Easy Baking!

Neeley's grand wish from Santa this year was an Easy Bake oven! Which by the way is not so easy when you have a 2 year old who wants to join in as much as a 4 year old. She kept trying to stick stuff in the oven while Neeley and I were mixing!


Our first gourmet creations were some pink my little pony cookies with white icing.  We mixed them up and then stuck them in the EASY bake oven.  Well it turns out that it was not as easy as I thought it would be.  You see, Santa (I love having someone to blame) forgot to put a bulb in the oven!  So our first attempt at EASY bake cookies actually got cooked in our toaster oven instead!  But neither Neeley nor Kayla seemed to mind since they got to eat the finished product!  I think we have some future chefs in the family!

Parenting

There are times in life that make me think about what a responsibility it is to be a parent.  Friday night was one of these times.

Our house was full of people for a party and the girls were downstairs playing with all of the kids.  Jeremy carried Neeley up the stairs and took her, screaming into the bathroom.  When I went to see what calamity had happened this time, I came to find her chin bleeding and Jeremy with a worried look.  He said he thought he needed stitches and after looking at it I agreed!  So we left our house with the party still going on to take her to the ER.  The whole way there we were trying to make light of what was going on so Neeley wouldn't worry, but inside we were both scared to death.  While waiting in our room at the ER a lady down the hall was screaming this shrilling death scream which made me nervous about Neeley hearing it so we quickly shut the door.  We were trying to mentally prepare Neeley for what was about to happen so we were trying to downplay what they were going to do while at the same time giving her a little idea so she wouldn't be so scared.  She was ok until she heard the word "poke" and knew she was getting a shot.  It was then that she started to cry and wished that she was at home playing with the kids at the party and that Kayla was there with us.  She would never wish Kayla to be hurt, she just envied her for being able to stay behind at the party while she had to get poked with a needle.  When the nurse came in to wrap her up in a sheet to keep her down, I thought oh no, here we go.  Then I tried to make light of the situation and told her that they were making her into a burrito just like we had had for dinner.  Thankfully she thought that was pretty funny!  After she made it through the shot, I told her she was brave and she said, "No, I wasn't Mom!  I cried!"  Nine stitches later we were headed back to the party!  It was so nice to find the whole kitchen all cleaned up!  Thanks guys!

Yesterday she was fine and hasn't complained about it one bit.  In hind site it really wasn't as traumatic for Jer and I as we thought it would be!

Last night at my family party, my sister Charlotte, who just lost her son, was telling me about an experience she had just had.  Her daughter Kimi desperately wanted one of my sister JoAnn's puppies and was crying and begging for it and was making a huge fuss about it!  What Kimi didn't know was that her mom had already arranged with JoAnn to give one of the puppies to them for Christmas but wanted to keep it a surprise!  Charlotte just kept up the charade telling Kimi that there was no way they could have a puppy.  In her head she thought, "Kimi if you only knew that Mom has it all worked out for you.  Everything will be ok.  I have a plan."  It was at that moment that she felt those same words reiterated to her from her Father in Heaven, reminding her that He has a plan and that she just needs to be patient and trust him.

These two experiences have caused me to think about our own Father in Heaven and what experiences he went through with Christ as well as those things he witnesses each day in our lives.  I am sure it was difficult for him to see Christ suffer and that it is also difficult for him to see us endure our struggles.  I have thought a lot in the past few days of the struggles we have yet to bare and it frightens me.  I am not sure what I will have to see my own children experience but I do know that we have the greatest example of all.  Our Father in Heaven has given us this knowledge so that we may draw strength and comfort from it.  I am so very thankful this year for that little babe that lay in the humble manger with such an awesome road ahead.  He didn't arrive in this life as our Savior.  He became our Savior through those experiences he endured.

A Mom's Paycheck!

As a stay at home mom, sometimes it seems like we don't see a lot of our own "paychecks"! On Saturday, I got one that really warmed my heart. A few days ago we had some friends from the ward over for lunch and the kids made a giant mess in the playroom. It's getting difficult for me to bend over now so I have been avoiding the task of cleaning it all up. I asked Neeley if she would go down and pick up just the fake food stuff all over, thinking that would be a nice start. She ran down without complaint and started singing a busy little tune. Pretty soon she came upstairs and told me she was all done. I thought, ok let's go down and check and we can finish the job together. To my surprise, the entire playroom was perfectly straight. And not just thrown in any old bin but all organized as I would have done it. She even had a little pile of things put together of stuff that didn't belong in the playroom and asked for help taking it upstairs.

Now that was a HUGE paycheck, no complaining, no bending down for me and done in a hurry! I sure love these kinds of "paychecks".
Here's our star now!

Then one FROGGY Christmas eve...

Neeley was again using her creative license while singing Rudolf and came up with this one! We laughed for a good while. It really is true what Circe said in her blog when she said that the more you listen to kids the funnier they get.

Neeley is always talking about what she wants to do when she becomes a mom and has come up with some pretty cute things like: I can drive where ever I want, I can eat what ever I want, I can be Kayla's mom, I can sleep in bed with Daddy..... the list goes on with a few new ones each day.

Well, lately we have been learning how to wipe after going #2 (sorry for the potty talk). Obviously feeling overwhelmed by the task, she look up at me and said, "Mommy, I think I am going to wait until I am a Mom to wipe myself!!"

Needless to say, this is the first time I didn't think, don't grow up too fast little one!