Best day ever

8:30 a.m. Woke up.
9:30 a.m. Dropped off Jesse at work.
11:00 a.m. Abby and I hit the park equipped with balls, bubbles, and a picnic lunch. We stayed until 12:30 p.m.
12:30-3:00 p.m. Abby took an amazing nap! I got dishes done, bedroom cleaned, scriptures read, blogs and emails responded to, and sanded my toy box. Beautiful.
3:45 p.m. Walked to the Botany Pond and squealed in delight at the 40+ baby ducklings that have just arrived.
5:00 p.m. Had a lovely walk home with Jesse from campus
6:00 p.m. Had Hawaiian haystacks for dinner with Jesse and Abby
6:30 p.m. Went to the temple for FHE. The temple is Abby's favorite place right now.
7:00 p.m. Went to the "ice cream store" (that's the only way Abby would go. She LOVES stores). We went to Coldstone with a gift card from my sweet sister-in-law. I indulged in the Cheesecake Fantasy: cheesecake ice cream, graham cracker crust, strawberries, and blueberries. Jesse had Oreo Overload: self-explanatory. Abby specifically told me she wanted "cake" ice cream and when I asked which topping she said "gummies, M&Ms, sprinkles!" No, I didn't let her have all of them. She had sprinkles. But she managed to eat the entire scoop.

Best day ever.

Modern-day trials

I'm currently watching my naked child sumo dance and mad hop through my kitchen screaming "naked Abby!" and trying so hard to laugh, but all I want to do is cry.

Today has been a hard day. Let me start with yesterday:

Around noon yesterday, I got a phone call from my dad and he said, "Do you have any friends that are interested in adopting a Hispanic baby girl? She's going to be born today and she needs a family." This type of phone call is fortunately (but unfortunately) not uncommon for me because my dad is an adoption attorney. So I immediately started thinking of who needs a baby and I thought of an amazing girl with whom I graduated from high school. Stellar girl who couldn't be a better person. I emailed her to call me and we got the wheels rolling on the operation. She contacted my dad and even came to my parent's house to drop some documents off so I had a chance to talk to her. We were so excited!! We were talking about her registering for baby stuff and flying to California today to pick up the baby and all that jazz...

And then today happened. The baby was born: beautiful, healthy, and full head of hair. The birthmother was excited to place with my friend and then the fateful question was asked:

"What religion are they?"

"Christian," my dad replied.

"What denomination?"

"LDS."

And with that small word (or whatever it is) the deal was sealed. No more placement. Birthmother said that her baby needed to go to a Christian family, and not an LDS family. It doesn't help that she was swayed by her nurse to have the baby placed with her sister. And it probably doesn't help that the birthmother was from California where we all know that Prop 8 had an effect.

So tonight I'm crying. I'm crying for my friend who was SO close. I know she'll get a baby someday, but it was so close and it's just hard. So here's a great example of modern-day persecution. Pray for my friend. She's amazing and she had an incredible attitude today when I called her, but I know it still hurts. Pray for her please.

My cousin

This is my shout-out to my adorable and amazing cousin, Kristen. Isn't she gorgeous? Kristen has been one of my best friends my whole life. She's the ultimate creative woman and an awesome mom! She's a quilter, digital scrapbooker, and all-around crafty person. I'm always in awe with the projects she's working on! She's way sweet, nice, and brilliant. I'm glad she's bought a home in Utah so she'll have to stick around for a while! Anyway, love you, Kristen! I just had to share these pics with everyone and let them know that you're the best!

One of those days...

It's a super good thing that I was in a good mood today. Today was one of those days where you just have to throw your hands up and attempt to laugh. I tried really hard to laugh, but I got a few good snarls in there too.

1. I pulled the dark clothes out of the dryer and noticed that most of the clothes were covered in red splotches. It looked like grape juice on all of the clothes, but I know that I didn't put grape juice in the washing machine. I continued to investigate until I found one of Abby's plastic forks amongst the clothes. Weird? Yes. Next I found her adorable apron that was COVERED in red--in the pocket especially. I smelled it and realized that it was strawberry. Suddenly it all came together. Abby had a strawberry on the end of her fork and she placed them both in the pocket of her apron. I vaguely remember feeling something bulky in her apron, but as I went to check I got distracted by something Abby was doing. So despite my best efforts, there are strawberry stains on all of my favorite t-shirts.

2. After a long day of cleaning, I didn't feel like making a crazy big dinner. So we made german pancakes. I opened the oven (heated to 450 degrees) and to my surprise I found a can of spaghettios inside. It was hot and in my mind I freaked out because I was waiting for it to explode at any moment. I quickly grabbed the hot pads and pulled out the spaghettios. They never exploded, but goodness, you may as well have put a chipmunk inside for how much I freaked out. Oh and yes, it was Abby's doing.

3. It's 9:15 p.m. and Abby STILL won't stay in bed. We tried the big girl bed thing, but she just thinks it's hilarious to try to jump over the safety railing. I'm at a loss. I will never sleep again.

Ha ha ha ha. I'm trying to laugh. I promise I'm happy, just also exhausted. Oh the antics of a toddler!

The crib dilemma

It's almost 10:00 p.m. and Abigail is still awake. It's frustrating in so many ways, but tonight I'm particularly frustrated because it's the first night since the semester started that Jesse has had time to hang out with me and we're spending it trying to get Abigail to go to sleep. We had exciting plans to cuddle up on the couch watching some poorly made film while eating ice cream. Typically, I would leave Abby to cry herself to sleep. But on Saturday afternoon, Abigail discovered how to climb out of her crib. I put Abby down for her nap (after a long drive home from St. George in which she didn't sleep). She started crying and then suddenly stopped. I heard movement coming from her room and then she was knocking on her door. I opened her bedroom door and gasped as I saw her standing there outside of her crib. Now she does it every time I put her in the crib. Tonight we finally laid down in her tent to go to sleep and after fifteen minutes of that she had her dad rock her to sleep. So to the point of this email: I need to buy a crib tent to keep her contained, but I can't afford it. It's $60! I tried to get one on ebay, but I keep getting outbid and eventually the bid+shipping just costs the same as to buy a new one. So I'm shamefully pleading for crib tent donations, or ideas of how to help her stay in the crib. This is truly lame of me, but I'm at a loss as to what to do with her.

P.S. Easter pics to come.