Month: March 2017

For FHE tonight we went to Lowe’s and got soil and little seed pots to plant our seed starts. All of our heirloom seeds came a couple weeks ago, and we also traded and shared seeds with our friends, the Crofts. Between their seeds and ours we had an abundance of exciting starts!

Also, Mary’s piano lesson went better than expected. We had a breakthrough in practicing today, and I think that helped. I just learn that we need to block out at least an hour and a half because Mary can get through ten repetitions if I let her a) read a book at the beginning b) let her play a matching game in between repetitions c) give her a coloring activity between repetitions. It takes a looong time, but it is more effective than what her teacher suggested: jumping jacks and sips of water. I tried that last week. Mary did six hundred jumping jacks and didn’t seem phased or tired in the slightest–not to mention she had trouble refocusing on her practice.

And, in other news, Abe hit his quota today!!! We are very grateful. Not that it means his stress is alleviated–he is still busy and working like crazy, but at least that pressure is off for the next week and a half (until we start the craziness all over again in April).

On Sunday I taught a lesson in Relief Society while Abe took Ammon on the peaceful walk I took last Sunday. We had a beautiful morning, and when my mom, the girls and I arrived home, Abe had prepared lunch for us. I am usually home when everyone else gets home from church, and I almost never prepare lunch. Usually I spend that precious quiet time in other ways–but it was such a beautiful experience to come home to a family lunch. I want to do better and make that happen in the future.

After lunch we napped and prepped for dinner.

Abe’s college friend, Liem, and his wife, Phuong, joined us. They were in town for a ski break, and they drove down for dinner before their flight back to Boston. It was a delight to see them and visit with them both. We actually remembered to take a picture at the end, too!

I mis-scheduled both the symphony and the ballet in my calendar. On Friday we realized the symphony was scheduled for Saturday morning, and we also had tickets to the ballet Saturday night. When I looked at my receipt, I realized that the ballet tickets actually were for last Friday night. I have no idea what happened when I put these things in my calendar–was I on drugs???? Anyway, everything worked out and we ended up going to everything in one day.

Abe and I woke up early to get work done before the day started. I wrote my Relief Society lesson while he worked like crazy on more work stuff. Then I got the kids ready while Abe rushed to the church to do our cleaning assignment. After he got home, we got everyone in the car and drove to Salt Lake. Tom met us there and walked Ammon around Temple Square and City Creek in his stroller while the girls, Abe and I attended the symphony.

This performance was part of their family series, so it was pretty kid friendly. They had some endearing mimes who helped entertain everyone in between pieces, and the pieces they picked were great. The concert was Mozart themed, so everything they played was composed by Mozart.

We have learned that Mary is too young for experiences like this. Well, actually, Lydia could handle sitting through the ballet at age three, but at four and a half, Mary simply can not handle formal performances. Luckily, we were in the almost empty balcony so she could run around without annoying anyone.

Then I dashed into Deseret Book to get a birthday present for a party the girls were about to attend and we enjoyed the beautiful weather and fountains at City Creek.

I also went to the Gap and used my 60% off discount to get Ammon and Lydia’s summer clothes. By the time I was done, we were starving, so we drove through CrownBurger before driving down to Orem and dropping the girls off at Nickel City for a birthday party. It was their first time in an arcade.

One of the parents told us that when it came time for laser tag, the girls just stood there with their lasers. When asked why they weren’t playing, the girls said that their parents had told them never to shoot a gun, and they didn’t want to disobey. The adults then explained that they were holding lasers, not guns! The girls then went ahead and had a great time.

I was so proud and touched by this story, though. I have been seriously, seriously struggling with their behavior issues, and knowing that they were so sweet and obedient when we weren’t around warmed my heart.

After laser tag, the girls played outside with the neighbors while Abe and I lay around on the couch feeling tired. Then it was time to pack up for the ballet, so everyone, including my mom (but except Ammon), headed to the Covey Center to watch Snow White.

If we thought Mary was off-the-walls hyper at Beauty and the Beast and the symphony (which she totally was), that wasn’t anything compared to the ballet. I promise she was doing her own interpretive dance the entire ballet long–complete with runs, jumps, and kicks. Again, we were lucky and were sitting in an empty part of the theater, but wow. I will probably wait ten years before trying to take her to another performance. Right now I have tickets to the next symphony in the family series and a folk dance performance, and I will just give those away to one of Lydia’s friends. Mary just can’t handle it.

On that happy note, I will now review my lesson which I teach soon.

The leprechauns visited us on St. Patrick’s Day! Those sneaky tricksters made a huge mess! They built a block tower, scattered gold chocolate coins around, brought us plants, set out Lucky Charms, dropped their hats…and peed in our potty. The girls were most thrilled about that last part. They couldn’t believe leprechauns used our potty. (I was concerned that the green food dye would stain, but thankfully it flushed right off!)

Mary had an eye appointment right after breakfast, and from there we rushed to drop off Lydia at school. Then I went swimming, came home and put Ammon down for a nap.

Friday is an early-out day for Lydia, so after putting Ammon down I picked up Lydia and did errands. We returned one of the dresses I bought Thursday and did more shopping.

In the evening we headed toward Salt Lake because I thought we had tickets for the family-series of the Utah Symphony. Luckily, we discovered en route that the tickets were for Saturday morning–not Friday night! So we made a quick detour and took the girls to Beauty and the Beast. We had no idea it was opening night, but the crowds at the Thanksgiving Point megaplex reminded us of Disneyland–no exaggeration. There were literally thousands of people going to the movies. It was quite an experience, but we will never use that theater again!

Thursday was a doozy. Well, it started out fine. The cleaning crew came and so I tried to get out of their hair by packing the kids up early in the morning and going on an outing. We went to the mall parking lot where I read them The Twins and the Bird of Darkness: A Hero Tale from the Caribbean. It is their new favorite book.

Then we headed inside to find some shoes for Ammon and some maternity clothes for me. I have been trying to soldier through with no clothes for a while now, and finally yesterday I decided to bite the bullet and just get some. I feel so much better having clothes that fit!

Also, Ammon’s feet are incredibly fat. According to the foot scale, he should be a size five. But his feet are so fat that he needs a size six. I think this is beyond adorable.

After the mall we dropped Lydia off at school and came home. Mary and I read books made yogurt bark together after I put Ammon down for his nap.

After Ammon’s nap we picked up Lydia and got Ammon a haircut. I put Lydia in charge of photography because I knew I would need to be trying to calm the poor baby down. She took lots of pictures.

What threw a wrench in the day is that my girls keep having these crazy meltdowns. Mary throws tantrums all the time about the craziest things. Lydia throws tantrums about crazy things. By the time it was time to go to ice skating, we had just done harp and piano practice, and the subsequent additional behavioral challenges had driven me pretty much out of my mind. I drove the girls to ice skating wondering what I am doing wrong. Is it that I don’t have a commanding enough presence? Is it because I am not always consistent? Is it because I am too hard on them? Spoil them too much? Is it (I hope and pray) a phase????

Anyway, I spent the rest of the evening under my own little thundercloud. Abe was really sweet and put the kids down and gave me a back massage. That helped me fall asleep, but he had to stay up until past midnight working. His job is really crazy right now. It was so sweet of him to spend time with me when it meant he slept less and had to work even later. I love him.

Girl!!! …Or, at least, that’s the nurse practitioner’s 70% guess. After visiting teaching, I headed straight to my OBYGYN appt, and the nurse could not find the heartbeat for the baby. I had five minutes of pure repentance while she went to get a handheld ultrasound to see if she could see the baby’s heartbeat.

Before she came back, I prayed so much and told God I was sorry that I have not been more enthusiastic about this pregnancy. While wondering whether there would be a heartbeat I discovered very quickly that I WANT this baby!!! And I am grateful for the privilege of being able to conceive and bear life!!!! I have taken that for granted I think and focused way too much on selfish things. But wow, I have had a change of heart and can not wait to meet this next member of our family.

Anyway, the nurse came back with the ultrasound and found the baby’s heartbeat. She also discovered that the baby is a girl. She showed me the ultrasound, which we studied together. The baby really does look like a girl!! We spiritually felt that we would have a girl next, so this was confirmation of those impressions.

After the ultrasound, I went to pick up Lydia and then we met up with Jessi and Henry in a mountain park. I actually told them the wrong park, and so the kids and I set up a picnic and ate most of it before discovering my mistake. Whoopsy! Thankfully, Jessi and Henry were in a neighboring park, and we fixed our mistake. We didn’t have  a long time to visit, but it was nice to see them.

Then the girls came home and played for hours with the neighbor kids. We brought them their dinners outside so Ammon and the adults could have a peaceful dinner inside. Bless this warmer weather.

Lydia’s stomach was feeling a little better today, and that was a relief to all of us. She gave us quite a scare! Her test results were normal, so phew.

I was grumpy after ballet this afternoon because I felt fat and tired. Between all of the sugar for Lydia’s ongoing birthday celebrations and the fact that today was the RS birthday (for which I baked a cake and sampled the frosting) AND pi day (which we celebrated at the Crofts’ Pi Day party), I am really scared to get weighed at the OBGYN tomorrow. I have been working out a lot, but let’s be honest–weight is mostly about food intake, right? I am supposed to control my weight this pregnancy, and this week has been out of control.

I’ll get back on the wagon tomorrow, I guess. In the meantime, the only thing that cheered me up when I was sitting on the couch feeling exhausted and so, so chubby was Ammon. I love his smile and his pure, sweet personality. I even enjoy observing his boundless energy. Abe took these pictures after he got home and I gathered energy to finish baking my quiches for the Pi Party.

And he took a funny video and some subsequent pictures of the girls. My favorite part is when they fight on command and then reconcile on command. It’s hilarious (to me).

Then in the evening we went to the Crofts and overindulged in pie. Betsy made the Momofuko Milk Bar grapefruit pie. It was out of this world.

This is a picture of the party right before we left and remembered we should have taken a picture earlier. Oh, well. This is what was left at the end:

We spent the morning at the doctor’s office, and then he sent us to the hospital to get lab work done for Lydia. Lydia was so brave and didn’t even flinch when they drew her blood. Afterward I told her how her dad faints when they draw his blood and she thought that was hilarious.

Even though her stomach still hurts and her appetite is not quite normal, she was very energetic all day. She went from the doctor–to the hospital–to school–to a birthday party–to playing outside for three hours with the neighbors–to dinner–to FHE–and to bed, where she and Mary are wide awake and meowing loudly at each other. I really don’t think she has any serious illness, or she would have dropped at some point during this crazy day.

During FHE we played Lydia’s new Junior Monopoly game. Well, I was “on a team” with Lydia so I could really just sit on the couch, but even from there it was really fun. I’d forgotten how fun Monopoly is.

Here are pictures of the birthday party Lydia attended. Her friend, Shadrach, is in our ward and his family owns TWO pirate ships. His dad does incredible Jack Sparrow impersonations for birthday parties, so they had a ready made incredible party in the bag.

In the morning Ammon wanted to play with Lydia’s birthday presents from the past few days, and to distract him we handed him one of Lydia’s balloons. That helped.

During Sacrament Ammon was so hyper that he was literally running around the lobby touching everything and saying hi (in his nonverbal way) to everyone. We alternate taking him home after Sacrament because we decided with baby round three that it is not worth messing up the nap for the whole week just to keep the baby in the church halls.

So after Sacrament I took Ammon to the river parkway and walked with him for an hour. It was so peaceful and lovely. I wish that Utah County had more expansive park areas, but I guess everyone just goes to the mountains when they need a nature fix. Abe and I ran on a mountain path yesterday morning and it was great, but we could still hear the highway from the path.

The river trail is perfectly peaceful and all Ammon and I could hear were birds chirping. There was not a soul in sight until the very end when we encountered a lone man walking on the trail. I got nervous because the trail is pretty secluded, but he smiled, greeted me, and walked on. Phew.

After church, the girls played nicely together for the first time in a week. Honestly, I think their constant fighting is giving Lydia an actual ulcer. She threw up fresh and dried blood Saturday night, and I am going to take her to a doctor tomorrow.

We headed to Salt Lake for a Miners birthday party in the evening. Lydia had a wonderful time and loved her presents, but in typical Lydia-fashion did not display a hint of emotion during the actual celebration. I was distracted chasing Ammon all around, but Abe reported that she solemnly opened all of her gifts and never smiled once. Those of us who know Lydia also know she was actually elated on the inside. Mary amused herself by announcing that every gift was probably “a box inside a box.” She thought this was hilarious commentary and repeated it for every present for almost every person. Four people had birthdays, and there were a lot of presents. After we had heard her repeat the phrase approximately one hundred times, Doug said that he was going to give Mary a box inside a box when it came time for her birthday…

Here are the pictures:

On Saturday Lydia had her birthday party with friends. Moana came and ran the whole party, which was a wonderful experience for kids and adults alike.