Robyns Wedding

This is a picture taken at Robyn's (Lisa's friend) wedding reception tonight. Unfortunately not all of Lisa's friends were there at the same time, so there are some girls missing from the picture (sorry about that). Crystal was in a bad mood because Lisa made her sit on her lap for 2 hours, so we went to the ihop afterwords and ate some fries together, which did the trick...she was in a great mood for the rest of the night!
Top picture, (left to right):
Lisa with Crystal, Janalee, Marilee, Robyn, Lisa F. with Halle
Bottom picture: Crystal eating a french fry happily

Flower picking?

Crystal's new thing is picking dandilions wherever they grow...however instead of picking the pretty yellow flowers like other girls she picks the dead ones that the seeds have already blown off of. She runs around picking them and then sits down in the grass and puts them in a little pile and plays with them. She's completely obsessed with this, and everytime she sees grass, she immediately starts looking for dandilion stems to pick. Everybody has a hobby right?

We're going on vacation!

We've just made some final plans for our vacation in June. In seven weeks Scott, Lisa, Crystal, and Lisa's sister Denise, are going to spend time with Scotts family on the East Coast. We will be spending most of our time in a beachouse on long island and enjoying the beach, however we will be spending time in in Scott's hometown in philly; D.C., Atlantic City, and of Course New York. We've already purchased our tickets to see Monty Pythons "Spamalot" on broadway. Should be fun. We're definately looking forward to posting some pictures to show you how it goes.

Crystal pouting during lunchtime

Crystal was finished with her food and started pouting, so we took out a camera to get it on film cause it's cute when she pouts. She's such a girl...when she pouts it's obvious enough to know she's mad, but it's subtle enough that it's not a fit either. For the record, we usually take her out when she's done, but we delayed this time to get her to pout on film.

Motherhood: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Motherhood definately has it's ups and downs, just like everything I guess.
Last week Scott was gone at school during the night and I heated up my little frozen dinner of swedish meatballs with noodles. Crystal eats whenever I eat, and it's usually what I'm eating; so there we were sitting side by side on the couch eating our frozen dinner while we were watching American Idol on the television. We each took turns taking a bite of our meal and everytime a contestant would sing she would bob her head and sway side to side to dance along. I looked down at her while she was dancing to the music, chewing her food with a smile on her face. It was a moment of pure joy. I felt like the luckiest woman alive to have this little friend next to me who loves and needs me so much, and I need her too.
A couple of nights later while I was putting her to bed I made a funny face and she couldn't stop giggling for the rest of the night, even when I stopped. It's amazing at how much the happiness of your child can mean everything to a parent.
Then there are the days that aren't the best. Everytime I get on the computer she gets jealous that she's not the center of attention and climbs to my lap and immediately starts pounding on the keybord and messes up everything, she deletes files, sends random emails, everything. I could understand if I were on for hours but I'm talking within the first 2 minutes of my being on it. I moved the keyboard where she couldn't reach it, so lately she tries everything to get attention, from basic whining to throwing toys at me, and has even bit me on the knee when I tried to ignore her once. This afternoon she kept taking her pants off even when she knew very well that I was telling her not to. I stayed patient and would just put them back on every time she took them off and telling myself that it was no big deal. Finally after a few hours and my loss of patience I figured if she want's to run around in her diaper it's no big deal. Apparantly it was a big deal to her because I looked away for a minute to download some music on my computer and when I looked back she had torn her diaper off...and it was full of poop, which she managed to smear EVERYWHERE. Due to the fact that it was my time of the month I think I actually started to laugh and cry at the same time; I'm not sure which came first or which dominated. What can you do but clean up the mess right? I'm going to buy her a belt!
In spite of the not so good days, I really feel like the good moments are worth it. I love my little friend. When she looks up at me with that huge smile on her face when she's just loving life, I know God really loves me; and when she smears poop everywhere, I'm pretty sure he's laughing hardest.

A Bilingual Daughter

We've been working with Crystal's language skills by speaking to her in both spanish and english in hopes that she'll grow up speaking both languages. Lisas parents have helped us work with her by speaking to her in spanish as well. In this video clip Lisa is asking her where several body parts are located and she identifies them. Sometimes instead of pointing to it she'll just move the body part, for example when we ask her where the light is, she looks up. When we ask her where her teeth are she opens and closes her mouth, and when we ask her where her bellybutton is, she tugs at her clothes (to indicate that it's underneath her clothes). For those of you who don't speak or understand spanish we added subtitles to the video to help you enjoy it a little more. Push play and see for yourself.

Watch Crystals Easter Egg Hunt! (only a little over 3 min)

Easter 2007

This Easter was a lot of fun. We went to Lisa's parents ward for sacrament meeting to spend time with some family, and enjoy the real meaning of Easter together. Crystal had a brand new Easter dress thanks to grandma, that made her look like a spoiled little princess...a beautiful one. Crystal had a small easter egg basket, but instead of candy, she had some toys. She was very happy to see more rubber ducks in her basket along with a small wind up chicken...she couldn't have been happier. It's great how they're so easy to please when they're so small! We ate an early dinner at the Lisa's parents house with them; Lisa's grandma, and Lisas cousins. There was a lot of good food including steak, ribs, buffalo wings, rice, ceasar salad, potato salad and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. We were stuffed! We then had some of the easter eggs set out (which Lisa colored earlier that day,) and let Crystal enjoy her first easter egg hunt which was a lot of fun for her. She was running from egg to egg so fast that she kept tripping and falling, but luckily it was soft grass she was running on, so she didn't care. She got so excited during the process that she had to go down for a nap soon after because she was exhausted. As fun as Easter has been for her, we're looking forward to being able to teach her, in time, that not only is it fun, but also a day to be thankful for and appreciate our Savior. We're so glad to know that life, with it's good days like this one, can continue long after our mortal deaths, and that there are many many happy days to look forward to in the future.

In the park

We took Crystal to the park today. Here are some pictures

April 2007

We're finally over most of the birthdays for the year, which makes eating healthier a little easier. Toward the end of the month Lisa took a nasty fall resulting in a torn muscle on the left side of her abdomen. She is currently wearing a rib belt and keeping close tabs with the doctor to make sure that it's only the muscle and not a cracked rib. Funny how you appreciate breathing and eating without pain when you have to be aware of every move you make in fear of having it! She's fine though and she's still pretty upbeat about the whole thing. Life is the same other than that. Recently Scott and Lisa took some time away from Crystal to go on a date and see the movie "Blades of Glory", which was exactly the kind of movie it seems like it will be, but because it appeals to our senses of humor, we really enjoyed it. (If you're a big Will Ferrell fan, this is a must see.) Crystal is doing well. Lately she's practically obsessed with ducks. Anytime we go into a store and pass by stuffed animals, she can immediately point out a duck if there is one, and she has a collection of at least eight toy ducks at home, rubber and stuffed; and she can't sleep without them. "Duck" is also one of the very few words that are in her small vocabulary, along with the usual "mama's" and "dada's" and other typical baby's first words. Although her vocabulary is small, she does, however, understand most of what is being told to her, and can respond to yes and no questions by nodding and shaking her head. She also knows and mimics all the actions to, "the itsy bitsy spider" and "popcorn popping" which I will try to get a video clip of sometime if I can get around to it.