Saturday, February 6, 2010

Our January in Pictures

I have been absent from the blogging scene for so long... I'm trying to get caught up and check out what you all have been up to lately! I have been crazy busy at work and on top of that, I entered a Choreography Competition put on by Utah Regional Ballet (again) and was chosen as a finalist, and have been using every spare moment that I'm not with Jocelyn to choreograph like mad. I finally finished the ballet today and am feeling quite relieved. I've even already had an offer to buy it, which I am very excited about. I will post details on the show later, but it is next Thursday and Friday night and you are all invited to come if you are in the area!

I am doing Project:365 again this year but instead posting it all on the blog, I am just going to choose some of them and do a monthly photo diary. I feel like it describes our day to day life better than anything else.

Anyone else have one of these babies from Tai Pan? They make your house smell so good.

After a bad leaking incident wherein Aunt Lex got soaking wet all down her leg due to Jocelyn's diaper malfunctioning, I picked her up and Jocelyn was pants-less and wearing striped socks up to the thigh. She thought the socks were so cool.

Trying to eat better this year. What does one do with a lot of egg yolks, anyways?

I know this is a potty training classic and all, but I was not so impressed and neither was Jocelyn after the first 3 minutes. At least we didn't buy it. (no offense, Ms. Frankel)


A great audiobook we found and listened to together this last month called "Eat that Frog" By Brian Tracy. In short, it's based on a Mark Twain quote that says something like "if you're going to have to eat a frog one day, make sure you eat it first thing in the morning, then you know that your day will only bet better and you won't dread it all day". So, I've been trying to "Eat my Frogs" early in the morning (i.e. scrub the shower, fold the laundry, etc.)... it doesn't really work out that well with Jocelyn, but I feel better for having tried at least.

The potty training continues...

You all know how much I love the Pantry Secrets bread, but lately, I've been bustin' out the bread maker for some good ol' wheat bread. I figured I haven't bought bread (including rolls, hamburger/hot dog buns, etc.) in almost 10 months... When I think of all the preservatives we are not eating just in our bread it makes me happy.

Our little yoga instructor (I love these little yoga pants on her)

It's a party at our house everyday.


Cory found out through self-diagnosis (no thanks to the many "doctors" he saw and we paid lots of money for) that he has peptic ulcers due to his acid reflux, which is why he's been sick for about 2 and 1/2 months straight. He has to be on a special diet, though to let them heal. We've been making his Great Aunt's special mustard lately (it's awesome!), and that's pretty much what he has on a sandwich for at least one meal a day. I think he's addicted.

Dishwasher went kaput after only 3 years...our countertop has looked like this for almost 2 months now. We got a free one from a friend today, and I can't tell you how happy I am to not be doing dishes by hand again.

She's pretty much attached to the binkie right now. We're working on it, but not with much success.

Jojo has a bad habit of drinking tubby water, no matter how gross you tell her it is. Usually she'll drink it and then say "goth" (gross)

And I chopped my hair off... again. Only shorter than I've ever done it before. It's a long pixie, and I think I like it although I'm not used to it yet. But it only takes me 3 minutes to do in the morning so you can't argue with that!

Jojo and baby Lucy chillaxin'

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Snapshot: 20 months


Because this blog is my way of keeping a journal/history of our family, I really wanted to write down what Jocelyn is like right now so I could remember her at this fun stage. She is so much fun. She is threading 3 and 4 words together and you can actually have a full blown conversation with her now. She also does some hilarious things, and she surprises me all the time. Some of my favorites right now include:

  • She can do the Haka thanks to her Aunt Lex. For a video of this new skill click HERE.
  • She can flip her binkie upside down with just her mouth. It's a great party trick and she loves to show it off. Click HERE for another video.
  • When we were driving in the car she randomly yelled "go team!" I had no idea she knew that. Later I found out it was from Little Einsteins.
  • Also when in the car, she told me a whole long story about what she did that day, one word at a time. "Lex. Puppy. Fun. Cool. Play. Gascar (Madagascar). Toys. Potty. Silly."
  • She randomly tells me when she's happy and I think it's the cutest thing. Once, I went and got her in the middle of the night and she snuggled in under my neck and said "Happy" and then went back to sleep.
  • I have been giving her 3 M&M's every time she uses the potty, which worked at first, when the potty was still new and cool, but now she is so stubborn that if she doesn't want to go potty, there is no bribing her even with her favorite things. She is going to do exactly what she wants to do.
  • She started sleeping through the night last month and we had a good 3 week run at it, but now she's getting 4 new teeth and we are back to almost no sleep whatsoever. But there's hope that once those teeth come in, we'll be back to it.
  • When you're watching anything with an action scene, she copies the sound effects and yelling...it's pretty funny.
  • She can identify and name these instruments: piano, trombone, harp, recorder, saxophone, xylophone, bassoon, tuba, violin
  • Anyone around her age is "Buddy"
  • Every letter is the letter A (we've not made much progress with the alphabet yet)
  • Every color is green (ditto with the colors)
  • Lately she wants to hold things that are in pictures. For instance there's a picture of the baby Jesus in the children's songbook and she puts out her hands to the baby and says "Hold You!"
  • She loves taking care of her babies. She puts them down for naps, changes their diapers, and makes sure they have something to eat and drink and puts out books for them. She always wants one stuffed animal or doll to sit in the other chair and watch her do whatever she's doing.
  • My sister asked her a few weeks ago why she has stayed the same weight for so long and she shrugged and held out her hands and replied "pooping!"
  • She tapped Lexie on the shoulder and said "Lexie. Mine. Friend." She loves her friends.
  • Her favorite song is "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". She asks us to sing it to her all the time. (maybe a little too much Beatles Rock Band at Christmas??)

Christmas 2009

I know, we are one month into 2010, but here are the Christmas shots from the end of the year:
This is the most contact she allowed with the Tickle Me Elmo. Apparently it's very scary.

We got her a bunch of Dr. Seuss board books for Christmas. Dr. Seuss should be a part of every kids' childhood. She loves them. Also pictured is the laptop that I got Cory for Christmas (but mostly for him to go back to school in January to finish his degree in Business). He is going to be taking internet courses and our ridiculously slow PC was not cutting it. This computer is also the reason I am back to blogging!
trying on the smock Grandma Stokes gave her all by herself.

Her "Pintheth" chair she got from Aunt Lex

Putting Baby Lucy down to sleep in her new dolly crib

The quilt I made mom for Christmas

Playing with my new tea set. Grandpa was showing her how to make Hot Chocolate and she still does it every time she plays with it.


Our cute cousin Baby Kenna on her first Christmas.

You had to watch your back when you went near the hallway. Dallin was camped out and shot at anything moving with his fully automatic nerf machine gun

Aunt Callie was a Rock Star on the drums in Beatles Rock Band with Landon's help. We played pretty much all day.

She spent quite a bit of time inside this box playing while the opening of gifts went on around her.
Grandpa Billings went and bought Jocelyn a purse and lets just say it got some good ole wear and tear in not much time at all. She loves it!



Jojo was an awesome drummer in Beatles Rock Band

Monday, January 18, 2010

Help for Haiti

My lovely friend Kalli is putting together a big quilting bee at our church so that we can all do something to help our hurting Brothers and Sisters in Haiti. Check it out HERE and see you there!

Saturday, January 16, 2010

The annual Book Review! (finally!)

(sorry, I'm having formatting difficulties that I can't fix)

So, it's January 16th, but here I am, reviewing books from the 2009 reading list! I love book review time, but it takes a long kiddo nap and some spare brain cells to get it done, thus the tardiness.

Without further ado, the "read" list from 2009 includes (the best ones are starred, and the worst ones are... bleeped (a la the Burtons) because life is too short to read bad books):


Not as many as I would have liked to have read, but a lot more than I thought possible with all the busyness of life this year!
So, since I only read one series this year, the best series of the year goes to the Shadow Children Series by Margaret Haddix. I had a hard time with the first one, only because I had recently read the Uglies series, and it is a lot more detailed and the characters are more developed, but realizing that this was written for a younger audience, and knowing how much my cousin Amanda, and sister, Chelsea loved them, I pressed forward, and was glad I did. It is interesting to have read "the Government takes over your brain and does bad things for its' people" type books, and then compare to some of the things that go on in Washington... just an interesting thought. (Don't worry, I'm not an anti-government, conspiracy theory type person, but it does make you think about the government in a bigger picture and what their duties are towards the people they govern.)

The worst reads of the year go to True Believer and The Time Traveler's Wife. Not a fan of either. They were both very well written, I'm not going to lie. Great writing styles and well thought out characters, however I just felt like the authors were trying to push their own agenda the entire time, in an inappropriate way in the case of True Believer, and in an obnoxious way in the case of Time Traveler's Wife.

Let me explain... True Believer is a teen book, written for Jr. High to High School aged students. The style is a steady stream of unconscious thoughts from the main character, and has such a great moral to it. It's actually the 2nd book in the Making Lemonade trilogy by Virginia Woolf (sorry to any Woolf fans out there). But it's about a black girl living in the slums in a big city who has decided to and fights against all odds to go to college. It's a great story about how we who have it so easy take education for granted, and the power of education in taking the slums out of people and people out of the slums. Then towards the end, she throws in this homosexual agenda, that I feel is inappropriate for the age group she is writing for, that really doesn't have anything to do with the story. If Ms. Woolf wants to write about her own agenda, I believe she should do it in an adult setting, and not push it onto unsuspecting kids who may or may not have a very strong sense of identity yet. She also makes Christians out to be psychos. End of rant.

Time Traveler's Wife was a really fantastic story, and well thought out, but it was just over the top obnoxious just ranting over and over again about punk music, etc. Blah blah blah, get back to the story. It was so obnoxious, and there were some parts that were quite frankly not so necessary and not so clean, so I didn't even finish it. The movie was waay better than the book, and I still didn't love the movie.

Now for the good stuff. Have I already said how much I love Thinking Body, Dancing Mind... oh wait, I think I reviewed this last year... well, check my last years' review for more details, but let's just say that this semester I'm requiring it for my students at UVU, and one of them was practically squealing with delight the day she got it in the mail (and got very funny looks when she told people it was a textbook for one of her classes). My lil' sis even just bought it and is excited about it. I have continually seen it benefit my students and help them to become more open minded and take responsibility for their own actions and education because of it, and in my own reading, it has made me feel more empowered and given me more tools for my toolbox.

Little Britches was just a great, good old-fashioned read. No flashy stuff here. Lots of wisdom imparted... things like "Measure twice, cut once", etc. It reminded me a lot of the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. Just good solid writing with good solid morals. I loved it. It was just a great story, and the adoration this boy felt for his father and his wisdom is almost never heard of now. It made me want my kids to have as great a childhood as he did, and made me want to be a better mother.

The Parenting Breakthrough was my favorite Parenting book this year. I find a lot of parenting books say pretty much the same thing over and over, with different little tidbits here and there, and maybe different ways at approaching problems, but this book was very unique. You've probably not read another parenting book like it. It is an LDS author. Cory checked out her audio book on CD from the library and was raving about it, so I got her book and just finished it. The point of the book is to raise independent children, who by the time they leave your home can fully function in society, pay their bills, budget, cook, invest their savings, wash clothes, iron, shop for deals, take care of their cars etc.

One thing she said that I really liked was that her older sister took her daughter to her dorm at BYU as a Freshman, and the rest of the mothers of the girls living in the same dorm were standing around in the kitchen joking and laughing about how "I hope my daughter doesn't starve... she doesn't know how to make anything,etc" and how she and her sister were appalled at these mothers' attitude. Her point: there's no fairy godmother that will teach your children these life skills, and wouldn't it be better for them to learn these things when they're still at home in a safe environment, instead of trying to figure it out on their own at a time in their life that is filled with the stresses of starting college, being away from home for the first time, etc.


Also, another thing that really resonated with me was her point that most people plan out their days, weeks, and months, make plans for saving money for retirement, make plans for what they will cook for their families for the week, etc., but few parents actually make a plan (and stick to it) on how they will do the most important thing they will ever do in their lives: raise children. This is exactly how I have felt, and I had already started to make my own plan with Cory, but she has a very detailed plan that she puts down in detail, so you can use it if you want to, or use it as a springboard for brainstorming. Every year she has different chores, privileges, etc. that that child gets to learn about, and by the time they're 18 they are independent adults. Seriously, her plan is SO thought out it makes you feel a little intimidated.

Now, I don't know if we'll do all the things in her book. Some really resonated with me, and others I was like, hmm, ok, maybe. But I really liked the way she teaches her children about finances and budgeting and finding good deals. When they turn 12 they get a clothes budget for the entire year (you can do it monthly or whatever, but she suggests a year), and they teach their kids to write down what they actually need and budget for the rest of the year. One year her son blew all his clothes budget right away, and didn't figure in that he needed a swimsuit for the summer, so he ended up swimming in cut off jean shorts that year. To some parents this might seem a little harsh, but I thought it was, again, a good real-life learning situation in a safe and familiar environment, instead of letting your kids move out and realize that if they blow all their money, there's nothing else there until the next paycheck.

So to make a long story longer, It made me think a lot about my parenting, although I didn't love everything about the whole book.

Probably my favorite book this year was Guernsey. I thought it was very well written. Very tongue in cheek humor, witty, charming, etc. It approached a difficult subject with a unique writing style, and made you see things as they were without drowning you with sorrow. And now I really have to go visit the Channel Islands of England. There are so many great stories out there in print that are poorly written. This one, in my opinion, was the total package. It was a great story, and very well written.

The Shack had mentionable notice. Very interesting concept behind it, and although the writing was a bit flowery and puffed up for me, it really made you think differently about God, Christ, and the Spirit, and your relationship with all three. Most of it was not doctrinally correct, in my opinion, but it just made you go hmmm. For instance, God is a big black woman in the book, but some of the relationship issues that the main character works through and some of the wisdom found in it makes you think, so it gets a star for that!

This could continue on and on. If anyone is still reading my ramblings and has questions on any books I left out, feel free to let me know and I'll expound, but to keep this from turning into a novel, we're calling it a day! Happy reading in 2010, everyone! I hope my reading this next year happens more, and there are fewer "bad" books, because as Ms. Pribby said in Guernsey, "reading good books ruins you for reading bad books."

See you next year...

Giveaway time!

You may or may not know, that I have been reading parenting books like a maniac lately. I recently just finished this one that I am going to review here and on my book club blog because I thought it was very unique and so great... but I'll do that later.

I'm writing now, because they have a giveaway on a fabulous looking book on Simplemom.net (love her!), so hop on over HERE to enter if you are interested in a book on purposeful, intentional, professional mothering.

Ciao

Friday, January 15, 2010

White Chocolate Popcorn

Because you asked...

pop 2 bags of microwave popcorn (the more butter the better) and take out all the unpopped kernels (so as to save your teeth) and put in a large bowl.

melt 1/2 a bar of almond bark (or 2 small white chocolate bars, or one bag of white chocolate chips) in the microwave (30 seconds at a time and then stir between). Or you can do the old fashioned double-boiler way, but...why?

pour the almond bark or chocolate over the popcorn and stir all the popcorn is coated.

Put out on waxed paper to dry (unless it doesn't make it that long)

Enjoy!

P.S. This recipe comes from my aunt Renae...she always has great dessert recipes :)