"My (fill in the blank)!"

The kids doing their favorite things in the car:

Asher has definitely hit the "terrible twos." That's not to say he's terrible all the time. In fact, I still think he's about the cutest thing I've ever seen. A lady passing us in the grocery store today commented that I've spoiled him since I was giving him a hug when he cried, "Hu(g)! Ki(ss)!" Even when I know he's doing it to be a stinker, I still can't resist that cute little request.

These days Asher talks about "my" everything - my mom, my milk, my train (Peter was apparently trying to steal it), and my more (when he wanted another drink of water during the sacrament). The lovely thing is that Kaia is now also using this phrase to claim possession of her things. Ah, the joys of having two. (Honestly, I do LOVE having two for so many reasons, but they definitely rub off their bad behaviors on each other.) He's also been hitting recently so I make a plea to all you parents of children who have/do hit - PLEASE, have you found anything to help? Apparently our discipline measures are not doing a thing.

On a different note, my son seems to be potty training himself. I should probably be grateful and excited, but instead I kind of wish he'd wait a little while. I think I just can't imagine him being 7 or 8 months faster to train than Kaia was so I can't imagine he's really, truly ready. But just about every time I change his diaper he yells, "Poo! Poo!" and runs to the toilet. When he says poo, he really means pee (he has yet to do number 2 in the toilet), and he has peed in the toilet every time he tells me he needs to. In fact, in the middle of church yesterday he yelled, "Poo, poo!" so I went chasing after him to the bathroom. If things continue to go this smoothly, I certainly won't be complaining if he does potty train himself. I give almost complete credit to the fact that he has an older sister and he always wants to be doing whatever she is doing. Oh, I almost forgot. When he has his diaper off, Asher loves to run around the house with a huge smile saying, "Make-a bum, make-a bum" (Naked bum). I'm afraid we may have given too much positive reinforcement to this behavior, but he sure is a cute naked bum!

Zoo Day

Our friends, Jess & Emma, let us tag along with them to the Bronx Zoo yesterday. It was a blast! The weather was perfect (except for a brief 5 minutes of rain as we were leaving), and we loved seeing all the animals - although I may have enjoyed it more than the kids. It cracks me up that they can get as interested in a puddle of water as they are in the animals. We were 30 feet from lions, but Asher & Emma found this much more exciting:

We were able to play Asher and Emma off each other really well. If one was headed in the wrong direction, we'd yell, "Where's Asher/Emma?" and they would follow the other in the right direction:


The Bug Carousel has long been one of Kaia's favorite things at the Bronx Zoo. Asher smiled on cue, but he was really grimacing through his smile. He was "scare(d)." He was also scared when we took the Skifari, the tram that goes up over the whole zoo. However, today he keeps telling me, "Chair. High. Fu(n)," so I guess that scary experience didn't scar him for life.


Asher thought he would join the giraffes:

There were peacocks wandering around all over the petting zoo. I saw one about 3 feet away from me, so I got the camera ready for when it finally did this:

A Busy Day

We haven't had a Sunday this busy in quite a while. When I say we I mostly mean Peter. He was up and out the door shortly after 6 am for early meetings. He spoke in a different ward in our stake in the morning, then he taught Elder's Quorum in a different branch, then he attended the last couple hours of church in our building. After rushing home to get dinner, he headed back to church for another meeting and he's still there now. I am so grateful to have such a wonderful husband who so willingly serves other people.

(I was just interrupted while writing this by the sound of something hitting my window. As it turns out, a couple of young kids were throwing a pop bottle up and hitting our window. At first when I spoke with them I was angry, but I quickly calmed down and tried to help them understand that it's just not a good idea to start that type of behavior at such a young age. I said, "I don't want to be angry with you. I just want you to understand that doing this type of thing is not smart." The older one apologized and said, "I'll just go throw this away." Life in the 'hood...)

Back to the story of our day...this morning I had just put Asher in his bed to read books and play while I hopped in the shower. Kaia was busy coloring and making little books. As I was showering, I heard our home phone ring once. I thought it was someone in the ward. Almost immediately after I heard the phone ring again and I thought, That must be Peter. He got lost looking for the ward he's supposed to speak in. Then someone called a third time and I KNEW it was Peter.

Here's a little bit of background. Technically speaking, Peter is a good driver. He sticks even closer to the speed limit and follows other driving laws better than I do. However, he is AWFUL at finding places, particularly when they involve Mapquest or Googles Map. We could both look for directions to the same place and get completely different directions, mine being right of course. =) Somehow the directions he'd printed off last night to the ward he was going to were wrong. Here's a summarized transcript of his phone messages: "Maile this is an emergency, please pick up the phone. Please pick up one of your phones. Maile, if you can hear this, I need you to please pick up the phone."

Peter really is a very calm person most of the time so I make the most of the times when he's stressed out since we are in opposite roles far more frequently. He actually has gotten a lot better about being calm when he's lost. I just think it's pretty funny that I almost immediately knew it was him and knew exactly why he was calling! We eventually got him to the building and he was able to tie the story about him getting lost into his talk with spiritual applications!

This is a completely different story. I needed to do a spotlight about one of the kids in Primary. I hadn't planned ahead very well, so I decided to spotlight Kaia since it would be easy for me to get the answers about her! In Primary, I was describing her for the kids to guess who it was: "This person was born in Teaneck. This person has blue eyes and brown hair. This person's favorite color is turquoise." At this point, Kaia's hand shot straight up in the air and she exclaimed, "I know who it is! It's me!" I asked her, "How do you know it's you?" to which she responded, "I don't know." She was positively beaming throughout the rest of my descriptions of her and as kids gathered around to see her "something unique" about her - her strange fused teeth. She was really adorable. I tried to get a picture of her in her turquoise dress, but she fled to her favorite place these days - under the kitchen sink:

Searching for the Three Bears

We decided to take another timeout from our urban environment yesterday to hike in the woods. We went to a nature preserve where they had a couple of ponds and a few miles of hiking trails. It was great to be outside! Kaia spent the entire time looking for the home of the three bears (from the Goldilocks story). She was convinced their home was out there and she said they wanted to have us come over for dinner (I'm sure!). When Kaia asked me what her bears would say when they saw us, Asher answered, "Grrrr!" Kaia said, "No, these bears don't say that. These are nice bears."


Here's a small sampling of the things Kaia said along the way:

"I'll really be happy to see the bears, Mom."

"Oh, my heavens! That river is really far down there!"

After falling and scraping her knees: "Prob-ally the bears have band-aids for me." A couple minutes later: "I called the bears and they have Hello Kitty band-aids."

She "called" the bears a few times to ask things like, "How do we get to your house, bears? We can't find it." Here she is calling them:


Kaia carried a little ball of sticky tack throughout the entire hike. She planned to give it to the bears so they could hang pictures on their walls. She also gathered rocks along the way because those were apparently what the bears were planning to have for dinner. I was getting quite worried by the end of the hike about how we would resolve the whole thing since we were just not finding that bear house. Fortunately, Kaia bought into the story that the nature center that was at the beginning (and end) of the hike was the bear's house. She looked in all the windows for the bears, but since we didn't find them she left the rocks and other goodies for their dinner right outside their door:


As it turns out, both Asher and I are complete scaredy cats in the woods! I jumped every time I heard a squirrel rustling the leaves. And Asher was always saying something was in his hair:

A bug flew into my nose within the first 5 minutes of the hike and I kept sneezing the whole time - I'm pretty sure the bug crawled up into my brain because I never saw him reappear. =) But despite that and the utter lack of bears, we had a really wonderful time!

Wa(t)er. Dow(n). Lou(d). Scare(d).

Let me provide a quick refresher course on Asher-speak so you can read his words in this entry like he says them. He says a lot of words correctly except that he just leaves out key consonant sounds. So if you want to know how he says the words, read them normally but make the letter in parentheses silent.

Asher has been figuring out all the tricks to extend his bed- and nap-time routines. There's a pipe in the kids' bedroom that we can occasionally hear water rushing through. It's the J-shaped pipe in the upper left-hand corner:

His latest thing is to tell me, right when I put him in his bed, "Wa(t)er. Dow(n). Lou(d). Scare(d)." Apparently this water has made a big impression on him. On the way home from church, he randomly brought it up again and said the same thing: "Wa(t)er. Dow(n). Lou(d). Scare(d)."

I know I'm giving my kid a big head, but I can't help it - I happen to think he's extremely cute, both physically and his personality. I often ask him, "How cute is Asher?" His latest answer is, "Cu(t)e! Kaia cu(t)e!" Of course, Kaia can't just accept his compliment. She gets upset and says, "I'm not cute. I'm pretty."


We recently gave Asher a pillow to sleep with in bed. He LOVES it. He surprises us by sleeping right on top of the pillow instead of just with his head on it. This morning I asked Asher to lay on the pillow just so I could get some pictures. He was really wary at first - I think he was afraid I'd make him go to sleep - but then he got really into it and enjoyed it:

A Father's Day treat

Something about the onset of hot summer weather has left me with very little desire to cook real food for dinner, but I have had one hankering after another for treats. Peter requested these Peanut Butter Cookies for dessert on Father's Day. This recipe was given to me by my sister-in-law, Anneke. They're extremely easy to make and absolutely delicious. And, amazingly, they have no flour. Peter LOVES peanut butter cookies, and these are definitely his favorite variety.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 c. peanut butter
1 c. sugar
1 t. baking soda
1 egg

Mix all ingredients well. Form into balls. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes, until just starting to turn golden.

In this picture, you'll see the two variations I did. For half the cookie dough, I rolled them into balls and then rolled them in raw sugar (any sugar would probably work, but I like the texture the raw sugar adds when baked); then I used a fork to squash them down and put a criss-cross pattern on the top, but that didn't really show up after they baked. I stirred in some semi-sweet chocolate chips for the rest of the dough.

Kaia-isms

I've been keeping track of some of the funny/surprising/perceptive things Kaia says. The things I'm usually most surprised by are her understanding of religious concepts. Here are a few:

Asher is going through a hitting phase and Kaia is the most frequent recipient of his hits. After he hit her in the bath yesterday, Kaia said, "When Asher's older, he won't get to go to the temple because he hit me." (For those not of our faith, let me briefly explain temples: temples are sacred buildings where we Mormons go to worship. We go to our normal church on Sundays, but in temples, among other things, we get married for time and all eternity.)

She was recently making a little book to give to a friend. Her friend's great-grandpa recently passed away. Kaia's very fascinated with death - not in a morbid way, but just as though she is trying to understand. She said, "I'm going to make a book for her grandpa and save it for him until he's resurrected!"

Kaia has also been fascinated with the idea of bad people. She says things like, "Bad people eat yucky food." Up until now we've used the normal words for what happens in the bathroom =) but just recently Kaia learned about saying "number one" and "number two." She told me, "When bad people pee it's called number 4 and when they poop it's called number 5."

Kaia has been fairly precocious when it comes to speaking, so it really surprises me when she still says some words the same way that she's been saying them since she first learned them. A few examples follow:

sgetty sgoss = spaghetti sauce

fam me me me = family home evening

grill-chee = grilled cheese sandwich

fast-enating = fascinating

A few minutes ago I was cleaning the bathroom mirror to clean lots of little kid fingerprints off of it. About the fingerprints, Kaia said, "I've been dunning that."

Found it!

I've tried a number of recipes for rice krispie treats over the years, looking for that perfect gooey, not too crunchy, treat. I finally found it this week! I think one of the things that makes a difference is that this recipe uses LOTS of marshmallows, and the vanilla adds a nice flavor. Also, does anyone know if making them on the stovetop instead of the microwave helps them turn out better? That's what this recipe dictates and I'm not sure if that also affected the result. Here's the recipe:

Chewy Rice Krispie Treats

1/4 c. butter
16 oz. marshmallows
1 t. vanilla
6 c. rice krispies cereal (generic works fine)

Melt butter in large pan on the stove. Stir in marshmallows until completely melted. Stir in vanilla. Mix in cereal until completely covered. Put into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Allow to cool for a few minutes (we never wait too long!) and then enjoy!

Movie Star

I was reorganizing pictures last night when I came across these 2 from almost 2 years ago:


At the time, Kaia seemed so grown up and as cool as a movie star. She certainly had the same independent mind then that she has now. She had insisted that she wear the tights over her pants, and she had to have her sunglasses on. It really surprises me that she's younger in these pictures than Asher is now, but she seemed so mature to me at the time. First children seem more grown up, I guess. But now looking back she seems more of a baby in these pictures than a girl. She's definitely all girl now...and she knows her own mind just as well now as then.

A few other stories from recently so my sister will have something to read when she checks every day: I was recently scrolling through pictures on the computer when Asher spotted a picture of my brother Jordan and yelled out "Jor!" (he calls him by the first syllable of his name). He was insistent that I let him get a good look at Jordan's picture. Then a couple days later I was talking to Jordan on the phone and asked Asher if he wanted to talk to Jordan. His reply: "Yeah! Jor! Jor! Hu(g)! Ki(ss)!" So Jordan earns the distinction of being the first family member Asher names and the only person he's ever wanted to hug and kiss over the phone.

Kaia has long loved to tell me she has a secret to tell me; the secret she whispers into my ear is always the same: "If you sleep in your bed all night, you can have a special treat in the morning!" Can you tell we've tried bribery? So she was whispering this to me today and Asher decided he wanted to tell me a secret too. He whispered a bunch of gibberish in my ear followed by "Treat!" Then he would giggle, giggle, giggle. They took turns telling me this secret about a dozen times. In honor of their secret, we did make rice krispie treats after dinner tonight - how could I resist such cuteness?

On a recent drive in the car, the kids and I made up a song. We were singing "Grandma who, grandma you!" I asked Kaia if she is a grandma. She replied: "No, I'm a daughter, but I'm going to be a mom soon!" For some time now, she has been "expecting" the arrival of her baby "Flower Garden." I'm not sure where she came up with this name, but she is sure she will name her baby Flower Garden. She thinks Sienna, my sister who is expecting a boy, should name her baby either "Little cute baby" or "Baby giraffe." She will not be getting naming rights the next time we are expecting. =)

Last week I was putting new sheets on my bed and I had a feeling the kids were going to come over and start playing in the sheets. My first instinct was to tell them to go play with something else while I made the bed. Then I had a mental scene play out in my head of me in 20 years putting sheets on my bed in utter silence because my kids will be grown. I imagined myself thinking fondly back to the days when giggles filled the air, and I decided to let the kids just play. I'm so glad I did. They had such a fun time playing peek-a-boo in the sheets:

Miracles

A few nights ago I found myself in a rare cleaning frenzy. As I cleaned, I listened to this talk on Miracles by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. For those who are interested, this is the BYU website where I get all the talks/firesides/devotionals I enjoy listening to.

As I listened to this fireside on miracles, I was reminded of some miracles that have happened in my life. I definitely believe miracles can and do happen and I have witnessed some myself. I thought I would share a couple of these miracles.

Elder Oaks actually shared a miracle that happened to one of my ancestors - my great-great-grandpa John Alexander Nelson. I have a pretty awful memory for details, so I'm quoting Elder Oaks here to get it right: "We do not usually speak of spiritual gifts as a miracle, but sometimes the effect of a spiritual gift is miraculous. For example, many missionaries who must learn a new language are blessed with the gift of tongues. Most often this gift merely accelerates the normal process of learning, but sometimes its effect is so immediate that it can only be called a miracle. A young mission president experienced this in the South Pacific in 1913. John Alexander Nelson Jr. spoke Samoan but not Tongan. When he arrived for an assignment in Tonga, he found that he had been scheduled to speak to a congregation of 300 Wesleyan Methodists. He began in faith by speaking a few sentences of greeting he knew in the Tongan language, and then suddenly found himself continuing to speak in Tongan. He spoke without hesitation for nearly an hour 'as fluently as any native.'"

When I was in high school, my family and I took a couple of trips to Thailand to help in some orphanages there. Before we went, we planned for months by gathering toys, educational equipment, blankets, etc. to take to these children who had almost nothing to call their own. It was such a humbling experience to serve them and to see their immense gratitude. On one of these trips, my amazing mother had orchestrated a carnival to be held on a Thursday. We would have stations the kids could rotate through, doing educational activities, arts and crafts, and even basketball because a friend of a friend had donated a full-size basketball hoop for these children. Well, it was raining that entire week. And when you're talking about rain in Thailand, you're not talking about a little sprinkle. We prayed and prayed that by Thursday we could have beautiful weather for this carnival. Well, we woke up Thursday morning to beautiful blue skies without a cloud in sight. The carnival was a hit and the kids had a wonderful time. Within minutes of the end of the carnival, the heavens opened up and it was pouring rain again! We were so grateful to our Heavenly Father for letting us hold this carnival for these children.

We had another miracle at the start of this trip. We had flown from Salt Lake to L.A. and we were preparing to go through customs. It was at this time, as my parents were looking through the passports, that my parents realized that my sister Sienna's passport was expired. With all the other preparations that had happened for this trip, this one detail had been overlooked. My parents began talking about contingency plans - having my mom and sister call up friends in the area to stay with until they could get the issue resolved - but in the meantime they were also silently and sincerely praying. As we waited in line, my parents observed that the employee checking the passports was extremely meticulous in checking every passport, so they figured there was no chance we'd make it through. Well, right as our group got up to the booth to hand over our passports, a new employee came and switched places with the meticulous one. This new employee glanced through a few, but he punched the right stamp in every passport and sent us on our way. We were grateful to not have our plans delayed. As soon as we arrived in Thailand, my parents took Sienna and got the passport renewed. =)

I do know that miracles happen. They don't always happen when we want them to; as the scriptures say, such things will happen "in [the Lord's] own time, and in his own way" D&C 88:68. But I am grateful for the times in my life when I have been able to see the hand of God blessing me and my family.

Another Freebie

On our way out for a family run this morning, Peter spotted this coffee table in the trash. He examined it and couldn't find anything wrong with it. With excitement, we rushed back to our place, coffee table in Peter's arms, and we now have a new piece of furniture for free!! It's the perfect height for climbing, but also the perfect height for sitting together to do puzzles and play games. And the color matches almost perfectly with the color of our dining set. I love finds like these.

Recommendation

Good news! Our local A&P has our very favorite ice cream on sale this week for $2.99!! It's the Blue Bunny Super Chunky Cookie Dough ice cream. I had no idea I liked cookie dough ice cream so much until we tried this a year or so ago. It is really incredible! It's a little pricey at normal price, at least compared to other brands, at around $5.69 or so, but definitely worth getting 3 cartons when they're on sale. =) There are a couple of things that make this ice cream exceptional. The cookie dough is fabulous with just the right touch of saltiness, and there are a respectable number of cookie dough balls in the ice cream. But beyond that, the ice cream itself is really fabulous. It has a swirl of caramel throughout and it's really rich and creamy. I myself am a huge fan of bananas with ice cream and mixing them with this ice cream is awesome!

Before & After

I've had a few conversations with different people recently about scrapbooking. These have caused me to reflect on the process I've gone through to become the scrapbooker I am today. This post is not meant to brag or anything like that, and I know I have a LONG way to go and still have a lot to learn, but for any of you out there who think you could never scrapbook but might want to, I thought I would post a picture of the first page I scrapbooked since I took it up after having kids and then my most recent page. I thought I was getting pretty fancy by printing out the little title:
The next 2 pictures are of my most recent page. I thought I would also describe the process I went through to get to where I am now. After I did the above page, I took a break from actually scrapbooking and become somewhat obsessive about checking out book after book from the library. I would read them as if I was studying for an exam - but the funnest exam I've ever taken! - as I would absorb layouts, color combos, etc. I would scrapbook a page here and there over about a year as I just let scrapbooking ideas infiltrate my mind. Now it comes so much easier. I still look through magazines and books for ideas, but I can come up with my own ideas, too. And I'm becoming aware of what my style is - and what is definitely not my style. The layout looks much better in person than in the pictures below, but you can get the idea of how much my scrapbooking has changed.


And a note about this 2nd layout - the title is meant facetiously! I'm talking about how many New Yorkers seem to think New York is the center of the universe, and how (unintentionally) I've developed a (very) little bit of this attitude myself. I wanted to capture those feelings on a page.

One more thing I want to say about scrapbooking: I'm sure everyone has their different motivations for scrapbooking. It's taken me a while to realize what mine are. I LOVE stories - I have since I was a little kid. President Monson was always my favorite speaker in General Conference because of all the stories he told. Now those are the scrapbooking pages I feel compelled to make - the ones that tell the little, the funny, even the sad stories of our lives - the ones I don't want to forget but probably would without making a record of them. I could just write them in my journal, but I find it much more gratifying and fun to look at to put the stories on beautiful pages.

Thanks for indulging my long monologue!! The online scrapbooking class I've been taking has really reaffirmed to me just how much I love this hobby!