Eliza

Eliza is all grown up now. She turned three in October. She no longer sleeps in a crib, she no longer wears diapers (except at night), she no longer slurps to ask for a drink. She talks in full, complete, complex and interesting sentences. She has dropped all those cute little quirks about babyhood. She can say "Calvin" and "nursery" and just about anything you ask her to say. She even said "Fank You" to Ben the other night. That has been her one hold off that I could not get her to break out of, but she did it.

I will miss the littleness of this girl that held on for so long. Her developments have jumped 6 steps in the last 3 months. But now I have another big girl to talk to and answer questions for and have adventures with. And that's not too bad.

I took these pictures in our back yard in October, I couldn't pick a favorite.

3 Miracles

3 Miracles happened to me tonight.

#1 - I accidentally (although who would do it on purpose?) sent my wallet through the wash. I was mostly worried about my temple recommend being destroyed. When I got a chance to search through and find it, it wasn't there. Then I remembered how last weekend, while we were at a wedding, I asked Ben to hold my recommend and he put it in my suit and we joked that we would all forget it was there until December (next scheduled wedding). I called Ben and he confirmed that it was in his wallet.

MIRACLE!

#2 - The kids and I went to the store to buy snacks for Nursery today, when we got back home, I left the snacks in the car and planned to take them directly to the church later tonight. When I got in the car I noticed that my diaper bag was still in the car, which was weird. Then halfway to the church (which is honestly not that far away, so don't be too impressed) I realized that the key to the Nursery closet is in my diaper bag, and if I hadn't left it in the car, I wouldn't have had it and would have been more than slightly inconvenienced - driving back home to find it.

MIRACLE!!

#3 - As I unpacked the Nursery snacks and gathered the bags I saw that the light was on down by the Bishop's office and I remembered that I need to turn in the receipt. BUT WHERE WAS THE RECEIPT?!? I spent almost $100 trying to max out my budget for the year, not only did I want the money reimbursed, but I wanted it to count in our yearly budget! I remembered putting it in one of the bags after I checked out, but I didn't see it while I unpacked the food. I went back to the closet, went through the food, looked through the bags, went back to the car, searched through in the dark, prayed, went back to the closet, took the snacks out one at a time until BOOM! there it was stuck between two boxes of crackers. prayed again. nearly wept.

MIRACLE!!!




PS If you want to learn more about miracles please watch How I Met Your Mother - Season 3 Episode 20

Podcasts

Podcasts: journalistic radio shows available to anyone at any time are a cultural phenomenon. Whenever I get together with a group of interesting people, someone invariably brings up a recent podcast that they heard. Half of the time, it's probably me. I don't listen to very many, mostly just This American Life, they are always thought provoking and interesting to me. So if you haven't ventured into the podcast arena, check out this blog by my friend Marci, where she breaks down all the coolest ones you should know about.

The last one I heard, I LOVED, from This American Life, #511 The Seven Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About. You can listen to it if you click on that link. A woman keeps a list of 7 things that are just boring to talk about with other people, like  - your diet, how you slept, your dream, your health etc. These are just not topics for interesting discussion at say - a dinner party. Unless you are surrounded by people who thrive on these topics. But I realized while listening that I totally agree. So listen to it and don't you dare try to talk to me about those things unless you have something absolutely thrilling and new to share. I think we should all be more aware of others when we are speaking, don't just fill the silence, think about how it adds or detracts from conversation. If you need help, tell people about the latest podcast you heard.

Leaf pile

Last Sunday we went over to Gramma and Grampas for dinner. As we drove up we noticed all the leaves had fallen from their big tree - what a bonus. So after dinner we went out and Grampa raked up a big pile, see below:

Anna and Eliza jumped off the table into the pile, ran from across the yard and dove into the pile, swung through the pile on the rope swing, and finally started a leaf fight which ended with Grampa down in the leaf pile buried under leaves. 

At home our leaves have taken a while to come down, when there was enough for a pile, Anna became quite militant about me taking a pile for her. These pictures I actually used a nice camera for.  They moved the slide to the pile for maximum enjoyment. Yesterday I finally decided it was getting too cold for extended leaf playing time and I wanted the grass to live so I raked them all to the garden. Anna was crushed. Well, there's always next year.