Month: January 2016

I am slowly coming out of the sick fog, so today I tackled the house while the girls played. Abe went to work sick, and I want him to come home to a clean, calm house for the weekend. We canceled our Saturday plans so that we can focus on getting better for next week.

I also played a lot with Ammon. Here are two videos of him giggling. Please ignore my bad singing. I was just trying to get him to laugh.

I am reluctantly heading to my bookclub in a minute here. I was spoiled five years ago by my Hyde Park Relief Society book club. I have never lived in a place since with the same sort of book club dynamic. Oh well. I tell myself that if I keep going consistently, someday I might like my bookclub a lot.

Today was Abe’s birthday! He celebrated by joining me in illness and being sick all day. 🙁 I feel so sorry for him, but he insists his birthday was still good. I filled his inbox with I-love-you emails all day, and Mary even had an hour long tantrum because she missed her “bud” (Abe) in the morning. I think he felt loved. Lydia and I also made a bunch of birthday pictures and notes and hid them all sorts of places so he could discover them throughout the day. He ended up discovering them all at the beginning of the day.

The girls and I spent a couple hours in Eagle Mountain at my friend Crystal’s house. She and a bunch of mission friends got together again for a play date. I am going to start doing more stuff with my mission friends. They feel like family.

Then when Abe got home we went out to dinner with his mom and Jay. Jay’s birthday was yesterday. We went to a Thai restaurant in Lehi.

The girls were so excited to see Grandma Karin. So was Ammon!

Yesterday I was sick and the only activity we had was ballet. Abe got to come watch the girls during ballet, and that was really helpful. I always sweat bullets at the beginning of ballet because I have to get the girls out of their coats and boots and into tight ballet shoes while Ammon cries. Yesterday was better because Abe was there.

Today is Abe’s birthday! Sadly, the virus got to him too. We are just hoping to be better by the time the weekend comes. I have been flooding my body with vitamins and avoiding sugar. I hope some of these sacrifices pay off.

I’m blogging for yesterday.

Yesterday I took the girls to the Mighty Baker because they let me clean out their ears the day before. It was a promised bribe. Now their ears are squeaky clean, and we have a new favorite spot! Lydia had a bakewell tart. I want to make one sometime. It was delicious.

 

While I was on the treadmill, the girls entertained Ammon.

Every time Ammoon smiles or coos at Mary, Lydia announces he is confused. She then asserts Ammon has mistaken Mary for her.

We had a mini mission reunion tonight. It was so fun. I saw friends I hadn’t seen in years. I can’t believe it’s been ten years since my mission!

Here’s a video of the kids playing. 

Ok, so this is the exact same title of my (Abe’s) blog post last week, but hey……It’s still exactly how I feel about Sundays.

Mornings are a little crazy with 9AM church and we always show up 15 minutes late, but today that felt like a major accomplishment since Lily and I were up until 1AM watching the last two episodes of Poldark last night. IT’S SO AMAZING I RECOMMEND THAT SHOW TO ANYONE! I thank my boss Lucas for the recommendation.

Church was really good. It was ward conference and the theme was gratitude. I really needed it since I tend to take things for granted and forget all that is being done for me to prop up my happiness.

After church, Lily napped and I rested and tidied the house and read in my patriarchal blessing which is a blessing that Mormons get when they are young which is to serve as a guide for the rest of their life. Today I read in my blessing the section that talks about the importance of family life.

When Lily got up, she cooked for two hours while I spent time with the kids and cleaned the house some more.  We were preparing for dinner with our friends Todd and Ashley.  Lily made salmon, Quinoa, cheese popovers and chocolate chip cookies, and Todd and Ashley brought an amazing salad with blackberries in it. The food was amazing and we had a super fun time talking. They told us ahead of time that they needed to by home in time for Peter’s (their son’s) bed-time at 8PM, but they stayed until 9 because we all had so much fun talking.  The evening was a total blast.  After the dinner party, I could not help myself and I went outside for 20 minutes or so to work on the snow-fort. It rained a lot last week which really weakened the fort.  It’s built up better now though 🙂  Here are pictures with Todd and Ashley’s kids. Peter is so cute sitting with Mary, and Eliza is so gorgeous isn’t she?

 

I went to our stake’s emergency preparedness fair in the morning and came away very inspired.

After I came home, Abe borrowed a neighbor’s trailer and hauled away a bunch of our junk to the city dump. He had fun experiencing the dump (he said it reminded him of Wall-E), but he forgot to take pictures.

In the evening we went to our friend Betsy’s house for her thirtieth birthday party. There were people from our Chicago ward there that we hadn’t seen in years! Also, Mary found her way to the dance floor in the attic and danced by herself to the music for a long time. Micah ran down to tell us Mary was the life of the dance floor and we ran up to see her, but I only got a short video of Abe dancing with her. I was holding Ammon and it was hard to take the video.

Pictures:

I went to the temple last night and it was packed. I got home late and skipped blogging so Abe and I could watch Poldark.

I am blogging now so that the same thing doesn’t happen later tonight.

Here’s from yesterday:

I took the most unflattering selfies of myself this morning, but I wanted to capture my cuddles with Ammon. Cuddling him is my favorite thing in the world. He holds on and hugs me whenever we walk around the house, and I just want to hang onto this time forever.

Other than the happy cuddles, I spent most of the day feeling like someone had inserted a syringe of stress into my blood. I took the kids on two outings. I think one outing a day is my max for now. By the end of outing #2, I was no longer the nice mom in the pictures above. Sigh. There’s always tomorrow.

Right now Abe and I are going to indulge in another episode of Poldark. We are addicted.

Today was a good day. Yesterday I was a bump on a log and spent hours watching Downton Abbey and Poldark. Today I made my bed early in the morning so I wouldn’t be tempted to repeat…although I am rushing to blog right now so Abe and I can watch more Poldark together.

Today left the house for the first time since church on Sunday! We did errands, and then we came home and had the Marshalls over for dinner. It was a lovely day and evening.