Watching the Tchaikovsky piano concerto no. 1 this morning on Youtube was so thrilling that I accidentally gave myself shin splints running to the music. But tomorrow is Christmas Eve, so lying around nursing sore legs was not an option. Instead, Lydia and I turned out several batches of Christmas cookies before we packaged them up and delivered them to our awesome neighbors.
I had never made zimsterne before, but they are my new favorite Christmas cookie.
Zimsterne (cinnamon stars). Oh my gosh, I can not believe I had never tried making these before. The cookie is a nut meringue with a meringue icing baked on. I could live on these, I think.They are perfect for making with kids. Every step is kid friendly, and Lydia was so proud of herself.After I took this photo, I taught her how to spread the icing all over the cookie.This is out of order. Between the meringue-making and the cookie icing, Lydia pooped in her pants for the first time ever since we took away her diapers. She made it to the potty for most of it, but I wonder if the meringue set her off….I forgot to post this picture a couple days ago. I am so proud of this hair…even though it all fell out within a matter of hours. I need to find kid-sized bobby pins!
Anyway, my favorite part of today was dropping off gifts to our neighbors. It felt like Halloween again; we got short visits in with so many wonderful people, and I just love my neighbors! For some crazy reason, we decided to drive the gifts around and our car got stuck in a snowbank across the street from our house. I felt SO dumb, but luckily, the three boys who live across the street pushed the car out. The whole incident made me feel even more grateful for good neighbors who have compassion and help their apparently idiotic neighbors across the street.
Abe worked late tonight, so this day that started at 6:45am did not slow down until 9pm when I finally got the girls in bed. After that, I lay in bed watching Rachmaninoff, Horowitz, Olga Kern, and Yuji Wang (respectively) play the Rachmaninoff 3rd piano concerto. At that point, Abe kicked me out of bed so he could go to bed and I could blog.
I started off the day with an 8am session of Bikram Yoga. It felt awesome, and I hit 180 minutes of exercise this week! When I saw my doctor last week, he said to shoot for 150 minutes, so it felt really great to meet that goal.
I also finished the Book of Mormon yesterday, so I started again on the title page today. I have been thinking a lot about truth, courage, and missionary work lately. Missionary work confuses me, but thinking about it in terms of absolute truths helps me understand it a little better. Finishing and restarting a reading of the Book of Mormon always gets the juices flowing around truth, so my scripture study felt meaningful.
I even got some practice in, although my piano is by a huge window and can NEVER stay in tune. Right now it’s so out of tune I almost shudder to hear some registers (especially the upper), but I pressed on (!) through the awful sounds.
We also played in the snow today. Abe is sure that by the end of winter we will have a full blown snow fort, so he and the girls worked hard on it today:
Working hard on the snow fort.Mary was at the ready.And happy about it.:Lydia busied herself decorating the ground with snow angels.The snow fort.
We also went to This is the Place Heritage Park for their Candlelight Christmas with Balu, Tom, Suzanne, Steve, Charlie and Henry. We walked all over, sampling gingerbread, square dancing, learning about the first Christmas cards, signing Santa’s lists, meeting Santa, eating the best doughnuts I have ever had, and feeling moved by the live Nativity. Lydia spent the whole day anticipating the Baby Jesus and kept talking about how she would be quiet and not wake him, how she’d give him a binky, and how she’d take off her gloves when she saw him (I have no idea about that last part, but she was adamant…). Anyway, I love that place. To make it even better, at the end, Abe bought me a new wedding ring!!! I can only wear a plain band in my lab classes, and we found a plain silver band for $14.50!!!!!! It fit perfectly, and since I’ll probably wear it for the next decade, I could not be more pleased.
Mary Berry in her poof outfit. She toddled all around the park in this and kind of stole the show.
When I came home, I baked more cookies.
I baked a forest of bittersweet chocolate Christmas trees. Now if I can just get around to packaging them and giving them away before I eat them all…
Oh! I made another pint of lemon curd today. I think I’m going to make this for Christmas brunch. It just so happens I have a lot of mascarpone and now a ton of lemon curd in the fridge already. Now I just have to make a million crepes and it’ll be all downhill from there.
And now, my mom is here!!! So I’m going to stop blogging and go talk to her.
This morning we got off to a rocky, tantrum-y start; I even had the thought, “Oh, no! It’s only 8:30am and I’ve already had it up to HERE with being a mom!” …but things got better as soon as I took the girls to the Gateway Children’s Museum. They had so much fun playing in the water, “shopping,” climbing up stuff, and decorating paper stockings. We were the only ones who signed up for the stocking class, so they had the whole quiet craft room to themselves. It was such a nice note to end on, and the girls were both perfectly behaved–Mary didn’t even poop until we got back home. So considerate of her.
Lydia and I spent Mary’s nap reading a bunch of Christmas stories and playing the Primary book’s Christmas songs together, and at dinner I almost lost my voice cheering for every single bite Lydia took of her squash. (She took approximately 30…I lost count around 23 because around then I started cheering and playing high-five and tickle/hug games with Lydia in between each bite.) I cuddled Mary a lot, and basically enjoyed my children for the rest of the day. I ended up LOVING being a mom today.
After the kids went down, I learned a really simple, sweet piece called “Shepherd Boy,” by Grieg. The meditative, soft progression of the notes helped me reflect on the Good Shepherd and on the shepherds that visited Jesus. Considering one of my recording deadlines is fast approaching (the end of December–YIKES!), this was ultimately a foolish way to spend the limited time I have at the piano. But it also made my evening feel perfect, so I guess I don’t regret it that much.
I then discovered that Talenti ice cream containers are the perfect way to store the lemon curd I made today. I polished off the rest of the ice cream just in case I need another container tomorrow…
My friend, Cierra, gave me this recipe. It didn’t turn out like hers because I had to attend to several emergencies while I was supposed to be stirring, but it was still delicious. Here’s where she got her recipe.
The only thing that would make the evening even better is if Abe had not JUST started his trip home from Rock Springs. I hate him traveling those middle-of-nowhere roads in the middle of the night, but guess what? This is his last trip with Guardsmark! Hip, hip, hooray!
And so for today’s pictures:
Why did I cuddle Mary so much today? Well, she missed her morning nap because of our outing, and she was a little sad for the rest of the day. Also, she kept getting stuck on this chair.I forgot to post this picture from yesterday. Isn’t it cute?
When I wasn’t practicing piano today, I was either lying in bed or feeding my children. I’ve had a headache that I only forget to notice when I’m super focused (e.g., on the piano), so it’s been hard to get much done. Oh! But I did have a play date with Aria, Espen and Enna, which made the morning a delight. Enna waved to me! And I guess I did the treadmill this morning, so there was some activity in the day. Just not a lot.
Lydia, on the other hand had a TON of activity today. Since I was out of commission, she just ran around the house playing pretend the entire day. Even at meals she would pretend her utensils were Abe, Mary, her and me, and she’d say stuff like, “We are togever foh-ever, Ma-wee!” (Translation: “We are together forever, Mary!”).
I forgot to write down a cute exchange we had yesterday. I had been reprimanding Lydia a lot, and as I was practicing, I heard suspicious sounds coming from the kitchen. “Lydia, what are you doing?” I called out. There was a pause. “Mama, I don’t know,” came Lydia’s extremely exasperated reply. “Just pway the pwano, okay?” (Turns out she was engaging in one of her favorite forbidden activities: eating butter. Today I gave her a little lesson on how arteries clog up, and she hasn’t touched the butter since.)
Here are today’s pictures:
Before he left for work this morning, Abe gave the girls a ride. Lydia’s wearing the same outfit she wore yesterday because, well, she never quite made it into pj’s last night. When she woke up, she was already dressed, so why make more work for everyone?I made garlic mashed potatoes and wilted kale and called that dinner. No one seemed to mind.Before bed the girls got rides on the magic potty seat.One of the girls got a faster ride than the other…
Lydia had two nightmares last night, so her 7am request for tape (to fix one of the books she accidentally broke in her sleep) came a little early today. I felt like such a zombie this morning, and that feeling gave me a lot more compassion for my excessively low productivity/activity level this past three years. If I felt that sleep deprived (and let’s be honest, having a newborn and/or pregnancy is light years away from a mere two-nightmare night), then I should be celebrating the fact that I even managed to function at all. Piano practice and cooking school would not even be remote possibilities under that level of fatigue.
During Mary’s nap, I made a beeline for bed. After that, I felt much better. So much better that I took the kids to the grocery store and the library. Then I cooked for the rest of the day because my responsible friend from cooking school, Jessica, came over for dinner.
She is a passionate foodie, so I wanted to try something I hadn’t done before. After scrolling through food blogs, I settled upon this post. Don’t those squash rings look dear? Well, let me tell you: They’re insanely, ridiculously complicated, especially if you, like me, have no knife skills to speak of. I practically lost my hand trying to cut those stupid squash rings, and finally, after hacking an entire acorn squash to bits and getting one ONE measly little ring out of it, I said to heck with it. Stuffed squash for dinner it was.
Looks dry, doesn’t it? I should have glazed the squash with butter and maple syrup, but I was so demoralized by my cutting fiasco that I neglected to follow the rest of the directions.
By the time I took this picture, I had put the rest of the food (whipped sweet potatoes and roasted broccoli) away. Dessert was still on the table though.
Chocolate amaretto cake. Basically, you grind up amaretto cookies, zest some orange, melt some chocolate, add eggs and sugar, bake and voila! For the real recipe, click here. I can actually really vouch for this one–I’ve done it many times, and it’s pretty foolproof.
We so enjoyed our time with Jessica. We learned a lot about the military (she spent ten years in it, and even was in the head trauma unit in both Iraq and Afghanistan), and I had my heartstrings pulled by her personal stories. What a wonderful person.
In kid-related news, Mary has now learned to climb the stove. I kid you not. Tomorrow I will try to rearrange the kitchen, but in the meantime I have random pieces of furniture strewn everywhere from my various attempts to block her progress.
This is where she perched while I cooked. She’d alternate between eating her amaretto cookie and standing up to see if she could reach anything interesting on the counter.
Didn’t post last night because I was feeling icky. We have a terrible inversion in Salt Lake, and I think the air is actually making me sick.
Anyway, after not sleeping much last night, I decided to get up early and blog. Grandma, I love you, and I want you to have something new to see today…although it’s probably not that exciting!
Here are the pics from yesterday:
After all of the obstacle course training, Mary is unstoppable. You are probably wondering why I am not running to get her down, but listen. She does stuff like this all day long, and I’m just glad she’s not on the table. (I would forgo the picture and get her down if she had succeeded in getting on that table.)The girls played with my embroidery hoop all day. Here’s Lydia telling us that she’s wearing a crown. Mary preferred to wear it like a necklace while performing her climbing tricks.Also, I made sloppy lentils. I love sloppy joe’s, but I don’t love the meat. This has everything good about a sloppy joe with the added benefit of lentils. I found the recipe here.
Let’s see. We went to the Schulz’s house for a play date in the morning with Sarah, Nathan, and Hannah, and then we came home for the rest of the day. I fed and bathed the girls early, and we spent hours playing in their room. Well, the girls were playing. I just lay there while they sat on my face and climbed all over me. For some reason, they thought my sputtering and saying “OW!!” was hilarious, so that game lasted about an hour.
While I was trying Abe’s patience yet again this afternoon, obsessing over the question, “Am I or am I not a narcissist?” (the fact that this question consumes me on an almost daily basis seems to point to the rather unfortunate, albeit clear, answer…), he did mention that he doesn’t show up much in my blog.
AGHHH!! SO I REALLY AM ONE!!! My sweet husband, who has never said a negative thing about anyone, did not answer my question directly, but instead mildly noted his absence in my posts.
So today, instead of recording the details of my life that feel important to me (such as the fact that I am going to bed in the same outfit I wore yesterday, last night, and all day today, with the only difference being that from last night on I have not enjoyed the support of a bra), today I am determined to focus on the love of my life, my husband.
He is a wonderful dad, a perfect husband, and is in every way a superior human being to myself; it is therefore extremely unfortunate that he doesn’t show up more in this chronicle of our life. This blog would be a cheerier, holier, funnier place with more Abe and less Lily.
I give you this video of his evening with the girls. They set up an obstacle course, and by the time this video was filmed, the girls had run the course at least three times. Mary was all giggles, squeals, and smiles for rounds 1-3, but in the video she was a wee bit tired and more easily frustrated. My favorite part is at minute 4:14, where you can hear Abe direct Lydia to put a pillow under Mary’s perch so Mary doesn’t plummet and hurt herself. He and I think so differently, sometimes…Anyway, here it is:
And here are the pictures from my day. I wish I had pictures from Abe’s, but in lieu of photographic evidence, here’s what he did, as far as I know: He went to work. He came home. He listened to me talk his ear off about myself. He watched the kids. He cleaned the house. He worked on his computer. He listened to me play the piano and provided great feedback. And right now he’s exhausted, so here I go posting my pictures for real, now:
Lydia insisted on wearing her owl costume today.She also wore an apron I decorated when I was little. (We rolled, cut out, and baked the rest of Monday’s cookie dough today.)
Mary was a little clingy today.Mary sat with Lydia at the kid table for the first time today. This delighted both girls to no end.Before I took the girls outside, Mary was having trouble balancing.Can you see the beginnings of the snow fort Abe helped them start building? They LOVE it!Before her nap, Lydia took a look at my feet and furrowed her brow. Then she said, “Actually, Mama, can I have one of your striped socks?” I acquiesced and handed over both for good measure. Minutes later she emerged from her bedroom with both of my socks on. She wore them for the rest of the day. In the video, you can see them dragging (until she pulls them off at the end of the clip).Abe pretended to be an elephant before setting up the obstacle course. Here are the girls running away from the big, scary elephant.
So yesterday ended on a high note, and this morning was a hard fall back to reality. Lydia got spanked three times before 7:10am (and Abe was traveling, so guess who the mean parent was?). I felt so bad for the rest of the morning–especially since Lydia was so remorseful and apologized out of the blue hours later. (I spanked her because she started screaming when I told her it was still dark out and she needed to go back to bed. I was afraid she’d wake Mary, but in retrospect I wish I had been a lot more patient.)
But she perked up at preschool with her friends, so that was happy. While Lydia was at preschool, I took Mary to the library for story time. She loved it, and I was so happy to have some time to focus on her the way I used to focus on Lydia. We checked out more books, and then I picked Lydia up early from preschool because Mary was getting tired and needed to nap.
After story time, Mary ventured over to play with some other children.
After I brought the girls home, I got an hour of practice in and cooked dinner while Mary napped and Lydia watched Sesame Street. When Mary woke up, I fed the girls and then put them down for quiet time and naps again. Lydia begged me for an hour and a half to tuck her in for a nap, but I was so busy feeding Mary and cooking dinner that by the time I got around to it, the poor thing was exhausted and didn’t wake up until I woke her.
I stuffed chard with lentils, rice, corn, raisins, and Myzithra cheese, and then i covered it all in tomato sauce. I am hoping culinary school will help me figure out how to make stuffed chard attractive; I tried taking pictures of the individual rolls, but they looked too similar to green poop to post. Here they just kind of look like vomit and blood (sorry for the imagery! But it’s accurate, don’t you think?)
I then packed the kids into the car and met Abe at his office, where I handed over the kids before heading to class. Today we took a field trip to Harmon’s, and after all the stuff we learned tonight, I will be taking the business I currently give to Whole Foods over to Harmon’s. The knowledge of the staff, the loyalty they have to their store, and the quality of the products was mind blowing. There are times when the fish you see in their display is a mere four hours from being caught in the ocean. !!!!! Does that not blow your mind? It blew mine. Also, our Whole Foods has been cutting down its produce section, while Harmon’s produce section is expansive, fresh and seductive. All around, I am now a Harmon’s fan.
I also found out that my final projects are due THIS FRIDAY (and Saturday, for my online class). Can you believe how fast that went? I can’t, especially since I haven’t started my projects. Guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow!
I went grocery shopping before Abe left to work today because I simply could not bear the thought of attempting that with two girls in the snow. As soon as I returned, we loaded the girls up in my car and I took them to the library to pay down the $25 I have in fines. I “pay” these down by reading to my children, sometimes for hours at a time. The library credits you with $1 for every ten minutes you read to one child. Since I have two children, I get $2 instead. Today our reading session was cut short by Mary, who became a little sad an hour and a half after her normal morning nap time. I still paid down $8.40, though! It felt great.
Mary picking out a book at the library.Lydia doing the same.
After the library, looking happy that she gets to eat and nap soon.
After the library, I proceeded to have a fantastic day. The only thing missing from yesterday and today has been exercise, but other than that, I feel absolutely no panic or stress. I’ve come to terms with the sub-par work I’ve been handing in at school, and I’ve started restoring balance by spending more time with my kids. Reading to them lowers my stress level and makes me feel better, and so I’ve decided to start scheduling that into my daily goals just like I schedule in the piano, scriptures, school, and exercise. Hopefully that will help.
And Lydia is back to doing quiet time without any type of protest, so that makes my life AWESOME. Today Mary took a three hour nap, and Lydia’s quiet time extended to three hours because she elected to take a nap, too. I spent that whole time wasting my life on the internet, but you know what? After mindlessly staring at my iPad for three hours, I emerged the best, most attentive mom I’ve been–ever? I really think it’s ever. I told Abe on the phone that I have never been as nice or as fun a mom as I was this evening, and I wish I could be that way all the time!
We read books and pretended to eat the food Mary cooked for us in their play kitchen.
After accidentally kneeling in a puddle of Mary’s pee (she peed with anticipation upon seeing the bath fill up), I jumped into the bath with my kids and let them wash my hair and scrub my peed-on knees with soap. They seemed to have so much fun that I didn’t even need to get the bath toys wet. Plus I got clean, and since I’m not sure when I last showered, that’s no small boon.
Abe’s out of town tonight, so I think I will continue my irresponsible behavior and waste more time online now…
When Abe leaves town, sometimes he leaves me notes around the house. It’s so sweet. Today I came home and found a bunch of notes on the walls. Here’s one (in the background).
Oh! I almost forgot. Lydia said the cutest prayer by herself tonight. She said thank-you that Daddy, Mama and Nana all love Mary and her so much, and then she added a thank-you for her cat. She then said that she thought the cat would not mind if she went on a trip and bought him a gift. And then she went off on a long tangent about what would happen on her trip…
A little later, after the girls were in bed, I listened at the door and heard Lydia entertaining Mary with tales about our India trip. She said, “India is a place where we go to stay. You can have lunch there, Mary, and I will dance. Dance, dance, dance!” (She did some dancing at one of the wedding parties there.)
Abe officially accepted a new job with Qualtrics today!! He is elated, and after putting in his two weeks notice with his current job, he feels over-the-moon with joy. It’s been a long road, but the end is finally in sight. Yay, Abe!!! I am so happy for him. He has worked so hard for so long, and he finally gets to join a healthy, happy company. Woo-hoo!!
We won’t be moving right away, but since the commute is about an hour (Qualtrics is based out of Provo), we will be moving to Provo at some point in time.
I am really excited to be close to BYU, because after cooking school I would LOVE to get a masters degree in religion. How convenient will it be to live right next to BYU? So convenient! Plus it’s one of three google fiber cities in the U.S., and the mountains are right there.
The downside: Provo is even more homogeneous than Salt Lake, if that’s possible. Scaaarrry. Also, I will miss Misty.
She came over for a play date today, and the girls baked cookies together.
Lydia said, “Sophia, sweet-hawt, come here!” and then, when Sophia was rolling out the cookie dough: “Sophia, honey, there’s dough sticking to the rowing pin. Wet me hewp you.” (Lydia loves Sophia, and she also can’t pronounce “L” yet.)Sophia loved patting the dough into a ball.Here they are playing chase around the house.…And I’m in love with Mary’s chubby little legs.Mary lives–and I don’t think I’m exaggerating–on clementines. One rolled under the butcher block, and she was determined to get it back.
Today was a great day. To make it even better, I was STARVING during the girls’ naps because when it’s snowy outside, the last thing I ever want to do is go grocery shopping. Anique called me out of the blue and dropped off some delicious baked beans and butternut squash soup. It was so sweet! I couldn’t even believe it. Not only did Abe get a new job and I get to spend the morning with Misty, but when hunger hit, food and a friend showed up at my door. Lucky me!
Also, my revised blog post is now up at Mormon Momma. The last paragraph at the end is the result of my sleepless, guilt-ridden nights after writing the original article.
