Moments to Remember

"We don't remember days, we remember moments"
That, along with one of my favorite quotes EVER, by Anna Quindlen, is on my mind a lot these days:
"The biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make....I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment has gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the 3 of my children sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swingset on a summer day, ages 6, 4, and 1. I wish I could remember what we ate, what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less."

I need to keep a journal about the special, funny, or spiritual moments I have as a mother. But for now, this will suffice. I want to post more random moments, more often, even though the 5 of you reading my blog probably don't even care about these small details of my life, its for me to look back on.

Alayna turned 2 in October. I don't count by months after they turn 2. She talks. A LOT. I'm learning that when you have babies you get excited about them saying words and starting to talk, and at this stage you take that all back.

She pretty much has her first love already, his name is McKay. He is 3 months older than she, and is the little boy of some friends we met in our Provo married ward. They freak out when they see each other and play and laugh SO well. McKays mom and I are starting to take turns watching eachothers kids while the other mom can run errands kid-free. Thursday I took Alayna to McKays house, and Megan (his mom) told me they had followed her into Megan's bedroom while she was putting away clothes, and Alayna kept luring McKay into the closet, turned off the lights, and closing the door. She would say "Come ere, 'kay!" Do I need to have a chat with her?

Taking her to the Thanksgiving Point is always fun. She loves to buy corn from the little machines and feed it to the goats, chickens, ducks, and cows. But today I showed her what a llama was and we walked up to it. She said "here llama, have some cern!" the llama completely ignored her and walked away. So she called after it, ''llama, wait! Llama, wait! Here's some cern!" This was so funny to me I even texted the convo to Jeff. And every time we would walk away from an animal, she would say bye to it "bye cows, bye goats, bye chickens!"

Our routine during these cold months has pretty much been, wake up, watch a cartoon or two while having breakfast and getting ready, then we try and do something fun every day. One day a week is storytime, one day is play group, and one day we might go to Thanksgiving Point, the aquarium, or do something with friends. Some days we just stay home and chill. We usually come home, have lunch, and Alayna takes a nap for about 2 hours. When she wakes up, we play, to art (markers, crayons, colored pencils, big drawing pads, and play dough are "in" right now), and she gets to watch a show while I make dinner. Life is simple and good.

I am already way too excited about the weather warming up. I'm ready for longer daylight hours for walks, warmer and drier weather for trips to the park, and playing in our backyard. I'm ready to dive into some yard work and gardening. I'm ready for swim lessons, the splash pad, picnics, and sunshine.