To DC and More

Long time no posts, I know. We've been on vacation! What a wonderful thing. Jeremy had a week and a half off. We spent the first part of it getting caught up with little things, then we went to DC to visit my sister Melissa and her family. Here's a collection of pictures (a LOT of pictures).

This was actually a month or so before. We just need to show off Sydney's styling hair once we get the food out of it.
Cora wanted to join the photo shoot.

This is what Katie does when I put her down for "quiet time." She pulls out her clothes and has a party. In her hand you see a pair of white socks that she's stuffed with other socks and calls it her muffin, cupcake, or cranberry juice. On her head you see a halloween skirt she calls her headband.

And then she falls asleep somewhere random. Like on top of the dresser.

Now we're in DC at the National Zoo. Katie, Sydney and I were checking out the carnivour exhibit near the lions. They had cubs out, two mamas, and a daddy lion while we were there and we got to hear them roar. I think Jeremy and I were more excited about that than the girls were.

Cora and her daddy.

I promise we didn't have another one. That cute little addition is my sister's little Lila.

And there's cousin Van with us.

They did this on their own. It's so fun to have cousins! Even if we only see them once a year.

Working hard at the Building Museum.

This was Jeremy and I getting some quality time with Katie at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. The best part was she ran around it pushing her stroller shouting "Follow the Prophet" as loud as she could.

My cookie monsters at the WWII memorial.

Cora at our belayed egg hunt with the cousins.

There's Sydney adding to the stash.

We made it to the Baltimore Aquarium while we were there and it was awesome! It's true, you can only show a two year old so many fish, but between the dolphins, sting rays, sharks and the rain-forest at the end, we had a very good time.

Maybe the toddlers' favorite part was actually the bubbles at the gift shop.

Scare you? It's just a picture behind us, but it sure looks good, doesn't it?

So we ended that day by doing a kid swap with Jon and Melissa at the temple. We even ran into some of Jeremy's extended family there. The world is so small when you're memebers of the Church. The kids had a great time playing on the lawn. And I can't tell you how much I loved being able to take them everywhere without bundling three little kids up with boots, coats, mittens, and hats. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something, but it was such a sense of freedom!

Love this temple. If you're heading west on the 495 around DC, there's this point where it just stands out above the trees right in front of you. It's amazing.

This is Sydney trying to tell us that the light is hot. Cora found that out earlier by putting her hand on it. No major burns, but it sure made her cry.

Cora did recover.

They loved to give Lila loves. I think they were excited that someone was younger than they were.

The end. There's actually so much more to say. My mom came out to stay with us the day after we got back and Jeremy and I went to Vegas for an anesthesia conference, but our computer is so slow it's taken me about an hour just to type in these captions, so we'll save it for another night. In summary: DC was awesome, thanks Melissa and Jon, Sydney threw up on the way home (are you surprised?), we loved driving up the East Coast, but we'll probably love it more when we're not trying to plan it around naps, diapers, and meltdowns (don't ask how early we got up for each drive).

Don't laugh. OK, you can laugh. I cried. But I can laugh now. You see the above creatures? So did my dog. Pele got arrested today. You want the long story? We had some roofers over today working on our house. They had to go in the back yard to plug in some of their tools and didn't quite get the gate closed. I didn't know and Pele escaped. Since Jeremy was gone and I had the three girls I couldn't go and chase her, we just said a quick prayer that she'd come home to us.

Our prayer was answered, just not as smoothly as I would have hoped. After several attempts to call her in from the porch I had to put the girls in their beds for naps. As I was upstairs I looked out the window and saw her running towards the house. I race downstairs to lure her in with a treat and as I open the door I found she was being followed by a police officer and a small group of people. Turns out a neighbor a few houses down had a couple of chickens in a coop outside and Pele found them. The neighbor was not home, but the kids next door were and they watched her rip the wire off and kill the chickens. So they called the police. None of them knew who the dog belonged to, they just followed her, then told me what happened. It is against city ordinances to have a dog off leash out of your yard. Hence, Pele was to be summoned to court (which entails being arrested for those who didn't know it), but due to the fact she is a dog, I was to be in her place. No handcuffs people, just had to take down my information, get my ID. The officer felt SO BAD. His dog had done the same thing. I cried and cried, I felt bad for the chickens, the lady who owned them (who we could not find), for Pele because she's just following her instincts and is not so sure why she's in trouble, for the roofers because they saw me just cry and cry and they hadn't meant to leave the gate open, and I didn't know what to do.

The owner of the chickens came home later today and I went and apologized to her and now that I'm several hours out of the incidence I can really laugh about it. I don't know if it's me or Pele who now has the criminal record. Either way, this will make for great memories. But I wonder if we ever take her across state lines would that make her a fugitive? Or me?

April Fools

Although some were predicting up to 12 inches (thank goodness it was much less), it did snow our first day of April. Katie told me how much she loves the snow. So do I, but I love it more in December and January than in April.

Katie is figuring out how to smile for the camera instead of scowl. Look at that beautiful grin. Here's miss Cora. I've started to put the twins' hair in pigtails on occasion, though they're more like little sparklers coming off their heads for how much they just stick up.

Sydney was a little more sad about the picture business.

And this is mana from heaven. The picture's not too swell, but a woman who goes to the same little kid play group we do decided she wanted to give me some of her daughter's old clothes. They are very nice clothes that were washed and carefully folded and brought me to tears. I'm constantly amazed at how much our Father in Heaven watches over us with the sweetest acts of mercy. Clothes shopping is one of my arch-nemesis. 1-I don't want to spend the money. 2-I have no idea how to look for clothes with the three little girls in tow. 3-I have no idea how to look for clothes FOR the three little girls (let alone myself). Picking out clothes, matching clothes, colors, any of that is WAY out of my comfort zone. I tend to gravitate towards things that look like mountains or fields - great for wall hangings, but not so much to wear. So when people hand us clothes that look so good on our daughters I want to cry out of gratitude.

On My Mind

Today I laughed and cried. A lot. Friday when Jeremy came home he was feeling pretty sick - stomach maybe flue-type sick. Then Cora threw up three times that night, then Katie threw up all over her bed at 1:30 in the morning. We were expecting Sydney and I to catch it, but we never did. Everyone seemed better enough Saturday in the evening. Jeremy was on call, but we had no problems here, so after Jeremy rested this morning we went to church. Our goal was to at least show up and go home with no injuries (it's a dangerous place with three little people). We spent all of Sacrament chasing the three in circles, but we got through it and thought we were OK. Fast forward to the last hour. Jeremy had rocked Sydney to sleep and I was chasing Cora in and out of class. Well, Sydney suddenly woke up and threw up all over Jeremy and the floor. He found me in the hallway, I handed Cora off to I don't even remember who and ran for paper towels to start cleaning them and the floor up. As we were doing that Sydney threw up again all over me and the floor. Jeremy had already used the girls coats to get what he could off the floor, I grabbed the first person I could for help to grab Katie as I hunted down Cora with a vomit covered Sydney in my arms. We cleaned up what we could and got out of there as fast as we could. Sydney threw up again on the way home. Once we were home she would be fine for about 10 minutes, then lose it again. We lost count after 12 times of this. I'm glad she has nothing left in her tummy so she should sleep through the night. I'm optimistic that tomorrow will bring better times. I can deal with a sick baby. But a sick baby with a toddler and another baby feels like a tragic comedy. This is a type of training in patience and compassion I never anticipated. Yet, I really can look on this and laugh, I just cry at the same time. Our weather is super sunny. I love that, but I'm hoping the temp will climb above freezing. It's a sneaky trick from mother nature. You look outside and it looks like the snow is melting. It looks warm. But it's frigid when you go out! However, I am so glad we're getting the longer, brighter days. I even see spots of grass in our once snow covered lawn. What other fun things have happened to us in March? After I posted about making yummy naan, we decided to try it with a chicken tika masala recipe. I should have paid attention that the recipe called for enough salt to kill a colony of slugs. It was SO SALTY!! Jeremy and I both felt like we'd swallowed gallons of ocean water for days. You could taste the salt three mornings later. Yuck. So much for my fancy cooking. I ran a 5K two Saturdays ago. The only way I've been able to get any running in prior to that is if Pele and I go at 5am. It is so hard to get out of your bed at 5! But the mornings I do it I love it. It's so peaceful, I can see the most beautiful stars, and I feel so much better during the day. Anyway, I ran the Shamrock Shuffle on the 19th. Jeremy was my hero and took the girls so I could do it. I was hopeful, but people kept passing me until the last half mile. I just kept going thinking, "oh, well. At least I'm out and doing it." So I was shocked when my time was just under 28 minutes! Then I realized I'd started in front of almost the whole lot of people running and I just kept getting smoked by the fast people. But I'm very proud of myself for what I was able to do. My knees held out (I had to get them checked out, get a couple of knee braces, and get some new PT exercises in January) and I got the T-shirt. I think that's half the part of thing, getting the T-shirt. Other thoughts on the month? Sydney and Cora can now both wave. Sydney's a bit more communicative than Cora. She can do the sign for airplane, ambulance, occassionally "more" and "please," and can get out "da-da." Cora just screams, rolls her tongue, and giggles. Katie picks up new songs and tells stories all the time. They have collectively broken our pantry door, several books, and a myriad of toys. We may be adding Jeremy's phone to the list after it got thrown up on today. We have yet to see how extensive the damage is. If anyone is still reading this, good job. That was a lot to get through. I think I better get to bed before any of the little people wake up sick again.

Photos for the Grandparents

This was looking out our kitchen window a few week ago. I'm SO glad that it's getting warmer!

Look, a diaper party. Don't ask me which one's which.

This was from some time last week. It was nice enough we decided to play with the remnants of last year's side-walk chalk. It's one of the few pictures of her smiling face.

This was today. We reached 56 the last time I looked at the thermometer. So out we went and I thought a wagon ride would get us a little farther than our shared driveway.

However, as cute as they were, this is what I got every time I tried to get them to look at me for a picture.

Nothing says spring fun like a puddle and a stick. Yes, those are pink boots.

She had to keep dancing with her stick in the air, then tell me she was "running amok."

Cora's action shot.

Sydney's having her fun time in the puddle.

And this is Sydney pointing out the helicopter.

Another action shot of the lovely ladies. Everyone was in tears when we had to come in. But I tell you what, there is something amazing about being able to move around outside for the fun of it, not just to keep warm.

The Gillywatt and Domesticity

No, a gillywatt's not from Harry Potter. It's an Arctic bird Jeremy and I learned about this last week. In the short summer of the Arctic it nests high on a cliff. When the eggs hatch Mama gillywatt dives 250 ft below the ocean surface and holds her breath for about 20 minutes to get the fish that her little babies need. Jeremy turned to me and said, "And you think it's tough to feed our girls." OK, so at least I don't have to work THAT hard, but they're also done caring for their young in about six months. (I make no claim of spelling the name right or the details right, I have a fuzzy memory.)

Though feeding time may be intense around here, I have branched out a little more with my food skills. In the last two weeks I added poppy seed dressing and naan (an Indian flat bread) to my list of homemade goodies. Though this made me feel relatively impressed with myself, the Lord has a good sense of humor.

I decided I need to make comforters for each of my three girls. I can sew Christmas stockings, so how hard could this be? Ha, ha, ha. I enlisted the help of a friend who is a good seamstress and she took me to look for material. I forgot that things like that include skills such as matching colors. This is not a strength of mine. I half froze in the fabric store, overwhelmed by how many choices and trying to figure out how to put colors together. So I have somewhat commenced on this VERY intimidating project to me. I'm hoping to be done by Christmas.

Let's just say that mastering the domestic skills is a baby step process for me. Sometimes I pity my girls for my lack of textile skills, but then I remember I can teach them how to build fires, cook some yummy food over a fire, use a compass, and tie some fine knots. I wonder what fun things they will teach me.....