FussyPants/PatientOnes

I was thinking this week that most of you are more friends with Samuel & I than Seara & Elijah (do they even have friends at this age?), so this week I'm gonna give quick blurbs on us as well.

Elijah is still sick. Poor kid! It is funny how different he and Seara are. Elijah is so much more smiley - he grins all the time! He is also much more fussy. I think he's just more moody. Like his mom! Seara, on the other hand, doesn't have the highs and lows he does. She's just really patient and mellow. Like her dad. :) I wonder if that stuff is genetic ...

Well, Seara has suddenly become very motherly. She walks around with dolls and stuffed animals all day and "takes care of them". When I wrap Elijah up in a blanket, Seara wraps her doll. She'll get out a changing pad, powder, balmex, and a diaper and pretend to change the doll. She burps it and gives it a pacifier (which is really funny because neither she nor Elijah have ever used them!) This week I even caught her using the nasal aspirator to suck the doll's nose. (Obviously Elijah still has the cold!) That was pretty funny! Daddy takes her around the living room in baskets, bikes, etc., and now when he's gone at work she'll just sit in a basket and say "voom!" to herself. That's funny too. But not nearly as funny as her trying to feed herself with her eyes closed. She used to just do it when I fed her. Now she'll close her eyes and feel around her tray for her food and milk, then try to make them into her mouth. It is hilarious - especially when she misses. She is really cute about Elijah. His crying really worries her. Yesterday I was frying some stuff and Elijah started crying. I held him for a little while, but my stuff started to burn, so I set him down on the middle of the kitchen table and ran to save my food. Well, when I got back to Lije, he was still crying, but Seara had climbed onto the table and was kneeling next to him, holding his hand. It was so precious!

I (Janae) have forgone all personal interests and dedicated my time to feeding Elijah. Man that kid is a tank!! Hmmm ... what do I like to do? Well, I graduated from BYU in April 2005 in Marriage, Family, & Human Development with a focus on Marital Therapy. I applied to the masters program and was pre-accepted (I had a professor that was co-sponsoring my master's thesis), but then I got pregnant with Seara and, well, that plan got put on hold. Lately my passions include cooking (I especially love making bread and pies, my newest escapade has been egg rolls/wantons - I even made the wrapper!) and making movies. I am working on a massive project - documentaries on each set of grandparents (mine and Samuel's). Right now my focus is on getting the footage before it is too late. (I had done one of two interviews with my Grandpa Smith when he passed away suddenly from a stroke.) I have a good 30 hours of unedited footage, and another 80 or so hours to film. Basically, I may not get much editing done until my kids are a little bigger and a little less demanding! But I'm working on it. Slowly but surely. :)

Samuel is an artist at heart. It cracks me up because if my sisters and I had been given a list of the occupations our future husbands would have, but not told who would marry what job, I don't think we would have put me with the artist. (Cara's married to a dentist, Lissa to an accountant.) Funny how I can never dream of what is going to happen, but I sure love the adventure when it does happen! One of Samuel's life goals is to write and illustrate children's books. He's well on his way to that goal - he's written a book and made the book dummy (sketch illustrations), and was accepted by an editor with Viking. She's been over it once and now Samuel is working on the edits. He only wishes he had more time to work on it! The company Samuel works for right now makes architectural renderings. They actually did the paintings of the temples pre-construction. And some stuff for Sea World. And other interesting and/or famous places. They are doing a job in China right now. (If only that meant that Samuel would have to fly there and take me along!) If you want to see some of the stuff the company does, the website is: kinateder.com (they actually are making a new, better site that should be up in a week or so).