Little Miss Lissy - Blessing and 2 Months Old

Little Miss Lissy is still little! Why an exclamation point for such standard baby-news? Because she is the smallest 2 month old we've had by several pounds. It was fun to have our chubby boys to snuggle, I'd totally take another one, but it's new and precious to have this little girl. She was 10 lbs. 8 oz. at her 2 month appointment (actually a couple of weeks after she turned 2 months), which is somewhere between the 30th-40th percentile. She was also 90th percentile in height, so she's tall and thin so far. (I didn't get a printout from this doctor, so for my recording-forever's sake, my memory is as good as it gets.)

Elisabeth still has tummy troubles, which is sad, but when they're not bothering her she loves to interact with us. Her smile is adorable, and she just loves to chat and chat. Here are some pictures I've gotten of her in the last month and a half or so. I was just thinking today that while pictures can be cute, and awesome pictures are awesome, no matter what you pay for those pictures it can't compare to a tiny little girl cooing and smiling at you, with her tiny little toes kicking around. So, that's my blessing for the moment, I get to have her for real. Not screaming can be a blessing for another moment. :)

Lissy was blessed on New Year's day while we were in St. George celebrating the holidays with Gary's family. My parents and sister came down, and I also have a sister who already lives there, so little Elisabeth had a lot of family to love. I cried during the entire blessing. It's hard bringing a baby into the world, then taking care of her along with her 3 energetic brothers, but a moment like that puts the reasons for doing it all into focus. I felt a real sense of what a precious daughter of God she is, and how much He loves her. She was blessed to be able to know that, and to do all of the things she will need to do to follow the Spirit. I just loved the sweet sense of peace I felt, and love for my daughter. And although it wasn't about me, encouragement for me. Gary said the people around him gasped when he held her up afterward. He is a proud daddy. And a good one, too. And I should have touched up my make-up before the following photo shoot . . .

Gary's dad, Gary's mom, Gary, Me and Lissy, my mom, my dad

My dad apparently did this to seek shade in St. George. Unrelated, but amusing.

Kristen, me, Hannah. Aren't they gorgeous?

Andrew, Jill, Bethany and Lissy, Sydney, Christian, Leah. All of these cousins LOVED helping with Lissy in St. George. The girls were constantly asking if they could hold her, and were so cute with her.

Lissy isn't good at letting small-fry hold her. But Andrew is nice . . .

Hannah and Lissy

Kristen, Lissy, Shane

Noah and Lissy

Uncle Eric and Lissy

Uncle Taylor and Lissy

Uncle Christian and Lissy. Because she is covering the print on his T-Shirt, it looks to me like he is going to baptize her.

It was a lovely day. Really. And her lack of head-adornment is related to how I rang in the New Year. It's not too spiritual, so later.

Need Some Guidance? We've Got Some Insights . . .

Josh got to asking about false prophets tonight during FHE, and I was attempting to teach the boys how the Holy Ghost will tell us what is right, and who is good. I started in on my explanation, and before I could elaborate Noah said, "I know another way you can tell the good guys and the bad guys. If it's a bad guy he'll say 'hee, hee, hee,' but if it's a good guy he won't say 'hee, hee, hee.' " (You should have heard him and his villainous hee hee hee.)

Today while I was feeding Lissy, Josh came up to me with a smoldering rag. Yes, embers and everything.
After the exciting moments of  them to running it into the back yard and dumping it on the snow (as per my instructions, right after, "Aaaah! Get that out of the living room!"), I was told the fire had started when Noah put the rag on top of the light fixture. I hadn't even had a chance to give any correction when Noah started saying, "That was a bad, bad decision. I've learned my lesson!"

I've wanted to buy a carpet cleaner for a while, but it never quite surfaced to the "must buy" list. Then the other day Andrew took off his diaper, pooped on the carpet, and dragged it into the kitchen. (To be fair, he wasn't happy about it.) As was hauling him up to the bathtub to wash him off, I was thinking about the carpet, and wondering if I should just buy the carpet cleaner. Should I spend savings for such a thing? To buy or not to buy . . . I had to scoop all of the bathtub letters out of the tub in order to prepare for the nastiness I was going to put into the tub, and after I put Andrew in I looked down at the letters. The ones on the top were B-U-Y. Coincidence? I think not. I'm buying it. Can't wait to share that in Sunday School.

Andrew said his first prayer without our help tonight. It wasn't funny, it was sweet and adorable. I loved how excited Josh and Noah were for him. Aaah . . . it's all worth it and then some.

Rise and Shout, The Cougars Were Out

Fresh off the bowl game victory, it's not too late to talk about BYU football, it's the perfect time. (Let's face it, this one has been sitting around forever, time to publish.)


First, the tale of the Utah game. (From an email I wrote at the time.)
 . . . Gary was SO determined to watch the BYU game on Saturday night, but we have no friends with cable in the neighborhood. Well, any that are of a mind to watch the game. Gary was determined we would watch it, though, and bought meat for a game-watching barbeque, even though we had no way to watch the game. It ended up that Gary and 2 of his friends in the ward cooked up a scheme that took FOREVER to implement and involved going to one family's home and streaming the game through their internet (had to be comcast, which they were the only ones to own), re-setting their wireless router (which took a very long time because they lost the password), taking another family's big screen tv off the wall and bringing it to the house with the right internet (cuz the tv had to have an hdmi input), and finally getting it hooked up to see the opening fumble. And that's the short version. Yes, it was a horrific massacre, but there was some fun had. We had yummy food, great people to chat with, and very entertained kids. The men were a little depressed when they were trudging through the dark at midnight to re-hang the tv, though . . .

Then there was the game we took the entire family to, courtesy of MOTU. (My dad said he'd like to be referred to as master of the universe once. My sisters have since complied with this abbreviation. Seemed to fit for this gifting of tickets situation.) Anyway, one extremely lovely fall day we witnessed BYU beat Central Florida, with Kayla and my Dad to cheer (and be climbed on) along us.

Kayla and Josh

Gary and Andrew - we kept Andrew busy for a while with Tootsie Rolls.

Noah was good as gold for the 20 minutes before kickoff, but the good capital was mostly used up when the game started. This monkey routine was all he wanted to do after that. Seems no more dangerous than the playground . . . I know it's not proper, though. Sigh.

They really wanted me to take this picture of them with this Star Wars flyer. I have no idea.

Andrew and I ended up spending a full quarter in the Cougar Club room, snuggling and playing with balloons.

Another attempt to capture a self-portrait of Andrew and his pregnant mommy.

All joy shown here is real. Josh really loves these games!

The best game of all was vs. Utah State. Gary and I got an impossible to refuse offer for babysitting, so after a series of ticket dramas (free from a friend, nevermind that, cheap off of KSL, nevermind that, free off of KSL after the game already started), we made our way to LaVell Edwards Stadium, just the two of us! The game was exciting, complete with an amazing drive for the win at the end. It was great to go on a big huge date before the baby came - hours of talking and munching on Twizzlers, no other worries. Gooooo, Cougars!

(And lest anyone point it out, I realize it wasn't THE most stellar of seasons, but that's not the point. It was fun!)