Pardon My French

Tonight was my last yoga class. Thank heavens. I think if I have to do another down dog I'll throw up. Jeff just gave me a celebratory chest bump to the face.

My sister in-law Paulette introduced me to a book called Bringing Up Bebe. It's about an American woman who married a British man, and moved to Paris. When she has a baby she starts noticing the differences in French and American parenting, and how well behaved French children are. She starts researching what they do differently, and altering her own parenting style. The book is awesome, and while reading it I realized that I'm totally a French person. My child is not well behaved, so you'd never guess, but the way they think about parenting, and their methods of raising children are exactly like my own. They are obviously doing a better job, which just makes me hate them, but I'm still happy to know that what I do is actually a real parenting method. They believe in allowing lots of freedom with a few strict rules. No means no, indefinitely. But children should mostly hear yes. They shouldn't be hovered over, and protected from every little harm. They should learn from experience, which means they have to be allowed experience, without constant interference from their parents. They have strict rules around sleeping, eating, and respecting others. As long as those rules are obeyed then the rest is pretty much left up to them. French parents don't worry about damaging their children with every little thing they do or say like American parents do. I love that they laugh at American mom's at the park who run around behind their kids giggling, and narrating everything they do in an awful baby voice. The lady I nannied for in New York actually told me that she wanted me to act more like that when playing outside with the kids. I told her that wasn't my style. Anyway, I'm going to move to Paris, and my kids are going to sit at restaurants and not climb on the table or throw food at me, and they're going to go to bed when I ask them, and not get up until morning. Maybe in Paris everyone will stop talking about Chick Fil A, and glaring at me for sitting on a bench at the park instead of following Grace around making sure she's having fun. Everything is better in Paris.

Things that would be embarrasing. If I did them.

Falling asleep during yoga. Not even during meditation.

If people at the gym could hear the music that I run to.

When our downstairs renter almost catches me in my underwear, but instead just hears me running away from her.

P.S. Grace has added poopy and Jesus to her vocabulary this week.

Smarty Pants

First of all, this...

Grace is getting so smart. Like unnaturally smart. And spiritual. She says 15 prayers a day. I don't even know who taught her to fold her arms and have prayer. It's something we can work on, and now because Grace makes us, we are. She can eat with a fork or a spoon. She feeds herself cereal every morning. She's saying all sorts of words lately. My personal favorite is "baby". She says it every time she sees a baby at the store, or a picture of herself, or one of her nasty dolls. We found out that her little friend in our ward can say her own name now, so I worked on that with Grace, but apparently her name is too hard, so I just taught her her friend's name. That's good enough for now. I can already tell that Grace is going to be a hippie. I always find her outside, naked, eating an apple off the tree in the backyard. I try not to go outside, ever. I feel like as soon as the sun hits me I will throw up or pass out. I've been pretty dramatic about this whole pregnancy thing, and I'm starting to annoy myself, so today went for a walk, and then a bike ride, and then I sat in Grace's pool while Sadie brought me apples off the tree. Sadie is getting smarter too. All this time I thought she was eating apples off the ground, but apparently she jumps up and gets fresh ones off the tree. Maybe she's a germaphobe too. Remember those plants we planted like 4 months ago? We ended up with 4 of them in planter pots. Two tomato plants, one zucchini, and one mystery plant. Everything else is dead, and we have yet to see a vegetable. Gardening sucks.

This whole Chick-Fil-A thing is getting annoying. I'm totally in support of voicing your opinion, no matter how controversial it is. But why is Chick-Fil-A's opinion so controversial? They don't support homosexuality. Who cares. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I don't know why everyone has to get all judgey about it. Since when do we all have to agree on our beliefs, or bash other people when theirs are different? I'm a Mormon, and I fully support the homosexual's that I know. I don't agree with what they do, but who am I to judge another person and the trial's they have to bear? I feel embarrassed when other Mormon's get all preachy, and start debates with people of other beliefs. You're making the rest of us look bad.

Sweatpants, and dogs and things.

We've been so unhealthy. All I want are treats all the time. The other night I went to Harmons to get us something for dinner, and I came home with cheesecake and blueberry pie filling. I forgot all about dinner. So later when I got hungry I made a bag of microwave popcorn. I know some people who do zumba when they're pregnant. I'm so jealous of them. Are they tougher than me? I hate them. I feel like if I walk down the stairs too quickly things that are supposed to be inside, are going to fall out. If you know what I mean. Sorry. I can't wait to not be pregnant anymore. I feel bad that my family has to live with me. I'm one of those people that wears sweatpants all day. I hate those people.

Grace and I got back from our trip to Oregon late Friday night. We had lots of fun. We stayed with my Grandma and Grandpa, and I loved spending time with them. We also got to spend lots of time with my sister and her family, and take a trip to the beach. Grace was a perfect angel on the flight home, and sat in her own seat reading magazines and eating an entire can of baby cheetos.

All the dog hair in our house has been making me crazy. A couple days ago I brushed Sadie, and pulled out a bucket full of hair, and then gave her a bath and brushed her again. Now she's shedding even worse. I don't know what to do. Every time I put chapstick on, hair floats to me out of the air, and sticks to my lips. Grace's blanket is covered. Our couch is covered. Our food is covered. Yesterday I found my toothbrush in a corner on the kitchen floor in the middle of a hair ball. I was so bugged. Usually that's Jeff's toothbrush. Anyway, I need to go get ready for the day. It is 5:00 after all.

This is our trip in picture form. Minus the pictures I looked bad in.

 Remember this?

The month of July

This month is super busy. Here's a quick update of what we've done so far.

4th of July

Jeff had to work for the first half of the day, so I took Grace and Sadie to Provo, and met my mom for the parade. They both loved it. Grace's favorite part was the fire trucks. We live right by the fire station, so we get to see them pass at least once a day, and Grace gets so excited. I feel weird holding her up to the window to watch when someone else is having an emergency, but she loves it.

After the parade we came home and picked up Jeff from work. We made no plans for the day, so we relaxed for a while, and then decided to have a last minute barbecue. We called Jeff's family, and had them come over for pork chops and corn on the cob. I finally finished the patio dining table, so we ate outside. They left, and we looked up some local fireworks. We found some just up the street by the high school, so we all got in the car with some blankets and pillows and drove over. Grace and Sadie had fun running around with all the kids, but as soon as the fireworks started they both fell asleep.

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On Monday we had Steff's bridal shower. We set everything up outside, and changed the time back a couple hours, so it would be a little cooler, but  I think it was still over 90 degrees when everyone started showing up. They all hid in the kitchen, and would hardly even go out for food. We ended up moving the party inside where it was more comfortable, and it still turned out okay. I should have gotten pictures of everything, but there were so many people there that I hadn't seen for a long time, so I was busy catching up with everyone, and trying to make sure Steffany's Grandma didn't get heat exhaustion. My mom did get a few pictures towards the end, so I'll post them. Sorry for the bad quality.

Wednesday night was the wedding, so we were busy that whole day getting lots of last minute stuff done. The wedding turned out beautiful, and once again, I failed to get any pictures. Steff looked amazing! I'm so happy for her and Michael. Currently they are on their honeymoon in Idaho.

On Sunday me and Grace leave for Oregon to visit family for a week. I'll be flying by myself with Grace, so hopefully she'll behave herself. I can't imagine her sitting still for an entire flight, but it's only an hour and a half, so at least if it's awful it will be over quick. We didn't think Jeff could come, because he's saving his vacation days for when I have the baby, but it turns out he could have come after all. His Grandpa on his Dad's side just passed away. It's a sad time for his family, but also a happy one, because his Grandpa was sick, and suffering alot. He lived with his wife in Washington, so we wouldn't have made it to his funeral, but Jeff still gets a week of bereavement. He's going to take the last couple days of this week off, and then he'll have all of next week off as well. We planned a camping trip at Payson Lakes for the day after we get back from Oregon, and then we'll come home, and celebrate the 24th. That's all. Now I'm going to go clean poop off the couch :)

Meditation, not.

Last night at yoga, during our final savasana, someone started snoring, and I started laughing. Savasana is the meditation part you do at the end of most classes. You're supposed to completely relax, and go into a state of meditation. This is always when everything starts itching on me. I spend that time scratching, and thinking about what Grace is doing at home, and how cute she is, and what we're going to make for dinner the next day. Then when our teacher rings the bell 3 times, and tells us to roll onto our side, and slowly sit up I act all groggy like I just came out of a deep sleep. I don't know why, because she probably watched me scratching the whole time.

I have a swollen eye. I don't know what happened. It just started hurting and getting fatter and fatter. Jeff says I'm going to look like Quasimoto. I think I have an infection or something. I'm so disgusted. I hate eye problems.

The next two weeks are going to be busy for us. Saturday we are going to a dinner theater that Jeff bought us tickets for a while ago, Sunday we're having friends over for dinner, Monday we're hosting my best friend's bridal shower, Wednesday is her wedding, Sunday Grace and I are flying to Oregon to visit my sister's family and their new baby, and my grandparents, and Saturday, right when we get back, is my cousin's wedding. Until then, I have nothing very interesting to blog about, so I will be back with lots of pictures in a couple weeks.

Doesn't this look so peaceful?