Why Clara's hair's styled like the latest boy band

Clara's hair is just long enough to the point that I can do actual hairdos now and I love it! She looks so adorable when her hair is done. The problem is that whenever we get in the car to go somewhere she pulls out the bow and the hair tie. It kills me! Any suggestions to keep her hands out of her hair?


This is what it is supposed to look like.

One of my favorite faces

Clara has two new favorite things: Buckets and Spoons. This is how she carries her new favorite toys. Another thing she really likes is fruit snacks. She likes it best when I put all her fruit snacks in the bucket, so she can see how many she has and pull them out one by one.
Clara also said her first word a few weeks ago. I came home from work, picked her up and she looked at me pointed at my eyes and said, "Eyes!" We were so thrilled. Now she can say, "nose," "yes," "no," of course "mama," and "papa," and we are working hard on "please." So fun! Love it!

It's about time for an update!

I know it has been forever! I apologize. This will be a doozy of an entry.

Joe and I celebrated our third anniversary on the 8th of August. Wow, it goes by fast! So after three years of marriage, Joe is finishing his last semester of school in December (wahoo!), our baby girl turned 1 on the 15th of July, and we are blessed in so many different ways. Joe is the ward mission leader for our ward (he had the same calling in the Singles Ward when we were dating as well). I am the Primary President. Between being a mom, a wife, having a job, and trying to fulfill my calling, I have stayed pretty busy. I like being busy though. It keeps me focused and gives me less time to waste doing idle, unimportant things.

In short, the month of June was a little bit of insanity. My manager at Eleutian left for the month of June to go to France (who does that? Especially to France…). He was chosen as the director of the French Study Abroad program at UVU. So he went. Guess who they chose to be in charge while he was gone? Yep, that’d be me. Not quite sure why, but they chose me. We had three of our largest accounts starting that month and there were lots of issues that needed to be taken care of. So basically from May 29th to July 2nd I felt like I was running around with my head cut off, my husband turned into Mr. Mom, and my little girl was forgetting who I was. I was working 12-14 hours a day, getting about three hours of sleep a night, the house was a mess, the Primary got 15 new kids and we lost a few teachers (gah!), so, (needless to say) I was feeling a little frazzled. It was the craziest month I’ve had in a really long time. Then, when my manager came back, when I started getting sleep again, and when we took a badly needed vacation to California for the Smalley Family Reunion, things started returning to normal.

The Smalley Family Reunion was a lot of fun. I am so glad that we went. Grandma Smalley was just thrilled to see Clara again. It is weird when you start seeing all your cousins as adults. It still feels like we are all kids really. Some things haven’t changed too much though. Bear Lake was also on the agenda. We didn't go at all last year because I was pregnant. So Joe was thrilled to be there!

We also had a bit of a scare at the beginning of July. I had worked from 4-8am one morning, and so while I was trying to get a little extra sleep Joe fed Clara breakfast. I woke up to the sound of her screaming hysterically. Joe fed her some bread and scrambled eggs. Shortly thereafter she’d thrown up her entire breakfast and was writhing around in pain. After about a minute, her little body went totally limp, her face and lips when sheet white and her whole body got cold and clammy. Then after a couple minutes of that she’d start screaming again. This went on and on for about 30 minutes and I was ready to take her to the ER. Joe and his dad gave her a blessing and then we took her to the doctor. By the time we got to the doctor’s office, she started responding to me and by the time she saw the doctor she was fine. The doctor told us that she’d probably gone into anaphylactic shock (an allergy similar to what happens to people who are allergic to peanuts) because of the eggs Joe had fed her. So we are taking her to see a pediatric allergist to check and see if that is really what happened and also to see if she is allergic to anything else. So for the time being we are keeping Clara away from eggs. Fun stuff!

You know, I think that in the past I’ve felt scared; but I really can’t compare that to the fear that I felt as I was holding Clara, feeling totally helpless, and just wishing I could take her pain away. Being a parent has added so many different levels to my feelings and understanding of the Atonement. It amazes me how well thought out the plan of salvation/plan of happiness really is. We experience relationships from so many different angles. In the parent/child relationship we first get to be the needy partner, the child, the one who receives. Then we take a step and get to be on the other side, the parent, the one who has to give everything willingly. Then he takes it even a step further and lets us observe that relationship on another level as a grandparent, as we try to teach/coach both our children and grandchildren how to make those roles work. I honestly believe that the family is the fundamental unit of the Gospel, central to Heavenly Father’s plan, because that dynamic helps us to learn more about Him and help us to be like Him; to act as he would act in that parental role.

This sounds silly, but I had a scripture make so much more sense to me after Clara’s birthday. That scripture in Matthew 7:9-11 says:
9 …what man is there of you, whom if his son ask abread, will he give him a stone?
10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If ye then, abeing evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

It sounds very silly, but in a small, simple way I have understood a tiny part of how Heavenly Father probably feels toward each one of us. There were so many things I wanted to do for Clara’s birthday; so many things I wish I could’ve given her and done for her. But instead of spoiling her rotten, I decided to give her the gifts that would help her the most developmentally. They probably weren’t the most stellar gifts, but I know they are the ones she needed the most. Which, brings us to Clara’s party…it was so fun!

Other news is that my mom and dad, along with Joey, Erinn, and Spencer moved out here mid-June. They closed on a house in Herriman (about 20-30 minutes from us) July 1st, and moved in shortly after Clara’s birthday (it needed a lot of work!). We are so glad to have them out here. It is weird but awesome to be able to see them whenever I want. Shannon and Travis are living in Sandy now, so all of us live within 20-30 minutes of one another. It is pretty cool. We all really miss McKay though. He has been on his mission since March. It was really tough on him in the beginning, but it is so much fun to see him growing as a missionary. He is a wonderful Elder.

Well that's about it for now! Congrats on surviving through all of that!

Our little chatterbox

Our little Clara is learning to talk. We have no idea what language she is speaking, but it is speech nonetheless. Also notice the wicked cool hairdo she is sporting.

Just thinking

I am so grateful for this one....

And this one....

I'm thankful for moments like these...


And a husband like this...

How wonderfully blessed I am to have people to love.

Humble Pie

Don't you just love those moments when you feel like a total jerk? I had one of those yesterday...a serious slice of humble pie.

There is a girl (I will call her Susan) that asked me to edit one of her school papers for her. Let me begin by saying that I don't mind doing this for people at all - in fact I rather enjoy it. The task appeals to my nerdier side. When Susan asked, however, I was a little put out. It is hard for me to describe why. Because of a couple events that had happened a few months earlier, I felt like I was being taken advantage of. Now that I think about it, I could've just let those things roll off and they really wouldn't have been a big deal, but, I didn't, and all of this was still simmering inside of me when she asked. I agreed to take a look at her paper and get it back to her by the day she asked.

When she e-mailed me the paper, I approached it rather cynically. The more I read, the harder it was for me to let go of my mounting frustration. The paper was riddled with errors that made it seem like she hadn't even read through the paper once herself. There were problems with most, if not all, of the internal citations. Many of the paragraphs were disjointed, jumping from one topic to another. In short, there were so many different levels to be worked on that, after two hours, I threw up my hands, typed out two pages of suggestions, and then gave her the recommendation of taking the paper to the Writing Center to work on the paper with someone in person. (I am such a brat!)

I didn't hear from her again after I sent over my comments, and I'm embarrassed to admit I really didn't think too much about it. Then, a couple days ago, Joe ran into Susan and she mentioned she wanted to come over and drop something off. I'm not sure why, but when Joe told me I assumed that it was going to be another paper or something. My compassionate Joe looked at me and said, "Just be patient with her Jenn."

Then, last night Susan stopped by while I was nursing Clara. Joe answered the door and I heard him talking with her for a few minutes. When I heard the front door close, Joe walked in with a card in his hand, and said, "She got an A- on the paper, and wanted you to have this to say thank you." The card was a gift card with a substantial amount on it.

I feel ridiculous for several reasons. 1) Sharing your writing with someone can be a scary thing, especially when it is on a topic that you feel really passionate about. She'd come to me for help and I'd let my emotions get in the way of producing a good effort for her; yet, she'd graciously and gratefully accepted what I'd offered, as menial as it was. 2) It took me getting something out of it to feel sorry for the way I'd treated her!

I am still amazed at how selfish and childish I acted. I never want to treat someone like that again. Yes, I was doing a service; but what good is a service if it doesn't change our hearts? What good is it if we do it begrudgingly? Service needs to change us, to movtivate us to be better, without thought of how it could come back around. It was a truly humbling moment, the kind I hope I never forget.

My Little Laundry Helper

I love my little girl! She turns the simplest tasks into so much fun. She can even make me laugh while doing the laundry! (And who knew that was possible?)