Some News

Clara has had a lot of fun things happen to her this week. On Sunday her 2nd tooth cut through her gums. It is not the tooth next to her first tooth, so she will look like a jack-o-lantern soon if the in between tooth doesn't come through soon.

The same day her tooth cut through, was the first day Clara pulled herself to standing. We weren't able to get that one on camera, but she now does it frequently, and thus makes it more easy to capture.The rest of the pictures are some of the cute moments we had this week. I'll let them speak for themselves. I love you Clara. You make me so happy!I had my birthday this week. Jeremy treated me like a queen. It was the best birthday I had in a long time, and we didn't do anything extraordinary. Jeremy pitched in and did all the house work he could to give me a "day off." That was one of the best gifts he could have given me. I love you babe!

This week also marked the "anniversary" of my dad's passing. It's been 6 years, so usually it doesn't bother me too much. This year brought a lot of memories though, and I had to mention how much I love and admire my father. He was a great example of service. He was a quiet person, and didn't talk a whole lot. However, he made up for his words in actions. He was kind to everyone and willing to help out even after a very long day of work. He loved his family more than anything else. He showed us how much he loved the Lord by always attending his church meetings, even though his job made it so that he frequently went to bed at 4 am the morning of Church. Thanks for your example Dad. I love and miss you!

Youth Conference

This last week was our Ward Youth Conference. We had a blast. We started if off by a fireside where our speaker was a retired FBI agent. He spoke about the importance of following the spirit, and of course told stories about how following the spirit helped him in his job. It was exciting.

The next day, we took a bus up to Salt Lake. We toured the state capital building, met the Lieutenant Governor, Toured Temple Square including going to the top of the Church Office Building and looking at the incredible view.We also went to This is the Place Monument, got a driving tour of the city, saw the Salt Palace, and visited Kennecott Copper Mine.The next morning we played games, where only a few minor injuries occurred. :) It was fun, and even the youth talked about how much fun it was.

Tagged

This one is for you Chely!

What was I doing 10 Years ago? It was the first summer I didn't go home from college. I went to school part time and worked 2 jobs, one was at a day care and the other was at a phone survey company.

What was I doing 5 years ago? I had just finished my 3rd year of teaching and decided to teach summer school.

What was I doing 1 year ago? I was die of heat. I was pregnant and it seemed like the hottest summer ever.

What did I do yesterday? I cleaned the house (mopping, sweeping, vacuuming, laundry); I played on the lawn with Clara, my friend Keri, and her daughter Addison; I walked to the grocery store twice. When I got home the first time, I realized I forgot something, so I turned around and went straight back. The only problem is that the shoes I was wearing ended up giving me blisters.

5 Favorite Snacks? chocolate with almonds, home grown tomatoes, white cheddar popcorn, fruit snacks, chips and salsa

5 Favorite books? Glimpses into the life of Marjorie Pay Hinckley, Les Miserables, The Paper Bag Princess, Guess How Much I Love You, and Owen. (The last 3 are children's books)

5 Places to run away? the mountains, the park, a friend's house, anywhere air conditioned, the gym

5 Bad Habits? snacking right before I go to bed, watching too much TV, road rage, playing computer games, always wanting to do things my way

5 Things I would Never Wear? Anything too revealing, anything too loud (like fluorescent colors), tall boots, downhill skis, tattoo

5 Pet Peeves? slow drivers, customers with more than 10 items in the "10 items or less" line, drivers who don't yield to pedestrians, gossip, people who lack responsibility

5 Things I enjoy? Playing with Clara and Jeremy, cooking (especially trying new recipes), playing games, a clean house, and chocolate

5 Favorite TV shows? Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Forensic Files, Are you Smarter than a 5th grader, early seasons of Gilmore Girls

5 Famous People I would like to meet? President Monson, President of the United States, Brad Paisley, Bill Cosby, Sandra Bullock

She's There

So in April, I posted a video showing how close Clara was to crawling. I've been waiting every day since then thinking, "Is today going to be the day?" Well, on Monday, it was finally the day! Clara is crawling!

Also on Monday of this week, we had some baby birds hatch from their eggs. The birds nest is below eye level and so close to our balcony, you can easily reach the nest. I've never seen baby birds this close before. It's fun to go and see their progress every day. Here is a picture of one of them opening their mouth to try and eat something.Also this week was an annual Beck Family race. This is a race that Jeremy's brothers plan and put together for the kids. And thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Beck there are even prizes. Here are a few pictures of the fun we had.

8 months old

I can't believe how fast my little girl is growing. I visited my friend who had a baby this week. Her baby was born 5 oz bigger than Clara, but I don't remember Clara ever being that little! Clara has definitely developed her own personality. I love watching all the things she discovers to do. She loves to look at books, her soft pink blanket, and being thrown up in the air. Here are a few pictures we took of her the day she turned 8 months old, which was on Wednesday.At 8 months old, Clara can do quite a bit. She can go from laying down to sitting up all by herself. I'm very grateful for that because she hated trying to crawl because she would inevitably end up falling onto her tummy, and then she got stuck. She would whine until I came to sit her back up. But now there is no more whining. Yeah!

Clara has also started to wave. I'm not really sure if she is just sticking her hand out and moving it, or if she really knows she's waving. Either way, Mom and Dad are always quick to wave back and say, "Hello." That way she learns what moving her hand like that means. Here is a picture of her waving at Daddy.Another first that Mom did this week was paint her toe nails. It was quite the feat. Dad had to distract Clara while Mom hurried as fast as she could. The end result was Clara being fascinated with the bright red fingernail polish for quite a while. It was fun to watch her grab the bright red things and be surprised to discover that they were her toes.Another blog worthy event that happened this week is the fact that we had no hot water for 24 hours. I called our maintenance man at 9:30 in the morning. He finally showed up at 5:30, but only stayed for 5 minutes. He said he needed to get some tools and that he would be back in a few minutes. At 7:00 he still hadn't returned. I needed to leave for mutual, so I called our on site managers letting them know it was OK to let the maintenance man into our apartment if I wasn't home. She then informed me that our maintenance man had called her to say he didn't know how to fix it! I was supposed to call a different guy. Since I was busy with mutual for the next 2 hours, by the time I called the other guy, he had already gone to bed for the night. He came over first thing in the morning though, for which I was extremely grateful. I really didn't want to take 2 cold showers in a row. Turns out, it was something I could have fixed as soon as it broke! Turns out the water heater breakers trip semi-frequently here. I did check the breakers the first day, but none looked tripped. So I found the one marked water heater and flipped it just in case. It wasn't tripped, so I figured it had to be something else. The second guy that came to fix our water heater thought it was strange that there was only one breaker for the water heater. Sure enough, there were 2. I didn't see the other one because the two breakers for the water heater weren't next to each other! Since I didn't know to look for 2, I figured I had found the only one. The second one was tripped, even though it didn't look like it. So we finally had hot water. I must admit that as I look back on this week, I felt somewhat nostalgic as I had to boil quite a few pans of water just to do dishes. However, at the time, I definitely didn't have that attitude. It really made me feel blessed for modern inventions!