Today was a great day. It was not as expected. But as I sit here at the end of the day I feel so grateful for my little family.

I have been looking forward to Lehi Days today for weeks now. I was so excited for Olivia to do the chicken races, and the petting zoo, and the yummy BBQ food. And tonight was our ward adult dinner, a Night in Italy. A free date! I was so pumped. But we woke up to a sick little girl. She had a pretty high fever. We couldn't find the thermometer, so I don't know how high it was, but she was acting pretty crazy, and sleepy. But then the fever would break and she would be fine. Then it would come back and she'd be miserable. Then it'd go away and she was fine. She has no other symptoms really. So we stayed home. We watched movies. Laid on the couch.

And my wonderful husband worked in the yard. There were weeds so tall we were pretty sure a homeless person had built himself a studio apartment beneath them. So Aaron worked so hard outside, then came inside and cleaned and cleaned. He did laundry and dishes while I went to a bridal shower, and took care of babies. I feel grateful to be married to him. So grateful.

Oh and also... we let Abigail cry it out... and she's already sleeping through the night. One night of crying, 2 nights of 10 hours of sleep. Bliss. :)

Abigail's a big girl!

So if you put Abigail next to 100 other 4 month old girls, she would statistically be taller than all of them. Heavier too. And a bigger head. We had a Dr. appointment this morning. All three areas were 99th percentile, or just barely off the chart. She's 19 lbs, and 26.5''. I really thought she was 20 lbs. Guess I was close.

So in other news... olivia has been asking to go to the beach lately. I don't know where she gets it. Seriously, the beach?? Sorry kid, you live in Arizona. Anyway, today I said okay. We put on our bathing suits, and Beach Boys music, and sunblock, and played beach in our playroom. We went in a boat (cardboard box), and surfed (on books) and played in the sand (just brown towels). It was a lot of fun. Just a memory I wanted recorded. I tried to take some pictures but Abigail was pretty cranky. Here are some pictures of Abigail at four months.

Abigail's (and my) first Suns game.

So we got a last minute call tonight to see if we wanted to go to the Suns game! I am kinda bummed we didn't take a picture. But it was a lot of fun. Abigail was really tired, but wouldn't dare close her eyes. Always afraid she's going to miss something. We left Olivia home with Aunt Molly and Emily. They had fun as well.

Well nothing really all that exciting happened. Suns won. Just thought it was a memorable moment that should be blogged.

Oh and on our way home we decided to stop at our new favorite date place, Yodippity. It's in Mesa, I blogged about it a few days ago, but didn't say much besides their ad. Anyway we went for their grand opening, and got hooked. It's so yummy, and fun.

And now that it's midnight I'm so ready for bed.

Just a day in the life.

Today was pretty average. Nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary happened. But I want to blog about it anyway. Just so I can look back this time next year, or 10 years from now, and remember what a typical day was like. The kids woke up around 7:30. Well Abigail woke up at 2, and 6, and again at 7:30. We ate breakfast and watched PBS Kids. Abigail took a nap at 9:00. Olivia and I played and read books, then she took a bath and I got her dressed. Getting her dressed has now become the worst part of my day. She screams and cries, and it's always a fight. Even if I let her pick out her own outfit completely. She wants to do it herself, but doesn't quite have the physical capabilities of dressing herself, so she gets really mad. She usually tells me that it's Abigail's clothes I'm trying to put on her. LOL Makes me laugh now, makes me crazy in the moment. After a 40 minute battle of trying to get her dressed and ready for the day we went grocery shopping. I went $15 over budget. The kids were really good though. Except, I went to another store after the first, because I knew I could get a few things cheaper. I got Olivia a bag of marshmellows. I let her have them while I shopped at the second store. While I was checking out the lady said something about the marshmellows. I assumed she was wanting me to pay for them, and I said, "Oh no I already bought these at a different store.." And she was like, "Uhm, that's fine, but they are spilling all over the place." I didn't realize Olivia had stopped eating them and was dumping them out of the cart. I looked behind me and could see a little marshmellow trail of where we'd been the past 5 minutes. There was no one beind me so I ran back a little and picked the marshmellows that had dropped. I had put the marshmellows away in the diaper bag. While running to pick them up, Olivia got the bag out and dumped the majority of the bag into my diaper bag. At least it was in my bag. And I guess moral of the story, don't give toddler her own bag of marshmellows. Lesson learned. Anyway, that was the big outing of the day. We came home and put away groceries. Abigail napped. I checked Facebook and that stuff while Olivia ate some lunch. Aaron came home. We all hung out for a bit, and even went the hot chocolate place. Then Olivia took a nap and Abigail woke up. Then Olivia woke up too early from her nap, and fell back to sleep on me, but when I tried to lay her back down she woke up, so I just held her and watched Oprah for an hour while Olivia slept on me. During this time Abigail was in her bouncy chair. When she lost her pacifier I put back in her mouth with my toes (as to not wake Olivia). Yeah that's talent. We went for a walk. We played in front of the house. We did some laundry. We washed some dishes. We baked cookies and had spaghettio's for dinner. While I was putting Olivia to bed Abigail was crying in her swing. (Aaron is in school until 10:00 tonight) Olivia and I had the cutest little conversation.
Me - "I have to go take care of Abigail, I'll come back and check on you, okay?"
Olivia - "Okay Mommy. Abigail crying?"
Me - "Yes Abigail's crying. I have to go take care of her."
Olivia - "Oh, Abigail crying, she miss daddy?"
Me - "Yeah she probably does miss daddy. I miss daddy too."
Olivia - "Oh Mommy miss daddy? Yaya miss daddy too."

So cute. And then I watched American Idol and blogged this. Day in the life.

My 200th Post!

I was just noticing as I was logging in that this my 200th post. Anyway, I have a million things to do today. Blogging should be on the bottom of my priority list, but here I am. I have Activity Day today. I volunteer with girls ages 8-10 from my church, doing activities 2x a month. I love the girls but I always stress about the actual activity. Mostly because I have to clean my house, and then it gets trashed and looks like I didn't do anything to begin with!

Anyway mostly I wanted to share these pictures because they make my day whenever I look at them.

And yeah she's standing in this one. I'm helping, but this girl as crazy strong legs. Aren't those sunglasses a hoot? I can't help but smile when I look at these. So stinkin cute. Now if she'd only start sleeping like she used to. I don't know what happened, but she's currently waking up every 4-5 hours all night. Boo. I want 8 straight hours of sleep, desperately.

Yodippity

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I'm a mormon.

Lately it's been on my mind that there are some people who read this blog who may not know, or understand this part of my life. So I've been playing with the idea of blogging about it. No one's really asked me about it, and it's kind of an awkward thing to bring up as to not offend anyone. This is really just to share some information, not convert anyone. So I thought I'd just answer a few unasked questions, that I thought I might have if someone I knew decided to change their religion to something I've vaguely heard of.





First of all, what'a mormon?





Okay, I'll clear this up first. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Mormon same thing. Mormon is obviously just a lot shorter, and easier to say and type. We believe we are members of THE CHURCH of JESUS CHRIST. I believe that when Jesus was on Earth he was doing His Father's work, and starting a church. When he was crucified his discipiles tried to carry on his church. They all had their own peices of truth, and they tried to stay true to what they were taught. That's part of how and why we have so many different sects of Christianity. I believe the church I belong to, which I'll refer to as LDS for the rest of the post, is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ.








Restored? What's that?








Well, I believe that like in ancient times, God called a prophet. I mean, God is never changing, right? Why would he stop calling prophets? Anyway, I believe that Joseph Smith is the prophet of the restoration. I believe he saw God and He told him to organize this church. You can read his account of what happened here. Or read more about The Restoration here.







So now you know kind of what this church is. You might be wondering what we believe. Well there's 13 Articles of Faith that pretty much sum up our beliefs.



1 -We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.



2 - We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression.



3- We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.



4 -We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, Repentance; third, Baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, Laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost.



5- We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof.



6- We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles,


prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth.



7 - We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.



8-We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.



9- We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.



10 -We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.



11 - We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.



12 - We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.



13 - We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul--We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.





Pretty basic, huh? I can truly say that I believe each of these things. I try to live them.




So finally my biggest question would be, Why did you decide to change your religion?





The answer is simple really. I read the Book Of Mormon and felt that it was true. I believe this "feeling" was the Holy Ghost testifying to me. I prayed about it. I felt that being baptized into the Mormon church was the right thing for me. To this day, I believe it to be the best decision I have ever made. There is a feeling of serenity and contenment, knowing that I am doing what I believe my Father in Heaven wants for me. I believe Jesus Christ is my brother, and that He died for me. That my sins are forgiven. I believe He not only took on the sins of the world, but also all the pain and suffering I'll (or anyone) will have to experience in this life. I am so grateful for this Atonement.



I hope by writing this people will feel free to ask me questions about my beliefs without feeling awkward or that they might offend me, or make me think they want to convert tomorrow or something. Also, if you are curious about a question I may not have answered you can find out more here.