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Because Isabella was here, I got in my last minute Christmas shopping this morning. The shopping didn’t take that long, but the time bomb came when I combed the entire Super Target looking for To and From tags–to no avail. I guess I will have to make my own. Darn.

I also turned out two batches of Zimmsterne today. The first batch was a flop, but the second came out fine. I’m starting to feel Christmased out. Thank goodness we’re only three days away–I don’t think I could keep up the pace much longer than that. Plus, I can’t wait to get rid of our tree. It’s dead, and the girls play with the garland and ornaments so much that it has turned into a bedraggled eye sore. The minute I wake up on December 26, I am going to get that outta here.

Oh, the other monumental event of the day occurred when I did Isabella’s hair. I’m so out of practice from Lydia’s short hair cut that it took me two hours to do Isabella’s hair. Her legs fell asleep from sitting for so long! But finally, finally I managed to do a waterfall/fishtail combo, and she looked so pretty.

We also drove to Salt Lake to return Isabella and check out daycare options for the girls during our Cancun trip. We found a really great contender, but seeing day care options made me so, so grateful I get to stay home with my kids. I take that for granted often, and today helped give me some perspective.

Abe had a great “reunion” with his AXB friends tonight. They have a secret Santa exchange every year, and he thought that tonight they were meeting up at a restaurant–another reason we headed up to Salt Lake. It turned out though that everyone did a group video chat. Since we were driving, Abe rigged up his lap top and phone and managed to fully participate while I drove home on the freeway. Connecting with his friends was a huge highlight of his day.

Pictures:

I actually forgot to blog yesterday, and so I’m trying to squeeze it in now before the kids wake up. After church, we napped, ate dinner, and danced to music and acted silly until bedtime. (Well, Abe, Isabella, Lydia, and Mary participated. I was pooped from cooking two meals and lay on the couch smiling and watching.) Here are the pictures!

Our temple plans were thwarted when Mary had a nightmare last night. I spent much of the rest of the night cuddling with her in our bed trying to get her to go back to sleep. So instead we just spent the whole day enjoying Isabella’s company.

We baked cookies, went out to eat Thai food, and went to the mall for some last minute Christmas shopping. There was a lot of lazing around in between those events, and we are about to watch The Two Towers with Isabella in a minute. She hasn’t seen it!

Here are today’s pictures:

We spent a long time in the car today because we drove to and from Salt Lake in one continuous loop to pick up Isabella for our sleepover tonight. As I type I can hear murmuring and giggles from the girls’ room.  They have had a blast.

Abe and I celebrated the end of the hardest, most productive week of Abe’s career at Qualtrics by going out to see The Hobbit tonight. Since Isabella is here, we are going to get up early and sneak in a temple session, so we are going to bed as soon as possible.

Here are some pictures from Isabella’s sleepover. We are so excited to have her with us again!

 

We had a play date with our next door neighbor today. Their three year old, Anabelle, was born in Evanston hospital–where Lydia and I were both born! They were in our home ward while we were there, but we didn’t know them then. It was fun getting to know our neighbors better.

Today was a get-to-know-our-neighbors day. After the play date, my new visiting teaching companion dropped by with some amazing bread, and then I chatted with another neighbor, Laurie, for the better part of an hour during Mary’s nap. Lydia was thrilled because that meant she got to pet the cats that whole time.

I flunked the portfolio part of my final tonight. I didn’t spend any time on it at all, and so I wasn’t very surprised. I’ll still pass the class, which is all that really matters to me. Oh, and I accidentally took the final test with the review sheet open in front of me. I didn’t realize I had it in front of me until I was about to turn in my test, and then I gasped and grabbed the review sheet to make sure it wasn’t a figment of my imagination. The class mate at my table arched an eyebrow, and I felt like the world’s biggest dummy. When oh when will I become a little less spacey??

Abe had, potentially, the best day at work he’s had since starting Qualtrics. We are very grateful to God for how well everything is going right now. Mom, feel free to call for details tomorrow.

On the other hand, the Salt Lake Library is threatening to send debt collectors after me because I accidentally packed a library book, and I now have $80 in fines. I will be driving to Salt Lake to return that tomorrow (and to pick up Isabella, who is sleeping over! Fun!)

Pictures:

I let Lydia skip preschool today because Paige, Ada, and Liv came down for a play date. Lydia was so excited to see Ada that she she stood on a stool by the kitchen counter for twenty minutes and refused to move because she wanted to “wait for Ada to come.” When Ada got here, the girls decorated cookies, ate lunch, and played outside. It was great fun.

Speaking of school, I finished my final practical for my baking class today. I got the highest score in the class! Well, tied with two others. I felt really proud of myself because cooking school has not been easy, and I have been very mistake prone all quarter. It felt good to get some things right.

One thing I did not get right is that I lost my pastry cream. Actually, I was convinced one of my class mates stole it, and I was pretty upset all of class until I realized that someone had just moved my pastry cream, and then I felt ashamed of suspecting my class mate. (In my defense, he stole my equipment last during the final last week, and so I just assumed he had moved on to my actual products this week. I should really give people the benefit of the doubt more often.)

I just erased my blog because I realized that all I wanted to talk about was my headache  and I know that is about as interesting to read about as my chin hair growth rate (maybe less? I could tell a story with a semblance of narrative arc about the latter…)

At any rate, I am powering through the pain to record today’s events.  Heroic, I know. Today started off really great. Abe and I both got up early, and he worked in a nice scripture study before work while I worked out, showered, and got in my own study. The girls did not sleep in, and because of that, their moods today were…delicate. I did manage to bathe them, feed them, read to them, and play with them, but more often than not all of these activities ended in tears. I also folded a week’s worth of laundry and made gingerbread men with Lydia. (I had to squeeze that last sentence in there because I am darn proud of myself for getting those things done).

We met up with Misty at IKEA, and Lydia was thrilled to see Sophia again. I was thrilled to meet Misty’s newborn, Owen.

Afterward, we came home and held a truncated FHE (truncated in honor of the girls’ delicate moods). A couple tantrums later, both girls are in bed, and I again have (vain?) hopes that they will sleep in tomorrow.

Two pictures:

Other than church, I spent the entire day cooking for a dinner we had with Abe’s boss and his boss’s wife tonight. I am slooooooww in the kitchen. All of my Sabbath time and attention revolved around: roasted leg of lamb with anchovies and rosemary, salsa verde, all sorts of squash with brown sugar, lime, and pomegranate, fennel foccacia (under-kneaded, and so the crust blew off. Needless to say, I didn’t serve that one!), kale salad, and gingersnaps. Abe almost took a picture, and then one of the kids threw a tantrum and we forgot to follow through.

The best part was, quite sincerely, the company. We had such a great time. I just liked Kim and Lucas a lot, and my social anxiety was so eased by their loveliness that I didn’t even feel flattened by panic during or after their visit. Yay for making more friends in Orem!

OH! Another good thing that happened was a phone call with Clark and Swathi. We talked about so much good news: Swathi got placed at her number one pick for her fellowship, Clark got promoted to a senior consultant with IBM just one year after starting there, and Swathi turned 30 on Friday. I love that little family.

Since we forgot to take pictures today, Abe snapped another one of Mary with her excessive number of binkies.

Also, I want to get rid of Francie. I find her seriously irritating because she sits in front of the front door and tries to get in the house each time we leave or enter. Lydia and Abe are both attached though, so I will have to figure out a scheme to transfer their affection onto only Bazi.

We did take a picture of our beanbag that we got on a holiday sale from Restoration Hardware. We watched The 11th Hour  last night, and I have to say, that bean bag makes the best foot rest ever!

I got an Orem library card today! One part of the process that struck fear in my heart occurred when the librarian told me that this library does not have a read-down-your-fines program. I am just going to have to learn how to return books on time, I guess. I don’t know if I can do it, but  it’s either that or I need to budget for beans and rice every night since the rest of our budget will be taken up by library fines.

My final in class went well tonight! I have two more finals next week. Tonight we had to make French bread, sweet tart dough, and eclaire paste. My eclairs and Paris brests were not great, but I accidentally made my dough too runny, so they were the best I could eek out of what I had to work with.

I also forgot to take pictures today. I could have taken more sunrise shots since Lydia came into my room and watched the “show” with me, but it looked a lot like yesterday. I’m not tired of it yet, but I don’t know if the camera would have captured anything remarkably different.

Oh, and I forgot to say congratulations to Abe! He won a work contest, so he and I get to go to a resort in Cancun for five days next month. At first we were concerned about what to do with our kids, but Tom and Suzanne agreed to watch them today, and we are so grateful. Abe has just done an amazing job at his job, and I’m so proud of him. It was a big risk switching to Qualtrics for him, but he’s just worked so ridiculously hard. In fact, he’s exhausted, so I need to stop blogging and let the poor exhausted man rest!