In with the new.

And don't forget "out with the old". In fact, I would venture to say that one of the few aspects of Christmas that offsets the disgusting onslaught of toys and clothes that, let's face it, no one really needs is the fact that I can finally declutter. Admittedly, it's probably one of the few obsessions I have. It took Tim at least a year after we were married to get used to the fact that, if he left a piece of paper(or anything else with no apparent value) sitting on a surface that was otherwise clear, it would be gone within 24 hours. Having 3 kids has worked wonders in tempering my compulsive nature but through and through, I am still my father's daughter and I LOVE order.

On Christmas Day, my kids were, not surprisingly, distracted by the items gifted to them by none other than their well-intentioned parents and grandparents. I saw the perfect opportunity to start piling into boxes used toys, books, clothes, and games that, as I saw it, were simply taking up space. Up until this point, each time I have suggested giving a few things away to the needy (I have to jazz up the phrase "getting rid of" somehow), my sweet children boldly proclaim how they can't live without this doll (that has been marked up with a pen), or that stuffed animal (to whom they haven't even bothered to give a name), or the book that has sat under their bed undetected for months. Consequently, I typically find a time to discreetly stow a few seldom-used items in a box until I can donate them and hope that the girls don't notice.

Not on Christmas. As they played happily, I filled 3-4 huge boxes with stuff and barely got so much as a glance my way. I thought I was done for when Anna remarked, "Mom, are we giving those to the needy people?" I answered hesitantly..."Yes." To which she responded, absently, "Oh." and went on playing with the latest and greatest. So my kids are spoiled and I'm actually happy about it. For now. Because my house is just a bit more organized.

I'll give you a more complete Christmas update soon... with pictures.

BYU vs. UCLA

When Tim and I were young married students at BYU, we faithfully attended BYU home games, having purchased an all-sports pass both years we attended for a mere $60. If only cable TV in Boise could be found at such a bargain price. Our minimal TV-viewing habits has not justified the investment in cable or satellite, so we have a cute set of rabbit ears atop our entertainment center that provides us with 6 or 7 channels, on a good day.

Apparently, we have a few fellow BYU alumni friends here in Boise that are as cheap as we are. We all expressed our devotion to the Cougars last Saturday night by going to a local restaurant/sports bar to watch the Las Vegas bowl (BYU vs. UCLA). I'm sure that the owners dread people requesting any game where BYU is one of the contenders since they will neither be generating any alcohol revenue from those customers nor do they have any guarantee that these guests will bother ordering anything from the menu (in fact, a shameless few might opt to bring in their own food?). Let's face it, we Mormons are cheap.

Not having exhausted the meager "eating out" portion of our monthly budget, and having the luxury of a free babysitter that night (thanks Jill), Tim and I went the whole nine yards and ordered an appetizer first, an entree at halftime, and a chocolate milkshake for dessert during the fourth quarter. My body could not support such gluttony. I honestly cannot remember a time in my life when I imagined a race to the bathroom to unload my dinner into the toilet and it sounded like an attractive option. I vow never to eat like that again (except maybe when I'm eating for two).

Dinner aside, BYU displayed its characteristic disappointment in the fourth quarter, having allowed UCLA to get within field goal range when BYU was only up by one point. But, they also, in classic cougar style, surprised us by blocking what should have been an easy kick into the end zone. Pretty sure we were the only fans clapping in the restaurant.

It's time to ask my doctor about Imitrex.

At last, I have found something redeeming about pregnancy and nursing. Besides the fact that my skin glows, my hair thickens, and I think that everything my husband says is hilarious, that is. I quit nursing Rachel over a month ago and my life has been blessed with 4-5 migraines since then. I had one on Saturday night that stretched into Sunday morning, peaked at about 10:30 a.m. and finally subsided at about 2:30 in the afternoon. It was one of those make-it-stop-or-shoot-me-now headaches. In fact, I'm still contemplating whether or not I would rather be in labor than have a migraine of this magnitude again. At least labor pains come and go. This... this, was unrelenting pain, an agony akin to having someone drill a hole into the side of your head. Oh, and have I told you that migraines really hurt?

Anyway, I'm thinking that estrogen is my new best friend. I read an article confirming the correlation between pregnancy/nursing and a decrease in migraine frequency and I was almost inspired to become a wet nurse.

Come to think of it, maybe I'll just ask my doctor about Imitrex.

At least I know the smoke alarms work.

Yesterday, I was changing Rachel's diaper when the shrill sound of our smoke alarms tried to compete with the volume my girls were generating while playing. Clearly, they won. The smoke alarms, I mean. Usually I know exactly what the culprit is when the smoke alarm goes off. In fact, 9 times out of 10, it is when someone is cooking bacon and has neglected to turn the stove fan on. And yes, we love bacon around here, for those of you cringing at the thought of eating straight fat.

This time, however, I had no clue what was causing the clamour and rushed downstairs to put it all to an end and spare everyone's ears and nerves further damage. To make a long story short, Lily had put a couple of plastic measuring cups in the oven and I, of course, didn't check inside the oven before preheating it to 400 degrees (who does?). She had been pretending to bake cookies. Now, those cookies were oozing down my oven racks and all over the bottom shelf. All I could think of was how grateful I was that I had ignored the inkling I'd had earlier in the day to clean my oven. I guess sometimes laziness really does pay off.


On a completely different note, last night the doorbell rang after 7 pm, and Tim's immediate response was, "Yea, cookies!" Don't you just love the holidays?

Quarantined.

That's right. Winter season is in full force and we are stuck inside our home because my kids neither wash their hands consistently, nor cover their mouths when they cough, nor go to bed when they are told to. You know, all the techniques that would typically prevent illness. Lily's pretty cute about it, though. She's come to grips with the fact that when anyone is sick, we say no to friends. Her way to handle the situation: boldly proclaim her health every few minutes. "Mom, I'm not sick anymore. I slept really good last night. Look mom, I'm not coughing. No more boogers." All the while the snot is streaming from her nose.
Those of you who live near can rest assured that I will not invite your child over in the midst of the petri dish that is currently our home. However, I will not spare the random strangers who frequent the same stores as me. I'm a busy mom! I have errands to run! So you might want to steer clear of ShopKo, Costco, and Walmart this week. My kids left their germs everywhere.

Anna Elisabeth Egbert.

I take the naming of my children very seriously. I figured that if my daughters have to endure 20+ years of being an Egbert (I'm kidding, Steve and Paula) they might as well have a first name that does not evoke laughter. Tim and I play it safe and give our children classic, Biblically-based names: Anna Elisabeth, Lily Rebekah, Rachel Jean... and so it goes. They are strong names, full of meaning, and represented by some of the most remarkable women in history.

So you can imagine my initial reaction today when Anna ponderingly said to me in the car today: "Mom, I don't like my name". Pause. "You shouldn't have named me Anna." Pause again. I'm thinking: I can't believe I'm hearing this from my firstborn, the one to whom I gave the two top names on my list. Anna, widow for 84 years, one of the first to greet the infant Jesus in the temple; meaning gracious. She's not acting so gracious right now is she? Elisabeth, full of faith, mother of John the Baptist after years of barrenness, cousin to Mary, the mother of Jesus; meaning consecrated to God. Really, how much more meaningful can you get?

Rather than communicate my deep love for the names that I had chosen to bestow upon her, I enjoyed the moment a little longer, and said, "Okay, Anna, what do you wish I had named you?" Another pause. "I really like the name Cinderella."

By George, I think she's got it!

By about mid-November I was already tiring of trips to Costco. Don't get me wrong, driving twenty minutes to a giant warehouse and fitting 3 kids into a giant cart just to buy a couple of giant boxes of milk so that I don't have to pay the giant price tag other stores enjoy charging me for the same item is barrels of fun, normally. But it has been raining Christmas there since the beginning of October! And as much as I LOVE Christmas, my kids love it too. At least, they love telling me how much they want this toy, and that toy, oh, and that toy for Christmas. Trips to Costco have become very tiresome.

Anyway, in mid-November, I decided that Tim and I needed to come up with some way to remove the selfishness bug from our children and teach them how it feels to serve others during the holiday season. Almost one month, one Thanksgiving, and one trip to Maui later, I still had not come up with anything.

Thank heaven for Joy School. I had the pleasure of teaching this week, and our current unit on sharing and service included a lesson plan where we arrange a visit to a rest home to perform a small nativity program. It was quite an experience. Despite the fact that I had to twist arms to get the kids successfully through several practice runs at my home, it went superbly well. They sang their hearts out, were not shy about giving the "grandparents" the Christmas cards they had prepared for them, and I only had to carry one Joseph around the stage to do his part. It appeared that they had experienced the joy of giving of themselves.


I knew that the lesson had been ingrained when I had just finished my prep work for dinner and went to join the girls up in the play room. I walked in and found it completely spotless. Shocked and delighted, I exclaimed, "Wow! What happened?" Anna was beaming with pride and said, "Mom, we wanted to surprise you. It's called service." I told her how happy I was and, seizing the teaching moment, asked her how it made her feel inside, to which she responded, "Good, but my body is still kinda tired from all that work."

Later that day, we were driving up the street to take dinner to a family in our ward(congregation, for those of you not as familiar with Mormon lingo) whose mother had just had a baby and Anna exclaimed, "Mom, you're doing service too!" One can only hope that the lesson sticks next time we go to Costco just for milk and instead of getting bombarded with demands as I try to skirt past the toy section, I am greeted with silence. Wishful thinking...

Things I learned in Maui.

Tim and I took a late sixth anniversary trip (otherwise known as Susie's-neither-pregnant-nor-nursing-so-let's-get-out-of-town-trip) to Maui last week. A few things I learned while in the beautiful Valley Isle of Hawaii I list below:

1. I really do love my children. This is actually a disclaimer because many of the subsequent things I will list might have to do with the fact that they did not come on my trip. Truly, though, my kids enrich my life with meaning and purpose and I realized after six days without them that true fulfillment comes through serving them daily. I love them.

2. I still love my husband. He's not quite as obnoxious when I'm no longer sleep-deprived and I haven't faced days on end with little ones driving me crazy. Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration (the part about him being obnoxious, that is). In fact, we have quite a bit of fun together. It's good to know that.

3. Tim is afraid of sharks. Having grown up in San Diego, I figured that he had spent enough days on the beach to get this one out of his system. But as we were snorkeling, I noticed that we could only go so far out before he got the willies and headed back to shore. He was the butt of many jokes for the rest of our trip.

4. My kids treat grandma WAY better than they treat me. Nevermind that I carried them, bore them, and wipe their boogers with my bare hands, if necessary. While we were gone, they only messed around at bedtime enough to get kicked out into the hallway once or twice, compared to pretty much every night when I'm around.

5. You don't have to sacrifice any of your limbs to pay for a trip to Hawaii. We got a beachfront condo for a steal that of course didn't have all the amenities that large hotel chains provide but was literally a stone's throw from the ocean. We were lulled to sleep by the waves every night. We ate in most days, thanks to Costco, avoided all of the costly island tours, and consequently undercut our budget by a few hundred dollars. Hurray.

6. Maui really is paradise. We hiked through tropical rainforests, swam in pools beneath waterfalls, snorkeled in what seemed to be an aquarium (though it was only a few feet from shore), and stood atop a towering 10,000 foot volcano that commanded a view of the ocean and the two Big Island volcanoes. It was simply breathtaking. If only our pictures could do it all justice.

Here they are:

A cave we discovered on a volcanic black sand beach.

Just before taking a dip in the Seven Sacred Pools.

A rainbow eucalyptus tree on the idyllic Road to Hana.

The temperature dropped 30 degrees on our drive up to Haleakala National Park. Go Cougars!

This was taken from our balcony, literally. We ate dinner to this view almost every night.

Back in the saddle.

On our return flight from Maui two days ago, Tim and I were relaxing in the comfort of coach class on ATA, sipping cranapple juice and gingerale(respectively, not mixed together) waiting patiently for the in-flight movie Evan Almighty to begin. I had already devoured half of the conference issue of the Ensign and couldn't help but think of how apropos the movie selection was, considering we were traveling on the Sabbath. (After all, God is one of the main characters, right?)

The pilot interrupted my thoughts to make an announcement over the intercom. It went something like this: "We have a somewhat unique (unique being the operative word, here) situation that we wish to inform you of. Apparently, our lavatory tanks were not serviced before leaving Kahului and have reached their full capacity. We've decided to turn around and go to Honolulu to have the tanks serviced. We apologize for the inconvenience and blah, blah, blah.

My first thought was, "Stop the beverage service and keep going! Good heavens, we're already two hours into the flight! I can hold it another three!" Tim, however, already had to go and momentarily stood up to occupy a place in line for the restroom. When he came back he shared this little tidbit: "There was a torpedo poking through the flapper - I didn't even bother to flush." Thanks honey. (You're probably wondering to yourself what it is about me and blog posts that involve bodily functions.)

24 hours later, we landed safely in Salt Lake City and still had to drive 4 1/2 hours to Boise. The upside to this whole encounter: we were not traveling with our children, we had 6 nights of uninterrupted sleep under our belts, and we acquired two free roundtrip tickets to anywhere in the U.S.

The downside: I had to stay in Vegas for a night (6 hours of which were spent waiting, just waiting... and only 4 hours sleeping) my hopes of seeing my sweet children were dashed until the following day, and I have the craziest week ahead of me!

Maui was wonderful - I'll post pictures soon.

One last thing: are airplanes the only place we call a restroom a lavatory anymore?

The early bird catches the worm.

I am not terribly fond of shopping. Sure, as a teenager I had my fair share of mall visits where I'd try on a dozen outfits, none of which I could afford and few of which actually looked good on me and walk away empty-handed most of the time. As a mother, my idea of shopping includes three kids in a Costco cart begging for free samples, only to throw the food in my face declaring "I don't like this one!" after a tiny bite. If I'm lucky I can browse the clothing section for, oh, about sixty seconds while the wee ones are distracted by tic-tacs, or animal crackers, or whatever crusty food item resides in the bottom of my purse. At that point, I will grab an item of clothing that looks semi-attractive and throw it in the cart because after all, at Costco, I can return it after wearing it, washing it, rolling in the mud in it as long as it's within ninety days of my purchase. Note: I don't really do any of those things, but it sure is nice to know that I could.
Back to my original point: I don't really like shopping. But I am also somewhat of a cheapskate. So braving the after-Thanksgiving Day sales is a bit of a temptation each year. Let me think, would I rather shell out $20 for a cheap Disney princess dress that will be rags a few weeks after Christmas or pay $9.99 and get a matching crown and pair of shoes? I realize that we're talking about very small numbers here, but let's face it, to a penny pincher, they matter. They matter a lot. Even so, I decided last night that at this point in my life, my sleep is worth more than those $10 so I went to bed without any intentions of waking up to an alarm at 3:30 a.m.
3:43 a.m. Anna wakes me up to tell me that Lily was in her spot. What this means is, Lily had positioned herself perpendicular to Anna on the side-by side futon mattresses that they have been sharing at grandma and grandpa's house. Her feet were in Anna's face and Anna did not like it. So I heard the drama, quickly fixed the situation, and crawled back into my cozy bed.
4:00 a.m. Still awake. I decide that if I'm going to be up, I should be up and at 'em.
4:03 a.m. I start my freezing car, complete with the ads that I had set aside last night with dog-eared pages indicating things that I would like to buy if for some reason I find myself awake and available to go shopping at 4 o'clock in the morning.
4:15 a.m. Arrive at Kohl's. They had the cutest kid-sized hooded towels that I knew the girls would totally dig so even though they had opened at 4, I hoped that I could snag a few. It was a vain hope. Failure #1.
4:45 a.m. Arrive at Target. I thought they opened at 5 so I was pretty pleased with my position in line, until I realized ten minutes later that they weren't opening the doors until 6. Failure #2.
5:00 a.m. Enter ShopKo parking lot. I ran in and dashed to the toy section and managed to grab the aforementioned princess dresses, 2 stocking holders, 2 board games, and a pair of gloves. Success! Bonus: I ran into an old friend from high school who kept me company in the queue that wound around the store before ending at the checkout counter.
5:45 a.m. I'm back at Target. The line in front of the store is about a mile long. I race out of my car to stake my claim on a place in the ridiculous thing. After spending 10 minutes searching frantically for the scooters, I grab the last one on the shelf. Success again! Another bonus: I bumped into a girl from my neighborhood in Boise who was also in town visiting grandparents.
So now I'm only out about $60 and my Christmas shopping is pretty near done. I still despise shopping - but the bargain-hunter in me is alive and well.

Memory Lane.

My parents moved from Alpine, Utah to Orem, Utah over three years ago. Tim and I were pretty stoked when they moved to Orem because of its convenient location. It seems that everything is just around the corner. And even though Alpine is a mere 30 minutes away, I haven't had many opportunities to venture back up to my old stomping grounds.

I took the girls up to visit my brothers' graves in the Alpine cemetery today. Alpine was almost unrecognizable. I couldn't help but curse the transplants for changing Alpine from a quaint town nestled into the edge of the mountains into a beacon of materialism. I mean, really, since when did a family(I don't care if they're polygamists with 20 children!) need a 8000+ sqaure foot home? Alpine has always had a reputation for being affluent; as a teenager when people would ask me where I was from, I would respond truthfully that I lived in Alpine and get some sort of "oh then you must be a rich snob" look or comment. Compared to the Alpine of today, I can't believe that anyone ever passed such judgment on it. Seeing it's current state, I'm now inclined to pass the same judgment.

I'd like to assume that the people who live in those elaborate mansions are extremely generous, that they're all the head of some philanthropic organization bent on saving the world. Okay, I can handle that. I also am very much a capitalist. I think that if people can live good lives and be filthy rich doing it, the more power to them. What I detest is the flaunting of that wealth and the focus on frivolous things: the cosmetic surgery, the home that screams "I have more money than you", and the spoiling of otherwise sweet, simple children.

Well to all of my friends whose families still live in Alpine, I think it's safe to say that I do not include you (or them) in my analysis. And if you happen to know personally some people that exhibit some of the above behaviors and can still conclude that they are honorable decent individuals, okay. All I have left to say is that I left a bit discouraged that the humble town of my teenage years, where I wasn't embarrassed to drive a multi-colored Chevy Sprint (whose third gear didn't work) had been transformed so dramatically.

On a more positive note, thank heavens they finally did something about the dilapidation that was Alpine Market for so many years. It looks fantastic.

First Birthday.

Rachel turned 1 on Saturday. With several friends whose kids also turned one this year and made the cutest cakes on record, the bar was raised. And I gave into the pressure (not that any was given) to prepare an elaborate cake only to let Rachel destroy it within minutes of blowing out her candle.

Remarkably, the cake really didn't take that much more time than the cake mix variety I usually go for. And, I got to involve Anna and Lily in the decorating so I can write the whole project off as "family together time".

Here's the cake before:

And after:

Here's what everyone else got to eat. It tasted much better than it looks, I assure you.

And here's the birthday girl, wasting away. Perhaps we should schedule a few un-birthday parties for her really soon in the hopes that the cake could help her pack on a few more pounds.

Speaking of unbirthday parties, you've really got to see this one.

The proper care and feeding of husbands.

I try hard to make my husband feel like he is my top priority. I have dinner on the table every day (okay, almost every day), I call him at work for reasons other than to find out what time he's coming home, I try not to change into my sweats until after he's been home for at least an hour, I try to keep a tidy home so that the chaos that usually prevails is carefully hidden the moment he walks in the door, and if I'm really feeling ambitious, I might even apply a fresh coat of lipstick before he comes home so it looks like I dressed up for him. And frankly, though at first it sounded to me like an antiquated practice to be the goodly homemaker who makes her husband feel like her "knight in shining armor", it really works. Well, it works when I actually do it. It's called selflessness, folks.
But there is one component of this practice that I simply cannot do with a straight face. Have you ever tried to ask an electrical engineer about his day? I can only take about 2 minutes of engineer jargon before I start singing Sinatra in my head. I mean, really, who wants to hear about DDR3, or RLDRAM, or transformers (oops, I mean transistors... I think...) Seriously!
Fortunately, I think Tim must have noticed the glazed look on my face every time he breaks out the geek lingo so he chooses to answer my "how was your day" question with the top stories that he heard on Glenn Beck or Bill Handel (radio talk shows that I no longer have the time to indulge in). Much more down my alley. Thanks a bunch honey.

The Womanly Art.

Warning: If you are a man, boy, and/or if the word breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable, feel free to skip this post.

Rachel and I are coming to the end of an era, so to speak. I haven't nursed her at all today. We are down to the "unless I'm feeling full, I won't feed her" stage. It's strange to think that we've made it this far. Was it really a year ago that I spent an entire night pumping and spoon-feeding her so that she wouldn't starve before we got into lactation the next morning? My mom said that she didn't even recognize me that first day that I realized that Rachel just wasn't getting it. Not a surprise, considering my eyes were small slits beneath the puffiness that four nights of sleep deprivation and crying had created. The trouble that Rachel caused me in those first few weeks kind of made me resent breastfeeding for a while. So much so, that I've been counting the days until I could hand over the reins to our good friends the cows to provide milk for my daughter.

Until now. With weaning comes a freedom that I haven't had much of in the last 4 1/2 years, between pregnancy and breastfeeding. But it's tainted with a bit of regret that Rachel will no longer need me. Sure, she'll still require diaper changes, floor play, bedtime stories, hugs and kisses, etc. Anyone can provide those. She will no longer need me.

No need to worry, though. I'll be over it in a week or so when I look down at her and think, "you are so grown up, I can't believe I was still nursing you just a week ago." Or when I'm snorkeling in Maui and rather than having her attached to me, she's thousands of miles away at Grandma and Grandpa's house. In fact, I'm feeling much better already...

What Rachel is thinking.

I've just finished sweeping the floor after dinner and I couldn't help but wonder what Rachel is thinking when she makes a beeline for the pile of food that I have just swept out from under her highchair. A few thoughts:

1. Perhaps this crusty biscuit tastes better than it did when it was on my tray.
2. This sure beats pulling out all the dishes that dad just put in the dishwasher.
3. Goo. Goo. Gah. Gah.

Curiosity killed the cat.

Tonight I went upstairs to retrieve the girls from the play room so that they could join us for dinner. I couldn't help but notice that one of Rachel's favorite toys (a cylindrical bucket with a lid that has 3 different shaped holes into which she can insert blocks that correspond to the shapes of the holes) filled with a liquid. Not so surprising. I looked a little closer. The liquid was yellow. I asked, "What is this?" I knew what it was. I asked, "Who did this?" I knew who did it. The only one precise enough to eliminate in a container of that size is, of course, Anna. Precision aside, she's the only one curious enough to find out what it would be like to urinate in places other than the toilet. I won't elaborate about the time I discovered that the stench emanating from her room was simply a result of her using the air vent as a makeshift toilet. Not just #1 but yes, #2 as well.
I don't get it. If only brains and common sense went hand in hand. One thing I'm starting to get, however, is that I'm pretty sure that what she is truly curious about is what I'm going to do about it. If my responses are always controlled and predictable, though, will she ever stop being curious?
For now, I'll just be glad that I discovered Anna's little present before Rachel got a hold of it. Unless, of course, she did get her hands on it. Ew.

You know you have too many young children when...

your four-year-old is the designated babysitter.

Yesterday I took all three girls to the doctor. It was at 1:30, a sacred time at our house because it's quiet time, otherwise known as mom needs to recharge time. But, it was an emergency(one that I don't care to be made public) so I packed a few packages of fruit snacks and left to brave the doctor's office with three tired children in tow.

Actually, it worked out rather well. I found it kind of funny, however, that Anna was asked, not once, but twice to be "in charge" of a younger sister while I spent some time in the restroom. The first time was reasonable enough. She and Lily were left in the examination room while I took a clingy Rachel into the bathroom. The second time, Lily (her usual timely self) had to use the bathroom, so I quickly whisked her away with a hasty request to Anna to "look after Rachel for a minute". When your four-year-old is asked to look after your not-even-one-year old, you know that you've got your hands full.

This is the same four-year-old that spent quiet time a few days ago breaking a few cardinal rules:
1. Do not leave your bedroom.
2. Do not mess around in Jill's room.
3. Do not use Jill's scissors to cut your own hair.
4. Do not use Jill's scissors to cut Rachel's hair.
5. Do not spray perfume on Rachel's cheeks, thus causing her to break out in hives due to an allergic reaction.

And she's the responsible one. Like, I said, I've got my hands full. Here's a picture of the damage:

Daylight Savings Time.

I have been meaning to post something about the chaos that has ensued in my house since Sunday morning when my kids started waking up at 5:15 a.m. instead of "sleeping in" until 6:15. But, no one is getting any sleep around here so I haven't found the time! I just read a friend's blog and he pretty much summed up how I feel about turning our clocks back (and forward) year after year. Might I add, he says it much more cleverly than I ever could.
For those of you who don't regularly check their blog, here it is.

Halloween.

Can't say I love the holiday, but it sure makes for cute pictures.

Good. Better. Best.

My senior year English teacher once revealed to me a secret wish of hers: for the human body to require no sleep. At the time the following thoughts ran through my mind:
1. I LOVE sleep.
2. What would I do with those eight hours that I could possibly enjoy more than a voluntary state of unconsciousness?

I am no longer a senior in high school. I still LOVE sleep. But, assuming that my body did not require it, oh, what great things I could fill my time with!

Which leads me to my next point. Elder Dallin H. Oaks spoke in the most recent (LDS)General conference on priorities. He categorized actitivites that might fill our time as good, better, and best. Where in the priority spectrum does blogging fall?

I started blogging primarily to keep some semblance of a journal, since writing in one has evaded me for all the years since my mission with very few exceptions. I have since discovered that it is a remarkable way to keep in touch with people in a strangely intimate (and at the same time, distant)way. In addition, my command of the English language has been somewhat resurrected. By reading other's blogs I find inspiration, humor, and instruction. The list goes on.

But is it good, better, or best? I don't have an answer yet. I guess it's just another one of those things that lies in the gray area and depends upon timing. Am I spending hours a day blogging? No. Am I plugging my kids in front of a movie so that I can blog? No. Do I prefer it over other more important tasks? Sometimes.

Ugh. Just another pasttime that I have to throw into the balance of life like everything else. If only I had an extra eight hours to make me feel less guilty about the obligations I can't possibly fit into only sixteen.

I should have been a liar.

Oops, I mean, lawyer. I recently pulled off what may have been the best convincing job in my thirty years of manipulating. My four-year-old, after only about 5 minutes of coaxing bought into my story that the devil costume that I bought her on clearance last year is actually a princess costume. After all, it's frilly and catches the wind oh-so-nicely when she spins around. It even has a matching crown(horns) and wand(pitchfork).

Was it lying? Perhaps. But really, how was I to know last year at the post-Halloween clearance sale that she would be so completely focused on the whole princess theme this year? In all practicality, I was not about to go buy a brand new $30-50 costume just to satisfy this year's whim. And as everyone knows, I can't sew one. So I used my power of persuasion to save myself (and Tim) a few bucks. And I won. Doesn't she look pretty?

Caution: Do not mix with bleach.

I am convinced that motherhood decreases brain capacity. Despite the multi-tasking skills we quickly acquire out of necessity, I'm pretty sure that the number of times I have done something stupid like locking my keys in the car, letting go of a stroller(containing one of my children) on a hill while trying to rescue another of my children who fell off her tricycle, burning my hair at my brother's wedding while leaning over a candle, and other such things has increased ten fold since bearing children. It's as if some of my brain tissue comes out with the placenta.


About two weeks ago, my sister Jill was cleaning her bathroom (well, our bathroom, but since she is currently the primary user, I will call it hers) and found a stubborn spot that simply could not get scrubbed off with the multi-purpose bathroom cleaner with which I had supplied her. She asked if I had anything stronger. I suggested that she use a special shower cleaner that has never failed me in my bathroom. After trying that, she still couldn't get the little bugger off so I grabbed a product containing bleach, applied it to the area, and began scrubbing myself. I remarked to her that I can't stand the smell of bleach because I had a very special (for lack of a better word) roommate who bleached the toilet seat before and after each use. Before I could finish my sentence, I pretty much started to hyperventilate due to the fumes.

We both scrambled to open windows left and right, I turned the shower on full blast to flush the cleaner, and ran to the opposite end of the house. Not good enough. I could barely breathe and started to wonder what sort of damage I was doing to my children's lungs so we decided to evacuate. Jill and the girls wrapped a blanket around them while we waited on our back patio until the air was once again breathable.

Once inside, I checked the label of my shower cleaner which, of course, had printed in bold (caution: do not mix with bleach). As if I had to read the label to realize what an idiot I am. It pretty much stands to reason that you should not mix anything with bleach. To beat myself up even further, I proceeded to do some online research and discovered that I had mixed two chemicals that pretty much equated to a biological weapon. And I store them in my house? After this experience, I think I might have to go green on the household chemicals. Okay, so maybe I'm not completely sold on that idea. One thing I know for sure: my brains came out when I gave birth to my kids. My consolation: at least they kept some of them for themselves.

Here's a picture of the patio fun(Jill, Lily and Rachel snagged the blanket, leaving me to freeze) - can you tell it was a bit chilly that day?

We believe...

that the first principles and ordinances of the gospel are first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Second, repentance. Third, baptism by emergencies. As sung by Anna just a few minutes ago. Thanks for indulging me. I just didn't want to forget her cute less-than-perfect memorization of the Fourth Article of Faith.

Container play.

Sometimes Tim and I worry about Rachel. Scratch that. Sometimes I worry about Rachel. She's definitely behind the curve when it comes to reaching many developmental milestones. When I expressed a worry to my doctor about her lack of babbling at 8 months, he eased my concerns somewhat by indicating that her position in the family is likely more responsible than any sort of developmental problem. She simply doesn't get as much social interaction with her siblings and parents as the other two did.

I continue to have this nagging feeling (perhaps paranoia) that something is just off. On good days I attribute her quirkiness to the fact that her father is an engineer. On bad days, I toy with the possibility that she is autistic. In fact, it has become somewhat of a joke in our family (not a very funny one, I know) so that every strange trait she exhibits (like the fact that she sometimes crawls around with her head on the ground) is just a sign of autism.

If she is autistic, I will fight my natural tendency to be overwhelmed by the diagnosis and do what is necessary to help her. I, of all people, know that having a "special needs" child in the home, though tiring at times, is indeed a great blessing.

But that's not really what I wanted to blog about today. There is one area where I have discovered that Rachel is actually ahead of the game and that is her fine motor skills. Lately, she is fascinated with putting things into and taking them out of containers. Taking my kitchen tools out of their drawer. Putting them back in. Pulling Lily's toilet cup out of her potty. Carefully easing it back in. Emptying the downstairs toy basket of its contents. Tidying many of them up. Clearing off a shelf of books in our office. Putting them... okay that's definitely pushing it.

Today I was feeding her breakfast and she started putting little cereal chunks into the cupholders on her highchair tray instead of dropping them onto the floor as she did just a couple of weeks ago. Which makes me, for one, very pleased that she has mastered this skill because now I only have to sweep the floor once a day. Not twice. Or three times.

Division of labor.

I've had a really bad parenting day(or week, rather), so I figured I might be wise in avoiding the subject of my children tonight.

Instead, allow me to sing the praises of my husband.

He and I have become rather specialized in our respective fields over the course of our six-year marriage. I joked when we first got married that I would serve as the breadwinner and "put him through school", as they say. Turns out, the money that he earned as an intern for Micron and at his part-time job on campus was at least equal to, if not greater than my annual salary working for the Lieutenant Governor of Utah. Tim is, simply put, a great provider.

My income has been negligible for years now. I do the budget, clip the coupons, shop the sales.

Tim babies the lawn. I designed our landscaping, plant the shrubs and bulbs, weed the garden.

Tim rinses the dinner dishes. I wash all the other dishes.

Tim takes out the trash. I fill it up.

I am primarily responsible for the nurture of the aforementioned individuals who will remain nameless, since I said I wouldn't mention them tonight. Tim nurtures me.

Anyway, you get the point.

Sometimes, I get so absorbed in my own frenzied life as a mother and homemaker that I fail to recognize all the things that Tim does so that I don't have to. For instance, I threw out a diaper today in the pail in our garage designated for such refuse and thought, "Tim empties this thing every stinking week (literally, stinking) and I rarely give it a moment's notice."

I often tease him that I can count on one hand (actually, two fingers, for the record) the number of times he has cleaned a toilet since we married. Well, how many times have I fixed the computer?

Division of labor is an essential method of coping with the demands of a growing family. We embody it to a "t". The only ingredient we lack at times is the ability to recognize what each person contributes to the whole. And the whole is pretty darn great, if I do say so myself.

Playing catch-up.

We haven't been able to post any recent pictures on the blog for over a month now because of some malfunction with our computer so I figured I would indulge in a bit of updating. Thanks to our in-home computer whiz for making it all possible.
We started giving Rachel baths in the sink because her sisters protest that she splashes them too much in the face. No kidding. I don't think there was an inch of floorspace in the kitchen that was left untouched by her moment of bathtime fun. Good times.





I'm probably bordering on inappropriate by posting the above picture, but it really captures the pretend play that Anna and Lily are SO into right now. Anna always ends up being the princess and Lily the bad guy somehow...(funny how that happens) except when I'm the bad guy. Last week I was the jealous queen and my sweet little princesses were trying to kill me, but "just pretend" of course. So here's bad guy Lily, complete with red cape, blue bow tie, and pirate sword tucked into her makeshift hilt.

This is one of the last two of six boxes peaches that my neighbor Malauna and I were supposed to can after spending an entire day canning the first four and putting up a whopping 56 jars. As I put it to Ryan (Malauna's husband) on the phone after I discovered the scene in my storage room: "The good news is, we don't have to can any more peaches this year..."

One of the first of Anna's practice sheets from Joy School . I think it's rather impressive for a four year old, personally. I suppose, too, that she's very fortunate not to share the name of her classmate, Katherine.

Can you believe we had made it through 4 1/2 years of parenting with no permanent marker damage to speak of? Anna managed to scrub it off in minutes, but Lily was still wearing it well into the next day.

Dora, Dora, Dora the Explorer.

We moved all three girls into the same bedroom over a month ago. The main potential problem we foresaw at the time was what we would do with Anna during "quiet time". She rarely naps anymore but still spends an hour alone playing "quietly". Or not so quietly. In any case, we figured that if we put all three girls in the bedroom each afternoon, it would be more like "party time" so we opted to keep Anna out in the hallway instead. We kind of tricked her into thinking that the hallway was a special place by buying a cheap inflatable Dora chair/bed and putting it right next to the bookcase that houses all the children's literature that we own. She completely fell for it. Everyone wanted a piece of the Dora chair.

The chair has since lost its appeal, probably because it's completely deflated, thanks to a few microscopic holes that the kids managed to create by jumping on it. I guess that's what we get for being too cheap to invest in a beanbag chair.

Done list.

Someone (was it you Stacy?) recently suggested the idea of a "done" list, as opposed to a "to do" list and I must say that it has changed my outlook on things. It is definitely my tendency to keep things organized by creating a "to do" list and checking things off so that life doesn't get too crazy. But I find, quite often, actually, that many things don't get crossed off before I have a gazillion other things added to the darned thing. A "to do" list kind of embodies that whole glass is half-empty rather than half-full sort of feeling. Being me, though, I can't quite do away with the whole idea; otherwise, my entire life would just melt into utter chaos, I'm convinced. Rather, I have started making a mental note of all the things I have done in a given day, whether or not it was on the original "to do" list. So here's today's "done" list:
1. Got out of bed.
2. Got the kids fed, dressed, etc.
3. Took Anna to Joy School.
4. Went grocery shopping.
5. Went to my book club.
6. Picked Anna up from Joy School. Came home with an extra child, whose mother had to attend a PTO meeting.
7. Came home and played hide-and-seek with the kids.
8. Fixed lunch for 4 children.
9. Cleaned up lunch, swept the kitchen floor.
10. Watched another mom's child so that she could go to the cannery.
11. Took a half hour nap in between Anna and Lily in my bed. Read my scriptures.
12. Took a shower and got ready for the day (at 3:15!)
13. Woke the kids up, helped them clean up the family room, fed them all a snack.
14. Dropped off neighbor's child and took Anna to dance class.
15. Came home and fixed dinner.
16. Cleaned up from dinner, swept the kitchen floor (can you tell I have an 11 month old?).
17. Dropped off books and DVD's at the Bookmobile.
18. Came home and put Rachel to bed.
19. Had family prayer and scripture study with the older girls.
20. Put the kids to bed.
21. Posted a blog entry.

I don't know that I have much energy left to accomplish anything else, but I sure feel a lot better articulating what I did today, rather than feeling less of a person for only crossing one thing off of my "to do" list. How about you?

Children will listen.

Yesterday as the Saturday morning session of General Conference began, I rushed inside (after planting bulbs) to change clothes. The choir was singing the opening song. I came downstairs a couple of minutes later and could hear someone giving the opening prayer. I paused at the bottom of the stairs to bow my head, but before I could close my eyes, I couldn't help but notice Anna and Lily, kneeling over their coloring books, arms folded, eyes closed, head bowed. What an example.

Foresight in Fall.

As autumn rolls around, I feel the urge to do away with yard work. After all, Tim and I have spent the last 5 months sprucing up the lawn, weeding, planting, weeding, fertilizing, spraying for bugs, cutting flowers, pruning bushes, weeding, spreading bark, weeding... you get the picture. When the cool weather sets in, I just want to clean my house from top to bottom since I will be spending the next several months quarantined inside of it. Or better yet, I just want to curl up by the fire with my Stephen's hot cocoa and read a good book.

Instead, I try to have a little bit of foresight. When spring rolls around, there's nothing like watching the crocuses come up amidst the last winter snow. Or smelling the hyacinths on a windy March evening. Or enjoying the show of color that tulips provide in April. It's exhilarating to watch my yard blossom, relaxing in the knowledge that most of the work was done months before. So when October hits, I plant bulbs. Lots of them. 334 of them this year, to be exact. And when spring hits and the above tulips surround my flowering plum tree in the back yard, I will be thanking my lucky stars. Ooh, I can't wait till spring.

Kids and TV.

I grew up in a home where we watched little to no TV. We were only allowed to watch it on Fridays and Saturdays, and only after homework and chores were done. Incidentally, those days I wanted to spend doing other things, so I really didn't watch much TV growing up, period. So I'm having a hard time understanding what it is about my kids that gives them the ability to watch endless hours of TV without interruption without any hope of satisfaction. Admittedly, I have never tried letting them watch that much TV, but based on the amount of times in a day I hear "Mom, can I watch a show?", I have little doubt that they prefer it to just about anything (except candy, of course). If you ever get a chance to meet Tim's Grandpa Toney and watch him while the TV is on, you might gain some insight as to the possibility of my children inheriting the TV-devouring gene.

Anyway, today was one of those days. We had to stay inside because Rachel has been pretty miserable with a cold and I just wanted to allow her the rest she needed to get over it. The girls cleaned their room, we put away all their summer clothes and got out their fall clothes, we made a Texas Sheet Cake, colored, played in the rain, played hide-and seek, played I Spy, danced to a great CD called See Me Run... it's not as if I didn't keep the girls occupied. But I still got "Mom can I watch a show?" at least five times, including when we had a friend over to play.

Still, I kept my resolve and am grateful, because I just stumbled across this article on the web about the link between TV viewing and behavioral problems. Though it does leave room for the possibility that behavioral problems actually contribute to more TV-viewing instead of the reverse, I am strengthened in my own resolve to keep saying "no" to the TV, even though it takes a lot more work on my part. A lot.

Little tidbits.

Today Rachel crawled into the bathroom and started drinking from the little cup that rests in Lily's potty - luckily there was nothing in it. Yum. She also has learned the art of tugging at my pants when she wants to be held. When my next door neighbor Malauna and I were canning peaches a couple of weeks ago (gosh, has it really been that long?) her son Hyrum was doing that to her for much of the morning and I remember thinking, "I am SO glad that my baby is so content to play by herself in the family room while I completely ignore her." I'm being punished for my thoughts.

Lily is an absolute riot. This week in the car she up and decided that she was going to start saying her "L"'s. She has now graduated from saying "pwease", "Wiwy", and "cwean" to "please", "Lily" and "clean". I guess we can start working on her "R"s now. Except that it's so darn cute. She's also regressed in potty training. Once we stopped rewarding her with stickers and jellybeans, she decided that she was, as she put it, "never going to go pee-pee again!" Yikes. I don't be around when she figures out the truth about that one.

Anna got really upset at the Primary activity yesterday. First, she made a wrong turn down the hall and became frantic when she discovered her class was nowhere to be seen. She tends to be like men when it comes to asking for directions so she just stood in the hall crying until Melissa from our Primary Presidency put her arm around her and showed her the way. Thank heaven for caring church leaders. Then, when the activity was over, a bunch of the kids were running wild, as kids often do and ran into her. I found Anna standing there, looking as if the world was crumbling around her, trying to stifle the tears and was reminded of the tenderness of this, my oldest, and in many ways, my most difficult child. She looked so vulnerable. She was shocked that someone would hurt her (albeit accidentally) and "not even say they were sorry". I joked later that I need to rough her up a little more so that she can just roll with the punches a little better instead of being so sensitive. But inside I was glad that she has spent most of her life in places that are safe, where she is treated fairly and with kindness. Thanks to all of you who have been so kind to my Anna, who is not always the easiest to love.

September has turned out to be a busy month for our family. I thought that after I had taught Joy School early in the month that I would be home-free. Whoa, was I wrong. Tim has spent a lot of time over at our rental house fixing an attic vent that blew off in a windstorm, replacing a less-than-stable ceiling fan, digging enormous holes for 3 large trees, and fertilizing. He has come home each time on Cloud Nine. At first, I couldn't help but wonder why he was so happy at having spent hours away from his family on a Saturday. Then I realized that he was just experiencing the sense of accomplishment that comes from completing a project, particularly one that he has never encountered before. He was feeling like he was the man. Now, if only I can convince him that cleaning up poop is as rewarding... I suppose that's why I'm the mom.

I'll post some pictures soon. Something is up with the software that we use to download pictures from our camera. I've got some good ones. Stay tuned...

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home.

I remember when I was about 7 and my mom went on an extended trip, leaving us with my dad. It was great. Why? Well, if your home is like mine was, Dad let us get away with murder. We got to eat sugar cereals every day, stay up late, go to PG movies, and have pizza for dinner every night. At least, that's how I remember it.
I am now a mom. And it's a darn good thing the kids don't "get" to hang out with dad for extended periods because this is what would happen:

Can you see the look of sheer glee in her face? 9 months old and having an Oreo for dinner. Aren't dads great?

Speaking of dad, it was his birthday last week. He is not a tough one to please. He just needs a few minutes to rub in the fact that I will always be older than him. Even so, I gave it my best effort and cooked him some Indian food and a pretty outstanding birthday cake, if I do say so myself. Still need to learn a bit about decorating it, but when it came to taste, we were all pretty satisfied.

We had a few friends over to share the grub and had a pretty great time. We love Tim, he is a hoot to have around. Happy Birthday again! Here's a few more pictures:

Extra tomatoes anyone?

For those of you who, unlike me, planted way too many tomatoes this year and need a few delicious recipes for using them up, I have included the following two:

Fresh Tomato Sauce

6 pounds ripe tomatoes, peeled
¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, thinly-sliced
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
¼ cup chopped basil or flat-leaf parsley

Core tomatoes and halve crosswise. Working over a sieve set over a bowl, squeeze tomatoes gently to remove seeds. Discard seeds and reserve juice. Coarsely chop tomatoes. Heat oil in a 6-7 quart pot over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and cook, stirring, until just golden, about 1 minute. Add tomatoes, reserved juice, sugar, and salt. Bring to a simmer and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until thickened, 45 minutes to an hour.

Note: You can peel the tomatoes by blanching them (putting them in a pot of boiling hot water for 30-45 seconds and then transferring them immediately to ice-cold water for at least a minute. The skin should practically fall off at that point.


Slow-Roasted Tomato Bruschetta

4 pounds plum tomatoes, sliced
6 garlic cloves, minced
8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Black pepper, to taste.
1 baguette, cut into 40-50 slices

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F.

Put tomatoes on baking sheet(s). Stir together garlic and 5 tablespoons of oil and spoon over tomatoes. Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and season with pepper. Roast, switching position of sheets halfway through roasting for 3 hours; tomatoes will shrink but retain their shape. Let cool slightly. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees. Arrange bread in one layer on baking sheets and brush with oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake until pale golden and crisp, 10 to 12 minutes. Place a tomato slice on each slice of toast and serve warm or at room temperature.

If you still have too many tomatoes, please, please, please send them my way. I don't have nearly enough. Actually, I don't have any this year.

Just one of those days...

Today was day number two of potty-training Lily. What a nightmare. I'm not sure if she understood cognitively that the reason her pants were wet a gazillion times yesterday was because she had failed to eliminate in the proper place. When I asked her why her pants were wet, she just kept saying, "because they're WET!" No connection between her actions and the natural consequences of those actions. Weird.

Last night she wet her bed at midnight and kept me up until 2 am because she wouldn't go to bed without her "red blanket" (which had, of course, been peed on). I was not about to do a load of laundry in the middle of the night.

Today hasn't been much better. Tim came home to a very frazzled me. Since he came home, Lily has had zero accidents. In fact, she did her first #2 in the potty! Why is it that when dad comes home, the kids behave as if they haven't been torturing me all day, leaving Tim to wonder what in the heck is so hard about being a mother? Arrgh.

Luckily, Jill (my sister) was here for much of the day to testify. Today has probably convinced her to go on a mission, as soon as possible. The best form of birth control is a toss-up between
1. a calling to serve in the nursery at church or
2. moving in with your older sister and her husband and 3 (very young, very strong-willed) children.

Better luck tomorrow.

Handy Dandy

Today, when I took the kids to the grocery store, I pulled into a parking spot fairly close to the store and Anna said, "Mom, don't park in the handy-dandy spot, we don't have a handy-dandy license plate". I resisted the urge to correct her, it was so cute. She went on to say that "when daddy gets old, we can get a handy-dandy license plate but we could get in trouble if we parked there now."

Go Fish.

Last night our entire family (including my sister Jill, who now lives with us) was playing Go Fish. I don't recall the exact order of things, but somewhere in the midst of "going fishing", Rachel decided that she wanted to "go fish" too! My sweet sitting (and sometimes rolling) angel decided that those Go Fish cards were worth the effort it took to shift into crawling gear. We got the camera out and, of course, got her first few moments of crawling glory on film. But we fell short of capturing perhaps the best part, when Lily tried to get on Rachel's back and ride her. Tim pulled Lily off of her little sister so that all 30 pounds of her would not hinder Rachel's efforts. I guess the sight of Rachel on all fours was too "horselike" to resist because she protested "I want to ride her!"

Needless to say, the game was over. Rachel was the winner for sure.

Bust a gut.

I probably shouldn't be posting to my blog, as I have to pack for a trip that we're leaving for in, oh, 2 1/2 hours. But, I couldn't resist posting this video of Rachel and Anna. All I have to say is, it is SO unfair that I have to do backflips to get Rachel to laugh the way Anna did in this video just by playing with grass clippings.

Coupon Clipping

Today I went to Albertson's and as the clerk handed me my receipt, he told me that I had saved $37. I thought that was pretty cool, since I had only spent a little over $27. What that really means is that Albertson's groceries are way overpriced. I got only what was on sale and didn't succumb to the temptation to buy anything else. Add to that the 6% cash back that I get on my Citibank Visa for shopping there, (and the free cookie that the girls got for behaving... sort of)and I have to give myself a pat on the back. Click here for ways that stores try to trick you into spending money.

Milestones.

Rachel has largely been a mute child up until this point. She mostly growls and screams. If you were to see her older sisters interact with her, this fact might not surprise you. They seem to think that because she can't talk herself, intelligible speech is wasted on her. We're trying to retrain them. In any case, this week, Rachel started saying "mama" with some regularity. AND, she waves hello and goodbye. Now we just have to work on her weight problem.



We had a major breakthrough with Lily this week. She has been waking up early in the morning with a bang. By bang I mean with blood-curdling, relentless screams for mommy(or daddy, depending on who was nicer to her the night before). We tried to explain to her that when she wakes up, if no one else is awake (as is always the case) she needs to go into the playroom and play quietly until someone else wakes up and can feed her breakfast. We didn't think that was too unreasonable a request for a 2 1/2 year old. Next morning: no change in behavior. So Tim decided to take her out to the garage and fasten her in her car seat until she stopped screaming. She has woken up like a lark ever since. Genius Tim.



Anna is just plain smart. She is constantly sounding out words wherever we go and has taken an interest in math. We think it's great that she is already identifying and magnifying her talents. Now, if we can only get her to put her skills to use by reading to her baby sister instead of growling...

Black Widows.

This is what I found on the side of our house yesterday. Well, okay, not this exact one, but a female black widow spider, nonetheless. I can't think of anything that scares me more than these little buggers. Except, maybe for dirty chopsticks manufactured in China.

Sharing a room.

We moved all three girls into the same bedroom about a week ago. This will have been the third time we have tried putting Anna and Lily in the same room. Is the third time the charm? I think so. Here's my secret: I threaten them. It's as simple as that. They have a limited supply of books and stuffed animals that they get to take to bed with them and if I catch them out of their beds or talking too loudly they lose one for every offense. Of course, it probably wouldn't work for any other family because frankly, I got TONS of advice about kids sharing rooms the last two times we tried it and none of it was effective. Why does every child have to be so different? Why can't I just read ONE parenting book and call it good?



Next project: Potty-training Lily. Wish me luck.

Our sixth anniversary.

Tim and I went out for dinner for our anniversary on Friday. Well, our anniversary was actually yesterday but the babysitter didn't work out so, we celebrated it a day early. (Tim, the engineer that he is, likes things to be precise and had issues with celebrating it a day early.) In any case, it was very exciting for me. No kids, I got to order an appetizer, not to mention a dessert... it was lovely.

We went to the Cheesecake Factory. Did you know that they have 250 items on their menu? How do you decide? I ordered fish, as I always do when we go out, since no one in the Egbert clan much cares for fish so I don't cook it much around the house. But the REAL joy was the Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Cheesecake that followed. Chocolate cake crust, chocolate cheescake with raspberry sauce and a layer of chocolate ganache on the top. Not quite as poetic as the description on the menu but, Mmmm. I am so glad that my husband can appreciate a good chocolate dessert. I'm not sure which was more enjoyable - eating it myself or watching him savor every bite.

Our big activity is a trip to Maui in November - can't wait. I'm not sure which I'm looking forward to more - the trip or the fact that I will be able to sleep through the night. (Please refer to previous post, entitled The all-natural way to speed up the aging process). On Friday, though, we did break out our wedding photos to reminisce about how much we loved each other then... and how much more we love each other now. Oh, and was I ever really as cute as my wedding pics would suggest?

Camping - All Work and no Play?

We went camping last weekend in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. I had a great time. Tim seems to think that camping pretty much goes like this: Pack: 2-3 hours Drive there: 2 1/2 hours. Set up tent, air mattresses, etc:1 1/2 hours. Get dinner ready: 1 hour. Eat dinner: 15 minutes Clean up dinner 1/2 hour. Play with kids:1 hour Get everyone ready for bed: 1/2 hour. Make and eat s'mores: 1/2 hour. Clean up s'mores: 15 minutes. Go to bed: 1 hour, unless you have a daughter named Lily who keeps you up until 2 a.m. Get breakfast ready: 1 hour. Clean up breakfast: 1/2 hour. Play with kids: 1 hour. Take down campsite: 2-3 hours. Drive home: 2 1/2 hours.

In other words, camping is pretty much all work and no play. And this from the man whose sole responsibilities were setting up the air mattresses and washing the camping dishes. I think as a parent, you have to get used to the fact that most activities are going to seem like more work than they are worth. But Anna remembers every camping trip we've ever been on. Yeah, all 4 of them. Those wee moments when we were able to take a dip in the pool, go for a nature walk, sing songs around the campfire that we weren't allowed to build, and wade in the Boise river definitely make it worth all the work... at least for me. The jury's still out for Tim. Here are a few more pictures: (aren't they cute in their bandanas?)

This pool was heated by natural hot springs in the area. Thankfully, it was drained each night since most people were using it as a makeshift bathtub. Nevermind the sign reading "no soap or shampoo". This shot was taken in the morning. The night before you could barely see your feet beneath the 3 foot deep water.

The all-natural way to speed up the aging process.

Last night I went to bed at 9:00 p.m. and woke up this morning at 7:00 a.m. I then went back to bed at about 7:45 a.m. and was woken up at 8:30 to feed Rachel. I went back to sleep almost immediately and slept until 10:15 a.m! If you're doing the math, this means I got a total of 12 1/2 hours of sleep. You might be thinking... what a lazy mom! Let me give you a little perspective.

Friday night we went camping. Lot's of fun. I'll post pictures soon. I don't think any parent expects to get any amount of sleep under those circumstances. I'm pretty sure I got around 3-4 hours total. Add that to the 365 days straight where I have not had a single uninterrupted night's sleep and it makes for a pretty exhausted Susie.

When I was a missionary, perhaps my biggest trial was the sleep deprivation. Sure, the rules say lights out at 10:30 and wake up at 6:30, but who REALLY gets 8 hours of sleep out of that. Long story short, I slept for about 2 weeks after getting back home to make up for the loss of sleep in that 18 months. I wonder how long it will take me to recover from all the years of motherhood I have ahead of me...

There's a girl I go to church with who is approximately my age (30) but many people have commented that she looks like a teenager. (Note: she has one child who sleeps through the night) I don't recall anyone ever saying I look younger than my age. I guess I can chalk it up to the fact that I am a mother. And I can't think of a better reason to speed up the aging process than that.

Piggy Bank

Last night I was reminded about the time a few months ago when Lily almost choked on and then swallowed a penny. I wonder what happened to it... I mean I change her diapers every day and there's been no sign of it. Did it somehow get digested? Or is it like the old chewing gum myth (or fact) that it stays in your stomach indefinitely? Maybe someday when I'm really hard up for cash I might get desperate. After all, she will probably have attempted a quarter by then.

Just for Me

I met up with a few of my high school girlfriends this past weekend and was reminded of how fun I used to be. If you talked to anyone who knows me now, "fun" would not be the first word they would use to describe me. "Nazi", "controlling", or "structured" at best. But fun? Not sure what it is about motherhood that has transformed me into a Nazi. Maybe it's just me, but last time I checked, picking poop out of air vents and scrubbing egg out of the carpet was not exactly a rip-roaring time. So I spend most of my time trying to avoid such calamities. Not exactly fun, either. This is my attempt to do something just for me. Here's to blogging!