So it's late, but Audrey and I just got home from our first official mommy-daughter date and I have to have to HAVE TO blog about it while it's still fresh in my mind!  It was such a great time for us!  I can probably count on one hand the amount of times I've been alone with Audrey since Hannah was born almost a year ago.  And I don't think that's bad, that's how it should be, because siblings are a great and important part of life that I want each of my kids to experience (obviously).  But another great and important part of life is parent-child relationships and so I really believe that each kid needs personal time with each parent every now and then.  So this was the first of many mommy-daugther dates.
The main event of the evening was the BYU Alice in Wonderland Ballet!  (I don't know if there will be a lot of sentences without exclamation marks in this post).  Audrey's been talking a little bit about ballerinas recently and she was mesmerized by the dancers when they first came on the stage, especially Alice.  I've always LOVED musical productions of any kind and so this was a magical little experience for me to be sharing with my daughter.  It was a little long for a two year old to be sitting but with a bag of candy, one bathroom break, and a lot of whispering we made it through to the end pretty cheerfully.  We met some of the cast afterwards and were able to take pictures with them!  Audrey, who had been talking about them excitedly and said she wanted to see them, of course got very straight-faced and silent when they were actually talking to her.  They were all so wonderful in their dancing and in their attitudes.  They helped me in trying to coax her to stand with them and they were always smiling, obliging this slightly camera happy mom.

the stage.  we had great seats! and we were on the end of a row so that was nice with having a toddler

posing for the camera

the cards! they also played the flowers (which were our favorites) and the birds

this girl was the caterpillar! i loved seeing the costume interpretations of the characters

the lovely alice. audrey has a great poker face. on the inside she was just dying but on the outside she looks like she could care less!  she really really loved the ballerinas.

this one shows the nervous excitement in her face a little better.  she was just so speechless i guess!

the white rabbit

one of the water birds

see, this is how she really felt about it all!

When we walked out into the snow Audrey was complaining a little about not wanting to go home when she suddenly gasped and said, "OLAF?"  I turned to look and sure enough there was Olaf!  Somebody had built a legit Olaf snowman right there on BYU campus!




After Olaf we just took our sweet time getting to the car.  We "ice skated" to the next building to get warm and just moseyed along the hallways.  The last major event of the evening- we crashed a dance!  BYU was having their Valentines dance and when we went to have a peek we somehow ended up on the dance floor twirling around crazy amid all the couples.  A lot of the couples looked at us and smiled and laughed and we saw some friends from our ward.  After having a ourselves a dance or two we finally headed out to the car, "ice skating" the whole way there again.  We played a game of not knowing where our car was (it really was a game!) and then we thought of names for our car the whole way home with Audrey cracking up at every name I suggested.  When we got home we showed Daddy pictures and promptly got ready for bed as it was already ten.  As I put Audrey's jammies on she put her head down on my lap and said "I like you, Mom.  I love you, Mom."
Some of the most beautiful words I ever have or will hear in my life!!

crashing the dance!

It was one of the best evenings of my life and I love that we were able to do it.  Andrew and Hannah had a quiet little evening at home of playing, snacking, and bedtime.  My day was just all around wonderful because this morning I was able to go to a Relief Society activity that I've been looking forward to, which was also everything I hoped it would be.  As our time here in Provo is coming to an end I'm more appreciative of what we've had here.  That'll be a post for another day once we get closer to moving.
I love experiencing the good things.  I love watching dancers and musicals, and I love dancing and singing myself.  I love being in the snow with my daughter, making her laugh her little two year old laugh.  I love being uplifted and inspired and slightly spontaneous.

"Once upon a time there was little girl named Hannah.  She was a sweet little baby with dark brown hair and lovely starry brown eyes that lit up with her big beautiful smile.  She had the smoothest baby skin of all babies in the world and she had a pair of cute little ears that stuck out just a little on the side of her head.  She always hopped when she was happy, hopped up and down on her bum.  Her signature dance move was the ever popular vigorous head shake that would rock her body back and forth.  If you looked closely when she was doing this you could catch a glimpse of that big beautiful smile and squinty brown eyes that told you she thought she was the funniest person in the world!  There couldn't possibly be anything more fun than this.
Hannah loved to play blocks with her Dad, be carried around with her Mom, read stories, and play anything and everything else with her sister.  She loved to hug and kiss her stuffed animals and blankets.  She would suck on her bottom lip when she was tired and pull her Pocahontas doll close to her.  She was fun and silly but always enjoyed a good calm nap.  She would be laid down in her crib, given her pillow and her doll, hug them close, and beam up and her mother excitedly as if this nap was just another good part of the adventure that was her day.
Hannah seemed very gentle and sensitive from the day she was born.  Her first moments of life were spent nestled into her mother's neck breathing so softly that you would've thought she was asleep.  And yet her eyes were open and she seemed to be just waiting patiently for whatever would happen next in her life.  She was more precious than gold.  She had a beautiful kind heart like that of a Disney princess singing sweetly to the animals around her.  Hannah enjoyed looking at books about animals and it made her mother speculate about what she might be when she grew up.  She was so smart and curious and extremely content with her life and everything in it.  Hannah knew very well how to be happy.  And from such a young age she was already teaching it to others.
Hannah always seemed like she couldn't wait for the day when she would be able to walk and run and play just like her sister.  But her mother asked her to please wait and stay her little baby for just a little while longer."


I was putting Hannah down for a nap when this little 'story' came out of my mouth.  I was trying to read a book to her (about animals) but she took over the page turning and so I had to make up my own story to tell her (rather than fighting for control which I do sometimes, I'm embarrassed to say).  This was a much better way to spend that time with her.  Very rarely is it ever just me and Hannah and I'm trying harder to steal little moments with her when I can, like right before nap time when Audrey is napping in the other room.  My mom's journal about me has little details about my personality as a kid and so I was thinking about all the personality traits that have already come through in Hannah during her mere 10 months of life that I can tell her about herself as she grows up.   It's amazing to me what individuals we are right from the get go.  Sometimes we can see ourselves more clearly through someone else's eyes.  Other people really can know who we truly are when we forget.  Especially our mothers and fathers.  I always want to tell my kids about themselves, all the amazing things about them.

her first selfie

early early early mornings.  and she's still happy as can be.

I'm reading a book called Edenbrooke right now that I'v heard so much about from several people.  The plot is interesting, but what is getting me more than anything in this book are the descriptions of the scenery...it's like straight out of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility.  I feel like I can hear the background music as I read about the light on the meadow and the windswept vistas with the beautiful views.  This is my break time and I'm now spending daydreaming on the couch instead of doing dishes or even watching one of my shows.  It's okay though, because I believe that everyone needs times like these, and I'd venture to say stay-at-home mothers especially.
It gets me thinking about a place I saw about 6 or 7 years ago that has always stuck in my mind as my ultimate dream home.  It was somewhere on the way to Idaho from Utah- I'm not even sure which of those states it's actually in- and we went there to get my sister Julia's wedding dress altered. There was a lady out there who was either the only one or one of only a few people who did custom alterations on the specific type of dress Julia had gotten.  So we got some of our friends, piled into our friend's car with the subwoofers (everyone's favorite of all each other's cars), and rode the 3 hours talking, laughing, singing, hanging out, rocking out, thugging out to loud music like we always did.  In those days a 3 hour ride was no inconvenience if we were with our friends.  We'd just be doing the same things in our apartments anyway so the time flew by.  I remember that the directions were a little difficult once we realized we should probably start figuring out where exactly we were going and I think we even got little stuck in some mud somewhere along the way.  But it was worth it for Julia's dress and for the sight of this place that is forever fixed in my brain.  We saw it from a distance at first because there was a large American flag hanging on the porch.  We didn't know that it was where we were going so we (actually I think just me) oohed and ahhed over it as we drew nearer, thinking we were going past it.  Then when I realized there was nothing else around anywhere, I decided that wedding dress altering was going to be my new career!
In my memory the house a like a large but elegant country farmhouse set against a back drop of rolling green hills.  It was my most favorite time of day, early evening right when the sun was starting to go down and it's orange glow was cast on everything in sight.  It was cool outside and there was still snow on the ground scattered across the fields stretching on all sides of the house.  There was a wrap around porch with rocking chairs, a giant shade tree with a swing, and fields and fields of beautiful sun kissed land.
We were able to spend a good amount of time there for the lady to measure Julia for the alterations, and oh how I enjoyed every second of it!  What we saw of the house was homey and comfortable, very big but not opulent or too excessive.  I was dying to go exploring through the house, but I figured that'd be rude because this was this lady's home not just her place of business.  She had already opened it up to us who were probably not her usual type of visitors- little college kids in jeans and t-shirts who had all wanted to come along for the ride.  We came back several weeks later to pick up the dress and that was the last I saw of this beautiful place.
I guess I want to be a country girl.  I grew up in the small city of Daly City right next to the ocean, beaches and cliffs only about 2 blocks away.  I wouldn't trade the home of my childhood for anything.  But sometimes (when I'm not dreaming about my childhood home as the ideal place to live forever) I dream of our future home with wide open fields, green and brown hills, orchards, forests and streams.  A place where my kids can run far and still be in sight of the house.  A place where we can sit outside with a book for a long time, a place where I can pursue gardening, where we can have backyard parties with lights.  I think it has all come from Anne of Green Gables, Avonlea, and Jane Austen.
Who knows where we will settle in the long run?  We may not fulfill all of these dreams of mine and I  will always know that I have the most important things.  But it's always good to dream.  I dreamed these guys up and they came true, so who knows?


avonlea, anne, sense and sensibility houses

So in case you haven't heard yet let me just tell you I got a sewing machine for Christmas!!  I assume you've already heard because I've been telling everybody.  Don't think now that I'm a super good sewer (seamstress?  sewer?) or have any ambitions of becoming one.  But please DO know that I am having fun owning my very own sewing machine!  And that is what a hobby is for, right?  Being happy!