What is a Pomalong?

Anyone ever heard of a Pomalong? Kate set these up last night and for the life of us we could not figure out what she was talking about. It's awesome how her imagination is expanding!

We discovered that these things are not food (our first guess) or animals or pomegranates. "They're not animals, they're real!" and "They're pomalongs for you to look at. You just look at 'em" were her comments. So funny. So if anyone has ever heard of a pomalong, or if you would like to guess what they are, please comment. :)

And a quote from two nights ago: "(fake sob, fake whimper) I'm crying about water, AND tape measures!"

4 teeth

Here are those teeth finally coming down into view when she smiles!! So cute! Poor girl got her first 4 teeth in about a 3 week period late Dec-early Jan. She was grumpy! And now all she wants to do is eat real food that she can pick up herself and chew! Good times.

I also gave her her first tiny pigtails last week, yay!

Parenting Books

So I've ransacked the Santaquin Library parenting section (all 10 books) the last couple of weeks, and it's been interesting reading. Here's what I've learned from 3 books:

Setting Limits with your Strong-Willed Child- I really liked this book, it got me thinking about how I speak to Katelyn. The last few months have been full of too much whining and too many tantrums, and I've been praying to find ways to help my beautiful little girl be happier.
Well, while reading this book I discovered that- surprise surprise- a big part of the problem is ME!!
Using the things I learned from this book and especially the things I've learned ABOUT MYSELF through the Spirit while reading this book, I am happy to say that in the last week Katelyn has only had ONE temper tantrum. One! We used to see 2 or 3 of these a day people! (like 5-15 minutes of out of control crying) There's still a lot more whining going on around here than I'd like to see, but we're working on it and I have seen improvement. It would take me way too long to explain everything about this answer to my prayers, but basically I was being way too emotional (not really yelling, but being angry or whining myself!) when disciplining Katelyn and I was giving her way too many chances in the name of "patience". I am being a lot more clear, firm, and respectful in my discipline and it has been wonderful.

The next book is The Discipline Book:How to have a better behaved child ages birth through ten--This one is based on the idea of attachment parenting, which I agree with in theory but not in practice. I don't plan on breastfeeding my children until age two and having them sleep with me until that time as well. But I do breastfeed on demand and hold Whitney pretty much all day long like they say to. :) And I like a lot of their practical advice for preventing discipline problems- it has reminded me of a lot of things I want to be doing anyway, such as spending time "connecting" with Katelyn each day. A lot of eye contact, hugs and kisses, play, and heaping on the praise for good things she does. These go a long way toward happiness and cooperation, for both of us! I'm only halfway through the book and I'm sure I will find other gems of knowledge along the way.

The third one is 101 Ideas on Teaching Your Children to Work. Kind of a weird book, not that well organized or written, but I have gotten some good ideas. Like I need to have a good attitude about the work I do every day to set a good example. And I should place a lot of value (=praise) on initiative, which Katelyn is acutally pretty good at. At least once a day she surprises me by seeing a need that Whitney has and filling it without being asked. So sweet. Also I need to make work fun. And my kids can build a lot of self esteem and spend some amazing quality time with me and Eric while working. So far Katelyn has set the table for dinner 5 nights in a row now, and she's convinced she's really good at it and that I really need her help to do it. Also she has dusted, helped me clean the bathroom (that one was actually really fun!) and helped do laundry. We're still working on cleaning her room or the toy room, but she loves all the other stuff.

Anyway I've been learning a lot and I'm really happy about it. I'm sure Katelyn will throw me off with some new crazy behavior soon, but right now I'm just enjoying the brief respite.

First Date

Eric and Katelyn went on their first daddy-daughter date last Friday!! Eric's been excited to do this since before Katelyn was born. They had gone to the park before a few times just the two of them, but this was their first official date, and we all looked forward to it all week! Obviously I wasn't there but I heard it was great- they went bowling and then got Frosty's at Wendy's and then stopped at WalMart to get a couple of things we needed and look at the toys (Katelyn's current favorite thing to do! Luckily she never begs for anything, she's happy just to enjoy looking!). I guess she liked her bowling shoes and kept shouting "go down pins, go down!" The cutest for me was just seeing how excited they were when they left and how happy they were when they got back. Eric's the best dad, and I just love him for it. So they'll be doing this occasionally-- we just have to make sure she doesn't get to go on more dates with Eric than I do :)

Boy or Girl?

You be the judge! We went on an extensive shopping trip yesterday and this is what Whitney wore. Two different cashiers said to me "what a happy little boy!" "is he tired of shopping yet?" and a couple of other comments with the word "he" in them. I just laughed and was like "yeah", I didn't feel like explaining that she's a girl! So my question is, WHY?
I know, I know, she's not wearing a bow of any kind, the obvious "girl" signal. Well A) her hair's too thin for any clip or barrette to stay in, B) she pulls out headbands every 5 minutes and C) when she wears a headband in the car she ends up pulling it down over her eyes and then can't get it off and she cries and I can't reach to help her while driving. We were going to be in and out of the car a lot and so lazy me, I decided not to put a headband on her. Oh and D) she doesn't have a headband that matches that sweater!!
So both the cashiers who called her a boy were older women, maybe back in their day all girls wore dresses so they assume that any baby in pants is a boy? Or maybe they've noticed the recent headband trend and assume any baby without a headband is a boy? Or maybe they both happened to be colorblind and thought her sweater was gray instead of PURPLE? Do little boys even wear knit sweaters? Maybe. Perhaps the brown pants were the problem. They do have tiny purple flowers on them-- hard to see. Anyway, it was really funny to me. Good news all you mothers of boys, LAVENDER is now a great color for you to dress them in. Very masculine. :)

choke it out

At dinner the other night Eric was cutting up Katelyn's lasagna for her and he popped a piece into his mouth. She said "no, no!" and started freaking out because he was eating HER food. Eric's like "sorry Kate I already swallowed it" and she commanded "choke it out!" We just looked at each other for a second as it sunk in what she was asking for, then busted up laughing, she really wanted him to cough it up! So as I rolled my eyes and laughed some more, he faked it! he got a little piece of lasagna in his hand and pretended to cough it up, gave it to her, and she popped it right into her mouth. We were dying. We probably shouldn't have given her what she wanted when she was being so ridiculous but it was so FUNNY.

Also, Katelyn has the most amazing memory ever. She brings stuff up that we had no idea she was even aware of. Example- about a month ago, also at the dinner table, Eric said to me "no way Jose" and I was like, "I wonder where that comes from, like what started it?" after he finished eating Eric ran down to the computer and googled it, then came up and was telling me what he found while I was cleaning up. Fast forward to this week. I said "no way Jose" to Katelyn and she said "I don't know where that comes from" in this questioning voice, it was so funny. Pretty sure she hadn't heard that phrase any time in between, but it sparked something in her brain and she spit out the response she had heard from me. Awesome.
Also this morning she was climbing on Eric and stopped to get a blanket and said it was her "saddle"- we have no idea where she learned what a saddle is. This afternoon she was making up a song about going to a treehouse, how does she know what a treehouse is?? The only time she's ever away from me is when she goes to nursery every Sunday, so they must be telling her something in there... :)
One more- today Eric showed her a picture of the Nauvoo temple and asked if she knew what it was (I'm assuming the answer he was looking for was "temple") and she said "that's where Mom used to live" !! I lived in Nauvoo for a semester, and I remember telling her about it a few weeks or months ago, and I showed her a picture, but wow.
She's great.

Whitney's 8 months old!

Here's our little beauty with two of her newest accomplishments- first liking books:
I hadn't tried to read Whitney any of our "baby" books in a while because before she wasn't interested. But this week I picked up Kate's old favorite "farm friends" a lift-the-flap peekaboo book, and Whitney LAUGHED right out loud as each animal popped out! She loved it and quickly figured out how to pull down the flaps to reveal the cute animal faces. She just smiles and smiles at books now and wants to turn pages. SO cute.

Next, she started sitting this silly way with her leg bent out behind her. It makes it so she can turn in cirles better and regain her balance better after reaching for something. Because this girl loves to sit! and has no desire to be on her tummy. That's BORING, when she can sit up and play with everything and kind of scoot a few inches or turn around in a circle and find new toys!

So who knows when she'll ever crawl, I'll keep giving her "tummy time" and maybe someday she'll want to. Or probably she'll just take off crawling from her sitting position one day. By the way that hat she's wearing is from Aunt Katrina, my sister on a mission in Russia! Cute!

Anyway Whitney continues to be the sweetest little girl ever. She's so fun and happy and loving. We swear she said "duh" for dad the other day when Eric walked in the door home from work. She was looking straight at him and kicking and squirming in my arms smiling and so happy to see him and she said "duh"- he loved it. :) She's totally said "mama" at least 10 times so I don't feel bad :)

Oh and her other favorite thing to do is feed herself, I don't have a picture. She is a pro at Cheerios and little pieces of bread. And now she'll only eat baby food like 50% of the time. She wants the real thing! OH, and she has 4 teeth!! Woo hoo, I hope she's done teething for a while, this last month has been hard for her, poor girl.

We love our little Whitney Mae-mae. ( or as Katelyn says, Whitnuh mae-muh or Whitney mae-mee)

new stuff

So Eric and I got each other a new kitchen table and chairs for Christmas, back in November when it was on sale. I am finally posting a picture of it, in it's normal state right after a meal, crumbs and all. :)
We love it, it's just a few inches bigger in each direction than our old table. We LOVED our old table, it was free (bought in 1941 by my great-grandparents!) and we refinished it and felt cool. But we did not love our chairs, they were seriously old Relief Society room fold up chairs. Comfy cushions, but so ghetto in our dining room. So we're loving these. Oh and no, Katelyn does not need a booster seat any more, she's way too big, but she doesn't want to give up her "blue chair".

And then there's this beautiful thing!!!! I'm borrowing (long term) Eric's parents' treadmill!! They live in Japan most of the year so they said I can borrow it! They brought it down Tuesday and we put it in our unfinished basement, and now I can get up and run before Eric leaves for work, or at night, it's wonderful!!

I don't really love running on treadmills, but I've only run outside like 2 times since a month ago when winter really showed up. I didn't feel like braving the 25 degree weather and unplowed roads with my girls in the jogging stroller. So I've been doing aerobics... yuck. This treadmill will allow me to keep up some level of fitness for the next couple of months, I'm so excited!

Christmas Vacation Top Ten

Eric got a week and a half off for the holidays, one reason why we love his job! So we fully enjoyed ourselves, here's our top ten.

#1 Grammy we stopped on our way to California to see my great-grandma, yes that's my girls' great-great grandmother! She was so cute asking Katelyn all about her cars and trains and Kate had fun showing them to her. we loved her and were sorry it was such a short visit.


#2- Chowchilla While in California with my family, we went to my grandparents' house in Chowchilla for a few hours and the boys helped my grandpa with some yardwork ( he's 80 years old and still climbing ladders to prune his trees- we want to keep him safe so my mom has been recruiting my brothers to do it for him!) It was way fun. Here's Derek taking a break to check his voicemail... oh the cell phone generation... he worked really hard though. :)

Katelyn even pitched in to help when my mom gave her the idea to harvest pecans. Jenae helped her and she LOVED filling her pockets with them like a little squirrel!

Here's Jonathan doing the dangerous job. Yes he's holding a saw.

I mainly chatted inside with my grandma and aunt. :) And played with my girls on the swingset where I spent many happy hours as a child.

#8 BYU Basketball- For Christmas we gave Kurtis tickets to the BYU-Wake Forrest Basketball game. So we joined the second-largest crowd ever in the Marriott Center to cheer the Cougars on to a loss to the #6 team in the country. It was a great, intense, LOUD, so fun game. We played well and only lost right at the end. I love this picture of Kurtis talking to Whitney.

#7- New Year's Eve- My family has this random but awesome tradition of gathering up all the used wrapping paper rolls after Christmas and having a big swordfight. It's so fun and lasts until the swords are all broken or someone gets hurt and my mom makes us stop. Katelyn got really into it and kept wanting to fight Derek, so funny!

We had a fake New Years for Katelyn at 9 pm. Here's Eric and Whitney enjoying themselves.

Kate with my siblings before they left for the church New Year's Dance.

Kate banging a pan for New Years

Everyone watching her and banging their own pans :)

Eric and I and my parents had our own party and played games, it was really fun!!

#6- Reunion!! We had a bunch of friends from our freshman year at BYU over to Eric's parents' house for a party, it was so fun! I LOVE these people! We missed the few who couldn't make it- Brenna, BJ, Tenille, Alison and their families. The kids, who are all SO CUTE, had a grand time playing, it was Kate and 4 boys, plus 3 babies! The rest of us talked and talked and then played Catch Phrase, awesome. My favorite moments were a couple of times all of the boys just busted out laughing at something one of them said, it was so cute to hear them all laughing together like they used to. :)

#5- Our 5th Anniversary! Here we are, happier and I guess crazier than ever. We went to the Fresno temple which was great, but didn't end up doing anything else for our Anniversary because I had a stomach virus of some kind... anyway maybe we'll do something real cool next year when I'm not nursing a baby. :)

I love Eric! Life is great and so fun with him.


#4- Temple Square for Christmas Eve- We decided to go even though we figured it would be packed, and it wasn't that bad and it was BEAUTIFUL! We totally loved it. Eric's family met us, Kate was thrilled to ride the TRAX, and it was a wonderful Christmas Eve.

#3- My family playing with my girls It is so fulfilling, I'm not sure why, to watch my parents and brothers and sisters playing with my children. I guess that's just how it's meant to be, eternal families enjoying each other throughout the generations and extended family!

Jonathan probably tried the hardest of anyone to win the girls' love.

Jenae played Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with Katelyn for seriously hours every day, so cute!

Whitney and my mom

us playing with the parachute Kent gave me for Christmas!

Melissa, Derek, and my dad were also so cute with them, I just didn't get a picture.

#2- Acting out the Christmas Story

This was probably the highlight of the whole Christmas season for me. Katelyn totally knew the story and was so excited to play several parts. She was the angel (that's the part she wanted) in several scenes and even repeated lines we told her, such as "mom, your baby's name is Jesus". She was the innkeeper and nodded solemnly when we asked if we could stay in the stable. Then we were all shepherds and all wise men in separate scenes, and Whitney was the baby Jesus. It was all just really sweet and when we finished Kate asked if we could do it again. :)

Notice the baby Jesus is playing with the sheep.

#1- Christmas Morning!!!

It was our first one all by ourselves in our own home, and we loved it!
Here's Katelyn so excited about the huge stuffed Sally, Lightning McQueen, and Mater that Santa gave her!

And the trains and candy Santa gave her

Whitney loves her airplane

and her ball

Kate is a present-opening pro

Whitney enjoyed it too of course.

We had a delicious and fun Christmas dinner with Eric's family, and had a blast in California with mine. Family is the best. Christmas is the best. The end.