Today after church we had the Blosils over for dinner. They are a wonderful family with eight kids and an exchange student, although tonight they only had three kids and the exchange student with them. We so enjoy visiting with them. The only thing is, Carolyn brought the best gluten-free chocolate chip cookies over, and they left the remaining cookies with us. Since chocolate chip cookies are my #1 favorite food, I am now in a food coma and have nothing left to write.
Thank goodness I already captioned the pictures.
Breakfast.Lydia was one of the reverent children today. That meant she stood in front of the chapel while people filed in and she demonstrated how to be reverent by quietly folding her arms. We were proud of her.Lydia working our salad spinner.This is the playroom-to-be, but we inaugurated it by playing with paper dolls. I almost threw the dolls out yesterday in my purge, but good thing I saved them! Lydia played with them for hours during our dinner party.
When we dropped off the Subaru in American Fork for an oil change this afternoon, it occurred to me that Fetal Fotos was only five minutes away. I had a dream last night that I birthed a sweet baby boy, and I was really curious to know if this baby is indeed a boy. So Abe and I took the girls over to Fetal Fotos, and fifteen minutes later we found out…it’s a boy!
At first he was sleeping with his legs crossed over his bottom, so the ultrasound technician couldn’t see anything. She suggested I move around and poke my belly to wake the baby up. I poked and prodded (and prayed) that the baby would wake up, and a minute later she came back. He was awake! And he let us know he’s a he. We are so excited. I have pictures of him, but they are in the car. I will post them tomorrow.
That is the really big news of the day, but in terms of time spent, Abe and I both spent the entire day working on the house. Abe is finishing the play closets in the girls room, and David came over tonight to help him wallpaper one of them. They did an amazing job.
Afterward they were messy and took a looooong bath while I cleaned and organized the bathroom cupboards.I like this picture because it looks like Lydia is doing a catwalk…while holding her daddy’s hand.
Our DI run! We have even more stuff that we are getting rid of, but getting rid of this Stuff Round One felt very liberating.Abe and David in front of their labors. They finished after 10pm–they worked so hard and long! We are so grateful to David for driving down just to help Abe. It would have been so much harder for Abe to do this all alone. On Monday, Abe is going to put in the flooring. We can’t wait.
After my chiropractic adjustment this morning, I felt terrific. I was scared that the feeling would go away, so I feverishly went through the rooms and drawers of my house searching for items to throw away. We’re doing a loose interpretation of the Konmarie method over here these days. Forget categories–I am now just aiming for volume. I.e., how many trash bags can I fill today???
And the other labors of the day:
Last night before bed we read Curious George Makes Pancakes. I made “Curious George” pancakes for breakfast, and Lydia seemed excited.We picked flowers for Lydia’s teacher. These yellow roses were so thorny I ended up having to throw the flowers out. So sad.But these flowers turned out alright. Lydia wistfully talked about how many flowers we used to have at the old house, but as we hunted around this morning, we discovered that we had more rose bushes here than we realized.Lydia wrote a thank-you note to her teacher and insisted on glueing the beads from her broken bracelet to it for decoration. I thought it looked really pretty.The chiropractor’s office gave the girls balloons, and after we came home Mary was so excited she danced around it.
Making messy pizza.Twinning. Abe woke Mary up at 6 pm, at which point she sleepily told him: “I’m still sweeping (sleeping)!” She’s still tired here.But everyone woke up right before dinner. Abe and the girls had a dance party.
Since I can’t think of anything interesting about today, I will just record my favorite phrase of Mary’s lately: “Yessirreee!” She says it with decisive enthusiasm all the time, and every time it pops out of her mouth, I wish I could have caught it on video.
Another thing that happened today: Lydia started doing spontaneous addition and subtraction correctly. I was so thrilled! While she was eating her snack, she just started referencing her fingers and saying, “One plus one is…two. Two plus one is…three.Three plus one is…four.” Etc. And then she did the same thing with subtraction, only she didn’t use her fingers.
I felt like maybe some neuron pathways developed while she was sleeping last night because this was the first time she’s done addition or subtraction without help AND appeared to understand what she was saying. Maybe it’s a fluke pathway and tomorrow she’ll have no idea how to add or subtract, but I was so encouraged to see her at least start the path towards numeracy.
Also, I feel the need to record the song Abe made up: “If you can’t change the world, chaaaaange a diaper! It will make you feel better, one bottom at a time.”
The girls played princess in their princess tent this morning. There were mild hysterics when I announced we were going to the gym so I could swim. They would have preferred to stay in the tent for hours.
Lydia and I made an apple sharlotka together.I made latkes for dinner. These were some of the better ones. The first couple batches I made absurdly thick.Pre-dinner horsey ride.Post dinner pack-horsey ride.
This evening I attended our ward’s investment club and learned a lot about wills and trusts. I learned that if we don’t make a will and die before our children are 18, they will automatically be placed in foster care–even if we have close relatives who will take them. Thankfully, in Utah hand-written wills still work, so Abe and I are going to go to a notary tomorrow with some hand-written wills to tide us over until we get around to making a trust.
Lydia and I played puzzles this morning. I adopted a pay-attention-to-my-kids mantra for the day because all of the home improvement projects lately mean that the kids have been ignored.This is before Mary figured out how to fill tacos. She thought she was supposed to layer stuff on the outside of the shell.
After dinner candy necklace that Grandma Karin bought in Estes Park.
Today was the most productive day I’ve had since I got pregnant! I have been thinking about Stephanie Nielson (I know, I am obsessed), and she wrote recently that the more she moves her body, the better she feels. I thought that if she felt that way, then surely the same should go for me. So I moved today.
Specifically, I moved (almost) every single toy we own into my mom’s room for sorting. Lydia was a fantastic helper, and I couldn’t believe when we finally had all of the toys consolidated in one place. I opened all the windows because I was sweating so much. Woo-hoo for body movement!
After I pulled out all the toys, I stared at the piles and wondered how I could ever arrange them permanently so that the girls would actually play with them. Even after paring down, putting them back in the craft room felt like a waste. The girls just don’t play in there because they’d rather craft. Then it hit me. We need a play room! Good thing we have an extra guest room. I immediately started sketching out a floor plan so that the girls will have access to all of their toys.
Abe and I figure it will take us until Christmas to get the basement play room and craft room exactly the way I envision, but in the meantime, the sorting and organizing continue.
For FHE we talked about the church’s little hands service project, and each of the girls picked a service project to do this week. Mary announced that she would share a toy with Lydia (and immediately ran to get her some), and Lydia decided to write a thank-you letter to her preschool teacher. We will finish the project during next Monday’s FHE.
After FHE, we all sat around while the girls played with the only toys left in the basement: their play kitchen toys. I haven’t seen them play with those since we moved into this house. I felt affirmed in my decision to rearrange. Abe and I also felt delighted at Lydia’s pretend game of waitress. She was so solicitous and sweet, and we just felt lucky to have such a good girl in our home.
I made a German pancake before the girls woke up. It turned out to be a hilarious map of the uneven heating in my oven.Lydia was so proud of our morning labors.I put laundry away while Mary napped and felt so happy to see her tucked so snugly in on this rainy day.Making dinner together.The girls plug their ears when we turn on the blender.Red curry. This was the best dish I’ve made in a while. I have no idea why we don’t have Thai food more often/all the time.After we got the girls ready for bed, they wanted to play with all of their toys. I said, “Lydia, you’re always saying you want to make and keep a big mess. Do you like this room?” She replied sincerely, “Yes, Mom! This is the room I’ve always wanted! Thank-you!”
Abe taught a lesson on the prodigal son today, and I spent that time playing “dino parade” with some of the nursery kids. It was actually fun, and I got my spiritual uplift after dinner. The girls disappeared upstairs for two hours while Abe and I talked. I love talking with Abe because he always clarifies my thoughts and questions. Before we talked, I had been pondering some questions I have wondered ever since reading Stephanie Nielson’s memoir.
…And I elaborated on those questions before deleting the rest of the post. It was just too boring and long winded. At the end of the day, my conversation with Abe left me determined to be less judgy.
When we finally stopped talking, I headed upstairs to read to the girls and help herd them to bed. I discovered them happily conferring about how to make a window in a little “house” they had just built:
And I also took a picture of dinner. Abe makes all the salads around here because I find them boring, tedious, and too much work. He is more nutritionally motivated than I am, and since we recently got a great salad spinner, he has been making salad almost every night.
Abe’s salad and an artichoke-spinach-gruyere ziti. I don’t think we’ll repeat the ziti, as promising a combo as that sounded to be…but we will repeat Abe’s salad!
Today we drove to the Golden Spike National Monument with Tom, Suzanne, and Isabella. It took two hours to get there, and it poured rain the entire way. Because the Golden Spike is in the middle of absolute nowhere, I was sure we would have the whole monument to ourselves. Not so! There was a small crowd of hardy, determined souls braving the weather to witness the steam locomotive demonstration, and we were definitely not alone. We even ran into one of Abe’s high school friends after the re-enactment of the Golden Spike ceremony.
As I went through the day’s pictures, I beat myself up for not taking pictures of the scenery on the way to the Golden Spike. There were moors that were literally purple and orange, with occasional patches of bright yellow. In the grey, blustery storm, the colors flashed vibrantly against the sky. We were quite close to the Great Salt Lake, so there were also shallow, white pools of water that patterned their way through the moors. Add the very-near mountains to that, and the scenery took my breath away. I pinched myself the whole way there–I get to live in this state! I feel so lucky.
After our trip to the monument, we came home and immediately started our deep-clean-the-house project. I got rid of another garbage bag of children’s clothes, and I organized the clothes I kept into bins by season. I also cheated and threw away several garbage bags of books. I’m pretty sure Marie Kondo has her clients tidy by category, but today tidying by room seemed most motivational. Abe deep cleaned hidden messes in our bedroom, and we both feel so rejuvenated. I keep hearing him mutter, “When in doubt, throw it out!”
Abe braved the rain and got drenched just so he could learn more about the train AND get this photo.The steam locomotive, Jupiter, doing a demonstration on the tracks.Where they drove in the Golden Spike.Because of the weather, they had to do the reenactment of the original ceremony inside the visitor’s center. The reenactment was surprising in that it was amazing. Most of the actors had their scripts memorized and delivered their lines with gusto. It was a long ceremony! But they performed what I assume was a verbatim reenactment of what was said when the original spike was driven in. The entire nation celebrated this moment with parades, canon fires, and great ceremony.A picture of the Jupiter in the visitor’s center.Watching the reenactment.While we were cleaning, Abe came across this baby picture of his. I hope he didn’t throw it out, but in case he decided to, he took this picture. Isn’t he the cutest little boy?Abe also found this pastel he did of his room during he senior year in high school. It was one of the happiest years of his life, and he felt a lot of affection for his room; this picture conjured up a lot of emotion and memory for him.A random poem Abe found when cleaning. I think it’s evidence that his compassionate heart has been developing since childhood.
This morning Mary shocked me by waking up before Lydia AND before 8 am. Considering she was up until almost midnight the night before, I couldn’t believe my eyes. But there she was, standing by my bed grinning her morning grin that says, “Here I am world! I just know you’re happy to see me!” –which I always am.
So I took her downstairs with me to make waffles. She was so proud of herself.
After that, Lydia woke up and we all ate waffles. While they were playing in their morning bath, I called the chiropractor. I had tried to take a walk this morning before everyone woke up, and the pain in my back was so bad that I couldn’t make it to the end of the block. I have never been to a chiropractor before, but I figured it was time.
On the way to the chiropractor. The girls are entering the rainy world.
Then we had lunch, dropped Lydia off at preschool, and went grocery shopping for two hours. By that point, Lydia was done with preschool, and it was time for everyone to have quiet time.
Thankfully, I bought pizza yeast while we were doing groceries, so I still had time to make pizza for dinner–even after my three hour nap! After that we headed downstairs to watch Fantasia. Abe surprised me the other day and bought us plane tickets to L.A. for our anniversary weekend so that we can all spend it in Disneyland. I figure watching Disney movies counts as trip preparation.
Then I made lemon ginger cookies. I meant to send a batch to you, Mom and Grandma, but these were the worst cookies ever! I felt so disappointed in Martha Stewart. I turned to her recipe for help because I have been dying to make Tate’s ginger zingers; Abe even bought me a Tate cookbook for Mother’s Day in the hopes it would have the recipe in it, but when it arrived–there was no ginger zinger recipe! I thought surely Martha could help me…but after having made this recipe, I feel truly let down. I am sure she never taste tested these. They have no flavor. Next time I try this flavor combo in a cookie, I am going to add lemon oil or double the ginger or something. Plus, they’re ugly.
Mom, I am going to send you and Grandma cookies, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to ship these. Maybe I’ll try a different recipe later in the week.
