I am *almost* caught up on this wretched blog that I love. This time I risked catastrophic failure to keep you all in the loop.
July is full of randomness. I will tell about the most exciting things. That usually means "we left the house." So exciting!
Going to the store? So fun!
We went to a splash pad with Grandma Leo and Ocean one very hot day.
Another very hot day we walked down to a park in our neighborhood. Vivs and Rafe made pine cone name art.
Annie I think mostly cried unless she was being pushed in a swing. She is having a REALLY hard time handling it when she doesn't get what she wants, so she spends much of her day grey-faced and weeping.
Merrick was not terribly happy at the park either.
He gets hot easily. We don't have to be out very long for his little cheeks to get red, red, red.
My friend from our Rio Rancho ward is a Maskcara makeup artist and asked me to be part of a Facebook "party" she did, which involved watching a lot of live videos and commenting on them. She came over for lunch one day with her girls to show me the stuff in person. It's a cream based makeup, and it is light and lovely, but not different enough for me to start spending 100% more on my face. Left is makeup, right is nothing.
4th of July was a fun day. In the morning we went to our new ward's pancake breakfast. There was a dunk tank, a bike parade, lots of good food, and sooooo many new faces. Then we came home and we watched Familton (and felt especially fond of everyone who participated), worked in the yard, and I made a salad to take to our new friends the Richardson's house for a barbecue that evening with a couple other families from the ward. McKenzie is the YW President and Joel is the Primary Chorister (the kids LOVE him), and they are big 4th of July people. After we had eaten, we gathered around and sang a couple patriotic songs, then we had a "presentation of the patriots." Every family came up and each child got a turn standing on the fire pit holding a flag while their parents took 30 seconds to tell everyone about their accomplishments for the year. After every child we gave 3 hip-hip-hoorays. It was awesome. I want to do it every year.
After the party we came home and put Merrick to bed and I drove the rest of the kids out on the mesa to watch some fireworks.
The goal was to watch the Albuquerque firework show, but I misjudged the shape of the land, so we couldn't see them. We could, however, see everyone else's fireworks all across the valley, so it was still fun. And we got to sit on top of the car, which is always exciting. It made up for my annual reading of excerpts from The Declaration of Independence that Vivien quickly reminded me I had already read to them the year before and didn't need to do so again.
Later that week our FAVORITE PEOPLE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD were driving through Albuquerque on their way to a family reunion in Utah, so we crashed their hotel for a quick visit and perhaps the most pain-free group picture taking I have ever experienced. We love these White people.
We got to go see The Incredibles 2 at the theater. We went to a matinee and used the military discount that we technically don't qualify for, but it meant we only had to spend $29 to chase Merrick all over a darkened room full of people while half-watching an awesome movie.
Let's see. We also went to the Albuquerque Open Space Visitor's Center where we explored exhibits on the three different types of land in Albuquerque--mesa, bosque, and foothills.
And we went to another very hot park. I am loving monsoon season in Albuquerque. There are actually clouds in the sky!
And sometimes we get freak thunderstorms that come tearing in to dump half an inch of rain and hail, then are dried up an hour later.
We had cousins stop by on their way home from UT. It was nice to have a yard that's a little more fun for kids to play in than a square of gravel.
It was my birthday this week and in classic 30-year-old fashion, I got myself some new garments and was very happy about it. The mountains look so close from the temple, we had to drive up for a little hike. There was a roadrunner at the Elena Gallegos pay station. The guard said they come around all the time to show off their kills.
It was probably too hot for a hike. There was much weeping and wailing.
The scenery was not enough to distract the small people from their misery.
But this collared lizard sure was! These guys run SO fast, and they run on their hind legs when they really get cooking.
We had fun chasing him. Rafe even got to touch his tail.
Then Rafe had to pee, which happens on pretty much every hike ever. Luckily he is well equipped for outdoor elimination.
We hiked for as long as I could handle the whining. Then we stopped for a drink where we were mobbed by gnats and promptly headed back to the car.
We went faster when I carried the shorter legged people.
Drew met us at the bottom with a picnic dinner. Such a beautiful view!
On my birthday I took the kids to a community pool in the afternoon. Merrick had a blast, Annie was very stiff and would not trust her puddlejumper, and I wouldn't even let Rafe wear his because he is 5 years old and really ought to be able to swim. At one point I made him go out in the middle in the deep end to practice dips. He freaked out and started clawing me like a drowning person, so I dipped him till he stopped crying, then I let him go and he totally swam, crying, all the way to the edge of the pool. Then he burped on every exhale for the next 30 seconds. Vivien had an awesome time on the slide. For dinner we had Banh Mi sandwiches and I had planned to make a strawberry cream pie for my birthday treat, but we got invited over to dinner on Sunday by a cool family in our ward and I made it for that instead (it was delicious). So I got to make ANOTHER treat for my birthday! Haley pointed me to a recipe for Banoffee cake. The recipe was British and called for "light, digestive biscuits" for the crust; graham crackers were not quite the same consistency, so it looks more like a pile of goodness than the tort it should. Drew gave me XXX candles. He also gave me the best birthday present ever--a book of duets, tacitly including his consent to sing them with me!
When I served the pie, Vivien was being squirrelly at the table and slipped off the bench, catching herself just in time, but also somehow planting her foot in her slice of cake. It was impressive. There is more of this in my fridge that I am going to eat tonight all by myself as soon as my crying, fighting, meddling, darling children go to bed.
The things people liked about me for my birthday were as follows:
Merrick: smiles and throws food on the floor
Annie likes to sleep with me
Vivien likes to snuggle with me (We really need a king size bed...)
Rafe likes to swim with me (That one caught me by surprise, after our experiences earlier that day)
Drew likes that I follow this bit of Ron Swanson's advice.
I am excited to be 30. I will probably write down some goals as soon as I finish my goal to get my blog caught up.
Everyday Things
I got a workbook for Vivien to do over the summer to prevent the dreaded SUMMER SLIDE.
Some days she decides she doesn't want to do the stuff in the book, so she makes up math problems for herself and writes poetry instead.
Here is the hole in the wall at Nana's house from Rex and Colette wrestling.
And here's a couple funnies I don't know if I've written down yet or not: Vivien: Oh my gosh! That car needs to go the car wash. It's filled with mud! Rafe: It's fill-thy! Drew: Go wash your face. Annie: No, I want you to do this pig. (This Little Piggy)
Annie was sitting on the bathroom counter while Drew was getting ready. He went to put his wedding ring on, but couldn't find it. He turned to her. "Annie, did you just swallow my ring??" Annie smiled big and said in her cute little voice, "Ummmm..." (she hadn't actually, but it sure looked like she was guilty).
Drew: They gave us a free dough cutter in the [Intel employee] pizza dough class."
Me: What does it look like?
Drew: A guillotine blade.
Rafe: Mom, I had a great dream. I saw Obi Wan Kenobi in a drain, so I am looking in...ALL the drains in our house. Proceeds to check all the air vents in the house. If there was a Jedi in the house, I guess it's a pretty safe bet he'd be in the ventilation shaft.
Vivien: Mom, what time is lunch?
Me: Lunch will be in one hour.
Vivien: ONE HOUR??? But I can't wait that long! I'm already freaking hungry!
When I make fried eggs, Vivien will usually eat 4-5.
Rafe is still doing the thing where he repeats the ending sound of a previous word with an upward inflection while he thinks of the next word to say. "I caught a lizard and then it jumped of my arm...m?...m?" "I thought you were still in the bathroom...oom?...oom?...and Dad was still in his bed."
Merrick's vocabulary includes: No, Daddy, MMMMEEEEEE! (I think this might be milk+please, but it's anything but polite), Chee! (holding up my phone to take a picture), and he does a great "all done" sign to be released from his high chair.
So, it's old news that Merrick likes to climb on stuff. He's been clambering over and on top of things since he could crawl.
You're probably used to seeing him in pictures on the dining table.
He's been doing that for awhile.
He just likes to be up high.
But now he knows how to push the benches to grant him access to wherever his heart desires.
Which allows him to climb onto the counter and eat whatever might be in the fruitbowl. Unpeeled avocados, unpeeled oranges, every apple I just brought home from the store...
Sitting on the piano bench was ok with me...
But this, not so much.
"Oooo, look at all the movies and remotes that are here to throw all over the floor!"
"And these toys make such satisfying crashes when they hit the wood floor."
"Those don't need to be hung up."
"All this stuff on the counter could be easier to reach. Better empty the medicine cabinet as well."
I've caught him standing both on the arm rest of this chair holding on to the back, and on the computer desk itself trying to reach the printer paper.
I basically have to lock all the doors I can to keep him out, and then never let him out of my sight. Which is hard, because he really just wants to climb, and if he can't climb, then he really just wants to be held while I'm standing (that's very important). "Who cares if I'm hungry! Hold me instead! Stop cutting that food and pick me up!"
I probably awakened this climbing impulse in him early by putting a rail on his bed that he could easily climb out of. There just wasn't quite enough clearance to get him in his crib when we put it under Rafe's bed. Pray for his little toddler brain to catch up to his body soon!
We live in a different house again, but this time, we are "renting" it from the bank instead! Drew had put out a help pls!!! pls help!!! on the Rio Rancho ward Facebook page, so we had a couple people very kindly take time Saturday to help us load the truck.
They were maybe not the helpers Drew would have chosen, (my friend's husband with a tendon injury, a man in our ward with a heart problem and his two teenage sons who needed to be "commanded in all things"), and we didn't have everything staged very well because we'd just gotten home the night before, but we did our best and crammed in as much as we could while our helpers were there and headed over to the new house around 11. I sent the older 3 kids with Chelsee Jensen and Merrick with the Halvorsens so I didn't have to worry about them.
Our new ward was there in force to welcome us so the unloading was super slick. It felt a little bit like being back at BYU--surrounded by a whole bunch of hard working, friendly, beautiful people our age. We all visited in the garage for a little while before I had to kick them out so we could go back to the old house for round two, which went without incident. The next day was Sunday, but we decided to finish out June in our old ward, so we went to church there and then sent Drew off to Portland for a week for a new hire orientation. The next week was spent unpacking and cleaning, which is very boring, so I will just show you the fruits of our labors. Here is a general tour of the outside:
I love the tree over the minivan. The purple flowers are very pretty, and the kids like to climb in it.
Our neighborhood is awesome. Across the street is Grandpa Sam, who takes my garbage cans out if I forget and added my name to his Grandparents Pass at the zoo and brought us dinner after he won a bunch of money at the casino the night before (he's well-vouched for by the neighbors, so you don't have to be worried about a creepy old predator man living across from us). Next door we've got friends from church and their 2 year old on one side, and a nice couple who both work and have a 1.5 and 4 year old. Two houses down on both sides there are families with a little bit older boys that are very clever and super fun to play with. Joel and Michelle's driveway is always crawling with neighbor kids. They are cool people! And their driveway is an excellent grade for picking up ramming speed.
I'm sure Vivien would like to have a few more girls in the vicinity...
...but she finds ways to put her own spin on things.
I love the tree to the left of our front door.
It's a Natchez Crape Myrtle and has cool bark and beautiful, crinkly flowers. I had an arborist come out to the house and teach me about all the trees I am now responsible for and advise me on a good plan of care. She was like a mystic to me--she knew ALL the things!
The side garden is where the Boyle's (previous owners) seven-year-old kept his box turtles. The kids had just watched Coco and were leaving offerings on all the decorative stones.
There are honking honeysuckles along one wall.
The ants love them.
The Boyle's 7-year-old is their baby, so they left behind a lot of stuff their kids had outgrown, like their trampoline and their kid table, perfect for mounting the tramp, and for tea parties.
This is another favorite toy that was left behind.
They had a good thing going with the goldfinches that I've tried to keep up. The finches love nyjer seed, apparently. Sometimes the doves will come sit on the feeder too. They look very foolish.
Here is the puddle that gets left by the sprinklers that Merrick likes to drink out of. I haven't been able to catch him in the act with my camera yet. The kids wasted no time breaking 6 of the sprinkler heads trying to get each other wet. My Dishy Handyman Drew fixed them with his bare hands.
And here's a sample of what you see if you sit on my swing.
Aside from the birds, we've got a bunch of lizards that live in the yard, and some fun bugs too!
The kids have been spending a ton of time outside, which has been great for everyone except Rafe's toes.
We got to bring our garden with us and have enjoyed a good crop of carrots.
What's more fun than picking the stuff you grew?
There are a lot of smoke tree flowers that blow off peoples trees and seem to collect in the garden. They are feathery light, so they catch any little breeze that happens by. When I'm out there weeding and I see them out of the corner of my eye it makes me feel like I'm seeing things.
They remind me of the dust bunnies from My Neighbor Totoro.
Merrick most unfortunately likes to spend time in the garden as well.
He cuts a swath of destruction in my flower beds. It makes me very angry and glad I don't live as a peasant in the Middle Ages when anyone could just come by and destroy your stuff if they wanted with no consequences.
My favorite thing about the yard this year has been this Say's Phoebe nest. The two nestlings had just hatched when we moved in.
Both parents kept a sharp eye on them at all times. This was the bird whose song I would hear at dawn in the old house and it would wake me up like a shock because I wanted to know what it was. I was very happy to find more of them out this way. They're such light, acrobatic flyers.
One morning I came out and one of the babies was draped over the side of the nest in a concerning way. I gave it an hour to see if it would move, but it hadn't so I risked the parents' displeasure to see what was going on. The poor thing was dead. It had somehow gotten its legs completely bound together by a piece of plastic thread that had been lining the nest, and I think it just wore itself out trying to get loose. I had to cut it free from the nest with scissors.
We studied its growing feathers and contrasted them with its baby fluff.
The other baby was not in the nest, but the parents were still nearby. It took awhile to find it, but I did finally spot it among the rocks on the side of the house. Can you?
It spent about a week on the gravel, hopping awkwardly to stay in the shade of the trees throughout the day. One day I was out in the garden weeding and I heard it singing the same song its parents sing, just smaller and higher pitched. I stopped weeding and went to sit against the wall to watch it. It was tracking its parents' flight in the sky and bobbing its tail up and down, and then it pulled itself up tall and flew from the front yard to the back yard right past my face. I held my breath and watched it bob up and down, perched on the garden bed rail, then it flew back to the top of our side gate and landed not an arm's length away from me. Its parents started making a new sound, like a trill, and started swooping up to the nest. It felt like they were saying, "YES! Great job! Now please, please, please come up here to the nest where it's safe! You can do it!" The baby gave it a shot, but only made it to the top of this box, where it spent the night.
I felt like it was a good analogy for Earth life. Once the baby leaves the nest, the parents can't physically carry it back, but they still take incredible care of their baby. I was never alone with the baby for more than 10 seconds before the parents came swooping. I watched them scare away squirrels and doves and even a roadrunner that got too close. They kept bringing it food. And as the baby got bigger you could see it watching the parents and trying to do the same things--hopping, singing, flying. It hung around the side yard for a few more days under careful watch, then the whole family was off to new horizons. Last I saw it was in our willow tree. It still had that huge baby bird mouth, and its parents were still bringing it food, but it was flying beautifully.
Shall we go inside?
Let's clean our feet before those footprints follow us through the rest of the place.
Here's a tour of the inside.
We've got lots of storage space, so I finally got to unpack my puzzles.
And now I know why that box was always so heavy. I am not sure who put the SCUBA weights in the bottom of my puzzle box. I want to say it was the Bremerton movers.
Comcast was here for about 7 hours one day, but we got our computer set up and the internet working. Marcus is all alone in Georgia, so there have been more gaming sessions than usual. "AAAGH! You idiot, Jayna! I just lost all our gems. I knew I should have stashed them..."
Vivien was happy to have the computer chair back in play.
The kids were happy to see their toys.
And to play with them.
Our Rio Rancho Jensens were looking at a house in the area, so their kids came over to play. It's fun to watch kids play with our toys like they're new and cool, not the same old ones we've had for years.
Today Rafe was playing a game with cars. The cars in the outer ring are "robbers who don't believe in God" and the two in the middle are believers who are fighting them. Always interesting to see how our conversations will be synthesized.
Vivien is back to creative crafting. She was quite proud of her stick doll.
I've enjoyed putting our table in the middle of the room. It's a fun place to do stuff together, like this science kit we got from a friend.
This experiment was about color mixing. We made a kaleidoscope.
And it's fun to eat in the very middle of a room. Like a banquet hall! Here is Rafe who maintains he hates quinoa, but will usually eat all of it once I can coax him to take a bite. I feel like I wrote that same sentence 4 years ago when he was a baby.
Here he is eating a spoon full of pepper at dinner, for fun.
It was maybe not as fun as he thought it would be.
But he'll never admit it.
Here is Annie in the family room, sporting her new uniform. I do get her dressed most days, but by lunch she's usually back in this getup.
Our family room wants a different rug and probably some side tables, but it will do for now. In fact it did quite well for a cousin screening of Sing when Heather and Casey came by on their way home from UT.
My favorite thing about the family room are these windows that I pretend are my Hogwarts paintings, because there are frequently birds roosting in the crape myrtle, but always in different places. Do you see the pair of doves?
Here is the upstairs.
Here is Vivien on her mattress, stylishly placed on the floor. There are a lot of pictures of Vivien sleeping on this blog. It's because I think she is so beautiful when she sleeps, whenever I catch her at it I have to photograph it! Though I'm catching her more often now--she likes to sleep in.
She lost her 3rd tooth late at night during her cousin sleepover. She was keeping it in a Tupperware on the bathroom counter, but Merrick got to it and it has disappeared. Hopefully the tooth fairy will be understanding. Vivs now has . . . 2 front teeth! Goodbye extra tooth.
I am liking the reading nook being upstairs. I have to clean up books a lot less. On the downside, the kids are doing less reading. Maybe when we get our giant reading beanbag things will change.
The nook converted into a fun boy cave for the cousin sleepover.
And here is some evidence for why a king size bed is high on our purchase list.
We average 4 sleepers in the bed by 6 am. Some share better than others.
Rafe parked his decked out Octopod in our bathroom. I think this one's motto is probably, "Destroy! Rescue! Protect!"
I had a good view of a hot air balloon from my shower one sunny morning. Oh heyyyy there, balloonist.
And that is the tour! I hope we can avoid natural disasters like they're having in Iwakuni right now.
I know they're just things, but I'd rather not have to move again for awhile.
