My View of Heaven

Your Due Date Must Be Wrong

2012-01-30T09:24:00.001-08:00

I got (still get) this comment ALL the time about Lily. (Ok, honestly people have said this to me with all three pregnancies because my belly gets so ridiculously huge, but it has definitely happened more often with Lily.) The main reason that people thought my due date must have been wrong with Lily was because she was born 5 weeks early, but was not too teeny tiny, and was a pretty healthy little bug. So whenever I tell people that Lily was 5 weeks early, they usually ask how big she was. I tell them she was 5lb 15oz and 18 inches, and when they hear she was an almost-6-pound-healthy-baby, they assume that my due date was off and that she was not actually 5 weeks early. Well, here's the deal (and I've mentioned this before), they do an ultrasound these days that is accurate within 5 days of conception. If you know the date of conception, you can calculate a due date. Whether or not the baby comes on their due date, well that's anyone's guess, but at least it can be calculated accurately!

So anyway, I was thinking that if Clementine follows in Lily's footsteps, she'll be born this week. (Insert Macaulay Culkin's Home Alone aftershave scream scene here.)My water would break this Tuesday and I'd have a baby on this Thursday. CRAZY! I'm certainly not planning on that happening, but it's crazy when I think about how early Lily was. But here's the other thing. I was reading my American Pregnancy update for the 35th week, and here's what it said:

"Your baby is continuing to grow and most likely measures between 17 to 18 inches long and weighs 5 ½ to 6 pounds. The vast majority of your baby's growth is complete by 35 weeks. His/her kidneys are completely developed, and the liver is beginning to process waste."

Based on that description, Lily was completely average and normal developmentally! But it still gets a little old explaining that to people when they insist that there's no way a 5 week early baby can be born healthy and go home the next day.

For the record, I don't want a 5 week early baby for the simple reason that we had so many feeding troubles with Lily and I don't want to go through that again. I'll take a baby at 37 weeks, though. 37 weeks is term, and just a wee bit early to give mom a little relief.

Have I mentioned that I have a few dates OK'd for Clementine's arrival? See, we have a theme in this here family, and the theme is the number 2. Jim's birthday is the 21st, Lily's is the 22nd, and mine is the 23rd. Grace kept the theme in her own little way and was born on the 2nd. So Clementine is allowed to come on any day with a 2 in it after 37 weeks (which will be on Feb. 16th). So the ideal days would be Feb. 20th or 24th (because they'd fit into our little sequence nicely) or the 29th (because a Leap Year baby would be cool). Or I suppose if she wants to hang on until her originally calculated birth month, March 2nd would be ok. But she had better be out before March 12th!

You Can Tell Everybody This Is Your Song

2012-01-27T06:11:00.000-08:00

I know I've mentioned this before, but I got the urge to post my girls' "songs" in my blog. Lily is the only one who was actually named after her song. I used to be a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan, and I loved their song "Lily My One and Only". I actually came up with the name Lily for my daughter before every one and their brother started naming their little girls Lily. I can't seem to find a good version of "Lily My One and Only" to embed, so you'll just have to imagine it.

Grace is not named after her song, but we do have a song that is "her song." It's called "Grace Is Gone" by Dave Matthews Band.

Clementine even has a song of her own! And no, it doesn't start out "In a cavern, in a canyon excavating for a mine..." I do like that song and everything, but it's nice that she has a more modern song to call her own. I stumbled upon this song recently, and really liked it. It's officially Clementine's song! It's called "Clementine" by Sarah Jaffe.

Fix-It and Hair Stylist

2012-01-25T07:03:00.000-08:00

Our girls are both firmly planted between tomboy and girly. They love playing with trains and tools and helping Daddy fix things, but they also love dolls and dress-up and playing hair stylist. I've gotten a few pictures of them playing in the last few days.

These first ones were when Jim was tightening the screws on our bar chairs. Lily was actually using the allen wrench to help tighten the screws, but when Grace saw Lily getting to use tools, she high-tailed it downstairs to their work bench and got a screw driver to help as well.
Hard at work.

One afternoon when Lily was still snoozing, Grace woke up and decided to play beauty shop. We all got our hair fixed.

Here she is, coming to get you with the brush! Luckily, she usually brushes with the teeth facing up, so it's not as painful as it could be!
Brushing Daddy's hair.
Looking for her next victim...
Ah ha! Peanut needed brushing!
Next, we got our hair dried.
Very beautiful, Jim.
Then curled, of course.

Ramblings

2012-01-24T07:11:00.000-08:00

My friends at church are throwing me a baby shower in a few weeks. Not that I really need anything (I have baby girl clothes coming out my wazoo), but it's more to celebrate the new baby. I told people to just come and celebrate, or to bring a homemade gift. BUT, I did register because I know how annoying it is when you *want* to get a gift for someone, but have no idea what they want or need. I actually registered at two places. The first was a little boutique in town called Mother's Haven. I mainly registered for cloth diapers, since I'll have two in diapers for a while. I also registered at Target since it's a little more mainstream. I registered for things like pacifiers and swaddling blankets.

Registering for this shower got me to thinking about how the baby registry process has changed over the years with Jim and I.

When I was pregnant with Lily, we took a weekend trip to Spokane over my birthday and did some BIG TIME registering. We hit up Babies R Us and registered for some big time things like strollers and baby furniture and jumparoo's and all sorts of huge baby items. It was an Event. Then I would check the baby registry and change things and fiddle with this and that constantly. Then after our big family shower, where we got mostly gift cards, since it's hard to take a crib on an airplane ride, we went back to Spokane and went on a Major Shopping Extravaganza!

When I was pregnant with Grace, of course we didn't need any of the big items, so we just went to Target together and registered for all those things that you don't know you want or need until you've had a baby and know what to register for (and what not to register for... who needs 8,000 receiving blankets anyway?)

This time around, I was at Target picking up some Spot Shot and paper towels and thought, "Oh gee, I should probably register..." so I grabbed one of those little gun thingies and got 'er done. Not that I'm less excited for Baby Clementine. If anything I'm more excited, but I'm less excited for stuff. Stuff, we have, but there is a serious shortage of adorable babies* in the world and we intend to fill that void here in a few weeks.

I have found a new love in Pinterest. I'm not "addicted" and I really don't spend all that much time on there, but I have found some really great recipes and all kinds of fun ideas for crafts and activities and whatnot. If you've never head of Pinterest, it's this site where you can post pictures and links to things on the internet that you like. Recipes, craft ideas, home decoration ideas, fashion, funny quotes, cleaning tips, you name it. You organize all the things you like onto "boards". Then, your friends can follow you and see what you're pinning, and you can follow your friends and see what they're pinning, and it ends up being this wealth of information and ideas all in one place. It's so awesome! So anyway, I've gone through and pinned a bunch of stuff, and I've tried a few of the recipes I've pinned, and so fare they've all been winners. I found a great white chicken enchilada recipe that I absolutely love. So if you're not on Pinterest, join now!

I have a torpedo belly. It's seriously huge. My midwife even commented on how big my belly was getting. I thought, "Hey, you see big old pregnant women every day, you should think I look normal!" But I guess the sad truth is that I am just one of those women who get a BIG OLD BELLY when they're pregnant. My hopes of being on the TLC show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" are completely dashed. It's kind of like the time I broke my arm and my friend called her dad (who was an ER doctor) to come help, and when he saw my mangled mess of an arm, he said, "I've never seen anything like that before!" WHAT!? You're an ER doctor, please tell me that people do this every day! Sigh. Oh well.

Speaking of midwife, did I tell you I'm seeing a midwife this time? I liked my doctor from last time just fine. All of my prenatal care was great. (Or at least I thought, Jim wasn't too fond of his lack-of-bedside-manner but that didn't really bother me. I'm not there for hugs, just checkups.) BUT unfortunately he was on vacation for my delivery and the other doc in his practice was of the school that likes to drug you up as you walk through the door and do a c-section if the kid isn't out by noon. So that was frustrating. So this time around I decided to go with a practice where all the people were kind of more on the same (natural) page, so I went with a practice of midwives that have come highly recommended from several of my friends. I've met with all of them so far, and I think they're really great. I like that they're more ok with letting nature take it's course, and I think Jim likes that they're all women and have actually been through the birthing process themselves. And they're nicer.

Our gas heater has been giving us fits this winter. It'll turn on and burn all kinds of gas just fine, but the blower isn't wanting to blow the heat into the house. So we get to pay for the gas, without the benefit of a heated house. And when we wake up in the morning on a cold morning, our middle level is about 55 degrees, and it needs to be heated. So on Saturday, Jim took the fireplace apart to see if he could fix it. There wasn't much visibly wrong with it, but oh boy did it need cleaning! You wouldn't believe the pile of soot that had built up in a gas fireplace! So we vacuumed up the pile of soot, and we also cleaned all the soot off of the glass front, and it looks like a whole new fireplace. I don't think we fixed it, though. The blower is still being finicky, but Jim did a little research and apparently there's a part he can replace that should fix it. Here's hoping!

I think that's enough ramblings for one day. Let me just leave you with this picture of my "trucker" belly. I couldn't fit into my snow pants to go play with the girls the other day, so I put on Jim's unzipped bibs and let my belly hang out. The result was... rather hilarious.

*Ok, we all know there's no shortage of adorable babies, but I found out recently that there is such a thing as an ugly baby. Google it. I won't link to it because I feel bad for thinking any babies are ugly, but honestly, some of them really are.

It Snowed!

2012-01-23T13:15:00.000-08:00

This wasn't the first snow we've gotten all winter, but it was certainly the most. We've had a warmer-than-usual winter, which has meant a lot of rain and not a whole lot of snow. But we did get some snow this weekend, and we even got to play in it!

I took the girls out in the morning to play in the snow. I decided to try different snow pants for Grace since her full-on snow suit seemed to hinder her mobility last time. The snow pants I found were size 6-12 months, but they fit ok, and she didn't really seem to mind that her ankles were showing bare skin when she sat down. Hey, at least she could walk around!

So with Goo hooked up with better snow pants, I was definitely the limiting factor of the morning play time. Grace fell down a lot, and I'd have to trudge through the snow to get her, and it wasn't long before me and my belleh decided that enough was enough, and I made the girls come inside. I'm a mean mom, but I did make up for it by making popcorn and letting them watch a movie.

Jim couldn't resist a good snow romp, and since we practically live in the arctic circle where it gets dark shortly after lunch, Jim came home from work a little early so that he could take the girls out for some real snow play time. So when Jim got home, we bundled the girls back up, and headed to the little park in our neighborhood, which has a bunch of little tiny hills, perfect for toddler sledding.

Lily's first foray into the snow.
On the big pile in the flower garden.

Grace was even enjoying herself.
This was Lily's attempt at a snow angel. She got laying down and decided that she really didn't want to wave her arms at all, and made me help her up.
Snowflake bangs!
Lily was eating snow.
Lily pulled Grace part of the way to the park.
What a great sister!
But it wasn't long before Daddy took over.
Trudging through the deep stuff.

Going down the little hill. Weeeee!!

Here is a little video of Grace during our morning play session.

And one of Lily

Last but not least, going down the little sledding hill. This was the first run, and after we got it more worn in, the runs were a bit longer, but still short and perfect for little bitty ones.

Zerberts All Around!

2012-01-21T16:20:00.000-08:00

One of Grace's favorite things is giving zerberts.

I can no longer get Grace to give Clementine kisses. It's zerberts only these days.

I started filming because Goo was giving Baby Sadie a zerbert, but I kept filming because it was pretty cute to see how (ahem) gentle she was with babies.

Today Grace was using her beauty supplies to do our hair and such, when she ended up deciding to give Daddy a zerbert on his tummy, which then turned into tummy bumps.

Must Share...

2012-01-20T11:27:00.000-08:00

Today is a super fun snow day, and I'll definitely be posting some winter wonderland pictures tomorrow. But for today, I must link you to THIS blog that a friend shared on Facebook this morning. It just made me giggle.

(It makes me sad if I think you're hungry. He he he)

Happy Birthday Grandma Sue

2012-01-19T07:35:00.000-08:00

Today Grandma Sue would have been 75 years old, and we all miss her terribly. When she passed, she had two grandbabies, and has gained one more since then, and now she has three more on the way as well! She would be thrilled to see the family growing. She probably *is* thrilled up there in heaven.

Have I told you about how Grandma Sue passed on her intuition? I think I mentioned it HERE, but it didn't end there. I haven't been able to blog about it because the announcement hadn't been made, but now it has so I'm free to blog! What announcement? My sister is having a baby! Hooray! I've actually known since early November... not because she set out to tell me or anything, but because of The Intuition.

A little background.

My sister had convinced all of us (and was probably convinced herself) that she wasn't going to have children. She'd always said she didn't particularly want kids, so we'd all given up waiting around for her to start the child-bearing process. (Well, all except Grandma Sue. I don't think Grandma Sue was the giver-upper type.)

Despite the fact that I thought kids were out of the question, when I was in Oklahoma in November staying with Clay and Shyla, I got an inkling. There were a few clues and everything (not having wine with dinner, having an evening "snack" when dinner wasn't ready soon enough, a random call from a doctor's office... those sorts of things) but like I said, a Shyla pregnancy wasn't the first thing on my mind, so I'm convinced that The Intuition played the largest part of my discovery. I'll make a long story short and say that after a day and a half of having a really strong feeling that Shyla was pregnant, I came right out and asked Clay. He tried to deny it at first, but finally fessed up. They were going to have a baby! Hooray! But they weren't ready to tell everyone, so mum was the word, and they slowly broke the news to their friends and family over the next couple of months.

But guess what? Grandma Sue helped spread the word even farther.

A couple of weeks after my pregnancy discovery, our aunt Ellen had a dream about Shyla. (Shyla hadn't told Ellen about the pregnancy yet.) In her dream, Ellen, Shyla, and Grandma Sue were sitting in a room together, when Grandma Sue got up and patted Shyla's belly and said something about the baby on the way. It was so vivid that Ellen called Shyla to have a little chuckle about it, only to discover that Grandma Sue was right, and Shyla was pregnant. Crazy, huh?

So even though we don't get to see her and talk to her and laugh with her like we'd love to do, we know that Grandma Sue is still a big part of our lives. And not just in the memory/memorial type way, she's actively there helping us out here and there and trying to spread good news.

Happy Birthday Grandma Sue! We love you!

Mom Interrupted

2012-01-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

Here's one of the big challenges of having two kids: it's hard to be sneaky. Maybe you're wondering why a parent needs to be sneaky. If you wonder that, then you must not have kids. My sneakiness isn't about big things like Santa Claus and birthday presents or anything that grandiose. Most of my sneakiness revolves around very lowly tasks, such as going to the bathroom and eating something. But the problem is that right when you sneak off from the clingy one-year-old, the hyper-aware three-year-old calls you on your sneak.

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to sneak off to do something simple, only to have attention called to my actions, thus foiling my plans.

This is how it typically goes down. I have to pee. (Not now, in the scenario. On second thought... yeah now.) Anyway, so the girls and I are playing on the middle level of our house (where there is no bathroom) and I realize that I need to pee. Now I'm faced with a decision. I can inform Lily of my plan, thus drawing attention to myself and my intentions. This will probably result in a Group Trip to the Potty. If Grace sees me leave the room, she must accompany me. So by announcing my leave, I'm inviting anyone in the vicinity to join me in the potty.

A Group Trip to the Potty entails hauling (or coaxing) two girls to come up the stairs with me, and then closing the door to my bedroom. If I don't close the door, I risk Grace making a break for it and either falling headlong down the stairs, or playing in the toilet of the hall bathroom. Or various other mischievous endeavors. So I close the door. Then I go into the master bathroom and close the door. This is the door that causes all the problems. If I don't close the door, Grace joins me in the bathroom, and does one of five things: she'll either knock all the shampoo off the edge of the tub, play in the dog's water bowl, take all of the (ahem) feminine hygiene items out of the drawer, attempt to pull off all the toilet paper, or mess withe the bathroom scale. All the while she'll be super interested in what's going on in the potty. So I close the door. But again, the separation anxiety kicks in and I have to hurry and do my business while she bangs at the door and cries, OR Lily opens the door to tell me that Grace is fussing, thus letting Grace into the bathroom. Now I have an agitated Grace knocking off shampoo and pulling off the toilet paper roll and whatnot. While I pee.

So, rather than announce that I'm taking my leave of play time to use the restroom, I wait until two little girls are looking the other direction, and I make a break for it. I leap the 8 stairs to our bedroom two at a time and sprint into the bathroom before they can notice I've gone. Then I can pee in peace. Glorious peace. I might even do a square or two of my Sudoku puzzle. You never know. I'm unpredictable like that.

BUT

Inevitably, just when I think the girls are distracted and there's no chance that my absence will be noticed, I'll be halfway through my dash up the stairs when my sweet, adorable, all-too-observant Lilypie will say, "Hey mom, where are you going?"

Heads turn!

Babies fuss!

...and crawl toward me...

...and follow me...

...and, well you know, the whole shampoo bottle, feminine hygiene, bathroom scale thing.

My escape has been foiled.

Or it's like this.

(Don't think I have an eating disorder. I don't. I'm pregnant and I have toddlers. 'Nuff said.)

Anyway, so sometimes I want to eat something, and I really don't want to share it with anyone, so my only option is to eat alone.

For example, today at around 10:00 I was super hungry. It wasn't even nearly lunch time, so I was scouring the kitchen for a snack when I came upon personal pizzas in the freezer. We keep these pizzas on hand mainly for emergency lunches for Jim, and I rarely touch them. But today a personal sized pizza looked so yummy, and I could cook it in the oven and in 20 minutes, I could have a hot and fresh pizza! Oh glory!

So I discretely got the pizza into the oven, and brought the girls downstairs to play. They were playing happily when the timer dinged, so I told Lily, "I have to run upstairs real quick," and I made my escape.

Well, just as I was starting to dig into my second quarter of pizza, I heard the door downstairs open.

I leaped out of my seat and ran to the top of the stairs before Lily could come up. If she saw the pizza, everything would be ruined and I'd have to share, thus spoiling my snack and probably their lunch as well.

I made it just in time to see Lily poking her head out of the door, saying, "Look Mom, I made you something!" The "something" that she made me was some plastic food. A potato. I thanked her and "ate" it, and she told me I could take it with me, so I did. I then shooed her back into the room and told her to stay down there and that I'd be down in just a few minutes.

It was a close one, but I was able to finish my pizza in peace.

In closing, I'd like to share a funny banner I saw on Pinterest the other day, that I thought was oh-so-appropriate for this blog. I also thought I'd mention that I actually wrote most of this blog about 13 days ago but was (you guessed it) interrupted...

Tagged: Read At Your Own Risk

2012-01-16T12:11:00.000-08:00

I've been tagged! My friend, Candice, tagged me in a little blog game, and since I like a good random post every now and then, I'll play along. So here ya go!

First Things First, The Rules:

You must post the rules.

Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post.

Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged.

Tag eleven people and link them on your post

Let them know you've tagged them!

Eleven FUN Facts:

1. I've only ever sen the movie "The Goonies" one time. For our Christmas party in 7th grade, we got to vote on a movie, and then all go see it at the theater down the street. The whole 7th grade chose the movie "The Goonies" which I'd never even heard of before. I watched it and thought it was ok, but I think you have to grow up with it (like the rest of my generation seems to have done) to really appreciate it. Also, I remember telling my mom what movie we were going to watch, and based on her response, I think she was getting it confused with "Gremlins."

2. One of my celebrity crushes is Jeff Goldblum. Not in "The Fly", though. That movie was gross. More the "Jurassic Park" Jeff Goldblum. Also, when he guest starred on Friends. I guess I just like the awkward nerdy types.

3. I've auditioned for Star Search. I blogged about it too.

4. When I was a kid, I used to narrate my life in my head. As I walked across the playground at school, there was a running commentary in my head saying things like, "She walked across the playground, feeling slightly nervous that she may have forgotten her milk money..." I thought that some day I would somehow remember it all and write it all down. Even though 99% of it was mundane and boring. Oh, and when I'd say something, after I said it, in my head I'd think, "she said." Occasionally I'd slip and say out loud something like, "Please pass the milk, she said." I'm glad I stopped doing that... or did I?

5. I've been to 37 of the 50 states. The ones I'm missing are mostly the southeastern states. I still need to hit Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Maine, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Hawaii.

6. I can say all 66 books of the Bible in one breath of air. Well, maybe not right at this moment, since a certain tiny baby is taking up a large portion of my lung capacity. But on a non-pregnant day I can do it.

7. I sleep with earplugs and a mask over my eyes at night. I'm a super light sleeper, and it's amazing how well I sleep when I've blocked out all sound and light. I started doing it when Grace was born and slept next to me in the pack and play. I could not sleep through all of her baby goat noises, so I started sleeping with earplugs. I've slept with a mask over my eyes for years, though. What I really need is a Sensory Deprivator 5000.

8. I'm obsessed with drinking ice water. Rarely am I farther than arm's reach away from my glass of ice water. And when it starts to run low (like less than half a glass), I start to get nervous and antsy and have to go fill it up. I can't let it run out. I'm positive I drink at least 8 glasses a day.

9. I still have two baby teeth. My two bottom two-year molars don't have adult teeth behind them to push them out (they should be bicuspids, by the way, which would feel SO weird since I'm used to them being little molars), and since they're healthy, they've been hanging out for approximately 27 years. My dentist says he's seen people as old as 40 with baby teeth, so keep on brushing! I'm not terribly worried about losing them since I have healthy teeth. I've only ever had one cavity in my life.

10. One time in high school, I thought I had telekinesis. We were standing around at the end of yearbook class, and I moved my hand over a table that had a piece of paper on it, and the piece of paper moved. I did it again, and the paper moved again. I stood there for about 10 minutes, moving the paper from about a foot away, getting kind of freaked out that I'd developed super powers. Eventually I realized I was just pumping air out the end of the sleeve of my Letterman's jacket and that I was, in fact, just blowing the paper around. At that point I was glad I hadn't yet revealed my superpower to anyone.

11. One of my favorite flavors is peach, but you don't find many peach flavored candies and such.

Now it's time for the questions that Candice posted for me to answer.

1. What is a book that you just couldn't put down? Most recently, The Hunger Games series. I read them after they were all out, so I could just devour one right after the other.

2. If you had a day to yourself, what would you enjoy doing? Hopefully "to myself" means I can bring someone along if I want. I'm assuming this means without kid or work responsibilities. If I had a day to myself, I would like to do something with Jim that we can't really do with the kids, like go skiing or kayaking. I'm excited for when the kids are older and we can all go have adventures as a family. But for now, I'd need a "day to myself" do do those kind of things.

3. What is a show that you always watch? Jim and I have a handful of shows that we keep up with. One that I really like is The Amazing Race. It would be so much fun (and stressful) to get to travel all over for free, and to get to do all the random tasks that they have to do!

4. Favorite Bible Verse? Colossians 3:12-14

5. Favorite Family Activity? I like when we can get out of the house and go do something silly like go to Chuck E. Cheese or an arcade. It's fun for the girls to get to do something new and different.

6. Best childhood memory? The one that popped into my head (maybe because I was just thinking about skiing) was one Sunday in high school (it was the day before President's Day) I mentioned to my dad that some of my friends were going skiing the next day since we got off of school. My dad spontaneously decided to take the day off of work (he didn't get it off) and take me skiing! It was a lot of fun to get to spend the day with just my dad... and to get to go skiing. :)

7. What is your favorite characteristic about yourself and your spouse? My favorite thing about Jim is that he's easy going, which is necessary to balance out my... not-easy-goingness. My favorite characteristic about myself is that I like to cook. I like eating good food, so I'm glad I'm able to prepare food that I like.

8. If you could have any job in the world and not worry about the income being brought in, what would it be? Well, considering my current job brings in zero income, I'm guessing that "stay at home mom" would top the list. But I know what you mean, so I'll have to think about it. Hmmm.... a lot of the jobs that sound fun and intriguing (wedding planner, chef, National Geographic photographer) would have terrible hours and schedules. I really do enjoy being a biologist, to be honest.... but maybe I'll go with barista. Getting to make coffee all day!? OK!

9. What is your favorite meal to eat/fix? Zuppa Toscana! I could eat it almost every day. Seriously. SO GOOD!

10. What website do you visit the most often? Well, when I turn on my computer in the morning, I open up 4 tabs: Hotmail, Gmail, Blogger, and Facebook and I just keep that window open all day. So those four for sure.

11. What is your ultimate vacation destination? Fiji! I would love to go to Fiji and stay in one of those little shacks that are out on stilts in the water. A very close second, though, is Vienna. I really really really want to bring Jim to Vienna some day and show him the city that I fell in love with.

Last but not least, here are the questions for the folks I tag:

1. Would you rather be in prison for the rest of your life, or stranded on a deserted island with your closest loved ones for the rest of your life? (Assuming this is a tropical deserted island with plenty of food and such.)

2. What was your biggest worry in high school? (Friends, grades, boys, acne, sports, something else?)

3. If you had to be a character in a movie, who would you want to be?

4. Would you choose an all-expense paid trip around the world (as many destinations as you want, for however long you want it to be, including your spouse and family if you want), or would you rather have $1 million cash here and now?

5. If you had to go a year and eat only 5 foods, what would you choose? (Let's assume your nutritional needs are taken care of by a vitamin of some sort.)

6. What is your favorite physical feature on yourself?

7. What is your very first memory as a child?

8. If you had to move to another country, which country would you choose and why?

9. What movie can you watch over and over and over again?

10. What is one job that you'd like to do, but can't or wouldn't because of circumstances? (circumstances such as: it doesn't pay well enough, the hours are bad, you don't live in a place where there's a great need for marine biologists, you don't have the body type to be a professional figure skater...)

11. What is your secret phobia? (I'm not talking spiders or being alone or public speaking, I'm talking about the weird and totally irrational one that you don't like to admit to.)

This is who I'm tagging:

1.Katrina

2. Mom

3. Shyla

4. Amber

5. Allison

6. Amanda S.

7. Amanda N.

8. Ann

9. Jen

10. April

11. Brie

Wow, now I feel equally guilty for tagging people who may not want to do this at all, and for not tagging other people whose blogs I follow. So if you want to do this and I didn't tag you, feel free!

Go Patriots!

2012-01-14T10:51:00.001-08:00

We're ready for the game!(If you can't tell, Grace's shirt has a Patriots logo too.)

Funny Story Friday

2012-01-13T19:18:00.000-08:00

Friday got away from me, and we ended up at McDonalds for dinner. We don't often eat at McDonalds, in fact I think the last time we ate there was for an ice cream cone after one of Lily's soccer games, and before that... who knows. But both girls were in a funk when we headed out for dinner and I said to Jim, "Why don't we just eat at McDonald's so that we don't have to worry about whether or not the girls will eat anything at Pita Pit and we can avoid that struggle."

Sometimes we parents opt for the easy way out.

Dinner went well. Both girls got Happy Meals and munched nuggets and fries and apples and drank chocolate milk. They were so well-behaved that we even sprung for ice cream after the meal. We finished the meal with the girls happily playing with their fairy toys that they got in their Happy Meal. It was a very pleasant dinner.

Until we got in the car.

You see lately Lily has been in Whine and Argue Mode. She whines about everything, and argues with everything we say, and when she doesn't get what she wants she starts to whine or cry.

In short, she's been insufferable lately.

So we went to get in the car and Lily said (with great whine, mind you), "Awwwww I wanted to eat at Wendy's." (pout pout pout)

Oh my gracious, child!

Not. Happening.

I said, "Lily, that was extremely rude! We just had a yummy dinner and had lots of fun and you even got to eat ice cream, and all you can do is whine that you want something else? That was not very kind! Why don't you say something nice to Daddy instead!" (You know, I was expecting something along the lines of, "Thanks for the lovely dinner, Daddy. You're the best!" etc.)

Lily thought for a minute, and then said politely, "Daddy, can we please go eat at Wendy's?"

Jim and I both busted out laughing. After all, I had only told her not to whine, so instead she asked politely to eat at Wendy's. Sigh.

So then I explained that instead of asking for something else, she should thank her Daddy for dinner and ice cream, which she did.

Oh that child! Equal parts adorable and frustrating beyond belief!

Patriots vs. Broncos

2012-01-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

This weekend will be (according to Jim) the most anticipated and important football game so far this season. Tom Brady will face off against newcomer Tim Tebow when the Patriots play the Broncos. Last time they faced off, the Patriots beat the socks off the Broncos (of course) and I'm expecting no less this time around.

Growing up in Wyoming, you either loved or hated the Broncos. I hated them. They're by far my favorite team to cheer against. It was pretty easy to hate the Broncos a few years ago when Jay Cutler was the QB because, let's face it, he was kind of a jerk. But I have to tell you, I'm a little bit torn now. I want to like Tim Tebow in spite of myself. My ultimate hope is that the Broncos trade him after this season so I can allow myself to like him. But for now, I'm legally obligated to cheer against him and point out how superior of a QB Tom Brady is.

Lucky for me, others have already made this very comparison, so all I needed to do was steal their pictures and claim them as my own. Mwaa ha ha ha ha!

So I present to you: The ultimate QB comparison. (P.S. This has absolutely nothing to do with stats or football-playing ability, wherein Tom Brady would still win, of course.)

(The girlfriends needed a little bit of...ahem...wardrobe help. Thanks Microsoft Paint!)

Let's Play A Game

2012-01-09T18:59:00.000-08:00

Let's play a game.

The game is called "Which Child Actually Needed A Band-Aid On Her Chin."

If you can spot the child who was actually in need of a band-aid on her chin, and which child just wanted to be cool like her sister, you win!

If you guessed that the child who actually needed a band-aid on her chin was LILY, you guessed CORRECTLY!

We were walking into the Kroc Center today and Lily was running up ahead when she tripped and fell, skinning her chin on the concrete. We got a flesh-colored band-aid from the Kroc Center, which she wore all day, but when we gave her a Spongebob band-aid before bed, Grace decided she wanted in on the band-aid action. As soon as she saw Lily's band-aid, she started fussing and pointing to her chin, and ran into our bathroom (where the band-aid had been administered) and pointed up at the counter. So we got Goo her very own Dora band-aid and slapped it on her chin.

Lily was not thrilled about the whole situation.

Grace was thrilled.

P.S. I can't look at that last picture without laughing. Out loud.

That's Like A Baby's Toy!

2012-01-07T15:08:00.000-08:00

Who remembers this scene from Back To The Future 2?

So when we watched that movie the first time, we were probably all thinking, "Well, how else would you play a video game?" (Because let's face it, those gun games were pretty state of the art back in the day, right?)

Well, for Christmas Jim got a Kinect, and he has been enjoying it. Part of his enjoyment comes from the fact that Lily has found a game that she really likes. It's a game called Kinectimals and at first we just had a demo, but then our friends, the Sheltons, loaned us their copy of the full game. It's a game for little kids where you get an animal pet and get to feed it and play with it and there are some little games where you can earn coins and buy things. It's pretty simple, and Lily loves it. The crazy part is how good she's gotten at using the Kinect in just a few days. Check it out...

So apparently the future is here! You do have to use your hands, but that's all you have to use! No controller or anything. Welcome to 2015!

More Pics From Christmas

2012-01-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

I have a few more pics of Christmas break to share. I had to include some pictures of snow to prove that we actually got snow! It's been long gone since a couple of days after Christmas (it's been in the fifties... in January. That's just crazy, folks.) But we did have a white Christmas, so I can't complain too much.

Here are Lily and Grandpa Steve on the giant snow ball.
Goo being held by her Daddy.
Here's the reason Goo was held by her Daddy; if she wasn't being held, she wouldn't move. She was frozen. It was much like the kid in A Christmas Story where he can't put his arms down because of his big puffy coat. The combination of boots and giant puffy snow suit rendered Goo motionless.
Lily with her snowman... which apparently she tried to push over onto her sister at some point. Not maliciously... she just likes to wreck snowmen.
For some reason, Jim got out the old jumper for Grace, and she actually liked it. The first time we put her in it, we gave her some pretzels to munch and I think the jumper and the pretzels were cemented in her mind. So whenever we'd give her pretzels, she'd go to her jumper, and whenever she went to her jumper, it meant she wanted pretzels. Oh, and check out the mounds of Christmas loot. It took a solid week to get that all cleared out of our living room!
Grandma Lala, Lily, and Grandpa Steve doing an activity book with Lilypie.

Here is the story of Hazel. In the days leading up to Steve and Linda's visit, I kept calling our groomer to get Hazel an appointment. If her hair gets too long, it gets terribly matted, and it was getting to that point. But Steve and Linda arrived on a Tuesday, and I still hadn't been able to get Hazel to the Groomer, so I broke down and took her to the groomer at Petco on Wednesday. The reason I stopped taking her to Petco is because they've cut her twice and I'm not terribly impressed with their service. So guess what? An hour or two after I dropped Hazel off on Wednesday, I got a call from the groomer that he'd cut her and needed to take her to the vet. Sigh. So I met him at the vet and Hazel got stitched up, and we took her home. Well the next morning I went to look at her stitches, and that stinker dog had pulled them all out overnight! So back to the vet we went (btw, Petco paid for the vet bill, of course) and got more stitches. They gave her a cone to wear just in case, but they said that if we could just put a sweater on her, that might be preferable. So we dug out Peanut's old sweaters and made Hazel wear one, and she healed right up. So here's our poor pathetic Hazel, not only in her sweater, but also in the bandanna that our neighbors sent the Nuts for Christmas. Pathetic little dog.
Sweet sleeping Goo. Crazy hair, twisted up jammies... looks comfy!
Goo loves shoes. Here she is trying on Daddy's boots.
Lily has the bad habit of trying to jump into every picture we take, which can get really frustrating when you're trying desperately to get a child to smile or look the right way, and right when you do, in jumps a Lilypie. So she got a little scolding for trying to jump into the Goo and Boots picture, so I decided to take a picture of her fake pouty face. Awww... poor Lily!

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T15:06:00.000-08:00

This morning at church, the lesson was about how we need to learn to work with what we have, rather than always wishing we had more. Often we think, "Oh, if I just had ________, then I could really serve God. But since I don't have _______, then I won't." We usually fill in that blank with things like "more money" or "more time" or "more support". Or we fall into the trap of thinking, "When I just have ________, then I'll be happy." That blank is usually full of things like "a degree/diploma" or "a spouse" or "kids" or "the perfect job" or "more money" or "supportive friends". I think that most people fall into these kinds of traps at one time or another.

I've certainly fallen into this trap many times in my life. I felt in high school and college that I was just kind of waiting for my life to really start. I just wanted to get out of high school and start my life, and I wanted to meet my spouse, and move to our "final" location, and to have kids. I just felt like all the things that were going on in my life at the time were temporary things, and if I could just find a sense of permanence, then I would really start living. Then God could really use me. Well, I've got news. I was living that whole time, and it was always my choice to be used or to not be used by God.

The point of the lesson that Michael taught this morning was that God wants to use you where you are at right now. He doesn't need you to have this or that or to fill in the blanks. He's ready to work with what you've got! He wants us to be passionate people for him, and not people who wait on the sidelines, promising that we'll really be happy or useful if only we could just have this one more thing. He gave us everything we have, and we need to give thanks and then use it to his glory.

The lesson this morning reminded me of the Calvin and Hobbs strip you see above, which happens to be one of my favorites. I'm sure there are those out there who think it's a travesty to not "dream big" like Calvin. But I don't know... I really think Hobbs is on the right track. If your happiness is tied up in all the things that may or may not come to pass, or in far-out dreams, then how can you ever be thankful and content where you're at?

So Happy New Year! My hope for 2012 is that I can continue to develop my sense of contentment and thankfulness in all circumstances.

"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength."
-Philippians 4:12

Language Explosion

2011-12-30T12:25:00.000-08:00

Grace will be 18 months old on Monday. CRAZY! I can't believe I've been blessed with my precious little Goo Baby for a year and a half. And she's barely a baby anymore! She's kind of a Goo-Girl these days! She's getting to the point where I can see the language explosion coming on quickly. Lily was a pretty early talker, and by 18 months I think she had a few more words under her belt than Goo does. However, Grace is incredibly smart and capable and shows it in different ways. For example, when Lily was that age, she loved to look through books, but when I asked her to point to this or that, she rarely ever did. I could never tell if she wasn't learning things, or if she just didn't feel like pointing out what she knew. Grace, on the other hand, loves to point out what she knows. She loves all the baby board books with the pictures, and she'll go through and point to everything and show you that shoes go on your feet and that sort of thing. And like I said, she's starting to repeat more and more words. Many of them sound essentially the same, but that's pretty much how it goes with babies.

I kind of wonder why her language is developing differently than Lily's did. Is it a personality thing? Is it that I spent more one-on-one time with Lily? Is it that Grace developed a love for books later than Lily did, and so didn't learn all the words for things as early? Who knows! But she's definitely coming into her own now.

Grace has always been a good communicator, even non-verbally. For example, today I'd set the girls to play in Lily's room while I showered. I'd brought few of the Christmas toys that had been downstairs up to Lily's room for them to play with. Well, after lunch Grace marched herself right up to Lily's room and pointed to the toy I'd brought up earlier, and then pointed out the door. It was obvious she wanted me to bring that toy back downstairs for her to play with. No words necessary!

She also wants to do anything Lily is doing. She follows Lily around and plays with whatever toys Lily is playing with. If Lily gets ketchup for her hot dog, Grace must have it as well. If she sees that Lily has her watch on, she points to her own wrist and fusses. She'll even copy Jim. When Jim pushes his sleeves up to his elbows, Grace does the same. She's pretty hilarious.

So here's a little video showcasing some of Grace's verbal triumphs. I should have had her say "no no no" because it's pretty much the cutest thing in the world.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T14:49:00.000-08:00

This Christmas, Jim's parents, Steve and Linda, came to visit us! We've had a fun and lazy vacation so far. We decided to move "Christmas morning" to Saturday just so that we wouldn't be too rushed and stressed out trying to get to church on time. It was a good decision, since gift opening lasted well into the afternoon!

On Friday night, which was our "Christmas Eve", we went on the Lights Cruise on Lake Coeur d'Alene.

Lily up on Daddy's shoulders.
Grace with Grandpa Steve.
The family with the setting sun and the resort in the background.
Linda, Jim, Lily, Grace, and Steve waiting to see Santa.
When we got home from the Lights Cruise and dinner at Bonsai, we saw that Mrs. Claus had brought matching Christmas jammies for the girls. Cousin Madison also got matching jammies, but they didn't arrive quite in time for Christmas Eve.
Cute girls ready for bed so that Santa could come stuff their stockings!
But not before a quick light sabre fight. We went to Triple Play earlier in the day, and with all the tickets we won, Lily picked out a set of light sabres for Grace and herself.
Too much fun!
Then we headed up to Lily's room to read Twas The Night Before Christmas.
Lily had questions about almost every page.
On Christmas morning, Lily woke up to find Santa's cookies eaten and milk drunk, and the stockings filled with gifts!
A lantern! Lily is kind of obsessed with flashlights and the like, so she was pretty stoked to get a lantern.
Grace opening her stocking.
What a cutie pie on Christmas morning!
That last picture reminded me of this picture of Goo from last Christmas.
A truck! Nothing makes Grace happier than a new truck with which to play!
Lily got a harmonica in her stocking. Good idea? Bad idea? Time will tell!
One of Grace's big gifts from Jim and I was a folding camp chair.Lily has one, and sometimes it's tough to share.
Goo lounging in her chair.
Thanks for the tool set, Gramby and Geezer!
Thanks Abby and Isaac for the cool book!
Two of the girls' favorite gifts were the Fur Real cat that Grace gave to Lily...
...and the Little People train set that Lily gave to Grace. Those two toys got played with more than anything else. Lily named her kitty cat Stocking, and Stocking helped her open the rest of her gifts. Stocking also creeped us all out by mewing and moving her head randomly.
Lily and Grace's big gift from us was a tool bench. I debated if we should just set it out from the get-go, or try to wrap it, or send them on a wild goose chase to find it. We opted for the wild goose chase. I took pictures of random places around the house, and wrapped the first picture. When Lily opened it, she had to go find where that picture was taken, and when she got there she'd find a picture of the next location. Eventually she was led to our master bedroom closet, where the tool bench was. The next hour or so was spent hammering just about everything in sight.
I had to include one more "Ghosts of Christmas Past" picture. Grace was barely sitting up last Christmas!

Grace Eats a Christmas Cookie

2011-12-20T07:37:00.000-08:00

I took a video of Goo enjoying a sugar cookie last night. It was pretty cute. Sorry about the camera shaking violently while she was trying to lick the frosting off of her lip. I was laughing too hard to hold it still. :)

Attitude Adjustment

2011-12-19T07:24:00.000-08:00

I had an attitude adjustment about Christmas last week. You see, I love Christmas. I love all the traditions leading up to Christmas; decorating the tree, baking cookies, Christmas shopping etc. But most of all, I love Christmas morning. I love waking up and coming downstairs to see that Santa has stuffed your stocking. I love the tradition of opening the stocking, then eating something gooey and completely unhealthy for breakfast, and then leisurely opening the gifts from family under the tree. All of this is amplified tenfold now that we have kids. Fun fun fun!!!

But this year, unfortunately, Christmas falls on a Sunday... which means that church service lands smack dab in the middle of my Christmas traditions. And I've had a little bit of a bad attitude about this. I mean, do you try to rush through opening gifts? Do you save them until after church? How are you going to have time to even get ready for church if you're spending all morning opening Christmas gifts? Also, what do you do about Christmas dinner? Do you just eat it later in the evening? Do you try to have stuff cook while you're out of the house? Our congregation actually cancelled Bible class, so instead of having to be there at 9:00, service will start at 10:15, so at least we get that extra hour and fifteen minutes. They also said that kids are welcome to come in their pajamas (what about adults!?). But still...

So anyway, I was with a group of ladies last week and we were talking about Christmas traditions. These ladies are all Christian ladies and the conversation was moving along the lines of "Jesus is the reason for the season" and several of them were voicing how their kids didn't even know about any of the secular Christmas traditions and lore, like Santa Claus or reindeer or elves. Their entire focus for Christmas was about the birth of Christ. Which is a good thing.

But let me back up real quick and give my official Alyson Opinion on that topic. I love that around Christmas the world celebrates Christ, when on a regular day they hardly give him a thought. I figure it's better to think about him some than not at all. BUT I also kind hate that everyone only thinks about Christ around Christmas and they hold up Christmas as The Time To Think About Christ. Christ should be involved in our lives every single day. We should celebrate his life every day. We should think about his sacrifice and his holiness every day. Christ shouldn't be confined to a special time of year; a time of year that has been overrun by secular traditions anyway. I know that some people combat the secularism of Christmas by emphasizing Christ even more, and that's just fine. But for me, I feel like my whole life should be a celebration of Christ, so of course I talk about baby Jesus with my kids and whatnot, but I don't exclude the fun secular Christmas traditions to make Christ the focus. Instead, it gives me a renewed resolve to focus more on Christ every day, and not just around Christian holidays.

I don't know if that made sense, but that's my soap box.

Anyway, among this group of ladies who prided themselves in their Children not partaking in secular Christmas traditions, I felt like schlub because we do Santa, reindeer, elves, and the works at our house. But I thought, "Well maybe I can get some encouragement on my bad attitude about Christmas being on Sunday from these lovely Christian ladies."

So at some point in the conversation, I mentioned how I was a little torn about Christmas being on a Sunday, and I felt guilty for not wanting Christmas to be on a Sunday because I like my secular gift-opening traditions and I had a bad attitude about church interrupting it all, even though Jesus is the "reason for the season."

Do you know what response I got?

"Just don't go to church."

They were all in agreement. Yeah, it's ok to miss one Sunday, and it's really inconvenient et cetera et cetera et cetera.

Wait just a minute there! You are the ladies who won't even teach your kids about Santa Claus because he wasn't a part of the nativity, but when it comes to the "inconvenience" of interrupting your Christmas morning to go to church, you say "just don't go!?" I have to admit, I was a little appalled. Not that I think missing a Sunday of church is some kind of mortal sin or anything, but I thought that surely these ladies whose sole Christmas focus was Christ would encourage me to make church a priority on Christmas.

Wow.

So now I'm resolved to go to Church on Christmas. Of course! (Not that I wasn't going to go before... I was just going to whine about it). Otherwise I feel like I'd be saying "Jesus is the reason for the season, unless he interrupts your secular holiday traditions, then you should just skip him."

P.S. Oh, and our church will also be hosting a Christmas Eve service. 4:30 at Dalton Gardens Church of Christ on the corner of 4th and Hanley. It's a service for the whole community, so come one, come all!

P.P.S. Is anyone else disturbed by images like this?
What message is that supposed to send?
"Santa came first."?
"Santa is just as real as Jesus."?
I'm all about playing Santa and having him fill the stockings and whatnot, but I'm not going to go out of my way to lie to my kids, especially at Christmas time when stories of Santa and Jesus are so intermingled. When they find out that Santa is just a made-up guy, what do you think they're going to think about Jesus?

Pony Tails and Christmas Baking

2011-12-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

This week I put Grace's hair in a pony tail for the first time. I mean a behind-the-head ponytail, not the top-of-the-head kind. She looked super cute, but wouldn't stand still for a picture. Too much to do!

Here she is walking, and you can kind of see it.
From the front. She's so cute with her little Zooey Deschanel bangs, don't you think?

As hard as I tried to get a still shot of Grace's ponytail, it just wasn't happening. So I decided to take a little video instead! Her new favorite thing is to say "Boo!" to everyone.

For comparison reasons, I dug out pictures of Lily's first ponytail. Lily was 19 months when these were taken, and Grace is currently 17 months old.
Cutie pie!

Friday and Saturday we spent occupied with Christmas baking. I love Christmas baking, but I don't need to eat all those goodies, so we usually make up little containers and bring them to our neighbors. Grace and Lily were both big helpers in the kitchen.

Don't worry, this was after I was finished making the dough. The whisk was more to occupy a girl than anything else. :)
I love helping my mama!
Lily and I making sugar cookies. Lily was very good at using the cookie cutters. That shirt is like camouflage, but I have to admit that my belly is such a size now that reaching very far across a counter can prove difficult.

I'm in Trouble: Shortbread

2011-12-15T06:57:00.000-08:00

I love shortbread cookies. Ya know, the thick flaky kind made with real butter. Oh mah goodness, I cannot resist such a treat. Last week Lily went to our neighbor's house to play for a while, and was sent home with some shortbread cookies that were so good. Shortbread cookies have been occupying my thoughts and dreams ever since.

So a couple of days ago I was sitting around craving baked goods and thought to myself, "Self, you should make some shortbread cookies!" As crazy as it sounds, I'd never made shortbread before, but when has that ever stopped me?

I flipped through my trusty dusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (best wedding gift EVER!) and found this recipe.

1 1/4 cup flour
3 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 cup butter

You cut in the butter until it's all crumbly, then you form it into a ball (I had to zap it for a few seconds to soften the butter enough to form a ball, rather than just crumble), roll it out, and then cut it into whatever shape you desire. Pop it in the oven at 325 for 20-25 minutes, and when they're done you've got the most wonderfully delectable shortbread cookies ever.

It's kind of really bad news that it only takes 3 ingredients and is SO easy. I see an obsession coming on.

Rainbows and Butterflies

2011-12-14T13:14:00.000-08:00

Since my last post was just a little on the disgusting side, I decided to balance it out with a couple videos of cute little girls. You know the ones.

I handed Goo her toast at breakfast the other morning, and after I said, "toast," she said "toast" as clear as day! So I tried to get her to do it again. She eventually does it ok, but not quite as well as the first time around. Of course. But that's Grace. She'll mimic you and say almost anything at any random moment, but she rarely actually uses words. Why bother when pointing and grunting do the trick?

I'm continually impressed with all the books Lily has practically memorized and likes to read out loud. She doesn't get all the words quite right, but she gets the jist of it.

How To Handle A Nosebleed

2011-12-12T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yeah, this is going to be kind of a gross post. Those who have a weak stomach, proceed no further.

A while back I wrote a post about how I'm well-acquainted with nosebleeds. Shortly after writing it, I was talking with a few friends who'd read the post and I told them that I was considering writing a follow-up post about how to deal with nosebleeds. After all, over the years I've accumulated quite a bit of expertise on the subject and it would truly be a shame to let all that knowledge go to waste. One friend encouraged me to do so, one friend gave me a few more tips (since she is a frequent sufferer herself), and the other friend claimed she'd never had a nosebleed in her life. WHAT!? To me that's like saying you've never sneezed. It's just completely out of my realm of reality. I go through phases where I get at least one nosebleed per day. Often more. I can't imagine someone who has never had a nosebleed. So now I feel like I owe it to those people to write this post. Because if they ever did get a nosebleed, they might not know what to do with themselves, and I'm here to tell you that a lot of the sage nosebleed advice is flat out wrong. Today I will set the record straight, and correct a few of those incorrect, yet prevalent, nosebleed myths.

Myth #1: Tilt your head back.
From the time I was small, everyone was always telling me to tilt my head back if I got a nosebleed, so I did. And guess what? I swallowed a lot of my own blood. Gross, right? The only reason to tilt your head back when you have a nosebleed is to stop the blood from dripping down your face until you get to a tissue or something to catch the blood. After you find a tissue or cloth, return your head to it's upright position. All you'll succeed in doing when you tilt your head back is to swallow a lot of blood, which is not only gross, but it can give you a stomach ache and make you throw up, plus it gives you a really sore throat.

Myth #2: Pinch the bridge of your nose.
News flash: the bridge of your nose is bone and, though there are a couple of vessels that run on the sides of your nose, they are not the ones that are bleeding when you have a nose bleed. Pinching the bridge of your nose will not stem the flow of blood, but it will give you a headache! If you want to pinch your nose, pinch the bottom cartilage-y part of your nose. This will keep the blood up in there and aide in clotting. It will also stop the blood from running down your face.

Myth #3: If you blow your nose after a nosebleed, you'll blow the clot out and have to start all over.
Ok, here's the deal. The clot that stops the actual bleeding in your nose is way up by the vessel that is bleeding. However, there is likely going to be a lot of extra blood just floating around in your nose, and when blood floats around in noses, it likes to form clots. So if you blow your nose after a nosebleed, it is highly likely that a giant disgusting blood clot will come flying out your nose. Let me stress this this is not the clot that stopped the nosebleed. This is just extra blood. Of course, if you blow your nose really hard right after a nosebleed, you can certainly start it back up again. But I highly recommend blowing your nose after you have a nosebleed, and here is why. Like I said, there will be a lot of extraneous blood in your nose, hanging out and forming clots, and if you don't blow it out, one of two things will happen. 1) It will form big old blood boogers which are gross and pokey and uncomfortable OR 2) that clot will at some point dislodge and slide down the back of your throat. At that point you can either swallow it, or you can try to hack it into your mouth and spit it out. TOTALLY GROSS, right? So I always blow my nose after a nose bleed. Yes, you have to be gentle, and yes you will occasionally start it back up a little. But more often than not you'll just get all that nasty extra blood out of there and you'll be glad you did!

So what do you do when you have a nosebleed? Here are a few tips.

1. Hold a tissue up to the nostril that is bleeding, and pinch it closed. Not much blood will get on the tissue, and the blood will back up in there and be able to clot and heal.

2. If you want to be "hands free", some people will roll up a piece of tissue and stick it up their nose. This works just fine in a pinch, but after years and years of research, I have found that a cotton ball stuffed up the nose works much better. A tissue might stop the blood, but it's so scratchy that it will often re-open the wound when you take it out. Also, a tissue doesn't expand to fit like a cotton ball does and you're likely to leak around it. Plus, you have the other half of the tissue just hanging out the bottom of your nose. A cotton ball is far more discreet, and works way better.

3. If you have a pretty bad one, put an ice pack on the back of your neck or under your upper lip. This will constrict your blood vessels and will slow the flow of blood.

4. After your nose has stopped bleeding, take some Vaseline and rub it up inside your nostril. It feels really weird but it will help moisturize your nose, and will prevent your nose from stretching and re-opening the wound a few hours later.

5. Don't forget to gently blow your nose!

6. Get your nose cauterized. This works well for some people to stop nosebleeds for good. I've never had it done. I don't know why my parents didn't have it done when I was a kid in my heyday of nosebleeds, but at this point in my life I'm so used to (and good at) dealing with them that it almost seems pointless.

OC Gear!

2011-12-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

When I was in Oklahoma last month, I got Lily and Grace each an OC souvenir. Lily got a t shirt, and Goo got a jumper. Yesterday was the first time I had them wear them, and they sure were adorable!

Go Eagles!
Being their goofy selves.

Later in the day, the girls played dress-up. Goo's new name is Hollywood.
And here we have Princess Lily.
Grace wore the tutu for the rest of the day, even to Target and out to eat at Red Robin.

When The Night Is Falling

2011-12-06T13:27:00.000-08:00

There's a song we sing sometimes at church that I just love. It's like a lullaby that the Lord is singing to you, and it also makes a great lullaby to sing to your kids, by the way. I finally found it on youtube, but I can't say that I love the arrangement. The music is a little cheesy, but maybe I'm just too used to a capella singing. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this beautiful song.

Amendment:
Thanks to Patrick Ford, I have a version by the Zoe Group that I like much better. Listen HERE.

Furniture Shopping

2011-12-05T08:36:00.000-08:00

It all started when my parents got new furniture and offered to give us their two large recliners. We'd been thinking for some time that we wanted to do something different with our basement furniture, since it was a little hodge-podge (and our Craigslist sectional was a little too threadbare for my taste), so we took them up on the offer and listed our couches on Craigslist. Our plan was to find a nice couch to go with the two recliners, instead of our giant sectional and old couch.

The first couch, which my parents bought when I was about 4 years old (so it's about 25 years old) sold pretty quickly. Other than slightly squished cushions, it was in great shape for being so old. Our large sectional also sold quickly, but is still in our basement since the buyer is in Spokane and we haven't quite been able to connect on a time to get it to him. So with the money we made on selling our furniture, we started furniture shopping with a price in mind, plus a little out-of-pocket wiggle room.

I'll spare you all the details, but suffice to say we did a bunch of Craigslist shopping, and even went and looked at a couple of sofas. We then found our dream couch at Complete Suite here in town, but it was a little out of our price range. They were doing a deal for 12 months no interest, so we figured we could swing it if we financed it and used those 12 months to save up the rest of the money for the sofa. Unfortunately, they were out of stock and wouldn't be getting that sofa in stock for another 4 to 8 weeks. That's a deal-breaker, ladies! We were on the verge of calling back one Craigslister who had a nice sofa in great condition (just a bit too squishy), when someone suggested checking out Sofa Mart in Spokane Valley, and I'm so glad we did.

We found almost the exact same sofa that we'd fallen in love with at Complete Suite for over $200 less! While the Craigslist couch was nice (but not much cheaper, anyway), we like the idea of buying new and getting the lifetime warranty. (Pregnant lady also likes that a new couch is a lot more firm.)

So if you are in the market for furniture, check out Sofa Mart at Furniture Row in Spokane Valley. Their prices were rather impressive!

Without further ado, here is our new couch! We love it because it's extremely deep, and the back cushions are just big pillows, so you could make it even deeper if you wanted to sleep on it or something. It's also really long... almost 9 feet! Jim can sit at one end and I can lay down (on my left side) and be very comfortable. We also love the soft corduroy-ish microfiber material.
Here I am chillaxin' with my big ole belly!

Goo Being Goo

2011-12-02T16:08:00.000-08:00

A happy girl wakes up to eat lunch.

She likes to say "no" and do her finger wag.

Kittens Inspired By Kittens

2011-11-30T12:03:00.000-08:00

For my last day of NaBloPoMo, I'll leave you with piece of adorable viral video magic.

Lactose Intolerance?

2011-11-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

In case any of you were just dying to know how the whole lactose intolerance thing was going, here's an update!

For a while I was quite good about cutting out all lactose, or taking a Lactaid pill before eating dairy. But since I had the sneaking suspicion that at least part of my intolerance was based on my stomach illness, and would therefore be a passing ordeal, I decided to test my limits a bit.

I started small and would eat butter on something. Butter has very little lactose in it, but some people are still sensitive to it. I wasn't. So I tried a little more here and a little more there. Sometimes I would get a stomach ache (nothing anywhere near what I had when I first went dairy free), and sometimes I would feel fine. On Thanksgiving I completely forgot to take Lactaid and ate the whole meal (cheesecake and all!) without care or regard for lactose intolerance. And I felt fine. Woo hoo!

So here is my conclusion. I am sensitive to diary. If I eat cereal with milk or a DQ Blizzard or something with a whole lotta milk in it, I will get a stomach ache. Also, if I eat a little dairy here and there throughout the day, it kind of builds up. It's like I have "so much" lactase in my gut, and if I go over the limit of lactose that can be broken down by the amount of lactase in my body, then I'll start to have problems. So it's kind of dose-dependant. I think my original extreme sensitivity was due to the stomach bug, but that my body has pulled itself together and is no longer that sensitive to dairy. So from now on I'll keep Lactaid on hand and I'll keep a mental log of how much dairy I've had in a day, and I'll just be careful. I may or may not continue to buy special milk for myself. We'll just see how it goes from here!

Weekly Menu

2011-11-28T10:49:00.001-08:00

Do you do menus for your family? I try to. Some weeks I do great, some weeks we kind of fly by the seat of our pants from day to day. I try to keep a fairly well-stocked kitchen so that I have an assortment of "staple" dishes I can make at any time. But I do also like to plan meals so that we don't have to have the "staples" every single day. I also like to try new dishes, and if I don't plan to pick up the correct ingredients, chances are I won't have the right stuff on hand, and with two kids, I hate running to the store for one or two things. Since we're winding down NaBloPoMo and I'm running out of blogging ideas, I decided to share my menu for this week. Exciting, I know.

Monday:
Crab stuffed chicken and asparagus.

I discovered this recipe last fall and made it several times and loved it, but I haven't made it in a loooong time and it sounds yummy. For a veggie, I'm making my favorite asparagus (which I may have shared with you once, but here it is again since it's SO good).

Preheat oven to 400. Wash a bundle or two of asparagus and trim off woody ends. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with kosher salt. Roast for about 20 minutes. Top with feta and diced tomatoes. SO YUMMY!

Tuesday:
Enchiladas.

I got this particular recipe from a high school friend, and it has become a family favorite.

Wednesday:
Wednesday:
Eat out. I have an appointment with my midwife on Wednesday, and our tradition is to eat at Subway after OB appointments.

Thursday:
French Onion Soup with Steak Sandwiches.

I looooove French Onion Soup, and sometimes we eat it just as a meal. But it's even yummier with my steak sandwiches. I make the best steak sandwiches, if I do say so myself. You can too! Here's how:

Grill some steak seasoned with salt and pepper, and slice it into thin slices. Caramelize some onions with plenty of sugar (a couple of teaspoons). (And by "some" onions, I mean about one onion per sandwich. TRUST ME!) Toast a hoagie roll and put a little bit of mayo on the bottom bun, and then arrange the steak slices on top of the bottom of the roll. Top with lots of caramelized onions, and put sliced provalone cheese on top of that. Pop in the broiler until the cheese melts, and you're ready to go! Best. Sandwich. Ever.

Friday:
Pizza! As per Klein family tradition, we'll be making pizza Friday night. We usually have bacon and onion pizza. Yum yum. (Can you tell I have a thing for onions?)

Saturday:
Monterrey Chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and steamed veggies.

This is based on my favorite dish from Chili's. It's a chicken breast topped with some BBQ sauce, bacon, and cheese. Simple and delicious!

So what are you making for your family this week? I'm always open to new suggestions for next week!

Snow Days

2011-11-27T14:30:00.000-08:00

Last week we got a few inches of snow, so I decided to take the girls out to play in it. I had full intentions of taking both girls out, but by the time we got up and around and fed and had gathered up all of the necessary snow clothes, Goo was ready for her morning nap. It actually worked out really well, though, because Lily and I got some good hard-core snow playing time and didn't have to worry about Goo getting cold or getting snow in her mittens or anything like that.

I told Lily to catch a snowflake on her tongue, and this was her attempt.
So I had to teach her the best way to catch snowflakes!
I love this picture. She thought it was hilarious that I put a pumpkin on the snowman's head.

The whole time we were building the snowman in the picture above, Lily kept asking if she could knock it over. The snow was kind of powdery and difficult to work with, and I worked hard to make that snowman, so I told her that she couldn't knock it down. But then I made her a little snowman just for the purposes of knocking down, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

LBD

2011-11-26T22:34:00.000-08:00

Meh... I got nuthin'

Incidents and Accidents: Thanksgiving

2011-11-25T10:04:00.000-08:00

To be fair, the whole day wasn't full of incidents and accidents or anything, but there was a good half hour that was monopolized by them.

But first let me back up and tell you about the wonderful day we had overall. Our friends, the Sheltons, invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. They have three kids, the youngest of whom is a few months older than Lily. So the kids had fun playing together, and Jim and I had fun visiting with Jeff and Kara, as well as Kara's parents who were visiting.

There was tons of delicious food! Kara made a turkey, I made ham, and between us we made a ton of side dishes and desserts. In fact, I'm going to have to get Kara's cornbread stuffing recipe because it was soooooo yummy!

So here were the incidents, and really just one accident... and maybe one more almost accident.

While we were eating our dinner, Kara suddenly jumped up and said, "Lily is choking!" Lily was sitting at the kids table, and sure enough, she choking on a carrot. I don't know why baby carrots, hot dogs, and grapes are common kid foods. They're such choking hazards! Anyway, we ran over to her and she ended up just spitting out what was in her mouth (luckily there was no major vomiting issue) and she was able to clear her throat. However, the sheer terror of choking in the middle of dinner caused poor little Lilypie to pee her pants. It was so sad because she was traumatized enough by choking, and then further traumatized because she'd just had an accident.

So we got her cleaned up and ready to go, and by the time we went back to our dinner, Goo was getting restless, so we let her down to run around.

Well, she was still fussy while running around, so I went to get her pacifier. As I was walking toward her with the paci, she had climbed to the top of the stairs and as she stood up, she got bottom heavy, and she started to fall backwards down the stairs! Granted, it was only a 5-stair-case (and I'm sure she would have just rolled right down and been fine), but mommy instinct kicked in and I dove on my belly and caught her by the front of the shirt and one leg and stopped her from rolling backwards down the stairs.

Well then there I was, laying on my big old pregnant belly, holding my baby by her leg who was sort of laying with her head down the stairs. Suddenly I was really worried about Clementine and I didn't know what to do, so I'm pretty sure I dragged her up a couple of stairs by her foot before someone came to get her and I headed to the bathroom to collect myself.

It was partially the fear and adrenaline of my baby almost falling down the stairs, and partially the worry that my belly-flop had harmed Clementine, and partially the belly flop itself, but I very nearly lost my lunch. But I didn't. Shortly thereafter, Clementine started jumping around, which put my mind at ease.

After that, we all finished our Thanksgiving meal without further potty accidents, near-vomiting, falling-down-the-stairs, or belly-flops-on-pregnant-belly incidents. I think those 30 minutes were more than enough excitement for one turkey day!

Oh, and I even remembered to take a few pictures!

Here is the veggie tray I made. I saw it on Pinterest, and thought it was too cute not to try!
Grace enjoyed playing the Shelton's piano.
Kara's beautiful table with all the yummies! Well, nearly all the yummies. There was even more food than pictured here!
When Goo woke up from her nap, the kids were watching tv, and Goo just cuddled right up to Hayden.
All the kids together. Hayden, Brylee, Merit, Lily, and Grace.

Thank you, Sheltons, for your hospitality. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T19:48:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving from the Kleins

Tomorrow I will write more about our wonderful Thanksgiving Day. For now we'll suffice to say there were incidents and accidents (but luckily no hints and allegations.)

Monkey Baby Redux

2011-11-23T05:20:00.000-08:00

In case you were wondering, our monkey baby has not slowed down one bit. If I'm not on my A-game, I'll find her on top of all kinds of things. Luckily I have my phone camera nearby to capture these magic moments when they happen. Not that I've ever seen her climbing on something and waited for her to finish so that I could get a picture. I would never do that. I'm a responsible mom.

Chairs are her favorite. I don't mind her sitting on them, but she tends to stand on them and then lean against the back and almost tip them over. Not good. In this picture, I asked, "Goo, where's your smile?" Ta da!
Oh, and if there are fishy crackers on the table, chair climbing turns into table climbing.
She really really wanted to turn off the light, but couldn't reach it. So she decided that turning off the fireplace would work just as well.
While I was doing my makeup, she climbed up on my bed and found my bedside water.
She's climbed on the coffee table countless times, but climbing into the drawer was a new one.

P.S. She also likes cookies

The Belly

2011-11-22T10:57:00.000-08:00

My friend, Kara, is a burgeoning photographer. She recently got a really nice camera, as well as some photo editing software, and she has been doing a lot of work to improve her skills as a photographer. (I think she has a natural talent for it.) One thing she wanted to do was to increase her portfolio, and offered to take weekly maternity pictures of my ever-growing belly. Of course I agreed (I'm all about documenting The Belly) and for the past couple of months she's been taking my picture after church on Sunday.

Today when I wanted to write a post about The Belly, I asked her if I could have one of my most recent pics to go with the post, and she delivered! I do need to plug her really quick. If you're wanting family/kid/Christmas/baby pictures taken and you live in the area, I highly recommend giving Kara your business!

So anyway, check out that belly, huh? I'm 23 weeks in that picture (I'll be 25 weeks this Thursday, man time is flying by!) and my belly is... rather large. I'm already getting people who guess that I'm due in December (um no, March) and who are commenting on how huge I'm going to get if I'm already this big. And honestly, I have to agree. My belly just popped right out this time around and there's only one direction it can go from here.

Jim says that maybe I just don't remember how big I actually was and that I need some kind of objective measurement. Well, here's the most objective I can be. I happen to have 3 photos of my pregnant belly. One of me at 22 weeks pregnant with Lily, one of me at 23 weeks pregnant with Grace, and then the picture Kara took of me a couple of weeks ago pregnant with Clementine. (Weirdly, I'm wearing the same dress for the G and C pics.)

So here ya go.

22 weeks pregnant with Lily. Ah, the days when I used to show my bare belly to the world. Those days are GONE now that stretch marks have entered my life. With Lily I got big and pregnant EVERYWHERE on my body, and I carried all over my tummy (rather than the basketball belly).

Here I am at 23 weeks with Grace. This was actually only the second belly picture I took during this pregnancy since I didn't show for a long time with her for some reason.
Last but not least, here's me at 23 weeks with Clementine. I don't know about you, but to me that belly is looking mighty large!

So there you have it, folks. It's true what they say; you get bigger faster with each baby you have.

The Good The Bad and the Lily

2011-11-21T07:52:00.000-08:00

For the past little while I've had a couple of posts running through my head, and they're both about Lily. The first is about what an amazing wonderful little girl she is. Every day I'm astounded by her maturity and how loving and generous and caring she is. The other is about what an incredibly difficult little girl she can be at times. I've mentioned before that age 3 has been tough, and she continues to test her limits in so many ways that just make me so frustrated. So I'll post them both together and they'll balance each other out. Actually, I hope the good totally overshadows the bad, like it does in real life. She really is an awesome little girl.

First: The Good.

Everyone keeps telling me that sibling rivalry is going to kick in. I think there are some jaded moms out there because there have been multiple incidents where I either mention or observe Lily's loving behavior in regards to Grace, and inevitably someone will pipe up and say something like, "Well just wait until she's mobile and Lily has to share her toys." Well, Grace is perfectly mobile now and I have to tell you that Lily couldn't be more thrilled to have a day-to-day playmate. Sure, Grace will occasionally take something away from Lily, and Lily will get upset, but what amazes me is how understanding she is. We always explain to Lily that Grace is a baby and doesn't know better and that we have to teach her to share. When we do that, Lily will go from being upset that her toy was taken away, and she'll adopt this sweet mommy-like voice and tell Grace, "Gracie, that was my toy, you have to share." Often getting Goo to share requires a little parental assistance, but Lily is still very patient with her, and will often share the toy right back with her, or go and find another toy for Grace to play with.

Lily's ability to share and patience in teaching Goo is paying off, too! They sit next to each other at meals and they'll often share a sippy cup of milk. I know it's kind of weird, but I did it a couple times out of laziness, and then realized it's a great way to teach them to share. Lily figured out early that if she says, "Can I have a drink?" Grace will hear the word "drink" and grab up the drink. So Lily has taken to whispering it to me, which is adorable. BUT, after weeks of us having to take the cup away from a screaming baby, Grace has finally learned to share her drink! She'll still grab it up as soon as Lily wants it, but after she takes a drink, she'll give it right to Lily. And Lily is so patient waiting for it, and she thanks her sister for sharing.

Lily's sweetness and patience is most evident in her interactions with Grace, but she's really sweet with everyone in general. If I've made a meal that she particularly likes, she'll ask, "Mommy, did you make this? It's super yummy! Thanks for making yummy food for me!" She'll also tell me things like, "Oooh, I like your shirt, Mommy, you look really pretty!" I love that she's free with complements and has such a positive attitude about everything.

She also loooooves to have buddies over, and when her buddies come over, she's perfectly willing to share everything she owns with them. I could probably count on one hand the number of times she's been upset with a buddy for not sharing well or something like that. She's just so happy to have playmates that she's more than happy to share her toys with them. Also, we've never had a problem with Lily not sharing with her friends, the only problem has been with younger friends who haven't mastered the art of sharing yet, and take something that Lily was playing with.

Also, there's very little jealousy of affection. I had one mom tell me that when one wants a hug, the other will want a hug and then they'll start getting jealous and pushing each other out of the way, vying for Mom's affection. However, most of the time if Grace is getting a hug, Lily just comes over and turns it into a group hug. Sure, she wants in on the affection, but not to the exclusion of Grace. She's very affectionate with Goo and loves hugging and and cuddling and wrestling with her. The only real challenge comes when I'm doing something like spinning Grace around, and Lily wants a turn. Sometimes Lily is to heavy to be spun and flung around... and Grace is getting there herself ! :)

She's also so smart and insightful. She says the funniest things and asks me all kinds of mature questions about God and death and why people act the way they do. I see her little mind working on things sometimes and am very proud of the conclusions she's able to draw. She's really fun to talk to and can easily hold up her end of a conversation.

Now comes: The Bad.

As sweet and kind and caring and loving as Lily is, she is also so stinking stubborn! Meal times are still a huge struggle in our house. Lily just doesn't have a huge interest in eating, and once she's taken two bites and she's not super hungry anymore, she stops eating and just doddles around. Ideally, I'm not an advocate for the Clean Plate Club (I think it generally encourages over-eating), however, I know that a 3 year old can eat more than two bites at meal time, and that if I let her stop eating when she first asks, she'll be hungry in 30 minutes and want a snack. I don't trust her to eat a sufficient amount of food on her own, so I usually end up having to regulate her food intake. Most days I do limit snacks so that she's hungry for meals, but then of course you have to deal with the 2 hours leading up to meals where the child is cranky and whining for food. It's a toss up whether the pre-meal whining or the mealtime battle is more frustrating. Jim gets frustrated that I make nice yummy meals, and then meal time is spent struggling to get the kids to eat, not conversing, and shoving food in our mouths without paying much attention. Family meal times are important, but they're so hard when your kids are this age!

Lily also has to have things her way, or she'll get really stubborn. For example, the other night Jim was getting Goo ready for bed, so I told Lily that I'd get her ready for bed. Well, Lily said she wanted Daddy to get her ready, and I told her that Daddy would be there in a minute, but I was going to start the process. So she was angry at me when I took her to go potty, and she sat there for a minute and declared that she didn't need to go potty. Fast forward 20 minutes to when Lily is in bed reading books (we still like her to go to bed at 7:00 so that we can have some Mommy/Daddy time, but she's not always sleepy that early, so we let her read books for a while in bed to settle her down for the night). Anyway, Jim hears Lily crying over the monitor, and when we go up there, Lily had peed her pants in bed. That stubborn girl had refused to potty because she wanted things her way, and it had resulted in an accident! I was so angry that I just went and did the laundry and let Jim deal with the discipline. Then I had to cuddle with her and love on her before putting her back to bed because I felt bad for all the really angry thoughts I'd been thinking toward her. What a stubborn little girl!

Along with being stubborn about wanting her way, she'll also throw mini-fits or get all huffy when she doesn't get something she wants. For example, she may ask to watch an episode of Spiderman (or usually another episode) and when we say "no" she either starts to whine and cry, or slumps down in a whiny pile or something like that. That just gets on my last ever-loving nerve. I hate it when we let her do something special and she ends up whining and crying when she doesn't get more of it. I hate it when something fun turns into us scolding or disciplining her.

The other huge thing we've been dealing with lately is obeying. Jim and I have a general policy of "obey or spanking." She's now getting to the age where other forms of discipline work in certain situations, like taking away tv privileges or bedtime book reading privileges, but the usual discipline alternative is a spanking. I like spankings because they're quick (if you're heading out the door, you don't always have time for a time-out), they're immediate (a 3 year old likely won't remember what they did 5 hours ago that is resulting in no dessert tonight), and although they're unpleasant at the time, it's not a long-lasting punishment. BUT even though Lily knows that the general rule is "obey or spanking" I don't like spanking her without reminding her of the rule. This has resulted in Lily being trained not to obey the first time we ask her to do something, but she waits until we tell her that she has to obey or she'll get a spanking. ARGH!! So here's a typical conversation at our house.

Me: Lily, go get your boots and coat and get ready to go.
Lily: Continues playing
Me: Lily, did you hear what I asked you to do? You need to get your boots and coat on.
Lily: Gets her boots, but keeps running around being silly.
Me: Lily put your boots and coat on now or you will get a spanking, do you understand!?
Lily: Gets this scared look on her face and puts her boots and coat on.

Perhaps I need to get her attention the first time (although, I know she does hear me, she just chooses to ignore me), and perhaps I just need to follow up with the known punishment for disobeying without having to ask twice and "threaten" once. I guess she needs to learn that she does have to do what we ask the first time we ask it. We're actually doing these parenting videos at church right now, and it's funny because the guy in the video was talking about this exact thing this week. It's always been a concept that's been important to us, but it was interesting hearing an "expert" talk about it and see that we're on the right track, but we need to be a little more firm with it.

Another frustration we're dealing with is one of those things where your kid isn't being naughty, but you still need to teach them how to properly interact socially. Lily likes to talk. A lot. Like, really really really a lot. When we're in the car, we love to talk to Lily and hear her thoughts about things, and she almost always has something interesting to say. But sometimes, Jim and I want to talk to each other about something, or we're in the middle of the conversation, and Lily will interrupt us and just loudly interject whatever she feels like talking about. I know she doesn't mean to be rude, and she's just enthusiastic. I've talked to Lily a lot about tapping me on the shoulder when she has something to say and I'm talking to someone, and she's getting better at it, but that just doesn't work in the car. So while we do want to teach Lily to communicate with us, and that what she has to say is important to us, we also don't want to teach her that she is the center of the universe, and that what she has to say is more important than what other people are saying. We want to teach her patience and consideration when it comes to conversation, and it's just a really frustrating journey.

Overall, Lily really is an above-average fantastic child. Her "fits" and sullen attitudes are very mild in comparison to what you might see at Walmart on an average Thursday morning. BUT our goal for Lily isn't that she's just slightly better behaved than average. We want to teach her to be someone who follows the Lord. Who loves deeply and passionately. Who cares for others and their feelings. Who is willing to give and love freely. We want to teach her that she is important and loved and cared for, but we want her to value others just as much as we value her. She is certainly on the right track! We are so blessed to have such a funny, silly, sweet, kind, caring little girl.

What We've Been Up To: Videos

2011-11-20T13:45:00.000-08:00

Here are a few videos I've taken recently of my silly fun girls.

These are my crazy loud girls.

Goo woke up in a happy/lovey mood and didn't want to let her blanket go, and wanted to love on her sister who was preoccupied with a book. They're sweet little girls

We got a little bit of snow this week, which Lily thoroughly enjoyed. Hazel also enjoyed playing in it for a few minutes.

Lily Ballerina

2011-11-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy weekend! Friday night Landon drove up and hung out for a bit, and then Jim brought him to the airport on Saturday. Likewise, my friends Shelly and Carey drove up Friday night, and on Saturday we went to a big craft fair in Spokane. We met Jim at River Park Square Mall (he had taken the girls to the Mobius children's museum after dropping Landon off at the airport), and then we all drove home together. It was busy. Anyway, at the mall some ballerinas were dancing, promoting the local Nutcracker production. Lily loved watching them, and at one point they called a few little girls up on stage to perform with them. So today's video is brought to you by the Nutcracker dancers. I've never seen Lily with a bigger smile on her face. She loved it!

Funny Story Friday

2011-11-18T07:36:00.000-08:00

At our church we have a children's offering and Bible drill time where all the little kids go forward and give their money, and then they are asked Bible questions and are given little prizes for getting the correct answers. We usually do this pretty early on in the service, and our youth minister/song leader, Jeff, kicks it off by singing a children's song while all the kids make their way to the front of the auditorium.

One of the songs Jeff often sings for the Bible drill time is called "Let The Little Children Come." Here are the words:

Let the little children come
Let the little children come
Let the little children come to me
(repeat)
And do not forbid them
Do not forbid them
For of such is the kingdom of heaven
(repeat)

So it's a pretty simple little song straight out of scripture, and like I said, we sing it quite often before the Bible drill, and while we sing it, all the kids walk to the front of the auditorium.

Well, a few Sundays ago we were having a baby blessing where all the babies born recently would go forward with their parents (obviously) and they would receive a little Bible and the elders would pray for them. So they announced that they were going to do the baby blessing, and that they would call the names of the families after Jeff led us in one song.

What song did he choose?

You guessed it! "Let The Little Children Come."

So here was the problem. Usually when the kids hear this song, it means it's time for the Bible drill and they're supposed to get up and go forward. However, this Sunday we were just singing it since it was appropriate before a baby blessing, and it was not Bible drill time, and the kids were not supposed to go forward. But subtleties like that are lost on little ones, and as soon as Jeff started singing, all the kids hopped up and started walking toward Jeff!

So as Jeff is singing "Let the little children come to me, and do not forbid them," he's simultaneously waving his arms, trying to shoo kids away and get them to go back to their parents as if to say, "Never mind! Don't let the little children come to me! Do forbid them!"

I just about peed my pants laughing.

When the song was over, Jeff said, "That may have been a confusing song choice."

What Was I Thinking?

2011-11-17T07:18:00.001-08:00

Tonight I will be attending the midnight premier of Twilight Breaking Dawn. Midnight. As in it starts tomorrow technically. What was I thinking? Not that I've never been to a midnight premier before. I have, but it was back when I was young and stupid and in college and could slough off classes to sleep the next day if I felt like it. There's no sloughing off children who wake up at 7am and want to eat or play or talk or do anything but let you sleep for just a few more hours.

Actually, the last midnight premier that I almost attended was for Twilight Eclipse. I ended up chickening out of it at the last minute because... (wait for it)... I was pregnant and tired! Funny, huh? In my defense, It was three days before I gave birth to sweet Baby Grace, so I'm very glad I stayed home and got some rest. This time I have no such excuse. Well, I mean I have the pregnant and tired and just got over being sick excuse. There's always that. But I don't have the three-days-before-I-give-birth excuse. Three months at best. So I shall not! I will not! I refuse to chicken out tonight. I will see Breaking Dawn at midnight, come home and crawl into bed, sleep for like four hours, and then get up and grog through the rest of the day. Thank goodness my girls are usually simultaneous afternoon nappers. Tomorrow afternoon we'll have three napping girls. Four if I can get Clementine in on it as well.

When I told Jim that I'd spur-of-the-moment agreed to go, he raised an eyebrow and said, "You have fun with that." He's such a card.

Spoiler alert:
So my question is, will Bella be more interesting as a vampire? Will this first installment even make it that far into the story? I have to tell you honestly that Bella Swan is one of my least favorite heroines of all time, and Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan is worse by far. But I've been sucked in and firmly planted in my fandom and despite (or perhaps because of) "monkey man" and "spider monkey" lines, I'm in this thing for the long haul. I just hope they get a cute baby to play Renesmee. (As much as I make fun of that name, if I'd had kids when I was that young there's a good chance that my triplets would have been named Jalisha, Alisha, and Felisha, so I should keep my mouth shut I suppose.)

Sore Froat OR The Burning Means It's Working

2011-11-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

My sore froat is easing up (does anyone else like to use fake words? If my "throat" is sore, it suddenly becomes a "froat.") It's not completely better, and it's the worst in the mornings, but it's better than it was. I'm able to wait longer than 4 hours between doses of Tylenol, which is good because for a few nights, I was waking up in agony, knowing that I'd have to wait another hour before I could take more Tylenol, and I couldn't sleep through the pain, so I'd just lay there. Awake. In pain. Yeah, it was that bad. Jim said he'd never taken Tylenol for a sore froat before (ok, he probably said "throat" but whatever) and that it seemed a bit odd. It IS odd! I don't think I'd ever taken Tylenol for a sore froat before, either! This is the weirdest sore froat ever! It's not scratchy, and I can talk, as long as I don't talk loud, and my voice doesn't sound all scrambly or anything. It just hurts like the dickens, and it feels like my tonsils are going to close in and seal off my windpipe at some point.

Besides the Tylenol which makes a huge difference, I've also been drinking Katrina's Voodoo tea that she suggested after I wrote my last post. It's tea with a few tablespoons of unfiltered apple cider vinegar, as well as a few tablespoons of raw honey added to it. It tastes nasty and it burns going down, but it does seem to help. My guesses are that vinegar is a natural disinfectant, and it kills off all the stuff in the back of your throat as you swallow it. Also, I've heard that if you drink a lot of citrus juices during cold and flu season and lower your pH just a bit, you're less likely to get sick because you create a hostile environment for viruses. I don't know how much truth there is to that, but it makes sense. And vinegar would definitely lower you pH!

I think I'm on the upswing, but this has just been one of the most bizarre illnesses I've ever had. Not the worst, just the most bizarre!

Be The Match!

2011-11-15T08:43:00.000-08:00

I've blogged about this before, but the other day I got an email from the Be The Match Marrow Registry that reminded me that I needed to take my name out of the pool while I am pregnant. It was awesomely easy! I just logged in and temporarily suspended my membership, and they will automatically put my name back in 6 months after my due date. Awesome, huh? So I don't even have to remember to do it myself!

Anyway, for any new readers out there, Be The Match is a bone marrow registry where if you're willing to donate bone marrow, you can get your tissue typed and put in the registry. Then if someone needs bone marrow, they can look for their type on the registry. If you're the match you'll get a call to donate. The last time I blogged about it, someone named Jessica replied (I think it may have been my cousin, Jessica, but I'm not sure) and said that they were in the registry and were actually called to donate, and that all their expenses were paid. So it sounds like it's a pretty slick process if you ever are called upon to donate. (And of course if you're ever called, you can certainly choose not to donate.)

The tissue typing process is easy as pie, as well. You just sign up and they'll send you a package in the mail where you can swab your cheek and send it back in a pre-paid envelope. So easy!

So if you want to save a life, please click HERE and then click where it says "join."

Conspicuously Missing

2011-11-14T09:10:00.000-08:00

There are a couple of cute girls who have been conspicuously missing from my blog lately. There's no great reason for this.... I just haven't been taking pictures, and we've been busy with this and that but nothing terribly interesting and picture-worthy. Also, since I got home from Oklahoma, Grace has won the Crabby Baby Award. She's been extra fussy and irritable and won't eat much and there's hardly a waking moment when she's at all happy, which is totally unlike her. There have been no other symptoms other than fussiness, so we've been attributing it to teething since it didn't seem like it could be much else. But now that I have The Sore Throat From Hades, I'm wondering if that wasn't what was causing the fussies all last week. Yesterday, Goo woke up in a fantastic mood and she's been back to her easy-going happy-go-lucky self ever since. So if that was what was causing her foul mood, I guess I know that I have a week of feeling fairly terrible to look forward to, and then I'll feel better.

Anyway, the point being that since Goo was finally herself again, I took some pictures of the girls this morning. Enjoy!

She put the gloves on and was "getting" me with them, saying, 'RAWR!'
Then she climbed up on the chest by the door and was hamming it up there.
I told her to show me her teeth, and this is what I got. (P.S. Her first incisor did finally poke through last week, but she still has 3 more lurking below the surface, ready to wreak havoc on her mood.)
Turning off and on the lights is a new favorite pass-time.
You can't really tell, since the camera flash went off, but this is after she'd turned off the light. Mischievous much?
This is her showing me her tongue.
And her cheesy grin! I've been noticing lately that she might have a bit of an under bite. Shyla and I both had an under bite. Mine was fixed with a simple retainer that I wore for a few months, but Shyla had to have head gear and the whole bit. So we may be looking at dental work in the future, but for now it's simply a-dorble!
And no picture set would be complete without pictures of the Lilypie being a silly-pie!
Silly face!
SUPER silly face!

Ugh

2011-11-13T15:32:00.001-08:00

I have a sore throat. Not just any sore/scratchy throat, but the kind of sore throat that is truly painful. It hurts to swallow or talk very loud or breathe or anything. My tonsils are red and humongous. I have to take Tylenol on a regular basis just to function. The weird part is that my severely sore throat is the only symptom. No headache, no fever, no runny nose to speak of. I'm guessing it's diphtheria. I like to self-diagnose with the worst possible scenario. Did you know that diphtheria is a disease that we routinely vaccinate against, however most people, including the vaccinated, will still catch diphtheria at some point? This sounds like one of those arguments that those anti-vaccination types would use to prove that vaccinations don't work. But as Ron Popeil would say, "But wait, there's more!" So when you are vaccinated against diphtheria, the vaccine isn't against the bacteria itself, it's against the toxin that the bacteria produces. A diphtheria infection itself isn't necessarily dangerous, but the toxin that the bacteria produces can cause serious heart problems, and that's what actually kills people. So when developing a vaccine, it was easier, and really more necessary, to develop a vaccine to the dangerous toxin than to the relatively benign bacteria. Vaccinations are very good at knocking diseases out of the population. Nobody gets polio or small pox any more, thanks to vaccinations (specifically, vaccinations that target the antigen itself, and not just the toxin). However since the the diphtheria vaccine does nothing to stop the spread of the actual disease (it only stops the disease from killing you) diphtheria is still a very common childhood illness*. But the symptoms are pretty similar to a regular old cold, except for the extreme sore throat. So people rarely know that they have diphtheria. They just think they have a cold of some sort, stay home a couple of days, and then go back about their normal lives. But those of us who are hypochondriacs and have a little bit of microbiology knowledge like to imagine that we have diphtheria when we have a super sore throat. Like now. I have diphtheria.

*Which, by the way, is another great reason to vaccinate your kids. Plenty of diseases are obsolete thanks to vaccinations, but there are some that are still very much alive and kicking and there's no reason to chance your kiddo getting seriously sick from a preventable disease.

Another Lazy Blogging Day?

2011-11-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

Oh yes, another. We had a teacher workshop at church this morning, and were busy the rest of the day. Now it's snowing like crazy, some friends are watching the girls, I have a sore throat (cross your fingers that it's strep so that I can get LOTS of sympathy! Bwaa ha ha ha ha), and we are going to watch X-Men First Class. So yeah. This is all the blog you get. Sorry!

Speaking of My Twin...

2011-11-11T19:14:00.001-08:00

Speaking of my twin, I'm having a lazy blogging day, but my twin (Charles) posted this video on Facebook the other day, and it gave me a chuckle. Enjoy. (Don't freak out if you can't understand the commentary since it's in Spanish. The video is self-explanatory.)

The Weirdest Children's Book Ever

2011-11-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

Last week when we were at the doctor's office for a checkup, Jim was sitting next to me reading a book to Lily (I was looking at books with Goo), when he read something that caught my attention. What proceeded from there was the realization that he was reading The Weirdest Children's Book Ever.

But let me back up.

I need to say something about racism real quick. (Yes, racism... I told you it was weird.)

Ok, so I'm pretty sensitive to racism. One of my pet peeves is when people are telling a story and they make a point to tell you what race the person is. With some stories, it's pretty important to indicate the person's race. For example, if I were to tell you about my "twin" (who is a guy who I met in college who shares my birthday), the joke that he's my "twin" becomes more funny when I tell you that he's a black guy. That would be quite the genetic anomaly. However, what infuriates me is when people are telling some kind of negative story and they just have to tell you that the person was black or Mexican as if to say "when I tell you their race, that will explain everything about their behavior." That bothers me.

I was also infuriated by the people who opposed having a Black Student Union in college (which at our school was a Minority Student Union) because their argument was, "If they want to be treated the same, then why do they want to segregate off and have their own club?" Ok, so if you've ever said something like that, let me explain something to you. People of all races should be treated with respect and dignity and given equal opportunity at education and jobs etc. BUT it is OK for people to be different and act different and to have different cultures and traditions and to celebrate those cultures and traditions. So if people want to form a club of like-minded or like-cultured or like-backgrounded folks, then A-ok! You shouldn't have to act "white" to be treated well.

Aaaaand I'm off my soap box.

Suffice to say that I am all about celebrating differences in cultures and races and I certainly don't want to homogenize the world. Oh, and it's OK to point out someone's race in reference to their physical appearance (because if you're trying to describe what someone looks like, race is kind of a biggie). But I am also sensitive to when race is pointed out in a negative way, or a way the stereotypes people.

So here's what it was that caught my attention in the book I was reading. I heard Jim say the phrase, "Probably he spoke Spanish." My head whipped around. "What did you say!?" Of course I would have never dreamed that the book said something like that, and I thought my sweet husband was making some kind of racist joke about seasonal laborers, and passing it along to our three-year-old daughter! (Not at all like him, by the way.) But he laughed and pointed, "I was just reading the book!"

Sure enough, I looked at the page he was reading and the book was teaching kids that people who work in the fields are likely to be Spanish-speakers. Read for yourself:

So now I was torn. Is this kind of an "It takes a village" book where it's trying to point out all the different kinds of people it takes to bring oranges to your table? Or was it just plain stereotyping? But the book didn't stop there. We read on and found out that orange pickers usually speak Creole. Who knew!?

Truck drivers, on the other hand, speak English. But we all knew that, right? (My experience working at a truck stop for a summer would argue that the sentence should read, "Probably he spoke Eastern European of some sort.")
And for some reason the most offensive to me of all was the Korean shop owner. Not that I'm offended by Korean shop owners. They can be Korean. But I didn't know that stereotype until I was an adult.... probably because I didn't have a book about oranges to teach me all the proper racial stereotypes.
Oh, and if you want to avoid (or hey, rush right out and buy) this book, here is the cover.

So there you have it. We read this whole book to Lily and indoctrinated her on the proper stereotypes. I don't know how it would fit into a story about oranges, but they left out Asians and black people and Indians and the FRENCH! I mean, if you're going to write a book about racial stereotypes, let's not be choosy!

(Oh, aside from the weird racial references, the book also went into excruciating detail about the orange industry. It truly was The Weirdest Children's Book Ever.)

(P.S. When I was at the McDonalds in the airport in Denver, most of the workers were from some Latin American/Caribbean country. Maybe Jamaica, maybe Belize, maybe Haiti. I wasn't sure. But I told Jim that "probably they spoke Creole." Because now it's a Thing.)

Cheeseburger Paradise Soup

2011-11-09T06:53:00.000-08:00

We've found a winner, folks! I tried another new recipe from my Taste of Home Soup magazine last night, and it was a definite keeper. In fact, I believe it was the only soup that Jim has ever raved about at first taste. He's liked plenty of soups, and grown to like some soups quite a lot, but this one was an instant classic. And lucky you, since I have to blog every day in November, I'm going to share the recipe!

Cheeseburger Paradise Soup (you must listen to Jimmy Buffett while preparing this soup)

6 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 small carrot, grated
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
2 Tbsp. chopped seeded jalapeno pepper**
3 cups water
2 Tbsp. plus 2 tsp. beef bouillon granules
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 tsp. pepper

2lb ground beef
1/2 pound sliced fresh mushrooms
2 Tbsp. butter
5 cups milk, divided
6 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 package (16 oz) processed cheese (Velveeta), cubed

*In a Dutch oven, combine the first nine ingredients; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until potatoes are tender.

*Meanwhile, in a large skillet, cook beef and mushrooms in butter over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Add to soup. Stir in 4 cups milk; heat through.

*In a small bowl, combine flour and remaining milk until smooth; gradually stir into soup. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened. Reduce heat; stir in cheese until melted. Garnish with bacon.

Yield: 14 servings, 370 calories per serving

This soup is so creamy and yummy, it seriously does taste like eating a gourmet hamburger. It has a nice mushroom-y flavor, too, which I love. Cheesy, hearty, delicious. Yes, this is a seriously fantastic soup. Try it soon!!

**Note: We didn't add the jalapenos. Jim and I are kind of wussy when it comes to spice, so I wanted to try the recipe w/o the peppers in case it ended up spicy and tainted the whole experience.

Big Sisters

2011-11-08T08:04:00.000-08:00

I'm a little scared for Clementine. Don't worry, I'm perfectly healthy and have no worries about the pregnancy, but I'm scared for when she comes out and has two eager big sisters waiting to tend to her every need, real or imagined.

Yesterday I drove down to Moscow to meet my friend, Ashli, for lunch. Ashli moved to San Antonio in August, and now has an adorable six week old baby. She was visiting her family in the great Northwest and made some time to have lunch with me, and I got to meet sweet little Bethany. Well, while we were having lunch at the Breakfast Club, Ashli made a trip to the bathroom and I got to hold little Bethany. I didn't have her for 2 seconds before I was swarmed by two little girls who loooove babies. Maybe they love babies a little too much.

Lily is very sweet and gentle, if not a wee bit smothering. She wants to hug and kiss and hold babies, and likes to interpret every move and sigh. "She wants this! She needs that! Why don't you do this! She needs a hug! She loves my kisses! Can I do that for her?" And so on.

Goo, on the other hand, is not quite so sophisticated in her love of babies. Remember, this is the girl who would flock to Lily's collection of baby dolls from the time she was barely mobile. So Goo was equally as excited to hug and kiss and cuddle baby Bethany, but her excitement couldn't be contained into such structured actions, and it would also leak out in the form of "pats", which are really more like "hits," no matter her intentions. She also likes to closely examine faces (i.e. open eyes, insert fingers into mouths and ears etc.). Babies don't usually appreciate that kind of affection. The culmination of all her adoration ended in her pulling the pacifier from her own mouth, and attempting to "share" it with baby Bethany. You know, shove it into the sleeping baby's mouth. Did I mention Bethany was sleeping during all this. Well, she was until the pacifier incident.

About that time Ashli returned and I gave the sweet girl back to her Mama because I had my own baby-frenzied hoard to try and control.

I know that I've got about four months to work on imparting the meaning of the word "gentle" on my brown-eyed baby, and I've got my work cut out for me. Either that, or I'm going to have to keep Clementine out of the reach of toddlers for a long long time. Wish me luck!

Jim For Christmas

2011-11-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

Some of you out there like to have ideas and lists when you do your Christmas shopping. Others of you just like to go with the flow and find a great gift without referring to a boring old list. For those list people out there who are thinking of getting Jim a Christmas present, I have an idea.

I don't really know what your budget is, but if it's somewhere around $80,000, then I recommend getting him THIS.

Pssst... he'd love you forever.

Oklahoma!

2011-11-06T15:09:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Oklahoma! Thanks to my wonderful husband for picking up the blogging slack while I was gone. He's sweet, isn't he? Yup, he is.

My trip to Oklahoma was extremely fun and extreeeeemely exhausting. Here's a recap:

I arrived Thursday night. Shyla met me at the airport, and took me immediately to Ted's Cafe Escondido, where we met Clay as well as my aunt Wanda and uncle Don. Fun times and yummy food!

Friday morning I woke up and met my friend Brie at Panera Bread for breakfast. We sat and talked and ate our bagels and drank our coffee (or diet Pepsi, in her case) and when I looked down at my watch, it was 11:45 and I realized I needed to figure out where I was meeting Tamara for lunch. Those three hours just flew by! So Tamara and I decided to meet for lunch at Pei Wei, followed by a bit of shopping for souvenirs for the girls, and then a shake at Braums. Those four and a half hours also flew by, and I headed back to Shyla and Clay's house for dinner. Around 8:00, my aunt Ellen arrived! She was driving up to Kansas to watch my cousin, Parker, wrestle and decided to stay for the night in OKC! So we stayed up talking until 1am, which was very fun.

Saturday morning I rolled out of bed, extremely groggy, but determined to make it to at least one homecoming event (Homecoming was my excuse for coming to OKC, after all). I found out I'd slept through a 4.7 magnitude earthquake that night. Cool! So I drove to OC and saw my Vienna friends at the International Studies breakfast. There were about 10 of us there, and it was really fun to catch up. After that, Tamara met me and we toured the new Honors dorm (I was in the Honors program in college, so I was interested in seeing the new Nerd Dorm). Then we walked around campus and saw all the cool new stuff that had been added since I'd left, including a new Science building. Jealous! After that, we had several hours to kill, so we had lunch and walked around the mall and went to Starbucks and talked and talked and talked and talked and... well you get the idea.

Here are the Vienna folks who are cool enough to come to Homecoming. :) Starting in the back, it's Matt Stansberry, Dr. Maple (our sponsor), Jay Evans, Ben Tinius, then there's me, Bonnie (Mayes) Gatewood, Shelley (Prather) Doremus, Crislyn (Baird) Ward, Jamie (Ross) Reed, and Jana (Goin) McGilvray.

Here we are in front of the new science building. I forgot my camera, so this is the only picture I took from the weekend. Clay took a picture of Shyla and I, and someone took a picture of the Vienna group (pictured above).

Saturday night was Girls' Night Out! I met about 16 or so college friends at On The Border. Most of them were girls I'd known from club (Beta Beta Sigma!), but there were a handful of non-Beta girls. Ok, really there were two. (Hey Monika and Lisa!) Oh, speaking of Lisa, I got to see one of my high school (like high school in Wyoming) friends, Lisa Gruber. She lives in Guthrie now and drove into Edmond for dinner. It was super exciting to get to see her! It was really fun to see everyone and to laugh and have dinner together.

After dinner, we went to our friends, Mitch and Emily's, house. I think Mitch was pretty bummed that Jim wasn't along for the trip, but I was grateful to Emily for opening up their home. Seven of us, along with three babies, ended up being able to make it to Emily's house and we laughed and chatted for a few hours. It was nearly 11:00 and we were all getting ready to call it a night and were milling around the kitchen, when a strange thing happened. It sounded like there was a train in the backyard going by, and the whole house began to shake. I did a quick mental check, and there aren't any train tracks near their house, and I said, "Um guys, is this an earthquake that is happening right now?" Everyone stopped talking to pay attention, and about that time the shaking picked up, and their whole house was bouncing and rattling. I said, "Should we move into a doorway or something?" So most of us went to a doorway and we just kind of stood their looking at each other in disbelief while the house continued to rattle and shake and sway. It was pretty surreal. When it finally stopped, we stayed where we were for a couple of minutes, maybe a little shocked. It turns out that it was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake, which was the strongest earthquake in Oklahoma history. My friend who lives in Springdale, Arkansas even felt it!

So to sum up, I talked a lot and the earth moved. All in all I had a fun and tiring trip to Oklahoma, and am so thankful to all my friends there who made it special for me. I'm also thankful for my wonderful husband who held down the fort while I was gone. It was awesome to see Jim and my sweet little baby girls when I got home. There's no place like it!

Hey! Here's the picture of Shyla and I. You should have seen the sultry version... :)

My Dirty Little Secret

2011-11-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

With Alyson still gallivanting about in Oklahoma, Day #2 of daddy and the girls started out harmless enough. I made waffles with chocolate chips and even let the girls eat in the living room while watching Saturday morning cartoons (Lily watched cartoons, Grace wandered around aimlessly with two little dogs close behind).

But then it happened. I gave in to one of my few vices... I rearranged the furniture! "It's for the girls' sake," I told myself. And they did seem to enjoy it.

But during their afternoon nap, I was left with a dilemma. Should I do the right thing and just slide the one couch back into place, or do I do the fun thing?!? "Alyson will never know. It'll all be back to normal before she gets home." So I rearranged to what I'll call Option #1:

It was surprisingly functional, but then things just got weird with Option #2 (which turned out to be not much of an option):

So of course, I put everything back in it's previous place and the phrase "You don't know what you've got until it's gone," came to mind.

And there you have it. You now know that I have a strong desire to rearrange furniture, but sadly, you also know that I have no future in interior decorating. I suppose I'll stick with this engineering thing.

Speaking of "You don't know what you've got until it's gone," Alyson is coming home tomorrow! Thank goodness.

Guest Blogger: Mr. Mom

2011-11-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to pretend that I'm even half the blogger that my wonderful wife is, so I'll try to make this short and sweet...

All things considered, today was rather successful: Alyson was able to visit with friends and family in Oklahoma and the girls survived a day of leftovers, pizza, and no afternoon nap. In fact, I found that the combination of no afternoon nap and dinner at Chuck E. Cheese's makes for a very easy and early bedtime!

And now for the gratuitous cuteness. Lily was feeling crafty this morning, and thanks to Grandma Lala we just happened to have some craft projects laying around. First she tried her hand at stenciling.

Then she busted out the stained glass-esque painting.

After painting her 10 plagues booklet from Bible class, it was on to random, around the house picture-taking. As a bit of an aside, I really wish we had a good, cheap (oxymoron, I know) camera for Lily to take pictures with, but she loves it so much that I just hand over our Canon point-and-shoot and hope for the best. Today I taught her to push the button ALL THE WAY DOWN, and not just push it a little bit and let go. I could almost hear the auto-focus mechanism crying out in pain. Anyway, the camera appears to be fine and Lily ended up taking 49 nuggets of photographic gold. I'll leave you with a few of my favorites.

In Lily's own words, "I took a picture of a picture."

Don't worry, I was wearing clothing from the knees up. I just wanted to post this picture to prove to Alyson that I was standing in front of the kitchen sink at some point today.

And this is a self-portrait. She has apparently inherited her mother's knack for turning the camera around and taking a picture of yourself. What a cutie!
Okay, my YouTube video just finished uploading, but I apparently am not as technologically advanced as I would like to think because I can't figure out how to embed the video. So you'll just have to go HERE. If you haven't met our girls before, they're silly and Lily likes to talk.

Wish me luck for Day #2 of Mr. Mom!

OKC Bound

2011-11-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it. I wrote this blog on Wednesday and did a delayed time stamp so it would post Thursday morning.

But I have a good reason.

At 8:00am (right about now) I'm arriving at my friend, Brenda's, house. She is going to drive me to the airport, and then I'm going to kiss my sweet little munchkins about a million times and get on an airplane by myself and go to OKC for the weekend. Meanwhile, Brenda is going to watch my sweet little girls all day, and then Jim is going to take off work and stay with them for the weekend.

Why am I going to OKC? Well, when we got our tax refund, we both set aside a little mad money. I said that with mine I would like to go on a little trip by myself to visit a girlfriend or something. Months went by and well-priced tickets were nowhere to be found, so I just didn't think it was going to happen.

But then I got a flyer in the mail for OC's Homecoming, the theme of which had to do with International Studies Reunion. Normally I throw those things away because there's no chance I'll be in Oklahoma for homecoming. But this one I put on the fridge. It would be so much fun to go, and I hadn't seen my Oklahoma friends in a long time! Then I got an email from a fellow Vienna Studies participant who was reminding us and inviting us to the reunion breakfast at Homecoming.

So I started looking at ticket prices.

Much to my surprise, I found a great price for that weekend, and an itinerary that worked so well that I would even make it back in time for our Dynamic Marriage class on Sunday night.

I called Jim, and my wonderful and ever-supportive husband said, "BOOK IT! We'll figure out the details later."

So I did.

So I'm going to Oklahoma this weekend!

I'm super duper excited and I'm going to get to see my sister and a whole ton of my college friends. I've even planned a girls' night out on Saturday night!

I am also a little anxious, though. The only night I've ever spent away from Lily was the night I had Goo, and the longest I've ever been away from Goo is long enough to go skiing for the day.

Yesterday I told Lily about my vacation and she got a little teary-eyed. I think when the time comes, she won't be so emotional, and she'll have so much fun with her Daddy that she'll barely miss me. But I'll miss her!

I probably already do. Since by the time you're reading this, I'm on my way.

But that's ok! It will be a fun weekend to get to see people and not have to worry about nap times and snacks and who has eaten enough dinner.

So I'll see you all in OKC!

NaBloPoMo

2011-11-02T07:41:00.001-07:00

Today while I was eating breakfast, I realized that November is National Blog Posting Month, and I forgot to sign up at NaBloPoMo! Luckily I blogged about Halloween yesterday, so I figured I was still eligible and I headed off to the site to sign up.

That site has been abducted by aliens. It used to be a little homey site where they gave out hand-knit prizes for those who completed the NaBloPoMo challenge. Now it's full of corporate sponsors and promotions. I couldn't even figure out where to join the blogroll for November. So I gave up.

Don't worry I'll still challenge my own self to blog every day in November, but without the hope of winning a gift certificate or some homemade craft from a fellow blogger.

So to start NaBloPoMo off with a bang, here is a video of Lily "reading" a book. She's not really reading, of course, but she has it memorized and thinks it's totally hilarious. Enjoy.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Halloween, of course, which meant we were at the church building for our annual Trunk or Treat. We had a fun time and there was a good turn out of people from the community. The weather even cooperated! It was cold, but it didn't rain, which was a big plus!

The Kleins didn't exactly coordinate. I was Dr. Frankentstein and Jim was my monster. Goo was an elephant and Lily was an x-ray skeleton.
Amazingly enough, Goo left the mask on all night.
Jim handing out candy, and Lily munching on a hot dog.
Our cute little elephant. Most people thought she was a mouse or a bunny rabbit. I think the tusks and trunk were lost on most people. (P.S. I think that smirk means "Daddy gave me an M&M!")

I was rather amazed at how quickly Goo figured out trick or treating. It seems like when Lily was about this age for Halloween, she was a little overwhelmed by the whole thing and we had to do a little more convincing to get her to go around. But after, oh about the first car, Goo had it down pat and whenever she saw a bowl of candy she'd walk right up and take a piece.

Lily doing the beanbag toss.
Lily and Grace spent quite a bit of time at the bubble station.

Lily did a good job with the donut on a string game. Once I told her to go from underneath it, she was in business!
Lily in action.

With a little aiming help from Mommy, Lily did a good job squirting out the candle.
All Goo wanted in the world was to toss the beanbags. Finally there was a break in the beanbag traffic, and she had a ball.

To keep warm, a few kids piled into the Swaim's trunk. Looks crowded, but the kids loved it and said it was nice and warm!
X

Siemers Farm

2011-10-30T13:11:00.000-07:00

This weekend the weather was absolutely beautiful, and we were glad because we'd planned to go to Greenbluff and take the girls to a farm or two. My cousin, Landon, who is in grad school in Moscow came up Saturday morning, and we headed out to Greenbluff and went to Siemers Farm. It was the perfect day for some harvest fun! It was sunny and cool and clear, and Siemers was great! They had a giant corn maze where you actually got lost (even though you could see where you needed to go, you just couldn't get there!), pedal go-carts, train rides, a treasure hunt, pumpkin donuts, and a giant slide. We hit all the attractions, and two little girls fell asleep on the way home.

So without further ado, here are our pictures from Siemers Farm!

First of all, before we left, Lily had to show off her "new" corduroy and sweater jacket that she got from the MOPS sale. Cute!
Goo decided that popcorn leftover from the night before was alright with her, and she climbed right up on the coffee table and had a bowl of it.

Once we got to Siemers, the first stop in the corn maze was the pirate ship where Lily got to climb up, slide down, and play around.
The ramp was fun and scary!
Lily and I were steering the ship. You can see the castle in the background, which is right in the middle of the maze, and is the goal of the expedition.
Lily at the Safari zoo.
Family picture in the corn.
They had several things along the way where you'd come to a dead end and they'd have a prop like this. There were also a few alligators, as well as a giant mouse trap...
Lily was terribly frightened of the mouse trap and didn't want to let any of us stand on it.

After going through the corn for at least 45 minutes, we finally made it to the castle! Woo hoo!
See, they have the corn, and then you leave the corn and you're in the hedge maze and you think you're so close to the castle, but then they make you go back in the corn a few times before you actually get to the castle. They're tricky!
Some of the hedge maze, and the corn maze.
Goo got a free ride for the whole maze!
Lily got to be the queen.

Next was the train, which the girls thoroughly enjoyed.
Goo was pretty excited!
Two cute girls.
Landon bravely sat next to the girls for the ride. Luckily neither one tried to bail out on him!
The next stop was the giant blow-up slide. We had 4 tickets, and since pregnant ladies couldn't go and Landon didn't want to go, Jim and Lily both got to go twice!
On their second ride I was able to get good pictures of them coming down. Lily loved it.
And I think Jim enjoyed it a little more than he should have. He claimed he was going to "help Lily" but we all know it was just really fun!
Jim and Landon set out on a pedal car race.
I think Jim got the fast one, or his Thunder Thighs served him well, because he blew past Landon.
I took Lily for a spin on the pink cart. Her feet couldn't reach the pedals, so she just got to sit there while I did the work. Boy was that tiring!! (but she loved it)
Whheeeee!!!
Look at me go!!!

I told Goo to point to a pumpkin, which she did...
...and then she decided to give the pumpkin a big old smooch.

Lily in the pumpkin patch.

All in all it was a very fun day! We will definitely be going back and visiting other farms at Greenbluff in the future. It was also fun to have Landon there and to get to visit and hang out in a fun Fall atmosphere.

Lactose Intolerance?

2011-10-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of weeks I've been suffering from off and on bouts of stomach discomfort ("discomfort" is putting it very mildly, and leaving out all kinds of gory details). I've mainly been attributing it to pregnancy and residual effects of the stomach bug we had a few weeks ago. No big deal. But all day Saturday I was just miserable, and then I'd feel better, and then I was miserable again. I felt slightly better on Sunday, better Monday, but then again Tuesday I felt yucky most of the day, and all Wednesday morning I felt really bad.

It was Wednesday morning that a thought occurred to me. You know when you're sick and you're trying to think of every possible thing that could have caused it? You go over in your head every bite of food that's entered your mouth, and wonder about it's content and expiration date. Well, I came to several conclusions. One conclusion was that I felt worse after I ate. I would feel ok, then I'd eat something, and then I'd feel really sick for a few hours. The other conclusion was that I eat a lot of dairy. Milk, cheese, butter, chocolate etc.

So I got to thinking. What if I have a milk sensitivity of some kind? It wouldn't be unheard of. I've actually told people for years that I'm, "allergic to milk or lactose intolerant or something..." not because I've ever had any diagnosis, but because when I drink a big glass of milk, I feel a little yucky. Which is pretty much why I don't drink milk. That and the fact that milk is disgusting. But it was never even that serious of a stomach ache when I did drink milk, and no other dairy products gave me any problems, so for me it was pretty much a non-issue. Just a good excuse not to drink milk. (shudder)

Anyway, I decided to cut out lactose for the rest of the day and see how I felt. And guess what? So far I feel fine. About 4 hours after I ate my milk-laden breakfast on Wednesday (shortly after which I felt horrible and even called Jim crying), I started to feel like I wasn't going to die and since then I've felt normal.

So here's my plan. I'm going to stay lactose free for a yet-to-be-determined amount of time (a few days, a week?). If I continue to feel fine, I'm going to go to the doctor and get tested for lactose intolerance. I want to get tested because I don't want to give up dairy if it's not necessary. Plus, the test is just an 8 hour fast, then you blow into something, the you drink a bunch of lactose and blow into the thing again. No biggie. If my stomach ache returns while I'm lactose free, then it'll be back to the drawing board.

I've only been living lactose free for about a day now, but I've already learned a few things.

1. Milk is in some surprising places, like sliced bread. I may have to start baking my own sandwich bread.

2. Lactose isn't in some places you'd think it would be. Like cheese. That's right, most aged cheeses don't contain lactose. 98% of lactose is removed when they drain off the whey, and the remaining 2% is digested by bacteria in the aging process. Soft cheeses like mozzarella do still have lactose. An easy way to check for lactose is to check the label. If the sugar content is 0, then it should be lactose free. But be warned; occasionally the sugar content is low enough that they don't have to put it on the label, but it may possibly have enough lactose still in it to upset the particularly sensitive stomach. Also, if you have a milk allergy or can't have milk protein like casein, you probably still can't have cheese. Sorry.

3. Yogurt usually does have lactose, but if you make it yourself, you can "cook" it long enough to give the bacteria plenty of time to digest the sugar and make it lactose free. I've only made yogurt once (in Microbiology lab in college) but it was pretty fun. Maybe I'll have to try it again.

4. Mayo doesn't have milk. Didn't know that.

5. Halloween is a terrible time to go lactose free. All that chocolate.... mmmmmm

6. Ever since about 7:30am on Wednesday when I decided to go lactose free, all I could think about was a DQ Blizzard.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on my gastrointestinal goings on. I'm sure you can't wait for the next installment!

J

2011-10-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is talking about something or using a word, and you're afraid to ask what it means because you don't want to look dumb. Then life goes on and you keep hearing this word everywhere and from everyone, and now you really really really are afraid to ask anyone because you're sure your the only person on the planet who doesn't know what it means. (And for some unknown reason, it doesn't occur to you to Google the silly thing.)

Yeah well me too.

Mine is a J. That's right, the letter J. Ok stop laughing, I know what the letter J means, except in this one situation. Over the last few years, I've had a few friends and acquaintances who will email me, and their emails are sprinkled with random letter J's. Like so:

Of course the one time the hotel has a pool, I forget my swim suit. J

Or

We'll be friends until we're old and gray, then we'll be new friends! J

I saw this time after time, and at first I thought maybe it meant "joking" or "just kidding" but it didn't really occur when they were joking or just kidding, but usually it was when they were saying something humorous or good-natured. I figured everyone else in the world knew what it meant, and it would be like asking what LOL meant. I considered sprinkling my emails with my own J's, but I didn't want to put them in the wrong place. Like the story of the lady who thought LOL meant "lots of love" and wrote her daughter an email that said, "Grandma died today, LOL." I didn't want to be that person. So I decided to leave the J's up to the J experts.

Well I'm happy to report that it finally did occur to me today to Google the mysterious J, and what I found out was totally silly!

Does everyone remember the font Wingdings? You know, the one where every letter is represented by a symbol? Yeah? So in Wingdings, the symbol for the letter J is a smiley face. Microsoft Outlooks happens to know this, and if you type your email through Outlook and you type a little smiley face :) it will say, "Hey you typed a smiley face, don't you mean LETTER J!!" and it will change your smiley face into the capitol letter J!

So over the years, I've just had super happy friends who sprinkle their emails with smiley faces, and through the magic of cyber-space, here I sit at home, scratching my head, wondering, "J?"

Cereal Bars on the Stairs

2011-10-25T06:26:00.000-07:00

When Lily was little, about the age Goo is now, we had a little tradition. She took a 9:00 nap, so just before her nap I'd get out a cereal bar and her sippy cup and we'd sit on the bottom stair and I'd feed her bites of her cereal bar. Sometimes she'd sit next to me, and sometimes she'd run around the room and only return to me when her mouth was empty, but we'd sit there and she'd eat her cereal bar and when it was gone, she took a nap. (It took Lily quite a while to build up to eating a whole cereal bar. She's never been a big eater.)

I recently bought those cereal bars again, this time for Goo, and started up the bottom stair cereal bar tradition. I'd done it a handful of times, and not on consecutive days, but apparently Goo takes to routine very well. At least routines involving food. The other day it was time for her 9:00 nap, and I asked if she wanted a snack. She toddled into the kitchen to the cabinet where the cereal bars are kept, and started doing her "more" sign. (To Goo, "more" often means "I want this".) So I went and got out a cereal bar, and as soon as she saw it, she high-tailed it for the bottom stair, sat right down and waited for me.

The other half of her tradition is that when we get to the last bite, I hand her the wrapper and she goes and puts it in the trash can and claps for herself. She's a helper!

Last night we had enchiladas for dinner, and while they are quite delicious, Goo didn't eat any of it. Neither of my girls are big fans of Mexican food for some reason. Lily is at an age where we can just make her eat whatever we're having for dinner, but that just doesn't work for a 15 month old. So Goo went hungry.

But of course I felt bad for her. So right before bed time I let her have a cereal bar on the stairs. She ate the last bite and went and threw the wrapper away, and then do you know what that stinker did? She went over to the cabinet and did her "more" sign. As in "more cereal bar please!" I guess I'm a sucker for those big brown eyes, so I let her have another cereal bar, and she ate it right up.

Then she slept happily through the night, dreaming about cereal bars on the stairs.

These Jammies In History

2011-10-24T06:43:00.000-07:00

Marveling at how different Lily and Grace are really never gets old. This weekend I spent some time transitioning the girls' clothing; switching out clothing they'd outgrown, and finding warm clothes for the cooler weather. I actually came across quite a bit Lily's old 18month clothes, which is Goo's current size, including Lily's second Christmas pajamas. I love these pajamas! It's so cute to see a tiny little toddler in button up flannel pajamas!

So here's the deal. They're size 18months and Lily got them for Christmas when she was 21 months old, and they were HUGE on her. Not just super long, but big around the waist as well. Of course they fit Goo (who is 15 months old; a full 6 months younger than Lily was when she wore them) perfectly (still a little long, though).

Here's Lilypie in the Christmas Pajamas. She looks so little!
Playing with her golf clubs.

Madison was a baby too!
And now it's Goo's turn to wear the cute little owl pajamas!
What a cutie pie!
Do you want to know how I got her to smile? I had an oven mitt that I was "getting" her with and saying, "nom nom nom!" Works every time. :)

Bonus pic! Here is Lily right after her soccer game holding her trophy, complete with frosting mustache from her celebratory cupcake. Oh, and she wanted to wear her picture button all day.

This N That

2011-10-22T12:18:00.001-07:00

The other day Lily wanted me to put on her mermaid dress, so I did. Then Goo went over to the dress-up bin and grabbed a fairy dress and came over to me, held it up, and said, "uh uh uh uh!" which of course means, "put this on me!" So I did. We had a couple of princesses running around that afternoon.

Or sitting in laundry baskets.
And standing in them.
Lily was folding herself up like a taco.
What pretty princesses!

Grace has been talking more and more lately. She will often (ya know, when she's in the mood) repeat any word I ask her to say. Also, she'll often laugh at me and run away when I ask he to say something. This last week her two most notable new words were "cookie" and "purple." She knows the important things in life.

Here she is saying "cookie." Unfortunately she had her straw in her mouth at the time, but you get the idea.

Goo kept pointing to my socks and so I told her that they were purple, and she said "purple." Or really it was "puh-puh" but close enough! She also pointed to the pillow that was sitting there and said "puh-puh", and the pillow happened to be purple. Does she get it, or is everything puh-puh now? I dunno!

This weekend was the biannual MOPS consignment sale, and I made out like a bandit. I usually buy the bulk of Lily's wardrobe at the consignment sale, and then supplement it wherever needed. There is always tons of really nice high quality clothing for very cheap. Pictured below are 57 items (and a stack of books count as one item) and I paid $128.05 for all of it. That's an average of about $2.24 per item. Not bad! I got Lily a few more pairs of 3T pants and a couple of 3T dresses, but mostly I got 4T pants, shirts, and dresses for later this year and next year. I also got 3 coats in sizes 3T, 4T, and 5 for the next few years. I also let the girls pick out one toy each. Goo picked the tea set and Lily picked the house. Oh, and check out the adorable galoshes they both got. Perfect for our rainy fall weather!

Lily had her last soccer game of the season today. She said her head hurt and she didn't want to play. When she got home, she went and laid down for about an hour. I hope she's not getting sick! Anyway, she got a trophy from the team sponsor, and it's pretty much the coolest trophy ever. It's a bobble head! We also got her team pictures, but since I'm sending out copies to a few family members, I'm not going to post them on here yet. I want them to be a surprise! :)

This weekend we'd planned on going to Greenbluff and having some Fall Fun in the corn mazes and pumpkin patches. Unfortunately it's raining cats and dogs, so we'll just hope the weather is better next weekend and go then.

Three Girls

2011-10-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like we're going to be a family of girls. I kind of regret all that gender-neutral baby stuff I bought. I could have gone for the PINK. Bah!

So now the question is; if we have a 4th child (which we've always said we wanted 4, but we'll see how 3 goes) do we want a boy or a girl? I've always wanted to have both genders, but if our 4th were a boy, he wouldn't have a brother, which is kind of sad. Also, can a boy turn out normal when he has 3 older sisters? It will be like having 3 extra Moms. Well, luckily it's not up to us at all, and if we decide (or God decides for us) to have a 4th child, it will be what it is. Boy or girl.

I do have to admit that I'm super excited that I don't have to paint the nursery. It took me a lot of time and effort to get those pink and green circles up there, and if Clementine had been a boy, well he may have just had to grow up in a pink and green nursery.

Also, with all these girls, do you think Jane Austen will write a novel about our family?

SB Ultrasound

2011-10-19T12:38:00.000-07:00

We had our ultrasound today! Our appointment was at 8:00am, so my sweet friend, Tabby, offered to watch the girls while we went and had it done, which worked out perfectly since her house is right on the way to the doctor's office!

So I know you are all dying to know if SB is SBB or SBG (Surprise Baby Boy or Surprise Baby Girl). Well, I guess since we make such stinkin' cute girls, God let us do it again because SB is a GIRL!

Here's something I didn't know (and if you're squeamish about names of body parts, just skip this paragraph). I thought that when they determined the gender via ultrasound that they were just looking for a penis or the lack of a penis. Well, that was back in the olden golden days I guess, and the pictures are so good these days that they actually look for a penis for a boy or labia for a girl. If they see nothing, it means that they need to be patient and wait for baby to reveal his or herself. So for all the doubters out there who like to say that they can be wrong, honestly it's probably pretty rare these days to be wrong, at least if you have a good technician, which we did.

They gave us a disc with several pictures on it, so I don't even have to wait to scan in the little photos! Here are the 3D pictures we got!

But first, do you want to know her name?

Let me preface this by saying that we weren't sure for a while if we were going to reveal the name. Lily and Grace were pretty common cute names, and we didn't have much apprehension about people making rude comments. However, the name we have chosen (and love, by the way) for SB is a little bit more unusual, and we thought that we might save ourselves the annoyance of comments from the Peanut Gallery if we kept it to ourselves until the baby was born. But in grand Jim and Alyson fashion, we can't wait because we do love the name so much and we want to start calling her by her name now.

So I'm going to tell you.

Her name will be Clementine Sue Ellen Klein. A mouthful, but we love it. It flows. Clementine is just an unusual-ish, but old-fashioned-y name that we both love. Sue Ellen was my Grandma Sue's name and since SB was conceived 4 days before Gma Sue passed away, we wanted to name SB after her if she was a girl. (If SB was a boy, we decided against a Boy Named Sue.) :)

Anyway, so here are a few pictures of our little Clementine.

This is the most direct one of her face, but it's not a great shot.
Most of the time she had her little hand up by her face. I think she was sleepy. It looked kind of like she was rubbing her eyes.
But we caught her squirming and for a minute her hand was away from her face and we got a pretty good profile shot. You can see in this one and the previous one that her little legs are crossed, which is super cute.

The technician measured everything and said she looks perfect and healthy! We're so excited to have a healthy baby girl on the way!

Lily Reading and Goo Playing

2011-10-18T06:36:00.000-07:00

OK, Lily doesn't actually know how to read, per se, but apparently she's working on memorizing a few of her favorite books. Last night I was busy fixing dinner and I asked Lily to play with Goo and keep her occupied for a while. So Goo brought Lily a book and sat on her lap (like she does to us all the time) and Lily proceeded to turn the pages and "read" her the book. The book was "Dinosaurs Love Underpants" and I was so impressed by how many phrases she remembered from the book, that I had her start over so I could film her. If you've never read the book, it might not seem all that impressive. But for those of us who've read it a thousand times, we know that she knows exactly what phrases and what part of the story goes on each page. Super cute! Oh, and then at the end Grace rips one of the pages in Animalia. I guess that's why they invented Scotch Tape.

Later yesterday evening, after dinner, Goo discovered a fun game. At first she was just throwing the ball down the stairs and laughing, and then we'd have to go get it for her. But then we had the bright idea of having Lily stay down there and throw it back up, and that was fun for both girls! So here is Goo chasing after the ball and throwing it downstairs. I also love that you can hear Lily encouraging Goo and calling her "sweetheart" and such. What a great sister!

BANG!

2011-10-14T07:09:00.000-07:00

Last night we gave the girls a bath, and we were playing and reading books after bath time. Of course I hadn't done Goo's hair because she'd just be going to bed in a few minutes, and I realized how much her hair got on my nerves. Don't get me wrong, I love her adorable hair, but the front part of it is always in her face, so I have to put it up in ponytails. Then she tears out the ponytail during nap time and we end up repeating the process several times a day. But with her hair newly washed and smooth, I saw how it grew straight forward and realized how easy it would be to just cut bangs and get it all out of her face. So I did. I fought tooth and nail against cutting bangs with Lily because they're hard to maintain and hard to grow out, but it just seemed like Goo really needed bangs. So we went into our bathroom, and Snip Snip!

They turned out absolutely adorable. Could this kid be any cuter?
Have I mentioned how much I love Goo's curly hair. I love love love love it. Beautiful soft curls in back. So sweet.
I think she likes having the hair out of her face!
Lily wanted me to take a picture of her too. I'd just put neosporin on her scratch, but it's healing well and she doesn't mess with it, which is great. What a pretty girl!

Here is a bonus video I took of Goo talking yesterday. Of course when I took the video, I forgot to ask her about the words she actually knows (they just flew out of my head). But I did ask her to say "yes" and "no" which I'd never heard her say before, but I gave it a shot. As it turns out, "yes" and "no" were two of her clearest words. Who knew!?

Crash and Burn

2011-10-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Last night Lily had a run-in with our fireplace. We've had two kids who've learned to walk in our house and have never had a major fireplace incident until now. Well, it's not all that major, but it's by far the worst we've had and it was pretty scary. I didn't actually see it happen, but I'm pretty sure what happened was that Lily was running toward the fire place being silly, and she tripped and smacked her face on the edge of the stone. She screamed and cried and you'd have thought she was dying, but she ended up coming away with a pretty good scratch, and not even much of a bruise. Neither Jim nor I bruise easily, which is really disappointing when you hurt yourself and you at least want a nasty bruise so that people will feel sorry for you.

Anyway, I took pictures to show off her scrape.

This was last night. It looked more bruised in person, and we were pretty sure she'd end up with a black eye.
But this morning most of what looked like bruising had gone away, and she was just left with a decent scrape.
As you can see, she's terribly troubled by her accident.

Visit to Gramby and Geezer's

2011-10-11T06:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I certainly can't blame my lack of blogging entirely on being out of town. The last time I posted was a Monday and that night I got really sick. Around bed time I started throwing up, and only got 45 minutes of sleep that night because I was throwing up every 15 to 30 minutes. Lily also was up throwing up a few times, which my sweet and wonderful husband dealt with for the most part. (I helped where I could, but I'd have to take throw up breaks pretty often.) As it turns out, Goo was sick as well, but we didn't know it until Jim made a disgusting discovery in the morning. Apparently she subscribes to the throw-up-and-go-back-to-sleep method, which always results in a bath first thing in the morning. Jim even joined in the fun on Tuesday afternoon. So Tuesday was sick, Wednesday was recovering, and Thursday we left for Billings. Whew! It was a busy whirlwind week, and we came home last night to a rather messy house because cleaning up was one thing I'd neglected in my sickness and packing whirlwind. Cleaning is on the docket for today.

Anyway, after The Sickness, we had a really fun weekend in Billings with my parents. The girls did well traveling, and the trip went smoothly. So here's a picture recap of our time in Billings.

First of all, one of the first things we did was go to Target because Gramby wanted to get a Halloween costume for Lily. Sigh. For a while, Lily has been telling me she wants to be a ghost or a pirate, so I was interested to see what she'd choose. When we got to Target, the first thing she glommed onto was a Rocket costume. It was a big foam rocket that you put over yourself. Not only was it not that cute, but it was $30, which is entirely too much to spend for a Halloween costume. We tried and tried and tried to direct her to the cute girly costumes but she would have nothing (and I mean nothing) to do with them. Do you know what we walked out of there with? an X-Ray Skeleton costume. Lily loved it and said that everyone would get to see her insides. (That's not exactly how it works, but whatever.) So anyway, now I feel a little bit guilty because our church has a Trunk or Treat which is billed as a safe alternative from Halloween where you're not going to run into the "evil" side of Halloween. I'm on the committee, and here I go making my 3 year old an X-Ray Skeleton. Jim claims that a 3 foot tall X-Ray Skeleton is cute and not scary, but I don't think all kids are quite as fearless as our kids, so I'm not sure. Anyway, we're going to have to make Goo be something super adorable like a chicken to balance out her scary sister. Anyway, we tried the costume on this morning, and Lily loved it.

Luckily, Goo thinks Lily's costume is funny (for the most part).

On Friday afternoon there was a short respite from the rain, so we headed down to feed the ducks, which is something Lily adores. This gray duck was very daring and would come up and take bread right out of our hands.

Yup, Geezer caught a duck. If you don't know my dad, this is classic Bruce Blackketter behavior.

I even caught the magic moment on film (you have to watch to the end).

Goo really didn't know what to do with the whole feeding the ducks thing. She threw bread a few times, but mostly she stood there, paralyzed with either fear or wonder. We're not sure which.
Any ornithologists out there want to tell us what those weird stand-up ducks are? You see the gray one and the brown one next to each other. They were weird, and they look like they should have arms or something.
See, gray duck likes the bread.
The flock waiting for their bread.
This is Dad and Jim (mainly Dad) throwing bread crumbs at me. Can you feel the love?
Lily decided that the ducks in the water were missing out, so she brought the party down to the pond.
Goo was still unimpressed.
When my mom and dad went down to Oklahoma a couple of weeks ago, my aunt Jane sent home a couple of baby dolls for the girls. If you know Goo very well at all, you know her main love in life is a baby doll. She had a great time holding and hugging and playing with the dolls, as well as making us take off and put back on their clothes. Thanks aunt Jane!
Toting around her baby.
Wrestling with her baby.

Chewing on baby's feet.
Where's your belly button?
After you ask about her belly button, she likes to walk around with her shirt in her mouth to show it off.
On Saturday afternoon we decided to get out of the house for a while, so I found a pumpkin farm in the Heights, and we headed over there to pick some pumpkins and do a corn maze and the whole bit. Mom and I both called ahead of time, but they weren't answering their phone, so we just headed over. Thanks to the previous day's deluge, the farm was closed for soggy muddy fields. Sigh. So we did the next best thing and headed to Walmart and got a few pumpkins and a carving kit, and went back home to carve pumpkins.

Geezer decided to give the girls the full pumpkin farm experience, and give them a "hay ride" in the tractor trailer. Lily helped him drive the tractor around front.
Lily loved riding on the tractor with Geezer.

Then she helped him wash it out. This was right before she swung the hose around and soaked herself.
Then it was time for a tractor ride!

Lily loved it, of course, but Goo didn't really know what to think of the whole thing.

At least she was chilling out and not trying to escape!
Geezer started out by carving the ghost, while Lily drew on the pumpkins with the crayon.
Grace enjoyed playing with the scoops and the pumpkin seeds.

I tasked Jim with carving this complicated bat and moon scene, and he did a great job.

After the carving was finished, Lily helped Geezer load up some wood from a tree he'd chopped down and bring it around to the front of the house.
Goo enjoyed all the scooping spoons.
Lily sat on the engine while Geezer washed off his tractor.
The finished products in the daylight. Not too shabby!

When it got dark enough, we went out to light the jack-o-lanterns.
Mom doing the honors.
Geezer and Lily trying to be scary.
It's tough to get a good shot of jack-o-lanterns, but there's a nice fuzzy one for you!

It was a fun weekend, and we were glad we were able to go. Thanks for having us, Gramby and Geezer!

A Few Goo Pics

2011-10-03T09:09:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd share a few pictures of the Goo Baby from Sunday. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous, and we've been trying to spend time outside when we can and take advantage of the nice weather while we can. So on Sunday when the girls woke up from their naps, we went outside for a bit, while Jim changed the brake pads on the van.

Goo wasn't thrilled about getting a pic with Mommy.
She really wasn't thrilled about sitting in the grass either.
Lily didn't want her picture taken, but she did bring Goo a flower.
Grace is the candidate for change.
But then we went to the back yard to swing, and that was just her cup of tea.

Bonus pic! Goo helping me do laundry. And by help, I mean putting Jim's underwear on her head.

Premonition

2011-10-02T13:11:00.001-07:00

Do you believe in premonitions? I don't think I believe in ESP or communicating with the dead (although there are examples of it in scripture, so I suppose I shouldn't be quite so skeptic), but I do think that people have premonitions from time to time. Before I tell you my recent one, let me relay a couple of stories from friends.

When my mom was young, she had a dream that a relative, who lived far away and was known to be in fine health, died. Then a few days later, that very relative died in the same manner she'd dreamed. (I'm fuzzy on the details, but I think it may have been a heart attack.)

My friend, Peggy's grandmother was in poor health and they knew that she would probably pass on soon, but weeks went by and they just didn't know when it would happen. Then one night Peggy woke up in the night crying, and her mom came in to comfort her. They found out the next morning that her grandmother had passed on about the same time that Peggy had woken up.

I've mentioned this before, but Grandma Sue called me the morning we found out we were pregnant with Goo and asked if I was pregnant. We had decided not to tell anyone, so I lied (sorry Gma!) and said I wasn't. But I was left thinking, "How did she know!?"

I've also heard numerous stories of friends who had it on their heart to call someone, and when they did it turned out that the friend had just received bad news or was in the middle of a crisis, and a phone call was just what they needed. In fact, I called Peggy one time out of the blue, and it turned out it was right after she'd received word of a relative's grave illness.

So before I make this post all about ME, let me tell you some great news. My friend, Ashli, had a baby! Ashli lived in the area for a little less than a year, and she and her husband moved down to Texas in August so that he could go to PA school. But Ashli is one of those people who charms everyone she meets, and you can't help but just love her to death because of her easy going attitude and sweet, caring spirit. So congratulations to Ashli and Tom on the birth of their sweet baby girl, Bethany. I know they will make fabulous parents.

Anyway, back to my story. On Tuesday morning around 1:45am I woke up and thought, "I need to pray for someone having a baby tonight." I wasn't exactly sure who, but since Ashli was almost a week overdue, and my cousin, Britni, was a day overdue, I figured it must be one of them. So I prayed for them specifically, for a while, and then went back to sleep. Well all night I kept having dreams about Ashli. The only one I remember specifically was that she had a baby boy and named him Marcus Aurelius (you know, like the Roman emperor?). So in the morning I figured it was probably Ashli who had her baby in the night, but I checked Facebook to see if either she or Britni had made an announcement.

Nothing.

So I messaged each of them and told them about my weird premonition that night. Britni messaged back and said that, sadly, it wasn't her, but there was no word from Ashli.

Finally, after a couple of hours, I checked Facebook again and on Ashli's wall were written a couple of notes of congratulations on becoming a mommy. She'd had little Bethany a couple of hours after I'd woken up praying for her. I was pretty impressed with myself an my psychic powers!

I'm not sure I'm quite ready to invest in a crystal ball, but isn't it funny how God puts things on our hearts sometimes? It's also funny when you actually see it come to fruition and recognize his working. It makes me think I should probably listen more carefully the rest of the time!

Misused Phrases

2011-09-30T13:59:00.001-07:00

It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Well, let me back up a bit.

Ever since I've become a Facebook addict (hi, my name is Alyson and I'm logged in to Facebook all day long, and check it once an hour or so) I've noticed that I do a lot more reading of other people's writing. I see a lot of annoying text speak "How R U?" and "Wat's up?" and it's super annoying, but in my mind I can justify that they know how to write correctly but they choose not to for the sake of brevity. However, the true phenomenon I've come to notice is how many people misuse and misspell various phrases. It's like they've heard a phrase their whole life, but have never read it thought to spell it out, and when they do (on Facebook for the world to see) they crash and burn.

Let me also preface this post by saying that I am a terrible speller, and I am not the grammar police, and that there are several phrases that I have come to find out in adulthood were not at all what I thought they were. I also know (and you do to, if you read my blog regularly) that I start many a sentence with "And" or "But" (insert finger wag), I'm infamous for comma splices, and I completely overuse parentheses... and ellipses. There I've said it. But still, I have to bring to your attention some of the funny (and yet oh so sad) things I've read on Facebook. I also have to mention, that I did some research on commonly misused and misspelled phrases for writing this post, and even learned a few things myself.

But let me get back to the straw that broke the camel's back. I read a post this morning on Facebook that I had to read several times before I was able to figure out what the writer was trying to communicate. The post (in part) said this; "He mise well chalk it up to his luckiest day ever."

Any guesses?

Ok, I'll tell you. "Mise well" translates "might as well." Get it? Now, I know that people who are good writers (and those of us who pretend to be) often purposely misspell words to be ironic or kitschy. I know I've written "gonna" and "that's a whole nother story" and the like, knowing full well that they're not real words, but I'm trying to write in dialect... or something. The point being, I know what I'm doing. But sadly, I don't think this girl did know what she was doing. She'd heard people slur together "might as well" for her whole life and really truly deep down in her heart thought the saying was "mise well."

So this post is a tribute to some very common misspellings and misunderstandings that I'd like to clear up. Please feel free to add your own in the comments section.

"in your mist" should be "in your midst" unless you actually own the rights to the mist that someone is so rudely standing in. (Since this is kind of a grammar post, let me just make it clear that I know you're not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. But I did. Sorry.)

"by enlarge" should be "by and large" which means "generally speaking".

"tongue and cheek" should be "tongue in cheek." (I have to tell you that "and" and "in" sound so much alike that it's tough to differentiate.)

Ok here's one who maybe not everyone has seen, but I seem to have an overabundance of friends who can't keep these two words straight. The words are "sell" and "sale." I can't tell you how many times on Facebook I've read something like, "I'm having a garage sell on Saturday" or "we're trying to sale our house." It almost makes me laugh. Ok, it does make me laugh. Here's the deal. "Sell" is a verb; it's something you're going to do. "Sale" is a noun; it's a thing. You sell things, and you have sales.

"another words" should be "in other words."

"just assume" or "justice soon" should really be "just as soon". As in, "I'd just as soon buy a new car as put another $500 into this one." The phrase actually makes sense. I would do this just as soon as I'd do the other thing.

"shoe in" should be "shoo in". Shoo, like "shoo fly" means "to drive away" so a "shoo in" is someone that you drive right into the position.

"take it for granite" should be "take it for granted." Something that is granted is something that has already been given or granted to you. So if you take something for granted, you're taking it as a given. Taking it for granite means you need to retake geology, because it's actually feldspar. (My dad will think that joke is funny. Everyone else is googling feldspar.)

"would of" and "could of" should be "would have" and "could have".

"I could care less." Ooooohhhh this phrase has bugged me since the first time I heard it, which was quite literally in elementary school. People say "I could care less" when they don't care about something. Well, if you don't care about something at all, is it actually possible for you to care less? No, it's not. Yet, they say that they can care less. Hmmmm.... The only time you can care less is when you do care some. What you should be saying is "I couldn't care less." Because if you don't care about something at all, then it is impossible for you to care any less about it. In other words, you couldn't care less.

"a pre-Madonna" is actually a "prima donna." It's Italian for "first lady" so it's another language. You're forgiven.

"not adverse to" should be "not averse to." This is a confusing one because "adverse" and "averse" are only separated by one lowly "d", but they also have somewhat similar meanings. Or at least similar enough to confuse the best of us. So let's use them both in a sentence. "I'm not averse to licking a public toilet, despite the possible adverse effects of doing so, if it means winning a million dollars."

"spitting image" should be "spit and image". This is one I didn't know. I've always thought I was hearing "spitting image" and most likely that's what people have been saying. It's one of those phrases that started out one way and is now tweaked a little. But if you're a purist, you need to start saying "spit and image." It's the original.

"doggy dog world" should be "dog eat dog world." I wouldn't mind living in a doggy dog world, though. Sounds fun.

"for all intensive purposes" should be "for all intents and purposes." I'd like to know what an "intensive purpose" is, though. Sounds heavy, Doc.

"irregardless" should be "regardless." You've already negated your regard by adding the suffix "less" to the end. It's almost like a double negative to add the "irr" suffix. So take off the "irr" because you just don't need it.

"a whole nother" should be "a whole other." I don't know what a "nother" is, but it's not a word. I'm sure people are trying to say "a whole another" but it sounds cumbersome (because it's wrong) so they just kind of shorten it. Still wrong, though. Say "whole other."

"Calvary"and "cavalry" are two very different words. Calvary is the name of the hill (also called Golgotha) where Jesus was crucified. The "cavalry" are people on horses who swoop in and save the day. Up until college, I thought the word "Calvary" was the only word, and I didn't know the word "cavalry" existed (I mean, I knew about the people on horses, but I thought they were the calvary.) Then in a very awkward Honors class moment, where one student was trying to make some connection between the cavalry and Calvary, I learned the truth. I'm glad I wasn't the only one, but I distinctly remember the two professors shooting each other the same look that said, "Sigh. Do you want to take this one, or should I?" This has to be a very Christian mistake to make, though, since I doubt any non-Christians have even heard of Calvary.

"supposably" should be "supposedly." This is another one that people just hear wrong. And in my mind's eye, I see a whole bunch of people on Facebook typing "supposably" and seeing a red
squiggly line. So they try and try to spell it correctly, and finally just give up because they have no idea that those b's they've been hearing their whole lives are actually supposed to be d's.

"upmost" should be "utmost." I know that "upmost" kind of sounds like it should be correct because when you give your utmost at something, you think of it as your highest amount, and your highest amount is UP. You know, your UPmost. Nope, it's utmost. Sorry.

"prolly" should be "probably." This is one that I think is often purposely written incorrectly to be cute or kitschy. And sometimes people have no idea of all the crazy b's in that word. Three syllables, people: Prob-ab-ly.

And now for a few common mispronunciations that I couldn't help myself but to include.

The word "library" is often pronounced "lie-berry". Please read the word and not all the R's. Lie-brary.

The words "escape" and "especially" are often pronounced as if they're spelled "excape" and "expecially." Both words start by saying the letter "S." So it's like "S-cape" and "S-specially."

So so so many people say the "T" in the world often. Did you know that it's actually incorrect to pronounce the "T"? Well, it used to be. There is no disagreement and you can find some sources that say it's ok just because everyone does it. But the word is supposed to sound like "off-in." I mean, do you pronounce the T's in whistle, listen, or soften? Yeah, didn't think so.

You know when you go to Baskin-Robbins and you feel like something fruity. Do you ask for "sherbert?" Because if you do, you're wrong. The word is "sherbet" as in "sure-bet." There is only one R, and not "bert." Got it?

That is all for today. As I said earlier, please feel free to add your own misspelled phrases that you've seen, so we can all have a good chuckle.