Bikram – Page 2 – Darais Days

grimy

This morning Isabella came over so I could go swimming, and then we all went to Jump Around Utah to celebrate Sophia’s birthday.

They had more fun on this slide than anything. Oh, the irony.

Mary headed to rescue her friends from the "hurricane room." — Mary headed to rescue her friends from the “hurricane room.”

Isabella and Mary did this slide over and over again.

Whenever they slid to the bottom, Mary would cry, "GAIN!!!" (Again!). — Whenever they slid to the bottom, Mary would cry, “GAIN!!!” (Again!).

After that, I fed the girls and then Kate, another new babysitter, came over while I went to yoga. I have been an absent mom lately. But my unlimited yoga pass expires in a month! I still feel guilty, though. Anyway, after yoga, I came back, showered, and cooked dinner.

Afterward, the girls played a bit before I headed off to my Primary meeting. They look bedraggled because I haven’t done anything to their hair since yesterday morning.

Lydia exclaiming, "Guys, it's beautiful out here today!" This is after only one day of not doing her hair. — Lydia exclaiming, “Guys, it’s beautiful out here today!” This is after only one day of not doing her hair.

Here’s how clean and tidy they looked yesterday morning:

But tonight I was literally scrubbing grime off of Lydia’s face in her bath. It’s amazing how dirty kids can get is such a short period of time–and we went swimming yesterday, too! That grime basically accumulated all today.

While I was at my meeting, Abe took the girls on a walk to the park.

Lydia's natural expression. Mary's natural expression. — Lydia’s natural expression. Mary’s natural expression.

Ode to Isabella

Abe and I have a lot to give thanks for today. He had a fantastic day at work and I had a wonderful day at home. Well, actually, I spent a lot of the time at yoga because Abe’s cousin is now on the babysitting market, and she charges the same rate as my gym childcare. Lydia has begged me to let Isabella babysit her, and even though I was initially hesitant because Isabella is slightly on the young side, I finally relented.

When I got home from yoga, not only was Mary peacefully napping, but Lydia and Isabella were happily chatting away in Lydia’s clean room. That’s right. Isabella and Lydia cleaned while I was at yoga. Isabella found her way to my heart strings today. I should have snapped more photos of Lydia hugging Isabella, which she did spontaneously and with great affection multiple times, but I was just too busy trying to do laundry and deep clean the house. Isabella hung out with us for the rest of the day, and when Mary got up, we all went to the pool for a little bit.

Then we came back home and ate dinner. Abe took the girls to buy a present for Sophia’s birthday party tomorrow, and I stayed home and “cleaned.” (I actually spent most of the time eating banana bread.)

We held FHE when Abe and the girls returned. I gave a little lesson on the flag and then we drew pictures of the flag on Sophia’s wrapping paper.

Yoga, Market, Baptism, Wedding.

Today was another 5:15 am day. I have an unlimited Bikram yoga pass for a month AND today is the last Saturday that my studio offers a 6 am class. There was no way I could miss it! After that, I came home, showered, scarfed down one of Abe’s fabulous pancakes, and took the girls to the market. (I had to wake Abe at 5:30 to help me find his car keys, and so he needed a nap.)

Lydia pushing Mary to the market. Mom, can you see the stickers you sent them on their dresses?

Lydia and Mary each got to pick a rock for a quarter.

The sweet, kind men at the rock stand let the girls have some rocks for free, too.

We ran into Nathan and Hannah (and Gregory) at the market! Not pictured: We also ran into Karin and Jay.

After the market, we came home and rested for a minute. I had to play the piano for a baptism at 12:30, so it was a quick rest. Abe was really sweet and gave me a shin massage because yesterday’s 10,000 steps gave me shin splints. Pathetic, I know. With the greatest reluctance, I cut the massage off and headed over to the baptism.

The baptism was absolutely wonderful. I sat down with Jessica Felix (who got baptized) afterward, and she told me her amazing conversion story. She kept referring to how wonderful “that Mormon book” is and even quoted passages to me–spontaneously, with great enthusiasm. She was incredibly inspiring. I’m so glad she’s part of our ward family now.

After I got home from the baptism, I discovered the girls eating a big lunch.

Then it was errands and a wedding. Abe’s cousin got married today, and since we couldn’t make it to the sealing this morning, we headed up to their reception in Midway tonight. Midway is so beautiful. For a minute, I thought maybe we should move there…and then I thought about how cold it is (it’s up in the mountains) and how Abe would have to commute through a canyon everyday. No thanks. But as the setting for a reception (it was at Susie’s aunt’s house), it was perfect.

Lydia painted Isabella some pictures a couple days ago and put them in an envelope. She was so happy to give Isabella the pictures today when we carpooled en route to the wedding.

Isabella and Lydia on the bench while the rest of us went through the line.

Susie made these darling flower garlands.

I'd never had dippin' dots before. They're cold! And tasty. — I’d never had dippin’ dots before. They’re cold! And tasty.

The house had a beautiful, Martha Stewart worthy garden. — The house had a beautiful, Martha Stewart-worthy garden.

This was the biggest, most healthy looking rhubarb plant I have ever seen.

Eating their dippin' dots. — Eating their dippin’ dots.

Sadie is one week apart from Mary, and you can kind of see a resemblance, I think. Her mother and Abe are cousins.

Since the reception only had desserts, Abe and I took the girls straight to Whole Foods afterward and filled up. Lydia kept running around saying, “I’m so healthy! Who’s a healthy girl??? Me!!! I am!!! I’m so healthy!!”

We also discovered that Mary looooooves pepperoni pizza. Since we were so late, Whole Foods sold us a leftover pizza for a discounted price. We didn’t break it open until the car ride home, and Mary went totally nuts. She can’t even say three syllable words yet, but in the middle of the ride she said, “pah-pah-roh-nee” and pointed vigorously at the pizza box. She ended up eating an entire slice by herself.

I comforted myself about the late hour on the way home by thinking, “Oh, well. If we’re fifteen minutes late to church tomorrow, no big deal.” And then I remembered that I have a calling now that requires me to get to church on time. Sorry to say it, but darn. Guess I’ll get to bed ASAP so the morning isn’t quite so painful.

10,000 steps…and more!

Yesterday my Fitbit died in the middle of the day, right before I was about to hit 10,000 steps! I worked so hard at that, and I kept working all day (unaware that my Fitbit had died), so I was very disappointed to learn that none of my effort was recorded.

This morning I decided to try for 10,000 steps again, so I packed the girls in the jogger and walked (with the occasional jog) to Misty’s house. Her house is on the other side of the canyon and at an entirely different elevation, so the walk helped me meet my goal. Hooray!

Before we left, Mary discovered all the flowers Ron and Shirl left in the back. She was delighted.

Once we got to Misty’s house, the girls had a fun play date. I always love visiting with Misty, so everyone leaves happy.

Misty has a trampoline. The girls had so much fun.

Lydia and Sophia took turns pushing the car, and Mary stayed on permanently as the driver.

Mary was sound asleep by the time we got back.

After I got home, I put Mary down for a nap and read books with Lydia until Ina came over to babysit the girls. She is our family’s angel; not only does she babysit for free, but she honestly loves our girls to pieces, and we know they’re in great hands. I went to yoga and did grocery shopping, and by the time I got back, it was time to make dinner. Ina took the girls to her house to play with her animals while I cooked, and then she returned right before Abe came home.

Ina gave the girls "capes" and they ran around saying, "supergirl!" the whole time. Well, Mary said, "Super gah!" — Ina gave the girls “capes” and they ran around saying, “supergirl!” the whole time. Well, Mary said, “Super gah!”

Another long and busy day (could that title be any more generic?)

Because we got to bed at such a wonderfully reasonable time last night, I didn’t mind waking up at 5:15 to go running. I ran around the track behind Ensign Elementary School, and from the track there’s a gorgeous view of the entire Salt Lake Valley. While I was running, the sun rose over the mountains, and, well, it was thrilling.

Then I came home and got ready for the day. The girls have been sleeping in lately, which generally is wonderful, except when we have places to go. Today we rushed breakfast so we could make it to story time at the library.

Another reason we are late everywhere. The girls get distracted en route to the car (a thirty second walk).

Lydia was really excited that Mary has teeth. Mary has had teeth for a while, but I guess Lydia didn't notice until today. — Lydia was really excited that Mary has teeth. Mary has had teeth for a while, but I guess Lydia didn’t notice until today.

On the way to the library, Lydia loves to push Mary in the stroller.

Story time at the library. Today the kids all got bee hats (today we had an insect theme) and mini kazoos!

On the way to the library, we met an artist headed to the Salt Lake Arts Festival. She makes purses, and her purses were so beautiful that I decided to drive to my school to pick up some free tickets. (I volunteered at a catering event a while back, and all the volunteers got tickets as a thank-you.) Since we were already in Draper, we headed to Ikea for lunch.

Ikea frozen yogurt. We made a mess on the window... — Ikea frozen yogurt. We made a mess on the window…

After Ikea we went to the post office to pick up Abe’s birthday present to me–a replacement iPod for the one we lost over a year ago. Then I did a couple more errands before heading home.While Mary napped, I called all the babysitters we know until Abe’s cousin turned out to be free. I have an unlimited yoga pass this month, so I woke Mary from her nap, dropped the girls off at Abe’s cousin’s house and headed to yoga.

Then we came home and got ready to go to the Arts Festival.

These are the purses that convinced me to add a three hour errand to the day in order to get my free tickets to the arts festival. I just read a talk this morning on materialism, and the phrase “We need to recognize when we have enough” ran through my mind while I was looking at these. I don’t need more than one purse, but if I had unlimited resources AND hadn’t read that talk this morning, I might have gotten one. They were so pretty.

We got to hear Rhapsody in Blue at the festival. Mary squirmed a lot.

At the end of the festival. We left just as it was starting to rain again.

All in all, it was another busybusybusy day. I’m hoping for a slower pace tomorrow!

Blah.

I got up at 5:10 so I could pick up the babysitter and get to yoga in time. After that, I got the kids ready and took them to the Aviary to meet up with Jen, El, Spencer, Laddie, and Natalie. The children were so cute and excited to see the birds–and more ducks, of course!

I came home exhausted and lay in bed for a while surfing the internet. One of the blogs I read annoyed me, and I made a rather nasty comment to the author (who I do not know). After I did that, I felt so terrible, and actually I’ve felt bad all day. I did send the author a heartfelt apology, and she was very nice about it. I felt grateful for human forgiveness today, although I’ve also felt terrible all day long that I did something that hurtful to such a nice person.

On the bright side, Abe and I are in love with our Hyde Park tenants. They are the nicest people, and Abe has been raving all day about his conversation with them. They are an older couple who are living there for the summer to be close to a new grandchild, and they are so sweet. They actually thanked us for the opportunity to fix up our condo. Abe couldn’t believe his ears. In fact, he’s talking about how much he loves them as I type.

After I had somewhat recovered from my bad behavior and its aftermath, I loaded the kids up and headed to Provo. Abe’s work team had a dinner at his boss’s house, and I really enjoyed meeting his coworkers.

I practically fell asleep driving home, and I cancelled the babysitter for tomorrow morning. I think I might sleep in…

Cupcake competition, etc.

I am so exhausted I can barely function, but guess what? I won second place at the cupcake competition this morning! Since we had to use garlic, I made a garlic/chocolate gingerbread cupcake with cream cheese frosting and a garlic/ginger/walnut brittle on top. In my humble opinion, the cupcake turned out delicious! Actually, everyone did a great job. The winner had been practicing her cupcake for over a month, so I think she deserved to win (although I secretly liked mine better). Here are everyone’s cupcakes:

Mine! I used this recipe. I added blanched, minced garlic and ginger to the cupcake. I can’t find the link I used for the brittle, but basically I found a garlic brittle recipe and added some ginger (both powdered and fresh, blanched and minced).

This is a chocolate garlic cupcake with hibiscus icing and an inside surprise of figs soaked in a port wine reduction.

cornmeal cupcakes with saffron icing and avocado garnish.

an ancho chile chocolate cupcake next to the winner, a basil cupcake soaked in a garlic simple syrup topped with blackberry icing, white chocolate and garlic brittle.

One of the cupcakes wasn't pictured, but it was a garlic chocolate mousse cupcake with a garlicky ganache. It was really garlicky, but very good! — One of the cupcakes wasn’t pictured, but it was a garlic chocolate mousse cupcake with a garlicky ganache. It was really garlicky, but very good!

Abe and the girls showed up at the end, but they didn’t let them in the kitchen. I gave them cupcakes to go outside and eat:

I won a James Beard Award winning cookbook on bread baking (can’t remember the title) and a bunch of things that I actually already own. But it was still so fun!

Here are the other activities of the day:

6 am Bikram Yoga; getting my mom’s car serviced/washed; errands at Target, the gas station, sprouts and Smith’s Garden Center; FHE; planting tomatoes as a family (almost all of the plants I planted earlier died from frost and, um, because I forgot to water them); cooking dinner; eating outside; cleaning the kitchen; bathing the girls; paying bills; tidying various parts of the house.

Here are the accompanying pictures:

Abe took a break from paying bills and played with Lydia. It was one of the happiest parts of his day.

Planting tomatoes. Lydia went really nuts with the hose and basically gave the entire exterior of our house a big shower.

Abe and I have been trying to watch a movie for months. We are both so tired–but we’re determined to finally watch one. I think we might to either Saving Mr. Banks or Lincoln. (Whichever’s shorter??)

looooong day

Long day! I got up at 5:15 to get to yoga, and then after yoga I started to drive to school for my competition team meet when I realized that there was no way I could get everything done today if I went to the meeting. So I turned around and headed home.

We ended up shopping for wedding clothes (Jon and Shirley are getting married next week!) and getting ready for the trip. Then we went to Ikea for dinner, and afterward drove to Provo to meet up with our friends Ben, Candace, Cadence–and their new twins, Aria and Bentley. Aria and Bentley were unbelievably adorable. Equally unbelievable was that we didn’t get pictures of them. Oh well. I accidentally overfed Bentley because I was so absorbed in my conversation with Candace, and the poor thing couldn’t take all the milk I was drowning him in. It ended up on my arm, so at least I have a souvenir.

We met up at Chuckee Cheese’s, a place none of us have visited for over twenty years. It was a lot smaller than we remembered! But the kids loved it, and it was a lot easier to talk and visit with all of that entertainment for the kids. The visit seemed short, but before we realized it, two hours had flown by. We reluctantly said goodbye, and then headed for home.

Except. Except Abe has been raving about the massage chairs at Qualtrics, and he really wanted me to try them. We were only five minutes away, so we headed over to try the chairs. When we got there, the chairs were taken! The whole building was empty, but there were two employees there getting massages in the chairs. Abe was bummed, but he was determined not to make the trip in vain. Since his card wouldn’t give him access to the third floor (where there are more massage chairs), he tried to circumvent the system by taking the elevator. No such luck. Instead, we spent ten minutes stuck in the elevator fearing we would never get out. Finally, we figured out we could exit into the garage, which opened back up onto the street. Phew! After that close call, we headed straight for home.

Now I will post the very poor pictures we took of 1) the girls at Kid to Kid, 2) Dinner at Ikea and 3) the girls at Chuckee Cheese.

They were playing Frozen at Ikea. Eventually, we had to go feed Lydia because she was too caught up in the movie to eat.

Easter Eve

Today was packed, and Abe and I have yet to make Easter baskets and hide eggs, so quickly:

I got up at 5:30am to make it to yoga this morning. By the time I got home, Abe was in an apron making pancakes for all of us. Well, actually, Lydia made them:

Then she had an accident, which meant she had to take a shower, which meant that I got to do her hair while it was wet, which meant I got to practice my ladder braid!

I also did Mary’s hair for the first time. She didn’t like it.

Then I did a couple hours of homework while Abe played legos and other games with the girls. We fed them lunch, put Mary down for a nap, and then I practiced the piano for a couple hours. It felt positively luxurious to play whatever the heck I wanted to play. But it was a gorgeous day, and Abe and Lydia were outside enjoying the day and helping Ron and Shirl, so I finally quit and joined them outside. I found Abe reading his scriptures in the sunshine while Lydia drew chalk pictures next to him. No camera nearby, but it was cute.

Then we packed up the girls for the library, groceries, and the park:

By the time we got home, it was almost dark, so we hurried to plant our new tomato plants and then scurried inside to get dinner ready. Abe and I taught the girls an FHE lesson on Christ’s death and resurrection, and Lydia grilled us with questions all throughout dinner. She was very concerned about the nails-in-hands-and-feet part, which made me wonder if I should have diluted the story more.

At any rate, the girls didn’t get to bed until almost two hours past their bedtime tonight. We are going to have a tough time being on time for church tomorrow…

A perfect Spring day

Really, it was. This day felt perfect. Having sunshine made all the difference! Even though Abe and I anticipated being zombies because we got so little sleep last night, both of us had great days. We credit God and the sunshine for that. That the girls were really quite adorable all day long helped too.

I got in: a walk to the library, baby book club with Misty, a nap, reading more in The Triple Package, a lot of homework, some ironing, a long walk with Abe and the girls, Bikram yoga, cooking a veggie phyllo roll, picking up the house, doing laundry, folding some laundry, feeding the girls three meals, setting the girls up to craft and watercolor, reading to the girls, a couple phone calls with my mom and grandma and even forty minutes of piano practice. It was an abnormally productive day. As my dad used to say, “variety is the spice of life!” This day had spice.

On the Abe front, he had another tremendous day at work. He raved to me almost the whole walk about how blessed he feels and how there is literally not one part of his day that he dreads. He looks forward to every task at work, and great stuff is basically falling into his lap for no reason other than that God must be looking out for him. Obviously, he’s doing his part, but he can not remember a time in his life where he has felt so abundantly blessed by an outpouring of God’s love.

The girls are cute. Mary said “Nana” to my mom on the phone today, and Lydia is very concerned about my grandma’s health. She kept asking how Grandma was feeling and doing. Here are some pictures Abe took of the girls while I was at yoga:

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