A Nice Saturday

Lily woke up early to go to school where she made chicken and pork sausage, which she thought was disgusting.  She did, however, manage to enjoy being there.  At home, the girls slept-in until 9:00 which was great for me because I’ve been feeling very fatigued with my allergies kicking in.  When they woke up I fed them and then we played around the house and I fed them again. Abou that time Lily came home and we all ate together.  Mary then went down for her nap and Lily and Lydia plugged into their respective Ipads.

Lily has been absolutely hooked to Downton Abbey and Lydia wathes kids’ shows on netflix (Thanks Clark and Swathi!).  I can see why Lily is so hooked because I’ve watched some of it with her and it is really engaging.  I particularly like the character Mr. Bates.  Lily announced this evenening that she has watched a whole season of Downton Abbey in one day, which is true, although each seaon only has about six or seven episodes.

While Mary napped I made great progress on a personal writing project I’m working on and then we all got up and went to Costco.  We’ve wanted to go for months and we finally made it!  My favorite thing we got was our four pound case of strawberries, Yum!

Back at home we ate chicken, blueberries and chips outside for dinner.   Afterwords I took the girls to the park while Lily rested and watched more Downton Abbey.  I’m really glad she got to kick back today. She has so many demands during the week that she didn’t have any chance to recover from being sick. I hope the R&R she got today will help her get over her bug and be ready for the week ahead.

Pictures!

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Lydia has been eating at least three bannanas.  This is the stash we bought to get us through the week!
Lydia has been eating at least three bannanas. This is the stash we bought to get us through the week!

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Planting Seedlings and plans for cheese

This morning, Mary slept-in until 10 AM.  It was amazing.  Lily took advantage of the time to clean the bathroom, wash, dry, fold and put away laundrey and get a lot of other things done.  When sleepy-headed Mary got up, Lily and the girls planted the seedlings that Aria gave us last night (see pictures from yesterday!).

[change in blog authors] Abe is exhausted from allergies, so he stopped blogging and it’s Lily now. I’m just going to throw up the pictures from today:

On our way to plant seedlings.
On our way to plant seedlings.
The girls with the seedlings.
The girls with the seedlings.

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Waving bye-bye to Abe and Mary before class (Lydia was asleep in the car). It was especially hard to leave Mary today--she was only awake three hours of the entire time I was with her! (And one of those hours we spent driving to school in the car.)
Waving bye-bye to Abe and Mary before class (Lydia was asleep in the car). It was especially hard to leave Mary today–she was only awake three hours of the entire time I was with her! (And one of those hours we spent driving to school in the car.)
I made cheese tonight. This is fromage blanc and mascarpone.
I made cheese tonight. This is fromage blanc and mascarpone.
I also formed mozzarella. We didn't make the curd, so I'm hoping we do that sometime in the future. I asked Chef if we could take cheese home, and he agreed. When he saw that I had packed six pounds of cheese, he made me put some back. Sorry, but it was really good!! I had great plans for that six pounds of cheese...
I also formed mozzarella. We didn’t make the curd, so I’m hoping we do that sometime in the future. I asked Chef if we could take cheese home, and he agreed. When he saw that I had packed six pounds of cheese, he made me put some back. Sorry, but it was really good!! I had great plans for that six pounds of cheese…

Quick Post

Today was a good day for everyone at the Darais house.  We haven’t been sleeping much, but in spite of that, God has given us strength to not only manage, but find great joy.

Lily got a TON of house work done, including accomplishing hours worth of laundrey washing, drying, folding, sorting and putting-away.  For a brief moment in the Darais home there was literally NOTHING that needed to be washed…….I know I wont sleep in the socks I’m currently wearing, so unfortunately the pile starts again tonight……

Lily read to the girls separately, read in her book about the Monart method of teaching your children to draw and she read in a book about how to teach your children to read.  She  said she felt very happy and close to God today.  What a wonderful and productive day!

I had a good day at work.  I was a little tired, but I kept my nose to the grind-stone.  Days usually come for two packages for me, successful days and learning days.  Today was more of a learning day, but I did learn and I believe success will come.  At home I had the most wonderful time with the girls.  They were both in super good moods and we all danced to K-Love together.  We went totally wild when our favorite song “Every Act of Love” by Jason Grey came on.  I was dancing while holding Mary and she screamed to indicate that she wanted to be set down…..when I set her down she proceeded to get her groove on and I thought it was hilarious! Days like this I am reminded why I’m so grateful to not have a job that takes my attention at home as well as at work.  I was completely engaged with the children and drinking from the cup of pure joy.

Pictures!

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Ready for Bed

Mary has been teething and so she cried a lot last night.  Lily claims she wasn’t tired today (even though she did most of the getting up to help Mary last night), but I for one am pooped.  I had a little bit of a compressed day, and there were junctures where I didn’t really have time to eat or go to the bathroom, but( hooray!!!), I made it through! The rigor is very much aided by the fact that I enjoy every moment of what I do.

Lily had a very peaceful day.  She fed the girls, played piano, worked-out on the treadmill, read to the girls and had an overall rounded, fulfilling and peaceful day, even in-spite of Mary being a wreck because of her teething and major diaper-rash.  I think it started when I had to walk her home for an hour in her poopey diaper after dropping the car off at the shop……

Lily just back.  She said school was good and she learned how to de-bone a chicken.

For my part, I stopped by mom’s office to give her some flowers for mother’s day only to find that she needed a ride home because her car was in the shop.  I drove her home and we went inside so Lydia and Mary could play with their new heart-throbs, REAL LIVE ANIMALS.  They love them so much.  In fact, Lydia announced tonight that she likes dogs now, which is a HUGE shift because she is usually so terrified of them.  But Lucy, my mom’s dalmation-border collie mix is so old that it is impossible for her to scare anyone, even someone as dog-phobic as Lydia.  Mary and Lydia pursued casper, the white puffy cat insesantly, until finally Casper had enough and clawed Mary’s arm.  It wasn’t too bad, but Mary did cry.  I guess two cat-crazed toddlers was a little much for one cat to handle! My mom wanted to make us dinner, and it felt like a huge blessing because I was frankly exhausted.  She made Costco chicken from her toaster oven, peas, macaroni and cheese, and boiled potatoes.  Needless to say, the kids ate very well.

At home I exercised FINALLY with my Insanity DVD.  I then planned my week and well, blogged.  PICS!

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The ups and the downs

Today was a good day for both Lily, Lydia, Mary and myself and I believe we all experience a relatively full range of emotions.  Lily and I both got 8 hours of sleep last night which we were so happy about.  My day started off perfect as I kept pace with my daily goals and even scheduled a meeting with a prospect.  When I called Lily to check in, we didn’t really get to talk because of all the screaming and crying in the background so I knew my day had started a little more smoothly than hers.  Lydia has been struggling a bit lately and I guess Lily was having to deal with a lot of her behavior issues.  My day continued to go really well until towards the end of the day when I had two meetings that drastically changed my mood.

First, I had a presentation from Finance that explained our compensation structure, and promotion schedule and it hit me that I need to be a lot more special than I previously thought in order to promote as fast as I would like to.

Then I had a training that got on my nerves a little.  A lot of the training was truly great, but the personality of the trainer was a little extreme.  He says he will only hang out with successful people because he is not willing to let other people’s lack of ambition bring him down.  He said that when his wife wants to hang out with him and another couple, he ensures that couples they are hanging out with are appropriately successful (and push their childrend to be successful) so that he is benefiting from the association.  He took it a step further when he said that at work, he only goes to lunch with people who have hit their quota and he will never in his life go to lunch with anyone who ever uses the Qualtrics Ping Pong Table,  because (I infer) those people are clearly slackers.

If it weren’t for the fact that some of the other parts of his training were really quite good, I would have just felt irritated.  I can’t pick out what rubs me wrong about that kind of talk, but I think it has to do with valuing people only by their level of ambition, and viewing life merely as a vehicle for career acheivement and material success.  On the other hand, I do want to succeed, just like anyone else. I guess that’s what I should expect from a sales-training.  The thing that was scariest was thinking about how much I may have to step things up in order to really excel.  I don’t feel like I need to be the number one salesman.  I do have a goal, however, to keep my family moving in the right direction, and even that will take some pretty hard-core dedication. During the car ride home I felt great assurance from God about two things. 1) I am on track for success and 2) Succeeding will not require me to have the type of extreme personality as the trainer.  I felt calm and assured that God will bring me success if I work hard and look to Him for my support and direction.

By the time my day got tougher, Lily’s had gotten better.  When I called later in the day to check in, she was perky and happy and said things were going better.  I later met her for school, picked up the girls and went home.  At home, both girls cried like crazy for a long time.  Then we all danced in the kitchen, endured more crying by Lydia, had a great bath session, endured more crying by Lydia, and then we all had tons of giggles about Lydia and Mary taking their arms out of their pajamas (see below). I then put them to bed.  In Lydia’s defense about all the crying, she did wake up from a late nap today.

Pictures!IMG_7344

When Lydia woke up this morning, she stumbled into our bedroom and lay on the floor like a zombie for ten minutes. Lily took a picture, and Lydia didn't even blink.
When Lydia woke up this morning, she stumbled into our bedroom and lay on the floor like a zombie for ten minutes. Lily took a picture, and Lydia didn’t even blink.

Fast Fast Fast

Everything in life is fast right now.  On the way to work I listen to 6 chapters in 3 Nephi for my ward’s 40 days of Holiness.  As soon as I walk through the door at work, I juggle prospecting expectations, trainings to attend, product learning, meeting preparation, meetings to attend and general housekeepings.  I leave every day feeling like I’m leaving a mountain for the next day.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my job.  It is very fast.

Lily’s life is fast as she chases around our daughters, prepares for her piano competition, goes to school full time and keeps food on the table.  Today, chasing the kids involved a play-group Easter Egg hunt for the kids.  It looks like they had a lot of fun.

As usual, I met Lily halfway at her school on my way home from work.  It was so nice to see her, if even for a moment.  At home, it was dinner, bathing, night routine and then cleaning.

I will say, there was a moment during the children’s night routine when everything slowed down.  It was right around the time that Lydia was having Puss bark like a seal and I had a moment where I just looked at her and felt pure joy.  There she was. So perfect, innocent, playful and happy, in her own little world.  Watching her be happy brought a flash of my own childhood joy and it was like drinking from a well of youth for my soul.  I love my children.  Lydia also explained to me that she wants Daniel to stay a stuffed animal because tigers are scary, but Puss and Tabitha can grow up and become real in about a year just like the velvatine rabbit.  Meanwhile, Mary has been stacking all of her blankets and stuffed animals into one corner of her crib so she can try to get a let up on capitulating herself out of the crib.  I had to take away everything except three small blankets, a pillow and a tiny stuffed animal for fear that she would actually succeed.

Pics!

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In Remembrance of Norma Darais

I am not ready for my grandmother to be gone.  It was four days before she passed away that I committed to visiting her every week on my lunch break.  I wish I had known my time was ending to spend time with such a remarkable person.  I know she is on the other side.  I know she watches over me.  But on my side of the veil, I am left to enjoy her through my memories.  These are the things I remember most about my sweet grandmother.

1.  When I was about seven years old, I had a sleep over at her house and she taught me Alma 37:37, “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doing and he will direct thee for good.  Yea, when thou liest down at night, lie down unto the Lord that he may watch over you in your sleep.  And when thou risest in the morning, let thy heart be full of thanks unto him.  And if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.”  I just did that from memory.  It was the first scripture I ever memorized and still I remember it from all those years ago.  I chose it as the scripture on my missionary placard because it has meant so much to me over the years.  I can still visualize my grandmother quoting it with energy.  She would always recite things with enthusiasm and gusto, showing clearly the love she had for the gospel.

2.  Towing the line.  My grandmother was always working.  Making bread, making blankets, cooking meals, sewing, writing poetry, organizing the house, reading newspaper articles, calling loved ones, the list goes on and on and on.  When I think of her raising seven children, and the drive she exhibited, even in her nineties, I marvel at the amount of good she accomplished while on earth.  I never once heard her complain.

3.  Trust.  In almost every conversation I’ve had with grandmother in the past few years, she finds away to mention how she marvels at how when she looks back on her life, she sees how God led her from A to B to C.  She has many amazing stories in her life of times where situations were very dire, but God came through for Her in glorious ways.  She marvels at how good God has been to her and how we can trust Him perfectly to work good in our lives.

4.  Amazing Bread.

Grandmother, it is one thing to live a selfless, active and righteous life, but it is quite another to do it with a smile and joy to the very end.  You inspire me in countless ways and I pray to be man enough to build on your legacy.  I love you.

On to less weightier matters, work is going well.  My general morning routine is that my alarm goes off, I don’t care so I keep sleeping, Lily kicks me, I decide she’s right, as usual, and stumble out of bed.  The amazing thing is that it’s working!  One more benefit to having a loving spouse! (o-k, she doesn’t actually kick me, just persuades and gently pushes.)

Work is going very well.  It is so fast paced that my head is spinning, but I closed my first business last week and so far I feel everything is going as planned.  I love my job.  Everyone on my team is very good.  and I love my team leader.

Lily had a good day with the girls.  She went to lunch with Anique and had a very good time. She also skyped with her great friend Liz Nyden. Also, she is reading the new Amy Chua book and absolutely loving it. Mary was fussy today, but she is teething so it is understandable.  We are letting her use her binkie a little more to help her get through this tough time.

And…….Lily is back in school!  Her class for tonight has a really fancy name that is probably French so she will have to update you on that later.  When I got home I took the girls to Smith’s and got them a treat at the bakery counter.  They were giving out whole cookies which each girl got.  Subsequently neither of them ate much dinner and I felt very guilty for not giving my kids proper nutrition. I think I will have a “no giant cookies before meals” rule from now on….but sometimes, especially when I’m tired……….it’s the best I can do to just cave.

After dinner we stuffed Easter Eggs for Lydia’s Easter Egg hunt tomorrow.  Amazingly, both Lydia and Mary were both very capable of and very focused on stuffing candy into the eggs.  I couldn’t believe how good Mary was at it!  After that, I discovered a new wonderful  bath-time activity where Lydia and Mary through the beach ball to each other.

Pictures!

 

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Non-Profit, Exam, David

Today was a little bit of a hard day on the home front.  When I chatted with Lily at our kid-handoff in front of her cooking school, I learned that today the doorbell woke Mary from her nap, Lily learned Mary could squeeze through the second floor railing, a strange beggar came to the house asking for money (and this is after the Elizabeth Smart book she just read), and she’s feeling sicker than yesterday.  My heart definitely went out to Lily to hear about these struggles, especially since things are really starting to go well at work.

Today I received my account list that I will be responsible for to call on.  My list is comprised almost all of non-profit organizations, meaning Qualtrics wants me to become expert in selling to that industry.  I started working on the list today and found great joy working on my own accounts and not just setting up meetings for other salesmen.  Also, during lunch we had a regional meeting and my team lead commended my hard work in front of every body and I was awarded fifty dollars.  Sweet!

Lily just got home from cooking school and reported that she feels she did very well on her final (Yay!). That is especially amazing since she was feeling so unwell.  While Lily was at cooking school, the following transpired.

I picked up mail from my mom’s office (Lydia asleep in the car) and then drove home (Lydia still asleep in the car).  Lydia woke up as we pulled in the driveway and proceded to be an emotional disaster for the next two hours.  I do not fault her.  She took a late nap, and she was just out of sync.  She melted down over a variety of topics such as curry being too spicy (Mary ate it), being tired, being cold (right after her bath), not wanting to comb her hair, wanting the ipad, wanting to sit in my lap……you get the idea.  Finally at the end of the day, right before going to bed, she cheered up, partially because she enjoyed watching Mary run around only half-way in her pajamas.  I only got half-way putting Mary into pajamas before I had to intervene with another dramatic emotional episode from Lydia.  Everything ended on a good note when I put the kids to bed.

Right afterwords, my brother, David, came over.  He is in-town from his PHD studies at Harvard.  We chatted for a while and then played one hour and thirty minutes of Wayne Gretzky Hockey on Nintendo 64.  We had so much fun that we made plans to do it again Monday.

Pictures!

Lydia asked to go to bed while Mary ran around and she was amused at Mary half-way in her pajamas
Lydia asked to go to bed while Mary ran around and she was amused at Mary half-way in her pajamas

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Lily took the girls to the library today.
Lily took the girls to the library today.

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Lily made a knockout curry today and included Lydia in the process.
Lily made a knockout curry today and included Lydia in the process.

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Mary at the Library
Mary at the Library

Stories

I just typed the entire post and had a computer issue that whiped all of it clean.  Doh!  I’ll try to crank this out again.

Lily is at cooking school, not because she feels good enough for it, but because her final is tomorrow and she wants to finish strong down the home-stretch.  I feel so bad for all the time she has been sick.  It seems she has been just a day or two behind me in the sickness and its symptoms.  I started feeling better today, so my hope is that she will start feeling better by the weekend.

Work is going really well.  I found out yesterday that I will be on the South East Sales Team 1 (there are two teams).  I will start April 1 officially as a Sales Representative.  It also means I will have to start waking up earlier so I can be making calls in Provo by 8:30 AM ET.  Yikes!

Lily is playing piano again!  She stopped for a bit after slicing her finger, but she is back practicing and I am very happy for two reasons: 1 because I genuinely love hearing her play and 2: because her competition is in TWO MONTHS.  The good news is that she decided to not play in her second round (even if she advances) so that she wont miss any of her family reunion.  This means that she only needs practice two pieces instead of four.  I think that was a great move on her part.

I don’t think either of us took pictures today, but I will end by telling of a phase that Lydia is going through.  She is story-telling.  She tried to tell me a story over the phone at work, but I was short on time and it was hard to hear on the phone what she was saying.  Lily told her that she could tell me stories when I got home, and that she most certainly did.  When I got home and was eating with the girls, Lydia asked if she could tell me a story.  I agreed and she proceeded to tell me no fewer than FIVE stories.  All of them were a variation of this story-line, “There was a boy who wanted to go up high, so he climbed a bookshelf and then fell off and died.  Then his mom was sad so she died too.  Then a bunch of people came over [I presume for the funeral?] and they died too.  Then a bad man tried to break through the door.”  After the fifths story like this, I intervined (I don’t know why I waited so long!).  “Lydia,” I said, “those stories are all so sad.  Do you have any happy stories?”  She did!  She then told me a story about her stuffed cat “Puss” that involved giggles, laughing, singing and maybe even some cake and sprinkles.  Unfortunately I wasn’t quite as keyed into the happy story as I was to the sad ones…….maybe that’s human nature?  During her bath later that night, I was on the phone with Jere and I asked Lydia to tell Jere a story.  At that point, Lydia announced that she only tells stories at the kitchen table.  Well, I’m glad we go that straightened out.  She even has rules surrounding her story-telling!  I love her.

 

A good day

O-k, so Lily and I both woke up sick, but has actually turned out to be a really good change.  I think it was the weather change combined with the work stress that got me.  Lily also runs a really heavy schedule so maybe each of our bodies were just saying, “take a day to slow down,” and our bodies decided to communicate that message through soar throats and feeling ill.

But seriously, it was a good day.  Lily had her best Saturday competition practice ever.  She was trained on cake-making by the best chef at the school, Chef Ramsey, and Lily said her second cake that she made was the best in the class, even better than Chef Ramseys! (Your jaw can drop here)  I’m really proud of the great work Lily is doing.  Lily also shared an extremely comical moment when she was feeling incredibly tired and had the train of thought, “I wonder what would happen if I cracked an egg onto the middle of the counter.”  And so she did.  She cracked an egg, and while the raw egg mess was sitting on the counter, Chef Ramsey walked by, looked at it, and said, “um, are you o-k?”  I thought was the most hilarious thing I’d heard all day.  Lily is definitely having a good time.

I had a great time at home with the girls too.  I was pretty whiped out from feeling sick, but we managed some good moments.  Here are both Mary and Lydia fingerpainting in the basement.IMG_6971

After fingerpainting, we all ate brunch (becuase with kids there are six meals per day) and Lydia and Mary sat together at the table. IMG_6972

 

After this meal, I put Mary down to nap while Lydia played on her own.  I got a good nap so I was able to play with the kids after Lily got home so she could get her rest in.  After Lily rested we left the house to start the day at 4:30 PM.

Lydia was asleep within minutes in the car and Mary was happy just being alive in her car-seat.  She used to hate being in her car-seat, but ever since we switched her into the green-grey and black one that Lydia used to use, she has done really well.  It’s a very big seat, looks very comfortable and makes me think of a captains chair on a giant spaceship.

First I dropped of Lily at the main library and while she picked out books I got a healight and brake-light fixed at Jiffy-Lube.  I really enjoyed watching the guy replace the bulbs and I figured to myself that next time I can probably save a buck and do it on my own.  After I picked up Lily we went to subway because I was starving and needed something healthy because yesterday I binged on jelly-beans and buttered-popcorn and I was still feeling gross.  After subway we all went to a playground at Liberty Park.  We had fun, but didn’t stay too late because it was a little chilly.  Then we went to Smith’s, came home, ate, bathed the girls, and put them to bed.

Since that time, I have taken a quick nap and put away all of our clutteriffic winter accessories into the basement, totally clearing out our hall closet.  I also just finished the book of Ruth in the Old Testament which means I start Samuel tomorrow.  Since being in the car on our errands, Lily has completely absorbed in the Elizabeth Smart autobiography she checked out.  She is just finishing it now downstairs.  I’m sure she’ll report on it tomorrow, but from what she told me so far, it is horrifying how evil her kidnapper is, but it is also inspiring how pure Elizabeth is and it is also inspiring reading how God comforted her and helped her very explicitly during that horrifying time in her life.  Rest!