Emilia...

...now uses the phrases, "Oh, bother," "Hum-dum-dum-ditty-dum," and "Silly ol' bear!" in regular speech. She takes her stuffed Pooh Bear that we found at DI to bed with her every afternoon and evening. She can say, "Tiggers bounce and Poohs eat honey," and name every character on the show. She colors in her Pooh coloring book almost every day. Can you say, "too much Pooh?"

...discovered the other day that chalk makes great face paint. :)

...LOVES the color pink. When I get out her colors, she takes the pink out and colors at least three pages pink--everything on the pages is pink. Then she might think about using one of the other colors in the box.

...loves playing "guys" almost as much as she loves watching Pooh. Every day she says to us multiple times, "Play guys? Play guys?" She's pretty good at it now, too. She'll have them talk to each other: even using phrases I understand sometimes, like "Lee, how doing?" and "Hi, Jed." Because of this, I have discovered a new talent: Little People stacking. Ta-da!

a new smattering of pictures

This whole "smattering" (I think that's a fun word) thing only happens because I am too lazy to get out the cable and hook the camera up to my computer and download the pictures and resize them so they're not atrociously huge (and take up all my blogger space) and upload them to blogger and comment on them on a regular basis. Once it gets to the point where I have to put the pictures on or there will be more than even I would want to look at do I force myself to go through that whole rigamarole (another fun word, don't you think?).

My little ragamuffin smiling for the camera. She now has enough hair for PIGTAILS! And she LOVES LOVES LOVES to be outdoors. We spent two hours at the park today (part of that time there were other kids--and moms!-- there from playgroup or I wouldn't have lasted).

On April Fools Day Mother Nature played a cruel joke on us...

...but we made the best of it. (Thanks Megan for making our snowman look so cute!) Emi doesn't hate the snow so much now. She only made the face for the picture. :)

Emi playing with her Christmas present from Uncle Ben and Aunt Haylee. She loves her "Tayo."
Me and my cutie pants. She's a little blurry in the first one, but I look cute. :0P

She just has such an expressive face...with that mug is it any wonder she has us wrapped around her little finger?

my status

I thought I would update on our status at the moment. We are still not at home. We have been gone since last Friday. I guess that's a week! Craziness. It's going to be hard to get back into our routine at home. We weren't planning on staying this long. We were going to spend last weekend with Steve's parents and then he was going to drop me off Monday at my parents' house (and he would go back up to Logan--which he did, actually), and then Wednesday, my mom was going to drive us up to Ogden where Steve would meet us and bring us the rest of the way home (Ogden is about half way between home and my parents' house). BUT...Steve called Tuesday night saying he had been contacted to do an interview in Orem on Friday afternoon (today), so it made little sense for us to drive up and come back a day and a half later, so here we are still. Steve's interview is for a technical writing job at SirsiDynix (sp?). He has interviewed with them once before, but they decided to change that position and he no longer wanted the job, but they thought of him when this new job became available, so that's a good sign. Steve also had an interview last Monday morning at Inside Sales, which is the place he worked at when we were living in Orem before. They told him they had the position ready for him if he wanted it, so that's very encouraging. It looks like we'll be moving back to the Utah valley area pretty quickly!

I don't think I've mentioned this on the blog before...nope, just checked. Steve and I have been trying to figure out where God wants us to go next. We weren't sure if Steve should go back for his PhD right away (he would ultimately like to teach at the college level), or wait for a few years and work full time to save up some money, or what. We've been praying about it for a while now, and were quite surprised by the answer we received recently. We feel like Steve should be going back to school to get a second bachelor's in Information Systems. It seems like an odd next step, but God knows better than we do what will bring us the most happiness, and opportunities (both for work and for spiritual growth). We both feel good about the change--like God is leading us to do this, and we are moving forward with it. Hence the job searches in the Utah valley area.

It's been good to know what our next step will be and to have something to move forward on, and the interviews and job offer have been encouraging. For me it has been somewhat of a challenge to figure out what my role will be in this new course. We thought maybe I could teach school while Steve was taking classes and watching Emi, but I really feel like I need to be spending my energy on MY child rather than other people's children. I know we can make things work with Steve doing both school and work, since we've done that before, but it still worries me a little. I'm not good at spending ALL day with Emi (and if Steve is working full time and going to school full time, he will have very little time left for taking her off my hands--or anything for that matter). My personality, my weaknesses, whatever you want to blame it on, make it hard for me devote so much time to the mundane things she loves to do. I love her and I want to give her the best, and although I don't think I'm great at being the mother of a 20 month old, I still feel like I, in my worst state, am better than the alternatives. I still don't know exactly how things are going to work out, though I am sure that they will. I know Heavenly Father is looking out for us, and for me, and whatever happens, as long as I follow the Lord, it will be for my good. I just hope I am up for the challenge. :0\
Love you all, Brina

hmm...

I feel like I need to do an update, but I'm not sure what to say. I have a few pictures of Emilia, but they are on my camera back home. We are at Mom and Dad Watts' at the moment, watching General Conference and celebrating Easter. I think we're going to be doing an Easter egg hunt tomorrow. And I went shopping today for like three hours thanks to the generosity of Cindy and Grandma. They watched her while I shopped because Steve was at the Priesthood session of conference. Steve and I have both applied for a few jobs, but we haven't really heard anything about them, so no new news there. I guess I'll let you know if I think of anything else. :)