Valentine's 2011

Nothing wrong with being a little late -- 11 days later, I'm still feelin' the love.  :)  

 I decided to subject my children to a photo shoot since they were home from school for 2 snow days the week before (and 2 more the next week, along w/ 2 teacher work days - they only went to school on Monday last week!).  So here you have it - my Valentines:

 K-lady is the such a great big sister.  When Baby A burned her hand on a hot stove burner last week, she cried and cried for "K-bug." It was quite heartbreaking, but made me realize what a sweet little momma she is to Baby A.  She helps me constantly with a thousand little things.  She's very sensitive to the emotional state of others and works hard to maintain peace.  Her dearest dream is to have her own room, and she's all for saving money so we can buy a house and she can have her own little haven where little hands cannot destroy Barbie accessories. :)  She isn't really into playing with the Barbies, but she LOVES to 'remodel' the doll house - she says, "Will you come and makeover the Barbie house?  It'll be like those shows on TV when they change where the furniture is and make it all beautiful and nice at the end."  :)  We haven't had HGTV for years, but apparently it made an impression on her!  Girl after my own heart!  She hates it when I listen to talk radio in the car because all the negative news freaks her out.  She tries to be tough and grown up, but she's pretty tender under her little grown-up-guise.  This morning I heard her telling J-boy, "You know, there's a song that says girls just wanna have fun.  And it's true - girls really do just wanna have fun."

 This little man has the craziest sense of fashion, and he's quite passionate about it.  He is a class clown and loves to make people laugh - he's got some awesome dance moves/air guitar skills, as well as hilarious facial expressions.  He has a terrible whine, but if I can slow down the situation enough to actually listen to him (if I can get him to pitch his voice 4 octaves lower so it's possible to listen to him) he's easy to calm down -- is that a middle child thing - trying to be heard and understood in the middle of the mayhem??  He loves Star Wars right now, thanks to bits of exposure from cousins and friends.  The other day he looked at me with an amazed expression and said, "Mom!  Our car is a toyota!  TOY YODA!!"  I think our van just got quite a bit cooler in his eyes.  He is starting karate this week - he told me he was thinking about gymnastics (it kills him to watch K-lady jump on those trampolines and not get a turn), but he decided it was better to "learn to karate-chop the bad guys, and karate-kick them so I can get the bad guys with my karate kicks."  My little defender has his priorities in line.  :)

 This isn't a great pictures of this monkey, but it's one of 2 that I got of her before she was done. :)  She is such a fun little buddy!  She is very independent (she helps herself to yogurt, movies, diaper changes....  sometimes independence is overrated....).  We tried to potty train her during that 4-days-at-home stretch, but she had a minor tragedy while dressed as minnie mouse -- she decided she wanted to go by herself w/o help and w/o the little seat (since she's so independent), but the dress was a little too poufy, and she lost her balance and slipped right into the toilet and couldn't get out.  So now she's a little freaked out about the toilet and I've missed my magic window.  No big deal - I'm sure another one will come along (I'm such a lazy potty trainer!).  She loves to twirl and sing and tromp through the snow in her boots.  A few weeks ago she and J-boy were playing some sort of pretend game, and she was bossing him around -- "Hey, friend!  Come on!!"  And when he didn't come right away she tried the threatening-count: "One...Three...Two..."  :) She's been having nap-time-bed-time issues since discovering that her monkey skills are sufficient to get her in-to-and-out-of bed.  Bleh.  Some nights she goes down like a dream, and others it's kicking and screaming.  I still baby her a ton - she's NOT AT ALL a baby anymore (which makes me very sad), but I still carry her around and even spoon-feed her occasionally (anything to get her to EAT!).

 Those pictures to the left were the real purpose of the photo-shoot -- a little internet-inspired Valentine's goodness.  The kids were not excited AT ALL at the prospect of homemade Valentine's, but once we started putting tootsie pops into the pictures they decided they were cool after all. :)






Joseph bought each of his 3 girls tulips (J-boy got candy from daddy) - they were beautiful!  I loved the way they caught the morning sun.  And now we have some bulbs that will make next Spring beautiful, too (I hope...  if I don't kill them like I kill all plants I touch).  :)

It was a busy but good day - we had our traditional candlelit family dinner prepared by Joseph and I (I love cooking w/ him - I'm afraid I often think of cooking as a chore, but when we do it together it's so fun).  I made the mistake of putting the fruit & chocolate fondue out with the dinner, and that was all Baby A ate. :)  But we had a grand time.

Joseph wasn't around for our snow-day-photo-shoot, so I don't have a cute picture of him, but he really is the best Valentine of all.  He is so good and so good to us.  We have had our ups and downs, just like everyone, but sticking it out and working through (or sometimes, it seems, just enduring) the problems is so worth it.  He is a wonderful husband, and a great father.  I found my old box of love letters from when we were dating - gave me a nice little trip down memory lane, remembering all that twitterpation. But I love what we have now even better.  

That's Baby A's first Valentine's Day up there - don't blink, right??

Warming up for J-boy's birthday

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

J-boy wants a Star Wars birthday (I don't think he's ever even seen any of the movies, but that doesn't seem to dampen his enthusiasm).  Anyway, this made for an amusing refresher course. :)

Boy, Oh Boy!

{Thank you so much for your kindness and encouragement in the comments on the last post - it is so sweet to still be connected to all of you in some way!  I've always had a hard time deciding how much to put on here -- it's easy enough to share the 'public' side of life, the picture-perfect or funny moments.  But I hesitate with the more personal, more heartfelt, more vulnerable moments of life.  That stuff gets messy, you know?  Anyway, thanks for making me feel safe and loved in spite of my messes.}


K-lady and I spent Saturday afternoon up in the city to help w/ a baby shower for Heidi - after 3 girls she's finishing off the family w/ a boy!

We did the decorations and the sugar (my favorite parts!)  Our wonderful friend Stephanie hosted the shower at her lovely home - it was so nice to see so many familiar faces from our old ward.

I made cake pops for the first time as favors - these are so yummy and dangerous.

Here's me and Heidi at the end - we've always had babies at the same time, but it's just her this go around.  She's such a wonderful friend, and our husbands are great friends, and our kids are great friends.  Poor little baby boy isn't going to have a counterpart in our family!  But I'm sure J-boy will show him the ropes (watch out, Heidi!)

K-lady had a blast playing with Stephanie and Heidi's girls.  We both left with full hearts - there are so many wonderful people to love!

To blog or not to blog....

This is mostly just stream of consciousness with very little pictures.  (in other words, feel free to go ahead and skip it; as my sister says, I won't judge.)   :)
So the last 6 months or so I've been wondering about this blog - I try to be careful about too much detail and information about my family (Joseph's brother thinks I'm nuts to even put my kids faces on an unsecured internet site).  So I didn't blog much about how Joseph was traveling a lot last Spring looking for a job.  And I didn't blog about all the turmoil that went along with looking for that job.  Dentists tend to get a job and stay put, you know?  And we've never stayed put in all our married lives - and to be quite honest, the thought terrified me. :)  Especially as it turned out - we didn't get our first, our second, or even our third pick for location.  What we ended up with was a place that wasn't even on the list at all.  But we prayed and prayed and made lists of pros and cons and hashed it all out till we were blue in the face (figuratively) and decided that this out-of-the-way little town was really the best choice.  Along the way I learned beyond a doubt what a real NO felt like (that was dental practice serious option number 1), and then Joseph learned what a NO felt like (that was dental practice serious option number 2).  Time was running our, options were dwindling, and I kept waiting for the NO on this place, but it didn't come.
But it was pretty hard for me.  At first I was just too sad to blog -- generally speaking, I only blog about happy stuff. :)  I know that might seem like a pretty incomplete view of life, and I'm sure it is, but I stuck the disclaimer right there on the blog header - we're remembering the good times here!  I am an optimist and an editor - I write down painful lessons learned in my journal with all their maudlin details and save the blog for the cheerful, photo-opportune moments.  :)  And the flash on my camera was broken, and our new apartment has very little natural light, so even non-cheerful photo opps weren't happening!
Anyway, after being sad for a few months I had a little life-changing moment.  I'd spent the weekend in UT, surprising my dad for his 70 birthday.  We had a grand grand time - it was so lovely!  Mindy was there, and we laughed more in those 3 days than I think I had in 3 months.  It felt so good.  I cried all the long way home (2 hr. drive to the airport in the rental car, 1 hr flight to phoenix for the connection, 3 hour layover while the plane was repaired, 2 hr. flight to final destination, 1/2 hr. drive to friends' house for the night, sleep for 5 hrs, 1 1/2 hr. drive home.  That was a lot of crying!)  I continued to feel extremely sorry for myself for a couple days, then was asked to teach a lesson on gratitude for a midweek activity at church.  Great - most ungrateful person on the planet is going to teach gratitude, right?  But I know by now that those lessons are always for ME, not for anyone I'm teaching.
That lesson gave me the shift in perspective I needed to get out of my pity party.  This quote sums it all up:

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough, and more.

It turns denial into acceptance,

chaos to order,

confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast,

a house into a home,

a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past,

brings peace for today

and creates a vision for tomorrow.

~Melody Beattie

So I am grateful for a good job for my husband - stressful at times, to be sure, and not where I wanted it to be, and very very busy - but good.  I am grateful that because of that good job, I can stay home with my kids and indulge in all kinds of introspection. :) I'm grateful that our home is small and imperfect, because it means we're saving money on rent, and hopefully someday we'll be able to put that extra money towards a house that won't be quite so small and quite to imperfect.  I'm grateful that our town is little, because it means that I won't be distracted by 2 million things (only 200), and I can focus on my family.  I'm grateful that I have a mother and father and siblings that I miss terribly, because that means that my home growing up was filled with love, and that love can (and does) stretch over time and space. I'm grateful for my 'job' - I've been accompanying up at the university here, and I'm enjoying it immensely.  It's so nice to have to practice again, to see the progress I can make, to challenge myself.  Having that extra responsibility has given me a sense of productivity I was really lacking.  And I'm even grateful that we've got a new 'home town' - unwanted-at-first though it was.  We feel welcomed and needed here, and it's the perfect time to build our own home, our own family, our own traditions and systems.  And I think this semi-sheltered small town will be a gentle sort of place in which to make small mistakes.  Which is really what we want for our family.  See, Heavenly Father DOES know what He's doing.  What a comfort!  So, of course, I'm grateful for answered prayers - even when the answer is an uncomfortable no or an even-more-uncomfortable yes, it all works out eventually.

So at first I was too sad to blog, then I got to busy to blog, and I didn't have many cute photos anyway.  :)  But I rather like jabbering at my family at the other end of the internet, so I think I'll keep going afterall.  At least occasionally!  :)

The REAL big day!

 Here she is!  (Whew!  I was feeling like a wedding planner at this point.)  We had a wonderful day celebrating K-lady's baptism.  Here she is outside our church building...

 Daddy baptized and confirmed her a member of the church - the picture above is right before they went into the water.  We baptize by immersion to represent being washed clean of sins and being reborn as a child of God.  As part of the ordinance, we make covenants with God.  We promise to take care of each other and try our best to be good people.  God promises to bless us with His Spirit.

This is probably much too personal and serious for a blog, but I felt so humbled and honored as I watched my daughter and husband participate in this ordinance.  I felt like our family got a little closer to being together forever.  It made me catch my breath.  It was beautiful.

 Of course best friends must be present for such a wonderful occasion!  (don't they look like fire and ice?)  :)

And wonderful family and friends made it extra special.  I did not in a million years expect all these people to come!  2 Grandpa's, 1 Grandma, 3 Aunts, 2 Uncles, 10 cousins (I got to meet that sweet-as-sugar baby up there for the first time)!!  All driving 2-3 hours to get here, and seemed quite happy about it, too (which was even more amazing to me!)

 And wonderful friends-that-might-as-well-be-family, too.  I still can't believe they came - wonderful ladies!

There were FOUR kids baptized that day!  Quite a shock for our little congregation - the entire chapel was FULL for the meeting.

 Then everyone (40 people!) came over to our little house for a ham dinner - Dad, Joseph and Doug figured out how to glaze the ham with just a little help from Heidi and the instructions. :)  It was so fun - the kids just ran around and the adults chatted.  It was a great way to celebrate together!

These last pictures are from my little 'photo shoot' with K-lady a week or two beforehand.  We went to a lovely park here in town and caught some beautiful late afternoon light and had fun - though K-lady didn't have as much fun as I (NO MORE PICTURES, MOM!).  But I just couldn't quit - I loved being able to catch these moments.  My little K-lady is a wonderful person - I can't wait to see what she does with the rest of her life.  She is kind and caring, and gently negotiates and maneuvers her siblings (as a big sister and mother, I can say with good authority that these are essential skills for a happy home).  She is anxious to do the right thing and tries to do good.  She loves to laugh, is cautious in new situations, but quickly adjusts and adapts.  And lest you think she is too good to be true, she's also sassy.  She hates showing affection in public, and is quite concerned that her friends might be within hearing distance when I say, "Bye!  I love you!" as she gets out of the car at school in the morning, and absolutely refuses to acknowledge my expressions of affection.  :)  But I'll take the cold prickles along with the warm fuzzies, 'cause that's how most people are packaged, anyway.

We love you, K-lady!

Eight Years in Seven Minutes

My fabulous friend Heidi introduced me to this video site - very easy - I threw this together pretty quickly for K-lady, and I love the end result. ;)

The Party

We decided to party on the 18th - seemed like a good day. :)  K-lady invited a few friends (I made her keep it small because I'd been feeling like my brain might explode), and we had a good time.  My wonderful dad arrived the night before for the weekend's goodness, and our wonderful friends Heidi and Doug & their girls came down for the weekend. (please forgive the huge long post and overload of pictures - Heidi took pictures for me, and I love them all!) :)

K-lady wanted a rock star party, but, like I said before, I was in danger of loosing my mind if the party got too big, so we kept it relatively simple (none of that build-a-stage-and-bring-out-the-drum-set-and-karaoke-stuff).   I also had a little mini-personal-crisis about getting too carried away in the fluff of a party, and not remembering the importance of this birthday (in our church children are baptized when they are old enough to be accountable - 8 years old - so it's the beginning of making covenants with God - that's pretty important to us.)  In the end we decided a party would make K-lady happy, and not building a rock star stage would make me happy.  :)  Win-win.

Some of the girls, waiting for a few more guests to arrive.

Decorating their cardboard 'guitars' (crafty/gluey/sequiny/glittery things like this are so nice with girls.  They spent FOREVER getting their guitars just. right.  J-boy and his little buddy were too busy using their guitars as  nunchucks to bother with much decorating)  :)  The girls took these home instead of goody bags.

 

Monkey here was quite happy blowing bubbles while the girls decorated and the boys nunchucked.

 Then we headed inside for some nail polish - it was so fun having the dad's around!  They helped paint the girls' nails. :)

K-lady insisted on helping every other girl paint their nails first, THEN and only then would she allow her nails to be painted.  She was a sweet little hostess.

Another dose of uber-processed-foods for dinner - The dad's took care of making dinner (K-lady had requested cheese and pepperoni pizza, more dorritos, chicken nuggets and mini-sodas.  I really hope these things are appealing because they are rare in our home and she's a kid.  She will grow out of that, right???).  

 Dad helped me put up the decorations. It was so fun having him there!  

It kind of looks like she's sipping that soda in a worshipful way, doesn't it??  :)  (she really was in heaven to have her very own little can) 

And if the food by itself wasn't enough to make your tummy ache, how about a game of twister right afterwards???

Back to the kitchen for cake and candles and wishes and presents and ice cream (yes, all at once, we were a little crunched for time there at the end). 

She bestowed a huge hug on each gift giver.

And the girls rocked out a little right at the end.  :)