Joshua's First Testimony

Today was testimony meeting at church.  It was very nice and uplifting.  At one point, Josh asked about the "talks," hoping it was the last one.  Then I explained to him that since it was Fast Sunday, people could get up and bear their testimony (or share their feelings on the gospel).  He thought about it for a moment then asked if he could go up and do it.  I told him that we should wait until next month and we could practice a little more at home, since we can't go up there and tell him what to say... that wouldn't really be HIS testimony, would it?  So, he told me he knew what he would say, and told me what it was.  I told him to ask his Daddy to take him up.  :)  Peter got up and took him up to the stand.  When he was the next one, Josh had Peter go stand behind him, and then he said, "I believe this church is true.  I know that God lives.  And I know that Jesus died for me.  In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."  Completely unprompted, and not exactly what he told me he was going to say.  He is growing up so fast, and I'm thankful that he is developing a good foundation in the gospel.

How To Prepare Fish - Emily

Tonight, Tuesday, August 16, we had the missionaries over for dinner. Emily was especially talkative. At one point she started explaining how to prepare fish. (We had rice and beans in homemade tortillas, so I don't know what sparked the fish conversation.) Anyhow, here goes...

Emily - First you catch the fish on a hook. Then you take it off the hook and take it in and put it in a bucket. Then you cut out the eyes, and cut off the mouth.

I said - You usually just cut off the head.

Emily paused for a moment as she thought about that and then said - then you cut off the head. And then you cut it open and take the bones out. And then you take it home and put it in the freezer. And then you take it out and cook it for 5 minutes and then you can eat it. :)

I have no recollection of discussing this with her, and we've never gone fishing with her, except once when she was really young, and that was catch and release, so no fish preparing. Did she figure this out on her own? Maybe so. What a brilliant little girl!

Joshua's Hunting Story

As related by Joshua on 8/7/2011 as he was going to bed:

When I have a wife, I’ll ask her if I can go hunting. And she might say “Yes” and she might say “No.” We’ll have to wait and find out.

I want to go hunting so that I can see if I like it.

When you go hunting you have to be really quiet so you can sneak up on the animals. You have to wear sneakers so you can be quiet enough to sneak up on the animals so you don’t scare them away.

Also, when I go hunting I’ll take a sword and a gun. I’ll put the sword in a thing on my belt and the gun in a thing on my belt. Then when I see an animal, I can pull out the gun or sword and use it. I’ll use the gun to shoot birds when they fly up. I’ll use the sword to kill the other animals. I might even need to use them both at the same time. I might even get a hunting dog to help. I will use the gun if the animals try to run away.

I want to go hunting in a big open place so the animals can’t hide. You know like a big forest where there aren’t any trees.

I can use a rolling bag to put all of the food in so that I can take it with me when I’m done. I can put all of the animals I get into the rolling bag.

Some Assembly Required

On July 23, we went and picked up some shelves for the toys. However, some assembly was required before the shelves were ready.

Here is a picture of the shelves before any work had been done. :)

Thank goodness my husband knows what to do when provided with few instructions on a project such as this.

After a week of hard work, the shelves were ready for the kids to help with the finishing touches. They got to paint the beautiful decorations on the shelves. They did such a good job... too bad the sun was in their eyes. Otherwise, they would have been all smiles. I promise.

Jessica was tired of pictures so I stood in for her this time. Again, the sun was just not cooperating with us. Oh well. The shelves are really nice. That's what's important.

Here are the shelves in the house. I'd forgotten there was carpet in this corner. It's so nice to have a place for things. :)

Blue or Pink?

Well, I had an ultrasound done on Monday, August 1. The technician couldn't tell me much, but I assume everything is alright. This baby has a nice little heartbeat, and all the parts I could make out. Anyhow, below are the pictures they gave to us.

The top left picture is of the spine. The top right picture is of the face. You can also see a little fist up there, too. The bottom left picture is the profile. And the bottom right picture is a leg and foot.

Now for the answer to the question... drum roll please...

We will be pulling out all of Joshua's old BLUE clothes... and the other color ones as well. But yes, he will have a brother. At the moment, he'd rather have his own room, but I don't think it will be too much longer before he decides a brother is far better than his own room. :)

Gardening

When we were visiting family in Oklahoma on our way out here, my dad gave Joshua a packet of "Magic Beans" to plant in our new backyard. Joshua waited, not necessarily patiently, until planting day finally came. I think it was on July 2. Here are some pictures of our progress so far. Just one month into it.

Joshua got to help water after he helped plant. He still loves to water those plants most days of the week.

This picture is just about 3 weeks into the process... sorry I don't have up to date photos here. This is a picture of Joshua's feet as he inspects the magic beans. They sure seem to be doing well so far. Hope they give us some food soon.

This is a mound of cantaloupe.

And here are the carrots. I think they need to be thinned a bit. We planted awfully late in the season, but we're hoping that the magic soil of California will help in this process. Wish us luck!

New Brighton Beach

On July 1, Peter had a holiday, so we decided to take the kids to the beach. Peter's mom told us about New Brighton Beach where they would go when she was growing up, so we figured we'd try that one out. I was surprised to see bonfire pits all over the beach, but apparently, people like to gather there in the evenings, and they need the fires to stay warm. It's definitely a different experience here than back in Florida, but it was nice to see and hear the ocean again.



Peter and the kids heading down to check out the water.

Jessie had a great time running away from the water as it would roll in. Then she chased it on the way back out.

Part of every good trip to the beach includes a well made castle in the sand with a great moat to protect it.


Did you know that the current here comes down from Alaska? When you step in the water, it feels like sticking your feet in a cup of ice water. Brrrr! So, my take on the Pacific vs. the Atlantic.... If you like to surf, and are willing to wear a wet suit, the Pacific is the right choice for you. Apparently, the waves are bigger here. BUT, if you are like me, and like to play in the water and sit on the nice warm beach, the Florida Atlantic is the way to go. I will miss the Atlantic, but I know as soon as I figure out how to handle cold, I will learn to love the Pacific too.

The kids didn't seem to mind the cold one bit, and had an absolute blast the whole time.

Our New Home

Here we are, in California! Who'd have ever thunk we'd be living in the bay area? Not I, that's for sure. But it is a very nice area to be. Except that they are sorely lacking in several of my favorite brands at the store. I guess that's the culture shock I'm supposed to get used to. Other than that, the weather is generally very nice. Today was hot, up in the 90's. Which doesn't seem so bad, until you realize that most of the older houses around here, which is what we live in, do not have air conditioning. I guess the excuse is that it always drops to the 50's or 60's at night, so your house cools down anyway, so why pay to do it? Anyhow, the highs are typically in the 70's or 80's right now with lows in the 50's or 60's. You really couldn't ask for nicer weather.

Now on to our house. When we got here on June 1, we had no idea where we'd live. On June 2, my wonderful cousin Beth came and watched the kids so we could look at houses. The house we're in now, was the last house we looked at that day. So, by the 2nd day we were here, we knew where we were going to live. That was very nice. Now for some pictures.

This is the view of the front of the house. It looks tiny, but it's not.

Here is the view from the drive way. We live on a cul-de-sac which has been very nice for the kids. They understand that they have to look for cars, and get out of the street if they see any coming. They tend to do pretty well with this rule, and since it's the cul-de-sac, there's not much traffic to worry about. Wonderful.

View of the living room from entry way. It's a bit narrow, so our couch and chairs are a bit awkward, but that's okay. It works. I love the large window with the view of the cul-de-sac.

Another angle of the living room

Back of Living Room from Entry Way Looking into Dining Room. You can kind of see in this photo at the top that the ceiling in the living room is vaulted, so it feels really quite big in here. The door goes to the garage. Nice to finally have one of those.

Kids Play Area in Living Room. We have too many toys. I don't know how we ever fit all of it in our smaller apartment. Funny how that is. It fit there, but not here... hmmm.... And here's Jessie making good use of the play area as well.

Here's the kitchen. The peninsula is super wide so we really have a lot of counter space.

And the dining room. It's supposed to be the family room, and our kid's play area is the dining room, but a dining room with carpet doesn't work with little kids, and a family room with linoleum doesn't make a ton of sense, so there you go. We have a fire place in our dining room. :)

Joshua was jumping in front of the cameras. He's right. Pictures of him are more important than picture of the house. Here he is in the hall back to the bedrooms.

Emily needed a turn to jump in front of the camera then. Too bad she's not as tall as Joshua, huh? This is the girl's room. The two kids' rooms were made a little small to accommodate a very large master bedroom.

Josh's Room

Master Bedroom, along with the all important level. ;)

More master bedroom, and more all important level. Thank you Joshua for making sure we didn't miss that.

Backyard. Note: The wall behind the banana tree is the wall of our neighbor's house. I told you they were close here.

More backyard. Josh was having so much fun. Can you tell?

Garden Area in Backyard. Too bad Josh was a little too slow on this one.

So, that is our house. We love it here and look forward to living here for at least a few years.

Emily's Dreams

This is my Emily.

Nearly every morning, she wakes up and comes in our room and reports on the dream she just had. A lot of the time she says, "Last night, I had a bad dream and a good dream. In the bad dream, there was a mommy duck, and a daddy duck and a baby duck. And they were in the pool, and the baby duck got out of the pool and ran away." (Or a version very close.) Then she says, "In my good dream, there was a mommy duck, and a daddy duck, and a baby duck, and they all stayed together in the pool." (Peter says for a little while, the ducks were in a truck. And the baby duck got run over in the bad dream... I already don't remember that one.)

I'm not sure it has some deep profound meaning, but it occurred to me that I needed to record it, so that one day, when she no longer "dreams" of ducks every night, I will remember her little voice talking about her "Mommy duck and Daddy duck and Baby duck." It is truly adorable, and I look forward to hearing what happened with the baby duck each morning.

The Datin Very Late Christmas Newsletter

I cannot claim to be on top of things this year, as I have only recently mailed off my Christmas Newsletter to my parents and grandparents. Thank you to all of you who were kind enough to share a newsletter with us. We enjoyed each of them. We decided that we would just send hard copies with pictures to our direct ancestors (parents and grandparents) and put it on our blog for everyone else this year. I hope you enjoy the letter, though it is quite late.

The Datin

Very Late Christmas Newsletter

Did we miss Christmas already? Where does the time go? Can someone find me a vault so I can keep the time in it and release it a little more slowly this year?

My little Jessie is now almost 15 months old. She walks everywhere she can. Or should I say run? Her little waddle run is the cutest thing to watch. I wish you could all see it. She is also quite the climber. If she sees Joshua and Emily getting up on something, she can usually find a way to pull herself up as well. Right now, she has a set of 6 teeth. Her favorite thing to do is to look at books. Not those board books, though. They need to be paper. Yep, she already has opinions, and is expressing them like a pro. We love her emerging personality, and can’t wait to see how she blossoms over the next few years.

Emily will be 3 later this month. One more year of nursery for her. It’s great that she’ll be able to help Jessie in her transition in a few short months. She LOVES her nursery leaders, and looks forward to church every week. Emily is my little book worm. At times, she could spend all day looking at pictures in the books. She has become quite the animal lover. She always seems to be playing with some sort of toy animal, if there is one at her disposal. Emily has such a bright smile, and is always ready to share it.

Joshua is now 4 1/2. He will be 5 in just a couple months. He is looking forward to starting school next year, and is doing all he can to get ready. Joshua is extremely observant of everything. He has a memory almost longer than mine. He has been working on learning sight words over the past few months, and has recently started to learn to sound out some words on his own. Joshua loves helping out his Mommy and his Daddy. His favorite thing to help with is the cooking. If we head into the kitchen to cook, Joshua is inevitably at our side, waiting, not necessarily patiently, for instructions on things he can help out with. He is also tender and caring, always seeming to be on the lookout for a chance to help those around him feel loved when needed.

Angie loves being able to spend her time teaching and entertaining her little ones. She wouldn’t trade her job for the world. Angie currently serves as a counselor in the ward primary presidency, and has thoroughly enjoyed getting to know all the children.

Peter has been quite busy this year. He has been serving as the Young Men’s President in our ward. He loves the time he gets to spend with the boys each week on Tuesday evenings, at church on Sundays, and occasionally at a campout here and there. Most notably, he graduated with his PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Florida in December. He has been a busy boy this year.

Peter has accepted the opportunity to continue to work with his advisor as a Post-Doctoral Associate for the next six months, so we will be in Florida until this summer.

We are grateful for the many blessings our family had last year, and look forward to the adventures this year holds. We wish you all a wonderful 2011.

Emily's Three!

Yesterday was Emily's third birthday! I can't believe she's getting so big. She is my independent little girl who loves to read and play. She has recently started giving hugs like their going out of style. I absolutely love that. And, I think she has suddenly become a "Mama's Girl." I will be enjoying that while it lasts. Here are a few pictures of the presents that Emily got for her birthday.

This My Little Pony set has already been used nearly constantly. Pinkie Pie and Sweetie Bell. Emily loves horses, and our neighbor, Lucille, had given her a My Little Pony for Christmas, so I knew she'd love these toys.

Emily also got this movie. The Rescuers is one that I enjoyed as a kid. My parents got them the Great Mouse Detective for Christmas, which they love, so I thought this would be a good bet. In fact, they are watching it right now. Joshua is nearly rolling on the ground laughing at whatever is going on.


We also got Emily a couple books, since she LOVES to sit and "read" so much. She got this one, The Story of Babar, and she also got a collection of Little Critter books.

Here is Emily with the Princess Castle cake she requested. It was a lot of fun to make. The colorful dots and lines were some cake decorating glitter gels that I bought. We thought they might be fun, so I let the kids help me with those. Then, we got some on our hands and had to taste it. Not so tasty. So, we quit. Poor Joshua was afraid to even try the cake then. I don't think you could even taste it with everything else. Oh well. He sure missed out. This cake was a butter yellow cake filled with strawberries and decorated in buttercream icing. Yum, yum.

I tried to upload a video, and it had a hard time uploading it. So, I will explain it, instead. Emily had helped put the sparklies on the cake, so she had seen that, but she had not known anything about the princesses. The video is of her coming into the kitchen to get some cake, and then noticing the dolls. Her reaction was so much fun. She stood there and stared for a moment and made this funny noise she makes when she's excited. She even started shaking a little bit from the excitement, though you can't see that in the video. Then she walked around and started grabbing the princesses and "played" with them... otherwise known as pounding on the table. :) The video ends just as the kids begin to fight over the princesses. Fun, fun.

I think Emily had a great birthday. Thank you to those of you who called and sent emails to wish her a happy birthday. She sure enjoyed it.

Playdough

For Christmas, the kids got quite a bit of playdough. They have been very happy about this, and have used it on most days since then. Joshua has started to become very creative with his designs.



The past few days, Joshua has started to build churches.

Here is a close up so you can see the people in the pew better. They each have a head, a body, and legs. Once, he even had a mommy holding a baby. But I forgot to take pictures that time. Oops!

Emily didn't want to be left out, here. She is showing us the rose she made. Can't you see it? It really did look a bit like a rose, if you looked from the top. Good job both of you. :)

Primary Talk

For those of you who are unfamiliar with my church, which is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I want to give you a basic outline of our schedule, just for a bit of background to understand my story. Everyone meets together for Sacrament Meeting where we take the sacrament each week and sing songs and listen to members of the congregation give talks over the pulpit. Everyone gets a turn to be one of the members who gives the talks every now and again. We try to help people prepare for this opportunity from a very young age. (Which will be explained in just a moment.) After sacrament meeting, we split into different classes. The adults and youth go to Sunday School, which is a more interactive lesson generally taught by the same person each week. After Sunday School the men and women go to their respective meetings of Priesthood and Relief Society. Children stay with their parents until they are 18 months old. At that point, they join the nursery, where they play, have a snack, learn songs, and even have a short lesson of their own. When a child is 3 at the beginning of the year, they are moved into primary. Primary has several classes based on the child's age. Primary and nursery are held during the 2 hours after sacrament meeting while the adults are in their own meetings.

Anyhow, during primary, children are given the opportunity to give a talk at least once a year for the other kids in primary. Joshua gave his first primary talk on November 28. He did a marvelous job. He got up to the microphone, and spoke pretty boldly, no nerves whatsoever. In fact, he dictated he whole talk to me, with very little guidance from me. He did such a great job with it that I wanted it recorded so he can see it later on. So here it is.

"I have a work chart. I don't do it on Sundays because it's my service day. I can still help with the chores, but I can't put a sticker on my list. Instead, I do service for mommy. I feel happy and I love my mommy when I help her. When I'm helping mommy, I am helping Heavenly Father and Jesus, too. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Maybe it's because he talks about me in it, but I am still touched when I read it. Thank you, Joshua, for all of your service. You love to help anyone who needs help, and I hope you can keep this kind heart as you grow older. I love you Joshua. - Mommy