Marriage Advice

Okay, so I found this quote that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE! I just had to share it.

To keep your marriage brimming,

with love in the wedding cup,

whenever you're wrong, admit it;

whenever you're right, shut up.

--Ogden Nash

Beloved President Hinckley

On Sunday night we had some friends over and were playing games when one of them got a call. When he hung up the phone, he looked at us a bit shocked and said, "Hey Guys, President Hinckley Just Died."

At first I was just shocked. Then I felt so sad to loose him. But almost immediately after feeling the sting of sorrow, my heart filled with joy as I realized, that he was once again reunited with his beloved wife.

My favorite memory of President Hinckley was when I was attending conference in the conference center. After the session was over President Hinckley got up to leave. On his way out he took his cane and bopped the head of one of the brethren! It wasn't hard, and the man was laughing, but I couldn't believe what I had just seen. It was so funny! Here was this prophet of God, and he was joking around with his friends! It was awesome! Suddenly he was a very real person to me. I will always treasure seeing that moment.

I will miss my beloved prophet, but I am grateful for all he did while he was alive, and that he is now with all his loved ones who have passed on before him.

Little Monkey Girl

So my little girl has become quite the little monkey. She is always trying to climb on things. She's gotten very good at climbing on the ottoman in the nursery, and the rocking deer (yes, the rocking deer). She still hasn't been able to get up on the couch by herself, but she loves Bart's gaming chair. In fact, I think that may be her favorite seat in the house. She'll climb into it with her bottle, and just rock and drink her bottle. It's pretty funny.

I can't remember if I told you earlier...and I'm too lazy to go and check the other posts, so if I have you'll just have to hear it again...but Addison has started using utensils. And by using, I mean she refuses to eat without one if she sees one. Sometimes I can trick her into finger food if no utensils are in sight, but if she even sees me using a fork, she'll demand it, and once she has it, she'll start trying to stab her graham crackers with it. It's really quite a sight.

My favorite is when she eats yogurt. She starts getting fed up with the spoon and will stick her fingers in it. But she knows I get mad when she puts her fingers in it, so she'll like make eye contact with me (and we're talking a very intense stare) and not break it as she sticks her hands in the yogurt. It's like she's thinking, "Okay, if she's watching my face, she can't see my hands." I make sure she knows she's not supposed to do it every time, but inside I'm secretly laughing. The first time she was having a hard time getting the spoon in the little yogurt bottle, so I put it in a bowl for her. I turned my back to her, and when I looked again, her whole face was in the bowl. She was just licking it off the bottom. It was pretty funny.

This weekend was a lot of fun. We got to go Cross Country skiing on Saturday. Then we went to a friend's house to play games. Then today we had some friends over from college to play some games. It was great seeing them again.

Overall, it was a great week!

I love my baby girl!

Geez! What a week! But before I get into this week, there are a few things I forgot to tell you about last week.

There are three big things that Addison started doing.

First, She started feeding herself. I was feeding her yogurt one day and she grabbed the spoon and tried to put it back in the yogurt cup. I helped her get some yogurt on it, and she's been feeding herself ever since. She still needs help, and it makes quite the mess, but she is getting better every day.

Next, she has started mimicking like crazy! The other day we were all taking a shower. Bart was holding Addison and I was washing my face. Bart started laughing. I couldn't open my eyes because I would get soap in them, so I asked, "What are you laughing at?" Bart said, "Addison saw you wash your face, so she started washing her face." Then I took her and Bart washed his hair, Addison started washing her hair! It was so funny.

The next day Addison saw me finish my cereal, pick up my bowl, and drink the milk out of it. She didn't have a bowl, so she started whining for mine. I wasn't sure what she wanted with it because there was nothing left in it, but when she had it, she put it up to her mouth like she was drinking out of it. It was so funny!

The third is somewhat related to the first. It's pretend play. Monday Addison threw up, so she couldn't go to preschool on Tuesday. She got up early, and when Bart went to take his shower and get ready for work, all she wanted was Daddy. So I took her into the bathroom so that she could at least be near him. While we were in there, she went to our shampoo and conditioner bottles on the side of the tub, hit the top a few times (they are pump bottles, so she's seen Bart & I pump them to get shampoo and conditioner) then put her hands to her hair and rubbed around. She was pretending to wash her hair. Then she did it again, and walked over to me and reached for my head and started whining. I bent over and she rubbed her hands on my head pretending to wash my hair! It was soooooooooo cute!

Which brings me to this week. As I mentioned, Addison threw up on Monday...and Tuesday...and Wednesday. Ironically she hasn't had the flu. She had an ear infection that just got out of hand!

Last week we took her to the Doctor's because she wasn't acting like herself, and he said she had a mild ear infection. He said that there was an 85% chance that she'd recover on her own, but he gave us a prescription and said to fill it if the symptoms got worse. Monday after she got a fever and threw up, we filled it.

She had a fever of 101 off and on from Monday to Wednesday. On Wednesday, I thought for sure she was over it. She had a great day. Everything was totally normal, then at about 9:00 (two hours after we put her down for the night) she woke up with a 101.4 degree temperature and threw up. :o(

Thursday everything was normal except she was fussy. She still didn't sleep well that night. She was still really fussy on Friday too, and FINALLY on Saturday we got our happy little girl back. It made for a very long week for me, but such is life.

There were two things that she did this week that just leave me in awe of her.

First of all, she grabbed Bart's keys, walked over to our front door, and tried to put the keys in the door knob.

I have NO idea where she learned that keys go in door knobs. I don't think she's seen either of us put a key in a door for months. (At least since November). Whenever it's just me driving, I go in through our garage (we keep the garage door unlocked). And when Bart & I are together, and do go in the front door, He unlocks the door while I get Addison out of her car seat. The car with her car seat in it has a blue tooth key so that all we have to do is have the key on our person to unlock the door and start the car. The only time I can think that she's seen either of us use a key in a door is when Bart was picking her up from my sister's house, but that ended way back in November! Yet somehow she figured out that keys go in doors! I love my smart little girl.

Next, and this one is almost more amazing to me, she grabbed Bart's iTrip, and tried to plug the part that goes in the cigarette lighter into the dashboard of her play car. I seriously can't figure this one out. That iTrip has been plugged into our car since last Christmas. We RARELY ever take it out! I don't know how she knew what it was, let alone which side was supposed to be plugged into a car...and how she knew that her play car was the equivalent of our real car! I swear my baby's a genius! Did I mention that I love my baby girl!

Yesterday we all went to Chuck-E-Cheese for Benjamin's (Tabitha & Jonathan's son) Birthday. It was a lot of fun. Addison loved the giant animal machines on the stages. She also loved the little trolley you can ride on. Haas' daughter, Jade invited Addison to play a stomping game. She loved that too. Overall we had a great time. It was good hanging out with friends too. And the best part was, on the way home she was so exhausted, she fell asleep in her car seat. We were even able to transfer her up to her room and she was still asleep! It was great!

Okay, so seriously! I LOVE my daughter!!! Every day she just makes me laugh and absolutely love life. Even the hard days are laced with laughing moments. I love it!

Yesterday she slept in. Bart and I were downstairs when we heard her wake up at 8:00. But then she fell silent again, so we thought she had gone back to bed. She is now very aware of what the word, "Baba" means and yells out "Baba" Whenever she wants one. At 8:30 we heard her yell, "Baba......Baba.....Baba." So I ran upstairs to get her up. I opened the door and was greeted with this:

If you think that it looks remarkably like she doesn't have a diaper on, that's because she doesn't. She had unzipped her feety pajamas, unbuttoned her onsie, and taken her diaper off. There will be no peace in the Francis house any more...our daughter knows how to strip.

Today we were watching a movie, and I smelled something not so pleasant. After asking around, and assuring myself that nobody had tooted, we all looked at Addison who smiled, and turned around revealing that she had somehow miraculously grown what looked like a tail. It wasn't. And I was very glad that it was Bart's turn to change her diaper. :o)

Bart got a new calling today at Church. He is now the Sunday School President. I swear! Our ward changes presidencies ALL the time! NONE of the presidencies are the same since we've moved into the ward, and the only "Presidents" that are the same are the relief society president and the bishop.

Fortunately I am still in primary and loving it. When I first got called to primary I was really worried that I wouldn't get to know anyone (a big deal since we were new to the ward and I hardly knew anyone as it was). But now that I'm there, I think I know more people than I would have if I wasn't. It's because I know them all through their kids. I'm not nervous about getting to know kids at all, so when I meet their parents we automatically have something to talk about. It's ended up being a real blessing. I love it.

Well, that's about it for this week. Until next time, Au revoir.

Prayer Signs and Goals

Random picture of week - Addison in glasses. So my mom put her glasses on Addison. She absolutely loved it. When she had the glasses on, Addison would reach toward someone, and when you got her close enough, she'd tap them until they would look at their, then she would just start cracking up. Then she'd reach for someone else. It was like she wanted everyone to look at her! It was so funny!

So one of our family resolutions this year is to pray more on our knees with Addison. Bart & I always say family prayers when we wake up and when we go to bed, but usually Addison is either still sleeping or hasn't woken up yet. I will say night time prayers with her, but I haven't been very good about saying morning prayers with her. So we decided that we wanted to pray more with Addison so that she could learn how to.

I was actually very surprised. The first time we really did it this year, we helped her kneel down, and showed her how to fold her arms. Ever since then, when I say, "Addison, prayer time." She smiles at me and folds her arms. Of coarse after that she proceeds to crawl around and play while we pray, but at least she is getting the folding the arms part down.

I actually think she might think folding her arms is the sign for "prayer time." She's getting really good at signs now. I think she actually knows what half of them mean too. When I ask her, "Addison, do you want a bottle?" she'll do the sign for milk and then start walking toward the fridge because she knows that's where I get the milk for her bottle. It's so neat to really be communicating with her! I love it.

As you can see, I posted some family new year's resolutions this year. I read somewhere that if you tell people what your resolutions, you are more likely to keep them. So I decided to post our family resolutions.

Bart read somewhere that it's better to have a few resolutions that you can easily achieve than a whole bunch of ones that you're really going to have to work for. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I understand the whole psychological thing....make your goals easy to achieve, then when you achieve them, you'll feel good about yourself and be more motivated and all that.

However, I am the type of person that wants to make a million goals because I want to be perfect. :o) Unfortunately I do usually do fall into the pit of depression when I don't reach them. Last year I changed my attitude a little bit though. In stead of getting depressed when I didn't reach my goals, I think, "But look at how much better I did than I would have if I didn't set that goal."

So I think I will continue to make my million personal goals. Although instead of making huge goals at the beginning of the year, I think I'm going to take them one month at a time. At the beginning of each month I will assess how I did with last month's goals and make a new goal list for the new month. Hopefully this will keep that million goal list from being too overwhelming.

Christmas Moon and Pray for Kenya

Okay, I have to admit, I absolutely love this picture. Addison's Christmas pajamas didn't include a onsie, and whenever she doesn't have a onsie on, she tries to take her diaper off. We snapped this priceless picture in the middle of opening Christmas presents.

So yeah, I have come online to post every single day this week, and each time have been so overwhelmed with how much I wanted to write, and how many pictures I wanted to post that I just didn't do it. I finally decided posting a little bit is better than not posting anything. So here goes...

We had a great Christmas. It was wonderful seeing family and friends. And it was GREAT talking to Eric! It ended way too soon.

We LOVED the new house, and have decided that once I stop working we're going to live there in the summers! Te he he.

It was really hard for me to come home. Bart kept saying, "Rebecca, we need to pack!" And I kept conveniently finding other things that needed to be done. :o)

Addison loved the trip too, and misses Grandma dearly.

Here are a few pictures From Christmas. I may randomly post more in other posts even if they don't have anything to do with what I'm talking about ;o)

On another note, as a lot of you know, my brother is serving a mission in Kenya right now. Well, they just had their elections, and unfortunately violence has broken out. I just read a pretty scary story about a town that Eric emails us from every week. We heard from a missionary couple there, and it sounds like he's doing alright, but if you all could keep Eric, and the people of Kenya in your prayers right now, we would be very grateful.

Okay, that is all for now. I will talk to you later.