Stella's School Carnival

Bounce houses, slides, trampolines, candy, and train rides . . . Stella's dream world.

Stella's Prayers

It seems like most of our Family Home Evenings lately have been about how to say prayers . . . what to be thankful for, what to bless, and the language that we use. She's not quite gettin' it folks. She goes off onto the most random tangents and I have to physically reach out to touch her shoulder to bring her back to the point.

Elliot did this awesome FHE last week where we gathered 5 items that we could be thankful for or pray for.

Here's Stella's list:
(Prophet, shoes, scriptures, her primary talk, mermaid, Duncan Donut Dibble, blankets, pillow, her angel that supposed to help her sleep but it really doesn't, pony, herself (as a baby), and a random stuffed animal)

Here's mine:
(Scriptures, exercise, family, music, food . . . I was the only one who kept to the 5 item rule . . . I really am grateful for more than that.)

Here's Elliot's:
(Music, safety, food, Stella, our country, scriptures, journal)

We separated them into the two categories (sometimes 3 categories because we can be thankful and bless the same things) and reviewed the language of prayer.

Tonight we had an early FHE because Elliot has a client dinner tomorrow. Keep in mind that we have a trip to New York planned in July over Stella's birthday and I've also told her that I'm painting her room pink for her birthday. Stella gave the prayer and this is a little how it went:

". . . bless that Mommy will have a baby in her tummy . . . and bless that we'll see Buddy [the Elf] when we go to New York on my birthday because that's where he lives now after we paint my room pink for my birthday . . ."

And it went on and on. Elliot blames it on the Anderson side of long prayer-givers.

Stinky Parents

I'll start this with the quarterly review from Stella's teacher which always says something like, "I always like to hear what Stella has to say!"


Apparently we stink. Just ask her. On Stella's list of things to do, you might notice about 8 down that Stella thinks her Daddy stinks. And as for me, it's a whole different story.

May I just remind everyone that . . .

The other day when I went to pick Stella up from school I was waiting in the line of cars with other parents waiting to pick up their Kindergarteners. I had a little twinge of a stomach ache and it happened to not be pleasant. When Stella entered the car, . . .

STELLA: "WHAT STINKS!?"
MOM: "Me Stella, I farted."

She then completely changed the subject and I assumed the fart talk was over. As the line of cars started moving, I drove forward a few feet when Stella exclaimed,

STELLA: "Stop Mom! I have to tell Mrs. Cahill something!"

Not even thinking for a second about our short fart conversation not a minute before, I stopped the car and Stella rolled down the window for the whole world to hear . . .

STELLA: "HEY MRS. CAHILL!! MY MOM FARTED!"

Really Mrs. Cahill, you ALWAYS like to hear what Stella has to say?

My Little Gymnast

Not that climbing the tetherball pole has anything to do with gymnastics, but the girl is a crazy lady. She's not afraid of anything . . . except moths.

Stella loves gymnastics. She does cartwheels more than she walks these days.

After gymnastics today, Stella's coach motioned me over to talk and she informed me that Stella has mastered all of the skills, techniques, and form (she said she has the athletic body for the sport) of the "Grasshopper" level of gymnastics and wants to move her to Level Orange.

I don't really know what that means in the world of gymnastics, but Miss K (her coach) said that most of the girls in that level will be a little older than Stella, but there's nothing more for her to work on if she stays to finish the Grasshopper class.

We'll probably have to change times and days, but that's OK because Stella loves it! And as long as she loves it, she gets to do it . . . unless we have to take out a 2nd mortgage . . . we might have issues with that.

First Harvest

We just harvested some spicy radishes (which I almost tried, by the way) and a head of lettuce that I didn't actually plant this year. I planted lettuce 2 years ago and accidentally let it over-grow so now the dislodged seeds have found their way around the yard and we have randomly growing lettuce . . . not necessarily in the the garden.

Dishes

I don't know what's gotten into her, but I like it . . .

When Whitney Multi-Tasks . . .

. . . this is unacceptable people. Let me focus for crying out loud!

He's Famous . . . in Idaho

My sister Natalie is seriously behind in her blogging updates, so I'll brag about her husband for her. Here is an article about my brother-in-law Ian from Sunday's paper in Idaho!

http://www.journalnet.com/news/local/article_39f08306-5039-11df-8136-001cc4c03286.html

Growing Up and Moving OUT . . . no IN!

I've been trying to get Stella to take a shower instead of a bath for quite a while. She hates the sprinkling of water on her head in the bath, but loves it in a swimming pool. I don't get it.

Anyway, the other day she finally agreed to take a shower if I let her do it in my bathroom. She LOVED it! I thought this might make bath time shorter, but she's like me and loves the serenity of the shower.

After said shower, I asked her to get dressed. She usually does this in her bedroom, but she retrieved her pajamas and took them back to my bathroom to dress. Next time I checked on her, she had her brushes, combs, handheld mirror, toothpaste and toothbrush moved into my bathroom and she'd rearranged all of my stuff on the counter to her liking.

She's decided that my bathroom is now her bathroom and that Daddy and Mommy need to move out.

A Race to Daddy

Sometimes when I'm feeling fiesty I win, but Stella is quick.

Wipes

What did I even use to clean before these came into existance? I had to live without them for about 2 days and let me tell you, my kitchen counters suffered. I couldn't even fathom cleaning something without these wipes. I love them!

Happy Birthday Becky!

Crappy Shoes

These were the shoes Stella happened to be wearing the most when she learned how to ride her bike. She hadn't quite figured out the hand breaks, so her shoes suffered the consequences. They were only $3.00 at Target so I didn't care. I was about the throw them away, but then I remembered how she pretty much craps up her other shoes too. Might as well keep these as the crappers to play in and save the other shoes. Right?

So if I forget to make Stella change her shoes before she comes over to your house, please know that she is not an orphan and we can afford new shoes.

Next goal: Stop saying crap.

Good Mommy Day

Stella tries to be equal in her reminders to be a better Mommy and her praise. I love to find these notes:

It says, "I like my Mom and she can hug me and she can hug me all day and kiss me all day."

Girl knows I love her. That's a Good Mommy Day.

Pat Tillman Run

Elliot and I ran the Pat Tillman Run on Saturday, April 17, 2010. It was 4.2 miles because his football number at ASU was 42. I've never run 4 miles before (I've walked it).

We biked over to ASU because it's just a few miles away and didn't want to deal with the traffic and parking. It was a great warm-up for me as I was huffing it the whole way, but Elliot was going so slow compared to how fast he usually rides!

This was the 5th Annual race and has grown from 5,000 participants to over 28,000! We didn't get our cool race t-shirts (and they were really nice ones) because they were out of our sizes by the time we got to the table. They'll mail them because I refused to get a bigger size.

Pre-Race (Elliot's words, "We haven't even started the race and I already look terrible!")

Elliot and I acted like we knew how to stretch before a big run and then we headed to the starting area. They started us in "corrals" (offensive, right?) according to how fast we run a mile. Elliot started in 9 minutes, so I started with him even though I know I don't run that fast.

Throughout the whole first mile I keep wondering to myself why I pay to do this. Then the mile marker shows up and I realize that I can totally do this. I love mile markers. I got into my groove of running, dodging the glistening loogies on the ground and swerving around runners-turned-sudden-walkers. I got a cup of water thrown on my foot behind me, but that's alright because I'm sure I threw my water on someone else too.

The climb into the ASU football stadium to the finish line at the 42-yard line was the hardest part, but totally exhilarating! I found Elliot fairly easily among the thousands of other people trying to find each other and we rehydrated and found some fruit as we watched thousands of other people cross the finish line.

I'm glad Elliot runs faster than I do. He's sweaty. He's also sleepy.

YAWN! Oh dear, looks like I'm a little sleepy too.

We ran into some other friends (JR & Shae Thulin) from our ward who ran as well. We were going to wait around to hear Pat Tillman's wife speak after everyone finished the race, but I'm glad we didn't because JR & Shae said they waited over 2 hours and she didn't even speak!

Uh oh, Elliot's still sleepy.

Elliot finished in 36 minutes 44 seconds and I finished in 46 minutes 15 seconds. We biked back home which was a nice cooldown, but my legs had had it! I'm so sore! Next up . . . 10K! (Don't pressure me, gosh!)