Happy New Year! (finally)

I've had so much to post, but been so busy with family and the like that I'm just now getting around to the now. (I believe this is the second time I've ever posted twice in the same day. For some reason I hate doing this- don't want to scare away my 3 readers by overwhelming them I guess.) I usually think about having New Years' resolutions, but I honestly can't remember a time when I actually wrote them down and did something about them for the entire year. This year will be different! Here are some of the ones I'm most excited about:

-I will include a whole grain in every homemade meal. This goal is inspired by a course I attended at this year's BYU education week called something like "Those Wonderful Grains". I plan to type up my notes and share them on here very soon, but one notable reason for taking this on is that apparently the average adult is carrying around 15 pounds of extra weight in their colon!! Ew. We should be eating at least 50g of fiber daily, and most Americans get 5. This goal may sound intimidating, but really breakfast and lunch will be easy, it's dinner that I'm nervous about. For breakfast, I just plan to experiment by rotating through various grains cooked on the stove like oatmeal- this week we've been eating teff. Lunch, I'll be sure to eat my sandwich on whole wheat bread or whole wheat tortilla. This leads nicely into my next resolve...

-I will perfect the art of bread making (this includes pizza dough). Yeah, this is a bit ambitious, and how is this quantified? Not really sure, so I just decided to make some kind of bread product once a week. Hopefully after 52 pieces, I will at least be more knowledgeable.

-Jay, through inspiration of a good friend, has decided to avoid eating all refined sugar. Meaning that he will not eat anything he knows to contain sugar or corn syrup. Easy for him to say since I'm the one who makes dinner, no? Though I like the idea, I am pursuing a more mild version- I will not purchase anything with sugar or corn syrup, but I'm allowed to eat gifts and anything that we already have around. (including the 5 lb bag of sugar we already own) Honey, real maple syrup and molasses are allowed, but should not be used with the intention of replacing all sugary snacks.

-Not all my resolutions involve food. Probably the one that will be most trying to my will-power is my resolve to stop picking at my skin. I have the worst habit of poking around at things that are nearly invisible and as a result, they become quite inflamed and noticeable. No more!!

-I resolve to read at least 2 books per month- one is my book club book, the other will be of my choice. Haven't yet decided if scriptures can count when I'm desperate.

-I resolve to enjoy the now. Allow myself to be late and not kick myself over it. Enjoy all the times when The Frog takes his sweet time eating when I'm in a hurry, or poops at an inopportune time. Life's too short!

-Organize my craft room. It is the last room in our house to become livable, and I would like it to be my place of preference by the end of the year.

-I will get rid of all items I own and did not use last year. A fresh year needs a fresh start!

-I will listen to a foreign language podcast 3 times a week. Probably I'll start with French.

-I will use up half my yarn before buying any new.

Hopefully this will give me other things to write about besides The Frog. And now, another cute pic :D

Post Christmas, Pre-New Year

After Christmas, Jay's family came in town to spend some time with our family. Okay, let's face it. They really just wanted to be with The Frog. Despite that, they were extremely helpful and Jim helped us fix a few things around the house, while Pam was, as always, super handy in the kitchen.

Since we knew my family and his would be in town, we waited to have The Frog's baby blessing on the 28th of December. It was a really beautiful blessing and a big thanks to all those who helped out with the food at the "after-party" and helping me write down the blessing. I wish it were polite to bring a lap-top to sacrament meeting, because I know I type MUCH faster (and more legibly ;D) than I write. The Frog was blessed in the same gown that Jay was christened in, which I think is really awesome.



Pam outdid herself and made The Frog the cutest quilt for playing on, and it most appropriately contains appliqued frogs! :D



The Frog has also had a bunch of major milestones within days of each other. I already mentioned the holding head up on his tummy, he can basically stand up by himself now too-- he just needs help with the balancing part. Most surprisingly though, is the recent appearance of his first tooth! His second closely behind and visible just below his gums! It took many tries to try to capture the proof, but I finally snuck one in. Now we're working on teaching him not to bite while he eats. Ouch!!

Merry Christmas

Christmas was so great this year! Busy, but fun. My entire family was in town, so my mom had a very full house. This is the first year where the cousins have all been together and been old enough to actually enjoy playing with each other. The girls, especially "lil sis" really liked looking at "the baby". It was very cute.

I was very pleased to have a white Christmas this year. I was getting a bit nervous, but our weather pulled through and we got dumped on pretty much the whole week before. For me, it's just not Christmas without snow.



The highlight of my gifts from Jay was an MC Escher calendar. "A measly calendar?" you ask? This is no ordinary calendar. Jay shrunk down pictures of our family and cut them out and glued them in about 2/3 the dates, and the other dates have lovey quotations hand-written in.

I'm a sucker for homemade presents :)


The Frog also gave me the best possible present... he slept in! I couldn't believe it! It was the first time that I got to wake up naturally since he was born. Yes folks, I slept in until 10:20. I thank my family for wearing him out :D

Finally, we cheated and waited to buy a fake tree until the day after Christmas (50% off!) and put it up then. We don't have a ton of ornaments, but I think it's pretty cute anyway :D

Merry Smithmas!

Well, the Christmas Chaos is in full throttle- the whole fam is in town, cookies are in the oven, snow is falling, and the presents are mostly all wrapped. (Oh, I take that back. Snow was falling) I just love any excuse that gets the whole Janet-clan together :) And if that's not good enough, we get to have Jay's family in town this weekend, so we're surely busy.

We couldn't wait to give the Frog his Christmas present, so we already opened it for him. It's the famous Bumbo! Sadly, they only had 2 left at Baby's R Us, and they were both pink, so our little man will have to prove his feminine security by using a pink seat. I think it will be good practice for later.

The Frog has been mighty busy at other things as well. Nanny gave us some wrist rattles that I never really used much because he didn't really get that all his flailing was making that rattley noise, so I figured, what's the point? However, I discovered that if we strap them to his hands instead of his wrists, he enjoys sucking on their faces (one's a monkey, the other an elephant) without having to constantly hold on to them. (i.e. without me having to constantly stick them back in his hands) so that's been pretty fun for him.


Probably the most exciting thing, though, is today he finally pushed up on his hands!! I think it may have been a fluke, though, because we tried to get him to do it again, with my camera hovering, and he never did it again. Got close though... You can see him last week in his red sweatshirt, and then today in white. Maybe he's saving it for a Christmas present :)

PS Happy Birthday Joseph Smith!

The Tiny Tie

Sunday was quite an eventful day for the Frog. He wore a collared shirt and tie for the first time-- thanks Eva for sending it to us! He looked sooooo handsome. (Yes, I took this shot during church. I was going to wait to get a daddy-son shot, but the Jay pointed out that he might spit up on it by the time we get a chance, so I did it right then. Notice the typical Mormon pew in the background :D) It's still a bit big on him, hence the rolling back of the sleeve, but I just couldn't wait any longer for him to try it on.

I love how he looks like he's being reverent in this shot. ;)

Eva found this little number at H&M--ohhh how I wish we had them in Utah or could at least order things online. I haven't seen any ties for such a little guy anywhere else and I am inspired to try to make my own. We'll see...


The other big event on Sunday was that the Frog got to spend time (awake!) with his best friend Caleb. (even though he doesn't know it's his best friend yet...) They were born a day apart and have similar tastes in clothing-- they were both wearing Tigger outfits! The Frog swears they didn't even call ahead to check with each other, and I believe him. (Mostly because he hasn't quite learned to master the telephone yet.) The two boys are unaware that they spend over an hour together almost every day while their moms walk together, usually one or the other is asleep. Yesterday, though, they spent a whole evening together while their parents made/ate pizza and played Arkham Horror. (or Arkham "harrer" if Jay is saying it :p) We had a great time!