24 in 12

When Klaus turned one a few weeks ago, I wondered to myself where had the time gone? How could one entire year have passed since this little baby was born?! (Okay, he's not little, he's 32 pounds of delicious baby fatness--the largest baby of our family, even our extended families). I marveled that we had enjoyed this chubby, happy baby in our home for 12 whole months already!

Twelve months goes by so quickly! A person can accomplish something really great in 12 months. If I wanted to, I could accomplish something important in the next 12 months. Something that I've been meaning to do for a long time. Something I expected would have happened by now. Something I hadn't gotten the motivation to accomplish in 2011. I bet you can guess it: lose weight.

This embarrassing blog post is my public declaration that I'm serious about my goal this year. I'm calling it 24-in-12: 24 pounds in 12 months. Losing 24 pounds will get me back to my comfortable size 8 jeans. I'm squeezing myself into size 12's at the moment.

Even more embarrassing, I'm going to admit my current weight. I plan to never return to it again. At Wal-Mart this morning, I actually took a scale off the shelf, opened the package, weighed myself to get the number I needed, then put it back in it's package and returned it to the shelf! I'm too cheap to actually buy a scale because it's not an item I even want in my home! Anyway, the number was 155. Terrifying and shocking.

I'm really excited about my plan. In order to accomplish it, I commit to exercising daily (a walk or some yoga), drinking 8 glasses of water daily and eating only 2 treats per week. Wish me luck!

Oh, and here's a picture of our wonderful 1-year-old!

Life Lessons

I took Kian, Abby, and Ella to the dentist today. Here are a few tidbits to enjoy from our trip today...

• As we pulled up to the dentist's office, Abby exclaimed, "Oh, this place! I love this place!" Yes, she knew we were going to the dentist, but this office has a little play area that she likes.
• As Ella is playing in the play area, she tells me that she has to go potty. I tell her where it is, and she goes and comes back. Not 10 minutes later, she says she has to go again. This time she takes longer. Meanwhile, the dental assistant comes calling for her. I tell her Ella is in the bathroom. She turns and goes to the bathroom to tell her that it is her turn when she is done. The dental assistant comes back laughing and relates to me that as she approached the bathroom the door was open and the light was off. She called for Ella, and out popped her head from around the door exclaiming that she was going potty.

I guess there are other places we can love to visit, but I am glad that the dentist is one of Abby's. I also will make it a point to remind Ella to close the door and turn on the light when going potty.

Overheard Conversations

I don't know where they get these ideas. It's certainly not by example...

One night while we were at the church for Cub Scouts, Abby sauntered over to a friend of mine, took a feminine stance with her hand on her hips and declared, "Women don't do man's work. Women sew (exaggerated sigh), knit (flip of the hair), and clean the house." Don't worry: My friend wasn't convinced.

And then, last night at the dinner table, the kids had their own conversation:

Felicity: When Klaus is 10 or 9 he can go to Cub Scouts!
Kian: No, when he is 8 he can go to Cub Scouts.
Abby: When I'm 8 I can go to Activity Days!
Kian: I bet Cub Scouts is better than Activity Days.
Abby: I think in Activity Days you go camping.
Kian: In Activity Days you learn how to sew, mop floors and rub a man's feet.

(I just stared at him in wonder.)

Abby and I are not convinced.

Family Duties

Tonight at Cub Scouts, Kian was asked to make a job chart for all of the members in his family. One the left side was a column listing his family members. On the right side were each family member's duties. Here are his words:

Dad: Does work, bringing home snacks duty
Mom: Baby duty, new bottles duty
Kian: Rotating chores, sitting on the baby
Abby: Rotating chores
Ella: Rotating chores
Felicity: Rotating chores
Klaus: Multipurpose universal cleaning tool

He is referring to Klaus' ability to sweep and mop with his body as he crawls around the house. Kian's language and humor sometimes cracks me up.

Concert Pianists

Last night for FHE, our wonderfully talented pianists had a recital of selections of what they have been hard at work on. Here they are sharing their talent:

Here is Kian

Here is Abby

Here is Ella (she is playing songs she is currently practicing)

Here's Felicity

What a wonderful night of success and fun. These kiddos have practiced everyday, multiple times a day to learn these songs. They bring music and joy into our house. Great Job to Kian, Abby, Ella, and Felicity!!!

A Love Triangle?

The other day, Ella whispered to me that she has a new boyfriend. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "This sounds interesting." After a few failed guesses as to who it could be, she admitted that it was none other than----Tate.

You should remember from my last post that a certain older sister happens to have a crush on this same boy. Considering the sibling rivalry already existing between these two, I cannot imagine anything good coming from this new information!

"A love triangle at ages 6 and 7!" I thought to myself. I imagined the confrontation, the argument, the jealousy, the drama!

I advised, "Ella, you will want to ask Abby if it's okay with her to have Tate as your boyfriend." She didn't seem that was necessary. I tried to convince her that it was. (Never mind that Tate has no clue whatsoever).

She still hasn't mentioned it to Abby. I haven't brought it up, no way, not gonna do it! We'll just see who they're both in love with next week and hope that it's not the same boy.

The Crush

This is all really making us wonder... I mean, isn't she WAY TOO YOUNG for this?!?!

Abby (age 7) had two boys in her Primary class that she had crushes on. She would vacillate between marrying one and marrying the other. She would imagine and play that she was in love with one and talk about him all the time. And then she would day-dream about the other one. To us, her family, it was all very funny and we teased her mercilessly but she liked the teasing.

Then one evening at a Cub Scout activity, one of the boys (whose name is Tate) decided he liked the attention he was getting, so he started playing along, announcing to everyone, "Abby is my girlfriend!" Maybe she didn't like all the teasing and attention then, because for several weeks she emphatically did NOT like Tate anymore.

Two Sundays ago, Abby came home from Primary all dreamy, lovey-dovey over Tate again! She wrote him in an e-mail:


Dear tate i like you. You are like an {angel icon} to me. How are you doing ? I am so {crying face icon} that one of my dogs died.

{Red heart icon} Abby Musser


She wouldn't answer my questions about what changed her mind about him. But I asked her Primary teacher through e-mail what happened at church?! This was her reply:

"Tate and Abby wanted to hold hands several different times during third hour. I told them that we don't need to be holding hands and to keep our hands to ourselves. Abby also asked me if we could play church charades because she wanted to pretend she was Mary and Tate could be Joseph and they could be married. HAHA!!"

A week later, she's not lovey-dovey over him anymore. What drama! But seriously, isn't this all a little premature? Any advice/experience/opinions would be appreciated.