Audrey Update

Audrey has had a few milestones (or breakthroughs). She can now make demands and give expression to her thoughts quite articulately. The other day she bumped her head on the fridge and after crying to Mommy said, "my ear!" why holding her sore little ear. And she now makes specific meal requests like "sandwich" and "pizza" and "crackers" and "sippy" and "treat" . . . she's known those words enough to recognize the objects she's presented with, but now she can demand those objects by using their proper word. :) She seems very empowered by this

This is Audrey coming down the stairs after her nap carrying her beloved Barbie (Bobby).

This is Audrey in the Christmas dress Grammie and Grampie Groll sent her. She likes this dress more than any other I've seen her in. You can tell she just feels so pretty in it. I was going to do her hair up pretty with her lovely bows that they sent with the dress, but she wouldn't have it that morning (this was just last sunday, we forgot to take a picture on Christmas). At least you can see the dress. She's getting so big!

Audrey's Art: Poop and Boys

Exhibit A

We've been practicing with Audrey how to draw people and faces. She always mixes the "boys" and "girls" up. This is a "boy." Notice particularly his hair and frowny face. She said the big circle around him was his arms. Not bad.


Exhibit B:

I asked Audrey what this was. And she said with a big smile, "poop! ew yucky poop diaper!" very matter of factly. I have to hand it to her, it acutally does look like a yucky poop diaper to me. I almost missed this one; she loves to erase her pictures after she draws them.

I never know what to title my posts . . .

. . . so I'll just write what I'm thinking about and leave it at that. Today in church Jenny Sanders gave an awesome lesson about Elder Eyring's talk from last general conference (as I'm sure most everyone heard about today in their classes): O Remember, Remember.

I usually enjoy the lessons I hear in church, but this one was particularly timely, and it really made me feel connected to the other women in Relief Society today. Basically we all talked about ways in which we can remember the Lord's kindness and love and his blessings in our lives each day. We talked a lot about journal writing and reflection and things like that--all great comments. But it also got me thinking about the ways in which the Lord has particularly helped me lately. At the end of Jenny's lesson she talked about how she had a personal testimony of the fact that Heavenly Father wants to bless us and help us--and that he really does, we just don't take the time to notice it every day. Also, Lexi Jones made a comment about New Year's resolutions . . . both of these ideas leading me to realize that a major blessing has been given to me and my family recently. Every New Years, naturally, we try to resolve to do something . . . never happens, right? Well . . . miraculously, all of the sudden, I find myself accomplishing a HUGE goal that I've had basically my entire life and have just never mastered or even really came close to mastering. I'm happy to report that Dave, Audrey, and I have (for the past few weeks) been faithfully having family scripture study and prayer every morning! And not just that! Dave and I have also been having couple scripture study each night! And it feels like we've been doing it for years! It's just all of the sudden so easy for us! And it's becuase of several blessings . . . #1: I just had the inkling one day to start. It wasn't a big deal. I wasn't compelled by any form of guilt or resolve or something . . . I just . . . starting initiating it. It was crazy. #2: We started it over the break when our mornings were free to make the time commitment of morning scripture study easy . . . and lo and behold, Dave's semester schedule, it turns out, allows us to continue to have free mornings--his classes don't start until noon or later every day! We didn't plan it that way at all, we were just surprised that it turned out that way. I see it as a huge blessing because it's allowed us to have time to develop the habit for those times when it IS difficult to keep this up.

Another resolution, keeping a journal, has miraculously been fulfilled in the form of my blog. It's like I woke up one day and I'm in this habit of keeping track of things in written form. You must understand that this truly is amazing for me. I have NEVER been good about writing things down EVER in my life. And the great part is, I love doing it. I really do. I think of something during the day that I want to write down . . . and I acutally do it. So, in a large part, anyone who is reading this is helping me with this goal. :) I've also become so much closer with all the other people whose blogs I read (and I do read all your blogs).

Anyway, I just thought I'd write these things down to not only acknowledge how great the lesson and comments in class were today and thank the women who shared things and taught me, but also to remember these things that (at least to me) are pretty big blessings and that I don't want to forget. :)

New Jammies

This is a picture of Audrey in the new little outfit my mom sent her from when they visited San Diego. 

Cute, huh?

Concerned

Audrey had a little scare the other day. She thought her beloved Elmo was fatally injured. Let me explain. In this video, the one where Telly the monster and Elmo sing a little song about heavy and light, at the end, Telly and Elmo fall under the heavy load of bricks. When Audrey saw this she screamed, "UH OOHH!!" and started tearing up. She said, "Elmo?! Uh oooh!" She was on the verge of really crying when we showed her the next Elmo song and that her little friend was alive and well. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imz_xwPgCM4

A New Talent?

This is a picture of the first bread I've ever made. It turned out great. I'll put the recipe on my cookbook site. I should have taken them out of the pan before I took the picture though, they're much prettier that way. But sooooo delicious nonetheless. I used my new KitchenAid to make them. It was so easy. From start to finish I think it was only about 2 hours. And the clean-up was a snap. Anyway, be proud of me! :)

(Picture Missing)  :(

Audrey Update

Audrey has officially left her pack n' play behind. She just kept climbing out and climbing out and it was getting easier and easier for her to do so. So, we tried the big girl bed. Still definately not interested. So, we put the mat from her pack n play on the floor and she ended up on that. :) The next night we tried moving the mat onto the toddler bed. We know she can get up there and she knows that that's where you lay down, but she won't do it to sleep, just read books and play "night-night." She fell asleep on a pillow and some blankets on the floor instead of going up to the bed that night. So we put her mat back on the floor and she was thrilled with that. She does pretty well now. So, I think in a week or so we'll try putting the toddler matress down there--I think she'll like sleeping on that just fine. She's a funny girl. She's really good at asking now for exactly what she wants: "sippy," "grape," "toast (which she sometimes calls pizza)," "Barbie," "princess (which means either the movie Cinderella or her pink halloween bucket with princesses on it)," "treat (which means anything she usually doesn't get, she's usually satisfied with anything we give her that she hasn't had in a while)," "cheese," "color (which is drawing on paper with a big girl pen)," "Elmo boovie (obviously)," "teeth (when she wants to brush her teeth)," and of course, "book" or "story" or "toy" or "car" or "side (outside)" or "binky." Plus a TON of other things (not to mention the things she just hears and repeats but doesn't know what they mean). Her favorite words are "no" and "Elmo" and "Audrey." Those are the words that show up most in her songs. :)

Happy New Year!

I have mixed emotions about the celebration of the new year. First of all, it's not like there was some major event that happened that we're celebrating, it's just a date. So why the big fuss? But at the same time, it's a very important date. It's the one time in the year when you get a real sense of motivation. At least for me it's that way. Last night I was wondering how long I could go being "perfect" in every goal I had ever set for myself . . . it was kinda funny to think about. I figured it wouldn't last past the alarm clock going off. I know, I know. It's attitudes like that that make people fail. Oh well. I haven't been perfect today, but I've been doing pretty good I guess. :) Anyway, enough about the sentimental stuff. More about the party.

Last night we went over to the Cleggs for games and food and good company (two other couples were there too). We had so much fun. We left at about 11 because I didn't think Audrey would last until midnight. Heck, I didn't think I'D last until midnight.

Dave and I had already gone over our goals for the year last week and had already tried to get a head start. :) When we make goals, we try to think of things for each category--mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, etc. When David explained his goals to me he took a long time and it was very involved, but basically all I remember was something about push-ups. I have all the usual goals--get skinny, read scriptures more consistantly, finish projects . . . boring.

I have a question for all of our "readers" (as if those 700 or so "visitors" aren't just me checking the blog twice a day): Can you make a goal to want to do something? I mean, I think people usually make goals to DO something that they naturally don't want to do. But in those areas where the desire is what counts--mostly spiritual things--where wanting to do it is what matters, how can you discipline yourself to want something? Is that even possible? This is probably unclear. Let me try an example. It's one thing to say, "I have a goal to say my morning prayers every day." I can do that. I can discipline myself. I can subject feeling to action. And I can, as Brigham Young said, try to "stay on my knees until I want to pray." But is there any other way to do this, to channel desire? Am I rambling? What about setting a goal to stop a certain behavior? I think we all have these goals. Stop eating so much sugar. Stop sleeping in. Stop wasting time. But the problem is that--if I'm honest with myself--I don't really want to stop doing those things. Maybe it's not the right word to say I "like" those things, because I know that to some extent they make me unhappy. But I can easily say that I take pleasure in those things. And since behavior is controlled by desire, I feel like a broken record every December 31st saying that I will stop the behavior, knowing that I don't want to. It seems like, if it's true that we act according to our desires, the only way to avoid pleasureable but destructive behavior is to think about desire differently. Change the scope of desire. Current desire, life-long desire, eternal desire, etc. If I'm thinking about my "eternal desires," it's easy to choose contructive behavior. But who can honestly, consistantly maintain that perspective to such an extent that when sleeping in presents itself, their subconscious can rationally conclude "this is not what I desire, I desire to wake up" ?

Right.

Newton's basic laws of how the universe works are clear: our natural state is inert and deteriorating. So, if that's how it is, and if that's now it's always been, then should we simply resign ourselves to febble new year's behavior resolutions? I won't do it, I won't do it, I won't do it? Is there any way to resolve to change our desires?

Just a thought. Happy New Year! :)