errands with Mom

This morning Ammon called me upstairs to witness Clarissa do his obstacle course. He would make a great trainer. Whenever Clarissa fell or couldn’t really do a task (like throw the giant pouf into the air and catch it twenty times), he would sound bewildered for a moment before collecting himself enough to count her reps and encourage her to keep going. “Uh, two. Come on, Galissa! (Clarissa in Ammon speak)”. Here is a video.

During the day I took my mom to her doctor appointment and on some errands. It was really fun for me to spend time with her, and Ammon and Clarissa (who were masked up in the car) loved it too.

Then we picked the girls up early and came home to make little mummies out of peppers stuffed with cheese, wrapped in croissant dough, and olives.

Their finished creations.

Dress up all day

The weather has taken a sharp turn to freezing cold, so we brought out the winter clothes this morning. Ammon and Clarissa spent hours, literally hours playing with the clothes.

Also, Ammon had a dance lesson and here is a video of what he worked on:

Then in the evening I let the kids open their new Halloween costumes. We weren’t going to get any because it seemed like this year was a no trick or treating year, but then Lydia begged and begged…and I found a Medusa costume she’d put in the Amazon cart, and I gave in. We should have taken a picture of all of us in costume, but here is a picture of the kids opening them. They spent the next hour playing.

Abe is giving Cupid a ride around the house.

Pumpkin carving

Today we woke up to the first snow of the year! In its honor Lydia got right to work baking pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

I just spent FOUR hours catching up on the blog and don’t want to get behind again so I am blogging today even though it’s not even half over yet.

Abe took the girls to church while I blogged and Ammon and Clarissa watched Frozen, and then Abe went to Lowe’s to get a tool to try to fix our fire pit. It is so frustrating because one of our kids broke it before we ever got a chance to use it, and after Abe got his tool he determined the whole fire pit will probably have to be ripped up and replaced. It is so upsetting to have such a needless expense, but I guess that’s part of having kids.

Abe picked up pumpkins for all of the kids at Lowe’s and then supervised the carving while I continued to slog through the blog. Here is an adorable video of Ammon and Clarissa doing a pre-carving dance:

Also I took a picture of this INSANE school project Lydia has right now:

These are half of the pine needles that Lydia has to boil for ten minutes and then individually wipe down with toilet paper. It is totally crazy. She spent hours doing it yesterday and is not even a fraction done!! I don’t know what the purpose of the project is so it’s hard to understand why Lydia has to be wiping down pine needles instead of doing all of the other wonderful things she does. But she loves and trusts her teacher, so I’m trying to be supportive through the insanity.
Lydia was riding her pet unicorn (Mary).

Catching Up

I’ve been looking forward to today. We had an amazing trip to Arizona and got in Sunday night and we were flung straight into the daily grind. That meant we never fully unpacked, never fully recovered from the travels, had a big backlog of blogging, and we also both got a bit sick. The week was very busy and there was some work to do on the house and yard as well.

So, I’ve been excited to have this catch-up day. Lily and I slept in. We worked on the house, and now we are blogging. Lily also planned all of the upcoming parties she is envisioning for the family (Halloween, Harry Potter Feast, Election Night etc). She is so fun! Recently Lydia spontaneously said that one of her favorite things about our family is that we celebrate everything. All of that credit goes to Lily.

The kids played cutely together for much for much of the day. Lydia pushed Clarissa around in a bin, and here is Ammon posing with Clarissa, who looks like a baby doll.

**Insert from Lily.** This is Lily now. I didn’t want to let this blog pass without recording my session with my psychic from Sedona. I wanted the full Sedona experience but this particular psychic was booked out the week we were there so I just scheduled a Zoom call for the week after. I was really looking forward to it and brought zero expectations to the call. As in, I did not expect her to be a real psychic but I was open-minded to the concept that she might tap into some real energy, and if she did I’d be happy to hear whatever she had to say.

Well, I liked the psychic a lot and I learned that, in my opinion at least, it’s all a sham. I’ve always felt curiosity whenever I’ve passed any psychic sign, and now I’m pretty sure that curiosity is happily at rest. My psychic told me, in no particular order:

  • My grandma wishes I would brush my hair and cut it an old fashioned way. (My hair was unbrushed on Zoom with the psychic so I thought this was hilarious.)
  • My great Aunt Pat wants me to know I look good in Turquoise. Also her teeth hurt her while she was alive.
  • Someone in my family has a dog with long hair, a white throat, and floppy ears that are flopping. (No one has a dog.)
  • I should wear supportive sneakers. This will help the arthritis that will occur in my big toe in a couple years.
  • I am going to get more formal education and I won’t stay in my current house very long.
  • I have a relative in Texas somewhere.
  • One of my guardian spirits is named Patrick. He plays Spanish songs on the electric guitar and has the number 5, so whenever I see 5 or hear Spanish electric guitar, think of him.
  • My ancestors also gave me a physical therapy exercise to do to release tension in my lower jaw. Thanks, fam!

So it was highly entertaining and I really did like the psychic. I think she really thinks she’s tuning into the dead, and maybe for other people she is but for me I’m happy to know if anyone’s going to be communicating with the dead, it’ll have to be me directly from here on out. At least that’s cheaper, anyway.

The Truth About the Tooth Fairy

I had a really heavy week this week. Aside from catching up from being out of town, I implemented a lot of changes on the team, and I also had 3 people want me to be on their promotion committee and I also helped Paul with his RFP a little. I was getting progressively sicker throughout the week, so I was thrilled at the prospect of being done for the week while I wrapped up my pile this afternoon. As I was working on my pile of work, Mary came into my room wearing Lily’s jeans which was really cute.

On the topic of Mary, she lost a tooth tonight while we were watching Despicable me 2. At night as she was tucked in her covers, she told me that Lydia told her there was a secret about the tooth fairy, but that Lydia wouldn’t tell her yet. Mary begged me to tell her what the secret was. I thought it might be time to tell her, now that she is 8, but I was feeling tired, and I didn’t have the energy to make it feel fun or special. So I called on Lily to come in, and Lily was perfect. She lovingly explained the truth about the Tooth Fairy to Mary. Mary, at one point said, “but fairies are still real.” Lily said that Mary could believe fairies were still real. Mary is so sweet, and it was a sweet and tender moment to break this truth to her. I think it might have been a bit of a disappointing night for Mary if Lily had not made it such a sweet and tender exchange. Mary is so sweet!

Refinance

Since the interest rates have dropped to the two percents, Abe and I refinanced the home we just bought. So today the kids all went to school for the first time this week and Abe and I drove to Sandy to do the refinance together.

We love our finance guy, Larry Perkins. He was our Sunday School teacher in Salt Lake and so funny, interesting, and colorful. Abe and I enjoyed chatting with him a bit and then we had to race back to Orem to pick up Ammon and Clarissa from preschool. Even though it was rushed, being alone together always feels like a date.

After school the kids had a play date with Eli and Chloe, which made everyone’s day. They played outside just to be safe, and after Eli and Chloe went back home we all had chili, fall leaf chips, avocado, and corn salsa to warm up. I have also been making these outrageous cups of pumpkin spice tea with pumpkin spice creamer. They would be plain silly if they weren’t actually so delicious.

Decorating day

Today the kids made all sorts of Halloween posters and decorations. They were home from school because of the rule that says kids have to be healthy for 48 hours before they return. So bonus for them–they got to be healthy and home!

On our trip we listened to the Wicked soundtrack quite a bit. Lydia has painted her face green several times since, I assume in honor of Elphaba. When she’s this thorough, it seems like there is green on her face for a week after, even after she’s scrubbed and scrubbed.

In the evening I had a long phone with my friend from grad school, Hilary. She called while we were in Arizona so I had been meaning to get in touch with her ever since. It was fun to catch up!

Ghost faces

The kids were home again from school because of runny nose issues, so they made use of the time by painting each other’s faces. I am sad I didn’t get a picture of Clarissa with her little ghost face. She hates the post face-paint scrub-down and the minute she saw me she gave a little shriek and ran upstairs to wash it off herself. That’s what she was doing while I was taking this photo. I then went upstairs where she had splashed some water on her face and declared herself clean. Poor thing. She tried so hard. To her dismay, it was about ten minutes of scrubbing before she was actually clean.

Lydia’s chit chat

I don’t remember what happened on Monday other than we were all sick and everyone stayed home from school. One day this week Lydia asked to just stay up talking with me and so I’ll put that conversation on Monday’s blog even though I don’t know which day it happened. During the course of the conversation Lydia turned to Mary and said, “Mary, I asked Mom and Dad if this life is just a dream. One said that that was a very good question, and the other said it was most likely not a dream. Which parent do you think said which?”

Mary replied, “Mom said it was a good question and Dad said probably not.”

Lydia laughed and said, “Mary, how did you guess?”

Mary said with her little characteristic mousy voice, “Well, Mom is the type of person who likes to give compliments and Dad is the smart one who knows all the answers.”

At that exchange, I was doubled over in laughter. It was hilarious.

During this conversation I also learned that Lydia thinks Ammon is very similar to her because after playing they like to relax and because she thinks they are the two kids who get in trouble the most. I also learned that Mary gets offended easily (according to Lydia) and will huff away from their games if she feels something was offensive. She also told me that she and Mary have a whole world for their stuffed animals and that at this point they don’t even need their animals to play pretend with them. Sometimes they play pretend stuffed-animal world just talking while lying in bed before they drift off to sleep. They only own one stuffed animal that doesn’t have a specific family and home and identity in their world. I thought this was all so interesting and wondered out loud why we don’t talk about this stuff more.

Both girls said that it’s because I have four kids and whenever they want to talk to me they get interrupted or somebody whines or cries. That’s probably true. Hopefully though I can make more time to have intentional talks with my older kids more regularly because I loved learning what’s going on in Lydia’s mind.

Navajo Bridge, Vermillion Cliffs, LeFevre Outlook, and Lydia’s Canyon

On the way home from Sedona we stopped at Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, which has its visitor center at Navajo Bridge National Monument. Navajo Bridge was amazing! The water below the bridge was stunningly clear and the most incredible color I had ever seen. And the bridge was covered with California condors!! They are impressive birds. They would occasionally take off in pairs and fly over the river, which was beautiful to see especially considering they almost went extinct. It was heartening to know that they were recovering from the brink and thriving in this magical spot.

Abe particularly loved the slow soothing motion of the water
The girls staring at the actual wingspan of the California Condors they had just observed on Navajo Bridge.
Clarissa was tired and very weepy on the bridge. She did not want to have to hold my hand, but since her head fit through those diamond slats, I overrode her will on that one.
A look at Vermillion Cliffs. I am assuming it was windy.
After Navajo Bridge, we drove past an ancient Pueblo site. The girls got out to buy some Native American pottery and briefly explore the pueblos.
We grabbed some fry bread for lunch and ate it at the LeFevre Overlook, which is more breathtaking than any photo could capture. The LeFevre Overlook lets you see three national parks, a bunch of national monuments, and many more points of geological interest all at once. It expands well outside the frame of this photo and had us all open-mouthed. We were staring at Utah from an angle we’d never seen before and we were wowed! Also, the kids loved climbing all over this overlook. They were a mess of

After we passed Kanab Lydia saw a sign for Lydia’s Canyon Road! Of course we did a U-turn and checked it out. We spent the next thirty minutes driving up and down this canyon and daydreaming about buying a home in Lydia’s Canyon. We even stopped a family who was out walking and asked them about their experience living in the canyon. I guess it gets a lot of snow in the winter, which would kind of defeat the purpose of a vacation home…but it was fun to daydream!