To 2011!!

With the new year quickly approaching, I have found myself reflecting quite a bit. There are several things that I want to have happen in this next year, and I am going to list them here. In no particular order --

1. LOSE WEIGHT AND KEEP IT OFF.

I pretty much binged from Halloween until now -- and I feel gross and disgusted with myself. I gained back about five pounds that I had worked so hard to shed earlier this fall. I think the only reason I didn't gain a lot more than that is because we have three flights of stairs that I am constantly going up and down (usually with a heavy baby in my arms) -- so as much as I curse the stairs, I think they've helped me out.

My goal is to lose 8 lbs a month (totally doable!), starting January 1st. That will give me a 32 lb weight loss by the time our 8th anniversary rolls around at the end of April. The weight loss is truly essential to my happiness -- it is a major depressing factor, so this year -- watch out. I am making it a top priority. It's COMING OFF.

2. Grow my business.

Growing the business was not on the top of my list of things to do this past year since I spent most of the year pregnant and having an infant to care for. But I still managed to have a couple of clients, and I found that having a project to work on (usually after the kids are asleep) is also essential to my happiness. I love to create, I love to write, and I love to help people feel connected to their posterity (and their posterity to them). It is extremely rewarding and satisfying work, and I hope to do a lot more of it this coming year.

I also wanted to link to Lindsay Call's recent blog post that I enjoyed -- even though I didn't comment. :)

3. Write my own memoir (or is it memoirs?)

For Christmas, I requested books/guides to writing memoirs to help me in my business (I didn't really realize the difference between memoirs and autobiographies...but now I do). What I didn't expect was to feel inspired to write my own! I'm on page 2 of mine, and let me tell you -- it is TOUGH. I want it to be good, but I know if I try too hard then I'll get discouraged and just end up not writing it at all. I think doing it will really help me understand my clients more and what they're looking for, but already I feel like it will help in my personal life -- figuring out who I am exactly and how I got here. I think writing is truly powerful -- for me (when I'm in the "zone") it often feels like the words flow through me and write themselves. It is revealing -- I always discover things about myself that I didn't quite understand before. It can be scary -- and exhilarating. I haven't written for myself for a long time. I don't count the blog really -- as I usually just spit out something as fast as I can before kids start screaming. (But it has helped me to be able to write some, at least.)

Here's a quote from the book I am currently reading, Fearless Confessions: A Writer's Guide to Memoir that I've found to be true and echoes what I just said: "The writing process itself is part of the journey. The insights you have while writing aren't things you knew at the time the events happened. It's only through writing about events after they happen --as we craft our memoirs--that we come to understand what they mean. All our lives have plots. We find them through writing."

And a quote from Robert Frost to go along -- "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader."

By the way, don't worry -- my memoir is not going to be a confessional! Yikes. I didn't quite know what I was getting into with this book when I requested it, but it was highly recommended online. Despite some edgy stuff, it has really been helpful for me.

4. Be more spiritual.

Doing the obvious things -- reading scriptures every day, going to the temple more often, trying to serve outside of my family more, etc.

5. Be a better mother.

I'm sure most mothers feel that they are lacking in some way -- I am no different. I see many areas I am lacking, and I feel like the other numbers on this list will actually help me in this area. I need to have time for myself to grow and learn and be healthy, so that I will feel fulfilled, happy, and confident. When I feel those things, I know I will feel increased happiness with my children, be more patient and loving, and be a much better role model and teacher for them.

My visiting teacher came over this month, and we were talking about having interests outside of family. She is a grandmother now and said that she really regretted not developing her talents and interests more when she was younger -- outside of her children. Her husband died several years ago, and she said it has really been a struggle for her. She feels her only "identity" is being a grandmother. It made me realize that the way I've been feeling lately is definitely not limited to age or circumstance. I don't know if it's something everyone goes through or not, but in some way it's nice to know I'm not the only one.

So -- here's to 2011!! I have a feeling it's going to be a good year!

I would love to hear any resolutions you guys have if you feel like sharing and haven't done so already on your own blogs. :)

Sibling play

Here's some video of Christian, too. I'll be doing a 6 month update here in a little while. But rest assured -- he's ADORABLE.

Here's a video taken before we lost the camera -- some time in November. It gets cuter/funnier towards the end -- around the 20 sec mark. I don't know how to edit videos yet -- sorry. Hang in there.

"I LOVE to dance!"

This is Kate dancing to "tip top" music -- or "hip hop" music. :) She watches a show called Angelina Ballerina and her favorite is where they dance to hip hop music. Anyway, this girl LOVES to dance. I am in Primary now, and so I get to keep my eye on her. When she was supposed to be exiting sharing time reverently to go to her next class, she walked calmly for a minute, then as she was exiting, she did a dramatic twirl. It was hilarious -- I couldn't help but laugh out loud! Everyone else was folding their arms, but Kate was in a world of her own.

That reminds me -- the Sunday after she turned four, she walked in to Sharing Time and sat down in the back of the room -- with a different, much older class. I asked her what she was doing. She said, "This is where the big kids sit."

Anyway, I hope everyone has seen the movie Girls Just Want to Have Fun a million times like I have -- that's where I got the title of this post from. :)


You can get a better sense of what her twirl was like in Primary from this one below--

"What's your favorite color?"

As I mentioned before, I got a video camera for my bday in November. Well, I only had it a month before it DISAPPEARED. I was SO mad/sad. Cute things kept happening, and I would think tragically to myself, "Oh if only I had a VIDEO camera."

Well last night Andrew's family was visiting. His step-mom couldn't find her keys. They looked everywhere. Finally, Andrew had a flash of inspiration -- walked straight over to the couch and lifted up a couch cushion -- revealing both the keys AND our video camera!! It honestly felt like Christmas. Andrew thinks he should "lose" more of our stuff, then wrap it up and give it to me for Christmas. Ha ha. :)

Now we know just where to look if we do lose something.

Anyway, I went a little crazy with the videos once it was found. So I am going to post some. This one makes me laugh -- Kate's answer to "What's your favorite color?"

Happy birthday to KATE!!

Kate this morning: "I was three for a LONG time!"

Well, Kate is officially a big girl (a FOUR year old!) -- and you better not try to tell her any different!! She is cute, she is cuddly, she makes messes and often times will help clean them up, and she's totally, completely potty-trained! (Well, still working on wiping.) She is officially way better than a puppy.

She is still extremely tall and extremely skinny. She is 35 lbs (finally!) and 42 inches tall. Her height is in the 95th percentile. Her BMI has gone up from 1 percent (in Sept) to 4 percent (in Nov). The doctor said that was way low, and they want kids to be at least in the 10th percentile, but she looked at Kate and said, "Well, she doesn't look sickly..." Great.

She has gone from being annoyed and sad about Christian to totally adoring him and getting mad at me when I put him down for a nap. She loves to roll over him, sing to him, squish him, kiss him, cuddle him, tickle him, feed him!, and clean up his spit up (without being asked!). She is a GREAT big sister, and Christian adores his big sis. She can get him to laugh and smile like no one else. He lights up when he sees her. I love to watch them together. I feel so grateful they will always have each other. Sometimes watching them together gets me all teary-eyed. I have to admit that after having two kids now it makes me feel like I want a lot more! I know that's probably (?) not in the cards, but I know their lives would be blessed with more siblings.

I love how she opens her mouth while she's feeding him. She is to the age now where she is actually helpful -- I love it!

Kate is the Queen of questions right now. EVERYTHING starts with a why around here. "Kate, can you take your toys upstairs?" "Why?" or "Why should I?" would be the standard response. The "Why should I?" response usually makes me a little grumpy, but I don't think she's intending to sound rude. Pretty much anything you say to her will elicit a "Why?" The other day she asked me who someone was. I said something like it was a little girl (cause I didn't know the kid). She then asked, "Why?" I was confused. "Why what?" Kate: "Why is she a little girl?" Anyway, it's exhausting, but I'm glad her mind is working!!

She is very curious about the body and all its many parts, like "What's inside your eyeball?" "What's inside your finger?" "What's inside your knee?" etc etc.

She loves talking about the "World" we live on and has many, many questions about that. And about other worlds (other planets) and what they're like. She watched Contact with us recently and that made her even more inquisitive.

Even though it can be quite draining at times to keep up with her questions, I keep getting the feeling that I am really going to miss this age. She is so fun.

Kate loves to dance, loves to play dress up, loves to eat hot dogs (usually two in a sitting), loves to "read," loves to count, loves to play computer games, and loves to go to preschool.

Kate is FUNNY. She really has a great sense of humor -- I love it. The other day I waited too long to use the restroom, and suddenly I had to RUN to the bathroom that's next to the kitchen. I got going too fast, and I totally smashed into the bathroom door. I was trying to open it as I slid into the bathroom. But it didn't work out. Kate was watching and was soon laughing uncontrollably. It's been a couple weeks since that happened, but she will still say, "I have to go potty" then run frantically into the bathroom door (on purpose), fall down, and laugh herself sick. It makes me laugh every time.

Speaking of bathrooms, she had a bit of a potty mouth at preschool at the beginning of the year and would get the other kids all saying poo and pee. We had a talk about it, and she now knows we can only say those words if we are talking about actually going poo or pee. Lately, every time she tells me she has to go poo, she will say, "We're talking about poop, right??"

Last night I took her to get her haircut, and as it was being cut, Kate was making the most hilarious faces in the mirror, seemingly oblivious to anyone watching her. It cracked the hairdresser up. It was almost as if she had never seen a mirror before, the way she was so into it.

This week Kate was singing her version of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Here are some of the lyrics: "Rudolph the other reindeer -- you're supposed to call him names!" and "Won't you drive my slave tonight?" :)

Kate is a great conversationalist. At dinner she'll ask how my food is and if I like it. She almost always tells me thank you for the food I get her.

One of my favorite things about Kate is that she NEVER whines or begs for things at stores. She does whine quite a lot at home, I have to say, but never has she EVER thrown a tantrum at a store. We'll go look at toys sometimes when we're at Walmart, and if she sees something she really loves, she'll show it to me, looking up at me with her big brown eyes and say, "Some other little kid is going to have this, huh, Mama?" I just say yes, someone else will get that, and that's the end of the conversation. I have to tell ya -- it makes me want to buy her whatever she wants!

She is generally a joy to be around and is really becoming a friend. She is so tender-hearted and also easy to please -- which makes pleasing her even more fun. She is always so grateful for the things we do give her.

Lately, Kate will ask, "Mommy. Guess what?" Then she'll come over and hug my leg and say, "I love you."

Well, guess what? I love her, too!!