The Cousins Meet

Hi.

Should we dance? I don't know...

...but I have a dress!

Dresses are for girls, and girls have cooties!

The Rules of Dancing

When dancing, one must spin one's partner.

When one's partner falls down due to excessive spinning, one must help her up.

Above all, keep spinning. Especially in twirly dresses.

(Yes, the little one HAD tights. Mommy was apparently completely checked out in the morning, and didn't notice that her tiny drank nearly a liter of juice. Yes, it was a VERY bad diaper.)

Great-Grandpa

We took a quick trip south for the weekend, for a family wedding, and were able to spend the night with my grandpa. He was so happy to see the munchkins, even with their lack of sleep and general excitement about everything going on! We didn't arrive at his house until 10 pm, and the kids went right to sleep. I thought Mimi would cry for joy when we set up the pack and play- she was so tired, she couldn't wait to get in there! (This kid has been getting up at 5, and taking super short naps: her bags were so thick and black she looked like a racoon!)

Ernie vs. Church Christmas Party

2005


2006


(Somehow I have NO photos of Christmas 2007- we spent it in Arizona...)

2008


2009


2010

The Magic of Two

...as captured by Ernie's photography tonight. Love this little jelly-bag of a girl! (Seriously- you can SEE her ribs...how is she so squishy?)

On a side note, yes. I DID fix her hair before we left the house. She left it all in the car.

The Difference of A Few Years

Amazing the difference a few years makes in a child's perception of a happy man in a furry, red, suit, with a face totally obscured with white curly hair.

Cleaning

All these fights and finagling over the crumb sweeper and the broom....my house should be clean as a whistle!

(Crumb sweeper will revolutionize chore time with tots. Just trust me on this!)
(Dad, I still don't understand *why* you had a brand new crumb sweeper hanging around that you didn't need....but I'm glad we could put it to good use for you!)

Dancing

Uncle R stopped by for a visit the other day, and to drop off some supplies (thanks!)...and to teach my daughter to salsa dance?

Yes. Good stuff!

(Uncle R, we are REALLY going to miss you when you go away!)

Christmas at the Gardens

Ming Wai and Ernie examining a tree made entirely of lights

A yearly tradition, we LOVE to visit these gardens at Christmas time! They host yearly classes on how to make flowers and animals and such out of bundled-up lights, and everything made at the classes is added to the display- I don't know how long this has been going on, but it's rather enormous now. For the first time they're using a ticket system to limit attendance- luckily, our "normal" day to attend (a Monday early in the month) was one of the remaining free days! The kids love to stick dollar bills into the birdhouse donation box, so we did that.

Mimi basking in the glow

The LoLo family (Uncle LoLo couldn't make it)


We knew that parking could be crazy, so we met my sister's family for dinner and carpooled from her house. We had to laugh as we drove away- driving together was supposed to make it EASIER, but it took a solid fifteen minutes to get all four kids into their seats. But, we realized, that was only a few minutes more than it normally takes to get just two kids in the car, so all in all it wasn't bad!

Running, running running

Ming Wai has had a really, REALLY rough time falling asleep lately- 10:30 is a pretty normal time to see her poke her head out and see what's going on in the house. We found a trail that led back to the parking lot, and let us bypass walking on the shoulder of the road. Wonder Daddy started letting the kids run off some energy, and Aunt LoLo challenged him: If Ming Wai is asleep by 8:45, I'll make you brownies.

Do you KNOW how much this man adores brownies? Those kids ran at least a quarter mile, all over the field, chasing and being chased by Wonder Daddy. He gets brownies tomorrow :)

Checked Out, Checking In, Checked Up

Wow. What a face. You just can't bottle that early morning preggo look! (Come to think of it, last year's Christmas pictures looked eerily similar...maybe that's just what I look like in the morning?)

The snow has gone, and Thanksgiving was a real feast. My birthday was Friday, and the kids were just SO excited that they couldn't wait another minute: I must open my presents. Nana sent an adorable count-down block set (that's it, in the picture.) Ernie has a ball changing the numbers every morning, and there's another sign/block set for birthdays- this could be a permanent fixture on our manetel almost! :) Thanks Nana, you make wonderful stuff!

Unfortunately, my birthday was also the day I took to the couch. A week later, I'm more up and at 'em and VERY grateful for renewed strength! Wonder Daddy stepped in a did absolutely everything over the long weekend, and the kids and I have slowly eased into the week. Lots of plain dinners and snacks (leftovers and buttered noodles are perfectly valid meals right?), but I'm discovering the magic of NOT cooking...there are no dishes to wash! That's a good thing, because it took me until Tuesday to finish washing the pots and pans from Thanksgiving- hunching over that sink and leaning my belly against a counter, not to mention being on my feet, has been a rather alarming prospect.

Ernie's schooling is focusing a lot more on penmanship and stories and math right now, instead of field trips and art projects, but it's something we haven't spent a ton of time on together, so this is probably a good thing!

We're slowly getting ready for Christmas- I've been working on presents for a while, and E has a little stash tucked away as well, but the decorations have been slow going. I don't want a lot of visual clutter right now, and I don't want to have a lot to put away, so we're working hard to put up only the things that are really important! So far we have outside lights up (thanks, Wonder Daddy and Ernie!) and a Christmas village that used to be my grandmother's. The kids think the way it lights up is just magical, and I love how excited they were to help put it all together. We'll get our tree on Saturday and decorate that, and we'll hang the stockings. Table linens and placemats will come out at some point, to make a meal special. I'd like to get a wreath put together for the front door- normally, that's just holiday floral picks tucked into my favorite grape vine wreath, and E can help me with that this year.

I haven't decided if our dancing "I'm going to eat a pumpkin log and lots of fudge!" snowmen and "feliz navidad!" santa are making an appearance this year. They were in near-constant play last December, and I still haven't gotten the songs out of my head...(thanks, Dad- the girls LOVE THEM!)

I have a doctor appointment tomorrow, and I've been rehearsing it in my head for weeks. "Hi doc! I hurt! My belly hurts! I can't stand up without having contractions!" To which she'll reply "See? I told you that you were getting too fat." Ouch.

We'll see what she says, but considering that she's been telling me for months that I've been getting too fat, and that I'm going to have an enormous baby and get health complications (never mind that in both my prior pregnancies I've put on the weight, had normal-sized children, have incredibly good blood pressure (100/60), and zero indicators for gestational diabetes, and lost all the weight afterwards to get back to a healthy weight after nursing my babies for two years each) I don't have much hope for a different response tomorrow :) Oh well! This current wave of nausea and soreness has kept me out of the kitchen, and away from the dinner table, and I haven't gained a pound in two weeks. Which will probably make her worry. Heehee. Gain weight! But only as much as I say and when I say! Grow a baby, and don't put on more than 30 pounds!

The girls are all doing fabulous. Ernie asked me today if Jesus can cross his eyes. She also put buttered-and-sugared bread in the toaster, which popped up sparking!. She's my helper around the house- she loads and unloads the dishwasher, and starts it. She puts things away every morning while I direct her from the couch. She helps Mimi wash her face and hands after snacks, and reads to Mimi. She fetches, carries, and waits patiently while I do my fastest hunch-backed waddle around the house. She told me sadly yesterday that she wishes she didn't have a Mom and Dad, because then Heavenly Father could be her dad, and Heavenly Mother could be her mom. Luckily, we got that issue squared away, and she's tickled pink to know that I'm actually her sister.

Mimi is my happy cuddle bug, who has learned to say NO. "Mimi, please put these markers away where you got them." She looks me up and down, and disinterested, says "Nope" and walks away. Umm...no, that isn't actually an option child. So I take her by the hand, walk her over to the cabinet, and we put the markers away. She asks for suckers and Tums and movies and milk all day long, which I'm pretty sure is right about the same mind set as her sister was at this age. She told me very seriously last night, pointing at her head, that she's a "bubble head." She loves to pick out her own clothes, and is normally carrying around a stuffed animal. If you tell her where a monster is, she'll go and fight it for you. She can blow her nose. (E still has not learned to breathe out through her nose. It's a problem.) She calls her cousin "himmy," which is shortly followed by "and LOLO!! LOLO HOUSE!" because she's certain LoLo's house is the best place on earth. (They have a constant supply of bananas, even if there is a shocking lack of Mimi-approved milk.) She calls her sister "ee-ah-bet" and can't put consonants on the beginning of words, although they're loud and clear at the end. She loves talking to her Nana on the phone, and runs to her "Bippa and MeeMaw" when they visit.

Whew. All right, that's us, checking in! I'll try and keep my camera handy more often, but really...I don't get great pictures from this couch. :o)

The Snow Angels

Dry Run.

Contact! Now what!?

Eyes squeezed shut...."I can do this...I can do this..."

You must be joking. Nuh-uh. My SHOES are dirty!

Calisthenics

What do you after you feed the children donuts, 25 minutes before bed time?

Stretches.

Side lunges.

Laps.

Morning Story Time

The Rest of Saturday

We had such a nice Saturday together!

Wonder Daddy planted the 200+ bulbs we salvaged from the yard before the Earth Movers came.

The girls painted their pumpkins (and my squash from the grocery store)

Wonder Daddy pushed the girls all over the neighborhood to the other 10 families from the ward, for Trick-or-Treating. We booked it over to Aunt LoLo's ward party, but got there just in time to watch them put everything away in all the classrooms. The girls were bummed (probably because they were coming off a super sugar high, and the holidays are such an EXCITING time) but one of Aunt LoLo's friends was very kind and retrieved his candy bowl from the car for the kids to trick-or-treat from.

Halloween Day Proper was a quiet day- I made orange colored pancakes for breakfast and threw together a batch of bread and an apple pie, Ernie got to give the scripture in primary (Moroni 10:32), I taught Young Women's for the first time, we dropped a loaf of bread off at Grandma and Grandpa's house after church and chatted for a while, and had dinner (and apple pie) with the new YW president's family. A very nice day!