Abigail's (and my) first Suns game.

So we got a last minute call tonight to see if we wanted to go to the Suns game! I am kinda bummed we didn't take a picture. But it was a lot of fun. Abigail was really tired, but wouldn't dare close her eyes. Always afraid she's going to miss something. We left Olivia home with Aunt Molly and Emily. They had fun as well.

Well nothing really all that exciting happened. Suns won. Just thought it was a memorable moment that should be blogged.

Oh and on our way home we decided to stop at our new favorite date place, Yodippity. It's in Mesa, I blogged about it a few days ago, but didn't say much besides their ad. Anyway we went for their grand opening, and got hooked. It's so yummy, and fun.

And now that it's midnight I'm so ready for bed.

Just a day in the life.

Today was pretty average. Nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary happened. But I want to blog about it anyway. Just so I can look back this time next year, or 10 years from now, and remember what a typical day was like. The kids woke up around 7:30. Well Abigail woke up at 2, and 6, and again at 7:30. We ate breakfast and watched PBS Kids. Abigail took a nap at 9:00. Olivia and I played and read books, then she took a bath and I got her dressed. Getting her dressed has now become the worst part of my day. She screams and cries, and it's always a fight. Even if I let her pick out her own outfit completely. She wants to do it herself, but doesn't quite have the physical capabilities of dressing herself, so she gets really mad. She usually tells me that it's Abigail's clothes I'm trying to put on her. LOL Makes me laugh now, makes me crazy in the moment. After a 40 minute battle of trying to get her dressed and ready for the day we went grocery shopping. I went $15 over budget. The kids were really good though. Except, I went to another store after the first, because I knew I could get a few things cheaper. I got Olivia a bag of marshmellows. I let her have them while I shopped at the second store. While I was checking out the lady said something about the marshmellows. I assumed she was wanting me to pay for them, and I said, "Oh no I already bought these at a different store.." And she was like, "Uhm, that's fine, but they are spilling all over the place." I didn't realize Olivia had stopped eating them and was dumping them out of the cart. I looked behind me and could see a little marshmellow trail of where we'd been the past 5 minutes. There was no one beind me so I ran back a little and picked the marshmellows that had dropped. I had put the marshmellows away in the diaper bag. While running to pick them up, Olivia got the bag out and dumped the majority of the bag into my diaper bag. At least it was in my bag. And I guess moral of the story, don't give toddler her own bag of marshmellows. Lesson learned. Anyway, that was the big outing of the day. We came home and put away groceries. Abigail napped. I checked Facebook and that stuff while Olivia ate some lunch. Aaron came home. We all hung out for a bit, and even went the hot chocolate place. Then Olivia took a nap and Abigail woke up. Then Olivia woke up too early from her nap, and fell back to sleep on me, but when I tried to lay her back down she woke up, so I just held her and watched Oprah for an hour while Olivia slept on me. During this time Abigail was in her bouncy chair. When she lost her pacifier I put back in her mouth with my toes (as to not wake Olivia). Yeah that's talent. We went for a walk. We played in front of the house. We did some laundry. We washed some dishes. We baked cookies and had spaghettio's for dinner. While I was putting Olivia to bed Abigail was crying in her swing. (Aaron is in school until 10:00 tonight) Olivia and I had the cutest little conversation.
Me - "I have to go take care of Abigail, I'll come back and check on you, okay?"
Olivia - "Okay Mommy. Abigail crying?"
Me - "Yes Abigail's crying. I have to go take care of her."
Olivia - "Oh, Abigail crying, she miss daddy?"
Me - "Yeah she probably does miss daddy. I miss daddy too."
Olivia - "Oh Mommy miss daddy? Yaya miss daddy too."

So cute. And then I watched American Idol and blogged this. Day in the life.

My 200th Post!

I was just noticing as I was logging in that this my 200th post. Anyway, I have a million things to do today. Blogging should be on the bottom of my priority list, but here I am. I have Activity Day today. I volunteer with girls ages 8-10 from my church, doing activities 2x a month. I love the girls but I always stress about the actual activity. Mostly because I have to clean my house, and then it gets trashed and looks like I didn't do anything to begin with!

Anyway mostly I wanted to share these pictures because they make my day whenever I look at them.

And yeah she's standing in this one. I'm helping, but this girl as crazy strong legs. Aren't those sunglasses a hoot? I can't help but smile when I look at these. So stinkin cute. Now if she'd only start sleeping like she used to. I don't know what happened, but she's currently waking up every 4-5 hours all night. Boo. I want 8 straight hours of sleep, desperately.

Yodippity

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I'm a mormon.

Lately it's been on my mind that there are some people who read this blog who may not know, or understand this part of my life. So I've been playing with the idea of blogging about it. No one's really asked me about it, and it's kind of an awkward thing to bring up as to not offend anyone. This is really just to share some information, not convert anyone. So I thought I'd just answer a few unasked questions, that I thought I might have if someone I knew decided to change their religion to something I've vaguely heard of.





First of all, what'a mormon?





Okay, I'll clear this up first. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Mormon same thing. Mormon is obviously just a lot shorter, and easier to say and type. We believe we are members of THE CHURCH of JESUS CHRIST. I believe that when Jesus was on Earth he was doing His Father's work, and starting a church. When he was crucified his discipiles tried to carry on his church. They all had their own peices of truth, and they tried to stay true to what they were taught. That's part of how and why we have so many different sects of Christianity. I believe the church I belong to, which I'll refer to as LDS for the rest of the post, is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.








Restored? What's that?








Well, I believe that like in ancient times, God called a prophet. I mean, God is never changing, right? Why would he stop calling prophets? Anyway, I believe that Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration. I believe he saw God and He told him to organize this church. You can read his account of what happened here. Or read more about The Restoration here.







So now you know kind of what this church is. You might be wondering what we believe. Well there's 13 Articles of Faith that pretty much sum up our beliefs.



1 -We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.



2 - We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.



3- We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.



4 -We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.



5- We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.



6- We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles,


prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.



7 - We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.



8-We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.



9- We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.



10 -We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.



11 - We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.



12 - We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.



13 - We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul--We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.





Pretty basic, huh? I can truly say that I believe each of these things. I try to live them.




So finally my biggest question would be, Why did you decide to change your religion?





The answer is simple really. I read the Book Of Mormon and felt that it was true. I believe this "feeling" was the Holy Ghost testifying to me. I prayed about it. I felt that being baptized into the Mormon church was the right thing for me. To this day, I believe it to be the best decision I have ever made. There is a feeling of serenity and contenment, knowing that I am doing what I believe my Father in Heaven wants for me. I believe Jesus Christ is my brother, and that He died for me. That my sins are forgiven. I believe He not only took on the sins of the world, but also all the pain and suffering I'll (or anyone) will have to experience in this life. I am so grateful for this Atonement.



I hope by writing this people will feel free to ask me questions about my beliefs without feeling awkward or that they might offend me, or make me think they want to convert tomorrow or something. Also, if you are curious about a question I may not have answered you can find out more here.

Daddy Daughter Valentine's.

Chik-Fil-A did a formal Daddy Daughter Valentine's dinner Saturday night. It was complete with table clothes, candle light, paper menus, table side service, and of course a cow in which you could your picture taken with. As soon as I heard about it, I was so excited for Aaron to take Olivia. He thought it was kind of silly. Espcially since I wanted him to dress up, and Olivia also. And I was hoping he'd get her a coursage. He went along with getting dressed up, but refused on the flowery bracelt for a not-quite-2 year old. He somewhat skeptical of what the experience would entail, but came home saying it was very cute and he was glad he went. Olivia had a good time. She was so excited for her "date". She had fun getting dressed up, and kept saying, "No looking daddy!" Until she was ready, and she went running to him and said, "See, look, pretty!"

I made them pose for a picture before they left.Looks like she was enjoying herself.

Classy, no?

I've been updating a lot lately...

You may notice I go through spurts on this blog. Weeks at a time with no update, and then 3 in 2 days. Such is life. So I love this picture. I love Olivia's smiling face, as she's happily eating grapes from "the whole bag". Upon her insistence of course. I love how it pretty much sums up most of our day to day life. Every pot and pan has been emptied from the cabinet. There's stuff that needs to be swept off the floor. Abigail is usually looking more at me or Olivia, but she's usually planted somewhere that she can't get into any trouble. Oh the joy of the immobile stage! I love how you can see the plastic letter on the fridge. I don't know why that image just makes me feel so happy. Right now it's 11:30 and I should be sleeping, but it's so hard to sleep when you're pretty sure as soon as you're asleep a baby is going to wake you. Seriously, it's the worst. Okay I'm sure there are worse things, but when it comes to trying to sleep, not knowing how soon you will be woken up makes it so hard to sleep. I thought by now she would have already woken up, then I could lay her back down and at least know I would get 4 hours. In fact I'm debating, should I wake her up and feed her, then go to bed? But it's really only been 3 hours since she last ate, so she might not even be hungry. Gah. They really should come with instructions. I keep scrolling up to look at this picture again. Isn't Olivia's face just the best. She is so happy because I let her have the whole bag. And because I'm sitting on the floor eating grapes with her. And her sister loves her.

Tonight we went out for our Valentine's date. My friend Christie came over to watch the girls. I thought for sure Olivia would scream and cry when I told her I was going on a date with daddy and Christie was going to put her to bed. She just said, "Oh Christie Yaya bed? Okay, bye mommy! Hug! Kiss!" That was it. Christie said she didn't cry until after she was reading her some stories and singing to her, all of a sudden she burst into tears. Christie sang her some more songs and told her it was okay. Then she told her she needed to lay in her bed, and she (Christie) was going to take care of Abigail. Olivia said okay, then Christie heard her making noise in her room so she went in and Olivia had her church shoes on, and was piling up books. LOL So she told her she had to lay in bed. She asked Christie to stay. Christie told her she would come back and to wait for her in her bed. Olivia listened and Christie said she was asleep in like 5 minutes after that. I am usually really weird about other people putting my kids to bed. Probably because of how much I hated it when my mom wasn't there to put me to bed. It didn't happen very often, and the rare occassion my mom was out late I waited up for her. I just couldn't sleep until I knew she was home. I also had trouble sleeping if I knew she was asleep. There was something comforting in knowing she awake, taking care of everything, so I could sleep. If I was still awake when she went to bed I would freak out. I still make Aaron stay up later than me. In fact probably why I am still up rambling here is because Aaron fell asleep 40 minutes ago.

Well just one last random rambling. We'll see how long it goes. Today I have just been thinking a lot about the fact that we created people. Little people. I made them. I have literally just been marveling at this fact all day. Like this time last year Abigail was just this little embryo. And now, soley from material from my own body, my own flesh, she has become this little (and I use the word little very loosely here, since she's probably pushing 20lbs) person. Even after she was born, it is still my body that continues to give her life. And isn't it interesting that I couldn't have done it alone? I needed a husband to help me create this. God made us this way. To need each other. He could have done it differently, like worms or something, that just reproduce on their own... but he made us so that we need someone else to create life. It was just blowing my mind today. It's just such a simple truth, and yet so profound. We are not independent beings. We are interdependent on each other.

And then that got me thinking about how glad I am to be married to Aaron. Seriously, I couldn't imagine this life with anyone else. But that's a rambling for another post. I'm going to go try to feed and Abigail and then hopefully get at least 4 straight hours of sleep.

I love those plastic letters on my fridge.

Overheard on Huber St...

Okay so Olivia has been talking more and more every day. It's ridiculous things that are coming out of her mouth.

This morning she came into our room and stood by my bed saying, "Wake up, Mom. Wake up." When I didn't move she grabbed my arm and went, "Heeeave, ho! Heeeeve ho!" Seriously! I cracked up.

Also when we put her to bed she's been saying, "Yaya (Olivia speak for Olivia) can't sleep. Just can't sleep."

And last night she wanted me to stay with her. I told her no, I had to go feed Abigail, and she said, "Please, mama, just tonight." This kid is not even 2 yet!!

She also frequently says she's "scawed of monstaws". And she's started complimenting people. The other night she told her Aunt Molly, "Cute purse, Mowwy".

Okay glad I've got that written down now somewhere. I know there are more, I just can't think of. I'll have to write them down sooner.

Bathtime w/ cousins

These are from New Year's at the cabin in christopher creek. O was seriously in heaven, she thought taking a bath with her cousins was pretty much the best thing ever.

I love how in this last one, my identical twin neices are doing the exact same thing with the wash cloth, and Olivia is doing something completely different. I think these are pictures they will love to look at when they are older.

Disneyland!

We left Friday morning for Disneyland! I should probably blog about it later when the 6 hour drive from heck isn't so fresh in my mind. And the laptop is dying. So real quick.

Highlight from Friday has got to be the Mickeyhouse Clubhouse Playhouse, whatever it's called, disney live thing. Olivia loved it so much. I was crying watching her, just so happy. It was very cute.

Saturday... it was pouring rain when we woke up so we went and got all this rain gear at walmart. It didn't really rain much again the rest of the day LOL. Such is life. Anyway Sat we enjoyed lots of rides and very little lines. We did everything. It was great. Even went on Dumbo twice. Most of the rides that are indoors scared Olivia. She didn't cry, just clung to me, and showed no desire in doing the ride again. But dumbo she asked over and over. Same for the carasoul (don't know how to spell that one, lol). She even went on a roller coaster! I can't believe she's tall enough for some of that stuff already. She still loves the Tiki Room. Abigail actually seemed to enjoy that too. Abigial also really liked the Nemo ride. She was all smiles, and just fascinated. We ate at our favorite place in all of Disneyland, Goofy's Kitchen. It's expensive, but I think it's the best value in Disneyland. All you can eat! Food is sooooo delicious. And lots of time with the characters. Olivia even danced with Goofy. I'll post pictures to facebook and link it here later.

Okay so much for this being a short recap. But laptop really is about to die. Today we drove home, and it was rough. We had one hour of silence. Other than that, one of the two babies was crying pretty much the entire trip. So wonderful.

Abigail's 3 months.

Abigail is freaking huge. I think we've established that fact. She's also pretty stinkin cute. I am in looove with her. I swaddle her and put her in the cradle and she is asleep in minutes almost every time. Sometimes she wakes up and I don't even know it until I go check on her because she's just layin there, chillin. So low maintenance. Last night she started crying around 9:00, like hysterically crying. It was the first time she's done that in her life. Aaron and I were freaking out, like what's wrong with her! Oh my gosh... she's crying. Yeah she was just a little gassy, or something. It passed in 10 minutes or less. That was the first time she's done that in her life. Of course as I'm writing this bragging about her wonderfullness she's fussing away in her cradle. But I am so grateful for her smiles and giggles and just her existence. Today I was in the shower, and when I came out I found Abigail fussing in her cradle, Olivia rocking it gently and singing to her. Melt my heart!

..by the way, started locking O in her room and I've finally gotten 5 straight hours of sleep! Woohoo!