Dancing Cookie Thief!

Reese can now pull out the bar stools, climb onto the counter top, turn on the Ipod, use the remote to find the song she wants, help herself to a cookie, and dance away!

Seriously...what happened to my baby!

"itty" bows!

Yesterday was a momentous occasion in the life of Reese. We've had quite the struggle in getting Reese to keep anything in her hair. Over the last couple weeks she's finally allowed me to put hair bands in, but no bows. They are ripped out immediately.

But not today. I decided to approach the bow situation from a completely different angle. I used to try and sneak them into her hair, distract her, and hope she didn't notice. Obviously it didn't work. Today I showed her the bows, let her hold them and told her how pretty they were. Then I let her watch me put it in her hair. We looked in the mirror and talked about how pretty bows are on little girls. She ate it up. She started pointing to the bow and saying "itty, itty!" Through out the day she would randomly come up to me, point to her head and say "itty, itty!" I'm happy to report that the bow lasted the entire day!!

Hurray for Reese and her "itty" bows!

Reese is rather annoyed with me in this picture. I'm blocking her view of the television.

Dancing Queen!

It seems recently Reese is all about the dance! As soon as she hears even a hint of a beat, her shoulders start to bounce and her head starts to bob. Before we know it she's in a full groove.

Her favorite TV show...

This provides a good hour of dancing entertainment! For both Reese and for us. Arnold and I watch Reese more than the show. We watched the show on Sunday night when Uncle Kit was here. It was pretty funny as three grown adults sat for almost and hour watching an 18 month old dance around; cheering her on all the way.

Her favorite song...


She will listen to this song over and over again! When we're in the car and this song randomly comes on the radio, she recognizes it immediately. She starts clapping, squealing and bouncing away in her car seat. It's the funnies and cutest thing ever.

A very close second is "Say Hey (I love you)" by Michael Franti & Spearhead! What can I say...my baby had good taste in music!!

Bowls...

This is what Reese and I did today. We stacked and re-stacked all the bowls...over and over again! Sometimes I wonder why we buy toys!

Our little Boo Girl!

We've had a couple people tell us that when Reese talks she sound a little like Boo on Monster's Inc. So...if she has the voice, we thought we try and embrace the look as well.

These pictures aren't the best quality. Reese never holds still long enough for me to adjust the setting on my camera anymore. But I couldn't resist all these crazy facial expressions that I see a hundred times a day!

(Excuse the literal cheese hanging out of Reese mouth. We're still working on our eating manners.)

"Not the camera again" face

"Monkey" face

"full mouth" face

"Trying not to smile" face

"Ok...I give in" face

"Do I look like my mom here or what?" face

Stunt Girl!!

My friend and cousin Laurel posted this on her blog and I absolutely loved it...because it's something I've been thinking about lately as well. She has been getting over a loss, as I have and her words were so perfect. I had to share.


[per-spek'tiv] n. the ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance; subjective evaluation of relative significance; the relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole

No matter the exact definition you choose, the way we feel about our lives or our current circumstances are impacted, for good or bad, by our own perspective.

Sometimes I wonder about this blogworld of ours.

We take our own life experiences from our own perspective and share our thoughts and feelings...sometimes in the form of a release...sometimes in an attempt to be helpful...sometimes to get support...other times to satisfy some other need...with people who each have their own life experiences and their own perspectives.

There are so many difficult life situations. People experiencing gut-wrenching moments of time when their world seems too hard...too much to handle.

And whether it's the heart-wrenching sadness of disappointment or intense pain of loss or the overwhelming burden of unmet expectations, each experience is being approached with a unique perspective.

A perspective that, at times, feels foreign to me...
because of my perspective

Can the woman who lost her baby see past the tragedy to be grateful for the other three boys she gets to raise?

Can the woman struggling with infertility see past the devastation to be grateful she gets to be married to an amazing man who loves her?

Can I see past the disappointment in my own life the past 7 weeks to be grateful that I had the blessing I had while I had it?

Yes.
Because of perspective.

And what is the perspective of the heart during the wrenching is not the same as the perspective of the heart at the time of healing.

So, I find myself wondering: Which comes first?

Does the healing change the perspective?
Or does the change in perspective allow for the healing?

I guess that's a matter of perspective too.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

When I was a girl, my dad would always buy me a little something on Valentines day. It was especially appreciated when I got a little older and I didn't have my own Valentine giving me something. When all else failed...I knew my daddy loved me.

So when Reese was born, I told Arnold that I wanted him to start the same tradition with Reese. I know she's a little young to truly appreciate it right now, but you should have seen her excitement when daddy walked in with all these balloons just for her. Reese loves balloons. It was priceless!

Reese has been sick the last couple days. She wouldn't let go her balloons, even while laying sick on the couch. She held them all day.

Men vs. Women

Last night as Arnold and I were getting ready for bed, we were having a lighthearted discussion about the differences between men and women. I often tease him, that he just doesn't understand how women think and he assures me that women are a code that men will never figure out. So last night was no different and the debate continued over who is the most logical of the genders.

As we climbed into bed and grabbed our scriptures for our nightly reading, we opened up to Helaman 12. I began to read the first sentence of the introduction...

"Men are unstable and foolish..."

Case closed!

I had a hard time not laughing through the rest of the chapter, which happens to be a very good chapter. It was just too perfect of a beginning!

Love you honey...even if you are unstable and foolish at times :)

Valentines...

Our neighborhood has started a play group, and today was our second "play date". We had an awesome Valentine's Party with all Reese's friends.

These were the Valentine's that Reese gave out. Reese even helped make them...if helping includes eating as many suckers as possible while mom cut them all out...

Reese making her very first Valentine bag...

Tadaa....

Reese checking out all her loot...

The full loot! So much love in one little bag.

A big thank you to all Reese's friends for a fun party!

And thanks Iliana for hosting :)

Holy hair...

Reese's hair doesn't seem to be getting longer very quickly...but it is getting much thicker!

Here's some crazy bath hair...

Santa's belated delivery...

So we thought about asking Santa to bring Reese a bike for Christmas, but thought; she won't be able to use it yet and we weren't sure she would even be interested in it. So we figured we'd leave it to the Easter Bunny. However, the last couple weeks we've had some warmer days and all the neighborhood has been slowly coming out of hibernation. As the street has begun to fill with bikes and scooters, Reese has been none too happy that she is toyless in the transportation department. And the neighbor kids have been none too happy that Reese keeps stealing their transportation.

Long story short...Santa had to make a belated delivery...or the Easter Bunny delivered a little early. We're not quit sure which one to thank. But Reese is very happy.

By summer, she just may have the peddling thing down. (The parental handle comes off, when she masters the peddling.)

Although she's all to happy to push the bike as well.

The best part...the handle flips around and the bike turns into a rocker for in the house. Which Reese loves as well. The only hard part is cleaning the wheels every time we transition from outside to in.

But this cute face is worth the work.

Please mommy! Please let me have the lemons from your water...

Thank you!

ohhhh...these are sour...

This may look...

like just an ordinary closet...but...if you look really really close, you'll see a little something hiding in this closet.

like a cute little face...

Reese likes to start at one end and work her way behind all the clothes. I'm lucky if only a couple things get knocked of the hangers in the process.

Wanna ride?

Reese and Claire, pretending to take Brighton's cool Jeep for a ride! They were too interested in all the fun buttons, they wouldn't even look at me for a picture.

Brighton was so sweet to take Reese for her first ride. (see video below) It's hard watching your baby girl ride off with a boy for the first time...LOL :)

And away she goes...