The Discoveries of a One-Year-Old

This past week has been one of relatively low excitement.  That's not a bad thing.  Mostly, we've just enjoyed being a family.  Elder Nelson left us a week ago.  He got transferred back to Omaha.  We've got Elder Fairbanks now, who reminds me of Beans from Even Stevens.

We've done some furniture rearranging with the end of holidays and Shad's parents downsizing their possessions.  We've got a love seat in front of a window and Tommy has discovered that he can climb up on the bench next to it, and then get on the back to look out the window.  He thinks it's great:)

Tommy likes to let me know he's going places.  He'll say goodbye to me, blow kisses, and then run over to the door to put on shoes.  He's discovered that it's easier for him to put on someone elses shoes rather than his own.

Tommy has discovered that his high chair can be pretty darn fun.  He likes to climb out of it during meals.  Sometimes it's to pick up pieces of dropped food.

Other times it's to pry open the backing to inspect the padding inside.

He's learning body parts.  See his belly?  Oh yeah, and he's standing on the tray of his high chair.

Tommy can climb up on chairs all by himself, but sometimes he seems to get stuck.

Katie likes to practice her planking skills, as learned from an episode of The Office.  We've also learned that she likes to dance.  We had a dance party for FHE on Monday (after some haircuts for the males in our house), and she laughed!  That's my new hobby--finding ways to make her laugh.

I love hearing a good, hearty baby burp, but a juicy burp has an entirely different sound...

Our little Katie, at 3.5 months old, has FINALLY entered the world of 0-3 month clothes...though pants are still inches too big at the waste for her.  And that's another new hobby of mine: dressing her up in pretty little outfits instead of the jumpsuits and pajamas she's been wearing for 3 months.

  



A while ago we knew that we had a mouse in the basement.  It made its presence known by running across the room in broad daylight.  We set a couple traps down there but had been disappointed by not catching it, despite seeing droppings on the carpet.  Last week I vacuumed under the couch cushions in the basement while searching (successfully) for the baby monitor receiver that had been missing for weeks.  I saw this object that I thought was just a big chunky piece of lint.  When it wouldn't fit in the vacuum tube, I picked it up to throw it away myself.  Boy was I disgusted to find that it was a mouse!  I've seen pressed flowers before, sure.  But I've never seen a pressed MOUSE before.  With this find combined with the lack of mouse droppings in the kitchen, I think (fingers crossed) our mouse problem has been vanquished!

Winter finally arrived on Friday evening when snow started to fall.  We haven't had winter since early December.  We got about a foot as the snow continued til Saturday afternoon.  Luckily the roads were really well plowed and cleared up well, which was not the case with our last snow that left the roads snow packed for a week.  Ugh.  It snowed again Monday night.  Tuesday I decided I'd go out and shovel while Katie napped and Tommy watched Mulan, but Tom knew better and got jealous.  So we dug out some winter gear from his cousin Bode.  Hahahahaha!  Love this boy:)