A Day in the Life, Perfectly Modeled

Yesterday was one of those rare perfect days; it came on the end of a weeklong battle with a black cloud in my soul, which made it even more perfect. As much as I would love to spend the next hour crafting (my usual activity after kids go to bed), I felt like I had to record this day so I could read back over it someday later when it gets tough again.

We had two activities planned, which is more than I like. So I prayed for guidance knowing what needed to happen today and being able to let go of what we didn't need to do. As much fun as activities outside the home are, and with the temptation to focus on what we'd miss out on if we didn't go to one, I have to make an effort to think of what we'd miss out on if we didn't stay home. Lily is potty-training and loves to be naked, so going out can sometimes be a struggle: we have to clothe her while she is throwing a screaming tantrum (and of course by "we" I mean "I"), and she often won't stop crying until we're BACK HOME and she can be naked again. She is just so offended that I clothe her without her permission. This REALLY reduces my incentive to go out every day! Tim introduced her to the concept of wearing clothes to keep warm, I turned the heater down a wee bit, and together we have her wearing clothes voluntarily about half the time!

So, after a lovely morning of eating breakfast together, we bid Daddy goodbye and started getting our morning chores (dishes). We got them done quickly and cheerfully, and I told Jack that since we worked quickly we could play a little bit before we had to go. He loved that, and immediately said we would read library books; we did, and then I said it was time to go. Jack said he'd rather stay home and read (which is VERY rare, he is almost always the most excited one about an outing and the first one to be ready to go), and when I started to clothe Lily she immediately tugged her clothes back off and screamed "NO!" and ran away. I decided that must be a sign from Heaven and said "OK, we'll stay home and read more books!" Jack was happy, Lily nursed, and I reveled in enjoying my kids.

My kids have a touch of diarrhea. This would normally be no big deal, but Lily is potty training. She is doing remarkably well, thankfully, but she refuses to use any public toilet. This makes me want even more to just stay home more, at least for the next week or so while she gets over the bug and cements her pottying skills. She's been pooping at least 5 times a day for the past few days; she's only had a couple of accidents and they were when Tim was home to help. I am amazed at her ability to feel the urge to poop and run to the toilet in time to not have an accident! She pauses in the middle of nursing, reading, or eating without being prompted; I ask her if she wants to go potty if she's engrossed in playing and it's been an hour or more. She still gets a little surly if I push too hard for her to go potty if she's busy playing, but she is making improvement. (She used to flat-out refuse to go potty if I pushed her too hard to go, and I would end up diapering her just to protect my floors and make a point.) She hasn't had a diaper or an accident in 2 days!

So, we read books, and Lily went potty a few times. It occurred to me that if we had gone out, she would have had poop in her training pants, and I said that to Jack and he said "It's a good thing we stayed home!" We ate lunch and sweet Lily yawned and picked at her food, then asked for me to hold her, and I put her down for her nap. Sweet Jack played happily with his toys while I nursed her down, and when I was done, we played with toys and board games and puzzles for almost 2 hours while Lily slept. I have a bad habit of putting Jack off when he asks to play with me, and I realized that I was telling him no a LOT more often than I was playing with him. So today I focused on playing with my kids in all my free time, and we had such a happy home!

We played with a wooden ball track that Jack and Tim got me for my birthday. I realized that it is not good for running the ball through over and over, it's better for building a track and using it just once or twice. I got bored with it, and rather than suffer through for Jack's sake, I decided that it would be better to play something else I liked than give him the idea that I didn't like playing with him. I offered him the choice of playing with that toy by himself or playing something else with me, and he didn't have to consider at all: he chose playing with me! We played a board game that's pretty short, so we played it again. Then we got out a 1000-piece puzzle that Tim's grandma gave us for Christmas, and Jack got his 24-piece puzzle that we got from the dollar store, and we worked on them side-by-side. He did his puzzle all by himself! He's had the skill, but I didn't ever have the patience to sit back and let him do it. It was easier for me to let him since I was working on my own puzzle. Jack got a little frustrated when he found pieces that he didn't know where to put, but I told him to try a new piece, and he did, and he was rather pleased with himself when he was done; I was even more pleased with him than he was and I think I may have overdone the praise, but I'd rather err on the side of too much than too little :D

We got out another board game when Jack got bored of watching me do the big puzzle, and before we could start playing it Lily woke up and needed to nurse. Jack didn't complain at all, and he was ecstatic as usual when Lily decided to stay awake, even though it meant we were done playing the board game. (I tried to put the game away before Lily saw, but she did, and threw a fit, but then she calmed down and said "Pweese?" How could I not get the game back out when she exhibited such self-control?) He happily let her explore the pieces of the game, then happily helped me put it away while Lily was looking the other way, then helped Lily go potty.

Yes, by the way, Jack loves to help Lily go potty. It's really rather remiss of me that I have yet to put a stool up to the toilet so Lily can get on and off all by herself, but I really just don't have any motivation now that I have a 4-year-old who loves to pick his sister up and plop her down on the potty seat! (And in my defense, we own THREE different-sized stools, and NONE of them are the exact right height. Too small is no help, and too big is actually no help either. It has to be EXACTLY the right height to be useful to a wobbly toddler.) He helps her get out of her clothes (all of them, b/c that is what she insists on), picks her up, and sets her down as gently as he can (which isn't very, but apparently it's gentle enough b/c Lily loves it). Then he sits down on a stool in front of her and sings to her and talks to her and watches and listens for her to actually use the toilet, and he proclaims loudly to me if she does. He hasn't helped her wipe yet, but she is actually not too bad at wiping herself if she's only peed. And I am usually standing by through all this, but it is so nice if I'm right in the middle of some tricky cooking and Lily runs to the potty, to be able to say "Jack, quick, Lily needs help going potty!" and he drops whatever he's doing and runs to her aid! He has learned how to tell if Lily wants off the potty even though she didn't do anything on it (she lifts up her legs to push herself up and will do her best to stand up right on the toilet seat, but she'll happily lean into outstretched arms instead); those two are learning how to get along with each other and I am so happy to see it!

I got Lily dressed (and she cooperated!) and printed out a map to the park we were headed to, and out we went. A homeschool group met there today and I wanted to meet them; Jack wanted to get out and play with other kids, too. They were really nice, and well-mixed. All styles from hardcore academic to unschooling, and all ages from infant to teen. And they're not too far away, and they meet on a day that works well for me. I think we'll be going back there! Jack played with the boys while they dug trenches in sand, and he had a blast; Lily explored all over but REALLY wanted to climb on the wagons and tricycles brought there by other park-goers. She was pretty upset when I told her not to, and I had to nurse her to appease her. And all too soon it was time to come home and make dinner; Jack didn't want to and he really wanted to throw a fit, but he didn't. Hallelujah!

Dinner was a throw-together-whatever-makes-a-nutritious-meal night. Grocery day is Saturday and I REFUSE to go to the store otherwise; our weekly budget is $80 and I REFUSE to go over it. This makes for interesting dinners, but I see it as a challenge and had fun putting together our meal: scrambled eggs, plain noodles, salad, and smoothie. The kids loved it, and this was the first dinner in my memory that we didn't have to argue with Jack about finishing his food!

After dinner we lazed on the couch for about 15 minutes, then started bedtime: brushing teeth, flossing, pottying, putting on pajamas, saying nightly prayer, and watching a scripture video in Jack's bed and then discussing the video. Jack is getting better and better at telling the story back to us, and he will occasionally ask questions about what he doesn't understand. He often will draw parallels between the scripture story and either a secular story or something that really happened. Then I laid down with him and rubbed his feet and told him "his story", in which I rehearse everything he did that day and point out the good things, and sometimes point out what he needs to improve on. He said his favorite part of the day was playing at the park, but playing with me at home was his other favorite part. And I sang him his song, and left him with a kiss.

Tim read books to Lily in our bed while I was with Jack, and I came and she excitedly showed me the book she was looking at, then said "Mo moweee!" ("More more") and laid down. In other words, "I'm ready to nurse to sleep now!" And she did, and it was only 8:30! (She's been having trouble going to sleep at bedtime lately; we've had trouble getting bedtime started at 7 o'clock, and every time we start it late, she either conks out nursing on Jack's bed or stays up WIRED until after 10!)

My kids got lots of playtime with me, and I got to see how much they are growing up. It was a good day :D Jack is a big grown-up boy already, but when he gets more playtime with me I can see him stretch even more. He is such a delight to have around! And Lily is just growing by leaps and bounds; she's potty-training and her vocabulary is exploding. She repeats almost every one-syllable word we say, she says the name of everyone in our family ("Mommeeeee! Daddeeeeee! Gack! Yahweeee!"). Two phrases of hers that I love are "Pweese?" and "Hup me!" (help me). And she whispers "Pooooo pooooo! Peeeee peeeee!" as she runs helter-skelter down the hall to the potty. That kid is such a joy!

My kids picked their clothes. This is a usual occurrence for Jack, but Lily doesn't always, and she especially doesn't always look THIS cute in her outfit!

Hiking at Fremont Older Open Space, the closest nature preserve south of us. Tim wore Lily b/c I was wearing a baby I watch every Saturday. We go out to explore nature every Saturday, and I watch the baby every Saturday, so this time we experimented with taking him with us, and it worked quite well :D

Biking just north of Lake Chabot (pronounced "sha-BOW"), near Oakland. One of Tim's programmer friends in Oakland was throwing a party that night, so we explored the nature around Oakland :D We parked at the top of the hill, biked down as fast as we felt comfortable, and walked up. Oy!

Gratitude

I'm grumpy. I need to count my blessings:

-Lily is all better, with just a bit of a cough left over. Even that is taken care of by breathing steam from the shower for just a few minutes.

-Jack is patient and sweet, even when I'm not.

-Tim has been so helpful this last week and a half.

-There are delicious things to eat in the fridge and cabinets. Some of them are even good for me!

-This cold at its worst is not even as bad as the flu. At its best it's like not even being sick at all, with the exception of contagion keeping us house-bound.

-Our house really is lovely, and Tim tidied it all week to keep it so :D

-There are little seeds working on germinating in my garden plot!

-Lily is learning how to be free of diapers and how to dress and undress herself.

-Jack is learning alphabet letters and Articles of Faith.

-We FINALLY got a bedtime routine firmly entrenched in our home, and the kids LOVE it. They fall asleep quickly after we put them to bed, and if we stay up and try to party, they poop out on us by 8:30!

-Lily is learning how to put puzzles together, and it is so much fun to watch her dexterity improve :D

-Jack is learning how to put his computer together as Tim moves it all over the house and sets it up in different places.

-Just that I have these wonderful people in my family! They are all a delight to be around!

-We have knowledge and ability to apply it. We are healthy and happy :D

-I know God loves me and is happy with (at least some of) my efforts.

-I have scriptures printed and bound, and also in many different forms on my electronic devices. I am ALWAYS able to read them.

-I have a temple recommend (and Tim does, too). Now to coordinate babysitting on a temple trip...

I think I'll go do that now!

Lily is starting to talk!

She expands her vocabulary daily, which is such a treat for our ears! For now she says Mommy and Daddy very clearly, Narnia ("Nah-nee"), nurse ("nuhsssss"), go, no, cheese ("chsssssss"), bubble ("buh-boooo"), poo-poo, cookie ("koo-geeee"), and shoes ("shoessssss"). She likes to repeat words after we say them. She used to always do this in a whisper, but she's starting to do it in a normal voice much more. AND! She's adding signs to her repertoire at least as quickly as words. She still does "more" but she started doing "drink" this last week. She was pretty excited today to do "milk".

We've been reading The Chronicles of Narnia together. Jack enjoys the cuddling up on the couch together at least as much as reading; he simply CANNOT listen to Narnia without a blanket! Lily often nurses while we read, which may be one reason why she loves it when we read together, but it's not the only reason. I don't fully understand why she enjoys it so; perhaps she likes listening to us talk for such a long time, or she likes having our family all stay together for such a long time. But she does certainly love it; she'll bring us (me or Tim) a book in the series and say "Nahnee! Nahnee!" and sit on our laps for a good 2-10 minutes listening to us read it to her.

Jack's new habit is to demand to act out each chapter we read after we read it. He hardly remembers anything from the chapter, which proves that it's a little bit over his head, but he loves for me to tell him what each character does and remind him what his character says. He often chooses to be King Edmund or Queen Lucy, or if any of the talking animal characters figures prominently he'll choose to be that one. But he shies away from parts with lots of talking; I wonder if that's b/c he likes knowing what to do, and he doesn't usually remember what everyone said? Yesterday we acted out the chapter from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader where the travelers come to Deathwater Island. One part involved using a spear as a sounding rod to see how deep the water was, and we used a few marble-track pieces all put together to be our "spear." After we were done, Jack discovered more pieces we could have used to make our spear longer, and he said we had to do the scene over again so we could use the longer spear. He took a different role that time, since we had just done it and he knew what to do. And we went through it a little faster, b/c I didn't have to tell Jack "Now we do this," or "Now you say that." He already knew and did his parts without being cued. Hmmm, I wonder if we should act each one out twice now? I'm floored at how much better I'm remembering the story now that we're acting it out, so I'm sure he's getting more of it this way, too. He enjoys the acting out even more than the reading; he's been asking if we can go back and act out the chapters of the stories we read before we got into this habit. I told him I'd be happy to start the series over and re-read and act them all out, when we're done with it the first time through. His eyes got so wide! "We can do it AGAIN?"

I've been a little concerned with Jack's love of play-acting situations we read and watch, but his lack of interest in making up new situations. Creativity has always been a challenge of mine (which is one reason I love to knit and cook, I feel like I am successful in being creative in those areas...), and I see it is a challenge for Jack, too. But I think if I keep up with the play-acting as we're doing it, he will extend himself into making up new things.

Lily is transitioning from loving to tear up books to loving to "read" books. Hallelujah! She flips through pages and whispers or talks about all the pictures. Here's the breakthrough, though: if there's a page that's started to tear, she doesn't finish tearing it! I can now trust her with books!

We brought my Mom here for Christmas. We had a blast :D We mostly just hung out around the house, but we played games together and cooked together and did dishes together and sat and talked. I felt like we all got to know each other better. Lily was the most obvious one; when Nanna (my Mom) first came, Lily was a little wary of her, but by the time Nanna left, Lily was spontaneously hugging and kissing her often :D We soaked our feet in some bath salts Tim's sister gave me, and Lily asked Nanna to pick her up and put her feet in, too, even though I was sitting right next to her and she could have asked me to. And Jack said "I love you right up to the moon and back 4 times!" as Nanna was getting ready to leave. (He got the idea from the book "Guess How Much I Love You" by Anita Jeram and Sam McBratney, but we haven't read that book in quite some time, so yay for Jack remembering!)

We hung around here for New Year's Eve and Day, too. New Year's Eve we splurged and got the movie "Prince Caspian" since we had just finished reading that book and we have free tickets to go see "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" in theaters. (And we'll do that as soon as we're done reading the book!) We made cookies and ate them while watching the movie. Then we put the kids to bed and stayed up til midnight just to feel like grown ups (Tim worked on a software project and I cross-stitched).

Lily has a cold that is really annoying. It seems to get better and worse with no cause. And I've got it and so does Jack, so the first Sabbath of the new year and we have to stay home. Lily first got it over a week ago, but it really does seem to be just a cold, just a really annoying one, so unless she's still got it another week from now I don't think we'll go to the doc. (What would they do, give us medicine that I wouldn't want to take? Antibiotics don't help with viral illnesses, and any medicine to treat the symptoms of a cold are usually unsafe and ineffective. But if we're still sick in a week then it might be something worse than a cold.) We've got sore throats and stuffy noses, and sleeping is more difficult b/c breathing through stuffy noses is difficult. Lily's been up 3 nights of this cold, insisting on being upright. Last night was the first time, though, that she was grumpy enough to insist that her holder should stand up, so Tim and I played tag team most of the night :P I worry about a possible ear infection, but that wouldn't make her cough stick around or her nose stay stuffy.

I think the most annoying thing is not knowing what's going on, and knowing that there's probably not much I can do. Such is life, huh?

This just in: Tim just got home from church and says that Jack's teacher said Jack is one of the brightest and rowdiest kids in the class. Score!

Photos!

Our family Christmas photo. I'm so glad we realized our camera has a timer!

Lily loves to wear other people's shoes. She's been learning how to walk in mine and can now do so pretty well!

Gingerbread house from a very stale kit. Jack had a great time putting candy on it! He even spontaneously told me I did a beautiful job putting icing on the roof. AND, when we got the box out, he looked at the illustrated directions on the back and said "Step 1: squeeze icing. Step 2: put house together. Step 3: put icing on house. Step 4: put candy on house." He was "reading" the pictures of the directions. And he's doing that every time he finds illustrated directions in other things, like the seed packet we planted seeds from yesterday. (I forgot to mention! We live in Coastal Northern California, we can garden year-round here, so we planted carrots, spinach, and lettuce yesterday!) No worries about that kid's reading readiness skills!

We played Stomple, a gift from Tim's parents (we think), and when Tim took pics of the board, Lily thought he was taking pics of her and smiled so sweetly for the camera!

Right before taking Nanna to the airport. I was hoping that the foot soak might help my Mom's arthritic body handle the plane ride better, and it did! Lily saw us and came and wanted to join in. She stayed there for a few minutes, just gently swirling her feet in the warm water. And I got to cross-stitch. Yay!

How We Decided to Homeschool, Part 2

I signed Jack up for every class SHARE had in their clubs n' classes line-up, and even offered to teach one myself. He had sign language, simple cooking (which really was more like "fun with food"), and my class which was simply directed play with imaginative toys and/or games (we called it Young Explorers and we did things like put marble tracks together, play duck-duck-goose, paint with popsicles, glue yarn on little pumpkins, etc.). He never did like sign language but I was determined he was going to be in it; I kept hoping he would like it after long enough. He never hated it, but he always wanted to be outside playing instead. I don't really remember when I went from gung-ho unschooler to making Jack take a sign-language class; I think it may have been a bit of a recoil from the unschool groups that were too radical for my taste, or it may have been that I wanted to spend as much time as I could with this wonderful group of people. Either way, I don't think Jack suffered too much, but if I had to do it over again I would play with him outside instead of making him take the class. He did have lots of fun in the other classes, and he did get some time playing outside every time we met.

Then suddenly we moved to Palo Alto, California. I was excited to explore a new place, but I was appalled when I discovered that there were no homeschooling families in my stake. One mom said she had homeschooled up until that very year, and she was very happy she put her kids in public school b/c the schools there were "so good." I was asked often "Why in the world would you homeschool? The schools here are great!" I was even told more than once "Oh, you'll give up. Lots of homeschoolers give up here!" I wondered if they were right. I asked why the schools were "so good" and discovered they have shorter days, they bring in experts to do presentations to the kids, their math curriculum is all games, and they get great test scores.

But none of that mattered to me! I realized that one of my biggest reasons for wanting to homeschool was because I believe that the most important lessons children learn are at home: in the everyday interactions between family members, in the housework and chores, in the arguments and solutions, and in the scripture study. No school can teach that, no matter how well it does academics. And while yes, kids can be just fine when they go to school and are taught at home in the evenings and weekends, how much better could they do if they get to stay home? I just don't think it's as important for a 5-year-old to learn how to count to 100 as it is for him to learn to keep his little sister out of the road. He can pick up the counting later when he finds it interesting, but the character-building of watching out for his little sister will shape the man he will grow up to be. I believe that character and morality are absolutely vital, and many thousands of times more important than academics. A man with a good work ethic and study skills can learn anything he needs to know; a man with a head full of knowledge but no desire to work will only be a burden to society.

I found an LDS homeschool group, but it spanned too large an area for them to meet more often than monthly, and even that was only during the school year, and it was now summertime. I floundered; I talked to lots of moms in my ward about school and homeschool, trying to find a kindred spirit, but there was none. Everywhere I went, people would ask if Jack was in preschool and if he would start kindergarten next year; in an attempt to feel like I was doing something, I started schooling Jack at home. We did short lessons on the alphabet, colors of light, properties of water, paint, scripture stories, and playing games; we went to the library weekly and read and read and read; we visited museums and parks and playdates. And I learned that Jack can learn from lessons, even when he doesn't want to, but he learns so much better when he is interested and plays with the subject. I also learned that Jack LOVES structure! But I burned out after a few weeks; planning lessons took time from the family and I really didn't like fighting Jack to sit down with me.

I battled a nasty case of depression. Schooling, housework, exercise, and cooking all went out the window. I managed to play with my kids, and I felt like I may not be a very good homeschooler but I was doing OK as a mom. And amazingly enough, my kids did great! I don't even think they noticed that when I wasn't playing with them I was sulking in the corner, b/c I played with them every day.

I visited Texas, and felt like I was home. I spent time with SHARE and with Malina; I watched again how she runs her house and how she mothers her children. I loved watching my kids playing with Malina's kids and with the other kids in SHARE. I thought about what I had done well and what I could improve. And I decided I would do better when I got home.

And I did, after a whirlwind move to Sunnyvale! I was excited to hear that there were homeschooling families in my new stake; I emailed the one homeschooling mom in my ward and she invited us over for dinner. I discovered that she does intensive academics with her 4-year-old daughter and she sends her son to public school, then does more academics with him after school every day. I tried very hard not to cry myself to sleep that night... But the next day I played with my kids and felt better. I prayed for guidance and studied the scriptures. I tried to stop comparing myself to other homeschooling families and stop letting it bother me that I am the only person in this area with the views I have. I worked on picking back up the habits that we used to have that were good, like reading daily, and adding new ones that we needed, like chores. And I discovered that I was rather happy!

And then I decided I needed a group, and I didn't care if it was an LDS group or not. I need support and friends to bounce ideas off of, and Jack needs friends to play with. I went online and in a frenzy I joined almost every homeschool group within an hour drive. I went to a meetup with one of the groups and was so glad to find moms with ideas a lot like mine. I sat down and wrote out a weekly schedule and a daily routine; daily routine includes chores, reading time, and play time, and the weekly schedule includes library day, housecleaning day, library day, and nature day.

And then, I realized that I had not yet prayed directly about the question: Should I Homeschool? My heart racing, terrified I might get a no, I knelt. And I received sweet confirmation that God wants my family to homeschool.

That was just a couple of days ago. Since then, I re-discovered the Thomas Jefferson method of education, and wanted to jump up and dance as I read ideas that I had been forming all on my own. (This method in a nutshell: children should play, do chores, and spend time with their parents until they are old enough for formal studies sometime in their TEEN years.) I am not afraid anymore of the question "Does he start kindergarten next year?" I am not even afraid of the question "Oh, so what curriculum do you use, then?"

I have decided to give my children a longer childhood. They will learn to work, they will learn the gospel, and they will learn that our family's love is stronger than a rampaging herd of elephants. We do this by reading together, playing together, doing chores together, eating meals together, and going out and exploring together. Since I can't actually spend every waking moment with them, they have toys that inspire creative play, they have a backyard, and they have each other to play with. When they are ready to begin formal lessons, we will do that.

My house is full of peace right now. I know there will be bumps along the way, but I am not afraid of them. I have the conviction that I am doing the right thing for my family, and I have a gloriously lovely family. This week has been the pilot week of the daily routine and weekly schedule, and so far it has been a raging success. Jack loves the structure, Lily loves that we're always doing something interesting, and Tim loves coming home to a joyful house every evening. Tomorrow we'll load up as a family and go explore one of the hundreds of natural parks available to us here, and we won't have to clean house b/c the kids and I already did that yesterday. Next week I'll check out the closest unschooling group; I hope I fit in with them, but if I don't, I'll be OK. Jack has friends he can play with in the evenings, and I have friends I can talk to on the phone during the day. And the homeschooling group I've already seen is really not that bad; they are a little academic heavy, but they try not to be!

My kids are growing up so beautifully. Jack is a social butterfly with a heart as big as his native Texas: he plays with any kid or adult who's willing, and he shares his food and toys with a smile. He accidentally spent real money in an iPad app, and was very penitent when I told him he had; he watched and listened carefully when I showed him how he had done it and showed him how not to do it again, and he has followed through and not done it again. His questions get more and more mature every night when we watch a Book of Mormon story, and he's starting to remember them and link them together and make connections between them. He loves to make me happy, to a fault (!); he is learning the concept of not doing too much of a good thing. He can pick up and carry Lily, and she is sometimes OK with that, so he's learning how to tell if Lily doesn't mind him carrying her around. He is learning how to show the affection to Lily that he so desperately wants to, without making her fuss, and he is learning how to tell when she's tired, hungry, bored, or wants up or down. He is learning that I will rarely turn down an invitation to read to him, and I am learning how to tell when repeated pleas of "Will you read to me?" are really him just asking for attention! He is learning how to measure ingredients when cooking, and how to load and unload the dishwasher. He can recognize most letters of the alphabet and most numbers, and he can count to 20 if he's not thinking about it. He still loves the Chronicles of Narnia and we are halfway through the second book. He is getting good at following slightly more complex game rules and sticking with the same game for a longer period of time; he still loves to play simple board games like "The Ladybug Game". He's getting very good at eating whatever food I put in front of him and not complaining about it. He's also grown out of the stage where kids throw a fit about every thing that doesn't go their way, and it still amazes me when he takes setbacks in stride. He still loves his sister fiercely, and he is learning how to care for her even better: one day she took something from him that she didn't need to have, and his sweet blue eyes were as wide as dishplates when I explained to him that sometimes it's OK to make Lily cry when she wants something that's bad for her. He then turned to Lily and said "You can't have this by yourself, but if I keep my hand on it we can share it." And today, Lily fussed in the car, and he sang to her in a sweet, soft voice, "It's OK, Lily, you can go to sleep in the car, really you can!" He is a joy and a delight to have around!

Lily explores and investigating her world with ferocity. I rarely have to do much for her in a day except a couple of diaper changes and nursing her to sleep, b/c she just tags along and explores whatever we're doing or plays with toys or other safe objects. She loves measuring spoons and puzzles. She loves to rip paper and has been desecrating quite a few library books lately. She sometimes takes personal offense when I tell her "Uh-oh!" and cries as if her heart is breaking. She only very rarely wants to be cuddled, but she's learned that she just has to put up with it from me! She still loves her Daddy and still usually prefers him to me, but I am taking a larger share of her heart and she will prefer me to him more than she used to, and not even just when she's tired! She can put puzzle pieces in correctly and she can put on Jack's shoes, and sometimes she can get her own shoes on her feet. She loves to take her socks off but can't take her pants off yet, which is good b/c if she could she'd be naked all day! She refuses to get out of bed until Tim and I have made a "tent" out of our blanket by holding it up over all of our heads. She still will go potty right after waking up, and she still refuses to go potty any other time b/c she is too busy exploring; if I push the potty issue too hard she pushes right back and refuses to even go after waking, so I am learning to back off (you'd think I'd have that one learned by now!). She will request a diaper change by patting her diaper, and she almost always lies nice and still while I change her. She LOVES the bath, and playing with water in the sink, too; in fact, I did dishes the other day with just her b/c Jack was busy eating, and after she saw me rinse dishes and put them in the dish drain, she started copying me and rinsed a wooden spoon and put it in the dish drain. I almost cried, I was so touched and thrilled that my 18-month-old daughter was helping me with dishes! She is lengthening her attention span and will watch a movie with us for a few minutes before going back to exploring; she'll sit still and have a book read to her, too, as long as the book isn't too verbose! She has learned how much we love it when she gives us kisses, and will occasionally fill a few minutes going back and forth between each of us, kissing us over and over and over. She has opinions about the clothes that she wears, whether it is squealing and dancing when I put her favorite shirt on her or tugging and fussing at a shirt she doesn't like; I often give her a choice between two outfits for this reason, but sometimes she's too busy exploring to make a choice so I have to make it for her. She is getting old enough to be disciplined gently, and was rather offended when I held her in my lap after she pulled Jack's hair last night!

They may not be academically advanced (or they may be, and I really don't care either way), but they are compassionate, gentle, obedient, and happy, and they know some very important things about God and love. Our family is in a good place right now.

Photos from the playground behind the art museum today:

Jack wasn't too thrilled that the camera was out again, but he was a good sport and tried to pose. (I say "tried to" b/c he wanted to play so badly he simply could not hold still!)

Lily posed! She was imitating her brother :D

And she was done posing!

So now Jack had to get in on the action and posed again for a nice shot!

(I'm sorry my posts are always so long...)

Out with the old!

The past two days we've been in our old apartment, scrubbing the walls and filling and painting over nail holes. I am amazed at both how much work it was, and how much better it looks afterwards. It really makes me wish we'd done a better job fixing up our place in Texas before we left....

Kiddos were fabulous. They literally spend most of their time there yesterday kicking a ball around and shrieking happily. They don't usually get to kick a ball inside b/c there are things that might get knocked down, but in an empty apartment it's free game! Jack kicked it as hard as he possibly could and shrieked with delight when the ball went high and hit the wall with a thud. Lily shrieked right along with him, then Jack gave her a chance to kick the ball and she thought that was pretty neat, too. I had so much fun listening to their fun while I worked!

Today Lily fell asleep on the way there, b/c we spent a while in the car helping Tim get an errand run and off to the train station before we went to the apartment. (Tim had to go to San Francisco today for his work, and he'll be coming home late and doesn't want to ride his scooter that far in the wet cold!) She woke up when we got there, and I was worried she'd be grumpy, but I had food from Taco Bell and she was so excited to try new food!

Then I made the biggest mistake of my week. I thought the kiddos could paint with their own, colorful paints on the dropcloth while I did the painting touch-ups on the wall. I covered them up with old big T-shirts and gave them each a brush and a picture frame. If Lily was a little Jack, it would have worked well. But Lily is a little Lily. She was very excited to get to paint and she had a blast, but she got paint ALL OVER HERSELF. With glee! It was hard to get upset at her, she was so cute as she squished her paint-y hands all together! Jack wasn't happy about her mixing all the paint up into one smooth black, but he still had fun painting. His technique has improved a lot (so now I need to work some painting time into our days, while Lily naps so he has free reign). I had them both covered with an old big T-shirt, but Lily got so enthusiastic that she got some on the inside of the shirt and on her clothes. I was so sad! I tried so hard to get the T-shirt off of her without getting any more paint on her cute clothes, but with paint on the inside of the T-shirt, it just wasn't happening. I put her in the bathtub and started washing her off so she wouldn't paint the inside of the tub with permanent paint, then I tried to get as much paint as I could off of her cute shirt, but it was hopeless. I really felt like throwing a tantrum :( I decided to use that as a teaching moment and tell Jack how sad I felt; I think it was totally lost on him, but I am really proud of myself that I didn't lose my temper at my kids :D

Jack got his T-shirt off quite well and happily waited while I cleaned up. (I normally have him help, but the stakes were just too high with permanent paint and an apartment we're trying to leave spotless!) I got Lily fully paint-free, then told Jack we were going to go get frozen yogurt, and he was quite happy! I put Lily in the wrap on my back b/c she didn't have a shirt to wear, and she loved it; her little legs went "KICK KICK KICK" the whole time :D I put on my jacket and I'm sure I looked like a hunchback, but Lily's sweet smiling face behind mine drew smiles from many passers-by. (Have I mentioned how much I love going out with my kiddos?) We got big cups of frozen yogurt and took them back to the apartment to eat so I wouldn't have to worry about losing my sweet little wandering girl while I ate.

Galina, our apartment manager, was waiting there to do a quick walk-through; I hadn't expected her so soon, so my sweet Jack had to wait for us to be done before he could have his frozen yogurt. Amazingly, he waited patiently (I did go ahead and let him have it before we were quite done). And Galina gave us the thumbs-up, that I had patched the holes and scrubbed the place well enough to keep our entire deposit! Yay! So I took Lily out of the wrap, and she almost dove into Jack's cup of yogurt, she was so excited to eat it! I showed her she had her own cup, told her to sit down and she did, and gave her her cup with a spoon. She was one happy little girl :D And Jack was glad she had her own cup so she'd leave his alone! I got to eat in peace for a little bit, then Lily got all done with hers and tried mine. Apparently she didn't like mine, so she tried Jack's and liked it much better. Jack sweetly shared with her, but I could tell he would rather have it all to himself; when he had only a teeny bit left he asked me if he could have the last of it without sharing it with Lily, and I said he could and scooped her up and tossed her back into the bathtub to get all the yogurt off of her! Jack came and joined after he was all done, and they had a ball playing with water with the spoons and cups they'd eaten yogurt from :D I got all our stuff packed up, got them out of the bath, loaded up the car and headed home to get clothes for Lily. And of course, both of my precious children conked right out :D

THEN, we got to go back to our old place to play with our old neighbors, the mom with the three adopted boys with the trampoline! We ate pizza, chatted, and played, and life was good :D She is a sweet mother and I'm glad I've gotten to know her and her kids, and I'm glad her kids are such good friends to mine!

These are my kids wrestling on the floor of that old apartment :D This is from back in September.

Today was full of fun!

Started the day with the discovery that I lost 2 pounds; I decided yesterday to make a goal of losing 35 pounds in 35 weeks, so this was very heartening :D

Decided to get the day started right, with chores getting done quickly instead of wandering around wondering what to do next and telling the kids I couldn't play with them b/c I was busy. Made eggs with bell peppers, onions, and mushrooms, and wrapped them in whole-wheat tortillas with cheese and (organic) ketchup. Oh heaven! And when we were done eating breakfast, it was only 8 o'clock! So we played duck-duck-goose, and had a blast :D
While eggs were cooking, Jack was being mischievous, so I gave him the chore of unloading the dishwasher. I've previously refrained from giving him that chore b/c he would have to stand on a stool to put up dishes and I thought that was too hard. He did fabulously, with minimal complaining :D

The things I'm focusing on right now for Jack are training him to do chores, to not give up, to think creatively, and to learn the stories of the scriptures.
-I'm learning to slow down and help him learn how to help me do all my chores, and he and I are both loving it; we get more time together and he feels helpful and important and loved, and he learns, and I love having his company.
-When he is having a hard time doing something, I encourage him to keep trying. I might offer him advice, but I don't rush in and do it for him; this is a change from before, when I would do things for him to avoid a screaming fit. He's not a baby anymore, thankfully, and he's doing pretty well with this. I love to see his excitement when he conquers a difficult task!
-When he asks me a question that I think should be obvious, I try not to berate him for asking a dumb question, give him the answer, or ignore him (things that I have been doing). I try to ask him questions that will lead him to the answer, or ask him to consider his question and tell me the answer. Also, when we watch a story (from the Book of Mormon Stories DVD) and act it out, if he doesn't know what comes next, I don't tell him, I make him go back to the iPad and watch it again so he can remember what happens. I do this b/c he has actually regressed in his story-telling skills; when he was 2 he could rehearse those stories with astonishing accuracy, but now he rarely remembers the beginning or end. I've been jogging his memory by reminding him of what he forgot, but I've been alarmed at how little he's been remembering of the stories he's been watching. My thought was that he was getting so used to me filling in for him that he wasn't trying anymore, so I'm not filling in for him anymore and we'll see what happens.
-And that's how we're learning the stories of the scriptures. Currently only the Book of Mormon Stories DVD is on the iPad, but someday we'll have the Stories from the Old Testament, New Testament, and Doctrine and Covenants too. He'll probably prefer the Book of Mormon Stories for a while, just b/c he prefers familiarity, but we'll work on that. We watch one every night before bed and he has to rehearse it back to us so we know he got it, and then he has the option of watching more before he falls asleep. We also watch them together as an activity during the day, and then act them out; Jack has discovered the joy of acting, and it's so much fun to watch him try so hard to remember his part!

Sent Tim off to work on time. He is so wonderful and he loves spending time with us, so he's really bad about hanging around here and not showing up to work until 10 or 11 or 12..... but then he has to stay late to make up that lost time, and I would MUCH MUCH MUCH rather have him home in the evenings than in the mornings, so I kick him out by 9 :D

Then Jack asked if we could play chase, and I said we could. I chased him, he chased me, I chased him, he chased me, and Lily followed us and giggled; then she fussed and I picked her up and she didn't smile, so I asked her if she was ready for her nap and she nodded. Silly girl takes her nap between 9:30 and 10am!

After I got her asleep, I read a chapter in The Magician's Nephew (the real first book in the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis) to Jack. This was an idea of mine to copy my friend Malina who reads long chapter books to her homeschooled boys while her toddler naps; I wasn't sure Jack was old enough but I decided it would be fun to try. At first I was much more excited than Jack was, but I think he's warming up to it, b/c later in the day he asked if we could read more of it. yay!

Then I attempted to pay bills. We expected to get Tim's sign-on bonus with this paycheck, so I was rather dismayed when I checked our account online and discovered that it wasn't there. I ended up just playing on facebook and wasting time...

But I did get supper started, beans and rice :D

After Lily woke, we ate lunch. We had apples, and I had a soynut-butter and jelly sandwich that I cut a piece of and shared with Lily. She LOVES it when I give her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I was really excited to see that she enjoyed the soynut-butter as much as peanut butter. She's too young to have peanuts yet; when we gave Jack peanuts too early he developed a peanut sensitivity. Thankfully it went away after taking out the peanuts from his diet, but I'd rather not make that same mistake again with Lily!

Then we headed over to our old apartment to check the mail and look at the walls that our landlady said looked so bad they'd cost $350 to patch and re-paint. Decided to just do it myself, and warned her that we won't be able to pay rent this month til next paycheck. I'm really grateful that she was so nice about that, she said I'd have to talk to the bookkeeper but she's pretty sure there will be no problem. Visited one of my neighbors there, the one with the trampoline in her backyard, and actually got on it with Jack and Lily and jumped and jumped and jumped and had a great time! Went to the dentist to get more MI paste, the stuff I put on their teeth that both hardens their enamel and discourages bacterial growth. Then went to the paint store to get the paint and nail-hole-filler; poor Lily was NOT happy about getting in and out of the car so many times, but we had to go to 3 different stores to find everything.

Came home and Lily asked to nurse, and then fell asleep doing so. So Jack asked if we could read more of our book. Not iPad, not food, but The Magician's Nephew was his first request. Score! We read THREE WHOLE CHAPTERS before my mouth was sore and I had to quit, and Jack wanted more! So I reminded him that he has a marble track he can play with when Lily's asleep, and he happily did so while I finished supper. Tim came home and Lily woke up grumpy, but he held her and she warmed up. She loves her Daddy! I finally finished de-boning the Thanksgiving turkey while supper simmered, and felt so accomplished!

Ate supper. It was quite yummy: beans and rice, a staple in our home, but with celery and cajun seasoning this time. Jack ate his, Lily enjoyed hers, and Tim always loves my food, so I was happy :D And Tim made a peanut-butter and banana smoothie to drink with our meal; I didn't get much of mine b/c both of my kids wanted it, but I guess it's more important to feed my kids healthy food than to horde it for myself. After dinner, kids played happily while I made hot chocolate by melting dark chocolate in milk and adding sugar; Jack was excited but ended up not liking it b/c it was too rich! I had just a teeny bit, Tim diluted his with cold milk, and Lily said it was weird to drink something that was warm. So Jack had a mint chocolate chip milkshake instead, and Lily fished all the chocolate chips out of his cup; they then ran all over the house shrieking and squealing and playing together while I put away some clean dishes.

And then suddenly they were both tired! I got Lily all ready for bed and nursed her to sleep while Jack watched Book of Mormon Stories, then when she was down I discovered Jack was asleep as well. Poor kid, he missed his bedtime story (we talk about all the good things we did and what our favorites were).

And now it's my turn to go to bed! Tim is working on some pretty piece of work for an upcoming conference. If I ask him to tell me about it in detail, I'll conk right out...

Photos!

Jack on her Grandpa's lap (Tim's dad, Brian). She always stares really hard at him when we visit; our theory is that since Tim looks a lot like his dad, she just can't get enough of the face her dad's is patterned after :D

(This really isn't the best picture of him, he really is a handsome fellow, but it's a good one of Lily!)

The Lily Flower and Jack the Ninja Turtle at the Halloween Party in Dallas. Lily loved her costume and asked to wear it over and over again afterwards; Jack borrowed this costume from Malina b/c the one I bought for him wasn't what he wanted :P

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving at home :D We had a blast! We had turkey, green bean casserole (from scratch with no cream-of-whatever soup!), and mashed potatoes/sweet potatoes (all homemade), store-bought rolls and pie, and homemade cookies. We played games together and lazed about the house all day. In short, we had a glorious holiday "staycation"!

We happen to enjoy Harry Potter :D We owned movies 1-5 (the first 3 were actually gifted to us..), so we started Monday watching the first movie after FHE, then Tuesday watched the second, Wednesday the third, Thanksgiving day the fourth and fifth, Black Friday we actually went to the store to buy the sixth b/c it wasn't available to rent at redbox or iTunes (and we actually got a decent deal on it thanks to Target's Black Friday sales). Then, Tim and I actually got to go out on a date to go see the seventh, on Friday night! A sweet friend from our former ward in Palo Alto came and watched our kids, and we redeemed codes that were on some cereal boxes to get free movie tickets, and away we went! We enjoyed the time together and the movie, and our friend and her 1-year-old boy had fun with our kids, and our kids had fun with her and her son. Win-win-win!

Church today was great. I'm getting in a habit of making Jack listen to the talks during sacrament meeting; I cuddle him close and ask him to listen with me, and we talk about what the talks are about. (Of course they're usually over his head, so I get to explain them to him, and of course while I'm explaining I can't hear what's being said, so we just take that as a discussion launcher and head off on our own!) Jack is getting pretty good at it; I worry I'm making his ears soft and dumb b/c I'm always filling in for him when he doesn't know what they're talking about, but he is getting in the habit of being reverent in church and not hating it (I hope!).
Another habit we're getting into is taking the kiddos for a run after sacrament meeting. We go down the hall to the water fountains and bathrooms, then go out the nearest door and run around the building to the door near the Primary room. Since I'm not in Primary with him, I don't know for sure that it helps, but he loves it and I do too. And I've been peeking in on him and every time I've been quite pleased with what I've seen: not only reverence and obedience, but active listening and participation! Today I peeked in when they had a big doll house at the front and were taking suggestions from the kids for what to put in the house. Jack said "a mommy and a sister" but they already had that, so he quickly said "A Grandma and an Aunt Lauren!" And he told me later that he would have said "Toys, too!" but they moved on to the next kid too quickly! Then later in his class I listened without peeking in, and I heard happiness. Yay Jack!

Sweet Lily needed me during Nursery today, and it was funny b/c I didn't know what to do! When Jack was in Nursery, I was a Primary teacher, so it was always Tim who took care of him. AND Lily is such an independent child, I never dreamed she'd have any problems with Nursery! But after snack time, I was peeking in seeing how she was doing, and I saw them cleaning up the snacks and putting them away. Lily picked up the box of goldfish crackers and handed them to the teacher and nodded, which means "Yes I want this!" But the poor teacher didn't know that, and took the box and said "Thank you!" and put it away. Lily didn't melt down right then, so I went on to class, but they brought her to me soon after that and said she'd started crying right after snack, so she must have started right after I walked away. I held her and she pointed the way to those goldfish crackers; I gave her a couple of handfuls of them and she was quite happy. She anxiously pointed in the exact opposite direction from her Nursery room as we walked back past it to go to my class; I think it was b/c she heard them singing her least-favorite song (where each kid gets spotlighted and their clothing sung about). I took her to Relief Society with me and she sat stock-still and quiet in my lap for all of one minute, then she pointed at the door and fussed. I asked her if she was ready to go back to Nursery and she nodded, so I took her in and sat with her for the rest of singing time. (She really doesn't like singing time, I wonder if I should try to do something about that or just let it play out? Should I speak to the teachers with some suggestions for improving it, or maybe start having some singing time at home?) She was happy in my lap, and then she hopped down and was fine without me again but by then it was time to leave!

Lily is willing to try things, like I just wrote about when she sat in my lap in Relief Society, and also when she tried to go potty in the bathroom at church. She had a poopy diaper, and I knew she had more to go, so I tried to hold her backwards over the potty just like I used to when she was tiny and almost all her waste went in the potty. She tried it, then shook her head. I asked her if she'd like to sit on it normally, and she nodded, and she actually supported herself pretty well on that giant (for her) potty seat, but then she shook her head again. (I LOVE that she's saying "yes" and "no" this way!)

We got a dishwasher! Our wonderful landlords put it in yesterday! Woohoo!

Photos!

While we were moving in and unpacking, Lily found her wrap and carried it to Tim and demanded to be put in it! They were very happy I was nearby to show him how to put it on; he spent the next half hour singing and dancing about how much his Lily loves him and how much he loves his Lily. Did ever a daughter love her Daddy as much as this one does?

Also while unpacking and moving in, Lily got cold. This blanket is technically Jack's, but he's good at sharing, and Lily loves it at least as much as he does :D I love this pic b/c I have one of Jack wrapped up just like this when he was little, too (but of course I can't find it at the mo'...).

Have I mentioned my kids love playing in the bathtub?

Our Thanksgiving feast needed 2 tables; our kiddos were excited to eat it!

Jack loves putting sprinkles on cookies; this one was also his idea, to make one big cookie so he could put lots of sprinkles on it! (He also took this picture of the giant pretty cookie!)

We moved! After we spent time in Texas...

So, we went to Texas and had a blast. My kids played with my friend and her kids, and her baby came and he was perfect :D We got to visit my in-laws, and Tim even got to come after he signed a new contract to work for Palm. (He quit his old job two days after kids and I left, then spent 2 weeks in job interviews before settling on Palm. The offered the best pay and the fewest hours, and an exciting job with a great work environment. 2 weeks in, he's loving it!) We got to visit friends and family and spend lots of time with SHARE, the homeschooling group there that is water to my parched soul.

We came home October 30th because Tim needed to get started at his new job and my friend was ready to take over her house and home again :D Tim's new job in Sunnyvale was a half-hour commute from our apartment in downtown Palo Alto, so we started house-hunting close to his work. I decided pretty quickly that I needed a house with a yard, so I declared I didn't care how much I spent on rent and just started looking at houses. Luckily, Tim insisted on trying to keep our rent payment low, and we found the PERFECT house. It's 2.8 miles from his work and it has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2-car attached garage, and a fenced backyard. I've never loved a house as much as I love this one; I don't hate California anymore, though I do still miss my friends and family.

We moved lickety-split. We have only 2 boxes left to unpack; we have a few boxes of books and such that will be unpacked once we have more shelving on which to unpack them to, but I don't count those! Problem with moving, though, is that the lease wasn't up on our apartment yet. So we're still responsible for the rent there. So even though Tim's making more than he's ever made before, we are still broke! The manager of our old apartment is advertising it and hopefully it will get rented soon; we are in talks with a realtor to sell our condo, too. That will be so great when that's all done!

My kiddos are growing up so fast. Yesterday I realized how much Jack loves to act out the one story we've ever acted out (the story of Samuel the Lamanite calling the Nephites to repentance). I was getting tired of doing the same thing over and over, so I showed Jack that we can do other stories, too. That opened up the floodgates! He watches Book of Mormon stories, begs me to watch them with him so I'll know what to do, then we each take a part and start acting. It's so much fun to watch him learn the stories with such enthusiasm!

Lily is so much like her brother. I was expecting her to be so different, and she is in some ways, but she is so much like him. Jack was a late talker, but I wasn't worried. Boys talk later than girls, and Tim was a late talker, so I just knew it would work out, and it did. He started talking at 20 months and just exploded with words, and had a full 2-year-old vocabulary in just 2 months. But Lily being a girl and being so different from Jack as a baby, I was expecting her to talk sooner, but she's 18 months now and still doesn't talk. I've decided not to worry b/c she DOES communicate, with whispers, gestures, and non-word vocalizations. She points to what she wants, she nods her head for "yes" and shakes it for "no" (and she's even started saying "no"), she pats her diaper when she needs a change. She's learning to catch her food in her hands when she spits it out, she's using a spoon and a cup pretty well, and she puts her shoes on by herself. She helps clean up messes, both by wiping up spills and picking up toys. This morning she even showed patience by waiting for me to get dressed before I nursed her :D She's decided that baths are fun again b/c she loves to play with the water, and this is another reason I love my new house: the bathroom with a bathtub is off of the kitchen, so the kids can play in the tub and I can cook/clean while they play and I can still keep an eye on them to make sure Lily doesn't drown! (When the water gets deep, she loses her balance and falls underwater. That's what happened months ago and she decided to be terrified of baths from then on, until now.)

Yesterday, Jack helped me cook broccoli casserole for supper. We had so much fun! He dumped the broccoli into the boiling water, poured the milk for the sauce, stirred up the sauce and poured it in, and helped me pick the seasonings to use. And then, when the casserole was done, HE ATE IT. Yes, Jack ate BROCCOLI casserole. With no fuss. Hallelujah! Then he helped me make cookies by dumping in ingredients and helping to stir; then he rolled balls of cookie dough in a plateful of sprinkles to make beautifully colorful cookies :D Then we had Family Home Evening and finished the night by watching the first Harry Potter movie and eating cookies; Lily spent about an hour shrieking and jumping on us, and Jack conked out with his head in my lap. Good times :D

So Thanksgiving is coming up and we don't have money for plane tickets :( We decided we'd drive to Utah to visit Tim's family up there, but there are mountains between here and there that are covered in snow. Tim has to work the day before Thanksgiving, so if we went we'd be driving overnight, and I just don't quite feel safe about driving overnight through snow-covered mountains. So it looks like we'll be celebrating our first ever Thanksgiving at home. We worked hard to get our unpacking done quickly and I feel at home here, so I'm really quite excited about it! I'm making a menu and trying to keep it short and simple so I can spend more time playing with my family; I'm planning on doing the grocery shopping today so I can possibly do some cooking tomorrow. And we might even go take the kids to the mountains Friday or Saturday so we can play in the snow!

Pictures!

Packing to go to Texas!

Lily went to Malina and didn't let go of her for about 15 minutes! I wonder if Lily remembered Malina? She did the same thing with her Grandma (Tim's mom) and with Vickie; Vickie and Malina were there when she was born and we spent lots of time together while we lived in Texas.

Lily and her Nanna, my mom :D

All the grandkids together! (And Jessica, Tim's older sister and mother of the two little girls in front of her.) This is marginally the best picture of the 60-something I snapped. Trying to take a photo of 4 little ones is fun!

Road Trip to Utah!

We took a road trip to go visit Tim's grandparents in Orem, Utah, the first weekend in September. We planned it as a trial run, so that we would see how Lily might do on a road trip to Texas later :D

Packing up was an all-night event. I decided that this time, I was going to have a clean house before we left, gosh darn it! (We always have goals to do all the dishes and laundry before we leave on a trip, but we NEVER do, and we always have such a let-down coming home!) Between cleaning and packing and that ever-present feeling of forgetting something, I didn't go to bed at all the night before we left. And we left early in the morning, 4:15am! (The plan was to get a few hours of driving done before the kids woke, so we might make it there faster. It was the best compromise between driving overnight and not leaving until dawn.)

The kids were so excited; we warned them the night before that they'd wake up in the car. (Jack sometimes has a hard time handling surprises, so we warn him beforehand whenever we think a surprise might upset him.) So, they felt us lifting their sleeping bodies up to put them in the car, and they woke right up! Luckily they were happy, and ended up going back to sleep after an hour.

We stopped and breakfasted as soon as we got to Nevada. Got back on the road and Lily threw up her breakfast. YUCK! Took off the carseat cover, changed her clothes, got back on the road. She threw up again. Oh no, this girl gets motion sickness! (She threw up on the way home from the beach, both of the last two times we went, and both times I attributed it to other circumstantial factors.) So we made more frequent stops, and tried to put easily washed blankets down under her, and made it to Utah with only one or two more incidents, at 8pm.

We had so much fun hanging out with Tim's grandparents :D I love Tim, who happens to be just like his mother, so I love his mother too. Well, she's not too much unlike her own parents, so of course I rather like them too! We cooked and cleaned kitchen together, we toured the garden again, we chatted, we saw Tim's aunt and uncle that live right next door and another aunt and uncle that live across town, and we spent time with Tim's sister who just had a baby.

(And I am disappointed in myself that I never thought to go take care of her postpartum like I'm planning on doing for my friend in Dallas. I think it was just that the friend DID live just around the corner from me when she got pregnant, and so the plans were laid before we ever knew we were moving away. But next time a sister-in-law of mine has a baby, she will have the option of my help after the birth!)

Jack and Lily enjoyed playing on the steps in their house, and the movies they have there that Tim got to watch as a kid. Jack enjoyed the jacuzzi bathtub, and got his first-ever bubble bath. Put regular baby soap into the water right in front of the jacuzzi intake, and you get a MONSTER bubble bath!

We left at about 5am to come home. We turned Lily's carseat to be facing forward, and Tim sat next to her and helped her to look up and forward instead of down inside the car.We made great time, stopping once in Utah and once or twice in Nevada. But the entire state of California was a traffic jam! It was Labor Day weekend, and there are lots of state and national parks there at the eastern edge of the state that people were driving home from. We stopped multiple times, and had a pretty cranky toddler by the time we got home, but we got home by 9pm and were so happy to have a clean home! And, turning Lily's seat around and helping her look up, worked, and we made it home with no vomit :D

And then I bought a plane ticket to Texas :D I arrive at 5:35pm on Saturday, October 2nd, and will hopefully go straight to visit my in-laws in Texarkana. I'd like to get 2 visits in before I have to come home, and Malina doesn't want me too far from Dallas when her baby is due, so I'd better get that first visit in as soon as I get there so I don't manage to miss her baby's birth :D Then I'll go visit again after the baby is born and before I come back home.

I am SO excited to go see my best friend and see our kids play together again. I have to be careful not to talk to Jack about it too much, b/c I don't want to make him as homesick as I am, but when I do ask him if he's excited to see Lorn and Hal, he says "I want to see them RIGHT NOW! I can't wait!" I worry that I won't be very helpful while I'm there; I want to do all her laundry and dishes and help her to welcome her newest child in peace and joy, but I'm barely hanging on to my own duties right now. But that's a whole nother post ;)

Picasa album of road trip pictures!

Playing on the pony ride

This was a double pony ride outside a baby store in San Bruno (just south of San Francisco, between San Francisco and South San Francisco :P ). It was worth the 50cents to get this pic :D

Little Miss Independent!

Eating breakfast :D We were still trying to not put anything on the credit card, so it was a meager meal of bread (whole-wheat, of course) and honey and milk for Lily, and peanuts for Jack.

The pic came out blurry but you can still see her grin!

And I can't take a picture of just Lily without taking a picture of just Jack. Oh dear, what will I do when I have 15 kids?!

Lily has a chair to sit in at the table!

We had a little strap-to-existing-chair seat back in Texas. It broke, we glued it back together, but it kept on breaking. I refused to pay to have something broken shipped across country, so we came here with no chair for Lily. And having carpet under the table made me hesitant to let her have a place at the table in the first place :( She's been asking for spoons and for cups and for food, so I finally got tired of letting my fear of messes get in the way of my daughter's development. I stacked some old college textbooks (calculus, organic chemistry, and anatomy!), put a towel on them to protect them from dropped food, put her on it and scooted it up to the table. She loves it! Now she will settle for nothing less, of course :D

The best was when I gave her a spoon and a bowl full of yogurt and cereal. She was so excited! She wanted to keep playing and exploring it even after her belly was full, but I put a stop to that. She was pretty angry at me... so I laid down and nursed her until she fell asleep. Gotta love being a Mommy :D

San Francisco and Node Knockout

Tim's work is dealing with some revolutionary programming called Node.js. It's javascript on the server, which is remarkable b/c it always before only ran in the browser. Tim understands it pretty well and has been helpful in getting it publicized and in shaping its development. The guy who started it lives in San Francisco, and that is the biggest reason we now live here. Node is growing like crazy, and we hope it will be our ticket to fame and fortune someday, but for now it is still beta and changing too often to be doable for a large business. (So, that said, Tim's job is to make sure that with all this growing and changing, Node ends up being something that his company can use for their software; they get an inside voice in an awesome new platform, and Tim gets paid to work on Node. Win-Win!)

Anyway, Tim got to be a judge in a Node contest on August 27th. We got to go up to the City (AKA San Francisco) and explore while Tim was at another company (also in the City) chatting it up with the Noders. We took these pics there near Ghirardelli Square:

Lily was rather sleepy... but Jack was happy to try to help her! He loved exploring and had to be reminded a couple of times to stay close. I finally had to remind him that there are horrible people in the world who steal children, but he's safe as long as he stays close. He was MUCH better at keeping close after that :D

A statue of a mermaid nursing her merbaby would only be found in San Francisco, hippie capital of the world :D

We donated money to the street musicians and danced to their music, explored the boutique shops with frilly girl dresses and neat European toys, and were headed down to the beach when Tim called and said that some other guys had their kids there and he'd like us to come, too. So we went to spend some time with him and eat free food :D We walked into the building and were greeted by little boys between Jack's and Lily's age, playing on their Daddies' smartphones. It cracked me up, but made me feel a little better, seeing that other programmers' kids also get their fair share of computer know-how :P (As a side note, simply being the kid of a programmer is rather rare. Most programmers don't reproduce. We're not going to repeat here the jibes about the social skills or lack thereof.)

Jack had a blast playing on the arcade-game machines the company had there, I had a blast eating the food, and Lily had a blast napping, nursing, and playing with the ping-pong balls :D I even got to knit a little! At the end of the evening they had live music. It was a rock concert, in a typical business office. I found the whole idea hilarious :D Like a typical rock concert, it was LOUD. They had free earplugs for our protection :D I put some in, I put some in Jack's ears and he liked them, I put some in Lily's ears and she didn't like them. Jack and Lily loved dancing in the very front, until Lily found the little amps all taped on the floor in front of the band, and nothing I did could distract her from trying to investigate those, so we had to say goodbye to the live music and go back to the arcade games.

We went back the next day for more free food :D

Trying to play catchup...

I missed a few days blogging. Then I missed more b/c I knew that catching up would take a long time.

Should I start at the most recent and work my way back? Or start where I left off and work my way up?

I'll only be able to write about the things I was smart enough to take pics of, b/c I won't remember anything else :( Luckily I carry my camera with me everywhere!

August 25th

This was at the Valley Fair Shopping Center in San Jose. We had a heat wave, which is hilarious b/c it was the coldest summer in 40 years, then all of a sudden at the end it gets hot! To escape the heat, the young moms in my ward went to the beach. I neglected to take pics, but we had a BLASTITY BLAST BLAST BLAST. Lily loves exploring sand, watching it pour through her fingers, tasting it (but she doesn't eat much of it so I don't bother trying to stop her....I think making a big deal out of it would do just that, make a big deal out of it and end up making her eat more), swishing it with her hands, squishing it with her fingers, kicking her feet in it, etc etc etc. Add a big bucket of water to the mix and you've got hours (literally) of entertainment! Jack liked to make the perfect mix of sand and water in a bucket that would look like sand but really be water to the touch, and drag any object tied on the end of a string through the sand and watch the trail it made, and drag same object through the little creek that emptied into the ocean and watch it get carried away by the flow of the creek and watch it be pulled back by the string. I could hardly compete with that string for his attention; he only stopped to eat b/c I repeatedly demanded that he do so, and he was the first of all the kids to be back up and playing. I had fun chatting with the other moms, and playing with my kids in the sand and surf. I sat with Lily in my lap and let the surf wash over us a few times, and had the high honor of getting to watch her face as the cold water washed up to her chest and back down again. I tried to convince Jack to come join us, but he was absolutely not interested. He was way too busy with his string :D I love watching his intense focus when he's doing string physics (as I like to call it...). He is MY son. (I guess he's Tim's, too, but I don't know Tim's childhood quite as well as I know mine!)

Anyway, those silly ladies made beach trips twice during the heat waves, and both times they went in the morning. Morning-time is the nice, cool time, the time that our home was actually bearable! It was evening-time that it was too hot to live in, so we just went straight to the mall from the beach. It was a pretty nice mall, with a play area as good as some of the ones around Dallas, but the best parts were the family lounges. Rooms with play tables and magazines and soft chairs, and booths with curtains for private nursing, and changing tables and sinks for washing hands. But my kids preferred for whatever reason to be out in the fray, battling the crowds to explore the mall. I was glad to get to go home, even if it was hot :P

Next post: Diplomas!