Business trip tag-a-long

Taber had a business trip this weekend just outside of Atlanta, GA, which is about a 4 hour drive from where we live. He travels a fair amount for his job, and every time he goes out of town I miss him terribly. So this time I decided that Teya and I were going to tag-a-long so we wouldn't be lonely without him! It was a quick trip, we we left Thursday morning and got back around midnight on Friday. Still, I'm so glad we went with him because even a couple nights apart bums me out.

Taber was doing some benchmarking at another plant where the HR manager had also graduated from the BYU MBA program. It was nice because while Taber was working I was able to hang out with the other manager's wife and her three adorable girls. We reminisced about the being the wife of an MBA student and how much we loved Provo and BYU. It was also so fun for Teya because two of the girls were several years older than her, ages 8 and 5, so she got a taste of what it would be like to have big sisters. They pushed her on the swings and let her piggy back on the tricycle. They helped her go on the slide and caught her at the bottom. It was fun for me to be able to sit back and watch instead of being the one helping her and carrying her around. Teya had so much fun, she cried and cried when we finally had to leave. Here are some pictures of her having fun with her new friends.

Friends in town

Last week we had our friends, The Lunds, stay with us for Easter weekend. Matt and Taber went to MBA school together and graduated a year apart. Now they both work for General Mills. Matt actually worked at Taber's plant before we moved out here, so he and Ali are the ones who helped us get settled in Murfreesboro before they got transfered and had to move.

Anyway, it was so nice to have them in town. Ali is a food lover like me, so we had endless conversations about all the places we love to eat and then of course, went to eat at a few of them! The best was on Saturday night we got a babysitter for our kids and went out to a nice restaurant just as couples! We went crazy and ordered appetizers, huge meals, and then shared 3 desserts!!! It was one of the happiest nights of my life. : ) Seriously though, it was so nice to have a meal without kids and to have great company and lively conversation.

Teya enjoyed the company too. They have a daughter her age who has stayed with us before and the two of them have a blast together. Add Teya's buddy Anna, the little girl I watch, to the mix and the three of them were so entertained they didn't even want to leave the house! So thank you Lunds for making the long drive down to be with us, and yeah for friends, food, and couples dates!

Foiled egg hunts, belly kisses and sick tummies

This year I was really excited for Easter because Teya is actually old enough to get into it a little more. Last year she was just starting to walk and managed to grab a few eggs during our family Easter egg hunt, but this year I was sure she would be an egg hunting champion. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite how I hoped.

On the morning of the Easter egg hunt we got Teya all dolled up, loaded her in the car, and drove the 20 minute drive to church. On the way there she was really fussy. I just thought she was being cranky but figured she would cheer up once she saw all the kids and the eggs.

When we got to the church they had everyone meet in the gym for a little Easter message before the egg hunt. When we took our seats in the gym Teya, who is normally miss independent, wouldn't let me put her down. She kept saying things like, "I baby please (which means hold me like a baby) Mommy hold me, I want night night! I go home." I was definitely worried at that point, but then I started getting really nervous when she said, "Belly hurt Mama, ouchie belly, kiss it peeze!" She was lying in my arms at this point and lifted up her shirt for me to kiss her belly. I knew it wouldn't make the problem better but I kissed that little belly anyway wishing mommies really did have the power to heal everything with a kiss. After a few more minutes of whining and begging for kisses I put her down to grab something from my purse and just as the opening song started she puked all over the floor. Taber rushed to her side, picked her up and grabbed her easter basket just in time to catch the next round of puke. The poor girl kept throwing up all the way out the door.

We got things cleaned up as best we could and then left before Teya got to see one Easter egg. We felt so bad that she had to leave, but she was actually in a much better mood after getting that out of her system. She kept saying "I sick, Daddy fix it! Daddy wipe it! sick all better now!"

Despite feeling better in the car, her tummy was sick for the rest of the day and she hardly ate a thing. Luckily her bug only lasted about 24 hours and the next day we had our own little Easter egg hunt in the house to make up for missing out the day before. Watching her run around the house and giggle as she picked up eggs, all the sick tummy trouble was forgotten and Teya still ended up having a very fun and happy Easter.

Tag!

So Meredith left an open invitation tag on her blog and I'm taking her up on it because it looks fun! Here goes:
10 years ago:
1-I was a Jr. in high school.
2- I went to Disneyland with my A cappella choir
3- I played Ophelia in our high school production of Hamlet
4- I tried out for the Broadway touring company of Les Miserables and actually got a call back to try out for Miss Saigon in L.A. (My mom put the kibosh on that)
5- I had short permed hair! (enjoy the sweet 90's glamor shot)
5 Places I've lived:
1- Provo, UT
2- Guadalajara, Mexico (Study abroad)
3- Moorpark, CA
4- Austin, TX
5- Murfreesboro, TN

5 Things on my to do list:
1- Get a babysitter for Saturday
2-Laundry (this is ALWAYS on my list! it NEVER ends!!!!)
3- Give my dog a bath
4- Get the guest room ready for our Easter company
5- Organize my maternity clothes and throw out stuff I can't or won't wear again

I enjoy:
1- Late night chats with my husband
2- Keeping in touch with friends
3- Reading inspiring books, articles, and stories
4- Meeting new people/making friends
5- Teaching Sunday School

Two Bad Habits:
1- Not being able to stop eating after I'm full (this is especially troublesome with girl scout cookies or any homemade dessert)
2- Losing things. In college I was a regular at the BYU lost and found. In fact, every spring when they had a lost and found sale Taber would tease me that we should go to it and buy back all my stuff.

5 things you don't know about me:
1-I was my mom's fattest baby and grew into a Sumo toddler. Luckily I slimmed down by elementary school. (I'm the fat toddler holding the baby in this pic)
2- 5 years ago I was the first person on either side of my family to graduate from college. Since then my Dad has also graduated and gone on to get his MBA from The U of U. I also have a younger sister who will graduate from BYU in April and an older brother who will graduate from UVSC next December.
3- I'm actually pretty good at making rhymes and was famous for some of the raps I wrote, including a missionary rap called "Elders in da' Hood" and my "Shadrack Meshack and Abednego" rap. In fact, I got to rap in front of 10,000 CES employees at the Marriot center for the CES symposium in '99.
4- I'm part Choctaw Indian and danced in the Native section of Living Legends my senior year in college.
5- I'm a karaoke freak and LOVE to karaoke! I even have my own machine that Teya and I like to get down on to pass the afternoons.
5 jobs I've had:
1- kitchen aide/dishwasher at a nursing home
2- Little Caesar's pizza maker
3- Usher at Mckay Event's center at UVSC
4- Waitress at Los Hermanos in Provo
5- High School Spanish Teacher

So that's a little more about me! I'm not going to tag anyone in particular, but I'll just leave it open like Mer did, and if you want to do this then go for it! It's always fun to learn random things about each other!

Horton Hears a Who Review

So last weekend we took Teya to see Horton Hears a Who. She loved it of course, she loves any cartoon that involves animals and can be watched on a huge screen with popcorn. The nice thing was, Taber and I liked it too, which is more than I can say for the last few movies we saw with her (Veggie Tales Pirates Who Don't Do Anything, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Bee Movie.)

I just thought the animation was AMAZING! The character voices were great (especially the mayor played be Steve Carell) and it wasn't too long. So, if you're looking for a fun matinee to see over the weekend, I would definitely recommend this Dr. Suess classic!

Confessions of a first time mother

I confess that before I became a mom I would watch other people struggle with their kids and think of a hundred things I would do different or better if I were in that situation. I would see parents letting their little kids talk back to them, hit them, walk over them, etc... and think to myself, "There's no way I'll ever let my kid do that! My kids will respect me! I won't be afraid to discipline in public! When I say 'if you do that again we're going home' then by golly, we're going home!!"

Fast forward to my life with a 2 year old. The other night I had a two-part experience that made me realize that this parenting stuff is harder than it looks, and that I have a long way to go as far as learning how to effectively discipline my child.

The first part happened when we were at dinner at a friend's house. Teya climbed up on their coffee table and was scooting around all over it which is totally rude and out of line, but for some reason I just kept visiting and didn't make her get down till Taber gave me the "are we seriously gonna let her do that" look. So then I said, "Teya, get down from the table" to which she sassily shouted back, "NO Mommy!!!" Now this isn't the first time that Teya has said that to me, so that wasn't the big wake-up call, it was seeing my friend's face when she heard Teya shout at me. Her eyes just popped out of her head and she looked at me like, "There's no way that would ever fly in my house!" If the "pre-motherhood Becca" had witnessed that scene, I'm sure she would've had a thing or two to say about everything "post-motherhood Becca" did wrong. How the heck did I become such a pushover?

So part two of my wake-up call comes later that evening when I'm reading a parenting magazine article that says that giving children external rewards for expected behavior is lazy parenting. It's a quick fix in the short run, but in the long run will teach children to ask "What's in it for me?" if every time they do something good they get a treat. When I read that it seriously took the wind out of me. I've always been more of a reward the good ignore the bad kind of person, so with Teya that's what I've done. But lately as she's gotten more strong willed, I've resorted to giving her treats to do simple things like letting me change her diaper, put on her shoes, turn off the t.v. etc... I've become a bribe-aholic and as a result, Teya knows that acting up will get her a treat because mommy just wants it to stop.

Well after these two revelations Taber and I had a really long discussion about discipline and where we've gone wrong and how we can do better. We put our plan into action today and amazingly we made it through an entire day of church and dinner with another family without one bribe or treat. That may not sound like a big deal but it's pretty huge for me. The amazing thing was that even though Teya had a couple of meltdowns, I was amazed to see that they were resolved as quickly without a treat as they would've been with one. Sure I had to be more creative, but in the end it was nice to see that Teya is still capable of intrinsic motivation and can actually be reasoned with without resorting to bribery.

So thank goodness for wake-up calls, parenting magazines, late night couple chats, and mommy perspective. Now when I see a kid giving their parent a hard time in public I only feel empathy and understand much more clearly that parenting isn't black and white, and takes a lot of trial and error before you finally (if ever ; ) get it right.

My Southern Belle

Somehow in the last week or so Teya has started picking up a very strong southern accent. It makes me giggle to hear it, but I also wonder where she gets it from. Most of her time is just spent with me, so it's not like we're around people with strong accents all day. I guess she hears quite a bit of it at church, but that's just one day a week.

So as far as her accent goes, she doesn't say ya'll or anything, but she stretches one syllable words into two. For example, the words "down, bath, self, and help", now sound like "day-own, bay-ath, say-elf, and hay-elp." The funniest is help because she says it all day long. "Mama I need hay-elp, hay-elp please mama!" Anyway, it is probably the cutest thing I've ever heard and I'll be sad when we move and she loses it. For now though, I'm enjoying the sweet sounds of my little southern belle.

Grandma's Visit

Over the weekend Teya got a special visit from her grandma Karen and great grandma Louise (Taber's mom and grandma) Who both flew in from Grand Junction Colorado to celebrate her birthday. Teya absolutely loved having them around and was calling them "Ga-ma Kern" and "Ga-ma Leeze" in no time. The funniest thing was, when she wanted both of them to come she would simply say, "Come on Ga-mas!" I thought it was so cute how she added the "s" to make her grandmas plural : ) Teya had fun showing her Ga-mas how she bounces in her bounce house and even got to bring them along to her singing story time program at the discovery center. She danced and bounced especially hard to show off for them. They left yesterday morning but it was so nice to have them in town and we will miss them lots until we see them again! Love you Grandma Karen and Louise! Thanks so much for coming out!

Teya's 2 year old pictures

Okay, be prepared for lots of pictures! My friend in Michigan that we spent Teya's birthday with also has a photography business, so she took a lot of great pictures while we were there.

Someone mentioned how much they liked the pictures from Teya's birthday and said that they looked professional. Well now you know why, they were taken by Laurel, my photography friend. If you want to check out her work here is a link to her website. Anyway, hope you are ready to enjoy some major cuteness. : )

Happy Twinner Birthday!

Teya turned 2 this week and we got to have a very fun and special celebration with her best friend Aspen, who also turned 2 on the same day. Aspen is the daughter of Taber's best friend, Nathan, who he's known since elementary school. Taber and Nathan grew up together, went to high school together, roomed together in college before their missions, roomed together after their missions, and then lived in the same apartment complex after they got married. So I guess it was meant to be that their wives would give birth to daughters on the exact same day.

For the big birthday bash we flew up to Michigan and had a twinner party with a pink and brown theme. The girls wore pink dresses and ate pink and brown ice cream cake, pink rice crispy treats, and pink and brown chocolate dipped pretzels. It was so much fun to see them together and see how much they love each other even though this was only the 2nd time they've ever met. They are very sweet and special girls and I hope that no matter where we live, they'll always have their special connection.