Katie and Elayna

I found this picture on my phone. It was taken in August. Elayna and I were in the shade of the tree, because it was so hot. And this is what Katie was wearing:


Katie asked for Ramen for dinner last night. But as she told me, "You make the noodles great, but the sauce is not so great. Daddy makes really great sauce." Ryan puts all sorts of spices in the broth, and I just open the little package that comes with the noodles. I'm happy though. That means Ryan can be in charge of a meal or two each week, if Katie wants to eat it.

My mom was reading a story to Katie about Santa Claus. Mom asked Katie, "Is Santa going to bring you a present?" I guess Katie just laughed and said, "no". She thought it was a joke.
Since then, she has learned that he should be bringing her presents, and gets upset if we tell her he isn't. I don't even know where she learned any of this stuff!

Ryan has an aunt that we call Mickie. Katie was telling me about Mickey Mouse (I can't remember why? a movie, or a story?) and she said, "not our Mickie. Another Mickey." Then I said, "Mickey Mouse?" and she seemed relieved to know that I figured it out.


The girls have lots of fun in the tub. I usually let them just play in there while I do stuff on the computer or cook dinner. (I'm always within ear-shot) Katie was calling for me to come see them. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles. A kid's best friend.



I was "resting my eyes" on the couch downstairs. Elayna kept whining about something, so I finally turned around to figure out what the problem was. She was stuck, and couldn't get down. She had climbed up there all by herself. Notice how far away the chairs seem to be. I don't know if she pushed them away while she was climbing, or what. It is just a funny picture:


Elayna never crawls anymore. She's running and chasing Katie all over. Those girls have so much fun together.

I told Elayna her bottle was under her bed, then asked her if she would go get it. She crouched down, saw it was there, shimmied on her tummy till she could reach it, and brought it to me. I think that is the first time I recall her following instructions that were more than one step.
I was braiding Katie's hair, and she sneezed (or "blessed you", as she says). We told Elayna to go get a tissue, and she headed into the bathroom and pulled the toilet paper off until it was all off. (thankfully the roll was almost gone) Then she brought the paper to Katie.
She is getting better about coming when we call, or not doing something when we tell her no. She will cry for me, and I'll tell her "I'm in the living room", or wherever, and she will come find me. It is amazing how children learn and grow every day.

Snow pictures

This is Katie playing in the snow:

This is Elayna playing in her car, in the snow:

This is Katie hiding in the leaves:

This is Katie after a finger painting experience. Note the "lipstick":


Katie is so incredibly obedient and sweet. Most of the time. She also throws intensely horrible fits.

Elayna is a definite climber, she opens doors, she wants to be outside all the time. I'm sure she has pulled over more things than Katie even knew existed at her age. I'm sure most of it is because Katie only saw what Ryan and I interacted with. Elayna sees what all 3 of us see, plus anything within her reach that she thinks should be pulled on.

Katie keeps finding and giving me pennies. (probably the same ones, over and over.) Then, when we go shopping and I tell her we don't have the money for it, she says, "I gave you money! You have lots of money!"

Elayna loves to suck on lotion containers. The pump kind, tubes, flip lids, etc. I have also found her sucking on the pump of our soap. I guess she must like the scent, and figures the stuff inside should taste the same.

Friday nights are movie night. Ryan got some new animated Justice League Unlimited shows (cartoons of heroes, for those unschooled in the world of comics) that we were watching. Elayna has never been much of a movie watcher, but she likes to play downstairs while we watch. Last Friday, she wandered upstairs and shut the door. That left her upstairs, in the dark, all by herself. After we heard her screaming, Ryan went and opened the door for her. Next, I heard some thumps and went to investigate. She had pulled the nipple of her bottle off the towel where it was drying. She was whining and grumbling as best as she could while sucking on it. She was headed towards the stairs to come get me, I assume. Poor thing. I felt bad that she had to go find her own bottle before I would put her in bed.

We had a great Thanksgiving. We had a leisurely morning, then went up to Provo to have dinner at Mickie's house. Delicious food, as always. They started getting out the pies before we could leave, so we had to have some of their desserts. Then we went back to Santaquin to my parent's home and had even more dessert. It was a great day. We love being able to spend so much time with our families.

We set up some Christmas decorations yesterday. Ryan put up lots of lights. I think the girls had lots of fun with it. It is fun to think of doing our own traditions now. My Mom always made Christmas Punch. Ryan remembers listening to "John Denver and the Muppets" Christmas songs. He remembers listening to that record and a Disney record while setting up Christmas at his house. We are going to try and come up with some traditions that our girls will remember. I was thinking we needed some special food that we ate after decorating. Because food is always good.

Update on Marissa and Ryan

I'm overwhelming myself with projects:

-Starting both girls' baby books, (wanting to have them finished before Christmas, because that is a good cut-off date)
-trying to organize my actual photos (since I've never really done it before, and it was confusing trying to find baby pictures of the girls)
-trying to organize, print, and/or upload digital pictures
-wanting to print blog books out for Christmas (not going to happen this year)
-I've gone through most of my desk, papers, and folders. Recycling old papers, filing things to keep, putting all photos together.
-labeling and identifying blog posts for future reference
-coloring paper dolls for Katie
-trying to get ready for Christmas
-7 sewing projects for Christmas

I don't think I've really made any headway on most of these things. My office is now relatively organized, but doing that just gave me more ideas of what I need to do.

Looking at this list, I'm definitely going to have to focus on Christmas stuff first, then work on baby books in those blah months until I can work outside again.

Alisha was here for about 2 weeks at the end of October. That was really fun to see her and her son. We tried to spend as much time with them as possible.

I'm running or exercising at least 3 days a week. I try to run outside with my mom on the warmer days, but I think those are over. Luckily, Mom and Dad have a treadmill, and an Elliptical, so I will still get my exercise in.

I'm a couple of pounds below my pre-Elayna weight. (Now Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years will help ruin that.) But I feel good, and some days I even have enough energy to really play and dance with the girls for more than half and hour.

Our Ward Primary Program was a couple of weeks ago. I'm the pianist, and I was pretty nervous about it. But, I made some mistakes, and the children kept singing, and nobody told me how awful I did. In fact, I was thanked and complimented, so it was good. I still really enjoy the calling.

Ryan got called to be a Sunday School teacher to the 16-17 year olds. I think he is excited about it. He is a really good teacher, and he will be a great influence on these kids.

Ryan's work is still great. He is a wonderful asset to the company, and he enjoys what he does. He's still working at Rocky Mountain ATV/MC in Payson.

Ryan's week usually includes all of the following:

-teaching Jerry a computer language
-hanging out with Derek
-have a date with Marissa
-watch movies with Matthew
-watch sitcoms on DVD with Marissa
-laundry (that's right. He does all the laundry. How lucky am I?)
-play computer games
-look for new toys to buy
-box up stuff for eBay sellings
-unpack stuff from eBay purchases
-other misc stuff that he does at night while I'm sleeping


He gets home each night at about 6:30, and we eat and play with the girls until about 7:30. After the girls are asleep, we might do something together, or he will do some of his activities while I work on my projects.

He also comes home almost everyday to have lunch with us. It really breaks up my day, and gives the girls another chance to see him.

He is great about spending time with us as a family. He doesn't spend any time on himself while I'm awake unless he's with Derek on Tuesdays or we are doing our separate things.

He also has every other Friday off, which gives us long weekends twice a month. It is so wonderful to be able to spend our weekends relaxing together and playing with the girls. We might not always get everything accomplished that we wanted to do, but we enjoy the tickling, wrestling, teasing, fighting, watching movies, taking naps, and just plain old fun that we have instead.

I'm very grateful that Ryan is so devoted to our family.

Katie-isms

Irma bought a clown wig in the after-Halloween sales. Katie, for some unknown reason, decided she needed to frown for the picture:


Elayna, on the other hand, loved the wig, and it shows:


I told Katie that we needed to go Visiting Teaching, and she said she would just stay home. I told her I couldn't leave her home alone, and she told me she would watch Elayna. I said she needed to come with me. Then she said, "Grandma Irma leaves Matthew at home." (Matthew just got home from his mission. He's 21 years old.) I started laughing and told Katie that Matthew was an adult, and when she was an adult, she could stay home and watch Elayna while I went Visiting Teaching.

Katie was throwing a fit at my parent's house. I put her in a room and shut the door. Soon I heard her yelling, "Mom! I always love you mom!" and crying her heart out.

Irma is trying to teach Katie some Spanish. (It would probably go smoother if I knew some Spanish and reinforced the lessons at home.) Whenever Irma or Jerry wash Katie's hands and mouth after eating, this is what they say, "Mano, otra mano, bocca." Meaning, "hand, other hand, mouth". The other day Katie was asking me, "Is this hand mano, or otra mano?" She thought one of the hands was actually named "other hand".

Elayna is speaking more and more. This week she started to say "Toast", "Ba Ma!" for Batman, "Ba Ba" for bottle, "Ba Pa" for Grandma or Grandpa, "Pu pa" for purple (which can mean any color, right now), and recognizes that colors are different and have different names. She also mimics the sounds we make when we speak.

Halloween 2009

My parents have a great Halloween setup. They have a "fish pond" off the balcony:



The "hair" the girls got from fishing:


Eating donuts off a string:


An Obstacle course with crawling:


And jumping, balancing, climbing, sliding:


Also cousins and pizza!:


My parents put a lot of effort into these activities, and the kids all love it!

Thank you to Naomi for providing these pictures. I was very upset when I realized that I forgot the camera for the other half of Halloween; bowling with the Bowman family!

We ate at a new Mexican place in Payson, which Ryan and I weren't terribly impressed with, but the food was really good. Then we went to the bowling place, also in Payson. Katie and Elayna wanted to spend most of the time playing with the computer that inputs the names and scores. Katie was pretty good at getting the ball to knock down some pins, especially after we found a ramp thing that she could put the ball on, then push it onto the runway. (I saw the ramp in Mike and Kristine's videos, so when I saw something similar leaning against the wall, I was excited.) Of course, Katie was very specific that she needed a pink ball. She refused the lightest ball they had, even though it was a reddish pink instead of pink pink.
Katie was ahead most of the time, but Ryan and Jerry won in the end. We had a lot of fun with them, and we were pretty exhausted by the time the day was over.


Ryan also had a birthday in October. I think he enjoyed the day.
My mother was asking what Katie was going to give Ryan for his birthday. Katie's response was, "Maybe I could give him one of my toys that I don't want anymore?"

She actually ended up giving him a Depeche Mode pin from his present he got back in April for Father's Day, his birthday, and a little bit of Christmas. (It was a deluxe set, and cost a lot.)

We love him so much! Happy Birthday Ryan! (pretend this was written 3 weeks ago, okay?)