This week in the Atchley home 2/11 - 2/17

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Sophia has always been interested in the phone and when I talk on the phone. In the past we have tried to get her to talk but without much success. Starting this week Sophia has really taken to talking on the phone. She will now respond appropriately to questions and enjoys taking the phone around to her different toys and books and "showing" the person on the phone her stuff. One time with Granny she held the phone to a book and asked her to "read". Granny and Nana sure love it!

There are a lot of things I teach Sophia (words, dances, movements) and then there are certain things that she does that I have no idea where she gets them from. She started doing this (what I call) "knobby knees" dance. She bends her knees with her legs apart and wobbles them back and forth.

This week a major thing happened for Sophia. She is now in a big girl bed! She began to crawl out of her crib with more frequency. Daddy and I were worried she might hurt herself one day by doing so, so we made the decision to take down the bars. Her initial reaction to the change was pure Sophia. She thought something was wrong and said "uh oh" a few times before moving on to "broke". We had to reassure her that the bed was not broken, we meant for it to be that way, and it is now a "big girl bed". The first few times of putting her down she cried really hard and more reassurance was needed. BJ and I wonder if she feels insecure from the bed being so open now because she doesn't have the bars. Sunday night was the first night she didn't make a peep so we hope she is adjusting.

We decided not to get each other anything for Valentine's this year. I baked chocolate chip cookies and chocolate cupcakes with homemade frosting. I delivered some to my visiting teaching ladies and my companion and BJ, Sophia, and I enjoyed the leftovers. BJ cooked up some wonderful rib eye steaks he bought at Central Market. They were at least 16oz and we completely ate way too much. Sophia enjoyed it very much too and ate several bites of my steak. In fact, she kept asking for more and eyeballing my plate when she didn't have a bite.

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Sophia got to paint for the first time this week as well. Granny gave her lots of fun craft stuff for Christmas. I hate messes and cleaning up afterwards so I have been putting off letting her paint, but I broke down this week. She had a lot of fun and thought she was so smart when she realized she could paint using her fingers too. We can't wait to do it again!

Two weeks ago BJ had been asked to give a talk on "temple preparedness". Usually couples are asked to give talks on the same Sunday regarding the same subject matter. BJ thought it strange that I was not asked to speak too, but we simply disregarded it. On Sunday the brother conducting the meeting said "Brother Atchley and Brother Hill will be speaking with us today on temporal preparedness." Right after he said that it was BJ's turn to get up and speak. I think BJ had a mini-stroke in those few seconds. BJ got up and pointed out the mishap immediately. He thought he heard temple and not temporal. But in Texas with varying accents it probably came out as "temprilpreparedness" on the phone. BJ covered himself as best he could given the circumstances and pulled off a decent talk about temporal preparedness with a few comments about the temple mixed in. It all made sense why I had not also been asked to speak. BJ's calling is the Employment and Welfare Specialist, so it is his duty to speak with families about budgeting, debt, you know--being temporally prepared! BJ says next time he is asked to speak he is going to get it in writing.

BJ claims on Friday that Phoebe crawled (about 3 coordinated movements worth). I have not witnessed any of this, but I have seen her on her hands pushing with her knees and feet. Not quite considered crawling but very close. She is progressing so well and can pretty much get to any toy she wants within about a 5-10 foot radius. I think she is enjoying her new freedom.

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I believe in an effort to propel herself forward Phoebe has started to headbang. She lies on her stomach with her head up and bangs it up in down to try and move forward. When she realizes she has not moved she decides to army crawl, push herself, etc. However, we do find this new quirk very entertaining. What will she think of next?

Daddy has come up with something very creative to end any bath time exiting drama. Typically Sophia is a good sport about getting out of the bath, but there are times she just doesn't want to leave. Daddy created "ding-bump". He wraps her in her towel and gently taps her bottom on things like her dresser, the wall, doorway, her bed, etc. while exclaiming "ding-bump!" Sophia has absolutely fallen in love with this new activity and if daddy asks if she wants to do "ding-bump" she is more than ready to get out of the bath.