Sleeping

Sometimes this baby comes up with some very awkward sleeping positions.  Take this one for example.

What makes Christmas special?

About two months ago at church during Relief Society the Relief Society President mentioned briefly that there were some families in our ward who wouldn't be able to have Christmas and that if anybody wanted to help in anyway to let either her or the bishop know.  I took that to mean that if we thought we could provide a present or two for a child or two that that meant we were good candidates.  And then...I completely forgot about it.  Awesome of me, isn't it?

Eventually I remembered and we (along with some other families) were assigned to a family with four little kids that none of us knew.  We gathered all of the stuff together and today Vidalia, another Mom, and I took it to them.

We had originally intended to leave it for them and have it be anonymous, but none of us knew them and we didn't know when they'd be home or if there were animals or what.  On top of that, the address that we had for them was in the middle of nowhere.  (It ends up the time from any point in Nebraska to the middle of nowhere is no greater than 15 minutes, usually less.)  Of course, we got lost, so that didn't help.  

Eventually we found the address, and some chickens, and a house.  We knocked on the door and we asked them if they were who they indeed were.  We told them that we had something to drop off and then brought all the stuff to the porch.  I could tell by the way the mother looked at us that she was so grateful and a little shocked that anyone would think of them.  About that time, the three year-old walked out onto the porch.  She looked at what we were doing and then said, "Mommy mommy!  Look!  Presents!!!"  She was delighted.  The mother called her husband around to the front porch.  He apparently was in the back using what they had to make presents so that their kids could have something for Christmas.  We only had a few minutes to talk to them, but they were such nice people (and luckily in my ward, so I'm sure I'll get to associate with them again).  Before we left, I had mentioned something about presents that were missing (they had been moved) and told them I'd bring them over later tonight.

On our way back the other Mom told me she had put the "missing" presents in a bag, so they actually had made it there.  When I got home, I called the family and told them that the presents had actually made it and not to expect us tonight.  It ends up they were disappointed we wouldn't be coming tonight.  I told them we'd definitely come another time (if Ryan didn't have home teaching, I might have said we could still come).  Before I hung up, they told me how shocked they were and that they were so grateful.  I look forward to getting to know them better.  Who knows, they might end up being really good friends.

So, today I learned that anonymous is not synonymous to the best way to always do things.  I learned (for the billionth time) that you can serve others by doing very little (in your eyes) and it looks very big in others eyes.  I learned how gracious humility looks.  The gratitude you could see in their faces for what we did was a perfect reflection of humility.  I saw a family who lives a Christ-like life and I found myself wanting my family to be like their family.  I learned (another billionth timer) that Heavenly Father watches over all his children.  The giver and the receiver.  And I learned that the only reason we even participated is because it sounded like a good idea and that perhaps there are much much better reasons.  And my brain has gone crazy thinking of tons of ways we can teach ourselves to give needed service to people for the best reasons all year long and not just at Christmas.  

That being said, it's not really what I am currently pondering on.  I titled this post 'What makes Christmas special?'.  And I have answers too.  I only want to mention two.

Christmas is special because it's a time when people are given an extra opportunity to stop thinking so much about themselves and stop thinking so much about just their family and think about other people, much in the same way Christ thought of all of us through his entire life.  He did so much for everyone.

Christmas is also special because of the great lesson in humility it has to offer.  I've been thinking the last couple hours about how buying a couple presents (our contribution was really not that significant) meant so much to this family.  And it leads me to think of the best gift ever.  The atonement.  And it's given to each of us.  And I know the Savior is humble about his contribution.  He knows the significance and he gives all glory for it to Heavenly Father.  And I think to myself, "Am I grateful for this gift that He has given to me?"  And of course I am.  I really really really am, but do I accept it with a humble heart and use it to its fullest potential?  I'm sure going to try to.

Thanks humble family for going without so that I can receive some of what I lack.  You've probably already done much more for me than I did for you.

Vidalia

Vidalia has been doing more and more cool things all the time, so I thought I would give you an 11 1/2-ish month update.  Well, partial update.

She's been doing some pretty cute tricks for a while now.  It started mostly with clapping her hands and folding her arms, but it seems like suddenly she can learn multiple tricks in a day.  I think one of her biggest accomplishments lately is verbal cues.  And man, this little baby is one very cooperative little baby.  I think it's because she's a people person and likes attention.

This is how it goes (and someday I will upload a video for you with some of these)...

We say, "Vidalia, fold your arms."

Vidalia folds her arms.


We say, "Good job baby."

Vidalia claps her hands.  

(Clapping her hands happens whenever she does what we asked, so I won't repeat it over and over...you're welcome.)

We say, "Can you put your hands above your head?"

Vidalia lifts her hands up above her head (they do now reach above her head a just barely).


We say, "Baby, cough."

Vidalia coughs and sometimes coughs and coughs.  All fake though.


We say, "Say, Hi!"

Vidalia flaps her arm up and down and sometimes says, "Hiyayayayayaya."

We say, "Say, bye bye."

That baby says hi all over again.


We walk in the door.


That baby looks like it's the best day of her life and flaps her hi arm like crazy and giggles like you are the greatest person ever.


Ryan leaves to work.


Vidalia waves at the door.


I try to walk outside with out her.


She waves and starts to panic.  (Don't worry.  I don't leave her unless I'm just grabbing something from the garage, which is literally 5 feet from the door.)

We say, "Baby, give me a kiss?"

That baby bites me on the face.  We don't do this often.  And this baby...yep, a biter.

We pretend something is funny.


Vidalia fake laughs as if she knew what was going on the whole time.  (So funny.)


We say, "Baby, shake your head?"

That head goes crazy.  And with a huge toothy grin too.


We say, "Dance, baby!"

That baby bops up and down doing the baby dance.


We snap our tongue.  She snaps her tongue.


I poke her with my finger and say, "Poke!".  She grabs my finger and pokes herself again...and again and again.


And new as of today, I say, "Baby, can you blow a kiss?"

And that baby kisses her hand and quickly removes it from her mouth.  So cute!


I'm pretty sure y'all need to see this baby.  She's a charmer and has been known to be called pleasant and delightful to have around (and not just by me...or Ryan).

Snow

I'm glad it took it's time, but the snow has indeed come.  No real surprise.  We were at the church when it started and Ryan had to be at work before we were done doing what we needed to, so Vidalia and I trekked home in the snow.

I thought it might be exciting for Vidalia to experience snow for the first time.  To see it and feel it a little.  I unthought that after about 5 seconds outside.  She kept blinking and was really getting a face full (sorry baby).

Vidalia fell asleep in her little blanket head tent and I was glad because I wasn't so sure she was going to enjoy not being able to see anything so much.  The snow wasn't too much by the time we got home and I can't decide how much we have now, but if you are working with whole numbers and units of feet, it's gonna round to 0.  I have a feeling it's going to stick around for a while.  Now the question I have been debating is at bay...to drive or not to drive.

Thanks for visiting November and Welcome December!

We had so much fun in November and the month seems to have just flown by.  I imagine that December is going to do a similar things.  So with no further ado...

Thanks November for being nice enough to still play at the park and for teaching baby V learn that climbing is really the key to all happiness.

We set up the tree and I finished making the skirt (thank you Pinterest).  Makes me so excited for Christmas!

Please ignore the mess in all the pictures.  I've been doing about a million different projects all at the same time.  Projects and a neat and tidy house don't tend to exist at the same time in my life.

Good News

We're officially on the waiting list!

Popcorn

So...it's been a long time since I've done anything that I really consider to be "engineery".  And I'm not about to tell you about something I've done because, truth is, I haven't done anything particularly engineery since last December, except maybe laughing at some jokes that lots of people don't get or just don't think are funny, or telling myself that the proper way to thicken gravy is to make oobleck and then add a little more water until the mixture acts like a Newtonian liquid again (side note on this one: I've thought I should write a tutorial about this because it would help about a billion people...okay noone, understand better how to do it), and maybe some discussion about how I'd like to design jet engines and how it's probably not important enough to me for it ever to happen, and sometimes in my head when I think of really good projects that should exist and then occasionally searching to see if they've been attempted or actually exist...quickly followed by a list of all the reasons I can imagine that said product wouldn't sell well or would be entirely too expensive for people to buy or just wouldn't work after all the theory was done...I suppose my list actually does go on, I did spend 5 years pretending I knew this stuff afterall.

My point.  I found some videos of a project I did using BYU's fancy schmancy high speed camera and popcorn.  I like to watch them.  I hope you do too.  Oh, and don't worry, they're short.  The whole video did in fact take up less then a second, or was it three?  I can't really remember.  In other words, this is slow motion and what you're seeing happens really fast.

Oh and since I've already gone on and on about me and engineering.  I would like to address some of my apprehension at trusting anything built by man.  I know the "apprehension" I have to cars is a bit ridiculous, but it is definitely not ungrounded.  ;)

Links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baRQZrkQp7A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtEwwBwL5vU

Origami

Ryan loves origami.  Sometimes he comes home (yes, from work) with some pretty cool creations.

Thanks for all the fun Ry!

Oops!

Ryan got tired of the huge poof on his head.

So he cut his hair, and the guard fell off.

Oops!

It really looked just fine when he was done and it grows SO fast.

Vidalia's Hair

Okay, truth is, she still doesn't have that much.  It seems to be growing so slowly, but it is in fact growing.  Lately it has seemed to really thicken up a lot.  It's easiest to tell after a bath.