2. Create a physical list of what you love
3. Give your heart a great experience. Ecclesiastes 1:16 "yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge."
1. She told a story of staying at her mother's and their neighbor had a really noisy dog. In the morning she was complaining to her mom about the horrible dog next door. The mom said she didn't hear a dog. How could she NOT hear the dog, she asked. "3 weeks earlier the neighbor came over and apologized in advance for the new noisy dog. She said, 'I have a son, who I adore, who is having a really hard time in life right now. His counselor suggested that the dog may give him something to live for.' So, I do not hear a dog. Whenever the dog starts to bark I hear, "I have a son, who I adore...'"  Change your perspective. Everyone we meet is facing something difficult.
4. Determine a reason for the hope that is in you.  Where/to whom do we turn to in hard times? Family? Friends? The Savior can bring the oil of gladness. Our greatest hope comes from our Savior Jesus Christ.  
1. Jeremiah 29:11-13 "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart."
 

Hope for vs. Hope in. We hope for good things to happen. We hope in Christ.  He has strength beyond my own.

Mariama Kallon -- Survivor from Siera Leon (the blood diamond place in Africa where the country was in war for 12 years over diamonds) Her story was very intense, very emotional, and it is one that changes lives and perspectives.

Ask the Lord to not be judgmental. "Create in me a clean heart, Oh Lord." Psalm 51:10

Her country was in war for 12 years over diamonds. She had to learn to live in light, even when circumstances were dark and dreary.

Her parents were killed by rebels while she and her brother and sister were running to try and escape. She heard the shooting in the house and began to turn to see if she could help her parents, but her sister yelled, "They are gone! Keep running!" They were unable to bury their parents because they had to run to protect themselves.  Their brother was caught and refused to join the rebels.  They chopped his hands off for this.  She and her sister kept running. They found a hut where the slept for the night, thinking it would keep them safe. They awoke to rebels standing over them, the youngest which was 9.  The rebels told them that they were going to rape them, then cut off their limbs and leave them there to die.  She said the drugs the rebels were on made them view people as chickens.  In that moment, she felt the need to talk to God. She pleaded with the Lord as her sister's legs were chopped off.  As they were turning to her, there was a noise from the village saying the soldiers were coming.  The rebels left and she was unharmed. "I didn't know how long I would live because it was a time of war."  The soldiers came and helped her sister.

She ate and drank off the land as she ran.  Her feet were swollen. She got to Freetown without any of her family.  She found some people she knew, and stayed with them for a time. Their next door neighbors were members of the LDS church.  One day they came to her and said, "We have nothing to give you except hope, refuge and courage in Christ from church."  She found this to be intriguing, and went with them. 

She found the LDS church to be very weird. Quiet. She was used to drums and dancing.  But they described the resurrection as spoken of in Alma 40:23 "The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea and every limb and joint shall be restored to its body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things shall be restored to their proper and perfect frame."  This gave her hope for her family she had left behind. She began reading the Book of Mormon.

At one point, some of her friends were turning to prostitution to try and earn money to live. As she considered this, she came across the scripture 2 Nephi 4:26-28 " O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions? And why should I yeild to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul? Why am I angry because of mine enemy?Awake, my soul! No longer droop in sin. Rejoice, O my heart, and give place no more for the enemy of my soul."

She began taking missionary discussions from a returned missionary who lived in Freetown. She had to walk 3 miles every day, usually in the rain, to take the discussions.  She was baptised in the river.  She felt new, clean. During that time her Book of Mormon was her best friend. She had no school, nothing, because it was a time of war. So she read and often went to the church to clean the building and the yard. "I did things I didn't realize were service until I came here! I felt blessed to do those things because the Lord spared me to help others."

After a time, she decided she wanted to serve a mission for the church, but didn't know how that would be possible since she had no family to support her and no money to her name.  The branch president said if she wanted to go, there a way would be prepared for her. Just as she was getting ready, she found out that her baby cousin and half sister were found, alive. She was the only relation that could take care of them. She felt very strongly about serving a mission and as she read the scriptures, she came across Doctrine and Covenants 31:1 "Blessed are you Thomas, because of your faith in my work. Behold you have had many afflictions because of your family; nevertheless, I will bless you and your family, yea, your little ones..."  She told her branch president of her predicament, and he told her that he would take care of the kids while she was gone.

She was called to serve a mission on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  She was like a queen in Africa because she would be going to America. While she was serving her mission, she was often saddened that she had no support, no family to write her. The other sisters asked their mothers to write her as they wrote their daughters. She received much love and support as if she were their own.At one point, a couple from Texas asked to speak with the sister from Africa. She was afraid that she had offended someone by her bad English. But they told her that they wanted to adopt a boy from Africa and asked if she knew of anyone. She pulled out the picture of her baby cousin and half sister.  They decided to adopt both of them. Her sister is here and married, and her cousin is now 12 years old and happy.

"When we listen and obey, he grants us his promised blessings."

Time Out for Women 2010: Friday night

This was my first year attending Deseret Book's Time Out for Women. We were lucky enough for them to have it in Plano, just 20 min. away from me, for the first time ever. It was about 15 hours of talks and music directed to women to help lift us up, become better, and give us a new perspective on being a good woman/Christian/Latter-day saint/mother.  I am a firm believer in taking notes when at all possible. I pay closer attention and take away more that way. I took lots of notes on random note paper, so I will copy them here for my (and your) archival pleasure. Because I am such an avid note taker, I am going to break this up into segments so it's easier to read.

Friday Night
The theme for the weekend was, "Hope All Things"

Chieko Okasaki was supposed to speak to us, but unfortunately she was ill.
We were able to hear from President Gordon B. Hinkley's daughter Virginia Hinkley Pearce instead:


What does it mean to live successfully?

• her definition of success: I trusted God completely and accepted and used Christ's atonement.
• success is not contingent upon what callings or leadership positions you hold in church
• Life is NOT a competition. Don't base your success on a comparison to others.
• Sometimes mere survival is success.

Growth comes when we constantly seek to be just slightly better than our current best. We grow and mature line upon line.

Ask yourself,  "What will help me grow just a little bit? What will stretch me just enough beyond my capacity to learn to trust and rely upon God?"

Our main goal and challenge in life should be to become more like Christ.

1. Mosiah 5:2 "...the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, [has] wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually."
2. We need to begin to see things and people as Heavenly Father and Jesus see.

Get out of the business of comparing! You will always find someone fatter than you, thinner than you, richer than you, poorer than you. It is the fast track to misery.  Other people have their mission in life, and I have mine.  There is only one YOU. Look at others and learn, but don't compare. It's expressing a lack of faith.

God works in me to do His will, if I am willing to give my life to Him.

Peace, Joy and hope are available to those who knowhow to measure success properly.

You can't measure your success by the results of others' agency and choices, but by your commitment to promoting growth.  If you feel the spirit and respond to it, you can feel successful, regardless of the outcome.

Michael Mclean had a lot of musical performances and presentations.  Here are are a few things I took from him:
We should be on a mission to be happy. The whole world is our training center. Don't be held hostage by your circumstances, children, self, or others. Now is the moment. Don't miss life as you live it.

Life's battles aren't always answered or won the way we want. Realize how spectacular you are.  You don't know what's in store for you.

Just feeling that you're heard is sometimes the answer. "Did you hear me? I can feel you near me."

Mark Mayberry
If you have never seen Reflections of Christ, please click here. The photography depicting Christ's life and ministry is absolutely amazing.

He actually spoke of his experience shooting his latest project, Another Testament Reflection of Christ - click here to see it.

His presentation was mostly visual, but the few snippets I took from him were:
What a blessing it will be to have Him embrace us in His robes of righteousness. We need Him now, not just in eternal worlds.

What can I do on a daily basis to imagine myself at the foot of Christ, encircled by His love?

Letters I and J and a new calling

Well, it was my turn to teach in preschool this week. I had the letter I and the letter J. (Click the links for the full reports on what we did.) Tuesday went pretty well. Today was not the greatest. I don't feel quite so badly about it now, after the fact, but I felt pretty horrible during and immediately following. Nothing I planned seemed to pan out quite like I'd hoped, and I just felt inadequate in the classroom management dept. I have a couple good friends who are real preschool teachers (you know, with training and stuff) whom I'm going to observe next week. Hopefully I can learn a few skills. It should be helpful in my new calling at church, as well, since I was just called as the sr. nursery leader. (working with kids 2-3 yrs. old for 2 hours of church)

Any veteran nursery leaders or workers with ideas that have worked well for you? Our nursery is in serious need of revamping our schedule so we have more structure. I'm just not 100% positive about how to go about it. All I know is that I don't want 45 min. of free play with kids 18 mo.-3 yrs. all trying to play with the same toys!!!! I've already gotten some good ideas from my friend Cassie that I hope to implement soon, but I would love any and all suggestions.

Why I didn't hear much of conference

I love the first weekend in April and October when we have the opportunity to hear from Prophet and Apostles of the Lord on how to become better people and disciples of Christ via satellite transmission. It is quite handy that we can listen and watch from home now, but I have to admit, this past weekend was quite difficult to pay attention to the 8 hours of teaching because of two little chilluns, as cute as they may be. I heard something like this for about 6 of the 8 hours over the course of the two days.

I am very grateful I can read and listen and watch conference over again in my spare time since I didn't get nearly as much out of it as I wanted.

I think I am raising a reader...

Dean loves to keep books in his bed to look at while he goes to sleep, but I had to laugh when I saw this. After church one day, he piled almost all of his books into Walter's crib and then slept on top of them! He did transfer himself back to his own bed before his nap was over, but this just cracked me up.

Living room before and after

I rearranged and painted my living room this past month. I did all the painting myself. One coat of primer and 2 coats of paint. So I painted this room 3 times!!! It took much longer than I expected. I still have the trim on the windows since it was bubbling from moisture damage, but that should be pretty quick.

My good friend Erin is an interior designer and she sketched up the remodel and suggested colors. I would have loved to change out my curtains for a cream with blue jewel tone accent, but that just wasn't in the budget. I mainly did this switch around so I could teach more than 1 student at a time, and since I haven't had much luck on the student front recently (I had a 5 person waiting list before I took a break after having Walt!), I decided I shouldn't put too much $$ into this yet. Thanks so much for all your help Erin! I love how it's coming together.

Before

Horrible picture placements above the piano, I know. I hung them when the furniture was different and never changed them after the rearranging.

I figured out a way to squeeze the stroller in the garage without too much hassle while still being able to park both cars in there. So nice to have it out of my living room.

What you saw from the front door.

After

The front entry. $3 yard sale bookshelf until I can afford something better. It's worked well enough so far.

You can see the practice piano and desk here. There will eventually be a flat computer monitor mounted on the wall above the desk for piano lesson purposes.

  

What you see as you walk in. I'm currently making some wall art to hang.

My family history wall.

A picture I got from a street artist at the yellow mountains in China. This was a finger sketch!

Another family tree on top of our hutch. The door on this hutch broke 3 weeks after we put it together. We misplaced a part needed to fix it, so it was missing a panel for over a year! When I took everything out to move it to paint, we found the piece! I was so happy when Matt fixed it this week.

Some days I just don't know...

At one point today I was throwing a silent pity party for myself because it seemed no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep up with the mess!  I was thinking, "I just don't know how [some people] keep their houses clean ALL the time. Like 'company is coming' clean. How is that even possible???" 

And then as I was cleaning up dinner, I had a revelation. Everyone doesn't do everything all the time.  Even if someone's house is clean ALL the time, something else has to give in their lives. Not everyone jogs 4 miles a day, bakes bread, makes cookies, cleans every corner of their house, plays with their kids, paints their living room, makes breakfast, lunch and dinner, does the dishes, crafts with kids, goes to work, etc. every day.

We prioritize. And it's ok if our priorities are different. Some people NEED a clean house. Some people NEED to exercise. Some people NEED to do a little bit of everything so they don't ever seem to have anything quite perfect (that's the category I fit into). I just have to remember to stop comparing myself to others, be grateful for what I have (and what I have accomplished during the day), even if it seems small or less than what I had hoped for. That's why we have tomorrow. Do all that you can today, and what you can't do today, do tomorrow.

Imaginary Tools

Dean doesn't have imaginary friends, but he does have imaginary tools.  Every single time we read the book Tools (one of his favorite "classics" that we own), Dean has to collect every single tool off of every page. He holds them in his hands until he can figure out where to put them.  Once I had him in night shorts that didn't have pockets, and he asked me to put "not night shorts" on him so he could put his tools away. 

Tonight as we were reading books before bed, he was taking the shapes out of one of his library books, and what did we notice Walter doing? Picking off all the shapes off the pages!  He loves Dean and watches him so much. It was funny to see him taking imaginary tools and shapes just like Dean.

My little drunken sailor

I no longer have a baby. Walter is a toddler! And he toddles all over the place like a little drunken sailor. He has been walking exclusively for a couple weeks now, but my computer can't handle the videos from our new video camera, so I haven't posted much about it yet. I'm actually posting this from Matt's computer while he's otherwise engaged.

Walter is opinionated, and knows where he wants to go and what he wants to do, and he does not feel compelled to wait for me. When I'm trying to change his diaper, he wriggles away, gets up, and RUNS with a wicked laugh as far away from me as he can get. When we are at the park, I have to watch him closely because he just wanders wherever he thinks looks interesting. Definitely an independent boy!  When we picked up dad today, Dean said, "Dad, Walt is an escapee boy."  Haha. My biggest concern is that he'll walk into a fire ant hill since they don't take care of them that well at the parks here. 

He loves making noises right now.  He clicks his tongue, makes chomping noises for emphasis while eating, and points and jabbers for whatever he wants (usually anything up high) if he doesn't have a word for it. We've been working on animal sounds and he likes to growl like a bear, roar like a lion, pant like a dog, and "who" like an owl.  His vocabulary now consists of: mom, dad, up, no (probably his second fav., right behind mom), more (sounds like mo), milk (sounds like a drawn out "miii"), on, and night night (usually accompanied by a wave. He uses this for goodbye as well). 


Here's a video of him walking and playing in the mud/rain we had during the tornado rains a couple weeks ago.

And here's another video of him helping me rearrange our bookshelf.

Arg. It won't let me load the one that showcases his walking skills.

Fiffer feffer feff

Yesterday as we got in the car to go to preschool, Dean asked, "Mom, what letter is Dean going to learn about in preschool today?"  I told him it should be the letter F.  He said, "F is for fiddle" and then sang a musical "scale" on "do, do, do", pretending to be the fiddle. (He got that from his vtech abc table he got for Christmas.) I said, "Yes, what else starts with F?"  "Um. Fiffer feffer feff."  Good ol' Dr. Suess. Helping our kids expand their vocabularies. Haha.

Also, when we were at the park a couple days ago, I said, "OK, Dean, choose one or two more things to do and then we're going to go home."  His reply was, "Um. Maybe 23 more things."  Good try buddy. Good try.

Matt got back from a business trip today and had a little treat for Dean.  After he ate his [very messy] push pop, he declared, "Dean likes it when daddy goes away!!"  (Poor kid doesn't get many treats from us "health conscious" parents...) I tried to reason with him that he likes it when daddy comes home, since that's when he brings his treats back, but he just repeated, "No, Dean likes it when daddy goes away."

Here's a video of him "reading" Bears in the Night a couple weeks ago. He does the dramatic voices, so you may not be able to hear him when he whispers certain phrases. This makes me smile every time I see it.

"Dean's going to be baptized when Dean's 3"

Last night we read 2 verses out of 1 Nephi for our family scripture study. They were about Jesus being baptized.  Dean asked what it meant to be baptized. I told him when we're baptized we promise Heavenly Father we'll keep his commandments and try to be like Jesus.  I said that when he's 8 years old, someone with priesthood authority, most likely daddy, will dip him all the way under the water and say a prayer and then he'll come back up again, baptized.  He was very concerned about the going under water bit and quickly said, "Dean don't want to be baptized. Dean don't want to get water in Dean's eyes!" I assured him that if he closed his eyes tight he would be just fine.

This morning on our run, we stopped to say hi to a friend, and immediately Dean told her, "Dean's going to be baptized when Dean's 3!" I had to laugh to myself about his enthusiastic exclamation, especially since she's not LDS and may not know about our baptismal practices and that we don't baptize anyone till age 8. I thought it was adorable, though, that he had apparently been thinking about it since last night. I love that he feels compelled to teach/tell anyone anything that he knows.

I just love that kid.

A moment worth living for

This afternoon after Dean's quiet time and before Walt woke up, Dean and I were in the kitchen with one of my "not quite kid's music that's suitable for kids" mixed CDs on.  We used to dance and dance together before Walt was born, but after my c-section, I couldn't hold Dean for forever and his interest in dancing with me waned after that. But today as we were listening to the music, Dean said, "Mom, please holdge (hold) Dean and dance."  So I picked him up and we danced around in circles until I was literally sick to my stomach.  Then I set him down and we danced some more on our own.  I picked him up again on the song "So glad I'm here". When I started singing to it, to my utter surprise, instead of telling me to stop singing (like he always does), he joined in with me and sang almost every word. I didn't even know he knew the words to that song.

It was the sweetest moment ever to dance with my baby in my arms, singing at the top of his lungs, "I'm so glad I'm here, I'm so glad I'm here, I'm so glad I'm here every day!"

A fortunate visit

My FIL had a job interview here in Dallas this week. He said the job was a long shot, but it was a free flight out here to see us!  He got to come visit us on Thursday night after the interview, stayed Friday, and left just after lunch on Sat.  It was nice timing since I had a dentist appointment on Friday morning. Grandpa was a fabulous babysitter and Matt didn't have to try and work from home while I was gone!

Dean LOVED having grandpa here and made him play World of Goo (a great physics game that is not really a little kids game, but is somewhat kid friendly. It's one of Dean's passions!) with him any spare moment he could.

It was really difficult to get a good picture of everyone looking.

Of course we had to fit in an obligatory game of Settlers of Catan since we never get to play it unless family is in town. (We don't really have any other couples we hang out and play games with...)  I love that game because I often do quite well and I feel like I win as often (or more) than Matt. There are not many games I can say that about!!!  I felt like I was in a total hole the whole game, not getting any resources, not building anything. But finally the last few rounds my 8 on ore and 6 on wheat FINALLY panned out. I won with 3 cities, one settlement, the largest army, and a development card victory point! (I was red.)

These were seriously the only pieces I had on the board!

Boy have I been busy!!

I have been crazy busy lately. Firstly, I've been painting (priming and 2 coats!) and rearranging my living room (and consequently rearranging other rooms since I moved some things out). I have one more wall to go (have to move the piano and hutch first and I need extra men for that one), and I have to do the window sills and some ceiling touch up where we had to fix some bubbles. I'll post before and after pics when I'm done. I like the new layout (thanks to my interior designer friend Erin) a lot, and I like the paint color a lot. Unfortunately we've decided we're too tight on funds right now to get new window treatments, so instead of a cream curtain with a bright blue splash, we'll keep our orange curtains. I hope I can find a way to give them a new look for on the cheap.

In my "spare time" I've been working on getting our preschool started. I've headed up a co-op with some girls in our ward. There are 4 of us, so we're each taking a week and hosting the kids at our house on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We'll have a letter, but after that the teacher is the one to come up with the activities for the day.  This was the first week and I was the teacher. It was a tiring 2 hours each day (SOOOO glad we decided on 2 and not 3!), but I felt good about all we did and the kids seemed to have fun. Dean really struggled the first day since he wasn't used to people sharing his things and his house, but today he did really well. Visit the craft blog for the A day and the B day play-by-play.

Oh, I also went to the RS recipe exchange on Tues. this week and the theme was bread. I had a hard time choosing which of my breads to take, but in the end I brought pitas and homemade roasted red pepper hummus. Here is a post with my favorites from the night. It was fun! October is going to be Halloween treats and November I'll be demonstrating pie crusts/pies.  I feel like I make a pretty darn good crust. I've made a lot of kinds, and feel I have a winner. It seems like crust is something many people are afraid of, so I hope to help on that.

Oh, it rained TONS here this week. We had lots of tornado warnings. Walter and Dean love to play in the rain. Here is the result of one of the days.

Since school started again, I've been running with my friend Kirstin in the mornings. Running is so much more enjoyable with a friend! The weather has been pretty junky. Super hot and humid. But we've had a few days that have given me hope for fall.

Still no new piano students, but at the moment I'm am ok with that! 

A funny prayer

Tonight as Dean was praying, he said, "N. E. P. H. I.  That spells Nephi!"  He was looking at Who's Your Hero Vol. 1. (I TOTALLY recommend this and other books in this series if you have a little one. Dean asks me to read him these all the time. The Author lives in Snowflake I believe. My parents know him.) I was cracking up! I'd never heard him really spell something!!

After prayers he asked me to read Nephi for his first book and Abinidi for his second book.  When we read Abinadi he said, "A. B. I. N. A. D. I.  That spells Abindi!"

I know parents often have an inflated idea of their child's abilities, but sometimes I think I have a little genius on my hands!  I just bought "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 easy Lessons" off Amazon. I was going to wait until Christmas(ish) to start with him, but maybe I'll start sooner!

A glimpse at what's to come

Tonight we were playing wii sports for our home evening activity.  Dean had edited Matt's mii and Matt wanted to change it back.  The only problem was, we couldn't figure out how to get it to the editing place.  Matt tried it. I tried it. And I said, "Dean, can you get daddy's mii to the editing screen?"  He took the control, grabbed the mii, and plopped it into the editing screen! HAHAHAHA. It was the first time that he had to show us how to do something.  He's only two! Just imagine, in 15 years what it'll be like (especially since we don't even own, say, a real cell phone yet...)

"Mom, you have a testimony you need to..."

After the first person bore their testimony in church today, Dean turned to me and said, "Mom, you have a testimony you need to..."  He couldn't figure out what verb he needed to end with, so I supplied him with one. The rest of the meeting he kept telling me I needed to bear my testimony.

There was a steady stream of people, and I never found a suitble break to go up. So with a few minutes left of the meeting, Dean and I walked up ("Dean want to go with you mom."), and waited at the pew closest to the pulpit till we could jump in.  He stood in the "reverent child" spot, folding his arms while I bore my testimony. When I was done, he said, "Mom, you want to holdge (hold) Dean." I picked him up and turned to go, and he said, "No, Dean want to talk!" 

So I went back to the pulpit and he got up close to the mic. He repeated after me, "My name is Dean. I love Jesus, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen." He said it all and closed with a rousing AMEN!  The congregation had a good chuckle. It was very cute. I'm wondering if he's one of the youngest children to bear his first testimony at 2 years old...  I was proud of him.

Out of the mouth of Dean

Dean has been narrating our lives recently. He'll say a sentence then tack, "says mom" or "says Walt" at the end of it. "Mom you like to turn the light on, says mom." It has been cracking me up.

He's also been into the book "Are you my mother" and will often say, "Mom, you ARE my mother!" out of the blue and run and give me a hug. Or, "You are HERE for me mom. You ARE here for me!"

His word for binoculars is "nocalators".  He says "it's guy-jantic!" for gigantic. (Yes, a common linguistic occurrence for newbies.) In context: "That was a guy-gantic poopy diaper."

Today as we were washing our car Dean said, "Dean want to water that lovely plant." (Yes, he always refers to himself in 3rd person.) As I was filling up the watering can he said, "Not too much! That quite enough."  Then a couple min. after we came in, he found his tag blanket (which doesn't have hardly any tags left since he's chewed most of them off) and said, "This is Dean's lovely blanket." haha. Not sure where he picked up lovely.

He's really been into "reading" books to himself that he's already memorized. I'll hear him tell the story out loud while he's lying in bed, flipping through the pages. Just barely I heard, "Whooooo. Aaaaaaahhh!!!" and knew he was reading the Bears at Night book. It makes me smile.

He's super good at the wii sports (for a 2 yo). Baseball and tennis are a little rough, but he's quite good at bowling, golf, and boxing.  He almost always gets a KO when he plays against the computer.  The other day at the beach, he came close to my friend Erin and started punching the air in front of her. He stopped and said, "Oh, Dean need a nun chuck!"

Occasionally he'll say something like, "There's quite enough light in here. We can't turn the light on because it costs money."  (Hmmmm...wonder if he's heard that one a time or two. He always wants his light on during nap time, and I make him just open the window shades instead since "we're just wasting energy by turning on lights when we have enough light from the sun".)

"Mom! Stop singing! Please don't sing. Dean can't hear [Dean's game, Dean's show, etc.]." He constantly tells me to stop singing.  He has from the day he could string together the words "no" and "sing." It is starting to get annoying.

If he doesn't want to do something I've asked him to do, he'll usually respond with "no thanks."  "Dean, can you go get some wipes for me?"  "No thanks."

When I ask him why he doesn't like to wear under wear, he says, "Dean don't like to have accidents in Dean's underwear."


"Dean show you!" He is really into showing me how to do (and how not to do) things. It comes in handy when I want him to be reverent during prayers or something.  "Dean, can you show me how we're supposed to act during prayers?"

He is starting to branch out in his prayers at night, and they usually go something like this: "Dear He'nly Father. Gank you for this day, and scriptures, and prayer, and lunch, and books, and brush teeth. In the name..."  It's usually whatever has happened within the last 20 min.

We got a new video camera recently. This is filmed in HD at it's highest resolution and my computer is not quite good enough for it to run smoothly, so I hope it's not too jumpy for your viewing. It's taking forever to load. This is Matt and Dean doing Rockband for our home evening activity.  "Yellow! Dean need yellow!!!" After publishing this, I realized that Blogger compressed it or something because the quality is a lot worse than the original, but it runs smoothly.