Happy First Birthday!

Look at her face! This is what I call her 'polite' smile. She does it a lot now.  I can't believe she's a year old today! I've been saving this shirt for her birthday. It says "I got my first hug at Mercy Hospital". At first I didn't think much of this shirt, but now that we're away from Iowa, every little reminder holds a special place in our hearts. I always want to remember that Joelle was born in Iowa.

 Let's take a look at her whole year of life in pictures.

 

 

 

I absolutely love having her as a part of my family. She is so fun and cute, and I love watching her grow.  She loves table food, and floor food, and any food EXCEPT for whole milk, so we still have her on formula.  She loves to crawl around and play with her brothers. She absolutely loves her blanket that her grandma Petersen made for her. She is seriously attached to it. She's getting so much better about letting other people hold her. As long as I'm not in her view, she has about an 80% chance of letting someone else hold her. The chances increase if you're wearing a necklace for her to play with. She says 'dada', but usually just to make noise. She says 'mama' but still only says it when she cries. She has always been a fantastic sleeper. She loves to clap, play patty cake, shake her head 'no', eat Joe's chin, open her mouth for kisses, bounce up and down to music, and say "uh-uh-uh-uh" as I hold and bounce her while going down the stairs. She is pulling herself up to stand, but not really close to walking yet. She has crawled up one or two stairs, but I'm too scared to let her practice that very often. 
We love her so much and can't wait to see her continue to grow and progress. She's our little Christmas Eve baby girl.

Moving Forward?

Can you tell I've been avoiding my blog?  Let's just get this first part over with. I'm still ticked that Obama won. I have my reasons and I have no doubt many of you do as well. Okay, now we can move on.

Being in St. Joe. What can I say? Its...harder. No one likes change. The city is nice, the people are nice, our apartment is nice. It's just me who hasn't been fine. For the first time in my life I've felt like I have to adjust to a new place.  Moving to college was pretty easy since I had roommates and I just drove home every weekend. Moving to Logan was easy because Joe and I had friends and family there. Moving to Iowa was fun because we met and made lot of new friends pretty quickly.  This time around is different. I've made a few friends, but I still feel like the outsider here.  For some reason I feel like I don't quite belong yet. I belonged in Utah and it would be easy to transition back. I belonged in Iowa too.  When I went back to visit over Thanksgiving weekend we were welcomed over the pulpit, and I was even provided a gluten free cracker for the sacrament without ever asking for one.  I was met with smiling faces and warm wishes that I genuinely and eagerly reciprocated.  It felt like home being there.  My trip was cut short when I found out I'd be flying to Utah for a funeral.  Once again, while I was in Utah I felt at home. I was able to see some of my relatives that I haven't seen in years, and I was so grateful. I felt so blessed for the opportunity to celebrate the life of my dear cousin with my relatives, and be able to hug my family close and appreciate the deep love I have for them. I was able to briefly see my Whitehead family as well. It was so great to see them too. I've been really homesick for them. My sister-in-law drove all the way from Evanston just to have a 2 hour dinner with me. I'm so blessed.  Occasionally the Lord shows me how much love and support I have in my life, and this was one of those times.  Despite my selfishness and many other shortcomings, I have wonderful people who love me just the same.  I just don't get to see them as often as I would like.  Right now I'm back in St. Joe wishing I knew the future.  Deep down I know I need to be patient. There are wonderful people here too. It will just take a little more time to develop the same deepness of friendship and service that I have with all those people I miss so much. I'm blessed to know that I'm in the right place here in St. Joe. I just need to get my heart there too.

Mormons and Motherhood

Recently my faith-a lot of our faiths-have been under heavy scrutiny because of this presidential election.  I've encountered a lot of anti-Mormon anti-Romney anti-woman "stuff". Malarkey.  Granted, not many of those people read my blog, but there are a LOT of people who do read that may question their role as a Mormon woman. My goal is to share what I've learned about myself on this front.
    One of the things I've heard is that Mitt doesn't respect women because his church doesn't respect women. Apparently Mormon men pressure women to be nothing more than baby-making machines.  Let me make this clear: My faith teaches, first and foremost, AGENCY.  EVERY member of my church has a choice in every single decision they make, and in ANY aspect of their lives. Yes, I did choose to be a stay-at-home mother. No one told me to be one. Not my husband, not my mother, not my bishop. I choose my life. When I became pregnant I made the decision that I would do the job that I felt was best for every person in my family, myself included.
   I'm fortunate that I have the option to go without pay.  Not all women have that choice, and I'm so lucky that I do. There are also a lot of Mormon women who have the option to stay home, but choose not to. That is just as admirable as my decision, and deserves just as much respect.
  I made a decision to commit my whole self to the raising, rearing, nurturing, and teaching of my family inside my home. I'm here to tell you that any woman who makes that choice should NEVER EVER be made to feel that they aren't living up to their potential. Being at home with my kids is HARD and it's WORK and I WORK HARD AT IT, and I'm DANG GOOD AT IT! The choice that women make to stay home to raise their children commands respect. I hope any woman who has ever felt sheepish about saying that they stay home will realize that being a successful woman isn't to be determined by anyone but themselves.
   Women who work outside the home, women who don't have children, women who pursue high levels of education, AND women who decide to stay home with children are strong, powerful, influential, and important.  My faith-our faith- has many women in every one of these categories, and most in more than one of them.  We all have a choice. We all deserve respect.  
    

We love Fall!

 

 I love that Ethan put his hat on backwards. He had this tiny little peep-hole for his face.

 

 

 We LOVED the apple orchard. This time around my camera died at the start of our visit, and the kids were in their play clothes, but I think I'm going to do some real portraits here soon. This was a good day.

Oops! We forgot our little sweetheart! The only pictures we have of her are on Joe's phone.  She's still adorable.

Kansas City Zoo

This weekend my mom was able to come out to visit us. We had a great time, and we loved having her here. We went shopping, Joe and I got to go to the  new Kansas City Temple, more shopping, played at the park, played softball as a family, hit up LOTS of yard sales (more cheap cute clothes for the boys and Joelle), and right before my mom left we went to see the Kansas City Zoo.

 The boys absolutely loved the polar bear. They said it was their favorite part. My mom tried to lift Noah up to be as tall as the bear paw, but ended up bonking his head. Poor kid. At least it's not a broken arm, eh? (inside joke)

 I told them to give me a "real" smile. Thanks boys. They liked the elephants a lot though.

 So did Joe.

 We did a LOT of walking. The zoo is fairly big; mostly because the animals are spaced really far apart. The boys got tired of all of the walking.

 My favorite part was seeing the chimps. This one came right up to the glass and just laid there.

 We got tired of all the walking so we decided to see the rest of the zoo by train. Ethan was mesmerized by it. He rested his forehead on the railing in front of him and watched the tracks go by underneath us.

 

 

The boys were pretty tuckered out by the time we were finished.

Just kidding. That picture is from our last drive to Utah, but I had to include it because it's so funny. 

In other news, Joelle has teeth! Can you see the two on the bottom? She also has 2 more on top, but they aren't her two front teeth. She has a lateral incisor on her left side that looks like a little fang coming through. it's so funny. Fortunately her central incisor on that side has finally broken through so hopefully it won't look too crazy.

She is also crawling! It's taken her a long time. There were several friends and family members who've had babies around the same time as me, and their kids are all crawling machines. Joelle is just barely (like a week ago) starting to crawl. I guess it's a good thing since our budget has still been pretty tight and we had to special order a gate for the top of our stairs. The longer we could wait to order it, the better. I've also gotten her to say a few words on command. I wouldn't say she's talking yet because it's still pretty rare to get her to say it, but I'll document it anyway. She says 'mama', but only when she cries. She said 'dada' once, and I've gotten her to say 'hi' a hand full of times.

Right now the boys are still loving preschool. I'm so glad. I don't have to feel any reservations about ABSOLUTELY LOVING IT! It's basically structured playtime for them, and structured get-things-done time for me. win win right?! The only down side it that I've been letting my boys dress themselves, and they almost never match. That may seem so trivial and dumb, but it's been a big issue for me. I've always felt like having the boys match is the best way to present them. They look nice and orderly. I'm realizing, however, that i need to encourage them to be their own person. I know it's important, but it's still hard to see them looking all uncoordinated. anyway, that's all i have time to get into for now.