why i love you

dear micah,

i love your

chunky thighs

your cankles

the way your neck always stinks like rotten barf

your enormous hands and chubby fingers

your big brown beautiful eyes

how ticklish you are, and the way you belly laugh when I change your shirt

your toothless smile

the way you lay your head on my shoulder when you are sleepy

how you always rub your feet together like a little cricket

your chubby cheeks

how you break out in a sweat when the temperature breaks 70 degrees

your pug nose

how you can down an 8 ounce bottle in 5 minutes

when you chew on your toes and hands and arms and clothes and my nose and cheeks and neck and arms and fingers and clothes and hair

your stubborn nature

watching your long lashes as your eyes grow heavy and you drift off to sleep

what a great sleeper you are

your love and adoration of your big brother

your perfect toenails

love,

your mom



dear wyatt,

i love your

smiling personality

the way you always ask me to sing "chowd a Goooooooooooowd?"

your big brown beautiful eyes

your perfect little triangle nose

the fact that you look just like your daddy

your willingness to eat anything and enjoy it

when you bring toys to your baby brother

how you crack up when i sing made up songs about puzzles, or motorcycles, or tigers

your fascination with reindeer

when you boss Lucy around

the way you can't say "l's"

how you play with the tags of your blankie while you sleep

your love of moving vehicles

when you sing anything

how you make everything into a family

what a great sleeper you are

your love of books and reading

how you like to snuggle with me

when you quote the movie "cars"

your imitation of me

love,

your mom

Resolved

Happy New Year!

Hooray for 2010! It seems everyone is so negative about the last year and the last decade. I understand their logic, but for me, 2009 was a great year, and a great way to end a great decade! In 2000, I left my teen years behind (I don't know who was most happy about that, me, or my mom), finished college, met and married the love of my life/eternal companion, and was blessed to have two healthy, wonderful little boys. I don't know how this next year/decade can top the last, but I have high hopes!

I LOVE making resolutions. This isn't that surprising, since resolutions are just another form of lists, and we all know how I feel about lists. The chance to write a sequential, ordered list of things I have every good intention/no real chance of completing...ahh. Makes me smile inside.

Maybe writing my resolutions publicly will increase the odds of my sticking to them. Right. Anyhoo, here they are:

1. Run a half marathon. Stop laughing. Just ask Jake: when I put my mind to something, it gets done. I'm aiming for October. Jake thinks I should just go whole hog and shoot for a marathon. Hah! No desire.

2. Do a pull-up. STOP LAUGHING!! This definitely wins the award for longest-running-yet-never-achieved-resolution. This has been on my list since 1986, which was the first year I had to participate in PE testing at school, and FAILED at the pull-up portion. I was not accustomed to failure, you see, so I made a vow that I would do better the next year. Repeat this scenario in 1987, and so-on, through 1998, when I graduated high school. By about 5th grade, it didn't shame me as it did my first-grade self, but it still was on my list of things to do. Two years ago, I made my most valiant efforts towards reaching this goal. I went from pulling up 2 inches, to pulling up almost half-way, which is the most pulling up I have ever accomplished in my entire life. I have high hopes for 2010. This is the year I do a pull up. Yes I Can.

3. Get my breakfast dishes done before noon. Every day.

4. Go to the temple once a month. Also a long-standing resolution, although met with more success than the Pull-Up Resolution.

5. Have consistent Family Home Evening. This is really hit or miss with us, and I usually count going to dinner as FHE, but I need to be consistent in doing lessons.

That's it, folks! That's my list. I'm sure there are some who have items they think I should have added to the list, but too bad (see, several years ago, I made a resolution to care less about what others think...). This is it. We'll see how it goes.

Happy New Year!

Top Ten

Why I Love Christmas:

1. Lights on houses. It makes the shorter days worth it, because I love driving around when houses are all lit up and festive. I wish people would keep them up year-round.

2. Christmas cookies and treats. Yum. New favorite: my mom turned my on to these peppermint shortbread cookies that she heard about from my sister, who read about them on her friend's blog (I love the world wide web).

3. Christmas decorations. My house looks so fun inside. The rest of the year, I am a horrible decorator. OK, that's not exactly true, I'm just a non-decorator. Once Christmas is over, my house goes back to boring, boring, boring. For a few fun weeks, however, I have decorations up.

4. Watching people give service, quietly, not for recognition from anyone else, but out of love and selflessness.

5. Telling Wyatt about the Nativity story. Pictures and creches with baby Jesus are a little confusing, though. Wyatt keeps calling him "Baby Micah." :) But he really likes hearing the story.

6. Telling Wyatt about Santa Claus, and the rest of Christmas. Wyatt loves Santa, although he is (not-that-surprisingly) much more interested in the reindeer. We got a stuffed Santa at Walgreens, and he has been carrying it around everywhere. But when we start talking about Santa, he always interrupts and asks about the reindeer.

7. Spending time with family and friends. It can get kind of hectic, but so worth it.

8. Buying gifts for those I love. And the rest you. ;)

9. Christmas music. I tune in to it as soon after Halloween as possible. If you know me at all, you know I am ALWAYS singing, and the Christmas season just makes me that much more obnoxious.

9a. Hearing children sing. The primary kids sang in church last Sunday, and it was the sweetest thing I have ever heard. Little tiny angels.

10. Feeling the Christmas spirit, thinking about our Savior's birth, and taking the time from everything else to ponder the true meaning of Christmas. I love the Christmas story. The simplicity and humble circumstances of Christ's birth stand in stark contrast to the chaotic, glitzy, loud, fast-pace of our modern Christmas celebrations. Don't get me wrong, I love all the celebrations that happen this time of year. Its just that its easy for me to get overwhelmed by all of it, and become stressed. I try to remember and focus on what its really all about, and my heart is filled with gratitude and love of the season, for my Savior's birth and life.

I wish you all a very merry Christmas! I hope it is a wonderful holiday for you, filled with happiness and peace!

Memories, Sweet Memories

The weather here has been bumming me out lately. Rainy, drizzly, overcast, and dreary. Blehhhhhh. But then I found these pictures:

Taken at our Heber house, February 2008.

And suddenly, it doesn't seem so bad.

City by the Bay

We had some visitors last weekend! Jake's parents, his sister Hollie and her husband Matt, his sister Rachele and her boyfriend Scott, and his grandma flew in from Texas and Utah to spend the weekend with us. On Friday we went stayed local, went to lunch and then to our beach and the tidepools. On Saturday we went into the city, and saw some sites. We went to Fishermans Wharf, Pier 39, Ghirardelli Square, and drove down Lombard street. That night we met up with Jake's Uncle Rick and his daughters and son-in-law and went to dinner for some fresh seafood in Half Moon Bay. Sunday we took some pictures, which was nice, because we hardly ever take pictures of the whole family. The new pictures on the right are from the photo session, and I've posted a few more below. It was a super fun weekend, we had such a great time with everyone. We were so sad when everyone had to leave on Monday!

Lots of pictures below, captions on top of the picture.

Laraine and Randy, overlooking Devil's Slide. It was cold this weekend!

Rachele with a starfish at the tidepools:

Jake and Grandma Beaman, at the tidepools:

View near our house. I live in the most beautiful place in the world!

The newlyweds! Hollie and Matt getting their sketch done:

The lovebirds, Rachele and Scott, with Alcatraz behind them:

Me and my boys, Alcatraz behind us:

At Ghirardelli Square, after some yummy hot chocolate. Check out Micah, with his lips puckered, trying to get to that bottle! Keep your eye on the prize, buddy!

Micah and Grandma. He was so happy to have someone always available to hold him!

Our fam, in front of the Hyde Cable Cars.
From the photo shoot:

Me and the Bean:Thank you Beamans, for coming to visit! We had so much fun, and hope they'll come again soon. Our house is always open to anyone who wants to come for a visit!

Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving, we traveled down to Southern California to spend the holiday with my sister Susie and her family. It was an awesome trip, not only because every single member of my family was there, but because in a lot of ways it felt like we were going home. We love it here in our new place, but we still miss So Cal, and our family and friends there. While we were there, it felt like we were coming home after a long trip, and it was hard to go back to our real home once the weekend was over.

It was a crazy day, like usual. Susie has a great yard for all the kids to run around and play in. I think I saw Wyatt for 5 minutes total the whole time we were there. He was so excited to play with "the kids" but mostly to see his best friend/worst enemy/cousin Sheldon. He hasn't stopped asking about him since we left. When we get in the car now, he asks "see Shelly?" Its cute, but kind of sad. There are FOURTEEN cousins now, which means the adults are outnumbered. Yikes.

We tried to get some family pictures, but some people were sick, some people were late, so here is what we ended up with. Not our finest work.

[This Hart family picture has been removed at the repeated request of the author's sister]

Look for the rest of the pictures on AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com.

I AM THANKFUL to have spent Thanksgiving with the people I love most. I AM THANKFUL for my family. I AM THANKFUL for a loving husband who works hard at everything he does, my sweet and beautiful children, and for my job as a stay-at-home mom. I AM THANKFUL for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and for a Heavenly Father who looks after me and my family. I AM THANKFUL for prayer, for the Priesthood, and the blessings of the temple. I AM THANKFUL for my education, and for opportunities I have to learn and grow. I AM THANKFUL for my health and the health of my family. I AM THANKFUL for friends and family and all the many ways we have to stay in touch. I love my life and I AM THANKFUL for it!

"Well, of course he can talk! Can't everybody?"

He can talk! Wyatt is finally starting to speak. He has been saying words for some time now, but over the last month or so, his language has really taken off. I had been really concerned because his doctor told me he was "delayed," when we went in for his last check up. Of course when I talk to other people about it, they would say something like "Oh, trust me, soon you'll be wishing he didn't talk!" Which seems like a strange thing to say to someone. People said the same thing to me about him being mobile, and I can tell you, I have never once thought, "I wish Wyatt couldn't walk." Mobility and communication are not abilities I want taken from my child.

Anyway, just over the last month or so, he speaks in sentences (not full or complete, but he gets his message across), mimics EVERYTHING we say (sometimes not so good, sometimes hilarious), and sings entire songs. I'm still Wyatt-to-English interpreter for the rest of the world, but he has made huge strides. He loves to sing "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam" and "Monkeys Jumping on the Bed." He says "I pretend______" when he plays with his toys, and "I scared of______" when he encounters anything he doesn't want to do. I think its funny when he picks things up from nursery and says them at home. For example, he runs around the house shouting "stop it!" and puts his hand up whenever he gets ticked. Mostly Lucy gets the hand, but the shower curtain, his toys, and I have also been at the receiving end. He spends a great deal of the day asking politely "baby leave?" Sorry kiddo, baby is here to stay. I guess he figures it doesn't hurt to ask. He'll be a good salesman someday.

It has made both of our lives so much easier. We (he) are having far fewer meltdowns these days. He genuinely seems happier now. And life is just plain more fun, now that we can interact and talk about the world. We went to Santa Cruz last weekend, and he was having such a great time talking about the "sea wyons, and the boot, and the pewican." He continually impresses me with his vocabulary. I'm always asking "where did you learn that word?"

He is such a great little kid, happy and smiling, always up for an adventure. He's so fun to be around. He has such an easy, pleasant personality. I mean, he is still hyper and naughty and prone to tantrums...he is a two year old, after all. Its so fun having the two kids now. They are so different and unique and I love them for that. Before I had Micah, I didn't understand how I could love another kid in the same way I love Wyatt. I thought, well I love this, this and this about Wyatt, and if my other kids don't have these same traits, how can I love them as much as I love him? I've now come to realize that I love each of them more because of the ways they are different. I am so lucky to have these guys!

Thanksgiving post will be up later. I didn't take any pictures (typical), and I am waiting for my dad to send me pictures of our family. When he does, the post will follow. We had a great time, and we hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving as well!




Wyatt eating breakfast and laughing, reason unknown: