The moment you've all been waiting for

So basically...we are still alive and nothing much has changed. We are still busy. I am still pregnant, and Heather is still cute. Since the first two of the previous items are boring. I will focus on the third. Heather!

When Heather was a little baby, we started a journal for her. It is a place that we write about what she's doing, how she's developing, and memories that we want to keep. It has gotten a lot more fun recently, because Heather is finally doing cute things that are fun to remember. I mean, who cares how much she weighed at her two month appointment! I want to remember all the funny and cute things she says and does! Here are a couple of recent updates.

• Heather puts her firefighter hat on and says "he-er-hi-er-hi-der."

• Heather has started singing more. She loves to sing her ABC's and also Old McDonald. This is the best video I could get...

• She comes into the kitchen when I am cooking, points at the stove and says, "berry, berry hot, Berrrry hot!" 
• At the dinner table one night she started signing baby and singing "baby, baby, baby, baby..." then she suddenly stopped and said "Awww...."
• When Heather finishes something hard for her, or when she comes inside when it's really cold she'll say "whew!"
• When she wants held or just a hug she'll tilt her head to one side, put her hands out, and say "mmeeeerre" (come here). 
• Heather seems to have a hard time with the "Pl" sound. When she wants to say "play," it comes out like "pbbbbay" (the b's here represent lip buzzing). She does the same thing with "plate."
• We had the missionaries over for dinner recently. For dessert we had apple crisp. During the holiday season (in other words, the time of a surplus of pie) Daniel and I would say "Heather do you want some pah?" (pie...southern accent). When we brought out the dessert that night, Heather said "Oh! Pah!!" The missionaries got a kick out of it. I guess we are raising a little southern belle. 
• Heather has been singing a long during her bedtime songs. I love it! 
• She is also starting to whistle. Neither of us has tried to teach her, she just started doing it. 
• We recently got some Fancy Nancy books at the library. Heather has started saying "Ooh, la-la!" at random. :)

Christmas/New Year's update

This Christmas was a lot of fun. We stayed in Iowa for Christmas. It was sad to not be with our families, but it was great to stay home and have extra time together as a family. We spent Christmas Eve shoveling. We woke up to lots of snow in the morning, and had to shovel two more times that day. We also went sledding down our little hill. It's the perfect size for Heather.  Christmas day we burned far less calories, and probably made up for the ones we burned on Christmas Eve. We had our friends over as well as the missionaries for dinner. It was a lot of fun. Here are some pictures of our Christmas:

Joseph, Mary, Baby Jesus, and the "donkey."

Mary rocking baby Jesus

Our Christmas tree

Heather with the stuff from her stocking

Opening Presents

Heather being mommy to her new doll.

Heather was SO excited about all the doll accessories.

Playing with her "puter."

Twirling in her Tutu.

Getting ready to go outside.

28 weeks pregnant

Christmas Card 2010

We love you all and hope you have a Merry Christmas!

http://standage.public.iastate.edu/christmas2010

Belated Thanksgiving Update

Thanksgiving in Cincinnati with Stephen and Laura Beth.

Heather at the playground with cousins.

Heather's cousins Michael and Maren.

Family photo at the Krohn conservatory.

Happy to see the Christmas train display at Cincinnati Museum Center.

Stephanie and the girls playing with some toy trains.

Heather looks good in a sari, don't you think?

The Air Force museum in Dayton was pretty amazing. Heather still talks about the "bih bum" (big bombs).

Happy to be home again after a long drive.

Yep, Stephanie's still pregnant!

My due date got pushed back to March 19th after a closer examination of the ultrasound results. Great. This gives us even less certainty about when Josh is coming. If he comes early according to the original due date, he may come at the very beginning of March. However, if he comes late according to the new due date, he won't be around until the end of March. Talk about suspense!

In other news, Daniel and I were sustained today as ASL interpreters in our ward. We have never felt so inadequate for a church responsibility before. Don't get me wrong, we've enjoyed learning so far, but this takes it to a whole new level. Keep us in your prayers!

Heather's Bedtime Songs

For those of you who don't participate in the Facebookosphere, I posted this note on my profile tonight. It's actually my personal journal entry for tonight, but I thought it was too good not to share.


Stephanie and I have done the same bedtime routine with Heather for a long time. We probably started getting consistent with it when she was about 6 months old, maybe even before that. Needless to say, we've done the same bedtime routine for over a year now. All of us read together from the children's scriptures, then Stephanie bathes Heather, then I dry her off, get her dressed and read her a story. Finally, we say a prayer together and Stephanie sings Heather to sleep. The same 5 songs every night...in the same order! We feel strongly that kids need structure and consistency, and we've been working very hard to provide that for Heather.


Although we have our "assigned" bedtime routine tasks, I've filled in for Stephanie enough times to know the whole bedtime routine very well myself. Between Stephanie's responsibilities at church and our ASL classes, I have been doing the bedtime routine by myself at least once a week for a while. And at the end, I sing Heather to sleep...the same 5 songs each time...in the same order, just like Stephanie!


Tonight I had a wonderful experience as I was singing Heather to sleep. I decided to do a little experiment. As I was singing one of the songs, I decided to stop right before one of the words we've been teaching her to say and sign. "Temple" she filled in. So I sang a little more and came to another word we've been teaching her and stopped. "Day" she said. I must have done this at least 10 times between the 5 songs, and each time she said the correct word--clearly too! I was impressed enough by the fact that she could say the words we've been teaching her ("temple", "day", "heart" to name a few), but she also said some words we haven't been teaching her ("Spirit" and "true"). Mind you, this isn't something we've been practicing--I just tried this out of the blue and Heather was perfect!


I'm not going to pretend this is because Stephanie and I are such great parents. Heather is so bright and special in so many ways. But I can't help but wonder how much the consistency is helping her learn and grow. Stephanie is a wonderful mother and has been so consistent in so many of the things she does with Heather--she is the reason we have a bedtime routine in the first place! I'm so thankful for the two girls that I have been blessed with!