3

My first kid is no longer "two and a hat" years old. She's "wee." (In November. :D Yep, life is crazy busy, tomorrow is Christmas day, and our home is a mess right now. But we have a home!)

Shboogoo is so fun at this age. She finally is able to jump. She makes up songs and knows how to sing real ones. Since a few months ago when I memorized it, she has always wanted Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) at bedtime. Soon after she turned three we used the last Pull-up and didn't buy more. She has stayed dry about 6 out of 7 nights, and only occasionally has an accident during the day. I'm really proud of her. She still loves books, and she knows all the letters pretty well. I should work on teaching her numbers more; she recognizes a few. She learned colors a long time ago. There are sounds she can't make yet (like s, k, f, g, sh). The pediatrician isn't worried about that at this point.

I love to see that Shboogoo is learning but also that she definitely doesn't think the way I do. She's egocentric. She thinks I should enjoy certain things as much as she does and I should play the way she wants me to. She'll say something like, "You can use my crayon." (It is great that she sometimes wants to share, but I'm already doing something else and I don't want to color at the moment.) One day she had in her hand an imaginary sticker. She asked me, "Where do you want this?" I told her where I wanted it, and then she replied, "No, right here."

A couple of other Shboogooisms have made me smile, too. For her, the opposite of night time is "wake time." A few weeks ago -- she may not have technically been a 3-year-old yet, but anyway -- she said she didn't feel good. I asked, "What kind of sickness do you have?" She answered "Dawberry." I laughed hard and said, "You have strawberry sickness?" Was she pretending she needed some red liquid medicine? She must really like strawberries in general. I tasted her sugar cookie (even though I dislike sugar cookies) and she told me, "It tastes like dawberry." When she moves a large plastic spoon around in a bowl she says she is making "strawberry soup."

These are some of the best photos (you can click here to see others) from the day this little sweetheart turned three, and then a collage for her birthday each year:














I found this on our computer: her aunt, now six and a half, at her 3rd birthday party!

five months

L turned five months old on her great-grandma's birthday in November. We, along with my mom, went to the zoo that day. Shboogoo was still two years old and could get in for free. It was L's first time at a zoo. I assume she liked seeing the animals. I do know she was really happy to be close to me in my friend's Baby Bjorn.




By about five months old, she had started to . . .

make smacking noises



grab things more deliberately


enjoy her toes

sit up by herself (I didn't have her practice much until a few days before she was 5 months old)


I love her!

ch-ch-changes

We have been busier than usual! We have been to the doctor and the dentist (just regular check-ups). The week of Thanksgiving we also had Shboogoo's birthday and we moved into our house! I am so excited that we have just a few weeks until we get to pick up D at the airport . . .

To see recent photos, click HERE.

halloween festivities {2009}

I may be one of the last people on the planet to post about Halloween, but I read another Halloween post that was just published two or three days ago. We did some fun things this year. For once, Shboogoo was not dressed in the ladybug costume that she wore for her first two Halloweens!

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October 29 ~ Our preschool (basically a structured playgroup with four other kids) met at a store for its story time. Shboogoo wanted everything there; it really is fantastic.

Halloween Eve ~ We saw witches with Grandma Nene.

Halloween ~ We trick-or-treated on Nana's street with her and Uncle Mark. (The two of them were not in costume. I was a big piece of paper for the crayons to color on. We took this terrible photo of me with my girls another night.) Then we went to a party at the lovely home of my younger sister and her husband. That's Mark singing to Beatles Rock Band.

a little mover and a little artist

This morning Shboogoo and her aunt E wanted to exercise to my DVD instead of watching Enchanted. Meanwhile, I put L on this pink blanket, near the middle of it. If I had a "before" picture, you would see her head on the right side. Within minutes, the sight of her like this made me smile:





One thing Shboogoo did during L's nap was draw. She loves to draw, and still pronounces the word as "baw." This video says it all. The photo shows the finished product.

four months

L's fourth monthday:

at her checkup:

:: growth ::

	Weight	Length	Head
2 weeks	7.28 lbs (16%)	20.47 in (51%)	14.2 in (45%)
2 months	10.45 lbs (39%)	22.48 in (54%)	15.4 in (56%)
4 months	12.21 lbs (19%)	24.45 in (58%)	16.1 in (51%)

She is a really easy and content baby most of the time. She sleeps about 11 hours at night and takes naps. It seems that she cries only when she wants her diaper changed or is very tired . . . or if she's awake and it's been a while since somebody paid attention to her.

Darn, I guess I didn't write down the date, but probably three or four Thursdays ago she rolled over for the first time. (It was after the "three months" post.) She rolls from tummy to back, usually to her left. She has not rolled completely from back to tummy, but when lying on her back she does manage to turn onto her side. When she is lying down she also rotates herself 180 degrees.

She has started to laugh a little -- so adorable! She does it when I tickle her neck with my kisses or occasionally when I play peek-a-boo with her. I need to make a video of this.

She likes to: swing; sit on my lap or stand up on my lap; touch her hands; take a bath; suck on her thumb, fingers, or fist; watch and smile at her big sister.

pretty in pink

the red bell pepper

Based on my photos alone, there are countless moments that I could blog about (if I wanted to . . . and if I had time). Here is one moment. It was last Thursday as Shboogoo and I were eating lunch. I'm happy that she likes some raw vegetables. She uses raw carrots like a spoon for the ranch dressing. But she will eat bell peppers without any dressing.







After those photos her tummy was full and she said, "Mommy, I don't want this pepper any more. Can you eat it?"

Scripture Sunday: life eternal

I absolutely love John 17:3.

And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

I was recalling that verse recently, and last night I started this blog post. Then in the car today I listened to an old BYU devotional on the radio, and the speaker quoted John 17:3. (J. Reuben Clark Jr. gave this devotional address during the same decade that our house* was built!)

The whole seventeenth chapter of John is a beautiful prayer -- Jesus communicating with His Father. Latter-day Saint scripture (the book of Moses) tells us that God's "work . . . [is] to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Therefore, God's work is to help us know Him and our savior Jesus Christ. I know that as we do our best to follow Christ's example of service and obedience to the commandments, we do know better what He and Heavenly Father are like. I know that God wants to give us eternal life, which is not just living forever; it's the kind of life He lives. I know we cannot fully comprehend it right now. I feel His love for me, and I hope I will live with Him again.


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*Yes, we're buying our first house, and if everything works out we will close this Friday! We're only doing this with D gone because he's seen it several times before, and I am his power of attorney. This was a good opportunity and a good time for us. We had planned on house-hunting less than a year from now anyway. Through the Internet, I showed him lots of pictures of this five-bedroom home. It currently belongs to one of our best friends (and his wife and kids). They may rent it back from us for a few weeks. We love D's parents but are also excited to be in our own place.

an anniversary, a half-iversary, and other thoughts

{I have a talent for remembering dates and numbers related to my life, even the birthdays of people I am not very close to . . .}

Twenty years ago today, my dad baptized me.

Exactly five and a half years ago, I received another ordinance: I became my best friend's wife.

It was also the beginning of October, a year and a half before the wedding, when D came home from his mission. I went to his house with some other friends (I think it was Matt, Josh, Kim, and Bryan) that night. But he did not hug me until the fifth day. (That's okay. Within a month or so we were saying I love yous, and in December people started asking us when we were going to get married.) We still use the car he bought that month.

I watched at least one session of that general conference with him. Listening to general conference this past weekend gave me peace and zeal. We are so blessed to have the holy priesthood and true prophets and apostles.

Now I just remembered that next week it will have been a year since we found out that D was going to be deployed and, the very next day, that I was pregnant. Life is so interesting.

fun at the library {9/25}

We hadn't hung out at the library in quite a while. For the hour or so that we were there, Shboogoo had a blast. In the kids' bathroom there are tiles painted by children. We saw one with a hand about Shboogoo's size, and that 3-year-old has the same name as her, too! L liked looking at the model aircrafts that hang from the ceiling in the children's area. Two 7-year-old girls befriended us and were very interested in the baby.

This is a little blurry, but only because she was putting the blanket on her sister, which was the reason I wanted to take the picture.

She (Shboogoo) makes this face a lot, and I love it.

L looked so small sitting here (she isn't able to sit yet without leaning against something).

Getting ready to check out; she needed all of these and wanted to carry them. Right after this we saw Melanie, my last visiting teacher partner, with her 11-year-old and her 3-year-old. She helped me get my kids in the car. She is such a sweetheart.

three months

First, some photos of L at age two months and 3-4 weeks:

(I keep uploading this one, but Blogger will not recognize that I rotated it.)

These are from the exact Monthday (the day L turned 3 months old -- that sounds so much older to me than 2 months!) She's getting chubbier and has more of a personality. We're so glad she is in our family! Her dad's dad's mom, who lives a few hours away, finally got to meet her.

The four generations, minus D (and this is his dad, not mine).