This week

Jack does such cute things every single day, but I can't remember all of them by the time I get around to writing. But yesterday, while we were finishing up Family Home Evening (the girls and I were sitting at the table, they were eating their treat and I was reading a few stories from the friend to them), Jack was sitting on my lap, and all of a sudden, he reached across the corner of the table towards Brooke, saying, "Huggie. Huggie." and spreading his arms wide. He hugged Brooke, and then reached across the table towards Camille, saying, "Huggie. Huggie." He got off my lap and walked around the table to give Camille a hug. And then it was Brooke's turn again, and then my turn. He went around giving everyone hugs, and we all melted.

Jack learned how to give high fives from someone (I suspect someone from nursery), and he can all say, "High Figh" and puts his little hand up to give a high five. He likes to go around giving everyone high fives. "High figh. High figh." And we all melt.

Jack learns new words every day. The other day, we were playing with some toys, and he started pulling out the animal toys and trying to call them by name. He'd call everything either "Doggie" or "Cow". And I would teach him the correct names for the animals, most of which he could repeat right back to me: deer, ox, pony, etc. He knew hippo, though. He pulled out the hippo and said, all excitedly, "Hippo!"

Camille has been bored to tears (almost) being home with me the past week or so. Yesterday she said, sometime around 1 or 2pm, "Mom, can we go somewhere today? Can we play with our friends or have preschool today?" She is starting to need more stimulation than I've been giving her, and I think it's time we started doing more together. Maybe I'll look into some kind of reading/activity time at the library for us to do every week, just as something to help us get out of the house and do something.
Camille and I still do things during Jack's naptime, and it varies every day a little -- coloring, reading, playing games, doing chores. It's a long time for us to be just the two of us, though, and I think we both feel that. She is always asking when Brooke is coming home, and I eventually start itching to do something else.

Brooke has her first loose tooth! It started getting loose sometime in December, and she's been agitating it for the past 2 months, just waiting for it to fall out. She's so excited. She kept watching her classmates lose their teeth, and they all talk about the tooth fairy coming to visit them (and btw, the tooth fairy has become very generous in the last years since I was losing my teeth; some kids get as much as $5 for their teeth, and Nolan even told Brooke that if they put a treat under their pillow with their tooth, the tooth fairy leaves a little toy along with the money. Geez!). She kept asking when her teeth were going to start falling out. So when this little tooth started getting the tiniest bit wiggly, she got so excited. Brooke is so funny, too, when she gets excited about something. She gets super loud and screechy, and sometimes when she gets that way and I don't know quite what's going on, she scares me half to death, thinking that Jack is choking and dying or that Camille got run over by a car or something. And I often get after her about it; but it's just her way. She's loud and frightening when she gets excited. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, she started complaining that her mouth was hurting in certain places, and one place right behind her loose tooth. And when we looked, we saw some teeth coming in! She has a tooth coming in and just pushing the other tooth out!

Brooke's been doing really well in school. She's still the slowest one in her reading group (she's in the highest reading group. Go Brooke!). I need to work more with her on her reading and on her sight words, but she spends so much time at school that when she gets home, I wanna just let her play with her siblings. Still, her homework is easy for her, and I rarely need to help her with it. She's a smart little cookie.

I still think about doing homeschooling. Megan Hebdon is going to homeschool her kids in a few years. She's going to put Turner in school for Kindergarten this coming school year, and then she's going to pull him out and homeschool him. And that's so inspiring to me! I've always thought about homeschooling, so it's encouraging to know one of my friends is going to do it. It makes it feel more doable. We'll see. I don't really want to homeschool when I have little babies, and who knows when I'll be done having little babies. But so much about homeschooling appeals to me!

Not much has changed on the work front for Daniel, except that he worked til midnight last night and didn't make it home until almost 1 in the morning! Oh, and he has an interview with Princess Cruises right now. I don't think he'll take that job, though. It doesn't sound like it's really what he wants. I'm afraid he'll be tempted, though, because he's just so fed up with his current job.

So, I read in the evenings and watch movies. I work on little projects and play the piano and clean up the house while Daniel works like a  madman. I try to go to bed early, but I'm hardly ever successful at that. I like to see Daniel, even if only for a few minutes, at the end of the day. So sometimes I wait up for him.

I've been doing the Fast Metabolism Diet this month. I'm highly motivated to lose all my baby weight. I'm so tired of getting pregnant while I'm still 10+ pounds over weight. And now that it's about time to be thinking of having another baby, I don't want to look at getting pregnant while I'm almost 20 pounds over my goal weight! I want to get down to where I was when Daniel and I got married and feel comfortable there before having to be pregnant and gain weight all over again. Maybe this next time, I'll figure it out and not gain SO MUCH, so that it isn't such a struggle getting it off again. Anyway, I'm FMD to accomplish this somewhat lofty goal (I'm not super confident that my body can get there, because it's been 10 years). And I have benchmark goals that once I achieve, I reward myself with something: a sushi roll, In-n-Out burger, Atlantic Beach pie. Hopefully that will help motivate me more. I just have to be uber consistent for a few months, and then I can relax a bit. I hope.

I'm not hating FMD as much as I did that first time I did it. I see it more as a tool to accomplish my goals than a restrictive eating plan. Plus, I'm eating meat and eggs, so it's REALLY not that restrictive, like it was when I was trying to do it vegan. It just doesn't work well.

It's been really good doing scripture study with the new Come Follow Me curriculum. I do 2 sections every day, and I'm reading with more intent and getting so much more out of it than I used to. I used to be really good about scripture study, making it a real study. But it waned a little after getting married, and then it waned a lot after having kids. I've kept up a fairly consistent effort in at least READING, but studying went by the wayside. So, I really like the study manual. It's helping my study a lot, and I enjoy that. Plus, it makes me excited to study, so making it more of a consistent habit, daily reading in the scriptures, is easier. It doesn't feel so much like a chore.

That's life right now! Taking care of kids, trying to accomplish big goals and little projects, tolerating Daniel's absence from life.

Things Lately

• Brooke was invited to a birthday party last Saturday for her friends Nolan's birthday. It was a small party, not too many kids were invited, and she got to play video games for the first time in her life. It was a Minecraft themed party. Brooke was quite concerned that Camille wouldn't be going to the party with her. She kept saying, "Please, can't Camille come to the party with me?" Those little girls. They just love each other so much and are always wanting to do everything together. It makes Mamma's heart happy.
• Camille's temper has been flaring something awful the past couple of weeks. It's like she's just trying to find reasons to fly into a rage at me. It isn't fun. Yesterday, we were getting ready to leave the house, and she said she was ready to get in the car and that she was going out to the car. I said, "Okay, awesome, go for it" as I was running into the bathroom. I closed the door, and she started yelling and crying and screaming at me. "I hate you, Mom!" "You're a bad Mom!" "I'm never gonna like you again, Mom!" Apparently, she didn't want me going to the bathroom. Apparently, she wanted me to take her out to the car. Apparently, that makes me the worst mom ever. She screamed at me for at least 10 minutes, and then pouted almost the rest of the way to our destination. Today, it was because I was doing her hair and was putting it into some cute, simple braided pigtails, and after doing the first one, she didn't want me to do the other one. But at that point, it would've been easier to just do the other pigtail than to undo the other one and do something else. Anyway, I did the other side and the same thing happened. She flew into a rage at me and yelled and screamed at me. And just 10 minutes later, when she wanted to bring a tupperware with a smoothy in it, same thing. She just seems to be looking for an excuse to hate me. It's not been easy. And I know she's only 4, and I know she'll probably grow out of it. But I still don't like it.
• Poor husband has been working such long days ever since we came back from Oregon. And I've been spending my nights after the kids are in bed reading, watching movies, going through 2018 pictures and things, yelling at the kids when they get out of bed. It's been fine. I'm more worried about Daniel than anything. He is really disliking his job. He's so ready for a change and to not have to work so darned much. 
• Jack is talking so much now. He's adding a ton of words to his vocabulary every day, and he's even starting to say short, but complete sentences: "I want my sock on." The other day when I was changing his diaper, he sneezed and then said, "Bess you." It was so cute and funny, he made me laugh.
• I started visiting Stacy Bridston last week. She's been on my ministering roll for 6 months, and I've never been to see her. I was just kind of intimidated, I guess, and shy, because I don't really know her at all. I dropped some Christmas treats at her house last month, but never got a chance to connect with her. And then since we got back from Oregon, I've been trying to find a time to go see her, but had been unsuccessful. Finally last week, I called her and then visited her and then took her dinner (she's been having severe pain in her shoulder, and unable to really do anything with it). And it was really good! I feel kind of silly for letting myself be shy about seeing her, because she's great, and it was nice to get to know her.
• Emilee Mapp, Emily Thompson and I started a preschool for our 3 little 3-4 year olds last week. We're keeping things really simple, not doing any kind of curriculum, and instead just doing activities we feel like doing and teaching whatever we want. It's only for 2 hours once a week, but it'll be nice for Camille to get out of the house and have friends to play with on a regular basis. Today we have it here at our house, and my plan is to introduce the letter 'A' and make playdough with them, but mainly I'm going to let them play together. Colton (Emily T's boy) is a little wild, so I'm kind of worried about his behavior, more than anything else. But it'll only be a couple of hours, and I'm sure it'll be fine.
• I volunteered in Brooke's class this week. Ms. Johnson didn't seem to have much for me to do, except for try and help a kid with really bad attention problems. I sat next to him almost the whole time and was basically railing on him the whole time to do his work. And he just wouldn't get it done. It was awfully frustrating for me, I can't imagine home Ms. Johnson having to deal with it all the time.
• Monday was a holiday, and, of course, Daniel was working. Brooke had school off, so in the morning, the kids and I went to Heather's house, and the kids hung out with her kids, and she and I went for a little run. It was SO windy that day, so running was tortuous. We walked quite a bit on our 3 mile run, but it was nice to get our with her. I spent the rest of the day, and much of the next day sneezing my nose right off.

Home Again, Home Again

We're halfway through the month of January. Daniel is less than happy with this year already: it's an odd year. 2019 isn't as round a number as 2018 or 2020, even. Plus, poor husband of mine is already working crazy hours and having to drive all over creation for his clients. It started early this year, basically right after we got back from Oregon and San Francisco. He was supposed to have the 2nd off from work (at least, he'd requested it off from work), but he ended up working for a goodly part of that day. From now until the end of April, and likely beyond, it's going to be crazy and stressful and long hours for my poor sweet husband. Unless, of course, he finds himself a good job, in which case, he'll say, "Adios!" to GT. That'll be a good day for both of us.

Brooke still had a couple of weeks left of winter break. So, we spent the last week and a half playing with friends almost every day. We played with Daisey and Lilee 4 times, each time switching off whose house everyone was at. We went to the park with Turner to ride scooters and play on the playground. We went to visit Tyson and Calvin and Penny for part of a day. And, of course, on the days when we just stayed at home without any friends over, Violet and August came to see if they wanted to play. My girls certainly were spoiled for the last couple of weeks. It was nice for me, too, because they were very occupied with friends, it gave me some time to put the house back together and get back into a routine.

Brooke started school yesterday, and it's going to be an adjustment all over again, having her in school. All 3 kids were extremely needy yesterday, some of them being fussy or grumpy, and all of them requiring much more attention from me than I've been giving the last month or so. It was a challenge, and my patience was all but gone at the end of the day. We survived, and now we're one step closer to getting used to it again.

I have my January projects to get done; mainly, collecting all the pictures and videos we took this year, going through them, editing and deleting, and backing them up on the hard-drive. I haven't really even started, and it always takes me the whole month. Fortunately (I suppose), since Daniel is working so much, I'll have extra time to do what I need to do.

Yesterday morning, Heather and I went running for the first time in a long time. We jogged and walked a little when we got too tired; but we were out for a complete hour, and it was wonderful! We haven't been running much since I did that Half Marathon last June, and I think I miss it. I've had this sore spot in my lower back, right over my left hip, and it always seems to be tight and tired and achy, and after an hour of running, it's totally loosened up and feeling so much better. Plus, I love spending time with Heather. She's good for my soul. She's so positive about life (even when she needs to unburden herself, she looks for the good), and she really cares and is so kind to everyone.

December

December came and went quickly. I decided to make my own dress for Daniel's work Christmas party, and so the whole week before, I worked on the dress. It was simple, but I'm still a novice, so it took a lot of time to get it right. And it still ended up imperfect. I love it, and I felt rather proud to be out in something I'd made myself. But it took so much time and effort that I lost all motivation to do anything else the rest of the month. I'd planned to do something similar to what I did last year: making a list of Christmas things to do and then do something every day (or nearly every day). But I just lost all my oomph for the rest of the year. We didn't even put up a tree this year! We were planning to, and we even went to Walmart to pick one up. But they weren't selling trees, so we just left. And since we were spending Christmas in Medford, time just slipped away, and then it wasn't worth it to put up a tree.

We did decorate Christmas cookies with our friends at the park. And I did participate in the Stake Christmas program, singing in the choir, which was amazing, as usual. Daniel brought the kids for one of the performances, and then we went out to see the live nativity outside after the program. It was pretty neat. Daniel and I also went to our friends' annual ugly Christmas sweater party. And, of course, I made loads of treats to give to a bunch of our friends. This year, instead of doing the chocolate pretzels (which I love), I decided to do chocolate truffles. I looked up a bunch of different versions and made a few different kinds. They were delicious! But very time consuming. I watched a lot of Gilmore Girls whilst making them. I also made a bunch of gifts for the kids: pillowcases for Camille and Jack, a little tied blanket from owl fabric for Brooke, and capes for both Brooke and Camille. My sewing machine was quite busy last month!!

I barely managed to do all our Christmas shopping before we left for Oregon, getting the very last things the day before we left. Since I was playing the piano for the choir in our Ward's Christmas Program, we stayed until the 23rd, and left right after Sacrament meeting was over. That day we drove up to Michael and Michelle's to stay the night. They fed us and we chatted with them while we put our kids to bed one by one. And then we got up and finished the trip up to Oregon the next day, Christmas Eve. The 2nd half of that drive was a little scary because it was raining and slushing a ton, and it was hard to see the road at times.

That night, everyone (except Julie's family, because Mark was there and he doesn't step foot in Mom and Dad's house anymore) went to Mom and Dad's for Christmas dinner, which was delicious. The kids played together for a bit with their cousins, and then we put them to bed. Daniel and I were up pretty late that night wrapping presents, because we had to do all our wrapping that night. But we watched Scrooge with mom and dad and Scott, and we even made it to bed around midnight, which was pretty good.

Christmas morning was perfect. I was actually the first one awake. I got up around 730 to go to the bathroom, and all the kids and Daniel, Mom and Dad and Scott were all still sleeping. I tried to go back to sleep, but shortly after that, I heard both of the girls stirring, and I looked up to see both of them just sitting up in bed looking at each other. It was so funny. We had a little scripture reading at the top of the stairs before going down to see what Santa had left in stockings. It was fun to watch the kids empty their stockings and open their presents, as it is every year. They get so excited about things, and they just want to show us every little thing. It's so fun.

Julie and her boys (minus Mark) and Diane and her boys came over later in the afternoon to unwrap presents left for them under the tree. The kids did a little cousin exchange, where they drew names for buying a gift for their cousins. It was pretty fun. Overall, it was a great Christmas.

The rest of the week, we were fairly busy. Mom and Dad had made a bunch of plans for things we could do together, and we actually did a lot of them. I was surprised. We obviously did our fair share of sitting around and watching movies. But we got out and did a bunch of things: went to the church to play in the cultural hall, played at Julie's house, had a girls/boys night, went out to breakfast, played pickle ball, had game nights, baked cookies, went to a pottery painting place. We had a great time. And the kids all LOVED playing with their cousins. They all seemed to get along really well. I was surprised (though I shouldn't be) at how well Owen and Brooke played. They just seemed to hit it off right away, and they loved playing together. Brooke can play well with anyone, it seems, though, so it makes sense.

It was nearly perfect. We were missing Brian and Sammy, of course. And Mary only came for a few days. And then, of course, there was quite a bit of awkwardness with the Mark situation. Julie didn't hang out with us much because of him, which was dumb. But other then that, we had a wonderful time.

We drove back to Michael and Michelle's house on the 31st, and made it in time for dinner. They invited some other friends to come hang out, so there was quite a group of us. No one made it til midnight. Daniel and I were in bed at around 11:30, and I was just falling asleep when Daniel counted down to midnight. We did a little cheering, kissed and then rolled over and went to sleep. It was a long week, and we didn't go to bed before midnight once. So I was exhausted and ready to be home and back to our normal routine.

 *This is about the only picture I took through the whole month of December.*