Sunday, September 30, 2012

RS General Broadcast

Last night was the Relief Society General Broadcast. I was able to go to the dinner beforehand, (which was delicious), enjoyed chatting with friends from the ward, and even made a few new friends.

The talks were all amazing and I took several pages of notes... And of course, now that I'm wanting to document a few of the things I wrote down, I can't find my notebook... Super annoying. Anyways, there was one thing that affected me enough, I remember it without my notes.

Sister Burton spoke about the Atonement. The quote that stuck out to me was, "All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ". She told a pioneer story about a young mother losing her baby... And of course, I thought of Brigham... The point was though, that even the torture of losing a child can be healed by the Atonement. I learned this for myself a few months after Brigham died. My testimony in the Atonement's wondrous array of power came to me almost all at once. Before Brigham, I just believed... Now, I know. And the song, "I Stand all Amazed" is one of my new favorites.

It's amazing how so many things in a general meeting can seem to be meant just for me. I love it :)

Now, not to take away from the wonderful testimonial spirit I just created, but on a side note, today was an exciting day! We got a new niece! Charlie June was born this morning to Brandon and Marissa. We got to go visit them in the hospital and holy moly! Seeing Brigette and Charlie next to each other made Brigette look SO grown up! Though there's not much difference in their size, there's a ton of difference in their looks! Even with her chubby cheeks, Charlie seems so tiny just because of her newborn-ness. :) (Though I'm pretty sure her fingers are about an inch longer than Brigette's are!) ;)

Thursday, September 27, 2012

How to Keep a Baby Occupied


Today Carrie went to play at her friend Grace's house straight from preschool. So once I had dropped them both off in the morning, I had until 3:30 completely Carrie-less... So I decided to work on a project; my sewing/guest room. Brigette is still pretty mellow and content to just sit in her bouncy chair, so I thought I'd give it a go. But I felt bad knowing I wasn't really going to be paying attention to her very much while I worked.


So I tried giving her a toy to play with. She doesn't really actually play with toys yet... She was not amused... I'm actually kind of in love with this picture. Her face looks so incredibly bored, it makes me almost laugh out loud. :)

So I pulled out "the hippo". At first she didn't know what to think...

Then she accidentally hit one of the dangly toys, and got a little thrill...

Then she looked at me and squealed in joy! It. Was. So. Cute!

With Brigette happily occupied, I went to work painting the sewing/guest room. 

In order to get to the walls, however, I had to move a majority of the "stuff" out. Which means my living room is a disaster zone right now! Organizing and decorating this room has been on my to-do list for far too long! The painting got done today, but the organizing will have to wait for another day. Hopefully, it will get done soon (especially since getting started has created such a mess!)

And a just-because pic. We call it the "baby eye mask"... She's totally asleep here. I guess it works when you want to take a nap in the bright of day!

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Birthday Weekend

Happy Birthday to two of my favorite dads! Mine, and my kiddo's!

We had a super fun weekend, but boy was it bad for my "diet"! We had Taco Bell Thursday night and deep fried chicken strips at Target for lunch on Friday (where I bought some new tennis shoes to make me magically better at working out). Justin enjoyed a day off work playing golf with Brandon, whom he convinced to also take the day off. ;) Then Friday night Justin and I went out to Red Lobster to celebrate his birthday. And we stuffed ourselves; we always do at Red Lobster...

Then this morning we went to Denny's for our 2nd annual Mark & Justin Birthday Breakfast! Okay, I'm not sure if it will actually become an annual thing, but this was the second time we've done it and I'm a fan. I love breakfast :)

Carrie's shirt says, "Daddy's little sunshine". She loved sitting by the birthday boy!


 She also loved taking pictures ;)

Later, we went to San Tan Village, an awesome outdoor mall in Gilbert. I scored a couple new pairs of sandals from Payless, and the kids enjoyed the splash pad! 






And what better way to finish off the day than by visiting daddy's little boy? This was actually Brigette's first time at her brother's grave. 

Our three wonderful kids :)

This is one of my favorites. One, because Brigette is so dang beautiful, and two, because you can see Brigham's name. I think these two had a special connection in heaven. We often wonder if they would have looked alike... We like to think so. :)

Last, but not least, a smiling picture. Though I remember the smile being a lot bigger when I snapped the picture. ;) Good thing it's still cute!

I'm pretty sure she's thinking, "I'm so happy today is my daddy's 29th birthday!" We sure do love him around here!!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Brigette is Two Months Old!

Where have the last two months gone?! Our little baby is becoming quite the rolly poly little one! At her two month check up this morning, she was 9lbs, 8oz, 22.5 inches. Surprisingly, this still keeps her at around the 10th percentile for weight!



Her hair is looking kind of red, especially around her temples or allover in the sunlight. She’s starting to get some eyelashes and her eyes are even bluer! Right now she wears about half and half newborn clothes and 0-3 months size.

 She got her first round of immunizations today, and although she did cry, I had a bottle ready and she calmed down very easily with a snack. :) She smiles like a fool all the time now, and is getting more ticklish and giggly. We sure love her! And nobody loves her like Carrie does! She often asks if Brigette can just sleep in her bed with her instead of her crib...

Speaking of adorable Carrie, today she was eating a cheese quesadilla for lunch (the usual). A few bites in, she asked me if she could have some peanut butter on it. I was obviously a little baffled, and a little grossed out. Of course I said no, but after she begged and begged, I finally put a tiny bit on one corner and made her try it, thinking she would realize how totally gross that is.... She "loves it".... No joke... She asked me to spread peanut butter on the rest of it and I watched her scarf it down like it was Thanksgiving dinner.... What a silly girl we have!!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

TIRED!!



It's only 2:45, but I'm beyond ready for bed already. This morning I...

-went to workout group from 8-8:45
-did carpool drop-off for preschool
-went to Marissa's house to help her paint the baby's room
-came home to put dinner in the crockpot
-calmed a super fussy baby
-crash-napped on the couch with a finally napping baby
-checked in on refinancing our house
-and blogged about it... 

Now I'm finally off to go shower so I can teach piano lessons in an hour! It seems like such tiny trivial stuff, but I'm exhausted! My bigger dilemma lately is trying to decide if I want to take on more piano students. A friend of mine who also teaches is already full, but still has people requesting lessons, so she gave them my info...

My lazy side says, "No way, I've got enough to do"... My logical side says, "You're only teaching for 4 hours a week... In your own home... Making great money... A few more students wouldn't be that big of a deal, but could make some extra cash... Extra cash is always nice..." Uggghh... Decisions...

Saturday, September 15, 2012

What a Great Week!




Before I get into the details of our awesome week, I found these pictures from Monday that I can't believe I didn't already post! A friend in the ward (who also happens to be Justin's 2nd cousin, small world) gave us these super "cutie" matching pajamas for the girls! As usual, Carrie likes to snuggle with Brigette first thing in the morning. And often requests that their picture be taken. :)





Singing "little baby songs" to her sister, like "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", and the "ABC's"

Carrie wanted a turn being the photographer. Thanks to the slight blurriness, you can't really tell that I'm not wearing any makeup :)

And really, you can't do a photo shoot on a comfy bed without jumping on it afterwards :)

Now, onto our great week! We're all doing pretty awesome around here lately! Brigette has been sleeping in her own room ALL week! She wakes up to eat once at night, but goes right back to sleep. Her naps are still kind of newborn-catnaps. She'll still fall asleep just laying in her bouncy chair most of the time. I'm trying to start putting her in her crib for naps every once in a while though. I know that soon she's going to be old enough that she'll want/need the "privacy" in order to take a decent length nap.

Carrie is being much more cooperative lately. She'd been trying my patience a bit, mostly just by realizing and embracing her independence, but we're finding the balance of what Carrie wants vs. what mommy wants, and we've all been much happier the last few days. She really is a super nice girl, and is very obedient. We're trying very hard as parents to teach her the reasons we do what we do ie: "Our bodies need to sleep at night to get the energy we use to play during the day, so even though you don't want to, it's still bedtime." I think it's really helping her see that we're not just trying to be dictators and control every bit of her life, we're doing what's best for her.

*A quick personal parenting pet-peeve: I think kids just plain don't understand a lot of what we, as parents, do. Now, there are definitely moments when it's just "because I said so", but I'm realizing that Carrie is much happier and more willing to cooperate when we can simply tell her why we're doing something. She usually responds with "Ooooh! Ok!" and whatever dilemma might have developed, dissipates before it begins.*

Onto my great week. Mostly, I'm super proud of myself because I haven't taken a Unisom all week! Allow me to explain. In the early months of my pregnancies, I take a half a Unisom at night both to help me sleep, and combat morning sickness (it really works). Usually, I can wean myself off by about 16 weeks. Well, with Brigette, I was way more sick than any of my other pregnancies and when I tried to wean myself, I felt super sick. So, I kept taking it throughout my pregnancy.

I know Unisom isn't super hardcore, and I wouldn't consider myself addicted, but I had certainly become accustomed to taking it. I'm obviously not having morning sickness anymore, but I've gotten used to it for my sleep quality. I've always been able to sleep, but I've noticed that when I take the Unisom, I sleep more solidly. I feel more rested in the morning... But it's been long enough and I'm done. I've actually had a very good week of sleep without it, and therefore, I'm happy :)

Justin's recent awesomeness (well, one of the things that makes him awesome), comes from his new workout regimen. He's been going to the gym at work everyday with a crazy man... At least he sounds that way from Justin's descriptions of their workouts. He'll tell me and show examples of the moves sometimes and I get tired just watching. ;) It's certainly paying off though! Justin's already getting pretty ripped!

Today brought a lot of hard manual labor for me and Justin. It started with me going to sweep the dust and dead crickets out of the garage. That quickly grew into a complete cleaning of our garage. We moved shelves, freezers, strollers etc. De-junked and re-organized things being stored in there, and eventually, swept. :) It looks great! It's funny how something like that can bring so much happiness and pride.

Then later in the day, we set up our new kitchen table! If you're feeling some deja vu, it's because we had bought a different new table the end of June. And we hated it from the moment we set it up. So, we sold our barely used one, ate $250 worth of losses, and bought this new one. We LOVE it. This is what we really wanted the first time, but didn't realize. This table will last us a good long time.