Thanksgiving in Utah

Thanksgiving in Utah

(click the picture to see the full album)

We thought we'd be really smart this year and buy our plane tickets to Utah early so we could get a good deal. One by one, members of the family ended up not being able to come. Then Julia started having complications with her pregnancy and so Mom went out to stay with her that week. In the end, the only people there were Dad and Tim & Julia. We were a little sad not to have the family reunion we'd planned for but ended up having a great time. We got more one-on-one time then we would have gotten and it was actually a very relaxing trip.

Mathew fell in love with the cat and spent 90% of the time running around finding "soft" and trying to pet him. We went swimming a lot and went on a fun hike in rock canyon. Tim & Julia have an awesome setup in the basement with their X-box hooked up to a projector tv. The kids loved the Bean measeum...Mathew went crazy and was yelling "soft" at the top of his lungs--he really wanted to pet all of the animals.

The girls had a great time with Grandpa--he read to them, sang a lot, decorated the tree together, told stories, and just hung out. Mathew loved hanging out with Grandpa--the are two peas in a pod.

We found a very yummy Mexican restaurant that we went to twice. We spent Thanksgiving day at Aunt Rosy's house up in Alpine. It was fun to see cousins I've not seen in a long time. The girls really enjoyed meeting new cousins and petting the horse.

We really missed seeing Mom--the timing was unfortunate but we understood that she was needed elsewhere. The airplane ride home was pretty painful. Mathew is no fun to ride on a plane with. I think for our family the balance between flying and driving may be shifting. The comfort of flying no longer out ways the benefits of dri

Ellie's B-Day

Ellie's Birthday was a lot of fun. She really feels so grown up. She also loved everything she got.
We had a party for her at the local park. And although we only invited 3 girls, it still seemed big because they all brought siblings. I stayed up all night trying to make this cake. My Mom gave me the coolest set for a castle case--it had 52 pieces. I used 3 cake mixes and it was still too small to use all the pieces. It definitely did not look like the picture on the box but the kids loved it.

2007.11.1 ellie bday

October

A few days after Sophie's Birthday Party, Matt went on a business trip to England and Australia for 2 weeks. I took advantage of the time to get a firm routine and start a parenting system called "Accountable Kids". The girls took to it well but I had to have all my ducks in a row and coax them through it every day. I would get the kids down early and then spend the evenings organizing and cleaning the house. I must say it's the most organized the house had been in a while.

Matt got home just in time for the ward Halloween party. It was so good to have him back. He brought lots of fun gifts back including a little Wambat which goes everywhere with Ellie. Sophie wanted to be Pocahontas and Ellie wanted to be the "Island Princess". I found Sophie's costume for 3 bucks at Savers but it was way too short so I supplemented with a skirt I made--I bought Indian type fabric. I couldn't get the sewing machine to work so I ended up sewing it by hand at the last minute.

Halloween night was so fun. We stayed in our neighborhood this year which was nice. The girls had so much fun and Mathew slept through the whole thing. It's amazing how much candy they got. Our neighbors sat outside to hand out candy for themselves and us to that was nice.

Sophie's bday

Yesterday was Sophie's Birthday. It started out with breakfast in bed. She opened Grandma/granddaddy Nuttall's and Kristy/James' presents. Then of course, marking her height on the wall was very important.

Matt was able to take a half day off of work and came to the class to have cupcakes and sing Happy Birthday. The teacher pulled me aside and told us that Sophie is an angel in class (I was very proud).

Then Matt went and picked up two kids from their schools so they could come to the party since their parents work. I took a girl home with us to take her to the party and we went to "Pump it up". I was a little late since it was a mad rush from the school. There were a lot more kids than I'd thought--a lot of extra siblings came so there were 31 people. Everyone had a great time. Matt had Mathew the whole time so I got to talk to the parents.

The cake got destroyed on the ride over but oh well overall it was fun. I decided we will have one party a year--alternating Ellie, Sophie and Mathew. On other years, we will just have 1 or 2 friends over to celebrate. We brought 4 kids home with us until their parents could pick them up so the party really didn't end til about 7:30. Then Sophie (and Ellie) opened the presents. We were all so tired afterwards and crashed.

Here are some pics...

Double click on this picture to see the slide show

Sophie's 6th Bday

Quick Trip to Eagar

Matt is going to be out of town for a while so Friday afternoon we decided to drop everything and take a quick trip to Eagar. October is our favorite time of the year there. It was super windy one of the days but we had a great time enjoying the colors and the pumpkins.

2007.10 Eagar trip

Weeks seem to be flying. It's finally cooled down so I'm starting to walk Sophie and Ellie to school. Mathew is obsessed with screaming...that's all he does. I'm really trying to wean him. I've tried before but failed I'm hoping it works this time.

We've found 2 scorpions in the last 4 days. Saturday, I almost stepped on one with my bare foot in the garage and then today we found a dead one at the bottom of the pool. We have black widows outside too that we keep finding. Oh well.

Mathew's first words

I took Mathew to the doctor's office on Wednesday and he is 95 percentile for his head size, 50th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight. The doctor told me I need to feed him more. He told me I needed to talk to him more to get him to start saying things so I've started to work on it more. Although it's been months since he's been imitating--for example, putting phones to his ear and saying "DAAaa" which basically means hello but he hasn't properly articulated any words. Well now he'll point to his eye and say "aaahhh" and point to the lights and say "aaaaahhhh". If I ask him to point to one of those things he does. Do those count as first words? He is constantly imitating what we do. He insists on eating what we are eating and will scream his lungs out if we dont give him his food on a plate and with utensils. He also plays with dolls and pretends to feed them with bottles--smacking his lips while he feeds them. He is probably better at picking up toys than Ellie. He'll go around and put toys in bins.

puff

There's a man that's been going to Sophie's school to talk about composers once a week--he also plays different instruments. Sophie has been fascinated with it and comes home describing in great detail everything he played and how it sounded. The first time she heard the violin she acting like she was overwhelmed with how beautiful it was. She is so articulate--she described the music so beautifully.

Last week the guy brought his guitar and taught them puff the magic dragon. Sophie came home and sang the whole thing to me. Then she proceeded to explain to me what the song meant--When she got to the part about the boy growing up, I could see tears welling up in her eyes. She was explaining that when kids grow up they don't have time to play with their toys and that Puff would never see his best friend again. The way she described it was so touching that it brought tears to my eyes too. Then she stopped and said..."Mom-- look at us, we're both crying about a song". We both laughed through our tears. It was such a tender moment, I wish I had her gift of description to better document it.

Running out of action

Ellie's new thing is she is constantly saying she is an "action girl". It is something she made up and it means she's a good girl. We were walking out to the car and it was really hot she started crying that she wanted me to carry her and she said she "ran out of action".

Sophie starts Kindergarden

Sophie started Kindergarten last week and I think it is going ok. She really misses preschool--her friends, the play time. Although she's getting along fine, I don't think she's connecting with many kids at school whereas last year she was such a leader. She does like her teacher so I'm hoping it'll just take a little time to make friends. In the meantime I hope her fire for school doesn't go out.


Sophie gave a talk on Sunday and did such an amazing job. She is really talented. She had a few drawings on a piece of paper to remind herself of the ideas but then spoke without any intervention. The primary president pulled me aside later and said she'd never seen anything like it. We are going to put the girls back in tennis. They seem excited about it and it seems like such a good sport for them to get into. They haven't asked about dance so as hard as it is for me to let that one go, I think I will try.

Last weekend we went down to Safford to visit the Hargis clans and had a blast. We went on a great hike and cought all sorts of wildlife: snakes, walking sticks, frogs, tadpoles, etc. There are 11 kids under 11 when you put them all together and the kids have so much fun together.

One positive thing about our new schedule is that I now get a lot more one on one time with Ellie. Last week she helped me unload the dishwasher every day(she's in charge of the bottles, sippy cups, etc). She folded the rags and helped me gather dirty laundry. We pretended we were hunters looking for tigers and we captured all the tigers and put them with their families (put dirty clothes in a hamper and sorted the colors). She had so much fun on the "hunt" that now tigers are her favorite animals.

Mathew started to wave a little. He usually does it while he's nursing. He also started doing little animal sounds--he roars like a tiger and whinnys like a horse. So now he's compartmentalized all of the animals into those two buckets--whinniers (more like a squeal) and growlers (more like a cat hiss). Elephants, monkeys, zebras area all on one side and bears, lions, dinosaurs are on the other. I didn't argue with him when he put the giraffes with the horses because I didn't have a better solution.

Tito's b-day

It was Mathew's birthday on Friday. We went to Chickfila for dinner because he loves playing with the balloons. He's starting to use his hand now even through the sock.

We went to see a specialist on Thursday and he says the finger is healing and we can take the stitches out next week. They took and x-ray and the bone is still in 2 pieces (split vertically). They can't tell how it's affected the growth plate on the bone. Worst case scenario is that the top bone in his finger doesn't grow or grows crooked.

Friday morning, the girls and I decorated a cake. I let the girls go wild and do whatever they wanted so we ended up with a valcano, waterfall and lots of toy dinosaurs. It looked so gross to Matt that he wouldn't even taste it. But it was fun for the girls and little Mathew (we're calling him "Tito" these days) just went along with it.

Mathew finds ways to still get in trouble even with his hand all bandaged up. He has one of those metal splints under all the bandages so he goes around banging it on everything. He doesn't seem to be in much pain-except for when we change the bandages.

We went to the science museum on Monday. We went to the demo on "The eye". They disected a cow eyeball and it was pretty gross. The girls were very interested and even wanted to touch it at the end of the show.

We saw the IMAX show--a 3d film about the Ocean. I'd forgotten how realistic those shows are. I was walking Mathew back and forth in the stroller and at one point I look back and Sophie and Ellie are standing up in their seats trying to grab the jellyfish. Sophie clapped her hands and yelled out--"I got one". She still swears she felt something so it was probably the lady's hair in front of her.

Welcome to boys

Monday morning I left Mathew in the play room while I went to get dressed. I soon heard a crash and screaming. I knew right away what it was. Mathew recently has been obsessed with climbing the chairs in the Kitchen. He'll hold on to the back of the chair and then start rocking back and forth as fast as possible before I get to him. Well this time I didn't get to him and when I walked in he was lying in a little pool of blood and I thought he'd cracked his head open. When I picked him up I saw that his finger was smashed and split open. He was hysterical so I couldn't even get a bandaid on. I called Matt and he came quickly and helped tape it up. I dropped the girls off at a friend's house and took him to the doctor's. The doctor taped it up again and sent me to the emergency room where we waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally they numbed his finger and gave him 3 stitches. The doctor said that the top bone in his finger was split in half (the long ways) and he would heal fine but it would really hurt for a while. We need to keep an eye on him the next few days to make sure he didn't suffer any head trauma since there is a bruise on his head but no bump.

His little fingers are so small it is nearly impossible to keep any sort of bandage on. He pulled it off 3 times yesterday and I was ready to tie his hand behind his back but a sock ended up working pretty well. Everyone keeps on saying "welcome to boys". Mathew has two sides to him, he's sweet and fun to play with but he is also a thrill seeker and fast. I was feeling so guilty all day yesterday--I can't believe that happened. But I also feel so blessed because I keep on playing the scenario over in my mind and I don't understand how he didn't crack his head open. When I saw him his finger was pinned under the chair and his arms are so short, I don't see how he didn't hit it harder when the chair crashed down.

Weekend in Eagar

We went up to Eagar on Friday and got back tonight (Sunday). We went on a long drive and saw 2 herds of wild horses, Elk and wild Turkeys. Here are the wild horses.

We went to a Pioneer day party. Mathew loves to scream until he gets what he wants.

The kids were in heaven.

These past 2 weeks have been a lot of fun. Last weekend we spontaneously decided to go up to Eagar. So we left Saturday (on the road 1 hour after deciding to leave) and got back Sunday night. It was a short but fun trip.

The kids finished up their tennis lessons Mon-Thurs and then Mom flew in Thursday afternoon. She brought a really fun game called Slamwhich and we all played that night. Friday we spent most of the day cooking a big Turkish meal--very yummy. Saturday Morning we all went to see Ratatouille which was hilarious. When Matt and all 3 kids went down for a nap I started showing my Mom the research I'd done on Puerto Penasco houses for the family reunion next year. It's difficult to see what the houses are really like on the web so we started talking about how we wished we could go see them. Matt said he could take Monday off so we decided to pack up right then and head off to Mexico. In less than 90 minutes we were on the road in 2 cars driving to Mexico. It really was fun. You can't go to Mexico without and adventure and this was definitely an adventure. They must have changed the main road there because Matt and I kept going down the main street the wrong way..it was completely not intuitive. We spent most of the time looking at houses and Matt took the kids to get hermit crabs on the beach. There were a lot of jelly fish out so they didn't really get in the water much. At night we went on the roof to see the sunset/look at stars or walked on the beach and then played Slamwhich and loteria. The kids were in heaven.

This is the acquarium; a very up-and close experience. Sometimes too close.

Sleep training

This week was awful--sleep training with Mathew was very hard. Last night we let him cry for over 2 hours. He did the same this morning for nap time. Afternoon nap he cried for 10 minutes and same tonight when I put him down. I'm hoping there's light at the end of this tunnel. Next time I hope someone reminds me to start earlier. Mathew is at such a cute stage. I wish I could bottle up the cuteness. I feel such a bond with him and feel like there is so much communication between us. He started to enjoy books this weekend and also likes music. He loves playing with his sisters. Matt has been dunking his head in the pool and he doesn't mind.

Recital

Last weekend was the girl's recital. Ellie danced (tap) to a Shirley Temple song "Baby take a bow" and Sophie danced "Shake a tail feather" (jazz) and "Orange colored sky) (tap). We got a babysitter so that we could actually watch the show and it was so cute. Poor baby sitter, Mathew cried the full 3 hours we were gone. Sophie and Ellie did such a good job at the recital--I was proud. After the show, Ellie told the babysitter that she just had her recital and she won.In a way it's true because she really did steal the show. There is something about Ellie's personality that is that captivating. She definitely has a mind of her own and it shows. I had dozens of people come up to me and tell me how absolutely darling Ellie was. Sophie did excellent--she truly puts her all into things and I'm so proud of her. I couldn't believe how brave the girls were to just go back stage with the teacher before the show. Other girls were crying, etc but these girls were just excited.

Sophie's been in a Kindergarten prep camp at the school so I signed up Ellie for swimming. I put her in level 2 mostly because that was the only class open, however, she really has never swam by herself without floaties. Then I told Matt we needed to get her ready for it so we we took the floaties off and she is a fish. She can swim half way across the pool--over or under water. In the shallower part of the pool, she can dive down and pick up rings by herself. After her second swim class, her teacher told me she thought Ellie should move down to level I because "the other kids felt comfortable putting their heads under water"--I just about fell over. I ended up just pulling Ellie out of the class because the water was freezing and Ellie didn't want to do anything. We have been going to the movies with Ellie's friend Summer on Wednesday mornings (see Ellie and Summer above). They are quite a pair.

We took the training wheels off of the girls bikes and have been giving that a try on the grass. There is this low hill that is perfect to give them the momentum to stay up.

Mathew's officially walking now. He's been taking more and more steps everyday but now he almost prefers it to crawling so I think it's official. It's odd that he is walking and not sleeping through the night. This week I decided to bite the bullet and work on sleep training. He was used to sleeping in our bed and nursing all night so I knew this was going to be a long process. On Monday night I was up all night with him. My goal was not to let him nurse all night. I did give him a bottle but it was a struggle just to get him not to nurse. Tuesday I switched from giving him a bottle with milk to a bottle with water. Last night (Wednesday) he slept from 9:30 to 4:00am!! That is a record! At 4am I didn't even give him water, I just rocked him and got him back to sleep. I've tried sleep training with him so many times and it's never worked. This time was so different, it's like he has matured so much. He never responded to patting before and now it totally works.

I've been working with Mathew on Patti-cake for a while and today he got it--it's so cute. The only problem is that whenever he wants attention he starts doing it and I can't resist but go play with him. I'm never going to get anything done. Today I broke down and went to buy a gate. It's one of those really long ones that you can arrange any way you want. I moved it about 5 times because he just gets into everything--I can't decide what is priority to keep him out of.

Sam and Sheila were in Phoenix a few weeks ago and spent the night on Friday night. They were going to babysit for us while we went to the temple. We got up in time to make the 6am session Saturday morning but as we were going out the door I couldn't find my recommend.

Mathew's first steps

Mathew took a few steps during church last Sunday and totally caught Matt and I off guard. I think he did it by accident but he's been working on it all week and will probably be walking in the next few weeks.

Eagar

We went on a weekend trip to Eagar and had a great time. It had been so long since we'd been up there and it looked beautiful. We got to ride horses and Sam even showed Sophie how to ride by herself. She did great although probably had a little too much confidence. We were there for an irrigation day and it just reminded me of how much work it is to keep everything up. Jo has a beautiful Raspberry patch and is planting a huge strawberry patch too. We've been battling Ellie's asthma/allergy situation for so long and it completely went away up there which was such a relief. The girls dressed up as cowgirls and really felt like they ruled the town--maybe even a little too spoiled, but they had fun.
Mathew is such a busy body. He's not interested in any age-appropriate toys but is consistently wanting to get into mischief. He still is not much interested in solids or the bottle but will eat dirt out of the flower pots and sand from the park.

I spoke to Ann Christensen from iNation and they officially didn't get the funding they needed so I will not be doing anymore project work. In a way I'm glad because now I can get more sleep but it was a nice source of extra income.

Back from the cruise

I'm kind of going through withdrawals after the cruise. It was so fun to see everyone and we had such a wonderful time. Here are our pictures...

(you have to double click on the picture to see the whole album)

2007.4.29 cruise

Some highlights were:

• Having an adults only dinner with all of the brothers and sisters
• Kids dancing and singing at 'high school musical party'
• Beaches--nasau and castaway cay
• Time to relax and watch movies
• For the girls: seeing the princesses and playing in the kids club
• Baby races with Aaron and Mathew

After the cruise, we spent a few days at a great resort in Orlando. It was very cool. Dave rented jet skies and a fishing pole. The pools were perfect and the rooms were huge.

Disneyworld was fun but tiring. The girls had fun on the rides --Buz lightyear was a favorite. Sophie got really scared on Spacemountain and Matt just about broke his back trying to comfort her from the seat in back.

I could go on and on but the whole vacation was really great--it's going to be hard to beat that one!

I feel like last week totally escaped me. Ellie and Mathew were both very sick all week and Sophie, Matt and I have been borderline sick. On top of that, some friends of ours dropped off their 4 year old for 3 nights while they went on a trip to Prague and we also had friends to dinner on Sunday. This is way too much excitement for me in one week. I guess it wouldn't have been that bad if I could get a full night sleep (or even a half a night would be nice). Ellie had a fever 5 nights in a row. The first night she was delirious and singing YMCA all night. I'm worried about Ellie though because she goes into these coughing attacks and it doesn't seem like the medicine is helping--I've been giving her 4 breathing treatments a day. I'm starting to wonder if she just puts the machine in her mouth and inhales through her nose so she doesn't actually breath the stuff in. She is one head-strong girl and it's hard to figure out what she's doing.

Mathew is starting to feel better now and is coming back full speed. He is now cruising very comfortably and goes around trying out every piece of furniture to see if he can use it as a walker to get around. Chairs seem to be the vehicles of choice. This morning he discovered the water cooler and we are in trouble. He is obsessed. We may need to put it on top of the counter until he gets over this. He is such a flirt and those blue eyes just captivate anyone that walks by.

Yard Sale

(Matt) I noticed our neighbors were having a yarda this morning so I threw a couple of items that had been clogging our garage on the driveway to see if we could make a quick sale. Sophia came out to help and b/c nobody was stopping wanted to reduce everything to 20 cents. Ellie came out to help to and started pulling out their bicycles. I told her to put them back in the garage but then all of a sudden people started stopping to ask about the bikes so we were onto something...after a few sales, Sophia came out with rags and started wiping everything down. I told her that we could buy Barbie Fairytopia Magic of the Rainbow if we sold enough or maybe download it...tonight in her prayers she said she was grateful that we could download the Barbie movie.

In our nightly ritual of bargaining before going to bed, Sophia took a stand recently and declared, "Dad, no more putting limitations on me to try and get me to go to bed."

Ellie loves us in her heart and must have a dress on at all times.

(Lara) Today while I was at the gym, Sophie called me frantically saying that nobody was buying the things at the yard sale and that we needed to put everything on sale.

Ellie has been completely obsessed with princesses for a few weeks now. We have non stop debates about what princesses do and don't do. First of all, she completely refuses to wear pants because "princesses don't wear pants". I've tried to convince her that they do but I have no proof. I thought one of our princess books had a picture of Belle in her pijamas with some long bloomers on so I've been searching everywhere to find the evidence. I was talking to Julie and she reminded me that Jasmine wears pants---I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. When I brought it up with Ellie, she thought about it and said OK, I'll be Jasmine but you need to put my hair in 5 pony tails like hers. Now she's even becoming more particular about the dresses she wears. She only wants to wear dresses that twirl or " turn around" as she puts it. She also only likes to wear "tap shoes" which are any shoes that make noise when she walks (usually church shoes).

Last Sunday at church I was reminding her to wipe her bottom after she'd gone potty. I told her "That's your special bottom and you need to keep it clean." She got the funniest look on her face and said "My bottom is special?". I said yes. She stood there thinking about it and said "you mean God made my bottom?". I said yes and she got so excited and started telling people around us that her bottom is special.

Matthew's taken huge strides this weekend. He's scooting a little and starting to rock back and forth on his knees. He also actually ate his oatmeal and peas tonight.

Here are a few pictures from a special Dad's day at the preschool and the Chinese Festival we went to when Timo and Julia were here.

(you need to click on this picture to see the album)

2007_3_1 Daddys day at La Casa

Limitations

Last night Sophie was trying to stall bedtime with requests. Matt kept on telling her to go to bed and Sophie said "Stop putting limitations on what I'm asking for".

First Tooth

Mathew got his first tooth yesterday. He's been so fussy recently and waking up consistently during the night. Now I'm hoping this is the reason. Ellie hasn't been to school in a week. She doesn't act like she feels sick but her cough is deep and the doctor prescribed breathing treatments so it doesn't turn into pneumonia. Timo and Julia came down to visit from Utah for Presidents Day weekend. We went to China Town, the Zoo, played X-Box and Acquire, and picked lemons. It was fun to see them and we had a great time.

This morning I was tryng to brush my teeth while holding Mathew. Just as I squeezed the toothpaste out he lunged forward and ate it right off the tube. I tried getting it out of his mouth but the weird thing is he really liked it... this is just minutes after he was gagging over his gerber carrots.

The weather is starting to warm up so I've been able to use the stroller again. The vegetable garden has really started to take off too. I thought I'd lost it all in the frost but everything seems to be doing fine.

Sunday was my day to do the lesson in Relief Society. I stayed up til 2:30 am finalizing everything and then in the end there were so many announcements they left me with less than 15 minutes to give the lesson. I ended up sharing less than 2 of the 8 pages I'd prepared.

Jan 21

I developed the film from an underwater camera we were playing around with last summer...here are a few pics.


The last few weeks have been so cold. It's been freezing almost every night here--we are still not sure if any of our plants will survive this. We had just planted our beautiful vegetable garden too and it's lost. It even snowed by our house today..of course it didn't stick but we've never had it snow at our house before.

The latest dilemma that consumes my time is choosing which ballet class to put the girls in. I wanted to have them in class at the same time but it looks like that's not going to work. There are so many activities to choose from.

Mathew started this new laugh that literally sounds like a donkey, I'm not quite sure what to think of it. I think he's still not feeling well because he's crying a lot and arching his back and pulling on his ears. I took him in to the doctor and the doctor said there was nothing though.

The girls are still enjoying Mathew but he's starting to fight back a little--he's become and expert hair puller. The girls aren't quite sure what to think now that they are realizing he is not a toy doll to play with on their terms.

Ellie has been dressed up as a princess probably 90% of her time at home. She's really wants to go everywhere in her dress ups but that's where I draw the line.

I gave my RS lesson today--it went OK. The topic was somber (Death and Tragedy) but relevant considering there was a triple shooting this weekend just 2 miles from here and lots of people knew them (a man killed himself and 2 kids).

First Sunday back from vacation

We had such a wonderful vacation in Utah. We are slowly trying to return to a normal routine. But we definitely miss being with the family. Here are some pictures from the Holidays (click on picture below to see album).

Starred Photos

Today was Ellie's first day in the Primary. It was so fun watching her actually sit in her chair and behave. She was very excited to be in with the big kids and Sophie was cheering her on the whole time. This morning she made up a song to the tune of the little mermaid's "part of your world" song saying "now your a big girl". Sophie gave a talk today too and did a superb job-- her sincerity was so compelling. I had a few people come up to me and say it was one of the best talks on faith they had heard. I put the ideas on paper but she came up with the ideas.

Mathew rolled over for the first time yesterday and now acts like he's been doing it for months. He's still not sleeping through the night. I've been in denial about it for a while so I'm starting to do battle. I started giving him a few solids--rice cereal, carrots, etc but it's not helping in the sleeping department.

They called me to be a teacher in the Relief Society. I'll be teaching on the 3rd Sundays from the Spencer W. Kimball book. It's a bit intimidating because the women are quite educated and articulate but I know this is not a competition. I'm grateful to have something that compels me to hit the books again though and it's only every 3 weeks so it shouldn't be too overwhelming.