Raising Girls: Long time no blog

I'm sorry I'm such a slacker at blogging. I just get so behind in my schoolwork that this is the last thing on the list, with cleaning my house coming in second to last. ;p Our ward just split today, and now we'll be meeting at 1:00. I hate 1:00 church. It's right during nap time, it's feels like the day's almost over afterwards, etc. But, it could give me a chance to get caught up on the blog on Sunday mornings. So hopefully I can stay on top of it.

Here are some things that have been happening lately:

Maricela is an eating fiend. She wants to eat all the time. She LOVES refried beans. (I wonder who she got that from?) The other day we were at the pizza place and we could tell that she wanted to eat. I didn't think that pizza would be very good for her, so I went to the store next door and got her some teething biscuits and some of that dry toast. She ate one of each while we were there! She's also tried baby cereal and some baby foods, but her favorite by far is beans.

Jenny told me yesterday that Taylor's two bottom teeth have started coming in. She's two months younger than Maricela, and Maricela doesn't have any teeth yet. I don't really care that she doesn't have teeth yet (that means she can't bite me) but I also have that "Why doesn't my kid have/do this/that?" feeling. Do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, I know she'll get teeth and everything will be fine, but I also wonder why didn't she get them first. Silly, I know.

On that same note, she STILL does not roll over. She's six months old and can't roll. At her check-up, the doctor asked me if she was rolling yet, and when I said that she wasn't, he said "Yeah, the big ones usually don't". I laughed at that. None of mine were ever quick roller-overs.

BUT, she can sit up! She can sit really good on my bed and on the couch. When you put her on a hard surface, she falls over faster, but she can stay up for awhile when she's on something soft.

We had Maricela's baby blessing on Feb. 4th. (That was also Keith's birthday.) We had been waiting for my dad to come out, so he could be here for the blessing as well, but we just couldn't wait any longer. Keith's brother was teasing him that after he blessed her, he could just put her down and let her walk off the podium, we had waited so long. Keith's sister Iva has a baby, Dominique, who is four months younger than Maricela. We were able to do both the blessings together in our ward. That was pretty neat. Here's a picture of the two little girls.

Amya is writing like crazy. She's constantly making books and writing stories. Last night she wrote two pages in her journal titled "About myself". She wrote down things like her favorite color, favorite tv show, favorite foods, etc. I am so proud of her and all the learning she is doing.

Elena is as crazy as ever. She loves to make people laugh. The other night she said something silly (and now I can't remember what it was) and I started laughing. She realized that I was laughing because of what she had said, and she repeated herself about five more times, just to make me laugh more. She is such a comedian. After I stopped laughing, Keith was telling her that he's the jokester in the family, she can't try to take his place.

Téa is getting smarter and smarter. We checked out a library book called The Water Hole (an awesome book if you're looking for something to read with your kids - by Graeme Base). It has different animals hidden in every picture. Téa is so good at finding them, and then remembering where they are. She loves to get it out and point out all the animals to us. I think we'll be buying it, cause she'll be missing it after we return it.

I just found out my student teaching assignment for this semester. It's in Amya's first grade Spanish class. I'm excited but nervous at the same time. I was not expecting it at all (all of the assignments for this semester are supposed to be in Salt Lake). Amya's really excited. I'm just a little nervous about teaching in Spanish - I might mess up. I guess we'll see how it goes.

One more thing, last night I was doing homework and Keith left to set up chairs at the chapel for ward conference. Usually the girls are pretty good when they're downstairs by themselves, so I thought I'd be okay to work on my homework a little bit longer. When I came downstairs about 20 minutes later, I heard the girls in the bathroom. I went in there, and saw that Amya had drawn a bath for all of them, Maricela included! All four girls were playing in the bath, with Amya holding the baby. She was so proud of herself for getting the girls clean for church, but I was a little scared. I'm lucky that nothing happened to the baby! She's such a good little helper, but sometimes she goes a little too far! :)