Lost

I found a cool site tonight from my friends at wikipedia.

http://www.lostpedia.com/wiki/Main_Page

M's Road Trip Favorites

Music-She danced like a maniac in the car to the Beatles and Venus Hum
Tricks-taking 10 steps at Grandma and Grandpa's house! crawling down stairs!
Feats-faster and better at walking and crawling than her cousin (can anyone say cousin rivalry? -it was rampant! If Hazel had a toy, Meggie wanted it and vice versa, all the way to a few cat fights-we still have high hopes for friendship as they grow older! :)
Swimming-her favorite spots? the chair next to the pool, or the step coming into the pool, anything else? not so much!
Toys-Her favorite toy in the car? baby wipes! yes, that's right, they clean, they rip, they're good to suck on (clean ones, folks!), they're great for peek a boo and when they're done, there's always more! second favorite? her new magna doodle. It said 3+ on the package but she loved it! She'd draw pics and hand it to me to clean it off.
Hairdo-Her curls went wild with the Arkansas humidity and were soooo cute! I hope they do that here this summer! She was sporting a lot of ribbons in her hair so you know Mommy was having fun with it too!
Moments-sitting like a big girl at the dinner table (three babies this year, so Grandma got a booster for M and two high chairs for H and J), she was so proud of herself, but by far, her favorite thing is always coming home. We put her in bed last night and she was so happy! My little homebody loves her own space.

But we had fun! Pics to follow!

Closer and closer and closer!

Last night we had so much fun playing with M! She was taking three and four steps between me and the coffee table and chairs and so proud of herself, stopping to clap and laugh and say "yeah!" She's getting so confident without holding onto anything-we may be getting close to figuring out all this walking stuff!!! :)

soooooo excited for Lost tonight! My friend at work is convinced that they're all dead and in purgatory and I'm holding out hope that the writers won't let me down tonight!!!

and tomorrow we leave for Arkansas!!!!!!!!!!!!! My baby sister is graduating from high school and we had the weekend off anyway so we're going to swim and relax and have fun, southern style!

Me too!!!

M loves to kiss her Daddy! When she sees us kissing, she'll crawl over and pucker up her cute lips and ask him ("mmm?" "mmm?") for a kiss. Of course he loves it and obliges everytime! But she loves to kiss him more than me! DH says it's okay because I'm Number One and so he has to have something and I guess he's right but she's really funny about how she hardly ever kisses me and LOVES to kiss Daddy!

What's in a Name?

Today M did something that made me so proud of her! We were walking down the hall at church and she points at a bulletin board and says "jsss". I stopped and turned around and sure enough, there was a picture of Jesus! We always point him out and usually she says "dah" which is her word for lots of things but today, all on her own, she started saying "Jesus" or some form of it! During singing time, the presidency was watching her new skill pointing to pictures of Jesus and having her say it and I just got so emotional, hoping that she gains a testimony of Christ someday and hoping that she learns who He is someday.

gifts

For Mother's Day, W and M gave me a gift card to Home Depot. I was ecstatic because that means flowers or light fixtures or weed whackers or all sorts of fun things!

Some of the best Mother's Day gifts though, are from my Mom herself:

a love of music, singing, humming!, musicals, Julie Andrews
craftiness! not scheming, but crochet, sewing, cross stitch, making pretty things for your home and for other people
a tender heart and leaky tear ducts (that's probably from my Dad too)
restless legs
a love of good food
guilt over the results of all the indulgent good food
brown eyes and hair
collecting... her collections: boxes, santas, baskets, lladro, dishes
my collections: bears, shoes, lip gloss, cherries
how to fold laundry nicely and roll garments
laughing, i'd like to say I laugh as much as her but really, it's just that she and my sister and i sound alike!
minimalist makeup...makeup for me is a Sunday affair
a love for pianos even though we're not great pianists
"You can't leave Target without buying SOMEthing, right?"
love of flowers, road trips, national monuments, scenic routes
unconditional love
and a very strong homing beacon!

I get to go home in one week!!!!!! Woo hoo!!!!!!!!

Who's Crooked?

I had to go and look at my picture to see if the photographer was crooked or my Monet?
It was the photographer! :)
I always wish we had taken her picture BEFORE church and naps and messy hair and this week I actually remembered!

After church we had a lovely dinner at Will's parents for Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to our sweet mothers!
M's favorite part was the strawberries! She started fussing when we took them away! (and she hardly ate breakfast this morning, she was still full!)

Tonight we had friends over for dinner and FHE. We used to do that with them every month and it's been months since we had them over and we've missed them. Of course no pictures to prove the Price's actually came over but it was fun! M wanted so badly to help Daddy with the grill, she stood at the door banging and yelling!

But my favorite part of the day today was when I was doing my hair this morning. M found a pink ribbon on the floor and kept trying to put it in her hair and grinning up at me. Later, I had her on the counter doing her hair and she handed the pink ribbon to me again and I put it in her hair and she was so pleased! So cute!

I Love BBQ Season!

We got a grill from my parents when we moved into our house two years ago. We love it and wish the grilling season were longer in Minnesota! Now that it's here, we've grilled four times this week! (another perk to the hubbie being home more in the evenings!) Our first year, though, we were scared to to try too many things and grilled a lot of burgers and brats. This year, we got a tutorial on chicken and it's been wonderful every time so far! My sweetie's such a good grillmaster!

My 10 Names

I stole this from my sister, but it made me laugh!

1.YOUR REAL Name: Elizabeth Holman

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (first two letters of your name, plus izzle): Lizzle

3. YOUR "FLY Guy/Girl" NAME: (first initial of first name, first four
of your last): E Holm

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (fav color and fav animal): Blue Panda

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, Street you live on): Tobler Cypress

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 4 letters of your last name, first 2
letters of your first name, first 3 letters of mom's maiden name): HolmElMan

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (favorite color, favorite drink): Blue Cherry Coke (guess what my superpower is!)

8. IRAQI NAME: (2nd letter of your first name, 3rd letter of your last
name, any letter of your middle name, 2nd letter of your moms maiden name, 3rd letter of you dads middle name, 1st letter of a siblings first name, last letter of your moms middle name): LLoargg (is that said Lorg, or Larg, or Yorg?)

9. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/body
spray): Coconut Lime Verbena

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (grandmother's & grandfather's middle name, father then mother for a guy): Bybee Jex (I changed this one-too many real things want maiden names for security!)

Is she walking yet?

No! So stop asking!

M is 15 months old and I think she's brilliant! It's my job to think so! She's a thinker and a talker and such a good communicator so there's not much left over for gross motor skills, okay? My DH and I were not early walkers so it doesn't bother me that she's not walking yet. What does bother me is that it seems to bother everyone else. They ask if she's walking yet and when I say "not yet. she will when she's ready" they give me their worried look, like something's wrong with her! People! She gets into way less mischief this way, she is doing everything but letting go and walking, she is FINE!!! Do I sound defensive? :) When she was younger, it was always, "she's so skinny!" Can't babies just be perfect, just the way they are?

When I say she's a thinker, I mean she problem solves. When she was learning to crawl, she would study it and watch other babies crawl but never experiment herself. Then one evening, she tried it and an hour later she was a pro! I predict her walking will be much the same way.

She pulls up, stands by herself, cruises, climbs, goes from sitting to standing without assistance or holding on, she's practically walking, she just hasn't let go yet. When she's ready, she will. And I promise, I'll let you know when it happens!


okay, so this pic has nothing to do with the post, but she's still cute!

60 day challenge

It was supposed to be a 90 day challenge from April to June but I didn't get my act together until Sunday. Our stake encourages everyone to read the scriptures for 30 minutes a day. I find this very daunting and scripture study has always been a weak point in our marriage. We're really good at it for a few days and then bad at it for a week and so on. I used to be so faithful at my reading in college. I think I thought I needed it more then. Silly me! So, our ward decided to step it up a notch and encourage everyone to accomplish the stake challenge for 90 days straight and make sure we're in the Book of Mormon for at least half that time. So, I made a chart and decided even though it's a third done, I'm going to do it for the rest of the time. I have read for three days straight now. It's not much...yet, but it's amazing how those small and simple things make a difference in my attitude and how I'm feeling. And, plus, I'm a sucker for coloring in squares to show what a good job I'm doing! :)

More trash can victims...

I can't find my sunglasses and the last they were seen was in the office...hmmmm....
She should be innocent until proven guilty but I'm suspicious to say the least...
We also discovered some cords and her snack that had been sacrificed to the garbage can. We'll keep you posted! :)

It all started with a lost library book...

We have a little problem. M likes to throw things away. My DH does the trash so I've had to start warning him. I found her favorite book in the bathroom trash...that one needed to be disinfected! But our office trash gets the brunt of her throwing. I'm pretty sure she threw a library book in there because it is GONE! I finally had to report it lost so they wouldn't charge me a million late fees! As you can see, the current trash can has a toy, stationary (unused), Easter decorations, and now that she's emptying it (the other lovely part of this process), more baby toys, batteries, a book, baby wipes (unused) and old cards from my old wallet. Boy, do I love this girl!

What a Difference a Year Makes!!

Every few months, I have to go through M's clothes. Today was the day! I put away the too-small stuff, reconsolidate bins to make more room, relabel things, usually throw out a few things I KNOW we won't use again, and pull out clothes for the rest of the season. I'm a sentimental person, so I love seeing it all again, looking at how little the clothes look, and remembering cute moments in them. It made me wonder if I took pictures today, a year ago. I didn't. But I did on tomorrow a year ago and that's close enough!

This is actually one of my very favorite pictures of her when she was this age.

This isn't from today. I'll take one later and upload it, but once again, it's close enough!

Amen!

I am trying to be more positive today. It's been a long week and I've been down in the dumps and it has to end! Here and now! So... here are the good things lately:
1. M says "amen" now at the end of prayers
2. in fact, any time we're all together at the table, she folds her arms and expects a prayer. i have to think we're doing SOMEthing right!
3. i had a patient call and thank me for the work i do, out of the blue, for no real reason
4. M gets teeth in clumps-we're fussy and runny nosed right now with the canines coming in-they're supposedly the worst-but she's getting all four at once! this could be seen as a curse, but i think it's a blessing that it's over quickly!
5. i haven't run the heater or the a/c for almost two weeks! i love spring! hooray for lower energy and gas bills!
6. i may get to see my family in less than three weeks...stay tuned
7. two whole hours of grey's anatomy

Crushed Ego

I screwed up at work this week. I was in a stressful situation with a patient on Saturday where she showed up 20 minutes late to a 30 minute session, and proceeded to yell loudly at me in the middle of the OT gym in front of everyone about her pain. Frazzled, I misread the order, didn't do the paperwork right, and lost the note for the next therapist to fix my mistakes once I realized I had made them. Luckily, the patient is fine and no harm was done. I got a phone call at my office on Tuesday informing me of my misdeeds and I have felt terrible ever since. I have made big changes in my career this year-going from only seeing kids to seeing adults as well-and it has been very stressful for me. After not working with adults for several years, it was like going back to school and relearning how to do things. However, I've gotten so much positive feedback from my adult therapist colleagues that I suppose a little humility was in order, but I am scared to face them the next time I work at the hospital. So I came home last night, bought Chipotle burritos and felt a little better. I suppose some ice cream would help too...

Finally!

I have been looking for a new quilt. Someday I will finally make a wonderful quilt for our bed but until then we needed a solution! We have one of those big thick beds that all the blankets are too small for! We wake up with all the blankets in a mess and untucked and it drives me crazy! So my current solution was to buy a king size blanket for our queen size bed. As you can see by the skirt and pillows, we've had a dark navy theme so I also really really wanted something bright and springy!