lots of clothing, hives, and other news

I realized the other day that I don't know too many other people who post so many pictures on their blog of their children. I guess I just can't get over how cute she is. And she's got such a personality that I want to document it so I don't forget all the silly funny things she does. I hope you all don't mind too much.

I've been letting Emilia pick out individual pieces of clothing lately (this or this? for pants and then this or this? for a shirt, etc.) and she comes up with some interesting outfits. Today she is wearing ALL pink. The other day she REALLY wanted to wear a dress, but since I didn't want her ruining her dresses, I let her pick out a skirt to wear instead. She also picked from some shirts that I knew would match the tights I wanted to put under the skirt so she wouldn't be cold. Here is what she ended up wearing. I think she's got a little of her mother's "punk" sensibilities. :)
Emi still finds emptying and filling containers fascinating. At my mom's house a few weeks ago, she helped my mom build a castle out of some old blocks (they're about twice the size of the biggest duplo blocks) and then systematically took every block apart and put every one of them back in the box. It took her at least a 1/2 hour. She also LOVES playing with my laundry. If you look closely in the second picture, you can see that she has shoved every piece of clean clothes (from 3 loads!) into the dryer. She takes them out and puts them back in again. She'll do that for close to an hour if I let her!
The other day, Steve had taken off Emi's pajamas and hadn't gotten her dressed yet when I got out a nectarine and started eating it. Apparently it looked tasty because Emi came up and said, "Me, me?" Meaning, "I want that mommy. Hand it over, please." So, since she has been opposed to fruits lately and was actually asking for some, I gave it to her whole. (If I had taken the time to cut it up, she wouldn't have wanted it any more--and besides, she was mostly naked, so she could get dirty without too much of a hassle.) About 1/2 way through eating it, she dropped it on my couch, so I grabbed a clean cloth from under the sink (where I keep them) and wiped it off right away. By the time she was done, she was covered in nectarine juice down to her belly button and she came to me yelling, "Mess! Mess!" ready to wipe her hands all over me. So, I grabbed the closest thing to clean her off with--the cloth I had cleaned the couch with. This is what resulted:
You can't see it very well in this pictures, but she got hives ALL OVER her face and chest. The ones on her face were big and white and uncomfortable looking. At first I thought it was from the nectarine, but now I'm thinking it was probably something that was on the cloth. I'm not sure how to figure out what it was, though. I'm not going to go spraying her skin with everything I keep under the kitchen sink to see what happens! Besides, I don't know how any of it would have been on the cloth; I keep my cleaning products on the opposite side of a fairly large area. Any suggestions?

My cute, happy, baby:




My hubby got me these for valentines day. Aren't they pretty? I love you, sweetie!
I've been getting a lot of writing done on my book, too, which I'm really excited about. I might be able to finish it within the next couple months. Then I'll have a lot of revising to do. If you want to maybe help me with the revisions by reading it and giving feedback, let me know and I'll email you when it's ready.

Steve had a job interview last Monday for a job down in Provo doing something I don't quite understand, (it has to do with the software that libraries use) but he's excited about it, and it would be steady work, and we'd be closer to family down there, and he could finish his degree through online courses and a few trips to Logan. So we're hoping he's offered the job, but who knows what Heavenly Father has in store for us. He was also told of a job here that he applied for yesterday that would work too, if they would be willing to work with us until the end of this semester. So we'll see. Isn't it nice that you can have peace and joy in your life, even when everything isn't perfect? God is very good to us.