A random act of kindness

The other day I was in Walmart buying a few groceries for dinner that night. The cashier rang up all my food and I paid with my debit card. As I turned to go, the lady behind me in line noticed that a seasoning packet was left in my basket and did not get scanned or paid for. I was glad that she saw it because I needed it for dinner. It rang up at $1.00 even. As I reached into my purse to see if I had a dollar, the cashier quickly said, "I'll take care of that" and proceeded to pull a wad of cash from her pocket, took out a dollar, and put it in the cash register for me. It was only a dollar and I could have paid, but that stranger was kind enough to cover it and she didn't even know me! I was touched by the kindness that she showed. Kudos to Walmart for hiring a stellar employee. I only wish I noticed her name so I could call and let someone know what a great lady she is!

Some vids

I just wanted to post some live Natalie action.

She just recently started twirling.

Here she is eating her yogurt. Just had to include it!

Yogurt, Eagle Scout, and us

The health update from the Simonson clan: I am completely recovered from strep throat (although I got my throat culture test results yesterday from the dr. and as it turns out, it wasn't strep after all.....) and Natalie is almost better from her cold. She still is hanging on to that deep, chesty cough though. Poor little gal. Her molars are coming in, so she's been really clingy and all I hear all day is "mama, mama, mama, mama!" I let her try eating yogurt by herself for the first time the other day. I figure if she's going to learn how to use silverware she's got to practice, right? It made such a mess! I think she enjoyed it though.


My brother Devin just got his Eagle ranking in the scouting program. He finished it barely in time for his 18th birthday. :-) Apparently he has quite the reputation in the troop for being accident prone and forgetting stuff. One time they went on a campout and he forgot to load up his stuff when they left to drive back. When he got home my mom noticed he didn't have anything with him, so a leader was kind enough to drive all the way back for his neat little pile of camping supplies, including a tent, that was still sitting in the woods. Stories were told of Devin falling out of trees, being injured on a tube being pulled by a boat, and hiking down a canyon in his underwear. He is something else! We are really proud that he worked so hard to get his Eagle, though. He is a guy that gets things done, and he really cares about other people. He shows kindness and compassion and he is a wonderful uncle to Natalie and Brooklyn. Congratulations Devin!

Natalie recently has been making some funny mouth shapes while saying "uh oh." This is the "oh" part.
My love and me. If you look closely you can see that his eyes are two different colors. The left eye is blue and the right is green.

We are still waiting to hear back from law schools. At the very bottom of my page the schools are listed where Mark applied. I tried to get it to go on the side but it's refusing. We should be hearing back by the middle of March, so not much longer! We'll keep updates on our blog.

We love you all!

Curls!

I love having a little girl. She and I are going to spend hours upon glorious hours playing barbies, play-doh, paper dolls, dress-up, and other girly games that I played with my sisters when we were little. Of course....when my mom tried to play with us we would say, "moooom! you're doing it wrong! Barbie doesn't say that!" so eventually she would leave us to our imaginations. But it will be different with my child! We will play together and have a great time. She will also always be nice to her siblings, do her chores, and when she's a teenager she'll share all the details of her life with me. Yes....ok I'm kidding myself. Those things probably won't happen. But I hope she at least lets me do her hair all cute like I've been doing lately.

We tried sponge curlers. It was cute but her hair went straight again after a few hours. If we do it for something real I'll have to use hair spray. Do they make hair spray for little kids?

Ta ta for now. I've got lots of fun stuff documented in photos, I just need to find the time to blog them all!

Strep ***update below***

I am sick with strep throat. I can't remember the last time I had it but I do not ever remember having this much pain in my throat. It hurts so bad to swallow that I was up from midnight to 4:30am last night because every time I would begin to doze off I would involuntarily swallow and wake up from the pain. I don't want to eat because food hurts. I'm on antibiotics so hopefully they'll kick in soon.

Ok, enough feeling sorry for myself! There are worse things that could happen. On the bright side, I am eating a yummy smoothie right now because it doesn't hurt as bad as food!

I had to add this. Tonight I put Natalie down as normal. She was extra tired and cranky because she didn't get her afternoon nap. I nursed her and put her in her crib slightly awake, and she didn't make a peep after I left; I assume she fell asleep. Well half an hour later she woke up screaming so we went up to check on her and she had thrown up all over her crib! Poor little baby, she was sick all this time. We changed her and the crib and I went to put her down again but since I had just nursed, I was afraid that I didn't have enough milk for her to nurse again. Since babies get comfort from the sucking as well as the milk, I went ahead and nursed her, and lo and behold, I had lots of milk for her! She fell asleep again and hopefully will feel better in the morning.

The point of all this is: throughout all the caring for my sweet child, I didn't think about my fever, stiff body, or sore throat at all. It was as if Heavenly Father gave me a break so I could comfort Natalie. I suppose that's what moms do--forget themselves to care for their children. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Simonson Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family search - Family heritage

Lots o' stuff!

Well, I've been meaning to update on all the recent happenings, but I haven't had time, especially with my sister Melanie and her daughter Brooklyn here. Here are some pics of what we have been up to in the past week or two.

During the third hour of church (Mark's time with Natalie) he remembered that the stroller was in the trunk. He decided to stroll around the parking lot and this is what happened!
I made a delicious chicken pesto pizza. Click here for the recipe.
Natalie and Brooklyn playing cutely (is that a word?) together. They are so adorable!
Brooklyn is taking walking lessons from Natalie. Natalie is instructing Brooklyn on the fine art of standing from a squat, which Brooklyn has completely mastered.
We went to Kid's Club at the mall today. It was so much fun!

We rode the carousel for free as part of Kid's Club. Although Natalie looks a little woozy in this picture, she really is enjoying it.

Happy Valentine's Day!! The girls woke up to goodie bags full of little toys.

Aunt Melanie got this little necklace for Natalie and a matching one for Brooklyn. She also got a few little toys and a couple of books (yay for the dollar section at Target!).

We even got to go out for Valentine's Day at Chipotle. It was delish! Isn't my husband so handsome in his new shirt?

So there ya go, it's our life. We are doing well. Natalie hasn't gone potty on the toilet again, but enjoys putting random items into her potty and closing the lid. It's ok, no pressure. She'll go again when she's ready. Until then we'll just keep providing opportunities for her to go.

It always seems like babies like things that aren't toys better than things that are. It has always been like this for Natalie, and she is still the same. Her current favorite things to play with are her toothbrush and my old cell phone. Go figure. Ok, mommy brag moment--forgive me. She is learning new words all the time. Most of them don't really sound like they're supposed to, so I get to translate for her. Some do sound right, though. Today in the mall she said "hello" to a lady walking by. It was so perfect! It was more like " 'ello" which is what she calls the phone, but she has never said it to a person before! And the lady understood and said hi back! It was so cute. She can't stop saying "bee bee" whenever she is around Brooklyn, and shouts "bah-pa!" as soon as my dad walks in the door.

I have been signing to her since she was 4 months old so she can learn to communicate with us at an earlier age, thus helping her to not get frustrated and have tantrums in the toddler years. Well, so far the only things she can sign to me are "milk" and "flower" (random, I know). I'm not sure why that is. I know she can recognize more signs because she responds appropriately (such as "more") and she can name animal and people signs (e.g. she says "mama," "dada," "dog," "bird," etc when I make the signs). Oh, she just signed "music" for the first time tonight, and I think she is signing "baby" sometimes. Has anyone had experience with this? I'm wondering if she is not doing the signs because she would rather just say the word, or if she's just still at the stage that she'll do them soon. I know a couple of you have signed with your babies--how old were they when they really started signing?

Well, I'm kinda hungry and I know there's some ice cream with my name on it in the freezer....hee hee. Talk to you all later!

The next big step....

Natalie got a gift card to Target from her Grandpa and Grandma Simonson (Mark's dad and stepmom) so we decided to buy her a little potty. Now, I know she's young but I thought we could take it nice and slow and let her sit on it once in a while to get used to the idea, and eventually she would start using it.

Well today she WENT POTTY IN IT!!!!!
This is her proud little self after the big event. I was changing her diaper after her nap and asked her if she wanted to go potty on the toilet. She got all excited so I carried her into the bathroom and sat her down on it. As she was sitting there I made the little "sssss" noise to remind her of the noise she's supposed to make and all of a sudden she was really going! I praised her a lot and she was pleased with herself. I know, it was probably coincidence. But it was still really exciting!

We're not going to push her or anything. She'll learn when she's ready (but hopefully "ready" will be sooner rather than later!). Eventually she'll be able to tell me that she needs to go, and someday we'll start letting her wear underwear. What fun we have to look forward to. :-)

The strongest person I know

So my dear mother-in-law, Karen, is hurtling a new challenge. After being admitted to the hospital a week and a half ago and after countless tests, she received the news that she is battling lymphoma. The good news is that it is a highly curable type of cancer and she began chemotherapy immediately. She did well with the first round and came home today to rest and recover. She has 5 more rounds to go with three weeks between each treatment. I was able to take some turns sleeping at the hospital with her and I have gotten to know and love her even more. She is truly amazing and such a great example to me. Tough situations have faced her before, and she always comes through and she will beat this just as she has other challenges. We love her so much.

And another cool thing--after a week and a half in the hospital her hair was still poofy and cute! Mine would have been matted down and greasy. :-) Go Mom!

My little baby has opinions.....

So the other day I dressed Natalie in a little onesie and some cute gaucho pants that she got at her baby shower before she was born (they finally fit). A few minutes after I let her down to play she brought me her jacket, the hat, and the necklace. I put them on her and she was the happiest little thing! She walked all around showing off her outfit. I thought it was too cute so I took some pics.