Mini vacation

Ben talked me into a quick trip to Park City for the night.  Unfortunately the pool was closed but the kids had fun anyway. The hotel hosted s'mores night at their fire pits:

In the morning we found some fun rides for the kids 

Then we went to the park where Eliza fell and scraped her knee, so we had to stop for slurpees on our way home (obviously).

Yard work with Kids

I love to work in my yard, I feel like it's the one thing where you almost instantly get out what you put in, I love a freshly weeded flower bed and muddy hands. 

However, yard work with kids means I either do it during nap time or I get so frustrated that very little gets done.

Like Today: Anna off to school at 9:00 then I dressed, woke, fed, changed diapers, dressed, fed again, dressed again, bathroom breaks until 10:30 when we finally went outside. I chose to work in the backyard because there is plenty to do and it is fully fenced to contain childrens. But the kids (and this happens every time) whine to go inside or to the front yard or they are hungry or need to go to the bathroom. So I sort of finish where I am and follow them to the front yard where we follow the following pattern and repeat it about 10 times until I am exhausted. Pick 3 weeds, chase Calvin down the street, bring him back, pick 3 weeds, chase...

And it's not just a house or two away, it's usually 4-5 houses at least. He is a fast and determined little bugger.

When it's clear that I'm no longer getting out what I put in, it's time to go inside again.

Happy Birthday/Mother's Day

It's true, my birthday was on Mother's day this year. It was pretty good.  Anna woke me up with Breakfast In Bed. (Oops All Berries with Almond Milk and a glass of water) She made it all herself without making a mess.

Here is the picture she took of me, eating my breakfast.
















I then spent the majority of the morning making my birthday cake. It's a Boston Creme Crepe Cake, which sounded amazing. It doesn't look so hot, (the chopstick is too keep it from landsliding...again) and it wasn't as good as the Boston Creme donuts, but it was a fun treat, and an even better breakfast the next day.

Here it is on fire. We were at the Homestead celebrating Mothers/Tonis and got a surprise visit from Matt and Rachelle!

Church was great, except for the part where I had to take kids to church. But Calvin stayed for the whole 3 hours (I have been taking him home during the 2nd hour to take a nap for the last 2 months) He even went to his nursery class and was only brought to me in tears at the very end of church. We got into the car and he was asleep in his carseat before I left the parking lot. Poor boy. Oh, Wee lamb.

Lamp wars

Eliza has a very bright lamp hooked to her bed that she MUST keep on all night. Well, once in a while it burns out and causes chaos. Sunday night it happened again. You know, a smart parent would have 2 or 3 of these on hand for these kinds of emergencies, but we are not that smart. So without her light, and in hysterical, tired tears, I offered her a flashlight (what kid wouldn't love to take a flashlight to bed?) She rejected that. I offered her a dim nightlight in the shape of a cute little mushroom. Rejected. Finally, I left her with nothing.
Tears ensued.
Ben finally caved and brought up a generic desk lamp that we had in storage. He took it up and plugged it in and warned them "Don't touch this and don't let it tip over because if it does, it will probably start a fire."

1 minute later they unanimously agreed that they didn't want that lamp, or any lamp and they would be just fine in the dark.

Parenting.

Tulip Festival Half Marathon of Doom

So Saturday morning I woke up early and Thad and I went down, light hearted, to run the half marathon that we have been training for since February.

It was raining.
It was cold.
It was hilly.
It was 13.1* miles!!

Basically it was the worst, I wore a light hoodie which by the end, weighed legitimately 7 lbs.
My sweet mom came and cheered me on at several spots along the route and ran with me the last mile. I finally finished in just over 3 hours.
I think I am currently better suited for 10K's that take place in good weather.
I am understandably sore today but I can still move pretty well.

This is Ben's picture at the finish line. I couldn't run with my glasses on - that is another complaint.


*according to Thad's mapApp, it was slightly longer than that.

Butterfly accessories

The other day Anna decided to make a butterfly

Then she decided to accessorize her butterfly, she made it a crown and a dress.

Never Say Never

Over the past year I have found myself repeatedly doing things that I have never even considered before.
Example: I thought I would never like Parks and Rec. I am watching it at this very moment and have seen all the episodes repeatedly.

I have tried giving up sugar - I made it about 3 weeks. Something I would never have considered even 6 months earlier.

I have taken up running, in fact, I signed up for a half-marathon before I even tried running more than 3 miles. Now I have run a ton and I kind of love it. I go for runs whenever I can get away and I'm doing pretty well. The race is in 2 weeks. And yes, I can remember all my vehement protestations against long distance running up to this point. I don't know what is going on.

So, I guess i need to keep a more open mind to what is possible. 

Land Girls

After I watched "Call the Midwife",  Netflix recommended another BBC drama about women called "Land Girls" about the women sent to work on farms during WWII.

It's not great. But the "bad guy", the brash, bullying, American's last name is Gillespie. 

Anna is 6!

Anna was so excited for her birthday, she was sure she'd be 6" taller as soon as she woke up. Sadly she was not, but probably 6" taller than a year ago.

Here is the birthday spread, that's as fancy as we get.

She had 7 friends plus Eliza (who was very concerned about being invited)

Great birthday, great girl, getting better every day.

Calvin the Destroyer

Ok so I half forgot that I could blog from my phone and half stopped taking pictures because Calvin is certifiably addicted to my phone and he throws tantrums if he even sees it. But this week we have started breaking this habit and I took some pictures of these crazy kids.

I've started calling Calvin "the destroyer". He is relentless, he empties drawers constantly and wanders around all day looking for things that need "rearranging". I can quote Ben last week saying "Agh! There are too many drawers in this house!"

"All the things!!"

These girls are equally busy. Anna started taking piano lessons two weeks ago. She wakes up before anyone else and practices her songs every morning. She is a smart cookie and a sponge for information.

Eliza is learning lots of things like, how to put on socks by herself and hand washing 101. She learns mostly by mimicking her big sister all the time. 

 

Here we are at the circus last month, that's me thinking "what have I done?!"

Here we are at the dinosaur museum, we put the stegosaurus together ourselves. I don't know who those other kids are, but they helped us so they got to be in the picture.

Rapunzel

I figured this out as I read the story a few days ago to the girls and then heard the song again today. Disney does it again.

Christmas Presents

Christmas was great, we were showered with gifts and love and joy. But my very favorite gift came this morning when Ben let me sleep in while he fed and entertained the children. I lounged in bed until 9:30 denying the existence of a world beyond the sheets. Merry Christmas

Recipes That Don't Work #43

So we were invited to a Family Night at our neighbors and prepared to make brownies to share. Here is the secret recipe for brownies that don't work:

Ingredients:
1 box of brownie mix
water
oil
egg
mini marshmallows
heat source - preferably an oven

1- Mix together the water, oil and egg
2- add brownie mix
3- bake as directed
4- 3 minutes before it finishes baking, brainstorm how to make them just a little more special - settle on the idea of adding marshmallows to the top and letting them toast. Sounds delicious and definitely something that has been done on cupcakes.
5- Act on this impulse. Pull the brownies out and sprinkle mini marshmallows across the top then re-insert into the oven and crank it up to 400.
6- Keep a close eye on it, when it starts to toast and golden up (it will also be puffy), take it out of the oven. About 5 minutes.
7- Let it cool before cutting. This is when they fail really starts. Go ahead and try to cut through marshmallow goo and down into brownie. Did you try? Did you see how terrible it is? Do you comprehend the gigantic mess that you have set yourself up for?
8- Accept the fact that there is no way to cut or display these in a way that can be shared in a social setting. Unwrap the Milanos from the store and dump them into a bowl to take to the neighbors.
9- Save the deliciousness for yourself to pick at with a fork for the next 2 days.

Congratulations! you tried to make brownies to share, and it didn't work!

Call The Midwife

Is anyone else watching Call the Midwife? I watched the first season about 6 months ago and I just noticed that there is a second season and binge watched them last week. Then I decided to make this fun minimalist poster for it! I'm just getting into Illustrator, the possibilities are endless - at least they would be - if I knew what any of the buttons meant.

Drawing Lessons

Since my awesome brother is in town for a few days, I wrangled a drawing lesson from him and he taught me how to draw faces. This was my attempt to draw Anna tonight. She finished the hair on the right side.

Then she asked for a drawing lesson and I talked her through it and she drew this:

She's 5, I'm super impressed that she tried and didn't give up or get frustrated.

Christmas Gingerbread house

Are we getting a little tired of all the updates every time we decorate gingerbread houses? No? Good.

Today Anna talked me out of building one from scratch, which would have been so hard and not worth it at all, we just like the decorating. So we went out and picked up this "Rudolph the red nosed reindeer" themed kit.

Anna's side of the roof.

Terrifying gummy monster came with the kit.

Santa

We made a last second decision to go up to the festival of trees with Beetle yesterday. We did it fast and minimal complaining. I haven't been there in 20 years and it was quite impressive. Anna insisted that we wait in line to see Santa.

Eliza was skeptical.

She didn't say anything EXCEPT "fank you" So, success!

Calvin was a handful during this excursion, too heavy to hold the whole time, to erratic to walk on his own, aunt beetle chased him while the girls did crafts.

Letters to Santa

Anna's letter to Santa.

All the b's and d's are inverted so when she says "I've been good" it looks like "I hav den gob" too adorable not to save.

She asked for coloring books (calring dook) some my little ponies, a play microphone (mikrufon with backward r) and some toy animals (sum anumls)

I LOVE how she sounds out words by herself, she's quite a smarty pants.

Eliza

Eliza is all grown up now. She turned three in October. She no longer sleeps in a crib, she no longer wears diapers (except at night), she no longer slurps to ask for a drink. She talks in full, complete, complex and interesting sentences. She has dropped all those cute little quirks about babyhood. She can say "Calvin" and "nursery" and just about anything you ask her to say. She even said "Fank You" to Ben the other night. That has been her one hold off that I could not get her to break out of, but she did it.

I will miss the littleness of this girl that held on for so long. Her developments have jumped 6 steps in the last 3 months. But now I have another big girl to talk to and answer questions for and have adventures with. And that's not too bad.

I took these pictures in our back yard in October, I couldn't pick a favorite.

3 Miracles

3 Miracles happened to me tonight.

#1 - I accidentally (although who would do it on purpose?) sent my wallet through the wash. I was mostly worried about my temple recommend being destroyed. When I got a chance to search through and find it, it wasn't there. Then I remembered how last weekend, while we were at a wedding, I asked Ben to hold my recommend and he put it in my suit and we joked that we would all forget it was there until December (next scheduled wedding). I called Ben and he confirmed that it was in his wallet.

MIRACLE!

#2 - The kids and I went to the store to buy snacks for Nursery today, when we got back home, I left the snacks in the car and planned to take them directly to the church later tonight. When I got in the car I noticed that my diaper bag was still in the car, which was weird. Then halfway to the church (which is honestly not that far away, so don't be too impressed) I realized that the key to the Nursery closet is in my diaper bag, and if I hadn't left it in the car, I wouldn't have had it and would have been more than slightly inconvenienced - driving back home to find it.

MIRACLE!!

#3 - As I unpacked the Nursery snacks and gathered the bags I saw that the light was on down by the Bishop's office and I remembered that I need to turn in the receipt. BUT WHERE WAS THE RECEIPT?!? I spent almost $100 trying to max out my budget for the year, not only did I want the money reimbursed, but I wanted it to count in our yearly budget! I remembered putting it in one of the bags after I checked out, but I didn't see it while I unpacked the food. I went back to the closet, went through the food, looked through the bags, went back to the car, searched through in the dark, prayed, went back to the closet, took the snacks out one at a time until BOOM! there it was stuck between two boxes of crackers. prayed again. nearly wept.

MIRACLE!!!




PS If you want to learn more about miracles please watch How I Met Your Mother - Season 3 Episode 20