Aren't Sundays the best? This last week really threw us for a loop, but today was a beautiful day that really calmed my soul. Sundays are always that way. A rest from our busy schedules and worldly cares. (And a great time to try on hats.)
P.S. I'm still thinking about our wonderful Relief Society lesson based on Elder Uchtdorf's talk on Patience. What a perfect message. I can't wait to hear from our church leaders again this weekend!
First of all we have this picture book of stories from the Book of Mormon. We have the B.O.M. children's reader from Distribution Center, but Bryn doesn't like it yet. So I got this book that is even simpler and it's perfect! It simplifies the stories and has great illustrations. Bryn's learning all the little scripture stories and it's awesome. I totally recommend it for this age group.
The second book that we love, love, love is Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever. I had this as a child and it's a classic. (Ten dollars at Walmart.com). This book has illustrations for tons of little words and it keeps Bryn's attention for so long -- sometimes we read this book for an hour straight! It's seriously awesome! It is such a great way to start conversation with Bryn.
These are just a few of Bryn's favorite pages. This is the best children's book we own. LOVE it!
Bryn is a smart little girl, and I think she's doing pretty well in many areas of development. But one area where she certainly falls behind is feeding herself. I've been taking food-in-the-hair pictures for months, but it was a little funnier when she was twelve months old. 
We spent this morning exploring the Bolsa Chica Conservatory, just up the coast about 5 miles. It wasn't exactly a Utah hike that I'm used to, but it was really fun! There are lots of nice trails that wind around the rivers/lakes (I don't know the proper terms), and there are tons of cool birds to watch.
There's also a cool little visitor's center with tanks of star fish, sea cucumbers and octopus. And another room with cages of snakes and spiders, as well as a lovely collection of possum skins.
Bryn's favorite snake because it was moving all over and pressing it's face against the glass.
It's a simple countdown for the birthdays in our family. It's just an 18 x 24 inch piece of home dec fabric with little3 x 3 inch pockets sewn on front. I will write little notes with 25 things that I love about that person, and put one in each pocket. So for the 25 days leading up to their birthday they can read something nice about them. I also picked up some little wooden stars and mini clothes pins, and painted a different color star for me, Josh, and Bryn and glued them on the clothes pins. I can move the clothes pin along each day to show how many days are left til the birthday.
Josh's birthday's coming up in 28 days, so tonight I wrote all the little notes and we'll start the countdown on Wednesday. Hopefully this will be a fun tradition for our fam.
We feed the ducks at least once a week when we go to the Central Library. Bryn used to have no problem throwing the bread to the ducks, but each time we go she is less and less willing to share. She crams the bread into her mouth, or throws it on the ground and then grabs it and eats it before the ducks can. Yesterday she ate every last bite, sharing nothing with the ducks. We've got to work on sharing...and not eating things off the ground. Both important things.
I've seen this routine about a hundred times, but it still makes me laugh every time!
