yoga – Page 2 – Darais Days

grimy

This morning Isabella came over so I could go swimming, and then we all went to Jump Around Utah to celebrate Sophia’s birthday.

They had more fun on this slide than anything. Oh, the irony.

Mary headed to rescue her friends from the "hurricane room." — Mary headed to rescue her friends from the “hurricane room.”

Isabella and Mary did this slide over and over again.

Whenever they slid to the bottom, Mary would cry, "GAIN!!!" (Again!). — Whenever they slid to the bottom, Mary would cry, “GAIN!!!” (Again!).

After that, I fed the girls and then Kate, another new babysitter, came over while I went to yoga. I have been an absent mom lately. But my unlimited yoga pass expires in a month! I still feel guilty, though. Anyway, after yoga, I came back, showered, and cooked dinner.

Afterward, the girls played a bit before I headed off to my Primary meeting. They look bedraggled because I haven’t done anything to their hair since yesterday morning.

Lydia exclaiming, "Guys, it's beautiful out here today!" This is after only one day of not doing her hair. — Lydia exclaiming, “Guys, it’s beautiful out here today!” This is after only one day of not doing her hair.

Here’s how clean and tidy they looked yesterday morning:

But tonight I was literally scrubbing grime off of Lydia’s face in her bath. It’s amazing how dirty kids can get is such a short period of time–and we went swimming yesterday, too! That grime basically accumulated all today.

While I was at my meeting, Abe took the girls on a walk to the park.

Lydia's natural expression. Mary's natural expression. — Lydia’s natural expression. Mary’s natural expression.

Ode to Isabella

Abe and I have a lot to give thanks for today. He had a fantastic day at work and I had a wonderful day at home. Well, actually, I spent a lot of the time at yoga because Abe’s cousin is now on the babysitting market, and she charges the same rate as my gym childcare. Lydia has begged me to let Isabella babysit her, and even though I was initially hesitant because Isabella is slightly on the young side, I finally relented.

When I got home from yoga, not only was Mary peacefully napping, but Lydia and Isabella were happily chatting away in Lydia’s clean room. That’s right. Isabella and Lydia cleaned while I was at yoga. Isabella found her way to my heart strings today. I should have snapped more photos of Lydia hugging Isabella, which she did spontaneously and with great affection multiple times, but I was just too busy trying to do laundry and deep clean the house. Isabella hung out with us for the rest of the day, and when Mary got up, we all went to the pool for a little bit.

Then we came back home and ate dinner. Abe took the girls to buy a present for Sophia’s birthday party tomorrow, and I stayed home and “cleaned.” (I actually spent most of the time eating banana bread.)

We held FHE when Abe and the girls returned. I gave a little lesson on the flag and then we drew pictures of the flag on Sophia’s wrapping paper.

Yoga, Market, Baptism, Wedding.

Today was another 5:15 am day. I have an unlimited Bikram yoga pass for a month AND today is the last Saturday that my studio offers a 6 am class. There was no way I could miss it! After that, I came home, showered, scarfed down one of Abe’s fabulous pancakes, and took the girls to the market. (I had to wake Abe at 5:30 to help me find his car keys, and so he needed a nap.)

Lydia pushing Mary to the market. Mom, can you see the stickers you sent them on their dresses?

Lydia and Mary each got to pick a rock for a quarter.

The sweet, kind men at the rock stand let the girls have some rocks for free, too.

We ran into Nathan and Hannah (and Gregory) at the market! Not pictured: We also ran into Karin and Jay.

After the market, we came home and rested for a minute. I had to play the piano for a baptism at 12:30, so it was a quick rest. Abe was really sweet and gave me a shin massage because yesterday’s 10,000 steps gave me shin splints. Pathetic, I know. With the greatest reluctance, I cut the massage off and headed over to the baptism.

The baptism was absolutely wonderful. I sat down with Jessica Felix (who got baptized) afterward, and she told me her amazing conversion story. She kept referring to how wonderful “that Mormon book” is and even quoted passages to me–spontaneously, with great enthusiasm. She was incredibly inspiring. I’m so glad she’s part of our ward family now.

After I got home from the baptism, I discovered the girls eating a big lunch.

Then it was errands and a wedding. Abe’s cousin got married today, and since we couldn’t make it to the sealing this morning, we headed up to their reception in Midway tonight. Midway is so beautiful. For a minute, I thought maybe we should move there…and then I thought about how cold it is (it’s up in the mountains) and how Abe would have to commute through a canyon everyday. No thanks. But as the setting for a reception (it was at Susie’s aunt’s house), it was perfect.

Lydia painted Isabella some pictures a couple days ago and put them in an envelope. She was so happy to give Isabella the pictures today when we carpooled en route to the wedding.

Isabella and Lydia on the bench while the rest of us went through the line.

Susie made these darling flower garlands.

I'd never had dippin' dots before. They're cold! And tasty. — I’d never had dippin’ dots before. They’re cold! And tasty.

The house had a beautiful, Martha Stewart worthy garden. — The house had a beautiful, Martha Stewart-worthy garden.

This was the biggest, most healthy looking rhubarb plant I have ever seen.

Eating their dippin' dots. — Eating their dippin’ dots.

Sadie is one week apart from Mary, and you can kind of see a resemblance, I think. Her mother and Abe are cousins.

Since the reception only had desserts, Abe and I took the girls straight to Whole Foods afterward and filled up. Lydia kept running around saying, “I’m so healthy! Who’s a healthy girl??? Me!!! I am!!! I’m so healthy!!”

We also discovered that Mary looooooves pepperoni pizza. Since we were so late, Whole Foods sold us a leftover pizza for a discounted price. We didn’t break it open until the car ride home, and Mary went totally nuts. She can’t even say three syllable words yet, but in the middle of the ride she said, “pah-pah-roh-nee” and pointed vigorously at the pizza box. She ended up eating an entire slice by herself.

I comforted myself about the late hour on the way home by thinking, “Oh, well. If we’re fifteen minutes late to church tomorrow, no big deal.” And then I remembered that I have a calling now that requires me to get to church on time. Sorry to say it, but darn. Guess I’ll get to bed ASAP so the morning isn’t quite so painful.

Another long and busy day (could that title be any more generic?)

Because we got to bed at such a wonderfully reasonable time last night, I didn’t mind waking up at 5:15 to go running. I ran around the track behind Ensign Elementary School, and from the track there’s a gorgeous view of the entire Salt Lake Valley. While I was running, the sun rose over the mountains, and, well, it was thrilling.

Then I came home and got ready for the day. The girls have been sleeping in lately, which generally is wonderful, except when we have places to go. Today we rushed breakfast so we could make it to story time at the library.

Another reason we are late everywhere. The girls get distracted en route to the car (a thirty second walk).

Lydia was really excited that Mary has teeth. Mary has had teeth for a while, but I guess Lydia didn't notice until today. — Lydia was really excited that Mary has teeth. Mary has had teeth for a while, but I guess Lydia didn’t notice until today.

On the way to the library, Lydia loves to push Mary in the stroller.

Story time at the library. Today the kids all got bee hats (today we had an insect theme) and mini kazoos!

On the way to the library, we met an artist headed to the Salt Lake Arts Festival. She makes purses, and her purses were so beautiful that I decided to drive to my school to pick up some free tickets. (I volunteered at a catering event a while back, and all the volunteers got tickets as a thank-you.) Since we were already in Draper, we headed to Ikea for lunch.

Ikea frozen yogurt. We made a mess on the window... — Ikea frozen yogurt. We made a mess on the window…

After Ikea we went to the post office to pick up Abe’s birthday present to me–a replacement iPod for the one we lost over a year ago. Then I did a couple more errands before heading home.While Mary napped, I called all the babysitters we know until Abe’s cousin turned out to be free. I have an unlimited yoga pass this month, so I woke Mary from her nap, dropped the girls off at Abe’s cousin’s house and headed to yoga.

Then we came home and got ready to go to the Arts Festival.

These are the purses that convinced me to add a three hour errand to the day in order to get my free tickets to the arts festival. I just read a talk this morning on materialism, and the phrase “We need to recognize when we have enough” ran through my mind while I was looking at these. I don’t need more than one purse, but if I had unlimited resources AND hadn’t read that talk this morning, I might have gotten one. They were so pretty.

We got to hear Rhapsody in Blue at the festival. Mary squirmed a lot.

At the end of the festival. We left just as it was starting to rain again.

All in all, it was another busybusybusy day. I’m hoping for a slower pace tomorrow!

Blah.

I got up at 5:10 so I could pick up the babysitter and get to yoga in time. After that, I got the kids ready and took them to the Aviary to meet up with Jen, El, Spencer, Laddie, and Natalie. The children were so cute and excited to see the birds–and more ducks, of course!

I came home exhausted and lay in bed for a while surfing the internet. One of the blogs I read annoyed me, and I made a rather nasty comment to the author (who I do not know). After I did that, I felt so terrible, and actually I’ve felt bad all day. I did send the author a heartfelt apology, and she was very nice about it. I felt grateful for human forgiveness today, although I’ve also felt terrible all day long that I did something that hurtful to such a nice person.

On the bright side, Abe and I are in love with our Hyde Park tenants. They are the nicest people, and Abe has been raving all day about his conversation with them. They are an older couple who are living there for the summer to be close to a new grandchild, and they are so sweet. They actually thanked us for the opportunity to fix up our condo. Abe couldn’t believe his ears. In fact, he’s talking about how much he loves them as I type.

After I had somewhat recovered from my bad behavior and its aftermath, I loaded the kids up and headed to Provo. Abe’s work team had a dinner at his boss’s house, and I really enjoyed meeting his coworkers.

I practically fell asleep driving home, and I cancelled the babysitter for tomorrow morning. I think I might sleep in…

looooong day

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.

They were playing Frozen at Ikea. Eventually, we had to go feed Lydia because she was too caught up in the movie to eat.

A perfect Spring day

Really, it was. This day felt perfect. Having sunshine made all the difference! Even though Abe and I anticipated being zombies because we got so little sleep last night, both of us had great days. We credit God and the sunshine for that. That the girls were really quite adorable all day long helped too.

I got in: a walk to the library, baby book club with Misty, a nap, reading more in The Triple Package, a lot of homework, some ironing, a long walk with Abe and the girls, Bikram yoga, cooking a veggie phyllo roll, picking up the house, doing laundry, folding some laundry, feeding the girls three meals, setting the girls up to craft and watercolor, reading to the girls, a couple phone calls with my mom and grandma and even forty minutes of piano practice. It was an abnormally productive day. As my dad used to say, “variety is the spice of life!” This day had spice.

On the Abe front, he had another tremendous day at work. He raved to me almost the whole walk about how blessed he feels and how there is literally not one part of his day that he dreads. He looks forward to every task at work, and great stuff is basically falling into his lap for no reason other than that God must be looking out for him. Obviously, he’s doing his part, but he can not remember a time in his life where he has felt so abundantly blessed by an outpouring of God’s love.

The girls are cute. Mary said “Nana” to my mom on the phone today, and Lydia is very concerned about my grandma’s health. She kept asking how Grandma was feeling and doing. Here are some pictures Abe took of the girls while I was at yoga:

General Conference time again

Today Mary woke up at 5:19 am because she is teething (finally!!!). Since I was already up, I went to 6 am Bikram and then came home and practiced before General Conference started.

We’ve had Grandma Darais on our minds all day. Abe said he doesn’t feel ready for his grandma to die, and he wishes he had spent more time with her while she was alive. He’s going to write his thoughts tomorrow.

I started practicing Claire de Lune tonight in preparation for the funeral or family reception. I don’t know if or when I’m supposed to play it, but apparently I’m going to be asked to play it at some point, and since I’ve never played it before, 10 pm tonight found me picking my way through it. Our neighbors had a late night poker party going on, so they were indulgent and let me practice above them. We looooooooove them. Anyway, this was Grandma Darais’ favorite piece–and I seem to recall my grandma loves it too. Grandma, I thought I could kill two birds with one stone: I’ll prepare this piece for Grandma Darais’ events, and then when we come to visit in May, I’ll play it for you if we can find a piano.

Also, Mary said her name today! It was so cute. I was bathing her and Mary’s toy turtle with little plastic man (Grandma, these are your old bath toys! Remember them?) floated away. She got quite concerned and pointed to her out-of-reach toy and blurted out, “Mareee!” She wanted me to give the toys back to “Mareee.” I tried to have her say her name again, but so far she’s best at saying words when she’s in a desperate situation. When she tries to think about it, the process seems a lot harder.

Here are today’s pictures:

Abe and the girls had a dance party while I practiced. Lydia made sure everyone had a picture she'd colored taped to their tummies...and, of course, the girls had their balloons. — Abe and the girls had a dance party while I practiced. Lydia made sure everyone had a picture she’d colored taped to their tummies…and, of course, the girls had their balloons.

...Or maybe she was just preparing to play in the chair. — …Or maybe she was just preparing to play in the chair.

A rushed post

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:

Birthday Eve

Hello all, it’s Abe again.

The day started by me leaving to work, and Georgia babysitting Lydia and Mary while Lily went to a yoga session. Yoga is one of the few really great ways Lily can excercise without aggravating her shin splints. After Yoga, Georgia got a ton of things done on her t0-do-while-I’m-in-town list and Lily started the festivities with Lydia. They baked her cake and made cupcakes together.

Meanwhile at work, I found out that I am interviewing for promotion on Monday. I am very excited to take the next step in my career and I hope it goes really well. I also hope that I don’t have to interview with a case of pink-eye. Lydia came down with it today and I’m hoping to last at least three days until I too have the bug!

On my drive home, I finished Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Of the four C.S. Lewis books I just read, I would say it is my least favorite, which is interesting because C.S. Lewis says it was his least favorite book to write. He said it was fun in the beginning, but after a while it was not fun at all for him to have to spend so much time thinking and writing from the point of view of a servant of satan. My reading experience echoes those sentiments. In short, it was insightful, but not uplifting.

Then I met Lily at school and picked up the kids. Lydia was in a better mood than Mary on the ride home in the beginning. Lydia was cheerful as she talked about the fact that she is going to watch Disney’s Frozen on her birthday tomorrow and as she had imaginary conversations with her cat (which was at home, not in the car). Her mood soured later in the ride, though, and she got really upset because Mary was crying, and Lydia said that Mary was being too loud and just woke up her cat. I started to explain that Mary could not have woke Lydia’s cat, because Puss (the cat) was not in the car. Lydia didn’t buy it, so I just kept driving while they both fell apart…..I think my tolerance for crying is increasing!

We then stopped at Smith’s to get Lydia’s eyedrops and animal crackers. We got the ceremonial free treat at the bakery and made our why home where we had a great pasta and brocolli dinner with Georgia. Mary was crazy about the brocolli Georgia made (it was delicious) and screamed when her plate ran out. Although I was not happy about her antics, I was happy that her antics were over wanting more brocolli.

After dinner we had family home evening where I taught a lesson about the organization of the church. We have Stake Conference Sunday and I wanted to try to explain a little bit to Lydia about why this Sunday will be different. I’m not sure that I was able to communicate anything meaningful to Lydia, but it felt good to be spending time as a family and talking about meaningful topics. After the lesson I drew a cat on the chalkboard per Lydia’s request. Before drawing the cat, I whiped the chalkboard clean and Lydia had a complete meltdown because there was a red mark on the board that simply would not come off. It completely threw her off her emotional equilibrium and it was a few minutes before we were able to calmly move forward with the cat-drawing.

Pictures!!!

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