My Thankful List

~What if you woke up tomorrow, with what you only thanked God for today~

Sometimes I think the "Thankful list" is a little too cliche,
But, I admit, I've been thinking, "you can't be too grateful," all day.
So, here is a little thankful poem, to show my gratitude,
I hope it does it justice to reflect my sincere attitude.

My mother is the one who deserves a lot of thanks,
She carried me, gave me birth and plenty well deserving spanks.
I wouldn't change my mother for anyone in the world.
Momma, I want you to know that I'll always be your little girl.

My father is a hard worker, I admire him a lot.
If anyone has a flat tire or frozen pipe, he's always on the spot.
He's worked so hard to take care of his family.
Daddy, I'm so glad you love my siblings and me.

I'm thankful for my friends, my family, and loved ones,
I'm thankful for the simples kisses and tender bear hugs
Sometimes I take for granted the beauty of this life,
But then I am reminded, I am such a lucky wife.

I have a wonderful husband and a beautiful daughter,
I have three great brothers and three sisters, a mother and a father.
I have the best in-laws, need I say more?
When I married my sweetheart, the blessings poured.

I'm thankful I met Jonathan two Decembers ago.
Where would I be today without him, nobody knows.
He keeps me on my toes, brings out the best in me,
I'm glad I have my darling, for all eternity.

It took nine months to make a perfect Lydia, my dream come true
She is the best thing that has happened to me, you have no clue.
When she smiles, it melts my gushing heart.
I am so blessed and thankful my family got a start. 

I'm thankful for the trees, the grass, the blue sky,
I'm thankful for the cold, the snow, and the Northern Lights.
I'm thankful for a warm home and technology,
That allows for communication between you and me.

I'm thankful for my body, my spirit, and my mind.
I'm thankful for the Lord and that He is so kind.
He gave us our bodies, this world, to use and adore.
He gave us His son that has opened the door.

I'm thankful for my Church, for the values it instills,
I'm thankful for the Prophet, for his devotion that is strong willed,
I'm thankful for my testimony of Christ, my Savior,
I know He lives, loves us, and is our great caretaker.

My gratitude for Him, who bled and died,
Can never be measured, no matter how hard you try.
Each day I owe it to Him to be the best I can
I owe it to Him, He who suffered for man.

There is too much to write on my thankful list,
You will never possibly know the rest.
But I know to Whom all my gratitude belongs.
I will always give thanks through charity, prayer, and song.

Book Worm

So.. there's this book that I've always read to Lydia since she was a newborn. It used to work miracles for me. By the end of the story, she was always passed out. I believe she enjoyed the rhyming as it calmly put her to sleep. It's called..

The Night Before Christmas

Now that she's older (4 1/2 months!) she doesn't fall asleep to the rhyming, but is entertained by it and the pictures. 

Whenever there were free books at a WIC clinic my mom would let us take as many as we wanted. I remember when I was young, maybe 3 or 4, we had tons of books in our bookshelf. I would grab a huge pile and just sit in the hallway and make up my own words to the books because I didn't know how to read then. But I still loved "reading." And to this day it is such a relaxing hobby. I like reading new books (although sometimes I am picky), yet I also like reading ones I've read before. I really do need to find more time to sit back, relax, and delve into a good book.

Some of my most favorite books are by the author Rachel Ann Nunes. She's an LDS author, so naturally her characters have traits that follow those who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Of her books, the one I find myself reading over and over is called Ariana: The Making of A Queen. Or the Ariana trilogy. There are 3 books, but in actuality, she continues the story throughout the next generation and posterity of the first main character, which I think is pretty cool. So it's almost like a double trilogy because there are three (or maybe more) books following the first three. I haven't had time to read all of them over again, but I own the Ariana trilogy and whenever I'm in the mood for a good book, I start at the beginning of that one. It makes you laugh, cry, and think about life and how precious it is. Definitely one of my favorite books.

I need to get more books for Lydia because I want her to be a child who is more interested in a book than television. I want her to want to read, not be babysat by the T.V. Reading books widens your vocabulary, helps you speak well, and heightens your imagination. 

Lydia, my dear, may this be the first of many books that you will come to appreciate and remember.

I want to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas!

So, in between the two weeks that I first tried baby food out on Lydia, she has learned to love that stuff!

We first tried it on Halloween and she ate it, but wasn't in love with it. 

this is her on Halloween

Last week we let her drink homemade pineapple juice from an adult glass (let's just skip the sippy cup stage, shaaalll weee?) and she drank an inch worth of it! She loved it! Out of a cup!? AND THEN, I told Jonathan to grab the left over baby food. So we did that and here are the pictures from it.

 

This face was made when we tried to get her to smile and all she wanted to do was eat!

 

We could NOT get the food into her mouth fast enough haha

 "Aww, it's all gone?"

 And now... it's time for... A BATH!

You can tell she's thrilled... ha

Growin' Growin'... Gone!

So, Lydia is officially 4 months! Can I just grab time and ask for a time OUT? She is just getting so darn big. I look at her newborn pictures and it brings me back to those first memories with her, and just how tiny she was. I love my baby! :) Sometimes when she is sleeping over my shoulder, I look at her hands dangling down and sit there in awe that our bodies are programmed to make such perfect beautiful things! It's truly amazing!

Well, we are learning to roll. Haha, I mean she is learning to roll. I've already perfected that art many years ago. ;)
It was cute. One time I laid her in her crib, walked a way, and when I came back she was using the crib wall to help push her on her side to roll over. She didn't get it all the way, but every time she'd see me she'd stop. And when she didn't know I was there she'd keep trying. She has such funny crib/sleeping habits.

Today, for example. I know when she is waking up when she constantly moves around in the crib and I can hear it creaking. It means she's on the verge of waking up she's just not 100% completely there yet. So I usually just let her be until I hear her start "barking" for help haha. So that lasted about 5 minutes. And when I went to go check on her, she was facing the opposite direction than that of which I first left her to go to sleep. She did a 180 while waking herself up. Usually I find her head facing one of the walls, and that's when she starts making noise because she gets frustrated that her head is crammed into the wall, but today she somehow managed to bipass that and go straight the other way. Funny girl.

I threw her monkey in the crib today and she just "oooh-ed" it for a while like she was talking to it lol.

So, on Halloween, I decided to get some Gerber apples and bananas baby food for her, just to see if she would like it. I think she enjoyed it. It's not top on her menu right now..she'll still take milk over baby food. But I think the taste is interesting to her so she'll tolerate for a bit. Maybe it's too sweet. Oh well. :) We didn't do anything special for Halloween. All baby costumes are expensive so we didn't even bother. Especially since she's just a baby and won't remember it anyway, and it was too cold out to trick or treat. AND she can't eat candy anyway! So we just went over to my parent's house and watched Ernest Scared Stupid! I love the Ernest movies! So funny. :) Next year though, I kinda want to dress her up as Boo from Monster's Inc. :) We'll see.

Lydia goes in for her 4 month check up and lovely shots next week on Tuesday, so we'll see how big she's gotten. Oh we can't wait. Heheh ;)

Well, news for us... we have our tickets to fly to Colorado on December 5th at 8am. Our car is in Denver, so we'll go there and spend Christmas with Jonathan's whole family at his sister's house with her family. They picked up the grandparents from Mexico and Jon's youngest brother is getting off his mission Nov 14th. And his parents are moving from TX to CO to be closer to everyone. So basically, ALL the family is going to be there. And they want to meet *cough* spoil *cough* Lydia really bad. So it's a pretty big deal haha. We're lucky everything turned out good with the tickets and his family pitched in to help us buy them so that was way nice. I kinda can't wait for the holidays to be over *gasp, I can't believe I'm actually saying that* But that just means I'm closer to getting to Idaho and closer to having our own home again! I honestly must say that I'm SOOO excited for that. We'll get our bed back, plus a lot of our belongings we haven't seen for half the year, we get to accumulate furniture, and finally call our own apartment, home. I'm tired of moving, so I'm reeeeeally hoping for the next few years that we just stay put in that little ol' town of Rexburg. It.will.be.so.nice.