Heather's Latest

I know this video is long overdue. Sorry about that. It is impossible to capture all the wonderful moments with Heather in our lives, but we hope we can give you a glimpse into her happy self here. A warning to those short on time: it's a long video...sorry. :)

Obeying

Heather has been going through a lot of emotional...development lately (we'll put it nicely). Up until a few weeks ago, there is nothing she could do to raise my blood pressure, even at her worst. Now it seems she's found my buttons and she is pushing them, although most of the time it's not intentional.

During times like this, I try to remember the many reasons I love her. She really is so cute and so smart, and yesterday I had a wonderful reminder. I was washing the dishes when Heather came up to me, dropped a pair of my shoes at my feet, and looked up with an expectant look. I said hi and continued doing the dishes. She waited for a bit, then started trying to pick up my feet and put them in the shoes. Finally, I gave in and started slipping my feet into the shoes. As I did so, her face lit up and she said "thank you for obeying, daddy!"

Caught Red-handed

I walked into the kitchen this morning, and this is what I saw:

Heather used her "car" as a footstool, and got into the muffins.

She doesn't even look guilty does she...she ate the tops of 6 muffins!

Riding away in her car...

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