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:
Today we had an inspiring Sunday School, and Abe and I got to pay attention again because Mary stayed in nursery! We are so happy about her transition.
After church, we went to Ensign Park for a picnic with Aria, Clay, Espen, Enna, Paige, Mike, Ada and Liv.
Then we came home and napped. When we finally got up, we took the rest of the evening sloowly. I made strawberry-rhubarb bars, and we ate snacks for dinner while watching some of these videos on the iPad.
Abe and Lydia did the dishes:
Then Abe chased the girls (since Mary napped until 7:15 pm) until they were ready for bed.
Now for our first early bed time all week!
I feel like I’m going to jinx myself by saying this, but today was another in what feels like a string of good days. Lydia and I started off by painting our nails (with me doing all of the painting).
Then I fed the girls and practiced piano. The girls played together.
After that fun, I dropped them off at Sarah’s house for a play date. Sarah volunteered to watch the girls while I slipped out to go to the temple. She lives about a block away, and it felt so great to get to the temple! I had a very meaningful visit, and I can’t thank Sarah enough. Mary didn’t even cry. I think I found myself the perfect swap buddy today!
Then I came home and rested for a bit while the girls had quiet time/nap time. After a while, I realized I had a ton of leftover tamales and other food from class last night, so I called Misty and invited her family over for dinner. It was the perfect ending to a busy week–and a perfect beginning to the weekend.
The day started well enough, but it deteriorated to the point where I can just not wait for it to be over already.
This morning Rose came over and treated my hair for hours. It was wonderful talking with her, and the girls and Sev had a play date. My hair looks great, but I can’t put it up for three days, and tomorrow I was thinking of doing yoga and going to the competition team meeting. I guess if I do, I’ll have to figure out a way to keep my hair out of my face that doesn’t involve elastic.
After Rose finished, I fed the girls and put Mary down for a nap. That’s when the day started to deteriorate. I felt tired and wanted to nap, but Lydia kept interrupting every ten minutes until I was almost out of my mind. I tried reading my new book, but by that kept getting interrupted too. I stayed in bed for a long time hoping that eventually I’d feel energetic and rested, but I finally got up more stressed out than when I lay down.
Then I totally lost it when Lydia wouldn’t clean her room, and I practically lost my voice screaming. I felt so out of control that I finally just took my own time out and asked the girls to pray with me that God would help me control my temper and also help the girls to listen better. After that, I took some deep breaths and decided to take the girls outside in the rain to plant some seeds. Abe got home around then.
I took those pictures for you, Grandma! I love you and think of you every day. Lydia thinks about you too and always says she hopes you’re feeling okay. Mom, she keeps saying how much she misses you. We love you both!
First things first: We had another scare with Grandma Darais today, and we went down to Provo this afternoon to say goodbye. It turned out that we didn’t have to say goodbye just yet, for which we are thankful. There’s still hope she can pull through, and we are praying for her and her children to have strength for whatever comes.
I found out about Grandma Darais while I was walking to the Capitol to meet Misty. The trees are all in bloom, and it was just a lovely walk. We stood in the sunshine and chatted at the end while Lydia and Sophia read a book together. Mary was sick today, so she just sat in the jogger and looked sadly out the window.
Then we went to Provo to see Grandma Darais. We came home with Suzanne and stopped by In-n-Out for dinner. The girls got stickers.
Lydia did not want to eat dinner after her fries, but she did drink some bubble bath…
Mary was feeling sick all evening, so she was extra cuddly. I have the cutest picture of her cuddling with Abe, but it won’t send from my iPad.I did get some of them cuddling in the girls’ room, though. And when I announced that I was going to take a picture, Lydia dashed for her camera so she could take a picture. As a result, I have a picture of Lydia taking a picture. =)
Abe is starting to get up at 5:30 to get to work extra early, so we are racing for bed. I tried to email myself a video Abe took of Lydia doing a puppet show, but it didn’t go through. I’ll fuss with it tomorrow when I have time.
Here are the pictures Abe took while I was at Bikram tonight:
After church today, we napped. Lydia was watching Veggie Tales on the iPad when suddenly I awoke to hear her having a full-blown conversation with someone on the iPad. I asked Abe who Lydia was talking to, and in his groggy, half-asleep state he replied, “Nape.” I asked him who “Nape” was, and he told me that he was tired but that Lydia was definitely talking to Nape. By this time, I was waking up a little more and realized that Lydia was Face Timing with Clark and Swathi. They called while we were sleeping, and since Lydia was on the iPad, she answered their call.
A few minutes later, we all called and chatted with Clark and Swathi, and this time Abe joined us. He was still barely awake, but he was awake enough to know that we weren’t talking to Nape.
Then we picked up Balu and headed to the Miners’ for birthday celebrations. We haven’t seen Balu in a long time, and it was great to spend time with him again. Lydia had a blast having a second round of her birthday, but you wouldn’t know it from the solemn way she opened her presents and whispered her thank-you’s. She didn’t crack a smile once, but when we got home, she could barely sleep because she wanted to play with all of her new presents. We compromised by letting her sleep with six new books and one of her birthday cards.
She also made her own cupcakes for the Miners’ gathering today. Usually, I try to control parts of the baking process that can get messy, but today I figured, what the heck? They’re her cupcakes, and she should be able to do whatever she wants with them. I ended up helping with the frosting just because she kept tearing up the cupcakes she frosted, but really, she did (almost) everything else.
Having fun at the Miners’:
This morning our competition team didn’t meet, so I celebrated by taking myself straight to Instacare. The doctor figured out right away that I have a sinus infection. She didn’t waste any time; even after I tried to tell her I was a little scared of taking antibiotics because I got C Diff last year, she interrupted and told me that I had nothing to worry about. I guess they run a tight schedule over in Instacare!
By the time I arrived home, Abe had started making pancakes, and he was just about to help celebrate the cat’s birthday. Every couple days Lydia announces that it’s Puss’s birthday, but today she was especially insistent that we celebrate. We indulged.
Then I practiced and gave Mary a piano lesson. Lately I have been too sick and tired to give Lydia lessons, but Mary is easy. I just helped her play “Twinkle” over and over. Abe took pictures.
Then we all ate lunch and took naps. Well, Lydia played on the iPad, but everyone else napped. Lydia had a meltdown when her headphones stopped working, so Abe got up and helped her. He then bought his plane tickets for his friend’s wedding in July. He ran into some snafus and, long story short, discovered that you can cancel your ticket if you call within twenty-four hours. Phew! We are so happy for that policy. He’ll try again next week.
I dragged myself out of bed to practice for the second half of my culinary fundamentals final next Thursday. We have to make chicken chardonnay, mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. I swapped out the carrots for green beans tonight, but maybe I’ll practice the carrots on Wednesday. My final last night tested a ton of knife skills and required me to make cream of mushroom soup and broccoli hollandaise. I accidentally scrambled my hollandaise in the thirty seconds it took me to take my plate out of the oven and arrange the broccoli on top, but I didn’t have time to redo it, so I just kind of smoothed out the globs and prayed for the teacher’s mercy.
I also have a test on Monday that certifies us for managerial positions in a food establishment. I really should have studied today because that test covers a ridiculous amount of material, including the scientific names of a bunch of different food borne illnesses that I can never remember or keep straight. Maybe I’ll find time on Monday…
But back to today. Qualtrics sent Abe’s work team to the Jazz game tonight. Because I’m pretty sure a basketball game might just bore me straight out of my mind, Abe took Lydia on a daddy-daughter date. She had a blast, although when she met Abe’s co-workers she didn’t respond to any of their attempts to engage in conversation. Abe explained that she is shy, and I explained to Abe that just yesterday I gave Lydia a long lecture on not talking to strangers. She was just following instructions.
Meanwhile, I spent the evening trying to catch Mary up on all of the things she’s missed out on because she’s a second child. We cuddled and read books, built towers, ate felt food and FaceTimed with my mom and grandma. She didn’t want to go to bed, so I got to rock and sing to her. We usually don’t have time to rock or sing to the girls before bed, so this felt really nice. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me big kisses–right before she started slapping my cheeks and giggling…
I’m excited to go apply some Vick’s before bed. I love that stuff–it’s the difference between breathing and not breathing for me. Here’s to sleeping through the night!
We had so much fun with David, Karin and Jay at dinner that we accidentally stayed until 11 pm. We were the last ones at the restaurant, and now it’s almost midnight. In light of our desperate need to go to bed, I really just want to throw up pictures with captions and then go to bed.
Except! Except that I forgot to take pictures of my lunch with Misty, and that was a huge highlight of the day. Abe took a long lunch from work and took the girls to nearby IKEA for free food (kids eat free on Tuesdays) while Misty and I had our lunch date.
Misty and I went to my school’s restaurant, and the theme today was “Spring.” I forgot to take pictures of the food or the menu, but it was all very yummy. The starter was ahi tuna with rhubarb salsa…except that we couldn’t discern where the rhubarb was, even though we searched, searched, and searched some more. The second dish was a salad with bagna cauda (again, couldn’t quite figure out where that was) with a salad and bread stick. It looked pretty fancy. We ordered different entrees, and then had molten chocolate cakes with white mocha ice cream for dessert. The menu was set, and I am now really looking forward to my restaurant class where we get to put together these menus, plate them, and serve them to actual people. In my present class, we throw out most of the food we make because there’s never enough time to wrap it up to take home.
Strangely, the rest of the day felt fun and productive too, although I’m not sure how that happened because I’m still sick, queasy, and easily tired. I think the girls were just more self-sufficient than usual, so I got to get more done with less effort. Plus, Mary napped from 2 pm until 6 pm, and Lydia napped from 2 pm until almost 4 pm. That probably helped.
Then Abe came home and I frantically folded laundry until the last minute, when we picked up David and headed up Mill Creek Canyon to meet Karin and Jay at Log Haven. There’s a gorgeous waterfall right across from the restaurant, and the ambiance of the restaurant felt really…nice. The best part was just the conversation, but the food was amazing too. I should have taken a picture of my entree, but alas, I started eating before that could happen. We did, however, take a shot of Abe’s beet soup starter.
Happy (belated) birthday, David!
Today we all slept in after yesterday’s birthday festivities–and it didn’t adversely affect our punctuality at church, since today is BOTH daylight savings and stake conference. For stake conference, our stake meets at the Tabernacle at Temple Square, which is an incredible experience. Sitting in that historic building by itself would have been wonderful, but having served my mission at Temple Square, I felt an added measure of enjoyment.
One of our speakers was 102 years old, and she was the granddaughter of both President Heber J. Grant and Joseph Fielding Smith. She herself was the General Young Women’s president at one point and was the impetus behind the restoration/building of many church buildings, including the Beehive House, the original Joseph Smith Farm in Palmyra, and the Church History Museum. She told some wonderful stories from her life, and we were all impressed that at 102 years old she could still “rally the faithful.”
But my favorite part of conference was when we learned about our new “forty days of holiness” program. For the next forty days, members of our stake will read through the entire four gospels and 3 Nephi in anticipation of Easter. It’s kind of like Lent, only we’ll be reading about seven pages of scriptures a day instead of giving up something. I am so excited to get started, so I’ll post pictures and start already!
Most of all, we will miss my mom soooooooooo much. But we know she’s going to another happy spot, and we are happy she and Grandma have each other for company. We love you, Grandma!! We’ll give Mom lots of hugs and kisses tomorrow to give to you when she gets back.