Roser Family Blog

Happy Halloween

2009-11-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

I think this was the funnest Halloween I've ever had. To be honest, Matt and I are pretty lazy when it comes to holidays--we do the bare minimum for the kids sake but don't put forth the efforts necessary to make things extra special. Our kids make up for our lack of enthusiasm and it was so fun to watch them in action.

Ellie has been obsessed with Harry Potter for about 6 months now so she's been planning her Hermoine outfit for a while. Then, a few months ago, when we decided one day to actually brush Mathew's hair, we discovered that he looked a lot like the Harry Potter villain, Draco Malfoy. Sophie wanted to be princess Leah but changed her mind at the last minute and went for the BYU cheerleader outfit. I found monkey hats at Micheal's so I wore Troy in the baby carrier and we were monkeys.

It was delightful to watch the excitement during trick-or-treating. Watching Mathew was like watching the tigger movie in fast forward. His little feet were moving so fast and there a little spring in his step. After every house he would yell "They gave me candy!!" as if it were the first time. His bucket was full but he wouldn't let anyone touch it.

Half way through the night, when he was on a major sugar high, he started saying he was super-Mathew and was flying around with his cape. He had all of us laughing so hard.

The next morning was Ellie's birthday. She got a pocket knife and a "fur real" toy duck. She is one of those kids that really loves her toys and it's so fun to watch her bond with them.

Troy's about to walk and is transforming before our eyes. Yesterday he started waving and he is climbing up the gate I use as a play pin. He plays games with us and his hair is starting to grow so sometimes I don't even recognize him. Can I slow down the clock?

The next week everyone got sick. Luckily it was a mild strain of the flu but still noses were dripping all over and everyone was running to the bathroom all the time. I kept the girls home 2 days and had all 4 kids needing my constant attention. The stomach flu with a recently-trained toddler gives a little extra adventure to the house. In fact, I even went and bought a pregnancy test because I kept on thinking that everything was smelling really bad in the house and I must be pregnant. But sure enough, the house really was just smelling extra bad.

Potty training, Sleep training and cross-training

2009-10-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

I've been recently mourning the fact that I haven't been blogging in so long. If I don't write things down, it's almost as if they never happened. The kids have been asking me to tell them stories about when they were little but I'm surprised at how little I remember--how much gets lost.

The last few months I've been focusing on getting some fundamentals in place--Establishing schedules, routines, potty training Mathew and trying get in shape. Now that Troy's sleeping through the night, Mathew's peeing in the Potty and I've lost 40 pounds, I'm ready to begin documenting my life at some level again.

Yesterday was a true testament to how quickly kids grow up. Mathew made a huge leap in his drawing. For weeks he has sat at the table drawing lines and circles--spending 20+ minutes on his works of art and proudly replacing anything on the fridge with his work. Yesterday, his lines and circles turned into recognizable apple trees. Troy started doing patty-cake and pointing to his nose on demand. He looks at me with such intense eyes, just begging me to teach him a new trick.

We went to San Diego last weekend and stayed with my sister, Julia, and her family. We were able to use our free Sea World passes and went to the beach. The kids played in the ocean for 3 hours straight. Very fun.

Mathew loves dinosaurs but has his own version of their names: Rock-osaurus, Dino-saurus (my personal favorite), Broccolli-saurus (he corrects us when we say Brachiosaurus). There are more but I haven't fully decipered them yet. I caught Mathew standing on a ladder, with his pants at his ankles, trying to pee into the washing machine with a load of freshly-washed clothes. He still has that mischievious streak in him but at the same time is so loving. There isn't an hour that goes by in the day that he doesn't say "I wov you mommy" or give me a hug. So it all evens out in the end.

Summertime

2009-06-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

I've gotten so behind on blogging. Mostly because we misplaced our camera charger for a few weeks and pictures are what give me ideas of what to right about. Anyway, this is what we've been doing with our time..

-Church: I gave a talk in Sacrament meeting 2 weeks ago. They'd ask me to speak 20 minutes on "the Sabbath--a delight". That's the longest talk I'd ever given and I put a lot of time and energy into it. It feels good to go through that every once in a while. Also, after more than 2 years, I was just released as RS teacher. I really enjoyed that calling even though it was a stress every month. At least it kept me honest with my scripture study, etc.

-Tennis: Matt has a dream of everyone playing tennis. The girls really like it and identify themselves as Tennis girls. We put them in a 2 week, 2 hour a day camp. It's really pushing Ellie's attention span although she made a friend there so it keeps her going. Sophie's improving a ton. Mathew cries that he wants to play so we got him a racket and I've been just throwing balls to him during the class--it's very cute.

-I hired a 12 yr old girl to come over 2 hours every morning to help me with my routine. While I do piano and reading with each girl, Sydney works with Mathew to do "chores and homework" (unload dishwasher, clean up books, work on coloring and cutting). While I work with one girl, the other does chores & homework. Then the girls play board games while I take Tito on a snooze cruise. So far it's been nice because it would take me all day on my own. This way we work hard for 2 hours and then have time for play.

-Gymnastics: Ellie and Mathew had been doing gymnastics but Sophie wanted to go too so we found a time where all of the kids take a class at the same time. It is the most enjoyable hour for me to sit and watch all 3 of them!

-Thundercats: Matt loves digging out old shows he watched when he was young..somehow got a hold of the old Thundercats episodes. The girls LOVE them. I was trying to hide them because I think they are a little too old for Ellie but she eats it up. Whenever Mathew is sleeping I let them watch an episode. Ellie tells everyone about the show that has really cool face painting and practices running like Cheetara.

-Mini-family reunion: Matt's cousin, Lee, and his family are moving to Guam with the Air Force so there was a reunion at a park last weekend. It was fun to see everyone and then we were able to hang out with Matt's cousins on Sunday and Monday too.

Visit with the cousins

2009-06-11T22:11:00.000-07:00

James and Kristy stopped in Arizona for 2 weeks before going to Mexico City for the Summer (James has an internship). Here are some highlights:
-Filling our van to full capacity with kids/luggage
-Taking 7 kids ages 7&under all genetically siblings to the zoo twice
-Dancing in the rain with umbrellas
-Kids had a blast at a small amusement park in Phoenix.
-Ellie and Isaac bonding over Magic Tree House books
-James and Kristy buying a used Phil and Teds stroller on Craigs list and then realizing it was being sold at Costco for the same price. Then they sold the old one on craigs list and then bought a new one.....all of this within24 hours

Preschool graduation

2009-05-20T22:35:00.000-07:00

Ellie had her preschool graduation this week. They had a little ceremony and each kid got and released a balloon. Ellie's was the only balloon that flopped to the floor and then I realized that she had been trying to suck the helium out of it. She is always looking for a laugh.

She was wearing a hand me down dress of Sophie's so I thought it was so funny that one of her friends showed up in the same dress.

Here is Ellie with her friend Jacob. They both insist that they are going to get married one day...hmmm. They are such sweet friends though.

The last picture is Ellie and her cross stitch project. I got it as a summer activity and she really loves it. She also likes to wear an old pair of my reading glasses (glass fell out of them).

Matt's b-day

2009-05-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

Matt's birthday came and left. Poor guy had to work early so I think he was at work before any of us had woken up.

I was able to get someone to watch Tito while I went to see Sophie's performance of the "Three piggy opera at school". She is such a performer at heart. She's becoming so reserved but when she gets in front of a crowd she has no reservations. It was fun to watch. Here is a picture of Sophie (right) and her friend Rachel(left).

That night I made Matt's favorite meal (Turkish Shish-kebabs and rice). For desert, I made my Mom's recipe of baked Alaska. It was fun for the presentation mostly because the brownie was slightly burned. But it was fun and different (not quite as beautiful as my Mom's used to be).

I love this action shot of us keeping Tito's hands off of it for the picture. Also, I just noticed Troy's feet made it in the bottome picture.

For Matt's present, I got a digital photo frame he's been wanting for a while. I never wanted it because I'm not crazy about how it looks but it has been fun to actually look at pictures. It's funny to see how bad our memories are...it seems like we only remember things that we have pictures of.

Eagar

2009-05-15T14:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we went to Eagar. Some highlights were:
-Playing in the irrigation water
-The kids got to ride horses with grandpa
-We cracked and ate a coconut
-Enjoying beautiful scenery/weather
-Feeding cows and horses
-Grandpa Sam's expressions...here are some of our favorites from the weekend:
(to Tito) "come on weenie-arm, you're slower than the second coming"

"you couldn't pour pee out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel"

"I haven't been this happy since the hogs ate my little brother"

(to Matt while fixing fence) "That's good enough for the girls we go with"

(to Tito--regarding his babbling) "When are you going to start talking white-man?"
"that'll make a rabbit slap a bear"

Weeks are flying by

2009-05-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I ordered a grain grinder and mixer and have been looking forward to using them. When they arrived, I put the boxes aside for a time when I could carefully unwrap the new arrivals. I noticed the kids were being unusually quiet while I was practicing piano with Sophie and when I came out, there was a scene straight out of a Lost episode. They had stabbed the boxes with kebab sticks and forks.

Since then, we've gotten good use out of the machines. I'm trying to get my kids to like bread since they currently refuse to eat any kind of sandwich. I've been making a lot of pizza, cinnamon roles and other things that will help them ease into liking bread. I got this cool bread recipe that I love that uses lecithin instead of oil and makes 4 loaves of bread in under 1 hour. Between this and trying to use my food storage, there have been some growing pains as we transition what we eat.

Meal planning is more difficult for me than it should be. Take bread for instance. I've worked hard to take bread out of my diet because of my weight issues but then my kids stopped liking bread too. It's difficult to factor in different tastes, what's healthy, what's economical, etc. I'm still figuring it out. I'm really looking forward to this Summer and hoping the kids will participate more in the meal process.

American Express announced another set of major lay-offs. In the fall he survived a 10% of the workforce cut. He was the only person left on his row. Right now it looks like we may have dodged another round but we can never get too comfortable. I am heartbroken for all the people who lost their jobs though and will try to be prepared no matter what. The most important things, of couse, are family & health.

I took Ellie to the Elementary School office the other day and she said to the receptionist. "Excuse me, I'd like to register for Kindergarten please". What a moment. This girl feels so grown up--Hopefully her spirits are not dampened by the big kids on the playground.

Show Choir Concert

2009-04-26T22:50:00.000-07:00

The girls have been going to a show choir class where they sing and dance a little. Mostly they just enjoy the performances. This was Ellie's first time doing it and we didn't know what to expect but she did a great job. I think they had a good time. I got some medals for them afterwards. I never used to do that but have noticed that they are dissapointed when they see that other kids are getting trophies, flowers, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wFRjoiU1ns

Piu-Piu

2009-04-26T22:20:00.000-07:00

It seems like my girls were born wearing a purse and playing with dolls. Tito, on the other hand is a different story. Although he can hang with the girls in playing house if he has to, he clearly favors anything that can be shot or ridden. I have been convinced that this was innate and in no way a learned behavior since he was born into a house of barbie dolls and frilly dress-ups. The other day Matt was asking me why Tito was saying "Piu-Piu" (Pee-oo Pee-oo). I thought it was obvious that was the sound of a shooting gun. Matt informed me that, in English, a gun says "bang bang" not "piu piu". That was a real blow to me because I honestly don't remember teaching Tito to shoot guns. I swear he started doing that on his own...but I'm the only one around here that was raised in Mexico so somehow, Imust have tought my son to shoot in Spanish.

Did I already mention that I spent Tuesday on the phone with poison control? Tito got into my prenatal vitamins while I was nursing Troy. Considering he no symptoms, aside from a few nasty diapers, I think he must have only eaten a few. Although at the time I had no idea how many he'd eaten.

Saturday was a Mother's day event at Ellie's pre-school. She was so cute and totally treated me like a Queen. Recently she's been extra-super polite to me--she asks me if she can help, gives me lots of hugs, etc. She also wanted to choose my outfit and made me wear one of her favorite necklaces which was way too small for me. Also notice the corsage on my arm.

It was great to see all of her art work and to see her interact with friends and teachers. She's a gem.

The circle of trust

2009-04-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

I've had the hardest time figuring out the food storage thing. Over a year ago, I decided that I wanted to get serious about it and I ordered wheat. It's been one thing after another that has gone wrong...order was dropped, cannery closed for Summer, order dropped again, cannery decided to only sell wheat every 3 months, etc, etc. So we decided to do it on our own. We got the cans and wheat at the cannery and then bought a bunch of rice at Costco. It took a while to locate the stake canning machine but finally we got it. After all the hastle, I'm now realizing that most people here (who actually have food storage) have done it this way. Why did this turn out to be so complicated and shrouded in secrecy? It feels good to have finally broken into the circle of food storage.

The girls had a lot of fun too. At the cannery they helped me count labels and we talked about the process that the cannery goes through as well as the concept of rotating food. They enjoyed filling the cans but especially loved working the canner and labeling the boxes. They decorated some of the boxes and I feel like they are time-capsules in a sense.

I also ordered a wheat grinder and Bosch mixer this week and am looking forward to using more grains. Our grain intake has been limited to whole wheat waffles made in the vitamix and cracked wheat cereal.

The quiet observer

2009-04-13T00:23:00.000-07:00

I've posted way too much tonight but I'm avoiding going to bed. I just wanted to post this picture because it summarizes Troy right now. He just sits there with his dimpled smile, watching everyone. At this point, he was watching the kids squirt eachother with a hose when it's still way too cold for that kind of thing. Troy's like the "greenie" on the mission that is to the point that he understands everything but just can't speak yet.

Digging up old ghosts

2009-04-12T23:35:00.000-07:00

A friend from the ward called and asked me to help out at her daughter's school on Wednesday. They were doing a reenactment of Immigration at Ellis Island and were trying to help kids understand what it would have felt like to live through that experience. They had kids dress up like immigrants from that era and grouped them into families, gave them passports and fake identities and a few of us volunteers pretended to be immigration officers. We were told to only speak in our foreign language--the point was for the kids to feel the confusion that immigrants felt. We were supposed to ask questions, and pick who to let through and who to deport.

It really didn't matter what I asked or said to these kids because none of them could understand a lick of Bulgarian and probably had no idea such a country existed. I started out just asking what's your name, where are you from, etc. The kids had no clue what I was saying. Half way through, I caught myself saying to a group of six year olds-- "What do you think you are doing here, you slimy cult followers? What right do you think you have to come to our country and tell us how to live?" At that point I realized I was having a cathartic experience...remembering the harassment I experienced on my mission.

Bulgaria wouldn't give us Visas so every month we had to leave the country and come back in again. The closest border was Yugoslavia (Serbia) so the mission Pres would drive us to the border, let us out and we would have to walk out into "no man's land" which is a strip of land between the Bulgarian and Serbian borders. Then we'd turn around and show our passports to come back in. The guards there hated us and would harass us and sometimes tell us they wouldn't let us back in the country. They of course did but sometimes would make us just sit there trying to scare us.

Police would also bang on our apartment doors sometimes and ask us what we were doing there, Always inspected documents, etc. and basically tried to intimidate us. We used to joke that they were just trying to keep track of our birthdays because that's one of the questions they always ask among hundreds of others.

Right before I left, we got a new mission president and he was determined to stop the harassment. At the time, Bulgaria wanted to join the EU and of course religious harassment is not looked on favorably. Pres. Stephens asked the missionaries to report every single incidence of harassment and then he began to file claims. According to Pres. Stephens, Bulgaria became one of the top in the world in religious persecution that year because of all of the claims. The harassment stopped after that.

Anyways, it was an interesting re-living that this week.

"Day off"

2009-04-12T23:34:00.000-07:00

The kids have a 4 day weekend and for them it's a day off but for me that means overtime. Sophie and Ellie always get really into their imagination games on days off so that means messes. I love to see them play that way but I must say that between having family and friends over last week and being out of town on the weekend, I'm really behind on laundry and house cleaning.

Matt took the kids to the gym for an hour on Friday and it gave me some time to catch up a little. The kids love going to the gym because they always do face painting. When they got home they were deep in character of butterfly and some kind of Spring fairy/princess and were doing Nacho-libre type dancing.

We are actually getting a pretty healthy crop of strawberries in our garden. It doesn't replace the cartons I'm buying weekly on sale, but Mathew does enjoy picking/eating them and I think he's finally grasping the concept of why we wait to pick them when they are red. He also enjoys finding the mutant strawberries like the "twins" in the picture.

Last night we dyed Easter eggs and, like every activity, it slowly evolved into bigger and bigger projects. We started dying eggs but then they were tie dying paper towels and then old T-shirts.

This morning Matt and I enjoyed listening to the excitement of finding Easter baskets and I couldn't help but think how quickly these darling years will pass. Even though Mathew ate way too much chocolate and that annoying plastic "grass" gets everywhere, this time will be over way too soon.

Tonight the kids wanted to have a slumber party and the girls insisted that Mathew join them. Matt and I walked in to see they had piled up almost every pillow and blanket in the house in their room and Mathew was sitting on top of his thrown daring us to try to move him. We knew it wouldn't actually work but we let them try it. Sophie fell asleep right away while Ellie and Mathew looked at books together for about an hour. After that, Mathew was acting up too much so we finally put him in his bed. Oh well, tomorrow they can sleep in.

More Safford

2009-04-12T22:56:00.000-07:00

We had an Easter egg hunt in Safford. They have some really cool property so it was a lot of fun for the kids. We let the younger kids go out a few minutes early so they could get the easy eggs and here is a video of when the older kids were finally unleashed.

At one point Mathew hurt his foot and he was telling everyone that he was climbing a mountain and he stepped on a porcupine. We were all laughing until later that day he came in saying he found the porcupine and wanted to show it to me--one of the burs that are all over the place. The funny thing is that it really did look like a little porcupine.

Friends and family

2009-04-12T22:47:00.000-07:00

Some old friends of ours, the Detmans, were in town last Thursday visiting from Utah. They have 5 darling kids and it was so fun to catch up with them!

The next day, we decided to go down to Safford and spend conference weekend with Matt's cousins. It's always a good time to travel because we are relieved of church callings. The kids were so happy to be with their cousins and, although I did have to chase Mathew down a little, and we had some melt downs, overall it was relaxing. They live in a rural area and the kids love just running around in the dirt and throwing rocks. Kristen (Matt's cousin's wife) made delicious strawberry shortcake and Wes made home-made smoked pulled pork...yum. There is something about seing that many kids together that is so darling. The boy cousins really tried to include Mathew which was nice of them since he kept on wrecking their games. Matt took the last picture with his phone...Mathew helping the boys play xbox.

Attack of the flying scrolls

2009-04-02T07:12:00.001-07:00

This Sunday Sophie and Ellie got into a fight about something. Later on, I was doing piano practice with Ellie when a piece of paper rolled up with a rubber band around it. It was a note from Sophie apologizing for what she'd done earlier. I could see Ellie's anger just melt away instantaneously. After piano, Ellie was very busy and every few minutes would call out--"how do you spell.." Later, when I was doing piano with Sophie, these scrolls came flying in one by one--there must have been 20 of them. The first was an apology note from Ellie and the rest were pictures she'd drawn for her. The girls were so giggly and excited--it was really sweet. I caught this picture as Ellie was scurrying down the hal --about to deliver a load o "flying scrolls".

At testimony meeting that day, Sophie asked me if it was OK for her to bear her testimony about flying scrolls. I told her that was fine as long as she could tie it into her testimony about the gospel. She said she wasn't sure what to say about that so she better wait til next time. Our next FHE was about bearing testimonies so I'm curious to see if she will get up.

Ellie

2009-03-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Ellie starts Kindergarten this Fall and I'm really going to miss having her home. She has overcome so many obstacles this year. At the beginning of the year, she looked like Linus from the show Peanuts. More and more she wouldn't take her thumb out of her mouth and would carry her blankie everywhere. It was really affecting her socially because she would prefer to sit out with her thumb rather than interact. She seemed very fragile. I was going to wait til this Summer to start talking about the thumb, but Matt just asked her if she wanted to stop and Ellie said yes. So she agreed to letting us put that bad-tasting nail polish on everyday to help her stop. Motivated also by the bribe of getting a barbie if she stopped, she really worked hard until she was able to give it up. Ever since then, she has been a different person. She seems infinitely confident, her allergies disappeared, and has endless energy.

She is really determined and is working hard in so many areas--reading, rollerblading and she even passed the last level of the typing tutor this week. I need to learn something from her ability to stick to her goals. Of course, maybe if I was offered face painting and tatoos as rewards, I would get something done too.

Messes and haircuts

2009-03-28T22:06:00.000-07:00

This week, I cut out a bunch of clip art and made a "Sleep Rules" poster for Mathew. We had one for Sophie and Ellie and it really seemed to work. Mathew seemed to enjoy and understand the discussion. The first night was awesome..he stayed in bed, didn't call out a million times, etc. Day 2 however, I was telling Matt how wonderfully the poster was working...thinking Mathew was asleep.... when we heard little noises coming from the hallway. He had been very busy and had emptied a ton of stuff out of his room and was dragging everything right outside his door (maybe building a fortress?). Anyway, not sure if this photo totally captures the destruction in his path, but you get the idea.

We had a pretty big wind storm mid-week and it blew tons more lemons off of the tress. I spent a few hours sorting them, realizing that most of last week's batch was rotting already. On Friday we tried doing the lemonade stand thing--except I thought more parents would be interested in buying just lemons--to entice the kids, we decided to offer a free tatoo if you bought a dollar worth of lemons.

We live across from the school so we do get quite a bit of foot traffic but the down side is most people have lemons coming out of their ears right now. We did get 4 customers and it was cute to see Ellie be a salesman. She was calling out to everyone that passed by and would often get scared half way through the sentence. Ellie made a really cute sign that said Lemons..you can't tell in the picture, but the S is backwards. Mathew couldn't figure out what was going on. Every time Ellie would yell out "do you want to buy lemons?", Mathew would say, "No Ellie, they don't want any lemons!" ...he was getting so frustrated that she wasn't listening to him. Then Mathew wanted to play with the money and an all-out brawl broke out in public between Ellie and Mathew.

On Saturday, we took Ellie, Sophie and Mathew to get their hair cut. I've always cut Mathew's hair and I was feeling guilty that it looked a little crooked last time, so I thought I'd watch a professional do it to see what I was doing wrong. Mathew was petrified and sat more still that I ever thought possible. I commented that Mathew was being really good for the beautician and she bragged that she was "really good with kids". I had to laugh because, by the look on Mathew's face, I think he thought he was going to die. I didn't try to burst her bubble though.

Anyway, her cut was way more crooked than mine-- and Mathew doesn't even stay still for me-- so I'm just going to do it myself next time.

Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

2009-03-22T23:30:00.000-07:00

Every year, I promise myself that we wont waste lemons. This year, I started early and gave anybody who came by buckets of lemons. We picked and gave away many wheelbarrels full of lemons and yet there are hundreds of lemons that are now ripening and falling and there's no way we can use them all. Today I squeezed almost 10 bags of juice. I made lemon munchies and lemonade but those things of course don't make a dent. The kids had fun playing in the wheel barrel and throwing lemons out but of course it wasn't as fun to put them in. Ellie actually loves to cut and squeeze the lemons so she did most of the squeezing.

Spring Break

2009-03-22T23:19:00.000-07:00

This week my kids were on Spring Break so I tried to balance going out and doing fun activities with just letting the kids relax and play. Overall, I think it was successful. We started out everyday with our piano/reading routine and then went on an outing and tried to get back by 1pm so Mathew could nap and I let them just do what they wanted until Matt got home/dinner.

Mathew is now really into marching. This is his official marching outfit--well, the princess wand is optional, but he's pulled out my strainer every day this week to use as a hat and we go marching down to the garden banging metal spoons and then there is a corner in the garden where he pretends to catch fish. I have no idea where this idea comes from but he can't live without doing it.

One highlight from this week is the science museum. Here is a picture of sophie using a computer to distort an image of herself...I love the beehive hairdo she gave herself. Below is another fun activity where they make their shadows catch balls somehow. We also watched the IMAX movie and it was a struggle keeping Mathew quiet--he wasn't being bad, he was just excited and kept on yelling the names of the animals he recognized. Since I bought a year pass, I decided to take the kids again later that week but Mathew had caught a bug and ended up throwing up after the planetarium movie so we went home early.

The zoo was packed. I did let the kids do the camel rides which they've been begging for. My pet peve in taking the kids places is that they want to buy everything.

My world with a two year old

2009-03-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

Troy discovered his hands the other day...he looks so grown up to me. He's still so mellow and just sits there entertained, soaking in the sights and sounds of the house. At the same time, I know there is a lot going on in that brain of his--I feel like he's trying to communicate when I look in his eyes.

Yesterday Mathew was relentlessly mischievous--don't know what got into him. In a 3 hour period he emptied out a bookshelf with books/cds & was jumping on the pile of cds, emptied 2 bottles of lotion onto the pillows on our bed, Matt caught him with his favorite set of Chinese scriptures in his bed (who knows what the plan was) and then I found Matt's cell phone in the foot of the PJs he was wearing. As they say, kids only want 2 things and that is all of your attention all of the time.

I woke up at 3am this morning to Mathew yelling "who turned off the lights again?". I guess you'd have to be there to know how funny that was--Mathew isn't very articulate so it is surprising when real sentences come out.

I signed up for a Mommy-and-me gymnastics class hoping Mathew would benefit, but so far it's been a debacle. He sits there rolling his eyes and folding his arms like a teenager that's "too cool" for that--I'm just waiting for him to start saying "whatever, Mom". I'll give it a few more classes and then stop if he doesn't improve. We should probably stick to our daily bike/park routine since that works better.

I have returned to having him unload the dishwasher in the morning and have extended the duties from plastic wear to also sorting silverwear. Even though it takes 10 times as long to get it done, it's a great routine. He understands the concept of sorting well although today he insisted that the "babies had to be with their mommies" so I had to settle for having all forks together (big and little) --same with the spoons.

Hard questions to answer

2009-03-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

The girls love it when I walk with them holding onto my legs-it reminds me of when I was little, I loved to do that with my Dad. Here is a picture of the view from my perspective. Here is another picture of Mathew hunting for worms.

The kids always surprise me with the things they say and questions they ask..I need to start writing them down.

Sophie was talking about a friend of hers who has become "show-offy" recently. Sophie says that in the beginning she seemed nice but "I guess sometimes I'm not a great judge of character". Then she said it's hard to stop being friends with people after you've spent a lot of time with them--she said you become like "suction cups".

Then Ellie was talking about when Troy was in my tummy and said "Mom, you know how your spirit comes into your body when you come to earth?"
I said "yes, why?"
She said, "if there is no spirit in the baby's body when the baby is in your tummy, how is it moving?". Then we talked about how the spirit comes into the body while the baby is in my tummy. Little does she know how many debates have been had on that topic.

We've really enjoyed watching the girls in tennis this Winter. Sophie can serve now and Matt has convinced Ellie to play as a lefty even though she's right-handed. I guess some of the best players have done that. Ellie is starting to get a little tired of piano while Sophie is getting more into it. Sophie now tells me when it's time to practice and likes to show her friends what she can play when they come over. Also, she has gone to play the piano a few times when she has been "raging mad" at Ellie...she says it calms her down.

The Garden Massacre

2009-02-22T20:41:00.000-08:00

Last week I planted my Spring garden and was excited to see there were tons of worms in the garden. Well, Mathew discovered them and has been busy all week collecting them. In a way, it seems like a harmless activity but after a while, it did start to get disturbing to see the quantity of worms that were being taken out, examined and never making it. It has been a total massacre of worms. He doesn't kill them purposely but none have survived.

The first picture is his official worm-hunting outfit--note the picture was taken at night. He has been doing this litterally all day, every day this week. He comes in with dirt all over his face and I'm really hoping he hasn't eaten any worms but I can't be sure (see the second picture--you be the judge).

Saturday was a really fun day. We went on a long bike trip on a desert trail that runs from Phoenix to Cave Creek. It was about a 3 hour trip. The girls rode their bikes the whole way and Mathew rode his bike (w/ training wheels) about half way and ran the rest. Matt and I would trade off riding the bike and pushing the jogger with Troy and Mathew's bike. It was a beautiful day and the desert was so green.

The last picture is of our Michelin man. He is more and more alert everyday and loves to give smiles.

Cowgirl skater

2009-02-18T13:35:00.000-08:00

Check out the bed head!

I bought a little tikes skateboard since I can see Ellie snooping around for a new challange. It's cool because there are 3 settings to make it safer for kids as they learn. This her trying it out with her new cowboy boots from Grandma. She's convinced and is telling everyone that the boots are made out of real snake skin...who knows, maybe they are.

Jeremiah Johnson

2009-02-18T13:34:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures Matt took while up in Eagar this weekend. I had to laugh because the girls reminded me of that old mountain-man movie "Jaramiah Johnson" (or at least a Scottsdale girl's equivalent).

Sophie once said she liked Eagar because she can just "smooth out and eat chocolate. So I guess these are pictures of the just "smoothing out". No pictures of them skiing came back but Matt said they did really well. The are both convinced they went on black diamonds but I guess even passing a sign that says black diamond counts for them.

Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T18:12:00.000-08:00

Matt took the girls up to Eagar this weekend and I was worried about traveling with Troy this young so I stayed behind. I was feeling sorry for myself at first--missing all the fun again---but decided to try to enjoy my time with the boys. I spent 2 full days playing num-nums, hello, animals and variations of all of those games. Hopefully the one-on-one will pay off and not backfire.

I did get to spend a few hours outside planting a Spring garden. Planting with Mathew around is always a challenge but this time I gave him bags with rice and wheat in them and told him those were his seeds and gave him his own plot of land to plant in. Then I had my plot and seeds all to myself. I haven't had anything planted in 2 of the plots and today when I stuck the shovel in the dirt, it looked like the whole floor was moving--full of worms. Mathew actually spent the whole time catching worms and it made me sick to think how many worms he mutilated.

I don't know why the soil is all of the sudden so fertile but I'm excited to see if it makes a difference in the crops. Although worms or no worms, the real problem is that Mathew picks every thing as soon as it's sprouts. Last year, he brought in all my sprouted carrots and said "look Mom, I pick weeds".

I also took some time to update the blog...it feels good to catch up although it's probably too much for anyone to read.

Troy

2009-02-13T16:14:00.000-08:00

Is it bragging if I say my baby is an angel? He only gets up one time in the night to feed and then goes back to sleep. He is so sweet during the day--hardly complains at all. He is starting to smile and coo. He doesn't give smiles away for free, you have to work a little for them but that makes them magical because they are genuine.

I like taking baths with him sometimes--he loves the water. He hasn't found his thumb but he likes to suck on the knuckle of his second finger. He loves his swing that has moving lights and music. He will sit an laugh and the objects floating around him and the start yelling at them when he gets sick of it.

Sometimes I feel overwhellmed with everyone because they just call out asking me for something or to do something...so demanding with little respect or gratitude. Troy on the other hand, just sits in his carrier looking at me--giving me lots of attention and his demands are reasonable.

I spend a lot of time talking to him trying to convince him that he is going to be the mellow one of the family.

Mathew still loves him too. In the picture he is reading to "Twoy" from Mao's little red book. Out of all of our kids, Mathew seems most taken with Troy. He's always asking "Where's Twoy?". Just for fun, I tease Mathew saying "can we give Troy some cake, or apples, etc. Mathew will laugh and say "Silly Mom, he's too Wi-ttow" (little).

He's 8 weeks old but is bursting out of his 0-3 month old clothes (yikes--he's growing too fast!)

Captain Trouble

2009-02-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

I sometimes let the kids play with toys at the store and then
sneak them away before check out. I couldn't pry the light saber out of Tito's hand so I had to buy it. Our house is full of barbies and ponies so I have no idea where he learned to use a sword and a gun--I swear he was born that way.

Mathew is constantly talking but it's a bit like going to church in a foreign country. You just hear jiberish and then "Joseph Smith" and then jiberish again. Mathew will just jibber jaber and then you'll pick out an actual word like dinosaur or ball in the middle of it. That means he actually thinks he's saying something real.

He constantly wants to play with me and gets really upset

if I don't. It causes me a lot of anxiety to hear him crying--"play with me". It constantly makes me feel guilty but there is only so much time I can spend playing. His favorite games are:

"num- nums" (food) and "hello" (talking on the phone). He also loves playing animals and littlest pet shops.

I got an eliptical for Christmas and it came in this big box. The kids had a ton of fun painting the box and making a fort out of it. It made me wonder why we ever spend money on toys. Unfortunately it ended up making a huge mess with the paints.

Mathew started singing "Oh Damin, Oh Damin" the other day. I couldn't figure out what he was saying and I was afraid he'd heard someone swearing and was repeating it but then I realized he was singing "oh my darling" from Clementine. It did make a funny version of the song.

I captured part of the song in the video below although he turns into Buzz Lightyear half way through the song.

Dad's day

2009-02-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday was a busy day. It started out with me taking Sophie to her friend's baptism. She and some other girls in the class sang "if the Savior stood beside me". It was really sweet (even though I watched from the doorway while Mathew was being wild in the hall.

Ellie had "Dad's Day" that morning--shaving Daddy was the highlight (they used popsicle sticks). Later she went to a birthday party while I took the other 3 to Walmart/McDonalds.

We started going rollerblading but realized Sophie had a Daddy-Daughter dance at school that night so we turned around. She came home from the dance on top of the clouds and said it was the best time she'd ever had in her life. I guess they were having so much fun that they kept on dancing for 30 minutes after it was over while everything was being picked up. Matt is really fun to dance with--that's how he hooked me too. Anyway, we've been turning on music and dancing again---so fun. We used to do that everyday but it's been a while. It basically always devolves into the kids getting in line waiting for Dad to swing them around.

Awards Ceremony

2009-01-28T17:43:00.000-08:00

Every year the PTA hosts an arts competition. I always make Sophie enter stuff in several categories just as an excuse to try her hand at things. Last year she entered a dance piece and ended up winning first place in the State. Please note that she was the only dance entry by a Kindergardener in her school and possibly in the State--not much competition. This year, she won 1st place for her photo (even though they had it posted upside-down) and her non-fiction entry (a paragraph about her baby brother). Any way, she was very excited. (why can I not take the underlining off of that paragraph???)

We made such a scene at the ceremony because Mathew was yelling and running everywhere and Ellie was eating all the food and crying about how Sophie gets all the trophies. Then Alex, our neighbor had come along to "help" and was blasting her ipod the whole time.

Ellie gets her ears pierced

2009-01-21T17:41:00.000-08:00

Ellie got her ears pierced today..there are no words to describe how excited she was. I was so sad when my girls started to ask to get their ears pierced...for no other reason that it's somehow a symbol of them growing up. So, I told them that they could get their ears pierced after the finish a whole book of piano. The truth is I really didn't think they would make it because I remember how much I hated to practice piano when I was young. However, Sophie surprised me this Summer when she did practice everyday (with my help of course) and met her goal of finishing a book.

Unfortunately, our girls are a little competitive and Ellie of course had to follow. I was so proud of her because she really worked hard.

It was cute because she said she wanted pearl earrings and I didn't think anything of it until we went to 3 stores and they did not have pearl studs. Ellie is so determined, she insisted that we keep on looking until we found a place that had them.

Ellie told me her friend had told her that they take a gun and shoot holes through your ears--poor thing was so nervous but very brave. All day long, she kept on saying, " I can't believe I have my ears pierced". She was looking in any reflection she could find to see herself and was bouncing off the walls with excitement.

It was especially fun because my mom was here and got to do the last 2 songs with her and was there when she got them pierce. That made it extra special for Ellie.

MLK day--hike up pinnacle peak

2009-01-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

We took advantage of having Mom & Dad here and went on a hike up Pinnacle Peak. The dessert is beautiful up there and it was a nice day.

There were a ton of athletes running up and down the mountain. I kept on trying to stop Ellie from running because the trail can be narrow and I thought she'd fall off the cliff. This couple stopped me and asked how old Ellie was and said they were so impressed with her. I was confused but then realized they thought she was training and running as an athlete as opposed to running because she is reckless and out of control.

Troy's blessing day

2009-01-19T17:40:00.000-08:00

My parents for years have been planning a trip where they drive around the country visiting all of their kids...they call it the "Odessey". My Dad was just released from his 5 year calling/mission at the MTC and so 2 weeks ago they informed us the Odessey was about to start and to expect them on Jan 13th. Luckily Matt's Dad, Sam and his wife Michelle were available as well so we went ahead and made plans to bless the baby that Sunday. Matt gave a beautiful blessing. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed eating outside afterwards--my Mom made her famous cake--pastel de 3 leches--Yum!

I'm in a stage where I hate getting my picture taken. I always thought it was annoying when people avoided the camera but now I have more empathy. It's special occasions like these where I have to suck it up and take one for the team.

I cut Sophie's bangs this week and she is so annoyed with me over it because they fall in her eyes. I think it frames her face nicely though. I've noticed Sophie is starting to smile with her mouth closed. I think she is self conscious about her missing teeth.

Hargis Visit

2009-01-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

Matt's cousin, Emily got married after Christmas so the Hargis family (Matt's cousin's family) came to visit with their 5 kids. This was a treat for all of us.

Laurel & Ellie

Mathew getting into the girl's makeup

Christmas

2009-01-02T15:07:00.000-08:00

This is Mathew "hiding" in his pillow so he doesn't have to go to bed.

This was our first Christmas at home and I must say that, although I missed being with family, I enjoyed being able to focus on the kids and also not have to live out of a suitcase. I also loved all of the things we got--Santa brought a wii, my parents got the girls rollerblades, and I bought art supplies and clothes/play makeup with money from Matt's parents. Matt had 3 weeks off because of paternity leave so he was taking the kids out daily to roller blade or bike ride. We also spent a lot of time playing the wii and learning to water color and use oil pastels.

Sophie finished her second piano book so, as a prize, we purchased some fish. Ellie chose a beta (prize for stopping the thumb sucking) and Sophie got two little upside down cat fish--they really do swim upside down.The funny thing is that Mathew is the one that asks to feed it every day. The novelty wore off for the girls around day 3. One of my biggest joys was to watch them learn to rollerblade. After just a few days, they were good enough to confidently skate to the park. Then we turned our attention to Tito, getting him to grasp the concept of riding a bike which he finally got right before vacation ended.

Our neighbor Alex (10) also came over everyday and although she's a sweet girl, I do feel sometimes that I have 5 kids.

The Holidays

2008-12-25T13:19:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures of the kids right before the baby came.

Summer seemed to last forever around here so when it finally dipped below 80 degrees in the house (mid-december) Sophie was dressed for camping.

All the kids were so excited when we put the decorations up this year--if it were just Matt and I, we would never bother, but it is truly magical for the kids. No one can get quite as excited about things as Ellie.

At the Christmas party, Ellie would not tell us what she was going to tell Santa, but she was having a long conversation with him and was twirling his beard while she whispered in his ear. I still don't know what she was telling him.

Coming home

2008-12-20T13:41:00.000-08:00

My biggest worry in coming home was how Mathew was going to respond. He is jealous with his Mom and doesn't let his sisters sit on my lap so I was worried for Troy's safety. To my surprise, Mathew was thrilled with the baby. Of course he could still easily hurt him, but at least there is no ill intent--he loves Troy and is fascinated by him. All of the sudden the kids, especially Mathew, seem so much bigger.
It was such a blessing to have my parents there to help that week. Matt had a really hectic week at work so he was able to take care of business while my parents helped hold down the fort.

Baby Arrives

2008-12-15T13:26:00.000-08:00

For some reason, the last weeks of pregnancy always seem to drag on forever. This time I was 4 days late and it felt like weeks late. My Mom arrived on a Saturday and I started having mild contractions Sunday night.

On Monday, we went to the gym and I did an hour on the elliptical. I mentioned to my mom that I'd left my water in the car and 2 women flipped around in horror--they thought I meant that my water had broken.

We went to Walmart and then McDonalds and the contractions were getting slightly stronger but still nothing consistent. By the time we got home at noon they were more consistent but we still walked Ellie to preschool (1/2 mile) and back. My Dad drove in around 3:00 and took me to the hospital. They checked me in and Matt got to the hospital around 4:30. They gave me an epidural around 7 and Troy arrived at 10.
It’s funny how each of my kids has looked so different--Troy had a head full of black hair. I was overwhelmed to see he was healthy and all had gone well.

I ended up staying 2 nights in the hospital and spent the time relaxing and listening to audiobooks. I was anxious to get home with the whole family.

4th of July

2008-07-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

This week has been pretty low key. The girls have enjoyed their 1/2 hour swim class in the mornings, and the rest of the day we just read, watch TV, play color, etc. When we can get up early enough, we go to the Zoo in the morning before Swim class but even at 8am it's in the high 90's--too hot for me with granny tights on.

Our garden is finally producing. My kids were so excited about it until they realize they have to eat all of those vegetables now. We still have the tadpole we brought home from Eagar last week. The girls named him Taddy. He's cute--has legs now--but I don't think he'll live that long.

Thursday Matt and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary. Our big Mexico trip was our big "gift" to celebrate so Thursday we got a baby sitter and went to dinner and went shopping at circuit city for a printer. It was fun.

Friday, we went to the Ward 4th of July celebration. I was happy to learn that 4 young families just moved into the ward so that will be fun. The girls rode in a bike parade they had.

Later that day we hung out with some old high school friends--Alison & Suzanne Wirthlin. Alison was visiting from Salt Lake with her 6 kids--It was fun to catch up.

Eagar

2008-07-05T12:21:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we ended up going to Eagar. It was the first time going up there in our van and it was a much more comfortable ride than the Civic! Mathew was happy to hang out with Levi--We call them "the twins" now.

There's been a lot of water up there this year so it was green and beautiful. We played outside a lot, went on a canoe ride on the pond, caught tadpoles and grass hoppers, but most of all I spent my time with Mathew throwing rocks in the pond.

Nuttall Family Reunion in Puerto Penasco

2008-06-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

2008.6.20 Puerto Penasco

The family reunion was a great success. It was so fun to see everyone and the place we stayed in was phenomenal.

Some of the highlights were:
-family dinners in the huge dining area
-watching the cousins play
-finding hermit crabs on the beach
-body surfing on the waves
-Mariachis during dinner

We also spent a day shopping for food/supplies for a local orphanage. We brought art supplies, bubbles and pinata to play with the kids. We also arranged for some clowns to come and perform. It was fun for us and appreciated by the kids at the orphanage. It felt good to stock their pantries and was a good experience for our kids.

Amie and Dave came in town 2 days early and stayed 1 night after the reunion. It was fun having them in town. The night before the reunion we had 18 people sleeping at our house. We actually fit 6 kids in the girl's room alone. The cousins seemed to enjoy it.

Now we are trying to get back to some sense of normalcy. The girls are in swimming lessons and not much else. When Tim was in town he rigged up an Xbox to store our movie on so we don't have to deal with the disks anymore. It's been awesome. As an added bonus, Matt and I have been playing some games...nothing too crazy yet, just the Bible game, but it's been fun.

Last day of school

2008-06-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

2008.6.6 Last day of school

After our trip to Mexico, time seemed to speed up and there seemed to be a lot going on all at the same time. First of all, we announced that we are expecting another baby--due December 4th. The girls were so excited to hear the news and Mathew has no clue as to what is coming. In a way I was glad to have school over with for the year and excited to get a summer just to hang out with them. Both Sophie and Ellie had cute performances for the last day of school and it was fun to see how much they truly have grown--I'm proud of both of them.

One funny thing that happened was that Mathew became obsessed with corn starch. It started because he got a diaper rash so I started using corn starch on him. He loved it and would go get the corn starch when he wanted his diaper changed. He would even say "corn starch" and he doesn't say much of anything. One day he made a huge mess with the corn starch so now we have to put it up.

James and Kristy arrived the following week with their kids Isaac and Levi. Mathew and Levi are 2 peas in a pod and they are non-stop play all day long. They are in the middle of a move and don't have their car here so we decided to go ahead and get a van now instead of waiting until December when the baby comes. I could really use it during the Summer too since we are getting squished with the 3 kids in the civic. After 2 weeks of looking around, we pulled the trigger and joined the minivan world.

The beginning of June is a blur...we had people coming and going from the house--Matt's cousin Laurie came with her 2 kids for a few nights, Matt's Dad stopped in for one night and then we had various people stop in for dinners. At the same time I was getting stressed about the upcoming family reunion that I was responsible for organizing and it seemed like everyone was having birthday and end-of-year parties I felt we needed to go to. But things worked out (like they always do) and Kristy watched the kids alot so that I could get stuff done.

May Mexico Trip

2008-05-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

I've been having major technical difficulties using Blogger. We kept a journal while on our recent trip to Mexico and I thought it would be easy to upload it to Blogger the pictures don't work after I upload them. I'm ready to scrap this whole blogging thing but I guess I'll just continue to write and like to web albums until I can start a new blog.

So here are our pictures from the trip (double click to see the album) and our long account of our wonderful vacation.

2008.5.12 Mexico

May 1^st, 2008 (Thursday)

The girls have been so excited about the trip. They mostly talk about the Mayans, Aztecs and seeing the beautiful dresses that spin around. We went to get the girls hair cuts and Ellie ran up to the lady and exploded with enthusiasm saying “We’re Mexico city girls!”.

I struggled getting everything ready to go. Of course, I had a ton of last minute demands for Room mom and PTA stuff but I was able to accomplish the bare minimum so I could get packed.. Jo picked up Mathew on Tuesday and although at first I was really disappointed to have him go early, later I realized it really helped me get ready. Poor kid had no idea what was happening. He thought we were saying goodbye to Grandma, and then he looked so confused when I started waving goodbye to him. It broke my heart.

That night Jo said Sam put him on a horse as soon as he got there. I’m sure he’s in heaven up there but I’m going to miss him. I know he’s going to be a handful for Jo too.

Thursday

Thursday morning came early. Everything went smoothly getting on the flight. The girls were so excited. Every one was smiling at us because the girls were so giddy and cute. When we were going through security, Ellie asked why we had to do this and I told her they were looking for Weapons. Ellie said “ oh ya, we have one.” I insisted we didn’t, and she insisted we did—“a bull frog”. I was even more confused. Finally, I figured out that she thought they were looking for “Webkinz” no weapons.

The girls listed to a book on tape (magic tree house) on the plane and colored. In the airports, I was trying to get the girls to find where we needed to go by following the signs. When we landed in Mexico city, there were a series of signs. One had a picture of a passport, one had a picture of a child getting a shot and one had a picture of luggage. It really made it look like our next steps included getting a shot and the girls did not want to go down the hall way.

Matt met us at the airport and we got in a cab for the hotel (20 min). In the car the girls tried out their Spanish. I was so proud. Sophie and Ellie even asked the driver in Spanish where Popocatepetl was (the name of the volcano that the girls had just learned on the plane). The W hotel was super modern and super cool. Definitely not a place for kids but the kids thought it was soo fancy. There was a cool fish pond in the lobby and a hammock and big round bathtub in the room.

Matt had a meeting to call into that night so I took the girls to the museum. We stopped at the cafeteria first because Ellie was having a meltdown and was so hungry. Of course, by the time her Quesadillas had come, she wasn’t hungry anymore because she’d eaten all the bread at the table.

The museum was awesome. The girls were so excited and were taking pictures every second. Ellie also wanted to take notes so we’d sit down and she’d say—“how do you spell carved stone?” We’d spend 5 minutes as I spelled it for her and she would write the letters. I was impressed that she could write all of her letters without help—thank you leapster.

I think the coolest thing was the huge Aztec calendar although there was a lot we enjoyed. However, I do think we spent most of the time looking at the turtles in the pond. When the museum closed I called a cab using my cell phone and caught it outside. I was so tense about getting on the right cab because there were tons of cabs stopping and asking if I needed a ride. I was relieved when one called me by name and the number matched what they’d told me on the phone.

When we got to the hotel we all walked a few blocks to a restaurant. On the way there there was a local playground so we stopped and let the kids run around. The playground was totally enclosed and there was a guard to I felt comfortable. I could see the girls adjusting to hearing the other kids speaking Spanish. We finally went on to the restaurant. The tacos were so good. The girls were freaking out about the pasta soup the got. We had to force the girls to eat. The funny thing is that by the end, Ellie was drinking the soup straight from the bowl…she liked it.

I collapsed when we got to the hotel.—I heard Ellie mischievously whispering..”where should we put momma when she wakes up?” That night we took a bath in the big tub, played in the hammock and went to sleep.

May 2^nd, 2008 (Friday)

We got a private car to go to the pyramids. It was worth the extra $20 to not have to go with the group and make all the stops where they try to get you to buy stuff. As we approached, the girls were so surprised to see that what they thought was a big mountain was actually a pyramid. The girls were so pumped to climb. As soon as we came to a small pyramid, Ellie said she would start by climbing the “Bunny Pyramid”…I think from her experience skiing earlier this year.

After climbing the moon pyramid and seeing how steep and tall they were Sophie got scared and said she would not climb the Sun pyramid. She was terrified. When we finally got to the base though she took off going up at full speed—I could hardly keep up. She had gotten her confidence so suddenly and just acted on it. Later she told me that she’d gotten the idea to only look at the steps instead of down at the ground. We all made it to the top and the girls were so proud of themselves. After that Ellie lost all of her energy and needed to be carried. She was such a ball of energy at the beginning, climbing everything in sight., but then she crashed. Sophie is more slow and steady.

Actually, what kept the girls going now was that they wanted to buy something at the shops. We gave each of the girls 20 pesos (2 dollars) and told them they could buy something. Ellie went to the first vendor showed him her money and then pointed to a little flute that she wanted and bought it. Sophie held back and started to shop around and found similar flutes were really only 10 pesos not 20 pesos. Then she could buy 2 things. That of course did not sit well with Ellie. Sophie is such a shopper, she really loves it.

Kidnapping descriptions--The taxi driver was telling us that there are hardly any tourists these days (especially US tourists) because the media is exaggerating the security situation. But then he went on to explain that there are 2 main forms of kidnappings that have been happening in Mexico City recently. Here’s how he described them:

“Express kidnapping” will basically take 2-3 hours of your time. If consists of the taxi driver pulling over and taking away any credit cards, cash or anything of value. Of course they will ask you for your pin numbers and ask that you pull out any money that is available. Once they have everything they want, they let you go. It usually just takes 2-3 hours of your time, although that time might seem like an eternity to you because you don’t know what is going to happen to your life.

The other common form of kidnapping is more complex. There are 3 main groups that are responsible. The first group is responsible for watching you and taking notes on everything you do. They know what time you leave for work, who your lovers are, exactly everything you do and when you do it. The second group is responsible for the actual kidnapping. The third group is responsible for negotiating the ransom. I asked him whether they kill the people and he said no, they just hold them until they get what they want.

Another funny thing the driver said was that families in Mexico used to be big but now people don’t have more than one of 2 kids. He said “Before, if people had less than 4 kids everyone would think the Dad was gay”.

For dinner we caught a cab out to a restaurant that was about 30 minutes away—it had been recommended to us. There was a show going on with mariachis, dancers etc. We again struggled finding something on the menu for the girls but then enjoyed the show. Ellie was happy to find out they had that same noodle soup she’d gotten to like the night before. Sophie especially was fascinated by the singing and dancing. There was a really cool kids area in the back of the restaurant and the ladies there did crafts with the kids—it was really well done.

That night we asked the hotel if they could send us up some fruit for the kids and they charged us $9 for 2 apples (the kind they were giving out earlier for free) and one banana.

May 3^rd, 2008 (Saturday)

That morning, Matt and the girls bought Cereal in hotel (zucaritas were$2 a bowl!). We spent the morning with the concierge looking for what time church would start the next morning but never really got an answer. Finally we walked about 10 minutes to a stadium where we could catch a bus that runs to all of the main tourist attractions of the city. That way we could get on and off as we pleased. The girls were so excited to be sitting on the top level of a double-decker bus. And it was nice to see the sites in the fresh air. By the time we got to the Zocalo, the kids were already tired and there were tons of people so we decided to have lunch while we got our bearings. We went to the restaurant on the roof of a hotel in the Zocalo where we had a cool view of the whole square. There was a guy there doing a little show with a bird—making it dance and sing so we had him do it for the girls. Then we realized that there was some kind of parade going on so for the next hour we just sat and watched the bands go by—the girls were so into it and Matt and I took turns holding onto Ellie so she wouldn’t fall over the roof.

The inside of the cathedral was interesting. We saw a mass taking place and some people in confession. Out of the cathedral, we ran into the missionaries who were able to ctell us the time church would start. Then we went to “Templo Mayor” which is the newer excavated ruins of the old Aztec temples that were destroyed and buried by the Spaniards. The kids were getting tired at this point. They did enjoy seeing the Aztec dancers outside—they also had incense and were performing some kind of blessing for people (hands on head and everything). That’s one thing I don’t remember from my childhood. I think there is a much stronger pride in there Indian heritage than there used to be.

From there, we took bus to bellas artes. The building is beautiful and we went to a bookstore to get some kids books and went to Sanbornes for a snack and to reminisce old times. I told Ellie the story that my Mom bought me a stuffed giraffe at Sanbornes when I stopped sucking my thumb. She was so excited about that, she was convinced they would still sell the giraffe today. My legs were really bothering me by this point. My veins were really starting to act up so we spent some time looking for a Pharmacy that sold compression hose. I hate wearing them but I have no choice in the matter anymore.

By the time we found the pharmacy, we’d walked almost all the way back to the Zocalo, so we had to wait about 45 minutes to catch another bus. Next stop was the famous angel statue. This place brought back a ton of memories because my Dad’s old Ford office used to be there and we lived in the Sheraton right there for 9 months when our furniture got lost in moving there. Ironically, that is now where the American Express building is that Matt was visiting. We went inside the Sheraton to use the bathroom and to ask him if he knew where a restaurant was and to my surprise, he knew exactly which one I was talking about and it was still there. This is a little taco stand that makes the best tacos. We used to go there all the time when I was a kid and the sights and smells totally brought me back. We used to call it “Tacos al carbon” but it’s actually called “El Caminero” and it’s 2 blocks from the Sheraton. We got the Beef/bacon/cheese tacos and ordered the Chicken/bacon/cheese tacos for the girls (Matt and I thought the Chicken was better). Sophie was leery about them because she noticed the onions but Ellie couldn’t stop talking about how it was her favorite food in the world—she couldn’t stop the “mmmm-mmm”s. Unfortunately, I know she was doing it to be nice because she only ate one bite.

We had to wait a while for the next bus to come but were entertained by trying to figure out how the traffic worked on the crazy round-about and watching the brides and quincenieras risk their lives crossing the road to get their pictures taken by the statue.

Finally, we made it back to the hotel, had the nightly bubble bath routine and went to bed.

May 4^th, 2008 (Sunday)

Sunday morning Matt and kids ate cereal at hotel then we caught a cab to church. It was fun to ride down streets that I recognized and especially the church building brought back so many memories. The English-speaking ward still met in an old house. Of course it looked a lot smaller and it looked like they’d taken away a little of it’s original charm when they renovated it a few years ago. I bore my testimony there- focused on how people and places may change but the memories from sharing the gospel with friends and family don’t. One man recognized me that had lived there when my family was there (Bro Vinas). It was cool to see the girls in my same old primary room. Afterwards all the kids were outside collecting worms together. The parent’s commented that they’d never done that before and I had to laugh because I’m sure that was an addition from my girls.

After church, we called a cab and I asked him to drive by the street I used to live on—monte Libano. He did but I didn’t think I’d find the house because he was driving to fast. Surprisingly, close to the end of the street, I did recognize the house. It looked empty, but eventually, someone opened up and let me take a picture from the outside. He looked like he was just looking after the empty house.

We went back to hotel to change and then went to El Caminero again for lunch. This time, Sophie let Ellie in on the secret of the onions and they decided that they both hated the tacos. We walked a few blocks to a market area. I bought a necklace but the girls didn’t really find anything they wanted. After that, we went to a park and let the girls play. Then we walked around looking for an old French bread store I used to love (La Baguette) but it had closed down. We ended up walking all the way to the zoo and then caught a cab for the Palacio de Bellas Artes to watch the Folkloric dancing show. Unfortunately it didn’t start until 8:30 so I was worried the girls wouldn’t make it. We waited in line for 45 minutes for tickets while the girls had meltdowns about multiple things. Then we hung out in Sanborns until it started. The show was pricy but really good. The theatre itself was incredible and surprisingly, the girls didn’t fall asleep but loved every bit of it. I was nervous about standing outside waiting for our cab at 10pm but everything went ok.

May 5^th, 2008 (Monday)—fly to villa Hermosa/drive to palenque

Woke up at 7:30, ate cereal in hotel room and caught a 10:20 flight to Villa Hermosa. We could feel the heat and humidity as soon as we stepped off of the plane. We picked up a rental car there (stick shift) and went straight to a park called La Venta. This is where they keep the famous big Olmec heads. We did the loop around the park and were impressed with how they had laid it out. There were also monkey, crocodile, jaguar and turtle exhibits that we enjoyed.

Then we headed to our next stop—Palenque. Poor Matt had to navigate the stick through traffic, construction, lots of topes, slow trucks and lack of signs on the way to Palenque (a little less than 2 hour drive).

When we go to the hotel, we went swimming and they had a water slide made out of concrete and a little faster than seemed safe.

That night we went to dinner at Don Muchos. This was cool because it was right in the middle of a thick jungle—awesome vegetation and lots of jungle sounds. When it got darker, it was all candle lit and we had a light show from the massive fireflies. We were worried that the girls were going to start a fire with all the candles around and not stable tables. The kids got hot chocolate for dessert. Something made Sophie laugh when she was drinking and she sprayed hot chocolate all over Matt and Ellie. We called it a chocolate explosion and we called her Popocate-chocolate (after the volcano).

May 6^th (Tuesday)-Palenque/aguas azules/fly to Merida

Next morning we went to Palenque—got a tour guide. “sleeping grass”, ellie found/caught a leaf bug that got us through the tour.

Very hot. Got tour of jungle too—saw ruins under jungle, heard howler monkeys, went to natural spring.

After that we rushed to agues azules was 1.5 hours away. Low in gas, but couldn’t trust gage. Rough road, kids pulling ropes in front of the road. Had to turn off AC. Zapatista territory. We made it there and there was a weird guy crowding us wanting to watch our car for money. Didn’t have enough $ for gas. He asked for Ellie’s spaghetti.

Water was incredible but it looked more dangerous than havasupai. Sophie made a friend to look for rocks. Stayed 1/5 hours. Barely made it back with gas. Went to town to get money from ATM. Went swimming to cool off for 10 minutes. Then got in the car to go to Villa Hermosa, trying to beat the sun. We made it and had sandwiches at the airport. Plane left at 9:30 (only direct flight—avoiding a 5 hour trip through Mexico city). Ellie was wide awake and very talkative. She said she wasn’t going to sleep for the whole flight and she didn’t. I fell asleep but she kept on waking me up to look at the stars.

Got into Merida at 10:30. I ended up arguing with the car guys about the price of the insurance (triple upgrade to a dodge avenger). Drove to Intercontinental Hotel—very nice room overlooking the pool. Took a wrong turn down a one way street and passed a fierce police car in the process. Ellie fell asleep in the car—we carried her to the room

May 7^th (Wednesday) dr

The next morning she woke up looked around the room confused. Then she said—“Mom, you moved that table” Then I finally figured out she thought we were back at the old hotel. When I told her we were in a new hotel she said “how did we get here”. We slept in and then went to Walmart to buy some food and we ate breakfast on some tables there. I bought avocado and fruit. The kids and matt had cereal.

Then we got in the car and drove to Chichinitza—took 1 1/5 hours. Very hot. Hard on girls. Ellie was interested in buying a stone Dolphin. Matt kept her moving along by saying we needed to look for more dolphins. The site was impressive and the cenote was cool. Lots of pillars and carvings.

Started to take road to Cancun but decided to get off to go to another cenote. Stopped at Valla/?? Realized we would have been taking the long route so it’s good that we got off. Ate lunch in an old colonial home. Realized it was too late to see the cenote we wanted to but opted to see a local one (two blocks walking distance from the restaurant). Very cool inside of a cave.

Got on the road again and got to Tulum. Had a run in with the hotel people about our room. They didn’t have our reservation and gave us a noisy room right by the generator. Finally got an awesome room. The beach was beautiful. The room was rustic and cool.

Played in water a little then went to a restaurant. This beach area seemed perfect for honeymooners—not sure it was meant for kids. Ate on beach by candle light. Queso fundido was perfect for the girls—they could make their own Quesadillas. Joked about “Popocate—chocolate” (sophie’s chocolate explosion).

That night, the AC dripped water on our faces and a baby was crying next door but we slept well.

May 8^th (Thursday)

The next morning –cereal in room then went to the beach. Sand was perfect for sand castles. Waves were fun to play in. Lots of sea weed and horse flies. We needed to check out by noon—barely made it. Went to a local grocery store and ate lunch. Went to Tulum ruins. Started to count iguanas –got up to 28. Ruins were cool, but it was the most beautiful beach we’d ever been to. Sophie got really into body surfing (with us at first and then by herself), Ellie dug cenotes (went into the waves too). Played until the park closed at 5:30. Drove straight to Akumal hotel, condo was cool, a lot like Puerto Penasco houses —beach is known for snorkeling and turtles. Ate at restaurant next to hotel—expensive but yummy. The girls mostly looked for shells on beach.

May 9^th (Friday)

(Matt's entry) Went to Xelha-one of 1^st people there. This is a natural bay that is beautiful. Although it has become pretty touristy, it is truly amazing. We swam with the dolphins (with some Polish tourists). The innertube ride-started in a cool mangrove, ended up swimming at the end. Sophie was a champ. Next time should use just the snorkeling equipment without the life vests. Ellie had "lost her action" (run out of energy) and was just chilling and counting iguanas.

Ropes course (Lara 1^st to make it across), Matt jumped from the cliff (ended up going back and diving several times looking for the lost locker key that actually was found somehow and returned to us later).

Lots of fish.

Turquoise water

Food included

Rented stroller (hard to use in the back part of the park)

That night Ellie got really sick. Sophie and Matt went to the beach. Ellie got a fever

May 10^th(Saturday)

Ellie sick all morning. Watched iceage-got children’s aspirin and Gatorade. just wanted to stay in bed.

Matt and Sophie tried to snorkel with just pool goggles. The ocean floor was rough and hard to enjoy without shoes on. Lara and Sophie went to Playa del Carmen – beaches were beautiful but with lots of people, shopping unremarkable. We watched Apacolypto after the girls went to bed – made us grateful for the relative peace we enjoy today. Sophie and Matt met some folks from Oregon in the pool that had a little 6 year old girl that let Sophie practice snorkeling. She took right to it. We saw 4 osprey hovering over the beach. End of April/early May definitely the best time to visit – later in the fall it can be leftover muggy with mosquitos.

May 11^th (Sunday)

Ellie had nightmares about snorkeling and woke up with a bad stomach ache and threw up twice – she recovered for the flight though and is doing fine now. Sophie and Matt had fruit loops and trix for breakfast and then drove a few minutes over to Yal Ku (a dive park area). Sophie was on my shoulder or back at the start but then warmed up and would go out on her own when she would see schools of fish. It was a nice inlet and people didn’t start coming in until about 9:30am – we were there a little after 8am. I put a deposit on the snorkeling equipment (Sophia was done but maybe could have been coerced to stay longer if I had caught a crab for her) and went to go snorkeling back at the hotel. Great choice as it was much better at the hotel with the equipment (vs. going in barefoot with normal goggles the first time w/ Sophie – both of us sunburned…). You can go way out into the bay and on my first swim I saw nice corral reefs (massive brain corrals) and lots of fish. Lara went in next while Ellie slept the healing sleep and Sophie played with her snail named “razie boy” (b/c she was going to raise him). I went back out one more time (a bit reluctantly as my foot had been worn down from the flippers) and lucked out to spy a turtle (he was about 5 shell segments long) that let me trail him for what seemed 15 minutes or so. I finally pulled away as the waves were getting a bit much and I swallowed some seawater. We then packed up and drove over to the “Buena vita” for lunch (we had gotten take out there the night before and Sophie loved the beach and swing seats). Lunch was good and we then left around 1 for Cancun. The drive took ~ 1 hour and we made it back to the car rental (hertz) with no incident to the car. Check in was smooth (nice airport) and the flight will be back around 45 minutes early b/c of no headwinds – although the girls and feeling every minute back this time – the flight seemed longer going back for sure.

Weekend Ski Trip

2008-02-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

I was looking at the calendar and saw we had things going on for a while so we decided to come up to Eagar this weekend. Sophie had a ½ day on Friday so we left Thursday night after her dance class. Matt and I went skiing all day on Friday at Sunrise (ski resort on Apache reservation) while Jo and Sam watched the kids. It was a perfect day for skiing. There is more snow than there’s been in 15 years and it was sunny and warm. Since it was a Friday, it was not crowded at all. There were several runs with no tracks.

On Saturday, we went on a drive looking for Elk. We didn’t see any because there were hunters out but we did see a large herd of Antelope.

At about 10, I took Sophie to rent skis and we headed up to the slopes. The parking lot was full so the parking guy told us to park in an overflow parking a few miles away and that a bus would bring us back. We parked and hiked quite a while with no idea where a bus would come. It was so hot and Sophie was exhausted and frustrated—she really wanted to go home. After almost being hit by a car and wandering too long, we finally found the bus stop. When the bus pulled up I thought it was a joke—it looked like it was on the way to a greatful dead concert—the driver had long hair, was blaring the music and kept on yelling—“Alright” as if it was a party. I swear I could smell pot on the bus and there was a box in the front where the first aiid kits usually goes that said “bodily fluid clean up kit”. Anyway, when we finally made it to the main lifts, Sophie really wanted to go home. We went to the bunny hill and I tried to help her go down little slopes. I kept my skiis off and carried her up the hill a few times. She was not putting any effort into it though and kept saying she wanted to go home. So we went to the lodge, waited ½ hour in line to eat a gross lunch and then we just relaxed for a while. Once she seemed rested, we put all of our excess layers in a locker and I decided to give this one more shot and we went straight for the lift. Suprisingly, she loved the lift and got off fine without faling. We spent the next 2 hours going up and down the bunny hill and she had a great time. I held her hand the whole time but she made good progress. Then we even went up the big lift and did green runs twice. I was so proud of her—she did great.

On the way out, we waited for ½ hour for the bus with no luck. Then a pickup drove up and I recognized the driver as the Apache guy that had been guiding traffic at the parking lot. He asked if people needed a ride and all of the people we were waiting with said yes and hopped into the bed of the truck. We decided to join in. We were almost hanging off of the bed of the truck and were crammed in with everyone’s skis/snowboards. You would think that under the circumstances they would have driven carefully, but the spun out of there and Sophie kept on saying “this is my last day to be on earth”. Everyone else jumped out at a different parking lot and only Sophie and I were left alone in the bed of this truck. When all the skis were gone we realized we were also sitting on a bunch of trash. I could just picture headlines reading “mother and daughter missing in Apache reservation”. But fortunately they did take us up the road 5 miles to our car. It would have been no big deal if it were Matt and I, but with Sophie it seemed like such an adventure. I was truly surprised how the reservation really did feel like a 3rd world country.

Sunday Morning we watched Same shoe a horse and the girls and I got to ride.

2008-02-06T10:15:00.000-08:00

Last night school conferences. They did what is called student led conferences where Sophie had to show us around and show us all of her work. She was glowing. She really seems to feel confident at school. She is doing really well-Matt and I were proud. We had to fill out a sheet showing her strengths and identifying one goal for the rest of the year. Mrs. K told me that one of the students had written as her goal that she “wanted

The teacher also said that I want to be nice like Sophie R”.

This morning when I dropped off Sophie, all of the Kindergarten classes were lined up to go in their classes. All of the sudden, the 2 classes that I teach on Tuesdays broke out singing the “Buenos Dias” song. It was so sweet. Everyone around was looking around trying to figure out what was happening but they were just serenading me…it was so sweet.

2008-02-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

We have this ongoing joke at home. It started because Matt and I kept on finding the same stuffed animal on the floor. No matter how many times we picked it up, it seems like it was always there. So then, we started hiding it so the other person would find it—in the car, in the fridge. Usually when one of us finds it, we hide it for the other person Well, the girls got in on the joke and they think it’s the funniest thing in the world. Ellie hid it in Matt’s drawer but Matt never got around to hiding it again and it’s driving Ellie crazy. She keeps on looking in Matt’s drawer to see if he’s found it and hid it again but it’s still there. The other day, she looked and saw it still in the drawer and said in a frustrated voice “Daddy hasn’t changed his underwear in weeks!”

The elementary school held an arts competition called “Reflections”. This year the theme was “I can make a difference by..” The deadline was early January so during the holidays, I had Sophie draw pictures, take photos and write something to enter in the competition. A week before the deadline, I also made a video of her doing a dance with Ellie to enter in the dance category. Of course the choreography was a very impromptu but so cute. Well a few weeks later we went to the awards ceremony and whe ended up with 2 medals—one for literature and one for her dance. Hers was the only entry for the dance category in the whole school so naturally she won. She was so excited. Granted most of the work was done by me trying to fill out the millions of applications required for each entry but it was worth it.

Trying to get back in the routine

2008-02-04T12:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I feel like if it weren't for sleep issues, I could have 10 kids. The first week back from vacation hit hard. Mathew was accustomed to being awake from 2-4am and it was difficult to cure him of this. He absolutely would not sleep. I tried letting him cry it out after a while but it seems like he would just cry forever. I one point he cried for 2 hours. The tricky thing is that he was still a little bit sick but we weren't sure how sick. These days are always miserable.

A week and a half later, Jenny and Freddy came down. Jenny wanted to start looking for jobs and Freddy wanted to start going to school. My New Year's resolution of cooking healthy meals quickly crashed and burned as they started making Churros and introducing contraband such as sugar cereal and Sunny D.

For some reason, making dinner is one of my biggest challenges. It is difficult for me to find meals that everyone likes that are healthy. Well, I decided that I wasn't going to let having more people in the house stress me out so I've just been feeding people frozen meals from Costco--Lasagna, tortelini, orange chicken. It's seariously gross to me to eat out of a box like that but why should I break my back making healthy food when nobody's going to eat it? Well the answer is becoming clear as I'm the one gaining weight.

Christmas

2008-01-08T12:02:00.000-08:00

Every year time goes faster and faster and that means that there is less time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I felt frantic during this period trying to get all the shopping done while dealing with obligations from being a room mom, spanish teacher, RS teacher, PTA fund raiser and, of course, everyday Mom stuff. In the middle of the pre-holiday chaos, Matt got called to be Elder's Quorum president in the ward. We don't really know what to expect in this area but are excited for the opportunity.

Kristy and James flew in on Dec 17th. We went to the train park and just hung out for a few days. It was fun to catch up with Isaac and watch Mathew and Levi get to know each other. Freddy, Jenny, Sam and Sheila came in on Friday. I felt bad that we could not offer more comfortable sleeping arrangements to everyone--it was a bit crammed. Mathew had not been feeling well and he was crying a lot more too which didn't help the situation.

On Sunday morning we took Mathew in to the doctor--double ear infections. After stalking up on antibiotics, we went ahead and started up to Snowflake. It was cold but the kids still had fun playing in their back yard. Sam and Sheila also emptied out their garage and put a heater on so that the kids could play out there. Mathew and Levi had a blast. They were chasing, immitating and even throwing the ball to each other.

It seems like during the day the kids had a blast. But as soon as night came it was chaos. Mathew was waking up crying and Matt must have spent 4 days in a row entertaining Mathew from 2-4am. Isaac was also not sleeping at night so the rest of the trip is a blur of no sleep, crying kids and lots of runny noses.

We spent Christmas Eve wrapping presents and watching TV and in the evening we did the traditional reenactment of the manger scene. It was cut short because the babies were trying to open the presents. Sheila had put together packets of "Reindeer food" which they sprinkled outside-it was very cute.

That night, Sophie told Ellie they had to talk to her privately and they both went into the bathroom. They were in there for a long time having what sounded like a very serious conversation. I had my ear to the door but could not make out what they were saying. Suddenly the door flew open and Sophie had a very angry face on..she said " That's it, Mom was listening". I tried to convince her that I'd not heard anything but she was not happy about the situation. She finally agreed to tell me what they were discussing and, with Ellie standing right there, she asked "are you and Dad leaving presents out and pretending they are from Santa?". I explained that Dad and I did wrap presents and leave them out but they were from us...the Santa presents were separate. She kept on pinning me down asking "But are the Santa presents also really from you?" I kept on skirting around the question but she said "Mom, you're not really answering my question". This seemed like a crucial moment and I would have told her the truth but I didn't think it was fair to spoil it for Ellie and probably her friends at school too. Anyway we tried to distract her a little that night talking about other things but she still went to bed annoyed with us. She kept on saying "remember Mom, we don't keep secrets in our family". I felt terrible.

The next morning was fun and nothing more was said of it. Santa brought Sophie a makeup kit and Ellie a panda (exactly what they'd asked for). We spent a few more days in Snowflake and then headed off for Eagar.

Eagar was also very cold and the pattern of sleepless nights continued. Basically everyone got sick. Jenny ended up getting a sinus infection and pink eye the day before her reception and we had a day where nobody knew whether or not to call the whole thing off. In the end they decided to move forward and everything worked out well. Aunt Julie held the reception at their house. All of the Bosens were there from Phoenix and Wes came in from Safford.

Jo had bought and robotic horse and the kids had a blast playing on the horse and with the millions of toys upstairs.

On New Year's day, we decided to stay an extra day to go skiing. We took Sophie along and put her in Ski school for the day. Then Matt and I went skiing/snowboarding. We had not been since we'd gotten married and it was so fun! For a few minutes I felt free again. I thought I would have forgotten how to ski but it's funny how you pick up where you leave off.

The ski school was a waste of money--they didn't even get on the ski lift and all it did was scare Sophie. I guess they don't teach the snowplow technique anymore so it takes a lot longer to feel comfortable enough to actually get out and ski. If we go again, I think we'll just try and teach the girls on our own.

The next day, I watched Isaac and Levi while James and Kristy went skiing and Matt, Sam and Freddy went shooting. Then we left for Phoenix in the afternoon. Even though it was sad to see 2 weeks fly by so quickly, it felt good to be home and start working on getting some kind of routine back.

Christmas memories

2008-01-07T18:14:00.000-08:00

January 7, 2008

What did Sophia do for Christmas 2007?
I remember putting on my make up kit. Having fun times. 1/2 way going to the park in Snowflake b/c it was too windy. I got a Chinese fan and I was excited that I got to go to church when I got back. I got to drink hot chocolate with mint. Almost got to fly kites. In Eagar Grandma and Grandpa had animal toys, lincoln logs and crystals for us to play with. I got to go skiing.

What did Ellie do for Christmas?
I got a panda.

Kristy, James, Isaac, and Levi came to stay with us the week before followed by Sam, Sheila, Jenny and Fredy the weekend before Christmas. We then all drove up to Snowflake on Sunday and stayed thru the 25th. We drove to Eagar the day after. Lara, Matt, and Sophia went to Sunrise and Sophia took ski lessons.

Thanksgiving in Utah

2007-12-05T21:46:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving in Utah

(click the picture to see the full album)

We thought we'd be really smart this year and buy our plane tickets to Utah early so we could get a good deal. One by one, members of the family ended up not being able to come. Then Julia started having complications with her pregnancy and so Mom went out to stay with her that week. In the end, the only people there were Dad and Tim & Julia. We were a little sad not to have the family reunion we'd planned for but ended up having a great time. We got more one-on-one time then we would have gotten and it was actually a very relaxing trip.

Mathew fell in love with the cat and spent 90% of the time running around finding "soft" and trying to pet him. We went swimming a lot and went on a fun hike in rock canyon. Tim & Julia have an awesome setup in the basement with their X-box hooked up to a projector tv. The kids loved the Bean measeum...Mathew went crazy and was yelling "soft" at the top of his lungs--he really wanted to pet all of the animals.

The girls had a great time with Grandpa--he read to them, sang a lot, decorated the tree together, told stories, and just hung out. Mathew loved hanging out with Grandpa--the are two peas in a pod.

We found a very yummy Mexican restaurant that we went to twice. We spent Thanksgiving day at Aunt Rosy's house up in Alpine. It was fun to see cousins I've not seen in a long time. The girls really enjoyed meeting new cousins and petting the horse.

We really missed seeing Mom--the timing was unfortunate but we understood that she was needed elsewhere. The airplane ride home was pretty painful. Mathew is no fun to ride on a plane with. I think for our family the balance between flying and driving may be shifting. The comfort of flying no longer out ways the benefits of dri

Ellie's B-Day

2007-11-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Ellie's Birthday was a lot of fun. She really feels so grown up. She also loved everything she got.
We had a party for her at the local park. And although we only invited 3 girls, it still seemed big because they all brought siblings. I stayed up all night trying to make this cake. My Mom gave me the coolest set for a castle case--it had 52 pieces. I used 3 cake mixes and it was still too small to use all the pieces. It definitely did not look like the picture on the box but the kids loved it.

2007.11.1 ellie bday

October

2007-10-31T20:43:00.000-07:00

A few days after Sophie's Birthday Party, Matt went on a business trip to England and Australia for 2 weeks. I took advantage of the time to get a firm routine and start a parenting system called "Accountable Kids". The girls took to it well but I had to have all my ducks in a row and coax them through it every day. I would get the kids down early and then spend the evenings organizing and cleaning the house. I must say it's the most organized the house had been in a while.

Matt got home just in time for the ward Halloween party. It was so good to have him back. He brought lots of fun gifts back including a little Wambat which goes everywhere with Ellie. Sophie wanted to be Pocahontas and Ellie wanted to be the "Island Princess". I found Sophie's costume for 3 bucks at Savers but it was way too short so I supplemented with a skirt I made--I bought Indian type fabric. I couldn't get the sewing machine to work so I ended up sewing it by hand at the last minute.

Halloween night was so fun. We stayed in our neighborhood this year which was nice. The girls had so much fun and Mathew slept through the whole thing. It's amazing how much candy they got. Our neighbors sat outside to hand out candy for themselves and us to that was nice.

Sophie's bday

2007-10-10T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Sophie's Birthday. It started out with breakfast in bed. She opened Grandma/granddaddy Nuttall's and Kristy/James' presents. Then of course, marking her height on the wall was very important.

Matt was able to take a half day off of work and came to the class to have cupcakes and sing Happy Birthday. The teacher pulled me aside and told us that Sophie is an angel in class (I was very proud).

Then Matt went and picked up two kids from their schools so they could come to the party since their parents work. I took a girl home with us to take her to the party and we went to "Pump it up". I was a little late since it was a mad rush from the school. There were a lot more kids than I'd thought--a lot of extra siblings came so there were 31 people. Everyone had a great time. Matt had Mathew the whole time so I got to talk to the parents.

The cake got destroyed on the ride over but oh well overall it was fun. I decided we will have one party a year--alternating Ellie, Sophie and Mathew. On other years, we will just have 1 or 2 friends over to celebrate. We brought 4 kids home with us until their parents could pick them up so the party really didn't end til about 7:30. Then Sophie (and Ellie) opened the presents. We were all so tired afterwards and crashed.

Here are some pics...

Double click on this picture to see the slide show

Sophie's 6th Bday

Quick Trip to Eagar

2007-10-10T10:13:00.000-07:00

Matt is going to be out of town for a while so Friday afternoon we decided to drop everything and take a quick trip to Eagar. October is our favorite time of the year there. It was super windy one of the days but we had a great time enjoying the colors and the pumpkins.

2007.10 Eagar trip

2007-09-29T20:54:00.001-07:00

Weeks seem to be flying. It's finally cooled down so I'm starting to walk Sophie and Ellie to school. Mathew is obsessed with screaming...that's all he does. I'm really trying to wean him. I've tried before but failed I'm hoping it works this time.

2007-09-11T20:37:00.001-07:00

We've found 2 scorpions in the last 4 days. Saturday, I almost stepped on one with my bare foot in the garage and then today we found a dead one at the bottom of the pool. We have black widows outside too that we keep finding. Oh well.

Mathew's first words

2007-09-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

I took Mathew to the doctor's office on Wednesday and he is 95 percentile for his head size, 50th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight. The doctor told me I need to feed him more. He told me I needed to talk to him more to get him to start saying things so I've started to work on it more. Although it's been months since he's been imitating--for example, putting phones to his ear and saying "DAAaa" which basically means hello but he hasn't properly articulated any words. Well now he'll point to his eye and say "aaahhh" and point to the lights and say "aaaaahhhh". If I ask him to point to one of those things he does. Do those count as first words? He is constantly imitating what we do. He insists on eating what we are eating and will scream his lungs out if we dont give him his food on a plate and with utensils. He also plays with dolls and pretends to feed them with bottles--smacking his lips while he feeds them. He is probably better at picking up toys than Ellie. He'll go around and put toys in bins.

puff

2007-09-09T22:55:00.000-07:00

There's a man that's been going to Sophie's school to talk about composers once a week--he also plays different instruments. Sophie has been fascinated with it and comes home describing in great detail everything he played and how it sounded. The first time she heard the violin she acting like she was overwhelmed with how beautiful it was. She is so articulate--she described the music so beautifully.

Last week the guy brought his guitar and taught them puff the magic dragon. Sophie came home and sang the whole thing to me. Then she proceeded to explain to me what the song meant--When she got to the part about the boy growing up, I could see tears welling up in her eyes. She was explaining that when kids grow up they don't have time to play with their toys and that Puff would never see his best friend again. The way she described it was so touching that it brought tears to my eyes too. Then she stopped and said..."Mom-- look at us, we're both crying about a song". We both laughed through our tears. It was such a tender moment, I wish I had her gift of description to better document it.

Running out of action

2007-08-30T22:10:00.001-07:00

Ellie's new thing is she is constantly saying she is an "action girl". It is something she made up and it means she's a good girl. We were walking out to the car and it was really hot she started crying that she wanted me to carry her and she said she "ran out of action".

Sophie starts Kindergarden

2007-08-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sophie started Kindergarten last week and I think it is going ok. She really misses preschool--her friends, the play time. Although she's getting along fine, I don't think she's connecting with many kids at school whereas last year she was such a leader. She does like her teacher so I'm hoping it'll just take a little time to make friends. In the meantime I hope her fire for school doesn't go out.

Sophie gave a talk on Sunday and did such an amazing job. She is really talented. She had a few drawings on a piece of paper to remind herself of the ideas but then spoke without any intervention. The primary president pulled me aside later and said she'd never seen anything like it. We are going to put the girls back in tennis. They seem excited about it and it seems like such a good sport for them to get into. They haven't asked about dance so as hard as it is for me to let that one go, I think I will try.

Last weekend we went down to Safford to visit the Hargis clans and had a blast. We went on a great hike and cought all sorts of wildlife: snakes, walking sticks, frogs, tadpoles, etc. There are 11 kids under 11 when you put them all together and the kids have so much fun together.

One positive thing about our new schedule is that I now get a lot more one on one time with Ellie. Last week she helped me unload the dishwasher every day(she's in charge of the bottles, sippy cups, etc). She folded the rags and helped me gather dirty laundry. We pretended we were hunters looking for tigers and we captured all the tigers and put them with their families (put dirty clothes in a hamper and sorted the colors). She had so much fun on the "hunt" that now tigers are her favorite animals.

Mathew started to wave a little. He usually does it while he's nursing. He also started doing little animal sounds--he roars like a tiger and whinnys like a horse. So now he's compartmentalized all of the animals into those two buckets--whinniers (more like a squeal) and growlers (more like a cat hiss). Elephants, monkeys, zebras area all on one side and bears, lions, dinosaurs are on the other. I didn't argue with him when he put the giraffes with the horses because I didn't have a better solution.

Tito's b-day

2007-08-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

It was Mathew's birthday on Friday. We went to Chickfila for dinner because he loves playing with the balloons. He's starting to use his hand now even through the sock.

We went to see a specialist on Thursday and he says the finger is healing and we can take the stitches out next week. They took and x-ray and the bone is still in 2 pieces (split vertically). They can't tell how it's affected the growth plate on the bone. Worst case scenario is that the top bone in his finger doesn't grow or grows crooked.

Friday morning, the girls and I decorated a cake. I let the girls go wild and do whatever they wanted so we ended up with a valcano, waterfall and lots of toy dinosaurs. It looked so gross to Matt that he wouldn't even taste it. But it was fun for the girls and little Mathew (we're calling him "Tito" these days) just went along with it.

2007-08-03T08:35:00.000-07:00

Mathew finds ways to still get in trouble even with his hand all bandaged up. He has one of those metal splints under all the bandages so he goes around banging it on everything. He doesn't seem to be in much pain-except for when we change the bandages.

We went to the science museum on Monday. We went to the demo on "The eye". They disected a cow eyeball and it was pretty gross. The girls were very interested and even wanted to touch it at the end of the show.

We saw the IMAX show--a 3d film about the Ocean. I'd forgotten how realistic those shows are. I was walking Mathew back and forth in the stroller and at one point I look back and Sophie and Ellie are standing up in their seats trying to grab the jellyfish. Sophie clapped her hands and yelled out--"I got one". She still swears she felt something so it was probably the lady's hair in front of her.

2007-08-01T22:20:00.001-07:00

Welcome to boys

2007-07-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

Monday morning I left Mathew in the play room while I went to get dressed. I soon heard a crash and screaming. I knew right away what it was. Mathew recently has been obsessed with climbing the chairs in the Kitchen. He'll hold on to the back of the chair and then start rocking back and forth as fast as possible before I get to him. Well this time I didn't get to him and when I walked in he was lying in a little pool of blood and I thought he'd cracked his head open. When I picked him up I saw that his finger was smashed and split open. He was hysterical so I couldn't even get a bandaid on. I called Matt and he came quickly and helped tape it up. I dropped the girls off at a friend's house and took him to the doctor's. The doctor taped it up again and sent me to the emergency room where we waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally they numbed his finger and gave him 3 stitches. The doctor said that the top bone in his finger was split in half (the long ways) and he would heal fine but it would really hurt for a while. We need to keep an eye on him the next few days to make sure he didn't suffer any head trauma since there is a bruise on his head but no bump.

His little fingers are so small it is nearly impossible to keep any sort of bandage on. He pulled it off 3 times yesterday and I was ready to tie his hand behind his back but a sock ended up working pretty well. Everyone keeps on saying "welcome to boys". Mathew has two sides to him, he's sweet and fun to play with but he is also a thrill seeker and fast. I was feeling so guilty all day yesterday--I can't believe that happened. But I also feel so blessed because I keep on playing the scenario over in my mind and I don't understand how he didn't crack his head open. When I saw him his finger was pinned under the chair and his arms are so short, I don't see how he didn't hit it harder when the chair crashed down.

Weekend in Eagar

2007-07-22T21:32:00.000-07:00

We went up to Eagar on Friday and got back tonight (Sunday). We went on a long drive and saw 2 herds of wild horses, Elk and wild Turkeys. Here are the wild horses.

We went to a Pioneer day party. Mathew loves to scream until he gets what he wants.

The kids were in heaven.

2007-07-15T21:44:00.000-07:00

These past 2 weeks have been a lot of fun. Last weekend we spontaneously decided to go up to Eagar. So we left Saturday (on the road 1 hour after deciding to leave) and got back Sunday night. It was a short but fun trip.

The kids finished up their tennis lessons Mon-Thurs and then Mom flew in Thursday afternoon. She brought a really fun game called Slamwhich and we all played that night. Friday we spent most of the day cooking a big Turkish meal--very yummy. Saturday Morning we all went to see Ratatouille which was hilarious. When Matt and all 3 kids went down for a nap I started showing my Mom the research I'd done on Puerto Penasco houses for the family reunion next year. It's difficult to see what the houses are really like on the web so we started talking about how we wished we could go see them. Matt said he could take Monday off so we decided to pack up right then and head off to Mexico. In less than 90 minutes we were on the road in 2 cars driving to Mexico. It really was fun. You can't go to Mexico without and adventure and this was definitely an adventure. They must have changed the main road there because Matt and I kept going down the main street the wrong way..it was completely not intuitive. We spent most of the time looking at houses and Matt took the kids to get hermit crabs on the beach. There were a lot of jelly fish out so they didn't really get in the water much. At night we went on the roof to see the sunset/look at stars or walked on the beach and then played Slamwhich and loteria. The kids were in heaven.

This is the acquarium; a very up-and close experience. Sometimes too close.

Sleep training

2007-06-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

This week was awful--sleep training with Mathew was very hard. Last night we let him cry for over 2 hours. He did the same this morning for nap time. Afternoon nap he cried for 10 minutes and same tonight when I put him down. I'm hoping there's light at the end of this tunnel. Next time I hope someone reminds me to start earlier. Mathew is at such a cute stage. I wish I could bottle up the cuteness. I feel such a bond with him and feel like there is so much communication between us. He started to enjoy books this weekend and also likes music. He loves playing with his sisters. Matt has been dunking his head in the pool and he doesn't mind.

Recital

2007-06-21T21:49:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the girl's recital. Ellie danced (tap) to a Shirley Temple song "Baby take a bow" and Sophie danced "Shake a tail feather" (jazz) and "Orange colored sky) (tap). We got a babysitter so that we could actually watch the show and it was so cute. Poor baby sitter, Mathew cried the full 3 hours we were gone. Sophie and Ellie did such a good job at the recital--I was proud. After the show, Ellie told the babysitter that she just had her recital and she won.In a way it's true because she really did steal the show. There is something about Ellie's personality that is that captivating. She definitely has a mind of her own and it shows. I had dozens of people come up to me and tell me how absolutely darling Ellie was. Sophie did excellent--she truly puts her all into things and I'm so proud of her. I couldn't believe how brave the girls were to just go back stage with the teacher before the show. Other girls were crying, etc but these girls were just excited.

Sophie's been in a Kindergarten prep camp at the school so I signed up Ellie for swimming. I put her in level 2 mostly because that was the only class open, however, she really has never swam by herself without floaties. Then I told Matt we needed to get her ready for it so we we took the floaties off and she is a fish. She can swim half way across the pool--over or under water. In the shallower part of the pool, she can dive down and pick up rings by herself. After her second swim class, her teacher told me she thought Ellie should move down to level I because "the other kids felt comfortable putting their heads under water"--I just about fell over. I ended up just pulling Ellie out of the class because the water was freezing and Ellie didn't want to do anything. We have been going to the movies with Ellie's friend Summer on Wednesday mornings (see Ellie and Summer above). They are quite a pair.

We took the training wheels off of the girls bikes and have been giving that a try on the grass. There is this low hill that is perfect to give them the momentum to stay up.

Mathew's officially walking now. He's been taking more and more steps everyday but now he almost prefers it to crawling so I think it's official. It's odd that he is walking and not sleeping through the night. This week I decided to bite the bullet and work on sleep training. He was used to sleeping in our bed and nursing all night so I knew this was going to be a long process. On Monday night I was up all night with him. My goal was not to let him nurse all night. I did give him a bottle but it was a struggle just to get him not to nurse. Tuesday I switched from giving him a bottle with milk to a bottle with water. Last night (Wednesday) he slept from 9:30 to 4:00am!! That is a record! At 4am I didn't even give him water, I just rocked him and got him back to sleep. I've tried sleep training with him so many times and it's never worked. This time was so different, it's like he has matured so much. He never responded to patting before and now it totally works.

I've been working with Mathew on Patti-cake for a while and today he got it--it's so cute. The only problem is that whenever he wants attention he starts doing it and I can't resist but go play with him. I'm never going to get anything done. Today I broke down and went to buy a gate. It's one of those really long ones that you can arrange any way you want. I moved it about 5 times because he just gets into everything--I can't decide what is priority to keep him out of.

Sam and Sheila were in Phoenix a few weeks ago and spent the night on Friday night. They were going to babysit for us while we went to the temple. We got up in time to make the 6am session Saturday morning but as we were going out the door I couldn't find my recommend.

Mathew's first steps

2007-06-09T22:14:00.000-07:00

Mathew took a few steps during church last Sunday and totally caught Matt and I off guard. I think he did it by accident but he's been working on it all week and will probably be walking in the next few weeks.

Eagar

2007-05-26T11:45:00.000-07:00

We went on a weekend trip to Eagar and had a great time. It had been so long since we'd been up there and it looked beautiful. We got to ride horses and Sam even showed Sophie how to ride by herself. She did great although probably had a little too much confidence. We were there for an irrigation day and it just reminded me of how much work it is to keep everything up. Jo has a beautiful Raspberry patch and is planting a huge strawberry patch too. We've been battling Ellie's asthma/allergy situation for so long and it completely went away up there which was such a relief. The girls dressed up as cowgirls and really felt like they ruled the town--maybe even a little too spoiled, but they had fun.
Mathew is such a busy body. He's not interested in any age-appropriate toys but is consistently wanting to get into mischief. He still is not much interested in solids or the bottle but will eat dirt out of the flower pots and sand from the park.

I spoke to Ann Christensen from iNation and they officially didn't get the funding they needed so I will not be doing anymore project work. In a way I'm glad because now I can get more sleep but it was a nice source of extra income.

Back from the cruise

2007-05-02T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of going through withdrawals after the cruise. It was so fun to see everyone and we had such a wonderful time. Here are our pictures...

(you have to double click on the picture to see the whole album)

2007.4.29 cruise

Some highlights were:

Having an adults only dinner with all of the brothers and sisters
Kids dancing and singing at 'high school musical party'
Beaches--nasau and castaway cay
Time to relax and watch movies
For the girls: seeing the princesses and playing in the kids club
Baby races with Aaron and Mathew

After the cruise, we spent a few days at a great resort in Orlando. It was very cool. Dave rented jet skies and a fishing pole. The pools were perfect and the rooms were huge.

Disneyworld was fun but tiring. The girls had fun on the rides --Buz lightyear was a favorite. Sophie got really scared on Spacemountain and Matt just about broke his back trying to comfort her from the seat in back.

I could go on and on but the whole vacation was really great--it's going to be hard to beat that one!

I feel like last week totally escaped me. Ellie and Mathew were both very sick all week and Sophie, Matt and I have been borderline sick. On top of that, some friends of ours dropped off their 4 year old for 3 nights while they went on a trip to Prague and we also had friends to dinner on Sunday. This is way too much excitement for me in one week. I guess it wouldn't have been that bad if I could get a full night sleep (or even a half a night would be nice). Ellie had a fever 5 nights in a row. The first night she was delirious and singing YMCA all night. I'm worried about Ellie though because she goes into these coughing attacks and it doesn't seem like the medicine is helping--I've been giving her 4 breathing treatments a day. I'm starting to wonder if she just puts the machine in her mouth and inhales through her nose so she doesn't actually breath the stuff in. She is one head-strong girl and it's hard to figure out what she's doing.

Mathew is starting to feel better now and is coming back full speed. He is now cruising very comfortably and goes around trying out every piece of furniture to see if he can use it as a walker to get around. Chairs seem to be the vehicles of choice. This morning he discovered the water cooler and we are in trouble. He is obsessed. We may need to put it on top of the counter until he gets over this. He is such a flirt and those blue eyes just captivate anyone that walks by.

Yard Sale

2007-03-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

(Matt) I noticed our neighbors were having a yarda this morning so I threw a couple of items that had been clogging our garage on the driveway to see if we could make a quick sale. Sophia came out to help and b/c nobody was stopping wanted to reduce everything to 20 cents. Ellie came out to help to and started pulling out their bicycles. I told her to put them back in the garage but then all of a sudden people started stopping to ask about the bikes so we were onto something...after a few sales, Sophia came out with rags and started wiping everything down. I told her that we could buy Barbie Fairytopia Magic of the Rainbow if we sold enough or maybe download it...tonight in her prayers she said she was grateful that we could download the Barbie movie.

In our nightly ritual of bargaining before going to bed, Sophia took a stand recently and declared, "Dad, no more putting limitations on me to try and get me to go to bed."

Ellie loves us in her heart and must have a dress on at all times.

(Lara) Today while I was at the gym, Sophie called me frantically saying that nobody was buying the things at the yard sale and that we needed to put everything on sale.

Ellie has been completely obsessed with princesses for a few weeks now. We have non stop debates about what princesses do and don't do. First of all, she completely refuses to wear pants because "princesses don't wear pants". I've tried to convince her that they do but I have no proof. I thought one of our princess books had a picture of Belle in her pijamas with some long bloomers on so I've been searching everywhere to find the evidence. I was talking to Julie and she reminded me that Jasmine wears pants---I can't believe I hadn't thought of that. When I brought it up with Ellie, she thought about it and said OK, I'll be Jasmine but you need to put my hair in 5 pony tails like hers. Now she's even becoming more particular about the dresses she wears. She only wants to wear dresses that twirl or " turn around" as she puts it. She also only likes to wear "tap shoes" which are any shoes that make noise when she walks (usually church shoes).

Last Sunday at church I was reminding her to wipe her bottom after she'd gone potty. I told her "That's your special bottom and you need to keep it clean." She got the funniest look on her face and said "My bottom is special?". I said yes. She stood there thinking about it and said "you mean God made my bottom?". I said yes and she got so excited and started telling people around us that her bottom is special.

Matthew's taken huge strides this weekend. He's scooting a little and starting to rock back and forth on his knees. He also actually ate his oatmeal and peas tonight.

Here are a few pictures from a special Dad's day at the preschool and the Chinese Festival we went to when Timo and Julia were here.

(you need to click on this picture to see the album)

2007_3_1 Daddys day at La Casa

Limitations

2007-02-25T21:17:00.000-08:00

Last night Sophie was trying to stall bedtime with requests. Matt kept on telling her to go to bed and Sophie said "Stop putting limitations on what I'm asking for".

First Tooth

2007-02-21T13:23:00.000-08:00

Mathew got his first tooth yesterday. He's been so fussy recently and waking up consistently during the night. Now I'm hoping this is the reason. Ellie hasn't been to school in a week. She doesn't act like she feels sick but her cough is deep and the doctor prescribed breathing treatments so it doesn't turn into pneumonia. Timo and Julia came down to visit from Utah for Presidents Day weekend. We went to China Town, the Zoo, played X-Box and Acquire, and picked lemons. It was fun to see them and we had a great time.

This morning I was tryng to brush my teeth while holding Mathew. Just as I squeezed the toothpaste out he lunged forward and ate it right off the tube. I tried getting it out of his mouth but the weird thing is he really liked it... this is just minutes after he was gagging over his gerber carrots.

The weather is starting to warm up so I've been able to use the stroller again. The vegetable garden has really started to take off too. I thought I'd lost it all in the frost but everything seems to be doing fine.

Sunday was my day to do the lesson in Relief Society. I stayed up til 2:30 am finalizing everything and then in the end there were so many announcements they left me with less than 15 minutes to give the lesson. I ended up sharing less than 2 of the 8 pages I'd prepared.

Jan 21

2007-01-21T21:03:00.000-08:00

I developed the film from an underwater camera we were playing around with last summer...here are a few pics.

The last few weeks have been so cold. It's been freezing almost every night here--we are still not sure if any of our plants will survive this. We had just planted our beautiful vegetable garden too and it's lost. It even snowed by our house today..of course it didn't stick but we've never had it snow at our house before.

The latest dilemma that consumes my time is choosing which ballet class to put the girls in. I wanted to have them in class at the same time but it looks like that's not going to work. There are so many activities to choose from.

Mathew started this new laugh that literally sounds like a donkey, I'm not quite sure what to think of it. I think he's still not feeling well because he's crying a lot and arching his back and pulling on his ears. I took him in to the doctor and the doctor said there was nothing though.

The girls are still enjoying Mathew but he's starting to fight back a little--he's become and expert hair puller. The girls aren't quite sure what to think now that they are realizing he is not a toy doll to play with on their terms.

Ellie has been dressed up as a princess probably 90% of her time at home. She's really wants to go everywhere in her dress ups but that's where I draw the line.

I gave my RS lesson today--it went OK. The topic was somber (Death and Tragedy) but relevant considering there was a triple shooting this weekend just 2 miles from here and lots of people knew them (a man killed himself and 2 kids).

First Sunday back from vacation

2007-01-10T20:25:00.001-08:00

We had such a wonderful vacation in Utah. We are slowly trying to return to a normal routine. But we definitely miss being with the family. Here are some pictures from the Holidays (click on picture below to see album).

Starred Photos

Today was Ellie's first day in the Primary. It was so fun watching her actually sit in her chair and behave. She was very excited to be in with the big kids and Sophie was cheering her on the whole time. This morning she made up a song to the tune of the little mermaid's "part of your world" song saying "now your a big girl". Sophie gave a talk today too and did a superb job-- her sincerity was so compelling. I had a few people come up to me and say it was one of the best talks on faith they had heard. I put the ideas on paper but she came up with the ideas.

Mathew rolled over for the first time yesterday and now acts like he's been doing it for months. He's still not sleeping through the night. I've been in denial about it for a while so I'm starting to do battle. I started giving him a few solids--rice cereal, carrots, etc but it's not helping in the sleeping department.

They called me to be a teacher in the Relief Society. I'll be teaching on the 3rd Sundays from the Spencer W. Kimball book. It's a bit intimidating because the women are quite educated and articulate but I know this is not a competition. I'm grateful to have something that compels me to hit the books again though and it's only every 3 weeks so it shouldn't be too overwhelming.