Author: lilydarais

Today I took Ammon to the library preschool program. It’s a little thirty minute program where the kids go in a room without parents. The parents can watch them on a screen outside to see how they’re doing. This program is for three to five year olds, so it was the first time Ammon qualified. I was a little nervous to see if he would actually sit down when asked, but from what I could tell on screen, Ammon enthusiastically and cooperatively participated in the whole program.

In the meantime, Clarissa had a great time on the chairs outside. I took her to baby story time for a while, too. At this age, Mary and Lydia would sit still and participate in the story time. They never wandered or caused any problems. In the past three years I have never actually unstrapped Ammon from his stroller at the library. I didn’t need to experiment to know it would not end well if I let him wander all around.

Clarissa might be another Ammon. Today her great sense of stranger danger kept her planted on my lap for about ten minutes, and then her desire for freedom got too strong and she started to wander. I took her straight back to the waiting area for Ammon. We’ll see if she gets better with practice…

In the evening Suzanne dropped by with the best present ever for Ammon. She and Tom gave him remote control cars!! Ammon was completely captivated, and Mary and Lydia were too. Ammon actually yelled with delight when he figured out how to control the car.

On Monday Ammon woke up to balloons, donuts, and presents.

After Ammon played with his new presents and had some quiet time, we picked the girls up early from school and went to the Scarecrow Festival. Ammon ran almost the entire thing. Only at the end did he slow down and walk quietly next to my mom. Until that point, he ran from scarecrow to scarecrow yelling,
“LOOK, MOMMY!! LOOK!!!!!” It was so cute.

Then we toured the Light the World sculpture garden because my mom had never seen it. It was wonderful to hear the girls recite the stories of Jesus while we walked around.

Afterward we met Abe at Maria Bonita and had molcajetes for dinner. Afterward the staff brought Ammon a frosted donut and sang Happy Birthday to him, complete with “cha-cha-cha’s”! Ammon was so cute. He got this slow smile on his face while they were singing, and when they left, he whispered “cha-cha-cha!” to himself.

We were going to do a piñata after, but on the way home Ammon said he was tired and wanted to go to bed. It was a really big day for my favorite three year old in the whole world. I love this boy so much. There’s no way for me to capture him in writing, but his enthusiasm for life and for people is contagious. There are times when I am out and about with Ammon and his smile, desultory chit chat, and enthusiastic way of greeting and introducing himself to EVERYONE just make my day. He just wants to make everyone happy. I couldn’t ask for a better son.

Happy birthday, sweet little Ammon!!!

On Sunday Ammon was totally crazy in sacrament meeting. When Abe finally had enough, he gave Ammon a hard stare. Ammon gazed back into Abe’s stern eyes…and then he fell promptly asleep. He stayed asleep through nursery.

Abe and I helped sub in the nursery. Afterward Abe announced he didn’t need to mourn the growth of our kids so much because all of the kids were so cute. If we ever need our toddler fix, we can just sub in nursery.

After church Mary wanted to eat an apple. I told her she could, and I wish I captured what followed next on camera. She took the apple to the backyard and twirled and danced by herself for twenty minutes while eating her apple. It was so cute.

Then she and Lydia tried to rake some leaves into a pile.

In the meantime, Clarissa wandered around the house making mischief.

Then we did a FHE my mom prepared about Abe. She made a matching game and a quiz all about Abe’s life history and favorite things. Then the kids had to match the cards and guess the answers. Lydia knew all of the answers, and Ammon and Mary know basically nothing. Sometimes I think their comprehension level is actually pretty similar. That might explain why Mary is STILL not totally potty trained.

After we put the kids to bed, Ammon played quietly in his room for a couple hours. Abe checked on him and found that Ammon had taken out a bunch of his books and created a play land for some of his other toys. He was “reading” quietly to himself next to his creation.

He is the sweetest, cutest little boy and we can’t wait to celebrate his birthday!!

On Saturday I almost passed out in yoga, so I left the room early. I came home, took a long bath, and tried to see straight again.

Abe and I were both trying to recover all morning and early afternoon. Abe stayed up late working and still had work in the morning. Once we had recovered, we gathered everyone up for a hike in the Alpine loop. It was so muddy! And also so gorgeous. The sky was bright blue, the white and black Aspen trunks were stunningly graphic, the leaves sprinkled yellow dots everywhere and the evergreens were almost neon in the light. The air was so fresh.

The best part was that our kids were universally PERFECTLY behaved for the entire outing. There was a lot to complain about with the deep, muddy trail, but Lydia was totally enamored with all of the leaves and kept exclaiming delightedly over new leaves she discovered for her leaf collection. We didn’t hear one complaint! Ammon was, as usual, my sweet little buddy who occasionally held my hands and made observations that ended with, “See, Mommy?” Abe loved carrying Clarissa, and Mary was enthusiastic and happy. Abe and I looked at each other and felt so blessed.

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!!