Why We Should Be Reverent At Church

Yesterday after church, Joseph had a meeting and Kilynn and I were hanging around waiting for him. There is a young man in our ward who seeks out Kilynn often at church. He loves playing with Kilynn and Kilynn laughs and laughs whenever he is around. He approached us while we were waiting and offered to play with Kilynn so I could go to choir practice. I took him up on it. About halfway through choir practice I thought I heard Kilynn screaming. I figured she was just squealing because she was having fun, but I thought I ought to go check on her. I found her in the bathroom with two men trying to clean her up. She had blood coming out both of her nostrils. As soon as I got there she calmed down. I think most of the trauma for her was having two strangers with her when she was hurt. The young man had taken her outside and she was running on the sidewalk. She looked behind her, laughing, to see if he was chasing her and stepped off the curb and biffed it on the pavement. I don't know who I felt more sorry for--Kilynn or the young man. He felt so bad! It could have been a lot worse, but it's still the worse injury she's had in her life so far and it happened at church of all places. That's the blessing I get for attending choir practice?

Valentine's Day 2011

We pretty much followed our little traditions yesterday and maybe added a new one. It was a great day! For dinner we had heart shaped pizzas. This tradition started while we were dating. I was in Rexburg Idaho and Joseph was here in Corvallis. I sent a Valentine's day type letter a little earlier, but I wanted to surprize him with something on the actual day. I called around until I found a pizza place in Corvallis that did heart shaped pizzas. I ordered one for Joseph, dictated a love note for them to write on the box, and had them deliver it to his apartment. Pretty romantic huh?

I got a little more creative on the second pizza. Of course you have to have a fancy, rich, chocolate desert too. I try a new recipe every year. This year I made a flourless chocolate cake with a crème anglaise sauce (basically a light custard). It was absolutely amazing if I do say so myself. If you want to try it, HERE is the recipe. Go ahead and leave out the dark rum though. I thought it tasted just fine without it:)

Joseph always gives me chocolates and some kind of flower that is either potted or that I can grow. Here are the bulbs he got me this year. He also printed out a bunch of coupons labled "Date Night" and "Mom's Time Out." The date night one is good for dinner and an event or activity at any time and a babysitter will be provided. The Mom's time out is good for four hours out of the house redeemable on Thursdays or Saturdays. Thursday evening and Saturday are the days when he has nothing going on. I guess Monday and Friday is open too, but that is FHE and date night.

For Joseph, I found this picture frame box at Micheals. I thought it would be good to put in his office so he can remember that his family loves him while he's at work. It sits on a little lazy susan so he can waste time spinning it around while he sits at his desk:) It is not finished yet. I've got some touch up work and more lettering to do.

Does anyone know what EHE stands for? Hopefully not! It's our own secret code. It basically is a way of telling each other I love you. We use it to sign off in notes, letters, or emails. We wouldn't want anyone intercepting our notes to know that we love each other! It's kind of a silly corny thing we came up with a long time ago and it stuck.

No, even though that picture is labled "Daddy", it is not Joseph. I still need to write "I Love My" above the picture.

We may have started a new tradition last night. We brought our lap top to bed and watched our favorite romance-- Seven Brides for Seven Brothers! Love it!

The Mother

This is the mother I'm talking about: Kilynn loves her baby doll. She has started playing with it all the time recently. There have been a number of times when she is being way too quiet, so I go check on her and find her hugging, bouncing, rocking, patting, and/or kissing her baby. She rocks it and says "shh shh shh," she'll give it drinks and food, wrap it in her blanket, and I've caught her playing peekaboo with it by putting its hands in front of its eyes. Last weekend we were able to go up to Seattle to attend Sadie's baptism. It was a four hour drive and Kilynn entertained herself with that baby for almost the entire time. I wonder what sorts of things she imagines with it? While in Seattle, Kilynn met her cousin Sarah and wanted to play with her like she does her baby. She was patting Sarah and hugging her and giving her lots of attention. Luckily, Sarah has brothers and sisters who do that as well, so she wasn't even phased.

Always cuddling and playing with a stuffed animal

Giving her dog a drink

Here she is pretending to be her Mamma by wearing my necklace. I find her with this necklace on just about every day. It's her favorite accessory. Thanks Grandma Waite.

Kilynn loves her Daddy

Kilynn always seems pleasantly surprised on Saturday morning when she wakes up and finds her Daddy at home and not already off to work. Joseph used most of this last Saturday morning to do some yard work. Kilynn tried to stay by a window as much as possible to watch him and kept saying "daddy" over and over. Finally I took her outside to have a better view of Daddy.

New Passtime

Kilynn discovered this cool new trick...

She did this for about 10-15 min. straight and almost fell asleep in her high chair doing it.

Christmas and New Years

We ended up staying home for Christmas. Kilynn got sick the week before Christmas and was still throwing up all the way to Christmas Eve. Thankfully she has been all better ever since Christmas day. It was fun having our own Christmas for the first time since we've been married even though we weren't planning on it. Kilynn wasn't all that excited to open her presents Christmas morning, but she was on Christmas Eve. Unfortunatly, the only presents under the tree on Christmas Eve were presents adressed to me. Throughout the day, she opened almost all of my gifts!

I have to share one of the gifts that Joseph gave me. I was very impressed.

These are sheepskin slippers that Joseph made from scratch. Over the summer Joseph had a co-worker who was butchering some sheep. Joseph offered to help him out and brought a sheepskin home. He worked the hide and then for Christmas, he made up his own pattern and everything and sewed these by hand. They are so warm and soft! He also did a deer hide this year and I think he is in the process of making some little mocassins for Kilynn. This kind of thing really appeals to Joseph. He is really into primitive skills, survival subjects, and learning how to be more self sufficient. Therefore, I got him two books on those kind of subjects.

We were finally able to leave for Eastern Oregon the Monday after Christmas. We drove to Pendleton and stayed with Aaron and Tia for the night. It was fun to see them and their new house. Thanks for letting us stay Aaron and Tia!

The next day we drove over to LaGrande and stayed for the annual Waite family reunion at the Stake Center. Lots of food, games, sports, movies and good people.

We spent the majority of our time in Haines, but I guess I didn't take any pictures! We had a great time though and it was good to see everyone! Here are some more pictures of the cutie.

This is the face Kilynn makes if you ask for her scary face.

I heard Kilynn sqealing in her room yesterday and I went in to find her stuck in this predicament. She loves to climb and is always getting into difficult situations now.

I've got some catching up to do...

First of all, let's kick off this post with a few cute pictures from the past month.

(a video to go along with the following picture later)

Cute troll in the tub Kilynn is very good at climbing now. This picture was taken a little before Thanksgiving. She climbed up on a chair and then onto the table where she found leftovers from breakfast and helped herself.

This picture says it all for our family right now. The week after Thanksgiving Kilynn caught a bug and had no appetite and threw up for a week and a half. The sickness went away for a week and then returned last Monday with the same symptoms. I think Kilynn caught it while we were home for Thanksgiving. One of her cousins had the same thing that returned later for him too.

We had plans to leave tomorrow to go to my parent's for Christmas, but last night I caught the bug too. I was pretty sick all day so Joseph worked from home so he could take care of Kilynn. Tonight, I feel quite a bit better, but now it's Joseph who seems to have the sickness. We may end up staying here for Christmas.

I have been busy over the past month and a half substituting at the Kings Valley Charter School for music. The music teacher is in our ward and had to leave for an unexpected urgent surgery. I agreed to sub every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and get the elementary and middle school/high school choir ready for their Christmas program and then put on the Christmas program. It was an interesting experience. I'm glad it's over though for Kilynn's sake. I don't like leaving her on a regular basis with a babysitter.

Well, I still have a lot of catching up to do, but I guess I better post what I've got so far before another week slips through my fingers.