Jammin'

With a little pushing from Jon I decided to get brave this week and make my own strawberry freezer jam. I grew up helping my mom make jam almost every summer, so I knew I could do it, but the thought of doing it "on my own" still intimidated me. Thanks to Certo/Sure-Jell, it wasn't all that difficult. Tiring for sure, but not difficult.

Here's 8lbs of strawberries and 16 cups of sugar worth of jam. Yum!

We decided to set aside some for visiting and home teaching families and a few friends, so we emptied some 6-ounce baby food jars, and I made my own labels with printer paper and packing tape. Jonny thought it was a little silly, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Part of Growing Up

Part of growing up is having a daughter who is also growing up. I know in many ways she is still such a baby, but in the last couple of weeks she has grown up in incredible ways. She is learning to communicate with us. She says, "Na-na-na" for "no," and she is beginning to call me "Ma" and Jon "Da." She also has a certain sound for "yes," and she jabbers to us like we know exactly what she's saying. She points (albeit with her whole fist in a kind of erratic motion, so it's still hard to tell what she's pointing to), and she waits for us to follow her. And, most exciting is that she understands much of what we say. If we say we're going bye-bye, she starts waving her hand wildly, and she will follow simple commands like, "Go get your blanket," and "Come here."

And in case that's not enough evidence that she's growing up....

She gets really excited when she sees me brush my teeth. We brush her teeth as well, though she'd much rather sit in the sink and chew on the toothpaste tube.

She's very interested in feeding herself lately. It makes mealtimes messier, but she eats better when she feeds herself.

Sometimes she even sits right up at the table. The tray on her chair fits perfectly under the table.

While she was sick she watched her first Disney movie, and her cousin Sophie would be proud to know that it was "Ti-nana and the Fog." She watched it almost in its entirety before she fell asleep on my lap.

She has taken to spending much more time with books, and I must say it makes me proud. She's even starting to sit still a little better while I read to her. Thankfully, she is still really good about turning pages carefully, so I don't have to be too concerned when she looks at them by herself.

This is one of her newest tricks. She brushes her own hair now, whether with her own brush or with mine.

Fishy Face - she laughs at herself when she makes this face.

She is learning the art of cleaning up her messes. Of course it's a work in progress (and if it's anything like my mom teaching me to clean up after myself, it will be a lifelong process....), but for now she thinks it's fun. She sat for nearly a half hour the other day loading and unloading this little plastic drawer.

Little Sick-O

Over the last few weeks (basically since her birthday), Netty has been sick with one thing or another. First it was just a fever from her 12-month shots, and it has ended in a stomach bug that has left her with a bad case of diaper rash. 

It's Chickenpox!

Netty had an adverse (yet mild) reaction to her chickenpox vaccine. The poor girl was covered in a couple hundred spots for a few days. Luckily they didn't cause too much discomfort. We gave her Benedryl the first day (which made her hyper), but she didn't need it after that.

Another view of the chickenpox

Seeing Netty sick and miserable has been difficult for me. I hate when she's in pain and there's nothing I can do to make it go away. It has been exhausting for all of us. Over the last few weeks she's woken up several times a night, screamed for hours at a time, and left us utterly perplexed at what else to try to make her more comfortable. Because Jon had school and work, I took the brunt of the sick-baby tending. The one positive from this whole experience is that Netty has turned into a bit of a Mama's girl, and she now loves to snuggle.

And finally, she is starting to feel better, at least some of the time!

Warmer Weather

After several beautifully warm, sunny days, we have finally thawed from the freezing winter. Of course the warmer weather has led us to many adventures at the park. Jon and I have always loved spending time at the park, and we are working hard to instill that love in Netty. So far she loves it just as much as we do.

Loving her stroller

Trying to stand - those darn stroller wheels kept moving, but she thought it was funny!

Nice Shades

Happy Girl

Seeing Through Netty's Eyes

Drinking From an Unopened Pop Can

After a Walk Around the Park

Jon's and My Arms - Can you guess who they each belong to?

Red Hair in the Sun

Giggles

Brrrr! It's Cold!

Annuals and Perennials

Every spring/summer when I was growing up my parents would by boxes of pansies and plant them in rows in our yard. Every year they died (whether mid-season or at the end of the season was a case-by-case basis). I always thought it was a lot of work for flowers that only lasted a short time.

Now I am married to a man who is quickly becoming a little obsessed with plant catalogs. As he takes more horticulture classes for his major, he brings home catalogs from class and thumbs through them, picking out all the flowers he is going to buy for our "someday-yard." We look through the pictures together, and as one who has never loved gardening, I think to myself, "This will be a good 'Jonny-project.'" But more and more lately, a few other thoughts have come to mind--annuals, perennials, and what they mean for me.

Annuals: My ward has a wide range of Relief Society sisters, from those who have been married a few months and have barely moved into the ward to those who have lived in the ward for thirty or more years and whose husbands have died of old age. Over the last several weeks in our Relief Society lessons, several sisters have made comments expressing a common theme, and this is it: life is full of seasons, and each season brings different responsibilities, opportunities, and challenges. Heavenly Father doesn't ask or expect us to do everything all of the time. This is one of the reasons why life changes so much--so that we can progress through all of the seasons and, over a lifetime, accomplish all that Heavenly Father has asked of us. Heavenly Father doesn't expect me at this point in my life to go to the temple three days a week, call every Relief Society sister who might be struggling in any way, and make dinners for everyone who is moving or just had a baby or had a family member die, AND take care of my own family. In this season of life, I need to take care of my family, including myself, connect with three sisters once a month through visiting teaching, and go to the temple as often as I am able (which is not all that often right now). In other words, I don't need to feel guilty when I look at all of the wonderful things that other Relief Society sisters are doing, because my seasons will come, and they too were in my position at one time,  or they will be someday.

I am grateful for annuals, which die at the end of each season so that when the next season comes, there will be room for new flowers to grow.

Perennials: One of my friends posted on Facebook a link to an article entitled "3 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Got Married" and a comment to that article led me to a blog post entitled "The Biggest Myth About Sex in Marriage" (click on the titles to read the articles). They brought to my attention this misconception about marriage that I have seen and heard at BYU-Idaho, perpetuated by both married and unmarried students--that marriage is all about sex, children, and "enduring to the end." Don't get me wrong. These elements are important. But until the last six months or so, I felt that my life now was completely about raising children and "enduring." How awful is that? Who wants to "endure" life? These articles helped me see what I've been feeling lately, that marriage is so much more than that, and marriages that focus only on sex, children, and enduring will in fact not endure.

It's no secret that Jon and I have been on a relationship rocket ship since we first met at the end of April 2011. We knew each other only a few short months before we were sealed for eternity, and in less than two years of that sealing, we will have two children. That's just plain fast. Moving so quickly has forced us to learn about each other, marriage, and family at an accelerated rate (and I was already at a disadvantage, having never been in a relationship before I met Jonathan). It also means that I'm just starting to understand things that many couples probably learn in a similar time frame, only they are only a month or two into marriage. One of those things being this: Jonathan is my absolute best friend. He is the first and last person I want to see every day. And what luck--we have forever to grow and perfect our friendship! What I have found in the last several months is that as Jon and I have become better friends, our marriage has become stronger. We have more fun together. We enjoy spending more time together. And we are more committed to each other.

I am grateful for perennials, which continue to grow year after year, getting bigger, stronger, and more enduring.

Perhaps by the time Jonny and I have our own garden I will love him enough to work in the yard with him....