Our Little Princess

First of all, I'm having problems posting the video that I mentioned in the last post so stay tuned for updates. There's a couple of cute things that our daughter has done lately that we should mention. A week or two ago we were all chowing down on tortilla chips at dinner time with salsa. It was a mild salsa, but Elizabeth had to copy us and try it. The first time she took a bite she was okay at first but started crying and shaking her head and shivering. It was kind of sad, but kind of funny. Then, like a dog to its vomit, she went back for more. This time it was even worse. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and her face got red. We gave her milk, but she didn't understand it would help. At that point we officially felt bad. I guess her little mouth is just a little bit more sensitive than ours. Let this be a lesson to you Elizabeth, never accept little peppers if your grandpa offers them to you.

On to the second item. Yesterday was a busy day. We went and saw Eric Dittman get married in the Columbus temple. This kind of interfered with Elizabeth's nap and she didn't sleep much. So yesterday evening we were driving to our ward party and listening to a book on CD (The World is Flat, interesting book, by the way). So Elizabeth must have decided that she didn't want to listen because she poked her fingers in her ears. Then comes the really funny part. She started slumping forward in her car seat and she eventually fell asleep, with her fingers in her ears. Her head was leaning forward and down and she was drooling on her shirt. It was great. I don't know how she slept with her fingers in her ears but I wish we had a camera.

One more thing...she just loves going outside. One of the few words she can really pronounce clearly is outside. She would stay outside constantly if we let her. It doesn't matter how cold, wet, or dark it is. She will go outside and play. She goes up to Alicia or myself and grabs our hand and pulls us over to the door. Then she puts our hands on the door handle and says "outside, outside!" and tries to get us to open the door. Once outside she likes going for walks. She is really good at holding hands now and she'll walk all the way down the street holding your hand. She just loves being outside. We've got a thing or two to learn from her. We used to just stay inside when it was cold and get bored. She's taught us that if you bundle up, there's no reason why you can't enjoy being outside in cold weather as well as warm weather. Looks like she'll be a good outdoorswomen and enjoy camping with us :-)

Long time no post

Well, I've been absent for a while. Mostly that's because of my calling. My father in law says Scoutmaster is one of those time consuming callings that's on the same order of magnitude as being Bishop. I imagine it's not as bad, but, as the September Ensign said, it is quite a bit of consecration. A couple of weeks ago I went to an outdoor training course so that I could be overwhelmed by all the stuff I have to buy, let alone the things I have to learn. But that's okay, because when I went to training they told me where I could go to really learn what I needed to know because a weekend wasn't enough to scratch the surface. Last weekend I went to more training and they showed me all of the wonderful resources for me to use because all day Saturday wasn't enough to tell me practically anything of what I needed to know. I know, I'm dripping with sarcasm. The scary thing is that it's true. A weekend really can't begin to cover all that I need to learn. But I'm getting past the overwhelmed stage and into the excited stage. I'm happy that I have a calling in which I get to do fun things like camping, hiking, backpacking, sledding, and more. I couldn't justify doing this much stuff without a calling and I'm excited to dive into it. A little bit too excited in fact, I think I got overzealous in planning activities and had to realize that the boys weren't quite as anxious as I was to go hiking.

I'm also in the process of trying to write a paper for work. We're going to submit it to a conference that will be held in Boston next July. I'm thinking I'll try to bring my family and have it double as our vacation. Hopefully it gets accepted. But writing the paper is done on my own time, which makes me even more busy.

Enough about me, Elizabeth is really cute. She really likes her doll now. She takes it and lays it on the floor and then puts a blanket over it. She then lays her pet doggy next to it and does the same thing. Then she'll move them to the miniature stroller and push them around. Then she moves them to the back patio. It's a blast.

She is much more interactive. She has mastered the correct pronunciation of one word so far..."No!" We tried not to say it too much, but it got difficult as she got older. She is very strong willed. Sometimes she knows what she wants you to do so she grabs your hand or pushes you out of your chair and moves your body to do what she wants you to. Such as putting on your shoes so that she can go outside. For your viewing pleasure there are a couple of pictures below. Also look at the videos, the latest one is adorable.