The time me and astrid stayed home from church

Sigh.

When I first sat down to blog something, I had all this desire to let you all in on what I've been doing lately. But when I go to write it all down, very little of it is interesting and then all I really want to do is talk about Astrid. But it's been so long since I've talked about her on here that I don't know where to begin. So let's just start with today, shall we?

Today I didn't go to church. And it sucked. I just stayed home all day with the munchkin. I pulled some muscles in my back yesterday and I was pretty sore and stiff today so I didn't feel up to chasing Astrid around at church. If she was one of those babies who is content to sit in your lap for an hour or more, I totally would have gone. But Astrid is not one of those babies. She is nearly 14 months old and will have you know that she is an independant woman! Until I drop her off at playcare. Then she realizes that she can't live without me and if I dare try to leave her while I go to work, she will not survive.

So yeah. Today was a quiet day. I made up for our not going to church by having a little church meeting of our own. I played some MoTab as prelude music and we had an opening prayer (given by Astrid - sort of) and an opening song (Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam). Then I gave a lesson about the First Article of Faith; we read it through and I explained what it meant and I showed her pictures of Jesus. She actually seemed pretty interested by all of it, I was impressed. Then we had singing time and sang some wiggle songs and ended with I Am A Child Of God. Then we had a closing prayer to end the meeting. The whole thing lasted like, 5 minutes.

Ever since Astrid hit her year mark it's been really cool to discover how much she actually understands. I can tell her to pick something up and she'll do it. After I change her bum she loves to put her diaper in the garbage. She says hello and bye-bye and has even been learning a little bit of Tongan. Whenever my dad is on facetime he always has her point to her mata (eyes), ihu (nose), ngutu (mouth) and telinga (ears). Astrid's favourites are her ngutu and telinga - she's really good at those. She can repeat a lot of the things we say, which has made us watch our language around her because one time I heard her say something that sounded very much like "shut up" after I said it.

I know I'm biased, but my kid rocks. She's tough, she's smart, she's loud, she's super happy, and she just gets better everyday. I'm pleased to report that so far, having a one year old is a lot of fun!