Project: Church Books

When we brought Caleb home he was 3 1/2 months old and he liked to sleep. A lot. Sundays were easy because he slept for most of our church meetings. Sacrament meeting = Nap time. It was great. When he got a little older he started staying awake more during meetings. But he'd just chill in my or Zack's lap. We'd give him a toy to look at and everything was dandy.

Then he learned to walk.

All of a sudden sitting for an hour and ten minutes straight wasn't fun anymore. (Whaaat? You don't want to sit on daddy's lap and stare at the back of people's heads for an hour? What's wrong with you!?) Caleb needed to be entertained. We brought toys for him to play with but, as a lot of you well know, those didn't keep him quiet. It's hard to keep a one year-old quietly entertained. He's ONE. You can't reason with him. You can't talk to him about how he needs to be reverent and keep his hands to himself and not yell sporadically throughout the meeting. You just can't.

One thing Caleb does like A LOT is reading books. So we brought books to quietly read with him during the meeting. While the congregation was learning about Christ and charity, repentance and forgiveness, Caleb was learning about trucks and fruit and animals. And he was quiet.

Wait a minute. Our goal in bringing him to church isn't to teach him to be quiet. and it isn't to teach him about trucks. It's to teach him to recognize the Spirit and learn about Jesus and families being forever and all that good stuff. So why not have him read books about it?

So, a few weeks ago, we all took a trip to the distribution center and bought a lot of pictures of Christ and a ton of temple pictures. Then we went over to Alpha Graphics and had them laminated and turned into some church books.

We have a Jesus Book.

Caleb doesn't really like to "read" this one. When we try to turn the pages and talk about the pictures he makes us go back to the front page and then just points to Jesus and says "Dezs". That's good enough for me.

We also have a Temple Book.

He's not as entertained with this one, but I'm hoping as he gets older and starts to recognize the various temples, he'll like it more. (This book only has 23 temples. I guess we could do a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th edition to get the rest of them in!)

We also got him a small copy of The Book of Mormon. No, he can't read it, sillies. But he does like to fan through the pages. He used to fan through the pages of the hymn book, but I'm nervous that he'll accidentally rip a page. I feel much better now that he has his own book. For Easter we think we'll get him a small copy of the Children's Songbook. That one is colorful and has pictures!

My future church book projects include making a Family Book of pictures of extended family members, a Prophet Book of all the prophets, and a book that tells the story of adopting Caleb and having him sealed to us. If anyone has any other ideas for church books, let me know.

Projects Projects Projects

I need motivation.

I need motivation to blog and I need motivation to do all the projects that are building up around me daily. So, I thought I'd combine the two. I will blog about my lack of motivation to do projects! Ha. Just kidding. Oh my goodness, I'm so funny.

What I mean is, I will blog about my projects. I'm hoping that, by doing this, it will, in some strange, twisted way, motivate me to do ...all the stuff I'm supposed to do. There is something about being accountable or having to report to other people about the things you do, right? Also, there's something to be said of an audience- however small or large it may be. For example, when I write in my journal about an event I am not nearly as detailed nor do I write as in-depth as I do when I write about it in a blog. NObody is going to read my journal. (At least not while I'm alive) ANYbody could read my blog.

I'm warning you now, that some of these "projects" might not fit under the traditional umbrella of things we like to call projects. For instance, I might write about the project of cleaning my floor. Or making dinner. Or cleaning up throw up. Or entertaining an 18 month old. (Okay, maybe that last one could be considered a legitimate project.)

Hopefully this will make me write more blogs, do more to make my home better, and maybe I'll enjoy doing my projects more.

Family Night Dance Party

Tonight, after a fine family night (where we learned about obeying your parents), Caleb treated us to a dance party. He danced. We partied.

My Favorite Things

It's almost midnight. Zack is on a campout. Yes, that's right. A campout. It's February. It's freezing AND windy outside. And he's on a campout. But it's the Klondike Derby, so it's worth it, right? ...right?

When Zack's gone I usually end up sitting on my bed with the TV on while I surf the internets watching shows or reading about things that make me cry late at night. Tonight it was the Scrubs episode where Dr. Cox's brother-in-law dies of Leukemia. I hate cancer. In the episode they play this song, which I think is kind of cool. Go ahead, listen to it, think of someone you love who has died, and then cry with me. Go on.

Okay, now that we have that over with....

My main reason for posting tonight is because, well, I'm awake and I don't feel like sleeping right now, and because I wanted to show you pictures of some of my most favorite people in the whole world. In no particular theme or order...

Here's Noah looking pensive.

Now here he is looking how he usually looks: worried and/or frightened.

And here is looking absolutely adorable. How can you not kiss that face? How?!

Lest you think Noah is the only cute one at our house, here's Caleb helping Dad with a project. Yes, it was early morning. And yes, his hair is awesome.

This is a face Caleb has been doing a lot lately.

Now back to Noah! This is a face that he does most of the time. Doesn't he look so cuddly?

Here are my boys sporting the two teams we like to cheer for in this house.

Does this one really need any caption besides "Ahhh! He's killing me with his cuteness!"

Caleb likes sledding!

A totem pole of fun! Yes, Caleb is just wearing socks, Yes, Noah is asleep and No, they didn't go down the hill as a totem pole.

Caleb and Dad making Stromboli.

Life is good.