It was a BOM Party! And a couple good quotes:)

This past Thursday I had the Young Women over to my house for what we called a "Virtue Spend the Night Party" and Book of Mormon Read-a-Thon. One of our girls took on the planning of the party as a Good Works Personal Progress project. She planned the agenda, the games, the videos we watched, went shopping for all of our food, made the food, and made other various preparations. It was a lot of fun! Though we didn't get through the entire Book of Mormon as we'd hoped to be able to do, we did get through a good portion of it and were able to each advance ourselves quite a bit in our quest to complete our Virtue Projects (which is to read through the entire Book of Mormon). I think it took quite a bit longer than we'd planned because:

A. Reading out loud goes much slower than reading to oneself

B. We stopped at least once as we read each chapter for everyone to write notes in their journals (a requirement for the project)

C. There were questions asked/ discussions about what we were reading

I picked them up at about 9:45 AM on Thursday and we started our reading at about 10 AM. We took breaks every 25 pages or so to play games, eat junk food and watch Youtube videos like this one: Dayton's Legs. We made an icee run that evening while Stace was putting Boo Boo to bed. I don't think I've had one of those since I was in elementary school! I don't ever drink non-diet soda, so I was feeling sick after just a few sips! But those few sips were goood. :) I vote they include Diet Coke in the flavors options!

That night we watched Napolean Dynamite (at their request!), went to bed waaaay too late, and then woke up and got back to reading! We ate lunch and then I I took them home about 1 PM. It was a great time and I think the girls all really felt it was time well spent. Though our numbers are small, we have such an awesome group of Young Women. I feel so blessed to serve with them.

I was reading through an old journal tonight and found some awesome quotes and thought I'd share them with you! Here goes:

"Nephi taught clearly that the Holy Ghost is the 'gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him' & that 'he that diligently seeketh shall find' (1 Nephi 10: 17, 19). The unquestionable reality is that you control how close you are to the Lord. You determine just how clear & readily available promptings from the Holy Ghost will be. You determine this by your actions, by your attitude, by the choices you make, by the things you watch & wear & listen to and read, and by how consistently & sincerely you invite the Spirit into your life."

Don't we all already pretty much already know that? But it's good to see it/ read it written out and spoken by an apostle of the Lord.

"Of this you may be certain: the Lord especially loves righteous women-- women who are not only faithful but filled with faith, women are optimistic & cheerful because they know who they are and where they are going, women who are striving to live and serve as women of God."

-both by Elder Russell M. Ballard

I read an awesome talk the other day and I will post the gems I found from that soon, too. :)

Father's Day Orlando Trip! (Catching Up: Part 7)

Every year we go to Orlando for Father's Day weekend with Stace's family and it's always so fun! We stay at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes, where there's the most beautiful and fun lazy river! (We stayed at the Ritz Carlton Grande Lakes for the first few nights of our honeymoon, so it's always fun to get to go back!) We flew into Orlando from Michigan and met his family there the next day. The day we got home from Michigan, we flew in pretty early. So we went back to our hotel, read some books:

took some naps and then went to Downtown Disney that night! It was so packed! But Julian had lots of fun taking in all the sights. The next day while we waited for Stace's family we went to Sea World. I didn't bring my camera because I was seriously all pictured out because I'd taken 700 ba-jillion in Michigan (I needed a break from snapping constant pictures), but I did manage to get this beaut with my camera phone:

A RAH-NU-NU boat! Julian was SO excited! He spotted the "BEEG Rahnunus" from a mile away. Once we got on the paddle boat, it was a little "wah, wah, wah" because it was SOOO hot that day! (I kept thinking to myself "how do people not from Florida handle this heat at theme parks?! I've lived here my whole life, and I'm literally melting!") so add the huge plastic life jackets to the mix, and we had a bit of a sticky situation. yech. Anyway, it is kind of hilarious how much he loves flamingos. I failed to post this picture from Michigan in my earlier post:

He has a real reverence for them, ya know? HA! Just kidding. He saw Daddy folding his arms, so he thought it was time to say a prayer;) My dad has several of these on one side of his garden/ yard, and Julian thoroughly enjoyed paying them visits;)
Anyway! While in Orlando we spent lots of time floating down the Lazy River! As you can imagine, it's a little tricky to bring non-water-proof cameras with you into the pool, so I got out of the pool and grabbed my phone for a quick second so we could have proof this year of chillin out, maxin and relaxin in this amazing body of water:



Julian had a blast with his Grandmama, Pop Pop, Aunt Candace and Uncle Berkeley as always!

And here's some proof of that:


Aunt Candace never fails to culture her nephew. Here she is showing him Dolly Parton singing "Puff the Magic Dragon": (Side note: Aunt Candace waited in line for hours on Saturday for a ticket to the Casey Anthony trial! And she was 2nd in line, so she got a front row seat behind Casey herself on Monday...duh, duh, duh!)

Aren't these two the cutest?!

Our little family:

Here is Stace's Dad opening the gift we made him for Father's Day: a book all about Pop & Boo Boo:

Stace's mom also got a special book/ late Mothers' Day present!

And of course, Dada got a special book all about him and Boo Boo:

And let's be serious, I hate this picture of me, but Boo Boo looks like a little cherub from heaven so it must be shared! :)

The men of the hour:

Me at 27 weeks pregnant:
(I'm currently 32.5 weeks!)
Julian was not having it when it was time to pack up and leave the hotel. The bellman noticed this as he was putting our luggage on the cart, so when we got downstairs, he presented Julian with a gift:

How nice was that?! Julian was pleased!
Our little family in our special spot: (can anyone guess why it's special?:)

We had a great time! Until next year!
I still feel so far behind in this whole catching up process, but I'm getting there!

Smarty-Pants Update

Julian is 19.5 months!

• On July 3, Julian began to take charge when he says his prayers. Instead of just repeating what we said, he started naming the things he's thankful for on his own. That night, he thanked Heavenly Father for "Grandmama, Pop Pop, Gigi, flowers and ponies." Since then, he has thanked Him for everything under the sun (including the sun) from "socctah balls" to "catfood" and "queso"!
• "Catfood" and "queso" are his two favorite "jokes" to tell! He will say them randomly and sometimes over and over again throughout the day just to make people laugh! Both words have little stories behind them, and you don't understand how cute it is when he looks at you and laughs (and waits for you to laugh) unless you know those stories. It's kinda funny when he looks at the random ladies in the store and says it as we walk by!
  
• He moved into his very own big boy bed on July 8 and hasn't looked back! He is so proud of his big boy bed. He LOVES it! He has never once gotten out of bed at night, and has only done so during naps three times. We just pick him up and put him straight back in it, and if that doesn't work after several attempts, we set up the pack-n-play. He really doesn't like that! But he really learns and remembers when the next time rolls around.
• We've started timeouts. He started swatting last week when my nieces were visiting, so timeouts began. When you tell him "ouchie, that hurts. No hitting." He says "mm, tiss" and then leans in and gives you a soft kiss right where he hit. Melts my heart. But also whenever he hits, I think he thinks it cute, so it makes it harder to have to discipline! :( But it must be done.
• He is OB.SESSED. with his cousins Caroline, Kate and Georgia. And they are obsessed with him! They all have so much fun together!
  
• He is SO fearless at the pool. It's awesome but also a wee bit scary! He really kicks and can propel himself forward really well. But his fearlessness has gotten to the point now where I can't take him on my own anymore (without Stace) because he is SO up and down and under the water and jumping here and there and everywhere, my belleh and I can't keep up!
  
• One of his new favorite words is "ambulance!" and then he imitates the sound of a siren.
• He LOVES to play with choo choo trains, and he can turn anything into a train very easily! He scoots whatever object he's holding along the ground and makes a "chugga, chugga chugga" sound followed up by "choo choo!"
• He is ob.sessed. with this song. Oh man, this boy can dance. He runs around all day saying "Mama! Dada! Baybuh!" and then singing "Baybuh! Baybuh! Baybuh! ooohhh!"
  
• Speaking of dancing, he's always been able to appreciate a good beat and take full advantage of it. It seems that almost any sound with any type of consistency, to him, gives cause to dance! He even gets down to the sound of my sewing machine and the ceiling fan!
• Last Thursday night during a ladies only church meeting, one of the husbands who were supervising the nursery brought him into the room we were meeting in by hand. Julian's eyes scanned the room until they locked with mine. He then grabbed his bottom and said in a slightly pleading tone "poop."
  
• He's been singing a couple words from the song "I am a Child of God" for several months now, but now every time I sing it, it seems he knows even more words. I might even venture to say he may know all the words to the 1st verse, he just hasn't said them all at once yet. I don't even sing this one that much!
• His favorites lullabies are "Hush Little Baby", "Families Can be Together Forever" "Bye Baby Bunting" and sometimes he even requests "Baybuh"...yeah, try turning that one unto a lullaby! ;)
  
• He has a new "monster" type voice. It's HILARIOUS. I need to get a video of him! The thing he uses this voice for most often is "Big dinosaur says RAAWWRRR! Leetle dinosaur says rar. BEEG DINOSAUR SAYS RAAAWWWWRRR!"
• He talks in real sentences now. They are short. But he pieces words together accurately and can string about three- four together at a time! The first time he really did this on his own was Father's Day weekend. He was recalling seeing mommy fishing in Michigan and Grandmama was asking him about it while we were in Orlando (future post). He then said, completely on his own, "Dada fish, toooo!" Yesterday he said "ready, set, go!" and he likes to play with the toy rocketship Katie and John brought to him last week and count off and then say "blast off!" He also loves to ask "what's that sound?!" he emphasizes EACH WORD and says each one emphatically.
  
• Last week Amelia observed/ said something like this: "Julian really likes to learn!" What she was saying is that it's not like we have to force him or sit him down and say "ok, now we're going to learn about each of these arctic animals in your Raffi Baby Beluga book"...he wants to know and asks lots of questions and sits on my lap and gets excited to point out each animal and their colors and the noises they make. He loves it.He also loves his buddy TJ!
  
• His interests span such a wide variety of things! He LOVES animals (especially the ponies outside his Grandmama and Pop Pop's house), cows he spots as we are driving in the car, puppies and kitty cats. He LOVES sports (he hasn't met a ball he doesn't like yet!), he LOVES music and musical instruments, he LOVES dancing, he LOVES books, he LOVES the pool, he LOVES dinosaurs, he LOVES "bubbaflies" (since we visited the butterfly garden here in Gainesville last week), he LOVES to have friends over, he LOVES his wagon, he LOVES to run (and still thinks it's hilarious to do so...he laughs the whole time while he's running), and he sure loves his family members (aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents).
  
• We were in the garage a few days ago, and he grabbed a tennis racket and said "HIT THE BALL!" I grabbed a mini beach ball and said "1, 2, 3!" and threw it to him and he swung it! After a few tries he was hitting it! It was awesome!
• Favorite foods: yogurt, cheese, peanut butter (he says it perfectly, but places particular accent on the "butt" part) and bread, grapes, crackers, blueberries, strawberries, oranges, peaches, pears (he's all banana'ed out lately, I think), tomatoes, pasta, black beans, ham, Goldfish, Kix, milk (still hasn't grown out of calling it "moot")...those are the things that come to mind now, but I know there's more. He still (knock on wood) will pretty much eat anything you put in front of him.
  
• He still says flamingo "rah-nu-nu"
• A few days ago he experimented with water colors for the first time! He loved it! (He loves to dip "deep!" anything, so getting to dip the paintbrush in the water was a real treat.) He always asks me to draw him rah-nunus and ponies.
• He LOVES to play with the bubbles and bubble wand outside!! He picks up his little baseball bat and says "hit the bubbles!"
  
• Still doesn't watch TV yet, and the only movie he's seen is his Danny and the Dinosaur Scholastic 15 minute one, and parts of Toy Story 3 back in my 1st trimester when I couldn't keep my eyes open. So there's that....Annnnd the Justin Bieber "Baby" music video. Oh wow. Such discrepancies. (I did turn on "Tangled" today for the sweet little girl I was watching, and he loved seeing the "pony!" in it:) We've toyed around with the idea that the new Winnie the Pooh movie might be his first movie theater experience!
  
• Yesterday we were about to read "Danny" and before I got to the first page, he said "One day..." which is how the book starts!
  
• He loves to say "Indians, bears, Eskimos, guns, swords, DINOSAURS!" (These are the things Danny sees in the museum, in that order.) He'll say it before we get to it in the book, or in random car rides I'll hear him reciting it. (Pronunciation: "Indyens" "Bayuhs" "Et-moes")
  
• This boy knows what he wants you to do and is not afraid to say it. On Friday we picked up Gigi and she opened the car door and said "Hi Julian!" and the first thing he said to her was "Gigi! Sit down!" and he pointed at the seat next to him. He has done this a lot lately to lots of people! Including Dada and I, TJ, etc.
  
• Last week his cousins came to visit from Monday- Wednesday. Even a week later, he wakes up from his naps and in the morning, runs to the front door, peeks through the blinds and says "Care-line! Wh'arrrrrrre you?" Then turns to me and says "Care-line: bye bye." He also thanks Him for "Caroline, Kate and Georgia" during every single prayer.
  
• We never really have trouble understanding what he wants and/ or is saying, and he always seems to understand us.
• July 25, 2011: I have been waiting for this day to come. I knew it would. Today he pooped in the bathtub for the first time. He wasn't phased.
  
• BABY GIRL IS SOMERSAULTING RIGHT NOW! hahahaha...this is awesome:)
• He still LOVES when we do "Boo Boo samwich" but he knows he has to say it in order for it to happen! ;) He says it with this sly, anticipatory smile on his face...it's adorable:)
• A few nights ago I was at church and Stace was putting him down for bed. Stace asked "do you want to say the prayer?" He said no. "Do you want Dada to say the prayer?" he said no. Stace then asked "do you want Monkey to say the prayer?" and he said yes. So Stace folded Monkey's arms and Stace gave monkey a voice and so monkey said the prayer. Julian chimed in and thanked Him for Caroline, Kate and Georgia!
• We've been working on "yes ma'am" a lot and he's gettin the hang of it:) He is really good at "please" and "thank you"!
  
• He has to have his monkey in order for a good night's rest in his big boy bed:) Ok, he doesn't have to have him, but he likes to snuggle with him:)
• This is also melts my heart: for the past week or so, he looks up at me with his hands outstretched and pleadingly says "Mommy, hold you!" And I say "oh, you wanna hold me?" and he says "yes!"
  
• He's quite the hygienic little Boo Boo: he LOVES to brush his teeth and wash his hands! And of course, he LOVES his bath, as always! Especially when it's in the "bathtub pool!" (our big bathtub) Good night everyone, he says!
  

Michigan Lovin: Catchin Up Part 6!

*Disclaimer* Sorry about the length of this post. I really should have gone to picnik.com and made collages, rather than posting each picture one by one and therefore taking up my whole blog homepage with just one post, but I'm way too lazy/ busy (I'm gonna go with busy;) to do that right now!
About a week after my birthday, we boarded a plane with Julian to take him to where I spent more of my childhood than anywhere else (besides home, of course): Michigan. It was way past time to introduce him to all of my family up there.

There is no such thing as packing light when traveling with a bebe! I was so proud of myself: I packed all three of our shtuffs into ONE suitcase!
My parents are both from MI, but moved to FL right before I was born. So all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and late grandparents live(d) there. My dad & stepmom just finished building a beautiful home on Lake Michigan, where they plan to live in when he retires...(but we all know that will never happen! He loves what he does too much.) The first part of our week was spent with them at the newly finished house.

My dad & Cheryl in the indoor kitchen preparing some pizza for the grill...

Stace & Boo Boo in the "outdoor kitchen" waiting for the pizza to finish grilling

It was so fun to watch Julian run around and explore in the beautiful Michigan air. It's what I used to all the time. I didn't need anything but an imagination when I was there. I could see that was all he needed, as well. He was so happy exploring his surroundings.

My grandparents have had a cabin in what is called The Slagle Trout Club since way before I was born, and now it belongs to their children. It has always been a requirement that in order to be a member of the Slagle Club, one must be a male. My dad is working to change this. Haha. He would:)

It is also a rule there that men are not allowed to do any type of fishing at the Club except for fly fishing; women are allowed to cast a spinning reel, though. I don't mind if he doesn't change this one! ha! (And I doubt he would do that anyway.)

My dad taught Stace how to fly fish while we were there...because if he's going to be a member, he'd better learn! My dad said that Stace picked up on it as quick as anyone he's ever seen. For my dad to be so complimentary about fly fishing (something he's a serious pro at) is kind of a big deal. I'm not surprised at all though:)

I have such fond memories of catching rainbow trout & fireflies and watching the hummingbirds outside our window at the cabin. Here are my dad and Julian exploring the Slagle grounds while Mama catches a few fish.

If you have been around Julian anytime in the last...oh four or five months, then you've heard him enthusiastically say "HIT THE BALL!" This is a line from one of his favorite books "Danny & the Dinosaur" when D & D go to the baseball game. Well, he was no different in Michigan. When our plane landed in Traverse City, he saw a plane ground traffic guider-guy outside our seat window and the man was holding a long orange spear type thing (I'm sure there's an official name for it but I don't know what it is!) and he was guiding the pilot to where he was supposed to steer the plane in order to reach our gate. When Julian saw him holding this long object, he immediately said "HIT THE BALL!" because everything with somewhat of a handle that is even slightly long is a baseball bat to him! Including this dog toy in MI:

So how lucky he was to find on the ground at the Slagle Club his very own miniature sized wooden baseball bat! He really does have a good little batting stance & swing for an 18 month old!



I, of course, didn't try to explain to him what it's real purpose is... :/
Back at the Lake Michigan house, we got to see this famous workshop my dad has been telling us that he now has:

And Julian got a little work done in dad's office:

And we admired the pretty flowers Cheryl has planted:

And of course enjoyed "the beach" (Lake MI is so big, it looks pretty much just like an ocean, and the sand makes it just like a beach!)

And Julian looked dashing as he was dashing around:)

And Baby Girl bump made her appearance at the beach too:)

Stace and Julian tried desperately to warn a bug from getting too close to the water, but he didn't listen:(

Stace tried out the sauna...

We said adios to el casa de Papa and drove down South to visit my mom's side of the family. I had to stop and show Stace the town of Frankenmuth, a place where it's Christmas all year long! We visited Bronner's: the world's largest Christmas store. Stace said it was like an IKEA, but filled with only Christmas stuff...I think that was a very accurate description! Here I am excited to see that Julian's name is not on Santa's naughty list! Phew! That was a nail biter! ;)

We then went to Pinckney where my Aunt Shelley & Uncle Jeff live and took in the beautiful scenery of their neighborhood while we awaited their arrivals home from work:


As always, it was so, soooo good to see them. They, along with my cousins Adam and Lisa and my Aunt Joanie, are some of my MOST FAVORITE people on earth. I love them with all of my heart. Good, good people with huge hearts.

We also paid a visit to the nearby "cows, chickens, goats, and ponies" (Julian still talks about them, usually in that order, and sometimes follows his list up with "Candace" ;D)

We rounded out our trip with the glorious tradition of visiting Cap'n Frosty's with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Shelley. He always treats us to this amazing ice cream every time we're there! One weird thing is that MI has THE BEST ice cream. EVER. Why? Why does one of the chilliest places in the US have way better (and way more) local ice cream shops than does my home state of Florida? It does not make sense.


Julian LOVED getting to ride on the airplane and looking out the window. Many people around us commented after each of our flights on how great he did and that they didn't hear him during the flight! This boy is too much.

We had a GREAT trip! It was what I asked for for my birthday from my dad. I could have asked for a lot of other things. We could have gone to a much more seemingly exciting locale. But this meant more to me than anything else ever could have.