Visitors!

Hmm, now that I’ve made our company sound like aliens…

About two weeks ago, my dear friend Lauren Snow (aka, Laurs) and I were talking on the phone, wishing we could hang out like the good ole college days. Since SVU, we’ve tried to see each other at least once a year. Well, one thing led to another and suddenly we had found a cheap, last-minute plane ticket from Baltimore to Seattle. Laurs’s little girl Emma turns two on Monday, so this was her last hurrah as an infant-in-arms on the airplane (aka, free ride for the child). And just like that, Laurs and Emma became our very first real, live, overnight VISITORS here in this house. I’m not used to being a hostess, so it was tricky remembering to hand out bath towels and all that. But they came! And they stayed a week! We tried our best not to stay up too late every night talking.

We hardly took any pictures. Mostly we just did adventurous things like hang out, chat, and make sure our kids shared with each other. Not very exciting in blog form, but quite enjoyable nonetheless. It was relaxing and pleasant to have my friend and my house all in the same place for the first time.

Watching Sesame Street. Why do creatures like Big Bird and Elmo inspire such…intensity in children? Look at those faces!

We watched General Conference and the entire Twilight Saga, (minus the lame one—#2). We were going to take a pilgrimage to Forks for the girly-goofyness of it, but after all of the recent long travels we’d both done, the 12 hour round trip (with rain in the middle) didn’t sound so appealing. Plus, Laurs and Emma came down with the sniffles. So we enjoyed the Olympic Peninsula Hollywood style from afar.

Maxing out the Civic yet again. Who said you need a minivan for 3 car seats? I’d love to have a van, but at least we can make this work when necessary.

The girls found Rose’s bloomers and thought they’d make nice hats.

We went on a few walks with The Armada. We actually walked with Steph one day too so at one point there were 4 kids/3 strollers/3 moms rollin' on the sidewalk. I asked a parked policeman who was busy speed-gunning traffic how fast we were going. He said we didn’t register on the scanner. Oh our friendly local law enforcement.

We crashed at the Brown house the night before they left to ease the travel-pains a little (the airport is only 20 minutes from my parents’ house, compared to the 3 hours and 20 minutes it is from our house). My Mom took a group photo for posterity.

And suddenly the week was over. I’m so glad they came. That means next year the ball’s in my court and we’ll be figuring out how to get out to Virginia to visit our favorite Snows.

Jumbled in my head:

1. From today’s somewhat lengthy To Do List, I have accomplished: ride my bike, go to the park, and do laundry. I have my priorities. I’ll save the other stuff for another day.

2. Facebook is like Babybook these days. I can get my fill of SWEET little softies with a single click-o-the-mouse. It’s great.

3. My Mom and I stayed up till midnight talking on Wednesday. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful, witty, insightful, intelligent, calm, caring, understanding mother. She knows me better than I know myself in so many ways. 

4. Entertaining moments:
a) When Jay stole Rose’s dandelion and she started crying, he said “Mommy, Rose needs a nap.”
b) Our power bill is $100 less than it was last month, and $200 less than it was in February. Woot!

5. Jeff and I are going to be a Ma and Pa on our stake’s youth handcart trek this June. Today we got our physicals done at el doctor. Check. Now I just need to sew a pioneer dress? Oh, and don’t forget the bonnet, apron, and BLOOMERS. This should be interesting.

6. After 4 straight weeks of go-go-going (you know, driving 1900 miles to MO and back, whooping the back yard’s booty, painting a room, and driving to and from: Portland once and Seattle twice in 10 days) , I’m looking forward to a few calm, NORMAL weeks.

7. I’m so tired of driving. I rode my bike to the doctor today and I also biked my children to the park. That’s more than four and a half miles on a BIKE. Big for me. Hopefully I don’t regret it tomorrow.

8. The trees have LEAVES! They are GREEN!
I love spending time outside during spring.
We still haven’t planted grass in our back yard.
We still haven’t planted a garden. Come on, Saturday!

9. My sweet visiting teachers came this morning. They are so good. We actually have quality, spiritual, meaningful conversations every time. Someday I want to be like them.

10. Ok, now I feel ready to write an event-specific post about the last week. How long has it been since I waited 7 days between posts? Hey, now I can check “blog post” off my To Do List…

PS, check out my latest Lego creation:

T-Rex

We didn’t go to the zoo

On Tuesday morning, we left on our official spring break family outing. We were headed toward Portland and the Oregon Zoo. But we forgot how exactly to get there. So we drove around Portland for almost an hour, only to discover that the zoo was packed with people. The secondary parking lot had a sizeable line of people waiting to catch a shuttle to the zoo. We do not like large flocks of people. So we re-vamped our plans on the spot. 1. Visit our favorite food truck in Portland: A Taste of India; 2. Go to that cool waterfall we saw from the highway on our drive. We did it. My Goa Curry Chicken was divine. Jeff’s Tikka Masala Lamb was delish. And the Naan! YUM. We drove an hour BACK the way we came and visited Multnomah Falls for our family outing-turned adventure. It was beautiful but quite the hike up to the top.  We only had to carry the children a little on the way up.

Jay and Rose were such troopers. Basically, we cancelled the zoo trip on them last minute and then made them hike a mile straight uphill instead. We are the best parents ever.

When I saw that bridge, I realized that I went here back when I was like 9 years old.

That’s me in the striped shorts.

There was a lot less water in the summer back then. Springtime is GUSH time and we didn’t even go near the fast current this time. I remember slipping on a rock and getting soaked in the icy water back in the day. Brrr.

“Let’s climb a waterfall!”

The view was breathtaking. I love the Columbia River more every time I see it. You already know how I feel about fluffy clouds.

The view from the top—it was a rush looking down over that 500+ feet of falling water. Notice how tiny the cars look down there.

At the TOP!

Comin’ down the mountain…Jeff had to switch which of Jay’s hands he was holding at every switchback (there were 11 switchbacks over a mile) so Jay stayed on the inside of the trail and away from the precariously steep edge. Jay walked the whole way down! I wonder if he was as sore as I was the next day.

Resting on a rock while Jay and Jeff caught up. Rose was pretty tired on the way down, so I carried her on my back most of the way. But she did manage to hike 3/4 of the way up on her own, little buff girl.

Jay was excited about the mini cave they found.

   

Curry! Hike! Nature! Family! Mr. Zoo, we don’t need YOU.

Living the Dream

I now have four kids. And a month ago I only had two. I’ve been doing some babysitting! My friend recently got a job in the IT department of the School District. Mostly she works while her son Spencer is at school, but there’s early release on Fridays and IT people don’t get vacations like spring break and summer break. So she brings Spencer to me on Fridays and during breaks. It’s been so fun having him here during spring break! He and Jay get along very well, in spite of the 2 year age difference. They play all over the house and yard and wear each other out. Jay loves it, and Rose does her best to keep up.

My other “new child” is my sweet juicy little niece, Layne. Steph has started up her nursing program at last, so on days that she and Jasen are both away, I get Layne too. I was thinking about it today when all 4 kids were here and I realized that if my family planning had worked out to my original expectations, I would have 4 kids almost exactly the age spacing of these ones, because they’re each almost 2 years apart: 4 months, 2 years, almost 4, and almost 6. Awesome! I love kids. It is definitely different having double the children, but there’s nothing like keeping it real.

Yes I hung Layne on the pantry door.

We worked on teaching Layne how to sit up.

Everyone was very excited when baby Layne showed up. Can we say sensory overload? They all loved her and kept handing her new toys all at once.

Spencer brought his Batman mask one day and shared it with Jay.

They ran around in capes made from our old sheet-curtains all day one day.

Maxing out the Civic. Obviously we can’t all go anywhere in the car when Layne is here too, but they are rarely all here at once, so it’s ok. We went to our ward’s play group last week.

Spencer fits right in here—he likes playing in heaps of blankets just like Jay and Rose.

They like piling blankets at the bottom of the stairs and launching themselves off the stairs into the blankets.

Genius is bound to strike every now and then. On Monday I told the kids they could have a picnic for lunch. But the sun was beating down in its Yakima Valley style and our porch was quite toasty and bright for the first time all year. Our yard was wet from sprinklers, so I quickly put two nails up and looped some sheets over them, tied them to the railing, and boom. It was shady and airy and perfect for a picnic!

We brought out the kid table and chairs, and it was an insta-picnic!

I took the screen out of the window and served them like a restaurant through the window. It was the best lunch.

Let’s face it, kids rock.

Easter-rific

Happy Easter! What could be better than a soft, warm, quiet, sunshiny Sunday to remember the Savior’s Resurrection? It’s never quiet for very long around our house, but we still had a good Easter. I managed to read the April First Presidency Message in the Ensign magazine and the 4 accounts of the Resurrection in the New Testament this morning WHILE the kids were awake. It was astonishing—I just kept reading, and I only got climbed on 3 or 4 times. Reading those scriptures helped me focus my mind in the right direction for Easter. “He is risen” is one of the most joyful phrases in all of the scriptures. Those three words hold SO much meaning. I am so thankful that He is risen, and I feel that joy in my bones especially on clear, sunny spring mornings.

While Jeff got Jay and Rose ready for our now-traditional Sunday morning walk, I quickly hid some Easter eggs in our family room. We went on a pleasant stroll in the sunshine.When we got home, we told Jay and Rose the Easter story [again]. Then we unleashed them on the eggs. This was the first year we’ve done our own Easter egg hunt, and it was not anything like I expected it to be.

My visions of two pastel-clad children trotting around, merrily tucking eggs into baskets hanging on their arms was rather far from reality. Instead, Jay and Rose kind of took turns following each other around and watching each other find eggs. We had to prompt them very heavily along the way, like “look under that chair” so they could find the eggs. It was funny. Every time an egg was found, they opened it right away and scattered the contents over the floor. We didn’t really use the baskets at all, and the whole egg hunt was kind of like clean up time, with us crawling around helping to gather up the scattered Legos. Yes, we filled the Easter eggs with Legos. I was going to save the Legos for Jay’s birthday, but the idea struck me and it seemed too perfect to resist. Lego Easter eggs! We tucked in a few small sparkly My Little Ponies into the eggs as well.

When I was growing up, we had a grand total of like 1 or 2 Easter egg hunts in my whole childhood, so I felt like I was indulging big time in doing one for my kids already. It was too fun to resist! My parents always said they wanted to focus on the real meaning of Easter instead of bunnies and eggs, and I get that completely. So I made sure we told Jay and Rose the Easter story lots of times over the week and then I felt great about doing a fun, unrelated little side bar to the holiday.

Grama Leslie and Grampa Dan also did a little egg hunt at their house right before our family Easter dinner.

The cousin! Layne is getting so big, that juicy little four-month-er.

As usual, I spent sacrament meeting wrestling with children and trying to keep them calm and quiet. As usual, they ended up fighting over my lap and they both ended up on my lap together by the end. So I only heard bits and pieces of what was going on up front. But the MUSIC was wonderful! The youth in our ward sang Christ the Lord is Risen Today with two girls playing a beautiful duet on the piano and the organ. That was a powerful moment. Then the closing hymn was I Know that My Redeemer Lives. Another power punch. So gorgeous. The direct, bold, back-to-back declarations in that song are Easter-rific. I felt so filled and happy at the end of that hour, even after all the small irks and tweaks from small children and their elbows.

Today Jay gave his first official talk in Primary, all about Jesus’ Resurrection. It was awesome. He stepped right up to his favorite microphone and started breathing deeply into it, relishing all the noise he could make simply with breathing. Then I whispered his lines into his ear and he said them with his lips touching the icky microphone the whole time. I had to work SO hard not to laugh up there. But Jay did a great job. I kind of cheated and used a pre-written “talk” from our awesome Nursery leader’s scripture stories folder. It was perfect for a Sunbeam talk, so I used it. Here it is, for posterity (just imagine deep breaths and loud, careful enunciation and you’ll have a good idea of how it sounded):

“When Jesus died, His friends were very sad. They put Jesus’s body in a tomb, which is like a cave. A big stone was rolled in front of the door. After three days, two angels rolled the stone away. Jesus had come back to life! When Jesus was resurrected, Mary was the first person who saw Him. She was very happy because Jesus was alive. Because of Jesus, everyone will be resurrected and live forever.”

At dinner time today when we asked Jay what it was called when Jesus came back to life, he remembered that it was called the Resurrection. I’m glad we managed to do the real Easter and the plastic one all in one day without confusing the children too much.