A is for...

Apple!!
There are some days when I get into this "teach my child" mode. Today I wanted to teach her the letter A. I showed her the letter A and said: "A is for apple" to which she replied "apple" and just ran off. I was sitting on the kitchen floor, thinking 'great! this will take a while'. All of a sudden Lucia runs back to me with a flash card of..... an APPLE! :)

Missing you

As most of you know, Chauncey, Lucia, and I are going to be taking a nice, warm trip to my country... the Dominican Republic. This trip is not for another 2 months. We're all really excited, although I have to admit I have sort of mixed feelings. WHY PAO?!?!?! I know it will be great! But, really, how great? I guess you need to understand why I feel this way...
My dad died 6 years ago. I'm not gonna lie... I miss him soooo much. I can't even exaplain it. Thankfully, after his death, and joining the church, I have a completely different perspective of death (for which I'm so grateful). However, this doesn't take away from the fact that I miss him. Everything that I love the most has happened after his death. I met the MOST AMAZING man in the world, who took me to the Lord's Temple to be sealed for eternity (pretty brave of him for wanting to be with me that long) :P. I also became a mom to the most loving little girl. I'm sure he took care of Lucia before she came to us, and I know that one day I will be able to introduce him to the man I love the most...
So, here I am going to the DR to show off my beautiful family, but my dad's not there. (Sorry to make this post sad, but it kinda helps me to let it all out.) I just miss him.
I feel better already!!! PHEEeeeW! Anyway, here's my daddy... and uhm, I guess some of me too :P (just for fun):

I miss you so much Daddy!!!

Big... small... who knows?

Lucia LOVES playing with older kids. She is also becoming such a girly girl, which, of course, I love! It's really fun to watch her hold a doll and feed it a bottle. She even offers her doll her binky! Unfortunately, I'm not on top of things and haven't captured this moment. I will, though. However, she also loves acting like a little baby herself. She's seen me play with friends' babies and I think she likes it. I have some pictures here that I think are way cute.

She wouldn't let go og the popsicle.

She's really into my necklaces now. The one she's modeling actually broke that same day :(

For the one on the swing, I wanted to post one of her as a baby in it, but our old computer crashed and we haven't recovered our documents yet. I thought it would be so cute and funny to see the before and after pics.

Our 18 month old

Lucia turns 18 months in 2 days!! Hurray!!! That means she gets to go to nursery and mommy and daddy finally get to pay attention in church again! YAY! That also means she's getting older and each day she is less a baby :'(. This week we will be leaving out of town to warmer Las Vegas! So in honor of her turning 18 months I have gathered up some things she's done to share with family and friends.

*She still hasn't gotten over a couple of things like her "binky" and her "bottle". It's totally our fault. Who knows? maybe she'll be 5 and still wearing diapers! Nah! that's just a really bad joke :). She does, however, enjoy reading from cereal boxes.
*She is also now really enjoying sleeping, for which she says "seepy". Totally cute! We'll pass by her crib and she'll say it so I can put her in. She then grabs her blanket and pretends to sleep. I take advantage of this and get some things done while she "pretend sleeps" for 15-20 minutes at a time!
*We went to walk around the Layton Hills Mall the other day. After buying something for Lucia, we walked out of the store and she started at the bag while saying "this, this, this" (her favorite word). So, I gave her the bag, she placed it on her arm, like a purse, and continued walking while holding on to my hand with her free hand. She was so happy that she got to hold the bag! (She also does this at the grocery store).

*Her grandma Tucker gave Lucia a pink seahorse, whose tummy lights up when pressed and plays really sweet music. She spotted it one day in her room, held it like a baby while giving it hugs, walked towards the rocking chair, put the horse down, picked up a burping cloth from the floor (NOTE: we no longer burp her), placed it over her horse, gave it a kiss, turned to me and whispered: "seepy, seepy". She actually put her horse to sleep! Awwww....

*After her bath, she insists on brushing mommy's hair. So after I brush hers she says "bosh, bosh" as she takes the brush from me, and then I MUST turn and let her brush mine :).

*For a while, every noise she heard (i.e. door opening) she looks at me and claims it's "Gampa" (grampa). She also says "sssdat?" for 'what's that?' after hearing a noise.

*We were leaving to take Chauncey some dinner one day, so I told Lucia to get shoes. When I went to her to put them on, I found her wearing daddy's shoes and trying to walk around with them!

*Out of all the things we say in out home, she seems really into 'oh my gosh'. One day she woke up and started running all over the kitchen and living room, with her hands on her head and repeating with a very concerned tone "oh gosh!" The point of her saying this.... we will never know.

*We were walking in Walmart and I noticed that Lucia stopped. So I stopped and looked at her. She then tells me "Ohhh Cooool!" as she hold on to a hanging piece of lingirie :P.

*Last week we had tons of fun making and decorating cookies for Valentine's and she did awesome!

She has done so many cute things lately that I can't remember them all at the moment. These were just a few fun ones! We Love her soooo much! Seriously, we can't imagine what life would be like without her now that we've had her!! She's got a really fun personality and is totally a "people person."

Love you Lucia!!!

Challenge results

Day 1 was definitely hard!!! Holy cow!!! I just realized how much of my conversation is me complaining. Specially with the hubster! Two hours into the challenge... great! I was on 'no complaining' fire! 3-4 hours into... not so much. I have to admit I slipped a little, and later realized it. But that's ok, right? It was definitely something to work on. That night I ate Dorito chips. I always complain about my weight after eating junk (then why do I eat it??? it's so good!). So when Chauncey got home at 11 pm that night all I wanted to tell him was about my Dorito binge and how uncomfortable I felt. I was quite aware it would be a complaint. And he knew about my challenge. Sooooooooo..... I just looked at him straight in the eye, as I sat on his lap like a little girl in trouble, and said: "I ate a lot of doritos." Deep inside he knew what I was trying to tell him, so we both immediately bursted into laughter! It actually made me forget about what I was trying to complain about. NOTE: that wasn't a complaint, it was a fact... I had indeed eaten a lot of Doritos :P.
On day 2 I did a bit better... still needed to work on it a bit. Day 3, however, I got an unexpected bill and decided this no complaining for a week is ridiculous because I REALLY had to complain about this bill! Anyway, I let myself down by quitting on day 3 :(. I still did and still am making an effort to complain less :). So, sorry if you expected me to say "I did it!" because I only did it for 3 days :).

Who's Complaining??

Yesterday was a great day! For the past 17 months I've done NOTHING for myself and EVERYTHING for Lucia. Which is great right? I mean, that's what mothers do! But honestly, mommies need time for themselves as well... even if that time is 5 minutes! So now, instead of napping when she naps (unless its crucial for my sanity) I think about things I can do, and do them. Crafts can be scratched out of my list even before I write it down. Although, maybe I should take on the challenge of doing something "crafty".
So, yesterday while studying my scriptures I came up with my master plan! I have to say, my plan has nothing to do with what I was reading :P. I decided to not complain AT ALL for a whole week!!! This also will include giving more thanks in my prayers and asking for nothing but strength! It will be extremely hard considering complaining and asking is in my nature :(. However, I KNOW I can do it! I think it will make me realize more how much I have going on in life. So............ it starts tonight! January 19th at 6 pm, until next Tuesday at 6 pm. Whoooa! I'm so excited! I will let you all know how it went!
So here's my last complaint... Lucia hasn't been sleeping well because she has an ear infection in both ears :( That really stinks! Have a fun day!

Finger painting... without fingers!

A couple of months ago I really wanted Lucia to do something other than watch her HI-5 show, so I bought her some finger paint. I sat her in her high chair and handed her the materials needed for the activity. I thought it would be a great idea to have her do that next to me while I made dinner. Well, as soon as she saw the paint, she got VERY excited... because it was something new. But she immediately grabbed my hand and wanted to use my hand as a brush (picture it if you know how controlling she can be). The purpose: NOT get HER hands dirty! She cannot stand having dirty or sticky hands. So instead of giving her a painting brush (which probably would have been the best choice for this) I gave her plastic knives. She was extremely happy and very focused on her work. So what? She likes finger painting with knives :).

On that same "not getting her fingers dirty" note, we had tons of fun one day making pizza dough together. I wasn't planning on having her make pizza dough with me, but since she got into this "carry me when you make dinner" phase, I had to come up with something to entertain her. So, I sat her on the counter (with my supervision) :) and gave her a tupperware bowl. Every time I added new ingredients to my bowl, I added less amount of it in hers! It worked out great. She sat there mixing for that half hour I was working on my dough :). However, everytime her fingers got her sticky with dough, she placed her hands in front of me so I could wipe them clean. She would then go on with her mixing task. Gotta love her!