NOVEMBER 2009

So there were a few things that happened this month-some not so exciting, others a bit scary.

One day we had some little friends over to babysit (Trey and Ivy Jones) and we went outside to wait for their daddy to come. Savannah was running around in her tennis shoe on the concrete and her shoes skipped and made her trip and fall. She caught herself with her hands, but she was going pretty fast her arms buckled and she conked her noggin on the ground! Oh, that was pretty scary for me. Boy she had a good-sized goose egg on her forehead for a while! If you look really close at the very last picture in this post, you could barely see above her left eye, that it's started healing. We had to postpone our Family Picture we planned for that wkd and move it to the Thanksgiving wkd!

BUBBLE BATH TIME

I think this was her first bubble bath....Jason was real excited for her and did her "hairdo"!! Savannah LOVED it!


NAP TIME
One day during her naptime, I went to check in on her and she wasn't in her bed! I keep my LR dark, because she has glass french doors (as well as a regular door) to her bedroom and the light shines into it from the LR. So I went back into the LR to be sure I didn't miss her, and she wasn't there. I found her in our bed! She climbed up onto our bed and fell back asleep!! I thought this was so cute!
DRESSING HERSELF
I had changed her diaper and didn't put her PJ's back on cuz I went to get some play clothes for her. I came back into the LR and found her on the couch trying to put on her PJ bottoms!!! She's kinda got the idea!OUTSIDE
Savannah LOVES to be outside and go for walk. She still will sit and play with rocks wherever they are. She gets a handful and puts them in her pockets! I'm so excited to get a house with a backyard for her to run around and play in while I can get some things done in the house.


BIG HELPER
Jason loves to make some banana peanut butter chocolate shakes. He freezes his bananas, and so one day Savannah saw and wanted to help. Jason would do the cutting and after that, he'd let her peel the banana and put in the freezer bags. She loved doing that! She thought she was neat stuff!!! Lately she's getting to be a good helper and wants to help out. I hope she keeps that!! : )


THANKSGIVING
We had Thanksgiving over at my parent's house in Buckeye. We just get together for a big lunch and then everyone goes their separate ways. Here's some pics of Savannah with a couple of her cousins.
With Lucy Baysinger. (Lucy's daddy is my nephew)
With Jackson, who is only 9 days older than she is. (His mommy is my niece)

Nursery

So Savannah started going to Nursery back in July, but I just didn't remember to bring the camera to take pictures--until October!! What is it with me? I just can't seem to get things down about Savannah and the events in her life until way later!!

She started out being a little bit shy for a few weeks, which I was surprised about, because I thought for sure she would be excited to be going there. Savannah's not shy and typically is not clingy to me, so I figured she'd be okay. She cried a little bit the first couple of times and Jason had to stay with her for a bit-though I think it was more for HIS sake than hers!! : )

Now, Savannah practically does run to Nursery and leaves J in the dust following behind!!

OCTOBER 2009

So there were a few more things that happened in October---my birthday wasn't the ONLY event that went on!!!

These two photos were taken at a Indian Fry Bread place in East Mesa, called Cafe Laguna
This pose was ABSOLUTELY ADORABLE!!! I don't know where she picked up crossing her feet and leaning on the chair (or the couch at home)??
This was Savannah's first time eating Fry Bread! She loved it! It's one of my favorites to eat, though I don't get to eat it much.
One of my Uncle's on my mom's side decided to have his funeral while he was alive!! How fun! It was over in Duncan AZ (Eastern AZ border) and he has 9 kids--8 of them girls!! Can you imagine growing up the only brother in the family? Anyway, so my Uncle Son, wanted to celebrate his birthday and have his funeral at the same time. He figured that he wanted to hear all the wonderful things that would be said about him! How funny!!

Here's a pic of the remaining siblings:

L to R: Aunt Pat (who is actually standing in for my Aunt Jessie-the oldest, she couldn't make it cuz she was too weak for travel), Aunt Louise, Uncle Son, my mom, Sally, Uncle Charles, and my Aunt Suggie-the youngest.
I thought this was a really cute pic of Savannah with my mom!!
In October, we went on a double date with our friends, Steven and Silvia. It was actually her birthday and she wanted to go to a Haunted House! So we did! But first, we went to Chili's for dinner and got Silvia sung to by the waiters! Here's Silvia with her Birthday Ice Cream!

For Playgroup we had a little Halloween party at the church for all the kids! Tiffany did a great job with having little games and activities for the kiddies!! They had LOTS of fun! We thought since Savannah LOVES Dora, we'd have her dress up as her for Halloween. I wanted to make a costume for her, but just didn't get too, and ended up buying one. Savannah wouldn't wear the wig that came with it. Oh well!
I found this Halloween PJ and had to get it for her! It says, "Under my Spell"
Here's Savannah with her best buddy, Nicholas. They have great times together, and she gets so excited when she finds out we're gonna go see him, either at playgroup, or their house, or they're coming over to our house!!
Me, as a punk rocker, Jason, as himself : ), and Savannah as Dora, the Explorer!

Lesson in Gratitude (12/17/09)

Okay, so I won't have any pictures in this post because this is just gonna be me sharing some of my thoughts.

Today I had a little playgroup with 2 other moms and their kids. One of them asked me if I knew who Stephanie Nielson was. I didn't know who she was. Tiffany told me that she was a mother who was in a plane crash here in AZ and got severely burned and was in a coma for 3 months. She's alive and well now. I'm not sure how the topic came up, and it really didn't get much further than that because--well you know how kids are-one thing happens and it gets chaotic, interrupted and crazy!! So I didn't give much more thought on that.

Savannah is napping and I've got the TV on Ch 3 listening to some shows. Commercial for Oprah comes on and it shows a couple of stories that will be on her show today. One of them was about a mom, who was in a plane crash and was severely burned and was in a coma. Of course they didn't say who it was-so to lure you in to watch the show, but instantly I was reminded of Stephanie Nielson, and wondered if it could've been her.

I watched Oprah and when they came to this story, it was about Stephanie Nielson!! So I got to learn more about her incident and was amazed at her strength, courage, and diligence in survival and motherhood. They had a viewer who wrote to Oprah saying, "..playing Play-doh makes me want to kill myself.." and that she didn't like being a stay-at-home mom. Oprah decided to have that viewer go spend that day with Stephanie. After that experience, she realized how she was taking so many of the simple things for granted and made some changes in her home.

I realized that I, too, had been itching for a change from Stay-At-Home mom. When we thought Jason would lose his job, I entertained the thought of him staying at home and me going to work. It actually seemed appealing to me at times (especially those times when it seemed Savannah was into EVERYTHING!). Thank goodness we don't have to worry about that anymore-he's still working at UOP.

There are times I just feel lazy and don't want to do anything. This story has helped me to realize that I should be grateful for what I have and to not take things for granted.

One of the things that I feel I've been better at is cooking. I use to hardly ever cook. If I did, it was Mac N Cheese, Top Ramen, or boxed meals. Definitely nothing from scratch. For the last month or so, I've been focusing on finding menus and getting them ready for when Jason comes home from work. At first I just started out with Crockpot meals, cuz those are pretty simple and easy. I started making homemade rolls (using my breadmaker) and Savannah LOVES those! When she hears the machine going, she immediately goes, "ah (really surprised-like) ....ROLLS!!" and I find joy in seeing her delight!

Anyway, I am really grateful to be able to stay at home with Savannah and spend time with her. The hard part is remembering this when she is being difficult.

How blessed we are to be mothers!

Little climber

So Savannah has a lot of good friends that she likes to play with. I think one of the reason she loves to play with Tommy is because he's older and he teaches her neat tricks like this one:

One time David (Tommy's dad) comes over to play Halo 3 or Halo Wars and brings Tommy over to play with Savannah. They are having a grand ole time and on one of the times I peeked in on them, here's what I found!! The both of them in her crib.


And as I watch them, I see how they got in! Here's a few photos

Now since this time, during naps and nighttime, she would climb out and fall back asleep at the door (cause we'd keep it close & she wouldn't climb back into bed). So I mentioned this to my good friend and neighbor (Roshelle Moore) and she told me that they were gonna throw away the toddler bed her daughter used, but we could have it. That was so nice of her, so I got it all set up and she's been sleeping in it all by herself! We've had to keep the door open a crack, just so she doesn't freak out. Well at least this way we're not awakened by cries anymore, just her patting on our bed in the middle of the night, or wandering out into the Living Room during her nap times!!!!

I can't believe how grown up she is getting to be!!! She'll be 2 yrs next month! Wow, time goes so fast!

She totes around either her pink Little Tikes chair, or our little wooden stepstool so that she can climb up on it and get to things on the counter or the light switches or anything that is out of reach. She starts to throw little tantrums when she doesn't get her way. She imitates us and she wants to help me out so much with dishes, sweeping, picking up. But one thing that I don't want to EVER go away is how she loves to be cuddled in my arms. That's my favorite part of being a mom!!

Can't wait.....

for lots of things.....

.....a house-probably out in the direction of Buckeye.......

....where I can have a desk for my laptop/computer (which means I can post more often)......

.....for J to be done with school--but that won't be until later next year.....

....then hopefully a better job, that he likes, that is closer to Buckeye......

....to watch Savannah at Christmas this year! I'm so excited for that.....

....to have another baby, sometime next year......(no that's not an announcement)

....a 2nd car-a 4runner?......

....for J to go into Currency Trading......

.....to have enough $$$ -but will that ever happen?.....

.....for pantyhose to not be so uncomfortable-or is it just me?......

.......to have Savannah say more words......

Back to the Future.......

So I've got TONS and TONS of posting to do and it dates back to over a month ago......(not near 30 yrs but still....)

MY BIRTHDAY (October 8th)

Since I LOVE steak, and we don't get to eat it often, we went out to a Steak Restaurant. We'd heard it had great steak and delicious bread. Monti's was wonderful. It is across the street from Tempe Marketplace, on Rio Salado.

Here I am enjoying my juicy, delicious steak. (writing this and seeing this is making me want steak!!)

Savannah was such a good girl when we were in there! I'm so lucky to have a good-natured, fun, funny, little girl in my life!

Here she is up to one of her antics...Peek-A-Boo with Daddy!

After our delicious Steak dinner, we went to Deseret Bookstore. I got the DVD, Errand of Angels, about sister missionaries, and then we got a picture book for Savannah, so that hopefully during Sacrament meetings, she'll sit more quietly.......it works for about 5 minutes!!


Savannah loved sitting at the little table and chair in the childrens section. She'd go find books and then come sit down at the table with them!! It was so darn cute!

QUICK TRIP TO DUNCAN, AZ (Oct 9th & 10th)

So my mom called me, the day we got back from camping. She tells me that she is in Duncan, for her brother's funeral. "WHAT! When did this happen?" I ask her. She assures me that he is actually still alive and well---so why the funeral? He wanted to hear the nice things being said about him, while he was alive!! He wanted to see his family gathered around, while he was still Alive!!! It was a combination of his birthday celebration and funeral! How funny!

My Uncle Son (Warner Foote) and Aunt Ada Mae Foote

So Friday night, (Oct 9th) after J got off of work, we drove to Duncan and stayed at my Aunt Louise's house. Saturday, we have a yummy breakfast of biscuits and gravy!! Thanks to my Aunt Suggie and Aunt Louise. My mom comes from a family of 8 siblings, and four of them are at the breakfast table. As I look around, I notice that they are all wearing these black shirts.

But on the backs of them is written: "I'm Warner Foote's favorite Sister/Brother"

Aunt Pat (representing my Aunt Jessie who couldn't make it), Aunt Louise, Uncle Son, my mom-Sally, Uncle Charles, and Aunt Sandra

Here are all the daughters of my Uncle, he has 9 children, 8 of them were daughters!!!
Bonnie, Deanne, Francie, Chloene, Gwen, Sunny, Fairlene, and Donna Mae
Here's Savannah with her Granny (my mom)