Girls!!

Well, we're definitely surrounded by girls in this household. Blondie's "girly" ways are starting to rub off on Kitty. Today I bought a Christmas dress for Kitty at the thrift store. The tag said that it was 3T (which is the size Blondie wears) but it didn't look anywhere close to a 3T - more like 24 months. When we got home I took off Kitty's shirt so I could try it on her (it turns out that it's only a little long in the sleeves). The first thing she did when it was on was twirl around in a circle!! Definitely a Blondie move... Then when I tried to take it back off of her she started throwing a fit and wouldn't let me put her shirt back on. Then Blondie wanted a dress like Kitty's to try on. I haven't found one at the store yet for her, so I went down to our storage room and pulled one out of the storage bins that M&M wore (it's a size 5T so it's a little big for Blondie still). So now I have two little girls walking around the house in Christmas dresses and dancing whenever they hear music to dance to...
...And just last night I was commenting to DH that I thought Kitty was the most tomboy of our girls. I guess I was wrong...

Hello Winter!

Well, we got our first significant snow storm last night - probably about 1-2 inches fell at our house - and it is SUPER COLD here! The low last night was about 7 degrees fahrenheit and the high today was in the low 20s!! Because of the cold temperatures, roads were a mess this morning. There's nothing like snow & cold weather to put you in the mood for Christmas!!

Missing Mom

Yesterday Kitty didn't take a nap (we've been having trouble with her sleep schedule lately) and so she fell asleep at the dinner table. DH took her downstairs to sit with her for a little bit while I went off to the store to do some Christmas shopping (without the kids). After a little while, Kitty woke up and wasn't too happy that she couldn't find me anywhere. DH said she got down from his lap and went upstairs. When he couldn't hear her crying anymore, he went to find out where she was. This is what he found:

Sick Blondie

I haven't been able to post much lately because Blondie has been sick for the past week. She is finally feeling better today and hopefully I can get caught up on things around the house. Thankfully no one else in our family has gotten sick yet, so we're crossing our fingers!!


Here is Kitty imitating Blondie while she is laying down on the couch feeling sick... Blondie has always been a 2-finger sucker and she has a blankie that she has to carry around the house. Kitty has never sucked fingers, thumb or a pacifier and she doesn't have a favorite "blankie". Occasionally we will find Kitty following Blondie around the house and imitating her like this...


This bottom picture is Blondie sucking her fingers at 2 months old. It just doesn't look quite as natural when Kitty does it...

Decorating the House!

Friday, November 24
The kids were so excited this year to get out the Christmas tree and start decorating for Christmas! It's such a fun time of year to be a kid! The day after Thanksgiving we typically get out the Christmas decorations and start decorating the house for the holidays. So on Friday, the kids were bugging DH & I all day long about when we were going to put the tree up and get the decorations out. DH was busy on the computer for a good portion of the day and I was doing some shopping and other things that day, but we finally relented and the kids sure had fun! We bought our "fake" tree 9 years ago and it has held up rather well over the years.
We have an older version of the artificial trees and each of the individual branches has to be put onto the "trunk". The kids have a lot of fun sorting the branches and inserting them where they go. The kids are all pretty fascinated with the Christmas lights that we have and once it got dark outside, the kids turned off all the lights in the house and were dancing to the blinking of the lights (on the random feature).

Now we get to see how long the ornaments stay on the tree with Kitty around...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 23
We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home with our family & Taryn. The kids enjoyed playing with Aunt Taryn and she was a great help to me in the kitchen (plus providing more interesting conversation than I typically have. :-) Thanks Taryn!!

Recipezaar

Do you ever sit there and wonder what you are going to make for dinner? I know I do ALL OF THE TIME!! So, for those of you who are looking for new recipes or wondering what on earth you can make with the ingredients you have on hand, check out the website Recipezaar. I have found several great recipes there and the nice thing is that the website will calculate the ingredient amounts for you if you want to make more or less than the recipe states. It also has the nutrition info for each recipe and you can read reviews from people who have already tried it. The website also has a lot of search options so you can find the exact recipe you are looking for. You can also post your own recipes and rate the ones you have tried. I just heard about this website a couple of weeks ago and I have used it 3 times just this week! So happy cooking!!

Here is a great recipe for pumpkin bread that I found if anyone is interested. (I substituted butter for the shortening and added chocolate chips instead of nuts.) It makes a great gift for visiting teaching - either a large or mini-loaf...
Pumpkin Bread

Aunt Marlene

Monday, November 13, 2006
My Aunt Marlene passed away last week from complications of colon cancer. She was married to one of my mom's older brothers. My mom was able to come out for a few days so that she could attend the funeral. Aunt Marlene was a neat lady who always had a smile on her face. She raised 10 children (6 boys, 4 girls) who all married in the temple and all the children except 2 of the girls served missions. She was 73 years old. It was a very nice funeral with lots of musical numbers performed by her family.
Read her obituary: Aunt Marlene

Uncle Jim with his 10 kids
Left to right: Craig, Alan, Keith, Cynthia, Doug, Uncle Jim,
Robert, Marianne, Brian, Janet and Carolyn.

We were also able to visit my Grandma & Grandpa Lord's gravesite - Aunt Marlene was buried at the same cemetery.

On our way home we stopped to visit Uncle Ralph (my mom's youngest older brother) who is not doing well. He is suffering from bone cancer which he has been living with now for several years. He is not able to leave the house and can't get up without assistance and has lost a lot of weight. He was in very good spirits when we visited him though and was joking and talking with us. Cancer is not a fun sickness to have to deal with and we hope he is not suffering too much.

Sleeping beauty

Blondie is our one child that sleeps in regularly and can sleep through almost anything. This morning I finally went into her room at 10:15 to wake her up!! She was awake, but just laying there in bed. There was one time a couple of months ago when I was watching 2 little boys in the morning while their mom helped out at school and Blondie stayed asleep the whole time they were here. They were dropped off at about 8:15 in the morning and picked up just before 10. While we were in Virginia, the first couple of nights there Kitty had a hard time going to sleep and she was in a crib screaming in the same room with Blondie and Blondie just slept right through it all. DH often remarks that she is a child after his own heart - he could easily sleep in until 10 or 11 if the kids (& work) would let him...

Good morning Blondie!!

Realizations...

Last week at our young women's activity, there was some discussion going on as to how long people have lived in different places. I then realized that I have lived 1/3 of my life here in Utah now (and that same 1/3 of my life married to my husband). I don't know that I ever thought we would live here this long, and the last 10 years have really flown by!

Then today while I was driving around running errands this morning, I realized that when Blondie was the age that Kitty is now, I was 6 months pregnant!!

Bittersweet end??

The day after we returned from Virginia, Kitty turned 18 months old (that magical age in the church where they can now attend nursery - Yea!!). Then two days after that, she decided to quit nursing cold turkey. I was probably nursing her 4-5 times a day (& occasionally at night still), but for some reason on Thursday evening, Oct. 19, she had decided that she was done. Whenever I would sit down to try and nurse her she would turn away and shake her head no. This marks the first time since I was pregnant with M&M that I have not been either pregnant or nursing (9 years straight). M&M & Luke nursed until they were just a week or two shy of 2 years old and then Bondie nursed until she was 18 months old. All three of them weaned themselves gradually and eventually quit because I was pregnant with the next baby - I was 6 months pregnant with Kitty when Blondie quit & 3 months pregnant with the other two.

Amazingly I am okay with Kitty quitting - although I am still very surprised that it happened. When Blondie quit nursing I was a little emotional about it because I felt like she was being cheated since she & the new baby were going to be so close in age. With Kitty however I haven't been upset about it. I must say that I have thoroughly enjoyed nursing all of my kids. There is a special bond that is formed between mother & baby that can't be duplicated.

Now that I'm through nursing, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. As I was getting ready for church 2 weeks ago I told DH that now I can wear dresses that don't button up the front. Then when I went to my closet to put one on, I found that the ones I have either don't fit quite right or are way out of style (especially since I haven't really worn one on a regular basis for the past 9 years). The other ironic part about it is that dresses are not really the style now - everyone's wearing skirts!!

Some of the freedoms I can enjoy now include:

• I can now leave the house and not worry about how long I'm gone.
• DH & I can sit through a whole gospel doctrine lesson and be able to listen to the teacher!
• I don't have to make sure I'm home by the kids' bedtime.
• I don't have to make sure Kitty is fed before I go anywhere.
• No more 3 a.m. feedings (although she occasionally wakes up still and just wants me hold her until she goes back to sleep).
• No more nursing clothes (or maternity clothes) - you fellow moms know what I'm referring to :-)
• I can wear belts now and not have to worry about the belt hurting my arm while I nurse.
• I don't have to carry a blanket with me wherever I go in case Kitty wants to feed.
• I can now take medicine without having to worry if it's safe for the baby (either pregnant or nursing).
• And as mentioned above I can now wear dresses that don't fasten in the front (although I don't currently have any that I can wear).

So, until we decide to have baby #5 I am going to try and enjoy this new-found freedom!

What's less than a quarter?

Last night at dinner we were discussing the phases of the moon with M&M because she is studying the moon in school. It was cloudy last night so M&M wasn't able to see the moon and she needed to know what it looked like for an assignment for school. So I looked at our calendar hanging on the wall and saw that Sunday is supposed to be a new moon. So I asked M&M what the moon looked like yesterday. She said it was a quarter moon. So I asked her, "If yesterday was a quarter moon and Sunday is going to be a new moon, what do you think the moon would have looked like tonight?" She was a bit confused on what I was getting at so DH asked her, "What is less than a quarter?" To which Luke piped up, "A nickel!"

P.S. - Now for those of you who might look at the moon tonight and wonder what we're talking about since the moon is almost full, I got the symbols backwards on my calendar and Sunday is supposed to be a full moon and M&M thought that the 3/4 moon she saw on Wednesday was called a quarter moon...

Principal's Pride Awards

Friday, October 27

M&M & Luke both received the Principal's Pride Award last week at school. Each month the teachers pick 2 or 3 students from their class to be recognized for good work that they have done.



Luke was picked for writing excellent "R's" and M&M was picked for her "marvelous monster story".


If you want to read Emily's story, just click on it above...

Trick-or-treating!

Luke & M&M's costumes I bought at the store this year, but Blondie's Cinderella costume I made for M&M 5 years ago and Kitty's pumpkin costume I made for Luke 5 years ago (and Blondie wore it 2 years ago)...

On Monday they had trick-or-treating down at DH's office...




Ready to go out to the neighborhood (or not). It was pretty chilly and Kitty & Blondie didn't last very long. Kitty just went to a few houses and then DH brought her back to stay with me and Blondie came back to get gloves. The kids didn't go very far in the neighborhood, but they still got quite a bit of candy between Halloween night, Monday at DH's office, and the school Halloween parties...



Taking stock of the loot and enjoying the spoils...

Halloween cookies

Saturday, October 28
We also decorated (& ate) Halloween cookies with Uncle D & K's help...


Kitty didn't like touching her cookie while the frosting was still wet, so K held it for her while she ate it...