Bye Bye Baby

Rori is growing up right before our eyes. It's fun and sad and scary and exciting... all rolled up into one!

She can now climb in and out of her crib. It looks like it's time for us to get her that "big girl bed" we've been thinking about. She's showing signs that she's almost ready to start pottytraining. I expect that by summer she'll be out of diapers. She will finally let us read a whole story to her from front to back. Lately, she's been insisting on drinking out of a regular cup, not a sippy cup. She'll settle for a sippy cup as long as there are Princesses on it... but she still prefers a regular cup. And (this is by far the worst of all)... she's starting to cut off naptime. I can still get her to take one most of the time, but she's definitely letting me that it is not necessary.

These are all good things... she's growing up normal, healthy, and strong. She's developing, learning, and growing. I am glad for that. But I can't help but miss my baby.

There are no guarantees in life and I know that there's a chance I will not have more children in this life. When Cadi was little, I naively assumed we'd have more kids - it was a given. Now I realize that you can't assume or take miracles like children for granted. Had I realized how hard it was going to be to have another child, I think I would have cherished Cadi's toddler days, and mourned her growing up, a little more. Now that I'm in the same situation with Rori and understanding this could be the last time to experience these moments with a child of mine... it's bittersweet.

And with that thought in mind, I'm going to go get some snuggle time in while I still can!

Getting back to normal.

Not that we ever were normal. lol

School and work are back in session! That means back to using alarm clocks to wake up, and making sure that clothes are clean and backpacks and shoes are locatable.

I've heard many people say that if their husband didn't work, he'd drive her crazy. I don't know... Ryan had pretty much all of winter break off with us and I didn't get tired of it one bit. In fact, I conveniently forgot that he would actually have to go back to work today; I wanted to keep living in my fantasy that money magically appeared in our bank account whether or not he did anything to earn it. I was really sad that it was just me and Rori all day. The house just felt empty.

But I got a lot of laundry done! ;)

Definition of Statistics: The science of producing unreliable facts from reliable figures.

So when we had our big snowstorm(s) last month, the news reported that statistically, the snowiest Decembers have all been followed by some pretty snowy Januarys. (When it's more than one January, is it "ies" or "ys"? Huh, I have no idea! lol)

And it appears that so far, they may be on track. A couple of days ago we got some snow, not a lot, but some. And tonight we just got a couple of inches. I was out with the Sister Missionaries and started to think we might have an extended Winter Break tomorrow; there is enough on the roads right now that I think they'd call it a snow day in our district. (And I have not been watching the news lately, so I had no idea of our forecast.) Turns out though (I just checked the news website.), it's going to turn to rain and I'm guessing it will all wash away before morning.

Too bad, too. This snow is nice and sticky and I bet it would have made a great snowman and snowballs.

When the Lord closes a door, He opens a window.

It's funny how sequence of events can occur.

Three weekends ago, we had our "adventure" losing our transmission in La Grande, OR on our way to visit friends in Idaho. Today, I gave the lesson in Relief Society, basing it on the talk by Elder Wirthlin from last conference called "Come what may and love it", and I used our experience from three weekends ago as an example. Unfortunately, not as a good example; I regret not taking advantage of such a unique opportunity to make silly/fun memories with my family while we were going through that - or at least taking pictures of the whole ordeal. lol At the time, I was extremely disappointed because I realized that one of the side effects of losing a transmission is using your vacation money to pay to get it fixed. We had been planning on going on a cross-country trip this year to visit Ryan's family in Massachusetts and then seeing all of the church history sites along the way back. Well, that will have to wait for another year now.

However, after church today we talked with Ryan's East Coast parents and they are going to be attending a conference in San Diego, Ca two weekends before Thanksgiving this year. We always drive down to Sacramento for Thanksgiving and they have invited us to meet up with them a week before we go to Sacramento. And this, I think we can do! We're already going to be driving most of the way there, and vacation time is not the problem. It will still cost money to drive the extra way and stay in hotels and go to fun places like the San Diego Zoo... but I think we can swing it. It will by far cost less than driving across the country and back again, staying in hotels the whole way.

Details are still in the works (of course); we think we'll spend a couple of days in San Diego, and then a day or two in Palm Springs, and also a day or two in Anaheim. It is totally different than the vacation we had planned, but it'll be a ton of fun and within our remaining budget (I think). And most importantly, we will still get to visit with Ryan's parents this year. :)

A fun, lazy week.

This has been a fun week.

Ryan was home almost every day, Acadia had a friend who lives out of town come and stay for a couple of days, we spent a lot of time playing Wii and watching movies, we had friends over for a fun New Year's Eve, and tonight I totally beat Ryan and his friend on Boom Blox (Wii). In fact, the only not so fun part of this week was that poor Rori woke up sick this morning. But she slept half of the day and seemed to be back to normal by night time.
So, we didn't do anything super exciting or go anywhere special; we just hung out and had fun. I think it was perfect. :) (Minus Rori puking.) I'm kind of sad that next week we go back to the work/school routines.

Words you don't expect to hear from a kid...

Yesterday and through the night, we got a TON of rain. It was pouring like crazy! This morning when I woke up, I looked out the window and found that at some point, it switched from rain to snow. MORE SNOW. Lovely. I mean, it really is... but we've had a enough snow lately. Thankfully, it's not a lot - not even an inch.

When Acadia woke up, I told her it had snowed and this is what she said, "Snow, snow go away!" lol

I guess us adults aren't the only ones who got tired of the snow. I think it's especially funny since she's been asking if we can go up to Mt. Hood tomorrow to go sledding! lol

Happy New Year!

We've had a fun night playing with friends and saying goodbye to 2008. And here we are in 2009! 2008 was a pretty good year. Interesting... but good. lol It's exciting to look forward to a new year, not knowing what it will have in store for us.

I was just thinking... it was 15 years ago exactly that Ryan and I first met. It was just at midnight, and my cousin was looking for her friend who happened to be Ryan's roomate. Ryan gave my cousin a "New Year's" hug but then he looked at me and said, "Well, I don't know you so I'll just shake your hand." I remember thinking, "But you're cute and I wouldn't mind a hug!" Instead, I said nothing, smiled, and took the handshake. lol

Every New Year's since then, I've gotten a kiss, so I'm not complaining. ;)

Happy New Year!