Big Changes May 9, 2013

Well, we’ve had several big changes lately. Maybe changes is the wrong word. Big events is probably more accurate.

The first week of April, we went out to California. The night of the first, we drove to Vegas. we stayed at the Circus Circus. It was SO LAME. They close the pool at 6 p.m. and don’t open it again til 10 a.m.! All the rides and stuff were shut down by the time we got there at 8 p.m. We were hoping to take the girls on some rides. Next time we’ll just pick a cheap hotel and sleep and then continue on our trip. Their air conditioning was also pretty crummy. It would turn on for about 2 minutes and then shut off for 13. So the room never actually got to a comfortable temperature, and the noise woke me up several times.

The 2nd, we finished driving out to Murrieta and then stayed with Anthony’s family for the rest of our trip. On the 3rd, we went to Disneyland. Lexy took us, and she used a wheelchair because of a sore foot. It’s $15 to rent a wheelchair, and I recommend doing it. You get through the lines a lot faster! Does that make me a jerk? Oh well. The girls were funny this trip because Sarah was scared of all the rides she loved last time. Andrea LOVES to be scared. So on Pirates of the Caribbean, Sarah got really upset during the drops but Andrea loved it. We rode the train around the park again, and another passenger stopped me to tell me how beautiful and astonishing both of the girls’ eyes are. Proud mama!

On the 4th, Anthony got sealed to his Chidester family in the San Diego Temple. It was a super spiritual experience, and I’m so glad I was able to be there to experience it. Sarah was worried that when he got sealed, he would have to go live with them. She was relieved when I clarified that. (She also doesn’t want me to be a grandma, because she doesn’t want me to move out. She made me promise that when she gets married, she can still live here.)

I don’t remember what we did on the 5th. The 6th, we started our drive home. We stayed at a hotel in Saint George. It was also a disappointment, because the pool was FREEZING. This air conditioner was better, because it stayed on, but it was impossible to get it to a comfortable temperature. It was either so cold that I had to turn it down, or so hot that I had to turn it up. The continental breakfast was stale cereal and Tang.

It was a relief to get home on the 7th! Andrea has SUCH a hard time sleeping outside her bed and not getting normal naps. We all slept in 1 room every night, and she had nightmares EVERY NIGHT.

Then on the 25th, Anthony and I flew out to Santa Barbara for his best friend, Ammaron’s, wedding. Ammaron and Allison got married on the 27th. It was really sweet and beautiful. We spent most of our time missing the girls. (It wasn’t feasible to buy them plane tickets.) A&A were so generous and let us use a car and stay at their house, so it was a very inexpensive trip. Santa Barbara was so beautiful. We went out to Fisherman’s Wharf and ate ice cream and bought the girls souvenirs (little purses with stuffed horses inside), we went downtown and watched Oblivion (AWESOME!), we walked around a bit and ate breakfast. It was still a little too cold to enjoy much time outside, but everything was GORGEOUS. We also met a lot of A&A’s other friends. I discovered that A&A are GREAT at picking friends! Everyone was so nice and fun and hilarious. I was invited to Allison’s bachelorette party and it was a blast. We ate sausages and played the Family Fun Game.

Family Fun Game is where someone picks a topic, then everyone writes clues or related sentences or something about the topic on individual slips of paper. There are 3 rounds to the game, and you play in teams with 1 minute per person/turn. Round one is you describe as many slips as you can without saying any of the words on the slip. The second round is charades for the same slips. The third round is describing the slips using 1 word. It was so fun, and is harder than it sounds, especially if you get a lot of slips you have to keep straight for the later rounds. The team with the most slips at the end wins.

We flew back the 28th and got home at about 11:00. I was so excited to see the girls the next morning, I woke up at 7:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep. They had stayed with Julie while we were gone. It was cute how excited they were to see us! Sarah named her souvenir horse Spirit, and Andrea named her’s Mommy.

May 3rd, Anthony graduated from the U with his Bachelor’s Degree in Speech Communication. He has been accepted into the Master’s Program at the U, and will start in the fall. We are very excited for this summer off together, and plan to make the most of our brief break from homework. In the last 4 years, Anthony has been enrolled in school every semester except the summer he transitioned from Associate’s to Bachelor’s.

I interviewed for a promotion at work this week. I didn’t get it, and I honestly feel relieved.

Last night I had a TERRIBLE dream. When I think about it, I start to cry. I was a person who found lost people. I was supposed to find a guy who was lost in some caves. I thought it would be fun for the girls if they went with me, so we went in and started exploring. We were having a good time. I called the guy’s cell phone, and it started ringing from between a few rocks. It had fallen out of his pocket. He was close enough that he heard the phone, so he came to us and was so glad to be found. He showed us where he had been waiting for a rescue, and then we made our way out of the caves. The entrance of the cave was inside a big Visitor Center. We were jumping from rock to rock on our way out and just having fun. I heard a loud rumbling noise right as we were getting out of the cave. The guy looked very alert and started running to the Visitor Center. Andrea chased after him, and Sarah and I walked out. We came into a big room with a wall of windows, and when I looked out the window I could see the earth collapsing at the horizon, and it was quickly moving toward us. The guy turned and grabbed Andrea (they were too far away for me to get to her in time, and I just felt relieved that she was going to die being held, and not falling alone), and I turned to Sarah and grabbed both her hands and looked her in the eyes and started shouting over the noise, “ILOVEYOU! (Andrea and the guy fell into the abyss) ILOVEYOU!” And then the floor fell out from underneath us.

It is seriously the most upsetting and awful thing I’ve ever experienced. I hope there’s not some weird dream translation that our world is about to collapse or something.

Busy Busy February 14, 2013

I’m having a hard time adjusting to the busyness level of a working mom. The funny thing is, my house is cleaner now than it was when I was at home all the time. Hahaha. Any time I have a day off, I spend it catching up on laundry and cleaning, and I’m learning how to manage my time better so I can have the dishes cleaned more regularly. I just wish there was more time for baking. We keep losing bananas because I don’t have time to make banana bread. It’s very sad.

Sarah doesn’t cry when we go to work very much anymore. Mostly just on days where she didn’t sleep well the night before. I think it was causing her too much stress that we’d leave, and then she’d frequently go to the sitter’s house. We asked our babysitter to keep them at home for a few days and see if that improved things, and it did. Now she still tells me every day that she doesn’t want me to go to work, but then she just gives me several hugs and kisses and then tells me goodbye. Andrea thinks it’s a game, so she does it, too.

Andrea is potty trained now. I did the same thing that I did with Sarah (http://theqcontinuing.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/how-to-potty-train/ & http://theqcontinuing.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/potty-training-part-2/). I sent Sarah to sleep over at her grandma’s for 2 nights. Man, did Andrea and I miss her! I was able to finagle a 5 day weekend, so Andrea and I just hung out in the kitchen. She was doing really well right away. She’d start to pee a little, but stop herself and go use the toilet. The second day, I got bored. I brought in the laptop so we could watch some movies, and she started having full blown accidents. I didn’t make the connection until the next day that she was too distracted by the TV to remember to go to the toilet. I finally realized on the third night, and when I turned off the movie she started using the toilet again. Sarah hung out in the kitchen with us after she got home and loved encouraging Andrea because every time Andrea used the toilet, everyone got a gummi bear. If you take out the time I wasted with movies, it took Andrea about 2 days to get from using diapers to being fully potty trained. She wears a pull up at night because she sleeps too heavily to wake up when she needs to go to the bathroom. We keep her potty chair in the bedroom, so if she does wake up, she can use the toilet. About half the time she wakes up for the potty chair, and half the time she uses the pull up.

Apparently I forgot to talk about Anthony and I seeing a therapist. The therapist used this book as a basis for our sessions:

http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Principles-Making-Marriage-Work/dp/0752837265/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1360854465&sr=1-1&keywords=john+gottman

I highly recommend it. Anthony took a marriage relations class a few semesters ago, and they talked about this author a lot. To be honest, I don’t remember a lot of the things we talked about or tools we learned. I should probably buy the book myself and have a refresher. But I do remember that she pointed out that when the other person does something, it has a meaning to us. For instance, I tell Anthony to quit rolling his eyes all the time. He says he doesn’t roll his eyes. We finally talked about the fact that he thinks X is rolling eyes, and I think Y is rolling eyes, and when he does Y I feel Z. So I’m glad that we know how to talk those things through now. I can’t give any concrete reasons why I feel happier about our marriage, but I know we’ve both felt a lot more content since the therapy and we communicate a lot better.

The other day we were at RC Willey. Our dryer broke, and our good friend Mick (At RC Willey on 4700 S in Kearns) is an appliance salesman there. He was able to get us a deal on a dryer and we got it delivered and hooked up the next day. Anthony was anxious because he had homework to do, and we had already gone to a few stores to try and find a cheap dryer while I waited for Mick to call us back with prices. By the time we got to RC Willey, Anthony was really frustrated with how much time we were taking. While he paid for the dryer, I was looking at living room sets. Our couch is broken in several places and our coffee table is scratched all over and looks like we left it outside for a year, so we’ve been talking about a need for new living room furniture. I found a set on sale so Anthony came to look at it, then started looking at couches and talking about which one we should get. I got frustrated because he had been so hurryhurryhurry about the whole thing, but when we were ready to leave he decided he had all the time in the world as long as it was something he wanted to do. Of course, this is how I interpreted it, and it didn’t help that I hadn’t eaten since who knows when so I was getting pretty cranky, too. I got pretty snippy with him, we both stomped out of the store with the girls in tow and didn’t talk for the drive home. After being in the house for about 2 minutes, I thought about how silly this whole argument was. I went to him in the office and apologized for being grouchy, he apologized for being grouchy, and then we were magically a happy couple again. I’m sharing this story because a few months ago, I wouldn’t have been satisfied until he had apologized for being grouchy, and rushing us, and then sitting on couches when I felt it was time to go, and then I would have sulked for an hour or two, and then I would have allowed us to be friends again. I keep thinking about how I was happy with both of us apologizing for our bad moods, and I didn’t need anything else. Look how I’m growing up!

Anthony has an interview for a promotion today. I really hope he gets it, because he’s not very happy with his current job. It’s underwriting loans over the phone, and it’s pretty high pressure. There are frequently people who are grouchy because they didn’t get the interest rate they feel they deserve, then he has to get them to believe that it will still benefit them (it usually will, and he doesn’t try too hard to convince people when he knows it’s not going to help their situation), then it’s an argument where he’s not allowed to sound upset… Anyway, last night for our Valentine’s Day date we went to the Olive Garden and practiced interview questions. I think he’ll do fantastically well.

I would like to take a minute to talk about how much I appreciate Anthony. He works so hard to improve himself, both at work and at school. He is such a great and loving dad and husband. Another thing I’ve noticed is that as our marriage satisfaction increases, so does both of our willingness to do things around the house without being asked, and when we are asked to do something, we’re a lot more quick at getting it done without reminders. Anthony is so fun and happy and just pleasant to be around. I’m grateful to be married to him and to love him more now than I did when we got married.

I have started a new hobby. KNITTING! I’ve kind of been teaching myself to knit for a while now, but I wasn’t super excited about it. With crocheting, I have a better idea of what the finished project will look like so I don’t mind so much when it takes a long time to finish. I’m a lot slower at knitting, so it was hard to get excited about a project. I made Anthony a scarf first. I didn’t expect him to wear it, mostly I was practicing my tension and things. In all the time I’ve known Anthony, he has never worn a scarf and I assumed it was because he doesn’t like them. I tried to make it as manly as possible so he’d like it if he chose to wear it. (I think crocheting looks especially feminine for some reason, and I assumed he felt that wearing anything like a scarf would be too girly. I have no idea why I thought that, since he has never implied anything of the sort.) So I used Caron Simply Soft yarn in Bone and Chocolate. I used 1 strand of each color and just knit 3, purled 3 a scarf. He really liked it and wears it frequently. Every time he puts it on, I giggle because it makes me feel good that I made something he likes. It also makes me feel like I’m taking care of him when he puts it on because I’m keeping him warm.

I felt so good about the way that scarf turned out, I finally decided to make a skirt for Andrea out of a skein of yarn I bought specifically for that purpose. I started it 3 times before I felt like I knew what I was doing. I used this pattern: http://www.bernat.com/pattern.php?PID=4914 and the yarn pictured. I used too big of needles, because that’s what I had, so the skirt ended up way too big and I gave it to Sarah instead, then made a skirt for Andrea out of some other yarn that I’ve had for a few years but didn’t know what to do with it. It was too cute to just double crochet a scarf or something, I wanted to use it for a special project. Both skirts turned out really cute. Sarah wore her’s for a day, then pulled a thread on it and now she won’t put it back on. Andrea put her’s on, flipped her hips a little to watch the ruffles move, and then said with a super cheerful and adorable voice, “I don’t yike it!” I couldn’t stop laughing. But don’t worry, I will MAKE them wear them!

As soon as I find the cable to connect my phone to the computer, I will post pictures of my projects. But here is one I will share now:

My beautiful and wonderful friends, Krys and Michael, were finally able to adopt a little boy. His name is Bennett, and he is adorable! I made the blanket for her, and I don’t mean to brag but I think it turned out pretty nice. Not as nice as a baby, but still. It even matches his room!

They need some help with the adoption fees, so if you are able, please make a donation to help them out. http://adopttogether.org/krychael/

Since September January 1, 2013

Man, I need to work on blogging more regularly! The problem is, with both of us working there’s just not much time at the house. And when I am home, I don’t want to spend all my time at the computer.

Anyway, the girls are adorable. They still love the crap out of each other.

Halloween was awesome. Sarah was Cat Woman. We accidentally bought her a costume that was big enough for an 11 year-old, so I fixed it. I’m pretty proud of how it turned out. I should have taken a before and after picture, but just know that the sleeves were giant and hung over her hands, and the crotch was at her knees and the waist was below her butt and when I was done, it looked like we bought it in her size. Andrea was a witch. She didn’t want any face makeup, so she just wore a dress up costume that was way too big for her. We had gotten a bear costume from Mary, but she put it on once and then refused to put it on again. I think it was too itchy. We went to a trunk-or-treat, and then I brought Andrea home and Anthony walked home with Sarah and trick-or-treated at a few houses. They each got about half a pumpkin bucket of candy.

In November, we got family pictures. Here are my favorites:

OK, so I just uploaded all of them. But they’re so cute!

Thanksgiving was very laid back. We usually spend it with all of Anthony’s extended family. This year it was just us and his mom. His step-dad was on a business trip, so everyone else kind of did their own thing. With just the 5 of us it was really low key and low pressure. It was probably the most relaxing Thanksgiving in all of Utah.

Sarah is having a very hard time when Anthony and I leave for work in the mornings. She gets really upset and cries, but then stops shortly after we leave. Sometimes she’ll start crying the night before when she realizes we have to work the next day. It’s pretty hard and I’m not sure what to do, except hope she gets used to it.

December was crazy. I’m in the Primary Presidency, and the bishop asked the Primary to perform a Nativity for the ward Christmas party. I will upload photos later, because they’re on our other computer. We had lots of practices, and lots of stress. We did this last year, and it was just as stressful this time except we didn’t have to write a script. Andrea participated, because she’s been practicing the songs with Sarah for a few months. They were both in the choir of angels, and SO CUTE! Then we saw Santa.

Now, Sarah has always been scared of Santa. The nearest we can get her to him is one of us holding her near him. She won’t talk to him, won’t look at him. It’s cute and funny and I’m not going to force her to sit on someone’s lap that terrifies her, but I have wished we could get a picture of them together.

This year, she agreed to sit on my lap, and then I could sit on Santa’s lap, and I could tell him what she wanted. Well, we were one of the last people in line, so I took her to the front of the room and we watched all the kids sitting on Santa’s lap. I pointed out how nice he was to all of them, and how excited they all were to see him. She kept saying, “The next kid is going to be scared of Santa!” but then they weren’t. Finally she asked, “Mom, who else is scared of Santa?” I said, “It’s just you.” Then we started talking about why she’s scared of him, and determined it’s because of his beard. So then I told her a dark secret. I told her that Santa’s beard comes off. He has to wear it as a disguise, like Cat Woman, to guard his secret identity. Then she really looked at him. She started wiggling in my lap, like a puppy when it gets excited, and told me that she would still sit on my lap, but she would tell Santa what she wanted. Then she saw Andrea sit on Santa’s lap. She jumped up and shouted, “I’m sitting on his lap!” And she did! So here are our Santa photos for 2012:

Andrea loved Santa. She told him she wanted Boo Tismiss Tandy (blue Christmas candy) and Sarah told him she wanted “Brave.”

The next weekend we had an extended family party. We ate delicious food and then played Mr. and Mrs. Right. That’s the game where you pass a present to the right or left every time the direction is given in a story. The girls had fun, even though they were the only kids there. They got these cute little hats, Sarah’s was a pink bunny, and Andrea’s was a brown monkey.

Christmas Eve, we went to another extended family party. Grandma gave the girls gifts. Sarah got a Barbie and Andrea got a baby. Andrea was playing with her doll and suddenly stopped and looked at the ceiling and started shouting, “Day Doo, Tanta!” (thank you, Santa). It was super adorable.

Christmas Eve night, Anthony read the story of Christmas from the Bible. When he got out his scriptures, Sarah said, “Where are the little people for the story?” I had forgotten that last year we set up the nativity scene as he was reading. I’m still amazed at Sarah’s memory.

On Christmas, the girls woke up at about 9:30. Anthony and I woke up because we heard whispering. They had tip toed out of their room and were whispering by the presents and just looking at everything. It was super cute. We got them a lot of fun toys, and a TV with a built in DVD player for their bedroom. But they were most excited about the dollar store dinosaurs in their stockings.

Then we went to my parents’ house where it was crazy crowded because everyone wanted a chance to talk to Patty when she made her phone call home. I think we all got about 2 minutes. Andrea said, “Hi Patty, I yuh you,” but Sarah is too shy to talk on the phone lately. Then we went to Anthony’s mom’s house and had dinner and exchanged more presents. Those girls were SO spoiled.

Sunday, I was released from the Primary Presidency. I’m relieved, because with work it was just too much going on. I was stressed because I knew I wasn’t doing my calling like I needed to, but I couldn’t go to meetings and I didn’t have time to catch up on everything they wanted me to do, like making calendars and rolls and name tags and CD’s and stuff.

New Year’s Eve, Anthony’s mom took the girls for a sleepover and we went to a friend’s house and just hung out and talked. I’m noticing that the older I get, the more I want a relaxing holiday experience.

So now you’re all up-to-date again!

Since July September 26, 2012

Hello friends and family. I have been super duper busy the last few months, so I will try to get you caught up.

First of all, Anthony and I have jobs again. Woohoo! I started for a month as a temp clerk at a food supply company, but the pay was pretty low and the job was boring. Anthony got a job as a loan underwriter. We were so excited because between the jobs and his grant money, we were able to catch up on all our bills. We have a neighbor babysitting for us. I’m so glad she’s willing and able, because she loves our kids and our kids love her. Anyway, Anthony and I sat down after I’d been temping for a month to work out our budget. Turns out that even if we cut out all expenses that weren’t completely necessary (I’m talking getting down to utilities, gas, food, and mortgage. Oh, and babysitter. No cell phones, no $8/month for Netflix, nada.), we’d still be at -$32 at the end of the month. We didn’t know what we were going to do, so we prayed about it and then went grocery shopping with our new tiny budget.

At the store, we ran into some of my friends, Amy and Dylan. Dylan works with Anthony as a supervisor, but in a different department. Through our conversation, Dylan mentioned that his department was hiring. I had applied at the company at the same time as Anthony, but since I had worked there previously, they said they would take longer to process my application and I never heard back. Well, I decided to give it one more shot. I applied for Dylan’s department that night (Saturday) and hoped for the best.

I’d like to mention here that both of our families were shopping at abnormal times for us. We would normally never have run into each other. Anthony and I were actually planning on window shopping at a Halloween store with the girls first, but I felt like we should go grocery shopping and save the costumes for another day. Thanks, Heavenly Father!

So Monday, I got a call from the company, asking me if I could interview on Tuesday. I did, and was hired on the spot. I even asked for more money than what they were offering, and they gave it to me! I’ve never done that before, so I was super nervous. They told me I’d need to come back Thursday for drug testing, fingerprinting, and to fill out paperwork so I could start work the next Monday. For this, I would need my driver’s license and birth certificate or SS card. Well, funny story, I didn’t have any of those things. My license had expired less than a month before, I had requested my birth certificate online the day before (shipped to me from a different state), and I can never keep track of my SS card for some reason. I explained the situation to the HR rep, and she said, “Well, I hope everything gets here in time.” Yikes.

I called the DL office. As most of you know, Utah’s current law for license renewal is that you have to have an SS card AND birth certificate to renew. So I went to the SS office first. They requested my new card, but told me it would be mailed within 2 weeks. I explained my predicament, and they told me the DL office should accept a W2 as well. I called the DLD to confirm this, and they said yes. I asked about the missing birth certificate, and they told me that I could get a temporary DL and when my birth certificate came, I could get my real one. Phew. At least my license would be taken care of.

So Thursday I went in to pee in a cup and get finger printed. Then I went to the DLD to get my temporary license. I waited for TWO HOURS and got my temporary license. Then I went home and looked online to check the status of my birth certificate. I just kept praying that it or my SS card would arrive before Monday. Well, turns out that my certificate was overnighted, and was scheduled for delivery within 2 hours. So I sat at home and waited for it, then headed back to the DLD. Turns out they won’t let you skip the line, even if you’ve already been through it that SAME DAY. So I waited ANOTHER 2 hours so they could look at my certificate, and tell me that my temporary license was still my license while I wait 6 weeks to get my real one in the mail.

I rushed back to the new workplace so I could give them copies of all my new identification, then went home. Phew!

That night I told the temp agency that I’d be leaving, they told my current job the next day, and Monday I had a talk with my supervisor where I cried and apologized for not giving more notice. Thursday and Friday I helped train my replacement. (Also, during my month of work I had been working on printed training materials for whoever would replace me at some point, so that was a ton easier for the next person.)

Monday of this week, I started my new job. It’s fun to see the people I used to work with again. There have been so many promotions, and I’m so glad for all of them. I’m really hoping the next one is me. I’m also very excited to be working in the same building with Anthony. We have attachment issues, I think, because I miss him between getting to work and having lunch. People hear we work together and they’re always like, “I could NEVER work with my spouse!” I think that’s so funny and a little sad. Maybe Anthony and I are just weird that we like spending all day every day together. Besides, we won’t actually be “working” together, since we’re in different departments. But we WILL be on the same floor, so we can go say Hi on breaks and stuff.

Next, I will talk about Bella’s escapes. She escapes like crazy. She digs out, jumps the front fence, or knocks slats out of our wooden fence. We are leery to replace slats, because we’re trying to save up to replace the whole fence at once. So in the meantime, we covered the holes with some mesh and hoped for the best.

Well, the other night at 2 a.m., I was awakened by the quietest of wimpery barks. I came out of my room looking for Bella, and couldn’t see her anywhere. I heard a scratching noise on the back porch, and when I looked out the door, I found her like this:

Do you see how small those holes are? The biggest are probably 2×3 inches. I have no idea how she managed to squeeze her head into one of them, but she did and then couldn’t get back out so she pulled the whole mesh panel off the fence and then couldn’t get back in through the dog door. We cut it off her, and the next day put up more mesh but double layered it so there wouldn’t be holes even that big. She hasn’t escaped since. Well, except yesterday when Sarah let her out into the front yard right before Anthony was taking the girls on some errands.

Sarah turned 4 on August 23rd and had her check up on the 24th. At 4 years old, she is 43 inches tall, and weighs 38 pounds. Just for comparison, when I was ELEVEN YEARS OLD, I was 48 inches tall and weighed 98 pounds. I wore a size 11 child’s shoe, and Sarah is already in a size 9. She wears size 6 clothes, meaning clothes that were designed for a 6 year-old. We shop in the kids’ section now, not toddler. She just skipped right over size 5. She is 95th percentile for height, and 40th for weight.

For her birthday, we took the girls and Robbie to Jungle Jim’s.

They had a BLAST. We ate a ton of candy and played on the rides for about 2 hours. Andrea LOVED playing with Robbie. She just adores her. She wanted to go on all the rides with her, and Robbie was super patient and played so nicely.

Then we went to Julie’s house for cake and ice cream. Julie is the most amazing party planner in the world, and she decorated amazingly.

All those ribbons hanging down are from balloons. Sarah’s cousin, Kaya, came for this part of the day. Julie made these adorable little cupcakes with white frosting and pink m&m’s on them, and we had dinner from the Pizza Factory. I love that place. Then Sarah opened presents. We are definitely birthday and Christmas spoilers in this family, so she got a ton of clothes and toys and a scooter.

Now that Halloween is coming up, it’s time for our family traditions. We buy the girls a new Halloween book every year, and read all the Halloween books every day. Sarah has them memorized now, so I’ll hold the girls on my lap while Sarah recites them. They are:

http://www.amazon.com/Halloween-Night-Marjorie-Dennis-Murray/dp/B0058M6UPY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348674872&sr=1-1&keywords=halloween+night

They LOVE this book. The illustrations are amazing, and the words are a play off of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

http://www.amazon.com/Little-Goblins-Ten-Pamela-Jane/dp/0061767980

I love the timing in this book, and again, the illustrations are beautiful.

http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Other-Scary-Stories-Reading/dp/0064440907/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348675155&sr=1-1&keywords=in+a+dark+dark+room+and+other+scary+stories

This is a book of scary stories, with scary illustrations. It is one of Anthony’s favorite books from when he was a kid. He was so excited to find it, he just sat right down in the tiny chairs of the kids’ section at Barnes and Noble and read it out loud to no one in particular.

Andrea has a big rubber Halloween rat that she carries everywhere. She calls it her kitty cat.

Andrea is really starting to mature. She’s throwing a lot less tantrums, and she’s talking a lot more. She’s starting to talk in broken sentences. We converted her crib into a big girl bed the other night, and she has done FANTASTIC. She still goes to bed just fine, and never tries to climb out when she’s supposed to be sleeping. She also hasn’t fallen out. I’m very excited about that, because Sarah fell out of bed a few times while she was getting used to the new bed. She’s learning her colors right now. I have an app on my phone that I LOVE. I recommend any app by Five Pumpkins, but the one I’m talking about is their colors app.

http://m.fivepumpkins.com/#top

They are all free flash card apps, and you can record your voice on each card or use the default voices. Sarah loved them when she was learning to talk, too. They’re easy for a toddler to maneuver, because they can either slide their finger to switch cards, or push an arrow.

She is also getting more resourceful. She can climb on and off the trampoline by herself. This is a real feat, considering how tiny she is. She’s still a super picky eater, and she’s SO good at sharing. I love it that I can give her 2 marshmallows or whatever, and she always gives one to Sarah.

Sarah is not only giant, but brilliant. We’re practicing her letters a bit, and she is wonderful at following directions. She plays a lot with Dallas, a 7 year-old who lives next door. He got a new swing set, and they love playing on it together. He’s such a great kid, and I’m glad he’s such a good example to her for how to play nicely.

Now for some pictures, and then I’m off the computer.

Look at her beautiful eyes!

Birthday cupcakes

Birthday cupcakes pt 2

I forgot, Anthony and I had birthdays, too! We celebrated with a trip to Lagoon. Julie watched the girls and we went on a bunch of rides. We went to Lagoona-Beach, too, where I found out the reason they tell you to cross your legs on the slides the HARD WAY.

A jaguar and a kitty cat ready for bath time

They love each other and they’re beautiful

Andrea’s 21 month check-up July 6, 2012

Andrea had a check-up today. She is 33.7 inches long, which is the 75th percentile. She weighs 20 lb. 5 oz., which is still too skinny to even get on the growth chart. Her head is 18.8 inches, which is about 55th percentile.

Looks like I forgot to put in her 18 month check-up, so here are those stats, too:

She had her 18 month check-up on April 11th. She weighed 19 lb. 14 oz., was 32 inches long, and her head was not measured.

Looks like we’re going to have another tall, skinny girl.

It’s been forever July 4, 2012

Sorry, everyone. I’ve been so stressed and busy, I forgot I had a blog.

The status right now is that Anthony and I are unemployed. Our car broke down in May, so we are now unable to deliver things. And since that was our whole business, we had to shut down. We’ve been looking for work since then. I will be working full-time, and Anthony will be working part-time because of school. I have a pretty good job on the horizon, but it’s only a possibility, and they won’t be hiring til September anyway. So I’m looking for a job that will support the family so that if that job doesn’t pan out, I can take care of us with the job I have. Anthony also has a vague job offer, but they’re trying to find a training class that will work with his school schedule before anything is official. If I get this job in September, then Anthony will probably quit his job and just stay home with the kids. I don’t want to work all day, then come home and Anthony leaves to work all night because we’ll never see each other. I’m also concerned about our shifts overlapping, since we’ll need to pay a babysitter.

I worked a temp job as a receptionist last week. I was surprised how well everything went with out family during that time. Anthony really stepped up to the plate and was cleaning the house and making dinners (which is more than I ever did) and the girls were so happy to see me when I came home, I felt like our time together was more meaningful.

On a related note. Andrea has been kind of a terror lately. Not that she destroys much, but she throws a lot of tantrums. There’s a lot of screaming and crying until she gets what she wants. She was throwing things (including herself) on the floor when she was mad. Which was often. So after my week of work, I got up the next morning and she was instantly throwing fits. After being away for a week, I had forgotten how awful it was to have constant tantrums. I decided I was done with them, and I sent her to time out every time she had a tantrum, which was 5 times in the first 20 minutes. Then when she wanted something, I made her say, “Mommy,  X please.” She’s still not saying a lot of words, so the thing she wants is usually unintelligible, but at least she’s saying please.

So anyway, it is AMAZING how quickly she has turned around. Starting immediately, she was more cheerful. She only had 2 tantrums yesterday. She is so fun all of a sudden, and is always laughing and smiling and playing. And as a fun side effect, she has been a lot more snugly and affectionate to me since we started. She spends about half her day snuggling me, where before I’d have to practically restrain her to get her to sit on my lap for 5 minutes.

It’s so funny how I’d think I need to put her in timeout for the tantrums, but it always seemed so much easier to just give her what she wanted so she’d be quiet. And then in one day I proved that completely wrong. I’m glad we did this at 18 months instead of figuring it out in a couple years. What I think is especially funny, is this is how we’ve always handled Sarah, and Sarah has always been so sweet and well-behaved. So obviously I knew this technique worked, but I just didn’t want to do the work to implement it. Well, now I know better for next time.

In other news, We had 2 sealings last month. Mary and Scott were sealed on June 16th at the Oquirrh Temple, and Jake and Stephanie were married at the Draper Temple on the 27th. I think sealings are my favorite thing at the temple. I always get so snugly to Anthony, I’m practically sitting in his lap. And then I look around at the other couples attending, and they’re sitting nicely with their arms folded, or just holding hands. It sure makes me laugh! I’m so excited for Mary and Scott to be sealed! They’ve worked so hard to get there, and I’m glad Scott is stuck in our family, now! And Stephanie is awesome and ADORABLE. I’m excited for her to come to all our family junk!

Sarah’s Face April 1, 2012

Well, Friday March 30th, Sarah, Robbie, and Andrea were playing in the yard. Anthony took Bella out for a walk and when they got back, Sarah ran to the gate to wait for him. Well, Bella was too excited to see Sarah, so she jumped the fence and unfortunately she knocked Sarah down face first onto the sidewalk. Poor Anthony saw the whole thing, and almost had a mental breakdown. He scooped up Sarah and ran her into the house and yelled at the dog and yelled for everyone to get out of his way. We got her cleaned up and bandaged. She was scratched on her left cheek and ear, the backs of both hands, and fronts of both knees. She hit her forehead on a corner or something and was bleeding pretty quickly from a cut.

After about an hour, she was still pretty upset. Anthony had to leave to work, so I had just been snuggling her on the couch. Robbie was being super cute and kept bringing us bandaids and saying, “Sarah, I know you hurt really bad,” in a very sympathetic voice. She also put Bella in timeout for knocking Sarah over, and had a few talks with her.

Anyway, after an hour I gave Sarah some grape Tylenol. An hour after that, she was still crying. She would start to act groggy and ask to lay down for a nap, but the minute I put her down she’d just start sobbing. I’ve always been able to remain calm when the kids have gotten hurt. I just do what needs to be done and wait for them to finish crying. Well, after trying to help Sarah lay down a few times and 2 hours of constant crying, I was starting to get upset with her. It was really hard not to cry with her so sad and hurt. We were snuggling again in the rocking chair, when she told me, “Mom, I just need to cry real loud.” I told her to go ahead, and the sound that came out of her was the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I started bawling and telling her how sorry I was. She stopped crying for a second and said, “Mom, *sob* why are you so-o-o-orry?” like she was trying to comfort me. M heck, just thinking about it makes me cry again.

About this time, I called her doctor’s office. I asked them how to tell if she had a concussion. They told me if she vomited, got super drowsy, wasn’t acting like herself, or was really dizzy. They also told me that it was an old wives tale not to let them sleep if they have a concussion. What you do is after they sleep for about an hour, you shake their leg a little and make sure they have a normal response like shifting around a little. If they don’t, you rush them to the ER.

Sarah was having some pretty serious mood swings, but I thought that seemed normal for someone who was hurt that badly. About 3 hours after the accident, she threw up all over the couch. I called the doctor and asked what to do now. They told me to take her to the ER at Primary Children’s.

When we got there, they took her straight back to a room. After they examined her, they said she definitely had a concussion, but it didn’t look a like a brain bleed. Symptoms of a brain bleed are persistent vomiting, and lethargy so bad that you can’t rouse them. They kept us there for an hour for observation, and cleaned her wounds.

She was so cute, she made all the nurses laugh. They gave her a teddy bear, some extra bandaids, a sippy cup, and a special syringe for a bathtub toy. She was most excited, though, about the individual serving-sized slices of cheese.

She’s doing tons better. She already looks like she’s been healing for a week. We’ve had a lot of people drop by to check on her, and she’s had a lot of presents. Thanks everyone for your love and thoughts!