Workin'

Occasionally we accompany Jed to work... 

Good thing we have 4X4

ok

Good thing Jed has a brother with a monster truck.  Thank you Ryan for pulling us out.

Lesson learned: don't drive in debri basins.  They may look dry.  They are not.  Also, conference Saturday is the same as a Sabbath, not a day for work or the lake (also learned that the hard way.)  

All-in-all it was a good day.  A day for listening to conference in the desert over the radio, digging in the sand, and having a little picnic.  Jed's face was smiling the whole time he was a diggin'.  He really does miss digging holes for punishment/fun. I love that most things don't frazzle him.  Me on the other hand...I may or may not have been cursing.  

Nine is a Good Number

Cats have nine lives.  Graduation was double nines.  My mother is the 9th child of her family.  Three groups of three is nine, And...

I've been married nine years.

I read a quote today and would like to share...

"When I was getting ready to marry my husband, my mother told me that I would fall in and out of love during my marriage.  It was normal and I should stick with it.  Always fall back in love with your husband.  Sometimes the cycle is short-hours or minutes-and sometimes it is weeks or months.  But I have found this to be so true; I always fall back in love with my husband!  Thirty-two years and seven kids later." -Julie Goodman

There have certainly been times in nine years when I have loved Jed more than others.  For example: every time I have a newborn and Jed awakes to see me ominously glaring at him through one sleep-deprived eye plotting his demise.  However, the "in-love" moments greatly outnumber the "plotting his demise" moments.  The last month we have been on a roller coaster of housing fun and amid one of my outbursts of frustration Jed reminded me, "It's okay, you still have me."  It's true.  I have him and that is what makes everything all right.  The most important thing in life is still mine. Jed is my protector, supporter, confidant and friend.  I am grateful to have him.  I can be crazy angry with him and still sleep as close to him as I can get.  That is how much I love him-his evil presence is comforting-even in battle.

Thank you Jed for...
-bringing me flowers because it's "friday and holy crap we survived the week"
-handing over the chocolate
-changing all of the week o' stomach plague diapers
-listening to my long and (mostly) crazy tirades, ideas and reminders
-supporting my opinions even when they may or may not be reasonable
-blessing my children
-being fun
-making me laugh even when "$%#& gets real" (your words, not mine, I'm innocent)
-agreeing with me when I tell you how lucky you are to have me
-understanding me
AND
-all of those man chores: smearing pb on the mouse trap, driving in the snow, smashing hairy spiders, lighting the pilot light,  hanging off of the roof to hang the Christmas lights, sticking your hand down the garbage disposal, reassuring my over-active imagination during the night and the many more things I am incapable or refuse to do.

Happy anniversary to us.  On to a decade.

New Year's 2013

New Year's pictures used to be at night.  Funny how that changes.

December 31 rolled around and Jed and I declared our annual family road trip of child-filled torture.  We lock them in the car seats, bless five-point harnesses, and drive around in the hills while we contemplate our yearly goals.  And then we talk about what we will do with the mega-bucks money we will win this year.  "What we will do with mega-bucks" is our favorite game.  Too bad we don't actually ever play mega-bucks but just in case we fall into a glorious windfall of money we will be prepared.  Anyway back to goals (not as fun as megabucks)
Our goals get written down when we get home, slapped on the fridge and scream at those of us that can read every time we need a drink or chocolate chips or any other perishable item.  When we moved, to my horror, every one in the ward took the time to reflect on our yearly goals.  One of the kind men looked me in the eye and asked "How are these working out for you," to which I replied, 
"How do you think?  Do I look calm, do I look happy, do I look organized?  Okay then, get that box, get out of here and quit reading my failures."  He looked scared and told me to work on number #1

My #1 goal....
Not be so angry.

It's interesting to look back at our goals made only three short months ago and see how we are coming along.
Jed: get food storage and other things that he can tell you about
Jara:  learn 100 sight words, she's close, two more lists to go
Jack: make bed, he's making his and Jara's, whenever we both remember
Elise: learn to walk. CHECK 

Yay for goals!  Yay for us!  Yay for trying.  Because that is what goals are mostly about, trying.  We may not always be perfect in the more ambiguous categories that don't have a defined measuring point like "not be so angry" but we try and every day get a little bit better.  Mostly.  

Happy 2013.

Sunday Drivers

Signs of Spring.  Every time I passed these beauties last year I would wish I had the camera, tonight it just so happened that I did.

Jack in serious spring contemplation.  (Actually I think he was trying to get his sandy, sock-less shoe off.)

Elise picked the flowers, sniffed the flowers and then tasted the flowers.  For the record: not so tasty.

I love sunset.  I wax philosophical as the sun sets.  However, it's your lucky day and I will spare you.

My girlie.  Isn't her hair glorious?  

Gifting me flower bouquets.   They smell wonderful.  I kinda want to plant my tent in the middle of these beauties and camp-out.  No one would need to bathe for at least a few days the fragrance was so strong.

My little flower objecting to being sniffed.

Yay for sunday drives and purple desert's majesty.

New Found Freedom

A set of wheels

 Jara has been begging me for weeks to take the training wheels off of her bike.  I've been putting her off.  I still remember learning to ride a bike.  Thankfully Jara has her father's bike riding genes.  She's got speed, skill and bravado.  I haven't seen her take an interest in anything like this since we introduced her to the lake five years ago.  She is in her element.  The training wheels and her mother were holding her back.  I guess I had to let her fly.  And fly she did, but not without her trusty safety vest of course.  She begged me to keep riding once it got dark and I told her it wouldn't be safe.  She promptly fetched Jed's road construction reflective vest out of his truck and declared herself safe. She's glowing.  I wish I had a picture of her face, I only have video and this one picture.  Also:  bike riding for an entire afternoon will help your child to go to sleep promptly at 7:00.  Wiped her out.  That's it-bikes for everyone! 

Walking!

Elise did it, she graduated from crawling to walking!  Goodness, I forget how fast they can become, literally overnight.  One week having to be bribed to walk across the rug, the next week streaking.  She is so proud of herself.  I love to see her tottering little crab walk all through the house.  However, once they walk they don't seem as babyish.  sniff sniff.  And it is a little unsettling to catch something out of the corner of my eye moving at that level now.  I feel like the toys are coming to life.  Minor details compared to the joy of clean hands and knees.  

Yay for my girls and their new found freedoms!  

Warning:

streaking will not be cute when you are a teenager Elise, don't even think about it.

Names

I like names.  Around here we name everything.  As a child I named everything.  The millions of stuffed animals I housed all had names.  All my imaginary ponies had names, with fictitious pedigree lines, yeah it was that bad and yeah I was that weird.  The point being...Let me introduce you to our latest named objects.

-Elinor: my orchid, her lover is Edgar the rubber plant.  Think beauty and the geek.  I like alliteration so hence Elinor to go with Edgar.  Elinor is currently in full bloom and beeeyoutiful!

-Jezebel: Jed's truck.  The truck has blue tooth fancy shmancy talk-to-you-lady, she dominates our relationship, so her name is Jezebel.  Plus when you drive with Jed you feel like you are in hell, Jezebel's probably in hell it all comes full circle.

-Dora:  While we are on the topic of vehicular names.  My brother was kind enough to name my Explorer-Dora the explorer.  Glad that one stuck.  

-The "forbidden" room: sounds bad.  It is.  We don't have a garage/shed or anything for all of our miscellaneous junk that most families accumulate:camping stuff we don't use, rubber-maids of kiddie clothes size 5T and down for boys AND girls, boxes of childhood memories,  boxes of mission/college paraphernalia (not that kind), Christmas stuff, bikes, candles, wagons and tool boxes.  I shut the door and pray.  Thankfully I have amazing powers and can find just about anything in there but might die getting to it.  Jack had a friend over and as he was giving him the grand tour he respectfully paused behind the closed, ominous door and whispered, "this is the forbidden room, only mommy can go in there, it's scary."

-Friday Fang Dangle:  Has anyone else read the book about Friday the cat.  He calls himself "Friday Fang Dangle"  and I'm pretty sure if I ever have another cat, that will be his name. Or I will change my name to Friday Fang Dangle.  Yes, it is that awesome.  Go ahead, say it, has a  nice ring to it doesn't it?

Well that's the main names.  Go name your plants, vehicles and rooms now, it adds character or makes you one, either way...

18 Months

Elise has hit the big 1-8.  A turning point, she is now nursery age compliant.  This Sunday was her debut. She took to nursery like a fish to water.  Within the first 5 minutes she had already stole and defended her rights to the pop-up toy.  Didn't cry or miss me once the leaders reported.  I feel a little bad, she sold me out for toys and a dixie cup of goldfish.

A new favorite past time, watercolors.  First, you bite into the window marker, non-toxic may I add, and then with a sufficient amount of drool you create the appropriate consistency for your masterpiece, preferably on a hard surface.  Paper is too weak for such genius.

Elise is the best eater ever.  After two non-eaters I am giddy with the joy of all that it takes to satiate this baby's appetite.  She feeds herself, mostly, and likes to take her meals at the picnic table.  Elise's favorite foods are clementines and pizza, separately served of course.

She also brushes her own teeth.  Refuses to walk but brushes her own teeth.

Showing me her nose wrinkle.  I love this picture because she is having a morning face-to-face conversation with her bear while eating.  She gives him a little taste every now and then.  The other day in the car I heard her making exaggerated sippy cup noises, I turned around to find her alternately holding her sippy cup in front of first, Jack and then Jara giving them "drinks."  Sometimes she shares.  So nice.

Shall we discuss the walking situation?  She is my latest walker.  She still prefers crawling.  She is starting to walk and is capable of it, but to rule her empire she needs speed.  Walking is not efficient enough.  I hope she gives up the crawling soon because I'm done with the dirtiness of crawling.  Plus she is going to get trampled.  Nursery is survival of the fittest, certainly no place to persist in crawling.  

Other 18 month items of business:

-her morning beauty routine now includes self-application of hand lotion, it's never too early to ward off wrinkles, she rubs her hands so cute, I think we've gone through a whole bottle of the expensive stuff in one week simply because I love to watch her rub those chubby little paws together.

-a few new words:  bowl, mama (screamed from her crib every morning), ME, YEAH!!, 

ehhhh accompanied by vicious head shaking(no), deeDEE (blanky), ba (bath)

-showing off: if she thinks she is not getting a sufficient amount of attention she will start walking.

-vicious screaming at the radio in the car if Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer isn't playing.  I used to like that song, I think.

-Kisses

-Reading longer books, favorites are "Dog Food," "Goodnight Gorilla," "From Head to Toe."

-Play time with just me when the other two are at school. She is such a good only child.  

-And a molar, that was fun...