Thanks, Grandma

When my parents came for Thanksgiving, they taught Heidi a number of things.

First, the letters B, Y, and U.  These are important letters in my family.

Now, whenever Heidi sees the BYU logo, she says B! Y! U! Go Cougars!  Or, if anyone mentions the letters Y or U, or in fact is just talking about You, she'll shout the same.

This morning, I'm waiting for Bryan to wake up, doing some things on the computer, and listening to Heidi.  She's saying,  Go.... Cougars! Go Cougars! Cooouugars! Gooooooo.... Cougars!

And then
Yellow.  yeeeeyyyyow.
Yellow Paige.  Yellow Peter.

Speaking of yellow, my mom also taught Heidi that she likes her yellow coat and not her pink coat.  Bryan's mom bought Heidi a 12 m pink winter coat last winter (and it didn't fit. But it fits this year!) Two years ago, my mom bought Heidi a 3T yellow coat.  While Bryan and I were gone, mom grilled it into Heidi that she didn't like the pink coat, she liked the yellow coat.  So for days afterward, Heidi would throw a tantrum whenever I wanted to put her in her pink coat, which fits nicely, instead of looking like a hobo in her yellow coat that is still too big and wearing it out instead of wearing the pink one out before she grows out of it.

My mother has this vendetta against pink.  Whenever any of her posterity wears the color, they get in trouble.

My own grandmother convinced me, when I was young, that I liked Green.  Grandma's favorite color is green, and it would seem that a disproportionately large percentage of her posterity likes green.  In my teenage years I began to rebel, and decided that I actually like baby blue, and I do sometimes wear pink.

Anyway, no one cares about my pink coat/yellow coat struggle.  So I shall go get Heidi, and we'll all go jump on Daddy.

Uh Oh! Heidi's awake!

I'm listening to Heidi try to fall asleep, and this is how her conversation is going.

want ladybug coat! *whine*
*silence*
Daddy, daddy, (what do you) see? see Peter!  Peter, Peter,
Grandma. grandma.
grandpa, grandpa.
Zebra. Zebra.  Zeeeeeeeeebra.  Sheep.  Sheepra.
Airplane
happy birthday! happy birthday! happy doo-doo-doo
Heidi's two
stuck.
letters
mommy help, it's stuck
*whine*
*silence*
Peter's letters!  no, Daddy's letters!
mmmooooo! cow! moooooooo! mmmmmmmmooooooo!
oops
mommy's
lion
no,no,no,no
laughing
whoa!
no jeans! no jeans! no want jeans! (guess what she's doing)
no jeans. no jeans.


One of Heidi's favorite phrases is, Uh oh, Peter's awake!  She usually says it after she runs up to his bassinet, he bumps it, his eyes open automatically (but he's still mostly sleeping). After she says it, though, he really is awake.  Sometimes when I'm really tired, she says, Uh oh, Mommy's awake! And I think, "Yes, Little One, how right you are."

To Wear Pants or not to Wear Pants

I've been thinking about this issue a lot over the past few days.  I don't know what it's “all about”.  I've seen so many people write about the event and it usually starts with "It's not about pants.  It's about ______." (Insert a completely different, extremely complex and emotionally charged women's issue here.)  For some, it quite possibly is about pants.  For others, it is expressing pain caused by insensitivity from unChristlike members of the church.  Some say that there are more resources allocated to boys than girls.  For others it may really be an issue that only men are ordained to the Priesthood.  In the purest of motives, maybe it’s about sadness that they won’t be able to serve others in such a meaningful way.  Or it is annoyance that women will only be called to serve in organizations termed “auxiliary” and that they must always be “supervised” in their service.  Decisions made by women (really, by all leaders of auxiliaries) have to be run by Priesthood leaders.  This is probably employed necessarily to preserve unity and order. 

Whatever the exact reason, this certainly shows that this is a huge issue that apparently we as a community need to talk about.  The main reason I am choosing to wear a skirt tomorrow is because I want to be very careful which groups I support.  I stand by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  The choice to extend official leadership of the church only to men was not made by men, or even mortals.  I know that Jesus Christ is at the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and such foundational decisions were made by Him.  So does God hate women?  Not in the least.  I can feel nothing but love, respect, warmth, and approval from God, as well as peace concerning my role.  I know that there is so much good I can do in the world as a woman, not having the Priesthood.  Which, by the way, was denied me on the basis of gender.  

Thanksgiving

My parents came to visit me for Thanksgiving see my sister's new baby.  But they managed to make it over to my house a few times to see us.

Peter's trying to see if he's really Santa Claus... and yup.
The whiskers are stuck on real good. 

My family. 

Unfortunately, also my family. 

I found these, and they are a little frightening.

Right before we left for the hospital.  I was a large woman. 

What if this were you?

In true Roman statue form

My New Home

The post you've all been waiting for!  (More accurately: the post that you all have forgotten about by now, and never really cared about in the first place.  But I shall proceed undeterred.)  It is a basement apartment in northern Virginia.  It's really close to a metro station, so Bryan walks five or ten minutes, then rides on the train for forty-five minutes to get to work.  Which is a long time, but he's happy he doesn't drive there in traffic every day.

It has soft, new carpet and new paint.  And new (to us) furniture.  It's spacious, but it looks even more so because we sold or gave away most of our things to come out here.

Here's your tour:

As you come in the front door, you look to the left and see our front room.  You will probably see Bryan, hard at work.

Allow me to point out the things I'm especially proud of.  That wicker box in the left of the picture has my diaper bag, extra diapers, burp rags, and the changing mat.  Before my little friend came into our house, all of that was strewn about.

I'm also proud of that bookcase.  When I assembled it (mostly by myself!), I left some screws off from the back panel so we put the modem and wireless internet router into that cupboard, which is child locked.  Brillant, no? Kids can't pull things off the bottom shelf or climb up it easily.

This brown wicker basket is what I call my inbox.  I put mail, bills, magazines, and all other of those papers that usually clutters my desk in the box when I get them.  Then, every week I use a nap time to clear it out.  That way, I can procrastinate for a little while, deal with it when the kids are sleeping but offices are still open, and not have papers all over my desk until then.

 This is a storage closet.  We aspire someday to build shelves in there.  Until then, we just leave things in the suitcases we brought them in.

A closet of boy clothes and a closet of girl clothes!  So cute. Extra sizes in the boxes on the shelf.  Peter's is organized by age.

 There's the little sleeping boy!  He's become a lot more social.  He doesn't like to go to sleep when other people are in the room.  And he doesn't sleep through the night anymore!  He did, from about two months until four months.  But now he wakes up to eat in the early morning.  Oddly enough, that was Heidi's sleeping patterns too.  Same ages and everything.

 Recognize that picture, Valerie?  Your artwork made it through the moving purge...

And my dressing table!  I thought that if I had a nice place to sit and do my hair and makeup, I'd do it more often.  Partially true.  Whenever I do choose to spend the time there, it is delightful.

 There you have it, folks!  Pop in if you're ever in Washington D.C.

I'm an aunt!

And these days, Aunt means Babysitter.

I'm an awesome babysitter.  See?

Even Peter is interested.

In my defense, this came at the end of a long day of pretending, reading, and running around. And that's Sesame Street, and they're learning about making music.  

November

Getting plump

She likes to pretend to nurse her doll. :)

I got up to take care of Peter, and came back to someone eating  my oatmeal. 

Everything was fine

Until he went in for the kiss.

Come on, bro.  Be cool. 

Just cruisin. 

Aah!  Four more years until kindergarten!

We went on a walk in the mall.  She did NOT want to leave this Christmas tree.  You can see there at the top that it is snowing, and then the umbrella catches the snow, and pipes it back to the top.  If Heidi had been carrying the credit card, she would have purchased it INSTANTLY.  Either that, or climbed in the umbrella.  Or even eaten it, it was so cool!

It's hard being a baby. 

Maybe not too hard. 

But it is hard being one year old.  She was throwing tantrum, and she was shouting into the Bumbo.  Heh heh. 

Our playgroup went to see a firehouse.  And they all got sweet fire hats that Heidi walks around in all the time now.  

Rather handsome little fellow. 

And a crazy little lady!  That is quite the horizontal stretch.