The newest excitement in the house was getting this little kitchen for them to play with it. An elderly woman in our ward had it at her house for her grandson to play with. He grew up, lost interest, and she offered to give it to us with a bunch of dishes and play food. For free. We managed to find a spot in the girls' room after packing up a bookcase and sticking it in our garage. (Hey, we're going to have to do it in the near future anyway, why not start now?) Anyway, they love it. And it keeps them out of our bedroom, where they just get into trouble.
Ivy's been interested in the potty again and will pull her pants down where ever she is in the house and say, "potty, potty!" She likes to sit on it, but so far nothing has come out. I'm not reading too much into her enthusiasm quite yet (lesson learned from Sophie). She's just mimicking her big sister for now, but it still make me happy. She's also approaching her "two's" and able to voice her opinion very strongly when she doesn't like something. But she's still in that stage where hearing her say "NO!" is still cute. She's also learning new words everyday. It's an exciting time for her :)
Sophie's her usual curious, independent self. She's started to ask "cuz why?" all the time and takes it upon herself to be "mommy" to Ivy. She's very smart and has a good memory. She's also obsessed with Belle lately and has to watch Beauty and the Beast for their after-breakfast movie just about every morning. (I have to take a shower some time. Most of the time it's the only TV they watch all day.)
I've decide to stop saying things like, "Sophie's driving me crazy," which will be tough because I say it almost every day. Instead I'm trying to say to myself, "she's trying to teach me [insert something that I need to learn]." So, lately, she's been trying to teach me flexibility. By flexibility, I mean letting go of my efforts of being efficient with my time. . . to a point. One of my peeves is something happening at a far slower pace (or more disorganized) than it reasonably should. (I know . . . not a good quality for a mom.) Sophie has to make decisions about EVERYTHING we do and she tends to take her sweet time doing so. Not a huge deal, but something with which I need to be more patient. It helps that she says funny stuff. One day while handing me a strawberry she goes, "Mommy can you cut the spinach off?" I love that she knows what spinach is, too.
Most nights before she goes to bed she has to "take the water out of her eyes". She stands at her play kitchen sink, "pulls" something out of her eye and puts it in a tiny container. Sound familiar? She's been watching me put my contacts in and take them out her whole life. I was wondering when the mimicking would start. She's a funny girl.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that she's stopped napping every day. She'll nap maybe 2 or 3 times a week. I'm adjusting to not having at least an hour of "me time" to recharge my nerves halfway through the day. I try to spend time with her doing fun things, so that helps.
STEVESteve's got about 6 weeks of school left. He found out that he's passed all of his national boards, and his clinic exit exam (YAY!). The only test he has left (in his life) is to get certified in whatever state he chooses to practice in. But first he has to finish clinic. This is a huge one. Um. . . know anyone who needs to get checked?? Please call Steve.
Please.
One project that he's been working on is getting a website and a blog set up.
Kathryn, a friend of ours and a talented graphic designer, did a logo for us and helped us choose a name for the business. Since Steve's incorporating his wellness program with his chiropractic clinic, we thought "Fusion" would be a good name to use.
His website is just a blog that we set up to serve as a website until we get going and can afford to pay someone to build a nicer one. Speaking of blogs . . . he started blogging, too. And he's quite good. He puts a lot of though and consideration into what he posts.
Here's his blog if you're interested in seeing what he has so far.
It seems kind of surreal that we're going to be on our own here pretty soon. Well, not completely. Steve's decided to work for someone for a while to get his feet wet and learn how to run an office before he opens his own. He's getting together some applications to send out. Luckily he can do the wellness portion whether or not he has a physical office of his own, doing health talks and enrolling people (more specifically, businesses) in the program.
Did I mention that he loves what he's doing? (Well, not GOING to school, but what he's learning and getting ready to implement.) He lights up every time you get him going on a health-related topic. That makes me happy. I really don't care how much money he makes if he's happy with what he's doing and we can pay off his loans before we die.
Steve still serves as the Stake Young Men Secretary (leadership over the young men in our area), but luckily it doesn't take him away too often. He's gone often enough!
NATWell, I'm still plugging along keeping our home together and our kids dressed and fed. Cooking and blogging really is my creative outlet and it keeps me sane. I like to keep my "food life" off this blog, but I thought I'd give you a couple of updates that were pretty exciting to me.
Over the past few months I've had the chance to teach a couple of classes during weeknight Relief Society (women's organization at church) meetings. One was about healthy eating and the other was rolling sushi. Ya, rolling sushi. When they asked me to do it I'd made sushi a total of ONE time. Both classes turned out fun, though.
I have a steadily growing readership on
my food blog which both excites me and gives me stage-fright. If you don't read my food blog that much or never get on Facebook, you may have missed my little announcements of getting featured in the spring issue of
Latter-Day Woman Magazine (online only, page 10) and on
Pioneer Woman's Tasty Kitchen Blog. Those were very happy days. :)
Outside the kitchen, I've tried my hand at growing a few things. I'm usually a horrible gardener. Add to that, very little space or sunshine and most green things under my care end up dead. At least flowers. After I had a tomato plant explode, crawl up our porch and almost move into our house the first summer we were here, I planted three in the same spot along with about 10 different kinds of herbs tucked here and there. Holy, Hannah. That must be the magical tomato spot because I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. So far only one has turned red. I hope we're here long enough to pick some. If not, I'm sure my neighbors will find things to do with them.
Oh, and I had a little pink rose plant (yes, Natasha,
THAT plant) stolen right out of the ground. It wasn't cut or trimmed off -- it looked like someone had dug around the roots and lifted it right out of the ground. And I swear my chives looked significantly smaller one day as I went to trim some off.
I recently was released from the Primary presidency (leadership over the children's organization at church). All of us were released, actually, and it was rather sudden. And bittersweet. Since then I've been the roving substitute. I don't mind at all.
That's about it for us. If you've made it all the way to the end, consider yourself "gold-starred".
For the past two years I've made these brownies and Sophie has helped me. And for the past two years I've let her lick the spatula and then made her cry while taking it away from her -- all while snapping pictures like an insensitive mother. The second time I did it, I wasn't intending it to be a tradition, but it kind of did anyway. (See this post if you need a reminder.) Seriously, though? I think it's nice to get a few pictures of your kids riled up. That's how my kids are about 60% (some days around 87%) of the time, and I like to capture a few photos to keep things real. I like to look back at these when they're sleeping and think, "wow, they're actually pretty cute when they're mad."
One project that he's been working on is getting a website and a blog set up. Kathryn, a friend of ours and a talented graphic designer, did a logo for us and helped us choose a name for the business. Since Steve's incorporating his wellness program with his chiropractic clinic, we thought "Fusion" would be a good name to use. His website is just a blog that we set up to serve as a website until we get going and can afford to pay someone to build a nicer one. Speaking of blogs . . . he started blogging, too. And he's quite good. He puts a lot of though and consideration into what he posts. Here's his blog if you're interested in seeing what he has so far.
