Real Time

So now I'm up to date. For those of you who are confused by this statement you have to go back a few posts to "the beginning of our blog." The girls are loving spring and being able to run outside. Alli has progressed so much on her swim team that she reminds me of Jolie when she swims. Jolie always had the most beautiful stroke. She is such a help with Taya and gets really excited when I ask her to feed the baby a bottle or get a pacifier. She recently memorized a really long scripture for primary and has been doing well with her reading. She is also learning to draw and is getting pretty good at that too.

Madison has such a great imagination. Sometimes I stand outside the playroom door and listen to her play dollhouse. It's really cute. She loves to push all the furniture out of the way in the living room and dance for hours. Taya likes to sit in her bouncer and watch Madison. Natie bought Madison some shirts from JMU, and from a business trip to Madison, Wisconsin, so now Madison also likes to spot the letter "M" places and ask if it says her name.

Taya smiles all the time. She is so content. At her four month check up the doctor said we have to feed her more often. She said some babies are so good natured that they don't cry when they are hungry, but you have to feed them anyway. Taya is giggling and loves to suck on her hands. She will hold a toy, but doesn't really know what to do with it yet.

I just finished smocking Hailey's blessing dress (which is beautiful), and now I'm working on some dresses for the girls for the summer. My new sewing machine is fabulous, and my projects are turning out well, just a little slowly.

We are looking forward to several Easter Egg Hunts next weekend. Till then...

Friends

Most of March was spent playing with friends. We seemed to have different kids at our house three or four days a week. It was tons of fun for my girls, and for most of the friends. One day we had a little boy over though, and he wanted to know why we didn't have any pirates. I guess he was not too pleased with the barbies and pet shop.

My cousin Natalie came for spring break and brought her kids. Alli became fast friends with her daughter Alex right away, and they played so nicely together the whole time. They were inseparable. We did take them to Longwood Gardens, but for the most part we just talked and let the kids play. It was a great three days.

Three Croutons in a Teacup

In February of this year I started to put away the Christmas decorations (most of you understand this as you received your Christmas card from me in March). When I went to put the advent calendar in it's box I discovered that each of it's doors had been filled with treasures. There were blocks, handmade ornaments, kinex pieces, drawings on little papers, flannel board pieces, some jewelry... As I put each of these things away I almost began to cry. As much as I hate having a mess all the time, and complain that all I ever do with my time is clean, I will really miss not having little children. There is something so special about coming across three croutons in a fisher-price teacup, or the No More Tangles spray in a baby doll diaper bag, or a cup of daffodils on a little chair in the sun. It reminds me how precious little children are with their simple, creative, unpolluted minds. I love their curiosity and excitement for life. I love that they follow me around wanting to help me and play with me and learn to be like me. I love how they love to tell me everything even when most of it is made up. There is nothing like a child. I'm so lucky to have three.

Madison the Narcissist

I thought I would offer some insights into Madison's personality. Madison looks at herself in the mirror for extended periods of time on a daily basis. She is obsessed with her appearance. The other day we were running out the door and I told her to put the shoes on that were closest to the door. She looked at me as if I were crazy and said, "Do these shoes match to my outfit? I don't think so!"

I pulled her out of the tub the other day and dryed her hair with a towel. Before I had a chance to brush it she started to cry and sobbed, "I look awful." Oh, the drama...

She likes to change her clothes often, and I only allow one outfit per day, so one day she told me she had wet her pants. I told her to go into the bathroom and I would be in in a minute to help her. When I got there she had already changed but her previous clothes were dry. I then realized that she told me she had wet herself just so she could change her clothes.

What three year old cares this much? Is it because I think she is cute and I tell her that all the time? She just had parent observation day at her dance class, and she spent the whole time smiling right at people and tilting her head and making cute faces. One of the other mothers came up to me afterwards and said she had never seen a child so aware of her audience.

If only there was a way to harness this self-esteem and give it back to her when she is twelve and has braces, is taller than all the boys, and is figuring out how to do her own hair...

Madison is a very sweet girl and I love her dearly, this is just one of her crazy quirks.

The First Snow of Winter

It used to snow here when I was little. I remember having snow days and sledding. Yet in the three winters that we've lived here there has been almost nothing. On President's day this year we had our first real snow (enough to actually build a snowman). The girls were so excited that they spent two whole days outside in the snow. They took out the cookie cutters to play with. I thought it was an interesting choice, but I'm not three.

Fairy Month

For Christmas the girls got a big book of fairy things to make and do from my mom. I spent January gathering materials and putting together a big box of supplies so that February could be fairy month. We made all kinds of cute crafts, and we spent hours ignoring the chores and spending time together. Here are some pictures of some caterpillars the girls made.

Richmond

February 5th-7th

We drove with Grandma to visit Natie and Kenzie for the weekend. We got to see their new house and visit the best children's museum I've ever seen. If I was Kenzie I would buy a membership and take my kids there everyday. You would never have to buy any toys and your house would stay clean. Alli and Madison had so much fun with Natie and Kenzie. Here are some pictures from the trip.

How Quickly We Forget

It has been too long since I've had a baby. I forgot how much I love them. So here is my top ten list of things I love about babies.

TOP TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT BABIES

10-When you pick them up their legs are still scrunched up by their tummy and their bum sticks out. How adorable

9-They have literal rolls on their wrists and on their thighs

8-I can put headband bows on them

7-They love you and smile when you walk by

6-They are so small that you can do anything while holding them

5-It's like having your own doll to dress up several times a day

4-They give these open mouth slobbery kisses anywhere on your face

3-They think their own hands and feet are the best toys

2-They let you hold them and cuddle them for as long as you need, and that makes everything bad in your own life feel better

1-No matter how immobile your baby is, if you are both on the same bed they will wiggle and scoot until they are pressed up against you. How do they know you are there?

*I love you, Taya! I'm so glad you came to be my baby! You may never know how badly I wanted you.

Jesse's Birthday

January 31, 2009

Now that we have kids it seems that our birthdays are all about them. When I was in high school I babysat for a couple who said that they didn't have much of a night life after they had kids. I remember thinking, "what did you expect?" And so it is with birthdays. For Jesse's birthday I planned to go to "Kid Day" at Longwood Gardens. It was lots of fun because our kids were entertained. The zoo brought a couple of small animals over, there was a craft table, and there was a concert with a child oriented repertoire. After our time there Alli did her best impression of a "fall into the Gap ad."

After we put our kids in bed that night my parents came over for dinner and a movie. Dinner was delicious, but the movie nearly made us throw it all up. It was "Fireproof," one of the most low budget films I've ever seen. The acting was worse than an elementary school play. If any of you saw the mormon version of beauty and the beast, this rivaled that movie. My mom was planning to buy it as a gift for Jesse, but was unable to find it at the store. We are glad her $20 can be put to better use.

Jesse made the mistake of asking my dad where he was when he turned 28. My dad's answer put him to shame. Apparently my dad was one of those over-achievers. Maybe when we turn 60 we'll be where my parents were when they were 30. Here's hoping...

The Beginning of our Blog

This blogging thing would be so much easier if I had internet access at my house, or a computer... Nonetheless, even if it is sporadic, I've decided it is a great way to keep a family history. So I'm going to backtrack a little and do some posting covering January and February. I'm doing this now because I'm having a rare quiet moment at my mom's house (thus in the presence of a computer, and the internet), Alli and Madison have gone with my mom to the grocery store (ever seen a grandma who asks to take small children on errands with her?), and Taya is her usual self (perfectly agreeable). So here begins our family story 2009.

January 1st 2009

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Taya. On New Year's Eve we decided that Alli and Madison didn't really care about what was going on, so we put them to bed as usual. Jesse and I got takeout and ate it in bed watching a movie with Taya hanging out between us. We started taking her picture because we are a little obsessed with our children, and this is what we got.

She is such an angel

January 9th, 2009

Today we spent the day at Moonbounce, so Alli and Madison could release their limitless energy. I just sat and held Taya while they climbed and slid and maneuvered the play structures. It was a good day followed by a crazy night. In the middle of the night I woke up to a horrible smell. I went out into the kitchen and found that our boiler had erupted and there was black ash everywhere. We figured the poison was not good for our kids, so we quickly packed them up and took them to my parent's house to sleep. Our landlord came and had the boiler fixed, but still our whole house was covered in ash. Every toy, article of clothing, dish, piece of furniture, etc... had to be scrubbed. It even got inside our fridge, and inside our cabinets. Can anybody say HVAC? After spending at least 50 hours cleaning and scrubbing I called the landlord and told him this was ridiculous. He knocked $200 off the rent. Can anybody say cheapskate?

The worst part about this was that Taya had not been focusing on objects or following anything with her eyes. We were unsure whether or not she could see. We had Taya and Jesse tested for carbon monoxide poisoning, and found that they both had been affected by the boiler which had been leaking for some time before the explosion. I was just sick to think that Taya's home had been the cause of her problems. If she was born with a problem, then fine, but I did not want it to be a product of her environment. We took her to a pediatric opthamologist who said that theoretically carbon monoxide poisoning would affect vision first, however, her optic nerves looked good, and he thought she was just developmentally delayed. That afternoon she focused on us for the first time. Our pediatrician was also considering the possibility of autism, even though it would be way to early to diagnose. So we took Taya to a neurologist who checked her thoroughly and said she was fine. Now (3 months later) she is absolutely perfect, and was apparently just not interested in following the general trend in baby development. The boiler problem was a mess that took most of January to clean up.