Fun Day at the Park

We sure have been loving the temp out here in Dallas. These last few days have been in the 70's, which is the perfect park weather. The area that we live in has the best parks. The particular one that we go to has two big ponds, a 2 mile walking course around the ponds, bridges to go over, and a huge playground. Bella loves to look at the ducks and feed them. She will bark (not quack) at the ducks to let them know that she speaks their kind of language. She loves to go swinging and look at all of the big kids. I love that it is getting warmer because being trapped in a small two bedroom apartment with Bellazilla can make for a very long day. She definitely has her fathers "can't sit still" behavior.

She is getting ready to walk. She will step one step before figuring out that she feels a lot more stable on her knees. Yesterday she thought that she would climb into the shower with me by pushing the trash can to the shower/bath tub and then stepping onto it to get into the shower. I did not know that she had done this until I heard her land into the shower. She always has to be climbing. To make it even better, I thought "well she is already wet and she likes water" so I decided to get her naked and realized that she had pooped and it fell into the bath tub with us. If any of you know me, you know how easily I get grossed out (as you can imagine I had to wash multiple times to feel like I was clean after that). It made for quite the predicament and needless to say it was not a relaxing shower. This girl needs to be tied down :). She is always getting into trouble. She definitely is more than I thought that I could handle, but luckily my prayers are being answered and I am becoming more and more patient with her (which is another trait as you all know that I am not blessed with). She does make life interesting and can always make me laugh with her curious behavior. I sure do love her and am so glad that she is a part of our family.

I know this is shocking, but I have done two posts in one day. The next one is a tag that I was tagged to do. So if anyone would like to be tagged, please feel free to do so.

My Man

What is his name? Ricky Lee Larson (Yes that is his real name :) )

How long have you been together? 7 Years

How did you meet? Our friend Brian set us up when I saw him on the soccer field with Brian. I
thought he was very cute and athletic.

How long have you been married? 6 years on April 13.

Kids? Isabella

How old is he? The big 30 and still going strong.

Who eats more? It honestly could be a toss up... I really do love to eat, but he does have me beat on most things except for chips!

Who eats more sweets? Definitely Rick. He loves his chocolate. If you ever saw that SNL with Mike Myers when he was pretending to be a kid at the park while having one of those leashes on him tied to a jungle jim (that spelling is for you Amy) with chocolate all over his face. That is what I picture Rick like with chocolate as a child.

Who said I love you first? Ricky over the phone while I was working at Special Olympics.

Who is taller? Rick He's 6'2" and I'm 5'5"

Who is smarter? Rick is smarter at sciences and politics while I am smarter at social sciences and history.

Who sings better? We pretty much both stink at singing.

Who does the laundry? We both put laundry in the washer, but somehow I am always the one that ends up folding it!

Who pays the bills? We both do and we both hate it!

Who sleeps on the right side? Me.

Who mows the lawn? Ha Ha that is comical, a lawn...What is that??!! Apartment living now going on 9 years. Love it!

Who cooks dinner? Me, Rick doesn't even know how to boil water... but Linda tells me that she taught Rick how to cook before his mission. Hmm, playing dumb are we :).

Who kissed who first? The Rickster!!

Who proposed? Rick at 1 am in the morning on the top of the Eiffel Tower (okay so it was the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower).

Who has more friends? Probably me, but he still has a lot.

Who is more sensitive? Definitely me, Rick is not a sensitive person. I can cry over those stupid Onstar commercials. Babies really do wreck your hormones.

Who has more siblings? I do 1 brother and 1 sister. Rick is an only child.

Who wears the pants in the family? We are equal :) Yeah right, it's me.

I tag Amy, Millie, Melissa, Megan, Katie, Liana, Karisti, Annilee, and Holly and anyone else who would like to do this.

HELP!!

Okay so I love my daughter a lot, but recently she has become a real pill (my mom's saying)!! I need help from all of you experienced mothers. So here is my problem. Bella is now 10 months old and has become very clingy and whiney as well as disinterested in food. I can hardly put her down lately to play on the floor and when I do she will just cry hysterically until I pick her up. Like yesterday for example, she has never been afraid of the vacuum, but when I brought it out she started crying and shaking. Is this normal?? Also with the eating thing, she used to love eating (as you can tell) and just recently she will spit out her food and close her mouth real tight so that nothing can get in. She does this with her fruits as well and she used to eat those within seconds. Now it literally takes over an hour to feed her which I don't like to do. Have any of you gone through this? Can you tell me what is going on or some advice on how to handle it? I am already not a patient person and she was so good with entertaining herself before that it is driving me crazy! HELP! Can I really have more than one child??!!

On another fun note, Valentines was a bust. I spent it alone with my cats (totally sound like an old cat lady don't I). Rick said he was at the library studying for a big test he had today, but it sounds kind of fishy to me :)! So I watched deal or no deal and ate the desert that I made (pretty much half of the cake). He did get the usual flowers and I really nice card so I did forgive him. I hope that all of you had a Happy Valentine's Day! Bella thanks the grandparents for the great Valentine's.

Sharing

So I know that Bella is only 10 months (in a few days), but I sometimes feel like she might be the baby that no mother is going to want their child to play with. She is not called Bellazilla for nothing. We had a Super Bowl party with our friends the Kraus's and their little girl Lilly. Lilly and Bella were playing on the ground together with some toys. Well Bella had a toy that Lilly wanted and Bella looked like she was going to be nice and share it with her. No such luck. Lilly grabbed onto the toy as Bella was handing it to her and then with all of her strength she snatched it right out of Lilly's hands. It was almost like she was taunting her. I am going to have a bully as a child :)!

She is getting to be so much fun and I can't believe how fast time is going by. She is now getting ready to walk and can take one step before she falls to the ground. She loves to drive around on her car and when the music comes on she starts to bounce up and down. I really feel like I have been slacking on picture taking and I know that I should be taking more. I will try to get better about putting more pics up here for you all (mostly speaking to my family who have been asking me where the pics are).

Also, I don't know if any of you are looking for some cute artwork for your kids room, but I love this website called farmhousefive.com . I have pretty much decorated all of Bella's room in it. I have put up some pics of her room.

Doing the laundry...

So Bella has now entered into the climbing stage of her life. She loves to climb everything including chairs, toys, and people. Too bad we don't have stairs to keep her entertained. She also is saying a few words like ma ma, da da, and cat. Okay so she mostly says cat because she thinks that the cats are much more fun than we are. She likes to show me where my mouth is, but sometimes it gets a little side tracked and she pokes me in the eyeball or up my nose. She also has super grip strength, which it is very hard to detach her when she has her tree trunks around me. I do know where she gets it from. Yes, I know you all are saying Rick because he is so athletic and strong, but you are wrong. Let me take you back to the good old days of the fitness center at Dixie College. Many of you do not know this, but I won the strongest leg competition. I know you are all saying yeah whatever, but really I did. I leg pressed 340 pounds. Holly can attest to it. I know that it is crazy and all with me now being only able to leg press a feather, but it was true. I have the certificate to prove it (Rick didn't believe me either until I presented him with the solid evidence). So as you can see she does get her super power strength from me and not her dad, who is very athletic and goes to the gym pretty much every night.

Here is a little video of one of her many adventures around the house. Don't worry no babies were harmed in the making of this video. She was alright after the fall and got right back into the laundry basket to watch Sesame Street.

P.S. I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. The spell check on the blog is not working and I am too lazy to read through this post again :).

Ode to Utah

So even though I love the Dallas weather and also living in the same city as the Dallas Cowboys, I have been missing home just a little bit. Here is my top reasons that I miss home and the top reasons that I don't.




Miss...


1. I miss family (of course) and your right Amy I do miss my friends a lot too :)!

How could I not miss these guys!!

2. I miss the mountains. I hate when spring and fall come around and it is tornado season. Not so fun to hear the sirens go off and also living on the 3rd floor of an apartment.

3. I miss Pizza Factory, Pasta Factory, Cafe Rio, The spaghetti Factory, Paula's (I know I am weird, but they have good beans and salsa...Oh and they have that delicious orange delight), and Nielsen's Frozen Custard. And now I hear about an In & Out coming to St. George... looking forward to my visits so I can go there too!

4. I miss feeling like I am normal :).

5. I miss it only taking fifteen minutes to get wherever you need to get.

6. I miss watching the news and having the first 20 minutes be about a cute dog that saved a turtles life and not be about all of the murders that have happened over night (Ahh Dallas one of the most violent cities :) ).

Don't miss...

1. I don't miss Salt Lake winters!!

2. I don't miss brushing off snow and then scraping off my windshield in a skirt in -10 degree temperatures.

3. I don't miss St. George traffic where some people think that even though the speed limit says 40 mph it really means 25 mph.

4. I don't miss seeing the injury lawyer ad that says "One call that's all" by that weirdo lawyer.

5. I do not miss Utah's construction on roads that takes over 4 years to complete a 1 mile section.

Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

I was so sad to hear the news of Pres. Hinckley's passing, but at the same time I think of his love for his wife and am so glad that they are together again. It makes me ponder about my love for Rick and how I am truly grateful for eternal families. Pres. Hinckley was a testimony to the truthfulness of this church. Even through my past inactivity and wondering whether or not this church was where I belonged, I always knew that Pres. Hinckley was a man of God. I am so grateful for his work and service for this church. He was everything that I needed in a prophet; he was caring, kind, light hearted, and spiritual. I loved hearing him speak and knowing that somewhere in his talk he would make me laugh. I loved when he spoke of his love for his wife and how it made me want my marriage to be like that. I remember when he spoke in the Dixie Center in St. George. I had purposely pretended that I knew how to sing so that I could be closer to him in the building. When he walked in using his cane and had his wife by him, I had chills and had a confirmation that he was a prophet of God. I will truly miss him. He definitely was a prophet for my generation.