GQ Walking

GQ walks now. He has his own little gait, and he is so proud of himself, he still falls over at the end. He also tends to walk through things, rather than around, and to crash into the finish line.

GQ as a Sunbeam

The best video just happened to be the one where M held up her dress through-out. Still, I think it's pretty cute how GQ tries his best to jump at the right time.

As Ordered, By Laura

When I was little, I always did exactly as Laura told me. I wouldn't want to stop now, would I? It is hard to take pictures of rooms. Somehow, you just can't get the whole picture? You know what I mean?

This is our bedroom. It turned out larger than it looked in the pictures we saw before, which was great. The bed came with the house, so we got rid of the California King. I like that there is more room in the room. My mother fixed the curtains for me while she was here, which was good since I never did get to ironing the curtains in our last house. Ironing has never been my thing. I'll add that to my list of cleaning showers and reading instruction manuals. Just not going to happen.

This is the upstairs bath. It opens to both the hallway and our room. None of my bathrooms quite matched the towells and shower curtains I already had, but oh well.

This is the kids room. They are all together, so GQ has to deal with the fact that the décor is really not gender oriented, at least not towards his gender. Someday, maybe. My mom also did these curtains. I made sure not to put M's bed next to GQ's crib this time. She was always trying to climb in and bug him.

This is the office. It has one open wall that looks over the living room. Our landlord was nice enough to put a lock on the room so we don't have to worry about airborne children. I like that both Justin and I have desks in the same space.

Um, back to me not focusing the camera. This is our main living room. The view out the back is so amazing. No houses, just lots of green trees. And it is still crazy to me that they water nothing here. It just grows from the rains. One of my favorite things is how about once weekly, and usually during nap-time, the skies get dark, dark, dark and then a pouring rain comes pounding in. In the Winter, the leaves will be gone and we will see houses. Then, I may have to shut my blinds once in awhile, but until then, I keep them open.

The garage pictures are for my mother. She wanted to see how I finally got everything arranged. I almost killed myself putting the hutch on top of the drawers, but luckily there were no casualties. The kids helped me move all the cans, and it was really cute because GQ started rolling cans across the garage to bring to me too. He wants so much to do the same things his sisters do.

E is always telling me that she is not a real artist because her pictures are not in frames, so we decided to decorate the kitchen with her artwork (and some of M's and GQ's). I could have been more diligent about using my level and my ruler when I hung them up, but unfortunately I am not that OCD. Often I wish I were, when I look at them, but I never quite fix it either. Okay, so now we've got cleaning showers, reading instruction manuals, ironing curtains, and measuring before hanging pictures. This is actually a rather long list, it turns out.

On a side note, my mother and I recovered the kitchen chairs. (They were a very dirty white.) I almost flipped a lid while getting the screws back in, but it's definitely been worth it when clean-up time comes after dinner.

The patio. Once again, oooohhhh that greenness. When we moved to Las Vegas, I wouldn't let Justin pull out the lone weed in our first backyard because it was the only green thing there. So different here.

Another picture of our living room. I should move it up to the other one, but I thought it would be more fun to put an extra thing on that list of things I don't feel like doing right now.

The stairs going upstairs, and a look into the kitchen.

The downstairs living room. This room opens onto the backyard area, although we don't hang out there much. The front yard is better for bikes. I do enjoy sending the kids downstairs though: a little less easy to hear them hitting each other in the head from down there.

The other side of the family room. The stack of books is what I've acquired to help me do more fun activities with the girls during the day. (I didn't end up sending E to school, although there was a brief moment there where my mom thought I'd come to my senses.) I think Claire would be proud of me, although everyone else thinks I'm slightly nutso.

The toy closet…. oh what a lovely invention.

This is my favorite room in the house. Why? Well, there are lots of books for one thing…. although I must say it always bugs me a little that books are not more uniform in size. I want to sort according to genre, but then nothing ever fits very well. Sigh. I also like the old quilt on the bed. It needs some patching, but it's got that rubbed in softness that old quilts have. So, if you want to check this room out, just come visit!!! You know you've always been DYING to come here. It's such a cosmopolitan place. It's such a large dot on the map. It's such a piece of vacation splendour. And it's cold in the Winter too, I hear.

The downstairs bathroom, complete with a slightly claustrophobic shower for your personal use!

And there you have it! Aren't you amazed? I have tried to do this post a different way than usual, so hopefully it works, because I don't think I have the energy to do it again. (It didn't work, you must all love me for doing it again. Unless it's boring, and then you must pretend you don't know me.)

Getting to Know You, Getting to Know ALL about You

Yesterday, we decided to take our efforts at getting to know Iowa to the next level.

You know, we'd found a few radio stations to put on speed dial. (Actually, only three - there is really weird music here! AND there is no good station for NPR - they need a mountain or two to broadcast from, apparently. I am very sad.) We'd visited a few parks. We'd gone swimming. We'd gotten lost a time or two. (Yes, once I got sooooooooo lost, and there was this guy behind me that I figured was really irritated with me, so I went down a side road, and pulled into a house to turn around. The house just happened to be his, and I just happened to almost run into his car when I was backing out of it. Nice.) Anyway, we'd started to get settled.

So, to put the icing on the cake, I decided I'd take a little ride in the ambulance with GQ while leaving E and M with the local QuickCare receptionist who I'd met all of three minutes ago. What fun!

Don't worry, we are all home now. He hyperventilated, we hyperventilated, everybody hyperventilated, and now.... we are home. Thanks to our new Bishop - a pediatric braniac - they decided to let us leave the PICU (don't even ask me how we got there), and then trundled us out of the regular floor too because - and this is good - he really only had the croup. Which, for the record, I did know, I was just concerned - after Sarah's scare earlier this year - that it was turning into something more. I forgot the important skill of not going to clinics where you don't know the pediatrician and you don't know whether they're given to hyperventilation.

So, now I've joined the ranks of ambulance riders... though I don't much remember the ride (I think it was only 1/2 a block). I also pulled Justin out of a seminar with the man who will hopefully get us a job. I am so cool.

As such, I am sitting home in my pajamas today, glad we are all home and safe, and more than happy to stop learning about Iowa for the moment.

GQ is back to hitting his sisters, stealing their toys, and yelling at me for not picking him up. And we are thankful for everyone who helped us get there, hyperventilation and all.

My Afternoon

This afternoon, I made the most disgusting cake ever.

I kid you not.

I saw the recipe, thought it looked good, and decided to try it.

I actually have a good chocolate cake recipe that Justin loves, but I thought it would be fun. I should have quit while I was ahead.

Instead, I bought the ingredients.

Then I spent the afternoon making it instead of finishing any number of sundry projects around the house.

I knew I was in trouble when, as I tasted each part of the whole, I was revolted.

I did not even want to lick the beaters.

I am not a complete moron, so I read the instructions again to see if I had become one, by mistake.

All seemed fine.

After dinner, E asked for some cake. I warned her it might not taste good, but gave her a slice.

After making a funny face, she remarked: "Well Mom, it looked good."

M's reaction was even more telling.

She opened her mouth and spit it back out on her plate.

Tonight there is an entire cake in my garbage.

Wow.

I have got some major talent.

Choo Choo

I don't really mind changing diapers. It's something I do right now. It's easy. I barely think about it. But since M is 2 1/2, I decided I needed to buck up and get over it.

So, today I have done nothing all day long.

With E, we discussed going potty and that did it. She's my verbal girl. I could talk about this with M until she was 40, and she'd still think I was insane. I decided I'd follow Kara's example and give her lots of liquids and put a timer on for every 5 minutes.

Can I tell you how short 5 minutes is?????? I am going nutso over here. We are all in our jammies, accomplishing nothing because 5 minutes is apparently 30 seconds long. I swear.

Here is the difference between M and E.

M apparently has to go potty every 3 minutes. And she will go, it's true, but if you try to make her stretch to - I don't know - 4 minutes, she goes on the ground. No commitment my friends.

On the other hand, she does it all herself. Gets on the stool, sits on the potty, goes, wipes, flushes, etc. etc. E was always frightened of falling in (and rightly so, once she and Annie fell in together). I always had to hold her hand and such. Not my M. She's off to the races.

But here comes the next conundrum.... E, a truth teller, M - not so much. So, I could just let her go by herself, but I'm pretty sure she'd say anything to get a marshmellow. She wouldn't even think it wasn't true.

It's 12:52. I'm excited for nap-time.

And I'm thinking fondly of diapers.

Temple Visit

Our new Temple District is Nauvoo.

We went once, when we first arrived, because the pageant was still going on down there. That was fun - and hot!!! We haven't had bad humidity - to me - since we've moved, but that Mississippi River humidity! Man, that is no fun at all.

The pageant was good though. This is a picture of us at the pageant. GQ is soaked through since he likes to drink water and spit it out on himself. I look like a spaz because.... okay, not so sure about that one. (Christina, I did not post the picture of me looking like a duck, I posted the pictures of everyone else not looking as good instead. What can I say? If I'm doing the post, I get to look best in the pictures. Unfortunately, this particular one was the best one of me for this run.)

There's the Temple behind us on the hill.

This weekend we went back to the Temple and the girls wore dresses so they could go on the grounds and touch the Temple. (I tried that last time too, but M had a blow-out... you were dying to know!!!..... and she wore her pajamas the rest of the day.) This first picture is of E saying:

"Mom, my eyes hurt. Stop telling me to smile!!"

Laura, I will do a house tour soon and tell more about Iowa. Probably next Sunday, if I stick to my guns and finish unpacking.

Bad Mother

I have a memory.

It is from when I was little, so it is entirely up for debate as to how much of it is actually true.

(I was going to scan pictures, but I didn't. Surprise, surprise.)

When I was little, I had long hair. Apparently I cried whenever my mother did it, and so when I went into kindergarten, my mother chopped it off.

This is what I remember:

I remember going to the haircut place, I remember it being cut, I remember it being crooked, and I remember them cutting it again to straighten it.

I remember thinking it was sooooooooo short. And I remember whining a lot about it afterwards. I'm pretty sure my mother remembers that part too.

As a mother myself, I have not cut E's hair much, and I have somewhat encouraged her quest for "Rapunzel" hair. But E's hair is pretty sparse, and it grows pretty slow. I knew it was getting to be time for a trim if I wanted it to look at all healthy.

At the same time, I'd debated cutting M's. I haven't cut hers since she was a baby, and it had almost caught up with her sisters. M has thick, somewhat curly hair. Justin loves how it curls in the morning... it reminds me of Medusa hair, snaking around her face with it's little red locks.

Unfortunately/fortunately, for everyone involved, on Tuesday,I had idle hands. Not because there wasn't much to do, but because I didn't much want to do it. (Anybody want to unpack a box.... I'll let you do it for free... anyone, anyone....) So, what did I do instead?

I made E cry, and cut off Justin's pride and joy.

I didn't do too horrible of a job. Luckily M's hair is curly, so it doesn't show much if I cut it crooked. And as for her E, her hair is thin enough I could do it all in one continuous cut around her head.

I had convinced her I was only 'trimming' it, and when I was finished, she cried. She'd heard my Mom say I might cut out the curl in M's hair when she was visiting, and she was sure her hair would never curl again. (Don't worry, I'm not completely evil. I let her wear it 'down' more, now that it can't get in knots, and she's quickly deciding short might be better than long.) She is starting to forgive me.

These first pictures make M's hair look a little bit like a mushroom, it's calmed down since then. She didn't care AT ALL that I was cutting her hair. Justin, however, still tells me often (in Spanish, so the girls can't hearhim) that he can't believe it's gone.

I'm sure I'll be hearing about it from them one of these days.

You Know You Wish You Could Eat It Too!

GQ has a TINY obsession with eating rock/grass/dirt and anything else on the ground. These photos were at our last KOA in Nebraska.

When the Cat's Away, the Mouse will Play

While we were in L.A. having a children break, we went to Disneyland (thanks Mark and Bekah!!!). Grandma Paula and Aunt Jessica brought the kids down and we enjoyed Disneyland like the British upper class in old books. We got to look at our kids when they were cute, and leave them behind when they screamed. Thanks Grandma Paula and Jess!!!!

Need a smaller skirt, M?

It was M's year to love the princesses. E was scared for some reason.

On the Way....

We didn't take many pictures along the way. Too much going on. Here's a few things that happened.

Justin and I went horseback riding during our get-away to L.A. The horses were pretty sure we were dumb as rocks and ignored anything we did, but other than that, it was fun. My glasses did get scratched when I ran into a tree, luckily they only cost me $5.

Grandma Paula and Grandpa Mark took the kids to the Children's Museum in Vegas. On the way in, E started crying because the parking lot was so hot. When people say it's hot here in Iowa, Justin and I just look at them in wonder. Nothing is hot like Vegas.

One of our KOA cabins, and GQ's temporary home. None of the KOA's we went to had grass. They did have a lot of rocks, which kept GQ busy tasting them all.

The Grand Canyon. Not much to do in the heat with little ones. After this, we pretty much skipped sight-seeing and got the drive done.

Dinner-time at the KOA. Needless to say, GQ is more than happy to have a house again.

Pre-Iowa: Birthday/Goodbye Party

GQ has enjoyed his new toy... if M will let him have it.

Look at all those cousins.

Yummy Cake!!! Thanks, Laura!!