Thankful Thursday

1. Going to a movie. I hardly ever go see movies in the theater, but today I went to Confessions of a Shopaholic with one of my sisters. We had a great time. It's always nice to find a good, clean, funny PG movie. :)


Okay, I've actually typed #2 liked 15 times and just keep changing what I want to share because I just can't seem to word anything right. It's late and I'm tired. Maybe I'll just leave it at one today rather than sit here and fight myself for the next 10 minutes on what to write.

Memory Lane: Great Minds

One of my favorite Valentine's stories of ours:

It was our second Valentine's Day as a married couple. We decided we really didn't have the money to be spending on gifts for one another, but we wanted to be able to do something special. So we decided to set a $5 limit per person. On Valentine's night, we parked in the Walmart parking lot of Rexburg and each took our turn running in to find a gift while the other sat in the car. I chose a simple card and a bag of Andes Mints. (Can never go wrong with chocolate and a card, right?)

When we got home we wrapped our gifts and had dinner by candlelight. Once dinner was through, I handed Dan my gift to him. He opened the bag of candy and started laughing. I wasn't sure why until he handed over his gift to me. I opened it to find that he had gotten me a card and the exact same bag of Andes Mints. Of all the millions of items at Walmart, who would've thought we'd get each other the exact same thing?

I guess we're pretty compatible after all. :)

Thankful Thursday

I don't know how I went a whole week again without posting. I probably have written a dozen posts in my head but for some reason they just don't make it to the blog. Oh well. On to Thankful Thursday!

1. Valentine's Day. Dan and I got to spend so much time together! We took the kids up to my parents' home, nursed Jossy, then went to Macaroni Grill for lunch. Our meal was super yummy and since there were few customers, it was very private and romantic. We headed back to nurse Jossy again, then we went and played two games of bowling. I beat Dan!! That's only happened ONCE before in our relationship so you can imagine how much I gloated happy I was! We browsed a few stores and went back to pick up the kids. After they were in bed, our friend called and said she had a bunch of chocolate covered strawberries from Mrs. Cavenaugh's and wanted to know if we'd like them. Fantanstic way to end the day! :) That's probably the most time alone we've gotten in one day since Jossy was born. It was great!

2. Matty's "surprises." Lately he's always running up to me saying, "I have a surprise for you! Close your eyes!" When I close my eyes he gives me a great big hug. Not much of a surprise anymore but always appreciated. :)

3. Perspective. Just saying.


Late night=short list.
What are you feeling thankful for today??

Thankful Thursday

1. Comments. I love getting comments on my blog. They make me feel like someone cares. I have so many people who tell me they read my blog but I had no idea because they've never commented! Start commenting, people! And thanks to those of you who already do! :)

2. Time to Myself. TWICE this week I've gotten the chance to get out of the house alone for a couple hours to run errands, go shopping, or go to the temple. Such a luxury to do anything by myself!

3. My kids' smiles. They lift me when I'm down.

4. It's getting lighter in the evenings. Thank goodness! I was getting so sick of it being dark at 5 PM. Spring is getting closer!!!

5. Home Videos. I've spent hours this week converting home movies to DVDs. It's surreal watching Matty grow up that quickly. It's made me want to appreciate how little Jossy is because I know before I can even blink we'll be celebrating her first birthday.

Shmores

The other night for FHE we talked about how important families are. Then we had some family fun by making s'mores over the stove (or "shmores" as Matty calls them.) It was his first time having one.

Lots of fun with a small price tag!

Naked Biker Chick

What were you expecting to see???

Memory Lane: A Little Kindness

I feel bad that I've neglected these posts for so long. It's high time for another one! I wanted to write about this incident when it happened, but life was more than a little crazy at the time. So here's my story a few months later.

The day before we had Jossy blessed back in August, I was running around trying to get all the food ready and my home cleaned for guests. I went out in the morning running errands, and my last stop was at a grocery store just down the road from our apartment. As I was waiting to leave the parking lot at a stop sign and head home, I could see the car behind me coming up too fast. Sure enough, she rear-ended me.

At first I felt so frustrated it had happened right then as I was running crazy trying to prepare for the next day, and I was mad at myself for making this one last stop when if I had just gone home I wouldn't have been hit. But as I put the car in park and got out I felt oddly calm. The girl behind me, Amy, got out of her car apologizing immediately. She had been watching the car in her rear view mirror and wasn't looking forward. She was about my age and all dressed up in nurse scrubs. We both looked at the damage. The bolts on her license plate as well as the plate itself had created some nice indents in my car, but that was it. I felt overwhelmed by the Sprit in that moment that I should just ignore the whole incident. I thought about how much I needed to get done and how small the damage was. I said, "You know what? I don't care! I mean, I do care, but I really don't care about fixing it. It's just some small dents. So don't worry about it." It was amazing how strong I felt the Spririt in that moment, telling me I was doing the right thing.

Amy was shaking like crazy and just kept saying over and over, "Are you sure? I'm soooo sorry!" She offered to give me her insurance but I said I didn't need it. I just asked for her name and phone number (knowing she could give me a fake one but wouldn't) so that just in case my husband thought it was something to fix I could get ahold of her, but he probably wouldn't care either. She went to her car to find a pen and was still shaking so badly! She told me what a terrible day she had had so far (it was only about 11 AM) and how bad she felt. I said to her, "You know what? I've had a difficult day today to. Can I just give you a hug?" I'm sure I seemed like a freak, this stranger who's car she hit asking to give her a hug, but oh well. I hugged her through the open window, took the paper with her name and number, and got back in my car.

I told Dan the story as soon as I got home and told him how stongly I had felt the Spirit. Without even seeing the damage, he agreed that I had done the right thing. If we had decided to repair it, we would've had to replace the entire bumper since it's plastic. I wish I knew what happened to Amy and if my ignoring her hitting me made any difference in her day. Obviously, the Lord cared enough about her to let me know I needed to let it go.

Success!

Operation Potty Train is over! Monday this past week was Matty's first full day in big boy underwear. Tuesday he had an accident, but he hasn't had one since!! I'm so proud of him! So as promised, we took him to Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday as his bribe reward for going three days in a row without an accident. We were there for over 2 hours and blew through 100 tokens. Matty had a blast! The money and time was so worth getting him out of diapers!!! WAHOO!

We've been "potty training" since he first showed interest which was about 2 years ago. I know he may still have accidents occassionally, but I'm okay with that as long as we're over the major hurdles. He's even kept his pull-up dry 4 out of 6 nights!

Love These!

My friend Emily had these posted on her blog, and I wanted to share just in case there are others like me who hadn't seen them yet. Love 'em!

A Glimpse 5 Years Into the Future

Jossy had a blowout at my sister's house the other day. And of course it was the one time I didn't have an emergency outfit for her! So my sister went through her daughter's old baby clothes and found something for her to wear. Then she showed me how to put Jossy's hair into pigtails.

Between her cute little outfit and her hair, I felt like I was looking at my little girl all ready to go off to kindergarten!!

Pigtail pals!

I tried doing some on my own today. They weren't as perfect as when my sister did them, but I don't think they were too bad for my first attempt, especially with a wiggly baby!

(She wasn't happy I was taking her
picture instead of picking her up.)

Thankful Thursday

(Credit for the new logo goes to Tiburon.)

Not really sure what to say today. It's not that I don't have things to be thankful for. It's just that I'm so beyond exhausted that I can hardly see straight let alone actually think. So here's a short list:

1. Tax returns in. I never get them done this early. I'm pretty proud of myself and anxious to get our refunds.

2. Whoppers. One of my favorites, and yesterday's guilty pleasure.

3. Friends. I'm grateful for the true friends in my life. They lift me up and help me press forward. What a blessing good friends are.

4. It's almost the weekend again. Always thankful when this is true.

Operation Potty Train

When looking at our budget recently and searching for ways to cut back, I once again saw how much money we would save each month if we could just get Matty out of diapers. I felt frustrated, like it was just never going to happen.

Then a few Sundays ago, I sent him to church in a pull-up. He really doesn't like them, but I didn't want anyone in primary to have to mess with a diaper if he asked to go to the bathroom (which he does occassionally.) He came home that day after church and said, "Mom, am I wearing underwear?" I said, "No, you're wearing a pull-up." He thought for a second and said, "If I go pee, will it get all over?" I asked if he needed to go and ran him to the bathroom. To my surprise, the pull-up was dry!!! The stinker had kept it dry for over 3 hours because he thought it would get on everything! I then knew he could be potty-trained, it was just getting the stubborn boy to do it.

As we got low on diapers, I decided I just wasn't going to buy anymore. I prepared Matty and let him know that once they were gone he has to wear underwear. He was reluctant. Then we told him that once he wore underwear and went 3 days with no accidents, we would take him to his favorite place on earth: Chuck E. Cheese. That made him a lot more excited.

Sunday was the day we ran out of diapers. He had no accidents that evening. Yesterday was his first full day in underwear. We had to go to Target and then over to my sister's house, so I tried to put him in a pull-up just in case, but he actually wanted to wear his underwear!! And to my surprise . . . no accidents all day!! I felt so proud of him. We figure we'll keep him in pull-ups at night, but this morning he surprised us again with a completely dry pull-up! YAY!!!!!

Let's hope things keep going this well. I think we'll be visiting Chuck E. Cheese sooner than I had thought.

Update: In the small amount of time since I wrote this post, he's had his first accident. Shoot. He pooed in his pants. I know getting him to do that on the potty is going to be the real challenge.

8 Months

My little girl turned 8 months old today! I swear these months are flying by more quickly each time.

The past month has brought MANY changes including learning to crawl soon followed by speed crawling, pulling up to a stand, babbling all the time, SCREAMING if she wants something (or sometimes just for fun), bumps and bruises galore, loving Ritz crackers, and finally getting on her big brother's nerves occassionally. One of my favorite things she does right now is she gets SOOOO excited when we start running the water for her bath. She's absolutely crazy about bathtime! Pretty amazing when you consider how much she used to totally hate baths as a newborn. She's also gone from tolerating strangers to actually playing with them and is more willing to be held by someone other than family.

Jossy has taught me so much in her short life, including but not limited to the following:

* I can survive on MUCH less sleep that I used to think (or than I would like.)
* I am confident now that (if I so chose) I could dress up a wiggly fish in little clothes and get socks on it even though it has no feet. I firmly believe dressing a fish would be significantly easier than trying to dress or diaper Jossy.
* Jumping makes you happy.
* Food tastes much better when you make yummy sounds while eating.
* Falls, bumps, and bruises happen. You cry and then you move on to the next adventure.


I love my little girl so much it's crazy!

Conversations With Matty

Talking with Matty can be hilarious at times and other times very enlightening. Here are just a few of our conversations this past week:

#1
Me: Matty, what's wrong?
Matty: I just lost something.
Me: What did you lose?
Matty: (Sigh) I lost my little brother.
Me: Uh...you have a little brother?
Matty: Yes.
Me: Where is he?
Matty: He's in Africa. His name is (something really strange I can't remember.) He likes the snow and the ice.

Hmmm. Snow and ice in Africa? Guess we need to work on our geography.


#2
Matty: Mommy, where's Sister?
Me: Daddy's changing her diaper.
Matty: Did she go poo?
Me: Yes.
Matty: What color was it?

You know you talk about poo color too much when your little boy starts asking about it, too.


#3
Here we were talking about what he did in primary.
Matty: I got to put a little white bean in the jar with an S because I was soooooo reverant!
Me: Really? That's neat! What does reverent mean?
Matty: It means I was singing sooooo loud!

Glad we got that concept down. :)


#4
Dan: Matty you want to say prayer?
Matty: Yes, and I want my mommy to help me because she's soooooo beautiful!! (Towards me:) You're so beautiful, Mommy! (Gives me a hug)

Yep, he's getting a car for his birthday.