Author: lilydarais

Today was the first day of Spring break, and we had a very laid back day. Well, Abe had his usual crazy day at work, but Ammon took a four and a half hour nap, so this afternoon I was in bed for…a long time.

I asked Lydia what her favorite part of the day was. She played a lot with Mary, watched Lady and the Tramp, helped me make pizza for dinner, and had a fun FHE learning about chocolate and playing Junior Monopoly. But guess what her favorite part of the day was? HARP PRACTICE. No joke! That is she told me! Our harp practices have been getting better, but I was shocked that she loved it so much today because we put in over an hour and did some hard work practicing some new material. Anyway, I am just so happy that she is learning to love the harp.

Here are pictures from FHE.

This weekend we had General Conference. Usually I love Conference because it is such a nice break–we just sit around listening to church leaders talk all weekend, eat a lot of family meals, and take lots of naps. I did love Conference, but I felt so physically wiped out that I honestly slept through most of the talks. Good thing I can still read them online!

I did love the talks I heard, though. Elder Nelson gave a great talk reminding us that the atonement itself is no powerful amorphous entity. Instead, it is Christ who is the source of cleansing power, and we should not use the terms “atonement” or “enabling power of the atonement” in place of referencing Christ directly. It’s doctrinally incorrect. I loved this clarification. And, of course, I loved Elder Holland’s denunciation of material inequality and exhortation to care for the poor better. I am so, so, so guilty of self-indulgent behaviors, and it is always helpful to hear these reminders about what really matters in life.

When we weren’t sitting in front of the TV and radio listening to awesome talks (or sleeping through awesome talks…yikes!), I spent a lot of time reading Gordon B. Hinckley’s biography. It is astounding. I am in awe of what this humble, great man accomplished through prayer and hard, hard work.

We also spent some time outside. Here are pictures from the weekend:

Today Abe and I celebrated the last day of the quarter by going to a chocolate tasting with our good friends, the Harmons. We had so much fun with them. You know how some people are just easy to be around? That’s the Harmons for us. We can just be ourselves and have fun when we are with them, and we had a great time tonight.

We learned so much! I thought I already knew at least a little about chocolate after I took Lydia to a candy factory last year for her birthday. Nope! I learned that I actually knew very little, and it was so fun to learn tonight.

After the chocolate, we had vinegar and olive oil tastings. The vinegar was actually my favorite part (aside from visiting with Steve and Blair, of course!!).

In other news, the girls attended a fun dinosaur birthday party this afternoon. They played “pin the poor herbivore on the carnivore’s mouth,” among other fun things. It was, apparently, a blast.

In the morning Mary, Ammon and I went to the library and then visited Abe at Qualtrics. Before that, I spent a lot of the morning yelling because Mary refused to follow simple directions that had been uttered (calmly) over twenty times, and Lydia had a break down because she couldn’t remember Cricket Song. I wasn’t mad that she couldn’t remember Cricket Song–in fact, I totally understand why she forgot it in only one day. Yesterday all we practiced was Lightly Row, a song that requires her left hand to do an Alberti bass pattern. Cricket Song calls for broken chords in the left hand, and today she couldn’t remember how to switch back to those broken chords.

At any rate, every time she had a problem (which occurred with every note), she would start screaming in frustration. I honestly just wanted to help her, but since she was screaming, I had to scream to be heard above her screams. (That is my excuse, at least.) Before I knew it, I was screaming at Mary to please just brush her teeth so we could go soon, and I was screaming at Lydia to calm down so I could help her reprogram her left hand. Then both girls told me I’d scared them, and I felt so bad. Sigh. It’s really hard to get this parenting thing right!

The rest of the day was great, though. The girls proceeded to be angels for the rest of the day. I wanted pictures of them sitting on the counter eating pizza, swinging their little legs and whispering to each other, but my phone was in the car. They were so, so adorable, and I just felt so proud of them for being so sweet and kind to each other all day.

I also spent a lot of Ammon’s nap researching our May trips. It has been so fun to plan them!

This evening we went to BYU’s International Folk Dance performance. Every number was jaw-dropping. I had no idea when I bought the tickets what was in store. We watched the most incredible dances from India, Haiti, Ireland, Ukraine, Slovakia, the US, Spain, Indonesia, and Mexico. Not to mention the folk band was every bit as incredible as the dancers. We just could not believe our eyes and ears. It was one of the best live performances I have ever attended of any genre of live performance. Quite simply, we were blown away.

Abe convinced us to bring Mary along, and she did great! Well, she fell asleep and that helped a lot. 🙂

The girls got their hair cut this afternoon. I have more pictures than this, but I only sent these to my phone. The hairdresser did the craziest thing with Mary’s hair. I asked her to put Mary’s hair in braided pigtails. She did, but one side of her pigtails had a braid that started at the nape of her neck and ended two inches out, and the other side had a french braid that started at the crown of her head. The part was really strange too. I wanted to take a picture, but everything was so chaotic when we got home that I didn’t get a chance. I want to find out if this is some new hairstyle, though. If it is, I have never seen it before. It looked really strange.

Mary had her last little sports camp today. I was a bad parent and dropped both girls off in front of the Rec Center instead of parking acres away and walking them in…and as they were running in, they randomly bumped into Nana! She walked them the rest of the way to the gym, and Lydia returned safely to the car, amazed that she bumped into her Nana.

Then Lydia, Ammon, and I went to Jo-Ann’s to pick out some fabric for some sewing projects. Lydia picked out the most beautiful material for hers, and I will have to get a picture on here of it (maybe later today). It is a beautiful, rich blue fabric with peacocks all over it. The cutter said the fabric was designed in Korea by a company called Two Sisters. It is so, so pretty. I also spied some fun flannels to make into a baby blanket for a friend, so I am excited to get my sewing machine out again.

Sadly, the line was so long at check-out that we had to leave our items at the store, rush to pick up Mary (and this time we all walked in, although I parked illegally!), and return back to Jo-Ann’s together.

Here are some pictures of Mary at sports camp!

Then we returned some items to Deseret Book and headed to Sushi Burrito for a quick lunch before taking Lydia to school (twenty minutes late–yikes).

When we got home, Mary painted her birdhouse she got from Jo-Ann’s.

When Lydia came home from school, she had the “best day ever” because after her homework, she got to paint a birdhouse and start sewing her pillow.

In the evening Abe had the first work-free evening in who knows how long. We watched Woman in Gold and loved it.

Abe and I are having a pow-wow about Ammon. Ammon is the sweetest child, but he is such a handful. Here are some pictures of him after he dumped his soup on his head.

He dumps all of his food on his head at the end of every meal. We are trying to figure out how to stop his crazy behavior without scaring the bajeebers out of him. He is a very, very sensitive child and responds to even slight corrections with heartfelt, remorseful sobs.

We spent the morning running errands. The little neighbor boy had his tonsils out, so we brought him some presents, balloons, dinner and dessert. He was doing great and is so cute. The girls just love him and were pretty concerned that he might be in pain.

I also visit taught and was visit taught today. Abe and I got up early to work out, and Abe had almost no sleep at all because he worked so late. We are ready for bed!!

For FHE tonight we (as in, everyone but me!–I was the happy photographer.) started with a dance party to an Israeli music CD we checked out from the library. I checked it out a couple months ago and Lydia and I loved it. I checked it out again, and she discovered it tonight and went bananas. She begged for us to play it, and so we did.

Afterward we had a prayer, played Junior Monopoly, and read scriptures. Now the girls are in their beds playing “cats,” and Abe is typing away on his laptop, hard at work again. It was a really wonderful FHE! Also, our seeds from last week are starting to sprout. We love checking on them and can’t wait to see if we have new sprouts tomorrow.

I should also note that Mary’s piano teacher remarked at her lesson today that she has unusual technique and finger coordination for someone her age. After the blood, sweat and tears we put into those practices (with what feels like NO PROGRESS AT ALL), this was literally music to my ears. I guess we will keep at it.

Today Ammon, Mary and I woke up with stuffy noses. Mary actually had a fever of 101.8. We did not realize this at first, but when she announced at church that she wanted to go home, I took her home and took her temperature. She proceeded to sleep for the next four hours.

After naps, Abe took Lydia and Ammon on a walk to the park.

Mary stayed and talked with me while I cooked. She sweet talked me into letting her have graham crackers and a maraschino cherry (even though she’s sick and should be avoiding sugar).

We had sloppy joe sliders for dinner, and I made a lemon meringue pie for dessert.

We did not wait the requisite ten  minutes for the pie to cool down, so when we cut into it (right after its photo shoot), it oozed everywhere. Oh, well. It still tasted good, and there’s half a pie left that has since firmed up.

I have been drowning during the week from all of our activities. By Saturday, our house was a wreck. Thankfully, unlike last weekend, this weekend was almost totally free. After Abe and I went swimming, the only thing on the docket was a baby shower. After I went to that, I came home to find my wonderful, amazing, kind husband deep in the throes of organizing the house.

He literally worked the entire day on the house, doing everything I should have been doing all week. I pitched in, but let’s be honest. Abe did all of the heavy, hard stuff like hauling boxes of things to and from the garage, and he was about twice as productive as I was. As I tell him often, I could search the whole world and all of its ages, backwards and forwards, and never find his equivalent.

At one point, I naively thought Mormon men were just generally better trained in the husband-dad department because they have so many good role models and sit through so many talks and lessons on being a good husband and father. However, one of my LDS Facebook groups has disillusioned me completely of that belief. Reading through the Facebook threads has convinced me that I basically won the lottery in the husband department.

Abe never, ever complains about anything I don’t do around the house, and he operates from the assumption that I have done my best during the day-even if dinner didn’t get made, the house is a wreck, and all three kids are screaming. He is capable of folding five loads of laundry and then turning to me and sincerely thanking me for sacrificing my body to bring another child into the world.

All of our kids adore him because he is so fun and funny…and because part of him is probably still ten years old. Yesterday while we were swimming, one of the kids in the pool took a jump off the diving board. The next thing I knew, Abe had abandoned our laps and was on the diving board doing flips and, er, one flop, into the water.

Anyway, as I sit blogging in my organized, clean, de-cluttered house, I am feeling very grateful. Abe basically slaved all of yesterday while I only intermittently did my part. My part was punctuated by a baby shower, a sudden need to bake bread, and an evening with my mom attending the General Women’s Session broadcast in our church chapel. I keep telling my girls that they will have to search hard–and possibly long–to find someone who can remotely live up to their dad’s incredible example. We are so blessed to have him.

Friday morning is Lydia’s early-out school day, and so Ammon, Mary, and I headed to Qualtrics to play on the indoor playground while she was in school. It was so relaxing and easy–I don’t know why we don’t do that every week!

Oh, I know why. Usually I go swimming during that time, but Friday Abe and I worked out early in the morning, so I didn’t need to. We have been very diligent about our early morning work-outs, and this morning Abe discovered a lump near the joint of his elbow.

“Wow, a muscle!” he exclaimed. “I’ve seen these on movie stars, but I’ve never had one myself. That is so cool!”

“Are you sure it isn’t a tumor?” I asked, concerned.

“No! Look, it disappears when I’m not flexing.” He demonstrated. Yup! It’s definitely a muscle. Looks like we will keep working out, as it seems to be paying off. 🙂