I have a daughter

A much needed post for a much neglected blog.

Jayna is finally laying down for a nap in her "big girl bed". I can still hear her sick little coughs over the monitor, but can tell by the lack of activity that sleep for her is near. It feels like an unusual day since Jayna is sick and we had our first snow fall of the season. So I have been letting her watch movie after movie and have treat after treat. Hopefully she doesn't think this is going to be our new winter lifestyle. In between movies and crackers and cheese Jayna decided she wanted to be pushed down the slide in the living-room (which is really a storage box lid positioned down two steps) in a newly emptied Pampers box. I told her I would be there in a minute and from in the box positioned at the top of the slide she said "Mom what are you doing?" I told her I was trying to get the coriander seeds off my dried cilantro plant to put in the jar, to which her reply was "Mom that is too hard have Dad do it." She is so funny and clever and I could not help but laugh at her suggestion. She loves her daddy and I am pretty sure she thinks he lets the sun out just for her in the morning and and puts it away at night just so she can see the stars.

Last night as I sat braiding Jayna's blonde feathery hair for the first time, it hit me again that I have a daughter. I was actually sitting on my couch braiding my daughters hair in my house. Not a dolls hair, not the neighbor girls hair, not my friends hair, but my daughters hair. I have been thinking a lot recently about what kind of Mom I really want to be. I hope I can be the kind of Mom that is more sad than angry, and is more concerned than critical. I hope I can focus on more of the big things than the little things, and put more focus on the relationship than the rightness. In that moment on the couch I was just happy to have a daughter. I think no matter what kind of Mom you are you can have perfect kids and hard kids, and that is why I want to keep my happiness focused on just having them, that way at the end of the day perfect or not I still have love and a relationship with them.

Here are some catch-up pictures of Jayna:

playing at the pumpkin patch

bubble bath time

Heber valley railroad train ride

picking flowers with Mom

The New Addition

This is the new addition to our family that we got yesterday. I am still having mixed feelings about it, because to me it is in-between cute old truck and white trash truck. I am glad it will solve all of our "how do we get this?" and "how do we get rid of this" problems though.

This getting a truck thing started last week when we realized we have no way to get rid of a ton of sand in a huge ghetto sandbox in the backyard to make way for our landscaping projects we want to do this year. So naturally this week we bought a truck. Ridiculous! It was only $1000 and we bought it from a kid who got it from his grandpa and had been fixing it up forever. It is embarrassingly loud with duel exhausts (just like a 20 year old boy would like). I have to admit it is fun to drive and ride in though, and will for-sure add a sense of adventure to all our future Ikea and Home Depot runs.

Don't laugh, but I had to call the fire-department to see if it was even legal to put Jayna in her car-seat in this truck. It was, in-fact they said the older trucks are safer because they have no airbags, although I do not think we will be driving on the free-way with her in this truck anytime soon. So last night we drove to In and Out Burger for dinner no license plates and all and then went to Lowes to look at some things. There is something about driving an old truck to get burgers that is so right and 100% American. It was a blast!

I told Ryan that it was my the Bird and the Berry truck and he got really disgusted and told me "We are not Bird and the Berrying this thing up". I am guessing that means I can not put my blog logo on it or reupholster the bench seat in a print or tweed. But we will see about that.

Valentines & Anniversary Weekend

There could not possibly be a worst day to have your Wedding Anniversary than the day after Valentines.

Now there is a long story about why we picked that day to get married on in the first place, and non of it has to do with us loving the color red or the holiday. Although it was exactly 4 years to the weekend that we first meet, but even that was not the reason.

Over the years we have come to really dislike the timing of our Anniversary since everyone is trying to go out to dinner at the same time as us, hotels are more expensive, and the celebration of both Valentines and our Anniversary always get mushed together. This year was different though, I felt so special and like we were the only ones celebrating this weekend. It was perfect!

We decided to celebrate on Friday night since Valentines was on Sunday and we knew everyone in Utah would be going out on Saturday Night. So we forever in advanced asked Devin (Ryan's brother that is at BYU for college) if he would come up and babysit for us, and he thankfully said yes. We have little to no babysitting options. Devin had it pretty easy since Jayna goes to bed between 7:00 and 7:30 and we left at 6:30. So he just had to play with her a little and then put her down to bed.

We headed off to dinner at a Utah classic the Roof which we had never been to before. It is located at the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building and is a buffet style restaurant. We were seated at just about the best table in the whole restaurant. It was away from everyone and was a window table that overlooked the southeast corner of the temple and temple square. The table had a single rose at it for me and a card on a little stand that read happy Anniversary. I was so impressed and I hadn't even sat down yet. After we went and got our salads a hostess came up and started apologizing about the rose that was on the table and explained that my husband had really ordered me a big bouquet which she then placed on the table. I was smiling so big I think my checks could have burst. The hostess made such a big spectacle of it that I told Ryan he probably got all the other men around us in trouble.

All the food was so good. We paced ourselves so we could have a little taste of everything, and I think we about did. The dessert bar was to die for though. They had everything you could want. I tried this pastry with a flaky crust filled with whip cream and topped with fresh berries and had to have another before we left. It was one of those things that I knew I would regret having two, and regret not having three all at the same time. It was the best thing I have ever had. I could not have imagined a more perfect dinner to have with my husband of now 7 years. It almost brought tears to my eyes to be sitting with him across from me and the temple glowing to our side on our anniversary.

I gave him his present at dinner which was a Craftsman 6 in 1 tool he has been wishing for. We have slight disagreements in our house about which power-tools we need to buy and in what order. He truly deserved this tool though, he works so hard for our family and always, puts me and Jayna first. He gave me my present after dinner which was that he is going to buy me flowers once a month for a year. Not one of those online programs, but that he is going to go buy them for me and give them to me each month. I thought it was so thoughtful, because he knows how much I would enjoy fresh flowers in the house. I am most looking forward to a bouquet of flowers from the farmers market this spring, they are so pretty.

So from our more than nice and fancy dinner we went to.... Nicklemania ... yes you heard right we went to the nickel arcade. It was a blast! We spent a million nickels and won tons of tickets of which we got a shocking pen, rabbits foot, and parachute man to pay our babysitter with.

After we were done playing games we headed back home. Ryan and I finished the night off with sparkling cider next to a warm fire in our bedrooms fireplace. It doesn't get used very often, but it is so fun and romantic to have a fireplace in our bedroom.

It was the perfect date with the perfect person. I cannot wait to see what the next year has in-store for us. I told Ryan that in 10 years I will have been with him longer than I haven't, since I started dating him when I was 16. Crazy to think about where we have come, where we are, and where we may be going.

Hidden Valley Mess

The other night Ryan and Jayna were making ranch dressing for dinner. Ryan filled the container with all the ingredients and put the little cap on the lid and started to demonstrate to Jayna how to shake the dressing bottle. Problem was he didn't put in fingers on the cap to hold it onto the lid. A few hard shakes and this is what we ended up with.

A big glop of ranch dressing shot Jayna in the face. She was petrified and very upset about the mess. Jayna hardly ever bawls about anything, but she hates big messes. It took us awhile to console her and show her that it could all be fixed and cleaned up. She is so funny.

Red came running out of the laundry-room during all the commotion too, and slipped and fell in the ranch pool on the floor. It was a pretty funny scene with both of them covered in ranch.

We managed to clean everyone up before our food was cold and still had enough ranch for dinner.

The Big Bubble in the Sky

Most of us look at this photo and see the moon, but if you are a little toddler you may see a glorified bubble.

We laughed so hard when we took Jayna out of the car last night and she pointed to the sky and kept saying bubble. At first we did not know what she was looking at and then we realized she meant the moon. Jayna loves bubbles and I am sure this looked like the most amazing bubble she had ever seen. She kept trying to touch it and we had to explain that it was too high in the sky to touch. So fun to think about how little ones see the world.

Move Over Madonna

Move over Madonna there is a new chick in town that likes to wear bras over her clothes and sparkly skirts.

I call Jayna the one boot wonder. She loves her pink suede boots and will walk around the house for hours and days with only one on. It's kinda like Michael Jackson's whole one glove thing except it's a shoe. It's her signature look. The rest of the outfit....well that's just Jayna.

Dear Mrs. Rizley / Support Warriors Wives

Dear Mrs. Rizley

You left this comment ( Jill, you are amazing. You are the Winco hero.) on my blog the other day in response to my story about giving some money to some people in need. And I just need to tell you how utterly silly your comment is.

It takes a certain breed of man to be able to serve and protect his country and country men. The kind of man who is a warrior inside above all else. It takes an even more special breed of women to support that warrior though. I could never be as amazing as you have to be to be able to support a warrior husband. The sacrifice it takes on the home-front is unimaginable to me. I am so grateful that for centuries and centuries there have been women like you willing to hold the front-lines at home so that your men can go hold the front-lines of freedom and liberty for us all. You women are overlooked, under appreciated, and much neglected by your country for the true service you give us all.

The fact that you think I am amazing for helping someone at the grocery store that I only have the freedom of visiting because of women like you, and the american spirit of generosity because of women like you is just utterly silly.

I never want to hear you say that another women is amazing or great unless they are doing what you are doing. That goes for you too Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Harkin!

So thank you Mrs. Rizley for all your sacrifices on our behalf. Your AMAZING!

Sincerely,

Jill

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.....

Side Note: Don't be afraid to leave comments on my blog I promise I will not write a post about you if you do, but this was just silly and needed to be addressed.

Beauty Day

There is one thing that is very apparent about Jayna. She is a GIRL! Everything she does is very very girly. She can practically walk better in my high heels than I can. She has even (scarily enough) made it down the stairs in them before. She has a sparkly purse she takes every where with her, and she loves to put make-up on and brush her hair. So I just knew she would love love love getting her hair cut.

It has been looking shaggy lately along with mine so I made a hair appointment for both of us with my hairdresser Cody at Blush Salon. When we got to the salon we started telling her that she was going to be doing pretties and she got really excited. She thought she was going to get it on her lips and face though so we had to tell her it was going to be pretties on her hair. Then when we went back she sat on the little booster seat all by herself and got very serious about the whole thing. Cody found a purple cape for her and she sat still and silent until he was done.

She even put her head down when he told her too. This little girl knows what's up. She knows pretty hair is nothing to laugh about or take lightly.

It was hysterical and she did great. Her hair looks all cute and trimmed up now, and I was grateful to Cody for sneaking her in. It is not exactly the kind of salon that does children's hair let alone lets them in the salon, and Cody is not exactly the super cuts guy either. We all got a good laugh out of it. She is just too cute!

One Heck of A Grocery Shopping Trip

Who knew you could experience and learn so much on a grocery shopping trip...

This last Wednesday night after I had the activity day girls over I headed off to Winco Foods for a late grocery shopping trip. I had my perfected grocery list in hand and had even spent the time to categorize my needed items, by where they were located in the store. I was actually looking forward to the solo grocery store trip. I had a lot of things to get since I had not been for awhile, and I was looking at it as a nice calm escape from the house.

Once there I gathered my items with no sense of urgency whatsoever, which was nice. I considered myself lucky when the deli man told me I was his last customer before closing up, and went on my marry way still shopping. I had probably been there for a good hour and half when I wrapped up getting everything I needed on my list. I made my way to the check-out stand with a full cart and reached into my purse to get my wallet. Problem was there was no wallet. I then grabbed my phone to call Ryan and let him know about my dilemma. With him on the phone I waited for the person in-front of me to finish checking out and then asked the checker lady if she could enter my card number by hand since I had forgotten my wallet. She was nice enough to try it, but it didn't work. Her manager then came and told us that their system does not let them do that, but that they could suspend my transaction and I could run home get my wallet and come back to pay for my groceries. So I bagged my groceries and they placed my cart over by customer service and I headed home.

It was a huge bummer, but I was determined to not let it push me over the edge. I was just going to put my big girl panties on, suck it up and handle the situation. At least it was not during the middle of the day when I would have had Jayna or something. Ryan was waiting in the drive way for me when I reached the house. He handed me my wallet with out even saying anything. I think he was worried he would laugh and I would melt down. I drove back to the store which isn't exactly around the corner, parked and went back in. I got back in line at the same check out stand with the same checker, behind a young couple. Right away I could tell something was holding them up. They had tons of baby food jars and had made several different separated sections on the conveyer belt with their groceries. She looked about my age, although I can never tell anymore. She was wearing an old sweatshirt with what looked like an even older tee-shirt underneath it. Her hair looked like it was probably cut cute, but I couldn't tell because it was under a worn out handmade knitted hat. She had a cute black handbag that looked new as if she had gotten it for Christmas. He was clean cut with blonde hair and older worn clothes as-well. They looked like any Utah couple I would have seen or meet at BYU back in the day. She turned around and said she was sorry for taking so long, and I told her it was okay. The two of them kept going back and forth about dollar amounts and he even said to her once to get the calculator out. It took me a couple minutes but then I realized what was going on. It looked like they had just signed up for WIC and or food stamps. They had a program brochure with them and vouchers to buy certain foods. Each voucher was only worth so much money so they had best they could calculated and separated their groceries into piles so that each voucher would cover them. They had mostly baby-food jars and then lactose free milk, a loaf of bread, lettuce, and maybe one or two other necessities. If there is one thing I cannot handle in life it is seemingly decent people with children struggling.

As I observed some-more I saw that the girl had a fairly nice wedding ring on and I rightly or wrongly started to paint a picture of their lives in my head. To me it looked like a nice young couple that probably had fallen upon hard times and obviously had young kids. At that point my heart started to race and I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. I opened up my wallet to see how much cash I had and made the decision that I was going to pay for anything that the vouchers did not cover. I also grabbed one of the restaurant gift cards we had been given from family for Christmas and had that ready to give them as-well. I was disappointed when the vouchers zeroed everything out, but a container of blackberries. She then told the checker to go ahead and let me go and then she would just buy the berries with cash when I was done. While they were bagging their groceries I went ahead and told the checker lady that I would buy the berries for her and then gave her the gift card to give to them too. She looked at me surprised, although she probably looked at me like that because I was also the weirdo that forgot my wallet. Then not exactly according to my plan she gave the gift-card and the berries to the couple right in-front of me. I was so embarrassed! I get way to nervous about offending or embarrassing other people. The girl looked at me shocked and said "Are you sure, Thank you" I think I reacted kinda weird since I was so caught off guard. I just said your welcome and didn't even really look at her. I am so stupid! Then I was so flustered that I could not even remember my pin number. It took me two tries to get it right.

Even though I was the nights weirdo at Winco I know I did the right thing. In-fact I wish I would have done more. After telling Ryan what I did he kept making me feel bad by saying how come you didn't pay for all of their groceries or take them around the store. I just kept telling him It just happened fast and I wasn't thinking. I do though, I wish I would have told her something like meet me here next Wednesday and I will buy you more groceries. It is just a lot more intimidating to do when you are in the moment. I cried the whole time we unloaded groceries. I was so upset at myself. Upset that having to drive back home in my nice car to get my nice wallet to go back and buy my hundred dollars worth of groceries and then try to fit them all into my (what I think is) too small of pantry in my nice house is my biggest dilemma of my day. When reality is we are all a few events in life away from possibly being that couple. I am a true believer that there are moments in this life when we are asked to show are appreciation and worthiness for what we have. I just cross my fingers that I am aware enough to recognize those moments and compassionate enough to act as I should.

Warning: This Post Contains Fecal Matter

Yesterday I put Jayna down for her nap after we made muffins. At first she kinda whined about it, but after a couple minutes she just laid in her crib making noises and talking to herself. She was doing fine and I could hear her through the monitor so I just decided to leave her up in her room even though she was not sleeping. I blogged about the muffins we made on my the Bird and the Berry blog and when I was finished with my post I could still hear her making noises so I decided to go see if she needed her binki. As I walked up the stairs the strong smell of poo hit me and when I opened up the door to her room this is what I found.

Now I know many of you moms if not all have encountered this same scene in your child's room. It is just one of those things that is bound to happen. Jayna has been showing interest in dressing and undressing herself, and is very interested in potty training. Or at least the potty part, not so much the training part. We have recently bought her a little pink potty, so there is lots of talk about pee pee and poo poo at our house.

The poo was everywhere in her crib, but how could you get mad. Grossed out maybe, but mad no. I mean I even took the time to go get the camera and capture the moment forever. I try really hard to not fill my days so that I can have the patience and good temper to deal with just these sort of events. I suppose I would have been really upset if I was on a tight schedule or need to rush out the door, so that is why I try not to have a life style like that. I am in no way perfect and for-sure have my break downs as a mom. I am just proud that this was not one of them.

Look how cute! She even tried to wrap the diaper up like we do when we change her. Poor bunny. Now it is little bunny poo poo.

When I first had Jayna just having her did not make me feel like a real Mom. I do however remember the exact moment I felt like a real Mom. It was when I stepped on a little piece of poop in Jayna's nursery, picked it off the bottom of my foot with my bare hands and inspected it. At that very second I knew I was a real Mom because I was more concerned about where and who the poop came from than I was about the fact that it was in my bare hand.