...and he's off!

My 11 month old decided to turn the corner with the walking this week!  He's been taking steps here and there for about 6 or so weeks, but usually resorts to the Mowgli crawl after falling down on his bottom.  Not anymore!  He rarely is Mowgli crawling (which makes me sad because it is the cutest thing ever) and now is almost exclusively walking everywhere.  It is so adorable.

Laughing Uriah

My adorable ticklish little dude is sure to make you laugh, too!

Where are you going again?

Lacy's grandma has been talking to her about taking her to Leavenworth after she gets back from her mission in Germany. Lacy is very excited about that! But she's a little confused about where she's going.




Lemonwars. Yes, Lemonwars. Oh, and Turner's not going. Poor Turner.

And yes, that's a carrot she's eating. My kids take whole carrots out of the fridge and eat them, a la Bugs Bunny.

Her bags are packed, she's ready to go. Fortunately I'm still behind on laundry, so even though she put every single article of clothing that were in her drawers in her backpack, it wasn't too many!


Of course, books are of the upmost importance, so she took books with her. Especially since Grandma sold it to her with book reading while there! Good thing she didn't say anything about possibly seeing "Sound of Music," too!

Happy Birthday to my Love

Today is my husband's 31st birthday. Happy birthday to you! And a few pictures of him in celebration.

A few weeks old:
A few weeks after that:

This one reminds me so much of Rose. He's probably 1 or 2 here.
Another one around the same age:
Three or four years old, with a smile that he gave to Lacy:
And this one totally reminds me of Lacy when I look at it:
Age 8 at his baptism:

Dave was the Forest Festival King, aka Paul Bunion:
And pictures from today: reading to the girls, one of their favorite things to do together:

Whose birthday is it, anyway? We didn't want to go through the hassle of getting a burn permit, so we did 4 candles to represent "3" and "1."

Piano practice blog

Since one of my goals this year is to practice piano every day for approximately 1 hour, or at least as much as I can, I thought I would blog my practice. I'd like to do a daily blog to go over what I have worked on and what I learned during my practice sessions. For those who would like to see where I am, please visit my piano practice blog, See Mom Play! I'm looking forward to learning new works by great composers, re-polishing works that I once performed at recitals or began to learn but never finished, improving my technical ability, and increasing my knowledge of theory and music history.

Other goals for this year is to read the Doctrine and Covenants, go to bed at a reasonable time (whoops! Off to a bad start already), get up at a reasonable time, and keep the house reasonably tidy. It would also be nice if I could lose 20 pounds-- I can't believe I lost most of my baby weight and gained so much of it back! I have a personal rule for myself that I'm not allowed to get pregnant if I'm not back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. So I guess I have a few months at least before Dave and I start talking about babies again.

I set too many goals for myself last year and I failed miserably in so many areas that I really don't want to review my goals for 2008. I probably will anyway, but it's so depressing that I'm not sure I really want to for a while. Perhaps when I get my routine down this year and start making headway on my new goals for 2009 I can do that.

Happy New Year, everyone!

And with that, a video of my kids as monsters, from this evening. This was right before spiritual time, and I can say that the girls weren't very spiritual when we began reading scriptures just a few minutes after this was shot. Rose wouldn't repeat the words I asked her to, and Lacy made up movements to a song that is a sitting still song and struggled with reciting the articles of faith (we're working on #11 now!). Even the threat of a frowny face drawn upon her chore and attitude chart didn't get her to cooperate! She cried while she was doing what she was asked (mostly because she didn't get to watch "Elf" today like I said she could). With that... a note to self. Do not get the kids all riled up right before bed. But they were SO DARNED CUTE! They started acting like monsters after their bath when I was putting "tickle stuff" and "eye makeup" on them (that's our words for the topical steroids that they have to use for their rashes-- a stronger prescription for their bodies and a weaker one for sensitive areas like their eyelids, since steroids can weaken and thin the skin if used too much). I love the way they roar. Lacy just wants extreme close ups and Rose has trouble with instructions. As you will be able to tell right away.

Tinkerbell

When Rose sings Jingle Bells, it sounds like Tinkerbell. Rose has a bit of an obsession with Tinkerbell as of late, so this makes sense! Here's the little sprite singing "Tinkerbell."


And Lacy singing "Jingle Bells!"

One more... Rose Dancing

Video 3: Mostly, it's Rose dancing. Lacy also does some stretches with Rose in it, and Dave is talking toward the end. Dave didn't really know I was recording, so just ignore him and watch my darling girls.

My talented kids

I don't care what anybody else says-- my kids are the most talented children in the world. Rose will be my triple threat: she can sing and dance, and surely will be able to act based on her ability to deceive her parents at the tender age of two. She has great rhythem and is always tapping along to the music, in time, and it looks like she may have perfect pitch as well. Lacy will be the songwriter and is always making up songs or rewriting the lyrics to songs she already knows. She is an expert at memorization and can't wait to take violin lessons when she's five. As a musician myself, I am thrilled with how much my children love music. It comes so naturally to them. They will both take violin, I will teach them piano, and probably voice lessons when they get a little older, as well. We live in a great area for music and theater, so I'm excited for them to get old enough to participate in the local youth music and theater programs.

Video 1: Rose singing. I know it doesn't sound like much, but she sings like this all. the. time. And while it's just jibberish, it will eventually blossom into beautiful music.

Video 2: Lacy singing "Scripture Power." She knows the real lyrics, but altered them to her liking for this version of the song.