This morning I sneaked in a trip to the library and grocery store before our fun play date with Paige, Ada, and Liv.
Here are some pictures from the play date:
We did a lot of art: painting, coloring, stamping, and playing with chalk.Paige brought over some polymer sand that was incredible. It looked and felt like sand, but it cleans up like cotton candy–a no mess kind of sand that just makes you marvel at technology.Adorable.
Then the girls were so worn out from the fun that they took a three hour nap. Hallelujah. I read a chapter in my book and then proceeded to do the same.
By the time we woke up, I just had time to make some soup, feed the girls dinner, and eat the last piece of last week’s cake before Abe came home.
We finished up with a Family Home Evening lesson on what it means to be children of God. Of course, we ended by playing parachute…
Church this morning was incredibly inspiring and uplifting. In Relief Society, we had a lesson on adversity, and then in Sunday School, we talked about Noah’s Ark–and again, hit upon the theme of adversity. The whole time I was thinking about Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book, David and Goliath, wherein Gladwell argues that people who suffer great adversity or battle huge disadvantages in life sometimes find the key to their success in those very problems. Noah probably suffered a lot of loneliness and social isolation during the course of his long, long life–but he also walked with God; I wonder if that experience of isolation helped solidify his relationship with God, since God was his refuge.
Speaking of social isolation, we were hermits today. The Andersons invited us over for dinner, but we reluctantly said no because we thought we were going to Suzanne’s family party tonight. I realized too late that I didn’t have time to make the dish I promised to make if we attended, and so we just stayed home and watched the Olympics instead.
I love the Olympics. In the next life, I want to figure skate. I hope there’s a rink and some patient coaches waiting for me in heaven. In the meantime, Mary watched the screen and alternated between lifting her arms in triumph and trying to balance on one leg. Maybe I can be one of those scary moms who lives vicariously.
Here are the pictures from today:
I heart matching (ha! there are hearts in their dress…and Abe’s punning has rubbed off on me).After we ate lunch, Mary napped and the three of us headed to the basement to make Valentines for preschool tomorrow.Abe rearranged the treadmill yesterday. I was complaining (again) about how difficult it is to find time to work out, and so now I can! This way I can see the girls, and there’s even a TV monitor set up on the wall so I can see what they’re doing in the part of the basement that’s out of eyesight.
And now back to the Olympics. I don’t want to miss the ice dancing pairs!
This morning I took the girls to the dinosaur play area at City Creek. I told the girls I would bring them yesterday because Misty’s play group was meeting there, but then I started feeling tired and slightly sick that I had to renege on my promise. They had fun today, though.
Then I took them to church and dropped Lydia off at nursery while Mary and I attended a lecture from a BYU professor/Dead Sea Scroll scholar on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I was a little late, but what I heard was fantastic. This wasn’t his most important or emphasized point, but he did point out that a lot of Book of Mormon names which were completely unfamiliar to Joseph Smith and everyone else at the time of the translation of the Book of Mormon (some of which had been used by anti-Mormons to prove the Church was not true) show up in the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, critics used to say that Alma, the Book of Mormon prophet, had the name of a South American woman; when the Dead Sea Scrolls were interpreted, Alma comes up as the name of a Hebrew prince.
The professor said he was going to give a lecture at 4pm today on the historicity of Job. Every part of me was DYING to drive to Provo and sit in on his lecture–to which he invited all of us–but, alas, that was not practical. So instead, we headed home, ate lunch, took long naps, and cooked food. Specifically, I spent two hours doing simple standard breading and baking to three eggplants. I streamlined the process as much as I could, and yet two full hours later, there I was, still dealing with the eggplant. Perhaps the fact that I was also feeding children had something to do with that, but still. It was ridiculous. I didn’t even make the rest of the dish; instead I told Abe to fend for himself for dinner and plan on having eggplant Parmesan tomorrow.
After dinner, I got my first real burst of energy of the whole day (it happened none too early at 8 pm) and cleaned the downstairs for the arrival of my home teacher from Chicago, Brother Richardson. He is flying in for Roots Tech, which starts tomorrow. While I was cleaning away, Abe was upstairs bathing and playing with the girls. Here is a picture he took:
Mary loves, loves, loves to brush her teeth…and tongue.
Abe and I were reminiscing just now about my old dog, Lulu. I got her as a six week old lab puppy four months before I met Abe, and Abe just now remarked what great preparation she was for having kids. During the time I had her, I never once got a full night’s sleep (usually she’d have potty runs around midnight and then again around 4am, and often would not sleep in between), and a bunch of my favorite clothes and personal items were chewed to death. I was constantly sweeping my studio apartment to keep the mess of dog hair at bay. The parallels are there, but then I remembered: I gave Lulu away. I would never, ever give my children away, but I guess the point is, it’s not in my nature to endure messes, chaos, and interrupted sleep without feeling kind of maxed out at times.
Today was a maxed-out day. Basically, I just gave up and spent the whole day reading in bed while my children tore apart the upstairs around me. They seemed to enjoy their activity, and even though now Lydia’s entire bed is colored on and I’m discovering toothpaste all over, it felt like what the doctor ordered. The craziest part is that I just can’t wait to get back to bed.
I did interrupt my self-imposed bed rest to feed the children multiple times, clean the kitchen multiple times, bake cookies with Lydia, and make another sweet potato souffle…but there are thirteen hours between when Lydia wakes up and when she goes to sleep again, and those activities aren’t that long in comparison. Basically, I’m not exaggerating when I say I spent most of today in bed.
Abe and I chatted while he ate dinner after the girls went to bed. It’s been so long since we got to talk over a meal, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. He loves his new job and is so thankful to have work friends. He gets a whole hour at lunch to play games, socialize, read scriptures, call home, and eat. And he goes in an hour early and stays an hour late (on days when I don’t have cooking school) so that he can get everything done that he wants to. He hasn’t felt this healthy in eleven years. It’s a really thrilling career change for him, and it makes me SO happy to hear my husband effuse over his work situation.
Here are some pictures from this evening, when Lydia decided she wanted to learn how to jump rope:
Mary struggled a bit more to catch on to the concept…but she (clearly) had fun.
Today I was kind of tired and grumpy from yesterday’s over-activity, but here are the high points of today:
Abe went to Jay’s to watch the Super bowl, so the girls and I had all evening to play. We played chase, played catch, read books, and played climb-the-chair and jump-on-Lydia’s-bed a lot.
Tom and Suzanne came by for a quick visit in the middle of the evening:
Then my mom sent me a biography she’s written of my beloved grandmother. I tried to copy and paste it into this blog, but the formatting was all messed up. When I have time to figure that out, I’ll paste it here.
When Abe came home, he brought me chocolate chip cookies his mom made. I had been craving chocolate chip cookies all day, so it kind of made my day to get them.
Today started off with a wonderful reunion with some old friends, Jan, Chelsea, and Chelsea’s kids: Olivia (3), Carter (1) and Camden (1). Her boys are fraternal twins, and I think this is the first time I’ve met them in person. It was so fun to see them again, and I started to wonder again why we aren’t moving to Provo (Chelsea lives in Orem–right next door to Provo).
After meeting up at the Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum, we headed home for lunch. Olivia was a doll and listened to Lydia blab on and on about her cat while they pretended to have tea. The twins were so cute and need to be in the same room to sleep. We stuck them in Mary’s closet together and they slept beautifully. It was fun to see their different personalities, too!
I just love Jan and Chelsea, and it honestly felt like a family reunion of sorts. Here are some pictures that Jan took:
And from lunch:
Today was also sort of a soup heavy day. I made chili for lunch, and then I remembered I signed up to bring dinner to a woman in our ward, so I made lentil soup after that. During class tonight we made split pea soup and chicken waterzooi. To be perfectly frank, I am less than enthusiastic my other group member tonight, but I got to exercise…patience. I was sorely, sorely tempted to be less than kind (am giving into temptation now by writing about it on the blog), but I just kept thinking: appearance vs. reality, appearance vs. reality. Who knows what kind of hardships this person has endured? My experience of her is so minute compared to the scope of her life and intentions. That said, I am dreading next week because we have to work together for one more week. I just hope some other group members show up so the experience will be somewhat diluted.
So it was a kind of social high/low day. I loved my reunion with Jan, Chelsea, and the kids, and I kind of hated my life a little bit during class. And I just saw some big fireworks from the window as I typed. I have no idea what they were for, but I guess I’ll take that as a sign to sign off.
Oh, and here’s a photo from two days ago that was on my iPad and I never posted. Lydia pre-quiet time.
This morning I fed the girls, practiced, and took them to Institute and the library. At Institute, both girls went to nursery. They did fine until Lydia had a little run-in with a friend, and Lydia burst into tears. At the sight of Lydia in tears, Mary became inconsolable, and I could hear her soundtrack an entire floor down. But I got to attend most of Institute before that, and it was awesome. The curator of the BYU museum of art talked to us about the Carl Bloch exhibit, and I am now dying to go.
Our institute is packed, and so parking is hard. I thought I’d found a great spot today, but when I came out, I discovered a ticket! Did you know you can’t park within 20 inches of a crosswalk? I sure didn’t. I wasn’t blocking the crosswalk, but I guess that wasn’t good enough. I guess I know now.
By the time we came home, the girls had gotten a second wind, so I played with them for another hour before putting them down. Then I did my usual climb-into-bed deal for a nap and some reading. I started Good Lord Bird, and even though it is rather humorous, I already know I’m not going to finish it. Besides, it’s due tomorrow.
When the girls woke up, we ate, cooked, colored, played, read, and I sneaked in more practice (while they ate). Then Abe came home and we had a lightning fast FHE.
Since yesterday was the State of the Union, I decided to do a lesson on our president. I remember when I was a little girl, one of my greatest friends and teachers was my next door neighbor, Ruth. She was in her 90’s, and she was a wonderful listener. She also had a way of gently correcting that never felt like a reprimand but still had great sticking power. On one occasion, I remember going over and saying some negative things about Clinton to her. Ruth responded by telling me that she was from a part of Indiana where the people are called “yellow dog Democrats,” meaning if a yellow dog was on the Democratic ticket, they would vote for it. She said that once she remembered saying something bad about the Republican president, and her mother immediately replied that the presidential office is worthy of our respect and support, no matter who holds it.
I haven’t always acted on the principle Ruth taught me that day, but it’s always in the back of my mind during political conversations. Abe and I read the twelfth Article of Faith to the girls (“We believe in being asubject to bkings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in cobeying, honoring, and sustaining the dlaw“) in the hopes that they learn to respect our leaders and honoring all efforts to uphold our democratic system. In order to drive the message home, we played parachute. By now, Abe and I joke that we can relate parachute to any gospel principle; this time it was, “We should uphold our leaders just like we will uphold these objects…in the air over the blanket!”
Then I ran off to Bikram with Anique. Thank goodness she drove, because I felt so sick afterward, I don’t know how I would have made it home. The room was packed, and so maybe the extra bodies drove the temperature up. Whatever it was, I did not feel good afterward and am only now starting to feel somewhat normal.
Here are the pictures from the day:
Ever since Santa brought Lydia her cat back, Puss has played and ever more central role in Lydia’s life. She has full-blown conversations with him all day long, and he is her favorite thing to discuss with other people. Mary has picked up on this, and when Lydia is feeling sad, Mary has started bringing her her cat. This was after a sad event with a tower Lydia was building, and Mary was cheering her up.Everyone is cheered.I snapped this picture and then joined in. That left corner of the blanket needed some help!
I enjoyed church a lot today, and one sister made a comment that reminded me of one of my mission leaders. The sister today talked about how mundane tasks like laundry and dishes are actually opportunities to serve our families. That reminded me of a comment one of my mission leaders used to make about how doing the dishes was one of her primary avenues for becoming more Christ like. (She must have done a lot of dishes.) I took that reflection to heart and did a LOT of dishes tonight. The laundry…is still piled up in a closet. Maybe tomorrow?
Also, my awesome visiting teachers visited me today. I love their visits. I just love being ministered to, and I always feel uplifted by their company. And now I want to go see Saving Mr. Banks because Erika recommended it so highly.
We had Balu over for dinner tonight, and since it was just him, we skipped the potty training conversations he normally endures and just went straight for the good stuff: Indian politics, American politics, the joys of living in Utah, and his new T.A. job.
I took very few pictures today, but Mary was looking cute before church, so I snapped these:
This morning, we went to preschool. Paige ran out for a minute to make copies, and in the meantime I experienced a bit of heaven. It looked like this:
These girls are collaborating on a puzzle. They’re saying things like, “Sophia, do you think this goes here?” “Here, Lydia, I think it goes here.”
I sat on the couch and felt happy.
Then Paige came back and read to the girls. They all loved that:
Ada tried on Lydia’s coat and Audrey’s boots. They suited her.
After preschool, we raced to the church because, guess what? Institute now has a nursery! I’ve never been to our stake institute class, and I was shocked to find the two parking lots so full that I struggled to find a spot. I was a little late, but today’s topic was Joseph Smith in the Kirtland years (from what I gathered). There was a lot of talk about how the writings of Paul are echoed in the articles of faith and in the Book of Mormon.
Then home for lunch, play, naps, homework, piano and reading (I am in the middle of The Fellowship of the Ring, and it was with the greatest reluctance that I set that aside to blog tonight).
Somewhere in there, I made another souffle (I am addicted), cleaned the kitchen, fed the girls dinner, and ran some soup over to Anique. We have a little exchange going on, and it was my turn. I am boring and always send over lentil soup, and she sends me all kinds. Maybe next week I’ll branch out…
Here are some pictures Abe took right before we put the girls to bed.
Abe loves this expression.Mary with her fake bottle.:Lydia got tickled. (And at one point, she jerked up and bonked my teeth. I feel so bad because I think she’s going to bruise.)
This morning I practiced my knife skills by cutting a bunch of vegetables for lentil soup. The veggies came out noticeably uneven. Also, upon later consumption, I realized that the soup was unsalted and the veggies were practically raw. Yuck! Then I prepped a sweet potato souffle and rushed to play group with the kids. I forgot to bring Lydia’s bike, but that was okay since we didn’t stay long. My old roommates were in town, and as soon as they called, I rushed out of play group to meet them at home.
At one point I calculated that during my single years I had sixty-eight roommates. Granted, I counted my mission roommates, who would change up every six weeks. I also counted people I lived with for as short as a couple weeks. But I think it’s safe to say that those ten years had a variety of living situations, and during that time, my period with the roommates I saw today stands out in memory as one of the happiest living arrangements of my life. I loved my life with them, and it was truly uplifting to see these lovely, fun, funny, kind, intelligent, affirming women today. Vanessa is expecting baby Tessa in March, and Shandi has two kids, one a month older than Lydia and one GORGEOUS baby who is a couple months old.
Our kids got along great, and I loved, loved, loved visiting with Shandi and Vanessa. Shandi and I even got to play and sing together (she did the singing), and that was SO fun. She has a beeee-autiful voice, and I’d been looking forward to hearing it again for a while. Suffice it to say, I was sad when they left–but so glad that they came!
The rest of the day had some reading, some piano, some tantrums, lots of cleaning, and hopefully now some homework. Here are today’s pictures:
Since Mary is now on a one nap a day schedule, we can go to play group again!Shandi’s kids are Sebastian and Penelope. Vanessa remarked that Shandi could open a children’s boutique named “Sebastian and Penelope.” Can’t you picture it?
Abe watched the girls while I practiced tonight. From the sounds of it, they had some rough moments. But he did capture some good ones here:
