Aside from taking my girls to story time at the library and then going to the gym for a swim, I literally cleaned all day long. Well, I took a forty-five minute break to play the piano, and I fed the kids a couple times, but other than that, all I did today was clean (and bake cookies). I don’t think the house has ever been this clean, and I feel so happy! The only thing I wish I’d done is mop all the floors, but at least they’re all swept or vacuumed.
I have another final project to do tomorrow, and there’s nothing I hate more than doing school work in the middle of a mess. I anticipate highly enjoying my project tomorrow thanks to today’s efforts.
And, best of all, my friend Candace is coming in tonight and will stay the weekend with us! She got a mini-pass to the Alt Summit to hear Martha Stewart present. I was supposed to buy a pass and go too, but I never had my wallet with me when I was at the computer, and by the time I finally got around to it, the event was sold out. I was bummed. But at least the good news is that, as I mentioned before, I have a final project (and a final exam) tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I would fail both if I were going to see Martha too.
Here are today’s pictures:
The girls woke up and wanted to build a nest for themselves in their princess tent. They had a blast.I told Mary to say “Hi Mommy!” She opens her mouth pretty wide when she says “hi”.The girls were really affectionate with each other this morning.
Oops! (A tumble.)We have gotten our money’s worth out of this dress. Lydia wears it at every opportunity.
Mary makes life pretty easy for everyone by putting herself in voluntary time-outs so she can have her binkies. She’s only allowed to have them in her pack-n-play, so she spends a lot of time like this.
Also, I’m linking to my favorite Christian song of late. It’s called “Build Your Kingdom Here,” and this is what got me on the Christian rock kick.
I went to the gym today, and Mary stayed in the child care the whole time! I can’t say how liberating that is–I can actually work out now! It’s an option!
Other than that, it was a rainy day so we stayed inside a lot. I had a lot of work to do for school because tonight was the last night for Garde Manger. All we did was clean the kitchen, but I had a bunch of stuff due.
Abe had fun with the girls tonight. Lydia has been an angel these past couple days, and we can’t get over how easy and delightful she’s been. This morning she got dressed, brushed her teeth, used the potty and washed her hands all by herself–without me asking! I couldn’t believe it. She’d actually gotten half way through that routine before I woke up, so she woke me by saying, “Mommy! I got dressed all by myself and now I’m going to go brush my teeth and use the potty!” I was both dumbfounded and delighted.
Lydia and Mary got in a hug fest while Abe was watching them, so he ran to get the camera. By the time he got back, Mary wanted out, but Lydia wanted to keep posing for the camera. The following pictures document Mary’s attempt to escape Lydia’s death-grip pose:
In other news, it was really cold today–and it snowed in the mountains! The sky was unbelievably beautiful; I almost drove off the road on my way home because it was so distracting. I didn’t take a picture, but I thought it was notable enough to mention. There was even a full rainbow at one point. I missed Lake Michigan when I first moved here, but the Utah sky feels like it performs a similar function in my life as the lake did in Illinois.
We just got back last night from our long road trip to Illinois and back. Thirty plus hours in the car with two small children–without electronic entertainment, thanks to my rushed packing right before the trip–was a great adventure. We were surprised by how well both kids did in the car, especially since both were sick at various times.
Since I have innumerable pictures, I’m cutting straight to those:
Lydia running around getting her wiggles out before the trip.
On the way to Springfield, we stopped by Hannibal, the home of Mark Twain:
Blocking the model of a statue that was supposed to pay tribute to Twain. It was slated to be erected during the Depression, and because of its expense, it never got built.In Mark Twain’s house.
Mark Twain with a binky.Our own Becky Thatcher.Tom Sawyer’s white picket fence.
In the museum.
That night we arrived in Springfield in time to catch the tail end of a family pizza party. I don’t have any pictures, but the girls were soooooooo happy to see my mom.
We stayed at the Presidential Abraham Lincoln Hotel, which is where my grandma always took us swimming whenever we visited her. I got up three hours before Abe and the girls, and after eating breakfast, I swam in the pool. It felt exactly the same as it did when I was little–they haven’t changed the decor one bit! The only thing missing was the sauna. Maybe it wasn’t safe enough, but I did feel nostalgic when I noticed it was gone.
Abe and the girls woke up at 10:30am, just in time to get Maid-Rite and head to the picnic. Maid-Rite is the nation’s first drive-thru; it’s also one of my favorite Springfield spots because we used to go there every time we visited Grandma.
At Maid-Rite, in the car.
At the picnic:
My cousin, Kathy, pushing Lydia on the swing. Lydia and her kids, Kole and Kaitlyn, became great friends.
Beth attending to the three dogs, Bella, Cooper, and Payton.Lydia showing Grandma her boo-boo.
Frisbee with the cousins.
Action shot.
Then we went back to the hotel so Abe and the girls could swim before dinner. At dinner, we took a lot of family pictures, all of which can be accessed here for the next couple weeks. After that, I’ll need to upload them from the CD which my mom is so kindly sending me. Thanks, mom!
Here are the pictures I did get:
Taylor sang us a song, and Aunt Dee held the speakers.
Parker sang “Never Mind, I’ll Find Someone Like You” by Adele. He was amazing!
Abe joined the kids in serenading us with a resounding rendition of “Let it Go.”
Then Clark, Swathi, Abe, the girls and I took a walk to Abe’s Lincoln House. It was dark, so I didn’t take my camera. Too bad! The house was lit up and beautiful. It’s right downtown, so the walk wasn’t too demanding–which was great, considering we’d gorged ourselves at dinner.
But before our walk, I got a picture of Abe posing as Abe.
The next morning, we barely made it to church in time to hear my mom give a fantastic Relief Society lesson on love. (Well, I got to hear it. Abe and the girls can’t go to Relief Society.)
Then we headed to Grandma’s for lunch and some visiting. While there, Lydia suddenly came down with a 103 degree fever. As I cuddled her, Abe gave her medicine. Oops! She vomited that right up, all over me. Emma, pictured below, is my new favorite person. She was so great at helping me clean the vomit off in the bathroom. Seriously, whenever I have my next baby, I want her to be the nurse.
Emma and Grandma put on a great puppet show.
After saying hasty goodbyes, we headed off. Lydia slept until we arrived at a Dairy Queen, several hours later. She was feeling better, so we got her an ice cream cone.
Lydia gets very subdued and polite when ill. Here she is meditating (or waiting patiently–same thing?) outside of Dairy Queen.
That night, we stayed at Abe’s Aunt Bonnie’s lake house in rural Missouri. It was gorgeous.
The view from the porch.
Aunt Bonnie’s house.Mary padding around chasing the cats the night we got in.
The next day, we stopped in Independence, Missouri, to visit our church’s visitor center. The Independence temple lot is really important to Latter-Day Saints. The Community of Christ (formerly the Reformed Latter-Day Saint Church) owns most of the lot, and they’ve built their own temple on their portion. We visited that, too.
Inside a reconstructed log cabin.In front of the Christus. Lydia really wanted to touch Jesus’ toe.The Community of Christ’s temple.The inside of that spiral dome.Mary wanted to be done touring.
We spent the rest of the day driving. Kansas, in my opinion, is a little spooky. Since the land is flat and a lot of time there aren’t any trees in sight, it feels like you’re lost at sea. The sky is so big and oppressive. But, at the same time, it’s also pretty:
We got to Denver late that night, and in the morning, we completed our Grandparent Grand tour.
Visiting Grandma and Grandpa Forsythe.
At Grandma and Grandpa Edmudson’s house. The girls and I met them for the first time–so long overdue! We enjoyed them a lot.William Norris Edmondson, Abe’s great-grandfather.Abe’s great grandparents, William Norris Edmondson and Mary Hazel Coulter.Abe’s grandpa and great-grandpa. Abe’s grandpa was very sick with asthma his whole childhood, and no one expected him to survive.I think this is a picture of Abe’s great-grandparents, Jeremiah Couter and Amanda Staten.The family home back in Kentucky. Abe’s grandpa came to Colorado in 1961, and his whole family stayed behind.
Karin, Grandpa Edmondson, Grandma Edmondson, Mary, Abe, Lydia, and me.
Then we drove home.
Driving out of Brighton, Colorado (where Abe’s Grandma and Grandpa Edmondson live).This is hide and seek–NOT peek-a-boo. Did you know you could play hide-and-seek in a car?Mary played with her feet most of the trip.
Nearing Salt Lake. We love where we live. If only it could be a little closer to the family we just left!
I am so exhausted I can barely function, but guess what? I won second place at the cupcake competition this morning! Since we had to use garlic, I made a garlic/chocolate gingerbread cupcake with cream cheese frosting and a garlic/ginger/walnut brittle on top. In my humble opinion, the cupcake turned out delicious! Actually, everyone did a great job. The winner had been practicing her cupcake for over a month, so I think she deserved to win (although I secretly liked mine better). Here are everyone’s cupcakes:
Mine! I used this recipe. I added blanched, minced garlic and ginger to the cupcake. I can’t find the link I used for the brittle, but basically I found a garlic brittle recipe and added some ginger (both powdered and fresh, blanched and minced).This is a chocolate garlic cupcake with hibiscus icing and an inside surprise of figs soaked in a port wine reduction.cornmeal cupcakes with saffron icing and avocado garnish.an ancho chile chocolate cupcake next to the winner, a basil cupcake soaked in a garlic simple syrup topped with blackberry icing, white chocolate and garlic brittle.One of the cupcakes wasn’t pictured, but it was a garlic chocolate mousse cupcake with a garlicky ganache. It was really garlicky, but very good!The contenders ready for judgment.
Abe and the girls showed up at the end, but they didn’t let them in the kitchen. I gave them cupcakes to go outside and eat:
I won a James Beard Award winning cookbook on bread baking (can’t remember the title) and a bunch of things that I actually already own. But it was still so fun!
Here are the other activities of the day:
6 am Bikram Yoga; getting my mom’s car serviced/washed; errands at Target, the gas station, sprouts and Smith’s Garden Center; FHE; planting tomatoes as a family (almost all of the plants I planted earlier died from frost and, um, because I forgot to water them); cooking dinner; eating outside; cleaning the kitchen; bathing the girls; paying bills; tidying various parts of the house.
Here are the accompanying pictures:
Abe took a break from paying bills and played with Lydia. It was one of the happiest parts of his day.
Planting tomatoes. Lydia went really nuts with the hose and basically gave the entire exterior of our house a big shower.
Abe and I have been trying to watch a movie for months. We are both so tired–but we’re determined to finally watch one. I think we might to either Saving Mr. Banks or Lincoln. (Whichever’s shorter??)
We did take pictures today, but the camera card was accidentally in the computer. Oops! Better tomorrow.
This morning we had a play date with Jen, Natlalie, Laddie and Spencer. The best part was after we all went to institute, and Lydia and Natalie had so much fun running around the church. They were so cute! I wish I’d had my camera on me, but seeing that the card wasn’t in the camera anyway, it wouldn’t have done much good.
After we all ate and napped, Abe came home and we went on a bike ride up the canyon. It was a gorgeous evening and the recent rain has turned everything green. Everything smelled and looked so fresh. It was a wonderful end to the day. Too bad my Fitbit can’t tell when I bike! Next time I’m going to stick it in my sock and see if it can tell I’m moving.
We made pizza when we came home, Abe bathed the girls, I did homework, and now we’re all ready for bed. Abe has had so little sleep because of his long commute. I feel sorry for him. Right now he’s dying of tiredness, so I better stop blogging so we can turn out the light and he can go to sleep.
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!
Abe and I both slept in while Lydia watched the iPad this morning. By the time we got moving and fed the girls breakfast, it was almost 10am. But boy, did we get moving! I put my Fitbit on at 10am, and in the ensuing two hours got in 10,000 steps. We walked by Anique’s house and visited with Andrew and Fleur, and while we were visiting, our neighbor Ruth Ann joined us. She joined us on our walk up the canyon, and we got to know her story a bit more.
She is a remarkable woman. After starting a business with President Henry B. Eyring, she moved on to become one of the very first female managers AT&T ever hired, and the only one of the first female hires to last more than two months. She worked with them for 26 years, moving all around the country in a variety of roles until she took early retirement. After taking early retirement, she worked for the Church in its Philanthropy department. Recently she served a PR mission in Hong Kong and is about to embark on another mission in September.
I loved chatting with her so much that I kept talking and walking long after I realized I had a female emergency and needed to go back home. Finally, I admitted I had a problem, and Abe, the girls and I turned back and ran home. It was a great morning, aside from that. We look forward to walking more with Ruth Ann in the future.
After that, we ate lunch and took a two-hour nap.
Moqueca (Brazilian Fish Stew) I made in class. We ate the leftovers today for lunch. This is my new favorite dish.
When we finally got going again after that, we fed the girls and went to the library. At the library we ran into our friends Fallon, Audrey, and Eli. I got distracted talking to Fallon long after Abe had to take Mary back to the car (she was pulling all the books off the shelves). I felt bad for taking so long, but Abe used that time to work on the lesson he’s teaching tomorrow, and just as I reached the car, who should appear but Ed and Isabella (Abe’s uncle and cousin).
Lydia loooooooves Isabella, and they played together a bit.
Then we went on our errands: approximately one million grocery stores and Barnes & Noble. By the time we finished at Smith’s, Lydia was fast asleep in the car.
But the good news is, tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to the best mother and grandmother I know! Mom and Grandma, I couldn’t imagine better mothers and better examples than both of you. You are my heroes. I love you!!
Today Lydia woke up convinced that today was my birthday and that we needed to bake a green birthday cake. It was a sweet sentiment, but we compromised and just baked these muffins for the second time this week. Lydia got to cover three of the muffins in sprinkles. I should have taken a picture, but they disappeared so fast, there was really hardly a chance.
We were hermits today, so the rest of the day felt kind of blurry. I know we scrubbed the upstairs tub and read some books. I practiced some piano. I ran on the treadmill and watched more of my Mitt Romney documentary while Lydia talked nonstop about making Anna and Elsa cards. Lydia and I made pizza and kale for dinner.
I joined Amazon Prime at the student rate and finally ordered myself some socks. I am always out of them and have been looking forward to getting some more ever since our tax return arrived. (Ha. That makes me sound so restrained. Actually, ever since the tax return arrived, I’ve been so busy ordering stuff that I just now got around to solving my socks problem…)
Speaking of ordering stuff, I finally called some Springfield shops to send my mom and grandma a Mother’s Day gift, but because I was so late, they refused to deliver anything until Monday. Sorry, Mom and Grandma! My love will manifest itself a day late this year.
I found out on Thursday our cooking team is taking tomorrow off, so I am going to have another Saturday at home with my family. I am so excited. I guess I’ll post some pictures and daydream about what to do with my Saturday!
Lydia wore her princess dress on and off all day. It was a little tricky because her nose kept bleeding on and off all day too. The dress stayed clean until the second to last nosebleed…I am afraid that Lydia and I gave higher priority to her dress than to her poor nose.
For FHE Abe taught a lesson on mothers. His activity was to have the girls take care of me. Lydia used her doctor kit to make me feel better, and Mary made me delicious food. Eventually, being sick looked so fun that Abe fell deathly ill and needed assistance too.
Long day! I got up at 5:15 to get to yoga, and then after yoga I started to drive to school for my competition team meet when I realized that there was no way I could get everything done today if I went to the meeting. So I turned around and headed home.
We ended up shopping for wedding clothes (Jon and Shirley are getting married next week!) and getting ready for the trip. Then we went to Ikea for dinner, and afterward drove to Provo to meet up with our friends Ben, Candace, Cadence–and their new twins, Aria and Bentley. Aria and Bentley were unbelievably adorable. Equally unbelievable was that we didn’t get pictures of them. Oh well. I accidentally overfed Bentley because I was so absorbed in my conversation with Candace, and the poor thing couldn’t take all the milk I was drowning him in. It ended up on my arm, so at least I have a souvenir.
We met up at Chuckee Cheese’s, a place none of us have visited for over twenty years. It was a lot smaller than we remembered! But the kids loved it, and it was a lot easier to talk and visit with all of that entertainment for the kids. The visit seemed short, but before we realized it, two hours had flown by. We reluctantly said goodbye, and then headed for home.
Except. Except Abe has been raving about the massage chairs at Qualtrics, and he really wanted me to try them. We were only five minutes away, so we headed over to try the chairs. When we got there, the chairs were taken! The whole building was empty, but there were two employees there getting massages in the chairs. Abe was bummed, but he was determined not to make the trip in vain. Since his card wouldn’t give him access to the third floor (where there are more massage chairs), he tried to circumvent the system by taking the elevator. No such luck. Instead, we spent ten minutes stuck in the elevator fearing we would never get out. Finally, we figured out we could exit into the garage, which opened back up onto the street. Phew! After that close call, we headed straight for home.
Now I will post the very poor pictures we took of 1) the girls at Kid to Kid, 2) Dinner at Ikea and 3) the girls at Chuckee Cheese.
Playing at Kid to Kid.
They were playing Frozen at Ikea. Eventually, we had to go feed Lydia because she was too caught up in the movie to eat.
Misty scheduled a tour of the fire department today for our preschool group (the one I dropped out of). We joined in for the fun and then had a picnic in the park with everyone afterward. The firemen were so nice and let the kids sit in the fire truck, tour the fire house, and taught them about fighting fires. Lydia now wants to be a fireman when she grows up.
Then I went to school and made: vada pav (an Indian sandwich), a Southwestern turkey wrap, lamb pita, blackberry yogurt soup, chilled tomato soup, and fried veggie chips. There were a lot of dishes to wash…
The other fantastic thing that happened today centered around the new book I’m reading. It’s entitled, The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education. It’s basically the Bible for many homeschoolers, and everything I read made me want to home school. I just don’t know if I have the energy to do a good job of it. Also, I worry my kids won’t have friends. On the other hand, school can be a vicious place, and I still feel like I’m dealing with the aftermath of social trauma that happened at school. Maybe sparing my children the pains of that wouldn’t be a terrible thing. I’ll have to think a lot more about this, but this is the very first time I’ve ever remotely considered home school. There’s a lot to think about!
