The Last Little While. . .

As I sit here typing, Alexander is smiling at me and making the most adorable happy baby sounds. How I love that kid! Kaitlin is "swimming" in the bathtub, her reward for getting out of the shower when Alexander woke up without throwing a major fit and being good while I fed him. (All I can say is thank goodness for wireless Internet and laptop computers that allow me to blog anywhere in my house!) Life is pretty good right now--and except for the living room strewn with Kaitlin's toys and all of the pillows from the couch, and the fact that I didn't get my hair blown dry today, I'm feeling like we could be the posterchildren for domestic bliss. Isn't it funny how some days are so much better than others, even when the good days and the bad days are pretty much the same? I guess it has more to do with my ability to cope than anything else. So today my coping skills must be pretty good.

True to my word, I have to post pictures of the good mail I received this week. Of course, two of the pieces were things that I ordered for myself, but since Jill says that counts, it must be true! She is, after all, the original good mail sender. First, I received a nice thank you note from Jenny. Don't you just love purses? I adore anything that has a purse on it! Next, I got a package from My Daughter's Wish with one of the new(ish) Foofala Bag O' Buttons. It's so cute, and has great variety. I also bought some chipboard paisely from Maya Road, simply because I couldn't stand the thought of paying as much for shipping as I did for the Bag O' Buttons. Does anybody else struggle when it comes to paying shipping on the Internet? I always feel like the cost of my purchase has to somehow justify the shipping charges. Anyway, finally, I got the latest issue of Mental Floss magazine. This is a fun, quirky little magazine that I discovered when we were living in the hotel when our house was being made over. I just couldn't resist the tag line "Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix", since I am somewhat of a trivia buff. It also didn't hurt any that my fist issue featured a pitcure of Benjamin Franklin on the cover. I'm a sucker for colonial and revolutionary American history. All of that on the same day! It was so exciting!

"I want to watch my Cinderella movie with bopity bop in it." Apparently the Fairy Godmother has caught Kaitlin's eye in our daily viewings of Cinderella. Yes, she's discovered the Disney princesses. Cinderella (the ll is pronounced, by the way, with the Spanish pronounciation, ending up sounding like Cindereya) is her absolute favorite, though Sleeping Beauty could take the lead here pretty soon. I've been waiting for this day. I can't wait until The Little Mermaid comes out on DVD next month. I'm also hoping that I can get her started on Beauty and the Beast soon. I just have to convince her that Beast is a bear or a dog or somthing so she's not so scared of him. It will be nice to have a break from Dora, Diego, Woodie and Jessie.

An unforseen benefit of this new princess obsession is that it's gotten her off of "Hot Girls" and her new favorite song "Bounce" (the jumping song) by Bon Jovi. I started her on Bounce because it had a nice repetitive chorus, which she likes. Then I read the lyrcs. If only I could understand what singers are saying. We could avoid so many difficulties. Bounce contains several lines that go something like this:

Call it karma, call it luck
Me I just don't give a

Bounce, bounce. . . .

Yeah, so we went from soft porn music to a song that implies the "f" word. great. On Sunday in the car Kaitlin wanted to listen to her "jumping song". I couldn't bear the thought of listening to that song over and over, so I toldher that we were going to listen to some nice quiet Sunday music. I turned on some Mozart. She began having a meltdown until I told her that it was princess music. Thank you Disney for using so much classical music in those early films! Now, whenever we get in the car we listen to KBYU, the classical music station. The great thing is that Kaitlin can hardly tell when one song has ended and another begun. This way I don't have to listen to the same song over and over, I don't have to listen to Kaitlin complaining when I change the song, and I get to listen to nice claming music in the car. We both win! Hey, I've been wanting to become more familiar with classical music since we read An Equal Music in book club. Now I have the perfect excuse.

Speaking of being in the car on Sunday, we were heading up to American Fork Canyon to go on a little walk. For some reason Kaitlin is unbearable on Sunday afternoons, so we always try to find a little outing to take her on to help her release a little energy. We ended up following a little stream that flowed down out of a small side canyon. It was gorgeous! Kaitlin kept saying, "I'm a hiking monster and a hiking fool!" as we were going up the trail. Jeremy teaches her to say the funnies things! I'd heard her say that before, and have laughed about it a lot, but it seemed funnier in an actual hiking setting. So, I don't usually post pictures of myself here, but I thought I would make my physical presence known, especially since this is the best picture of me and Kaitlin together that we've gotten in over a year! Too bad I look terrible! Serves me right for putting off my laundry and having only a too big t-shirt and too big jeans to wear. Here are a few more pictures of our hike. It was so much fun, and Jeremy was so grateful that I came along. That, in itself, made it worth it to me!



OK, that's the short of it, in my long winded fashion. Thanks, once again for sticking with me 'till the end!