This morning Misty invited us to the Gateway for the children’s museum’s Halloween Party. Abe and I counted and realized that the girls will have gone to TEN Halloween celebrations by the time the actual day rolls around! Crazy, but I love this holiday.
I put Mary in Lydia’s old monkey costume, but Mary wanted to wear the wings Ina gave her. No problem–I let her, and she went dressed as a flying monkey!
I spent the rest of the day reading Dracula. Then Abe and I went to the temple and decided there that we need to move to Provo by Dec 1st. I am going to drop out of school this quarter so I can pack, house hunt, and MOVE. It’s going to be crazy, but once it’s done, I have a feeling it’s going to feel very worth it.
We have had so many Halloween activities that I accidentally dressed Lydia up in costume for preschool. I thought the Halloween parade was this week. The school administrator patiently informed me that the parade will occur on Halloween, as the flier they sent home clearly stated. Oops. In between worrying about my mistake and hoping Lydia was too young to feel embarrassed, I visit taught Marilyn and practiced a bit of piano at home.
Playing at Marilyn’s.
Then in the afternoon, Isabella came over and we went shopping for her costume. She wanted to be a cracked doll, so we went to Kid to Kid and DI looking for a lacy dress. I said a silent prayer as we pulled into DI, and bam! Within five minutes, we found the dress. I love God.
Then we picked up Lalitha, Eden and Ada before caravaning with the Pe’as to Red Butte for the Garden After Dark festivities.
Potions with Maleficent.A cracked china doll (aka Isabella)!
The bumblebee climbed a tree.Enamored. Ada blew her a kiss afterward.
Last night Mary barely slept, so Abe and I were exhausted today. Heck, Mary was exhausted; after breakfast, she took an hour and a half nap. After she woke up, we did errands while Lydia was at preschool.
One of our errands involved shopping for a baby shower present. I walked into Pottery Barn Kids and was disgusted (for the first time ever in that particular store) because there were Christmas decorations everywhere. Halloween, one of my favorite holidays of the year, hasn’t even happened yet!!! I want to walk in places and see witches, ghosts, and hobgoblins, and, most of all, PUMPKINS AND ALL THINGS FALL–not elves and Santa!
Also, I genuinely hate the commercialization of a holiday that does have actual religious significance to me. So in the spirit of objection, I went home and baked babka and celebrated Festivus. I air grievances all the time, and in light of how much I love babka (tonight was the first time I’ve had it), I think it should be a regular holiday around here. I’m sure I can drum up an aluminum pole somewhere…
Anyway, since I knew my social anxiety could NOT handle the baby shower, and since Abe was home exhausted with the kids, I literally spent ten seconds at the shower– enough to hand over a gift, grimace, and flee in terror. Even the ten second exposure I had kept me panicking until I made two more personal, uplifting visits on the way home (one to a visiting teachee and one to Abe’s aunt). Those picked me right back up.
I should stop writing and go help Abe. The poor man is cleaning the house, and I know he’s about to drop from exhaustion.
Here are the pictures!
Making babka.The messy chocolate part.One of the loaves.While I was gone, Abe made these broom with the girls for our FHE activity. I should note that they foraged for all of the materials in our yard. When I got back, we sang along to Frozen and I showed the girls a picture of my dad and taught them a little about who he was.
Grandma, I am so sorry to hear that you went to the hospital today. The girls and I immediately stopped and said a prayer for you, and during dinner Lydia wouldn’t let me finish my prayer until I prayed for you. We love you and hope you don’t have to deal with pain. We love you so much!
I forgot to take pictures today, so Abe took a bunch before putting the girls to bed:
Mary is now allowed to have her binkies in her toddler bed. She occasionally loses them underneath the bed, and she searches for them thus.
As I blog, Abe is kindly picking through each strand of my hair for nits again. Thank-you, my wonderful husband. I love you.
We just stayed home all day. I’m pretty tired from the lice situation. Mary was lice-free until she napped, and then she woke up with a bite on her neck and some nits around her ear. My heart dropped when I saw that.
Other than that, I spent the whole day cooking, reading to the girls, and cleaning.
Here are the pictures!
Lydia and I tried to turn challah into brioche today. I should have just googled a brioche recipe; the challah didn’t convert that well.After being trapped inside all day, Mary really wanted to go outside and read books. After all she’s been through, I happily aquiesced.
We had pot pies in pumpkins tonight. Mary thought it was novel.After dinner, the girls sang a song before FHE. Lydia made up the words and Mary was her chorus.
We got part of the song on video! You can see it here.
We had a FHE lesson on reverence. Abe had the girls play a game like Stop and Go! wherein the girls danced and acted crazy when Abe called out, “Crazy!”, and they knelt and acted reverent when he said, “Reverent!”. This is them kneeling.Crazy!Crazy again!
Oh my goodness, I haven’t blogged since Wednesday! Whoa. I have a lot of pictures from the missing days, but I am so sleep deprived right now that I can’t really recall the details of what happened. On Thursday we found out that Mary had lice, and basically my world ended right then. Since no salon cuts infested hair, I had to cut Mary’s hair off myself.
I given exactly one haircut in my life, and the person went straight to the salon afterward to get what I did fixed. My heart drops a little bit each time I look at my shorn little Mary.
So all I’ve done since The Bad News is comb out everyone’s hair with a nit comb a million times, wash every single piece of clothing, bedding, and any other loose material I can find in the house, and fold a TON of laundry. We listened to General Conference today, which was the bright spot in this sad time. Oh, and I had Abe give me a blessing yesterday, which also helped.
Here are some of the pictures I have (dating back to Thursday):
Lydia and Audrey holding hands on the play ground at preschool (they’re the two little girls in white shirts). I spy on them before I pick Lydia up.On the way to the doctor’s office, before I found out Mary had lice.Lydia fell asleep on the way to the doctor’s.Lydia getting her hair cut. She didn’t have lice, but we cut it anyway.
Abe took Friday off, which was a HUGE blessing considering all the work we had to do around the house. We took a break in the middle of the day and took the girls to the park.
I did get my camera fixed, though! Abe went crazy and took pictures during last night’s dinner to celebrate:
Some of the laundry that we did. All of this is now folded and put away. This wasn’t even all of it.Mary was so exhausted after everything that she fell asleep like this.
The rest of my pictures come from our outing to the park today:
You can see Lydia’s new haircut. I actually LOVE Lydia’s new hair, so that is a little consolation.You
You can see what a terrible job I did on her bangs. No salon will fix it until two weeks after the treatment. 🙁 …But she’s still adorable! Here she is giving me some pretend food she cooked up at the playground.
I really like laid back days, and today felt like one of those. We didn’t get up until after 8 am, which is always a plus. I worked out a little on the treadmill, fed the girls a bunch, did some errands, and then Abe and I had a temple date.
My camera is still in the shop, but here are some pictures I took on my phone before the date.
I did Isabella’s hair because we finally had time. (Abe was stuck in traffic)
Isabella brought candy for the girls.Mary was having fun on her bike.
Today started off with breakfast and a play date with Misty. I harbor fond hopes that someday Mary and Max will get married, and they were so cute and played ball together.
After Misty left, I took the girls to the basement to paint while I did the treadmill.
At five minutes and forty seconds in, Mary proceeded to spill green paint all over the basement carpet. I spent the next hour scrubbing and vacuuming and scrubbing the paint some more.
Then I put Mary down for a nap, knocked out three homework assignments and cleaned up Lydia and the back room carpet after she peed all over the floor. Feeling harried, I downed a cup of cocoa while the girls watched Snow White, and then I joined them until Isabella came over.
Isabella babysat the girls while Abe and I went to dinner and a concert with Karin and Jay.
We ate dinner at the Oasis Cafe.
Then we headed over to hear the Utah Chamber Artists perform a splendid concert at the Cathedral of the Madeleine. We were late, but we caught the end of the first half and all of the second half of the concert. The second half was the Utah premiere of Eriks Esenvalds Passion and Resurrection. My favorite part was the very end, where the chorus sings to the soprano, “Woman, why weepest thou?” and she responds, “Sir, if thou has borne him hence, tell me where thou has laid him, and I will take him away.” The chorus then sings, “Mariam, Mariam, Mariam,” in a sweet, echoing refrain. The lights in the church went out as the soprano took up an alter candle and walked to the end of the church singing, “Rabboni, Rabboni, Rabboni.”
The concert is free, and I want to go again tomorrow, at least to hear the parts I missed tonight. We’ll see if that’s even logistically possible, but I really, really enjoyed it.
Agh, only one picture today, Grandma! I was going to take a picture of Lydia in the outfit she told you about, but I had to get dinner ready and she changed out of that too soon. I did get a picture of dinner, though:
We had red lentil and lime soup with Greek yogurt, saffron rice, and a tomato/cucumber salad. I made lemon bars for dessert, but, thankfully, they were a disaster. I wasn’t even really tempted.
Tom had to do church stuff, but Suzanne came over for dinner. We had a lot of fun with her and discussed one of my favorite topics: The Second Coming. Mom, did you know that President Hinckley announced in the General Conference right after September 2011 that the prophecies of Joel had been fulfilled? Suzanne told us, and I looked it up here. It was very exciting. Abe and I are thinking about postponing our end-of-the-year Disney trip and buying food storage instead…
I was pretty tired today, so other than bathing the girls, taking Lydia to preschool, feeding everyone and cleaning up, I just lay in bed sleeping and reading. I have a ton of laundry to fold and a lot of toys to sort, so maybe tomorrow I will finally get around to that!
Oh, I did one fun thing, though. I was reading All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenting, and the author cited research that said most parents would prefer housework over spending time with their kids. Feeling guilty, I put the book down, rounded up Lydia and had a “cocoa and cookies party” with her. We ate cookies, drank cocoa, and talked. I learned more about preschool during our “party” than I have in all the time I’ve drilled her about it in the car! It was fun.
Mom and Grandma, we loved talking to you today. We love you and miss you so much!
I spent the rest of the day reading Dracula. Then Abe and I went to the temple and decided there that we need to move to Provo by Dec 1st. I am going to drop out of school this quarter so I can pack, house hunt, and MOVE. It’s going to be crazy, but once it’s done, I have a feeling it’s going to feel very worth it.
