On Monday night while my mom was at the empty nesters FHE, we went to the Taohos. They planned a lesson, a craft and a treat–and even showed us their pet python at the end! We love them and the girls were over the moon about their new crafted ornaments.
Afterward we put the kids down and Abe and I watched our latest favorite TV show, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. We are now kind of obsessed.
This morning we woke up to snow!!
After playing in the snow we RUSHED to get ready for stake conference. We went to the room for families with young children and it is such a relief to let the kids just do whatever they want during the talks. I figured ours didn’t hear a word of conference because they were so busy playing, but lo and behold at dinner Abe quizzed them on conference and it turned out that Mary and Lydia heard and remembered all of the main stories and principles!!! I was shocked. Abe was shocked. My mom was shocked. And then my mom gave them all chocolate because she was so thrilled.
Abe and I took a long nap after lunch and the kids were SO GOOD and quiet during that time. We were so thankful that they didn’t wake up Clarissa and may be starting to learn how to be quiet during nap time…I hope, I really do. I can’t handle another day of reminding them to not scream or yell while the baby is sleeping!
Then we had a FHE that Mary and my mom put together on the little lamb of Bethlehem. Mary loves presenting FHE and loves telling us all what to do. We all love watching her take charge. It is very cute.
During FHE Clarissa cuddled on Lydia’s lap and read books:
And to finish off, Ammon’s cross dressing outfit o’the day:
On Friday Abe came to bikram yoga with me. It was so fun going together. Abe grinned and waved at me a lot in the mirror, and he tried to offer me a water break. The teacher thought that was cute and funny, especially since there are pretty specific water breaks during the routine, and Abe’s offered break didn’t happen to fall during one of those breaks. Oops! But he was such a great sport and so fun to be with. We had a great time before rushing home to the kids.
It was Abe’s last day of the quarter, so after he came home from work we had Charissa and Tiffany come to babysit while we went to the new Crimes of Grindelwald movie. We LOVED it. It was showing in the Provo mall, which I had never visited before. Afterward we ate some dinner in the food court and headed home.
Abe has worked SO HARD all year, going above and beyond what he needs to do in order to help his team succeed. This quarter he had amazing success, and I am so proud of him. Six out of eight guys on his team hit their quotas, and they went way over their team quota. I hope Abe gets to enjoy every minute of success this break!
On Saturday I totally lost it on the girls for being soooooo loud during Clarissa’s nap. Every day that they are home during Clarissa’s nap we have to remind and remind and remind them to be quiet and not wake the baby. I have been giving these daily reminders ever since Mary was born and Lydia was old enough to understand the concept of being quiet. Honestly, this aspect of parenting drives me out of my mind. On Saturday after reminding them for the millionth time I started screaming (and probably woke the baby myself) and made the girls do a long practice since they weren’t being quiet anyway.
After this unhappy episode we loaded into the car and drove to the Christkindlmarkt in Salt Lake to meet up with Tom and Suzanne. The Christkindlmarkt has EXPLODED in the past two years. When we first started going it was just a little semi circle of candy stripe huts, and hardly anybody was there. Now we had to wait over ten minutes just to turn left into the park, and finding parking reminded us of Disneyland, only less organized.
But honestly, this might have been the most fun we have had at the market. Last year it was an absolute nightmare with screaming kids, freezing cold temperatures, and a deadline we had to make getting back to Orem so Nick could make it to his job on time.
This time we had Tom and Suzanne to help us with all of the kids and that was just so huge. Both girls had to make bathroom trips, Ammon was a handful, and Clarissa was melting down by the end. But since we had four adults, it wasn’t the crazy insanity of years past. It was actually a lot of fun!
Then at night Abe tucked the kids all into Ammon’s bed. Mary left shortly after and went to her own bed, but Lydia fell asleep with Ammon. They were all so cute and snuggly:
On Friday I cleaned, did laundry, read to Ammon, played a bit with Ammon and Clarissa, quilted, babysat the neighbors for an hour and a half, and made challah, applesauce, and potato latkes for dinner. At dinner I told the kids the story of Hannakkah and then gave them all gold coins for dessert. I should have looked the story up before telling them because I think I mixed up some of the details…Oops. I will look it up and tell them whatever I got wrong today!
After dinner we had another meeting with Carolyn Blosil and the Hersheys about insurance. It was very interesting, and, as always, motivating.
Afterward Abe and I watched a little Harry Potter with the girls. Abe stayed up until 1:30am working and I went to bed at 11. It was a full day.
On Thursday Rose Marie Morrell came over to show me how to quilt. She had just had a skin cancer removed and was shaking from pain. Of course I told her many times she didn’t have to come, but she loves quilting so much that she said it made her happy! So we had a great time quilting together and then I spent the rest of the day quilting.
Since the table was covered with my quilting project, we had a taco picnic on the floor. We have a new rule that Mary gets to choose Thursday dinner because she had a long spell where every night she moaned that I never cook anything she likes. So Abe proposed that I cook a meal she requests every Thursday and then the rest of the week she will eat whatever we have for dinner without complaining. This week it was tacos.
Abe got home at midnight. It was so good to have him home!
When I tucked the girls in on Wednesday, Mary was having yet another hard day. She seemed to think her life was awful. Since she seems to have semi-permanently adopted this attitude, I took it upon myself to tell her what a hard day would actually look like. I described in detail the skin lesions of Victorian chimney sweep children, the hardships of children living through war, and what poor children in third world countries endure. I told her she was so lucky that not only does she not have any of those problems, but she was born to parents who love her and love each other. Some parents, I told her, don’t get along and some even get divorced. I concluded by telling her that childhood is a modern concept and that before this idea was invented, children have been expected to be mini-adults and work hard without any special treatment for being children.
It might have been a tad bit graphic of a conversation, but by the end Mary said she wasn’t having a hard day anymore. When I got to the part about children who have parents who don’t like each other, she raised her hand and asked this question: “Wait, I’m so confused. I thought you just walked around until you found someone you liked and then married them. Why would you not like your husband?” Lydia chimed in: “Yeah, the only time you and dad have ever argued was about what color my eyes are!”
I’m pretty sure Abe and I have had more disagreements than that, but it felt nice to see that the girls can’t even conceive of a world where their parents don’t get along. That felt like a win. Thank you, Abe, for being the best best best BEST husband ever!!! You couldn’t be easier to get along with. I love you.
My favorite part of today was after dinner when I joined all of the girls in Ammon’s room. As I entered, Mary and Lydia were lying on their stomachs with their chins in their hands as they watched Clarissa dance on Ammon’s bed. As I stepped in, Lydia cried, “We’re having a cutest baby competition and Clarissa’s winning!!”
I laughed so hard. She followed that up by reading me a quote from the “How to Make Your Baby Even Cuter” manual that she and Mary were writing. The first suggestion was: Make your baby cuter by looking at her. All babies get cuter when you look at them.”
I thought that was actually so spot on! It was such a delight to watch all of my girls interact so beautifully together. For the rest of the hour Mary and Lydia built towers for Clarissa to knock down, but Clarissa would either just look curiously at them or take them apart very slowly and carefully. She is the first baby I’ve had that didn’t just go for it and knock those towers down as fast as possible.
We also played a game where we all pretended to sleep, and then Clarissa would jump up and bounce up and down like Tigger. That pretty much sums up childhood in a gesture.
Here are the pictures from the rest of the day:
Clarissa took a really short nap today. I spent her whole nap reading the Book of Mormon so I can finish before the end of the year, and so when she woke up I still had to prep dinner. I burned my hand in the oven trying to get the squash out before Clarissa could run across the room and burn herself, so I spent an hour in front of the television nursing my wound. During that time, Clarissa discovered the marshmallow bag:
In the morning I got a kick out of Clarissa’s headband. She took it off as soon as I took the picture, but at least I got the picture:
After school and music practice, I took the kids to the park.
After the park we went home to do homework and have dinner. We had fondue again, this time with roasted broccoli and cauliflower, artichokes, baby potatoes, and two more apple pancakes.
After dinner we cleaned up, got everyone either in bed or ready for bed, and read scriptures. Then Abe and I wrapped more presents and watched more Renaissance documentaries while Mary and Lydia played Monopoly together. I gave Mary a talk beforehand on how to handle losing, but Lydia was so sweet and not only let Mary win but was so kind about it. She kept getting excited about how much money Mary had, and while Mary was exulting in her win Lydia just smiled, said sweet things to her, and complimented her on her ability to always win at Monopoly. Abe tried to tell Mary she was not being a very nice winner (because she kept counting her money and shouting, “I WON!! I WON!!”, but Mary was so elated that she didn’t hear a word he said. We’ll work on this more in the future. In the meantime, thank goodness for Lydia.
I have been feeling very tired, so I was so glad to stay home and nap with Clarissa during church. I did get to go to Relief Society and felt very inspired by a lesson Emily Hair gave on scripture study.
After church Abe had to help with tithing settlement until almost 6pm. I helped the kids decorate ugly sweater cookies and prepared dinner after. When Abe came home, he grilled salmon and we all had salmon, steamed artichokes, brown coconut rice, and apple and gorgonzola salad. It was kind of hodge podge but very yummy.
After Lydia gave a wonderful FHE where we all picked characters from the nativity from a hat, acted out our character, and then explained how we fit into the story of the nativity. Then we watched a video about Light the World and had a quick discussion about what we can do to light the world (a bit early) this week.
I was so tired that afterward I went to bed at 8:30pm.
