A Mommy in the Making

Amy has just started playing with dolls. It has been so fun to watch her. I've caught her several times in the last two weeks taking care of them. Luckily, I've had the camera close by to sneak some pictures of her in action: I walked into her room to find her on top of her changing table. As I walked over to her she said "stinky" and then began lifing up the dress of her little dolly.
Amy's making sure her panda is getting plenty of macaroni and cheese for lunch. (The baby in the background is not Ian . . . he's a little boy that I watch a few days a week).
Amy swaddling her bear and putting him in a car seat base.
Then today I walked into the living room and found Amy reading a book to a figurine.
I love our little Amy!

Creating

(Don't look too closely at the picture . . . there are still threads I need to cut off). At the General Relief Society Meeting President Uchtdorf said "As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you." I'm always looking to better both those worlds so I decided to stop just surfing the creative blogs and actually make something myself (of course copied from a crafty blog (http://www.skiptomylou.org/) :). But he was right! "Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty." (I felt like this talk was just for me, it's one I will read and reread . . . check it out here) So, the crayon roll above is my "something of beauty" that I made! Once my kids went down for naps I went to work, and made two in just a short amount of time. I was so proud of myself after finishing this simple project. Although they are not perfect, I'm pleased with how they turned out, especially considering how much sewing skill I lack. So, now Amy has a cute crayon holder that I think she'll enjoy putting her crayons in and I have some fun ideas of little gifts I can make for others! Anyone else have any fun/easy projects?

6 random things about me

So, I was tagged by my friend Jaycee, and now I get to write 6 random things about me:

1) I love checking out grocery store ads, cutting coupons, finding deals, etc.

2) I collect recipes/cookbooks, I love looking at food blogs and trying new recipes. Except, I do a lot more looking at recipes than trying them. I have great ambitions to try new recipes; however, I end up rotating through the same five to ten meals!

3) I love to plan menus and organize my life (which somehow I end up doing over and over again). I think my record for "staying organized" was maybe 3 days and I was just organized in one little quadrant of life.

4) I figured out the secret to a decently clean house is to wash, dry, and fold one load of laundry a day (or every other day). This works great for me. My house still isn't perfectly clean, but even ask my husband . . . I've made great improvements after adopting this habit.

5) I love to do family history. To me it's one giant puzzle. The first SWAIN in the United States was one of the original 10 purchasers of Nantucket Island. Pretty cool, huh? Too bad the land isn't still in our family!

6) I thrive on quiet. I can't handle a lot of noise in my life, especially unnecessary noice. When I'm in the car (and I'm not with Kenny) I do not listen to the radio. Most of the time, I don't like the radio on in my house. I hate the sound of bathroom fans or water running when it doesn't need to be. I love staying up late and doing whatever I want in a very quiet and peaceful home.

Bottom line, I'm a geek :)!

We did it!

Forget catching up on the last month, it's too overwhelming . . . so here's our good news for the day! Amy's off the bottle. I took her to the dentist a few weeks ago, and he warned me that her bottle habit, regardless of whether she just used it as a pacifier (I was quick to tell him there wasn't anything in the bottle she just needed to suck on something to fall asleep) would cause a skeletal issue if we didn't break her of it. I knew I wasn't a good mom by letting her have the bottle for so long, but it just made life so easy I couldn't bring myself to change it! So, I have been slowly working on ridding her of the bottle. We began removing it from her mouth and hiding it as soon as she fell asleep. She would wake up in the middle of the night and come into our bed. We'd put her back in her own room and give her the bottle again to help her fall asleep and then quickly remove it. After a week or so of that she began sleeping through the night without needing her bottle to get back to sleep. Oh, and the bottle we gave her had the top of the bottle's nipple cut off (that didn't deter her any!). But, she still needed it to calm her down enough to get to sleep initially. Well, last night Kenny made the final call. No more bottle! She was hysterical for over an hour but finally her tiredness won and she fell asleep on her own in my lap (11:30 pm). I thought I'd have a big fight with her this afternoon when it was her naptime . . . it wasn't ideal but she fell asleep on her own on my bed reading the children's song book, and tonight, she did it again, this time in Kenny's arms but at least she was asleep by 9:30!! So, instead of the bottle now she needs us but at least she won't have any skeletal issues. Lesson learned: Ian does not get a bottle (or a pacifier) in bed!!

(Here's how I found Amy for her nap time. I thought she might be getting into trouble because she had been quiet for a little too long (like 5 minutes). (Notice my bed is made . . . impressive!)

It's a little embarrasing to admit but Ken and I are homebodies. We really don't get out much, but I'm discovering that I need to get out more, just to stay sane. So Monday night we planned to go to the fair. I was very excited to take Amy to see the farm animals. She's fascinated by them like any 2-year old. But, as we pulled up to the fair, nothing seemed to be going our way. We were too hungry for a repeat of the awful navajo tacos we had 2 years ago, the kids were fussy, Ken had a headache, and it was getting super crowded. At least they all seemed like valid excuses for us . . . so, we decided to head over to Temple Square instead. After all, we were already downtown, which in and of itself is quite a feat. We had such a great time! We weren't sure how kosher it would be to take the little wagon onto temple square but we did it anyway . . . Kenny scouted out seed pods for his next year petunia crop :) and we both showed Amy the flowers and fountains surrounding temple square! It's a beautiful time of year to go. I think she loved it almost as much as she would have enjoyed the fair. We'll be going to the fair on Thursday instead for the animal experience. (Never in my whole life have I had the desire to see the pigs and the sheep or any other animal for that matter at the fair. Now, with children, that's all I want to see).

Old News

I went to edit my last entry and found several blogs that for some reason I never published. So, I'm going to post them now even though they are old news . . . (to me).

Playing Catch Up

Like everything else in my life, I'm playing catch up!! So, here we go . . .
What's been going on at the Curtises this last month? Orderville (a small town in South Utah about 20 minutes west of Kanab) for a family reunion, Youth Conference, family in town, and a lot of outside time . . . still!! We spend most of our evenings outside. I love Utah summer nights, the evenings are beautiful and comfortable!! But summer is already going by way too fast.

Amy is talking up a storm!!! She's still not forming complete sentences but she tries! She mimics everything I say. It's so fun! Whenever Ian would burp I must have always made a comment to him about a "big burp" because now whenever Ian burps Amy gasps and says "Be bur". She starting to listen well too. She got three stickers today for listening/helping. She spilled some yogurt. I showed her what she did, and without me even asking her to, she went and got a towel and wiped it up! She did chip a tooth a couple weeks ago; I have no idea how it happened, but it's even changing color a bit. (this picture is before the tooth incident . . . a pretty typical looking Amy, dirty face and all :).

Ian is getting his first two little teeth. They've just popped up through his gums so that you can barely see the tops of them. He's ready to crawl around but just hasn't figured out how yet. He is so anxious and fidgety! Church is normally pretty busy trying to keep Amy entertained through Sacrament meeting. Today Amy was entertained but Ian was grabbing at everything and bouncing and busy!!! I'm in for trouble!