Dad's Ordination

Rachel and Grandpa

My dad was ordained a High Priest this afternoon. We're all really excited for him. Things ended up being a little crazy and so we had to deviate from the original plan, which was 2:30.First of all it snowed a whole lot last night and this morning--over a foot, for sure, and it's thick, heavy snow. That meant that Grandma and Grandpa couldn't drive down from Salt Lake, which was better for me and Andrew because that meant that he could be ordained a little later, making it easier for us to go to our church meetings and get to my family's house.

My family had Sabrina and Rosie overnight so that Kelli could be with Olivia in the hospital but Rose has school in the morning (unless it is canceled because of the snow. It's still snowing) so mom and David left as soon as the ordination was finished to drive Rose back up to Salt Lake. She would have gone home with my grandparents, but they didn't want to drive in the snow.

Dad with Sabrina and Rachel

It was still good though. Reid ordained Dad and we all had a nice visit before everyone went their separate directions.

Our Daddies (and Sabrina, who was being a "grandpa's girl")

Then we had a family dinner and ate the cake that I made. I'm practicing for Kelli's wedding cake--I think I'm getting better. I'll have to be a lot better by February 22nd!

Sick, sick, sick

You'd never guess it from looking at her, but Rachel is pretty sick right now. She has quite the cough, a dreadful runny nose, and has been running a low-grade fever since she got her shots on Monday. She's just so cheerful about the whole thing it's hard to tell she really is sick.

On Friday night I put her to bed and she had a coughing fit and started crying. I left her for a few minutes, hoping that she would go back to sleep but she just kept crying louder and louder. I went in to comfort her and found her absolutely covered in spit up and snot. She had coughed so hard that she threw up and had rubbed it, and her nose, all over her face. It was sticking to her eyes and was all in her hair. Disgusting. So we had to get her up and wash her down and put her in some fresh pyjamas. She didn't sleep well that night at all, kept waking up every hour or so coughing and crying. I felt like I nursed her all night long.


She got up early with daddy and they played really hard--like she hadn't even been up in the night sick at all. We watched President Hinckley's funeral and she kept playing hard the whole time. Finally, exhausted himself, Andrew put her in the venus fly couch and we laughed at her while she tried to roll over and sit up, her attempts made futile by the couch sucking her in.


We had a fine afternoon and put some new light fixtures up, with the help of Andrew's family. Rachel has somewhat gotten over her "mommy-only" phase, although mommy is still best. She let Karen and Reid hold her while Andrew was a goof.

He was so afraid of being electrocuted, even though the breaker and light switch was off. He was holding the screwdriver in place over his head and twirling like a ballerina. He wore his goofy Italian sunglasses for safety goggles. He was just having a good time.


We had dinner with Andrew's family and Rachel was a little tired, but still cheerful, whacking people with bowls and throwing her toys on the floor.

We gave her a blessing before putting her to bed and although she seems a bit better today she didn't sleep well last night at all. We put her in the swing to sleep because she seemed to nap better if she was upright--that worked for about three hours, but then we were up every hour at least.

We're just glad that she isn't as sick as Olivia. Poor Olivia is in the hospital with what we think is a staph infection. Unfortunately she didn't go into the hospital until the weekend and so her blood work hasn't been analyzed yet. She had a horrible fever and was limping so my sister took her into the hospital. Olivia had a big pocket of infection in her hip, which was operated on. Since she had so much bacteria in her bloodstream, though, they've been trying to clear that up and she has to be "bacteria free" before they'll send her home.

Sabrina is at my parent's house right now, with sick Josie and Patrick, and she will be coming over to our house tomorrow morning. Hopefully everyone recovers from their sniffles soon and no one gets it as bad as Olivia! We've all been fasting and praying for her, poor little baby.

Sitting up, solo

Sitting up might seem like an easy thing to do, but having watched a baby try to conquer this skill has made me rethink the simplicity of it. Rachel has been sitting up, unsupported, for quite a while now although she still occasionally loses her balance. I remember when she used to just collapse or fold over like a sandwich though.

Recently she has experimented with her falling and has gotten quite good at "falling with style" from a sitting position onto all fours without banging her head on anything. The really tricky thing for her, though, was getting back up to sitting again. She has been trying desperately for the last few days and finally succeeded today.

I was still sorting things in the living room and Rachel had climbed behind a big box. She was fine for a while but soon she began stressing out because she couldn't see me anymore. Apparently it didn't occur to her to crawl out from behind the box.

I tried to soothe her with my voice but she just kept crying and crying. Suddenly I saw her little head pop up from behind the box.

"Wow, you're pushing up so high!" I exclaimed, watching her little head in amazement. It didn't ever go back down. She kept her eye contact with me, while tears were streaming down her face, for quite a few minutes.

Now, I know that babies are really strong, but Rachel had never pulled off a feat quite like this before. The box was big enough for two or three of her to fit inside. Confused, I, myself, crawled around behind the box to see what she was up to.


She was sitting up behind the box, holding onto the rim for dear life, and, I think, trying to climb over the box to get to me. (Going around would have been so much easier).

"Andrew! Come see! She's sitting up!" I yelled, and Andrew came running.

She did it again when we put her down in her crib. So now she can roll over, sit up, and bear crawl all by herself. She just gets more and more mobile everyday...she's already starting to try and pull herself up on things and spends a lot of her time helping me learn how to babyproof things.

From what I hear, Andrew and I were both pretty docile and content children. I wonder where Rachel got all her spunk!

Extreme Spring Cleaning

We're a little early, I know, but we've started our spring cleaning. I guess I just keep hoping that spring is coming. It started with the baby's room that used to be the Rachel/Storage room. I would stumble every evening through a maze of boxes and piles of stuff just to get to her crib. It was a joke. And I have a theory that you sleep more soundly in a clean, organized environment.

So our spring cleaning purge started with the baby's room. Moving all of our storage out of her room meant that we also had to organize our outside storage closet, which was so full that it shouldn't be allowed. Things kind of escalated from there. We ended up with about five boxes for goodwill and two big garbage bags of trash. And we're not even finished yet!


We organized all the "Inside Junk" in Rachel's closet and decided to put her closet doors back on to hide all the stuff from her sight. If we left it out in the open it would be much too attractive of a destination for a baby her age. It does make the room look a lot cleaner...but also a lot smaller. Truthfully though, since all of the junk is behind closed doors the room looks a lot bigger.

The closet doors were definitely an adventure. Andrew gets his "fix-it" skills from Reid, who would much rather read a book than hammer a nail, any day. Things worked out well for Reid because Karen is amazing with power tools (and any other kind of tool) so he ended up not having to do many of the home improvement projects. Things did not bode too well for Andrew since I'm kind of the same way he is.

I'm not completely hopeless when it comes to home improvement. I know the difference between a flat head and a phillips...but that's about all. Andrew picked up a little here and there from his mom and she's mentioned trying to teach him some more.

He actually took her up on a lesson tonight on how to put on a closet door.

Let's go back...

We were all in Rachel's room trying to figure out the doors and sort things when Rachel decided that she needed to be held. I picked her up and held her and we watched Andrew struggle.

He got one door on and then started fighting with the second.

"I'll have to do this from the inside of the closet," he said, "I can't see the grooves from out here."

"I really think you ought to do that from out here," I said, "I think that's just how it works."

"But I can't see it from here," he insisted.

So I helped him get the door, and himself, into the closet and Rachel and I left to go and sort things in the living room. About five minutes later I heard a very muffled Andrew,

"I can't figure this out!" he wailed, "The doors are on, but they won't slide."

I walked back into Rachel's room.

"What do you mean? You're stuck?" I asked the closet door.

"Yes..." it said back to me.

"Okay, well...what do you want me to do?" I asked, trying to be helpful and knowing perfectly well that there was little I'd actually be able to accomplish on my own.


"Get the cell phone, I'm going to call my mom," Andrew said calmly after we tried taking the doors off again.

So he called Karen and after their lengthy conversation ended, he conceded from the closet,

"You put the doors on from the outside..."

About five minutes later he had both successfully freed himself from the closet and put the doors on correctly. Rachel and I just sat and watched.


We completely finished her room, except for sorting her clothes (I have to go through and pull out everything that is too small for her. Tomorrow will be a very sad day for me). It feels a whole lot better in there now that everything is organized. As the crowning event of Rachel officially claiming her room we put a picture of the Savior above her crib. I hope that she'll sleep a lot sounder now!

Just like Dad

"When I grow up I want to brush my teeth like dad!"

This morning Andrew was helping Rachel on the potty while he brushed his teeth. Rachel loves brushing her teeth and is pretty fascinated when mom and dad purposely put things in our mouth, mostly because we often don't (put things in our mouth...not brush our teeth. We do the latter often). She decided that she should give Andrew a little help and then kind of took over the whole operation, involving her own little mouth in the process.


When Andrew decided that this method of teeth cleaning was too cumbersome he handed Rachel her own toothbrush.


She was so proud--to be brushing her teeth all by herself while daddy was brushing his teeth was a new thing. Usually she brushes her teeth at night several hours before we do and doesn't often brush her teeth in the morning until after daddy leaves for school, so this was a real treat. So often she's just stuck brushing with boring old mom (whom she happens to love and adore and be really, really attached to right now).


Perhaps we have a little dental hygienist on our hands. Or a dentist. Or an orthodontist. Or an orthopedic surgeon. Or maybe even a world-famous tooth brush designer. At any rate, the girl loves brushing her teeth.

Playing with Maggie

Rachel has been blessed with many, many friends, which is a very good thing because she's a social baby. Today she played with 10 different friends. She's a very lucky girl because there are so many little babies in the ward right around her age. Today we had Maggie and Ian over to play. Maggie is about a week younger than Rachel and they had quite a bit of fun together. Most of my time was spent insuring that no eyeballs got skewered on curious fingers and that no one accidentally got eaten.

Rachel tried Maggie's foot..
And then decided it didn't taste too good.

Ian spent most of his time exploring all the new toys. He didn't want to go home because there were still toys unseen when Heather came to collect them. He especially liked our car puzzle and all the toy food.

There was lots of touching done by Rachel...


...And a little done by Maggie.


There was also quite a bit of holding hands. Rachel was quite affectionate with everyone today, really. She gave Maggie a kiss on the cheek and on the forehead and also kissed both Isabelle and Eliza during playgroup.



We need to make more play dates, I think. Rachel loves watching kids play and trying to interact with them--it makes her behave better for the rest of the day. She took both of her naps without a fight today and was such a happy girl all day long. Who knows, maybe if she makes really good friends with some kids in our ward she won't mind it if Andrew and I leave her to be babysat every once in a while...it could happen, right? She won't want to keep me in her sight forever, will she?

Whatever shall I do?

I washed the sheets yesterday and the load wasn't very full so I threw in the rest of the whites with them. I even got them put in the dryer, which was remarkable because shots make Rachel run a fever which makes her an official Mommy's Girl.

Usually she's just a "mommy's girl," and will entertain herself for a few minutes at a time, which means I have half a hope of getting something done. When she doesn't feel good though she turns into Mommy's Girl (with a capital MG!) and becomes a somewhat permanent growth on my hip.

So I didn't get the laundry out of the dryer to fold it. Before we could go to bed last night we had to make our bed. I took the sheets out and handed them to Andrew, then I took his Sunday shirt out and hung it up so that it wouldn't get wrinkly. It was late so I decided that the rest of the clothes could wait until the next day. Who cares if a few pairs of socks or undergarments are a little wrinkly? Certainly not me.

Andrew began making the bed and I finished getting ready for bed. While I was brushing my teeth he walked into our laundry room, which happens to be connected to our bathroom, with an article of clothing. He opened the closet door that hides the washing machine, opened the dryer, tossed the vesture in there, then shut the doors and grabbed his toothbrush.

"What did you do that for?" I asked.

"Well, there was a piece of clothes in the sheets that I found while I was making the bed, so I threw it on the floor...but then I realized that if I left it on the floor I would put it in the dirty clothes basket...so since it's clean I had to do something else with it. I figured that putting it in the dryer with the rest of the clothes was the best thing to do."

"Really?" I asked amazed at his thought process, "You couldn't have just folded it and put it away?"

Andrew looked a little sheepish. He honestly hadn't thought of that as a solution. Guys are just different than girls, I guess.

That little tongue thing

When Rachel can stand to be separated from mommy, one of her favorite perches is Andrew. She'll sit up on his shoulders with a big grin on her face, pounding his head, twisting his ears, gouging his eyes and pulling his hair. They both enjoy it a lot.

Rachel has also started this little "tongue thing" and she does it more and more frequently everyday, especially when she's enjoying herself. I think one of her secret goals in life is to get everything as wet as possible. She is really into tongues. She loves when people stick their tongues out at her--sometimes she'll mimic them and other times she'll try to grab at them. The majority of her time is spent chewing or spitting on objects.


One goal that I know she has on her list is to climb into the bottom of her exersaucer. She's been trying to do it for quite some time now and has been progressing nicely. I have a feeling that I'll walk into the living room in the next couple of days and she'll be sitting up right in the middle of her exersaucer.


It is difficult for me to get anything done with Rachel being such a mommy's girl. She rarely wants me out of her line of vision and if she had her way we'd be holding each other all day. That's almost impossible though, so she tries to keep me within arm's reach. It's her way of compromising, I guess. I don't have to hold her...she just has to be able to reach out and touch me whenever she feels the need.

Kitchen work, as you might imagine, became a difficult task. Sometimes I can get her to sit on the floor and watch me but if she decides to throw a tantrum then she'll fall over and hit her head. Or if she decides she wants me she'll end up pulling on my leg until I give in and pick her up.

The other day I decided to just to add her to my kitchen appliances. I unplugged the toaster, pushed the knives out of reach, and sat her up on the counter. I did the dishes with my hip in the corner of the counter, making it rather difficult to reach the sink, but I did it. Rachel was happy.

She helped herself to a few toys...


...and was a very good girl. That is, until she got bored. Then she knocked over the whole jar of utensils and pulled the dish towel out from under the drying dishes. Needless to say her life as a major kitchen appliance was short lived. What am I going to do with her? I'll never get anything done.

I'm just glad that Andrew has patience with us and when he gets home and it looks like nothing got done while he was slaving away at school or work he understands that it is because nothing got done. He knows Rachel is a handful--she's excited about everything and demands vigil attention, be it for her own entertainment or for personal safety. Busy, busy, busy baby!

6 month visit

The last two nights have been fabulous. Rachel went to bed around 10:00 without fussing both nights. On Sunday she still wasn't awake after 10 in the morning, so I had to wake her up to get her ready for church. This morning she also slept in a bit, so we slept in a bit and it was a big rush to get us to the doctor's office in time. It was nice to sleep a little late and nice that Andrew drove us there and nice that our appointment was one of the first ones of the day--we hardly had to wait at all!

Rachel was her little busybody self at the doctors office, snatching at all the instruments and twisting around so that the nurses and doctors couldn't get proper readings. I had to hold her head so that Dr. Olson could measure the circumference of her head. She kept whipping it around and trying to eat the measuring tape.

"She does the same thing when I try to do her hair," I said as I put her shoulders in a death grip between my elbows and steadied her head with my hands.

Have you ever tried to tie a bow on a moving target? It's no easy task.

Rachel's doing well though--I suppose that's why they call them "well baby" visits. She certainly is getting to be a big girl. She measured in at over 27.5 inches (95th percentile) and was 16 lbs. 8 oz. (around the 68th percentile). Her head is in the 65th percentile but I don't know how big it is in inches.

No one has ever told me how big her head was. I don't even know if they measured it when she was born, I assume that they did...but I don't know how big it was. I know how big it felt, but that's about all.

Rachel has become such a mommy's girl recently. She only ever wants me, which can be tough on a lot of people. She even screams when she's left alone with Andrew. This new trait of hers did not bode well for the doctor.

Every time he touched her, she screamed at him and reached out for me. He would put his hands out to her and she'd start crying, then he'd put his hands down and she'd stop. She wouldn't sit on the table by herself. She had to hold my hand--what, like having a stethoscope on your chest is scary?

"I'm glad I have nurses to give her shots. She's a loud one," the doctor remarked casually as he left the room.

And, with good reason, Rachel was also wary of the nurses. I laid her on the table on her tummy, she kept a good grip on my arm but kept twisting around to look from one nurse to the next. She did not want them near her at all.

"A, ba, ba, ma, ma!" she implored, her eyes begging me to pick her up and take her away from these strange people.

"It's okay, baby," I lied.

"No, it's not, Mom," said the nurse in a mock baby voice. And then poked her with a needle. And again. And again.

Rachel, of course, started caterwauling and thrashing about wildly, successfully bending one of the needles completely perpendicular. She only cried for a few seconds though. As soon as I picked her up she stopped crying and gave me a big hug and kiss. All better!

So it's kind of nice to have a mommy's girl, I guess...as long as you're the mommy!

Let us not be weary in well doing

There are times in my life when I feel that there is simply too much good to do, and there probably is. I suppose I need to hang on to the best things and drop some good things off my schedule. At any rate, there are days when I feel overwhelmed.

This happened in the beginning of January when we were asked to finish our visiting teaching by the fifteenth of each month. That's all fine and dandy because I like being a visiting teacher...except that I'm not sure that some of my assigned sisters like being visiting teachees.

I was frustrated so I started to complain to Andrew, which opened up plenty of other complaints. I just felt that I had too much to do with home teaching and visiting teaching and music and the primary and then Andrew was constantly being taken away from me to do fast offerings and taking the sacrament to bed-ridden members in addition to fulfilling his other callings and on and on and on. With school and work and parenthood and...I just kept listing complaints. Lesson learned: don't complain--once you start, you can't stop.

The next morning we heard some noise at our door. Andrew went to see what it was: a visiting teaching assignment. I had been assigned yet another sister.

It was about enough to throw me over the edge. Another thing to do!

Then I read my scriptures. 1 Nephi 3:5, "I have not required it of [you,] but it is a commandment of the Lord."

That's right, I thought, the Lord is asking me to do it, not people.

Verse 6, "...thou shalt be favored of the Lord, because thou hast not murmured."

Oh, great, I thought, there go my blessings...

Verse 7, "...I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."

That's when I realized that if I tried, and depended on the Lord, I would get into the homes of the sisters that didn't want to see me...somehow. I just didn't know how. Truthfully I still don't know how and it kind of hurts that my phone calls go unanswered and unreturned and that one of the sisters said she doesn't even want to meet me. My thoughts were rambling through my head...

Good thing I never served a mission...I never would have gotten in a door. I would be the cursed companion that was passed around the mission from one unfortunate companion to the next.

And I wasn't really paying attention to what was on the page until I came to verses 15 and 16, " As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father...until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us....Let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord."

I can't tell you the end of this story because I still wasn't able to do 100% of my visiting teaching this month. No miraculous miracle occurred, other than that I was spurred on to try a little harder. Perhaps that's why these scriptures stood out so profoundly to me when I read them.

I think that one of the best examples of someone doing this (this=being faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord and not being weary in well doing) is President Gordon B. Hinckley.

He served his whole life long. Always giving, always leading, always fulfilling any capacity that was his duty with a cheerful spirit. I don't doubt that being the prophet isn't always a fun role to fill. He probably worked harder in his old age than any other person, completely sacrificing his life for the gospel. He definitely had less time off than I have had.

I hope that someday I can be as willing to bend my will to the Lord's. I'm grateful for what I've learned from President Hinckley. I know that the words he spoke were the words of the Lord. President Hinckley was a great man and a wonderful example. I will miss seeing him and hearing him speak at General Conference but I am happy that he and his wife have been reunited. I imagine they were both rather lonely for each other. I know that President Monson will make a wonderful prophet and am looking forward to being able to sustain him.