10 months and Violet's Faces

Violet has many faces. I decided to capture some of them.

Yesterday Violet turned 10 months old. She is growing up so much. She is now crawling on her knees and is pulling herself up on more and more things, including Wes' Aragorn sword which was hanging on the wall. It is now in the closet. She is making more and more sounds, including something that sounds vaguely like kitty. She isn't sleeping as well as she was last month. She likes to get up once a night nowadays. I hope that stops soon. She also isn't napping as well either. It is a phase I'm sure. It does look like she's about to get another tooth on the top so that could be contributing to the frequent wakings.

She is really getting her own little personality. She likes to yell at us to get her more food when she is in her highchair. We're trying to work through that one. She doesn't like green beans and she will throw them onto the floor. She likes most other foods and has recently become a big fan of banana bread.

She does give us lots of smiles and gets excited to see us. She gets especially excited to see Wes when he has been busy and cries when he goes away. She LOVES touch and feel books. She likes to touch all the special materials. She still loves to suck and bite blankets and stuffed animals. She loves to play Peek-A-Boo and is very good at it! It is pretty easy to make her laugh most days and it is a hearty laugh.

I can't believe in just two months she will be celebrating her first birthday. Time sure is flying!

Missing Teeth and the Tardy Fairy

Adelle has quite the smile when I ask her to grin for the camera. She shows ALL her teeth, or the lack thereof. A couple of weeks back while she was at school her other front tooth popped right out onto the classroom carpet at school. Adelle rushed over to the sink and all of the kids got excited and followed her. Now most teachers would probably get upset, but not Adelle's. She congratulated her on her most recent tooth lose and the kids all joined in. Her tooth came back in this special envelope. Adelle wrote on it "P.S. I lost this tooth at school". She then drew an arrow to the lumpy spot in the envelope and wrote "My tooth".

The tooth fairy came that night and delivered two whole dollars.

Lydia lost a tooth not long after Adelle. She has began loosing more of her baby teeth again. Thank heavens she pulls them out herself. I'm not sure I could pull out my children's teeth. I feel a little bad for the girl because for some odd reason I didn't take her picture. She lost her right canine tooth. I just asked her why she wasn't pictured. She just said she didn't want her picture taken. Phew....I'm not a bad mom. I knew there was a reason. It is that 11 year old "take my picture?" attitude. She isn't a fan of it.

Now, the tooth fairy was a bit tardy with her. Perhaps it is because deep down inside she doesn't really believe in the tooth fairy anymore. We had a discussion a couple of years ago not long after St. Patrick's Day. The leprechauns, Santa Claus, Easter bunny, Tooth Fairy and everything else was brought up and the sad truth came out. She honestly wanted to know and didn't want any lies. She said she'd had an inkling for awhile. We still believe in all of those things in our house though because it is fun to believe even if you know some of the secrets.

Anyway, the tooth fairy didn't make it the first night or the second night, but after the girls were up I "discovered" money on the stairs and asked to my dismay if someone had dropped it. When I was assured that no they hadn't, I remarked that the tooth fairy must have dropped it on the way the Lydia. It must have been that mischievous cat.

I'm glad my children love me so much!

Grateful for Small Spaces

So we have had a whirlwind of decisions recently. It all began with a coworker mentioning how great mortgage interest rates are right now. She said we should refinance. I brought it up to Wes and we both agreed we should look into it. We looked a few places and finally settled on our original mortgage broker that we used when we bought our house 5 years ago. We started thinking though "Instead of just refinancing, should we get a bigger home". We said this as we were tripping over toys, scooting around the playpen, and wondering where on earth we are going to place our Christmas Tree since we've reorganized the living room.

We began to search looking high and low for available houses on the market. You can get a lot of house for the money right now, especially since there are so many short sales. I really began to dig into this new thought. When I research something it is never half hearted, and in fact it often becomes an obsession. You should ask Wes. I think he dreads when I plan our vacations because I will search through hundreds of hotels and reviews. The house market was no exception. I looked and re-looked at houses on the Internet. No house was left unexplored. I knew pretty quick what I did and didn't want. It had to be something much bigger, something newer, in a well kept area. Something with BIG family spaces. I daydream in the future being able to entertain family at my home. Right now that is well...cozy :)

Something happened though. I was spending time with Violet, feeding her in the bedroom and helping her wind down for the night. I could hear noises of the football game coming through the window. The announcement of the homecoming royalty, the dance club halftime show, the cheers of the crowd. It warmed my heart. There is such a sense of community where we live. Our house is situated in a quite, cozy neighborhood, right next to the park. I offered a prayer to my Heavenly Father and felt like we should probably stay in our home.

The feeling was even stronger as I listened to the prophet talk during conference the next day of preparing for our futures. Right now we can refinance and shorten our loan by 10 years. We could absolutely be free of any debt in 15. School loans, car payments, the house, everything. It is so very possible and as I think of what we could do it makes me feel such peace and joy.

Also, this little house has grown on me. It is our little haven from the world. Besides, I have ideas on how to make it even better. Small project by project I could make it blossom into something even greater. Sure, I might not know where to put the Christmas Tree, but I'll figure it out. I will be ever so grateful for my small spaces :)