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.

Bounce House in Action

A few posts back I talked about making a bounce house by setting up a tent in our guest room and sticking a blow-up mattress inside. Well yesterday I took some footage of the girls having a blast in there so I thought I'd put it up so you can see how it works in action.

Just some background info: Since the mattress doesn't fill up the whole tent I put blankets and pillows in the crack that it doesn't fill in case someone falls. So when Teya tumbles off the side towards the end of the clip, don't panic, she had a nice soft landing. In fact, she usually throws herself off the side a couple times when she's in there just because she gets such a kick out of landing in the pillows. Also, I notice the girls love it best when I play fun music for them to bounce to, hence the repetitive background music. A 3 minute plus extended version of raw footage can be seen here for the Grandparents and Teya's most die hard fans. Anyway, this has been such a fun thing to help us get through cold days when we're stuck indoors.

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Domestically Challenged

I've never been one of those people who loves to cook and as a result, I've never been much of a cook. In fact, before we had Teya, we did take-out much more than we ate in. Since Teya came along I've tried to make more of an effort and I thought I was getting better actually, until this happened:

Yesterday I was warming up some soup for lunch in the microwave. When it was finished and the microwave started beeping, Teya ran into the kitchen and announced, "Dinner's Ready!"

I guess I still have a long way to go if my daughter thinks the sound of the microwave means dinner is ready! It probably doesn't help that with all my pregnancy cravings, I'm sure she thinks the only reason we have an oven is for cookies and cake! I better hit the cookbooks and start figuring out more ways to prepare dinner that don't involve a microwave! : )