18 months , oh my!

i haven't written a post since maizie turned one...i think. i could check but i am already writing. maizie turned 18 months tonight and i thought it appropriate to write some of the fun things she has been doing.

*she's a talker! its really nice because she is starting to tell us more of what she wants when she is crying, or why. ask her to say anything and she will attempt to say it. my favorites so far are:

• serisly (seriously)
• benny (gwyn, her cousin)
• cock (clock)
• some (she says this when she wants some of whatever we are eating)
• dood it (do it -- she says this when she wants to do whatever we are doing)
• poop
• emmy (emily)
• abum (adam)
• 'gain (again)
• dang it!

*maizie loves swings and slides. when we drive past them she yells "sfing, slide!"

*she loves to go on walks, but mostly when she is being pushed in the taylor tot:

*she loves babies. has to have her baby doll when she sleeps, and when she is playing she pretends to feed it.

*she can point out letters when you ask her to.

*she loves to sing, and have music on. we have a whole list of songs we have to sing in the car.

*she has a hard time with new shoes. i have to force her to wear them the first time, and then she doesn't want to take them off.

*if you have bubbles, you're her best friend.

*she is starting to let me put her hair up. again i have to force her but then if it comes out she wants it fixed.

*she loves rocks. loves them. if there is a rock maizie will pick it up, especially at my parents house. they have an area with gravel in it and she loves to "wash" her hands in it.

*the shower, sprinkler, and anything that drops water is "raining".

*she points to things all the time and says what they are.

*absolutely loves ladybugs.

*she tries to dress herself. i usually end up having to do it.

*she likes to sit on her potty chair and say "poop", but then run into the other room to go in her diaper.

*she is kinder to marissa. (marissa is/was maizie's nemesis at daycare. now maizie will hug her after beating her up)

*when we ask her a question she doesn't know the answer to she puts her hands up in the "i don't know" gesture.

*she still loves to snuggle.

*tonight she said "i love you", it was the first time i heard it but adam says she has said it before.

*she loves being around other kids, and trying to do everything they do.

*her favorite yard toy is first a teeter totter, and then the sit and spin.

maizie is a pretty freaking awesome kid. she always has a smile for everyone. she runs to the defense of those she feels are wronged (mostly she yells, but thats a lot more than what some adults would do), and when she gets knocked down or her attempt at something fails she jumps right back up and tries again until it works.
she inspires me to be better. i have truly loved this last year and a half. happy 18 months, my l.t.b.g.

1 year old!

maizie turned 1 on march 20, 2011! it truly is unbelievable to me how fast this year has gone. my baby is not so much a baby. she amazes everyday with the things that she can do, and how fast she learns something. she's one of the best things in my life, and i am so grateful to be her mom.

maizie has started trying to run. most the time it doesnt work very well.

she loves pointing at lights, and turning them on and off.

she says "nana" (banana).

her front teeth are finally breaking through! i thought this day would never happen.

she doesnt really care for cake.

maizie has her own sign language. instead of pointing to things she will look at them. ask where grandpa is, she will look in the kitchen...or wherever. she points and does other things with her hands that i just have to figure out.

she is starting to be softer with other kids...at least attempting. she pats them kind of hard while saying "oooh", so she is at least trying to be soft even if she doesnt know how yet.

maizie absolutely loves being in wind. when she feels the breeze she giggles and sticks her hands out to try to touch it.

adam felt that since maizie was turning 1 that she needed to taste a lemon. here is how that went:

we celebrated maizies birthday on saturday with some family and friends. i thought about trying to do it at a park so the kids could run around, but this early in the year in oregon is kind of dangerous to plan anything outside. so i reserved our church building because the gym would be big enough to let kids be crazy. i got playground balls and kid-sized bowling sets, taped out foursquare and hopscotch, and also got some mini lacrosse things to use. i also set up a table for coloring and making old school paper hats:

my mom made the cake and i got a ton of finger foods. the kids were running around and having a great time, when adam accidentally broke one of the big lights in the ceiling while kicking a ball. that was when we decided to have everyone eat, while we cleaned up the glass. maizie liked all of the food but her favorite by far was the strawberries. after that we sang happy birthday to her. she was sitting on my lap and enjoying everyone singing but as soon as they said her name she became very bashful. i also forgot to bring a lighter so we couldnt light her candle. with her cake we decided to put a giraffe and a couple of rubber ducks on it because maizies first favorite toy was a giraffe and she loves ducks:


here is what happened with the singing and the cake:

after that we opened presents. all of the presents were great for her, and we love them all.
it was a really fun day and we are so thankful that everyone could help us celebrate!

goodbye

my grandpa passed away last night. one day after maizie's birthday, and one day before my aunt leann's. my heart is aching so much. there are times that i feel like weeping but i cant because of where i am,or i have maizie. my mom left this morning to be with my grandma.

my grandpa was a great man. he always took care of his family, and worked hard. the things i remember most though are the family dinners we would have in their house in las vegas. he was an amazing carpenter. he helped build the chapel that my family went to church in for years. he would also build things for us grand kids for christmas. (which was no easy task since there are like 40+ of us) i remember sitting on his lap and him teasing me with his dentures, its a fuzzy memory so i cant give details. he would make caramel popcorn, and milk shakes. he taught me how to play yahtzee, and rummy. i loved going into his woodshop, the smell of the lumber was intoxicating. i remember thinking that my grandpa was tough, that he would always be here because nothing could hurt him. even as an adult i still had this belief and its hard to accept that he is gone.

grandpa battled parkinsons disease for decades, (this my be why i always thought of him as tough, he always put up a good fight), and in the last few years has had balance problems. last week he fell and broke some ribs. as a result he was hospitalized had surgery, and had a good prognosis. but when it came time to come back to us he didnt. i will miss him dearly, and will always be grateful for the example he is to me.

may he rest in peace, william walter newell sanders.

give and take

today was an awesome day, and towards the end of the afternoon a sad one. we celebrated maizie's birthday with family and friends today, even though she is not one until tomorrow. i want to post about it but i will tomorrow, and will do pictures. this post tonight is about the sad part so you dont have to read if you dont want to...if thats the case stop now.

as we were cleaning up from the party my cousin scott got a call from his dad looking for my mom. he found out that my grandpa had fallen and broken his ribs. the doctors dont expect him to live through the procedure to fix them. my mom had just left, and wouldnt be home for at least a half hour. i kept trying to call because my dad was sick so he was there, but not awake.

i kept thinking that i didnt want to be the one who told my mom her dad is dying. when she finally picked up i asked her if she had talked to my uncle brent, i had this hope that maybe she was on the other line and thats why she didnt pick up. she said no that she had just walked in the door, and asked whats up. i told her that i didnt have good news. i told her about the call from brent, and that grandpa wasnt expected to make it. she started hyperventilating, and talking about getting to the bank and finding checks. im guessing so that she could have money to go to hermiston where my grandparents live. she asked me about details that i didnt have, and all i could say is that she needed to call my grandma or brent, and that i was so sorry. i dont think i have ever felt so helpless.

my mom and her brother left tonight to be with my grandparents. i plan on going to the funeral. but i keep thinking that i needed to do more. i feel like i have missed out on so much with my grandpa, that i should have visited more often, written letters, or called. i feel so guilty for all of the should haves. going to someones funeral doesnt make up for that.

the count down

i was thinking today that one year ago, while pushing a chair in at the table my water broke. and thus began the final drop on the roller coaster ride that was my labor, that finally ended 4 days later! i'd like to think that i will never forget that experience, but the last few months of seeing adam's grandma has made me think otherwise. anyway just thought i'd share that tidbit.

11 months!

tonight maizie turned 11 months old!! my baby is almost a year old and it makes me so sad. here are some of the things she is doing:

maizie calls everybody "mama". i was a little sad about this but i know lots of kids do it until they really understand names...so i'm over it, sort of.

she LOVES her binky. so much so that she will sometimes have one in her mouth and one in each hand. i don't know how we will break her of it.

maizie loves to watch duck videos. anytime i sit down at our desk she takes it as her queue to climb on my lap and say, "guck, guck" and sometimes "cuck, cuck" which i am taking as another form of duck.

she got her first pair of shoes that actually stay on.

she knows how to blow kisses.

she is babbling more. and there are some definite words in there, you just have to listen for them. she asks "whats that?" a ton. she also can say car, and moo (although it sounds like boo). she "barks" when she sees a dog, and says cheese ("eese").

she points to herself.

maizie actually let me hold another baby without getting jealous! instead she kept saying "ooooooh", and tried to pat the baby. i guess all the "be soft" talk is paying off.

she has learned about noses, and points to them regularly.

maizie got her first haircut today. she had a super long strand that never fell out that has been getting in her eyes. so today at 8:16pm as she was turning 11 months old we cut that part off. we saved the hair tied in red ribbon.

have i told you that adam's grandma is living with us? in january, doris came to live here again. i don't really know that she wanted to, but she had to. none of us in the house are very happy or excited about it. doris has dementia, so living with her is like living in lockdown in a mental facility. any time we leave our room, we have to lock it and have our key on us...i lost mine about a day after this all started. for the first few weeks we kept the key above the door, but after she tried every key she could find to try to get in our room we decided it wasn't safe to leave our key out anymore. there are times when she is nice and behaves perfectly. then there are times when nothing is right and you can't convince her of anything. it's really hard to understand, and to also try to not be frustrated by her. the person this is hardest for though is jill. she doesn't want to give up on doris and put her in a home, but at the same time can't go on like this until doris' inevitable end. jill has the most contact with her during the day since the rest of us have jobs. jill does everything she can to make her mom comfortable, and to see that she is getting everything she needs. in return doris will say "thank you" once in a while. but she mostly just expects it and then doesnt remember people doing things for her. i guess i just needed to vent a little. i hope things get better.

sick

i have to admit that i hate people who refuse to accept that their kid is the reason everyone around them is sick or getting sick. i feel like a snotty nose is one thing, not that i want it but if it comes down to that or pneumonia i'll take the snotty nose. anything else though and i want them to stay 1000 feet away from my family. i feel like i take every measure to keep maizie away from people when she is sick, why cant they do the same with their kids? and dont come over to me and say "dont get too close we have blah blah blah, hahahaha!" no. not funny, take your nasty a$$ germs and get the heck out of my house, or my bubble, and dont come back til you have been completely disinfected. the only time i want sick people around is when they have chicken pox and maizie is at least 3. til then, STAY AWAY! in the mean time i'll just be here listening to my baby cough, have shallow breathing and diarrhea. thanks so much typhoid mary.

10 months!!

wow. 10 months. maizie has started doing so much this month. it blows me away how fast she learns things.

maizie has started sharing. no, not toys. she shares her binky. thats right, straight from your mouth to hers. and if you turn your head to try to not take it, she turns you back towards her with her other hand and jams the binky in your mouth.

maizie has finally gotten that waving is for both hello and goodbye. it's really sweet to see her waving to everybody.

she climbs. it makes me crazy because she is not very aware of edges. and although she has fallen a few times, it doesnt stop her.

maizie absolutely adores books. we have started reading to her every night as part of her bedtime routine. she loves to point things out and listen to the animal noises, her favorite are the lion and the frog.

she knows how to quack, growl, click her tongue, say mama, dada, go, and hi. (i think some of those have been mentioned before, sorry)

she eats everything but baby food (unless it's fruit). i cant say that i blame her.

she likes to have us love her baby doll. she shoves it in your face a lot like when she shares her binky.

if you are holding her and not paying enough attention to her, she will turn your head to her and grin like crazy.

maizie is learning to defend herself. since she is at daycare, she picks up on things. and this i am not entirely proud of but glad she's not a pushover: she hits if someone takes her toy or something. i am really trying to work on getting her to be nice, but, until she can talk more, i dont know how well it will work.

maizie can walk! she is still wobbly, but she has it. sometimes when she gets too excited, she drops down and crawls since that is still faster.

adam's surgery

adam had to have surgery on december 23. that's right, 2 days before christmas. we went to the doctor thinking that it would have to be taken care of after christmas, but, to our surprise, they did it that day! it wasn't a huge surgery, but it's taking a while to heal. he had a pilonidal cyst. you can look it up if you really want to. since then, though, he has a hard time sitting for any extended amount of time. i feel bad for him; it would be lame having to lay down most of the day. the wound from the surgery is in a place where you can't have stitches because the skin moves too much and would tear around them, so we get to pack the wound...when i say "we" i mean "i". the first time i had to do it, it was really difficult. i wasn't expecting it to be so big (it's about 2 inches long and 1 ½ deep). we went for a follow up and the doctor says it's healing well and that he wished all of his patients' healing went this well. hopefully it finishes healing fast so adam wont hurt anymore.

2011

The year 2010 has come to an end. It was a very special year for us because it was the year that Maizie was born! She brings us so much joy and is such a great baby! :)

On the day of New Year's Eve, we thought it would be fun to go to the park and take Maizie down the slides and let her ride in the baby swing. When we got there, though, we discovered that the slides were wet and there weren't any baby swings. Sad! What else is sad is that we didn't really do anything else that day besides that; we just lounged around the house.

Once Maizie was asleep, we played a card game called cribbage. Emily won. Scott and Cody came by after 11:00. Scott saw my C# book, so we talked about programming for a while. Later on, Cody and I talked about how much common knowledge she and I lack since we didn't pay attention in school. The main thing we talked about was history. Scott and Emily both have much more common knowledge than Cody and I. The four of us ended up doing some history quizzes online, just for fun. We also had pumpkin pie, which Emily kindly made.

My New Year's resolution is to get my weight back down to 182 pounds, which is what it was at the beginning of my mission back in 2004. In order to get off to a good start, I waited until 11:59:50 PM, ran to the bathroom, and started urinating into toilet. By the time I was done, it was already the year 2011, which means that I was in the process of losing weight at the very beginning of the year. Awesome! When I was done in the bathroom, I went into our room and shared a New Year's kiss with Emily :) She was calming Maizie down, who was laying in her crib.

Scott and Cody left at around 1:00 AM. We went to bed shortly after that, but we stayed up for a little while using StumbleUpon. Here is one of the pictures that made us both laugh:

That's about it for New Year's Eve. As for New Year's Day (today), we woke up at about 8:00 because Maizie was ready to be up. Emily asked me to watch Maizie for 45 minutes so that she could sleep, so I fed her some puffs, baby food (pears), and string cheese. I had some pumpkin pie. After that, I let Maizie play for a while. When it was time, I had Emily take over while I laid in bed.

My nephew, Elijah, is homeschooled by my mom. He usually gets here on Wednesday and then goes back home on Saturday. Such was the case this week, so today was the day he went home. I was the one to take him home (I offered to so that I could set up his parents' wireless router). We left shortly after 11:00. He was really sad to go home.

I got back home shortly after 2:00. Emily and I just hung out for a while and then I got Maizie down for a nap. I hadn't intended to fall asleep myself, but that's what ended up happening. It felt nice to sleep! When Maizie and I got up, Emily was painting a footstool that she got from Scott and Cody a while back. She was painting it the same purple color as Maizie's dresser. After she was done with that, she made an awesome dinner! She described the dinner to me a few days ago and I wasn't sure if I would like it or not, but it ended up being very good! It was a salad with chicken, cranberries, almonds, an orange pepper, Mandarin oranges, and Asian sesame dressing. There was also pilaf rice on the side. Delicious!

After dinner, I did the dishes and Emily gave Maizie a bath and started rocking her. I ended up being the one to finish rocking her since Maizie seems to prefer me. I heard that baby's sometimes have trouble with their mothers rocking them to sleep because they associate their mothers with food and get distracted by that thought.

Once Maizie was down, we read Matthew 7 and watched some videos online. That about sums up our New Year's Day!

We're planning to move out of my parents' house sometime around May. We're not sure where we'll go, though. It will be interesting to see where the year 2011 takes us!