That title had absolutely nothing to do with this post. Oh, but C. has graduated to whole milk. From a cow. So that's relevant, right?
Vacation details:
We left Friday morning for Seattle. Ben and 7 others from this area teamed up with 8 players from Seattle and Vancouver, WA to form "The Red Team" at this year's Department of Transportation soccer tournament. We stayed with Ben's sister Jennifer, who also played in the tournament, and her hubby, Rod, and their four dogs, two cats, and a snake (their pet tarantula died). They were great fun--we went to a farmer's market a few blocks from their home! I fell in love with a T-shirt. Ben fell in love with spicy pickles. Rod and Jen fell in love with "Rose Petal" jam. Then they joined us in Redmond, WA for dinner where Ben and Jennifer and half the team met the other half of their team for the first time.
Saturday was "game day."
The games were in Redmond, about 20 minutes east of Seattle, in a big park. And the AstroTurf was dusted with a smooth layer of fake rubber dirt--weird stuff. C. thought it was ono-licious! Ben's team played three games. Two of them back-to-back. They scored a goal. By the end of the day, they were starting to play like a team, they looked better and better (even with exhaustion setting in), but couldn't keep up with other well-rehearsed teams out there.
Ben opted out of playing soccer on Sunday. Ben has been amazing this year--he's missed so many soccer games--hopefully the kids will remember and follow his Sabbath day example in the years to come. Instead of tracking down a chapel, we strolled around the Seattle temple Sunday afternoon (except kids DON'T stroll). Then we spent Sunday afternoon and Monday at the ranch in Leavenworth. Cousins Ry (7), and Brodie (5) were staying with Gale and Kathy waiting for their moving van to arrive from San Fransisco.
Except for nature, we had fun at the ranch. Poor S. got stung twice by a bee on her right foot. Not to be outdone by a silly old bee, a snake decided to bite R.'s hand. We weren't around to see it, but got reports of R's bravery! This is HUGE for R, who is usually highly emotional and super-sensitive to pain. I don't know why a bee would pick on sweet little ole S, but I guess a snake bite is to be expected when the activity for the day is snake hunting.
Whenever Ry is at the ranch, R. and J. always get to go snake hunting. They had four or five cardboard boxes for their snakes' homes behind the garage. They did some great box-interior decorating and added grass and sticks for authenticity. Ry's dad made sure to supervise "Snake Release Day" after dinner so the poor over-handled fellas could slither off into the sunset.
Backtracking (because I'm not a smooth storyteller)
The reason Ben and I weren't on hand for the snake bite is that we were celebrating our 13th anniversary at the local movie theater. I put the baby down for a nap and we ran out the door. Unfortunately, we watched "Don't Mess With the Zohan" which was probably about the worst way to celebrate a wedding anniversary. . . ever. Not worth it, don't go see it. I'm jealous of Amy and Andrew and their anniversary plans. A whole NIGHT away from the kids!?! They are better at celebrating than we are, don't you think?
After we got back, Ben helped unload Ry and Brodie's moving truck. (They'll be living about a mile from Gale and Kathy.) We then had a lovely Salmon dinner and took cookies to Grandpa Jim before calling it a day. We were back home Tuesday so the boys could finish up their last week of "school." Not that they're learning anything anymore. This is the schedule for the last week of school--business day a.k.a. cashing-in-at-fake-stores-in-the-gym-for-tons-of-free-stuff, a field trip, talent show, play day and picnic to end the school year.
The worst part of the weekend was my allergies. I have been reacting to everything lately and just barely survived. Sooooo annoying. I have an appointment with an allergist next month so hopefully better medication will help. I've been much better at home, but found myself itchy-eyed at the boys' school talent show/awards assembly this morning.
Last day of school tomorrow! FINALLY!!!! I am so excited! Not like last summer (with newborn C.) when I was totally freaking about having 4 kids home all day. This year will actually be fun. For me. And I have the legos, water balloons, popsicles, YMCA memberships, shrinky dinks, playdough, DVR, electricity set, gummy worms and pop rocks to prove it. Bring it on! Now who's jealous? Oh yeah!
Okay gotta get going--lasagna for dinner. And salad. And grapes (for the kiddos). And whole grain baguette. And lemonade Crystal Light. Not too shabby with the healthy add-ons, eh? If you surround it by enough healthy sides, does the lasagna magically become healthy too? Hope so. . .
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Pictures
Birthday girl's cake--eaten with spoon.
R's latest project is to sell his toys on eBay. He even called Auntie Shelley for advice!
C. wouldn't put her head down and sleep the other night; she just cried and cried. I went in and sat by her crib. When I put my hand on her cheek she fell asleep mid-cry just sitting up!
J. wanted spikes in a smiley face pattern for "Crazy Hair Day" at school. (Next week is their last week of school.)Have a great rest of the week. We're headed to Seattle for the weekend. Ben's in a DOT soccer tournament. We'll be home Tuesday morning. : )
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Week of June 9th
Tuesday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY C!
My lofty goal this week in blogging is to write "100 things about my one year-old." C's birthday was today and the party was just us Wards and it was fun, except for the frosting, which was blue. In case you ever feel like bluing up some frosting without using food coloring, please read on. I decided to add a packet of berry blue koolaid to the frosting. I thought this would be better than food coloring because the color would be more intense (underwater creatures-themed cake). I also decided that a regular flavored cake would be boring. So the koolaid packet was my "two birds with one stone" solution. I'd have blue and flavorful frosting this way. Well folks, as it turns out, berry blue flavored frosting tastes pretty dang sick. It's berry tangy. And normal frosting is sweet. So when you bite into a piece of cake, it's just not what you expect. I should have put in just a touch of it for flavor and then darkened with food coloring instead of adding more and more powder! Also, in case you are wondering about my making my daughter a blue cake, the inside of the cake was pink (colored and flavored with a small Weyler's To Go packet--juice flavoring in cake batter works--delish!). I just don't embrace the pink princess girl stuff like I should. S's 1st cake was blue and white with yellow rubber duckies on it. Oh well! I'm sure S will set me straight. She spends enough time pretending to be a princess that I think we're in for pink girly cakes for years to come.
1. The song "Happy Birthday To You" makes her just grin and clap. She likes to hear us sing.
2. She thinks she can sing. She is sadly mistaken.
3. C. thinks she can dance. And she's right. That baby can really bob her head and shake a leg.
4. She struts like a duck with her head jutting up and down for no reason. Cute.
5. C. likes to throw food and sippy cups off of her high chair. Usually it's because she thinks that's where things go, but sometimes, when we put a fallen sippy back on the tray, she'll turn it into a game--holding the sippy off to one side threatening to drop it, wait for a bit of encouragement "No baby, don't drop it!" (from the kids usually), and then drop it and smile or laugh.
6. I'm having a hard time typing "C." (blog edit) when I write about her because I ALWAYS CALL HER "BABY." I doubt she even knows her own name.
7. C. thinks she's funny. She was sitting on a stair step kicking me with her chubby feet and laughing.
8. C. doesn't know how to take a nap without coercion. I have to nurse her to sleep during the day.
9. But at night I can put her in her crib, turn on the lullaby CD and she'll fall asleep with minimal protests.
10. She was shirtless for a while today and she quite enjoyed grabbing the skin on her belly and smacking her tummy. She's a fat baby and she knows it.
11. I'll have to get an accurate number in here next week at her check-up, but my guess is that this fat baby is about 25 pounds.
12. C. can climb up onto S's toddler bed. And she hates it when we make her get down.
13. Her other new mad skill is the stairs. It takes some coaxing to get her sitting and then turned onto her tummy to go down (she sees us walking down and thinks she can just step), but she can do it! She isn't consistent enough about not falling for us to get rid of the baby gate.
14. The first thing C. does in the morning is to hug and hug and hug whoever picks her up out of her crib.
15. She can clearly say "Hi Dad."
16. She also says "moh?" when she wants something. She's been doing this for a while. I don't know if she means "more" because she says it when she sees a toy she wants.
17. I'm amazed at how fast C. can wreak havoc on a neat stack of Pokemon cards. That girl moves her hands so fast--she's a human windmill.
18. When I'm on the computer, sometimes C. will reach up and grab my mouse or try to slam the keyboard slider shut. She's a reach-up-and-grab kind of girl.
19. C. has a gap between her two front teeth. It makes me wonder if she'll be the one with the great personality. Then I remember that I had a gap between my teeth as a child--and I was still a pretty cute kid.
20. C. just cut her 5th tooth last week.
21. Every person in a picture is "baby."
22. Her two favorite pictures are a picture of Jesus Christ in a heavy frame that is on an end table in the living room (it's at her height and I need to baby-proof better), and a tiny picture of S. when she was a baby. Ben will take it off the wall and let C. walk around with it. She likes kissing baby S's picture.
23. She is not a very good kisser. She puts her open mouth on your face and says "aaahhh!" It's slobbery.
24. But that's okay because she will then smack my face with her hands a few times to rub in the slobbery goodness.
25. C. is my first baby to NOT like being in a baby swing. She'll still swing and nap in it, but she doesn't enjoy it.
26. Ben, the rocking chair, and sports on TV regularly lull her to sleep.
27. C. likes to perform. She reaches her hand up to the piano and plays a few notes, then turns around with a huge grin on her face so we can say "Yay!"
28. Every time she hears "Yay!" she claps for herself.
29. C. loves to take off with the phone and dial "66666666666" "77777777777" or sometimes even "55***555******" if she's feeling creative.
30. "Muh" has more than one meaning. Sometimes it means "Here you go! I dialed the phone for you!"
31. She is a great multitasker. She can play piano with one hand and hold the phone with the other.
35. C. is good at taking off her socks, especially when in a car seat.
36. She's only worn shoes a few times in her life. She takes them off too. And coming from Hawaii, her parents don't care if she goes barefoot or just wears socks.
38. She is the proud 4th generation of girls in our ward wearing hand-me-downs. My friend, Sheree, admits to spending too much money buying nice clothes for her first child years ago. But seeing Abby (5), Lilly-anne (3), Cheyenne (2) and now C. (1!) wear them makes her feel better.
39. She hates loud machines like running vacuums, KitchenAid mixers, hairdryers, and drills.
40. Ditto when you blow up a balloon and do that balloon crying thing (pinch it to let out the air).
41. C. enjoys unrolling toilet paper.
42. She also swishes her hand around in toilet water on occasion.
43. If she is heading toward the bathroom for another go at the toilet and I take her hand to redirect her to another room, she leans backward and tries to sit down in protest.
44. Whe she's sad or has just been redirected she makes a gutteral sound an octave lower than her normal voice "Awwww."
45. She's a walking master.
46. She never did crawl correctly. She had a one-knee crawl. She climbs stairs now with one knee, too.
47. At church Sunday I couldn't get her to walk down the hall because she wanted to go the other way.
48. She likes us to chase her.
49. Her thighs are sooo fat. People used to tell us she'd slim down when she started walking. No thin thighs yet!
50. She also has a fat smile. Her round face has double cheeks and a double chin when she grins.
51. C. knows what brushes are for. She can brush her hair, her teeth, and the kitchen floor.
52. I can shop twice as long if I have crackers on hand. She isn't a fussy baby when there are crackers nearby.
53. C. yells jibberish at the dog and out the window when kids are playing.
54. C. can blow spit bubbles while saying "mmmmmmuh" over and over
55. C. loves sitting on things. Pillows, stair steps, car seats, dogs . . .
56. When we sweep the floor and C. is nearby, we have to race to beat her to the cheerios in the dirt pile.
57. C. eats dirt.
58. If C. has something in her mouth I touch her lips, hold out my hand, and point to my palm. She takes the object out of her mouth and puts it in my hand.
59. She adores her siblings.
60. She puts up with a lot of unwanted "Hug me baby, hug me!" attention from those siblings. But she can defend herself with loud shrieks and shoves when necessary.
61. When she doesn't get her way, she holds her hand up to her mouth and cries hoping for added sympathy.
62. If S. tries to be Dora the Explorer and tells her baby to "Stand up please!" C. will lay down and then laugh.
63. Her favorite song games are "Baby Shark Doot Doo" (thanks, Auntie Shelley) and " This is the Way the Baby Rides" (thanks, Auntie Crystal).
64. She's quite ticklish.
65. She and S. often play "dueling banjos" but with screaming. It's loud.
66. She is a pudgy energizer bunny when she's well-rested and fed.
67. When tired and/or hungry C. is quick to let us know.
68. I know she wants a nap when she follows me around wherever I go.
69. C. helps me fold laundry. If she can reach a pile of folded laundry she gets the whole pile "ready" for me to gather up and refold.
70. C. freaks us out when she sleeps. She will sometimes wait a long time between breaths. She doesn't seem to mind, that is, she never gasps for breath or changes color. We don't know if it's because she's dreaming or what, but we prefer it when babies breathe regularly. It's on my "talk to the Dr. next week" list. If she dies of SIDS I'll be horribly saddened, but not horribly surprised. Dude, that sounds so horribly horrid! I might decide to delete this and write something else for #70 before I post. . .
71. Her left eye is unique. She was born with a pin-sized white spot in the middle of the pupil. It's a polar anterior cataract. She's been to the eye doctor four times in her short life. The doc is just keeping an eye on it (get it?) especially for the first few years where eye development is critical. There is a slight risk that she'll develop amblyopia, or lazy eye, if it affects her vision in that eye. So far the verdict is that it is purely cosmetic. C. scores well on screenings and seems to see fine. To see a picture of it, go to my Feb 12th blog entry: "For Mom- can you see it?"
73. C. knows how to use her fist to smack her mouth and make those "wah, bah, bah, bah" noises.
74. If she has a choice between cheerios and goldfish crackers, she'll choose goldfish.
75. C. can take the lids off of markers.
76. And she thinks crayons taste great.
91. R. likes it when she pretends to be his bucking bronco.
92. J. likes sitting next to her at the table so he can play with her and not spend all his time complaining about food.
93. She's a cutie when she walks around, chin high in the air, wearing sunglasses.
94. C. dangles her foot on the other side of the baby gate daily, just to see if today's the day she can squeeze out.
95. She's a mamma's girl and doesn't like getting babysat.
96. I caught C. trying to climb into the dog's kennel yesterday. Eew. Hairy!
97. I've never woken her up just because she looked "so cute" asleep. (She is quite cute when she's sleeping though.)
98. The kids have. But not on purpose!
99. 99% of the time, she makes it easy to love being her mom. C. Rose is a cutie and a sweetheart.
100. She's even cute when pooping. She gets this completely serious look on her face and we all know it's her "I'm pooping now" face. (This is information that truly deserves the number 100 spot.)
This is something I wish I'd done for my other kids when they were tiny. I forget little details like this!
Saturday:
We celebrated Father's Day today by going to a zillion garage sales and then eating dinner at Red Robin, yum. Best deal of the day a corner cabinet for the kitchen for $5. Also we got a TON of legos. And I haven't checked the official rule book yet but I'm pretty sure you can never have too many legos.
Sorry I didn't upload pictures from the birthday festivities yet. Maybe next week. Have a great day! : )
My lofty goal this week in blogging is to write "100 things about my one year-old." C's birthday was today and the party was just us Wards and it was fun, except for the frosting, which was blue. In case you ever feel like bluing up some frosting without using food coloring, please read on. I decided to add a packet of berry blue koolaid to the frosting. I thought this would be better than food coloring because the color would be more intense (underwater creatures-themed cake). I also decided that a regular flavored cake would be boring. So the koolaid packet was my "two birds with one stone" solution. I'd have blue and flavorful frosting this way. Well folks, as it turns out, berry blue flavored frosting tastes pretty dang sick. It's berry tangy. And normal frosting is sweet. So when you bite into a piece of cake, it's just not what you expect. I should have put in just a touch of it for flavor and then darkened with food coloring instead of adding more and more powder! Also, in case you are wondering about my making my daughter a blue cake, the inside of the cake was pink (colored and flavored with a small Weyler's To Go packet--juice flavoring in cake batter works--delish!). I just don't embrace the pink princess girl stuff like I should. S's 1st cake was blue and white with yellow rubber duckies on it. Oh well! I'm sure S will set me straight. She spends enough time pretending to be a princess that I think we're in for pink girly cakes for years to come.
Wednesday:
Before I get started on the list of 100 things, I wanted to mention S. and Daddy's YW activity. Ben gets to go to all the YM/YW activities now and they had a daddy/daughter activity this Tuesday, so Ben took his daughter. They played a guessing game like the newlywed show where each daddy's answers have to match their daughter's. S. loves competition and when she figured out that this game was a contest she said (loudly) "Daddy! We GOTTA win this thing!" They got one matching answer "What animal is your dad most like?" Both said "A dog." S. was thrilled. She let out a shrill "Whih Hooo!!!!"
Here's my list of 100 things:
1. The song "Happy Birthday To You" makes her just grin and clap. She likes to hear us sing.
2. She thinks she can sing. She is sadly mistaken.
3. C. thinks she can dance. And she's right. That baby can really bob her head and shake a leg.
4. She struts like a duck with her head jutting up and down for no reason. Cute.
5. C. likes to throw food and sippy cups off of her high chair. Usually it's because she thinks that's where things go, but sometimes, when we put a fallen sippy back on the tray, she'll turn it into a game--holding the sippy off to one side threatening to drop it, wait for a bit of encouragement "No baby, don't drop it!" (from the kids usually), and then drop it and smile or laugh.
6. I'm having a hard time typing "C." (blog edit) when I write about her because I ALWAYS CALL HER "BABY." I doubt she even knows her own name.
7. C. thinks she's funny. She was sitting on a stair step kicking me with her chubby feet and laughing.
8. C. doesn't know how to take a nap without coercion. I have to nurse her to sleep during the day.
9. But at night I can put her in her crib, turn on the lullaby CD and she'll fall asleep with minimal protests.
10. She was shirtless for a while today and she quite enjoyed grabbing the skin on her belly and smacking her tummy. She's a fat baby and she knows it.
11. I'll have to get an accurate number in here next week at her check-up, but my guess is that this fat baby is about 25 pounds.
12. C. can climb up onto S's toddler bed. And she hates it when we make her get down.
13. Her other new mad skill is the stairs. It takes some coaxing to get her sitting and then turned onto her tummy to go down (she sees us walking down and thinks she can just step), but she can do it! She isn't consistent enough about not falling for us to get rid of the baby gate.
14. The first thing C. does in the morning is to hug and hug and hug whoever picks her up out of her crib.
15. She can clearly say "Hi Dad."
16. She also says "moh?" when she wants something. She's been doing this for a while. I don't know if she means "more" because she says it when she sees a toy she wants.
17. I'm amazed at how fast C. can wreak havoc on a neat stack of Pokemon cards. That girl moves her hands so fast--she's a human windmill.
18. When I'm on the computer, sometimes C. will reach up and grab my mouse or try to slam the keyboard slider shut. She's a reach-up-and-grab kind of girl.
19. C. has a gap between her two front teeth. It makes me wonder if she'll be the one with the great personality. Then I remember that I had a gap between my teeth as a child--and I was still a pretty cute kid.
20. C. just cut her 5th tooth last week.
21. Every person in a picture is "baby."
22. Her two favorite pictures are a picture of Jesus Christ in a heavy frame that is on an end table in the living room (it's at her height and I need to baby-proof better), and a tiny picture of S. when she was a baby. Ben will take it off the wall and let C. walk around with it. She likes kissing baby S's picture.
23. She is not a very good kisser. She puts her open mouth on your face and says "aaahhh!" It's slobbery.
24. But that's okay because she will then smack my face with her hands a few times to rub in the slobbery goodness.
25. C. is my first baby to NOT like being in a baby swing. She'll still swing and nap in it, but she doesn't enjoy it.
26. Ben, the rocking chair, and sports on TV regularly lull her to sleep.
27. C. likes to perform. She reaches her hand up to the piano and plays a few notes, then turns around with a huge grin on her face so we can say "Yay!"
28. Every time she hears "Yay!" she claps for herself.
29. C. loves to take off with the phone and dial "66666666666" "77777777777" or sometimes even "55***555******" if she's feeling creative.
30. "Muh" has more than one meaning. Sometimes it means "Here you go! I dialed the phone for you!"
31. She is a great multitasker. She can play piano with one hand and hold the phone with the other.
32. A new skill is whispering "aaahhh" in the high chair as she waits for bites of food.
33. Another new skill is climbing up onto the door of the dishwasher.
34. C. can turn pages in books and magazines. She rips out pages in both with reckless abandon.
35. C. is good at taking off her socks, especially when in a car seat.
36. She's only worn shoes a few times in her life. She takes them off too. And coming from Hawaii, her parents don't care if she goes barefoot or just wears socks.
38. She is the proud 4th generation of girls in our ward wearing hand-me-downs. My friend, Sheree, admits to spending too much money buying nice clothes for her first child years ago. But seeing Abby (5), Lilly-anne (3), Cheyenne (2) and now C. (1!) wear them makes her feel better.
39. She hates loud machines like running vacuums, KitchenAid mixers, hairdryers, and drills.
40. Ditto when you blow up a balloon and do that balloon crying thing (pinch it to let out the air).
41. C. enjoys unrolling toilet paper.
42. She also swishes her hand around in toilet water on occasion.
43. If she is heading toward the bathroom for another go at the toilet and I take her hand to redirect her to another room, she leans backward and tries to sit down in protest.
44. Whe she's sad or has just been redirected she makes a gutteral sound an octave lower than her normal voice "Awwww."
45. She's a walking master.
46. She never did crawl correctly. She had a one-knee crawl. She climbs stairs now with one knee, too.
47. At church Sunday I couldn't get her to walk down the hall because she wanted to go the other way.
48. She likes us to chase her.
49. Her thighs are sooo fat. People used to tell us she'd slim down when she started walking. No thin thighs yet!
50. She also has a fat smile. Her round face has double cheeks and a double chin when she grins.
51. C. knows what brushes are for. She can brush her hair, her teeth, and the kitchen floor.
52. I can shop twice as long if I have crackers on hand. She isn't a fussy baby when there are crackers nearby.
53. C. yells jibberish at the dog and out the window when kids are playing.
54. C. can blow spit bubbles while saying "mmmmmmuh" over and over
55. C. loves sitting on things. Pillows, stair steps, car seats, dogs . . .
56. When we sweep the floor and C. is nearby, we have to race to beat her to the cheerios in the dirt pile.
57. C. eats dirt.
58. If C. has something in her mouth I touch her lips, hold out my hand, and point to my palm. She takes the object out of her mouth and puts it in my hand.
59. She adores her siblings.
60. She puts up with a lot of unwanted "Hug me baby, hug me!" attention from those siblings. But she can defend herself with loud shrieks and shoves when necessary.
61. When she doesn't get her way, she holds her hand up to her mouth and cries hoping for added sympathy.
62. If S. tries to be Dora the Explorer and tells her baby to "Stand up please!" C. will lay down and then laugh.
63. Her favorite song games are "Baby Shark Doot Doo" (thanks, Auntie Shelley) and " This is the Way the Baby Rides" (thanks, Auntie Crystal).
64. She's quite ticklish.
65. She and S. often play "dueling banjos" but with screaming. It's loud.
66. She is a pudgy energizer bunny when she's well-rested and fed.
67. When tired and/or hungry C. is quick to let us know.
68. I know she wants a nap when she follows me around wherever I go.
69. C. helps me fold laundry. If she can reach a pile of folded laundry she gets the whole pile "ready" for me to gather up and refold.
70. C. freaks us out when she sleeps. She will sometimes wait a long time between breaths. She doesn't seem to mind, that is, she never gasps for breath or changes color. We don't know if it's because she's dreaming or what, but we prefer it when babies breathe regularly. It's on my "talk to the Dr. next week" list. If she dies of SIDS I'll be horribly saddened, but not horribly surprised. Dude, that sounds so horribly horrid! I might decide to delete this and write something else for #70 before I post. . .
71. Her left eye is unique. She was born with a pin-sized white spot in the middle of the pupil. It's a polar anterior cataract. She's been to the eye doctor four times in her short life. The doc is just keeping an eye on it (get it?) especially for the first few years where eye development is critical. There is a slight risk that she'll develop amblyopia, or lazy eye, if it affects her vision in that eye. So far the verdict is that it is purely cosmetic. C. scores well on screenings and seems to see fine. To see a picture of it, go to my Feb 12th blog entry: "For Mom- can you see it?"
72. If there's a large box or basket on the ground, C. will climb into it.
73. C. knows how to use her fist to smack her mouth and make those "wah, bah, bah, bah" noises.
74. If she has a choice between cheerios and goldfish crackers, she'll choose goldfish.
75. C. can take the lids off of markers.
76. And she thinks crayons taste great.
77. One day there was a bottle of ketchup on the ground in the kitchen. I didn't know how it got there. Turns out that when someone opens the refrigerator, C. runs/toddles over to see how many condiments she can take out of the door of the fridge before someone catches her.
78. When her daddy comes home she babbles and smiles and claps. (Total job perk for Ben!)
79. I haven't tried this lately but she used to finish the line from the Backyardigans pirate song: "A pirate, a pirate, a pirate says. . ." ". . .yah!"
80. If she's carrying something big (even if it's not heavy) C. walks around with it completely out of breath going "huh, a, huh, a . . . eeehhh."
81. She knows how to take her shirt off!
82. She will let us feed her with a baby spoon but will insist on helping by taking the spoon away.
83. If she holds one baby spoon, we can trick her into getting fed by another baby spoon. This only works because she thinks she's still helping.
84. C. loves rubbing food in her hair.
85. Her middle name was almost Eliana (pronounced Ellie + Ana)
85. If you say "hat" she'll put whatever she's holding on her head.
86. When I'm holding her and talking to her she'll stick her finger in my mouth to catch my tongue or gouge at my gums with her fingernails. Flesh-scraping fun.
87. C. is my first baby to love taking baths.
88. She is not my first baby to be practically bald as a one year old. What little hair she has is brown.
89. She ate J's free admission ticket to Silverwood (like Lagoon).
90. S. likes it when C. hits her in the eye.
91. R. likes it when she pretends to be his bucking bronco.
92. J. likes sitting next to her at the table so he can play with her and not spend all his time complaining about food.
93. She's a cutie when she walks around, chin high in the air, wearing sunglasses.
94. C. dangles her foot on the other side of the baby gate daily, just to see if today's the day she can squeeze out.
95. She's a mamma's girl and doesn't like getting babysat.
96. I caught C. trying to climb into the dog's kennel yesterday. Eew. Hairy!
97. I've never woken her up just because she looked "so cute" asleep. (She is quite cute when she's sleeping though.)
98. The kids have. But not on purpose!
99. 99% of the time, she makes it easy to love being her mom. C. Rose is a cutie and a sweetheart.
100. She's even cute when pooping. She gets this completely serious look on her face and we all know it's her "I'm pooping now" face. (This is information that truly deserves the number 100 spot.)
This is something I wish I'd done for my other kids when they were tiny. I forget little details like this!
Saturday:
We celebrated Father's Day today by going to a zillion garage sales and then eating dinner at Red Robin, yum. Best deal of the day a corner cabinet for the kitchen for $5. Also we got a TON of legos. And I haven't checked the official rule book yet but I'm pretty sure you can never have too many legos.
Sorry I didn't upload pictures from the birthday festivities yet. Maybe next week. Have a great day! : )
Friday, June 6, 2008
Week of June 6th
THIS WEEK
Tuesday:
So it's 8:00pm and Ben plus 5 men from our ward have been trying to move our piano from House A to our house, House B, for the last almost 2 hours. It's stuck at House A--it's a split entry like ours, but this house has a window next to the front door. They tried getting the piano out the front door but it wouldn't fit. Ben and I thought the process should take 30-45 minutes tops. At 7:00pm, one hour into the move, I put all the kids in the van and drove to House A (about a mile away) to see what the hold-up was. Six men and a piano were all out on the back deck (a deck with no stairway down to the yard!) in the rain!. Their plan was clear. They had what supplies they needed: a truck down below them and lots of rope. Was it the testosterone? The need to conquer? Sheer willpower? Who knows how it happened, but "we'll drop the piano off the deck" was the agreed upon solution to not being able to fit the piano out the front door!
Hold on. . . a bunch of young men just showed up at my door. . . huh?
. . . Later. . . Now it's 10:00pm. The kids are finally in bed and we have a piano. . . I promise to fill in the details later (and Ben will have to relay details about the piano-deck chucking part). I can't believe the whole process took 3 hours!
Wednesday:
Piano details. Nobody got injured moving the piano, but I am quite certain we'll be teased at church on Sunday about acquiring our mammoth piano. I don't feel too bad because the woman we got it from needed to be rid of the piano so she could begin a house remodel. She's fairly young and her husband died unexpectedly two years ago, when I was the new RS pres. So she didn't have any way to get it out of the house without the help of Church members. So Ben tells me that his "crew" dismantled the deck railing, backed up a trailer up onto wedges in the grass below the edge of the deck, and used ropes and 12 guys to get it down into the trailer. So sad! Moving our piano became the YM activity last night. Our home teacher, who was one of the original 6, works with the YM and had planned the activity that night. He called the YM president to tell him why he'd be late and the YM prez took the YM over to help. Service is better than a games night, right?!? A little after 9:00pm the piano was finally parked in our living room. And we rewarded the whole gang with cinnamon rolls (store-bought, but nummy) and cookies (from our home teacher--intended for the YM activity). I can't believe it took 12 guys to move the piano. I also can't believe I didn't think to take pictures. We're happy it's here and look forward to next Thursday when it gets tuned. I do have cute pics of C. "playing" the piano.
Tuesday:
So it's 8:00pm and Ben plus 5 men from our ward have been trying to move our piano from House A to our house, House B, for the last almost 2 hours. It's stuck at House A--it's a split entry like ours, but this house has a window next to the front door. They tried getting the piano out the front door but it wouldn't fit. Ben and I thought the process should take 30-45 minutes tops. At 7:00pm, one hour into the move, I put all the kids in the van and drove to House A (about a mile away) to see what the hold-up was. Six men and a piano were all out on the back deck (a deck with no stairway down to the yard!) in the rain!. Their plan was clear. They had what supplies they needed: a truck down below them and lots of rope. Was it the testosterone? The need to conquer? Sheer willpower? Who knows how it happened, but "we'll drop the piano off the deck" was the agreed upon solution to not being able to fit the piano out the front door!
Hold on. . . a bunch of young men just showed up at my door. . . huh?
. . . Later. . . Now it's 10:00pm. The kids are finally in bed and we have a piano. . . I promise to fill in the details later (and Ben will have to relay details about the piano-deck chucking part). I can't believe the whole process took 3 hours!
Wednesday:
Piano details. Nobody got injured moving the piano, but I am quite certain we'll be teased at church on Sunday about acquiring our mammoth piano. I don't feel too bad because the woman we got it from needed to be rid of the piano so she could begin a house remodel. She's fairly young and her husband died unexpectedly two years ago, when I was the new RS pres. So she didn't have any way to get it out of the house without the help of Church members. So Ben tells me that his "crew" dismantled the deck railing, backed up a trailer up onto wedges in the grass below the edge of the deck, and used ropes and 12 guys to get it down into the trailer. So sad! Moving our piano became the YM activity last night. Our home teacher, who was one of the original 6, works with the YM and had planned the activity that night. He called the YM president to tell him why he'd be late and the YM prez took the YM over to help. Service is better than a games night, right?!? A little after 9:00pm the piano was finally parked in our living room. And we rewarded the whole gang with cinnamon rolls (store-bought, but nummy) and cookies (from our home teacher--intended for the YM activity). I can't believe it took 12 guys to move the piano. I also can't believe I didn't think to take pictures. We're happy it's here and look forward to next Thursday when it gets tuned. I do have cute pics of C. "playing" the piano.
A little history lesson I learned today from "Dan The Piano Man" (local piano guy who stole the title from Billy Joel) and online sources: Our piano is a 1907 Whitney upright made by the Kimball Piano Company in Chicago. Yes, it is 101 years old. Makes Dad look like a spring chicken! I was thinking about overhauling the exterior--putting a stain on it and customizing the front of it with glass inserts (so you can see the inside parts that move as you play). But I might not have the nerve to do it now that I know it is an antique. Do I want to try preserve the integrity of this antique or customize the look??? New part-time job for me: piano restoration!
Friday:
Ben went to a welfare training/bishopric meeting last night and got home just before 10:00pm. I put the kids in bed and watched television! On TV! For like two hours! Last Comic Standing and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (on DVR-during commercials). I know! It's so rare that my day includes assuming the role of couch potato, it was fun.
By the way, I'm happy about the Barack Obama thing, hope he doesn't stick Hilary Clinton on his ticket as VP, but whatever. John Edwards' platform was more my style, boo hoo for me. McCain too, except for one important issue. His position on Iraq and dealing with terrorism don't sit well with me. I tend to like McCain's policies and think he's a smart politician, Is he trying to get on with the second coming with wars and rumors of wars? I guess I need to decide how much weight to give the war issue. Obama is fun to listen to, though, quite the speech-giver, doncha think? And he has Hawaii ties, so it's an interesting kinship I feel knowing that people were picking on him in high school for being popolo just like they picked on my for being haole! Was it Punahou or Iolani High School he went to?
This morning I dropped the girls off at my friend, Mollie's house. Then I went to R & J's school to volunteer in R's class. I don't volunteer in J's class, but I'm the parent volunteer coordinator, so I work the phones and stuff when his teacher needs help. I'm supposed to volunteer every Friday doing this reading program for R's teacher called "Read Naturally" where you work one-on-one listening to someone read a selection for one minute. That's the COLD read. Then they practice reading it, listen to me read, and read the selection again, the HOT read, for one minute. The goal is to have them read 30 more words for their HOT read than they did for their COLD read. It's interesting how different the kids are.
It's also interesting/funny to see the boys at school. Every time R. sees me in school, he runs up to give me a hug or high five "Hi Mom!" "Hey R, how are you doing?" "Good!" But when I am in J's class or I see him in the hallway, he hides behind someone or get's all shy and ducks his head down. No "Hi." Nothing. I hear his classmates say "J, there's your mom!" But do you think J. will acknowledge me? Nope! Funny kid. I usually say hi anyway and ruffle his hair or pat him on the back, but the most I've gotten from him is a shy smile. That's probably why he's such a star student. He's a completely different kid at school!
Sunday:
So I had ten kids in my primary class today. And I lived to tell about it. It was only slightly crazier than normal (usually there are 7 or 8 in the class).
OOOHH! I uploaded pictures yesterday. This one's a keeper. Ben snapped this picture of a dandelion tasting session. She's wearing J's old sweater and looks like a boy, but the face she pulled is cute. 
Okay, I'm publishing this LONG post now! Have a great week : )
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