Loving My Calling

Look how fun our Young Women's activity was tonight.

Wonder of Wonders

Liam has never been able to sleep anywhere other than in his own crib with the lights off and the door closed. While other kids were falling asleep in their carseats at the grocery store and in their parents’ arms at church, Liam always stayed wide awake until he got home to his crib. Even on vacation, he has never been able to sleep in the same bed—or even the same bedroom—as Ben and me…until today.

Here he is in his giant crib the day we brought him home from the hospital:


Here he is in his tiny crib last week:


And here he is right now in my bed with the door open, the fan on, and Ben sleeping right next to him.


I don’t have any idea what changed, but suddenly I totally love two-year-olds.

Happy Birthday, Stinker

Liam turned two years old yesterday. Sometimes I pretend I liked him better as a one-year-old, but the truth is I love this kid more and more every day.

Moral of the Story: Don't Break the Law

Do you call this skurfing? Teak surfing?


Whatever it’s called, it’s really fun. But a few minutes after this picture was taken yesterday, we were pulled over by the Lake Nazis and told that teak surfing is illegal at Lake Powell because of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Ben and his co-workers decided they were above the law, and instead of switching to a legal sport they decided to try surfing two at a time.


Karma came to get us a few minutes later when Ben’s boss’s 2007 Mastercraft died. These guys thought they could just push it the eight miles back to the houseboat.


After an hour of kicking without getting anywhere, this boat came to the rescue and towed us home.

My Lucky Day

For my birthday this year I told Ben I wanted a new snowboarding coat, but that I wanted to pick it out myself. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted, though, so four months later I hadn’t started shopping.

Guess how surprised I was to stumble upon the perfect coat at JCPenney's going-out-of-business sale today. I can already tell I'm going to be a better snowboarder this year. Happy Birthday to me!

The Many Faces of Jacob

My brother came to visit this weekend, and he brought the world’s cutest momma’s boy with him. Liam had the time of his life hanging out with Jacob. He’s been waking up an hour early the last few mornings, asking for “Jacob” as soon as I walk in his bedroom door. Look how much Liam adores his silly cousin.

Traffic School Is Fun

If you’re going to get a speeding ticket in Utah, I would highly recommend doing it in Sandy so you can go to Officer Colton’s traffic school class. I went on Wednesday and it was both educational and entertaining.

Did you know that if any part of your car, including the front bumper, is inside an intersection when the light turns red, you’re not running a red light? That includes cars in the left turn lane at an unprotected signal. It drives Ben crazy when more than one car turns after the light turns red, but as long as they’re already partially in the intersection it’s completely legal.

Did you know that most cops in Sandy don’t pull you over unless you’re going at least 13 mph over the speed limit, except in a school zone? And they always drop the ticket to 5 mph over. They’re nice like that.

Did you know that ticket quotas are a myth? No police officers have a certain number of tickets they’re supposed to write each month.

Did you know that you’re twice as likely to get in an accident and four times as likely to break traffic laws while talking on your cell phone and driving than while driving drunk? Officer Colton said, “So what’s the point of that story? Drive drunk.”

I’m sure all police officers have different opinions about this one, but Officer Colton said that honesty was the key to getting out of a ticket. If you know what you’ve done wrong and give him your excuse(s), he’ll usually just give you a warning. If you make him laugh with your excuse, he’ll skip the warning and send you on your way. How to ensure a ticket? Crying. If you’re a man and you’re crying, he’ll get you for everything he can—not wearing a seatbelt, talking on a cell phone, missing a tail light, etc. Crying doesn’t help.

I hope I only get pulled over by Officer Colton from now on.

Communards

My favorite part of So You Think You Can Dance last night was when Lauren and Danny started doing their disco routine to Don't Leave Me This Way, by the Communards, and Ben yelled, "Communards? Is that supposed to be a mix between Communists and retards?"

Bring On the Vampires

Yesterday the mailman tried to deliver my copy of Eclipse from amazon.com, but I was teaching lessons in the basement and didn’t hear him come to the door. He couldn’t leave the book without getting my signature. Big, fat bummer.

While I would have been reading last night, instead I did a few loads of laundry and cleaned my house so I would have no excuses to keep me from reading today. Now, if only Liam would wake up so we could go to the post office…

Who Are You and What Have You Done with My Baby?

Almost 2-year-olds are like the opposite of fun. What happened to my perfect little 1 ½-year-old?

Today Liam woke up asking for “Mater.” When I told him that no, we weren’t going to watch a movie right now because first we had to get dressed and eat breakfast, he freaked out. He started crying hysterically and yelling between sobs, “McQueen! Sally! Luigi! LUIGI!” Finally I convinced him that life might possibly be worth living by offering to read him a book, but as soon as we finished his bottom lip started quivering again.

A few hours later I gave in and let the boy watch his movie, and would you believe that instead of sitting there gratefully watching his movie like I thought he was doing, he was actually drawing with pencil all over the walls?

Seriously?