Goldilocks

Up to this point in her life, Brinley has been known more for her lack of hair than for her hair. However, she is finally starting to get some in (although she still doesn't compare to her cute little cousin Jacey in the hair department)! It's more like a mullet than anything right now, but I love it. The back is actually pretty curly. It's hard to capture such light hair on camera (especially with the tools I have), but I did my best to give you a view of her curly little mullet. I adore this girl.

Side view of the mullet


She is such a happy little girl!

Help me!

Today I feel a renewed sense of purpose. I feel motivated to do something good. After a period of feeling down it's good to be on an upswing again. This quote from president Monson I read today has a lot to do with how I am feeling.

"To live greatly, we must develop the capacity to face trouble with courage, disappointment with cheerfulness, and triumph with humility. You ask, “How might we achieve these goals?” I answer, “By gaining a true perspective of who we really are!” We are sons and daughters of a living God, in whose image we have been created. Think of that: created in the image of God. We cannot sincerely hold this conviction without experiencing a profound new sense of strength and power."

This statement really does give me a renewed sense of strength and power and I want to do something with it. What better place then in my home with my child, the place I spend almost all of my time.

So now, I need your help. For the first 8 months or so of Brinley's life I was in school and in transition and was never really a "stay at home mom." Now since I have been in Mississippi I am pretty much the definition of the phrase. I don't really know how to do it though. I am not working, and just have all day to feed Brinley, bathe her, teach her and play with her, but sometimes what I am currently doing just doesn't feel like it's enough for both her and myself. My questions is, what types of things did you do (are doing, or will do) with your child so that your days were interactive and filled with meaningful activities? Brinley is 11 months old, crawling like crazy, getting into everything. I feel like I don't know what to do to stimulate her. Somehow our days are always full but I look back at the day and don't even know what we did! Any ideas from mommies or daddies or even future moms and dads would seriously be appreciated. Like I said I feel motivated to make some positive changes in what we do daily.

Also, what did you mom's do, or what do you think you will do as a mom for yourself each day? What type of hobbies, work, community service, or whatever are you able to do while spending all day with a baby? I would really love some input! Thanks!

Of course, here are some pictures of Brinley!

Visiting Teaching

I never knew visiting teaching could be so.... difficult. Of the 6 people my partner and I teach, only 2 of them are active. Out of those 2, we were able to make an appointment with one and have had a very interesting time trying to talk to the other. She has done her best evading us. She said she does not want to make an appointment with us, but that we should just call her when we want to come. Of course when we call, then she is busy that day. It is possible that it is just a different culture and people don't make appointments. At Dr. offices they don't make appointments because if they did people just wouldn't show up. So maybe that is what it is all about, or maybe she just doesn't want us to visit with her. Whatever it is, I am glad I have a diligent partner because I probably would have given up already.

Today we were able to visit teach the one person we were able to make an appointment with. It was a good experience and good to get out and see a little bit more of Greenville that I hadn't yet seen. At the end of our lesson we told her that we were going to just drop cookies off to the inactive members and say hi. Sounds like a reasonable enough idea, right? Wrong. This woman strongly warned us NOT to go to these peoples houses. In the last 22 years that she has lived in Greenville, she has never even heard of any of the women that we are supposed to teach. We were able to look up their addresses. Apparently their houses are in a part of town that you just don't go to, especially without a male escort. And here we were, two young girls with two babies, ready to drop off cookies to their homes. I am so used to Utah culture and not having to worry about going anywhere that I forget that it is not quite like that here. I am grateful that I was warned and not led somewhere dangerous without knowing. I guess notes are going to be the way to contact our sisters. If nothing else, I am learning a lot about culture and life outside of Utah.

Well, we are doing great and having a good time learning and living. Here are some recent pictures of Brinley. She is growing up so fast!

Brinley now has 6 teeth! 4 on top and 2 on bottom. Here she is showing them off.


She loves my cell phone. The only problem is she loves putting it in her mouth.



Brinley has learned how to drink out of my water bottle. If I leave it any where she does anything she can to get to it.

Tradition, Spirit, Honor

So this week has been a big one for BYU Athletics. If you haven't heard the news, BYU has declared its independence...in football. Starting fall 2011 BYU Football will be an independent, or not tied to any conference (one of 4 in the country - Notre Dame, Army, Navy being the others). They made this decision for several reasons, number 1 being exposure. BYU and the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter Day Saints wish for BYU sports to be seen around the country. The Mtn TV network was simply not getting it done. BYU's other sports will play in the WCC (West Coast Conference) which contains other private religious universities. There have been many articles written about it. Here is just one.

The press conference was pretty cool for a BYU sports geek like me. ESPN (who BYU signed a big contract with) had the Vice President of Programming there explaining why they would reach out and sign a big contract to televise BYU's home football games.

My sister posted a video that was shown before the conference and I think you should take a look at it if you haven't seen it. You can find it HERE.

There are a few amazing videos that I have seen on BYUtv.org. I thought I'd link to a few of them. These 3 are my favorite: Click on the sports extras tab.

WE ARE BYU

FOOTBALL 2010

BYU FOOTBALL HISTORY

Some of the shots in the first and last video overlap but honestly, I could (and did) hook these up to our new TV and watch them over and again.

Also, BYU won a hard-fought game against the University of Washington on Saturday in Provo. I really wish I could have been there but was cheering hard for the Cougars here in Mississippi.

Bargain Shopping

I love bargain shopping. Getting something for pennies at a garage sale or from a thrift store can be so satisfying. Unfortunately in Greenville bargain shopping means getting something in poor condition for the same price as the same thing brand new. Really people? Somehow they can get away with it here. However, the other day I finally found a salvation army. It was a pretty sorry excuse for a store but I did happen to find a few things that worked. I got 3 outfits for Brinley for a total of 75 cents and they are all cute and in good condition. Add a book to that and the total came to $1.34. THAT is the type of bargain shopping I like.

Here is Brinley in her Ralph Lauren tennis outfit. She even wore it when I went to play tennis. haha.

Brinley has recently learned that she can stand up in her crib. The problem with this is that once she stands up she can't really get herself back down. So, although she used to be able to put herself back to sleep if she woke up in the night, she now can't because she is standing up.

This girl has been keeping me on my toes lately. She climbed up on these boxes under our end table. Keep in mind that we put those boxes there for the sole purpose of keeping her away from the wires that are behind them. Well I guess that idea didn't work too well. Anybody have any ideas on how to baby proof an apartment? I can't seem to figure it out.

The times are changing

Brinley has been growing up so fast lately. She is now 9 ½ months old! Since we have been here I feel like she has changed dramatically. Here are some of the things she has been doing:

Finally sleeping through the night! For the past two weeks Brinley has slept through the night every night. Doesn’t sound like much for a 9 month old, but for us this is wonderful. For the past three or four months Brinley decided that she wanted to wake up every 3 hours on the dot, all night long. I had forgotten what it was like to actually sleep at night. We did recently move her into our closet (a little Harry Potterish, I know). It’s the darkest place we could find and it has seemed to do the trick.

Brinley is also finally eating food. For some reason she would never eat ANYTHING before we moved out here. She wouldn’t even take a bottle, meaning that she could never leave mom for more than 3 hour period. So lovely. As soon as we got here she became an eating champ. She will eat virtually anything. She has mostly had just baby food but has occasionally had bites of mom and dad’s food. Her favorite: otter pops. She is just like her mom.

Brinley has finally started crawling! She still prefers army crawling to crawling on her knees, although she can do it if she wants. She crawls all over our apartment, eating anything she can possibly find, the toilet being her favorite. Needless to say we keep the bathroom doors closed.

She can pull herself up onto our coffee table and walk all around it. This is the best toy we have right now. She also loves to walk around holding our hands.

This way is more fun anyways.

I love this picture. She looks so grown up with her jeans and shoes, standing up.

This little munchkin really is at a fun stage right now. We love playing with her. We are so lucky to be a mom and dad and have this little girl to take care of. I couldn’t ask for anything better!

Greenville Mississippi

I promised I would tell you some about where we are living. So here it is! For the next 2 years we will be living in a little town called Greenville in Mississippi. Brent is going to be teaching in Lake Village in Arkansas about 20 minutes away. We opted to live in Greenville for many reasons. For one they actually have things, i.e. a grocery store. There are also people here and places to live for a decent price. All in all we are happy with our decision to live here and have enjoyed it so far. Here are some things about Greenville:

The water is brown. Brent claims that it is safe to drink but it scares me half to death. I guess I developed a water complex after living in Thailand where we couldn’t drink the water. I have got up the gumption to drink some. I don’t particularly like the taste of it but I guess it’s time to deal with it.

The people are awesome. Everyone is extremely friendly. We have had a few encounters while we’ve been out where we have ended up talking to strangers for hours. Southern hospitality. It’s a real deal.

There are some really cool little areas around here. There is what is called a Cypress Slough (pronounced slew) about 15 seconds from our apartment. It’s a marshy area where the cypress trees grow out of the water. There are places like this all around. It really is beautiful. Here are some pictures of the one next to our apartment.

The green stuff is actually water. It just has a layer of something on top (not sure what it is).

I just can’t wait until we find an alligator in it. Our one alligator hunt didn’t end up producing any alligators for us. My one goal is to see one before we leave.

Fried foods. Need I say more? So far we have had blackened catfish, fried catfish, fried oysters, fried shrimp, hush puppies, and of course my favorite, fried frog legs. Yum!

I have learned that plenty of people don’t really speak English down here. I am not really sure what language they are speaking. All I know is that I do not understand.

Walmart has now become my favorite store. I was never much of a walmart shopper but I almost live there now. Greenville, as big as it is, has the one movie theater within a 50 mile radius. It has a mall that has a total of 3 stores in it. I have yet to find a craft store or any fabric stores that I dare go into. Well at least I won’t be tempted to shop while we are here!

We are looking forward to the fall when we can go outside for thirty seconds without sweating out all the water we drank in the last 24 hours. We really are having a great time learning to make new friends and navigating a new place. Here are some pictures of Brinley since we have been here.

At Walmart on a futon couch. She loved it.

We miss you all and can’t wait until we see you again!