Mother's Day 2012

Mother's Day was wonderful this year.  Jordan and I had to speak in sacrament meeting, which I had mixed feelings about.  I actually don't mind speaking in church, but the Mother's Day talk??  I usually don't enjoy the typical Mother's Day talk where we people read the poem about the perfect/ideal mother and speak about how amazing their mom is.  I've heard many women say that they leave church on Mother's Day feeling "less than" and I wanted to avoid this.  I wanted to be sensitive to the many people who dread Mother's Day, so I took a much different approach.  I actually talked about honoring mothers by choosing to get along in our families, whether this be our family of origin, the family we marry into, our ward family, etc.  I ended with Elder Uchtdorf's remarks from April conference about mending relationships.  I received some good feedback afterwards, so I think it went well.  I had to teach my primary class right after, so the first two hours of church were a little stressful.  The third hour was fantastic though.  Our ward has the COOLEST Mother's Day tradition.  During the third hour, they find men to cover all the women's church positions from the Primary chorister to the Beehives teacher.  Then all the women gather in the Relief Society room, where a huge catered luncheon is waiting for them.  One of the men in our ward works for Delta catering, so he organizes it every year.  We get to just sit, eat, and talk for an hour.  How is awesome is that? 

This year for Mother's Day I wanted a grill.  I'm tired of being limited to cooking in my kitchen.  Jordan found this $700 grill for less than $180 with a brand new cover included on Craigslist.  SCORE!  We have been grilling every night since.

For dinner he cooked some delicious steaks and grilled veggies.

While waiting for our steaks, Lucy and I made some cookies together.  I found a recipe for the BEST lemon crinkle cookies on Pinterest.  Seriously, check it out.  We devoured the cookies by the end of the day.

Happy Mother's Day to ALL the amazing women in my life!!!

Day in Athens...

Now that Jordan is down to 40-hour work weeks, we finally get to spend Saturdays together.  Last Saturday we decided to make the 90 minute drive to Athens, GA--home of the University of Georgia Bulldogs.  We started with lunch at a great Thai place and then walked onto campus.

These arches lead on to campus.  Stuperstition says that you can't walk underneath the arches until you graduate.  Students walk around the arch until graduation.

 The university was founded in 1785.  The architecture and landscaping was fantastic.

 The Magnolia trees are blooming now.  They have the most fragrant blossoms.

 It was HOT so we stopped in the shade for a rest.  I have entered that awkward phase of pregnancy where I look chubby in my regular clothes, but don't yet fill out maternity clothes.  I officially hate this picture, but Lucy looks cute and it's the only one that I'm in.

 That evening we dropped Lucy off with a baby sitter so we could celebrate our sixth anniversary.  We ate at Benihana (my favorite), and then went shopping.  It's been a great six years.

Hooray for the end of busy season!

Strawberry Pickin'.....

Anyone else besides me LOVING the new blogger?  Anyway, on Wednesday a group of us from the ward drove an hour-and-a-half to some strawberry fields where you can pick your own strawberries.  The strawberries were so sweet and delicious and we had a great time picking them.

 Lucy and Jonathan had more fun playing with the buckets than actually picking strawberries.

  When we got home, I got right down to business making freezer jam......

 .....and strawberry shortcake of course.

Lucy and I have been eating insane amounts of strawberrries.  Our bucket is already empty.  We will definitely be going back next year!

The Potty Training Post...

Well, I've actually been meaning to post this for a bit now.  However, I was afraid that if I actually said the words,"Lucy is potty trained" out loud that the powers of the universe would combine against me and she would regress back to using diapers.  

I'm happy to announce that after a few long, tiring days Lucy is...... (drum roll please....) officially potty trained.  Yay!!  

Before we started, I made a few purchases.  When we moved in, the guest bathroom toilet seat needed to be replaced.  Jordan replaced it with this awesome seat that has a built-in child's seat.  The child seat is magnetized, so it stays up unless you pull it down.  Lucy and I also went to Target and she got to pick out her grand prize for when she was done.  She picked this Aurora doll.  Shocker, right?  We also purchased some Disney Princess, Hello Kitty, and Minnie Mouse undies.  Now it was Go Time.

 A few days before we started we talked about how she was a big girl and how fun it would be to wear big-girl undies like her cousins.  When Lucy woke up Monday morning (the 16th), we made a big deal about taking off her diaper so she could put on some undies.  She threw away her diaper and then we headed into the bathroom where I had this ready:

 I sat her the toilet and started giving her sippy cup after sippy cup of juice.  She also enjoyed drinking her "Pretty Sun" on the toilet.  

 I set up the laptop so she could watch "Up" while waiting for the urge to pee to strike her.

 She finally went and we had a major celebration.  I had her stay on the toilet until she had gone a couple of times.  Then came the scary part. 

We left the bathroom.

 Accident time. 

The first day she had 8.  The second day she had  4.  The third day she had 2 (and she told me that she needed to go halfway through).  Finally on day four she had no accidents!  It's been two weeks now and with the occasional accident, she is doing great.  After a few days I got brave and started letting her sleep in her underwear.  It only took two bedtime accidents for her to learn to stay dry through the night.  

The progession of the Sticker Chart.

Day 1:

Day 2:

Current:

It probably wasn't a great idea for me to attempt this while still in the throes of pregnancy sickness and while struggling with sciatica.  It made for a very LONG three days.  I'm glad that she caught on so quickly.  It's still funny for me to see her tiny little bum now that it's no longer padded by a diaper.  At least I won't have two in diapers, so I guess it was worth it.  I'm so proud of Lucy!  She is getting so big.  We are still not 100% accident free, but we're getting there.  And Lucy has finally earned her Aurora doll.