Friday, November 21, 2008

A fan of Jesus

After lunch today, Ian was about to head back to work, leaving me to clean up Niev and dishes. He normally helps clean up Niev so this was something new (but I had stolen a bite of his ice cream so he said that I didn't deserve his help. He was going back to work). I then turned to Niev and said, "Who do you want to get you cleaned up? Mommy or Daddy?" Ian and I then took turns whispering the other person's name: "Mommy?" "No, Daddy." "No, Mommy", etc.

Niev got a very serious look in her eye, leaned across the table and whispered, "Jesus".

I guess she knows who her real friends are.

PS--Ian did end up cleaning her up; I have the best husband!

Her newest fascination--stickers stick to anything, even me!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

When will Halloween end?


We were in the car taking Niev to her friend Olivia's house and I was prepping her for her good behavior. "When you are at Olivia's you need to share, okay? Make sure that you are talking nice and being a good friend while you are playing. And Niev what do you say when someone gives you something?"

Niev's response: "Trick-or-treat!"

I was going for a "Thank you", but I guess she really enjoyed Halloween this year!

Saturday, November 15, 2008

100th Book Day!!!

Hip Hip Hooray!!! for 100th Book Day


Gramma Buh (Ian's mom) called yesterday to inform us that it was 100th Book Day! She has kept track of all the books she has bought Niev and the books that we had previously purchased. Well, evidently yesterday Gramma Buh purchased her 100th book for Niev. For those of you who don't know Paula, she is a book fiend. She is never seen without a book in hand (especially while eating breakfast) and a great way to torture her is to hide her book from her. It is great fun and you should really try it sometime. She kind of becomes a crazed dog trying to pick up a trail that has dead-ended. Too fun to sit back and watch!

Boy, did we celebrate! We read a gajillion books, took a long needed nap with Mommy, went to the library with Dad, baked a celebratory cake (good thing I was already having the missionaries over for dinner) and then cuddle with her best friend, Olivia, and read books until Olivia's parents showed up. It truly was a great first 100th Book Day. November 14 is now officially 100th Book Day so mark your calendars and I will see you next year at the library!

Note: Olivia and Niev climbed up on the couch together, put the blanket over their laps and then asked to read a book. Aren't they the cutest little friends? We read about 15 books in all that night. P.S. Do you like how they are twinners with the pink shirts?


Here is my little reader at 12 months old--notice the book is upside-down! She has always loved books.
I have pics of her looking at a book on her stomach when she is less than six months old, but I can't seem to find it right now. It is the cutest picture. What a lover of books--Gramma Buh is so proud!

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Update on Niev and visit to Atlanta

First off, I expected to hear applause ringing throughout Washington when I finally posted so that all would know that I had finally gotten back onto my computer and that I was not lost., but alas, there was none. (Melissa, you really let me down. I expected a prayer chain of some sort to herald the event!)

Ian received a call from a good family friend of his about a month ago. They wanted to commission paintings of their children done by the world-renowned, Ian Strawn. By the way, if you haven't seen his website, you must! They wanted to fly Ian out to take pictures of their kids as well as wanting us to babysit their five children while they were attending a wedding in Utah. They used to live in Boston (a very cool city--according to "cool people"), but they just recently moved to Atlanta (a slightly less cool city--according to everyone). So off the three of us flew to Atlanta, GA! Niev is still free flying, but that does mean that she is on our lap. Luckily, with four flights total, we only had to have her on our laps for one of the flights. She thought it was great to be in an airplane. When we took off the first time, she just watched out the window and giggled quietly. By the last flight, she didn't care. She loved playing with the buttons on the armrest and watching Sesame Street on Ian's MP3 player (even though she didn't care about the headphones!). She traveled REALLY well and only when she got super tired on the flight back, did she even cry, wimper or whine. In fact after we landed, the lady in front of us, on our longest flight in which she was on our laps, said, "Oh, I wasn't even aware that their was a baby behind me! Wow, what a good girl!" We could not have asked for her to be better. Ian was really cute, planning different activities and things that she could do on the plane. He was very nervous about disturbing/annoying everyone else on the plane, but we were both pleasantly surprised in how well she did.

Taking care of five children is challenging. Ian and I both decided that we are glad that we are taking kids one at a time. The kids ranged in ages from 4 to 14, four of the kids being boys. I thanked the stars every day that the only girl was 12 and not 4 because she was a HUGE help! We enjoyed catching up with our friends and getting to know their children a bit better.

We were all very glad to get home, but Ian and I had some great conversations of how we imagined our family working when our kids are older. It was great to see how we worked together during the entire trip.

I am the Primary Chorister in our church which isn't a huge calling except for once a year when we do the Primary Program. This is when the primary children (ages 3-12) do a presentation for the main meeting in our church. There is a lot of singing as part of that presentation. Anyway, I was gone the week that our primary did their program. I felt like such a slacker! How is that for taking our calling seriously! I guess they did great without me, but I felt so guilty for missing it.

Niev is getting cuter by the second, but she is also developing a bit of an attitude. She has learned to yell at people and tell them, "NO!" which is very disturbing to me. I still think of her as a baby and babies shouldn't smart off. It was amazing to see how much her vocabulary expanded during the week we spent with older kids. Her pronunciation has gotten clearer and she has learned to identify much more in her environment.
Learning about balance. It impressed me that she could balance as long as she did.

She would get a bit overwhelmed when all the kids would get home from school. The boys really loved Niev, but at times, she felt a bit mauled. She would quietly come up to Ian or me and say, "Bed? bed?" She would then proceed to just lay on the bed, sucking on her bink (I hate that she still has that by the way!!!) and then when she felt ready, she would come back downstairs.

Riding her first tire swing and LOVING it--she kept just saying, "Woah, woah, woah!" while giggling!

She loves toothpaste. Not kid toothpaste, either. If she can get her hands on adult toothpaste, she is in heaven. She will even settle for sucking on anyone's toothbrush just to get a hint of the minty goodness. The poor kids were always reporting that Niev was in the bathroom sucking on someone's toothbrush. (This was a much better resort though, than putting thick hard potpourri down a toilet that plugged it up for two days--sorry Mom and Dad!)

She is very aware of babies, buses and of course animals. We will be driving in the car and she will emphatically say, "BUS, BUS, BUS" until you recognize that, yes, there is a bus. She really loves to put her baby, named Bau (pronounced bow), to bed and feed her. She goes around telling everyone, "Bau sleeping, shhh, Bau sleep." I hope this transfers for when the real baby is sleeping. She is great fun.

She loves to march. She will go around the house forever marching as long as Ian and I join in. If we don't then she will often pull at our waists, saying, "Up, moch, up, up". How can you resist that! She also loves dancing and stomping as fast as she can. I hope to post a video of her dancing with her friends. She is too fun.
Is the marching band still a nerdy thing to be a part of?

Her hair is getting long enough to tuck behind her ear, but she still doesn't leave anything in her hair, but I also am not very persistant with it. If you noticed, I have gone fully to everyday wearing a ponytail. She is not getting the clear message from mom that girls primp for an hour every day. Her hair is long and in fact we were told at a restaurant the other day that we needed to cut our BOY'S hair! She does sometimes look like a boy with the surfer long hair going. We do also dress her in boys' clothes sometimes so I can't blame just the hair. I just can't do too much pink, although my sisters would be proud, I am doing much more than I ever imagined myself.

Niev is one of her boy shirts. I thought it was cute--do you blame me?

Monday, November 3, 2008

MIA from the internet world, back in time for Halloween

Yes, I do realize that I haven't posted for almost two months, but I'm pregnant. Doesn't that cover anything you are lame about doing?

I will first tell you that my husband is amazing a did a really great job in Brazil. He was very nervous about his presentation, because he was the only English presenter of the entire art conference. Luckily, they translated through headphones so the feedback was pretty immediate. He got several compliments (one girl paid for the conference just to hear Ian--she had been following his work for quite some time!) and many people told him that he really saved the conference for them. They said that most of the speakers either talked over their heads or were giving useless information, but Ian was funny, personable and gave great tips/hints/ideas of how to make their talents useful. We were very glad to see him get home safe though. Niev was shocked when he would be in the same house as her and exclaim, "DADDY!" as if to say, "What the crap are YOU doing here?!?!"

I enjoyed spending time with my family and learning how to be a real Mormon mom: canning pears, peaches, jam while cleaning my mom's house and of course eating out with Mom and Grandma. I have realized that my mom is a powerhouse and works all day. Every day I was there she definitely outworked me, but I'm pregnant, right? Don't worry that my mom is well into her 60's and can pile drive me into the ground.

Ian and I had been talking about having Niev be a dinosaur for Halloween. We have this philosophy that Halloween costumes should totally be creative, homemade, and something random/fun/interesting. I had read somewhere last year about doing a dinosaur and cutting sponges for the spikes on the back. I thought, "I can do that!" Come to find out, it is a lot harder making a costume than anyone would have you believe! I hope Niev appreciates all the work that went into it. My mom helped me sew the tail and Ian helped out quite a bit. (I do have a great husband.) He did the eyes and the teeth. She turned out pretty cute, but the tail needed to be a bit higher on the costume, but I was too lazy to rip one of the sponges off of her back. So here she is...our Niev-osaur...drum roll please!
I was nervous that she wasn't going to keep the hood on (as you can see she has gained a bit of an attitude), but as soon as we told her she had to keep the "hat" on if she wanted to go T-O-T, she was more than willing! It was fun to watch her.




Ian thought it was hilarious that the dinosaur was actually eating Niev!

We went trunk-or-treating at our church building (which she had a sneak-peek at when we were in Atlanta--another post another time!) so she recognized how this should go. Every car that we stopped at she would say, "Trick or teet" and then quickly say "tank ooo" because she knew mom would take away some of her candy. Anytime anyone would just drop the candy into her bag, she would reach in until she felt candy, just to make sure that she really did get some! She had a great time!

Niev and her friend, Olivia, who we do MANY playdates with!

Thanks Grandma Weber for making the perfect Trick-or-Treating bag/pillowcase! She got TONS of loot!