Holly

A wildflower among wildflowers this summer at Mt. Rainier

Holly is a sweet and remarkable girl who will influence a lot of people for good on her path in life.  In fact, she was the inspiration for starting this blog as a record for our family; I often think to myself that her fun and funny ways deserve to be recorded for us to enjoy in the future.  Since she is now two and a half, let's just quickly recap her cuteness to date with a photo-video montage:

2 weeks old

                                                                       2 months old

4 months

5 months

Army crawling at 5 months

Praying at 9 months

10 months

Valentine's at 10 months

One year old

First summer of exploring the world on two feet

15 months

Jam on the couch

Dancing at Toddler Time

First snowman with Dad - 21 months

Pink shirt, pink shoes

                                                                Synchronized snoring

23 months

Ready for church

Trusty sidekick

2nd birthday

Preparing for Baby Ben's arrival

First day as Big Sis

A little sunshine

Hiking on Rainier

Nearly two and a half years old

Holly has a lot of love for everyone she knows, especially all the people in our family.  She thinks everyone she meets is her friend, and when anyone comes to the front door she invites them in to play with her.  One of her best qualities is her zest for life.  For example, the moment Holly wakes up in the morning, she always exclaims, "It's morning time! I woke up today!"  She is a great person to spend all my time with because she is so positive and excited about nearly everything.  This summer we hiked at Mt. Rainier a couple of times, and later went down for an overnight stay.  Holly was so thrilled about it and to every person we saw there, said, "We're goin' to Mount Ray-neer!" Just this morning we were driving Adam to catch his bus to work and saw the colors of the sunrise.  Holly pointed to the sky and said, "Look, Mom, it's so beautiful!  The sun made us beautiful colors!"

Holly is excited to learn about all kinds of new things and has an excellent memory.  By her 2nd birthday, she had learned to count to ten, recite the alphabet, and by this summer could identify most of the alphabet letters.  She can spell her name now and recognizes it when she sees it written down.  Anytime she spots a letter H on something she shouts, "H for Holly!"  I think one reason she learned this so quickly was that the alphabet and counting numbers were really just some of her hobbies. She is always adding new words to her vocabulary.  The other day she heard me say "hopefully" something would happen, and she said, "Mom, what means 'hopefully'?"  I said, "It means you really want something to happen."  A few hours later, she asked for a fruit leather snack, and as I was opening it for her, she said, "Oh, hopefully I have my fruit strip now!"

Holly loves to sing and has learned dozens of songs over the last several months.  Some of her favorites are "I'm So Glad When Daddy Comes Home," "Jesus Once Was a Little Child," "I am Like a Star Shining Brightly," "Go, Diego, Go!," "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam," and "Do As I'm Doing," "Goodnight, Sweetheart" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands." We spend a lot of time singing around here.  In the car we listen to our 3-disc set of 150 Toddler Tunes, and I can't believe how often she knows what song it is upon hearing the intro. We usually sing several opening songs for Family Home Evening, and a few every night before bed, and that way she learns lots of Primary songs.

One special trait we've seen in Holly from early on is her concern for other people's feelings.  It is important to her that everyone is happy, and she has always felt sad when she can see someone else is sad.  Around 18 months, when Holly would refuse to share her toys with other kids, I could almost always get her to change her mind by pointing out how sad the other kid was that she wouldn't share, and telling her that if she would share, it would make him or her so happy.  Then her face would light up at the idea of making someone happy and she would freely hand her toy to the other kid.  I couldn't believe how often this reasoning would work.  We've witnessed her empathetic nature enough times to know it is a trait she will always have.

Even now, when Holly can tell I'm frustrated or stressed, she says, "Are you happy, Mom?"  Or if she has just been naughty and I give her a look, she says, "Are you just a little bit happy, Mom?"  Or, if she is pre-meditating a naughty plan, she will say, "I want you to stay happy, Mom, okay?" 

Holly has all kinds of nice things to say.  Here are some that we hear most often throughout the day:

"Thank you!"
"It's my favorite, the best one!"
"Sure!"
"It's so beautiful!"
"I will never do it again!" (after getting in trouble)
"I'm okay!" (after falling)
"I'm sorry.  It was just a accident.  How about a hug?"
"I love you so much."

And we love her too.

Baby Ben is 4 Months Old

We are just loving our squishy little Baby Ben.  He is a sweet little snuggler and loves to be together.  Baby Ben loves to have faces all around him and is so sad if we leave him alone.  He especially loves his big sis, who can make him smile and giggle faster than anyone else.  Holly is an all-star to Baby Ben.

These days Ben mostly wants to be walking around with Mom, but he also enjoys rolling back and forth on a blanket and playing with his favorite toy, which happens to be a crinkly fairy.  Sorry about that, Baby Ben.  We vary up the activities with the Bumbo, the exersaucer, the bouncy seat, and tummy time on the floor.

A couple months ago, Ben had figured out that the secret to happiness is sleeping for 8 straight hours at night, and I sang his praises daily (while he took 3-hour naps).  Sadly, his sleeping habits have changed big time, and he even beats out Baby Holly for worst sleeper ever at this age.  Baby Ben takes 3 thirty-minute naps during the the day, and rarely sleeps for longer than 2 hours at a time during the night.  (Holly took 3 forty-minute naps every day at this age and woke up every 3 hours at night.)

Ben loves to take baths and when I first lay him down in the water, his eyes get wide and he always looks like he's going to cry, but then he smiles.  Here was my attempt to record him at bath time, but I had a little too much help:

At his 4-month checkup, Ben was 26 inches long (87th percentile) and 14 lbs, 14 ounces (44th percentile for weight) and his head was in the 10th percentile for circumference.

Whenever Ben is doing something so cute and fun, I try to stop a take a video, but by then he stops doing it as much.  But here is one I took recently, anyway.  When Ben sees Holly jump on the bed, he starts giggling (although you don't see much of it here).

Make it happen

          I gained over 50 pounds while pregnant with Ben and after the initial post-partum loss, still had 30 pounds to lose to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight.  But my eating habits hadn't changed since giving birth; I still wanted to eat double helpings at every meal and full batches of no-bake cookies (or anything made from a combination of chocolate and peanut butter).  Sometimes I would get new clothes and think I was looking not too terrible when I saw myself in the mirror.  But when I saw myself in pictures, I couldn't believe how fat I looked!  It made me feel disgusted with myself, and I started thinking about it all the time.  In fact, I spent almost all of my time thinking about things that I needed to change or improve on in my life.  Not just my weight, but several different areas of personal improvement.  Going to bed earlier, waking up early to exercise, reading my scriptures, having family prayer and personal prayer, not constantly trashing the house, planning the week's meals in advance...I started driving myself to madness with thoughts of how I needed to start or stop various behaviors, but never actually made any changes.
         Then while visiting teaching one of my friends in August, the conversation turned to our personal spirituality habits, and we all shared a mutual confession that we were failing at them.  I told my friends that every Sunday during church, I'd listen to the talks and lessons and think to myself about how I was gonna go home and start the new week off doing better with this or that.  Then every week would just go the same as the week before...I'd go home and fall right back into my same ways of doing things.  My friends both exclaimed that they did the same thing, and we all seemed to be comforted at finding ourselves in the same (sinking) boat.  But I really was not.  I found it bothersome that we were all failing to bring our good intentions to fruition.  I felt strongly that it was time to stop thinking about these things and just make them happen.
          Elder Packer said, "The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior." I needed to improve my behavior, and reading the scriptures regularly would be a big improvement, and according to his statement, would bring about other improvements.  I decided that day at visiting teaching that I would start reading, that I would really make it happen.  I began reading The Book of Mormon that night, and I've been reading some of it every night since then.  I made it a habit.
           About that same time, I decided to make some major changes to my eating habits, another plan to improve that had existed only in my imagination for some time.  Never in the past have I been successful at changing my eating habits for the better, but I was ready to change my life.  So I did it, I made it happen. I set a goal to lose 25 pounds by Thanksgiving, and would abstain from any sweet treats or desserts as one means to that end.  In the last six weeks I've lost 15 pounds by staying in control of what I eat.  It has been difficult, but exciting, and in the midst of it I stop and say to myself, "I'm changing my life!" It's a fortifying affirmation.