These are the Days!

the Great Energy Drain

2012-01-22T14:20:00.000-08:00

The kids finally went back to school.
Last week after a particularly frustrating referee episode (you know what I mean--where the Mom has to put on the stripes) I picked up my well-worn copy of Love and Logic for Toddlers and was reminded of a few tricks that I had yet to try. I resolved to do better.
So, Mark was gone every night this week for work, scouts, basketball game with Boston, tickets from friend Aaron to a comedy show, etc., and the days have been dragging along for me as temporary single parent. Friday night I was trying to give Leslie her piano lesson and Boston was whining about something or other. Something in me snapped. The light came on, and I knew now was the time to pull out my new Mama weapon, The Energy Drain. For those of you who are not familiar with the Love and Logic tactics, keep reading, you are about to be amused. (I also threw in a healthy dose of melodrama--probably not necessary, but way more fun.)
I stop the music, stand up, and put my hand to my forehead. In a sad, sad voice I say, "Oh Boston. When you whine, it just drains ALL the ENERGY right out of me. You are gonna need to fill me back up. How do you think you could put some more energy back in Mom?"
Boston: I dunno.
Me: I think you can pick up those DVDs that Macy scattered all over.
Boston wails.
Me: Oh no, there goes some MORE energy. Now you can pick up the DVDs AND those three balls.
Boston thinks for a second. Wails some more.
Me: Oh no, I'm getting lower and lower. You are really going to have to fill me up good. How 'bout the DVDs, those 3 balls, and your dinosaurs.
Boston thinks this is funny and fake wails to see what will happen.
Me: Yep, still more energy is draining. Now you need to pick up the DVDs, the balls, the dinosaurs, and the Little People mess (which was quite large).
Leslie is catching on quick and tries to coach Boston to keep his mouth shut.
Boston is in denial, thinking that Mom would never make him do all those jobs just for a little whining, and starts to wail again. I decide to cut off this little game of chicken quickly.
Me: How about we'll have prayers, then I will I go upstairs and get Macy ready for bed so you can have a chance to fill my energy back up? By the way, right now, I don't think I'm going to have enough energy to be able to read you a bed time story tonight. That will be really sad.
Then we have family prayers and I take Macy upstairs to bed. Boston sobs through the prayer and I ignore him.
I was almost done reading Macy her bedtime story when we were rudely interrupted by two excited little boys, who barged into her bedroom, talking at the same time.
Boys: Mom, Mom! Come see! We have a surprise for you!
Me: Ooh. That sounds good. Have you two brushed your teeth yet?
Boys shake their heads no.
Me: Hmm. I already told you guys to do that. Telling kids to do things more than once drains my energy.
Boys: (Looking at each other in shock, laughing, and pulling each other out of the room, slamming the door, racing down the hall) AAAHHHHGGGHH!
I finish Macy's story with a smile. Pretty soon Cooper ventures back in.
Me: Have you brushed your teeth yet?
Cooper smiles and exhales minty freshness for me. I tell him I'm almost done and that he can wait for me in the hall. A few minutes later he propels me down the stairs and tells me to close my eyes. Boston is waiting there, and proudly shows me the spotless basement. Not only did he (with a little help from his kindly brother Cooper) clean up all the suggested messes, they cleaned up everything else, too.
I stretch up big and tall and flex my newly restored muscles.
Me: Wow! That filled me up to the tip top with energy! I bet I even have enough energy for TWO bedtime stories!
Cooper and Boston look at each other like it's Christmas morning and race for the shelf.

I told Mark all about it that night, and I happen to know that his energy drained out a little bit while I was at the temple the next morning, but Boston was quick to fill him back up.

I wonder if the Energy Drain works on almost-eleven year olds? I thought about it when I reminded her to practice the next day. She cut me off quick. "Mom...uh....we never finished my lesson!"
Oh.

Macy made us laugh last night. She generally wants to be done eating before she has eaten "enough", so our family trick to get her to take more bites is to quiz her about stories and cartoons and princesses...things like that. If she takes a bite she gets a question. Someone asked her about a show she likes, "Jake and the Neverland Pirates." She treated us to an impromptu concert of the Theme Song to that show, made extra cute by her little singing hands that dance all over the air like butterflies. We were mimicking her a little bit and Leslie challenged her to try singing it again without using her hands (Mark and I are silently protesting...we love the hands...don't mess with a beautiful thing!!) Anyway, Macy sat on her hands and sang it again. Mark told her he liked it better with the hands.

After a few minutes more of eating, Macy got a bright idea to please her Dad. "I know Dad, I can sing it with my eyes closed!" And she did. SO talented!!

This morning when I was getting her dressed for church, she was asking if I was going to let her wear her bloomers today. I said no, she didn't need them. She informed me, "I'm going to call them "blackmers". Cause they're BLACK, not BLUE!"

Montana New Year

2012-01-07T15:01:00.000-08:00

Cowgirl Macy in motion.

Boston kept thinking he was a grownup, getting to help Grandpa with all that grownup stuff. It was pretty funny watching him try to stop the flow of Honey bunches of Oats that occurred while he was attempting to help himself.

Leslie was pretty pleased to get to drive the 4-wheeler by herself. And move cows.

Leslie, probably revving the engine.

Cooper, Boston, and Mark moving cows. We tried to keep Cooper covered up, but he still ended up with an ear infection that ruptured before we could get home. Our good doctor actually told us to bring him into her office as soon as we got home--she came in just for him after hours. Almost as good as a house call!

Mark, Boston, and Cooper

My brother Jake with his boys Jax and Bridger, Leslie (riding Red-red-wet-the-bed) and my boys on "Green Machine".

Cooper, Jax, Boston and Leslie

Macy and Bridger. Bridger looks like he'd rather be out with Papa.

My sis-in-law Rach with these crazy cousins. I think they are hyped up on Jake's pink lemonade.

Sisters in furs.

My Dad with Macy, on the floating tractor, apparently.


	Addy and Macy. For whatever reason, my camera is starting to play tricks on me, choosing a few pictures that will not show right side up. I try to save it the other way on the computer, but when I post it goes back to this. Any pointers?

After Christmas we took a trip north to see the folks and the cousins while the kids were out of school. It was dry and windy but the kids had lots of fun on the 4-wheelers, etc. Those of us who didn't brave the wind still had lots of fun cooking, eating, dancing in the kitchen, and playing cowgirl. Wait, I guess the cowgirl thing happened outside, too.

Christmas letter

2012-01-05T15:36:00.000-08:00

Dear friends, December 2011

“JOY means, My heart is happy and bright, and mmmm, don’t you just love the way the house smells?” I read this tonight to my children (from Christmas Cookies: Bite-size Holiday Lessons) after they did a fantastic job of cleaning up the legos, and the puzzles, and the “Don’t Break the Ice” game that Cooper has been pounding on all day. Our house is happy and bright (hooray to Mark for changing my kitchen lightbulb to 100 watts) and it even smells like homemade pizza. Maybe tomorrow we will make it smell like Spritz cookies with Grandma Haynes’ cookie-shooter. (I’ll be sure to send a few Granny cusses flying at it when I can’t get the cap to screw on right.)

We’ve had a good year. Mark is excited to be spending more time on the marketing/relationship side of the mortgage business for Bank of Utah. I’ve settled in nicely with new friends and activities (Book Club, volleyball, missionary work, writing family history) here in Bluffdale. Enough about us, we know the Grandmas just want to hear about the real stars of our family…the kids. They are growing like crazy and my heart is filled with gratitude each day that I get to be their mom.

Leslie passed the five foot mark early this year and is now only two shoe sizes away from raiding my closet. Not that it would be that exciting to raid, but you get the point. She likes the variety of new learned things fifth grade (genetics, US presidents, chemistry, student book club) She has also really enjoyed singing in the church choir with Mark and me (we take turns rehearsing) and also in the school choir. She recently found out that she will be playing the part of the feather duster/French maid in the school’s production of Beauty and the Beast. Ooolala.

Boston FINALLY started school this year. The second week he had to make a poster about himself listing three of his favorite things. One of his answers was…school! I hope it stays that way. We weren’t sure what to expect of this rough and tumble boy of ours, especially after our smarty-pants Leslie, but he is doing well and his teacher says that he is a wonderful leader and makes friends easily. We are not a bit surprised.

Cooper is my gentle, obedient soul and I made him laugh tonight while dancing to the Grinch song in the kitchen. We love his dimples, and Mark is constantly making them show by teasing him about pretty girls. He started preschool this year and startled us a little by being a very quick learner and conscientious student. (I think he already writes as well as Boston). He also began the grueling orthodontia that he will probably be subjected to, off and on, until he is a teenager. We’ve kind of taken a break from cleft palate “stuff” for a few years, but now he is gearing up for his last major surgery sometime around his 6^th birthday. He is a trooper and doesn’t seem to mind sleeping in headgear one bit. (It probably helps that both Boston and Macy have verbally wished for a face mask of their own.)

Macy is our princess in Pull-ups. She pretty much runs the house and makes everyone bow to her every whim. She particularly loves kicking the boys off of my lap at storytime and reminding them, “I’m the baby!” She is amigo number three of my tightly knit trio of little ones, playing Princess Leia and Spidergirl in the boys’ games, but also loving it when Leslie dresses up the dolls for her. Mark and I are just glad that she doesn’t want to grow up too fast, and I can’t help but rub noses with her when she sits happily in the basket of my shopping cart.

We hope that you have had tidings of comfort and joy in your homes this Christmas season and testify that we have felt these things because of the good gifts that only He can give. We know that Our Redeemer lives.

With love,

Mark & Jackie Day & Family

Rock n Roll day

2011-12-27T10:56:00.000-08:00

All the kids' stockings have scriptures about Christ stitched on them.

After Cooper opened up one of his presents on Christmas morning, he proclaimed that "This is a rock'n'roll day!" I thought Christmas was just perfect. The kids had helped shop for each others' toys, so there was some thank-you hugging going on along with the tearing of paper. Every Christmas morning should have something you need, something you want, and a few surprises. For instance, I think Mark was a little startled when I pulled a shiny new snow shovel from behind the door and told the kids that I should scoop up all the wrapping paper with it.

Our whole month was very peaceful and enjoyable, and I've tried to appreciate every minute before the kids get too much older and life gets more hectic. Our one Christmas "obligation" on the calendar was Leslie's Christmas choir concert. She had a speaking part and also enjoyed singing lots of fun songs. I still don't know how to work my camera's video function very well, but here is a clip of "Santa Baby". She is in the back row, with glasses, no Santa hat. (I think my kids will always be in the back row.)
Since we didn't have very many obligations, we were able to go to some fun, somewhat spontaneous Christmas activities. Highlights were definitely:
Dinners and goodies with friends and family. I know I've gained a pound or two this month. argh.
Parties (Mark's work party and the ward party where we assembled care kits for the homeless).
Performances (The Forgotten Carols with my fabulous neighbor Alice and her sisters, Jon Schmidt and Steven Sharp Nelson (the Star Wars cellist, for those of you who have not yet seen that video, here's the link, my kids are addicted.) courtesy of Bank of Utah).
Traditions (going to see the lights at Thanksgiving Point with the kids, going to the Salt Lake Temple with Mark).
Other fun stuff (Lots of cooking, decorating, sewing snowman gloves for gifts, Christmas cards, singing in the choir, making a gingerbread house from a kit. See picture...)

Even though it's Christmas, somehow it's still Halloween.

We read lots of Christmas books.

We played in front of the tree. This is a "boat". Okay...

Macy wore some vintage clothing. This is my mom's jumper. Love it.

We tried to make a gingerbread house from a kit, but the frosting was a bit slippery. Slippery=Collapsible.

We did tricks.

Finally it was Christmas day. Here are some shots of the melee, of course, it seemed like every time I was about to take a picture, another child would crowd in front of the subject...they were all excited to see everyone's presents.

The boys insisted on giving Macy's new "pet shops" rides in their new monster trucks.

Christmas eve surprise delivery from some secret elves. Yummy and fancy. The corner one had jalapeno frosting.

Cooper was pretty excited about his scooter.

Boss didn't know what to think about this--he opened it first.

Boston was thanking Cooper for picking him out a good remote control truck.

A lego monster truck ramp. I built it myself that afternoon.

She named her, "Baby Googoo." She giggles and sucks her bottle.

Leslie has also been catapulted into the 21st century with a new MP3 player. She loves it.

Macy moved out of the crib.

that old Elf trick...

2011-12-16T15:09:00.000-08:00

For the first time ever, my family has been chosen to be the recipient of a secret "Twelve Days of Christmas". It has been fun to guess with the kids what the next clever package will be. A magical side effect has been that, come nightfall, I have to check my volume and tone when I am calling the children up the stairs to set the table, put away their coat, stop making each other mad, etc. You never know when the elves might be right on my doorstop (really!) listening to every word that comes out of my mouth! It's a dilemma I haven't had since I was a kid and my mom made the same kind of threat. The other night I actually changed mid sentence from "For the third time, get up here RIGHT NOW and set this table!!!GRRR!!!" To a much more pleasant and gift-worthy, "Yoo hoo...whistle...time to set the table!"
Thank you Secret Elves.

Honeybee

2011-12-12T14:27:00.000-08:00

I don't write much here about my husband, Mark. Probably because this blog is mostly for my family--especially to help my out-of-state parents cope with their Grandchild Separation Anxiety. Also because he doesn't actually read my blog unless I make a point to tell him that he should that day. (I recently mentioned to him that almost every novel I've read where the author is married, in the afterward the author mentions how their spouse is their first reader, best editor, and biggest fan. Mark cocked his eyebrow at me and said, "Good for them." and kissed me. He sees right through me. I'm just a compliment junkie.)

Anyway, I wanted to write about him today because he won't, and I want our kids to know what kind of person their dad is.

He came home from the office at lunch because he had forgotten his wallet. (There had been a brief few seconds of panic over the phone when he called to see if I could find it on the bed and I told him I had just laundered the sheets.) Wallet retrieved, he was fixing a leftover mango chicken taco at the counter and started to laugh. He told me that he may have just gotten a loan because of a joke.

Apparently a few days back, a rep from a title company came into his office and was meeting the loan officers, schmoozing and passing out pens with the company name. Title companies have very strict laws about what they can do to market their business, one of the things they ARE allowed is to give out trinkets with the company logo. As a result of this we have many, many, many very fancy pens. I can imagine Mark sighing a little to himself and agreeing to accept another handful of pens from the lady. After she left, he pawned some of them off to his coworkers. Pretty soon he hears Larry remark on his new pen, "Cool, it has a light!" Well, Mark and his other buddies did NOT get a pen with a light. Travis (his partner), starts to rib Mark about the unfairness of it all, and Mark jokingly declared that he and Travis would also have pens with lights before the week was out. The jokes continued, and Mark sent off a formal email to the Title Company rep asking her to please rectify the situation and restore balance and order to their office.

Well, she thought the whole thing was pretty funny, and the emails flew back and forth over the next few days. Unbeknown to my hubby, she was also passing the messages around and sharing them with a neighboring realty office.

Today she came back with light pens. And a realtor. Who wanted her clients to work with my goofball, and no one else, because success in this business requires humor. Who knew that not taking yourself too seriously could be profitable?

And stuff like that happens all the time, too. This guy makes friends like bees make honey.

Montana words

2011-11-29T13:41:00.000-08:00

I learned from directing Boston's homework this morning a physical impossibility: just try to say "cow" without the short "a" sound. It cannot be done. So, the cow on the page was last to be colored blue (as opposed to the "a" word pictures, that were to be colored yellow, and made the shape of a smiley face when finished). We decided that even though it has a short "a" sound, just like cat and fan, the crazy grown-ups in this world decided to spell it with a big round o and we would play along. Why didn't they go with Caoo? (I'm also remembering my Choralaires director from high school, the esteemed Mr. Bill Lee, teaching us about dipthongs: a funny word for when two vowel sounds add up to one vowel.)

I also found myself struggling a big with some of the other words on his coloring puzzle. Who knew kindergarten would be so tough? For example, I find myself really struggling to keep a straight face when I lump words like "cat" and "fan" in with "flag" and "bag". They just sound different! Boston looks at me funny when I try to demonstrate the "right" way, to help him decide to color them yellow or blue. Even if I try my dangdest to start out with that pure short a sound, it always ends up with a flat, long "a" just before we hit that "g". I guess I could fake it and just pronounce it like "flack" and "back", which is the way it would sound to me.

Give me fifth grade American History any day. (Charlene and Colette, can you still sing all the American Presidents in order? I can.)

I'm remembering that I had a few struggles of my own in kindergarten. I remember being completely shocked by a big red check mark on my vegetable listening page. I had never even heard of asparagus, so when Mrs. Scherrer (sp?) said the word, of course I wrote that it began with an "S". Hmmph. She shoulda done corn and potatoes! Come to find out, asparagus is pretty tasty (although expensive).

I'll try to be a good phonetic influence on my kids, but it's tough coming from a place where my first word as a baby was....cow.

It's Boo late for you!

2011-11-15T13:31:00.000-08:00

Boston took this picture while he was supposed to be bringing me the camera. I thought I would leave it in because I like the alfalfa spikes in the back of Cooper's head, also to remind me to mention that we have been to the orthodontist a few times this month up at Primary Children's Hospital. Cooper now wears an expander mouthpiece all the time to help get his mouth in the right shape for when he has his next surgery after or during Kindergarten. No gum or hard stuff allowed, but lucky for him, Muddy Buddies are still okay. He also has to wear a "facemask" while he sleeps for the next 18 mos to help correct his underbite. (Everything is supposed to be lined up right before the surgery so they don't have to break his jaw as a teenager, which would be pretty silly since they will be giving him a bone graft to complete his jaw in the first place.) He likes it okay, but I think it is kind of a joke because it gets knocked off every single night. We've tried tying it on better with a headband (we told him he could be Nephi), but it still was off the next morning. I called the orthodontist today and they suggested using double rubber bands in his mouth plus an elastic headband. We'll see. Next we'll be resorting to duct tape. Poor kid. Did I mention that our dental insurance won't cover anyone under the age of six, birth defect or not?

We had to add a little more entertainment value to the whole trick-or-treating thing.

This is the Mexican Hat Dance section of the Children's Exhibit at the Church History museum--we've been here before and it's my kids' favorite. You try to copy the dancers on the screen. Even Mom put on a skirt and gave it a whirl.

I think they were singing something here. Or all just talking at once--also a normal occurrence. At least it got Dad to smile for the camera.

The kids doing the moonwalk at Clark's planetarium. Cooper liked this part so much that we couldn't find him when it was time to go--he had gone back upstairs to try it out again.

Boston is pretty much never bored. Not when there are old kleenex boxes to be put to good use.

Macy has no problem changing the world to be the way she wants it to be. She is frequently Spidergirl or "Amerigirl".

We've had a busy month. I've been playing women's volleyball every week and also am trying to come to terms with hopping in and out of the car every few hours to pick up and drop off kids for the next twenty years of my life. (Mourning the lack of bus, also seeing the benefit of the get-your-permit-at-14 law they have in Montana.) Oh well. Carpools help. We had a great Halloween that brought way too much candy. Mom and Dad came for a visit last week. Dad had grand plans to take us on the train (TRAX) downtown to visit Temple Square. He spoiled us rotten pretty much the whole weekend, including cooking us a surprise breakfast one morning. (And leaving a ginormous bag of Cheetos for Macy). The menfolk also went to see the MSU vs. Weber State football game. I was surprised that Dad wanted to take the boys--it was even cold out--but they took their snow pants and did alright with the addition of lots of junk food. Us girls strolled around Gardner Village, enjoying all the beautiful things and trying to keep Macy from touching every single item, and then Mom was a good enough sport to watch Macy and Leslie at my tournament game that night.

Be glad for the coin

2011-10-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

I think sometimes in life we worry so much about if we are going to get heads or tails that we forget to be happy that God gave us the coin. We trust The Plan, and life is good.
Life was particularly funny for us yesterday. Cooper was on a roll.
First of all, he was cute with his mistaken words that we don't correct because we think they are cute. He came into the house to tell me about his owie. "Mom, I got another skrake. Can I have a band-aid?" Skrake is some sort of cross between scrape and rake. After I sprayed his "skrake" with Lanacane, he and Boss were looking out the window at the sunset on the mountains. They were glowing bright pink, and Cooper got a little concerned. "Mom, did those volcano mountains already rump?" I had to reassure him that I didn't even think those were volcano mountains, let alone the erumpting kind.

Good buddies and the best of friends.

But the sweetest morsel came when Mark was putting the boys to bed. What a couple of charmers, aren't they? Cooper looks up at Mark with his big green eyes and says, "Dad, why did you marry Mom?" Mark was curious about what prompted this question and asked, "What do you think?"
Cooper shrugged but Boston piped up, "I know! Because she was the prettiest!"
Mark said, "Yeah, that was part of it, but I also married her because she is good, and goes to church, and I knew that she would keep her promises to me and to Heavenly Father, and that she would be a good Mom..."
Cooper was looking even more perplexed and stopped Mark.
"Dad, why did Mom marry you?"

A Quilt for Adda-boo

2011-10-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

My Sister-in-law is supposed to be having a baby girl today, my first niece on my side of the family. Macy will be so excited to have a little girl cousin to play with! (Eventually.) We had to celebrate by making her a quilt. This quilt makes me think of candy and Little Miss Muffet. I think they might name her Addalyn (not sure on the spelling, Rach, sorry!) Anyway, it dawned on me that Macy has always named her dollies "Adda-boo". None of us knows where she got that, but now I think maybe Macy and Atta-girl have already been friends for awhile. Good luck Rachel! We love you guys.

Masculine Musical

2011-10-17T14:17:00.000-07:00

I requested the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers from the library and watched it one night with the kids when Mark was gone. It has always been one of my favorites. (How could anyone not love a movie that starts with the song, "Bless your Beautiful Hide!"? Of course, my kids didn't quite interpret that, when I caught them singing snippets of it all week it was coming out "Bless your Beautiful Wife".)

We had a great time watching it and everyone loved it, even my boys. I was trying to get some feedback from them after the show.
Me: Wow. That show had some really good dancing...good singing...
Boston (agreeing): Good punching!

I guess you don't have to be a sissy to enjoy a musical.

Morning Soaps

2011-10-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

Cooper was the first one up this morning. I can tell I'm a mom when I know who is coming down the hall before I even open my eyes. I love that my kids come to kiss us awake before they decide they are ready for their pre-breakfast, Mom-is-reading-her-scriptures, cartoon time. Just before we scooped him into bed with us, he reminded us that he still needed to use the bathroom. (Have you noticed that kids always prefer the parental bathroom? I know we drove our Mom crazy showering in hers all the time.) While he was padding around the bed, I reminded Mark of what had happened the night before:

Cooper also tends to remember that he needs to use the bathroom during dinner. We had excused him, and he came back to the table screaming in pain that his fingers hurt. I checked out his hands. In between his fingers was still a thick, slimy layer of liquid soap. Blisters were bubbling up along with the suds. He had been complaining that his fingers were "scraped" for a few days, and I couldn't figure out why they were so red. Now I knew, he hadn't been rinsing off the soap good enough, actually a pretty difficult task for a 4 year old when you still think you need a whole pumpfull of soap (enough to fill the whole sink with suds). So, I rinsed him good, he stopped crying, and I pulled out the bar soap for him instead, to use next time.

But, we hadn't showed him where the bar soap was in our bathroom, and he would probably forget anyway. So, this morning, I mentioned this quickly to Mark, who called out, "Don't forget to use the right soap!"
We listen carefully. Cooper immediately pumps a big purple splotch into his dry hand.
a. Not the right soap.
b. His hands weren't even wet yet.
c. He hadn't used the bathroom. This proved to be the immediate problem.
Mark instructs him as follows, our obedient child.
"No, Coop, not that one. Yeah, the blue one. But first you have to use the potty. Wait, you have to rinse that one off first."
I picture the water running and the boy dancing desperately, and elbow my husband.
"No, just...USE THE POTTY! USETHEPOTTTTTTY! Don't rinse off the soap yet!"
We sigh with relief as he makes it to the toilet. We both call out, "Flush!"
Cooper heads dutifully back to the sink. Mark climbs dutifully out of bed, rinses out the purple suds, and shows Cooper the bar soap.
All clean.
Except maybe the purple slime on my toilet handle, but I'll take it.

Four reluctant models...one enthusiastic ( & cheap) photographer.

2011-10-07T12:49:00.000-07:00

I LOVE this one of Cooper. I know, untraditional, but my fav.

I have never liked the standard school photos and have opted out the last few years. This year, however, I remembered to take some pictures of the kids before the snow fell. I was also smart enough to do one-on-one sessions! And bribed with candy. And figured out how to use the fun editing tools on Picasa. The kids loved watching me edit. Make us blue! Make us glow! The biggest trick was trying to work around all the pictures that Leslie's glasses reflected in, but we managed to find a few without. (And today we are too big of wimps to go outside in the rain and try hers without sun.) Now I just have to decide which ones I want on the mantel! Which ones should I send to Mom?

Beep Beep

2011-10-01T16:05:00.000-07:00

Our family adores the public library and all the "free" stuff. We just checked out a CD of "car" songs, inspired by Disney-Pixar's cars. (For example, it includes "The Little Old Lady from Pasadena"). My kids were laughing their heads off at the song "Beep, Beep". You know the one I mean, it's where the Cadillac is driving very slowly and the mini keeps trying to pass him, and the song gets faster and faster and faster, "the horn went beep, beep, beep." I reached for my camera a little after most of the hilarity had worn itself out, but there is still some cute giggling from Macy on here. She was the funniest because, even though she is a girl, she knows that potty talk makes her brothers laugh, so it must be funny. There is a line in the chorus, "he kept on tooting his horn" that just killed her. "Tooting? Hahahahha." She calls it the tooting song. Who says you need TV to have fun? My kids are slightly cooler than my brother Jake and I, who used to chase each other in circles around the living room to classical music, "In the Hall of the Mountain King". by Edvard Grieg. (Well, maybe it wasn't THAT lame. They do use that song on a Little Einsteins episode.)

My kids have been "off-track" for a week now, three weeks to go. (For all of you non-Utahns, that means they are on vacation from year-round school, designed to accommodate 25% more students.) Leslie was very bored her first day, and we've had a few discussions about why it's not okay to just lay in bed all day reading a book. I've tried to be creative with some to-do items for her, but it turns out she and Boston thought of a few things for themselves. Here is them performing the puppet show they wrote, with the stage and puppets they created.

As for the rest of my kids, they are pretty much never bored. Macy refers to herself in this picture as "Amerigirl".

Mr. Big Stuff Strikes Again

2011-09-16T10:03:00.000-07:00

Boston turned six. We had a wild party in his honor. His Kindergarten teacher recently told Mark what a great kid Boston is and how he seems to make friends very easily. Well, that is completely true. A birthday party is his dream come true. We had a hard time limiting the number. He loves them all.

A rousing gave of duck-duck goose. We also played PIG, and Leslie and Lydia helped with freeze tag and a few things like that.

Spoiled rotten and he knows it.

I can't believe I ate the WHOLE thing.

I love the gritted teeth in this picture.

Season's over. Here's to our big slugger!

No Glass Ceiling here!

2011-09-01T08:48:00.000-07:00

You know how when your kids say a word wrong and it's cute, you try to get them to say it again? This morning Macy told me that I could be Supergirl and she was going to be "Wumberwoman." I was nigh unto death-by-cuteness as she said it a couple more times, and I thought it couldn't get any better than that. Then she looked at me, considering, and decided "We can both be Wumberwomans."

Trust The Plan

2011-08-28T16:03:00.000-07:00

I figured out today that "Thy Will Be Done" means the same thing as, "I trust The Plan". Now I want to put that on my wall in my next house. It will help us to remember the big picture even if we don't understand all the moving parts. One of my neighbors commented a few weeks ago that "Sometimes we think things are finally coming together, God knows that things have never actually been apart." I like that and notice it more and more the more life I see. It's like going on a trip in a car as a passenger. Particularly as a kid. We don't know where the folks are driving, or why there are so many bumps, or why we have to be in the car so long, or how things are going to look when we get there. We just trust that Mom and Dad know where we are going and it will be fun. (And we tend to ask "Are we there yet?" a lot.)
My sister Brooke and her hubby Jared finally got "there". They brought their new baby to our house this week to stay for a while before they go home. Here are some pics of my kids loving on their new cousin Brig. I couldn't resist hanging a Brigham Young University pennant on his Pack & Play along with his finally finished baby quilt.
I enjoyed being the fairy godmother and giving Brig his first home sponge bath while Brookie shampooed him up and took pictures.

I'd have to say, though, that my favorite has been catching Brooke and Jared in their oh-so-vulnerable-new-parent moments, brought on by my rough-and-tumble children.
I came downstairs early one morning to see if I could snag the baby upstairs with me so Brooke could get another hour or two of sleep. Ha ha (I'm still laughing out loud as I write this), my boys had her pinned in the lazy boy; she was holding onto that baby for dear life in nothing but her skivvies, not a bathrobe or a blanket within reach. I shooed them out into the office to watch some Spiderman cartoons or something (hooray for Netflix), took the baby and ordered her back to bed. Good thing Mark wasn't the first one downstairs!
Also had to laugh at mild-mannered, soft spoken Jared being in a bit of a panic (in the same lazy boy) when I caught my boys climbing over the arms of the chair, swiping off Jared's glasses (he usually has his contacts in, so they were a little fascinated) and attempting to try them on the baby. Jared couldn't do anything about it because he was bottle feeding Brig, just an urgent "Don't do that, don't do that!" Once again, I had to be the fly swatter. I'm sure they will be relieved when they get to be home with no one but Lenny the Siamese cat.
Boston had his first baseball games this week! He hits the ball pretty well but the whole team is still pretty confused about what you should do on outfield. It makes it entertaining, though. My favorite was a kid on the other team who ran to third base instead of first. It was more of a trot, or a meander, than a run, which made it even funnier. Boston liked being the first baseman because he liked to point to where the runner was supposed to go next (rather than try to get him out). Mark soon put a stop to that.
We also have been trying to really enjoy these last few weeks of way-too-hot weather. Friday I canned salsa all day and then that night we took the whole family to an outdoor acapella concert in the park right off Temple Square in downtown SLC. We were on our picnic blanket right behind the provided lawn chairs and sound system and couldn't see a thing (along with most of the blanket sitters). There was quite a crowd and we were actually lucky to have a place at all. We could hear fine, though, and the weather was gorgeous and the singing was so fun. We brought popcorn and water bottles and just lounged around with the kids, listening. They did really well and even were dancing up a storm on a few of the songs while we sang along. Coop and Boss really had some good moves on "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", and Macy kept trying to hula, entertaining everyone behind us, I'm sure.

Brooke wanted mostly gray and blue. The back is the polka-dot stuff.

brothers from another mother? Boston and Brig's ears have all the same folds and tucks.

I'm sure she was thinking, "But I'm the baby!"

Then last night we made our second attempt to visit our favorite splash park (our first attempt, last month, got lightninged out.) It was gorgeous and fun and Mark cooked us all up some hot dogs while I lounged on the blanket and kept reminding the kids not to run on the wet cement. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of these last two events, but Mark gets after me when I try to bring the camera. He says to not worry about the camera and taking pictures and just have fun. I'm okay with that!

Too dizzy...

2011-08-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

Macy has been great lately at coming up with excuses not to do things. Sometimes if she wants me to carry her up the stairs, etc., she'll look all pitiful, "But I CAN'T carry myself!" My favorite one, though, is her standby anytime she isn't in the mood to play with her siblings or help me with a job. "I'm too dizzy."
We are pretty sure she gets this from singing the Cinderella song. "She's going round in circles 'til she's very, very dizzy..."
Cooper was telling me at lunchtime all about the Indian named "Hoka-pontis".
Boston was spotlighted in his kindergarten class. We were supposed to fill out this poster questionnaire and attach a couple of pictures. One of the questions was, "What are your favorite things to do?" There were three lines, so he came up with three answers. Playing outside. Playing with friends. AAAAAND....Going to School! I cheered.
Leslie's homework is getting harder, now that she is the fifth grade. (And she secretly loves it.) I had to chuckle when she asked me the other day if I knew anything about "Paranoids. You know, those words that spell the same way forwards and backwards? I know a whole sentence...Madam, I'm Adam." I said, yes, I remember learning that sentence, probably back when I was in fifth grade, too, except they called them "Palindromes" back then. (Phew... thankfully I remembered what they were called before she was done talking so I could explain the difference between paranoids and palindromes. One of these days I'm not going to have a clue what she is talking about.)
We are having a fun week hanging out with Duke, who is biding the time here so he can be with his GIRLFRIEND as much as possible before school starts. (His school, not hers, haha. He teaches.) We are also having fun playing with my sister Brooke and her hubby Jared while they are waiting for their baby to arrive. Brooke is the skinniest 9-month-along-mama I have ever seen. She's not going to be the one having the contractions, but I think she is just as anxious. I'm stitching away on the binding of her baby blanket. Pictures later.

Boston pictures

2011-08-09T13:41:00.000-07:00

First day of Kindergarten! (It's ironic that he's wearing his Cubs shirt. His teacher may not remember his name!)

Leslie learns to dive at swimming lessons.


Treading water.

Boston attempting to backfloat. They teach the hand movements "Monkey, Airplane, Soldier". That part he could do.

One of our favorite things is to go to the Parade of Homes. We haven't been for several years and thought it would be fun to get to know our new area better. (Also, Mark likes to talk to the builders about their financing options.) This is the UP House, not far from us. It was super cute inside, I especially liked the turquoise retro appliances. Macy liked getting a free balloon, that she promptly lost. Mark spoiled her and went back for another.

Mark, Leslie, "Mr. Frederickson, and Russell".

Sometimes we are lured into a home with a promise of free ice cream. Mark found out that this is not such a great idea if you are bringing a toddler along. Fudgsicle all down her legs and car seat, and nary a wet-wipe to be found. We ended up using one of the boys dirty socks that had been left in the van, doused in hot water from my water bottle, to clean her up. The sock was not THAT dirty.

We also hosted a birthday party with the cousins for Mark's Dad. He turned 70, and he looks pretty happy about it, doesn't he?

Boston's tough guy-Mom-don't-cry-sheesh face. (I didn't. Until after I dropped him off.)

Boston's first day

2011-08-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Boston finally got to start kindergarten this week. It seems like he (and we) have been waiting forever since he has a fall birthday. At least we get to start a month early since we have a year-round school district.
He says he had fun, he likes school, there might be a couple of cute girls in his class (Mark asked him that), and he wondered today when he is "done" with school. Not that he wants to be--I think he meant it to ask how long he gets to go. I think my answer of, not for at least 12 years pleased him--I told him at that point he could go on a mission, get married and go to college.
My favorite part was when I came to pick him up, and I saw this tall pretty girl in glasses coming down the sidewalk and holding hands with this TEENSY little boy, then realizing that it was Leslie and Boston. A. He must have still felt kind of nervous because he never holds her hand. B. He's not really that little, pretty average sized, but compared to all those other kids pouring out of the school he looked tiny. Since his name really fits around our house--The Boss Man--it was instructive for me to see him in a different setting from a wider perspective.
I'll post some pictures of his first day as soon as I hunt down the camera.
I am mentally adjusting to having more time with only two little chillins to take care of. I can actually handle two kids in most situations and places, so I'm trying to think of some fun places to go with them. Any ideas? Yesterday we walked around our across the street ponds and looked at water bugs and tadpoles. Today we tried out a new playground for a little while after we dropped off Boston, until it got too hot.
The real adjustment is going to be when Cooper starts preschool (yes, I finally found an affordable preschool nearby with lots of other boys to play with so he can have his "own" friends). He will be going two afternoons a week. That means it will be just me and my shadow at home. I know that I had tons of fun with Leslie when I had her at home all to myself and am trying to remember the kinds of things we did. We did a lot of playgroups, went to museums and parks and shopping (when was the last time I went shopping for fun...), oh, and let's not forget the legendary "Movie Day" where my still childless friends from Loch Lomond and I would meet one afternoon a week for goodies and a show to while away the summer. Leslie was the only kid there. Hmm. I guess that last one was more for me than for her, but she did like to go places.
I'm guessing it won't really be that big of a difference because we will probably get our grocery shopping done one of the days and play with friends or go places or nap (if I can convince her she needs one) on the other day.
She better get a little brother or sister one of these days before I get too entirely carried away with my excess time.
Our garden is in full swing. I was excited to make my first try at homemade pesto from our basil. I wasn't sure we would have enough for the required two cups of leaves, but we still have tons and tons. I made panini sandwiches from my friend Jaryn's recipe (it was also her pesto recipe). You get some good Italian bread, slather on pesto, thin slices of tomato and fresh mozzerella, more basil leaves, roasted red peppers from a jar, and then cook it like a grilled cheese sandwich. She does hers in a George Foreman so it flattens nicely and cooks both sides. I cooked mine on a griddle with a foil wrapped brick on top. It worked great, even if it took a little longer. (I also served cucumber spears from our garden.) Mark and I felt like we were at Zuppas. Macy and Leslie liked theirs. The boys whined. Oh well.
Summer food. Mmmm.

On Top of a Mountain

2011-07-27T12:53:00.000-07:00

We took the kids camping this weekend. It should have been super busy because of Pioneer Day weekend, but we went down to the Manti/LaSalle national forest and were lucky enough to find an camping spot literally on top of a mountain (not a towering, rocky one, more of a flattened, treetopped one.) This is Macy NOT wanting to be carried on our "hike".

Us on our hike, it was still kind of hot.

Boston finds a "bear track" on the road. Looked like dog to me, maybe cougar??? Everything else was horse, maybe it's a stepped on horse track. Hope it wasn't bear! We intentionally didn't go to Payson Lakes campground like we had intended because on the radio some rangers were trying to track down two aggressive black bears there.

We could see for miles. This is looking north from the road that went past our campsite.

Looking south from the road we hiked down. This swath was some kind of natural gas line or something.


The way back Macy finally got her way and walked by herself. We got back to camp 15 minutes after everyone else.

Leslie and Mark roasting marshmallows. Duke was kind enough to lend us his firewood box and roasting sticks, but man, Duke, those sticks are short! You need better ones. Mark thought his face was going to melt off.

Macy coming down a little path to a hand-hewn, sagging bench that was up next to some trees. See the amazing lack of other campers? Am I really in Utah?

Besides our hike, we also had a treasure hunt with handwritten clues all over the place, leading back to our box of s'more fixins. One of the clues was on this fallen tree. The kids loved riding it, even though Cooper was sure he was going to fall off. The ground sloped away pretty fast, so it was scarier than it looks.

I had to ride the horsey, too.

Leslie and I ride double.

We also played hide & seek (teams) and then discussed some possible Indian names for each other. This is Cooper being Chief Thunder. He said he was making thunder, and so I think this picture is pretty cool. He's actually whipping up dust into a beam of disappearing sunlight with a long, branchy twig.

Macy's Indian name was Squaw Walks Alone.

When it got dark and the kids didn't want to sit around the fire and relax, they played charades for us instead. This is Cooper and Macy being giraffes.


It's a good thing we went camping, because these kids are growing up too fast! Leslie started 5th grade yesterday. Check out those new shoes! Size 7 1/2. Look out Aunt Brookie!

I thought I had the car all cleaned out, but I forgot the sunscreen. Yesterday when I thought Cooper and Macy were playing nicely in the backyard, Cooper let Macy in the van instead (our garage door to the back yard driveway is stuck open and getting fixed TODAY). She decided to grease down my passenger seat. Any hints how to get this off? There is kind of a mesh netting over it, so I can't really even get to most of it....hope it fades!

Glasses and Baseball

2011-07-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

Sunday Mark and Boston were talking about how Boston might be able to do baseball this fall. Mark said he figured Boston would be pretty good, especially if they played catch and practiced. Leslie, in a show of generous spirit, said, "Yeah Boston, I'm sure you'll be better than I was." Boston replied with a little too much swagger, "I KNOW I'll be better than you!" Mark asked him what made him think that. Boston made a "duh" face, pointed his finger at Leslie and replied, "Glasses!"

Cooper was sick last week, with what may have been a final showing of the Ely family reunion bug. He'd been feverish before he went to bed. The next morning, Boston ran upstairs and burst into our room. "Mom, Dad, Cooper's going to explode! He says he's going to blow up!"
I think he meant, throw up, because that is what he did. But blow up is more accurate.

We found out that we need to work on Macy's political correctness. This week Mark was reading Curious George goes to the Zoo to her, and asking her about all the animals. He discovered that she didn't think George was a monkey. She calls him, "the Brown Guy." This wouldn't be so bad as an isolated incident, but she also keeps calling Pablo (from beloved cartoon Backyardigans), "Problem". That's what happens when we spend too much time on vacation in the Great White North.

Leslie and Boston are enrolled in swimming lessons that my friend gives at her mom's house. (I kind of thought it was private lessons, but it's a regular class. Guess I need to open my ears better. Oh well.) I think they will do great because the number two rule they teach the kids, right after "Don't go by water or pools without an adult" is, "When we swim, we put our face IN THE WATER." I'm only allowed to watch on Mondays because there isn't alot of room, so on Monday I will try to remember the camera. Macy, Cooper and I have fun plans during that hour. Yesterday we went to the library because the kids' books were due, and today we swung on the swings for a very long time. Cooper and Macy both love the swings and giggle and giggle. I tried to capture it on video, but of course they stopped as soon as I tried, even though I was behind them, so you'll have to be content with some pictures.

Cooper on the night of the thunderstorm, when we tried to go to the splashpark for a pizza picnic but ended up eating in the car and renting Yogi Bear instead. They did laugh pretty hard.

It's clean.

Leslie starts school on Monday. I didn't think I would notice the short, short, shortness of the summer break that much, but I do. Holy cow. Three weeks and we were gone for more than a week of it. I even have to reschedule the 2nd half of her swimming lessons because I thought she didn't go back to school until the very end of July. Boston starts the week after that. I was talking to Mark about next summer and it dawned on us that next year we will have THREE kids in school. Crazy.

an Actual Vacation with pictures, part one

2011-07-10T21:30:00.000-07:00


Daisy Queen Macy. This is my first official "daisy chain", having only ever made dandelion chains before. The daisies just grew wild by Sharon's house, fields and fields of them. Gorgeous!

We just had a great vacation and really broke out of our rut by staying at 4 different places over 9 days. Mark and I are both anticipating and dreading tackling Monday and all the catching up that needs to get done, but we needed a break and we had a great time seeing everyone! Here are some pictures of the first half of our trip.

Evidence of the epic library trip the day before we left. Luckily, my kids love books and trips to the library, and I had to snap this shot to prove it. I am actually standing in the garage as I take this picture--the books got two steps into the house before the kids had to bust them out. I've been ridiculed before because I always have to pack so many books whenever I go on vacation, but really, I use them. Reading is what I choose to do to relax, and isn't that what you're supposed to do on vacation, anyway? I'm also one of those lucky people who have no trouble reading in the car unless the road is really windy. All that packing was not wasted--I think this time I finished three books and got a good chunk done on another (not to mention packing my scriptures and journal, and the garage sale books I bought that had to come home.) I read Red Riding Hood (okay but do I want to see the movie now? Plus the last chapter was online. Annoying!), The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education you never had, Outliers, and part of 1776.

Happy van prisoners, taking off for day two. Next time Boston gets to ride in the way back. He talked (read here-whined) nonstop.

First we stopped in little Dubois, Idaho for a few minutes to see where Mark's sister DeAnn and her family had moved to. Very small town--I know it has been a bit of a culture shock for them, but we like that it's right on the way to Montana. Then we went to Missoula to stay with Jake and Rachel and the boys for the night and see their nice new house. Super fun! I loved their big dining room and the boys loved all the bikes and the long driveway.
From there we went to Day Cousin Camp 2011, Lake Pen d'Oreille. (Did I spell that right? It's French and pronounced Ponderay.) Mark's sister Sharon was the hostess this year, and we were all super excited because none of us has been to her gorgeous lakefront home way up near Sandpoint, Idaho, despite the gazillions of times her family has come down to see us. I wasn't sure what to expect but I had a clue it would be awesome after my brother-in-law Doug mentioned that they had recently trucked in a few loads of sand for their beach and got a dock. They also had several kayaks and even a paddle boat that the little kids (and the grandparents) got to ride in. We ate lots of yummy food (Sharon also did all the shopping and planning), camped in the yard, played in the lake, went to church, watched fireworks, and performed in the annual cousin talent show. This year's talent show was topped by the jazz band provided by Sharon's family, complete with drums, keyboard, guitar and brass. Those teenagers really knew their stuff and were gracious enough to let my little ones try things out. I don't know how many times Cooper tried out the guitar. Cousin Spencer even taught him how to blow a trumpet, and we all applauded because we didn't think he'd figure it out. The piano was going full speed almost the whole three days we were there, but my nephew Justin did find time to play and sing a little Phantom of the Opera with me. He also played the organ in church. He is going to be in 8th grade.

Unfortunately I couldn't find the camera during the talent show, but I might have to get some footage of Leslie's Christmas in July song, Boston's march on the piano, and Cooper's skit with Mark. Very fun.
I also need to snag a picture from one of my sisters-in-law of all of us in front of the van with the windows painted with "Cousin Camp, 2011." Mark's parents drove it to church that way and Frances (my mother-in-law) remarked that the last time she had driven in a car with the windows painted they had said "Just Married!" I really don't think they minded much.

Mark in the paddle boat with my three tinies. This was before they figured out how to put up the shade canopy. Cooper got quite good at peddling and ended up doing most of the work when we went out.

Leslie trying out one of the kayaks. Boston also tried out the kayaks by himself on the 4th of July (with one of us paddling nearby). He got it figured out pretty well but ran out of steam in a hurry, so he didn't go far.

Macy and her red shovels. I built this "lake" and river system with the boys.

Macy and Cooper played plenty of Jump Off the Dock. You can kind of see how pretty the area is. Sharon is on Bottle Bay, a long skinny bay off of Lake Pen d'oreille.

Coop shows no fear. A few days later, at Mom and Dad's, he also was jumping out of the boat to Uncle Jared in the middle of Willow Creek Reservoir.

This is NOT me--the sun was too bright to get a good picture of her face. This is Sharon, Mark's sister, the 4th of July queen. Our whole family walked part of the way across the "long bridge" on the 4th and trucks were honking at her.

Here is a Longbridge shot of all the grandkids, minus DeAnn's four who didn't get to come. Back row, left to right: Spencer ( who just earned a whopping 34 on his ACT), Janicka, Rhett, Makailee, Brinley, Greg (I think--I still can't tell the twins apart, and I don't remember which one always has to stand on the left...), Justin (I think...). Middle Row: Gavin, Hadley, Boston, Cooper, Gavin, Lydia, Leslie. Front row: Macy, Carson

Us on the Longbridge. 4th of July. It was very sunny and Cooper refused to open his eyes for the shot.

Macy in the daisy field behind Sharon's house.

After cousin camp we drove back into Montana to go and see Mom and Dad for a few days--not long enough because we usually stay there a whole week. You do what you can.

Here is Macy in the tub with her closest-in-age cousin, Bridger. I thought it would be cute to make their hair stand up with bubbles, but Bridger's is too short, so Macy gets to be the sole conehead.

We played for a day at Eureka Reservoir and had a magical summer afternoon stop for ice cream on the way home at the Choteau Museum boardwalk, just like my grandma used to take me and my cousins.

Here is Macy with her peach ice cream cone. You can't tell very well here, but it was dripping clear down her legs and onto her feet, besides getting all over her face. A kindly gentleman minding the shop next door directed us to a little wading pool on his nearby lawn so we could wash off our sticky-monsters. We thought we did a thorough job, but even after a bath the next day Macy had sticky stripes between her toes.

More pictures (hijacked from Rachel's blog and wherever else I can get them) to come for the second half of the trip. (probably a good thing because I think Macy might be a little over-represented here. I just can't help it!)

Summer hits

2011-06-26T16:23:00.000-07:00

So, here are the pictures from our trip to the copper mine. We also had a fun week going to the little splash park at a nearby town, eating lots of cheetos there (Macy didn't really want to play in the water), and also a family adventure picnic and mini-hike to Bridal Veil Falls. The falls were gorgeous, the mountains were breathtaking, especially with the amount of snow still on top and everything so green, but the river within view of the trail was crazy wild. Don't worry mom, we didn't get close even once and we didn't even let the kids climb over the bridge to see it.
Leslie is almost done with her first time of year-round school, for a few weeks at least! It really hasn't been that bad except lately it is almost too hot for her to walk or ride her bike (supposedly ride, she pushes it up hill a large chunk of the way). She comes home totally flushed and sweaty so I told her I would pick her up this week.

I was also extremely excited to have our first meeting of my new book club (Mark is calling it the Book Snoots) since there wasn't one in this neighborhood already. We are going to try to tackle some more challenging and discussion-worthy books. Any suggestions? This month is David McCullough's 1776, one many people own but haven't actually read. Should be good for the 4th of July! It was fun to get to plan out the next few months as well, including Silas Marner by George Eliot. Another one I've never actually picked up but should have.

Auntie Up

2011-06-19T20:55:00.000-07:00

I can tell that I've been outside more lately because my blogs are falling farther apart. My veggie garden has been taking some TLC to coax it up out of the ground (I've had to replant several things) but now is finally up and edible (the butterleaf lettuce, spinach, and a monster crop of cilantro--come clip some for yourself.) I'm curious to see how the tomatoes and corn do this year in such a windy spot. Coming from Montana, though, where you never go to a picnic without wearing a ponytail to keep your hair from blowing into your hotdog, I'm pretty optimistic that things will be fine.

We had a fun week with some of our favorite people. Brooke and Jared (you can tell I'm the sister of Brooke because I wrote her name first...ever notice you say the name of the person you are related to before the name of your in-law? Kind of an unwritten rule. And if you are only friends with them, you almost always say the husband first.) and Duke came to stay for a few days. Brooke and Jared received some pulse-pounding news that they have been selected to adopt a baby boy in AUGUST! I really think it was just part of the grand plan because they knew they were supposed to get their paperwork ready to adopt really fast, and then they were chosen right away. So, I'm excited to meet a new little nephew. Also Jake and Rachel (see...I'm related to Jake--I guess I'll claim him--since he's finally sired a girl) are due with the first girl cousin in October. Leslie and Macy are super excited. While Brooke was here I decided to saddle up for my most favorite Auntie duty and go fabric shopping for two new baby quilts. Fun stuff. And Jared claims he had fun playing with the rugrats at the Carl's Jr. playground while we shopped.
We also took a little field trip with the kiddos while Leslie was at school to go to the Bingham Copper Mine--the largest open pit mine in the world. Very cool but the kids kept insisting it was a volcano. Maybe I'll go get the camera out of the van someday and post the pictures here. Kind of lazy about that.
Then this weekend we went on a little getaway to Cache Valley and played with our dear friends the Knudsens. Boston and their little Bree-with-the-Big-Brown-Eyes still insist that they are getting married when Boss gets home from his mission. Pretty funny to see her boss HIM around. I'm sure she'll be a good cook, too, since Miranda spoils us to death with her baking when we visit, so Mark approves as well.
I think Mark had a good father's day. He got a funny card from Leslie. I guess at school they were trying to make these cutaway stamp things that stamped a message to the dads, but they had to carve out the letters backwards to make it work. Leslie got hers a little turned around and it looked kind of like, "Dad, I love you SNOT." So, we laughed pretty hard about that this morning and she promises not to call him names next time.
Macy also made me laugh this afternoon. She and Cooper were arguing over a toy, and when I took it away they both started howling. Macy soon noticed that she wasn't the only one crying and she lost her temper even more, pointing out his crying to me and insisting, "COOPer's not da baby! I da baby."

the Art of Brother

2011-06-03T16:01:00.000-07:00

I was going through some old picture scans and came across this one of my Dad when he was a little sprout. Boston and Cooper had just gotten haircuts the night before and it really brought out the family resemblance in Boston. I showed the picture to him and asked, "Who do you think this is?" He got a big smile and proclaimed, "It's MEEEE!" He didn't believe me when I told him it was my Dad. What do you guys think? I think I can see a little bit of Jaxon in there, too.
Boston and Leslie cracked me up yesterday morning because Boston is such a natural at being a pesky little brother. He's the biggest morning person of all of us, and usually wakes us up and crawls into Mark's spot while Mark is in the shower or at basketball. Of course he can't hold still--to the point of bouncing and vibrating the bed because he can't contain his energy, so I usually kick him out after a few minutes. Anyway, Leslie had also climbed into our bed, and I was cuddling Cooper on the other side and waiting for Macy to wake up. This is what I hear.
Boston: Whoa, Leslie! You have a LOT of WARTS! GROSS!
Leslie, all in a huff: Those aren't warts [imbecile!] those are just FRECKLES!
Boston, mulling this over: Nuh, uh. Look how BIG that one is. EW!
Leslie, shoving him off: That's my ELBOW!
I couldn't stop laughing. I wonder how many times Dad teased Patti about her "warts".

Scotty the Pest (Patty might say...)


Boston the Pest (Leslie does say...)

Chucky Cheese and the Sea Serpent

2011-05-27T14:38:00.000-07:00

Cooper had a fun birthday. Why am I even writing about it? It's totally obvious from the pictures. He requested chocolate cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner (which he did not get--I am no Bill Cosby) and Chucky Cheese. (Earlier he had requested a swimming party but after he broke his arm we started giving him other ideas. Then we found out the cast was waterproof...shucky darn. We just barely took our family swimming at the new local facility and it was rather pricey. Do I really have six people in my family? Wow.) He also was consistent about wanting a shield for a present. Well, I compromised a little and got him a Captain America shield to go with his suit, but he still liked it fine. The biggest hit has been the Sea Serpent hot wheels set that floats in the bathtub and squirts water at the cars or whomever you point it at. Boston was more excited than Cooper about that one, and my boys have had more baths in the last week...
Grandpa and Grandma Day joined us at Chucky Cheese and it was certainly nice to have extra grownups stuffing tokens into the machines.
We also FINALLY got our garden in. So far the peas and the zukes are up. Now if I can just keep the kids from trampling everything.
I also just got called to be a ward missionary. I've never done anything like that before but I'm really excited to help people find the truth and be happy. I think it helps to be the new girl in town because it's easier to meet people and not have preconceived ideas about them.

I know, this looks like a teensy piece of cake, why did I put the candles on it? It was actually a recipe that Cooper had recently fallen in love with, a Peanut Butter Brownie Fudge Pudding that you cook in the Crockpot. I've never done a Crockpot dessert for a birthday before and wasn't sure where to stick the candles. He declined ice cream. That's my boy--give me the undiluted chocolate. (Actually this is so rich I had to have ice cream on mine. I guess he is tougher than all of us.)

the Wide Hole

2011-05-16T12:50:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I was upset about something and Mark said to Macy, "Tell Mommy she's the best Mommy in the whole wide world." Macy gave me a tender kiss and said, "You're the...Mommy in the Wide Hole."
Well, that definitely changed my mood. Mommies in the Wide Hole can handle anything. Here she is huffing and puffing and blowing the house down.
Mark told me yesterday that we had been married for 4, 404 days exactly. (I thought it was romantic that he had looked it up on the internet.) I think he has been feeling grateful for the stability in our family and marriage because some of his coworkers are going through some rough stuff, and he is so amazed that a relationship could deteriorate that far. Oh, and he just thinks I'm wonderfulness personified, as well. We celebrated our 12 year anniversary last month. He is my best thing that ever happened.

Mother's Day was fun, even with the wide hole comment. The kids were super excited to be nice to me and draw me extra pictures, etc., and I loved popping away on my customized box of Sees Chocolates from Mark that I had selected on our date the evening before.
Leslie had a life-changing weekend a couple of weeks ago. She came home from school and said, "Mom, I've noticed something. I've been asking the other kids in the class what the whiteboard says because they can read it and I can't. And I have to get out of bed to see what my alarm clock says in the morning."
!
So, I made an appointment with our beloved Bishop Dr. Gray from our old neighborhood and sure enough, he deemed her worthy of a constant pair of glasses. Mark and I were pretty floored because neither of us wear glasses or know the first thing about eye stuff, but Leslie seemed to take it all in stride with a shrug. I guess several of her friends also have glasses. She is being way more mature about the whole thing than I would have been at her age (hopefully this means the vanity thing didn't get passed to my children.) Actually, they fit her face pretty well and she seemed to be pretty pleased with Dr. Gray's statement that nearsightedness has been scientifically proven to be connected to high IQs.

"I come from Alabamy with a banjo on my knee...."

Macy has been pretty gung ho with potty training, even though I meant her miniature toilet to be more of a suggestion than a goal after the prolonged and awful training of the last two. I didn't want to post the harmonica incident, but Mark thinks it is pretty funny.
I also had a lovely evening with my not-so-formal quilt guild on Friday. We do a block exchange every year or so, and this one I was very excited about. We all were supposed to design or choose a block that reflected our Utah Heritage. I chose to do the Tabernacle Pipe Organ with the choir down below. It turned out surprisingly well and I was really impressed with what everyone else did and the meaning they explained behind their choices. Here is a shot of the blocks (although I realized that mine is not in this bunch because I have a few more stitches to put in on some of the applique--I'll just have to post it later.)

Now, what do I put in the center?

Phew. This post is getting long. My latest news is that yesterday I was released from teaching the seven year olds in Primary and called to be a Ward Missionary. I've never done anything like that before but I'm excited to see what kind of help I can give.

Humpty Dumpty's friend

2011-04-29T14:31:00.000-07:00

We had a fun Easter. All week we put up a new picture on the wall about Jesus and the Easter Story, ending on Easter morning with my mom's favorite painting of Christ at the Garden Tomb with Mary Magdalene. They really enjoyed that and asked lots of questions. Boston kept wondering if the crown of thorns were the same kind of thorns that scratch him from the rose bushes. Saturday we dyed eggs and I was reminded that dying Easter eggs with kids is mostly, Mom dyes eggs and everyone watches and throws in their opinion. Leslie, luckily, did fine on her own.
On Wednesday Cooper was his usual pre-bedtime wound-up self and jumped off the couch. He landed on his hands instead of his feet and howled like a banshee. (I asked Mark, "How do you tell if they are actually hurt if they ALWAYS howl like a banshee?") Anyway, Cooper turned white as a sheet and went to get his "blue blank" to wrap his arm in. Of course, he never wants me to look at it, touch it, or try to help, at least until he has sort of stopped crying. He was still crying a half hour later (and we couldn't hear American Idol) so I decided to take him in to the KidsCare after hours.
When we pulled in to the hospital parking lot, and the hospital was all huge, lit up, and scary looking, he said, "Mom, it doesn't hurt anymore! Let's go home." I asked him to move his hand for me and he couldn't do side-to-side without crying again, so I carried him inside.
He had calmed down just fine by X ray time, and that was actually "pretty awesome". He kept asking about his skeleton and was excited to get a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur skeleton sticker.
He had what I guess is called a buckle fracture, close to the end of his left radius (the one that lines up with your thumb). So they made a brace for him, gave him a sling, and told us to come back in a few days for casting.
Somehow I could have guessed it would be Cooper who would be my first kid with a broken bone. I'm just glad it was self-inflicted!
PS. Also glad for hubby's new job and good health insurance.

Divvying up

2011-04-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

Just watched an interesting human phenomenon as I tried to arbitrate between Boston and his friend. They had decided to play Hot Wheels, but although Boston has dozens and dozens of these shiny-tinies, the boys both wanted the same group of "special" ones. I don't know what makes them cooler than the rest, they just are. So, after they had tried to figure things out on their own with some heightened emotion, I decided to step in with my motherly logic and teach a new skill: divvying up. Pour them all back in the box. Friend chooses ONE first (because we play the guest card with gusto at our house...), then Boston. Then friend, then Boston. I'm secretly wondering how long it will take for them to divide 100 cars before they even get to the playing. They both seemed to be a little suspicious that this was really the best way to go, but they complied. After they had both had about ten turns, I hear this coming from the bedroom.
"Hey, you got all the ones I wanted!!!!"
How could I not laugh?
I know this applies to the bigger picture, too. How often do we look at someone else's life or things or experiences and think..."Hey, you got all the ones I wanted!!!!"?
I hope God doesn't roll his eyes at me sometimes. Good thing I like the ones I got.

Thursday Spa

2011-04-14T12:31:00.000-07:00

I love Thursdays. Inhale, Exhale....Smile. Vacuuming Day. When I'm done I seriously feel like I've just had a day at the spa. And the freshly vacuumed stairs and baseboards? They are like the pedicure. Be gone, Cheez-it crumbs, quilting snips, popcorn seeds and sock lint. I feel all dressed up with no place to go, but why on earth would I want to go anywhere? A sparkly house puts me in an exuberant mood (it may have to do with all those endorphins I worked up by shoving that vacuum all over the place, or maybe that my kids are somehow little angels again after their toys are picked up) and makes me want to share the joy. So here are some cute things.
1. Boston and Cooper saving the world while I vacuum the basement. Capes are a such a nice, non-cluttery toy. Boston is really not that much taller than Cooper--they are standing on the beanbag chair. The other day a door-to-door salesman asked if they were twins. I said, no, it's just the haircuts.

2. Meet Macy's imaginary enemy. She calls it her monster. It lives on the underside of the banister. This morning I had to talk her out of trying to feed it some vanilla yogurt.

3. Boston has been enjoying the nicer weather, although he is bothered that Kindergarten Orientation was a big fake-out and he doesn't actually get to start Real Kindergarten until fall. He has recently made friends with some robins that like to sing in our backyard. This photo is from the morning he informed me that he had made a bird trap. Look closely and you will see the not-so-fresh worm next to the goldfish on the deck stair. He failed to explain how the bird would actually get trapped if it did, in fact, take the bait. But he watched that trap all morning, and even tried it in the front yard watching out the window and yelling to Cooper to come quick! anytime a bird approached our lawn. I guess we should spend some time making a bird feeder. He took some comfort in that idea. "You can buy birdfeed at the store?"

I am also enjoying my membership to a county-wide library system. (That was actually the most exciting thing to me about moving here.) I can pretty much request any book I can think of and it magically appears on the hold shelf with my name in it. Pick me up, Jaclyn Day! I have to learn to pace myself because it seems like all of my requests (wishes to the book genie, really) always show up on the same day. Last week I finished the best novel I have read in a long time and had to agree with the critic on the back that it is the best kept secret in the literary world. Precious Bane by Mary Webb. Flat out gorgeous. And I'm not even partial just because my son also had a cleft lip.

Mmmm. Meaty.

2011-04-05T13:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some cute shots of my glama-girl. One of the times, I dressed her. The other times, she did it herself. I wish I could claim her sense of style.
Last night at dinner Boston was waxing philosophical. "Let's see. Who is the littlest?" He looked all around the table until his eyes decided on Macy. "Who is the biggest?" He went with Mark on that one. Then he seemed to be struggling with his words a little, but I was delighted with what finally came out. "Who is the.....mediest?"

On Fly Specks and "Having a Nice Day"

2011-03-28T10:41:00.000-07:00

I just remembered that the cake I am about to bake, my friend Miranda's awesome sour cream lemon poppy-seed cake, was the type of cake I asked for for my 4th birthday (only I wanted a green one) and at the time, I'm pretty sure I called it "Fly Speck Cake". Aw, life was so poetically accurate back then. (Sidenote: Later.....I made the cake batter and reached for the fly specks. Apparently someone has been abusing some opium on the sly, because they were nowhere to be found. Actually, I think Leslie baked this cake last time and didn't put poppy seeds on the list. So, I baked a yellow lemon cake with nonpareil sprinkles. Half of it was for my friend who just had her third baby, and I thought, how appropriate. An edible lesson in learning to adapt because it is WAY too much hassle to bundle up three kids and haul them to the grocery store for something the flies leave on my windows for free.)
Do you ever wonder what an actual conversation would be like with someone who lived, say, 200 years in the past? I think about this a lot because of my research, but just on a basic, non-data-collecting level, what kinds of things would surprise us? I always think that the English language must have sounded quite different than what we hear from Hollywood, etc. I don't mean the words, really, but the accents and the rhythms of speaking. Even in the last 50 years it has changed SO much--go watch a black and white movie and listen to those women talk in the lowest range of their voices, very precisely. Or listen to the children's voices--all the boys sound like Peter Pan to me. (Think of the way they talked on the original Mickey Mouse Club) Or the newscasters. Now times that by 200 years.
Now, besides the way they talked, I think that there would be some difficulty in understanding each others' attitudes about life. They used to live hand in hand with death, for one thing. We get upset if we can't drive fast enough. I read something really interesting last night about this. I'm reading a book called Divine Signatures: The Confirming Hand of God, by Gerald Lund. In a chapter that was basically about why bad things happen to good people, he mentioned something his mother said. When she turned 80, a grandchild asked her what kind of changes in the world she had seen in her lifetime. She surprised everyone by noting, "People never said, "Have a nice day" until the 1970s. We didn't expect to have a nice day. We knew it would be hard. Our life was hard. Our friends' lives were hard. It had always been hard for us, and we figured it would always be hard. But we were all in it together, and so it was all right. Then in the '70s everyone started saying, "Have a nice day." And then people felt gypped if they weren't having a "nice day" kind of life."
I like that, and I think it's probably true. We shouldn't get so hung up on evaluating how our day is going, because every day is going to have something bad in it, and probably a lot of things good. We should just enjoy that we are in it together, and count our blessings when things go right, rather than trying to weigh it all in the balance. Then maybe we can laugh more about the things that go wrong.
Like today, the lack of fly specks, on top of somehow being locked out of my bathroom and not able to pop the lock. (Better out than in, I always say.) If Mark wants his wife to wear makeup he had better get that thing figured out fast, and too bad for anyone else who drops in today. Or how about my small kitchen that I tend to complain about? Just today at lunch, Cooper looked around and asked, "Mom, are we always going to live in this house?" I smiled, "No, probably just until you are in school, or if we get a new baby." (Both of the boys looked shocked.) "Don't you think it would be fun to get a new baby someday maybe?" Boston got a big smile and yelled, "Yeah!" Cooper looked dubious and mildly alarmed. "But I like Macy."
Or yesterday, when we arrived home from church at 2:05 in our usual flurry of washing hands, changing clothes, lecturing about sitting still next week and not burping during sacrament meeting (that was to Leslie I might add), and trying to stuff some lunch into their cranky little mouths as quickly as possible so they can mellow out a little (I love what my friend Brenda says. "You get home from church and your kids make you dizzy") Mark and I were trying to maintain politeness while handling the busiest half hour of the whole week. Anyway, at the height of all this, while we were standing at the stove, arguing with Boston about whether or not he was going to eat the Spaghettios that he begged for and got, even though we all know he won't actually eat them, Cooper surprised us. He sat back from his plate of dino-nuggets with a big smile and a mouthful of food, raised his hand and yelled, "Who's having a greaaaat daaaay????"
Mark and I could only maintain our stony silence for a few seconds before we looked at each others' determination in the face of this ketchupy cheerfulness and busted up laughing. And it was a great day.

Tangled, Torched, and Torn Wide Open

2011-03-13T14:41:00.000-07:00

Leslie has been off track school for the first time (she goes to year-round school now.) I told her we would try to do some "field trips" while she was home because none of her friends were home at the same time, and March is a boring time for a vacation anyway. So, we went to the new children's exhibit at the Church History Museum on Temple Square. It was a blast, and a little bit of a big step for me--I was trying out the idea that my kids are finally old enough that I can take them places without Mark and no one will run into the street, etc. (Although I'm still reluctant to take all of them to the pool by myself--someone would surely drown.) They played and played until they were sick of it. One of their favorite parts was the life-sized TV screen dance instructors that taught them the Cucaracha and one other dance, complete with costumes. They boys also liked fishing off of Nephi's boat and gathering eggs from the chickens.

This "cake" is my Martha Stewart moment of the year. Macy had a birthday and doesn't really go for cake, but I know that she loves my Oreo bonbons and strawberries, so I made her this platter instead.
Here is the birthday girl having "her" choice of favorite food for dinner--my favorite Spinach Pie. Hey, she cleaned her plate, and the next morning when I was having leftovers for breakfast she mooched most of mine, too, so maybe I wasn't that far off.

For birthday presents she got a new potty chair (hooray!!!) that she isn't afraid to sit on and already loves, a Belle barbie, a magic wand, and some pretty dresses. Thanks Mom! She cried when I wouldn't let her put the pink one on as soon as she opened it. I told her we need to save it for church but she could look at it hanging in her closet.

Oops. I forgot to prep her about the candles in her face. She's kind of scared of fire since our gas stove doesn't light very well and has had some flashy flaming incidents that freaked her out pretty bad. So, we sang fast and I told Boston he could go ahead and blow them out. After the goodies I was so excited to take the entire family to the movies for Macy's birthday adventure. We haven't been since she was a baby and howled, and I had to stand out in the lobby with her. We went to Tangled because I knew she would sit for a princess movie. (And it was finally at the dollar show.) So fun. It was a little intense for Cooper (he is the one who usually hides behind the doorway when anything scary is on, except Star Wars, go figure) in parts because we had to sit on the second row--he kept covering his ears and asking if we could go home, but I think he still liked it okay.

Oh, I guess that wasn't so bad.

Chocolate solves just about anything. Happy birthday to me.

PS. The Torn Open part of the title is referring to Macy's presents and also to Boston's head. He slipped drying off from his bath today and split his scalp on the step stool. Mark had to take him to the Instacare before church. They opted not to staple him because the doctor figured it would only take a couple of days more to heal if we just left it alone with some Neosporin.

More shots of the house for Brookie

2011-02-28T10:58:00.001-08:00

No puppy dog tails in here, but Boston and Cooper have the pails and snails covered.
Brooke wanted to see more pictures of my house, hopefully so she and Jared will know they can come to visit us and will have a place to sleep! (Or any of the rest of you.)

The front hallway. The front door is just to the left of this couch.

The master bedroom. Sorry guys, this bed is taken. You still have an air mattress, right? I know just where to put it. Right....
here. See that place on the floor between MY office chair and the couch? (Macy calls this sad slipcovered one the bootiful couch. We decided to put it there to discourage the boys from sneaking outside and also to have a place to watch Netflix. So, I guess this means you have your own theater system if you come, too!) There is a bathroom that goes with it, too, but I try to stay out of it as much as possible because it belongs to my boys. I once saw a sign on the bathroom wall that I need to get. "We aim to please. You aim, too, please!"

Part of the great room in the basement, leading to the office and the boys' bedroom.

The backyard "clubhouses". See my little cowboys hiding up against the wall? They've already really enjoyed riding bikes, etc., around on this private drive that leads to our back garage.

The deck runs the length of the house and needs a paint job. Perry? Are you up for a field trip?

The view off the back deck is even better at nighttime.

Macy's room. You'll notice I cut off the floor. It was probably covered in baby shoes or doll clothes. I didn't dare do Leslie's room (always a mess--I don't get it--she's at school all day!) or the boys' room because although it stays pretty clean, it's in the basement and kind of dark, not to mention the Star wars and Indiana Jones poster adding to the atmosphere.

Cooper is shooting the bear in the bushes on the median, in front of the pine tree. It's black. We didn't know it was there until we had lived here almost a month. Now, the boys shoot it everyday and miraculously, it just keeps coming back to life. We'll have to get a closer picture of it when it warms up. There are also several elk statues in this development.

The main entrance. I cut off the ugly peeling-paint garage doors on the right.

Leslie finishes crocheting her first scarf. She had it for three days and one of the strings broke on the end, where the fringes are tied. I need to figure out how to repair it before the whole thing unravels.
Surpise, Darcy! This baby comforter is double stuffed so you can lay baby on the floor. Hard to tell not close-up, but the stars are actually kaleidoscope blocks of giraffes, elephants, zebras, parrots, with some jaguar and bird of paradise in the corners.

And I almost like the back even better. Leslie helped me pick it out.

Duke came for the weekend...we hadn't seen him for a while. He bribed Cooper with making a snowman so I wouldn't have to take all of my kids to the library with me. I couldn't get their faces to show very light because they are standing under the deck, sorry.

Well, the snowman is gone now, and so is the quilt, but the rest of it is still here, so come by and see us sometime!

She's been listening...

2011-02-20T16:19:00.000-08:00

A few days ago Macy demonstrated her developing motherhood skills. (She is not yet two years old.) I was cleaning up the breakfast dishes and she wanted me to come downstairs with her. "Follow me, Mom!" I put her off and she waited for a second. Then she stared at me hard, stomped her little foot and sang the lyrics "When my mother calls me--quickly I'll obey!"
We have spent a fun week playing out in the cold and rain (Boston loves his hand-me-down umbrella). Leslie has been working hard preparing for a piano recital and I have been working hard working her. She is not overly fond of the piano but works much better if I am behind her, telling her what parts to do over. Again. Again. Again. She's getting there, and is probably excited for the recital to be over so her mom can slide more to the background. I also was happy to finally get Darcy's baby quilt top done, even though my master plan had to change because one of the pieces somehow got lost in the move. Thursday night I spent at the Jordan River Temple. Wonderful. Did I mention I can see three beautiful temples from my house?
I apologize for not doing more pictures. The kids look the same to me, and they are always cute and funny, so I tend to forget to pull out the camera.
All right, this was a lame post.
I'm done.

Intense and Intents

2011-02-13T18:39:00.000-08:00

Leslie asked me tonight, "Mom, what does "intense" mean?" I tried to explain it to her, then I asked why she wanted to know. "Well, the babysitter last night kept saying, "This is intense!""

I had a sermon-worthy about-face today that I thought I should share. As we were preparing to move, and then when we did and were meeting the new people in our neighborhood and ward, it seemed to me like the first question out of everyone's mouth was, "So, are you buying or renting?" I HATED answering that question because I've been a homeowner for eight years and (pridefully) have occasionally thought of renters as second-class citizens or something. So of course, I hate to admit that yes, I am living in a "Villa of Reduced Circumstances" for awhile until we recover from our own personal economic downturn that included a short sale of our dream home (one that I was also a little too proud of, so I guess it serves me right). Also, I felt like the new people we met were trying to gauge how much effort they should put into being our new friends. As in, "are you going to be here for long time, or are you going to ditch us in a few months?" The second week we were here, an older woman sitting behind us in church asked us the dreaded question and we answered it for what seemed like the umpteenth time. It was the straw that broke this camel's back. When we got home I railed and fumed and cried to Mark and then tried to laugh it off, threatening to him that I was going to compose a whole blog about it, about why don't people realize how rude and prying it might be to ask someone if they are renting or buying, kind of like you should never ever ask someone if they are pregnant. It never turns out well--as in, "were you raised in a barn?". He told me I'd better not because I sounded pretty bitter.
I am so glad today that I followed his advice. The bishop spoke today about never judging people, and he shared a few stories about how you never really know the intents of someone's heart. After church today I got a knock at the door. It was the older woman who had asked me the dreaded question a few weeks ago. She was bringing something by for Leslie, but I got to visit with her for a few minutes. It turns out she lives a few houses behind me. As we chatted about the horses in the pasture behind us, she asked me if they were ours and I said, no, the owner rented the pasture separately and subsequently discounted our rent. She timidly asked me what we were paying. I told her and she listened carefully, asking about the number of bedrooms, etc. Then she told me that she was worried about her future because she may end up placing her husband in some kind of long-term care and was hoping she could live in the basement apartment of their home and rent out the main house. She told me her plan for how she could afford the added expenses and how much she would need to make everything work, but much of her plan depends on how much she can rent her house out for. Which is why she asked me the dreaded question of course.
I felt like a heel, but was SO glad I got to visit with her, that she would share her problems with me, and that I was lucky enough to be able to haul out some more of my pride and replace it with love. I told her if she wanted any help figuring out what to do when the time came, I would be there for her.

Boringest

2011-02-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

Things that happen
when my kids are BORED.
Boston learns how to spell "Stupid". Hey, it motivated him.

BossHog & CoopDawg make up their own rap. Complete with butterfly nets.

Cooper tries on Grandpa's bald-guy hat. Boston is also sporting his Batman shirt with wings.

We go to the library. Mom and Leslie come back with a zillion novels. The guys aim a little lower. (Notice Cooper's wannabe light-saber he is holding for comparison.)

Macy starts digging in the pantry and scoops out flour all over herself and her clothes. And then tries to clean up.

Leslie gets older and plays with fire, but she is laughing too hard to blow out the last few candles.

Today seemed very long. I looked at the clock at 2:00 and thought, are you kidding me? Leslie doesn't even get home for two more hours??! It was long because it was cold outside and the kids seemed extra loud, bored, whiny and needy. So I did what any other rational mama would do--I gave in to the whining and called a friend to come play with Boston. (He only whines for three things. TV, Friends to Play, and MORE snacks). I thought that was going well until 45 minutes later, Boston and his little friend Miriam came up to me and declared that our house was "the boringest". They wanted to play at her house instead. I had already told her mom that I would keep her longer, but they insisted that there wasn't a single thing in the house or out of it that they wanted to play with, and I wasn't about to give in to Whine Subject #1--TV. So, feeling guilty for being the boringest Mom, I called my friend Yolanda back and she agreed to take Boston over there. Again. About half an hour later my other new friend, Rebecca, called. She and Yolanda had decided to entertain all their kids. By taking them horseback riding at a park. They wanted my permission to let Boston come along. Sure. Guess I truly am the boringest! I can't really compete with that. NOR would I want to. You ladies are awesome and fun, but CRAZY! It was like, 30 degrees out and blizzarding! I know this town is way more of a horse town than even Lehi (home of the Roundup Days Rodeo), but even in Montana, moms don't just up and decide to take a bunch of kids horseback riding in a blizzard just because the kids are being stinkers. I guess this is just a good illustration of the minor adjustments that come from moving--they are just very different adjustments than I expected. Another minor example--ALL of Boston's new friends have dogs. Big ones. In our last neighborhood he had, not kidding, more than 12 boys his age group within two blocks and not a single one that I can think of had a dog. Okay, maybe one, but it was a tiny dog. And maybe a cat, but Boston likes cats. He is terrified of dogs and I'm not too fond of them myself. Dana Jo, it's all your fault. You and your barky German shepherd with the funny name, Heidl or something (I just keep thinking Heil Hitler...). I guess this is a good way for him to get over it--lured by boredom into the jaws of terror.
Everyone has chickens here. Not fond of chickens, either, but I am always needing to borrow an egg on Sunday, so I guess that's a good thing, too.
The kids (and I) had mellowed out a bit by dinner, and I managed to find some humor in some of the things they said. During family scripture study I was asking the kids what they thought about the phrase "the Holy Ghost speaketh the truth and lieth not." Boston had a good answer--so he thought. "Goliath was a big giant. He got killed." Mark and I looked at each other in puzzlement. Then we realized he was listening, sort of. Go-Lieth.
Leslie helped Boston get ready for his Family Home Evening lesson. He is always very serious about how he wants it to be, and he insisted that he wanted a scripture about Resurrection. I didn't know any of this, all I heard when she came to me for help was, "Mom, where's the Tropical Guide?"
Macy had mercifully agreed to take a nap this afternoon, and she was in fine spirits after dinner. As I was washing the dishes, she was being girly and playing house or something with a clean changing pad that usually fits onto her changing table. She's lay it on the floor, and sit on it and talk to herself, then put it somewhere else and do the same thing. Finally she spread it out on the table and stood back to admire her work. In a hushed voice, "Oohhh. The diaper changey is BOOTiful!" So are you Macy. And the rest of you children, too. Even on long, boring days.
PS. I removed no less than 14 bracelets, rubber bands and hair elastics from Macy's wrist and ankle tonight when putting her to bed. Just thought you might think that was fantastic.
PPS. I found out that the 50 lb bag of flour I thought I had in storage for the last five years, the one that needs to get used, is actually a 50 lb bag of Farina. I looked up Farina online. Farina is the fancy way of saying Cream of Wheat. Gag-me-with-a-spoon. Guess where that puppy is going for the next fifty years or until I die? A little duct tape and it's as good as new, back on the shelf!

Santa and Smooching

2011-01-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

I haven't written much in here about Macy Face. She is getting into the hilarious part of learning to talk, full sentences where she says a lot of funny things.
*The Bishopric came to visit us in our new home, and one of the counselors was entertaining Macy with her magna-doodle. He drew a self-portrait with glasses, etc., and said, "Who's this?" Macy declared, "MONKEY!"
*All of my kids have loved Mother Goose, and the book is pretty tattered. Macy requested it the other night, and although I have only read it to her a thousand times, when we got to Old King Cole she got this shocked, excited look on her face and pointed at him. "Santa Claus!" It's actually been kind of hard to read it to her lately because instead of listening she just points at everything and says, "Look, Mom." Look, Mom." at every single object on the page. It's not really a problem in other stories, but it kind of messes with my rhythm a bit on "Hickory Dickory Dock" and "Simple Simon met a Pieman". (And it makes it harder. Usually I "read" it while gazing out the window.)
*There are a lot of horses in our neighborhood. Macy likes horses. She calls them "Worsies".
*She likes to wear the Dora the Explorer backpack, except she calls it her "Pack-a-pack"
*She is not the soundest sleeper in the world, usually crying out in the night a few times in her sleep, but I rarely have to get out of bed. I've always suspected that she is just a vivid dreamer, and she finally proved it. The other morning she woke up howling. I went in to get her and found her coverless and kind of cold. She angrily insisted, "Cooper tookt my jammies!"
*Although she is definitely a mama's girl, she likes it when Mark makes her laugh. He was holding her tight and bending upside down with her, and she shrieks, "Help! I stuck in Daddy!" (I snickered a little bit at this and asked Mark if his name was Mud.)

Cooper has also amused us lately by being quite the ladies' man. We went out for 2 shakes and 4 courtesy cones, (can I get a "CHEAP CHEAP"?) at Arctic Circle and let the kids play in the playground there. Cooper kept wandering to a window that divided the play area from the restaurant. On the other side of the window were six teenage girls crammed into a booth. He was waving shyly, and smiling, and playing peekaboo. We were busting up laughing and finally got him to give them a wink goodbye. He's a good winker.
Then this morning, he didn't want to get dressed. Mark remembered the trick that works on teenagers. In a singsong voice, "Better get dressed for church because you might SEE someone there..." Cooper ducks his head, flashes his dimple and asks, "Rowan?"
(Rowan is the cute blond neighbor girl he played dress-up with. She was a princess and she asked him if he would be her prince. It has been reported that she also gave him a little kiss on the cheek.)
Mark nods his head and pulls Cooper's shirt on him. Boston decides to chime in. "Maybe you could give her a kiss. On the lips!"
Mark gives him the buzzer, (wrong answer) sound, and says, "No00. No kissing. We don't do that."
Boston decides to retract his statement. "Right. No kissing until you are older. Pause. Pause. Like me."
Luckily (for her) the girl Boston says he likes lives far away and we haven't seen her since last spring.

Unpacked: One camera cord...

2011-01-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

First we have a slew of pictures from Christmas in Montana. The weather was great and the kids managed to get in lots of playing in the snow and with the 4 wheelers. (Mark and I were a little on the lazy side and took in lots of lounging around time while Mom and Dad were playing with our children.) I did go sledding with the kids one day inside this deep canal that goes past the house. The snow was so solid that we didn't even use sleds--just slid. Another highlight was Christmas Eve playing games with Grandpa and Grandma Heagy. My kids love this game called Pig where you sit in a circle, blindfold whoever is It and they have to try to reach out with a long handled spoon until they touch someone. When someone accepts the spoon, the It person tells them to make some sort of barnyard animal sound. Then the It person has to guess who it is. My kids think it is so hilarious when anyone guesses wrong. It's also funny to see the adults try to make a straight enough face to manage an anonymous moo or oink. Cooper was still telling me the next morning, "Do you remember when Grandpa Heagy said, "Jackie" and it was really Dad?"
Christmas morning was very nice and the kids had oodles of presents, in part thanks to Aunt DeAnn who dejunked and de-toyed her entire house, got married and moved to Idaho over Christmas break. My favorite were the kids' clearance Halloween costumes. Cooper looked so sophisticated and tough in his Captain America suit with the floppy feathers on top. He was thrilled and we couldn't stop laughing. Macy wore her little princess costume over her jammies most of the day.
Then it was back home to the huge project--The Move. Ugh. I hate moving and I don't envy those people who move every year or so to fix up houses and sell them, etc. We've been in the new place since the 1st and just over the last few days are feeling like we can relax a bit and feel normal again. SO MUCH WORK! It's even good, nesting kind of work, but it still takes it out of me. Yesterday I finally scrubbed the walls in the Master Bedroom with the magic eraser, wiped the cobwebs from the ceiling and baseboards, and soaked the blinds in the tub . Then I deep cleaned and organized the master bathroom while Mark finished painting the hall. And every day has been like that! Luckily the kids have been playing together really well and seem really happy here. Boston has mentioned proudly to use a few times, "Me and Cooper live in the basement" like it's their bachelor pad or something. But wouldn't you know it? They have not come up to our bedroom in the night the entire time we've lived here, even though we leave the stair light on. I told them their first night that if they have a bad dream that they just need to crawl in bed with their brother. It used to be every other night or so.
So, here are some pictures of the new house, before and after unpacking. (I also enjoyed getting to buy some new shower curtains. The red dotted one is in the girls' bathroom. They are upstairs with us.)
Our other news from the last week or so is that we already have callings in our new ward. Mark teaches the 10 year olds and I teach the 7 year olds every other week (sweet!) I was really glad to be able to stay in Primary and that I get the 7 year olds, who are preparing for baptism. Mark's folks came to visit us and told us that they also had big news--Mark's Dad just got called to be the bishop of a singles ward in SL. He's been the Stake Executive Secretary for about 10 years, so this was a big change for them. I told Mark, "Huh. All that dating you did before you met me seems to have had a purpose after all. Your Dad had to deal with it, and now he gets to deal with all these other "sons and daughters"." Mark and Boston went to the ordination today. Boston said on the way home. "Dad, you know what's funny? One Grandpa is a Bishop and the other Grandpa is a farmer." It's okay Dad. I guess he thinks farming is your calling. It is a pretty noble occupation!

Five Magic Drawers and the Miracle in the Garage

2011-01-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

Greetings to all from our new home in the Big Valley. I guess This is the Right Place after all. I was telling Mark that I don't think I've ever lived where I could see the city lights before (other than my brief stay with my cousins in East Wenatchee who had an amazing view over the river). From the windows of my house I can see three shining temples at night and from my dining room chair (if all the curtains are open) I can view two amazing mountain views, one east and one west. The west view actually looks out onto a newly landscaped gated community that will have waterfalls, etc., and it has some of those metal silhouette statues of elk, etc. right by the entrance across from our house. I am completely loving the rural feel of this neighborhood that I loved so much in my last neighborhood, only this one (as Boston pointed out yesterday) doesn't have the horrible stinky mink. I also realized that our new place has a big weeping birch tree right in front--my favorite kind of tree. Mark and I almost planted one at our old place for our 10th anniversary but didn't ever get around to it.
So, today I am allowing myself a few minutes to record some of the things I've learned about moving into a smaller, older house.
1. I am a drawer girl. My old house, (I was astonished to actually realize this) had TWENTY-THREE drawers in the kitchen alone. One drawer I never really even used except for a couple of Mark's creppes pans from France. It was fabulous but pretty inefficient (plus my poor junk drawers never got cleaned out because there was enough room for anything and everything.) Over the last couple of days I have been magically fitting 23 drawers into 5 drawers. Amazingly, almost everything fits that I need for actually cooking stuff, my kitchen is almost all unpacked, and I'm still saving one cupboard to expand into when I feel too cramped. The smaller kitchen is better in some ways--one way I was excited about was that I no longer have to wipe down a table AND an island after every meal. Also, my number of footsteps is cut down by at least 2/3s. Luckily, it feels very open because it doesn't have any kind of bar or anything that people have to walk around. Anyone want to buy three nice bar stools? I'm still without any kind of junk drawer (maybe that's not such a bad thing...) or a spot to put the kids' coloring books and crayons and stuff. Any suggestions? Time to buy a hutch, I guess! My DI pile is taller than I am. Luckily I have plenty of pantry storage, bathroom storage, closet and a huge storage floor over the second garage, with lots and lots of shelves.
Just no drawers.
2. You need to use primer after you spackle.
3. Can openers need to be packed in the same place that you put your toothbrush and underwear so you can find them right away. But if you don't, they are great excuses to meet your neighbors.
4. Buses are severely taken for granted.
5. Nice people live everywhere. I already knew this one.
6. Gas stoves are not for "geniuses" like me who have trouble with simple things. I've already had three minor explosions and made the baby cry. Probably from my screaming. When the boys came upstairs to find out what all the ruckus was about, Macy told them "Mommy make big fire." I finally got it to light without much fanfare last night for dinner. At least this year I won't worry about cracking my ceramic top when I can two cases of peaches.
6. The Lord only gives you what you can handle. Last night, after feeling like I finally had the kitchen under control, we decided tackle the washer and dryer. Mark got it all hooked up in my new "open mud room" in the 2nd level garage and I put on some shoes and a coat to start my essential load of whites. It was about 10:30. The hot water steamed happily into the garage when I lifted the lid to add some extra bleach. I went inside for my bowl of ice cream, and when I came back to check on things, nothing was happening but a pathetic little click sound. This click sound made me kind of sick to my stomach because I have heard that sound before, last year when we had to replace our old washer. Mark came and checked it out and we looked up some troubleshooting online, guessing that the jostling with the move had cracked something or unbalanced something too bad. Sure enough, the exact problem was described and recommended that a certain internal part (very hard to do yourself) be replaced. I sighed, rubbed my aching back, and emptied out a newly packed big plastic tote that I could chuck bleachy wet laundry into while Mark agitated it with a big long stick. I fished out all of the clothes, wrung them out the best I could (the bleach and steam and cold reminded me of hot tubbing in the snow) and Mark carried the tote inside where we dumped it into the tub to rinse. This part I remembered from watching on Law & Order last year (something about leaving zero carbon footprint). I peeled off my jeans, ran the tub, and tread the grapes. It was actually pretty fun. Then I wrung them out (again) and Mark put them in the dryer while I finished up with a shower. We were up until midnight making plans of what to do about it today.
So, Mark left for work, I went to get the clothes out of the dryer, and had to peer one more time into the murky depths of my rogue washer. I turned the knob one more time and pulled.
Prayers work wonders.

Pedro & Napoleon, Farewell!

2010-12-15T16:31:00.000-08:00

How's this for spoiled rotten? I have two dishwashers. Really. Just like some people have double ovens. They weren't much different in cost than cabinets, and we had lots of space, so Mark convinced me to do it when our house was being built. I thought it was a dumb idea at the time, but he insisted. When we first moved in Leslie wasn't sure which one was dirty and which one clean, and didn't understand North and East, so we named one Pedro and one Napoleon.
What will I do without you, my swishy-washy friends?? Live like the rest of the world in their one-dishwasher ignorance?? That's what happens when you move out of a house that you designed exactly to your liking. Tis better to have loved and lost. Four and a half years of soft living is pretty good.
Our house is finally almost sold.
The buyers are nice, with a big family to fill up our big house (that makes me feel good.)
Mark is taking a new job at Wells Fargo after Christmas and will be working a ways north from here.
We think we have a dandy new place lined up.
Get this--my other major spoilage from my home is that I have a room-sized pantry with a dedicated space for our Deep Freeze (with an original painting of some cows, also some brand burns from Mark's Great Grandpas' hanging over it, in homage to beef. PS. Dad, where the heck is my heart-S-quartercircle to hang on the other side? The city boy son-in-law is showing you up! If you don't find your branding iron I'm going to have to hang up a Schwann's ice cream lid instead, ha ha.) Anyway, I was really, really sad that I would no longer have easy access to the deep freeze. Then when we were looking for houses this week, I walked into the mudroom off of this kitchen and saw another door. I opened it up, and gasped audibly. This little house had a HUGE pantry, shelves floor to ceiling on two walls, and a blank, shining wall at the back that was just singing to me for a deep freeze to keep it company. I think it was a little private Christmas gift to me.
I hope we get it. I'll keep you posted.

the Menace Gene

2010-11-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

We had a Dennis the Menace moment today. Not so unusual, except that I'm remembering to write it down since Dad was just teasing me that Boston must have gotten the Dennis the Menace gene from him and from his Dad, who he claims was worse. True, Grandpa Happy Jack was pretty bad--gotta love the story about locking his big sister up and telling her future husband when he drove up that she had gone to the State Fair Rodeo with another guy. I couldn't even think of a single naughty story about my Dad. I might have to call Aunt "Cow" Patti. Oh wait, I guess he did come up with that name for her...
So, our visit from Dennis today happened while I was baking some Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread. MMM. I was anticipating the warm, wafting, cinnamon/vanilla/pumpkin scent, but I kept getting a whiff of something else. Familiar and flowery and pretty strong, and I couldn't quite place it. I've found that the surest, quickest way to solve a mystery at my house is to hunt down the boys. The smell got stronger as I approached the master bathroom. Lo and behold, all three littl'uns were in there. In Boston's hand was a spray bottle filled to the brim with water. This was actually a pleasant surprise because I had asked Mark to have the boys get me a spray bottle for Christmas to water down their alfalfa hair on Sunday mornings. The unpleasant part of the surprise was the bottle he had so cleverly filled up with water used to be filled up with Victoria's Secret Body Spray, "Pretty in Pink". Apparently he emptied it out on himself and the other two kids, and all over the bathroom. They REEK. Luckily(?), I didn't really like that kind very much, preferring "Enchanted Apple". (Of course, if he had gone for the "Enchanted Apple" instead, the smell wouldn't have clashed so bad with the pumpkin bread. Oh well.)

Say Uncle

2010-11-26T18:52:00.000-08:00

We had a fun, relaxed Thanksgiving. I didn't realize how relaxed it was until I went to visit one of my friends the day before. She had found out last minute that she was going to be hosting, and her kids were bustling around, doing jobs to get the house ready. She is one of the sweetest, most soft-spoken mamas I know, and it's a good thing because she has lots of kids. That's why I had to bust out laughing when I received a little glimpsed into her holiday frazzlement. One of her sons, about Boston's age, was buzzing around us for attention as we chatted. She finally put her hand on her shoulder, to still him and to get his attention. "What did I ask you to do?" she said. He thought for a split second....."Ta shut up?"
We escaped the hustle bustle by eating at Mark's folks, where my only offerings were the green beans, the marshmallowed yams, and a pecan pie that one of Mark's business contacts gave us. I think we started cooking 20 minutes before we left the house. It was great!!! Then, when it was approaching nap-time we drove over to Park City where several of my aunts and uncles had rented a big condo for the weekend. It was fun to see so many of my cousins that I haven't seen for years because they always visit Montana at a different time than we do. They are almost all teenagers now! So weird because I was the little kid when their parents were teenagers, and now my kids are the little ones. It makes me dizzy. The youngest one I haven't seen since she was a toddler. She's almost six now, and I had a little talk with her, trying to explain that we both had the same grandparents. I told her I was the oldest grandkid, and she was the youngest, so that makes us the best! She seemed to like that idea. We have a 26 year gap.
I didn't realize how much influence some of the older cousins, or maybe my bachelor brother, or maybe one of my uncles having a little fun, had on Boston until today, though. Mark was in his office working and Boston wandered in, asking if he could play with him. Mark's answer was no, and Boston tried to come up with an appropriate response of disappointment. "Awww. I never get any hot chicks!"

some little turkeys

2010-11-10T18:43:00.001-08:00

Happy November already?!
First take a look at my Turkey quilt top I just finished, and then let's reminisce about October.
Brooke and Jared got to come and stay the night on their way home to Montana. I kidnapped Brooke after our double date to Cafe Rio and took her to play volleyball with some other gals from my stake. I have been going for a couple of months and it was fun to waltz in with my nearly 6 foot sister. I had never seen her play in high school and it was fun to get to scrimmage. She's much better than I am, thank goodness. The best part of the night, however, was when one of the ladies (a good actress or genuinely curious) asked us if we were sisters and wondered who was older. I am by nine years.
Here is a shot of how I found Brooke and Macy the next morning--sitting in a pile of doll clothes where Brooke was happily changing all the clothes.
Halloween was fun. We carved pumpkins and trick-or-treated. It rained a little but the kids didn't care, and Macy loved wearing her princess dress and getting the candy. Duke came down to go to a Halloween party or something and we threw together this great Beach Boys costume for him. Bet the ladies loved it!

I love the shot of the kids playing Ring Around the Rosy-- all of them are singing.

Special

2010-10-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Mark informed me that last night Boston's bedtime prayer was worth sharing. "Thankful for Dad, Mom, Leslie, Me, Cooper, Macy. 'Specially me 'cause I'm the special one." He is our extra sparkle. And I'm guessing ALL of us are going to need some special blessings to survive him!

In the Tops of the Mountains

2010-10-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

We couldn't resist a little Moses shot here. This is a crazy place for a big beautiful field, near where we got engaged. It really is way, way at the top of the mountains, near the summit. It would be a fabulous place for a pageant or something. It's popular for snowmobiling in the winter.This was the back of the Fishlake Natl. forest, heading toward Junction. The leaves here look like the yellow brick road or something, because they follow the road the whole way down. (Because of the stream the road is built next to...)

Me trying to be fearless at Bryce Canyon.

For UEA break Mark surprised me and got permission for our family to go stay at his Uncle's cabin in the Fishlake Natl. Forest outside of Beaver. We haven't been there for nearly 12 years--it was where we were staying with Mark's cousins on New Year's Eve '98 when he popped the question under a pine tree, after snowmobiling to Big Flat. (Ah, now I'm getting excited for Christmas music season--strictly after Thanksgiving in this house--just so I can listen to Harry Connick, Jr. sing about "What are you doin' New Year's Eve?"...THE most romantic song I can even think of; I'm so biased! I get a lump in my throat every time I hear it.) We tried to track down the exact tree, but were a little unsure because of the years and the lack of snow not covering up the shrubbery, etc. Here is a picture with me in front of the best candidate. We are pretty sure we at least got within 100 feet of the magic spot, so that was cool to show the kids.
The weather was beautiful and so were the leaves, and we all had fun except for Macy at about midnight each night, when she woke up and screamed for an hour because, I don't know, that seems to be a habit with her whenever we go somewhere. At least we weren't in a hotel. Scream baby scream.
We weren't all that far from Bryce canyon, so we also spent some time there. I was a little nervous at the lack of guardrails at some of the sites, but it was pretty. The kids enjoyed pretending to be mountain lions on the rocks. I know, weird, but it's a family tradition. My brothers are still the most convincing.
We went to the first Halloween party of the season last night. I'll wait until after the big day and then post some fun costume pictures.

squashers

2010-10-13T12:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went grocery shopping at WalMart because we needed to finish up buying our "winter" clothes. (New socks for just about everyone. Including Boston, who already had new socks but thinks they are too small because they are low cut.) While winterizing, I bought Cooper a second pair of shoes because his hand-me-down Crocs from Boston are always lost. Coop was pretty excited to get new shoes. When Mark got home from work, Cooper told him that his new shoes were really cool. "They can squash ANY kind of bug!"

A lot of Booze

2010-10-06T14:56:00.000-07:00

As I was hanging up the Halloween decor last week, Boston got all excited. "Mom! Porter and Logan have a lot of booze at their house." I had to think about that one for a second. He's starting to read pretty well... B O O ' S.
I've had a wonderful fall thus far. A couple of weeks ago some of my best friends (we missed you, Erica! We ate extra cheesecake for you.) got together for our annual birthday lunch out since three of us have fall birthdays. It was an extra nice birthday treat for me since the Cheesecake Factory left wax paper all over my last Louisiana Chicken (I was already mostly full anyway...) and I got my meal AND my cheesecake for free. Sa-Weet. Too bad I left the leftover cheesecake in Michelle's car. Dangit. I pretty much just had the day off from being a Mom because I had song practice with the Primary Children's chorus that morning, then lunch, then we went to a ritzy quilt show in some gated community in Murray, then to LDS Women's Conference. My favorite part is when I am seated in that enormous, enormous beautiful conference center (like a half-moon stadium), people watching and chatting with my neighbors, and in walks the prophet, Pres. Monson, to his seat. The ENTIRE place stands up in a whoosh and becomes instantly pin-dropping quiet. Enormity of moment in an enormous place. I feel revitalized in my important roles of wife and mother.
Throughout that next week I happily pounced on the mailbox everyday, because my insightful in-laws gave me an amazon.com gift card for my birthday, and if you buy more than 25$, you get free shipping. So I sort of went to town. Here is what I now have my own copy of:
I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith
All God's Critters got a Place in the Choir, also Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History, both by Pulitzer Prize Winning LDS professor, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. She writes essays about womanhood and history. Two things I like reading about!
The Ghost of Hannah Mendes by Naomi Ragen. I've only wanted that one for about 5 years.
Marie-Louise's HeyDay--a much loved, out of print book from my childhood. It's even more hilarious to read as a mom. It's about a mongoose who has to babysit five naughty possums. I think I always liked it growing up because the naughtiest one is named Jake. (We had five kids including the naughtiest one named Jake.)
Olive Oil Desserts by Micki Sannar. I went to one of her presentations and was very impressed. Here's to healthier cooking (doubly healthy because you ADD olive oil benefits and take away the bad stuff from the other butters and oils.) I've already had some fun trying out some of her stuff, including pie crust for my favorite spinach pie, my homemade granola using her substitutions, and banana bread as we speak. It smells great. Of course, it's probably not that healthy anymore because I had to jazz it up a little with coconut and Macadamian nuts. Oh well. Coconut has lots of fiber:)
Speaking of cooking, Mom wants me to post a couple of recipes on here. She and Dad came down this weekend to play with us and for Dad to attend his 35 year mission reunion. He's a Montana boy who served right here in Utah. I think he thinks it was worth braving the traffic. I don't think he came home from the party until nearly midnight. The two of them are so good to play with and spoil my kids (and me). They spent a lot of time on the bikes. They even babysat so Mark and I could attend the Saturday afternoon session of General Conference. As usual, I am pretty lax about taking any pictures, so, sorry. Maybe Mom took some.

Beef Barley Soup
Put in the crockpot:
1-2 lbs browned stew meat
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp of pepper, oregano, and basil
1 bay leaf
1 pkg Onion Soup mix (sometimes I subst. 2-3 TBS of au jus mix.)
6 cups hot water
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 T soy sauce
1 cup celery chopped
1 cup carrots chopped
1 chopped onion
1 can stewed tomatoes or diced tomatoes
Let this stew for an afternoon and then add 1 cup of pearled barley about an hour before serving.
If you are really ambitious you can also add 1/2 cup of rinsed lentils at the same time--very tasty.

Islands' Pineapple Soft Tacos
1 pkg tortillas
2-3 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces and browned on a griddle
Add to a saucepan and simmer:
approx. 1 cup crushed pineapple or pineapple tidbits with juice
1/2 to 1 can of diced tomatoes, drained
enough Mr. Yoshida's Original Sauce (kind of a teriyaki sauce) to cover it all

Spoon chicken and sauce onto a tortilla.
Serve with snipped cilantro, chopped green onions, and maybe lettuce if you like that kind of fluff.

Skinny jeans mutiny and the Big 32

2010-09-22T14:50:00.000-07:00

So, before I tell you about my birthday, I wanted to share my fashion ineptitude with the world. First of all, I like the basic idea of the skinny jean, but I have a problem with accessorizing. I love socks! Big, fat cushy ones to wear around the house (since that's where I am 85% of the time, anyway) and EXTREMELY dislike the current fashion of wearing flip flops or ballet shoes with everything, because the socks become ridiculous. I find myself peeling off my socks every time I'm out the door to go to the store or something. What am I supposed to do once it gets colder? I thought about getting a pair of boots for my birthday, but the riding type boots are all so high and expensive, and I can't just step into them while holding a squirming toddler, and the dumb looking moon boots are just, well, dumb looking moon boots. Any tips?
Back to the skinny jean. When I finished nursing Macy I was down to my wedding weight and decided to celebrate by buying two pairs of skinny jeans. They were even comfy and I was feeling pretty good about life. A few months went by. I had a birthday. I did laundry. Pair number one of the skinny jeans popped the button and now I can't get it to stay on. It's likely to fly across the room while I'm picking up legos. I tried wearing them with just the zipper and that lasted until I tried going out in public and the zipper tried to run away, and hide somewhere down in my blasted sockless shoes. Good thing I had a long shirt!
This morning I attempted to put on pair number two, fresh out of the dryer. (What was I thinking?). Some teeth popped off the zipper and now it's completely inoperable.
It's a sign.
Mark got a birthday card when he turned 30 that had a Far Side type cartoon on it with a man shopping in the jeans department, surrounded by policemen. "Step away from the trendy jeans and back into the relaxed fit!" I should have copied it and sent it to myself.
I did have a really good birthday, though. Mark asked me if I felt old and I told him no because I feel like I'm at the point in life where I always pictured myself at this age, anyway. We had a fun family adventure driving and hiking on the Mt. Nebo Loop, and the maple trees were turning red, so everything was gorgeous. Here are some cute pictures of my little hikers and the Grotto Waterfall where we went. The other landscape shot is an overlook that looks clear down onto Utah lake and across. We're way up high. Then Mark watched the football game, I watched a movie while Macy slept, and then he took me out to dinner and the play, The Mousetrap, by Agatha Christie, that I've always wanted to see.
Some other happy announcements.
Boston had a birthday, got a bigger bike, and announced to me the next day that he could ride it without training wheels....and he could! I was shocked. It took Leslie YEARS to learn to ride a bike.
He was super excited about my birthday and had all kinds of homemade gifts and pictures for me. My favorite is pictured here- a Rock Museum.
My best gift to myself was finally getting Cooper potty trained. I'm still ecstatic about that one.
I also just finished canning 27 quarts of Lemon Elberta Peaches. Yummy.

Muddy Buddies

2010-09-08T14:19:00.000-07:00

Today was Bostons' first day of preschool. Then, after celebrating with French Fries from Arctic Circle (they make the best...), I put Macy down for a nap while the boys went out to play in the backyard. After she was asleep, I checked on them. They were getting into minor trouble by taking the lids off the flooded sprinkler control boxes at the bottom of the deck stairs and "fishing" in them with some weed stems. Both had their socks and shoes off and their shorts a little bit wet. No biggie--they were having a blast with each other--every Mom's dream. I thought I would have a nice little surprise for them when they came in and changed their clothes, so I made them some Muddy Buddy chex mix. When it was done, I went outside to check on them.
They had a little surprise for me.
Both of them were buck naked.
If they had been muddy, maybe that would have been less shocking to all the people driving past and all the neighbors who can see into our backyard.
Those muddy buddies were yummy. I had some while the boys got dressed.
They are still downstairs, fully clothed, cleaning up all the toys in the basement before they can have any.

Prairie Paisley and other Summer Sundries

2010-09-01T15:26:00.000-07:00

This summer has been a good one for finishing projects. (Other than potty training, which drags on and on...After a couple weeks off (things were getting a little too frustrating), today we said a final goodbye to pullups and declared it underwear day. Three accidents to two voluntary trips. And that's progress.) Our air conditioner on the main floor has been out all summer, so I've spent a lot of time in the basement. I'm not very good at playing with my kids for very long, but I like to be available, so I read or sew or referee, and they play. When we decided at the beginning of this year that we would try to sell our house, I didn't want to go into a frenzy of cleaning and organizing since the time frame wasn't very urgent, but I did want to finish some projects that I'd had stuffed into a closet. Now the house has three offers on it, we still don't know the time frame, and I've made some very satisfying creations.
The Rosy Windmills quilt I started when I was going through my years of infertility and decided that, doggonit, I was just going to make myself a quilt if I coulnd't make one for a baby. Mid project, I found out I was pregnant, and then that I was having a boy, so that one was put on hold for a long time. Then I got kind of sick of it and made something else for Macy (plus, she needed one with blue in it because her bedroom is blue), but now that it's done (except the binding to be stitched) I love it. I think whichever child finally gets it (do I have any nieces on the way?) should be named Rosie!
The Prairie Paisley quilt top just got ironed up today. I did this quilt as a quilt block exchange with my Loch Lomond Quilt guild. We each did 12 stars that were the same and then exchanged them two years ago. The only stipulation was that it was a 12 inch star and that we used the fabric line called "Prairie Paisley". My star is the top left blue one--not my fav. I did a courthouse steps border around it to make it big enough for a queen bed. Next summer I think we'll use it as a bedspread. My grandma LaVonne would have loved it--she liked flags/Americana.
Other projects I've worked on this summer include teaching my kids how to work and do regular chores--see Macy playing dress up with Leslie in the bathroom they just cleaned? Macy must not have caught the gist of it, though, because here is a few days later when she and Cooper decided to trash a different bathroom.
As for my ongoing project--EATING--I have had a favorite summer recipe that I keep wanting to eat by the bucketful. (Last summer's favorite was homemade bruschetta with my own tomatoes and basil and loads of garlic) My cousin-in-law Shelley made this for the Memorial Day reunion and I've kind of reverse engineered it until I think I've got a pretty good copy. I don't know what she calls it, but I'm going for Cucumber Cottage Cheese dip. It's very easy and you can just stir it up with a spoon. (This one would have been good last summer when we picked well over 100 cukes!)

Cucumber Cottage Cheese Dip
3 big scoops Cottage Cheese
1 small scoop mayo
1 grated cucumber, no need to peel
2 chopped green onions
a generous sprinkling of garlic salt
Stir and eat with Triscuits (if you prefer the salty) or Wheat Thins (if you prefer a bit sweeter). I like the Triscuits.

Bocky Baby

2010-08-24T14:37:00.001-07:00

Macy has reached one of my favorite baby stages--the pick up a few new words every day stage. A couple days ago we had beef and broccoli for dinner. She LOVES broccoli and would eat it like candy. When I asked her if she wanted more broccoli, she'd nod her head emphatically and mimic me, "Bocky!" I think she only says two other food words: cracker and cake. Who would have guessed "broccoli" would be number three? As I cleaned up the kitchen that night she was wandering around, digging in the drawers and cupboards as usual, but repeating over and over to herself, Brocky. Bocky Brocky? Bocky. She can also say everyone's name (with "Sissy" or "SisSis" for Leslie) except for Cooper. We try to get her to say that one and she looks at us like, Yeah right! She has taken to calling for Leslie whenever I do. I'll holler up the stairs, "Leeeeslieeee.... come set the taaaable!" and Macy will go to the bottom of the stairs, crane her neck and start yelling, "Siiiisssyyy! Siiisssy!" until Leslie comes down. Last night the kids were playing dodgeball with Mark while I finished up dessert, and Macy decided to join in. Mark made me come down and watch her run from one wall to the other, giggling all the way while Mark pegged her and the other kids with their toy basketball. She runs like such a girl, and is so little still that she has to watch the floor while she runs to keep herself from tripping.
Leslie starts school tomorrow. She's always excited, and that's easy to relate to. I think September is my favorite month because that was when school started--so much anticipation! And I LOVE the gorgeous fall weather we'll be in soon, although not quite soon enough. The first time I came down to BYU, as a high school senior, I was visiting for a few days as part of their recruitment program or something, and it was mid-September. I packed all these sweatshirts and long pants, etc. Duh! Why didn't anyone warn me. I about died of heat the whole time. Back home the seasons change just in time for the school year, so it makes school shopping very purposeful. I tried taking Leslie school shopping last weekend and it's always such a downer for me because her outfit for the first day of school will usually be shorts and sandals--summer clothes--so we really don't even need to buy anything. (I do anyway just to make myself feel like we're doing something spiffy for the first day of school.) This year she even argued with me that she didn't need anything and I still made her buy a new shirt. She's kind of at the age where she is becoming fashion conscious enough (or at least have enough individual preference) that she knows what she doesn't like, but her tastes aren't quite developed to the point where she knows what she does like.
Our conversation in TARGET went something like this.
Me: Looks like there's a lot of stuff here. Anything stand out to you?
Leslie: Mmummm. Shrugg. Big eyes.
Me: Come on. What do you like? What do you picture yourself wearing the first day of school?
Leslie (slightly louder, and shrugging again): I don't know!
Me: Sigh. Well, these are kind of cute...
Leslie: Too boyish.
Me: How 'bout these cute sweaters?
Leslie: It's way to hot to try those on, and they'd probably be itchy.
Me: Do you like any of these shirts? They're on sale...
Leslie: Maybe. But I don't like Hannah Montana or stuff like that on a shirt.
Me: What about a plain one. Purple?
Leslie: I kind of already have alot of purple stuff.
Me (gesturing to the most darling little plaid shirts. NOT on sale): Maybe something like this? With jeans it would be SO cute.
Leslie, making a face: Uggggh. Sigh. Maybe one of those shirts when we first came in. On sale.
And then of course, the one she sort of concedes to liking is not available in her size. And the leggings are way too big around, so we go for the second favorite shirt, no pants.
Maybe tonight I'll pick her up some new hair accessories. Brushing hair...now there's a whole 'nother battle. At least I gave her a trim to start the year off and she is starting to request a bottle of conditioner in her shower.
What is teenagerhood going to be like?

Eureka! She floats!

2010-08-08T16:45:00.000-07:00

We had a fun week last week with my parents and brother Jake's family in Montana. The weather was unusually cooperative and we had not one, but two perfect days on Eureka lake, and a day 4 wheeling in the mountains to boot. The boys played together really well and it was a nice break for all of us. As usual, I didn't manage to take my own photos, this time because the camera got packed but its battery was still at home charging. The good news is that my very with-it Sis-in-law Rachel took some shots for me. The bad news is that I am actually in several of them for a change.
As you can see, I am not very athletic but I can water ski (one thing I think I have over on my husband, who is pretty much gifted at every sport.) I knew I was going to be sore the next day, but I had to show myself that I could still do it after four kids. And then I wasn't even that sore after all. And Rachel probably thinks I'm such a wussy girl because I ski like one of those pontoon airplanes ( and she can do stunts on her wakeboard all day long) but hey, I got up. Jake was driving the boat and loudly sang about the old gray mare (that I mentioned a couple of posts ago) the entire time I was trying to get my skis on. I think he knew if I laughed too hard I wouldn't be able to do it. Oh wait, that was after I skied around the lake and then tried tubing and was too wiped out to climb back onto the tube after I bit it. Plus I was laughing too hard to heave-ho my lower half out of the water. Oh well, it was fun, and everyone else had a good time, hopefully not just because they were laughing at me.

Hooray for Babies!

2010-07-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

My big sister instincts are kicking into high gear (they've been simmering for a few weeks now) and I feel some pulpit pounding coming on--I just can't stop myself. I would apologize, but that's just not how it works around here!

Several years ago I was serving in the Young Women's Organization with one of my neighbors. Her husband was in the military and deployed or gone for short periods of time quite often. She had four children. Some of them had medical problems. Some of them had developmental problems. But all in all, they were a happy family with problems just like anyone else. One evening, on the way home from Girl's Camp, my friend shared a little secret with the rest of us. She was almost six months pregnant. And they had not told anyone!!! When we gasped in astonishment that she could keep it secret for that long, she said they hadn't told anyone because they were worried what people would think, especially her family, and that they would be upset with her because they didn't think she should have anymore children because her life was hard enough as it was. She and her husband (and God) had other ideas.
She told us that she had gone to our bishop in tears, wondering if they had made the right choice and what she should say to her family. He told her that she had nothing to be ashamed of, that many good people today are willfully not fully keeping their covenants or not understanding them by not obeying the law to "multiply and replenish the earth", a law that is still in full force, and that she should have full confidence that she was in the right, and that the Lord would help her and bless her family for their faithfulness.
Her story really shook me up, especially in that stage of life where I was dealing with the opposite struggle. If there is any kind of lesson Mark and I learned from our years of hoping for a baby, it was that "family planning" is really an illusion that makes us mere mortals think we have a little bit of control of how we want things to be. Babies come when they are supposed to come. I couldn't imagine not sharing that kind of happy news with my family, and I hope that I would always show love and support to others.
I remembered this instance again a couple years ago when Mark and I attended a fabulous Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting through our church, titled "Building Up a Righteous Posterity." We were deeply impressed and inspired, and I would encourage anyone to read through it. February 2008 Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting: Building Up a Righteous Posterity Here is the part that I loved the most. It would have helped my friend feel so much better, I think. This is what was said, in a "conversation" between Pres. Julie Beck of the Relief Society and Elder Oaks and Holland, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

Sister Beck
There’s also the ward family. As
we’ve mentioned, in every ward you’re
going to have a spectrum of experience
and challenges. Some of those
women will be able to have children;
some will be married; some will be
widowed; some won’t. In reality there
are a few women who will be able to
have children and have a lot of them.
In that ward family we should rally
around and support those who invite
children into their family. It’s a challenge
to have a large family. I would
certainly hope that no member of the
Church would approach another sister
in the ward and say, “You’re crazy for
having another child,” but rather celebrate
her ability and her desire to have
them and say, “I’m supporting you. Let
me do all I can to encourage and help
you in that.”
Elder Oaks
I’m glad you mentioned that,
because we do get reports that some
Latter-day Saints criticize other Latterday
Saints for having children. I remember
early in our marriage when
my wife June was pregnant with our
fifth child, a very active sister in our
ward said to her, “What are you trying
to do, populate the world all by
yourself?” And I was proud of June
when she came right back with a
response: “I can’t think of anyone
better to do it.”
Elder Holland
And we all acknowledge—Sister
Tanner touched on it—that there are
issues of health, there are issues that
are not materialistic. We’re not talking
about money or political correctness
or deference to society, we’re talking
about legitimate gospel-oriented
things that we watch and measure.
That is all the more reason not to
judge. We teach, we encourage, we
rally, we cheer; within the context of
the gospel we encourage people to
seek that destiny that is theirs.

Today I was reading 2 Cor. 1 and it reminded me that one thing we should be glad about in our tribulations is that we can help others get through theirs with the lessons we will learn. I remember that one thing I didn't like when we were having our infertility issues was when I would do something nice/cool/interesting/fun, such as make a fancy dessert for a family get- together, and I would hear comments like "I remember when I had time to do things like that!" or, "Oh sure, YOU can do that. YOU don't have any kids." I know people mean well, and are trying to make a personal connection, but I always felt like my actions were belittled, that I was only able to be nice/cool/interesting/fun because of my situation, and not just because of who I am and what I like to do, regardless. (And I was right--now I have four kids and I still read fat novels, make fancy desserts, go on dates with my husband, research genealogy, and have time to write long diatribes like this on my blog...)

And now in the opposite challenge, with four kids, three who are quite close together in age, I must admit that I have very much grown to dislike the phrase, "You've got your hands full." It always carries such a reek of disapproval, or at it's best is only focusing on the negative. How about, "You are doing such an awesome job!" or "Look how strong you are!" or even Sister Hinckley's favorite, for when I'm having a bad day, "Well, this family's got a lot of faith...we'll pray you through it."

I've said enough, and I meant what I said.
Hooray for babies!!!

She Ain't What She Used to Be

2010-07-16T15:26:00.000-07:00

Is there anything more horrific than shopping for new swimwear after having four children? (I know, I know, try it after having five.)

My poor old suit has seen better days, and although it still fits (I am proud to say) it was getting worn quite thin and developing holes. So, after repeating to myself a few times "Swimwear is ALWAYS way more expensive than it should be. Swimwear is ALWAYS way more expensive than it should be" to prepare myself for sticker shock, I bit the bullet, loaded up the kids, and headed to the specialty shops where they reportedly sell modest clothing and swimwear. I had never even been in either shop. Come to think of it, I haven't tried shopping for clothes with my children for years, not since Boston was a baby and crawled out of the dressing room under the door while I was still indecent and I had to throw my clothes back on and sprint down the hall and into Kohl's and search for a baby under the racks.
I didn't last long in the first shop after I realized that they only sold two piece suits that were actually three pieces THAT YOU HAD to PURCHASE SEPARATELY. What a racket!! I told Mark it would be the equivalent of a man purchasing swimming trunks and the liner briefs separately, therefore paying double.

I had better luck at the second shop where there were only two pieces to buy. Even that proved to be challenging, though, because there must have been a lot of women with lower halves like mine (because they were all sold out except in the most freakish of colors), and not hardly any with upper halves (because none of those fit). I'm used to this dilemma--somehow the fashion industry doesn't cater to me--being more of an Audrey Hepburn/Keira Knightley type than a Marilyn Monroe/Heidi Klum. There were a few that I thought would work, in an extremely unattractive yellow and green pattern. They were the only matched set my size in the whole store. (No wonder I have shopping nightmares where there is no chocolate on the whole candy aisle, only DOTS and Lemonheads.)

At this point Leslie was wringing her hands and reminding me that it was almost time to take them to swimming lessons, so I wheeled my bus-like double stroller into the fortunately vacant row of dressing rooms. After some maneuvering I parked it in the large, handicapped room, directed Boston and Leslie inside with the other two, gave some instructions that amounted to "Sit! Stay!", had them lock the door, and rushed myself into the much smaller, much more private, adjoining room. Otherwise known as the Chamber of Humiliation.

I don't want to dwell much on the visual part of those few moments (and I will give you the audio in a minute). Suffice it to say, I want to keep a good sense of humor and appreciation for the physical strain of motherhood. I love what Utah author Shannon Hale had to say on this subject. One of her characters remarks to her husband, "You broke it, you bought it, Babe!" With a sigh, I decided that the swimsuit was good enough. Did it come in gray? Mare sized?

While I was posturing in front of the unforgiving mirror like that old comic strip character "Cathy", utter chaos was brewing in the adjoining stall. At first it was a dull murmur, mostly arguing and Leslie telling someone to quit doing something. Then it escalating into some intermittent shrieks from Cooper and loud protesting from Boston. Next came the out-and-out howling from Cooper, screaming from Macy, and frustrated yelling from Leslie and Boston, followed by slamming doors, pounding feet, and more pounding on MY door. I could make out a little bit of what it was about...Cooper had climbed out of the stroller and up onto a stool in the dressing room. For whatever reason, he decided to stand up on the stool. Boston most likely was pretending to knock over the stool and trying to scare him. Leslie was probably trying to get both of them to return to the "Sit. Stay." position. Cooper realized that he didn't really want to be standing up on a stool next to hurricane Boston in an enclosed space and at the same moment realized that he didn't know how to get back down. Macy started screaming because everyone else was or maybe because she felt ripped off that she didn't get to be out of the stroller, too. Leslie tried to get Cooper down, but when she came close, he concluded that she would only knock him off or drop him, so he screamed even louder and tried to push her away. Boston escaped and ran willy-nilly through the store. Leslie followed at his heels, yelling and trying to catch him as soon as she pounded on my door and told me that Cooper was stuck on a stool. I tried to holler some instructions while frantically pulling my many wonderful, covering-up layers of clothes back on.

I rescued Cooper, chased down children, administered approximately one spankin', apologized to the store's clerk, bought an extremely ugly zuit suit for triple what it should have cost, and drove like a mad hornet (with the radio blaring over the still-screaming children) to swimming lessons, where we were still 10 minutes late.

As I came to my senses a few hours later, I realized that I shouldn't have given up that easily and that anyone who has to subject herself to humiliation at the hands of the season and the fashion industry should be at least able to blow the required amount of money on a swimming suit that she can at least feel relaxed in. I arranged to drop of the munchkins at Mark's office at the end of the day. We swapped cars. He took the kids to the happiest place on earth (outside of California, that means McDonald's) and I took myself and my credit card to the nearest department store. For the next two hours. I even picked myself up some takeout from Zupas on my triumphant way home. I couldn't help it; it was right next to the shop where I returned the original suit.

And yesterday, while I was joyfully splashing in the lazy river with my baby, another mom wearing from the crowded banks of shade umbrellas came up to me to timidly inquire where I got my suit. She really liked it.

3rd of July

2010-07-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

We just held our 4th annual 4th of July BBQ and potluck in our backyard...yesterday on the 3rd. I love living in Utah and don't have to sacrifice much to the sabbath. We even got to watch the huge Thanksgiving Point fireworks show. My brother Duke came with us and wished that we had a little John Phillips Sousa to play in the car on the way there, just like riding in Grandpa's motorhome. It was Cooper and Macy's first time, and everyone loved it. Macy kept saying "Wow!" and "Boom boom boom" (from Mr. Brown can Moo, Can You?) Of course after being up that late, Macy slept in today until 10 and then refused a nap and Cooper is a complete growly bear. Early to bed for them!
Last weekend Mark and Leslie and I intended to go to Mt. Timp caves. They had never been and I've been waiting for years to make the hike because every time I've wanted to go I've been pregnant or nursing and can't be halfway up a mountain. So we had my friend Jennifer come stay and away we went. Unfortunately, I had a brain lapse and forgot that I have lived in Utah for the past dozen years and not in Montana, where nobody else lives. It was so crowded that we couldn't go unless we waited 2 hours for the next available tour. Duh! It didn't even cross my mind that there might be a problem. I was so disappointed I almost cried. After I composed myself a little, we powwowed and decided to try a different hike on the back end of the canyon, called Cascade Springs. It was beautiful and easy enough that we'll be able to go back with the younger tikes. The first part of the hike was through an old forest fire burn site, but the brush has grown up tall between the blackened tree branches, so if we go back I'm going to tell the kids we are hiking in a haunted forest. Very fun.
Also here are some fun pictures of our favorite splash park. Macy was big enough to do it this year and she loved it (as you can see...).
I also like these goofy pictures of my boys in their church clothes. I was trying to take a nice shot for Father's Day or something and I found out that my boys are becoming more and more like their Grandpa Haynes. I can't get a straight smile out of them!

Goodbye Luke, Hello Billy.

2010-06-23T14:35:00.000-07:00

Mark and I have been enjoying a recent turn in Boston's imaginary fascinations. He has a friend who loves Star Wars and for the longest time, that's all he would play with his friends or pretend about. A few weeks ago he discovered the Rescue Heroes show. He already had some Rescue Heroes toys, so he and Cooper have finally been pulling those out to play with. His favorite is Billy Blazes, the moustached fireman. I told him that I have a cousin who is a real fireman and his eyes got big. "Does he say, 'Think like a Rescue Hero. Think SAFE!"?

I was getting a little tired of everything in my house turning into a light sabre, and I thought my stuff was finally safe. Little did I know that my son is also some kind of engineer. One day I got out of the shower and found Boston wearing this. He made it all by himself, out of one of Leslie's rubber headbands. Yes, the knot on the string (it pops out) is actually stuck in his ear. A little tape to the back of the head and, voila, he had made himself an earpiece to speak to his emergency team with. I laughed my head off and had to acknowledge that he is in fact, my flesh and blood. If I had been born male, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing I could see myself doing as a kid.

Macy has also been super cute lately, trying to run--or at least speedwalk. This week I heard her saying something that caught me by surprise and tickled me pink. She was walking around the kitchen and talking to herself in her girly soprano voice, over and over, "Jackie, Jackie Jackie Jackie...". (Alright, sometimes it came out "Dackie".) I felt like I was a little kid again, and this baby just wanted to play with me and be my best friend.

I've been thinking alot lately about Elder Bednar's talk in this month's Ensign, about living a real life, not a virtual one, and trying to savor these moments of summer with my kids, soaking it up with all my senses. So, go read it and then let your feet get wet once in a while. Next time (when I find my camera) we'll have pictures of fun at the splash park.

Delinquency begins in the Kitchen...

2010-06-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Cooper decided to spray paint each individual cupboard door (and fridge and dishwasher and a couple of chairs) with Butter flavored nonstick spray. Kind of hard to see in this picture, but each sprayed spot leaked down, down, onto the floor. I went through a couple dozen paper towels cleaning it up. His favorite color IS yellow, so I guess I'm not too surprised.
Have you ever noticed the curse of the newly mopped floor? The worst messes just show up as soon as your floor is mopped. The worst mess ever was a couple of years ago when Boston poured a whole thing of chocolate milk onto the floor and then drove their Beep Beep car around and around the island, through the massive chocolate puddle. Was I in the shower? Feeding a baby? I don't remember.
Mark mopped the floor for me on Saturday and because of that, my kitchen has been such a mess magnet. Sunday morning the kids emptied a full shaker of nonpareil sprinkles all over the kitchen floor. The funny thing was that I didn't notice right away because I was already wearing my dress shoes. Then Monday, someone dumped their bowl of tomato soup at lunch. Then at dinner this lovely, slippery contribution from Cooper while I was waiting for my pigs-in-blankets to rise. I knew it was just the curse of the newly mopped floor, though, so it was hard to be mad. Actually, it was hard to keep a straight face. Here are some silver linings I noticed.
1. This incident, early in Cooper's life, will probably deter him from a life of crime and vandalism, since I caught him and he had to do a big job.
2. Think of all the other substances this could have been. Stickier, germier, raw-eggsier.
3. Hey, it could have been the carpet or the sofa that got slathered with butter. How the heck would I have cleaned that up?
4. Wonderfully, wonderfully, I have a wood floor and wood cabinets. This wood lives in Utah. In the desert. It was just crying out for a little oiling!

Summer Already

2010-06-02T15:02:00.000-07:00

Leslie is on her third weekday of summer vacation and has already hit the wall of boredom. After doing all of her chores, none of her friends could come play so she returned, rejected, to our home, a virtual nest of wiggling, yelling, pesky boy children and a cute but noisy baby. She moped around for a bit until I suggested that she could clean her room and organize her closet. Suddenly, she was nowhere to be found and happily employed in some kind of art project that involved cutting and pasting.
We've had a busy couple of weekends. First we took a camping trip to Moab and visited Canyonlands and also Arches Natl. Park, where we went last October. Everything was still beautiful and we had fun with our someday-inlaws-if-our-matchmaking-works-out friends, the Knudsens. We enjoyed hearing Boston and Bree play together. One conversation we overheard went something like this.
Bree: If we have a boy, we could name him______. If we have a girl, we could name her _______.
Boston: Let's play Star Wars. There's girls, too....you could be Leia. Or Padme!
They really do play well together.
Unfortunately, the wind blew gustily the ENTIRE time. After the kids were asleep in their wildly flapping tent, the grownups played a wild game of Shanghai Rummy...in the Tahoe. We hiked some the next day but the kids were, shall we say, less than enthusiastic. And they did SO good in October. This time, they were tired and whiny and Mark ended up carrying Cooper most of the hike. The one time Cooper wanted to venture out on his own, up a sand-filled crevice, he and Boston found a bull snake that some other tourists were looking at and both started screaming their heads off. (They must be related to my mom.) Cooper wouldn't stop crying and insisted that we drive home, away from the snake. He wouldn't even get out of the car for our picnic and ate his PB& J safely in his car seat. Lucky for him, too, because the rest of us got completely sandblasted when a big gust of wind carried a dirtdevil right over us. That was one gritty sandwich. So we cut our trip short because we had planned to spend the afternoon at Sand Dune Arch. That might have been interesting. Good thing we don't wear contacts!

Then this weekend we went to Mark's annual Mem. Day family reunion in Fillmore, Utah, the "ancestral home". Mark and I put together some mini-biographies about some of his ancestors for all the cousins. That was eye-opening for me. One of his great grannies was a Relief Society President (and a single mother, no less) for 32 years. The kids had a blast playing with their cousins and I enjoyed soaking up the sun with the grownups. This time we had a hotel room within walking distance and so Macy and I could sneak back there for naps. It was great. I also got to take a little field trip to a neighboring town called Holden where some of my pioneer ancestors are buried, and hunted down their gravestones. I've never done that before--it was really fun to have the Leslie and I searching the whole cemetery for one name. I will have to share a little more about them in my next Storyapples blog entry.
Oh, also something funny from Cooper. He got a Disney's Chip and Dale DVD for his birthday and was telling me about the different episodes one day. There was the bulldozer one, the chicken one, and the "Beautiful" one. I asked, "You mean the one with the beautiful girl chipmunk?" He nodded. I got a little greedy for some compliments from this adorable boy. "Am I beautiful, too?" He shook his head, no. "Oh. Well, am I pretty, then?" No again. Exasperating. "Well, what am I?" (thinking of course that his answer would be a big smile and the answer that I'm his mommy.) Cooper however, had to think about that one for a minute. "You're......BLUISH GREEN!"
What a lady's man. The video is of Cooper trying to eat dinner on one of his napless days.

Inertia

2010-05-19T09:50:00.000-07:00

I've realized that some of my least favorite words to hear from my children are not, "I'm hungry", but the infinitely worse, "I'm STILL hungry." The timing of when these words are what make them so aggravating. No one ever says, "I'm STILL hungry" when they are actually sitting at my heavily laden table. Oh no. "I'm STILL hungry" only comes after I've urged them for the sixth time to finish their breakfast, and have cleaned up the dishes, put all the food away, and want to take a shower. But the worst is when "I'm STILL hungry" happens after they've just eaten an entire granola bar, or banana, or yogurt (after the first "I'm STILL hungry"), and their "STILL hungry" eyes are pointedly examining the leftover birthday cake. Tough beans, kiddos. Have as many graham crackers as that little belly can hold. One day man will not live on snacks alone in this house. Sigh.
Cooper has been extra funny lately. I have been avoiding writing about his potty training progress, because who wants to read about that, but I will mention that it has been very slow progress. He knows how to do everything but has no desire to actually stop playing or doing whatever he is doing and take a skip to the loo. We've tried stickers. We've tried candy. We've tried better candy. We've tried prizes. We've tried underwear. Now we are just living in the overnight pullups and trying to maintain some consistent habits. I was worried that maybe I've somehow subconsciously made him think that he just can't do it...that I'm too disapproving or something. I think I've been pretty positive about the whole thing with him, but you never know. I just don't want him sitting in a shrink's chair someday, "It all started with the pullups and having to do a chore every time I had an accident..." I guess moms will feel guilty about just about anything, but he sure helped me feel better the other night. We were sitting around the dinner table and having a rare quiet moment where everyone is actually eating their food. (I guess it was "Dasagna" night.) Cooper takes a deep breath, partially stands up in his chair, raises his fist and yells out into the blue, "WHO'S A BIG WINNER? MEEE!"
I guess I have nothing to worry about. That kid is loaded with confidence.
He had a good birthday. Here are some fun pictures, including the big-lipped reluctance over being sung to. He loves the birthday song, and was even singing it to himself when he woke up, but there's something about the pressure of the candles and having everyone looking at him and singing his name that just rubs him the wrong way every year. He finally agreed to let Boston blow out the candles. The party blowers were a bigger hit, and he loved the gifts. Oh, other than the new sheet set. He dumped them out of the gift bag, took one sneer at the plastic, rectangular shaped brick they were packaged in, and declared them (in a rather disdainful voice for someone who still wears Pullups), "diapers."
Boston had an eventful day at the store yesterday. Macy is recently out of her carrier car seat and was having her first ride in the front of the shopping cart. Cooper was in the basket taking care of the groceries for me, and Boston was walking along side. He is usually pretty good at the store because he knows if he is bad he has to ride in the cart as well. And that is for babies. So, I wasn't paying too much attention to the cart while I was reaching for the buttermilk at WalMart. You know how there is that nice, wide aisle along the dairy cases? Well, Boston has an eye for opportunity like no other. Unfortunately, it had been raining buckets as we went into the store and I made the mistake of running like a banshee with the cart and children. Example, example, example. Guess who felt the need for speed? Son of Maverick, I turned around and my cart with my babies in it was careening down the aisle. I yelled out, "Boston!" He kind of turned and looked at me, and in the same moment I felt his panic as he realized he was too little to stop the heavy cart (or to see where he was going, for that matter) and I saw the look of incredulity, anger and fear all at once in the face of the bespectacled little old lady he rammed head on. Broken hips and law suits flashed before my eyes. Luckily, she had been standing next to the tall case of day-old pastries, and that took the brunt of the crash. It still bumped her pretty good, though. Both of my tinies started screaming and Boston was pale as a sheet. I checked the lady out, who declared she was fine (I hope she wasn't lying...), apologized profusely, made Boston apologize profusely to the woman (who was kind enough to accept his apology with a hug instead of beating his mother over the head with her purse), and all of us tried to calm the crying babies. Boston had to ride in the cart after that, not too-long because I was trying to get out of there as quickly as possible before she got our names and addresses! We had a nice little talk about the steps of Repentance before anyone was allowed to get out of the car. I guess the blessing of the whole incident was that he was in an extremely teachable mood for the rest of the day, and I hope I used that to my full advantage. I love the little Janice Kapp Perry song, and we sang that together. "What does it mean....to repent? It means you're sorry that you did it and you promise that you'll quit it and you'll never ever do that thing again."

A Mom in pants

2010-05-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

I need to remind myself that I don't always have to post pictures in order to write on my blog. I tend to put it off because I can only do pics on Mark's computer and I hate going in his home office because the kids all follow me in there and tend to destroy things or try to play with the shredder or topple his stacks of who-knows-what's-actually-important papers all over the floor.
We haven't really been up to much of anything. Our family has had runny noses and coughing 'til you gag for what feels like weeks. Oh wait, it HAS been weeks. I finally gave up on Leslie ever getting better and started just sending her to school with a dose of Dayquil and pocketfuls of cough drops and gum. I hope her teacher doesn't hate me, but Leslie assures me that all of the kids in class are coughing. And maybe she is getting a teeny bit better every day, but I'm the only one who wakes up when she coughs in the night, so it seems like she's been sick forever. It was driving me crazy how she could cough and cough and cough without getting herself a drink of water or popping a new cough drop, but I've noticed lately when I creep into her room at night to help and to see why she isn't trying to calm herself, she has learned how to cough continuously while sound asleep. She always was a heavy sleeper. So I've taken to waking her up and handing her a water bottle. Too bad you aren't allowed to give them Nyquil until they're 12. Lucky for Mark and I, however, that we are legal age. We finally are feeling better and have stopped downing that stuff. For a few nights there, we were feeling like a couple of gentiles at happy hour.
So it was a real treat for Mother's Day for me to be able to go to church. The entire time. Mark stayed home with the remaining sickies so I could enjoy my day. I also consumed large amounts of chocolate and got to read and yak on the phone while someone else did the dishes, and got lots of hugs and cuddles. Perfect.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the people that came before us. I've been reading/studying a massive textbook called The Source about professional genealogy because I felt like I wanted to pick up some new researching skills and go beyond what I've ever done before. It's been extremely interesting in an embarrassingly nerdy way. Poor Mark. He must think I'm such an egghead when I start spouting off at the dinner table (in the lulls in conversation between the whining for more ketchup or refusals to eat vegetables) about the dusty subjects I'm picking up. Did he realize when we married that someday I'd be sprawled on the carpet of my baby's bedroom, alternately playing shape-blocks and peekaboo to the right and furiously taking notes to the left on a 50-page section called "Land and Tax Records" with such subtitles as "Public-Domain States", "Division of Common Lands", and "Drawing Plat Maps". FOR FUN!!!
My life staggers me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
Anyway, beyond my crazy reading habits, I've been thinking about these forbears of mine. They were so very, well, Yankee. I bet they were tough as nails and worked their fingers to the bone. I'm reading another book right now (yes, in addition to my textbook) about Emma Hale Smith and how rough her life was, and I just got to wondering: what would these women would think of me? Of my friends? Of my culture, my people? Would they be ashamed that I only clean the toy room once a week (if it's lucky), and that I don't sweep the floor every morning even when it needs it? Would they be horrified that it's okay to be naked in the movies, especially if you're a blue alien on Pandora? (I'm guessing yes on that one. If I was, they would be too.) Would they run screaming from the room at the language and the ease in which so many people take the Lord's name, to the point that they can even abbreviate it on their text messaging? I wear pants! I wear makeup and frown at my wrinkles in the mirror too much! I read novels and eat chocolate, and at the same time! I know they would be glad at the modern conveniences, the medicine, the level of education that we've risen to, that we can shower every day, but those are all things that we have. What about the things that we are?
Seriously, I'm struggling to feel good about we as a people and a world, have changed. One thing I do know, though, is that I am as much of a mother as they were. I don't think they could possibly love their husbands or children more than I love mine. I think that never changes. I also need to remind myself that these women belong to me, and I belong to them. I know/knew both of my Grandmothers very well. They knew a different time than I live in now, and they still love me like crazy, even with our differences, which are actually very few. We really are great friends. I'm probably more like these strong, earlier women than I realize, and I need to forgive myself the differences and use these women as inspirations and examples.

(A More Real) Love Story

2010-04-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

Double Dutch

2010-04-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm not doing such a bad job with my boys after all. They came in from playing yesterday, all excited, with big smiles and their hands behind their backs. "Mom, we have a surprise for you!" As most of you know, moms are rarely truly surprised. I suspected that my yard was missing a few pesky dandelions--something I had asked the boys to help me take care of, anyway.
But I really was surprised this time. Out from behind the backs whipped four HUGE fistfuls of tulips. I swallowed a yelp, gathered them up, and stuffed them into a pretty white pitcher. I prayed the deer wouldn't get them, but I guess it's okay if two cute boys want to spoil me a little.

More than Slightly Spoiled

2010-04-26T15:09:00.000-07:00

My folks came down this weekend for Brooke-n-Jared's graduation from BYU. It is so fun for me to see my kids getting to play with their grandparents. (And for ME to get to play with their grandparents.) Dad spoiled us all rotten and took us out for a graduation dinner at Ruby River's. I only brought the baby. The older kids would have been bored, wiggly, and wouldn't have eaten that expensive food anyway. Maybe the bacon off of my potato...but that's about it. They got their turn when Dad sprung for a pizza party for the kids while they were babysitting them so Mark and I could go on an actual date for our 11th anniversary. We also got to take a trip to the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple and spend an afternoon of redneck fun at Cabella's. I love the picture of Mom helping Cooper shoot his gun. (She's an crack shot when it comes to skunks. No foolin.) That's really a great place to take kids. And Grandpas from Montana.
I think my favorite part, thought, was hearing my Dad tell the boys bedtime stories and tucking them in. I was quietly picking up toys in the corner so that I could spy on the whole thing. Maybe in honor of BYU graduation, Dad was telling Cougar stories. Of course, we call them mountain lions when they aren't busy being mascots. After listening for a moment, I was chuckling to myself, recognizing the same general story he always told us growing up. Not much plot, but a whole lot of "what was that???!!!" Boston's eyes were as big as his face as he listened to Dad make footstep sounds with his palm on the wall. Cooper even had to take a few steps back and stand in the middle of the room, listening. But they loved it, and that Grizzly bear/mountain lion/moose/Bigfoot never actually gets anyone in the end, so nobody had any bad dreams.

St. George and the Law of Perpendiculars

2010-04-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

We spent a lovely spring break in St. George thanks to Mark's business partner changing his travel plans last minute. Free hotel stays can only be a good thing, and there were two rooms including a kitchenette, and a pool! Cooking in that little kitchen was kind of funny. It totally felt like camping. The one time I made a complete meal I had to make the spaghetti sauce in the one pot on the tiny burner because the big one was broken. Then I had to pour it into a glass bowl, cover it with an inverted pie plate because there was no lid to keep it warm, wash the pot and try to boil water in it. It never did boil but the noodles cooked just fine on the lower temperature. Then Boston was excited because there weren't any forks and he thought he was going to get to use this giant serving fork for his spaghetti. Mark got some plastic ones from the lobby, but Boston was so disappointed we let him try with his giant fork for awhile. It was great.

We spent a day at Zion's National Park. The weather was beautiful and so were the views. Our kids have decided that they love hiking. I wasn't sure how well Mark would like hiking since we brought our double stroller for the paved trails. As you can see, at times it served as a triple stroller, but he did just fine shoving it along. He even pushed it up to the Weeping Wall. I was majorly impressed and wished I had a picture of that hike. The kids loved standing behind the waterfall and getting sprayed. Macy was excited to be outside and kept pointing at everything.

We took another day touring around St. George on it's Historic Walking Tour, including Brigham Young's summer home. All the homes are so well kept around there, even the teeny old ones. It made me want to come home and do some yardwork. (and see how long that lasted...here I am inside, typing on the computer instead.) Our tour ended with a stop at an old fashioned candy shop.

We were going to stay another night-possibly-but Macy was exercising the
Toddler's Law of Perpendiculars on me. You know what I'm talking about. If you lie down, they must stand up. Wailing is usually involved as well. If you stand up, they will lie down--in your arms. If you are both lying down in the same hotel bed, (trying desperately to stop the high pitched shrieking that all the other guests are probably now awake for and wondering exactly what animal from the zoo you are torturing to spoil their vacation) the toddler must be perpendicular to you as possible, preferably with feet shoving you to the very edge of the bed. Or with their head under your chin and their feet kicking your mate's snoring back. So anyway, after two hours of this from 1 AM to 3AM, I decided we had had enough vacation, and we drove back the next day. I think our hotel neighbors may have been cheering as we pulled out of the parking lot, along with the maid who had been sweeping up our cheerios and changing dozens of towels for us.

Here are some other pictures from Easter/Conference weekend. Brooke and Jared and my cousins Katy and Nikki came to Easter dinner with us and watched the last session. Or at least one of them was watching the entire time...they took turns napping. Jared and Boston had a caveman contest eating the turkey legs. I think that was all Boston ate, but he did eat the whole thing. Also, the video is Macy playing peekaboo with my curtains.

Strides

2010-03-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

My brother Duke, sister Brooke and her husband Jared raced in the "Strides for Autism" 5K this chilly morning. Duke says, "add: with a light breeze out of the north" (ha Duke, I really put that in...). Mark and I were the cheering section with our tiny crew. The kids had a blast since there was a playground near the finish line, and Macy danced to the pumped up music while I held her wrapped up a quilt. Duke finished up 15th overall at 25:04, Brooke and Jared stayed together and finished at about 30 minutes. They are wearing a picture of our nephew Cash on their shirts. They live in Oregon. HI Cash!!! We love you guys!!! We had fun thinking of you today.

John 3:16

2010-03-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, I am the Primary Children's chorister in my church. On Sunday we are going to sing for Easter the song "He Sent His Son" by Mabel Jones Gabott. Here is one of the most beautiful renditions I have ever heard. Take a minute to listen to remind you why we celebrate this time of year. I'm always touched.

My Yearling

2010-03-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

We had pleasant weather for a few hours in a row the other day so I took Macy and Cooper outside to play. It was Macy's first time in the swing that I can remember, and she loved it. Cooper loved pushing her but was a little bit mad when we came in and he hadn't had a turn in the swing, too. He's so big that his shoes pop off when I try to pull him out.
Macy had a lovely birthday. Dad called to check on the "yearling". Then, we spent most of the afternoon re-doing her bedroom and the boys' bedroom, junking Cooper's ancient crib and exchanging it for the twin bed that had been in Macy's room for me to nurse her on. She got the rocking chair in its place. The kids loved climbing and jumping on the bare mattresses, etc. Then, she lucked out with one of our friends bringing over a big bag of really nice hand-me-downs for her without even knowing the occasion, and another friend brought us a warm loaf of banana bread that we had with our dinner. I was trying to decide what to make because Macy is kind of picky. So we had spaghetti with a handful of macaroni thrown in because she has been known to eat macaroni noodles, and corn, which she loved. And the banana bread, which she loved. And some yogurt because she would like to have that at every meal.
We weren't really planning on doing much to celebrate since we had already had a little get-together with the grandparents, but at the last minute we decided to go ahead with our "birthday adventure" tradition. I was stumped for a while about what kind of adventure a one-year-0ld would like, especially with such cold weather. (When Cooper was one, his adventure was a bubble bath...I know. Lame!) But I came up with something, and after dinner we piled into the Tahoe and went to PetSmart to look at the fish and stuff. It was great! And free! Macy was particularly fascinated and excited by the birds. So my bird-phobic experiences while I was pregnant with her must not have damaged her psyche. (Remember this? Two birds somehow getting trapped in my house within a few weeks of each other? Uggh.)
Then, home again for presents and cake. I've discovered the best present for a yearling, when you happen to be a fourth child, is a new pack of AA batteries!! She did have a couple of "new item" gifts, but mostly she got a few awesome, noisy, blinking toys that her brothers loved when they were her age that I had stowed in the closet once they died off. I don't know who has been the most excited about those...you can judge for yourself from the pictures.
Mark and I were cracking up at the kids all wanting to be her special (as in only) helper to teach her how to use the new stuff. We almost had to hide the toys to prevent WWIII before Macy even got to touch them.
Then there was our traditional chocolate Sunbeam Cake. Luckily, I remembered that Macy adores those teensy baby M&Ms, and had them sprinkled on top. When she saw that cake in front of her on the counter she almost scrambled out of her high chair trying to get at it before we could catch her. Pretty funny. Boston had to blow out her candle for her (to his credit, he did wait until I said he could...) . Macy had a couple of bites but mostly went digging through the frosting to find all the candies and then played peek-a-boo with her messy hands. It really was a perfect birthday. Wish you all could have been here! We still have cake...