Month: October 2018

On Friday the cleaners came so I took the kids to Qualtrics while they were here.

It was grandparents day at Arches, and Tom and Suzanne came down for that. It sounded like fun for everyone!

After the school day, Tom, Suzanne, my mom, Lydia and Mary went out to lunch. In the evening, everyone reconvened to go to the gala.

While the grandparents and girls were at the gala, Abe and I took the babies and drove the Alpine loop. We saw a moose right next to the road, but by the time we parked and ran back for the picture, it was almost gone. Abe did get its body, sort of:

On Thursday we had a little bit of school drama. Lydia has a crush on the boy who played Toto in the play last year. When I asked her why she likes him, she said, “Because he smiles all the time, is super joyful, and he never speaks out of turn.” Even though I was a little surprised to hear about crushes so early, I have to say I was kind of thrilled by her rubric for crushes. I think those are such sweet qualifications.

Anyway, Lydia accidentally told her secret to a not-so-discreet girl in class. At recess, the girl announced she was going to the boy Lydia liked to tell him Lydia liked him. Lydia begged her not to, but the girl insisted she was going to tell. When she stood up to go tell the boy about Lydia’s crush, Lydia panicked and threw a small gatorade bottle at her head.

Okay, I know violence is not okay and I definitely firmly explained this in the car on the way home. I also really like this other little girl’s mother, who happens to teach at the school and came over to help mediate this dispute in the aftermath of the thrown bottle. She did a WONDERFUL job explaining to the girls how to handle this type of problem in the future.

But I just have to say that I found this scenario to be so funny! Lydia is normally not violent AT ALL, and so throwing her gatorade at her friend’s head is extreme behavior. It’s funny because when I think about this scenario, I know what seven-year-old Lydia considers a “dire” situation, and from the perspective of her thirty-five year old mom…it’s just funny. Also, her friend wasn’t hurt. At least, I assume if she were, the school would have called me…

Also, I don’t think Lydia will be spilling her secrets so freely in the future.

I really need to get back in the habit of blogging daily because I am back blogging and can’t remember anything interesting from Wednesday. The girls went to ballet. Abe brought them home. It’s the Monday after and this is how bad my mom-brain is: I can’t remember more than that.

But I am going to throw up some pictures of Lydia’ crafting creations. When she has free time, usually she disappears to her room to cut things up and create things out of paper. I don’t think anyone taught her how to do this, but she loves to do it.

Here are some of her recent creations. Some of them have built in mechanisms to poop!

On Tuesday I think the only productive thing I did was fold laundry. I was still so tired, and Abe and I have started discussing a new move, so I was really pre-occupied with that.

I didn’t take any pictures. Oh! I also had a great play date with Jessi in the morning. Henry and Ammon played house and farm in the field near our house. Henry was the boss and Ammon was the horse, frog, and butler. It was really cute to see them play.

Abe and I watched The Good Wife until 10, and then I thought I would get a good night’s sleep before yoga. Sadly, Clarissa woke up at 2am and I never got back to bed…so after hours and hours of tossing and turning, I caught up on blogging. Sigh.

The kids had Monday off for parent teacher conferences. Abe took time from work to come attend with me while my neighbor, Brittany, sat in our house while the babies napped.

We took pictures of the girls’ art in the halls.

The girls are healthy, happy girls who love their friends. We loved talking with their teachers, although Abe admitted afterward he privately wondered how the girls get signed off on things at home. Then later he saw my mom call out, “Girls, bring me your planners so I can sign them off!” –and then he realized how their homework is getting done. Their magical nana is on it.

Abe came home early because he wanted to drive the Alpine loop. I was tired and not very functional much of the day and was grateful to have an excuse to strap the kids in the car and then do nothing while Abe drove.

It was GORGEOUS!!! We were so awed. Now I want to go hiking. The pictures don’t even do a bit of justice, but we took them anyway:

On Sunday we spent the whole day enjoying dear friends, eating lots of food, and listening to conference.

In the morning we had french toast and listened to conference around the table and downstairs in the basement.

Then our friend Jill and her four kids joined us for lunch. It was so great to see her again! I could not believe how big her kids have grown. It scared me a little. Childhood just flies.

Lydia and Kina disappeared for hours to play dolls together. They were adorable.

And then in the evening Kade, Brittany, and their kids joined us for dinner. We were missing Morgan and Jessi, but Morgan dropped by after. Morgan, Dan, Kade and Abe call some of their get-togethers the “circle of life.”

And here is a cute picture of Ansi and Clarissa together:

The kids had so much fun playing together. We were so grateful for the chance to spend so much time with the Harbucks.

After everything was all cleaned up, we stayed up late talking with Dan and Preethi. They are so full of intelligence and faith, and we love our conversations with them. If only there were more hours in a day…although I think we packed a respectable amount of joyful activity into this particular day!!

 

Honestly, I am back blogging after getting only three hours of sleep last night, so I am blanking on what happened Saturday. It was General Conference so we listened to that. I think I cooked a lot in the evening. In the morning I went on a run. I have no idea what the kids did or what Abe did during the day.

I think this picture is of Ammon on Saturday night, when Abe discovered that Ammon had made himself a nest in his trunk, tucked himself in, and fallen asleep.

Abe came home late Thursday and took Friday off from work. He has been working SO HARD, and the two trips in one week nearly did him in. But he did take some pictures of a couple memorable meals he had!

In the morning I took a walk with my neighbor, Brinay, and our kids. We went to see the skeletons. Brinay is a hair stylist and she specializes in my type of hair. I am so excited about that. She tried to convince me to color my hair blonde. It was a fun (funny?) thought.

Then in the evening the Harbucks arrived! We were so happy to see our friends. They had a mission reunion so Abe and I got to spend time with their kids and our kids while Dan and Preethi attended the reunion. Abe took them on a walk to see the skeletons. All of the kids played together so well, and everyone went to bed at appropriate times.

It was a much-needed, very laid-back day.

Today I spent a lot of time listening to Josh Groban, Frank Sinatra, Michael Bublé, and Andrea Boccelli croon all sorts of fun love songs while I cleaned. Too bad Abe was on another work trip (he had two this week!). I am currently back blogging while he drives home in the middle of a traffic jam. He sounds very tired on the phone, but it sounds like it was potentially a very productive trip.

Mary made this for me after yesterday’s piano practice:

She definitely didn’t make it today because I was not as patient today. I was up a lot last night because Clarissa was teething, and then I was up by 5:15 for yoga. But I have to say, even though I was not super patient today, the girls have both been generally SO AMAZING during their practices lately!! I don’t know if we just hit their routine groove for the year or what, but it’s been dreamy.

On Wednesday I took Ammon and Clarissa to a new park before going to pick up Mary and Lydia. The girls’ track team was out, and two of our babysitters are on the team. Ammon wandered over and said hi. Pretty soon he had a band of girls oohing and aahing over him as he showed off.

He also made a friend in the playground. He also fell off one of the structures onto his face. Luckily it doesn’t seem like there’s damage, but it was a big fall. I’m starting to wonder if he’s going to suffer from those injuries professional football players get because he keeps hitting his head. I hope not.

Here are more pictures from the park. The weather was glorious.

In the evening we all went on a walk to see the skeletons: