bathtubs, baby names, and snickerdoodles

it's definately getting hotter lately, which seems to mean not quite as much playing outside... which in turn necessitates more creative play inside. afton's gotten really good at playing "night-night" where she needs her binky and blankey and she puts herself to bed (usually on the couch). she also likes to answer the telephone, but she still doesn't like to talk into it very often, just push buttons. yesterday paul's dad called and i went running from the kitchen to the living room to answer, afton went running also, to the bedroom to get the extension there. fortunately i was able to pass off the phone pretty quickly to paul and then catch afton before she pushed too many buttons. but her favorite is playing bathtime. fortunately she can't open up the bathroom door yet, though she is really quick about finding the door not quite latched or coming in with mom (after all, mom's pregnant and she has to go to the bathroom all the time), she climbs into the bathtub as quick as she can, pulls a few toys in (her rubber ducky is on the side of teh tub), plugs up the drain (with the rubber stopper), and inside just a few seconds she's got the water on and she's ready to get started! (needless to say, we try not to let her play this game without supervision... and that comes in handy too, cause she can't take her clothes off by herself... yet). such a little grown up!

this past week paul and i have deficed that we don't really like any of the names we were thinking about for the baby. we don't hate them, but there's nothing we really love or want to stick to our little girl... so we're on another quest for names. we got a couple baby-name books from the library (and we learned that they are one of the most commonly stolen kind of books, the other being dream interpretation books--evidentally a lot of people don't realize that a library will let you borrow a book for free). anyways, we've been looking through these baby-name books, and we're still not really inspired, so if anyone has some favorite girl names they'd like to suggest, we might use your suggestion! we're looking for something a little different (sorry to all the sarah's out there), so she doesnt' have to have three others with the same name in any of her school classes, and something that's easy to spell (i'm not a big fan of "alternate" spellings, i like the simple/basic/traditional there. generally we're looking for something 1-2 syllables, though we're not as picky there.

many thanks to val for her snickerdoodle recipe (the one from the cookbook mom compiled all those years ago). evidentally it's the best snickerdoodle any of paul's sunday school class has ever tasted! i made a batch last week for them, and there was a special request for them again this week--for priesthood class. paul's the young men's president as well as a sunday school teacher, and he's been trying to get teh young men to participate more in giving the lessons. this week it was the turn of one of his most difficult 14 yr olds to give the lesson. he (the teen) claimed he couldn't possibly give more than 5 minutes of the lesson, but then he jokingly added "unless i get a half dozen of those snickerdoodles." naturally paul took him at his word, and he asked me to make more this week. evidenatlly it worked really well. i'm still not sure if i think it is sad or cool that bribery works so well in this world :).