Reasons for not posting:
I am now waking up at 5:30 am (when Justin gets up to catch his bus) to read my scriptures and work on my "One Page a Day." This means that: a) I use up my creative juice by 7:00 am, and b) I am tired by 9:00 pm (when I used to do such things as blog).
Since I don't see either of those things going away..... I don't know what to tell you. (Yes, all 3 of you who are disappointed that I haven't posted lately will have to cry, cry, cry.)
In other news:
E had her birthday on Monday. I did not make a cake (slacker mom) but convinced E that it was cooler to have pink cinnamon rolls instead. She said she had "the best day ever," so I guess it worked out.
I also started our in-house ballet classes today. M was excited until I told her that: a) I was going to be her ballet teacher, and b) we were having ballet at our house.
She said she did not want to live in "Inowa" if it was sooooo far from Miss. Stacey's ballet class.
She is potty-trained, except for whenever she decides that she isn't.
And then she isn't.
Justin says GQ is getting a tooth. I have yet to see it. But, he's certainly grumpy enough to be getting a tooth. In fact, right now he is trying to manhandle me away from the computer. Weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Since he is 1...
...he is succeeding.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
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 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.)
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.)
Thursday, August 26, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
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.
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