Journals to my Ladies :)

2/17/11 Myla Journal

So, my little lady, you are about to turn 9 months. I always used to get a little annoyed when people constantly talked about how fast time goes. It seemed to always be the go to statement and I felt like people didn’t enjoy the current time they were in enough and that is why it passed by so fast. However, having my second child has helped me realize that life does become so busy and really if you don’t slow down enough, it will just pass you by. I had all the time in the world to dote on your older sister. However with you, I feel like I am constantly throwing you in the car to go to our next location. You are soooooooo easy and sooooooooo perfect, sweet and happy about it though. You always just go with the flow and you do it with the hugest smile that your cute little face can possibly handle. I feel like I just have to blink my eyes and you are older.

Since we moved here and I was pregnant with you we have always gone to this class at the church called music makers. Your sister has absolutely loved it from day one. Now that you are older and can interact more, you love it as well. You are absolutely enthralled with everything that goes on around you. You soak up every movement, noise and sound that is around you. Your poor little neck, you are constantly turning your head in every direction, just making sure that there is not one detail that you will miss out on. You are incredibly animated and communicative as well. You soak everybody in with your gazing eyes and HUGE grin. When we sing songs you truly attempt to sing them with us. Even with your sister, when you two are in the car you really try to have a type of conversation with her. She adores you! She try’s to make you laugh all the time, and she does everything she can to get you to be happy when you are crying. You adore her as well. You constantly observe her and take it all in and stare at her with wonderment. I would love to be in your brain just to hear what you are thinking. However, you are so amazing at communicating with your expressions I almost feel that I know exactly what you are trying to say. You are so happy and easy all the time, but at the same time you have no problem voicing if there is something that you want, or if something is bothering you. I love that about you. You are super low maintenance, yet you are strong and already stand up for yourself. I hope you always stay that way.

I need to record your face just to show you how smiley you are ALL THE TIME. Words cannot describe how happy and sweet you are. I really do get frustrated because I feel no matter how many times I write it, or say it, I will never be able to express how much you stand out and that your sweet demeanor is just not of this world. I feel like you are this magnet sucking everyone in with your innocent purity. Everyone just gravitates to you.

I pray you know how much I love you and that I am always really trying my best and I pray that I never let you down, or that you feel neglected in any type of way. You are my angel.

So, right now you absolutely love it when we clap our hands, play patty cake, or move our feet. I almost feel bad because I know your little brain wants to do everything, but your little body is not quite there yet. You crack up when you watch your sister run circles around you. Madeline is always entertaining you in the car and your giggles melt my heart.

So, you have two teeth now. You are sitting up very well and you are still rolling around. You are not crawling yet, but I don’t mind that, we still need to do some baby proofing before then. You are a really good eater, but you are very messy. Your first official word was Dada as well, but you still don’t know what it means quite yet. I’ve been trying to get you to say Mama, but that may take a while. You are always flailing your arms around out of pure joy and excitement. You love to try and imitate all the sounds around you, like when we are talking, singing, or if Madeline is tooting her horn. You are extremely observant. It is funny, if I have my hair in a different style, like in a ponytail, or down, or if I have a head band on, every time you just stare at my head, or hair with wonderment in your eyes. You really do absorb everything. You are already so intelligent.

I love you Myla Peach Deter. You light up my life. I am honored to be your Mom. I pray that you always stand up for what is right and that you will always be your own person no matter what the crowd is attempting to persuade. Always stand strong and remember why we are truly here. This life is a probationary state to see what we will do with it and who will we choose. We must never loose sight, no matter how foggy it may get, of which path, the straight and narrow, we will take.

I LOVE YOU FOR TIME AND ALL ETERNITY,

Mom

2/17/11 Madeline Journal

So you are about to turn 3, which is so exciting and scary at the same time. Lately it has been constantly on my mind how much I needed to write you and your sister. Life has been a lot of fun with you two girls and I get to imagine all the time what the future will be like with you two beautiful ladies and hopefully another sibling sometime down the road. I always call you my little sassy pants and your sister is my happy, easy baby. I hope both of you know that does not make one of you better than the other by any means, you just both have something that adds pure perfection and completeness to this family.

You are so wild and crazy all the time. You always want to sing and dance and have fun. You are an absolute joy to be around and such, such a good girl. I really can’t believe how behaved you are and how well you listen. Don’t get me wrong though, you are very sassy and sit in time out quite often every day, but I love that you are your own person. I’ve always been a pretty confident person my entire life and always held my own for the most part. However, I definitely have had and still do have much insecurity. I get upset when I question myself. I know in my head and heart that God made me and that I try very hard to follow the commandments and be a good person, so if there is something that I want and it is a righteous desire then there is absolutely not one reason that I can not have it. However, I second guess myself and get scared of failure and that feeling of rejection. I get worried a lot that I will, or may pass that down to you girls and I do not want to. The possibilities in this world and in the next are endless for the two of you.

Every night before you go to bed we read the scriptures with you. The Peach Grandparents got you the coolest kid scriptures. You love them and so do I. Anyways these scriptures are mainly about Samuel the Lamanite and his prophecies of Christ birth. You made up these songs about Samuel and also about Valentine’s Day tonight. You seriously have rhythm. It still blows my mind how musically talented you are and I am curious if you will want to do something with that talent in the future. Your Dad and I bought a video monitor for you because when we put you in your big girl bed we just wanted to make sure you were staying in it. You’ve never gotten out of it once; that is how obedient you are. Anyways, I wish the monitor would record all the silly things you do all the time. You sing pretty much the whole time. Lately, you’ve been really into your baby doll and I assume it is because you’ve become more and more into your baby sister. You fall asleep with your doll in your arms almost every night and it is precious.

So, as you know, Valentine’s just passed and it was cute because you got to go on a special Daddy/Daughter date. What is hilarious is that you wanted to go to Burger King of all places. They have a really cool play area that you love. Every time we’ve gone there you’ve met friends to play with and you have a blast. It was cute because your Dad came around the front door, knocked and we answered. He came to pick you up for your date and the two of you exchanged Valentine’s cards. I love how excited he gets to spend one on one time with you. He really is just smitten with you, and knowing your Dad, none of us would have guessed he would be such a sucker for his girls.

Your Peach Grandparents also got you some primary hymns to listen to in the car. You don’t want to listen to any of your other kid music, just the church cd’s lately. My heart melts and I almost get teary eyed every time I hear you sing those hymns. I can’t imagine how much love fills our Heavenly Father’s heart when he hears you sing as well. Growing up my Mom got me those songs as well on a cassette player. I loved them! I would sit in my room for hours just singing them. It amazes me at such a young age you can recognize the spirit that you feel when you sing those songs, or read your scriptures, therefore you desire to do those things all the time. Us adults should really take note and do the same.

So, I don’t know if I ever mentioned to you, but a couple friends of mine and I decided to do a little co-op preschool between the four of us. All of us have kids around the same age and all of us have a younger baby/toddler as well. The kids in your class are Ellen, Ollie and Thompson. We did this to save money because preschools are so expensive, especially here in CA. We all noticed that our kids needed further stimulation and even some more socialization. I did not love it in the beginning when it was my turn, it was actually quite stressful. However, I feel that we’ve been doing it for a good amount of time now and it just seems that you kids have gotten it. Plus you guys are a little bit older and therefore take direction a little better. I have to say that I love it now and it makes me feel like a decent Mom that we are doing this for you kids. It is really cute too, because I think the little boy Thompson has a little crush on you. It’s fun just to sit back and watch you and see what you will do sometimes. We go to the park sometimes with these kids from school and it is so cool to see how you can just hang with the boys. Lately you have gravitated to the boys more and that makes me a little nervous. The boys are kind of rough with you sometimes and you think that it is hilarious and don’t mind it at all. You play with cars and trains all the time and I think the boys think that is cool. I was a tomboy growing up, so I am sure you can imagine that this makes me kind of proud. I love being a girl and I actually think that I am quite girly, but it is fun to be multidimensional and be a little tough too. I am your Mom, so I am partial, but I just love how awesome you are. You are intelligent beyond comprehension, you are GORGEOUS, you are musically talented, you are loving and caring and desire to do what is right, and you are just plain FUN. I don’t think that it gets much better than this. I forgot to mention that you have your entire book, the scripture book your Grandparents got you, completely memorized. It astonishes me. You just spat it out verbatim. AMAZING!

I love you Madeline Rose. I pray that you always stand up for what is right and that you will always be your own person no matter what the crowd is attempting to persuade. Always stand strong and remember why we are truly here. This life is a probationary state to see what we will do with it and who we will choose. We must never loose sight, no matter how foggy it may get, of which path, the straight and narrow, we will take.

I LOVE, LOVE LOVE YOU FOR TIME AND ALL ETERNITY!!!!

Mom

What has been goin on in the Deter Home :)

So, we recently had family pics taken. We had some taken on the beach and just yesterday we had more pictures taken in downtown San Juan Capistrano. I wanted some casual ones on the beach and then a little nicer ones done as well. San Juan is so beautiful. I could spend an entire week there just walking around and looking through the shops. Our friend Jason Graney took our pics on the beach. He does photography, but he normally only takes pictures of scenery and animals. This was his first photo shoot with people. I thought he did a really good job. Our pics we had taken in San Juan were done by Tyler Colopy. He is amazing. He normally does not taken pics of people either, but he did a fantastic job. He had his beautiful wife Amber helping, which made it even more fun. They are so cool to work with. If you would like to check Tyler's work out click here.

Madeline was in heaven because of the trains in San Juan. She tells me that she is Wilson all the time from the Disney show Chuggington. Lately she has told me that she either a dog (because our neighbor has an adorable dog named Scout), or she is Wilson, or she is Lightning McQueen. Her imagination is just flourishing and I am in love with it.

Friday night Matt asked me if he could take Madeline on a Daddy/Daughter Valentine's date. I of course was ecstatic for this. I absolutely love their relationship and am so proud that Matt is raising her to be a confident, loved, little lady. So, they made each other Valentine's cards and then Matt came around the front door to pick her up for their date. They went to Burger King, aka "The King," as Maddie calls it. I know that sounds a little ghetto for a date, but Madeline is in love with their chocolate milk and their biggest slides in the whole world. They had a blast needless to say.

So, I recently tried out for the show Wipeout with my best friend Allison. Yes I said it, WIPEOUIT. If you do not watch that show already I kind of think something is wrong with you and I am surprised we are friends and or family :) I am partially kidding of course. There is not a whole lot I can share about the process, but I can say that I did well with the auditions and I pray that I make the show. It is seriously my dream in life, as well as Allison's. I've figured that one day my obsession with embarrassing myself would pay off right? I can't tell you how much fun we had at the open auditions together. She did AMAZING of course! I will post some pics soon of our amazingly HOT outfits. However, the ever so famous cow outfit did make its appearance once again. It was such a cool experience though and I am glad that I did it. I've been waking up every morning still thinking about it and all the other crazy things I could have performed to get on the show. We will see what happens, but keep your fingers crossed for us.

Here are the beach family pics. I will post the other ones when we get them back. Enjoy: