Mattson Family

A Christmas Recap

2010-01-13T14:05:00.001-08:00

Whew! What a December we had! It was crazy busy, stressful, and at times overwhelming. We spent a few quiet moments (around 1:00 AM when we were getting to bed each night) wondering what made this December so much crazier than others. We came to these three conclusions:

We got a late start. Ryan was working hard over the Thanksgiving weekend to finish building some garage shelving. This was a good use of time, but it meant that we didn’t do any Christmas prep during that weekend.
Continuing the late start theme, we didn’t do hardly any Christmas buying or decorating until after Emma’s birthday party which was held on December 13th.
I got a new church calling (responsibility) and we were asked to speak at church in Sacrament meeting on December 27th.

We have resolved to make next year’s Christmas season better by planning ahead and doing more to prepare for Christmas before December even arrives. And we’re never going to agree to speak in Sacrament meeting in December again. No. Way.

Just kidding. Kind of.

So, here is a brief photo history of our December. Enjoy.

Ryan and the aforementioned garage shelves. They hold all of our ~~junk~~ important things we store in the garage nicely.

We attended Emma and Hannah’s Christmas music programs at their schools. I do love a good Christmas music program. Miriam liked the music too, but not so much Santa who came at the end of Emma’s program. What is Christmas really, other than an opportunity to sit our crying children on the lap of an old hairy man.

Emma turned 5 and had her first friend birthday party. She’d been asking for a “candy cake” for about 6 months before her party. I threw some Skittles on the cake and called it good. She was pleased.

We had 13 girls at Emma’s party (including her sisters). They ate popcorn, watched a Barbie Princess movie, and played with toys. Easy! Hannah was a big help with serving cake and general crowd control. She’s such a good girl.

Ryan and the girls went out on a very rainy December 16th to purchase and set up our tree. I was at a church meeting that night, but liked that they found a Noble for $20. There are benefits to putting Christmas off until the last minute! I put 5 strands of lights on the tree and, truth be told, loved it with just lights the best. Ornaments are nice, but I like simplicity.

We had Ryan’s family over for dinner and presents on Christmas Eve Eve (the 23rd). It was nice to have Ryan’s sister Kristin and her family in town from Iowa so the whole family was together!

On Christmas Evening we acted out the Nativity. Emma was a shepherd.

Hannah was the angel.

Ryan was Joseph and the Narrator. I was Mary and the photographer. Miriam was a wise man.

Emma, the shepherd, “sore afraid” at the angel’s appearance.

The wise man giving her gift to the baby Jesus.

And then opening the gift …

… to see what she’d given. Hannah laughing and Emma wondering what Dad would have to say about this irreverent behavior. Ah, well. We try.

Goofiness aside, every year I am amazed at how the girls treat the “baby Jesus” and seem to feel the importance of what we’re talking about. On some level they do get it.

While Kristin was still in town, we visited the Holiday Carousel in downtown Seattle. Though this picture doesn’t include the carousel, it was the best of the bunch (and my husband is super cute in it!).

So, maybe next December, we’ll have planned a little better so we will be able to visit the carousel before Christmas. And maybe we’ll be able to decorate the gingerbread house that I bought but we never had time to decorate. And we’ll get some Christmas lights up on the outside of the house if only to prevent our children from reminding us twice each day that “we STILL haven’t put the Christmas lights up!” Yes, next year will be better.

But this year wasn’t bad.

The VonMattson Family Singers

2009-12-07T15:24:00.000-08:00

Hannah learned this song in her music class at school. She really likes that the song is in another language (German!) so she sings it all the time. She taught it to Emma and they've been doing duets ever since. They also do rousing renditions of "America, I Hear You Singing" and "Jingle Bells," but I'll save those for another post.

For the record, I told them to stand with their hands folded like that. They are, of course, imitating the kids from "The Sound of Music."

The song is called O laufet, ihr Hirten (Come Running, You Shepherds).

Here are the words, in English:

Come running, you shepherds, as fast as you can,
With flutes and with bagpipes, and with your whole clan.
We're going to see, In Bethlehem's stall,
The child who the angels announced to us all.

When you play Barbies with Dad...

2009-11-16T13:48:00.001-08:00

... all sorts of interesting things happen:

Miriam, meanwhile, could not be distracted from her books.

Projects

2009-11-16T12:54:00.000-08:00

My sister wanted to see some of the projects I'm working on or have completed recently. Here goes!

Our house has LOTS of overhead lighting which is nice... and bright. At times, it's too bright and I just want lamp light. It's so much softer and warmer and cozier. So, I bought about 8 lamps at the thrift store's 50% off sale the other day. Yes, eight.

If I were an official home decor blogger, I would have taken "Before" pictures of my projects. I'm not, so I didn't. Besides, I'm way too impatient to put off spray painting to take pictures. Sorry. If I ever decide to post other projects, I'll try to pause and take before pictures.

In the meantime, here's a picture of the bottom inside of the lamp I painted. This picture sort of shows what the entire lamp looked like before it met my BFF: spray paint. I bought two of these lamps for about $2 each.

Actually, my true BFF is black spray paint, but I painted these lamps sort of a dark bronze color. I can't decide if I really like the bronzey brown color, or if I'm going to break down and just paint them black. For now, they're bronzey brown.

Though I LOVE spray paint, I am terrified of wall paint. If I had to paint a room I might break out in hives. No joke, painting walls freaks me out. So, our walls are white until Behr makes some sort of wall spray paint or someone else has pity on me and paints them for me.

Please don't look at the pictures too closely, I'm no photographer. Lamps are hard to photograph! Please note cute baby/trusted assistant on the couch. Thank you.

Here's a project in progress. I found this sorry looking mirror at the thrift store for around $4. I thought that was highway robbery considering the shape it was in, but I bought it anyway. I have a small obsession with mirrors. So, here it is under construction. I've hot glued it where it was broken and given it a coat or two of black spray paint. When I've removed the tape and plastic bag, it will hang on the wall somewhere.
Up next is, quite possibly, the worst picture I've ever taken. Ah, well. Imagine if you will a big chunky black frame with corkboard in the middle. So exciting, isn't it?!!! Well, I get excited about things like that. My frame came from ... can you guess? The thrift store! It was gold and U.G.L.Y. when I found it, but black spray paint can cure a world of evils.

I've put corkboard in the center and I'm going to mount our 2010 family calendar in it. It will hang on the wall in our office and keep us all organized and we'll never double book ourselves or forget an event again! That's my vision anyway. If I'd been going for an A+ on this project, I'd have distressed the frame a bit, but distressing is not an exact science and therefore frightens me.

Some of my other upcoming or in-progress projects are making pillows for the couch, making wall art for our bare white walls, and spray painting picture frames. Fun!

Costumes

2009-11-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

Halloween was fun this year despite a few setbacks. Emma was sick the days preceding Halloween, but got better just in time. Miriam, on the other hand, came down with something on Halloween night. She was a grumpy bumble bee. Poor thing. Here's the best picture we could get of the three of them.

Hannah and Emma were in seventh heaven. Costumes, hair, make-up, and candy. Pretty much perfection if you ask them.

We tried to get Miriam to leave her hood on so we could see her bee antennae. It was out of the question. Fuhgettaboutit.

Ryan and I were pirates.

Pirates wrestling a grumpy bee.

Halloween's Coming

2009-10-29T13:48:00.001-07:00

Halloween's just a few days away .... and because having our first day of school pictures and our Halloween costume pictures in the same blog post might be a bit too much, I decided to post a few pictures now. You can expect to see Halloween costume pictures just before Christmas.

So here's Hannah on her first day of second grade. She loves school and her teacher. She would read all day long if we let her, but life is hard and math is part of life. I get to volunteer in her classroom this year - for the first time! (Thank you Heidi!) I love to go, even if I'm just making copies in the workroom. Part of the reason I like to go is that after two hours in the copy room I have a crate full of copies to show how much I accomplished. Sometimes at home I look around and wonder, "what have I done today?" I made sandwiches, but they got eaten. I straightened the playroom, but then Miriam got in there.... I changed 5 diapers, but they're in the garbage. I dressed Miriam and brushed her teeth. I drove preschool carpool. I took the kids to the library. Do you know what I mean? Sometimes it's hard to ... what's the word.... quantify what I do everyday. So, volunteering at school is fun.

Emma loves her Pre-K class (please don't call it Preschool or you'll have Emma to answer to) and favors art. She's a social butterfly and loves to be in the middle of any group of kids, laughing and talking. One day I was walking down to the bus stop to get Hannah off the bus and found Emma already there, chatting with the other kids waiting for the bus. I'd thought she was still in the house getting her shoes and coat on. Funny how quickly she'll get shoes and coat on when she knows there are kids outside to talk to.

Ryan's Sister Kristin and her two children visited in September. It was nice to see them and meet baby Julian. Hannah and Emma loved playing with their cousin Gracie and got to have a sleepover together at Grandma Mattson's house. They sang and danced to Hannah Montana until 10:00 PM. That's about 2:00 AM in Hannah/Emma time. Ryan's Uncle Gary also visited from L.A. and it was nice to see him.

Here's a picture of Ryan's parents, Uncle Gary, Kristin, and kiddos at our house after a Friday night picnic.

We got some free tickets to the UW football game from Hannah's school principal. Every year he somehow gets a chunk of tickets to give away at the school. Pretty sweet, huh? We enjoy a good sporting event, so when we can take our kids for free instead of $$$, we jump at the chance.

Emma's favorite part of the experience was the bus ride to the game. She loved looking down in people's cars, counting the red cars, watching sea planes take off from Lake Union, spotting the Space Needle, etc. The game wasn't nearly as exciting for her. In fact, she fell asleep in Ryan's lap and slept for the entire fourth quarter. The rest of us had a good time on the bus and at the game. We were lucky to be able to sit by all the families from Hannah's school and right next to our friends from church. Can't wait for next year's game!

Emma's preschool took this year's first field trip to Kelsey Creek Farm. They got to pet a pony, watched a pig eat an entire pumpkin (always my favorite part) and got to spread bark in the animal stalls. Here's the pig. She's 500 pounds but according to Farmer Jane, she's on a diet. Yeah, good luck with that.
And for this week's Family Home Evening, we carved our pumpkin. Now we're ready for Halloween!

A Successful Ward Campout

2009-08-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

Before this summer, Ryan and I had been on two ward campouts. Our first was with our BYU married student ward. It was up in the mountains southwest of Provo and it was great. Our next ward campout was a few years later back here in Seattle. Hannah was just a few months old then. We packed her in our little Civic and headed over the mountains to the Church ranch. At about 2:00 AM the next morning, we packed her and our stuff back in the Civic and headed back over the mountains to home. It was not a fun camping trip. Lots of crying... not much sleeping... you get the idea.

It's taken us seven years to get the desire to go on another ward campout.

And so... with our ward campout just a few days away and our tent still packed in the box we brought it home from the store in ... six YEARS ago.... I thought I'd better make sure I knew how to set up the tent before we got out in the wild and realized we were missing a pole or a stake or something.

We set the tent up in the backyard. Miriam screamed when Hannah and I went in it for the first time. I think she thought we were being eaten by it or something. Poor girl.

Hannah, Emma, and Ryan slept out in the tent one night just for fun. Hannah's summer-long dream was to tell ghost stories and sleep out in the tent.
Good-night everybody!

The girls got cold at about 6:00 AM and came in the house to get a bit more sleep. A minorly sleep-deprived Ryan went to work.

The rest of the day involved playing in the tent... without Miriam. She still screamed when brought near it.

Here she's trying to get her shoes on to go outside. Not to play in the tent, but to stand at her water table and yell at the girls in the tent.

That Friday, with our tent ready, we went over the mountains to the Church ranch. After setting up camp, Ryan made Mac and Cheese with hot dogs on the camp stove. It was a bummer that we couldn't cook over a fire, but there's a burn ban right now so no fires. Positive side of that: you don't come home with all of your clothing reeking of smoke.

We enjoyed our fancy dinner outside our tent. The girls look like they were cold, but the weather was mild. I think Hannah just missed wearing her coat during the summer. Seriously, even when she got hot and took the coat off, she ran around with the hood on her head. Whateva.
For Miriam, camping was the best of times...

...and the worst of times. Note to file: do not schedule doctor visits and immunizations the day before big events like ward campouts.

Here's a preview of Young Women's Camp 2018:

After dinner, we walked through the campground where I went to Girl's Camp (as it was called) back in the day. For those that are familiar with the area, this is where the ampitheater was located. During last winter's crazy weather, the river got huge and washed the entire ampitheater away. It was amazing and kind of sad. Later on, someone told me that the ampitheather was rebuilt in another location. I felt much better.

The girls loved our campout and ran wild with packs of kids from the ward. At one point Ryan and I wondered where they'd wandered off to. Ryan found them sitting in the back of a handcart that some of the older kids were pushing. Ryan took a couple of pictures, told them to keep their hands inside the handcart, and sent them on their way.

If our camera hadn't run out of batteries we'd also have pictures of Emma going down the enormous slip and slide and Ryan and the girls canoeing on the lake. The girls said canoeing was their favorite part of the campout.

We all had a great time and can't wait for next year's campout.

Oregon Vacation: Girl's Golf

2009-08-26T21:32:00.000-07:00

Last Oregon vacation post, I promise.

Ryan golfed once on our vacation and my Dad golfed a few times. All day long we'd watch golfers going down the 11th fairway behind our condo. All this golf activity necessitated the girls having their own golf lesson one afternoon.

Here Ryan is demonstrating the importance of meditating before you swing.

Not surprisingly, Emma was a bit of a wild golfer. We tried to teacher her proper golf etiquette and told her about saying "fore" if a ball was headed in Hannah's direction. Eventually, Emma just yelled "fore" before hitting the ball. It was a safe bet.

The girls really liked hitting the ball around. It was more of a hit than I thought it would be, so we'll definitely take the girls out again sometime. I will now be searching the thrift stores for super short golf clubs.

The practice green we were on had a sand trap which the girls were interested in. Because it was a practice area, the sand wasn't nicely raked like all of the other bunkers. Emma grabbed the rake and tried to smooth the sand. Apparently, that got boring after about two strokes.

Miriam wanted to be part of the action and didn't even get upset about the sand in her sandals.

A beach in the middle of the desert.

Golf courses make for nice, colorful pictures, no?

Some people are bothered by unraked bunkers and cannot be truly happy until they are made neat and tidy.

Oregon Vacation: Children's Museum

2009-08-19T19:54:00.000-07:00

Mattson Family Endorsement: The Working Wonders Children's Museum in Bend, Oregon rocks. No offense to the nice people who run the Seattle Children's Museum, but the one in itty bitty Bend is way better. Not gonna lie. Now, the museum in Rochester, New York is probably the best in the country, but for the West Coast, we'll take Bend.

The lady who ran the Bend museum, however, may have been running a children's museum for a few too many years. When she found out we were from Seattle she told us that in two weeks she was going to be going on vacation. She would sail out of Coleman Dock in Seattle and vacation for two weeks in Port Townsend with a bunch of high school friends. She could hardly wait, she told us, with a look in her eye that made me worry she might try to stow away in our stroller. "Take me to Seattle! I can't take it anymore! If I have to clean out one more kid-sized grocery cart I may implode!"

Moving on.

Here's Hannah the Asian Princess and Emma the Parrot. Miriam is a very disgruntled Fire...person.
And now she's a monkey. Poor kid. She's just too fun to dress up!

And this picture was just too cute to pass up. Not taken at the Children's Museum, but Blogger and I don't agree on proper picture placement, so here it is. Please note: Emma's pushing the scooter with one of my Dad's golf clubs. We're all about safety around here.

Shout out to Uncle Dave. This looks like the latest in ultrasound technology, right? This was in the vetrinary clinic in the museum. Note the girls are wearing stethoscopes and scrubs.

Emma kayaking through the outdoor portion of the museum. Life jackets on - so we can be safe! (Name that cartoon character!)

Some South of the Border costumes.

The girls "painting" in the construction/building area.

Hannah's weather predictions... or forecasts. You be the judge. Emma was running the TV camera so that we could see Hannah on the TV screen. You know they loved that.

The grocery store - a necessary part of any kid's museum. I tried taking Miriam into here, but she just kept shoving all the make-believe food into her mouth. Hmmm... maybe should have given her more lunch that day.

Miriam, working the line in the pizza shop.

Emma's pizza, ready to go in the oven.

Is anyone else reminded of the Sweedish Chefs from the Muppets?

"Hello, Hannah's Pizza Palace where the prices are low thanks to cheap child labor. Hey shorty! Yeah, you Miriam, hurry up with the pepporoni!"

Oregon Vacation: Swimming

2009-08-19T19:16:00.000-07:00

Swimming is the girl's favorite part of vacation. Isn't it that way for most kids? When I was little and we'd go on family road trips, I remember my sisters and I begging my parents to let us stay at Motel 6 each night. Holiday Inn? Nope. Hilton? No way. Mariott? No thanks. Why? Because we knew that Motel 6 would have a swimming pool and we'd be able to swim before going to bed. Motel 6 never failed to have everything we wanted in a vacation: swimming. Fancy rooms and continental breakfasts were unimportant.

As with me and my sisters, my girls vacation to swim. Between trips to the pools, we did do a few other things. We visited the park one day.

And then we went to the pool.

Miriam, though petrified of our backyard wading pool, grudingly decided that floating in her "boat" in a semi-warm pool on a 88 degree day wasn't a bad deal.

Hannah favored the noodle float and bobbed around happily.

Emma was beyond thrilled that she could touch the bottom of the pool. She liked dancing in the water and riding around on Grandpa's back.

Here's Ryan's legs. The girls thought his underwater handstand was amazing.

Miriam's favorite pool was the baby pool. She could hold onto the side and move around on her own. She was moving so much that this was the best picture I could get of her.

More vacation pictures to come!

Oregon Vacation: The Deer Whisperer

2009-08-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

For some reason, Miriam loved the couch on vacation. The kind of love that causes one to cry when taken from it kind of love. Her favorite thing to do on the couch was to look at books. Here she's reading Lion is Down in the Dumps - a Sweet Pickles book. I have vivid memories of reading Sweet Pickles books in my second grade classroom. I loved those books. Now that I've read all of them about 200 times to my kids, I don't love them quite so much. But they still love them and that makes me happy.

It's become a tradition that, when we're at Eagle Crest, the girls create a pretend grocery store on the back deck. They do this almost every day: buying things from each other, having the adults come buy things from them, arranging their products by size and color (Hannah - that's my girl!), and allowing Miriam to tote around a box or two.

Emma posing next to her grocery store. We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago and ever since then she's been really into posing.

Notice the deer in the grass behind Emma and Hannah? We saw soooo many deer on vacation. At least 3 deer per day, sometimes a lot more. Ryan and my Dad golfed on the course behind our condo and saw about 5 deer along the course. One particular evening, we weren't the only ones to spot the deer.

This other guy, who Ryan dubbed "The Deer Whisperer," saw the deer and decided to come out and feed it. From his hand. Though the deer liked the carrots he was getting, he didn't like the Whisperer. The deer was obviously nervous as the Whisperer tried to pet him, but apparently the carrots were too good to pass up.

Oregon Vacation: Driving and Arriving

2009-08-19T18:17:00.000-07:00

My parents invited us to spend a week with them in Central Oregon. It's about a six hour drive from our house to the condo just outside of Redmond, Oregon. With our portable DVD player loaded, we set off over the mountains.

Emma was, by this point, already tired of her this car trip. Miriam and Hannah were still hanging in there.

As we got close to the Columbia River we noticed lots of these wind power-generating things. Windmills? Anyone know their proper name? Whatever their name, they were very cool. They must be fairly new because we didn't remember seeing them two years ago when we last drove this highway. They looked quite space age - especially because there were so many of them. Like hundreds in both Washington and Oregon.

Descending to the bridge over the Columbia River with Oregon to the left and Washington to the right.

Anyone else know the words to the Columbia River song?

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Roll on, Columbia, roll on

Your power is turning our darkness to dawn

Roll on Columbia, roll on

Other great rivers give power to you

The Yakima, Snake, and the Klikitat too

That's all I can recall. Hmmm... maybe Google can help me....

Yes! My friend Wiki (via Google) is always there for me. Here's the complete lyrics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll_On,_Columbia,_Roll_On

I was close. Sort of. Thank you for humoring me.

Moving on.

As we continued into Oregon, the girls watched High School Musical 2 while Miriam cried. She stoped only for fruit snacks. We went through an entire box of fruit snacks on that drive. No, Miriam didn't eat them all, but more than I'd ever confess to my pediatrician.

Eventually we reached our destination: Eagle Crest! Here's the girls in their room. I thought I'd take a picture 'cause I knew the beds wouldn't look that neat for the rest of our stay.

Stay tuned for: swimming! the deer whisperer! girls in sand traps! pretend grocery stores! Sisters the city! Ryan doing a hand stand!

Food Storage

2009-08-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Just because I found it today (while surfing the web instead of posting photos of our vacation) and I thought it was amazing:

http://www.hotcouponworld.com/forums/stockpile-pictures/186939-crabtree122202s-stockpile-pictures.html

Yeah. Amazing, huh? Now THAT'S food storage. Be still my beating heart. Sure makes my 12 bottles of ketsup look pretty lame. By the way, Ashlee, do you know this Crabtree? If so, we need to talk.

Now to post pictures of vacation... after I read what Pioneer Woman's up to today.

Ryan's Birthday

2009-08-06T15:08:00.001-07:00

This past Tuesday Ryan turned 34. To celebrate, we had Ryan's parents and grandparents over to dinner. As the birthday boy, he got to decide the dinner menu: flank steak, mashed potatoes, spinach salad, rolls, and blueberry pie. My parents stopped by later on to have pie and ice cream with us.

Miriam decided she liked flank steak. Wouldn't eat any watermelon and treated the mashed potatoes like playdough, but loooooved the steak. Go figure.

Ryan prefers pie to cake, so every year we make him his favorite: blueberry pie. It's nice that blueberries are in season and usually on sale around his birthday. Hannah and Emma usually hint very strongly that they'd rather be having birthday cake, but they eat some ice cream and are happy enough.

Happy birthday Ryan! We love you!

Too Hot to Blog

2009-08-05T21:34:00.000-07:00

Don't worry blog readers - we survived the terrible 2009 Seattle heat wave! I'm now sitting in my 67 degree house and loving every minute of it. I'm most comfortable between 68 and 72 degrees and, I've learned, I'm the most uncomfortable, cranky, and close to insanity when it's 106 degrees. True, it wasn't 106 in my house, it was only 90-ish degrees in there. Could have been worse. So now we're back to overcast mornings with filtered sun in the afternoons. Highs in the 70s. Perfection if you ask me.

Before our blasted heat wave, we went to downtown Seattle for the annual Torchlight Parade. We thought it was a hot day - ha! Little did we know what was in store....

Here's Ryan and Miriam waiting for the parade to begin.

Emma and Hannah staked out their spots right along 4th Avenue. Hannah's showing off her gum. My kids get really excited about gum. Is this normal?

Here's my Dad and Mom with us before the parade started. My Mom drives downtown early on the morning of the parade to put down a tarp to save our spot. Thanks Mom!

It doesn't usually rain on hot days in Seattle. This night, however, we got sprinkled on a bit, but it passed quickly and it kind of felt good. Miriam loved her first parade and wasn't scared by it a bit. Hannah, on the other hand, was in tears after the infamous Seafair pirates came by and shot off their cannon. Emma liked the parade's princesses the best and wasn't too bothered by the rowdy pirates.

Lake Wilderness

2009-07-21T13:04:00.000-07:00

*** Before I begin this blog post, I must ask: does anyone else out there in blogland have trouble with Blogger's insert picture feature? Every time I upload the pictures, they come out in the opposite order of the way I uploaded them. Except then sometimes, I try to allow for this oddity and upload them in reverse order (I AM smarter than Blogger!), but then Blogger puts them in the exact order I uploaded them in. Huh? Does any one else have this problem? Does anyone know what I'm talking about for that matter? Ah, well. I feel better just having vented. Thank you. ***

Ryan wanted to take the girls on a hike this summer. He printed out a map of the Cougar Mountain trails and had planned to go there, but then we found out there was some bike ride/race there the day we wanted to hike.

Hmmm...

New hikers with short, slow legs + bike racers = bad idea.

So, Ryan suggested "hiking" around Lake Wilderness. The first part was wooded and the girls thought it was great.

Eventually the trail came out of the woods and wasn't shady.

New hikers with short, slow legs + hot sun, no shade = unhappy New Hikers.

Ryan said he thinks the Lake Wilderness trail is about 2 miles. Does anyone know for sure? I'd love to know. If it is a 2 mile trail, the girls were done hiking at exactly .75 miles. Hannah was a trooper and kept her complaints to a minimum. Emma made no attempts to hide her dissatisfaction with the situation, exclaiming, "I don't like hiking!" Note her sour expression in this picture.
Luckily, Ryan sang a rousing version of "Boom, boom ain't it great to be crazy" and saved us from a full on mutiny. Lesson learned: never doubt the power of a well-timed, totally nonsensical camp song. If I remember correctly, Ryan may have even tried to sing "The Bear in Tennis Shoes" song, but I was in no mood for providing his echo at that point.

Eventually, we got to a park so we could sit and the girls could play a bit. Emma, though crying, dragging her feet, and being "tired of WALKING!!!" was miraculously cured of all her ills.

Hot, tired family + park = perfectly happy family

On second thought, Miriam wasn't perfectly happy. She'd fallen asleep in the back pack just about the time the girls' hiking revolt began. She'd slept through the whining, but had woken up when Ryan sat down at the park.

Sleeping baby in back pack + sitting, non-walking Dad = awake baby

After the park, when we were almost back to the car, the girls took their shoes and socks off and walked through the water on the beach. We were all tired and ready to be done, but we're pretty sure we'll be able to talk the girls into going hiking again. Anyone know of any .75 mile hikes?

Giggle Girl

2009-07-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

Miriam likes to mimic us and play the "can you say..." game. Tonight, she was especially giggly. Right at the beginning of the video she's saying "Dada." At the end, when she does the duck sound, you'll notice her look out the back window. She's looking for the ducks that live in the pond behind our house and regularly fly over our yard.

Two months later...

2009-07-08T21:35:00.000-07:00

Hellooooooo out there in blog land!! Does anybody still check this blog for updates? Google Reader comes in really handy when you're checking blogs like this one, huh?

So, let's see... well, we moved. Here's the garage at our new house after we'd moved everyting in from our old house. It looked like this for one week because we moved it in before the houses actually closed. Once all the deals were closed, we moved the stuff from the garage into the house. That's what we get for agreeing to close on a Thursday. Lesson learned.

Oh, and because I'm sure you were all wondering: Hannah did ride the bus for the last two weeks of school. She loved it and didn't seem to get too bothered by my daily questions (interrogations) about who she sat with, what people were talking about, who got in trouble, etc. What can I say? I have bus issues.

So now we're all moved in. Not all unpacked, mind you, but moved in and comfortable. We love our house, our new neighborhood, new yard, everything. We already knew a lot of the kids in our new neighborhood from preschool and school. It's been so nice to just walk to so many different friends' houses for impromptu play dates. We have a community park we can walk to and even a little store within walking distance.

No one lived in our house for about a year, so the yard needed some major weeding when we moved in. There were weeds as tall as me. Seriously. I wish I'd taken "Before" pictures just to show the progress we've made. We're still working on the weeding and we've found some time to play outside. It was hot last week so Hannah and Emma played in the pool.

Notice Ryan in the background trying to get Miriam in the pool. Nothin' doing Dad. She may love the bath tub, but apparently that doesn't mean she loves all water.

Hannah was a little hyper.

Here's happy Miriam, a safe distance from the pool. Ever since we caught a tiny frog in our yard and put him in this bug habitat, Miriam's been fascinated with the habitat. Maybe she doesn't get that we released the frog back into the "wild" of our back yard....

On the morning of the Fourth of July, we went to the flag raising ceremony at our church building. I do love a good flag raising ceremony: peppy songs, patriotism, family, friends, and cinnamon rolls. Ryan and I stayed up late the night before making cinnamon rolls to bring and - yum - I'm glad we did.

That afternoon, we went to a local park and played at the playground and had a picnic dinner. We watched seaplanes take off and land, herons fly by, and kayakers float on Lake Washington. It was a beautiful day capped off by a fireworks display above Lake Washington.
Here's part of the crew that was there: Grandpa and Grandma Mattson, Ryan, Hannah, Me, Emma, Miriam, and Grandma Carlson. In the eveing, we were joined by a lot of friends from church so the girls had lots of playmates. They had so much fun running around with their friends that the fireworks were almost an afterthought. Hannah watched them intently, with her hands covering her ears. Emma watched the fireworks a bit, but was more interested in socializing with her friends.

To keep busy this summer (ha!) Hannah and Emma are taking swimming lessons. They both have face in the water issues, but I can tell they're trying hard to get over their fears. We're trying to get back into the habit of attending the library's weekly storytimes. Surprisingly, at the last storytime we attended, Hannah announced that she was too old for storytime. Choking back tears, I said, "Okay, you can just look for books to check out then." Allright... so I didn't really cry, but I was sad. She's always loved storytime, but it is really intended for preschoolers, so I understand why she feels that way. *Sniff*

That's all for now! Happy summer!

Nightshirts

2009-05-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

While getting ready for bed a few nights ago, Hannah decided all her pajamas (hereafter referred to as P.J.s 'cause that's what we call them) were too warm and she couldn't possibly wear them on such a hot night. For the record, the temperature inside the house was probably no more than 74 degrees.

If I'd been home, I probably would have told her to get over it and put some P.J.s on. NOW.

But, as her luck would have it, I'd escaped to the grocery store and left Ryan in charge of baths and bed. Ryan decided to solve the P.J. dilemma by letting Hannah and Emma wear two of his T-shirts to bed.

Oh my goodness, if we'd gone to the store and bought them brand new P.J.s they wouldn't have been happier.

Ryan snapped these pictures before tucking them into bed.

When I came home later that night, Ryan didn't tell me about the T-shirts. He just said the girls were waiting for kisses before they went to sleep. I went upstairs and, though I found both girls in their beds, they couldn't have been more awake. Emma was shaking with excitement, "Mommy, Daddy let us wear his shirts to bed!!" Hannah, who had her face tucked into the neck of her shirt said, "Wow! I can see my whole body!"

Back downstairs, Ryan was pretty proud of himself. Not only were all three girls in bed, but they were happy! No one was crying, screaming for some water, complaining about her sister talking so she couldn't sleep, asking to use the bathroom, or any other sort of sleep-avoidance technique. To top it off, he told me he'd taken some pictures of the girls in their "nightshirts." "You might want to take some more pictures though," he said, "because you'd probably take better ones." I don't know. I think he got some pretty good shots.

Field Trip

2009-05-04T12:22:00.001-07:00

I've always loved field trips. When I was in elementary school, we'd ride the county's Metro buses into downtown Seattle to visit cool museums and fortune cookie factories. Don't ask what educational value a fortune cookie factory has. It was fun and that's all that mattered to me.

Last week, Emma's preschool class had a field trip to a park that sits on Lake Washington. Her class is currently studying ponds and wetlands so we walked along the park's waterfront trail, noting any interesting wildlife or pondlife (is that a word?). It was a beautiful day. It's days like that one that make all the rainy and overcast days bearable.

See what I mean?

Here's Emma looking into a little inlet off the lake. There wasn't much in the wetlands, but we did see an eagle flying overhead.

Before our walk began, Emma's teacher said we might see turtles along the water. I quickly dismissed this because I've walked this trail many times and never once seen a turtle. Bunnies, ducks, geese, various birds, and fish? Yes. Turtles? No.

During our wildlife walk I learned an important lesson: never think you know more than a preschool teacher who's been doing the same field trip for almost 20 years. Sure enough, we saw turtles and they were so cool!

Here's one turtle sunning himself on the end of an old log!

Now, it should be known that I usually don't take pictures of two things: scenery and wildlife. Why? Because I'm not a photographer, that's why. The pictures I take don't end up looking like anything interesting and because scenery and wildlife pictures, in my opinion, are usually boring. Seriously, how many times have you been looking through someone's vacation pictures and it's so fun, but then you get to the nobody's-in-them beach, sunset, trees, mountains, etc pictures and you lose interest and quickly flip through until you find more pictures with humans in them? Hmmmmm? Maybe I'm the only one. But I doubt it.

But this turtle forced me to set aside my old ways. Isn't he cute? The only thing cuter than him was his buddy who was swimming like crazy (picture a turtle doing the dog paddle) trying to get out to the log. At first we thought Swimmer Turtle was just a stick jutting out of the water. After careful observation we noticed that he was moving against the current, making progress toward the log. Amazing. Eventually he got to the log so he and the other turtle could hang out.

Two peas in a pod. Two turtles on a log.

Further evidence as to why I'm not a wildlife photographer. I'm not good at it! But I also wanted to show Lake Washington with South Seattle in the background. There is a method to my madness.

Sold!

2009-04-29T23:11:00.000-07:00

Has anyone seen the move Much Ado About Nothing? Possibly my favorite movie of all time. (Mental note: watch movie again soon.) There's a great scene in it when one character says to another something like this, "Against my better judgement, I bid you come in to dinner." I promise it's funny. Really. It is.

And so, against my better judgement, I stay up to write another blog post. I get pretty rummy after about 10:00 PM, so bear with me.

Four weeks, thirty showings, two open houses, and five offers later... our house sold.

To say that I'm happy would be an understatement. It's a huge relief. Since it sold last week I have been able to resume sleeping through the night rather than laying awake with worry. Seriously, selling a house is stressful. I expected it to be difficult - I'd read about that ("reading about it" is how people like me prepare themselves for situations they've never faced before), but was not prepared for how stressful if would be. Will people like my house? Why didn't they like my house? Is something wrong with my house? They think my house is worth WHAT? You want to show my house WHEN? In 15 minutes?!!!

Other issues I struggled with during the time our house was for sale:

Is is bad to strap my kids in their car seats before doing the last quick sweep of the house before leaving for a showing?
If Emma wets her bed and barfs all over the bathroom at 2:00 AM (she was sooo sick) and we have a 10:00 AM showing will the prospective Buyers be able to notice the smell?
(Then, later that night/morning) What if Emma, who's now sleeping with me in my bed while Ryan's sleeping in her wet bed (house selling with sick kids isn't pretty folks) barfs all over my beloved duvet cover?
Is it bad that I'm more concerned about the duvet cover than prospective Buyers smelling vomit in the house?

Can you see now why I was kept awake at night? These are big issues.

Thankfully, the house sold and we've now let our perfectly clean staged home revert to it's former state: un-swept and littered with half-dressed Barbies. Actually, it's gotten a bit worse than that. The other night Ryan and I looked around and decided that we'd let our house get kind of icky. Ryan said it's kind of like when some one's been fasting and then they finish and binge. We're binging on messiness.

The girls are relieved the house sold. Beyond the obvious annoyances of having to make their beds as if they're in the military, they're tired of having to evacuate for showings. Now, it's not too bad to leave your house and Barbies if you get to go to the park during the showing. That's a good deal. Here's a bad deal: you have a dinnertime showing and it's pouring down rain outside so you're stuck inside your minivan parked across the street from your house having to feed your cranky baby sister pieces of chicken nuggets just to keep her crying to a minimum. Bad deal indeed. It's character building, right?

We've purchased another house and are excited to move in around the end of May. We're moving only a few miles down the road - closer to Hannah's school. She'll actually be able to ride the bus! I'm so excited about the bus that I've considered making one of those paper chains where you take one link off for everyday until the big day. You know what I'm talking about, right? Everyday when I pack all three kids (one of whom is usually crying) into the car to drive Hannah to school I think, "one day closer to the bus." Then, as I'm driving to school, I think of all the inappropriate stuff that went on during my school bus-riding days. Then, I think about the conversations I'm going to have with Hannah about sitting as close to the front of the bus as possible and avoiding all inappropriate behavior. So, I talk big about being all excited, but my innocent baby riding the bus does worry me a little. Not surprising, I guess, considering the fact that I still tear up almost every day when I watch her walk away from the car and toward her classroom.

Miriam's One!

2009-04-29T22:00:00.000-07:00

Miriam turned one this month **sniff** so I thought I'd tell you a little about what she's up to nowadays.

She likes to eat, but not baby food anymore. She likes flavor: chili, taco soup, etc. And some of whatever her sisters are eating better find it's way to her plate or she'll make her displeasure known. She eats well. And by well I mean often. Every 2 hours-ish she wants to sit in her high chair, have some milk, eat a few bites of whatever the last meal was, and then get down. As I write this I'm realizing I'm letting her do things that Hannah and Emma never would have gotten away with. Hmmmm.... First thing tomorrow I'm letting her know that I'm on to her third-child-I'm-wearing-Mom-down-and-making-her lower-her-standards-without-her-realizing-it ways.

This picture is for Julie. (That's "Auntie Julie in New York" for those of you who read my last post.) Anyhoo, Julie, note Miriam's cavernous room! Lessons this photo teaches me:

Stuffing a 10' by 12.5' by 10' storage unit to the gills with your stuff makes for much more usable space in a room.
Moving furniture around can make a room appear a lot bigger. (WHY didn't I move that crib 7 years ago?!)

Miriam loves books. When he's home, Ryan loves to read to her before she goes to bed. In this picture he hasn't even opened up the book yet and she's already quivering with excitement.

Her favorite book is Doggies by Sandra Boynton. She will even "woof" when we ask her what a dog says.

Miriam likes to cruise. Not in a car. Heavens no. She does not like cars. Rather, she likes to cruise along furniture. Unfortunately, she also likes to hang on to the barstools. She's pulled this one over on herself more than once.
Cruisin' for Cheerios under the kitchen table. She had not yet learned that Cheerios cannot be found under the tables of staged homes.

I love her in red because it makes her blue eyes pop.

We had Miriam's birthday party at a local park because we had 3 showings at our house that day. Luckily, it was sunny though quite cold. Hot chocolate would have been a better beverage than the pop in ice we were serving.

Her future's so bright....

She liked opening her presents and was very excited to see what was inside. She got a few more books to add to the bedtime collection. Hannah and Emma were excited for Miriam and stayed close to check out the new loot.

Have I mentioned that she likes books? She wanted to stop opening gifts to read each one.

She poked, she tasted, she ate, she smeared, and she was done. Oh, and a big thank you to Albertsons which provided, at no charge, Miriam's cake. Did you know they'll give you a small first birthday cake for free? I'd known that for some time, but this is the first time I'd taken them up on the offer. Birthday party combined with multiple house showings each day make that deal too good to pass up.

Next post: Sold!

Quick Recap

2009-04-29T20:56:00.000-07:00

I'm baa-ack! My family, specifically my far-away sister Julie, has been asking to see some recent kid pictures since all I've posted in the last forever has been a picture of the house. BORING! So, here ya go Ju-gee:

Crazy hair day at Hannah's school. If Hannah's doing it, you know Emma's got to be doing it too. So, crazy zig-zag parts, pig tails, and glitter hair gel for all. Even Miriam got piggies though she wanted nothing to do with lap-sitting and posing for pictures. She wanted the camera. Bad.

Better picture of the 'tails. Does Hannah's excitement come through in this picture? Holy cow that girl was excited.

Hannah and I celebrated birthdays in March. Ryan's sister Julie is a cake decorator for a local grocery store chain and she made this awesome cake for us. Look at that cursive lettering! I can't write that well with a pencil, let alone with icing! Thanks Julie!

And, if you're paying attention, you'll note that I've mentioned two Julies in this post. Ryan and I both have sisters named Julie. Yes, it does get confusing at times. Especially because they both have daughters named Natalie. And Ryan's sister Julie's middle name is Ann and I have a sister named Ann. Oh, and Ryan's Mom's name is Laura too. With all of these common names, we are forced to use longer names for just about everyone in our family. For example, when we're talking with the girls about Ryan's sister Julie, we usually refer to her as "Auntie Julie Aeneas' mommy" because, of course, "Auntie Julie Natalie's mommy" could still be either Julie. But now I've strayed waaaay off topic....

Hannah found a "princess cake" in a cookbook and requested it for her birthday party. Unfortunately, I accidentally packed that cookbook and put it in storage while staging our house for sale. So, this was what I came up with after picking Hannah's brain a bit. Princess crown: easiest cake topper ever.

I'm only going to post this party picture (not wanting to post pics of other people's kiddos without permission, you know). Use your imagination: lots of 6-7 year old girls, one 4 year old girl trying to be part of the big girl stuff, one 11 month old girl very confused by all the commotion, pizza, cake, ice cream, Kool-Aid, princess dress up clothes, "High School Musical 3," and just to shake things up, two boys showing up for the last few minutes of the party. Whew!

Next up: Miriam's Birthday!

Happy April

2009-04-02T13:41:00.000-07:00

As promised, I have returned to blog in April. In case anyone's been wondering, the aforementioned "project" that was taking up all my time....

...was cleaning this:

...so we can sell it. Emma says "our house is on sale." Bargain basement prices! Get it while you can!

I have been scrubbing, scouring, packing, and primping for two and a half months in order to get this baby on the market. We've put an almost embarrassing amount of stuff in storage in an attempt to "stage" our home and make the rooms look bigger.

The girls have learned not to ask where their toys are anymore. "Mom, where's the Littlest Pet Shop ... oh, yeah. Storage." Some things have been stuffed under beds and in closets, but these hiding places can only hold so many Barbies and baby dolls. It will be like Christmas and birthday times five when we finally get into the next house and open all the toy boxes again. (Side note: is it bad that I'm seriously considering NOT opening some of the toy boxes and just letting them find their way to Goodwill?)

And so, worst home-buying market in decades be darned! Our house is on the market come what may. We moved into this house seven years and three kids ago. It's time to move on.

I interrupt this blogging hiatus to present...

2009-03-18T21:46:00.000-07:00

... a small reward for those of you who are still checking my blog even when I'm terrible about posting.

I stayed awake long enough last Saturday night to catch this SNL commercial. Ryan says it's kind of gross. I still think it's hilarious.

You be the judge:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/55587/saturday-night-live-pampers

Peaceful Slumber

2009-02-21T16:35:00.000-08:00

Last night after our night time scriptures, books, prayer routine, Ryan and I stayed in the girls' room for a bit. Emma and I were in her bed, chatting, reading a magazine, looking at books, etc. Ryan and Hannah snuggled into her bed and promptly fell asleep. Pretty cute, huh?

Here's Hannah and Ryan a few weeks ago before a school-sponsored Daddy-Daughter dance. Despite Ryan's broken rib, they both had a great time tearing up the dance floor.

I guess I like to take pictures of slumber. Here's Emma on the couch a few Sundays ago. She fell asleep before church and, knowing she'd miss out on her afternoon nap because of 1:00 church, we let her sleep. 1:00 church is a terrible thing. Maybe if the mothers of the world chipped in some $$ we could fund more church buildings and then we would have enough buildings so that no ward would have to meet at 1:00 and no mother would have to wrestle a napless toddler through 3 hours of church ever again. Hmmmm? Who's with me?

And here's Miriam wide awake because she doesn't sleep. Okay, she does sleep. Just not at 1:00 AM. Sigh. Her current favorite activity is emptying. The dishwasher, laundry baskets, boxes, bags, and shelves have all been emptied over and over again. She insists on standing while emptying. Sitting, apparently, is soooo last month.

Oh, and since I think it should be addressed, sorry for the lack of blog posts. I have two excuses: 1. I've been busy with another project that's taken most of my time. 2. I really just haven't felt like blogging. There. Glad that's been cleared up. You can look forward to my next post.

In April.

Just kidding.

I think.

Snow Walk

2008-12-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

This week has been cold and snowy. School was cancelled for the last 3 days of the week bringing an early Winter Break. We've been able to get out of the house here and there, but we're feeling a little bit of cabin fever. We've wrapped most of our Christmas presents, played lots of Uno games, played Zooreka and Balloon Lagoon, put puzzles together, watched movies, vacuumed (no excuse when I'm stuck at home), done laundry, and lots of blogging.

Here are some pictures from a snow walk on Thursday. The snow was coming sideways, so poor Miriam finally turned her head into her hood and fell asleep. Snow is not as exciting when you're only 8 months old. Ryan's dressed Miriam in her all-white P.J.s. He's calling them her "snow P.J.s." Anyone remember KSL weatherman Mark Eubank's "snow coat?" Same idea. I know, Ryan's pretty funny, isn't he?

Hannah and Emma's snow angels.

Last night we had a big storm with strong winds and snow. Church was cancelled today, so we're snowed in on Sunday again. Right now we're watching it snow and thinking about making cookies.

Oh Christmas Tree. . .

2008-12-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

We traveled over the river and through the woods to Ace Hardware to get our tree this year. Usually, we support our local Mom and Pop hardware store by purchasing our tree there, but $15.99 for a Noble was too good to pass up. Can you believe it?!

After taking down the birthday decor (except for a few surviving balloons seen on the wall in the background) we decorated our tree. This is always soooo exciting for the girls and a little frustrating for Ryan and I as we always find one of our cheap-o light strings is no longer working. Would it really be Christmas without a malfunctioning light or two?

My friend Betsy reminded me that the tree is for the kids, so I tried my best to restrain my almost overwhelming desire to have the tree look perfect. They put whatever ornament the wanted where ever they wanted and I didn't say a word. I haven't even moved one ornament from it's original location. I may have asked Ryan to move one or two. Maybe.

Emma taking her turn placing the star.

Hannah placing the star.

My babies in front of the tree. I LOVE this picture.

Snowed in Sunday

2008-12-21T10:13:00.000-08:00

The day after Emma's party, we got snowed in. Ryan was able to get out of our neighborhood for his early morning church meetings, but three hours later we couldn't. I thought we'd be able to make it out and got all of us dressed and ready:

Unfortunately, no dice. We sat in the car and watched the hill, but after watching the four-wheel-drive cars sliding sidways and backwards down the hill, I decided to head back home.

Once home and changed back into our P.J.s and slippers Hannah read Emma stories from the Friend magazine.

Meanwhile, Miriam listened and played with the Little People.

Oh Birthday Tree, Oh Birthday Tree . . .

2008-12-21T10:12:00.000-08:00

In an effort to keep Emma's birthday special and to prevent it from getting lumped in with Christmas, we have always purchased our tree after her birthday party. This year, we got the tree before the party. (I'll post more about that later.) Emma was very excited about the tree, but I still had Mom guilt about it. So, in an effort to make the tree fit in with the birthday decor, we created the birthday tree. Next year I might add lights to make it more fun and sparkly.

We had a lot of family come over for Emma's party. Here's my sister and and her boyfriend Teddy with my girls and their cousin Gracie. Gracie's family (Ryan's sister Kristin and her husband Antonio) is in town from Texas for Christmas.

I love Hannah's expression as Emma opened up this gift.

Thanks for the cute jeans Auntie Julie and Uncle Dave! (And thanks for the fab flower hair clippy from Auntie Staci and Uncle Greggy!)

As requested, the Rainbow Fish Cake.

Me lighting the candles, Greg snapping pictures of the festivities.

Grandma Kane (my maternal grandmother) and Grandma Vreeken (Ryan's maternal grandmother) watching Emma blow out the candles.

Emma, Hannah, and Gracie eating their cake and ice cream. Or, the icing off the cake in Emma's case.

Thanks to all our family who came and made Emma's celebration extra special!

Santa's Lap

2008-12-21T10:07:00.000-08:00

Emma's preschool program was last week. She was excited to be the one on stage performing while Hannah sat with Mom and Dad watching. Hannah really liked watching and thought all the "little kids" were really cute.

After the performance Santa comes to take pictures with the kids. Miriam was really tired by this point in the evening, so she was really wiggly. At least she wasn't crying. Hannah was the only one who didn't want to sit on Santa's lap. Luckily, one of her best school friends was behind us in line, so we could use the power of peer pressure. Neither of the girls could think of anything to ask Santa for (!), but Emma did manage to tell him "we have a Christmas tree!"

A Quality Producer

2008-12-21T10:05:00.000-08:00

Hannah's teacher chose her to be a Student of the Month for December. As a reward for her work, our family got to go have lunch with her.

During lunch her principal gave out the awards. Hannah and Emma both think the principal is pretty much a rock star. Hannah was so excited to have us at lunch, she forgot to get her own lunch box from her class basket! I had to go track it down. Ryan and I very much enjoyed being in the school cafeteria. Elementary school kids are endlessly entertaining.

As a side note, one of Hannah's best friends was chosen as the other Student of the Month from her class. He and Hannah sometimes play Star Wars during lunchtime. His mom tells me that he likes to play with Hannah because "she knows all about Star Wars and most girls don't!" She can thank her Dad for that. I'd never watched Star Wars until I started dating him. Another game Hannah and her friend like to play is "John McCain and Sarah Palin." Hannah tells me that her friend pretends to be John McCain and she pretends to be Sarah Palin - with her new glasses, of course. Not sure what they actually play....

The world through rose-colored glasses

2008-12-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

Hannah got glasses yesterday! The frames are, of course, pink. The sides are adorned with sparkly "gems." Did you expect any less? To top off the girly-factor, they came in a hot pink case with handles that make it look like a purse! How did they know that a girl who wants pink bedazzled glasses would want a pink purse case to keep them in?! Amazing.

Hannah feels sort of so-so about wearing glasses. She really likes the pink fru-fru fancy of them, but not so much the having to wear them part of them. Last night she kept taking them off and leaving them all over. Emma would then find them and put them in a "special place." Unfortunately, Emma's special places are not places that the rest of us know about. Our TV remote went to one of her special places once and we haven't seen it since.

Today is Hannah's first day wearing her glasses to school and I'm just hoping she'll keep them on. I know it's hard to wear glasses as a kid. Ryan and I were both in elementary school when we got glasses. Here's hoping the other kids will be kind and she'll just be able to forget the glasses are even there.

Anyone watch the dog show?

2008-12-11T13:53:00.000-08:00

We had a very nice and quiet Thanksgiving and hope all of you did as well. We watched the Macy's Parade on TV and even part of the dog show that follows it. Surprisingly, the dog show was funny! Not intentionally, but nevertheless quite amusing. Who knew? I may even tune in next year.

Despite an apparent hunger strike over the Thanksgiving Holiday, Miriam has decided to eat solid food again. Hannah got to feed her the other day and loved it! Emma hasn't fed her with a spoon yet, but regularly takes it upon herself to stuff Miriam's mouth with Cheerios. We're working on that, don't worry.

Miriam isn't spitting up nearly as much as she used to. !!!!! It's so nice. Occasionally she still tags us, but that's okay. We've gotten really good at stain removal. The Bleach Pen is a wonderful invention. I firmly believe one should be included inside each package of white baby onesies.

Miriam continues to love her baths. She starts squealing the minute she enters the bathroom. She would dive into the tub fully clothed if we didn't hang on to her. Usually, all the girls take a bath together, but sometimes she gets the tub all to herself.

When Hannah was in Preschool, Emma and I used to walk her to school most days. I hadn't been making the trek this year, but decided to start. You know, now that the weather is cold and rainy. I don't mind walking in the rain and, thanks to my friend Ashlee, we have a great jogging stroller that has a rain cover! The girls stay warm and dry.

Here's Miriam napping with her Teddy bear tucked under her arm. I often find her sleeping like this. Thanks Teddy! She sleeps much better now, in case anyone is wondering. She will fall asleep on her own for bedtime and naptimes. She still wakes up to eat once during the night, but I'm not up to fighting that battle yet.

Ah, yes. I tried to take some pictures of the girls in their Christmas dresses. Some pictures turned out better than others. I just liked this one because of Miriam's facial expression. My second favorite has Hannah and Emma smiling perfectly, but Miriam leaning way forward trying to lauch herself off of the couch.

Fantastic 4

2008-12-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

It's been said that the twos are terrible, but I would disagree. Three has been my hardest year with both Hannah and Emma. And so, it is with great excitement I announce that

EMMA IS NOW 4!!!!

Yippee! We have left the land of timeouts in triplicate and temper tantrums. Mostly, anyway. She seems to have decided, after much testing, that when Mom says "if you do ____ again, you'll get a timeout" Mom really means it. And repeating that behavior WILL land her on the naughty mat. Hmmm. Better to just heed Mom's warning than sit in the timeout.

So, before we had our little birthday celebration tonight, I interviewed Emma:

Favorite color: red
Favorite movie: Barbie's Princess and the Pauper
Favorite thing to do: play with Hannah and Miriam
Favorite thing to do at Preschool: play legos with Jolene and Caitlyn
Favorite song: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Favorite church song: Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam
Favorite food: Mac and cheese
Favorite book: The Twelve Dancing Princesses
Favorite place to be: Preschool
Best thing about having a birthday: presents!

So, here she is, opening some of her presents:

When Emma opened up the scissors, Hannah said, "oh yay for cutting out coupons!"

Emma had a great day. She was convinced that she was taller and heavier than she was the day before. Hannah picked her up and confirmed that, yes, she was heavier. She tried on some of her new clothes and an admiring Hannah said, "oh wow Emma you look FIVE in that outfit!" (That is, of course, one of the highest compliments she could give.) Emma responded, "no, I look 16." Oh, boy.

Turley Lurkey Doo and Turkey Lurkey Dap

2008-11-27T13:58:00.000-08:00

Emma's still wearing her turkey hat from her Preschool party earlier this week. She plans to wear it while singing "Oh I'm glad I'm not a turkey" at Grandma's house later this evening. We'll see if she follows through on that. She likes to talk big.

I had to take a picture of the cute cupcakes from Emma's party. The one pictured is already partly eaten, but let me tell you, these were the cutest things. Fruit roll ups cut up to look like the turkey feathers! !! Emma liked it so much she ate not just the frosting, but the entire cupcake. Now you know it must have been good.

Hannah seemed a little sad that she didn't have a Thanksgiving party at school. She's a big first grader now and life is tough. Kidding aside, she loves school. The other day she asked me, "Mom, do you know what I don't like about school?" I told her I didn't know, though I might have guessed that her least favorite part of school was having to use the school restrooms. She said, "Nothing!! I like everything about school!" Whew. During her recently-completed science unit on sea life, she decided she wants to become a scientist. She's taught me all sorts of things about the ocean that I never knew. For example, since the word "twilight" has been a frequently-used word around here lately, she told me all about the twilight layer of the ocean. Then, she asked me if I knew what bioluminescense was. (I can't even spell it. Thank goodness for Google.) I still can't define it as well as she did, so I'll refer you to my friend wiki for a definition.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Eric Tweaks Twilight

2008-11-25T13:45:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it, I didn't love the movie version of "Twilight." I really really (yes, really really) loved the book, but the movie... not so much. Maybe I'll like it more if I see it again, but when I watched it the other night I spent much of the movie irritated because Edward was too mean and scary, Jacob was wierd, there was too much Charlie, Carlisle was too pasty white, etc. I kept leaning over to Ryan and whispering, "that wasn't in the book!" Pepper spray? Really? Maybe the squealing teenage girls sitting all around me in the theater had something to do with my annoyance with the movie? I expected excitement from the crowd, but not squealing through the ENTIRE movie. Wow.

Admitedly, I hyped the movie up in my head too much and disappointment was inevitable. I know I'll see the movie again and probably enjoy it more now that I've got more realistic expectations.

I may be the only Twilight fan who didn't think the movie was great. That's okay. Whether or not you liked the movie, you may enjoy Eric Snider's take on the script here. If you were at BYU back in the late 90s, you probably know of Eric. He wrote a "Titanic" screenplay for BYU's Daily Universe that was excellent. His sarcastic non-P.C. writing is, in my opinion, hilarious and his Twilight screenplay is no exception. Enjoy.

Meanest Mom

2008-10-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

Someday, when my children are teenagers, they may suggest I'm the meanest Mom. This picture may be used as evidence:Here's my defense: I haven't had a full night's sleep in months. I'm tired. Mostly, I'm tired of getting up every two hours with a baby who shouldn't be getting up that often and certainly shouldn't need to eat that often. So I'm imposing the tough love/cry it out approach to sleeping. I've had very little success so far, but my desire for sleep keeps me trying. Tonight, I put a very tired Miriam in her crib. She'd been recently fed, diapered, and swaddled. She'd only slept one hour all day (her choice, not mine) so she was probably over tired. Once I left her, she cried which is normal. She got pretty upset at one point, but I was dealing with a Hannah and Emma wrestling match downstairs at the time, so I didn't go check on Miriam. By the time I'd separated Hannah and Emma and cleaned up the Halloween candy that they'd thrown all over the family room like it was confetti, I noticed Miriam was quiet. Good. Once I'd started Hannah and Emma on getting ready for bed, I peeked into Miriam's room to check on her. The picture above is what I saw. Apparently, Miriam's more urgent cries started when she realized her arm was stuck in the crib's bars. Hmmm... I guess it wasn't that uncomfortable because she ended up falling asleep that way. Right? Right. And, after I took the picture, I did move her back to her normal sleeping position. This, of course woke her up and more crying ensued. Fortunately, she fell asleep more quickly this time. Hopefully, all her limbs are in the crib this time.

Trunk or Treat

2008-10-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

Our ward's Trunk or Treat and Halloween party got off with a bang... or a siren, I suppose. The Young Men (leaders?) were in charge of the Spook Alley and their smoke machine set off the church's fire alarm. This brought out the local fire truck and Ryan had to explain what had happened. Never a dull moment around here! It was actually kind of convenient that we were already at the building for this fire department call since we usually get late night phone calls to inform Ryan of fire alarms or other building emergencies.

Since all the partygoers were already out in the parking lot, we had our Trunk or Treat before the inside party.

Here's Miriam as the Great Pumpkin. Though she's incredibly cute, she did not love her costume. Once in it she proceeded to spit up and chew on the green collar for most of the night. Spit up, chew on it, spit up, chew on it.

After the fire "drill" and Trunk or Treating, Hannah and Emma were frozen so we wrapped them in some blankets.

Hannah was Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Emma was a cat, and Ryan was the "Candy Inspector." (Not pictured: Ryan's "candy inspector gadget" also known as a wall stud finder.) Here they're participating in the cupcake walk. Hannah got a white cupcake.

Emma chose a chocolate cupcake. She, of course, ate the frosting and then was done.

Here's the Halloween family.

And here's Miriam in her Jumperoo because she loves it and she's just cute.

Preschool Pics

2008-10-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

Miriam and I attended Emma's preschool class last week. I'm doing the preschool scrapbook pages for this month, so I got to go take some pictures of the kids. It was fun to be a "fly on the wall" (as much as that's possible with a 5 month old baby hanging in a sling off the front of me) and see what Emma does at preschool.

Here she's playing on the playground.

And eating her Teddy Bear Biscuit that she made earlier in the day. They've been "studying" teddy bears for the past few weeks. Now, they're on to studying farm animals which will include a visit to a local farm. She is very excited about this excursion. In other news...

Hannah and Miriam are sick with colds, sore throats, etc. Hannah was home from school Friday and will probably be tomorrow too. Needless to say, sickness has not helped Miriam's sleeping habits. Not only is she up during the night, but it's almost impossible to get her to sleep at night. She's up for hours just crying no matter what we do to try to help her. This is tiring for Ryan and I and is compounded by the fact that neither Ryan nor I were getting much sleep before Miriam got sick. Ryan's been working at night into the wee hours of the mornings trying to get a big project done for work. This project was stressful for him and became even more so recently when Washington Mutual, the company he works as a contractor for, was bought out by JP Morgan Chase. We are waiting to see how all the dust settles as the two companies merge and as they figure out how Ryan's company, CB Richard Ellis, will fit into the mix.

AND, I've not been sleeping well because I got the cold/cough bug that Hannah brought home from school in early September. I had it for weeks when, last week, I started having bad chest pains. As crazy as it sounds, the pains were bad enough that one night I thought I was having a heart attack. I went to the doctor the next morning and was diagnosed with costochondritis. Essentially, I have inflamed cartilage in my chest. Not totally sure what caused it, but I think it has to do with weeks of coughing to the point where my ribs said, "ENOUGH!" Anyhoo, the doctor says "it will get a little bit better every day." Hmmm... that's helpful.

So, Ryan and I kind of feel like the walking wounded/exhausted. It was nice to have General Conference this weekend and just take it easy. We all took naps this afternoon which we haven't been able to do in a long time.

Hannah and Emma put an umbrella over Miriam in her bouncy seat. All three of them loved it. Hannah and Emma were so excited they couldn't even sit still for this picture. Miriam continues to be unimpressed with her solid foods. Here she is tonight, eating some applesauce. Yum? Boy, if she doesn't like applesauce, we're in trouble. Maybe we'll just feed her coupons.

P.S. Jenni, notice the flower clippy in Miriam's hair? Thanks for the inspiration!

Beginnings

2008-09-23T22:16:00.000-07:00

Summer is now officially over and we're well into our first month of school. Before the school year started, I gave Hannah and Emma hair cuts. It was hard to cut all of that pretty hair, but they seem pleased with their new 'dos. Ryan almost cried when he came home from work the day I cut their hair, but he kept his composure and eventually decided it was fine.

Here's Hannah, Miriam, and Emma eating breakfast before Hannah's first day at school. Pink frosted mini wheats, Cheerios, and milk is the breakfast of choice.

Hannah sporting her pink pack. You may not be able to tell, but she's so excited the buttons on her jacket are about to burst.

Here's Emma, a few days later, outside her Preschool. She'd been waiting for this day for 2 years. She cried when Hannah would get to go into Preschool class and she couldn't. Now it's her turn!
Emma having a Teddy Graham and Apple Juice snack at Preschool. When her teacher announced the snack for the day Emma made the most excited face you can imagine. So much so that the other parents in the room were chuckling and whispering, "she must like those Teddy Grahams!"
So, Hannah started First Grade, Emma started Preschool, and Miriam... well, Miriam started solid food.
She doesn't love the rice cereal or oatmeal. Does any baby like that stuff? None of mine have seemed to. Miriam always makes a horrid face when the first spoonful reaches her tongue. She'll even do a full body shudder to emphasize her dissatisfaction. We'd hoped a bowl or two of cereal would help her sleep through the night again since she stopped doing that about 6 weeks ago. No luck so far.
So now we're back in the swing of school, dance classes, homework, show and tell, fundraisers, and book orders. Hannah has homework 3-4 nights each week and, unlike when she was in Kindergarten, she actually likes doing it. Emma tries her best to distract Hannah from doing her homework - just because she's so excited that Hannah's finally home and she wants to play. I've been trying to keep Hannah on task by sitting her and Emma at the table and giving Emma a pencil and paper so she can do homework too. Emma's imagination takes over from there and she'll draw pictures and write stories until Hannah's done. Miriam is content to roll around on the floor. She can roll both ways now and can pivot on her tummy to get to most things she wants. I keep forgetting her new-found mobility. The other day I put her down on my bedroom floor and walked away to take care of someone else. When I came back to her, she was halfway under my bed, trying to roll under it! Oh, boy.

We Had A Great Summer

2008-09-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick review of our summer - in pictures! Enjoy.

One day, while Ryan was away at Girl's Camp, we painted our toenails! Thanks to Samantha for the picture idea and to Ashlee for the suggesting the use of a highchair for baby toe pedicures.

We rode the Duck! Here we're on Lake Union in Seattle. We went with Ryan's family and had a blast. Who knew amphibious war vehicles could be so much fun? The other day Emma said we "needed to go ride the Duck again."

Miriam liked the Duck too. Despite the wind, yelling, music, and rocky ride, she fell asleep in my lap.

We took family pictures with Ryan's family. Above, Aeneas and Natalie are helping Gracie (the girl's cousins) get to the picture location. Antonio and Kristin are to the right.

We threw rocks into Puget Sound. Pictured are Antonio, Gracie, Staci, Emma, Hannah, and Natalie.

We spent a week on the Oregon Coast with Ryan's family. We all had such a great time and made so many fun memories. We flew kites (you may notice the kite is flying itself in this picture), played games, watched games, soaked in the hot tub, built sand castles, fed seals, ate saltwater taffy, and toured a cheese factory! Our camera never seemed to make it out of our bag, so we have very few pictures. Hopefully, everyone else will send us copies of theirs. Hint, hint.

We barbequed at both Grandma's houses and enjoyed visiting with Julie, Dave, and little Natalie from New York.

We went out to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Kane.

We swam at the pool with Auntie Ann, Grandma Carlson, Auntie Julie, Uncle Dave, and Natalie.

??? This is just a funny Emma picture.

Grandma Carlson and the girls taught cousin Natalie how to play Water Monster. Water Monster is any game played outside that involves lots of water and screaming.

We almost went crazy.

We played at the beach.

Miriam and Hannah bonded.

It was a great summer. Thanks to all of our family who traveled so far to come visit us. Memories are made of this!

Long Time No Posts...

2008-08-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

So between a vacation, having family in town for two and half weeks, and 95 degree plus weather (I stop functioning when it gets over about 87 - that's why I live in Seattle), I haven't found time to update the blog. Trust me, it's not the only thing I've let slide. It's amazing how gross carpet can get when it hasn't been vacuumed in 3 weeks and you have 3+ children and twice that many adults running around on it. Yuck. I've been feeling guilty about my lack of attention to cleaning, blogging, etc. I was encouraged today, however, when I found this post by one of my favorite bloggers:

http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/2008/08/having-it-all-together-i-think-not.html

I liked Crystal's post because I can relate to her feelings of wanting to do so much and sometimes being able to accomplish very little. Oftentimes, I feel like I'm accomplishing very little because I'm so busy just feeding and maintaining the relative happiness and cleanliness of 3 little girls. During the times when I feel overwhelmed by what needs to be cleaned, folded, washed, or swept, I can get down on myself for not doing EVERYTHING well. Not keeping everything perfect.

Like Crystal, it has been hard for me to come to terms with the reality that this is a season of my life when some things I'd like to do have to be put aside while I focus on the things I need to do. There is always going to be a Cheerio or two under the kitchen table needing to be swept. That same kitchen table will usually have a smudge of yogurt or peanut butter needing to be wiped up. Some toy - ok, I'll be realistic - MOST of the toys will be left out and need to be put away. The ironing pile may never be conquered and I can't forsee a day when there isn't any dirty laundry that needs to be washed or clean laundry that needs folding. This is simply my reality and I'm learning to be okay with it.

I'm trying to include my girls in some of these homemaking tasks in an effort to spend more time with them while teaching them responsibility and the importance of work. Hopefully, they're having some fun along the way too. I am. For example, yesterday morning, Hannah, Emma, and I dumped five loads of laundry on my bed, turned on the Olympic's Women's volleyball match and folded while we watched the game. While folding, we talked about how to play volleyball and we got very excited about all the great blocks and spikes. The laundry got folded and we had fun. Today, they asked if we could watch more volleyball! Maybe some of you have been able to find ways to get chores done with your kids and have fun together at the same time. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

So, I will be posting more pictures on here soon, but not today. I've got some vacuuming to do.

How We Roll

2008-07-18T22:08:00.000-07:00

One of the many reasons I love my car is that I can fit three car seats across the middle row.

The girls enjoy sitting together and making each other laugh. Hannah reads stories to Emma and Miriam and holds in the pacifier when Miriam's crying. She also mops up all the spit up that inevitably erupts from Miriam during every car ride. I like having all the girls close to me so I can reach them and pass them Kleenex, drinks, books, etc.

Looking at all these car seats makes me think I should buy Graco stock. Hmmmm...

We Can Boogie

2008-07-18T22:05:00.001-07:00

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Mango-a-go-go Madness

2008-07-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

A new Jamba Juice just opened up in our local grocery store. Now, we can get Starbucks and Jamba Juice with our bread and milk! Starbucks doesn't tempt me, but, oh the smell of Jamba Juice makes my mouth water. Anyone who's ever walked through the Wilk at BYU knows what I'm talking about. Well, if you love Jamba Juice as much as I do, visit http://www.jambajuice.com/ to get a printable buy one get one free coupon! Look for the link on the right hand side of the screen.

As with any deal like this, you might want to call ahead to make sure your store is participating in this promotion.

Thanks to the Centisible Sawyer, my favorite deal finder.

An Afternoon at the Water Park

2008-07-18T15:04:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we spent our Saturday afternoon at the local water park. Ryan swam with the girls most of the time while I hung out with Miriam in the shade.

Diaper Diva

Hannah, resting in the sun.
Emma doing the same.

Hannah showing off her new smile. Her front tooth *finally* fell out... in her bed... while she was sleeping. That's how loose it was.
Miriam's tummy time.

Ryan and the girls in the pool.
Emma working on her jumps. Ahh, floating in the pool on a hot summer day. It doesn't get much better than that.

4th of July Camping Trip

2008-07-18T14:17:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July this year we traveled to the ocean to camp. It was Emma and Miriam's first time camping... and Ryan and my first time camping with 3 children. Vacation? Not so much, but we had fun and the girls had a blast. As always, click on the pictures below to enlarge them.

Even in July, the coast in Washington is pretty cloudy. Hence, the coats and hoods. Here's me, Emma, my Uncle Curt and Aunt Diane, Teddy, Ann, Hannah, and Ryan.

Ryan loves to build sand castles. Here he's working on the moat.
Hannah LOVED the waves and ran in and out with Aunt Diane.
Emma wasn't so sure about the waves or water, but she liked building sand castles.

Miriam slept through our beach adventure, snug and warm in a sling.
Hannah skipping in and out of the surf.
After the beach, Grandma washed the sand off. Ryan's holding a stick with a huge beetle bug on it. A camping treasure.Before dinnertime, Hannah ("look at my LONG legs!"), Teddy, me, Emma, Grandma/Mom, Miriam, and Ryan.

Hannah, Miriam, Emma - during a Miriam diaper changing.

Hannah jumping on a tree branch.

Grandpa snuggling Miriam.
Here's how we found Hannah one evening: sitting by Grandma's Yurt, reading a book. I think Emma's trying to convince her to come play. I think she has a squirt gun in her mouth. Yup, this picture captures their personalities pretty well.
Ryan and the girls eating breakfast one morning.
This is what they looked like after visiting the beach on a drizzly morning.

Fireworks over the ocean! Washington's best kept fireworks secret, if you asked us. We love it, but Hannah covered her ears and cried. Too loud for her.

Miriam's chillin' in her car seat covered with a bug net to keep the mosquitoes away.
Ryan cooking biscuits over our fire. He takes his biscuit cooking very seriously.

Emma and Hannah playing in the top bunk of our Yurt. Yurts are sort of like a tent cabin, in case anyone is wondering.

Saving Their Pennies

2008-07-12T14:11:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Boeing Employee's Credit Union (BECU) and opened up a savings account for Miriam. Hannah and Emma already have these accounts which we use to save for their college expenses. When I opened Miriam's account, they gave me a piggybank for each of my girls. The banks aren't anything super fancy - they're just cardboard, but what I liked about them was they had three compartments: Save, Share, Spend. We think charitable giving is important and we usually do this in the form of tithing. This little bank can help remind the girls to pay their tithing and "share" their money. The banks also came with a check register-like booklet that can help the girls decide how much of each deposit they will save, share, and spend. AND, they got some BECU post-it note pads, keychains, and a booklet for parents to help them guide their children's financial decisions. Free stuff is so fun! Thanks, BECU!

If you'd like to open an Early Saver Account for your kids, check out http://www.becu.org/ You don't have to be a Boeing employee, all Washington State residents are eligible to become BECU members.

Keeping Emma at Bay

2008-07-07T14:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a typical interaction between Emma and Miriam:

Miriam is smiling, laughing, cooing or otherwise being cute and fun.

Emma comes over to investigate why Miriam is getting so much attention. Notice Emma's smelly marker-covered hand on Miriam's arm. Too bad we didn't get a picture of Emma pinching Miriam's cheeks or giving Miriam a "pig nose."

I try to encourage Emma to play with Miriam by talking to her and not touching her face.
Emma resists my attempts to contain her always-moving arms.
So, her busy arms find a book to keep them happy...
...until the next time Mom and Dad aren't looking and she can give Miriam a pig nose.

Magical Miriam

2008-07-07T14:33:00.001-07:00

There's something magical about a baby that can keep even an active 3 year old entertained. We love to just sit and stare at her. She's smiling and laughing now and it's great. Hannah and Emma love that they can sort of interact with her now by getting her to laugh and smile. We've now survived Miriam's 6th and 7th weeks (when my babies tend to cry the most and I tend to bottom out). She's 2 1/2 months old and very easy going. She'll sleep for 6 hours at night and takes good daytime naps.

You'll notice her chubby cheeks and arm and torso rolls. She weighed 12 pounds at her 2 month check up. She may have started out much smaller than her sisters were at birth, but she's quickly making up for lost ground.

Summertime Sprinkler

2008-07-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

One warm summer morning, Ryan decided to kill two birds with one stone: water the lawn and keep the girls entertained. This is what followed.

Meanwhile, Miriam slept as she usually does: a burp cloth under her head, under her chin, over the bib. Ah, the joys of spit up.

Hannah's Favorite Activity

2008-07-07T14:20:00.000-07:00

Hannah would rather read than do most anything else. She loves all books, but especially those about princesses, barbies, fairies, or silly girls. Her favorite series is the Junie B. Jones books. She has a number of them and reads them over and over and over. I love that she loves books and reading. It's particularly wonderful because she's happy to sit and read out loud to Emma.

Miriam's Blessing and Miriam Smiles

2008-06-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

We had Miriam's baby blessing at church on June 1st. She was a champ and didn't cry during the blessing at all. Afterward, she sat in my lap and fell asleep all by herself. Without any rocking, bouncing, pacifier, sling, shushing, or swaddling. That never happens. Divine intervention is the only explanation. In fact, Miriam slept most of that day which was so nice as blessing days are so hectic and stressful. So hectic and stressfull in fact that we didn't take many pictures. We did get the nice group shot below, but all we have of Miriam in her blessing dress is when she was sleeping on my shoulder. Oh, well. I'm glad we got the group picture and thankfull to all of our family that could come to the blessing.

Here's poor Miriam getting "loved" by her sisters. Smothered with love.

Miriam's started cooing and smiling. It's so fun. She'll even sit in her carseat and smile and coo at the girls in the backseat of the car. They love being able to have this little bit of interaction with her. The following pictures are my attempt to capture her smile. Unfortunately, when she smiles, she moves her head all around (picture Stevie Wonder singing) so it's hard to avoid a blurry picture. This was the best I could do.
Pokey lip?

Hannah's school had a Sock Hop last week. She dressed up in a big twirly skirt and was in heaven. When you're a 6 year old girl, happiness is determined by how twirly your skirt is. Ryan took Hannah and Emma to the Sock Hop and he reported back that Emma danced up a storm. Hannah was a little bit more cautious.

The One Armed Blogger

2008-05-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

When I figure out how to type well with one hand, I'll be much better about updating this blog (and commenting on all of yours). I usually have Miriam in one arm and one arm free for typing, which makes all things computer very laborious. I've managed to get to my email about 1-2 times per week, but the blog has been largely ignored. I'm sure I'll get better with time. In the meantime, Miriam's sleeping on her own right now, so I have two hands to type! I may be in grubby clothes with a Miriam poop smear on my shirt, but doggone it, I HAVE TWO HANDS TO TYPE! I'd better be fast, Emma just woke up from her nap.

Here's Miriam enjoying a nice bath. She likes to be bathed and have her hair washed.

Miriam's now 6 weeks old and weighed 9 pounds 9 ounces at her one month checkup. She gained almost 3 pounds in one month! She's sleeping in 3-4 hour blocks most of the time. She still has random crying spells some evenings, but we know she'll grow out of that. Since her one month check up she's been taking baby Zantac to treat her choking and gagging. She spits up a TON and all the time, just like her sisters did, but she also chokes and gags to the point she can't breathe. The Zantac seems to be decreasing the amount of spit up a bit, so that she's less likely to choke. Ryan and the girls went out for a walk one sunny Sunday evening. Miriam's nose is barely visible out the top of the Baby Bjorn. Thanks to Julie, Dave, and Natalie for the cute matching hats. Can't wait until H&M comes to Seattle!

Hannah and Emma liked watching their shadows. Aren't simple pleasures great?

Miriam's up. That's all for now. Until the next nap!

Not to be out done...

2008-05-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

...here's Miriam sporting a tutu. Dance recitals, here she comes!

Dance Recital

2008-05-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

So much to update on! Here's our pictures from Hannah and Emma's dance recital two weeks ago. They loved performing and dancing for all their family. I think you can click on the pictures to see bigger pictures. Hopefully.

Auntie Ann held Miriam who (thankfully) slept through the entire performance. She woke up when it was all over, filled her diaper, and cried for food. More pictures of that below.

Ryan with me and my mouthful of cookie. Emma, Teddy, Hannah, and Auntie Ann.
Emma and Hannah danced around the reception area while the adults chatted. Give these girls any open space and they'll fill it with dancing. Emma and her dancing arms. She loves to use her arms when dancing.
Miriam getting her diaper changed. So much for privacy.
Ryan and his brother Greg. And Miriam too. :)
Emma performing on stage. I didn't get any good Hannah pictures because I couldn't figure out my camera settings until it was time for Emma's class. Sorry Hannah!
Even though the recital took place during naptime, the girls were cheery and not over-emotional. Apparently it's impossible to be grumpy when wearing a tutu.

Thanks to everyone for coming! The girls appreciated it.

3 weeks with 3

2008-05-08T20:23:00.000-07:00

After three weeks with three kids in our house, I thought we should give an update. Ryan was home from work for two weeks. It was wonderful. He was Mr. Mom and took care of all things domestic. There was, however, a bit of a learning curve to taking care of the girls 24/7 and I could occasionally hear him quoting the movie "Mr. Mom" saying, "You're doing it wrong!" and "South to drop-off MORON!" If you've seen the movie, you'll get it.

This past week, my Mom has been here helping us all day everyday. Again, it's been great and the girls are so excited to see her every morning. The following are some pictures to further illustrate the past three weeks.

Here's Miriam in her slippers. The slippers are actually very small, but her legs are such sticks, the slippers look bigger than they are.

Sleeping baby.

Go Mariners!

On the couch, catching up on some sleep.

Miriam likes tummy time. Here she found her fist and sucked like crazy.

When Ryan was home, he made Emma the "smiley face lunch." She loved it and asked for it every day.

Emma is fascinated with Miriam... to the point of borderline smothering. I think my most frequently uttered phrase is, "Emma, please give Miriam space. Don't get to close to her face."
The big sisters. Thank goodness they play so well together. It allows us time to take care of Miriam without feeling like we're totally neglecting our older two.
Grandpa Carlson "keeping Miriam awake" so she wouldn't keep me awake during the night. It's a tough job.
Hannah and Emma playing football with Ryan at Grandma and Grandpa Carlson's house.

Ryan tackling Emma during the football game. Gathered at Grandma and Grandpa Carlson's house for Auntie Ann's birthday party.
Horsey ride.
Miriam in her car seat. We have to unfold her limbs to get her in the straps. She still prefers to be in the fetal position at all times.
Hannah and Emma like to make forts with Grandma Carlson.

Miriam, nice and calm after a diaper change. All three girls.
Hannah and Emma outside Hannah's classroom. Ryan and Grandma both have enjoyed taking Hannah to school each day. It's fun to see her in her element.
Big yawn. Like the milk tongue?
Oh, boy, does she love Miriam.

So, that's the first three weeks. Next week I'm on my own. Yikes!

Presenting Miriam

2008-04-25T16:44:00.000-07:00

Miriam Nicole Mattson

Born: April 18, 2008 7:23 AM

7 pounds 6 ounces

Snuggled in bed.

Ryan with his Grandma Vreeken and Miriam.

Hope you enjoy the pictures. We'll post more as time allows....

Tag, Ryan's IT!

2008-04-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

Enough about me, it's Ryan's turn.

4 jobs I've had:
- Dock worker at Oak Harbor Freight Lines
- McDonald's burger flipper
- BYU Testing Center
- Financial Analyst CB Richard Ellis

Last 4 movies I've seen:
- Stardust
- Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
- Princess Bride (he stayed awake for the whole movie - INCONCEIVABLE!)
- Ocean's 13

4 places I've been: let's do the furthest away, just for fun
- Hawaii
- Venezuela
- Rochester, NY
- Dallas, TX

4 tv programs I watch:
- The Office
- News
- Northwest Sports Tonight
- The Chris Matthews Show

4 radioshows:
- 950 Sports radio
- 1000 KOMO news radio
- 770 AM - talk radio "The Truth!"
- 101.5 FM - still known as KPLZ in our house

4 favorite foods:
- Duke's Restaurant clam chowder
- Pabellon - traditional Venezuelan meal
- pizza
- chocolate chip cookies

4 places I'd rather be:
- Safeco Field for an M's game
- BYU
- Hawaii
- home

Tagged

2008-04-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

4 jobs I've had:
- Corporate event planning assistant/gopher
- Courier/Receptionist/Research Assistant @ BYU Religious Education Dept.
- Land Acquisition/Development Admin - my first REAL full-time job
- Mom - where I learned the true meaning of a FULL TIME job

Last 4 movies I've seen:
- Stardust - I recommend it!
- Happiest Baby on the Block DVD
- Princess Bride - well, I watched half, then fell asleep, but this is normal for me and movies.
- Ocean's 13

4 places I've been: let's do the furthest away, just for fun
- Hawaii - Oahu
- Mexico - Aqua Prieta, and somewhere over by Tijuana but can't remember the name...
- Rochester, NY
- Provo, UT - *sigh*

4 tv programs I watch:
- The Office
- 30 Rock
- American Idol
- Biggest Loser

4 radioshows:
- 92.5
- 101.5
- 710 AM - talk radio
- 106.1

4+ favorite foods:
- Enchiladas
- Tacos, taco soup, burritos, taco salad, tamales - anything Mexican
- Lasagna
- brownies

4 places I'd rather be:
- downtown Seattle on the waterfront - it's a beautiful day!
- BYU
- visiting faraway family - NY, TX, etc.
- in a sparkling clean house.....

If you need some blog filler - YOU'RE TAGGED! Have fun.

Hannah Turns 6: Princesses, Parties, and Pink Frosting

2008-03-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Hannah turned 6 last week and celebrated in grand fashion. Here's our some photos we took during the week. I haven't included many pictures from her birthday party because of issues surrounding posting pictures of other people's children. I included what I could. Enjoy!

Here's Hannah headed to school with cupcakes for her class. The school's Jog-A-Thon happend to fall on Hannah's birthday, so her class ate the cupcakes and then - went jogging! Hopefully the sugar gave them an energy burst and didn't just give them stomach aches. Hannah ran 20 laps, so I guess she was energized!

Emma was having major birthday jealousy issues that day, so she got to keep one cupcake to eat after lunch. This is a picture of her being "done" with her cupcake. She eats the frosting off the top and throws the cake away.

Here's the cake I made for Hannah's actual birthday evening. I ran out of pink icing, so I improvised with the tiny bit of purple that was left. Not my best work, but Hannah still liked it. Whew!

Blowing out her candles. She's wearing the birthday crown she got at school that day.

And for my next act - the Barbie Doll Cake. Hannah was totally fascinated and sat while I frosted the entire dress. For days she talked about how much she loved her cake.

Here's Hannah with the finished Barbie cake. This is actually one of the easier birthday cakes I've made. Easier than the princess castle cake Hannah's wanted for her birthday for the past 3 years. Hopefully she'll want this cake for a few years to come.

Emma and Hannah getting ready for Hannah's party.

We made this sign to go on our front door. Hannah liked it so much so we decided to take a picture for posterity.

I have to explain this picture. I think Hannah's noticed that people do "bunny ears" or "peace signs" for pictures. I noticed that many of her friends did that in our party pictures. However, I don't think Hannah knows that these signs are typically done with just two fingers. She's flashing three fingers here. Maybe she thought, "if two is good, three must be better!"

Blowing out the candles on cake.

According to Hannah, her birthday party was lots of fun. We made princess crowns, and played a number of games. Ryan did a great job of planning fun games that the girls loved. Their favorite was the most simple: the princess and the witch. For this game, the girls sat on the floor in a circle. One person was given a small ball - this ball represents the princess. Another person is given a larger ball representing the witch. The girls have to pass the balls around the circle with the witch trying to "chase" the princess. The girls try to keep the princess from the witch and keep the witch chasing the princess. The witch can change directions too. Anyway, judging by the amount of squealing and screaming, it was a hit.

Between my birthday, Hannah's birthday, and Easter it was a busy week. We had a pretty low-key Easter because we were all so tired. Now, we're on baby countdown. Just over 3 weeks to go!

Remember when thirty seemed so old

2008-03-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

Once again, a song lyric comes to mind when thinking of a new post title. Thanks Alan Jackson.

I turned 30 a week or so ago and wanted to thank everyone who made my birthday so special. Thank you to all of the family and friends who contributed thoughts, memories, and pictures to the birthday book Ryan put together. I cried when I read through it which made Ryan feel that he'd accomplished his goal. Reading such kind words written by people who I respect and admire so much was the greatest feeling.

People have asked me if I'm sad to leave my 20s and to be THIRTY, as if it is very old. I don't feel sad. Rather, like Alan Jackson says in his song, "[I] won't be sad, [I]'ll be glad for all the life [I]'ve had." I have so many fun memories. I have even more memories thanks to the birthday book and the fun times I'd forgotten and many of you reminded me of. I look forward to the wonderful things my thirties have to offer.

Thanks again, everyone - you know who you are.

Gracie's Visit

2008-03-03T15:15:00.000-08:00

During Hannah's mid-winter break, Ryan's sister Kristin and her daughter Gracie were in town from Texas. We had fun at our library's storytime and at the zoo. Here's some pics:

Hannah and Emma waiting for stories to begin. Stories were about colors, hence the crayon name tags.

Here's Gracie and Kristin at storytime.
Gracie liked the magazines - they had animals on the covers. My girls liked whatever Gracie liked. They think she's so fun.

The next day we went to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. We had a big group: Gracie, Kristin, my Mom, Ryan's sister Julie and her kids Aeneas and Natalie. I'd never been there before and was so impressed! It was nice to have the zoo and aquarium in the same location for one low price!
This zoo's exhibits allow you to be much closer to the animals than our other zoo. We liked the elephants and the tiger.
And, when the animals weren't so interesting, Gracie was always entertaining.
Here we are: Aeneas, Natalie, Hannah, Me, Emma, Kristin, Gracie, and Julie. (My Mom's the photographer - thanks for all the pics, Mom!)
This statue provided some climbing opportunities.
Not to be left out, Gracie came over to be with her big cousins.

Warmer Weather

2008-02-26T12:38:00.001-08:00

Spring doesn't arrive until next month, but we've had some nice weather lately. To clarify, that's over 50 degrees, in case our New York readers are thinking "Wow - it's been over 30!" or our Texas readers are thinking "Wow - it's been over 80!" "Warmer" is a relative term.

We've been venturing outside more and rediscovering our "outside" toys. Yesterday, the girls rode their crocodile. Last summer, they couldn't ride together without help because Emma was too light and Hannah didn't know how to compensate for that. Yesterday, Emma almost went flying head first over the handlebars twice, then they seemed to figure it out.

Last week, Ryan and the girls drew with sidewalk chalk. He traced both girls then they colored themselves in. Their drawings survived a morning's drizzle, so we took some pictures.

Here's Emma:

And Hannah:

Last week, Hannah had mid-winter break and Ryan's sister Kristin and her daughter Grace were visiting from Texas, so we did some fun things. I'll get those pictures and stories on here soon.

Do you know these girls?

2008-02-08T13:59:00.001-08:00

We spent last week nursing sick Emma back to health. Be glad I didn't take any pictures. It wasn't pretty. Neither of my kids have ever been that sick before. Emma didn't talk for about three days. She laid on the couch or in her bed and that was it. She even asked me if I could turn off Sesame Street so she could go take a nap. Now THAT'S sick.

I did learn a few things about kids and barf though. I share them with you here in hopes that you won't have to learn the hard way, as I did.

Layers: towels, blankets, sheets, pillowcases, etc. After changing Emma's bed 3 times between the hours of 2 and 5 AM, I learned this lesson. Sheet, towel, sheet, towel. Lots of pillowcases layered one on top of the other. Then, when the barf comes again (and it will, oh yes, it will), you just strip off the polluted layers. Now the lower layers are on top and you don't have to go find clean sheets and remake the bed. Trust me on this one. Also helpful in the car. Enough said.
Pedialyte tastes horrible. (Our pediatrician even admitted this.) After one sip Emma wouldn't get near the stuff and asked for water instead. This is a child who can down a juice box in about 10 seconds. She LOVES juice, but Pedialyte? No way. Dilute Gatorade to half strength. If they can't tolerate it, give 1 teaspoon every five minutes until it starts staying down. Tedious, but it worked for us when even water was coming back up.
BRAT diet: Bananas, Rice, Applesauce, Toast. I'll add Saltine Crackers to that list(BRATS?). We tried the toast and crackers without much success, but on day 4, she liked the applesauce and ate a few bites of that.
A 3 year old can hold her own barf bowl in her lap in the car. Yup, and throw up into it too. Unfortunately, sleeping snuggled up next to the same bowl didn't mean she got the throw up into the bowl in the middle of the night.

Many of you may already know all of these tricks. At our house throw up NEVER happens, so we had a lot of learning to do.

So, instead of sickness shots, I attached two pictures from the past. Hannah and Emma found these glasses somewhere at my Mom's house on New Year's Eve. They liked them because one of their favorite book characters, Lily from Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, wears them. Until next time....

Why We Don't Let 5 Year Olds Vote

2008-01-30T17:39:00.000-08:00

Hannah: Mom, who are those people? Why are they always on the news?

Laura: They want to be the next President of the United States so they have to let us all know why we should vote for them.

Hannah: What are their names?

Laura: [insert all candidates' names here]

Hannah: I want John McCain to win.

Laura: Oh, really? Why?

Hannah: I like his name.

Laura: Ah... yes.

[It should be noted that 20 minutes later, Hannah decided she actually wanted Hillary Clinton to win. Why? Becuase she likes her name, of course.]

Snow-qualmie Falls

2008-01-22T14:35:00.000-08:00

For MLK day yesterday we decided to spend part of the day doing something out of the ordinary (ordinary = home, Barbies, church, My Little Ponies, cleaning, babies, cooking, princesses, washing, vacuuming, etc.). So, we drove up to Snoqualmie Falls to see the sights. Though we were able to see the falls, we weren't able to hike down to the bottom of the falls, by the river, as the trail was closed. Bummer! We did walk around the park at the top of the hill, by the Salish Lodge (seen to the left in the above picture). It was 20ish degrees outside with snow on the ground and wind. Despite our layers, we were frozen.

We ate our lunch in the car and thawed out for a bit before driving to a nearby neighboorhood's park. At the park, Ryan spun the girls on this cool... well... spinny thing. I don't know what to call it. But it was so fun that the girls wanted to go again and again. Each time they'd get off, they'd fall over from dizzyness. As you can see in the pictures, it was snowy and cold there too, so we didn't stay too long. We had a fun time and enjoyed our small escape from the ordinary.

I'm a Model, You Know What I Mean

2008-01-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

(Why is it that whenever I need a title for a blog, song lyrics come to mind?)

We interrupt this December recap, to post some current news and information:

Baby Mattson #3 is...

a girl! I have the pictures to prove it, but I won't post them on here. You'll have to just trust us, there's no doubt.

These are pictures from our ultrasound last week. According to the sonographer (ultrasound technician?) Baby/I scan very well. During the ultrasound, the sonographer kept saying, "Wow, what a pretty baby, these are great images." I thought this was one of those things that sonographers just say to everyone. But after she'd said this at least three times, she said, "You know, if you're interested in ultrasound modeling, I could connect you with a company that will pay you for your time." I thought she was joking and must have given her a look that said as much, because she said, "Really, you scan very well and this company will pay you to be an ultrasound model for them."

So, she gave us a name and a number of a local company that makes ultrasound machines. I called them, still wondering if I might be on Candid Camera, and what do you know? She wasn't joking! Two days after this original ultrasound, I was getting another ultrasound, but this time getting paid for it! I had trouble not laughing as three different sonographers spent one and a half hours scanning Baby. They too said Baby/I produced beautiful images that they will use in their marketing brochures. You'd be amazed at how fascinated they were with Baby's liver, bladder, heart, brain, and most of all, diaphragm. Go figure. I asked them why I scanned so well, or better than anyone else, and they just shrugged. They couldn't say for sure. I don't know either, but I'll happily take my modeling paycheck.

Thanks to my sister Julie, for her email titled: "I'm to sexy for my sonogram."

We have begun thinking of names, though we won't be spilling the beans until Baby is born. We've been asking the girls what they think we should name the baby. Emma usually suggests names of characters from the movie "High School Musical." Hannah suggested Lily (because she loves the character Lily from the Kevin Henkes books), but then decided she liked Lillian. Emma said no to Lillian, and Hannah reminded her "Mommy and Daddy get to choose, not you!" Yikes.

Christmas Day: the Presents and the Purpose

2008-01-09T21:36:00.001-08:00

In the past, Ryan and I have packed up the girls and taken them around to our parents' homes AND our extended family gatherings on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The racing around town(s) from one gathering to another was lots of fun... until we had kids. After much consideration, we decided to stay home on Christmas Day. We love being able to leisurely open our presents and even play with them as we go. We eat a hot breakfast (nothing fancy though) and then open and play more. We remove toys from packaging (this takes forever, am I right parents?), put games together, and have a great time. We all take naps and watch a movie. This year, we acted out the Nativity (something that was getting lost in the shuffle in previous years) and hopefully reminded the girls of the REAL reason we celebrate Christmas. Here's a few pictures:

Here's Emma opening her gift from Hannah: play oven mits.

And Hannah opening her gift from Emma: a Disney princess calendar. I was so happy to see how excited the girls were to GIVE this year. The gifts they wanted opened first were the gifts they were giving, not the gifts they were receiving.

Hannah got a flute for Christmas, so she and Emma had a Christmas morning duet. Love that dollar store for simple pleasures.

We acted out the nativity in full Mideastern garb (be thankful I was the photographer and there aren't any pictures of me). This year, Hannah was able to read part of the account from the scriptures. It was even more special to hear her little voice read those familiar words.

Emma was a shepherd with her shepherd's crook (golf umbrella) and baby lamb.

Hannah was a wise man. Both girls presented gifts to baby Jesus.

We hope the real reason we celebrate Christmas and give gifts was impressed upon the girls. During our Nativity, Emma spontaneously snuggled baby Jesus. Maybe, even at 3 years old, they understand what Christmas is really about.

Christmas Eve in Sequim

2008-01-09T21:13:00.001-08:00

We traveled to my grandparents' house in Sequim, WA for Christmas Eve this year. Because Sequim is on Washington's Olympic Peninsula, we take a ferry boat to get there. Here's Ryan and the girls braving the cold wind on the front of the ferry.

I like the inside of the ferry better. The girls love the adventure and magic of ferry rides. They had very wide eyes as we drove our car onto the ferry and as the ferry docked.

At Grandma and Grandpa Eby's house the girls played blocks with Natalie. Well, Hannah played nicely.

Emma, working on a too-short nap, chose to hoard blocks and prevent Natalie from touching them. Not a proud parenting moment for us. Luckily, Natalie's too young to realize that Emma's not sharing.

Here's my Mom (far left) with two of her sisters and her Dad (Grandpa Eby).

Before heading home, it's tradition to take familiy pictures in front of the tree.

The girls were so excited to get home and go to bed so Santa could come. Thankfully, they were exhausted and fell asleep quickly.

More time with the Duncans

2008-01-09T20:42:00.000-08:00

We visited Bellevue Square to see the decorations and let the girls play on the boat. Natalie loved it so much she didn't want to stop climbing to pose for the picture. She was fearless, despite the gobs of older, bigger kids swarming around her.

Here's Natalie's face! Hannah loves her cousin.

"The three hermanas!" (to be sung to the tune of "The Three Amigos") Ann, Julie, and me at Mom's house.

And, the next generation of "Carlson" girls. Maybe someday there will be a boy....

Hannah and Emma have waited many months for Natalie to visit so they could teach her all about Barbies. There's so much to learn. First lesson: don't eat the Barbie shoes.

Ryan and I hamming it up for the camera. I like this picture because it reminds me of a picture we took 10 years ago when we were dating.

Emma loved eating breakfast sitting on the stool at my Mom's kitchen island. I think she discovered a whole new world up above the counters where she normally can't see. She sat up there and ate and played with the salt and pepper shakers (in the foreground) forever. She wanted to eat every subsequent meal "on the stool."

Hannah and I snuggled on the couch while watching BYU beat UCLA in the Las Vegas Bowl.

Duncans Descend!

2008-01-09T20:01:00.000-08:00

My sister Julie, her husband Dave, and their little girl Natalie flew from Rochester, New York to visit for Christmas. We had such a fun time with them, here's a few pictures:

We went out to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa Kane at the very cute and cozy Issaquah Cafe. Hannah had chocolate chip pancakes for lunch and thought it was the best meal EVER.

The next day, we went downtown and ate dinner at Westlake Center.

After dinner, we rode the Westlake Holiday Carousel. The girls LOVE doing this every year, and it was even more fun with more family.

Dave and Julie held Natalie on her pony so she could experience her first holiday carousel.

Westlake Center with the tree all lit up.

After the carousel, we walked to the Sheraton hotel to see the Gingerbread "house" display. These amazing confection creations are put together by local architecture firms. I'd wanted to see this for a few years, so it was fun to finally get there.

Circus peanuts are one of those things: you either love them or hate them. Dave LOVES them.

While we waited for Ryan and Dave to get the car, Natalie crawled around on the Sheraton's shiny lobby floor. Hannah and Emma decided to follow her around.

More Duncan adventures to come!

Emma's 3rd Birthday Party

2008-01-04T14:03:00.000-08:00

Kudos to those of you who kept your blogs up to date during December. I barely checked my email, let alone updated the blog. So, here's what we did during December, starting with...

Emma's Birthday!

Per Emma's request, I made a Dora cake. It was an adventure. I'll leave it at that. Emma loved her cake which made it all worthwhile.

Here she's blowing out her candles. (Thanks to my Mom for taking some of these shots.)

Opening gifts from faraway family was very exciting. Especially when they put Star Wars stickers on their cards. The girls love Star Wars. Yes, this is Ryan's influence.

By the time her guests were leaving, Emma had collapsed in a tired heap on the floor. Birthdays are so tiring!

A few days later, on her actual birthday, we gave Emma our presents and, much to her delight...

she got a flute! Still don't know why she wanted one so much, but she loves it. (Thank you Dollartree!)

Blowing out birthday candles is too fun to do only once. We sang again and enjoyed ice cream.

Happy birthday Emma! Our "baby" no longer. (Oh, man - there's no crying in blogging!)

Chicken Dancing

2007-12-12T15:31:00.000-08:00

Grandma Carlson captured this Chicken Dance on her camera. If you look carefully, you can see the yellow chicken on the floor. He's providing the music the girls are dancing to.

We've Been Elfed

2007-12-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1172216341

Thanks Staci and Greg!

Let it Snow

2007-12-02T19:05:00.000-08:00

We don't get a lot of snow in almost sea level Seattle, so when we get even a dusting we make big deal of it. Yesterday we got our dusting, so the girls had a snowball fight and built a snowman.

Emma's holding a snowball, probably one that Ryan threw at her that bounced off her heavily-padded body and she picked up to throw back at him. Hannah is holding an "iceberg." This is a boot print that compacted into ice. Hannah called them icebergs.

Snow is SOOO EXCITING!!!

Hard at work constructing a snowman.

Here's our Frosty. He lasted a few hours and then fell over. We told the girls he was sleeping. Our snow's gone now, but it sure was pretty and fun while it lasted!

A Self-Directed Learner

2007-12-02T18:49:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Hannah was honored as a Student of the Month. Her teacher nominated her as a Self-Directed Learner.

Emma and I were able to come eat lunch with Hannah and watch her get her certificate from her principal, Mr. Terry. Emma was so excited she couldn't eat a bite of lunch. We all got to sit at a special table in the lunchroom with fun decorations. Hannah got her picture up on the screen in the lunchroom (sorry for the poor picture).

She got to wear a special badge with a purple ribbon attached.

Emma was sad to say bye to Hannah when lunch was over and it was time for recess. Emma tried to chase after Hannah to go play, but I redirected her in the direction of the parking lot. Once we were in the car driving home, Emma was able to calm down enough to eat her lunch.

Hannah was very proud of her award. The other night, when I was putting her to bed, I told her how proud I was of her. "You're such a smart girl, a good big sister, and so kind," I told her. She nodded her head and said, "And self-directed?"

While Mom & Dad Are Away...

2007-12-02T16:32:00.000-08:00

Hannah and Emma stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Carlson while Ryan and I went to Utah. Here's some highlights from their visit:

Auntie Ann took them to see "Mr. Popper's Penguins" at the Children's Theater near Ann's school. The girls loved the play and are now enamored with all things penguin. They still walk around and "talk" like penguins. I didn't know penguins talked.

Grandma Carlson took the girls to visit Brother Call's farm. They were amazed at ALL the pumpkins and varieties of squash. Brother Call sent them home with a trunk load of squash.

The girls always love to color.

Grandma's backyard is inhabited by a number of well-fed squirrels. The girls threw peanuts out on the back porch, then watched at the window as the squirrels collected and burried their peanuts.

Dental Drudgery? Not for these girls.

2007-11-12T14:20:00.000-08:00

Who says visiting the dentist isn't fun? Ok, I do, but only when I'm the one sitting in the chair. My girls seem to love their dental appointments. I think we have flouridated water and tooth paste to thank for that. NO CAVATIES! I always take pictures when the girls are getting their teeth cleaned because I think it's so cute. They're quite brave and cooperative with the hygenists and the dentist. Emma wasn't always so fond of their dentist. The first time she saw him, knowing he was coming to visit her teeth after Hannah's, she leaned in to me and said, "I don't like him." Thankfully, they have a very gentle and kind dentist who knows that Sleeping Beauty is also known as Aurora. This knowledge made him instantly acceptable in Emma's eyes. Here's pictures from last week's visit.

Safety sunglasses in place, Emma's ready to "ride" the chair up and back. Six months ago, she refused to be reclined in the seat. The seat went back, but Emma stayed rigidly upright. They also tried to raise the chair up, but she about jumped off, so they let that go too. This visit she was very brave. No chair or mouth instrument issues. She even allowed them to take X-rays. When they told me they were going to attempt this, I laughed and wished them good luck. But Emma watched Hannah have "mouth pictures" taken and decided that was OK for her too. She looked a little nervous in the X-ray room all by herself with the heavy cover on and the camera wedged under her jaw, but she did it. Whew!

Here's brave big sister Hannah, in the seat next to Emma for her cleaning. Thank goodness for big sisters who experience things first so little sisters can watch and want to follow their example.

Emma "kissing" the suction tube thingy to get the rinse water out of her mouth. She liked that thing so much the hygenist had to ask her to "open" over and over. She just didn't want to let go.

Hannah, during cleaning.

I just had to snap this picture of Emma. She's so small in the seat! And you should know that this is a pediatric dentist's office so the chairs are small to begin with! Her feet don't even come to the chair's knee bend area.

After the dentist's final inspection, the girls got their new toothbrushes, "good patient" princess stickers, and a small toy for good behavior. No wonder they love the dentist - look at all the great loot they get!

Provo: Food, Football, Fun

2007-11-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Ryan and I visited Provo this weekend and had a wonderful time. The girls stayed with Grandma and Grandpa Carlson and also had a wonderful time. We'll see if we can get some pictures of their weekend on here in a future post. In the meantime, here's some highlights from our Utah getaway.

I'll start this posting with a confession: Before this trip, Ryan and I had never eaten at Cafe Rio. Yes, that's right. Shocking, I know. Honestly, we're not sure if Cafe Rio existed when we were at BYU. Furthermore, when we were in college, we were financially strapped and rarely ate out. If we did eat out, we went to Los Hermanos wearing our "free drink" T-shirts. We loved Los Hermanos and, most of all, our free Brisa de Mora Negras. So it was only under intense peer pressure that we stopped in at Cafe Rio in Provo. We waited in a line that went out the restaurant's door and asked the guy in front of us what we should order. He said he'd been to Cafe Rio "over 100 times" and gave us some good suggestions. In the end, we were very impressed with our dinners (Ryan: steak enchilada, Laura: Pork Barbacoa Salad). The food was super flavorful and SO fresh.

The next night, we went to our old favorite: Los Hermanos. Both of us packed our old Los Hermanos "free drink" T-shirts in our suitcases, but not wanting to look like old school fools, we called Los Hermanos before we donned our shirts. Ryan's phone conversation with the girl at Los Hermanos went like this:

Ryan: Hi, do you still honor the "free drink" Los Hermanos T-shirts?
(Pause)
Girl: Do you mean the "eternal coupon?" [I can't even type it without laughing.]
Ryan: Uh, yes, I guess so.
Girl: Yes we do!

Ryan and I laughed for a good while after that. Only in Provo would it be called "the eternal coupon." So, we went to Los Hermanos and enjoyed our free Brisas and dinner. It was only after finishing and seriously contemplating our dinners that we reluctantly decided that .... we liked Cafe Rio better. I feel bad saying it, like I'm letting down an old, faithful friend. But, we couldn't deny that Cafe Rio was much more flavorful and fresh. Nevertheless, when we want a free drink, we know where we'll be going... eternally.

We did do more than eat, I promise. Below, we're at the BYU football game. It was so beautiful and HOT! We had to go back to our hotel at halftime to change into cooler clothes.

Here's a shout out to my sister Julie, former BYU band member and horn player. Horns Rule!

After the game, we went to Brick Oven. Does Cosmo the Cougar always go to Brick Oven after football games? We seemed to be the only people surprised to see him. In our college days we weren't post game Brick Oven regulars. We probably went home after games and ate Hamburger Helper. We took advantage of our Cosmo celebrity sighting and took this picture.

We spent a lot of our time walking around campus. We visited the new JFSB for the first time. It replaced the SFLC building from our college days. I won't say what everyone REALLY called that building. Those of you who were there already know. It would be hard to call the new JFSB any gross name. It was so beautiful, well planned, and spacious. We also walked through the buildings we once worked in. My JSB was exactly the same as far as I could tell. Ryan's Testing Center was mostly the same with some technological updates. We like the huge flat screen that told which tests were being offered, what late fees were being charged, and what the average testing time was for each test. "Yes, I love technology." We tried three times to visit the new Hinckley Visitor's Center. Unfortunately, we kept getting there after hours. Regardless, we were very impressed with the exterior alone.

We walked through Helaman Halls and my old dorm. We took the following picture standing in front of my dorm window. What a great view I had! The mountains, the Y , the Cannon Center, the grassy meadow (NCMO Meadow? After dark it was anyway.) And now, the Hinckley Building is in view too. I was interested to discover a new Cannon Center being built behind the old one. That probably explains why the old Cannon Center hasn't changed at all since I was a freshman.

We spent a little bit of time in Salt Lake visiting Temple Square. We saw the newly refurbished Tabernacle and listened to the "acoustical demonstration" there. I'd never heard this done before and was most impressed by the pin drop from the podium. We heard it perfectly from our seats in the far back. Back at our car, we discovered someone had left a pass along card under our windshield wiper. This was amusing, but made even better because this well-intentioned person had stamped "I Love You" across the picture of Christ on the card.

Overall, we had a great weekend. We love BYU and love any time we get to spend there.

H-A-double L-O-W-double E-N spells HALLOWEEN!

2007-11-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

Did anyone else sing that song in elementary school? "Halloween means ghosts and goblins, scaring the people who open the door...." To this day, I sing it to myself when I have to spell "Halloween." I always thought it was a cool song, but I sang it to my girls and they were totally unimpressed.

Our Halloween began with a couple of parties last weekend including our ward's Halloween party. We ate chili, cornbread, and hot dogs. Someone made these cute little critters from half a hotdog wrapped in a biscuit with Chinese noodle legs. Emma was suspicious of eating something with legs, so we told her they were aphids. Ladybugs eat aphids, right? So... She ate it and said it was a great little aphid.

Emma and the half-eaten aphid.

Here's Ryan wrapping the girls up in the mummy wrapping contest.

Final product.

Halloween night was CRAZY, as always. Did you know that the busiest pizza delivery day of the year is Halloween? I believe it. Dinner is kind of an afterthought when you've got costumes, makeup, candy, parties, pictures, etc. to think about.

As you can see, Hannah was Sleeping Beauty and Emma was a ladybug. They loved their costumes and are already planning what they're going to be for the next two Halloweens. We had the girls dressed in layers as it was in the 40s during trick-or-treating time. We tried to walk quickly between houses to keep warm. At least it wasn't raining.

Although they were so excited to trick-or-treat, they were a little timid at first. Hannah wouldn't knock on the doors for the first block or so. Emma would get so enchanted/scared by the other kids costumes, she'd just stand in the doorway, mouth open staring at costumes. So much for "trick-or-treat." One little boy's Spiderman costume was particularly scary to her. Ryan's "spiders eat bugs" comment didn't help the situation.

We trick-or-treated until their buckets were full (I gave myself a pat on the back for choosing small candy buckets). Back at home, they looked over their loot and literally danced around it. Hannah wanted to know what each kind of candy was. Emma would have eaten it all that night, if we would have let her. This morning, the first thing she wanted was more candy. We had to have a talk about when we eat candy and when we don't. Before 9:00 AM is a time we don't.

Hope everybody had a great Halloween!

Stinky Pumpkin

2007-10-23T14:16:00.000-07:00

We carved our Halloween pumpkin last night. Though Emma was very excited about this, she changed her tune once the carving began. Ryan pulled the stem/lid off the pumpkin and ...

Emma immediately did this:

She covered her nose! She didn't like the smell of the pumpkin "guts." She's always been super sensitive to smells (like her mom), but a pumpkin? I kind of like the smell. It brings back happy childhood memories. Nevertheless, Emma covered her nose, or made some sort of face for the entire carving.

Meanwhile, Hannah was not fazed by the smell or guts. She drew pictures of "pumkenz" while Ryan carved.

Emma, continuing to be disgusted.

"You put your hand in THAT?"

Hannah decided she would touch the pumpkin seeds and carved chunks.

Emma liked the final product and managed to forget about the smell for a minute.

Amazing how things can change in one year's time:

2006 pumpkin carving photos: Yes, that's Emma with her hand -gasp- IN the pumpkin!

Emma dumped the pumpkin guts while Hannah cowered in fear behind her. Total role reversal from last year to this.

In-N-Out Menyou

2007-10-23T14:02:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, Ryan returned from a week-long business trip to L.A. While there he ate at the famous In-N-Out Burger. He brought the girls home their own burger-flippin' hats and they had a pretend drive through restaurant. They used their play food and kitchen stove, with barstools serving as the drive through window. Ryan helped Hannah write the menu pictured below.

Hannah: Dad, how do you spell "menu?"
Ryan: M-E-N
Hannah: Got that.
Ryan: U
Hannah: Ok.

She hears "you," not the letter U. Kindergarten spelling is endlessly entertaining.

No. 3

2007-10-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Baby #3 is due in April. Here's the 12 week ultrasound photos:

Baby's head is on the right, knees are up by tummy with feet in the air... in case it isn't obvious. I'd never had an ultrasound taken before 20 weeks, so I wasn't expecting to see much on this one. Despite being only 7 mm long, we could see facial features, detail of the spine, feet, hands, legs, bladder, stomach, and both hemispheres of the brain. It was absolutely amazing.

Here baby's knees and feet are pulled in, head's still on the right. :) This one is a little more blurry, but they turned out pretty well considering these are pictures I took of the glossy picture the ultrasound machine printed out. Who needs a scanner?

Dinosaur!

2007-10-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

The coolest pop up book EVER! Hannah and Emma love this book about dinosaurs ("Dinosaurs" by Robert Sabuda & Matthew Reinhart) because each page has multiple pop ups and they're so intricate. Thanks Auntie Ann!

Meanwhile, in potty training land...

Emma is making progress. She wears big girl undies all the time, unless she's sleeping. I'm not ready for wet beds yet. We still have occasional accidents, but she's doing so much better!

Loose Tooth + Pillow Fight =

2007-09-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right. Hannah lost her first tooth during a pillow fight. It was quite loose before the pillows started flying. My Mom, in fact, said she "could have had it out of there" the day before, but she didn't want to rob us of the opportunity of pulling it ourselves. Since loose teeth and - heaven forbid - having to pull them out, make me sick to my stomach, I would have been OK with Grandma pulling it. But, Ryan wanted to be the one to do it. Yuck.

In the end, Hannah pulled her own tooth out... sort of. While playing in the living room of Grandma and Grandpa Mattson's house, under the watchful care of Uncle Greggy, a pillow fight began. Who started the fight is any one's guess (cough, cough: Greg). By his own account (and feel free to comment/defend yourself if I'm misquoting you), Greg lobbed a pillow at Hannah. The pillow hits Hannah in the face/mouth. Hannah recovers quickly and, laughing, says something to the effect of "hey, you're going to knock out my loose tooth!" Greg, having forgotten all about the loose tooth until now, decides he'd better make sure the tooth is still there and not somewhere on Grandma's white carpet. Upon inspection, he confirms the tooth has not come out. Hannah says that the pillow loosened the tooth more, so she grabs it between her fingers and - yank! The tooth is out! Both Greg and Hannah think this is very cool, so they exchange high fives and run into the kitchen, where the rest of the family is. Greg and Hannah are both running with their hands up in the air, over their heads. One of Hannah's hands is holding her tooth. She's smiling broadly with blood from her gum starting to drip onto her lip. After we mopped up the blood and found some Tupperware to hold the tooth, we had a good laugh. I wonder if she went to school the next day and told her friends, "My uncle knocked out my tooth with a pillow!"

Sweet Hannah told my Mom that she was hoping to get "a shiny penny" from the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy must have been feeling generous that night, because she got four quarters. Ryan walked by the girls' room the morning after the tooth fairy's visit. He overheard Hannah whispering to Emma, "It's 6:53 Emma. I can't wait until it's 7 so I can show Mommy!!!" Many of you probably don't know that Hannah is required to stay in her bed until her digital clock's first number is a 7. So, she was awake (for who knows how long) sitting in bed, waiting for her clock to get to 7, so she could get out and show her fairy loot.

Do the Puyallup

2007-09-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday we went to the Puyallup Fair. I LOVE the Puyallup Fair. Does anyone else dream of Elephant Ears? Here's some pictures from our visit.

Hannah & Emma with the pig "Annelise" in the background. We found out that this pig was named after the character in the girls' current favorite movie "Barbie's Princess and the Pauper." Emma even sang the pig one of the songs from the movie.

Each year at the fair, it's our tradition to find the mama and baby pigs. These pigs were only three days old. Hence, the mama's passed out in the corner.

Ryan and the girls "milking" the "cow." Another yearly tradition. The girls must have enjoyed it because they played dairy instead of princesses that evening.

Ryan and Hannah on the swings. Emma was too scared to ride.

This ride was more Emma's speed, though she still wasn't too excited about it.

And this ride, the Kiddyland Train, was my speed. No spinning, twisting, racing, or tipping.

The final ride was the river canoes. After enjoying our Trans-fat Free Elephant Ears, we headed home. Until next September, Puyallup!

Kindergarten

2007-09-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Hannah's first day of Kindergarten. Before school, she couldn't stand still she was so excited. She was ready to go 20 minutes early and didn't understand why we couldn't leave NOW!! We used our extra time to take some pictures:

No, they're not wearing uniforms, they just wanted to wear their matching outfits.

Waiting in line outside class.

Emma and I were able to go into Hannah's classroom for the first 15 minutes. We watched her find her cubby (so exciting!), hang up her coat and backpack (so exciting!), put her lunch in the lunch bucket, and find her seat (!!). She loved all these tasks, but started to get grumpy when she was at her seat with Emma and me. After her teacher called the class to come find a seat on the floor, Hannah started rubbing her wet eyes. Her teacher asked the children to wave bye to mom. Realizing that Hannah was sad, if not already crying, I gave her a big smile, grabbed Emma, and raced out the door. In retrospect, I think she would have done better if I'd just said bye at the beginning, before going into class. Much like my friend Cailean's Kindergarten experience (see her blog, linked to the right), when I peeked back at Hannah, she was looking at her teacher, sadness apparently over.

After school, Hannah told us all about her day. She said she didn't learn anything, "just rules." She liked eating her lunch at school and carrying her princess lunch box to the lunchroom "like a purse." She toured the school and told me the name of the PE teacher, though she didn't participate in the optional PE games. Instead, she "just got used to the gym." :) Her favorite time of day was free choice time and quiet time when she went to the reading corner and found new books to read. She didn't go to the bathroom at all for the entire 6 hours. Yes, I asked. She said the bathroom has a "loud flusher" and was, therefore, not usable. Despite my insistence that she go during her time at school, she refuses. We'll be working on that.

All in all, a great first day. She couldn't wait to go back the next day. She was quite tired and was in bed and asleep by 8:00 PM that night. I went up to bed at 8:30 PM. The first day of Kindergarten is tiring for Moms too.

First REAL Haircut

2007-09-06T14:18:00.000-07:00

I've cut Hannah's hair before, but she's never had a professional cut. I though before starting school was a good time to take her in. She sort of tolerated the actual cut. She didn't like sitting so perfectly still for so long. Her efforts were rewarded with candy from the stylist, so she thought it was all worth it in the end.

Before

After. LOVE IT! She looks so grown up! Sniff.

Loof Toof

2007-08-30T14:19:00.000-07:00

Hannah has her first loose tooth! On Tuesday, she mentioned that her tooth felt funny. I quickly dismissed this, reminding her that she's getting her six year molars, so her mouth might feel funny. She persisted, saying it was her front teeth, not her back teeth that felt funny. Sure enough, upon inspection we found a wiggly bottom left tooth! She's so thrilled. ALL she could talk about that night was her tooth. Would it still be there in the morning? What would the tooth fairy do with it? How does the tooth fairy get into the house? What would she look like without that tooth? Would it hurt when the new tooth grew in to take it's place?

In case anyone is wondering why Hannah's nose and upper lip are a little scratched up, she fell at the park yesterday. A full on flying leap face plant into the bark chips. Apparently, running and jumping onto a swing is harder than it looks. I'm not sure why she attempted such a maneuver, but that's what she said happened. I asked her if her face or hands hit the ground first. She said they hit at the same time. Ouch.

Tagged by Mari...

2007-08-28T21:03:00.000-07:00

Thanks for the beginning blog help Mari! Here's my answers to your "blog tag" questions:

Job's I've Had (in no order, it took me too long to remember this many to organize them at all):
1. Restaurant Hostess @ Dukes on Lake Bellevue
2. Courier/Receptionist/TA/Research Assistant/Jack of all trades @ BYU Religious Ed Dean's Office
3. Event Planning Assistant: stamp-licking, database entering, heavy box lifting Jack of all trades @ Prestige Events
4. Fax Girl Extraordinaire (Yes, my job was to send faxes ALL DAY. It was a big company.) @ CH2M Hill
5. My first "real" post-college job: Residential Home Land Acquisition/Development: due diligence, financial model tinkering - er, preparation, AND Jack of all trades (notice the theme to my work?) @ Quadrant Homes

Movies I can watch over and over:
1. Napoleon Dynamite (favorite line: "I want that." 10, no, 20 points to anyone who can tell me the scene that line is in)
2. Much Ado About Nothing
3. The R.M. (I'm a sucker for Mormon Cinema)
4. Pride and Prejudice - any version, but my fav is the A&E version with Colin Firth :)
5. Sense & Sensibility

Places I've Lived:
1. Bellevue, WA
2. Provo, UT (5 different apartments in 4 years... not bad)
3. Issaquah, WA
4. Tualatin, OR
5. Gainesville, FL

Favorite TV Shows Past and Present (and odd list since I haven't had cable since I lived in BYU's married housing - FREE CABLE!... and I just don't watch much TV anymore):
1. The Office
2. The Cosby Show
3. 30 Rock
4. Supernanny
5. Arthur (yes, the PBS Kids show - I LOVE IT!!!)

Last 5 places I've been on vacation:
1. Eagle Crest, OR (near Bend)
2. LaConner, WA
3. Rexburg, ID
4. Rochester, NY
5. probably Utah... I HEART BYU

Favorite dishes:
1. Tacos
2. Lasagna
3. Taco Soup
4. Pork Tenderloin
5. Pizza

Websites I visit:
1. Craigslist: baby & kid stuff and garage sales
2. ebay
3. Seattle Times
4. PANDORA!!!
5. My local library's online catalogue

Places I'd like to visit (I changed the topic slightly, hopefully the blogging police don't notice):
1. BYU. I've been away too long. I love how it feels there.
2. Rochester, NY (niece Natalie)
3. El Paso, TX (niece Gracie)
4. Los Angeles
5. New York City

People I'm tagging next (we'll see who's really reading this! feel free to abstain if you'd already been tagged with this one):
1. Betsy
2. Julie Despain
3. Rachel
4. Cailean
5. Julie Duncan - if you decide to get the blog going...

That was fun!

A Zootiful Day

2007-08-27T13:56:00.001-07:00

We love the zoo, but don't get to go very often. This weekend we went to the zoo as a family which we haven't done in at least a year. We all had such a great time.

There's a chimp sitting in a hammock to the left of Emma's head, if you can see it.

Great climbing tree.

Chai the elephant strolled by us. Emma had trouble taking her eyes off Chai so I could take a picture.

Hannah has always loved the elephants the best because until recently our zoo had a baby elephant named Hansa. Hansa died a few months ago. Hannah was understandably sad about this and decided to name one of her stuffed elephants "Hansa." Chai (you make be able to see her over Hannah's head in the distance) was Hansa's mother. I think it was because of Hansa's absence that when we asked her favorite animal at the zoo this time, she said the butterflies.

Here's the jaguar, checking out the prey - I mean - small children crowded around his windows.

Emma was riveted and would not take her eyes off him for a picture.

At the butterfly house and the girls on the Komodo Dragon statue. Have you ever seen a Komodo Dragon before? Those things are HUGE!! They're like something out of Jurassic Park! Wow.

While at the Zoo, we visited the hippos. They are always very popular, so it's necessary to sort of wait in "line" until a viewing spot at the railing is available. Ryan and the girls were already at the rail, but I was lagging behind with the stroller. As a good viewing spot opened up, I turned the stroller to go occupy it, but before I could even move forward, a blur of double stroller flew past me. I was surprised and a little annoyed at first. Then, I noticed who was driving the offending double stroller: famous Seattlite James Sun of TV's "Apprentice" fame.

He was cruising the zoo with his two daughters. And he'd just cruised right past me and into the railing spot I wanted. Well, I guess you don't get to be a finalist on "The Apprentice" by standing idly by while others go to the head of the line. You see an opening and you take it. Life lessons learned at the zoo.

Summer T-Ball

2007-08-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hannah played T-Ball this summer and LOVED it. Baseball is now her favorite sport. (I wonder if she knows that swimming can also be a sport? That might change her favorite.) She was the only girl on her team and seemed to enjoy her teammates' antics. She learned lots of new skills which she now tries to teach Emma when we play T-Ball at home. "Keep your elbow up, Emma. Keep your feet apart and step before you swing."

Thanks to all who came to a game or two. We had lots of fun and hope you did too.

Here's some pictures:

We called Emma the bench coach as she stood behind the bench, telling Hannah "you did a dood job." Here she's giving a congratulatory hug.

Hit and run.

Touching home.

The only ponytail on the bench. That's how we could pick her out of the sea of red helmets.

Her ready position.

And, we're off!

2007-08-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

So, the test post worked out, as far as I can tell. This blogging stuff isn't so hard. Now, what to write about.....

I'm going to mainly focus my blogs on our family events and adventures. It's my hope that this blog will help our extended family and friends feel more connected to us, even though some live far away.

I've had some fun with the little sidebar options you see to the right. I've included a kid quote feature because my kids are always saying hilarious things that need to be recorded. To keep with blogging tradition, I've provided links to some of the blogs I read. I've had so much fun reading them, in fact, I had to start my own. A sampling of our favorite websites is also featured, for your browsing enjoyment. Pandora is our newest favorite website and I've attached not only a link to it, but also some of the artists for which I've created Pandora stations. And finally: what we're reading. I LOVE to read and Hannah, who has always loved books, is learning to read. So I'll keep a current list of what I'm reading (this won't change too often, it takes me awhile to get through books anymore) and what Hannah's reading (this will change often as she reads all the time and has a new favorite book almost every day).

So, enjoy our blog and feel free to comment. Here's a picture from earlier this summer.

Testing 1...2...3...

2007-08-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

Now that I've created this blog, I'm going to see if I can post to it! Here goes.