news

september 16, 2010

It was 9:05 this morning, and I'd already had 12 texts, 4 accepted calls, and 2 missed calls. plus a request for more printer paper. and my fantasy about my "day off" had slowly, resistantly, but finally, died.

i guess the universe doesn't read my blog.

which is sort of a relief. i've been haunted by the suspicion that the universe DOES read my blog. because ever since i wrote that levi is obsessed with cleaning, he hasn't wanted to lift a pinkie finger. seriously.

we've even been fighting about cleaning and we only fight 2% of the time. and of that 2%, 0% has ever been about cleaning. (1.5% of the fights are about clothes and his constant desire for "fancyness", the other.5% about going to primary)

speaking of "fancyness" how was that italics usage for one of my tangents? i think i'll keep doing that. but only until it ends up that my entire posts are in italics. and then.... then... then what?

then i guess i'll just retitle this blog: totally tangents. or something more clever. i still have some time to muse about that one. and now i'm wondering if i should still, technically, be typing in italics. end crazy talk here-----

luckily, it was a "normal" day at work. AND we had a vendor bring in red velvet cafe. !!!, right? if you live in las vegas, i'm SURE you already know about red velvet cafe. if you don't, you HAVE to find it next time you're here.  it's this crazy, mysterious restaurant that makes all vegan and vegetarian food, but makes your tongue and tummy think you're eating the naughtiest meals possible. because they're just too too TOO good to also be healthy. i sometimes still can't believe my good fortune for having red velvet cafe in my life.

yeah, i just said that: i sometimes still can't believe my good fortune for having red velvet cafe in my life.

think that's too dramatic? try their WHOLE CAKES THAT ARE ONLY 150 CALORIES WITH - YES WITH - FROSTING. and then we'll talk dramatics.

and now i'm rethinking my whole "the universe doesn't read my blog" theory. because maybe it does read my blog and knew that i needed something good in my week, and so it urged and pushed me into the office today so that i could reap the rewards of my good fortune in the form of a caprese salad with mozarella made that morning and the juiciest organic chicken that you have to own a restaurant and have shipped in from los angeles to get it. (i asked. i also told the owner to tell me if that ever changes.) you know?

thanks universe.

thanks italics button.

i did jet out of the office 30 minutes early like i do every thursday: swim lessons. tip alert: we're rolling into fall, and if you come take swim lessons with us on thursday nites we can visit. or you can just share my bench with me and we can carry on conversations/business with 7-9 people at one time via texting. sort of like "parallel play" for adults. ok, here's the tip: private lessons are $50/30minutes. but in the fall winter, the classes thin out so much that you can pay the group lesson price, and most likely have a private lesson. or maybe 1 other kid.

swim documentation:

levi working on 'freestyle' and perfecting 'backstroke'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

gracie is working on feeling comfortable in the water,and being 8parts chubby cuteness/2parts bossy: "teeeeeaaaaacherrrr he/she is splashing too much!" **(heidi, double click that bottom pic of her - LOVE the tongue!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i don't know what other 1 year olds think when they come to swim lessons with their siblings, but my daughter starts kicking her legs, squealing and motioning with both of her hands 'give it to me' from the minute she smells the chlorine from the parking lot. a sucker. guaranteed at least 22 minutes of silence for a bad mom who...hasn't gotten around....to getting her signed up for swim. something about a 'parent-assisted' rule for under 2....there's not enough italics in the universe to get me in a swimsuit:

september 15, 2010

so  my foreboding feeling about this week just kept on rolling. and rolling. work wise, this has been the worst three days that i've had in YEARS! and i guess that's the point: everyone gets their turn, and i guess right now is mine. i've been venting to zanny everynite when i (finally) get home, when i realized that. this is not the "norm". i can handle the 24-hour work day - the one where you lay awake all night stressing about what just happened and what's going to happen - every few years. i hope "my turn" is almost over!

at the end of the day today i tentatively am thinking that i have things all handled, squared away, and put to rest. (fingers crossed) so i snuck out an hour early and went to get a pedicure. i sure love any reason to feel justified in indulgences. i also really love having my feet fixed.

speaking of justified indulgences, i think i'm going to try to not work tomorrow. i'm fantasizing about hiding out in a dark movie theatre, have some lunch, shop in a bookstore, alone. or lay on my mom's couch all day. but she has wierd stuff on her dvr.

i tried to take a picture of my fresh feet, to, you know, spicen up this boring post, but...it's official: reproducing has forever taken away my photographical feet. i've been subconciously suspicious of this for awhile, but my camera just confirmed it. this is what HD has done for our lives: made us see what we, and everyone else, is really dealing with.

so in lieu of pictures of my forever widened and lengthed and generally not cute stompers, i'll put up some pictures that i found on my camera, courtesy of the best nanny in north las vegas: zannie. i like that she takes pics of what they're doing all day. makes me feel like i didn't miss as much.

i was cracking up when i saw these pics and asked zan about them. she said they had a "photo shoot" wherein she told levi to have specific emotions:

sad, happy, and bad guy

 

silly, surprised and a pirate 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the "artists"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a cute bystander

september 14, 2010

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhh......1 day early even. that's overachieving at it's best :)

september 13, 2010

do you believe in ESP?

me too.

so yesterday when i had this forboding feeling all day about going to work today, i should have paid more attention.

not that i could have done anything about it.

but...i'll follow the instructions my mom gave to myself and my sisters growing up. on a pretty regular basis.

"if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

goodbye september 13, 2010.

better luck tomorrow!

september 12, 2010

sundays.

sundays are fun because getting up and getting everyone and everything ready and out the door for church always goes really smooth.  i can't remember the last time i didn't plop onto the pew cool, calm and collected. i don't know what it is about people with kids with big, black smudges from tires on their white church shirt, and babies with 1 shoe on and rubberbands 3/4 pulled out of their hair. why can't they control their kids?

ANYWAYYYYY

i don't know why, but i just can't seem to get the sunday schedule perfected. i've done the math: 3 people, @ 30mins each, +15 extra mins for 'wierd stuff', +15 mins drive time = 2 hours of getting ready. and that's only if i ironed the night before.

and since i'm able to subtract 2 hours from our church time from the clock, it should be simple, right? 

apparently not.

because, without fail, i'm always sliding in by the hair of my chiny chin chin. me+25 pound bag+23 pound baby+pulling along 40pounds of boy. heaven forbid we see someone we know in the hall and they stop to say "hi"! no time for social visits i can still hear the prelude music!!

luckily for me. and levi. and anyone sitting around us. my sweet dad goes to sacrament with us every week. and since he is genetically programmed to arrive everywhere 20 mins early, he saves us a bench.

but this week something occurred to me. about where i've gone wrong. i'm calculating getting 3 people ready, when, really, there are FOUR people for me to get ready: diaper bag.  because you know what? diaper bag is it's entire own entity.

you know it's true.

the diaper bag MUST be unloaded and reloaded every week.  it's like starting over each time.  i know that one of the obvious solutions would be to fix the diaper bag after church for the next week. but that sounds super-organized. besides, myself, i'm SO SICK of the 3 hours with the diaper bag, with all it's useless toys, crumbly snacks and crinkling wipey-packages, that it's lucky if it even makes it into the house before wednesday or thursday. or at all.

oh diaper bag, how old will we be before you can stay home? or better yet, before you can become our "carryon" across the atlantic?

one respite is sunday nite horse rides. even though our gray-haired horse is moving slower and slower these days, he still manages to get in a few good "bucks". so far piper hasn't ridden the horse. she stands to the side looking very concerned for levi and gracie. or maybe she's concerned because kenady is constantly "spanking" the horse.... either way, the whole thing is pretty entertaining.

    

september 11, 2010

 i have not forgot

this morning both kids slept in until 9am. i liked that a lot.

once up, i "made" them breakfast: littlebite mini wheats with milk for levi, with 3 strawberries cut up, refilled once. 

1/2 a cup of milk, 12 blueberries, 3 strawberries and an apple cereal bar for piper.

i turned on the "musical" robot rampage, like i do every morning at breakfast, it gives me a good 30minutes to actually wake up, and sat down at my desk with a chocolate protein shake, and looked around online for....awhile.

when my favorite song from robot rampage came on, i got up and sang it while doing a hardcore "robot" dance. but neither of my kids seemed impressed. i'm pretty sure they watched the tv more than they watched my performance. i told them that was a very poor decision. i can pretty much GUARANTEE that no other old mom was busting out robot dancing this morning.  but...their choice.

i did a bunch of cleaning. which now, at 10pm, would be hard to convince anyone of. i was wiping the kitchen counters while piper was in the playroom. i thought, i should go see what she's doing. and then i thought, ok, when i finish up these counter wipe-downs. and then i thought, no, i should go see right now.

piper wasn't in the playroom.  she was in levi's room. where she had climbed up the ladder of his bunkbed and was sitting up there holding a waterbottle over the edge of the railing. much screaming ensued as the ladder was laid flat on the ground.

we left the house, shopped for a gun and ate pizza at the restaurant next door to the gun shop.

naps, all round. 3 hours.

then we played in the backyard FOR FOUR HOURS!! swimming, swinging, sliding, climbing, sand and rock redistribution. i tried to clean the back porch. but that was super-boring. so i mostly sat in my rocker, under the "misters", and thought about going inside to get a book. but never did.

piper was so dirty and so tired she could barely stand up. i gave her a bath in the kitchen sink. and put her to bed.

then i got to the task of smelling, what seemed like 100s, of 'scentsy' scents. levi saw me doing it and joined in. we were seperating ones we liked and ones we didn't like into two seperate piles. he said i should get ones that smelled like pancakes and hot dogs.

levi and i have now been drawing for 2 hours while also watching tv. he keeps telling me it's his turn for a "boy show". i keep reminding him of the rule that once it's dark we only watch "mommy shows". so now he's negotiating for Top Chef.

it's been one of those rare, slow saturdays. one of those days where you feel like you did a lot of stuff, and you also did nothing. i'm so inspired by top chef that levi and i are eating top ramen and leftover pizza. then straight to bed!

september 10, 2010

my cousin-in-law, jessie never-blogs miller, has made a special request to see some ugly pictures of my kids. i'm happy to oblige. this one's for you jessie, fuzzy "bush" hair, and bratty moment included, enjoy!:

september 9, 2010

today was technically the second day of preschool, but it was our first day because we were out of town. i couldn't get ANY good pictures of levi because the sun was positioned in the perfect spot to make it impossible for him to open his eyes.

at first i was all ready to be annoyed by our undesirable "first day" pictures. but then i thought, hey, if we can't even actually get to school on the first day, who are we to complain about the pictures? so these will have to go down in history as first-day-of-preschool-in-the-desert-when-its-over-100-degrees-at-9am....

"did you have fun at school today?"
"yeah"
"tell me about it"
"it was fun"
 "what did you do?"
"i ate suckers"
"oh! that sure is lucky. what else did you do?"
"i played"
"what did you play?"
"i played boys who eat suckers"
"what else did you do?"
"i already told you. i just eated suckers and played. that's all i did."
"oh. well, did you meet some nice friends?"
"no."
"no? you didn't like any of the other kids?"
"nope. i just only like gracie."
"well, i think you'll like some of the other kids and find out they're fun too...."
"i don't think so. mom, can i have a sucker?"

september 8, 2010

we've been to disneyland a few times. but i've never taken a picture there. that i remember anyway. i'm always too lazy to carry my camera around all day. is that so bad?

i'm not sure why this time i had a different mindset, but i decided that i should take some disneyland pictures. the time had come. i told michael that i was bringing my camera. and he instantly brought his instead.

no arguement here.

and then him and eric took 584 pictures.

i like that. because extremes are so much more interesting, n'est pa? so i pretty much never have to take a picture at disneyland again for the rest of my life, and we'll still have enough.

 

we stayed at disneyland so long we missed our airplane: and now i really don't have to say how much fun we were having.

so when we pulled out of the "daisy-duck" parking garage, michael got gas, a turkey sandwich and some water, got on the 91 freeway and drove us home to las vegas: and now i really don't have to say what kind of good friend you have to be to do something like that for a 3 year old.

i'd say a good 76% of the time the answer i give to one of levi's many questions is, "because we're so lucky".

he really has no idea.

september 7, 2010

 

we're always picking up and dropping off at the airport. like, a lot. and everytime we do, levi begs and begs to go on an airplane. he talks about it all the time, and tells me regularly he "needs a suitcase like michael".

so when tickets to los angeles became $49 each, i decided it was time to knock out the airplane "need". and because i'm the world's best mom, i also scored us (him) a tiny suitcase with an airplane on it.

never, has a boy been so proud.

after MANY days of counting down how many more naps and nightimes it was until we got on the airplane, the answer was zero.

we got up today, kissed our baby pickles goodbye and got on an airplane. we were in the airport for 3 minutes when he started his questions, ("what IS this place? it's so cool!) and they didn't stop, literally, until we were on the curbside bench waiting for a pickup.

totally worth it. while waiting, i thought to myself: we could walk back into the airport, get on a plane and go home and this will still have been the best day he's ever had.  so far. 

instead we stayed. we had our swimsuits on underneath our clothes. because the plan was that michael, tally, finn and lily would pick us up and we'd head straight to the beach. but, while all last week has been a heat wave in los angeles, this day was a monsoon.  ok, not a monsoon. but not going to the beach weather either. so we detoured to the zoo.

which worked out perfect because we got a good "show" from a grandpa, daddy, mommy and baby gorilla. we ate tacos on the way home, and levi had his first "crunchy churros". at one point he had about 3 clenched in both hands, and his entire face and forehead were covered in cinnamon and sugar. so i'm guessing he liked them.

we went back to the horsted's house, played on their swingset and pet their bunny. we watched a movie and michael made us chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. well, he didn't make them. but he did put them in bowls and serve them to us.

and neither levi nor myself turn down sugar in a bowl when served.

then, at 10:30pm, we all decided we needed to go to bed "early" for our big day tomorrow. Levi and I are sharing a bed tonite, and i'm already suspicious that i'm planning to sleep east/west and he's planning to sleep north/south...