Soccer

We signed Blake up for indoor soccer. He's on a team with two boys from church. On the way to his first practice, he cried and CRIED and said he didn't want to play. When we got there, his friends were kicking the ball around, and he loved it within two minutes. He is so competitive and loves to play hard. When the practice was over, he said, "I won, Mom. I got a goal." He's never played any sport, so for being his first time ever kicking a ball or playing, I thought he did really well. Now we have a ball for him to practice at home. I'm excited to see how he does in his first sport. I can already tell he's going to be athletic. More pictures to come from Blake's first soccer team.

Catch-up post

The kids playing their "drums" after church today. Blake uses his spoons to hit the metal spoon/spatula as his "cymbals."

This is what's been keeping me busy lately--preparing our RS Birthday Celebration. I loved how it turned out--so beautiful decorated with everyone's antiques, and a wonderful program. It was a lot of fun to plan out, but now I feel like I can take a deep breath.

After I went to a "rockstar" baby shower, I came home with these cool glasses. Blake loved them, put them on, and went to get his guitar to really be a rockstar.

The "snow" that we got on the daythere was supposedly snow on the forecast out here (which is not common!) It was more like lots of hail that mostly collected on the trampoline and Blake and Joel made snowballs out of it.

Another picture from the snowy day--there was snow on the mountains right behind our house--I've never seen this before. This picture was taken from my car window while Joel was selling his civic, in the picture, to our mechanic. He got a new car, Chevrolet Cobalt, so the civic is gone! Now I'm the one with the old car.

We took a trip to Garden Grove to visit my sister Cindel while my mom was there. Here are the cousins together--the best picture we could get! We went to IKEA and had fun. Blake and Julianna loved Olive's toys.

The puppy that showed up on our back door right before Valentine's day. This dog immediately warmed up to our family. It was late when found the dog, and church was the next morning, so it stayed with us until after church and slept at the bottom of our stairs. I am not a dog person, but I really loved this dog. After church we put up signs, and it turns out it's our next-door neighbor's dog! We were sad to see it go, but since then it has escaped a few more times, eager to come visit us again. I love this dog! And that is a big deal. Maybe we can get a dog like this--someday?

In other news, I've had to stop running for about a week or so because I injured my foot! I was reaching to get something out of a cupboard while standing on a chair, and a very heavy, old aluminum thermos fell directly on the top of my foot. I thought I broke my foot, the pain was so bad. But after icing it for a few hours, I was able to at least limp around. Of course the next daywas when we were going to buy the car, so I had no choice but to walk on it, and the day after that I had to teach in Relief Society, so I knew I'd be standing on my foot the whole time! But amazingly it has gotten better each day, but not enough to where I feel comfortable to run. I am only 4 weeks away from the half marathon, so I don't know what I'm going to do.

Well, I feel better being caught up now!

Because I went to BYU...

I'm not all into sports or anything, but these people had some good things to say about the BYU honor code so I wanted to share.

I do have other things to post about, and I will get to them soon!

Bedtime blues

So Julianna has been REALLY scared at bedtime lately. This hasn't happened in a few years, at least. I asked her why she was so scared, and she said, "There's monsters in my room." So I told her I would kill the monsters and then she would be okay, but this didn't work. So for the last few nights, I've had to stay by her bed and tickle her back until she falls asleep. But of course I can't keep doing this!

Last night before their bedtime I was telling Joel about this new fear of Julianna's, and Blake overheard our conversation. He said, "Oh, monsters? Julianna, I told you I was just kidding." He really said it like this. So it sounds like Blake planted this fear of monsters in Julianna's head, probably through whispers while we're downstairs. Thanks, Blake. He continued to tell Julianna that there are no monsters, but so far, she won't believe him. And I guess that means I will continue to tickle her back until I figure out what will work. Any ideas?

Recent happenings

Julianna lost her second tooth on Friday night. I finally pulled it by folding a paper towel and laying it over the tooth--as recommended by the dentist on the little field trip we took with our preschool. It worked well! Not too many tears, but I'm sure glad it's out. You'll also notice she has her hand over her ear--well she just learned how to make a funny noise with her hand over her ear. We got the best video of her doing it but it's too big to put on here. She thinks she's pretty funny that she can do it. I just hope she's not hurting her ear!

Thanks to some sewing expertise from Cindel, I made new curtains for our sliding glass door. I had saved some khaki panels I bought on clearance from Walmart a long time ago, and sewed the new fabric I bought over the panels to make them energy-saving and thick. I love them! You can see part of the old curtain on the right. When Joel was with the scouts on Friday night, I stayed up late sewing the rest. They are finished now and look great.

Something else Cindel helped me create--a new pillow cover. This is the first of 6 pillow covers I will make with old fabric I've never used! So glad I kept it all in the hopes that I'd sew one day. I am using the old curtains from our sliding door to make some as well. I'm so glad Cindel took the time to show me how to put thread on a bobbin, put in in the machine, and thread the machine--I pretty much know how to do it now. So there's no end to what I can make!

Well, not the best picture...this was the kids and Olive, Cindel's baby, when they were playing under the table. Blake really likes to cross his eyes right now--so fun, right? Olive had fun exploring our house and watching the kids play in the backyard.

This picture is a little better...at least Blake's not crossing his eyes! Well, that's what we've been up to!

Another reader in the house?

Tonight after dinner Julianna and I went over her spelling words for the week. She is now getting to where she can sound out her words on her own without my help (the 3-syllable words are a challenge, though). She REALLY liked reading her spelling words tonight, and I almost saw that look in her eye that says, READING IS FUN! So after the spelling words I told them it was time to read our Book of Mormon verses (Joel was still at mutual). And she said, "Mommy, I want to do it." So she went to get the scriptures and tried to find the place we are at, and when it was her turn to read, instead of me reading a few words at a time and her repeating, she wanted to look at each word and try to read it by herself. It happened to be a long verse, but she didn't want to stop until she finished it. This was a HUGE first for her--the first time she has ever shown a desire to read something on her own, and I'm glad the first book she showed interest in was the Book of Mormon! I am hoping that this interest in reading will only continue to grow and that before long she will be reading all her books instead of just looking at the pictures! I have a feeling that by the time she is 8 in December, she will be a reader! And then getting her own set of scriptures for her baptism will be a gift she will use! I am excited to see what happens this year.

Just because...

This is what Blake does when I ask him to do a nice smile.

Julianna actually has a wiggly tooth! Much better than having it yanked out by mistake in the bathtub, like her first lost tooth in November! This one won't last much longer.

They love this little "laptop" and play all the games together, when they're not fighting!

We headed to Orange County on New Year's Day to open presents with Joel's family. They got spoiled rotten! Such nice presents that they really love. It was a fun day. Then Briana came to our house and went to church the next day and we celebrated her birthday before she went into the army reserves on Jan. 4th.

Just busy again with school, preschool, doing crafts, new calling, and staying healthy (the kids were sick most of the winter break, and right when school got back, I got sick!) So I took some pictures today so I could have something to put up here, since it has been a while. Nothing big to report right now. But pictures are always fun, right?