Nap? Time

Sophie learned how to go from a laying/crawling position up to a sit this week. Today, she practiced it instead of taking a nap. This is how I found her 15 minutes after putting her down this afternoon.

And here she is thinking she's so clever.

She also learned this week how to use one of her toys to pull herself to a stand. Previously, she could only do that holding onto our hands. I think she'd be able to do that in her crib too, if she were in her regular crib instead of a pack-n-play right now.

She's getting so smart and strong. And sleepy. That whole sitting thing was just too cool for her, and she couldn't figure out how to fall asleep for an hour and a half after that.

Nothing New

Nothing much has been going on here at Nana & Grandpa's house. Sophie & I are enjoying a lazy summer, and Jake is busy earning an income for our family. He's practicing his lawyer skills so that next summer he can get a real lawyering job.

Sophie no longer understands how to sit still. I know I've said that before, but man, she is always on the go. She still hasn't figured out how to crawl - I'll let you know when she does.

Babyproofing Nana's Basement

As you may or may not know, our family has moved into my parents' basement for the summer. Jake got a summer clerkship nearby, so we packed up our lives and left our house behind. We'll go back to it for another year of law school, but for the summer, we're in Nana & Grandpa's basement.

Nana & Grandpa's basement is not quite ready for a crawler. I started babyproofing last week, and had to rid the basement of the regular stuff you'd want to get rid of once your baby starts moving (among other things):


~ a mousetrap
~ a metal can crusher
~ 3 railroad nails
~ 2 old-fashioned irons
~ an ax
~ a bailing hook (close-up picture below)


You find these sort of things in anyone's house, right?


In other news, Sophie is all business today in her sunglasses.

A Computer Upgrade

In an effort to try to improve Sophie's typing skills, we upgraded her keyboard. We are seeing dramatic results.

Almost on the Move

This little girl cannot sit still. If I sit her on the ground, she immediately moves to her hands and knees. She can't do much in that position, but oh, she wants to.



She rocks back and forth, and if she's motivated enough (i.e. if there's a remote or a cat nearby) she will lunge for it. She's also good at getting to where she wants to go using a complicated series of rolls, scoots, twists, and pivots. It's quite impressive.

It's time to baby-proof.

Journal Jar #12: My Testimony

Thank you for all of your patience during my blogger break. We moved last Monday, and we're still getting settled in. More on that later. To answer a comment question, this Journal Jar was something that my church's young women made during an activity to promote journal writing. I thought I would set an example for them and use mine weekly.

What Can I Do To Strengthen My Testimony?

I believe that a testimony of the church is a very personal thing. I feel my testimony is the strongest when I am doing things on my own to strengthen it, namely: reading my scriptures and praying daily. If I don't have the motivation to do these things by myself, I sometimes feel like I am just along for the ride, and not being as uplifted as I could be.

Journal Jar #11: Mothers & Wives

What kind of mother/wife do I want to be?

(This is seriously the question I randomly drew today.
How appropriate for Mother's Day, huh?)

• I hope to be a mother that my kids can talk to, no matter what.
• I hope to be a mother that celebrates little things.
• I hope to be a mother that takes time for fun.
• I hope to be a mother that recognizes when my kids aren't happy, or when they're struggling.
• I hope to be a mother that can laugh every day.
• I hope to be a mother that hugs my kids and tells them that I love them every day.
• I hope to be a mother that teaches my children about responsibility and morality.
• I hope to be a mother that kisses young kids' wounds, and helps to heal the teenaged ones too.
• I hope to be a mother that attends all the recitals, games, shows, competitions, etc., and the mother that is her child's biggest fan.
• I hope to be a mother that recognizes & honors kids' special days.
• I hope to be a mother that shows my children the importance of education and learning.
  
• I hope to be the mother that my daughters want to be when they grow up, and that my sons want to find in a wife.

• I hope to be a wife that shows my husband I love him through my actions daily.
• I hope to be a wife that hugs my husband and tells him that I love him every day.
• I hope to be a wife that always has an ear to listen.
• I hope to be a wife that shows patience and love while my husband provides for our family.
• I hope to be a wife that my husband finds attractive years and years from now.
• I hope to be a wife that remembers to do little, sometimes unnoticed actions to keep our house in order.
• I hope to be a wife that takes the time to impress my husband once in a while.
• I hope to be a wife that laughs every day.
  
• I hope to be the wife that my husband has always wanted.

Our Family of Quails

This morning, Jake noticed a little family of quails living in our side yard. The babies are only about 2 inches tall. We tried to get a good look, but those little suckers are fast on their feet, so we let them be.

Then this afternoon, Jake heard them all chirping from the nursery, so I looked out the window (And what did I see?) and saw the dad quail and the mom quail, and the mom quail had 2 little babies following her wherever she went. "Oh cute! 2 babies!" I said.

"Oh wait. 3. 4. 5 baby quails!"

"6."

"7! Jake did you see all of them?" I exclaimed, as more and more came out from hiding. I took a reacount. There were SEVEN. And just as I finished couning, numbers 8, 9, 10, and 11 came out too. That's as far as I got. There could be a hundred for all I know (our yard is pretty overgrown on the side.)

Taking a picture was hard, because they're all so fast, and they scatter when they're scared. So I couldn't get close. I included arrows though, to try to help.

As I came close, they all ran through a hole in our fence, and then out of the brush came a bunny, who ran too. The mom & dad quails flew to the top of the fence, conversed for a while about what to do about me watching them, and then flew away. Hopefully they didn't abandon the 11 little ones forever. It sounded like they came back though.

At least our overgrown garden is growing something this year.

Baby Doll

On Saturday night, we were invited to a party hosted by a couple from our church. The husband was graduating from medical school, so they were celebrating with some people from his school and from church. It started at 6:30, and we had a great time. There was a lot of food, a lot of little kids running around, and they even ordered "the fight" on pay-per-view. (We're not in to boxing, but we thought it was entertaining).

Since Sophie likes to go to bed at 7, she naturally became a little restless at about 7:30. I took her to one of the kids' bedrooms, and found a toddler bed. It had rails on 3 sides, so I padded all 4 edges with pillows to create a crib. She was pretty tired, so I wasn't worried about her trying to roll off or anything. I gave her a blanket, sang her a song, and then left her alone to fall alseep. As I was leaving the room, I passed by some girls running down the hall, so I asked them to stay out of that room, and showed them the sleeping baby.

I checked on her about 10 minutes later, and she was sleeping peacefully. Jake and I alternated checking on her about every 10-15 minutes, and all was well.

After she had been asleep for about an hour, I went in again to check on her. To my surprise, I noticed that her door had been closed completely. I thought that was a good thing, so that no one would disturb her. I opened the door, and saw 2 little girls hovering over Sophie's bed (different girls than before). One of them was cradling a large doll or stuffed animal in her arms-it was about 1/2 her size. As my eyes adjusted better to the dark, I noticed that the stuffed animal had on the exact same pair of pajamas that Sophie had on.

This little 4-year-old girl was HOLDING Sophie.

Girl: Oh, hi (sets Sophie back on the bed). We were taking care of her.
Me: (in complete shock, but trying to act cool) Uh-huh.
Girl: She was afraid of the dark.
Me: (Thinking to myself, no, she was asleep in the dark) OK. Thanks.

So I picked up Sophie, who was just taking all of this in, and took her back to the main room. The whole time I was just thinking that it's a good thing she was so sleepy. What if she had gotten scared or uncomfortable, and arched her back or flailed her arms while the girl was holding her? What if she was too heavy and the girl let her slip out of her arms?

Needless to say, she spent the rest of the evening hanging out with us, and then fell asleep on the car ride home. Quite the excitement for our little baby doll.

Journal Jar #10: Dreams

What is the weirdest dream I've ever had?

I'm going to tell about 2 dreams, because I have an all-time weird one, and one that just happened last week, that I think you'll all enjoy.

1. When Jake and I were first married, I had a dream that I was on The Bachelor TV show, and Jake was the bachelor. This dream seemed SOOOO real to me. It was down to just me and one other girl, and I was pretty scared that Jake wasn't going to pick me. I remember in my dream calling my cousin Robin, to see what I should do. She had been watching the show, and she said that it seemed like Jake was going to pick the other girl. I think in the dream I even saw him kissing her. It made me so sick to my stomach. When I woke up, I was totally crying, and I wouldn't talk to Jake. I told him about the dream, but even after that, I was still mad at him for a couple days. Jake didn't think that was fair, but I didn't think it was right for him to go around kissing other girls in front of me.

2. About a week ago, I had a dream that Jake and I were with a lady and her daughter. The daughter was about 4 years old, and they were telling us about their vacation. They had gone to some place like Disneyland, and at this park, there was a Hansel and Gretel witch cottage made of real candy that you could really eat. Here's how my dream went:

Mom: (in a sing-songy voice, talking to her daughter) Where did we go today?
Girl: To the candy house!
Mom: And we got to eat some of it, and see the evil witch.
Girl: (very excitedly) Yeah!!! KILL THAT STUPID BI%*#!!!!!

(she accidently got her word mixed up.) Jake and I were laughing so hard in the dream, and I woke up from that dream with laughing tears in my eyes.

So what about you? What are some weird, funny or scary dreams that you had?

What in the World?

We discovered this about Sophie today.

Yes. It is a tooth on the top. No, it's not one of the middle teeth. We just discovered it today, and we have no idea where it came from. Except heaven.

It's lucky she got it, though, because we went out to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch, and she had a good feast. It included peas, sweet potato, pickles, and cheerios (I brought those). And a little strawberry jell-o mousse for dessert.

Busy with Family

Sophie & I spent the beginning of the week with relatives so that Jake could get a good start on studying for finals. Sophie, as always was super busy the whole time. Everyone finally learned what I was talking about, as they tried to hold her but she tried to grab whatever pen, paper, remote, cup, plate, rag, rubber band, or phone was within her reach.

While we were gone, Sophie learned to pull herself up onto her hands and knees, and rock back and forth. It won't be long. . .

She can also use furniture or my leg to pull herself up to her knees. She gets stuck there, and can't go further up or down, but she's pretty proud of it.

Nana let her eat Cheerios for breakfast, which she loved. She worked so hard to get an O into her hand, and then transfer it into her mouth.


She was quite successful, but a lot of the time, she ended up just getting her thumb into her mouth. Equally tasty.

Here she is sporting her new summertime shorts. She's got the legs for them, so she's flaunting her stuff.