Westside Park during spring break

During the part of spring break when we weren't deep cleaning our floors or tulip-gazing, we tucked in a happy family excursion to one of our favorites, Westside Park. We had Jay and Rose ride their bikes while Jeff and I walked with Amber in the stroller. Jay was a tad bit rusty on his two-wheeled biking techniques and it took some persuasion to get his confidence back up. That persuasion came in the form of Daddy running alongside Jay's bike for most of the mile to the park, correcting his zigzags and giving tips. By the time we arrived at the park, though, Jay was remembering his old skills and felt much better, if still slightly wobbly every now and then. Rose happily glided along with her training wheels and we freaked her out a little by telling her that she would be ready to ride without training wheels by this summer, haha. We enjoyed the cool sunny spring morning at the park, listening to birds singing in the big trees and watching the kids play. I love slow happy family time where we all pay attention to each other.

When 10am rolled around, we rolled on over to the library next door to get some BOOKS. It was conveniently the library's semiannual book sale too, and after some digging, I came away with some real treasures. Jeff manfully watched the three kids while I browsed--he knows that's one of my favorite things to do. I joined my family in the kids' section of the library and helped Jay and Rose each pick out five books to check out. Then we crammed the ten library books plus 18 book sale books into the bottom of the stroller with our lunch and walked/rode back home for a picnic in the front yard. It was the simplest of outings, but those are always the best.

As usual, I tried to capture a few moments on our big clunky camera, with marginal success. One of my main mantras as a parent helped me along: something is better than nothing! Haha, and kids swinging are notoriously hard to photograph.

 Amber is learning how to swing like a big girl--I give her a teeny tiny push and she sits there, grinning her trademark toothy grin, swaying slowly back and forth.

 Rose said: "watch my Captain America jump!"

 Daddy.

I have so many pictures of these kids by this tree. 

Jeff, getting a head start on Jay.

We strung out in quite the procession, one-eared rainbow unicorn helmet and all.

I set the camera on top of the bushes for this, during the picnic lunch in our front yard. 

Little sisters know how to tease big brothers: it's a skill they're born knowing. 

Jeff is awesome. He sat on the uneven grass and let his daughters climb all over him. 

 Jay and Rose wanted turns with the camera. I hope this is how they always remember their parents--laughing together.

 Jay and Rose requested pictures with their sticks. 

 Loaded with library books!

 My $7 haul from the book sale: children's books cost 25 cents. I have been searching for Peter Spier's Christmas for YEARS! It's out of print and can be found used on Amazon for anywhere between $15-$65, depending on the day.

 A little post picnic reading.

 Rose and I did some Picture Pie together. I love Ed Emberly's art books, and was pleased to find one at the library book sale. We cut up circles into pie pieces and then created animals and designs out of them.

Rose wanted a saying in the corner of her picture too, so she thought up "summer is happy" The word happy didn't fit into her box, so she put a smiley face instead.

Sunday

Today I have two stories to share. One is just terribly awkward but I think you may find it amusing at the very least. I think I'm an awkward person lots of the time. One of my favorite characters in one of my favorite books put it perfectly:

"And I, without any paper to hide behind...On the page, I'm perfectly charming, but that's just a trick I learned...At least, that's what I was thinking as the mail boat came toward the pier. I had a cowardly impulse to throw my red cape overboard and pretend I was someone else." (Juliet Ashton, p.171 in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by M.A. Shaffer)

I feel exactly like Juliet did on that mail boat either before, during, or after at least 90% of my social interactions. But what else can I do? Keep on trying, and do all my cringing in private! Hah! Except when the amusement of the situation gets the better of me and I end up posting on the internet about it, exposing my true self even amidst my hopefully clever prose.

When I walked into Relief Society at church on Sunday, it felt like a good idea to sit next to someone who was sitting alone, rather than yield to the temptation to avoid eye contact and pick the seat with the most leg room. A quick scan of the room showed me a nice looking girl in the back row. I thought she was probably visiting with the big family that had people in town for a baptism. I sat down next to her, introduced myself, and then asked her if she was visiting. As it turned out, she was not visiting--she was a member of our ward! I gave her a closer look and remembered that she had moved in a few months ago, and [cringe] I had already introduced myself to her a few months ago!! Eeek, and I had felt so good about sitting by her and talking with her. I had to think fast (something I'm not that great at doing on the fly mid-conversation-with-strangers). What's bugging me about the situation is that I can't figure out if I was tactless or rude while I explained myself. Here's what I said in response to her comment that she was already in our ward:

"Oh! Yeah! You look different... did you do something to your hair?"
"No, but I used to wear glasses," the poor girl answered.
"Ohhh, ok!" I said, "I'm sorry--I haven't been in gospel principles class very much in the past few weeks because my baby is trying out nursery, so I haven't gotten to see you much."

The conversation then sort of drizzled over to her son (I asked if she had any kids), although when she said his name was Aiden, I thought she said he was eight. It was just a poorly conducted conversation on my part. I was doing my best to be friendly and learn a little bit about a new person, but I kept feeling so awkward and lame! I hope it wasn't too terrible for her.

Two days later and I still cringe at my repeated stumbling through that conversation! I am seriously unskilled at small talk, but it takes me a while to think of real things to say, you know--meaty real conversation topics and comments--so I often find myself resorting to the dread small talk and failing miserably at the whole social interaction. It's a total catch-22 because those kinds of small talk questions about kids and homes and stuff are kind of necessary in order to get to know someone! But I feel so forced and uncertain whenever I ask those questions, wishing I could have a real conversation with the person, but at the same time I'm totally socially frozen by the awkward small talk and utterly unable to think up a less superficial topic to discuss.

I ended up sharing a hymn book with my semi-new acquaintance and I risked making a joke about how she had to hold the heavy half. She laughed a little, but that's the hard part about not knowing a person very well--I simply could not tell if I was bugging her or if she was glad to have a well-meaning, fumbling-bumbling person talking with her. It's probably all in my head--she probably did not even feel awkward or weird or lame at all. Maybe. I suppose there's always next time, if I can get my courage up to attempt more conversation again next Sunday!

That was a less-glorious moment of church. There were some very happy good moments too, thankfully:
1. The baby blessing of our sweet niece Grayce (Steph and Jasen's third baby)
2. Jay bore his testimony in sacrament meeting
3. Rose and Amber had darling hairdos--my skills are improving. There's something so FUN about dolling up my cute little daughters--I enjoy it way more than you'd think a "plainhead" like me would.

I have to write down Jay's testimony. Normally he goes up front first or second in the meeting, but today he didn't get up right away. I asked him if he was going to go up and he said no, because there were so many people there (we had lots of visitors due to the aforementioned baptism and baby blessing). I was fine with that--I completely understand that feeling! Then near the end of the meeting, Jay told me that he had changed his mind and he decided to go up. He poised on the edge of the pew and started power walking right when the current person finished up. I think it scares him a little to get up there but somehow he also really enjoys getting up. I think it was his best testimony yet, if we were to rank them. I saw a guy scrolling through his phone for the entire meeting until Jay got up and started talking. Then he looked up and listened to Jay's testimony! The simple faith and sincere words of a child are really the most powerful of all.

Jay walked up, adjusted the microphone in his usual deliberate style, and said "Hello, I'm going to talk about how I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and I started thinking about Thomas S. Monson. I wanted to know if he was a prophet too, so I said a prayer. I felt a good feeling in my heart. I know he is a prophet too. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the true church. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen."

Does it get any better than that?? That's our sweet Jay. He reads, ponders, and applies what he learns, then shares it. What a good example for his sisters, and the rest of us too.

Spring cleaning

I like the idea of spring cleaning--get the house aired and freshened after the staleness of winter, but the reality of it is not so pleasant, especially with kids running amok. Various pregnancies and newborns and lack of inspiration have prevented me from ever doing real spring cleaning in the whole four years that we've lived in our house. I wasn't even planning on spring cleaning this spring, but it happened anyways. It all started a few weeks ago when I randomly cleaned out the craft/sewing closet. That got my cleaning juices flowing. If we have creative juices, we have cleaning juices too, right? Ok, ew, now I'm picturing blue Windex dripping down my forehead like sweat.

In the past few weeks since the epic craft closet purge, I have: vacuumed out the van, cleaned the bathrooms (that really should happen more regularly than it does and should not be of note...but it is), scrubbed out and bleached the shower, swept the kitchen, scrubbed the kitchen floor Cinderella-style, vacuumed the carpets, and washed the carpets with our Hoover carpet washer. For someone (me) who likes to have a plan, all of this cleaning happened rather sporadically and intermittently. I think it happened mostly because I have been putting it off too long and things were getting desperate. This is the longest we've ever lived anywhere by 3 years, so all of our many moves previously have kind of forced us to do major cleaning. I was cornered by a much dirtier house than I've ever had before. That is so not me! It was time. Spring break was the perfect time for deep cleaning--Jeff was home to help me move furniture.

One of the reasons that I don't mop regularly is because it totally stresses me out to feed people in the kitchen after I've put in the substantial effort to clean the floors. All of that hard work just feels so futile once that first blob of banana mush squelches onto the floor. Our kitchen is on the spacious side, so it takes a significant effort on my part to mop the wide expanse of tiled floor. But we conquered the kitchen floor on Tuesday and the upstairs carpet on Wednesday. I timed it just right so I washed the last of the carpet right before we left for our tulip trip. It dried while we were gone and we came back to smooth carpet lines and a kitchen full of furniture.

When I was done with the floors, I marveled at how amazing it felt to have tackled a chore that has been looming over me for so long. I LOVE clean floors. My inner zen just hums with contentment when I see those fresh vacuum lines or my bare feet slide across the scrubbed kitchen floor. For our book club this month, we're reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and one of the best ideas I've gotten from it is how GOOD it feels to do something you've been putting off. It really did boost my happiness to tackle a task that I've been avoiding--deep cleaning. And now our house is clean! Or it was until I finally started letting people eat food inside again...

 I enlisted Jay and Rose to help scrub. I gave each of them a bucket with a mixture of warm water and Simply Green cleaner and a rag for scrubbin'. We cranked up my "cleaning time" music and started scrubbing. It didn't even feel like a chore while we all helped out--the kids actually enjoyed flinging water all over the floor, and I have a really good cleaning time playlist--Simon and Garfunkel, The Steve Miller Band, Billy Joel, Disney, REO Speedwagon, Poco, Cat Stevens, Alabama, and of course a dash of Queen.

 The reason we hand-scrubbed the floor instead of mopping it was because it was beyond mopping. There were too many spots stuck to the floor that needed a fingernail or sharp edge to scrape off to make mopping effective. I feel sheepish even admitting to the state of our floors. But if I didn't admit to how sticky they were before, you wouldn't understand how wonderful they feel after!

 "Banished" outside for a picnic to preserve My Floors.

 Amber wouldn't promise to stay put at the outdoor picnic, so I had her eat lunch at the counter and then carefully scrubbed up every last smudge around her.

 See how shiny it is? Even the textured tile was shiny after our scrub-a-thon.

This is where my recliner chair used to sit--through two horrific pregnancy sicknesses and four years I never moved it. Check out that nastiness! I can't believe I let it go that long. All I can do is blame all that time I spent trying to eat in that chair--apparently I spilled more than I thought in my agony! But now it is all washed and cleaned up. 

 I sat and just stared at the gorgeous clean carpet after I finished. While I was sitting in the kitchen, I realized something: I still like sitting in my recliner! I have been avoiding that chair like the plague ever since Amber was born because I spent so many sick, nauseous long long hours and days sitting in it while I was pregnant and I was so bored of the chair and the view of the room from that corner. I got bored and annoyed every time I sat in that chair in that corner. I still like the recliner though! Just not the position. So when the carpet dried we put the furniture back in a different configuration, moving the recliner to a different corner. It's not as aesthetically pleasing and the pictures on the wall are now wildly off center, but I can enjoy sitting in my recliner again!

 The trusty Hoover Powerscrub carpet washer that I picked up at Goodwill last year. I cleaned the carpet with straight white vinegar and water. It worked wonders. I filled the detergent container with vinegar and the main chamber with hot water and then went to town. Laaa!

Zen garden carpet. 

Tis the season for heart stopping sunsets.

Tulip Time!

Ever since I heard about the tulip fields in the Skagit Valley up north of Seattle, I have wanted to visit them. Spring break was this past week and we decided to have some tulip time! On Wednesday afternoon, we drove to my parents' house in Bellevue--a perfect launch point for tulip viewing. We stayed until Saturday after lunch. Five highlights of our visit include:

1. A temple date! Jeff and I haven't been to the temple together in nearly a year, so it was a treat to leave the kids in my mom's capable hands and slip off to the temple together on Thursday morning. My parents live about 10 minutes from the Seattle Temple, so it was the easiest thing to go do a session. Whenever I go to the Seattle Temple, I always feel like such a small town girl because our little Columbia River Temple is so tiny in comparison. The whole time we were inside the temple, I was resisting the impulse to say things like "it's so BIG!" And every time I started walking down a hallway, I inevitably took the scenic route to wherever I was going because of the sheer size of the place--haha! But "taking the scenic route" is kind of what the temple is all about anyways, isn't it? 
2. The tulips! On Friday morning, we loaded up the van and set out for Mt. Vernon, WA. Jeff stayed home at my parents' house for this excursion because he was having various physical complaints ranging from allergies to a pulled muscle. It took nearly an hour and a half to get allll the way to the tulip fields up there, but much to Jay's relief, we finally arrived. The large fields of tulips were just gorgeous in all of their vibrant colors.
3. Trail runs! I love running on the soft mulchy trails at Lewis Creek Park near my parents' house. The trails are incredibly well-groomed--not your rugged mountain pathways at all, more garden-like. Rugged mountain trails have their place, but these spongy garden paths are just beautiful. Moss, ferns, and leafy trees make it ultra green and it does my desert-starved eyes so much good to spend time drinking in the lush greenery.
4. Movie time! We watched the new Star Wars movie on Thursday night--my first time seeing it, and as sick of Star Wars as I am, I have to say that I liked the movie. It was so refreshing to watch Star Wars without knowing what was going to happen! Then on Friday night, my mom and I stayed up late watching a BBC classic, North and South. There's something about watching movies together that is just FUN. 
5. Grama Meri time! (Grampa Charley was away on business) We all just love my dear mom so much. She read stacks of stories to the kids, fed us all mountains of heavenly food, took the kids to the park, provided us with quality conversation, and was an all-around supreme hostess. 

On to the tulip pictures! 

It was a risk bringing a one year old to huge fields of flowers that she couldn't pick. Somehow we survived the visit with only one leaf damaged.

 Suspicious bright sun eyes

A nice lady offered to take our picture, but it was so sunny and she was so up close to us that the full effect of the tulip fields was lost. Hah, oh well! 

On the walk back to the parking lot, I gave Jay and Rose each a turn with the camera...

 
Here are some pictures they took:

 (I couldn't resist using my phone to take pictures of them taking pictures of us because they were so funny with that big ole camera)

 On the way back to the parking lot we paused at the tulip garden. It was packed with people so we didn't stay long since Amber was getting unruly, but the patterns of flowers were amazing. The COLORS were absolutely stunning in the sunshine. 

 

Happy Spring Break! Do we have to start real life again this week?