Be Bot

I love when Avery pronounces words wrong. I have a hard time correcting her. That's what got us into the "tap tap" mess. I didn't want to tell her it's called chocolate milk, not tap tap.

Anyway, she calls Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty "Be Bot".

When he comes on, she says, "there's Be Bot!"

Then she wanted to put on a cape and a hat the other day, so we went up and got outfitted. She exclaimed, "like Be Bot!" I get a kick out of the fact that she dressed up like the prince and not the princess. ha ha.

One Pasi to Rule Them All

...and in the the darkness bind them...

Evan likes to put smaller items into bigger items. He likes to put toys into buckets and clothes into baskets.

So when he sees a container, he wants to put something - anything - in that container.

And that is why I have been spending precious minutes of my life searching for the one and only pasi we own before I put Evan down for a nap. He crawled somewhere and put it in something. And he won't tell me where he put it, believe me I've asked.

One day it was in the pantry, in a big box of ziplock bags.

I search through all the nooks and crannies looking for that darn green pasi, cursing the fact that we only have one. Why don't we have a million?

Yesterday it was in the bottom cupboard of the play kitchen.

So Yesterday we went to Target and bought a million (four) more.

And tonight, we are down to two pasis. Who knows what container the other three are in.

This is how Avery fell asleep yesterday.

These are her high heels.

Yesterday when Jimi got home from work we took a family trip to Lowe's. On the way there, Avery asked where Piper was. Jimi explained that Piper had to stay home because dogs aren't allowed at the store we were going to (unless they are seeing eye dogs, which Piper is NOT).

That reminded Jimi that a blind man went on a tour to the Grand Canyon that day.

Don't you think it's ironic that a blind man paid a lot of money to fly in an airplane to go see the Grand Canyon?

Meanwhile back at Lowe's, we walk past the flooring area and there is a golden retriever! What?

And it wasn't even a seeing eye dog. Just a regular dog along for the shopping trip. Avery gave it a hug.

The Grapes of Wrath

All right kids, gather round. It's story time.

When I was in college, I spent the summer as a grounds keeper at Salt Lake Community College. Dana and Chantel worked there also, so it was more like messing around in sprinklers all summer. We would ride around in those golf cart thingys, mow lawns, pull weeds, fix sprinklers, drink lemonade.

I didn't have a car of my own, so a few times I would have to ride the city bus from our apartment to the college. Have you ever ridden on a city bus? It's full of weirdos. I say that affectionately. I guess weirdos can't afford cars? I should look into that.

There was an old man who also worked at SLCC as a janitor. I will call him Old Man Janitor or OMJ for short. He was really old. Grey stubbly beard, just shuffling around with his janitor cart. I'm not sure he did a whole lot. Maybe they let him kick around the campus for something to do, and in exchange he would empty a few garbage cans, wipe a few chalk boards.

By some chance, one morning me and OMJ were riding the same bus on our way to the same college. I was nose deep in a book when OMJ struck up a friendly conversation. He asked me what I was reading.
"The Grapes of Wrath."
"What's that about?"
I gave a two minute version of the story.
We talked about the Depression and had a pleasant little chat all the way to work.

Time to get to work. Dana, Chantel and I hop in our cart, turn water on the south berm, then prep for some edging and mowing. Throughout the morning, my book is sliding around the cart floor with each turn we take. Come lunchtime, I realize it's not in the cart! It must have fallen out somewhere.

I bemoan my loss as we eat our lunch and discuss a search mission. One of our coworkers pipes up, "Earlier today OMJ showed me a book he was reading and was lecturing me about how poorly the vagabond farmers were treated during the dust bowl settlement...blah blah blah..."

OMJ must have found my book laying around the campus grounds! And kept it as his own! Then told others about the story as if he read it! ha ha that part cracks me up.

This is where the story gets good. Our search mission turned into a rescue mission. We had to find OMJ and his janitor's cart! We rode wildly around campus asking employees here and there if they had seen OMJ. We eventually got a tip that he was seen in the science building. We searched up and down the stairs and in each classroom.

Bingo.

There was his cart. But where was OMJ? I looked around the far corner behind the door, and there he was. Sleeping in a chair.

We ran out fighting our laughter. I was a little worried he might be dead. I tiptoed back in and grabbed my book off his cart. Mission accomplished.

And don't worry, he wasn't dead.

Isn't SLCC campus beautiful? Just kidding, that's me and Chantel in Escalante.

Twenty Eleven

Is anyone else bothered by the new year, 2011? Twenty E lev en.

The look and sound of it is clumsy and prime numbery.

2010 was so even and succinct.

Avery is wizz-banging around, chasing Oak-ey. Giggling.

Tonight I was laying by her while she fell asleep. All the pasis have chew holes in them so they don't "work" properly. She fell asleep without a pasi.

Is it weird that I got teary eyed? I came down and told Jimi about the milestone and he said, "that's a good thing". Which I know, but it still makes me...it makes me something. Nostalgic? Sad? Because soon I won't be seeing my little Avery twirling her hair with that darn pasi in her mouth.

She got really good at hair twirling. She would take a chunk and swirl it in her ears and eyes. Then she would thread it through her fingers and shunk it in the palm of her hand. Mind you, the habit's not broke...but it's fading.

They grow up, I tell you.

This is a common sight in our house.

Living room slash bike shop.

I wouldn't say it's baby proof, but it keeps everyone entertained.

Time for bed.

He pulls himself up to standing position at the couch and crib. My wheels are turning for his first birthday party coming up. Can you believe that? A couple of weeks.

Time is flying. And as much as I don't like the cosmetic part of 2011, I want it to hang around for a good long year.

Lil Princess

watching Sleeping Beauty

I'm 31

Check out the masterpeice behind me. That's good stuff.

And for my birthday, I wanted Jimi all to myself.

Can you blame me? Look at that hunk.

So we went on a bike ride through Snow Canyon. It was so fun and beautiful.

I had to stop and eat a banana at the summit.

That is a hard climb, but a heck of a view from the top.

Evan gave me the best birthday gift ever.

He decided to sleep through the night, and it's been five nights in a row. It is awesome.

I don't even think the kids knew we were gone...

January

We are seriously wearing our summer attire this week in the middle of January.

We had a play date with Dana's kids. It's impossible to get a good picture of these two in the same place. I'll keep trying though, believe me.

Avery has started playing on playground equipment on her own. No more clinging to me and drinking pop. She has joined the "static-y hair from plastic slides" club.

Here are the boys. Almost moving to another state put the scare into us, so now we try and hang out every other week instead of every other year.

Evan joined the black eye club. He pulled Jimi's bike on top of him. 

Peanutbutter and Honey

with a side of pasi

In This House 4

I brought my babies home to this house.

When we came home from the hospital with Avery, I was so tired all I wanted to do was go sleep in my bed. It was the strangest frenzy of a half hour as Jimi was tidying up and getting all our new baby gear organized, and then vacuuming up Piper's toy-shredding loneliness.

We learned that the couch is the best place for our babies to spend the first few weeks of their lives, surrounded by diapers, pillows, and all the other baby fixens.

I remember being so nervous for Avery to wake up from a nap because I didn't know what next to do with her. That seems so weird, I know, but I just didn't know if I was napping her too much or not enough. Or was I holding her too much or not enough?  It is truly strange the things you worry about when you have a newborn.

One day after my mom had gone back to Fallon and Jimi was at work, my friend/neighbor Laura came over. I admitted that I had no idea what to do with this baby. I was kind of desperate for advice. I was clinging to her leg, begging, "how do I do this?" She brought me some books that helped so much (once I learned the balance of following the book and ignoring the book).

She also told me that no matter what I do or do not do, the baby would be a good person. Good to know; I thought for sure the first month of a baby's life would make or break them.

Baby number two was a little easier because we knew what to expect: couch, swing, crib. 

But this time there was also the added drama of laundry every night, projectile vomiting, pee shoot diaper change, questionable bum dimple, and a big sister.

When I think of those first days with my babies, I think of this house dimly lit,

bouncing up and down the floors trying to get them to sleep,

strategic placement of the swing,

the four walls around me while I'm too nervous to take them outside

the bathroom where they take their first bath,

the nightstand where I put the rogue umbilical cord in the middle of the night.

In This House 3

I had a miscarriage while living in this house.

Consider yourself warned, if you are offended by "gross" details, please just skip this because it's special to me, and I want to document it for my family and friends who are interested.

It was our first pregnancy, so the whole peeing on a stick and waiting for results was extra fun. Then when the results came in - pregnant - we were on our way. The next morning we woke to a huge snowstorm. Watching Jimi and Piper play around in it, all I could think of was the little seed growing in me.

Eight weeks later, I still wasn't feeling a bit sick. At my doctor's appointment during the ultrasound, I could tell things were weird. I didn't know how they usually are performed, but the tech wasn't saying much. When I asked questions, she just said that Doctor Juarez would answer all my questions.

When he came in the room, he asked me how I was doing. I said, "ok, but I don't think I'm pregnant."
He said, "you're probably right." and showed me the pictures of an embryo that stopped developing at five weeks. I began crying and he handed me a tissue. We discussed what to do next. I chose to miscarry naturally because (get a load of this-) I was afraid of being put to sleep to do the DNC. Silly.
But Dr. Juarez is famous for not trying to sway women one way or the other in their choices.

They let me cry it out in the room by myself for a while. I called Jimi - no answer. I called my mom - no answer. I called Jamie. She called back and said she would meet me at my house.

Later in the evening when Jimi was home, we both took a nap on the couch. I like to think of it as our "mourning" nap. When I woke up and remembered why the house was dark and quiet - I remembered my sadness.

I think the weirdest part was going on with my life as usual, waiting for it to literally "pass". I went to work and taught as usual. I stayed after and coached as usual. We played a game against Foothill that I was only partially interested. As I would walk by myself to the lunchroom or copy room, I would think about the thing inside me, not growing.

Finally about a week later (nine weeks along), I felt really crampy. I "labored" all night.  That was a hard night. I worked through it with Jimi asleep next to me. Emotions were set aside as I waited for it to be done.  Finally in the morning, things were letting up. Jimi went to work and I was proud that I got through it. But then I passed the "final" tissue. It frightened me, so I quickly flushed it down the toilet. Immediately I wondered if I did something I wasn't supposed to! And all the emotions from the night came to the surface. I began crying and called my mom to see if that was ok that I had just flushed it. Of course it was ok...

Overall the logic of it made sense. The baby just didn't develop correctly, so it stopped growing. But my maternal heart was sad. We would just have to try again.

to be continued...

In This House 2

We gave this house a good makeover. And by "we", I mean Jimi.
Any time he got an idea in his head, he would research the products and eventually spend hours...days...weeks...on the project. I don't know where he stores his elbow grease, but he's got lots of it.

This is what our living room/dining area used to look like. Completely carpeted. Which would be nice if it didn't smell like cat pee from the previous owners.

(Piper recovering from being de-dew-clawed)

We ripped up the carpet, tore off the side boards, and scraped off the padding glue. If you want a job done thoroughly, call Jimi.

Then he put in the wood floors all by himself.

Lots of trips to Lowe's, Sears, and the Elbow Grease Store.

Cutting the pieces to fit around corners and door frames is not easy.

The walls also used to be a horrible bright yellow. We repainted it a nice khaki color.

Plus the upstairs room has been repainted.

Then he got a bee in his bonnet about the cabinets. The oak color was not our favorite, but I couldn't imagine taking on the task of removing, sanding, and painting all those elements. I don't have enough sticktoitiveness for a project like that.

But Jimi does.

Aaaaah. It's beautiful and bright.

old cabinets and linoleum...

new...

Then there's the yard.

Guess how many times Jimi put in a lawn?

Twice.

Guess how many times it died?

Twice.

The heat, dog pee, and horrible soil killed it.

So after we received a letter from our hoa about having an unkempt yard (grrr), Jimi decided to put in some fake grass and be done with it.

So he shoveled out all the peripheral rocks and debris, ordered some ground cover rocks that had to be groomed and packed, then laid the grass that never dies.

There is a lot of hard work in that yard, but go ahead and poop on it, Piper.

The bricks by the cement slab are from Jimi's home that he grew up in.

Phew.

Lots of love and man hours for one little home.

to be continued...

In This House

As soon as the idea that we might actually move out of this house became a possibility, I got all excited for a bigger house. Hmmm, perhaps we could have a nice yard and a garden.

But then while we were in Austin, I thought about all of the amazing events that have taken place in this little home. The thought of leaving it for good made me really sad. So I am going to write a few installments about those things that occurred in this home, in the event we do move (sooner or later).

In this home, I would come home from soccer games freezing cold, sip some Pero, and have Piper warm me up. During soccer season there was always a ton of dirty laundry. One Saturday, I did six loads.

Before I was called "mommy", I was called "Mrs. Larsen" or "Coach". I woke up to an alarm clock instead of yelling babies. I knew very much what day of the week it was, what hour of the day it was, looked forward to every holiday and three day weekend. (nowadays, I have to concentrate really hard to realize what day of the week it is)

If I wanted to nap, I would.
If I needed to stay late after school and grade papers, I would.
If I wanted to play nintendo, I would.
If I wanted to go hang out with the Kelvingtons, I would.

In this home, Jimi got his first job as a pilot. I remember the day he went for his interview. I heard the garage door opening and went to the door. Through the windshield I could see him smiling. I knew he got the job.

He only had 200 flight hours at that time. When the interviewer/his boss asked about this, Jimi told him, "I'm a good pilot".

This is his first day of work. I love this picture because:

1. he has the wings in the wrong place. now he doesn't even bother wearing wings.

2. you can see the old nintendo paddle in the background. we used to be addicted to Tetris.

Now that Jimi's career was on a roll, we could think about starting a family.

In this home, I was the primary president and got to meet with my best gals every week. Sure we discussed primary, but more so I got schooled on what it will be like to be a mom since they were all newish moms themselves. I started to get really excited to have a baby of my own.

We had some pretty emotional conversations in those meetings. Sarah was healing from the recent loss of her baby girl, I had a miscarriage, and we eventually all became pregnant at the same time. Those "meetings" were important to all of us.

we are all pregnant in this picture

to be continued...

Playing

I got a new camera for my birthday (woo hoo!) so of course the first thing you do with a new camera is take a thousand pictures of anything and everything around you.

Including this perfect little model, 

and this one eating (smoking?) a snack with his blanky. He would cry when:

a.  it (his blanky) fell off his table

or

b. I tried to take it away so that it wouldn't get all foody

he loves that crazy blanky.

Then the other day we had play group at the park.

The kids were magnetically attracted to this dirt pile.

They found and named a worm.

Except for Avery. She just sat by me and drank her pop the whole time.

Yesterday at church, Jimi was at work so I was solo. Avery for some reason thought it was funny to scream loudly in the middle of sacrament meeting. I tried everything. I was stern, I held her face in my hands while I threatened, I bribed. She kept screaming.

Then a new strategy occurred to me. She is very aware of others' feelings, so I said to her, "Avery you are making mommy very sad. Can you say you're sorry and stop yelling?"

She said, "sorry mommy" and stopped yelling. Yessss.

Two of our neighbor kids like to stand and peek inside our windows. I guess they can see through the cracks in the blinds? Tonight during dinner we could hear them right outside the window as we ate. Jimi had to go and tell them (nicely) to buzz off!

Are you imagining two starving children wearing nothing but rags which hang off their skinny bones, looking lustfully at the plenty on our table? Because that's not what it's like, I swear.

When Avery gets frustrated with Evan, she exclaims,

"EEeennaaAAN!

She asked me to take a picture of Bernice's hand.

The name "Bernice" stuck with her cabbage patch. I love it because it is my grandma's name.

Evan crawled off my lap, over to the remote control, and changed the channel. I think we finally ended up watching the spanish channel.

Avery loves playing with Oakley. She's always asking, "where's Oak-ey?

Piper, Oakley, and Evan have all chewed on that dingo.