Daddy-O

Today (well, now that it's past midnight, yesterday) is my dad's birthday. A few things I love about my dad include: how he let me get my way by crying :), being interested in my life (especially boys), encouraging me not to settle for less than the best (whether it came to boys, grades, college, etc.), teaching me how to be a hard-working business-oriented person, getting emotional when he bears his testimony, bragging about me all the time (not always true, but it sure made me feel good!), his 'jokes' (almost everything he says is a joke and sometimes they aren't so funny), he knows everything, really, just go talk to him if you don't believe me or play Trivial Pursuit with him, "walking" up him and flipping backwards, dancing on his feet, popping his back, popping my back or toes or anything he could do before my mom caught him, taking me in the room to spank me if I got in trouble and not having the heart to hurt his little girl so he would hit the belt on the bed and tell me to scream so my mom thought I was getting punished, taking me to work with him, telling the story of Wally on Christmas Eve EVERY year for as long as I can remember (this could be my favorite... it's not Christmas Eve without Wally), helping me toughen up from teasing me and of course, making me feel like I'm his favorite daughter (even though I'm pretty sure he likes Angela the best because she's most like him). I'm sure there are many more, but I can't give all the secrets away, otherwise I wouldn't have anything for next year!! :) I love my dad!

Goose Update

I'm pretty sure I am starting to cross into that obnoxiousness of talking about very little beyond one precious little person: Goose. So if you're sick of it, now would be a good time to become disinterested in my blog because I feel my actions are justified. As I've mentioned before, this is my journal and I am big into journaling (and have been since like 5th grade). Here's a bit of what Clara has been up to in the last week or so:

:: Playing musical instruments with Jason and I (we each had a loud toy and would shake them together and Clara thought this was great and I realized we're a little bit nerdy)

:: Going from knees to sitting on her own like she's been doing it for months

:: Pulling herself up on anything and everyone she can (again, she's pretty good at it for only doing it for a few weeks... it seems like she doesn't do a lot of things gradually, it's all instantly and she typically does it well)

:: Standing on her tippy toes trying to reach things on the couch
:: Trying to get a toy in her toy basket that is not within reach (like she is right now, teetering on the edge)

:: Standing on the dishwasher, holding onto the bottom tray and expressing deep concern as it rolls slowly back and she has NO clue what is going on or what to do

:: Blinking (really hard blinking) back and forth with Jason or me

:: Saying 'duck' ... she did it three times in one night, but hasn't done it since then. Maybe she didn't say duck, but she certainly said 'uck' and was doing it in attempts to mimick Jason and I

:: Eating (and loving) mac-n-cheese, avocadoes and cheese for the first time

:: Having something in her mouth after I went to the bathroom, it was squash... and carrots... and rice, yup, all three

:: Sitting under the kitchen chairs picking at the bolt

:: Singing when I play the piano (of course unless someone is around or I am trying to video it)

:: Pusing her head back, holding her breath and making her face turn red (not sure why she does this, although it's normally when she's cranky but it is absolutely hilarious and no, it's not when she's constipated, althought that's what it appears to be)

:: Seeing her reflection in the glass of the TV stand and absolutely LOVING it

:: Throwing tantrums by either squealing or letting her head drop back and arching her back (maybe this is heredetary kathryn, he he :))

:: Getting excited when I chase ater her crawling

:: Loving swinging

:: Trying to get into the sink every time I wash her off after a meal

:: Smacking her gums

:: Using her spit up to finger paint in (yum)

:: Sitting forward in her stroller and swing instead of relaxing

It is so hard to verbally explain how much JOY a little baby is. Clara has wonderful facial expressions and learns more and more each day. Her laughs, her smiles and her baby tricks are endlessly entertaining and absolutley satisfying.

Silly Little Goose

Clara just cracks me up. It seems like every day I have accumulated more funny stories to tell Jason about things she's done. I have also noticed that she understands me. For instance, when I clap and sternly say, "Clara." that means, grab what I'm about to grab and crawl away super fast. "Come here" means go the opposite direction. "Don't eat that" means shove whatever is in your hand in your mouth before mom gets to you. "Give that to me" means clench your mouth closed and under no circumstance open it willfully. "I'm gonna get you" means crawl for three feet, stop and turn your head back to see if mom is coming, then crawl more, then turn around, then crawl more, then just laugh knowing you can't out-crawl mom.

Tonight Clara was in the bath and if you have seen her 'crawl' you may be able to imagine how funny this looked. She does a SUPER fast army crawl. She kept trying to do it in the bath, but obviously wasn't going anywhere so she looked like a little frog splashing and not moving more than a few inches. Clara has started sitting up on her own. She has been doing it for a little over a week, but would only do it after her nap in her crib so I never actually saw her, I would just walk in and she'd be sitting in her crib. Yesterday and today she's taken a few "crawls". She concentrates super hard, crawls forward with all her effort and then drops to her belly and darts off to her destination.

She's also such an explorer. She will sit and observe something and touch it and feel it over and over as she examines it. For instance, when I was feeding her this morning, she discovered my armpit and loved to poke it and pinch it. Then when I jump or am startled, she laughs thinking I'm playing with her. When I was at the grocery store Friday, she was hanging out of the basket trying with all her might to grab whatever was closest. I finally gave her a lime to hold and she held it, chewed on it and then slowly held it out of the basket and watched me as she slowly let it roll out of her hand and drop onto the floor.

Sweet Sabbath

Yesterday Lily came over to stay with us while my parents went to Gallup (working at DI allows for some very exotic vacations). We decided to hike the teeny little mountain my our house. Hmmm, it wasn't quite as flat or teeny as I remembered it being every single time I drive past it. When we got about half-way up, we almost blew off. I'm pretty sure the wind was blowing 100 mph, check out our hair. Plus, it was MUCH hotter than I thought it'd be. Really, I didn't know it was going to be over 100*. Our hike lasted an entire15 minutes, but it was still fun and long enough to take some crazy pictures. Then Angela and Clint came over and ended up taking us out to dinner. I felt bad that they paid for me, but Angela did remind me I made them dinner many times. Someday I'll take them out to dinner... We went to Old Chicago (wouldn't recommend it: bad food, bad service). Thank goodness for good company.

Last week I was thinking about how people always say, "Sundays are hard." The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I don't dread Sundays, rather look forward to them. While this is true when it comes to naps, I realized how much I love Sunday. Even if Clara is a tad cranky and off her schedule, I still enjoy Sundays the most because: {1} Jason is home to help, {2} I don't have to work, even if there is lots to do, {3} we normally go to my mom's for dinner with the rest of the family and have great food and even better conversation, {4} it is a very relaxing day because our schedules aren't overbooked, {5} I listen to calming and uplifting music (obviously I could do this any day of the week, but I normally don't), {6} I can't run errands, go to the store or deep clean, so I don't stress about how much of that I should do, {7} lots of time to blog :), {8} I get to go to church and even better, sometimes, I get to listen to what is said there, {9} it's the weekend so we don't ever have to turn our A/C up, and, {10} I bake with less stress. Today I made sugar cookies, which are perhaps my favorite cookie. I would humbly like to say I think my sugar cookies are my absolute favorite treat. I think I've already eaten five of these pretty little stars. :) If I were on a diet, these would certainly be my primary stumbling block!

Lists

If there is one thing I never get sick of, it's making lists. I make lists for anything and everything I can. They help me organize my thoughts and my life. For today, I am going to make a list of 26 memories I have with Beka, in no particular order. You guessed it, today she turns 26 (I love having friends older than me; it makes me feel young... :)).

1. Her persistence in trying to be my friend when I moved here eventhough I was a stuck up little brat to her.

2. Beka getting lost on her way home from my house the first time she went there (she ended up in Lehi...)

3. Band trip to California (and yes, Tyler still dresses as a princess occassionally)

4. Parties after football games (you know how crazy those band people get...).

5. Celebrating her birthday at Ed Debevic's (too bad they closed that place down, it was fun).

6. On our last day of high school when I told Beka I was going shopping after our English class we had together she asked if she could come and I said, "No, I like to shop alone." Yet she still loves me.

7. Getting FRIED at my house one day we laid out in the pool too long.

8. Beka laughing so hard she squeaks.

9. Going to dances together.

10. Getting pictures taken of us (not the only time!) How cool are we? :)11. Bek bek bekAAAHHH!

12. When she got her first cell phone hiding under her covers to talk to me on it when her mom thought she was sleeping (pretty sure she was a rebel).

13. Graduating from high school.

14. My frequent visits for BR to visit and get FREE ice cream.

15. Visiting AmeriCopy just to say hi to Beka.

16. Buying TP to go toilet-papering... then Foster was being a little turkey so after he went home, we decided to TP his truck. HA!

17. Watching her open her mission call to Hong Kong and seeing the expression on her face.

18. Saying BYE to her at the airport as she left on her mission.19. Reading her letters and thinking how good it felt to know one of my best friends had such a strong testimony

20. Saying HI to her when she got home and noticing she just couldn't stop shaking.

21. Trying over and over to get her to speak Cantonese to me, but she was too embarassed.
22. Celebrating birthdays.
23. Being pregnant and getting fat together.
24. Starting the era of motherhood at pretty much the same time.

25. Beka making my phone bill so high.

26. Having someone I can always rely on (like the time I was upset after work and didn't know where else to go, so I drove to Beka's and when she opened the door, I just started crying to her :)).

Happy Birthday BEK!!

Too Late

I'm still sick, I have been waking up exhausted and with a sore stomach from coughing all night, my throat hurts again from coughing, my house is a mess, I have TONS of work to do and it's nearing midnight. Oh, but that is when I do my best blogging. After working, it's my way of clearing my mind so that I get a peaceful night sleep. And work I did, cleaning up mess after mess, the fun just never ends with one of my clients. I am pretty sure his prior accounting firm has some issues.

Along with Clara pulling herself up for the first time Monday, she also has started sitting up. She only does it in her crib when she wakes up, so I have yet to see how she manages. That night we lowered her crib and apparently without the bumper she was either scared or kept rolling into the side and hurting herself because she woke up twice within a few hours after I laid her down. And yes, that means we put the bumper back up. I also think her top teeth are making their way down for their grand entry. I am scared she won't be as cute with two huge white teeth popping out of her mouth. Is that a normal fear? Today was her 9-month check up. Results? Still scrawny! The doc wants me to only nurse her twice a day and shovel the solids down. I humbly told him no thank you, I didn't want my milk to dry up and that I would just feed her solids more frequently. I'm sure Dr.'s don't really enjoy people like me. Oh, and I told her her symptoms and I was right on with my Roseola diagnosis. I had to give myself a pat on the back for that one.

There's been many discussions on blogging. I decided to share some of my thoughts on the things I have heard regarding blogs. Don't worry, this won't be as boring as a blog I look forward to writing comparing our current taxation system, flat tax and consumption tax. :) Anyway, people say blogging is bad because it has decreased our interaction with other humans. To that, I disagree. The people we would spend time talking on the phone to and hanging out with, we still will. For all the others, we probably would NEVER talk to them or know of their lives, but thanks to blogging, we DO have communication with them. So blogging doesn't detract from our social network, it expands it. Next, people say everyone is superficial on their blogs. Well yes, there are certainly some that put on a front to allow all readers to believe they live in a fairytale (mine's not really a front, in fact, our house is nicknamed Fairytale). To this, I would say I think blogs have actually encouraged more positive outlooks on life. We tend to look for humor in life more often and focus on the positive things that happen. People just take pictures for their blogs. Oh how true this is, but I think it's such a good thing. Wouldn't you LOVE to have that kind of visual documentary of when you were little? I sure would!

So, as far as I'm concerned, the only real drawback to blogging is the time addicts spend doing it. I am happy to say I have cut back significantly... probably only because I have been working too much (by the way, working is totally overrated).

Gymnast x 10

Some of my friends have referred to Clara as the little gymnast because of how much she used to roll around on the floor and how active she is. Well, my friends, today Clara did a trick that would put even myself to shame... On Wednesday, when I went to get Clara out of bed in the morning, she was on her knees with her hands on the crib rail. This is a little startling when you are expecting a baby laying in the crib. What made it scary was that she is so strong even on her knees she still probably could have lunged out. Anyway, I left for town and obviously this isn't a risk in a pack-n-play. On Saturdy and Sunday, each time Clara woke up in her crib, she never was on her knees so I figured we had some time before we really needed to lower her crib.

Well, this morning I went to get Clara out and she was STANDING in her crib. She's never pulled herself up so I was totally caught off guard. I would have taken a picture, but I'm not an idiot and was a little more concerned about Clara. Luckily I caught her before she dove out. Who knows how much longer she would've waited. I told Jason we needed to lower the crib tonight and he told me to put clothes down so if she fell out during a nap, it'd be padded. Normally, babies will do something once and not again for a while. I put all of our blankets around the crib JUST IN CASE and during her naps, I left the door cracked so if she woke up early crying I could see if she was up or going to go back to sleep.

First nap: Clara went to sleep and when I heard her crying after a few hours, I went in and she was laying down.

Second nap: I watched Clara through the crack of the door get her pacifier and blanket and go to sleep. I was working and thought I heard her barely fussing, not crying, so I went in to peak at her through the crack of the door and I see my little goose not laying down, but on the side ledge of the crib and by the time I flung the door open, she was doing a front flip out of the crib. So I grabbed my camera and took this picture. JK, what kind of mom do you think I am? Geez. I obviously grabbed her as fast as I could. It scared me to death, obviously, but luckily the blankets were there and she landed perfectly on them and on her back. Really, it was a graceful little front flip out of her crib into the pile of blankets. It almost looked fake. I am in the process of organizing and packing away all of her old clothes, so there are huge plastic bins in there that she missed and her box of diapers. She was still fussing from waking up but that's it. Once I picked her up she just looked at me and didn't fuss or cry. I was shaking but laughing at what I had just seen, and that made her laugh at me. I don't even think it scared her so I doubt she learned not to dive out of her crib. In fact, she probably enjoyed it because there was no pain involved! :) (PS, this was pretty much how she landed and in about the same spot. I keep replaying the visual over in my mind and it happened so fast it seemed fake because it really didn't look real.)

Whirlwind

The last week has pretty much been a whirlwind. The first half of my whirlwind was not so fun, but the second half was enjoyable for the most part. I knew on Monday that I had to get lots done before going out of town Wednesday. For the most part, I was very diligent in working. Tuesday I went into MBP for a staff meeting I thought would be an hour. I ended up being there three hours to discuss some reports I thought my boss had already looked at and sent to the client that morning. Then, I went home and spent over three hours working on them more and talking on the phone with ADP for the client. That made me grumpy and set me WAY behind because I had planned lots of errands for after the staff meeting and didn't do any of them.


Tuesday night I made a list of everything I needed to do before Scouts and what time I would do them. I had enough time... until my client called me in the morning and talked to me for FIFTY minutes so I could explain something I had spelled out in a word document. Seriously, I was so specific (i.e. sign page 8 and mail to IRS blah blah blah) to avoid this. Anyway, that set me back and wacked up my day. I had to pack, go to my mom's, meet Jason for lunch (okay, I didn't HAVE to do this, but since I don't get much time with him and was leaving before he got home, I wanted to see him), get my oil changed, go to KS and do payroll, go to the grocery store to get all the food for our trip (I got put in charge of that, probably because I'm too poor to eat out every meal) and get ready for Scouts. I was only a few minutes late to Scouts, but I was pretty scattered from having a hectic day. After Scouts, I went home and frantically started finished packing and getting the ice chest ready. To my great surprise, Jason came home. He got out of school early and it helped so much. I did everything I needed to and then fed Clara as my last thing to do before leaving. While feeding her, I checked my e-mail and had an e-mail from my client that was telling me he needed information for three of his companies that needed tax returns filed by Monday. I can't exactly explain how annoyed and stressed this made me. A very loud and low "OOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhh" is much better than using words to describe it. You see, two of the companies, the client had told me not to worry about and the third I had never heard of! Plus, I was on my way out of town and wouldn't be able to do anything. I was way stressed, but figured life would go on and prayed that I wouldn't worry about it the entire weekend and ruin my little trip.


After all this, we (Angela, Clara and I) finally left about 30 minutes past our scheduled DOT. Little P was a bit fussy for a few minutes from being so tired, but then slept the rest of the way there. We got to Solana Beach around 1230am. I love California in the middle of the night. The air is so moist and cool and it brings back lots of memories of being outside at night while visiting. We got our stuff and marched to the unit number I had remembered Ryan telling me. I knocked softly since the twins would be sleeping and nothing happened. So I called Kathryn and that's when I realized I was knocking on the wrong door. HA! Good thing I didn't know loud and good thing no one answered the door.


We brought our stuff in while Auntie Kathryn loved Clara, visited for a few minutes then set up our beds to sleep. The place we were staying was only one bedroom and Kathryn and the girls were in that room so I put Clara's pack-n-play in the kitchen, a wall away from the pull-out bed Angela and I slept in. Yeah, wishful thinking that I would lay Clara down and think she'd go to sleep in the middle of the night in a crazy place. It took about 30 minutes of me trying to walk with her, hold her, cradle her and then I just thought, she's just going to have to cry. So I turned off the lamp, laid her down and she didn't make a peep. Duh, it was probably the light that was bothering her. This was about 130am and at 545am, she woke up screaming. AHHHHHH! I was so frustrated. I was sick (oh yeah, when the whirlwind started Tuesday, I felt myself getting sick on the way home from MBP...) and four hours of sleep did not make me feel good. At this time I was thinking I wished I hadn't come because I imagined this happening for the next two nights and making me crazy. We went to the beach that morning and had fun. Clara clearly loves sand. Who wouldn't? It's grainy, salty and full of who knows how many variations of feces. She just kept shoveling it in her mouth. I would open her fist to let it drop out and she'd suck on her hand to get the sand stuck on it. So I would rinse her hand in the water and she'd suck the salty water off her hand. I obviously couldn't win. I didn't have my camera the first day, so when Angela and Kathryn decide to share with me, I'll post some pictures. After the beach, I think Clara might have taken a short little nap, but whenever I did get her to take a nap, she normally didn't last long because of all the noise. She's not used to hearing other kids around so she doesn't usually sleep through it. Thursday afternoon we went on a walk and went into some of the shops. It wasn't a super long walk and as we were leaving Saturday I told Angela we should've gone back. We had to cross a bridge to get there, which of course was a good excuse to take a picture. Plus, it's fun to see Clara with her cousins. PS It was funny to see the reactions we got, three people and three babies. I wonder how many of them thought one of the twins was Angela's? I have lots of sunglasses pictures with Clara. But these were little fakey designer sunglasses they were selling in this store. I thought they were pretty funny.
Thursday night Kathryn suggested we leave Clara in her room to see if she'd sleep better. She went to sleep around 730pm (conked out about 2 minutes after I started feeding her from her serious lack of sleep). Angela, Kathryn and I stayed up way too late talking and laughing and having a wonderful time. I wish I would've taken some notes about the funny stories that were shared and created. All I know is when we were talking about how your body is exposed to so many people before, during and after childbirth, I decided with my next kid I'm just going to walk to the Nurse's station, take off all my clothes and say, "You're all going to see me naked anyway, so we might as well get it over with."

Clara slept until about 630am, which is her normal wake up time when we're on vacation. I'm just glad it wasn't earlier which is somewhat surprising considering she was bunked up with four other people! That is one nice thing about twins, they are used to each other's tossing and turning so when they hear it, it doesn't phase them. Clara's room is silent at night so any stirring wakes her up. We went to the beach again, but this time we went to Solana Beach instead of Del Mar. I really liked the cliffs but wish Jason had been there to take more pictures (as if 50 isn't enough). It was just hard to try to get Clara to not stare at and eat the sand at the same time I was trying to take the picture.
MMMMMMM, this stuff is SOOOOO good.
Um, I'm finished sucking on this rock, here, you can have it.

The sand rake is for sure the coolest beach toy. I love how it makes your lines perfectly spaced apart and next time I'll be sure to have my own sand rake. Back at the condo, Clara had a good time eating Cheerios off the purple carpet.
Oh, and let us not forget that Clara's theory in life is to follow the path of MOST resistance. I swear, she tries to crawl under a two inch bar or through a three inch gap between furniture, even if she can crawl around it.

That afternoon Nikki and Brooklynne came to visit. It was much easier to take pictures of Clara and Brooklynne when I was in California last time visiting Nikki because Clara wasn't crawling. I had to let Clara lick her brush to get a picture with both of them looking. It was Brooklynne's birthday (the big ONE). Had I known before, I could've been a good friend and bought her a little gift. It was funny having all four kids together. Brooklynne didn't know what to think of the twins and Elsa seemed so distraught that another baby was around to share her toys with (she was already having a hard time with Clara's continual presence). I've said before, but now I have more pictures to prove it, the twins make hilarious pictures. This is Lucy's smile for the camera. She had no reservations about giving me her biggest smile.
Elsa, on the other hand, wasn't in the mood for pictures and as Kathryn would say, was being very much a princess, so I took one of her and I and she stuck her tongue out at me.
That night Emily and her kids came to meet us for dinner. We ate at Rubio's and I couldn't resist taking a picture of the floor under us. It was clean before we started eating. Actually, it was clean before the twins started eating. :)

Here's one of the gang. Can you tell Emily and Angela are related? It is so hard to get a picture of them with their eyes open. It seems like half our family got the open-eyes-in-pictures gene and the other half missed out on it.
Afterwards they came over to visit. They aren't around babies much so both Emily and Alexis LOVE to hold Clara and the twins and play with them.
I don't need to tell you that half my face is missing in this picture, BUT, Emily and Angela have their eyes open and that's not the case in the other three pictures we took of us. So, I will sacrifice half of my face for two of my beautiful sisters. :)
At the bottom of the stairs at the condo there was lots of beautiful green plants. I don't know why I waited until we were walking to the car to leave to take pictures, but I did, so you can't really tell. We left a little after 1000am and had a pretty good trip home. All in all, it was a good trip and I had a good time. The fun certainly outweighed the bad (no naps) and I am so happy I have a sister-in-law that is pretty much like a sister. I was also SO glad Angela was there. She helped so much with all the food preparation and cooking and with the kids. What a great Aunt. I'm pretty sure she didn't ever even complain, although the whole time I worried she was thinking "some vacation this is!" I thought as a joke I would ask her to babysit Clara Sunday night. I didn't, but told her I was and said, "Oh, I would have." I love my little Angela and so does Clara.

Some of the funny things that happened on the trip. Unless you were there, you probably won't think anything of them...
[:] the Boarder Patrol guy saying "US Boarder Patrol, state your citizenship" in a military meets disney type voice
[:] putting the three kids in the bath together, Elsa stealing Lucy's cup, Lucy letting out several high pitched screams and startling Clara so much she started crying as she frantically tried to get away
[:] watching Clara laugh at Elsa and Lucy as they "talked" back and forth to each other
[:] watching Lucy in her pack-n-play make Clara giggle SO hard by hiding and then popping her head up (I wish SOOO bad I had this on video. It was the sweetest thing because they were so focused on each other and that Lucy would know what to do to make Clara laugh that hard. I think that was the longest someone had her laughing)
[:] thinking I stepped on something at the beach, having Kathryn look at my heel, feeling dumb and thinking I imagined it... forgetting about it then waking up Sunday with an itchy red bump on the bottom of my foot
[:] a certain conversation that had me complaining and Angela staring at me and saying, "I don't feel sorry for you at all"
[:] a certain someone saying "I know they say not to do that, but that's pretty much what we did"
[:] me comparing Elsa to Angela and Lucy to me, saying Angela is more demanding and Kathryn kindly telling me I'm pretty much just as demanding.
[:] Angela declaring she is actually not demanding, she just knows what she wants and she gets it.
[:] watching the twins eat off Clara's tray after they wouldn't eat anymore off their own (everyone elses's always tastes better)
[:] watching Clara eat the food off the floor the twins threw down... then watching her like the cookies and try
[:] Angela and Kathryn telling me I'm on my phone too much and they are going to have an intervention
[:] looking frantically for Clara's pacifier on the way home. Angela had her seat belt off and was practically in the back seat and we still couldn't find it, so I pulled over and it was behind her ear on the side of her head
[:] getting caught in a duststorm that made me realize how horrible accidents are caused by duststorms. I could see maybe 10 feet ahead of me and had to slow from like 80 to 40 or 50. It was scary, but fortunately, only lasted a few miles

I'm sure there were many more, but those are just some that stood out. We sure had a good time laughing and playing thanks to Ryan for leaving Kathryn to go work!!

Warning: Rambling

Thursday night when I went to Roundtable, my mom watched Clara. I'm pretty sure Grandma is the ONLY babysitter that pays you when she babysits. :) Earlier that day I asked my mom if I could borrow her bread pans thinking she had a few to spare. She uses all of them so she said I couldn't, which is fine. I just thought she had some extras. I think she felt bad for telling me no so she bought me some super nice pans from Shar's, the best yeast (according to her and Shar), high gluten flour (to make bread more fluffy) and some bread bags. I was super excited. I have a half loaf of bread left and then I've decided to make my own. I've made bread lots before, but now I have decided I need to make it rather than buy it. Last time I checked, my mom is rad.Clara, along with being totally grumpy, has been refusing to eat. She'll eat okay if I give her whatever as finger foods, but was absolutely REFUSING to eat from a spoon. I cut up a peach and it seemed to keep her happy for a while. I'm not sure how much she ate versus dropped, smeared somewhere on her body or smashed onto the tray, but I'm sure it was more than had I used a spoon!Of course I made up a song to "Rain is falling all around" while she was devouring her peaches (I love singing to Clara and it gets really fun making up my own words to popular tunes):

Peaches, peaches everywhere;

On the floor and in my hair;
Peaches, peaches all around;

On my face and on the ground.

At one point, I decided she was going to eat from a spoon because she needs to eat more. I heated up some of her zuchinni and when I stirred it, I became very amused. You see, I like a good deal. Before Clara started solids, I saw two Circo brand spoons at Target for $1. Now that's a deal. Little did I know, until Saturday when I stirred the warm zuchinni, the spoons change colors when they are hot. For fifty cents? How cool is that?

Oh, but that wasn't the end of my amusement. I decided, I'm smart, I'm the mom and I will get Clara to eat. So when she'd open her mouth to whine, I would shove the food in. She swallowed it a few times and then she decided to play her own little trick on me. She'd open up, take the food off the spoon and after a few seconds, she'd smoosh it out of her mouth. (Look at the beautiful blue color her eyes are in the first picture). She knew she was being funny and would laugh when I laughed. Now, everyone better watch out when Clara is around. She gets in fighting moods and I have pictures to prove it. First she'll shake her fist at you and scowl.Then out comes the KARATE KID. Waaaaaaa YAH!Is it just because I'm her mom, or is that not a funny picture? I just laugh and laugh at it. Lucky for me, I think this cranky, non-eating baby is just a show and deep down I still have my sweet little goose.

We were taking pictures before the Adult meeting of Stake Conference last night and Jason, for some unknown reason, decided to make it look like, well, I don't know. I do think it looks funny with his big old eye in between us. I like being married to a goofball.
Today I laid Clara down for her afternoon nap and five minutes later got a voicemail that my little brother Steven was in town and he had to leave for the airport when we normally eat dinner at my mom's. SOOO, we got Clara up from her nap and went to my mom's early. He wonders why I take a picture with him every time I see him. Duh, for memories. Plus, now that Steven lives in Utah, I never know when I will get to see him next. I love coming from a big family and love having older and younger brothers and sisters. It makes me feel like I have a lot of friends. :) Steven, of course, loved playing with Clara. Since she didn't get her nap she was extra grumpy, but Steven still got her to laugh and smile.

I need to find a new time to blog. Every time I do it at night and see pictures of Clara, I want to go wake her up and squeeze her. Even when she's a crabby apple, I love that baby!