la zoo

while in la for christmas, the whole family went to the la zoo to revisit a favorite childhood place.  it's changed a great deal in 25 years, but it was still fun.  everyone saw the animals they wanted too, a a few more, besides, plus, the bonus: a baby hippo was born this year, and we had some great views of the little guy!  he was playing in the water, frolicking around, and was just too cute.  i love the zoo, and lily loved seeing all the different animals.  she's a little obsessed.  unfortunately, our visit was cut short due to a nursemaid's elbow situation that we had to take care of.  

flamingos!

this monitor was incredibly active and lily was fascinated.

i love my people.

we saw koalas!
this is why i needed to go to the zoo.  koalas and pandas are my favorite things.

giraffes!
lily loved that there was a "daddy, mama, and baby!"

monkeys

aunt kerry love!

we saw daniel tiger!

the baby hippo and his mama

christmas {2014}

we headed south to la for the holiday.  all three of my brothers and sister-in-law flew in from various ports, so my parents, kevin, lily, & i caravanned down to meet them at my uncle's house.  it was so wonderful to have the holiday with everyone around, to see lily moving around to her various aunts, uncles, and cousins, and having so much fun being spoiled.  the only downside was that lily had a reoccurrence with nursemaid's elbow, so we spent a couple hours in urgent care getting that taken care of.  woohoo.  afterwards, we went to my aunt donna and uncle george's house for a klima/mcleary christmas afternoon, so it worked out pretty well.  all in all, it was gorgeous weather and a good time was had by all.  and santa managed to find us, even in la!

road tripping in style

lounging with uncle chris

playing catch with uncle chris & uncle ben.
lily kept yelling, "again. again."  i'm pretty sure she's a daredevil.

mornings with grandma

spinning with grandpa

uncle ben gave lily "the night before christmas"
and read it to her on christmas eve.  they were so cute together.

uncle george believes in being festively attired.

an actual spinning toy, courtesy of grandma and grandpa.
this was her favorite thing to find on christmas morning.

this is how my uncle's family does breakfast on christmas morning.
it was a little overwhelming.

uncle jeff and aunt kerry gave her a cabbage patch kid.
i have the same one! (my grandma gave it to me when i was four or five)

chris has a dog named dizzy.  my uncle's wife, stephanie, loves her and
was heartbroken when chris moved dizzy to ohio with him.  so for christmas,
stephanie received a blanket with a very large dizzy on it.  it was a hit.

lily loves a kazoo

some serious side-eye.

arguing with uncle jeff about who the "silly goose" is.
i'm pretty sure it's a tie. 

lily-isms

lily has been growing by leaps and bounds lately.  her articulation, vocabulary, and conversational skills have improved dramatically.  it is always fun to listen to the things she says and what she comes up with.  i am absolutely loving this stage.  here are some of my favorites:

lily knows how to access the camera on my iphone, and loves to take pictures.  she also has a toy camera that she plays around with.  but the best part is when she says "smile" while snapping the photo (well, photos...she just loves to hold her finger on the button for the rapid click) and then as soon as she takes the photo will say, "oh, how cute."  obviously this is a child who has had a camera in her face quite a bit in her two short years on this earth, and has picked up a few things from Mama and Daddy.

for the longest time i have played the identify game with lily (you know, where's your eyes? where's the tree? etc).  very recently, she has started playing it with me.  "where's mama's chin?  where's mama's glasses?  where's the balloon?"  it is hilarious to have her turn the tables, and to watch her look for things around the house for me to find/identify with her.  also, it is pretty adorable.

lily has picked up a few phrases lately.  "ohhhh, man" and "oh, my goodness" are her latest.  it cracks me up to hear pretty adult expressions coming out of such a tiny body.  plus, her exaggeration on these exclamations could not be cuter.

"i do it" or "lily do it" are pretty common expressions to hear from her.  there are way too many instances to name in which she is exerting her independence, but by far my favorite one is getting dressed.  lily loves to pick out her own clothes for the day, and dress herself (with a little help getting the clothes on).  sometimes her outfits make sense and are coordinated, and sometimes, well, sometimes it is extremely obvious a toddler put the outfit together.  i love that she is figuring out what she feels like wearing, what she likes (she definitely has favorite pieces), and has such a strong opinion about it.  it's fun for me to watch.

lately, lily's imagination has been taking off.  a few days ago, after we got home from me picking her up from the sitter, she climbed into the front seat of the car, and started driving.  she told me to climb in to the passenger seat, and we spent about 20 minutes "driving" to go see jessica (her sitter), emma and jordan (jessica's kids).  she kept up a running stream of chatter about the fun they were going to have, made car noises, and kept telling me to buckle up (even though she unbuckled herself because she couldn't reach the steering wheel when she was buckled.  hypocrite.).

driving to see jessica, emma, and jordan.
also, this is an outfit she put together.  it is one of her better combinations.

honestly, toddlers are just sheer entertainment value.  

missionary work

this past sunday, our stake presidency asked us to fast so that we might have opportunities to share the gospel this holiday season.  sometimes i hear rumblings that too big an emphasis is placed on member missionary work, that it is all anyone in the stake presidency talks about during stake conference.  that makes me a little sad, and a little irritated.  not only did we covenant to be missionaries when we got baptized, but i sit here as the daughter of two converts who were introduced to the gospel by member missionaries.

when my dad was a kid, his neighbors were mormon, and they had a home teacher who shared the gospel with a widow (my grandma) and her two young children (my dad and aunt).  this man later baptized them, and became a father-figure to my dad.  grandma wasn't necessarily looking for a church to join.  a brother fulfilling his calling as a home teacher to one family introduced another family to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

my mom is the daughter of a methodist minister.  she was not looking for a new church to join.  she was fairly content with what she had.  when she was backpacking through hawaii as a teenager with her friends and brothers, a stranger stopped on his drive home during a torrential downpour, prompted by the spirit, and took the group of six hippy-looking teenagers to his house and allowed them to use his shower, fed them, and then invited them to join his family for family home evening.  he declined their invitation to go snorkeling the next day because he and his family were going to church.  this man and his family were mormon, but they did not preach at my mom or the rest of the group.  they took strangers in, washed them, fed them, and found room for them.  they were examples of Jesus Christ.  from this encounter, my mom and one of the other women in the group were receptive to the spirit when they were again introduced to the gospel by separate people and baptized.  my dad was the member missionary who more fully introduced my mom to the gospel.  she was baptized and they married a few months later.  a year after their wedding, my parents were sealed in the los angeles temple.

i am a daughter who is sealed to her parents, a sister sealed to her brothers, a wife sealed to her husband, and a mother sealed to her daughter, for time and all eternity, because of member missionaries. do not discount the impact you have when you invite someone to your home, to an activity, when you discuss the gospel and church attendance as part of your everyday life.  when you let your light shine, others are touched by it.  you might not see the result of your interaction.  the gentleman who stopped and helped my mom and her group in hawaii?  he has no clue what became of his following the promptings of the holy ghost.  two women found the fullness of the gospel, were sealed to their spouses in the temple, had children born into the covenant and were in turn sealed to their spouses, and now have grandchildren born into the covenant.  a group of people have a positive association with members of the church because of members who were kind and reached out without expecting anything or being "preachy."

member missionary work is exceedingly important.  people like me are in the gospel because someone was an example of Christ and reached out to those around them.  just let your light shine. do not discount the impact you can have for those around you and the eternal nature of their family.

musings

toddlers are like cats.  they can see in the dark, sneak up on you when you least expect it, get into awkward positions/places, think the world revolves around them, and demand constant attention.

i busted my butt and got everything baked, bought, wrapped, mailed and decorated by the first week of december.  i feel ready for christmas and am enjoying the fact that i can basically relax and truly enjoy the holiday season.

the energy of the temple at christmas as families walk around and look at the lights reminds me of disneyland at christmas.  families are together, people are happy, and there is such a wonderful, magical, peaceful energy that surrounds the area.  i love it.

the older lily gets, the more i enjoy her.  she is a little kid and finds the oddest things hilarious.  i love getting into her world and going along for the ride.  and i love that she is old enough to go on various adventures and really participate and enjoy them.

the instant gratification of instagram and facebook have had a detrimental affect on my blog.  i'm not updating this space as much because instagram is just an in-the-moment blog (so to speak).  i need to get better about updating my blog, because (for better or worse) this is my journal and history.

i am getting the urge to update my space.  i feel the need for a new color palette on the walls.  the down side is, i am forbidden to paint (apparently i am an enthusiastic but horrible painter) and need to find a way to get kevin to do it.  and find the time.  also, the colors i am leaning toward (bright and "poppy" palettes) are so not in kevin's wheelhouse.  somehow a compromise of sorts must be reached.

my favorite part about decorating the christmas tree is the memories that come with the ornaments we unpack.  everything on the tree is related to a trip i/we have taken, a specific moment in my/our life, or the people i was with at the time the ornament was purchased.  it is a nice trip down memory lane and i love adding to the memories every year.

i would be totally down for co-sleeping with lily because she is a great cuddler.  she nestles against your back and is a little furnace.  plus, if she's already in bed with us, she won't wake me up when she does her nocturnal wanderings.  also, when she is asleep, i don't have to answer the same questions about where the moon, the firetruck, the trash truck, and the dump truck went 500,000,000 times/hour.  she's persistent and dedicated to her obsessions.

ireland {2014}

kevin and i were able to go to ireland for a week.  we ditched the kid and had an adventure overseas!  we landed in dublin, spent a day there, and then drove to galway for a day, followed by the cliffs of moher, then kilkenny, stayed in a castle in wexford (!!!!!), and then back to dublin for a day before taking off back to reality (i.e. home).  it was a grand adventure.  we saw lots of castles and ruins, gorgeous scenery (seriously, the whole country was colored by crayola....so pretty), made random stops, had some amazing food, and enjoyed being sans kid for a week.  between the two of us, we managed to take 1,313 photos.  i know, we're ridiculous.  and before kevin rats me out, i will tell you i was obsessed with the georgian-era doors (and other style doors, too) and took 137 photos of doors.  just doors.  did i mention i'm obsessed with architectural details?  and the georgian-era doors in ireland hit pretty high on my inner-geek scale.  below is a small sampling of our 1,313 photos.

ha'penny bridge and the river liffey
{dublin}

the irish famine memorial.  this gets me right in the feels.
{customs quay, dublin}

ha'penny bridge
{dublin}

christ church cathedral
{dublin}

door obsession
{christ church cathedral, dublin} 

we found a castle!
we came across it while driving to the cliffs of moher and had to stop and walk around.  so pretty!
{dunguaire castle}

the cliffs of moher.  it looked like a movie set.

seriously, how is this place real?
{cliffs of moher}

the scenery as we drove down the motorway. just gorgeous.

kilkenny castle

kilkenny castle

a post office box from queen victoria's time.
you can see her insignia at the bottom.

the colors!  the details!  

our hotel in wexford
{castle kiliane}

ferns castle

farewell dublin.  it's been grand!