Emily Didn't Want to Sleep

Emily wasn't ready to go to bed yet, so she poked her head out of the door and told Daddy, "I can't go to sleep. My dream isn't ready yet."

I was out doing Young Women stuff so Nathan just watched a movie with her. A nice Sunday movie. Daddy/Daughter time. I'm so glad when the girls get that.

Music - Our Family Update

Next to family and religion my most favorite thing in the world is music. I love to share good music with my girls. And they like it as well. We love Peter and the Wolf and Carnival of the Animals. I especially love the Carnival of the Animals because we can pretend we're those silly animals and my girls love to dance with it in the background. I have lots of short video clips with them dancing to this. Somewhere...

This school year Emily began taking piano lessons. Meredith joins her for a little of it. She wants me to teach her, but I want her to wait. They've been discovering the piano together though. This morning they were sitting on the piano playing around. Emily and Meredith started talking about what it sounded like when they played something. Emily told Meredith, "it's flying" as she played a little melody. Meredith played some bass notes and says, "It's angry." She played some middle notes and says, "It's happy." And I'm thinking while they are in the middle of their conversation, "Woo Hoo! That's exactly what I want! Yes, Yes, YES!"

They also love to sing with me at the piano. They have their own little "stage" that they perform on. The little ledge by the fireplace. We work on a song a week, and you can actually hear the words. I'm so glad I can share one of my favorite things with some of my most favorite people, my precious little girls.

I Love Being a Mommy

“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.” Boyd K. Packer, Ensign Nov. 1993

Wrapped Around Her Little Finger

This little baby girl must know she's got me wrapped around her little finger.

I can't believe she's 4 months old already!

Dress Ups

So, the girls have expanded their horizons to dressing up...the stuffed animals

...and the baby. And she's a pretty good sport about it too.

Baby in the Home

How I love this new little baby. She's just perfect. She gets constantly smothered in kisses, and not just from mom. The girls dish them out too. She's quite a little roller now. She can roll both ways, but she goes a lot faster from her back to her front than the other, which makes her mad. She doesn't want to be stuck on her tummy, so if she's ready for a nap I can tell because she will quickly roll onto her tummy and be quite angry. She rolled over from her front to her back a little over a week ago with me coaxing her with a toy.

Here's my Brother, Matthew, with Rebecca.

Nathan thought he'd hit the same pose as Rebecca. The open mouthed smile.

I made Rebecca this little headband, but she wasn't exactly a cooperative model at the moment.

I adore babies in cute, little, pink, frilly dresses. The frillier the better. I love to dress the girls up in more "formal" dresses that I certainly couldn't get away with walking into church. :) That does bring a funny picture to mind. :P

I love this picture. She must think that the ribbons on her different dresses are tasty, because she is always bringing them to her mouth.

She really started studying her different toys last week. This rattle is her favorite. It's so easy to get ahold of.

She fell asleep with her thumb in her mouth. She regularly falls asleep on the floor. I feed her when she wakes up, play with her and then put her on the floor while I get something done. Did I mention that she is a really good baby? She is. And a lot of the time she just falls asleep right there. She wiggled mostly off of her blanket and she had her thumb in her mouth. Usually she tries fitting her whole fist in there.

The lighting wasn't good because it was dark outside, but she's even smiling for me before bed. I was putting her to bed and had to come back into the living room to get the boppy, this is when Nathan took the picture.

Playing with Daddy.

A Friend's Birthday Party

One of our friends had a party at a children's gym. The girls loved it.

Rebecca, watching the girls jump on the trampoline. Even she was getting excited.

This was the girls favorite part of the party. The zip line!

This is when the kids were going down the zip line. Meredith was so excited.

Emily loved her butterfly face, until she saw that Meredith got a crown. The face painting lady was nice to redo it for her. I just forgot to take a picture.

Emily buried in the ball pit.

Sweet Baby

I love this sweet face. I'm so blessed to be able to stay home with our girls. I tell Nathan that I think he gets the rough end of the stick. Then again, when I'm gone the house doesn't exactly run very smoothly, so I think Nathan appreciates what I do. And yes, being a SAHM is a hard job, but I love it.

Rebecca met Great-Grandma Stoddard for the first time General Conference weekend. Nathan was trying to take a picture, but she kept looking for me. So, I came over to make her smile. Another perk to the Mommy job, I get the smiles. :)

Birthday Party

Nathan's parents and my parents happened to come to Tucson on the same weekend, so we took advantage and had a Birthday party for Emily. She's turning 5! I don't know how that happened. But she is my big helper and eager to be an even bigger helper. Here's a few of the great big smiles I got from her. She was so excited. She got her beloved, pink scooter and is busy riding it outside right now. I was surprised by all the presents she got. I'm glad I only bought the one for her and one from Meredith for her. She is still talking about her 4th Birthday and carrying around what she got for it.

I've been teaching her how to vacuum. Which means her new job is to not only tidy our Living Room but vacuum it. It's wonderful because now I only have to vacuum about once a week. I let the girls make their own sandwiches now, so lunch is easy. She's also doing a better job at making her bed. And I just have to drop the perfectionism and let her do it. We also simplified the toy mess so that cleaning the room would be totally doable, and mom can still keep some sanity because all the toys don't get just thrown in any bin. Honestly, half the toys are in the garage. When they get bored I'll just bring in one of the bins. This being 5 is going to be great!

The Truth

For the morning session of General Conference on Sunday we went to the church building. I like to do that so it still feels like a Sunday and we don't just sit around in our jammies all day. While we were there Meredith tells Daddy that she has to go potty. Daddy wasn't born yesterday. He asks her, "are you sure? You're telling me the truth." Meredith emphatically says, "yes". So, off they go to the restroom where Meredith does not need to go.

Nathan says, "you lied to me. You need to tell me the truth."
Meredith answers, "the truth isn't good to me."

And there you have it. The truth is hard. At least she's honest about that. :)

Rolling

Two days ago Rebecca rolled over for the first time.

The girls and I play with Rebecca on the floor and then eventually when it starts to quiet down, she falls asleep. Right there on the floor and just takes her nap. She really is the best little baby.

A Hiking We Will Go

We went off into the mountains to join the Ward Campout for the last part of it. Well, the map said 21 miles, we went 24 and I decided I must have written down the instructions incorrectly. So, we stopped and had a little hike of our own.

Before the hike.

Rebecca's first hike. As short as it was.
No, I don't wear makeup in the woods.

Nathan hiking with Meredith.

Emily was getting too far ahead, so I asked her to stop. She wasn't exactly thrilled about that now was she.

Afterwards we decided to go just a little further. 1/2 a mile later, there was the turn to the ward campout. (Note for next years campout. Please go 24.5 miles or so.)