Living there now

We're living in the house already. It's amazing and wonderful. It feels like we're visiting Grandma and I keep feeling like "Where is she?" A.L. left us tons of kitchen treasures, and more ways to cook an egg than I can shake a stick at. It's awesome.

So get ready to visit because you are welcome, anytime.

Surprise!

Good thing I forgot to post this picture in the post about Halloween costumes.

I got a call at 3:03 yesterday from the title company trying to schedule the closing for 4pm today! Bummer that we already paid November rent. Bummer that we don't have payment lined up. Bummer that we could have moved in earlier!

My dad smartly decided to just send the check in the mail because we shouldn't have to pay to overnight it because they gave short notice.

So the seller will sign today and when we have the check we'll do a walk through and then close. That could be as early as Friday!

Or it may be next Tuesday as planned. Oh well.

Drama.

My sister mentioned that I've been blogging up a storm and that maybe the house buying process is the cause. Probably. There is so much there to talk about that is out of the usual bragging about how cute and smart the kids are. Also it is exciting and makes me want to share my excitement with all of you.

Holidays are a comin'

I love this age for Halloween. G and M are both interested in being fun cute things for Halloween. Carving pumpkins is exciting. It's great!

I'm thinking if Halloween ever becomes a scary thing, I'm not interested in that. There are so many cool and creative costumes that don't have to be scary. I am totally going to invest in one or more of those lycra body suits for the kids to wear once they are older.

We get to spend Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years etc... in our new house! We already have visitors lined up for the holidays but the more the merrier! We're so excited to finally have a place for all the wonderful folks in our lives!

more prepared this chilly morning

Last year we were busy moving, having a baby, adjusting to life. So when we woke up mid October to chilly weather that didn't go away for a month, I was unprepared. The kids had no pants or shirts that fit them from the previous year. This year I shopped for pants all summer long and got some great deals. Each of the kids has a tub of winter clothes under their beds. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it!

recycling

So somebody was throwing out what looked like a leather couch. On closer inspection I found that it wasn't just a leather sofa, it was a really nice leather sofa. Many leather sofas are just leather on the seating areas. This leather sofa was leather on seating, sides, back everything! Too bad it was trash. But I asked the owner if I could cut some of the leather off it. In the end I got about 5 yards of nice leather from it. That's going to make a lot of soft shoes.

Another recycling story for you is that I have kept my cloth diapers even the ones that had died (no longer watertight). I figured I'd find a way to make them work. I've used a few as swim diapers for bP. But today I figured out how to sew a scrap from the diapers I made and put it into the diapers from G and M. Wahoo! Some of those diapers are so cute. Some of my favorite diaper are some orange with blue trim diapers that were apparently laminated with rubber cement. Seriously, they lost their integrity fast. But if this method works, I will have 6 diapers good as new! On top of my 10 diapers that actually are new, this will bring me up to a lot of diapers. Good thing my 3 gallon diaper pail recently broke (sadly we found that the hinge was plastic, but it served us well for 7 years) and I ordered a 5 gallon pail. Because I'm going to need that extra capacity.

Once around is not enough.

what you struggle with

We've had some struggles, pretty major ones, put we're so blessed and happy. As I meet people struggling different things, I am frequently brought up short. I hear their struggle and can't imagine how I could endure that. Yet the things we've struggled with are a huge deal to other people. They are just part of life.

I remember meeting a mother with a child in the waiting room at shands. He baby had some definite developmental delays and a feeding tube. We commiserated and when she learned that my baby had cancer, she was like "Woah, that's hard!"

We were watching an HGTV show and as the renovators struggled with the tragedy of how ugly the stair railing was P said "1st world problems."

My other ax to grind lately is the idea that population control is never applied to pets. C'mon. You've seen the extreme consumerism for the sake of pets, extravagant use of medical resources, and at the least huge BMs. I actually love animals. I don't feel like they are as important as children.

a new day

Our house that we're buying is so amazingly superior to our current situation. Some basic life improvements will be a functioning oven and stove top.

The garage is like the HGTV garage. It's got cabinetry all around it, windows, side entrance and most important, I can let the girls fall asleep in the car and leave them in the garage.

It's got a long driveway for tons of roller skate, scooter, bike, chalk-tastic fun.

It has an orange tree! We don't know if there tasty yet, but it's 16' tall and fruit bearing. I assume they wouldn't have kept it that long if the fruit wasn't worth keeping.

The seller is downsizing to a one bedroom apartment so she's leaving most of the furnishings. All these years that P has said "We'll get furniture when we get a house." Who knew he was so psychic?

It's on a well and septic system. It has an acre of lawn and trees we get to maintain. The patio is larger than any house we've lived in.

2 weeks to closing.

Things I'm learning

At my oldest sister's wedding when I was 14.

At my own wedding.

At a friends wedding a little over a year ago.*

I feel sorry for my kids sometimes. I have a severe character flaw: I think I am brilliant! Well I am, but I think I've got it all figured out when actually I'm just hanging on. I helped out with a wedding tonight, and was reflecting on my brother's wedding and looking toward my kids weddings. Oh my poor kids.

My brothers wedding was gorgeous. My mom did some amazing decorating and it was awesome.

The wedding I helped out with today, I didn't even attend. I just wanted to emulate Debbie, who came in pants and stayed in the kitchen. They couple had bought wonderful prepared food and tons of it. So mostly I just took off lids and arranged things. I'm sold!

Croissant Sandwiches
Roll up sandwiches
Fruit bowl
Veggie platter
Cheese tray
Meatballs
Hot dogs
Cookies
Chocolates
Mixed nuts
Wedding mints
2 Cakes
Water bottles in a cooler
Punch fountain (Meg if you read this, you don't mind that I used your drink fountain!)

Wow! They only needed about 1/4 the food they had brought. Something I learned from my brothers wedding was to avoid things you needed to heat up in the oven unless you have 4 ovens. This wedding had crock pots for the hot items.

And on the subject of decorations, since I plan to just have church receptions for all the kids unless G's mother in law wants something different... I'm going to have lights, tulle and table cloths in white to which they will choose accent colors and flowers. And I'm going to find the wedding march and put it on my ipod playlist so that I'm ready! I tunes has a harp arrangement I sort of like. But of course I'm going to make it required for all my children to learn the wedding march on at least 3 instruments. Sure.

My wedding was awesome. We were married in the Jordan River Temple at 10AM. My father in law took pictures. My in-laws took us all to a lovely restaurant of my choosing for a private lunch. Then P and I ran away while my family took care of providing a wonderful reception in my moms back yard which she had manicured for the occasion. My friend A from BYU played the cello in the balcony above the reception. It rained but J had brought his croquet set and it was wonderful. So many wonderful people came thanks to the many invites sent out by our parents. I'm so grateful that I got to be an oblivious princess on that day.

So I feel sorry for my children that they will have a Mother-of-the-bride-zilla if they're ever lucky enough to find someone their parents will let them marry.

I was glad that today I got to help out. P was home with all 3 kids for almost 5 hours. Bless him for making so many wonderful things possible in my life.

Dear mom, My wedding is such a happy memory for me. Thank you.

*Note: P doesn't usually wear a t-shirt to a wedding. But on this magical day G wet his pants, while he was riding on P's shoulders... So we changed the boys and went to the wedding.

Story time

We've been reading the Magic Tree House books. I voice and sign so everyone has a chance to understand. This has been a challenge for about 6 years now.
Recently we figured out a portable easy method of holding a book down. We use a clipboard and an elastic head band. Awesome.

Enthusiasm

Today we were shopping for a replacement diaper pail and instead found lots of other nice things.
One of them was a sewing kit. Actually we got 2, lucky!

So as M sat at the table working on her puppy sewing project, she sang the tune of
"It's raining it's pouring" with these words:

"I'm sewing, I'm sewing Oxny Oxy ohh
I can sew, I can sew, I really can sew
The first time I tried to sew I couldn't do
it but now I finally can.
The first morning I couldn't do it good
but now I really can.
It's good that mom bought us this toy
because it's really good.
It's raining it's pouring.....
we really did buy this"

totally worth $2.00

Have some decency

Today as we waited for G's speech appointment a man was having a terrible discussion with his mother. He is in a wheel chair, seems to have something bolted to one shin, and about 60 years old. His mother in her 80s and I have had conversations in the past about how cute the kids are. So I've seen them before and talked with the mother a little anyway. Today he was really having issues. He was telling her how she should be ashamed for how she treats him. He was threatening her physically. He went on to call her terrible things and I eventually said "There are children present, and you don't have to talk that way to your mother."

I don't know their situation. Quite likely he's suffering from some severe depression. What sort of strange dynamic would call for a mother accompanying her son to appointments and putting up with such abuse?

Stay on the boat!

So, I've been off the healthy lifestyle boat for quite some time. I'm really looking forward to the neighborhood of our new house. The house itself is on a street that is a 1 mile loop. Being a gated neighborhood, I don't anticipate feeling as awkward about being seen by passersby. Just the neighbors who will just have to get used to it.

And I am eating more healthy. I think I resolve this every October. It's my own personal unseasonable new year. If nothing else my goal to eat more healthy just mitigates the damage of the holiday over-indulgences. But this year I have a partner in healthy eating. M loves fruits, veggies, soups, everything! So when I make my own breakfast and lunches in a more healthy vein, I can just say "ditto" and have food for her and bP too.

AND as I am beginning to notice, my eating effects my mood. I do tend to get short tempered when I'm hungry. But when I'm eating healthy, I can tell M why we need to leave the Fountain of Youth, rather than nag her. I was worried that I was an emotional eater, but I hope it turns out that I am emotional when I eat crap, so then I eat more of the same.

Today was crazy busy. Luckily we don't have to be anywhere before 9:45. But after we dropped G off we went to the post office. Then when M asked to go to the Fountain of Youth I said yes, because I had eaten a healthy breakfast (egg sandwich). Later we went home and had a can of soup with a cup of frozen veggies (warmed up in the soup). Not like these are miraculously healthy, but they are better than impulse eating.

We went to go get G and then it was off to Speech, then off to the splash park, then stop by the fabulous L family to pick up a tool and chat while the kids played in the yard. Then it was a stop at the wonderful Y family's to drop of tool and admire what a beautiful family they are. M and bP had fallen asleep so G got the full attention when we got home to do homework until 5:30 when we had gymnastics.

So it was a busy day. And I didn't freak out once. M fell on the way out of speech and I just picked her up and comforted her. She bit her cheek at L's house and I was able to focus on her and calm her down. Since I had to wake her up for gymnastics, and carry everything out to the car, and she woke up on the couch and thought she was left behind, and couldn't find her leotard, and came out of the house crying... I was able to just comfort her and get her the things she needed.

I feel so proud of how today went. Here's to many happy days of better food for a happier mom.

Check out some of the other cute things the kids did tonight at
Little letter M
Super Guy G

early morning siphon

The kids woke up with plans. G wanted to make a straw machine just like Twist of the Fresh Beat Band apparently had. So he got bendy straws and tape. Of course M needed the same, so we got to work making our straw machines. Then the kids were trying to drink out of a water bottle using their 5 ft straws. They stood on stools and sucked as hard as they could, but they weren't air tight.
M figured out that if she sat under the table she could get a little water. She and G took turns sitting under the table and squealing in delight watching the results.

The appeal of it all had died down a bit, I was checking my email when I heard water pouring on the floor. I spun around thinking they'd knocked the water bottle over. No, everything was in its usual clutter, upright. Water was just pouring out of the straw. What!?

Oh, it's a... a... Siphon! "Cool M, got get a towel." We then watched this video about siphons which led us to videos of balloons getting popped in slow motion. Then we stumbled upon this video of a 6 foot water balloon. We watched that one twice just because it was funny. Later when M wanted to jump on dad with bP, we were able to recall how 1 person won't break the 6 foot balloon, but 2 people will.

That's SCIENCE!

bP is amazing

bP has a typical if awesome sign vocabulary for a 12 month old baby. Eat, more, please, cheese, yes, ball. Sometimes she'll throw in an appropriate imitation of Hungry or Again. Tonight she blew me away signing Pray and Brush teeth on her own.

We have one month to go in our lovely mobile home situation. We didn't let bP on the ground at all for the first 2 1/2 months that we lived here. Finally we set up a barrier using the desk, couch and a bench, to keep her out of the kitchen, trash can, and bathroom half of the mobile home.

The other day the neighbor girls were over playing with the train set that usually goes under the bench and keeps bP contained. Ever since then bP has been demanding freedom. Today P figured out how to keep the bin in place, using some of that self lining/ rug lining to keep the bin more stuck. bP is furious.

The neighbor girls. I don't really know what to do with them. They are like 8-9 year olds and they just want to come over and hang out. They ask for food I'm not really cool with that. On Wednesday they had been over, then left. M, bP and I were napping, and G was playing on the computer. I woke to the sound of the neighbor girls in my house asking G (the deaf child who let them in) where his little sister was. Ahhhh! Boundaries. Thursday when they came over I was sort of relieved to be able to tell them that M was throwing up and we couldn't have them over. Then they asked for cookie dough which they know we keep in the freezer. What do you say?