Good Morning

I envy morning people. How great would it be to wake up early, refreshed, happy, and ready to tackle the day? Instead, I have to drag my limp body from bed at the last minute and then stumble to the bathroom to insert my "eyes", as William calls my contacts and hope that I can emerge from my sleepy fog sometime soon. There are also those mornings I envy coffee drinkers. Pull your way through the day with a little help from a cup of joe. So easy!!

During my phone conversation with my mom yesterday, she casually made the comment about getting up at 5:30am to work from home because she was iced in and couldn't get into work until the afternoon. 5:30?!?! Are you insane lady? That's my mom, the woman has never needed more than six hours a night and usually runs effectively off of less. Now why didn't I get those genes?? All I can hope for is that one day, my children will outgrow their need to wake up when it's still dark and learn the joys of sleeping until at least 7am.
The last picture here is of the hutch my friend Amy gave me that we finally finished painting. I painted the bottom, Ryan did the top. It was fairly horrible, but it was worth it to have a stylish and safe place to display the Hungarian dishes Ryan bought while on his mission in Hungary.

I hope all of you have a better morning that what I've had today - I'll leave the explanation for another post. Onto Land O' Laundry.

Reality Family Home Evening

Through various visits, I have discovered that a New Year's resolution for many of you is to have consistent FHE. In the past, we get something in most every week, but it's usually haphazard and on various nights. So like many of you, one of our goals for the year is to get in the FHE habit while the kids are little so that hopefully, they will not rebel from the weekly FHE when they're teenagers (I won't get into the realities of that right now, just let me live in my fantasy world for now). SO...I decided to document with photos our typical family home evening meeting. Now mind you, this is real life people: messy home, bad hair and all. Once again, I know some of the photos stink, I'm still learning. So here you go, a real family home evening in our home (this was one of the better ones, William wasn't off in his room trying to put himself to bed - I think the treats kept him around)...

...the evening begins with Ryan playing primary songs on the piano while the kids run around the living room like maniacs while I gather my materials.

Then we have our lesson (short and to the point), sings a few songs (usually popcorn popping several times and a few others), read the scriptures (maybe 8 or 9 versus), say a prayer (which I did not photograph - understandably) and have a treat. This week, it was snickerdoodles. They were a hit. So there you go folks.

I hope all of you are having success in your homes - I don't really know how much my kids are getting out of the lessons, but at least we're trying, right??

Off the Charts

So Rose had her 2 month check-up today though she's technically 2 1/2 months. She weighed in at 15lbs 11oz. She is above the 97th percentile for height and weight. Big girl. Of course a check-up means shots - lots of them. It breaks my heart to see my babies so upset, but I know it's good for them. The Tylenol is helping a little, but Rose is pretty unhappy with me today. I can't say that I blame her.

I know some of my pictures are fuzzy, I'm trying Amy. I'm hoping it gets worse before it gets better. Amy did an awesome job the other night of teaching some of us less talented folks how to use our cameras. I'm in the experimenting phase, so bear with me.

I like this picture of William, not because of it's fuzziness or the fact that he has food on his face, but because it shows his big, beautiful, brown eyes.

This picture of Claire was taken on one of the days in which we woke up to below-zero temperatures. We bundled her up pretty well.

A few funny things from today...so far

I was fixing my hair in my bathroom and William brings me a five-dollar bill saying, "Here's $13 Mom, go to the store and buy you some chapstick". I guess my raging chapstick addiction is no secret in our family; very thoughtful of him.

And...

Rose laughed for the first time. I guess I did something that she thought was funny - she was super cute.

Blessing Day

A few weekends ago, my parents and grandmother took the train up from Texas to be here for Rose's blessing. It was wonderful having them there and I am so thankful they took the time (and money) to come.

Ryan did a wonderful job with the blessing, even though Rose was a little upset about having to wait so long for her second breakfast. She looked beautiful in the gown that Claire wore when she was blessed almost 7 years ago.

It's hard living so far from any family. My kids have the best grandparents on earth and it's sad when they only get to see the kids once or twice a year (sometimes more, sometimes less).

On a good note, I do have some wonderful friends that are almost like family. If I have to live far away from family, I couldn't have asked for a better set of friends.

Today was once again unintentionally busy - but in a fun way. I did my usual morning routine at the Y and then we had a friend come over and play with William. They had a great time together and when Claire came home, she joined in on the fun. After the whirlwind of dinner, Family Home Evening, baths, books, prayers and bed, it feels good just to sit down and relax. I was almost caught up on my laundry for the day until Rose decided to empty the contents of her stomach all over me when I was on the phone about some Girl Scout business and couldn't shout for help from Ryan, which he interpreted my desperate looks of help as being annoyed at the phone call when I was in fact covered in curdled milk, holding the baby with a boppy in my lap trying to keep the milk on me and not let it run down onto the couch. Once he got the message after Rose's third upheaval of milk, he quickly grabbed a clean rag that was conveniently in the laundry basket nearby, waiting to be folded. Whew. Thus, another load of laundry. So much for her dinner.

Another Busy Year

I have been attempting to keep my life simple, but looking back at this year so far, my attempts have been feeble. At the beginning of the week, I look at my calender and there are usually only one or two things scheduled, yet somehow those scheduled appointments seem to multiply exponentially. How does that happen? How does playgroup and a girl scout meeting turn into me running around all week with my head cut off? I know part of it comes from the fact that I have high expectations of myself, too high maybe. Oh well, you know what they say, you can't teach a 28-year-old dog new tricks!

A few clips from the past few days...while I was giving Claire a laundry lesson this morning, she asked me "Mom? Why do girls have to do all this cleaning?" My reply, "I don't know Claire." I wasn't in the mood to describe all of the intricacies of male vs. female roles in society. Some exciting news, William ate some meat for this first time in weeks (sure, it was chicken nuggets, but I'll take what I can get).

And....

amazingly enough, Rose is actually fatter now than she was a week ago. How is that possible?

Ice Day

After two weeks of having everyone home all day, I was ready to get back to the regular schedule of school and work (for some people). Monday went as usual, but on Tuesday, school was canceled due to ice on the roads. So we stayed home all day and played. Ryan did go into work to hear a presentation a friend was giving, but he almost biffed it on the driveway a couple of times trying to get into his car. I'm just glad I didn't have anywhere I HAD to go yesterday. Of course that made my day today absolutely crazy. I had a lot to do to get ready for Claire's Daisy troop meeting tonight. I counted that I went to 13 places today! Yes, ladies (and gentlemen) 13 places!!!

Today in the car, I was talking about something and William's response was, "Mom, that's rubbish!"

It's so different having him vs. Claire in the car with me. When she was his age, she talked or wanted to sing songs continuously. Well, while I was dragging William and Rose all over the city today, I noticed the car was unusually quiet. I asked William if he wanted to sing a song and getting no response back, I began to sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". He did have a response to that, he quickly covered his ears and scowled at me. OK then, message received.


He has been singing his version of that song as he rows a little skeleton around in a Playmobile row boat. But his words go something like this..."row row row row your boat, Mary Mary Mary down the street..." sung in that funny deep voice some of you are familiar with.

Because my big baby has outgrown most of her clothes in the 0-3 month size, I needed to supplement her wardrobe with a few more sleepers in the next size up. I found this cute sleeper at Target (I love the print - see following picture) and I was excited for her to wear it, hoping that she wouldn't have a blow-out on it. Well, she quickly broke in it with her biggest blow-out ever! It took three different cleaning agents, some serious scrubbing and soaking and two wash cycles to get it back to it's original cuteness. Curse you, mustard poo!!

Some of my favorites

I was going through some of my pictures on my computer and I ran in to some of my favorite pictures of Claire. I have been dedicating a lot of pictures to Rose lately; I wanted to highlight my other pretty girl. It's hard to believe she's going to be seven this year. It's even harder to believe that I could be mom of a seven-year-old! As the old cliche says, where did the time go? Here are a few of my favorites; I'm missing photos from newborn to age two because we didn't use a digital camera then and I haven't scanned those photos in yet. Oh, who am I kidding, I never will get to that.












Claire has always been so photogenic and loves to pose for the camera. Love this girl!

Rosie Girl

I just wanted to share some pictures of my sweet Rose. She is now two months old. She is so talkative - anytime she makes eye contact with anyone, she starts cooing. She favorite sounds are "goo" and "boo". I just love that baby voice; hers is particularly sweet sounding. She lost a lot of her newborn hair and it is now coming in lighter. It's the same color of my other two kids. It's funny how all three have brown eyes and the same color skin and hair. The pictures I've taken don't do her justice. I wish I could somehow capture all of her cuteness and put it on here, but I'll have to stick with badly taken photos for now.

Look at that chubby belly! So CUTE!!

Opening presents is apparently exhausting to a 2-month-old

A new toy from Santa!

Rose is a very chubby baby and has the biggest cheeks - so kissable!

We are so blessed to have her in our family. What did we do without her?