a glimpse

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A bit of our life this week:

Abe – making microwave popcorn for all for a movie night.  Go Abe!

I caught Jimmy drinking Egg Nog out of the container.  What?  I guess it’s okay since he’s the only one who drinks it.

Pants-less Tru helping mom put up the Christmas garland of lights.

Eliza tried out the walker today.  Her feet don’t touch, but she seemed to like sitting up.  She’s always lifting her head to see what’s going on when she is laying down.

Cello Wars this morning at 8 a.m.  The kids quite liked it.

Hannah reading The Grinch to everyone for a bedtime story.  I like that Tru was happily feeding Eliza her bottle.

Eliza seemed to be holding her own bottle.  She can’t quite do it, but she is growing up way too fast for my liking.

A little glimpse of our life… and now I’m going to watch a movie with my love.

snapshot 5:40 p.m.

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i love walking around the house taking pictures of the kids doing their thing. Today’s snapshot was very interesting and quite funny. it was a little crazy at our house waiting for jimmy to get home from work.  Everyone was in/out/all around… bouncing off the walls with winter drawing near.  This is what things looked like at 5:40:
1. Truman: “Helping” with the dishes. I really did fill up the pans with soap and water and let him scrub away. I love his giant bead necklace and serious expression.

2. Max: he was a bit distraught that I wouldn’t let him eat a s’more in my bedroom. He “needed” to watch his lego movie and eat a s’more I guess. He whined for 20 minutes and then came and apologized for crying about it. Then he was done. He is getting really good at making a really sad face.

3. Abe: supposedly he was “cleaning” up the downstairs. It looks like he was spinning with Tru’s jacket … or maybe dancing to the Christmas music we had playing all afternoon.

4. Hannah: practicing Jingle Bells on our keyboard in her closet. She rather likes playing the piano. She is going to learn quick, I think.

5. Eliza: Wait – where’s Eliza? I looked in her swing… not there. I can’t hear her. Where is she? Oh – she’s in her carseat in the kitchen watching Tru do the dishes. She is such a quiet little soul that sometimes I forget that she’s awake. Sweet Lizzy.

Our life is very ordinary… but even in the chaos of today, I enjoyed the BEAUTY of that moment.

p.s. does bacon really have to permeate every square inch of the house? I even opened the windows and froze the fam… just wanted to air things out a bit. BLT’s are delish but smelling bacon all night long is not my favorite.

Halloween 2011

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Halloween is by far my least-favorite holiday. I really dislike trick-or-treating. Seriously – why is it a good idea to go ask for candy? Though my dear friend Steph reminded me that it is a good time to be neighborly. I do like chatting with others and seeing cute little kids. Still … Autumn = Yes! Halloween = Not so much!

But the kids love to dress up. This year we went with a karate/ninja/chinese princess theme… if that even goes together. Thanks to Donker who got the goods in ChinaTown in L.A.

On Halloween we had a fun party with my parents. That makes the holiday nice. Tru had a blast throwing candy corns into the pumpkin. He totally rocked at it. And the cake walk to ‘Monster Mash’ was a delight for all.

Glad we had fun. Glad we survived. Glad it’s over.

Bring on Thanksgiving and all the thoughts of Gratitude!

Las Vegas … June 2011

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It has only taken me 4 1/2 months to get around to journaling our trip of the year. But here it is… in all it’s glory. The kids really enjoyed themselves on this trip. They liked staying with my friend Angela, Mike, and Jasper (who treated us like royalty!). Ang is pretty much AMAZING!!! She made the kids hooded towels that are adored every day around here.

The wedding was nice. Lee and Amy were a sweet couple. It was fun to see some of Jimmy’s Thompson relations. Abe liked getting to know Cousin Taz. I definitely wasn’t at my best this weekend and was a bit too anxious and emotional (I was 7 months pregnant after all). But I’m really glad we went. I hardly took any photos of all that we did in Las Vegas but luckily Ang took some for us. Here’s the story:

Jimmy’s New York Trip 2011

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Last week I went to New York to attend Conversion Conference, a professional conference all about learning how to build better websites to improve conversion (as in converting browsers into buyers). While there I was able to do a little sight seeing. I visited the Manhattan New York LDS Temple, I walked down to Times Square and visited M&M World, and I walked through Central Park.

Manhattan New York LDS Temple
Manhattan New York LDS TempleI was able to make it into an endowment session at the Manhattan Temple on my first night in New York. Before that, though, I gave myself a tour of this multi-purpose building. The temple is really a building within a building. On the first floor is a family history center, on the second floor are some public affairs offices, and on the third floor is a typical meeting house with a chapel, basketball court, and lots of class rooms. The fourth, fifth, and sixth floor are the temple.

I almost didn’t make it into the temple session. I arrived at the recommend desk of about 35 minutes prior to the start of the session. I had a new temple recommend and I knew that it had not been activated, but my stake president thought they could call him and verify everything and let me in. The worker at the front desk took my name and information, and he tried for 25 minutes to contact someone in the temple presidency to come do a verification of me. Finally, ten minutes before the session was to begin, a counselor in the temple presidency came to the recommend desk. The desk worker offered him the information I had provided, but he declined to look at it. He just shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and said it was okay for me to come in.

M&M World

M&M World is located near Times Square. It is probably among the few family friendly things to see and do at Times Square. It was interesting, but I didn’t stay long. It’s mainly just a large gift shop for M&M’s merchandise and over priced chocolate.
M&M World New York
Central Park

Central Park was different than I expected. It is very big. The city feels so rushed and busy and crazy, but once you step into the park, it felt much more calm and normal. There are lots of people jogging, riding bikes, mothers pushing baby strollers, kids playing, etc. I was intrigued by to very large rock formations, which looked natural, but I wonder if they are or not.

Central Park New York
So that’s about it for my New York Trip. The conference was excellent, but I missed the family. Read Heather’s post on awesome-ness to see the souvenirs I got the kids.

battle creek falls

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Perhaps not my best idea to do any type of hike at 6-weeks post-partum after a c-section, but I was in need of some nature. Hannah thought it was freezing. I thought the weather was perfect. Abe enjoyed himself except for having to carry the baby bag. We didn’t come very prepared and forgot the hiking backpack for Truman. I doubt he would have stayed in it anyways. All he wanted to do was gather rocks (and scream when we didn’t let him gather rocks). Max pretty much had an awesome hat goin’ for him. He quite enjoyed himself. Lizzy – slept through her first hike. Oh baby!

Getting down to the falls… a bit steep for little ones and post-partum mama. But the waterfall was rather cool. The rest of the hike was quite easy and I might add… lovely. I love walking along a creek… the sound of water is just great. We saw so many caterpillars. The kids kept spying them among the rocks. They must have been migrating or something because there were oodles. A few of them might not have made it due to wee little Truman thinking he needed to step on the bugs. aaak!

09.24.2011

randoms for a tuesday

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One never knows if a 2-year-old is seriously possessed, in need of pain medicine, constipated, hungry, or just plain grouchy. only 358 more days until he turns 3. please tell me he’ll magically become rational.

Abe had his first tooth extracted yesterday at the dentist. Actually it is 2 teeth that were fused together. He was so brave. Plus, he was pleased that the tooth fairy finally got to visit him. She left him a little extra $dough$ because he had to wait until 2nd grade to lose a tooth, it was 2 teeth, and the dentist pulled it. Ouch!

According to Abe, “Nothing is more better than mom’s bread.”

why is it that when my boys go outside to play I have to tell them, “Be nice. No playing about killing or hitting or anything mean. And if you scream or yell at someone you’ll end up in your room. Be nice.”

In Hannah’s alternate reality: “Sometimes I want to live in a big house in the country, run in the fields, and make crowns out of daisies.”

Seriously – dishes are so awful to do when there is sticky syrup dripping off plates… cheese hardened, peanut butter smeared, applesauce encrusted on bowls, silverware everywhere with goobs on them. We have a rule to rinse dishes off before placing them on the counter… obviously nobody regards that rule. Plus, I start blaming the kids for the mess, when really I should have done the dishes before I took a nap. Arggg!

this made my morning:

in regards to that… yesterday I realized I wasn’t emotionally or physically up to my week flying solo as parent. I started feeling selfish and didn’t want to deal with 5 kids by myself (especially all the night time shifts). Am I alone? No way. What was I thinking? I saw a reminder on a blog that encouraged me…

never kill a fly on the cupboard directly above the open mixer of kneading bread. luckily after lots of searching i found the fly on the counter. phew!

speaking of bread, I love my new Gerken’s Cinnamon Drops to add to bread (like great harvest cinnamon burst) and muffins.

if only you could have been a fly on the wall during fhe on monday. “it was one for the record books,” according to jimmy. abe decided we needed a lesson on love and peace. well – fhe was anything but full of peace… isn’t that how it goes sometimes. we had a full-on hitting war between max and tru during the song, “Families can be Together Forever.” Although there were some positive moments like finding scriptures on LOVE in the topical guide, the rest was pretty much bonkers. Press onward we shall.

today a friend asked if we wanted to come pick raspberries from her garden. Boy-Howdy… did we ever! Hannah was in heaven… pretending to be THAT country girl with the daisy crown on her head. She said, “I know it would be a lot of work to live on a farm, but I just think it would be fun.” It sure is fulfilling to do practical work though… especially if it’s food you’ve grown (or in this case… that my friend grew!) and harvested. Thanks for the fabulous and plentiful raspberries Laurie!

Sunday Walks

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Sunday walks are generally a good thing. Tonight, the weather was perfect. Our family is quite the group on walks. Tru tried to hold every rock he saw. He dropped them into the water drains, then he’d gather some more to save for the next drain. He goes at his own pace, pretty much only aware of rocks on the ground, rocks in his hand, or rocks falling into the drain. Max took the camera and captured the last 6 photos in the collage. I love the one of his feet in sandals… and our mini-van … oh, Max! Zu-Zu got to ride in the stroller for the 1st time. She pretty much liked it.

3 cheers for Sunday Walks…
3 cheers for getting Sunday wiggles out…
3 cheers for living in a neighborhood with houses to explore and tractors to climb on…
3 cheers for wonderful Autumn evenings…
together as a fam!

our lovely little garden

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I really didn’t have much to do with our garden this year. Jimmy did 95% of the work watering and harvesting. We started out with 4 wee little tomato plants, zucchini & carrot seeds. The kids helped plant. Everything grew and grew. We had cool spring temps and lots of rain this summer. We ended up with 4 zucchini plants which, of course, produced oodles of zucchini. Tru loved the tomatoes and zucchini. He ate so many! Jimmy made salsa a few times out of the tomatoes. We also enjoyed Tomato-almond-pesto with noodles and zucchini.

I loved the carrots to snack on. The other day I harvested the last of the carrots with Max and Tru as helpers. It was a fun activity to pick, wash, and pop the green tops off the carrots. It really is fulfilling to plant a seed, watch it grow, water, harvest, and enjoy! We might only have a small little garden spot, but we were pleased with the results. Good work Fam!

Aunt Amy Visits

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My sister Amy was able to come visit for a few hours this past week. She was so excited to meet Baby D’liza. We sat on the couch for a few hours and visited. Nice! My kids were so glad to see her too! She helped them make homemade lemonade from lemons grown in her yard in California. They loved the experience of making the lemonade but unfortunately didn’t love the lemon pulp. The rest of us adults thought the drink was fabulous!!! Thanks for visiting Aunt Mayme (that’s what Tru calls Amy!)