Family

I have family visiting me right now. My mom, my step-dad, Marty, and my brother, Jason, are sleeping in my living room right now. They got here in time for dinner and then we walked up on campus to listen to some of the carillon concert and visit the Bean Museum. It is fun having family visit. I need to remember to take my camera when we go places tomorrow so that I can get some pictures.

Only 3 more days until I start school! I'm so excited!!

Julianna encouraged me to blog and I remembered. I spent the morning sorting through boxes that were full of old papers, notes, and cards from when I was younger. It made my house a mess because I was sorting everything into piles and my kids also had freedom to go crazy since I was distracted. In the afternoon, we went to Vivian Park up in the Provo Canyon. We walked along the trail for awhile and had a good time. Joseph loves throwing rocks into the river, it's one of his favorite things to do. Julianna and Tina stopped by in the evening for a quick visit. It was super awesome to see them and a great surprise. Today was a very good day and I'm grateful for it.

Sickness

I tired posting this a couple days ago and apparently it didn't work...

We just got over being sick at our house. Joseph got sick Tuesday and continued to be sick until Saturday. Annabelle and I were only sick on Saturday. We had a very unpleasant stomach virus and I felt like I spent most of Saturday cleaning up after it. We started home from church yesterday to make sure that we weren't sick any longer. We also washed everything that had gotten dirty and all the bedding, just to make sure the germs were out of the house. Today everyone is doing just fine, so it's really nice. It's great to not be cooped up in the house anymore. It's always frustrating to get sick when the weather is nice, especially when we gone through a long, cold, and rainy period. I hope we get to have some awesome adventures this week.

My Blogging Return

I just found an app that allows me to blog from my phone, so I will now be able to blog more often. I know that's what I always say so we will see really happens.

Today: 1. Joseph and I worked on his letters. He has this fun puzzle set that has a little ladybug puzzle for every letter of the alphabet with the upper-case on one side and the lower-case on the other and a picture of something that starts with the letter on the back. When we play with it, I lay out a few lower-case haves and then show him an upper-case half and ask him to find the match. He's really good at it. I've been increasing the number of lower-case letters that he has to pick from over time. He gets it right on the first time at least 80% of the time. It's just amazing to me how smart he is.

2. We ate apples and Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip for snacktime. The dip is an awesome recipe for the Our Best Bites cookbook that Mitchell just gave me for our anniversary. I started following the blog after Heidi posted about a cookie recipe someone used from it. And when I found out they were writing a cookbook, I knew I wanted it. Our anniversary was on Monday of last week and Mitchell gave it to me then. I really love it. I've already tried 3 recipes out of it and I plan on trying all of them. Here's the Caramel Toffee Fruit Dip recipe (if you love it, start following their blog and get there book from Deseret Book!):

1 8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Toffee bits

Combine the first 3 ingredients and then sprinkle with desired amount of toffee bits. It tastes the best with Granny Smith apples, but it's still really good with other fruit, too.

I didn't let the cream cheese get soft enough when I first made it, so it looked kinda nasty. I took it to the ward activity on Monday night and hardly anyone ate any, including Mitchell (he said it looked scary). But after it finished softening and mixing, it looked much better. But it always tasted awesome! So, anyways, make sure you soften the cream cheese and mix well. 3. We walked up to campus. I had to go run a few errands to figure some things out for school. It was such a beautiful day outside, too. Joseph was running all over campus waving and saying hi to all of the students. Most of them thought he was really cute and had a smile for him, although there were some that seemed annoyed by him, but they were probably just stressed seeing as finals are next week. I can't even express how excited I am to start school. I seriously don't think that I can even wait until June. Even though classes start in 2 months, it seems like forever to me.

Two Long Days

I actually started typing this blog yesterday, but I got too tired after all the crazy activities. I'm super tired right now, but I'm going to make sure to post before I fall asleep. My blogging goal is to write at least 3 things about each day. Yesterday: 1. We went shopping with Pam! It was super fun. We went to Old Navy and got cute Easter outfits for Annabelle, Joseph, and me. We also got lunch together at one of my favorite restaurants, Noodles and Company. Joseph and Dutch were so excited to play together and didn't want to be separated when it was time to go to lunch. It was also funny that when I told Joseph that we were going to see Pam and Dutch, he got really excited and then he asked where Tina was, made a comment about Annemarie going downstairs, and finally started talking about Samantha and Athena. It's funny how he connects family together so well. 2. I accidentally took a nap. I was just going to lay down for 20 minutes, but my alarm never went off and I woke up an hour and a half later when Mitchell came home. 3. We had a really fun ward activity. It was a barbeque and we took a ward family picture, too. It was so fun to sit and talk with all of our friends in the ward. I haven't had this many really, good friends at church in a long time. I really love our ward! It's sad, though, because a lot of our friends are moving out this month or next month. The ward changes so much here because people are always graduating and moving out or getting married and moving in. 4. I didn't get the kids to bed until almost midnight! That wasn't fun. Annabelle just wouldn't settle down and since she was staying awake, Joseph wasn't going to go to sleep. It took forever for Annabelle to wear herself out. I don't know why she had so much energy. Today: 1. I made Banana Chocolate Chip muffins. They were really good. 2. Joseph saw his friends outside pretty early, so we went out, too. It was kinda cold, but it was fun sitting and talking with my friends. We were watching the BYU tree guys cut huge branches out of the trees. It was pretty cool. 3. Annabelle put herself to bed!! I swaddled her and put her in her crib and then I turned on her noisemaker (it does different nature sounds, tonight's is a heartbeat sound). I had to go check on Joseph so I just left her there. She kicked her legs for a bit and looked around. I came back in and watched as she just fell asleep. It was really awesome! I hope she sleeps a long time tonight. She seemed like she had a bit of a fever before she went to bed. I think it's because she is teething. I hope it is because she is teething. 4. I straightened my living room. The floor was so messy that you could hardly even walk through the room. It's so much nicer now, although I still need to vacuum it. Okay, Annabelle is actually awake now. She probably just wants to nurse. I feel proud of myself for blogging twice this week already! Yay!

My Return

Okay, I have a renewed desire to start blogging everyday. Let's keep our fingers crossed! I'm playing with some ideas to reformat the way that I blog that might make it easier for me. We'll see... My blow dryer broke while I was doing my hair this morning. It was pretty old and nasty, so I'm just glad it didn't explode and catch my hair on fire. Now I HAVE to let my hair dry naturally (which is what I normally do, but I was trying to break my "ugly" habit). This leads me to some other news: I cut my hair! It's chin length and cute. I just needed something that Annabelle couldn't pull all the time. I would post a picture, but I have NO idea where our camera is... My other exciting news: I took the ACT and scored really well. And now I am a BYU student!! I've decided to get BA in Family Life with Family Studies Emphasis and a Music Minor. It sounds fancy, but it seems like I'll mostly be learning to be a better mom. I'm tired now... there is more I could post about, but I don't want to burn myself out. I'll try more tomorrow.