Amanda’s new sports class

Mike and I decided several weeks ago, when the park and rec guide came around, that we should sign Amanda up for some classes at the community center. We decided to try her out on a once a week preschool type class, and then we gave her a choice for her second class: sports, or dance. She picked sports without any hesitation – and I wasn’t sure she knew what “sports” meant! She knows individual sports, but I didn’t think the word sports itself was one she would know. Turns out, I was wrong. She started telling us about how she was going to play basketball, and soccer, and tennis, and bowling, and my favorite, baseball Dodgers! (Those are her exact words, not mine.)

I think her expectations of the class might be a little high – I don’t think they’ll do tennis and bowling, but so far she’s loving it. They did tee ball her first week, and she was in heaven. She also decided to bat left-handed, and surprise her teacher. Sadly, I forgot the camera that day, but I learned my lesson and brought it for yesterday’s class: basketball.

Amanda hanging out with her boys.

 

Skipping down the court?

I don’t think they quite understand the point of the game – you keep trying once you score a basket!

 

Here you’ll see what Amanda was really interested in – playing with the pine needles.

 

None of the kids wanted to try to steal the ball from the coach; that would be bad manners, right?

I eventually convinced Amanda to go try.

Trying to shoot that big ball into the basket.

Coach giving her a little assist to make the basket.

I’m glad we decided to let her pick her class, and I’m glad she picked sports. She’s having so much fun at her classes, that she never wants to come home when it’s time to go.

Katie’s new hobbies

I think she must be trying to decide on a career already. She’s developed some funny habits lately. Katie cleans up. She loves finding things and bringing them to Mommy or Daddy, or even Amanda. She picks up the remote control every morning and brings it to me, and she says ah? ah! It’s cute. Except when she won’t stop bringing you stuff and you’re trying to get something done…

She also loves climbing. She’ll climb up people, toys, boxes, chair legs, anything she can get her feet up to. Except the scale at the doctor’s office. She doesn’t like climbing up on that. Bathroom scale at home, totally fine. It’s just the doctor’s scale she’s phobic of. Climbing is, understandably, hard to get a picture of. Usually I try to talk her into getting down, instead of picking up the camera. Silly mom, concerned with child safety!

She also loves hats. She likes modeling them.

She also likes painting. Face painting.

She also really likes flirting, with just about anyone she sees. It’s hard to get a good picture of, but she does flirt.

And she’s got the big blue eyes to pull it off. Everywhere we go, people are stopping us and commenting on those eyes of hers. It’s funny when she meets a new person and they’re mesmerized by her.

She’s also pretty good at snuggling. She loves blankets, pillows, laps, and stuffed animals. Anything soft is liable to be taken over at any moment for a snuggle.

Let’s just say, life is always interesting with Katie around. You never know what she’s going to try to do next.

Spanglish spoken here

Amanda has discovered the wonderful world of Dora the explorer. And Diego, of course. So last night, she tells us, “Soy Dora.” I told her that “Soy Dora” means “I’m Dora” in Spanish. Then I told her I would say, “Soy mommy.” Mike added in, “Soy daddy.” Amanda looked at us and thought for a few seconds, and said “Soy Amanda.”

It’s so cute to watch her as she tries to figure things like this out. You can just see the little wheels turning in her head as she takes in new information.

This morning, I got woken up by shouts not of mommy, but of “Dora! Dora!” Apparently I got to be Dora today – but only for a little while. I’ve been demoted to Boots the monkey, and Diego’s sister Alicia. We live in a strange little fantasy world.

Twilight; or, why I love my husband

I just recently finished reading the Twilight novels by Stephenie Meyer. I enjoyed them overall. She definitely knows how to build suspense and tension and keep the reader engaged. There was one thing I was a little disappointed in, though; I’ll admit that part of why I was disappointed was because of all the hype built up around the books.

I’ve heard from so many different people about how “romantic” the books are; how “romantic” Edward Cullen is. To me, though, this was where the books were seriously lacking. There just didn’t seem to be that much time spent on why Bella and Edward love each other so much. From what we’re told it the books, it sounds like Edward initially loves Bella because she smells so darn good to him – granted, he does tell her later that doesn’t matter so much anymore. He loves her for who she is, but we never know what really he loves about her. It comes off sometimes sounding like he loves her simply because she is the only being in the world whose mind he can’t read – she’s the only woman who will always be a mystery to him. Bella, as far as we can tell, loves him because she thinks he’s hot.

I know this is simplifying it a little, but not by much, in my opinion. We never doubt how much they love each other, but we don’t really understand why, other than love at first sight.

Thinking about all of this made me think, naturally, about my own husband, and why I love him. What would I tell someone else about our relationship? So I’m going to write some things down – consider it my Valentine’s day gift to my sweetheart.

I love how much Mike loves to laugh, and to make me, and our girls, laugh.

Mike loves to tell me I’m cute and make me blush and crinkle my nose. He says it makes me more cute.

I love how, when Mike smiles, his eyes crinkle up and sparkle.

I love his laugh lines around his mouth and eyes.

I love that we both joke about him going bald. He’s accepted the inevitable.

I love how we talk about what we will be like when we are an old married couple.

I love that we plan on being married to each other when we are in our sixties.

I love how he hugs me when I cry while we talk about life insurance.

I love that he makes us talk about life insurance, emergency preparedness, and other disastrous things that could happen to our family even though they make me cry.

I love knowing that I am the most important person in my husband’s life.

I love that Mike always tries to arrange his work schedule so he can come home at 4 instead of 5, to be with his family one extra hour each day.

I love that he cannot comprehend dads who work so late at night that they don’t get to see their children.

I love that he has taught our daughters to do all sorts of things – animal noises, playing ball, tickling games, hide and go seek…

I love how much he loves the way Kaitlyn greets him when he comes home.

I love that he is patient with the fact that Amanda always runs and hides so she can surprise Daddy when he comes home.

I love that he loves doing the “hot dog” dance from Mickey mouse clubhouse with Amanda.

I love that he knows the theme songs to most of Amanda’s favorite shows.

I love the way he snuggles me close when we dance.

I love the way we fit together when we cuddle. He is just the right size for me.

I love that after the girls go to bed, we have an unspoken agreement that we can do our own thing for a little while, and then we cuddle or play games together. We have couples time every night.

I love that he taught me to play cribbage.

I love that he helps with the dishes – sometimes a lot more than I do.

I love that he helps me cook.

I love that he tells me about his work projects and tries to explain what he’s working on in a way I understand.

I love that he will always sit and listen to my music and tell me what he thinks of it.

I love how he supports me in doing the things I want to do, like writing and composing music.

I love that he helps me with Katie and Amanda when they wake up in the middle of the night.

I love his hugs.

I love that he knows how to make me feel attractive, and that he pays me compliments often.

I love that we start and end each day by saying “I love you.”

I love that neither of us are the type of person to yell at each other or get into big arguments.

I love how much he loves the Dodgers. I remember him jumping for joy one year when they made the playoffs.

I love that we watched the world series on our honeymoon – but only because we both wanted to watch it.

I love how loyal he is

I love how honest he is.

I love how he puts up with me.

I love how he calls me “pretty lady.”

I love how sweet he is to me when I’m pregnant. Which I’m not, just in case you were wondering.

I love how forgiving he is.

I love how we depend on each other, and how well we work together as a team.

 

Have I mentioned that I love my husband?

Even more Amandaisms

I think I just got out of the blogging mode for a while. Probably doesn’t help that I’ve been working on writing a script for our ward’s roadshow, and figuring out exactly what it means to direct it too. I’ve never even been in a roadshow before, or directed anything, so it’s been an adventure so far.

But here, to satiate your appetites, are a few of the silly things my toddler has said recently:

D: Great dinner, babe!

A: Great dinner, babe!

 

A: Kaitlyn has a crummy butt? (also known as, mommy needs to be more careful what she says around Amanda)

 

A: Who’s a crazy? Who’s a crazy? Not me; are you? (admittedly, she did adapt this one from an episode of Little Bear, but it still cracks me up. Especially since I’m pretty sure everyone in our house is at least slightly crazy)

More Amandaisms

Sorry, I know it’s been a while. We’ve been busy, what with 2 weddings, 3 birthdays, a bout of stomach flu, and this thing called NaNoWriMo – write a 50,000 word novel in a month. I actually found time to meet that goal, even with two kids and everything else that needed attention.

Here’s some funny Amandaisms to reward your patience!

A: Mommy, you wanna go to the trick or treat, and Kaitlyn, you go the bowling ball. (I have no idea what she was talking about, but it cracked me up just because it was so random.)

A: No, no, no, no, no. Everybody just calm, down, calm down!

(While I was conducting church choir practice, and Amanda was hanging out in the back row) A: Stop da music! Stop da music!

Amandaisms – a moment of EWWW

This post is not for the fainthearted. Amanda makes all sorts of silly comments about things (usually having to do with the potty), and I saved them all up for this post. So if that is going to gross you out – I promise, they really aren’t that bad – you might want to skip this one.

A: Daddy, I did a poo poo. Oh, and a little poo poo too!

D: You did?

A: Oh, the little poo poo, it’s so cute!

 

A: Wow, that’s a BIG one! (The best part of this, is she said it right as mom and dad were about to smooch while waiting for her to finish. We cracked up instead.)

 

A: Mommy, I did a poo poo. I get M&Ms to poo poo in the potty? (really she means, I get m&ms FOR going poop in the potty)

 

A: No pee pee. No poo poo. No M & Ms. [sigh] I so sad…

 

As Amanda notices a bruise on my knee:

M: That’s an owie.

A: No, that’s a (mumble mumble)

M: That’s a kind of owie, called a bruise.

A: I LOVE bruises!

Sorry for the absence

I’ve been blogging A LOT about California’s proposition 8. I lose sleep some nights, because my mind won’t stop thinking about all the things I want to say. It’s bad. I promise things will be better next week, after the election is all done.

I surprise myself with how passionate I am about this issue. Those of you who know me well know I’m not a very vocal, outspoken person. Those who knew me way back when I was a little kid, though, knew that while I wouldn’t stick up for myself so much, nothing made me so angry as picking on my good friends. The one time in my life I swore at someone was when they were making fun of a friend of mine behind my back.

So when I think about the consequences of Prop 8 for my family, my kids, my schools, and my church, I get fired up. I like the reference a few have made to Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty: “In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children.” (Alma 46:12)

This is what we are fighting for, and that’s why I have found the strength within myself to fight for this as I have never fought for anything before. As I told a commenter who questioned why I would support Prop 8, I believe that we have a prophet today. Our prophet is the Lord’s voice to us. The Lord Himself has commanded us to take a stand, to draw a line. And I know that God lives, and directs my life. How can I do less than what He has asked of us in this matter, especially when it has such consequences on everything I hold dear?

Lots of soul searching and testimony-examining has been going on lately. I don’t know if I have the power to persuade a single person, but I still have to try. If you want to read some of what I’ve been writing about, check it out here: http://voteyesonprop8.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/what-is-tolerance/

Have you ever…

bought a candy bar (or other food item) that had a promotional code you could enter to win a prize on it? Except when you go to the website, you can’t seem to find the promo game? So you google it, but still can’t find it? And then you think to check the dates of the game on the wrapper, and realize the game ended 5 months ago?

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

Amandaisms 4

She just keeps them coming. Good fodder for the blog.

A: Oh no, Kaybee’s trouble mommy!

(After being distressed by mom wearing socks with holes in them) A: Mommy, your socks are okay?

(Treating mom for an owie, and counting down to bedtime) M: 4 more minutes, Dr. Amanda. A: 4 more minutes, sick mommy.

A: Kaitlyn, fetch!