I Can Do It Myself...

Beth is a wonderfully independent girl, and we love that about her. Now that she is officially 1, she has begun to insist on doing things on her own. Here are a few things that she does:

1. Puts her clothes in the laundry hamper. Every morning when we take off her pajamas, I give them to her and she knows to put them in the laundry hamper. I'm loving this habit and hoping it sticks with her for a long time. However, she does take the clothes back out of the laundry hamper if she can reach them. Also, another downside is that everything else ends up in the laundry hamper as well. I recently washed my keys and am trying to be better at making sure all unapproved items come out before the clothes go in the wash. I still think it is adorable that after she puts something in the hamper she claps for herself.






2. Brushes her teeth. We recently visited my sister in Boise with most of the rest of my family. Beth having no teeth at the time I didn't bother bringing her toothbrush. Then we ran into a problem. Beth's cousins were brushing their teeth and Beth couldn't. My brother Patrick was amazed that a child would throw such a fit over not being able to brush their teeth. But it is a struggle each morning to get the toothbrush away from her. Yea for good oral hygiene!

3. Picks her clothes. Technically I still pick her clothes, I'll pull out 2 outfits and then let her choose between them. Most of the time she tries to grab both outfits. Sometimes we have to coach her because she pulls both the pairs of pants and no shirt to wear. But she loves to try putting on her own shoes and hats and sometimes when I'm folding laundry she gets into my clothes and tries to put them on too.

4. Reads. She doesn't really read, she's only 1. But for the past little while I've been going through this book of stories with her called Treat Shop (a remnant of Jaren's childhood), especially when she is a little groggy just after waking up from a nap. Now, when she wakes up she has to sit in the big reading chair and won't let me read her the story. She has to sit by herself and hold the book and will even make little babbling noises as she turns the pages. She's going to a be a smart one!







5. Climbs the stairs. She knows how to go up and down the right way, but prefers to go up like we do. She can't yet, but she tries.







6. Pushes her stroller. We went to the mall and got some ice cream. She was more interested in pushing the stroller than begging us for some of our ice cream. She took off in her fluffy zebra striped tutu like skirt, pushing the stroller as fast as she could, the entire length of the mall. She started tiring out a little by the end, but she made sure that every person we passed looked at her and we could hardly stand that cute little skirt                                bouncing back and forth as she walked. Now she's begun to push us around too.

7. Feeding herself. The biggest struggle. I was really looking forward to being able to train Beth to use her silverware and feed herself and so I wouldn't have to do it anymore. Now, she'll hardly eat while I'm feeding her, but will really insist on doing it herself. The problem...not much of it ends up in her mouth.

8. Brushing her hair (and mine). She's always loved brushing her own hair, now she won't let me do it for her. And she helps me with mine and Jaren with his, at times. You do have to watch out, sometimes the wrong side of the brush comes at you kind of hard...

9. Cleaning out her ears. I have an aversion to having water in my ears, so after my showers I use the opportunity to dry out my ears and clean them while I'm at it. That has become the habit for Beth after bath-time too. She definitely knows where the q-tips go.

Playdate

So, just in case anyone is wondering, this is not Jaren. This is actually Heather. Jaren is caught up with finishing school and doing his internship, and lets face it, he only blogged because he had to for class. So, now I get to try my hand at it.

Beth hosted her first playdate this week. She loves playing in water and so we bought a little kiddie pool for her to play in and invited some of her little friends over (and their mothers of course). Lunch consisted of sandwiches (we had turkey-bacon, chicken with roasted red pepper and spinach, cucumber, and tuna), some cantaloupe, strawberry jicama spinach salad with homemade honey orange dressing, and frozen strawberry lemonade, with petit-fours for dessert (I finally got my cake recipe just right!)

Beth and Abby had lots of fun splashing in the pool. I was surprised at how well Beth did when she slipped and fell in. Beth loves to follow Abby around and do everything that she does. And I think both the girls loved coming and drinking their mommy's strawberry lemonades.

Almost Done

This semester has been a busy semester, and having to blog and post every week did not help.  I don't know if I will ever tweet again, but I might actually keep the blog up for a while, we'll see how motivated I am.  The good news though, this semester is almost over!  So this week I was supposed to help out someone more stressed out than me.  I would of course wait until the last day to even think about this, but I did get it done.  I'm in the Young Men's Presidency, so every fast Sunday I get to help out with fast offerings, which has never been one of my favorite things to do.  So I grab one of the teachers and we head out on our route.  We make good time and before we know it, we make it back to the church, being the first ones to make it back.  The second counselor is there and tries to get us to go on one of the two routes that were left.  I didn't want to do it, thinking I just wanted to go home and be with my family.  However, I started thinking a little bit more.  The second counselor also has a family, a wife and three little girls, and I was sure he was just as anxious as I was for these routes to get done so he could get everything counted and get home, especially since it was Easter.  As I was thinking this, my attitude really started to change.  I started to realize that I was being selfish and I needed to help out where I could.  So the teacher and I grab another route, and with this new attitude, we cheerfully went around the second route collecting fast offerings.  It really did turn out to be a great learning experience for me in the end!

Beth's Big Move

So Beth has been enjoying walking around while we are holding her hands.  Ever since she has gone to California, she has wanted to walk more than she has wanted to crawl.  It makes things interesting, especially after we've walked her around for a little while and our backs are hurting from bending over so much.  So the other day, I was walking with Beth and Heather was sitting a little bit away.  So I asked Beth if she was ready, walked her a couple of more steps, and then let go fully expecting her to fall right down.  To Heather and my surprise, she took a two or three good steps and actually made it to Heather.  So, we of course had to try again, and she was able to walk back and forth between us a few times, even getting up to four or five steps all on her own.  I really can't believe how fast this little girl is growing.  She's pretty funny though, she gets stage fright and if we try to get her to do it in front of anyone, she just sits right down.  She really is a funny little girl!

Busy Week

So, I look back at this week and it seems a million years ago this week actually started.  Things started off busy with school.  I had some nice group projects followed by a midterm.  School has kept my pretty busy this semester seeming like there's always a big project or some test coming up.  I also came to the realization that Heather does a really good job at keeping me motivated.  She and Beth were down in California most of this week visiting Heather's brother who just got home from a mission in Brasil.  I found it very hard to do anything this week even though I had the house all to myself.  It's pretty amazing how a wife a kid will keep you motivated to get things done.  We did find out while Heather and Beth were in California, Beth is pretty terrified of grass, which I find pretty funny.

So Heather and Beth made it home on Thursday.  It was absolutely amazing to see how big Beth got in just over a week.  I couldn't believe it.  I love having them back in the house though, especially when I'm able to listen to Beth laugh, she really does have to best laugh in the world.

Our stake also had it's Spring Extravaganza this weekend.  So Saturday morning we get up and head over to Exchange Park for a 5k.  I had been debating the whole time if I would walk the 5k or just kind of wait at the finish line for Heather and Beth to finish.  I finally decide that it would do me some good to walk.  So we start going and make it to the halfway point and turn around and start to head back to the park.  So, I was feeling a little ambitious and, I know it's hard to believe, but I actually jogged some on the way back.  It felt good thought to get out and be active.  We decided to have some friends over later in the afternoon and have our first barbecue of the year, which was a great way to end the day.

Now the new week starts though, time to crack down and finish all of these projects for school.  Wish me luck!!

P.S.  A friend of ours who is studying photography at BYU-I took some pictures of Beth while they were in CA.  She took the picture of Beth in the grass and here are a few other she took.