Story Time, Coos Bay Library

We have been able to make it to Story Time at the Coos Bay Library for the last few weeks. Elise loves going. She mostly likes to watch the other kids while the stories are being read. Yesterday they glued seeds on a sun flower. She told me where to put the glue, and she attached the sunflower seeds. She wanted one on each petal. This morning she told me she wanted to give her flower to Daddy. When we talked to him on the phone, she tried to show him the flower through the phone. Then she requested that we go back to story time and make some more flowers so we can give them to Daddy. What a sweet girl!

She also loves the fire engine booth where you can read books...

and the big bird chair by the train set.

She loves to look at things and listen to stories. What a fun girl!!!

One of the Toughest Parts

There are some tough parts about our family's current situation. We are all making it through each day, and are counting down until we're back together again. I've found, however, that Sunday is one of the hardest, longest, toughest days we have every week. It is a bit tricky to help Elise stay calm through sacrament meeting without some help. It is hard to see so many happy families enjoying church together, while we are missing Logan. Nursery is also a tough, stressful, crazy situation. How do you handle bullies? There are going to be 18 kids in our incredibly small room within the next month or so. Some of our kids are a higher energy, attention need level, and can become agressive towards the younger kids. How do you handle the aggressive kids? Does it change if your kid is one of the ones being bullied? Or is picking up some terrible behaviors from watching everything that is happening? This has been a difficult situation, and as one of the people asked to help out in the nursery class, I'm struggling to know how to best handle the situation, while balancing the "mommy bear"instinct that kicks in when my daughter is one of the kids on the receiving end of some aggression. So, we'll just keep trying, week by week. We're down to 3 and 1/2 weeks until Logan's next visit!!!

Funny Little Sayings

My girl is growing up fast, and her vocabulary is getting larger everyday. Lately she's added some fun new sayings to her repertoire. As all two year olds do, she likes to ask questions....all the time. Her two favorites are:

"Whatcha doing hearing?", which means whatcha doing here, but she hasn't figured out that last word yet....

and the popular

"What's this for?"

These two questions are asked millions of times everyday. We are getting lots of practice labeling things, talking about how things work, or why things are where they are. She's a lot of fun, and is a challenge to keep up with. She's learning letters, numbers, and shapes. She's great at singing songs, playing pretend, and helping with projects. So, if anybody finds themselves with spare time on their hands, and feels like they would relish the challenge of explaining everything around them, you are welcome to join us. We'll be building a tent, having a tea party adventure, taking a bus ride with a two year old driver, and pretending the couch is a tide pool. Come on over to play!

There was a Farmer had a DOG and ....WHAT was his name?

My girl loves to sing. The other day she was singing a song, which is not unusual, while I prepared her food. As I listened, the tune and words sounded something like this song, "There was a farmer, had a dog, and BINGO was his name O, BINGO," and so on. The funny part was, the name of the dog in her version was definitely not Bingo. It was NEMO! I had to laugh as I realized what she was saying and why she was saying Nemo over and over. What a cutie!!!

Oh, and Happy Easter! We're waiting to get some pictures taken in the Easter dress until the next time she wears it and looks adorable. So, until then, we hope you are feeling closer to family this Easter, since that is why Easter is so important. It means we can all be clean, free, and together with loved ones forever!

Yesterday.....

We had a great two weeks. Logan came down from Alaska, and we had a great, fabulous, wonderful, excitement filled vacation. Yesterday he flew back to Juneau. Elise and I are still in Oregon. We're hoping this is the last time we'll have any of these "leaving on a jet plane" experiences. Luckily it was General Conference weekend for the church. We got to listen to the Prophet and Apostles share uplifting messages that helped take our mind off the fact that Logan was gone. We rarely got to actually sit down and focus on what was being said, or to hear it over the rambunctious two year old. She really enjoyed the singing, and would sing along any time she could, loudly and in random tunes while doing some interesting hand motions. I was interested in a couple talks that I heard snippets of, and will subsequently be trying to read those ones first when they are printed in the Ensign next month. One that stood out was Elder Hales about debt, for obvious reasons, and how if we are living providently, then we just need to have sufficient for our needs, and need to be mindful of any spending beyond those needs. As we are almost out of debt, it made me mindful of the mindset that could contribute to future financial difficulties if we aren't wise with our spending. The other interesting talk was one of the members of the Quorum of the 70 who spoke about change, and how sometimes we just need to get going with our life, get on with things. I think that was appropriate for our family, as we've been struggling with finances (hence the being in two different states for the last 6 months!), and with figuring out possibilities for the future. We've been weighing the options of staying in Alaska, or moving to Oregon and trying to start over, trying to find a new job. We still don't know where we'll be in the next three months, six months, or year, but we feel confident we're doing all we can to put ourselves in the right position so we'll be ready for whatever happens. We sure miss Logan a whole bunch though!!!! This last week when he would leave the house Elise kept talking about how he'd be back in a few weeks. I told her that he'd be back in a little while. Yesterday, Elise kept asking if he was coming back in one second, or a little while, and I had to explain that this time it'll be for a few weeks. We made a countdown chain to help us visually understand this. Then last night, as we were talking with Logan on the computer, she kept asking/telling him to come out of the computer. She said, "Daddy, come out puter, hold hands, go to the zoo, put on shoes" over and over, with a bewitching little smile. She loves her Daddy so much! It was great to see them together and to see that it didn't take any adjustment period to having him here in person. When he got here, she went right to him and gave him big hugs and kisses. Now she's talking about him going on an airplane and how when he lands she's going to give him big hugs and kisses. What a great girl! We love you Logan! And hope this really is the last long separation we'll EVER have to do!