What do you think?

Here's my adorable boy again in a photo I took yesterday. I am just playing around with it, and I can't decide which one of these I like best! What do you think?

family trip photos

In August we went on a fun trip with my family to St. George, and somehow I missed putting all the photos up here! Enjoy :)

Flashback Boxes

Yesterday Jonathan and I decided to clean out a few boxes from our storage closet. I tackled a box full of random papers, and man, it was so much fun! It was a total flashback to my senior year of college, mostly having to do with piano.


In this box I found some awesome gems such as:

*My senior piano recital program, signed by the three piano faculty members who were on the jury at my recital, with their signatures and the word "Pass!!" (I think my favorite part of that is Dr. Peery-Fox's signature, because I have to admit that I was nervous that she'd be there, and so thrilled that she later complimented me on how well I did.) This totally took me back to the days of practicing hours on end, and sometimes I really miss it! Consequently, I practiced for quite awhile today (definitely not near the four hours I used to, but still - it felt good!).


*TONS of class notes from classes like piano lit, music history and such. However, my favorite part of these notes were my study notes (well, cram session notes, really) that Janina and I wrote down in the middle of the night before our big music history exams. They consisted of some AMAZING acronyms (well, sort of acronyms...) and such that helped us remember key facts about Bach and Handel. Some of my personal favorites:

Guys And Or Men OWe Our Very Cute selves Dark Chocolate Or Light Chocolate!

...which, of course, reminds you of these important Bach facts...

Germany, Amstadt, Organist, Muhlhausen, Organ works, Weimar, Organist, Violinist, Concertmaster, Director, Cothen, Orchestra, Leipzig, and Cantatas.

No wonder we did so well on the tests, eh?? I will spare the details of the Handel one about love handles.


*A roll of cloth tape I used to use to tape my fingers when they started to hurt or bleed during practicing. Ahh, good times...


*Notes written by Janina and myself during our public speaking class. Writing notes to each other kept us awake (and sane). Here are some examples (two are in the form of poetry):

One day in the class "Public Speaking"
Some speeches we were critiquing.
He gave us a break,
The chance we did take,
We escaped and us he was seeking.

HAIKU TO PUBLIC SPEAKING by: J-Bebe
We sit there...and stare.
He talks, and talks, and he talks.
I want to leave now.

to the next idea....to the next idea....to the next idea....to the next idea....yes, let's move onto the NEXT idea please.

This class was riveting, as you can imagine.


*A plastic bag filled with about a million fortune cookie fortunes. Mostly from Panda Express.


I love flashback boxes. They just fill my soul with joy. And oh how I [sometimes] miss the days of being a full-time music nerd.

Comfy Conference Weekend

Conference was just wonderful, as always. We watched the morning sessions at home while drinking hot cocoa and eating cinnamon rolls, then headed over to my parents' house for the other sessions.

James kept his Daddy busy playing blanket games together. In my family we call them "blanket tricks," and they consist of the child laying in the middle of a blanket, while the Daddy grabs all four corners of the blanket and swings or spins it around. This has been one of James' favorite activities lately, and he will often ask, "Baby? Blanket? Guy?" Translation: "I want to lay in the blanket like a baby while Daddy swings me up to the sky!"

As you can see, they also had fun hiding from Mama in the blanket, and riding on the blanket like a car.




What were your favorite talks at Conference? There were so many good ones; I especially enjoyed:

Elder Bednar's talk. He talked about three ways to become more diligent and concerned in our homes. 1) Express love & show it, 2) Bear testimony & live it, and 3) Be consistent.

Elder Scott's talk. He talked about learning how to be led by the Spirit.

President Uchtdorf's talk. He said, "Love is the way of the disciple."

President Eyring's talk. He talked about becoming more like the Savior. He said, "We can and must expect to become better as long as we live."

President Monson's talk. "What did you do for someone today?"

And of course Elder Holland's talk where he bore powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon.

I can't wait to re-read all of the talks!

Pumpkins & Family Home Morning

James was so excited to get pumpkins this year - just like last year! He has learned a little about pumpkins recently (what with all the pumpkins on people's porches), he knows that they are orange (which is the color we are working on - he's got red down!) and he is pretty good at saying the word "pumpkin" (although it is very similar to the words "pine cone" and "penguin").

Yesterday for our *Family Home Morning activity we bought our pumpkins, and man he was so excited! Here he is, waiting in great anticipation...



This boy loves to go out on our front steps and look at the "beeg" (big) pumpkins. He can tell you which one is his (the smallest one), which one is Mama's (the medium one), and which one is Daddy's (the big one).

What fun it is to have kids around the holidays!



*Because of our family's schedule, we can't have Family Night on Monday nights. So, we decided to have "Family Home Morning" on Monday mornings. It has been so much fun and a real blessing in our lives.

Back before James was born, Jonathan and I were both in school and would get home late on Monday night, eat dinner, do homework and struggle to fit Family Night in because we were so tired and trying to do so many other things. We were in a Sunday School class one Sunday where we were discussing Family Home Evening, and somebody made a comment that totally changed our Family Nights. They said that one thing that had worked for them was to just designate the entire evening as family night, instead of just trying to fit it in and get it done and check it off the list.

We thought this sounded interesting, so we tried it. It turned Family Night from something we had to get done to something we really looked forward to! We decided that from the time we got home from school in the evenings (or from dinner time until we went to bed) it was family night. We didn't do any homework during that time, we just spent time together, until we went to bed. This helped to make it more of a priority, and, frankly, more of a party. It was almost like a second date night to look forward to.

Although it is hard sometimes, we try to do the same thing now. All morning long is family time, and we really look forward to it!

Are you kidding me??

...my child is in bed...willingly!! About 45 minutes ago (around 6:15) he started saying, "Bed?" I'd ask, "you want to go to bed?" and he'd respond, matter-of-factly, "Yeah!" Cool. There are NO complaints here. He had a bath, we read a book, sang some songs (which he sang along with - adorable!), I got him situated in his bed with a few books to read (he LOVES to read in bed for a little while before going to sleep), he reached up and voluntarily kissed me goodnight, I said "Love you!" and he said, "Vuv oo!" and that was that!

Sweet.

ems

Yesterday we watched a session of Conference and had dinner with my family. Before dinner, James discovered some M&M's in a bowl on the counter and just had to have some (and man were they delicious!).

When dinnertime rolled around, we were all talking up the delicious chicken pot pie to try to get him to try it (he doesn't realize how much he'd like things if he'd only give them a try!). After sitting there for a minute looking at his food (but not trying it), he looked up at me and said, "Ems?"

The kid wanted M&M's for dinner! And man he was convincing. He looked up at me with those big, beautiful eyes and the sweetest look on his face, and softly grabbed my hand with his little hand. With a sweet little sad voice he repeated over and over again..."Ems???"

Needless to say, I caved and he had a few ems with his dinner. BUT he DID lick the chicken pot pie, so we're makin' progress... :)

my clever boy

James has recently been getting good at using plural and possessive forms of words. Mama's bag, Jukie's car, etc., and my favorite plural one he has used is when is playing with lots of cars, he says "beep-beeps!" Pretty clever, I think.

Well, James loves to pretend that random things are telephones and hold them up to his ear and say hello. He learned it from my Dad, who will pick up almost anything (even the piano bench) and pretend like it is a telephone (which James thinks is hilarious and tries to copy). It's no wonder my child has such a great imagination.

Yesterday my boys were playing with James' farm animals from his Fisher-Price barn, and pretending they were phones. At one point, James held a farm animal up to each ear and said, "Hellos?" :)

best. job. ever.

I was just thinking how glad I am to be a mother. It is seriously the best job ever, I can't imagine doing anything else; nothing in the world would be more important to me (or to James). James and I are best buddies (along with Daddy, of course), and what is more fun than having your full-time job (yes, definitely full-time) be hanging out with your cute little buddy?

My "job description" includes duties such as these...

Feed the little man. Easier said than done, folks. Sometimes I think he'll turn into a giant graham cracker, because it seems like that is all he'll eat! Is that bad?

Kiss his owies when he gets hurt. This occurs almost daily. But once I kiss him, he's all better. Just like magic.

Change the diapers. Maybe not so enjoyable, but seriously, you get used to it after doing it for so long. Once he was grumpy and whining when I was trying to change him, so I threw the clean diaper high up in the air and caught it (one needs to be creative in times of desperation) and he just thought that was the funniest thing he'd ever seen. Now we must play this game during every diaper-changing session.

Clean up after him. Seriously, how can a kid's room get so messy so fast? Luckily he is getting to the point that he can do little jobs to "help" Mommy. Today he even helped me with the laundry. He carried two shirts (one at a time) from the dryer to the pile on Mommy's bed. Now if only he knew how to fold, then we'd be in business...

Run around and play together. One favorite game we like to play these days is that I try to take a picture of James, and he just runs and runs and laughs and laughs, because he won't stay still long enough (he's a tease like that). Then I, of course, have to run after him and tickle him until he runs again.

Run errands together. James loves to hold hands and "run run run!!" into the store or library. Sometimes we go for walks and chat about all the things we see - like pumpkins, or "bums" (speed bumps).

Read books. We love to read books together, and James will often bring a book to me and say "read!" And sometimes he likes to read all by himself, too. But even so, he is VERY insistent that I look at every page with him. Like if I try to read my OWN book (heaven forbid), or do anything, for that matter, it gets interrupted for every single page with a "Mama??" Once I comment on the picture I am off the hook...until he turns the next page, that is.

Teach him. Wow this is a big one. Despite the fact that as parents we must teach our kids everything, it's amazing how much they teach us. Or how much they do know that we don't realize they know. Or just how smart/clever they really are. Today James had his juice cup in his hand, and then not even ten minutes later it was nowhere to be found. I searched everywhere but couldn't find it, so I got him a new cup. Later in the afternoon, James ran into the kitchen, said "Juice!" and immediately opened up the bread maker, pulled out his juice cup from earlier and took a big drink. Guess he was saving it for later. What a smart boy.

Give him a bath. This is one of his most enjoyable times of day. He has come up with some fun games, such as lining all of his bath toys up on the edge of the tub, then one by one saying, "we - go! we - go! we -go!!" or "3 - 2 - 3 - 2 - 3!!!" and pushing each toy into the water. Splashing Mommy is also great times. My favorite part is when we let the water out, and he lays down on his tummy with his little bum in the air, waiting for "Mr. Tornado" to appear above the drain. Once he's there, James SMACKS him and waits for him to return.


Hug him, kiss him, sing to him, love him. Here's the fun part. Sometimes he freaks out when I start singing a certain song, because he knows bedtime is soon. But sometimes he just lays his head on my shoulder and listens. So cute. I love it how he kisses me on the lips before bed, and how he is learning to say his own prayers (with our help). And lately he just gives the best hugs.

I love my job!

October...

*sweaters
*new fall/winter wardrobes for growing boys!
*hot cocoa
*crunchy, colorful leaves
*boots
*general conference!! I can't wait...
*tacos & Doris Day movies with the girls during Priesthood session...
*Marie Callenders pies from the men after the Priesthood session...
*birthdays (ahem*yourstruly*ahem)
*carving pumpkins
*Halloween
*Halloween candy
*chilly nights
*secretly listening to Christmas music....

I am so excited that it's October! AND, I am having SO much fun taking pictures/photo editing....I really should go clean my kitchen....

Happy October!