Friday Favorites

(1) Easter General Conference! Our church's annual General Conference falls on Easter weekend this year, which means that the talks from our church leaders concerning Christ's Atonement and His everlasting love for us will be especially timely. It will be a weekend of heavy spiritual rejuvination coupled with counsel, comfort, and inspiration. AND we'll be able to enjoy it all while nibbling on chocolate goodies from Weston's Easter basket (when he's not looking).

(2) The Binky Bunny! Speaking of Easter baskets, this year, it will be the Binky Bunny, rather than the Easter Bunny, who will be visiting the Anderson household. In part based on SuperNanny's "paci-fairy technique," I've come up with a whole (naive?) plan for getting Weston to relinquish his binkies. It involves special notes from the Easter Bunny requesting his binkies, and it (hopefully) concludes with the voluntary donation of said binkies in exchange for an Easter basket of goodies. I'm kind of getting sick of the binky, but I realize that the only way he's going to give it up at this point is if he has a strong incentive to do so. I figured now would be a good time, since we (er, I mean, we and the Easter Bunny) are putting together an Easter basket for him anyway. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Haha! This is a "Friday Favorite" in theory only; we'll see how it actually goes in practice on Sunday morning. :-)

(3) Baby's First Prayer! Speaking of Weston, guess what... he gave his first prayer all by himself last night!! As usual, Tim and I read him a story and then asked him to fold his arms for the prayer. Tim asked Weston to offer it, and it went something like this:

"Dear Fah-der... day... Mommy... Wetton... Daddy... Mommy... Wetton... doughnut shop... (mumble mumble)... name... Jesuh Fice... Amen!"

Naturally, we were very excited. Usually Tim whispers things in his ear to say during the prayer, but this one came from the little guy himself. And yes, he thanked Heavenly Father for the doughnut shop at the corner. (It's really fun to experience gratitude from a toddler's perspective.)

(4) The Bona Fide Activity! I did an Activity with Weston a couple weeks ago. Yes, a bona fide Activity. First, a question: do you do organized, thought-out activities with your children? Or is it more like general playtime, where you go from one random thing to another? When I take Weston out, we engage in focused endeavors, but most of the time that he's at home, it's more like unfocused playtime. He'll pull out his train stuff and we'll build a track. Then he'll pull out his play food and we'll have a "picnic." Then he'll get his lightsabers and we'll duel. Then I'll get on the computer for a few minutes, and he'll wander around and eventually play with magnets. (Does this sound familiar?)

I've noticed that while this play method is easy, it's not very entertaining all the time. So, one recent morning I set up a real Activity for him and me: Play-Doh!! I pulled out his birthday Play-Doh set, set him up at the kitchen table, and got to work being creative and imaginative with him. And it was SO FUN!!! He played Play-Doh for almost an HOUR AND A HALF!!! He has never, ever stayed focused on a single activity for that long before. It was magnificent. Most of our time was spent using the Play-Doh to re-create Weston's daily routine, except that it was for a small plastic duck instead. Here's the evidence:

I got him all set up with his Play-Doh supplies, and eventually suppressed my anal-retentiveness and allowed him to have more than one color at a time:
Here, Weston is making food for the duckie. That's a little yellow Mommy and a little blue TV there on the left:

This Activity required actual concentration, which was nice:

That is duckie's pink crib... just one of my impressive contributions (thank you, it was nothing):

So, it was really great, and I'm looking forward to more Bona Fide Activities from now on. Any suggestions for future Activities from you all-star moms out there? (Another day, I tried building a zoo with Weston in the living room with wooden blocks and toy animals and his Little People as zoo patrons. I thought it was awesome, but he lost interest after about 15 minutes. Oh well. I'll keep trying!!)

(5) Job Promotion! Tim recently promoted me from Just Wife to Business Manager Wife. This past month, he's been working on a freelance project with another LDS guy, and this guy said that his wife handles all of the contacting and job searching that entail a freelance career/full-time job search. So, Tim thought that was a pretty swell idea, and he decided to promote me, too. Now I'm in charge of all New Business Acquisition and Development, which makes me feel very powerful and important. Mostly I just email people and studios with Tim's resume and portfolio, and check job sites for new listings. It's nice to be included in Tim's ongoing job search effort, and to feel like I'm participating in the financial future of our family again. Plus, I'm starting to become really ambitious now, and I have my eyes on another swift promotion, seeing as I'm sleeping with the boss. (Can you believe I just said that?)

(6) Smitten! I am smitten with Smitten Blog Designs. I know a lot of you are already familiar with this company, but I just really want to publicly express my appreciation and respect for these ladies. Yes, I recently won one of their giveaways (YAAAAY!!!), but I have been in awe of their blog design creations since the beginning. Kate and Heather are SO TALENTED. They really have a knack for layout and color palettes, and they are amazing at coming up with creative custom designs. PLUS, they offer free templates on their site, too! Definitely check 'em out, and watch for their future giveaways!

(7) Dreams! I dream about my friends (you guys) all the time. Seriously. At least a few times a week, my dreams feature friends of mine. Does that happen to you, too? It's so fun, because it makes me feel closer to people that I sometimes don't get to see very often. (The other night, I got to hang out with Liz and Abbie in one of my dreams. They live in Indiana and New York, respectively, so it felt really special, even though it was all just in my crazy head. I don't remember where we were, but I do remember that it was highly amusing.) So, it's good times. I also have dreams where I'm BFFs with celebrities. Recently it was Tom Cruise. (Do you think that'll cause problems between me and Katie? I hope not.) :-)

Anyway, HAPPY EASTER!!!