The Book of Mormon

So this motherhood thing has been a little tougher than I orignially anticipated. I won't go into all the details....most of that is a couple of posts down. One of the hard things is church. I never realized how hard it is to have young kids in church. It would be very easy to go inactive for a while if you didn't have a strong testimony. Since Regan was about 4 months old, church has just been something you do just because you want to be obedient to the commandments...not really because you want to learn how to be better or gain any sort of spirituality. They don't sit still through any class. Just today Regan peed all over the hardwood floor in the back during sacrament and I spent a while cleaning her up and cleaning the big puddle she left. Kind of hard to listen to speakers when your kid has turned into a garden hose right in the middle of church. And the girls have crazy sleeping schedules so it seems hard to squeeze in meaninful scripture study. So what I'm getting at is I don't feel spiritual or as spiritual as I used to. I don't feel as strong as I used to. I just feel drained. It is easy to get discouraged when I feel this way and I DON'T LIKE IT!!!!!
I have desperately wanted to boost my spirituality and feel some incling of the spirit again in my life. I decided that I needed to start reading the Book of Mormon again because instead of being a daily thing it is hit-and-miss (more miss than hit). So last week I started getting up earlier before the girls woke up and I read the BOM for at least a half hour. The first three days were amazing!! I felt calmer. I felt more patient. Regan had another big mess and I didn't even freak out a little bit. I felt more love for my children and for being a mother. I felt my burdens being carried a little. I don't really like to share personal stuff like this on my blog, but I felt the Lord tell me to share it. I don't know why. I think the Lord gave me this gift and then wanted me to help Him by sharing it. In the last couple weeks, I have only missed a couple of days of reading and I have noticed a difference in the days I do and the days I don't. I'm not feeling totally great yet, but I know that if I keep reading that I will gain the spirit that I want in my life. So if you haven't been reading then start again. If you haven't ever read it, then read it. It will change your life.

Reganisms and Sophieisms

Sophie has been saying words right and left and I wanted to jot down some of them before I forget. She will be 15 months in a few days.

Up, daddy, mama, no, cwacker, cereal, bubble, box, hot, walk, baby, boo, moo, meow, quack, neigh, woof, bye bye, hello, hi, nummy-num (which means she wants something to eat or whatever you're eating RIGHT NOW!!). She loves to play with my phone and will put it up to her ear and say "hello-ello" and it sounds like some Japanese lady who's in a hurry.

Ok I have already started to forget some of the words, but she tries to say words we say and is too stinkin' cute. When Regan and I are singing she tries to sing too. She does not stop moving. Most of the time when it's getting late and she should go to sleep, she will keep moving until she finally "hits a wall" and crashes where ever she is.

Regan loves singing and knows so many songs that I can't even count. She likes to mix and match songs as well just to spice things up a bit.

Here are a couple examples:

"The Sophie on the bus goes (insert Sophie's crazy, alien noise here)...." Then when Regan starts making the noise, Sophie has to join in.

"Head, shoulders, knees and toes...all through the town!"

Jason and I like to tease her a bit with the Wonder Pet's song. We will say something like, "Regiroo, Regiroo we're on our way..." and she get's mad and says "NO!! WONDER PET'S!!" Or we ask her what she wants to sing and when we start singing somethingthing she'll get mad, "NO!! WONDER PET'S!!". She is my little drama queen. She knows how to whip out her fake cry and boy does she work it! She'll come up to me with her pouty face and fake cry and say, "My cwying!"

"Well what's the matter"

"My CWYING!"

Oh, I get it now. She really has kind of hit the terrible twos. Full on tantrums, and mischevious mayhem, yet she can say the funniest things:

When I go to the bathroom, both girls usually have to be right there and Regan usually says,

"Such a big girl, go poo poo in the potty." She has heard me say it to her so much that she feels the need to compliment me on my acomplishments as well.

"Look mama! It's a baby bread (with a scrunched up nose and high squeaky voice), it's so pretty!"

Here is a funny little story that I want to remember later. I was in the living room folding towels and Regan was in the kitchen when she said without any panic in her voice, "Mama, dere's a spider right dere."

"Oh really?", not really paying attention.

"Dere's a spider right dere mama!"

I get up not expecting much because she thinks most bugs are spiders. I get to her and she has her hand up with her fingers spread and I see a big, black cricket sitting on her middle finger! She didn't move a muscle and just kept saying, "dere's a spider right dere". I quickly got a paper towel and caught the cricket (luckily he didn't move a muscle either). After it was off her she put her hand to her chest and said, "dat spider scare me". What a stinkin' brave girl! What other normal person would not shake convulsively to get that thing as far away as possible?

I hope I am not the only one who deals with kids who have night time sleeping issues. Regan HATES to be alone esp. at night when she goes to bed, so we lay down with her until she goes to sleep, and I'm a bit embarassed to mention that she sleeps on the floor of our bedroom (that's a whole other tangent). A few times a week she will just lay there and not go to sleep. After an hour or more i can't take it so I say that I'm going to go the bathroom or something just to see if she will stay and go to sleep on her own.....oh no....she comes out with her blanky...

"I'm awake" think of a sweet little angelic voice, not the one that just screamed at me earlier in the day.

"I know your awake. You need to be asleep. Why don't you go lay down."

She gives me a big hug. "I'm glad to see you" She's milkin' it.

Awwww..."I'm glad to see you to, but you need to go back to bed. It is very late."

Another big hug, with the Super Duper sweet little angelic voice, "Mmmmmm, I lub you mama."

She is really soppin' it up here.

"Ok, ok, you can stay. Go sit by your dad and go to sleep."

You know they say that adults are smarter than kids, but who ends up getting what they want the most? Not me, that's for sure. Not when she breaks out the Super Duper sweet little angelic voice. She knows exactly what she's doing.

P.S. I hate when blogger won't let me put spaces in between paragraphs!!!!!!!

Burnham Family Reunion

I've been kind of MIA for the last couple of weeks. The week of July 4th we had a family reunion in Heber, AZ and went camping with a bunch of family that I hadn't seen for a long time. Regan and Sophie took advantage of their new found freedom and had a blast swimming in the dirt (literally for Sophie). Half the campsite is now down my parents bathtub drain because of those two alone.

I got to see Kandra and rub her expanding belly. She looks smaller in person than in her blog pictures. She is very cute and we had a little family baby shower for her that turned out really nice. Jared unfortunately didn't stay out camping with us (the big baby) and opted to stay at his parents house instead.

Poor Wendy couldn't be there because the retina in her eye detached a few days before and she had to have surgery during the reunion. We missed having her there and I especially missed poking her squishy-jello bum. We did go over to Lakeside to see her before we left though.

The 4th of July fireworks show was great as usual and Sophie and Regan managed not to scream bloody murder this year. They actually fell asleep during them...crazy kids. I wanted to take more pictures but I didn't want my nice camera to get all filthy. I had it in the car and Jason was changing Sophie's diaper and she reached up and pulled it down on her face and chipped her front tooth. Nice...now she'll be a hill-billy baby until it falls out in another 6 years. Regan got curious with a prickly pear cactus and I spent 45 minutes trying to get the tiny thorns out of her hands. But that was the worst of their injuries thank goodness.

Here is a big high five to my mom for all the hard work that she did to put EVERYTHING together. This wouldn't have been a good reunion without her efforts. We had a family olympics and even my 93 year old grandma participated!! Way to go grams!!

Sophie and Brinley (my brother's girl).

Sophie is snuggling up to my dad. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the sucker he is illegally giving her. Actually he has found about the only way to keep her wiggly bum still.

Yes there are more pictures of Sophie from this campout, but Regan was kind of MIA as well from having so much fun with her cousins. Kandra, I need you to send me the pictures you took. Anyway, it took me all of last week to get everything clean and put away from the trip. I have been working to get things ready to move and so I haven't been online very much. Things are going pretty well for us, but I think as the time draws closer to moving and starting a new life, we are kind of internally freaking out....well I know I am. So just bare with me as these post may not be timely for a while. I hope you all are doing well. -Ciao!