8 Days a Week

Well Shad's ALMOST been working 8 days a week.  It's been a bit rough for the kids to come back from a long weekend with Dad in Colorado to...quality assurance being revamped and Shad's got mandatory overtime on Friday and Saturday for who knows how long?  At first, we thought that Shad's manager Mitch had stepped down from management and that Andrew had been the one to replace him.  Why did we think that? Because that's what Shad was told. But let's step back and explain some things that have been going on at Natoma for a while.  There is this one part that Natoma machines that has been causing back ups and loads of overtime since last summer.  Part of the problem is unrealistic promises with scheduling the production of the parts.  The timelines set just don't match up with what is actually possible.  So what really happened with Mitch is that someone asked him if he can't possibly get these parts finished up in QA any faster.  Mitch kind of blew up over that, given that he's been working 70 hours a week for months on end while his family and farm are falling apart.  Andrew's been working Fridays and Saturdays as well, and most of the rest of QA has been working Fridays.  These guys' typical schedules are Monday through Thursday 10 hours a day.  When Mitch got upset at being asked to get the work done faster, he got demoted.  He didn't step down, as Natoma told their employees.  Natoma also told everyone that the manager of the lathes side of the shop just up and quit, when in reality, he was told to get out when he gave his two weeks notice after working there for 13 years.  There have been a couple other people let go recently, as well.  Our friend, Adam, who we referred to Natoma, was fired for no reason after working 2 months.  Natoma practically BEGS their employees to refer friends to work there, promising a $750 bonus to the employee and referred hiree at 6 months and again at 12 months of the hiree's employment.  If they really want all these referals, they should treat them with a bit more respect.  And they hired a guy in the shipping department and then fired him after a couple weeks when they decided they didn't actually need him.  It just kind of irritates me that Natoma is starting to treat their employees like this when they really are in a period of growth and need to be working on GROWING their employee pool.  They already have a relatively high turnover rate, so why add on the negative light that firing and mistreatment brings?  I dunno.  It just bothers me and I'm done with my rant.

So the kids and I have been doing our best to stay happy and entertained with each other these two weeks that Shad's been working 56 hours.  Last week I didn't have any problems until noon on Saturday, and Shad got off at 2:30.  I just suddenly was out of patience and had to try to ride it out until 1:30 for naps.  We've done better this week.  The kids were really clingy to Shad last week, unwilling to let him out of their sight, even.  This week Tommy was very accepting of Shad needing to go to church on Wednesday night.  Luckily, just outside of town, Shad found out that the only young man who would be attending church that night was the one in the van WITH HIM, so they turned around and had their activity at our house.  So we even got to join in and share the time with Shad.

Shad and I tried to have a date Friday night.  We volunteered to work at the theater and then we watched Jack the Giant Slayer.  Or at least, the first half hour of it.  Half an hour into the movie, I got a call from our babysitter.  Tommy had thrown up.  Shad and I thought it'd be a one time thing, I'd get him cleaned up, put to bed and return to the movie.  But Tommy threw up several more times while I was there, so I called Shad to come home.  We finally got him settled down, mostly done throwing up and resting in bed enough to have Shad take the babysitter home.  Then we watched a movie at home, which is honestly more preferrable to me in this stage of my pregnancy anyway.  It's just so hard to try and be comfortable in movie theater seats.

On Sunday, we went out to the state park.  We walked the nature trail, which is somewhere between a mile and a mile and a half in distance.  Tom walked or ran the whole thing.  He only stopped when we made him to wait for Katie, who was determined to walk as well, but a bit slower.  She made it to the 3/4 mile marker before she gave out.  We had fun listening to the birds, watching geese fly to and from the lake, and saw a couple deer bound across the path not too far in front of us.  Then we played at the park in the campgrounds until the wind picked up too much and sent us home.  That weekend was also what is known as "trash swap" weekend.  Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were County Cleanup days, meaning that the city would pick up anything you have out on your curb.  We always drive around scavenging what's still usable.  We didn't come out with much this time, but we did find two window shutters.  I've been looking for a window shutter for a year now.  I'm going to hang it horizontally in my laundry room and put coat hooks on it for a coat rack.  I'm really excited, too, because since the shutters are already white, it's an entirely free project for me.  We already have the hooks from the coat rack that was in the laundry room from the last owners.

Sunday night, Shad and I ended the night with a delightful bowl of Cookies N Cream ice cream...and woke up around 4 am with food poisoning.  Great.  So Shad called in sick to work and I found someone to take the kids for a few hours in the morning.  We got blessings from the missionaries and our home teacher.  I had a good nap and was able to bounce back quickly.  Shad still felt bad the whole day and was slow to recover the next two days.

We had my cousin Michael and Uncle Dave stay at our house Wednesday night.  They left the next morning to continue their drive from Cincinnati to Utah.  Michael is going to BYU.  It was fun to see them, even if it was only for a couple hours.  Tommy was so sad to see them go in the morning.  He started crying even before they left.  He had loads of fun playing and chasing with Michael, doing the things he usually does with Shad--the games that I can't play because I'm pregnant and can't chase him in circles around the house or play Boom Bang.  Katie was very quiet in her high chair while I consoled Tom.  Turns out that she could reach the rubberband ball of hair ties that are on our bar.  She thought they made pretty good bracelets and was busy entertaining herself.

Katie's language is developing a lot.  She's combining more and more words to make phrases.  Even though it makes her sad to talk about it, she usually tells me in the morning, "Daddy work 'Toma.  Daddy back home."  Tommy watched Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on our way to Colorado, and has been singing his own version of the dwarves' work song--"My Ho, My Ho."  So...he's either a pimp, or a gardener.  We're leaning toward gardener.

We're all excitedly anticipating the arrival of our new daughter, who has already gestated longer than Katie did.  Crazy to think that yesterday was as far as I made it in my pregnancy with Katie.  Tomorrow will be 37 weeks.  And I've finally entered the stage of the hip widening.  Best I can describe it is that it feels like I'm a roast chicken and someone is pulling my drumstick off.  It stops me in my tracks and makes me double over sometimes.  But we're almost through.

Today we've had a busy, but productive and fun day.  We played in the front yard after breakfast.  There's a truck and ditch witch in our neighbor's yard running fibers down our street, so I asked them where things are in our yard so we know where not to plant fruit trees when we get around to that.  Deaira, our new Parents as Teachers representative, came for a home visit and told us that the program is ending July 1 due to lack of funding.  So we'll only see her one more time because I'm not scheduling anything next month.  She usually brings age-appropriate developmental activities for the kids, but this time she brought things from the age group ahead of them because everything else has been too easy.  Tom got a challenge today.  Then we had a picnic lunch with Shad at Natoma.  We went to Dollar General to pick up seed starting soil.  I've determined that I'm awful at starting seeds directly outdoors (my March planting has produced nothing) because I'm not good enough at watering multiple times a day to keep the seeds moist so they can actually sprout.  It's particularly hard to water on these windy spring days when the wind pretty much makes it impossible.  So starting seeds inside should be a better way for me to go.  We also went all around town trying to find a farmer's almanac.  Seems that no one has it.  They just have gardeners guides, which are not the same at all.  We had a park date with Mallory and her kids, and didn't get down for naps until around 2:30, just minutes before Shad came home.  Now it's time to go decide what to do with our evening:)

Colorado Trip

I'm supposed to be compiling my grocery list for the month while the kids are napping right now so that when they wake up we can go to the store and get cucumbers and bananas like I promised.  But instead, I feel like blogging.  I'd cross my fingers that I can get both done during naptime, but my fingers are otherwise employed.  Oh well.

Mallory and I got our freezer meals done.  It took us two days to do it, plus a third for the shopping.  Not exactly how we'd planned.  Okay, nothing like what we planned, but it happened and that's really all that matters.  We had 5 kids to work with, so that's why it took so long.  The first day had me on my feet for about 6 hours straight, and that really took a toll on my body.  Standing up and walking was pretty difficult, but stairs were next to impossible.  The second day, I did pretty much everything sitting down.  And then I spent the next 3 or 4 days on my butt to recover.  Anyhow, I now have...okay well I forgot to count but something like 20 meals in my freezer that I'm saving for May and June.  I have a little bit more that I'd like to do, but nothing big like what we already did.  Just a batch of calzones and breakfast burritos.  And maybe some waffles, too.

Last week was a little rough for me.  We were leaving for Colorado on Thursday afternoon, so that meant that every day before then I was working to get us and our house ready for that.  Tuesday was cold and gloomy, and when the kids made it near impossible to get anything done, I decided it'd be better to give up. We chose to cuddle on the couch with blankets, hot chocolate and Little Women instead.

By the time the movie ended and we had a snack, the kids didn't go down for naps until 4:20! So that meant that I didn't have any down time or, more importantly for my sanity, any alone time except for the 15 minutes until Shad got home.  Then we went to Paul and Mallory's for dinner and games.  We had to change from our regular Thursday night to Tuesdays.  My brain is still trying to refigure the days of my week now.  The kids have a new way of playing "horsey" since I can't be a horse and Shad would rather not have a 30 pound Tommy on his back.  It's pretty cute seeing Tom be the horse now and run around with Katie on his back!

Wednesday, Shad decided to call in sick so that he could rest and get over a head cold that started on Tuesday.  He didn't want to deal with that all weekend in Colorado.  However, that only added to my stress.  I know how sick days go for our family--it means I have 3 people needing me to take care of them, less help, and trying to keep the kids away from Shad so that he can rest.  They're usually pretty stressful days.  Add on top of that the fact that I still had laundry and some cleaning to do...and that I had yet another day without any alone time...I had a good emotional breakdown at 8 pm.  Oh, and those two days for some reason experienced the bad combination of me wanting personal physical space, and the kids desperately wanting to climb all over me and poke me in the face all day.  The more they tried to get to me, the more I wanted my space and pushed them away.  The more I pushed them away, the more they wanted to be on me.  It was awful.  Anyway, when I had my breakdown where I just cried and couldn't do anything to stop it, Tom climbed up on me (that didn't help anything) to stroke my cheek and tell me, "It's okay, sweetheart! Don't be sad.  Be brave like Hiccup!"  It was nice and made me laugh, but still I just wanted him off me more than anything.  Shad put the kids to bed for me and then washed dishes, all while still feeling crummy.  He's the best!

Thursday was much better after that emotional release.  I got everything done that I needed, though a bit behind schedule.  We left an hour later than desired, but still got to Jared's in time to drop off my ring before they closed, and made it to my parents' house by 9 for a short visit.  All weekend any time we had to leave my parents' house to go somewhere else, Tommy would cry and say he needed Grandma's house back.  He just didn't feel like any amount of time was sufficient.  We stay at Shad's brother's place instead of my parents' house because of Shad's pet allergies.  Tom will like it in July when we go out again because my mom PROMISED that the kids could sleep at her house so I don't have to deal with all 3 kids (one being a few weeks old) in Dan's living room with me for a weekend.  We're not going otherwise, so just remember, Mom!

Tom and Katie definitely play the favorites game with their grandparents.  There's no denying that Tom prefers Grandma and Katie prefers Grandpa.  Tom loved cooking on the kitchen set for Grandma and serving her "dinner."  She also told me that he gave  her a haircut.  Tom's given me a haircut before, but it was with play scissors.  Apparently the haircut he gave Grandma was with buzz cutters (a plastic spatula from the kitchen set)!  He made all the right sounds and motions going up the side of her head and then put his hand over her face to shield her eyes and gently brushed the hairs off her head!

Katie sat on Grandpa's lap and tried looking for the cat's ears.  She didn't recognize cat ears and was looking for human ears.  When she couldn't find them, she concluded, "Ears all gone."  We educated her on cat ears at that point.

 

We ran all our errands on Friday, which involved buying paint at Home Depot for 4 rooms! Holy cow, that was shelling out some dough, but we're excited.  Our walls look like crap from the previous owners and it doesn't wash off.  We lucked out with a seriously great find though--a 5 gallon bucket on clearance for $30!!  We found a color that would work with that base and that we happened to need a lot of.  Score!  Then we met up with Shad's best friend, Jason, and Dan for lunch at Olive Garden.  Shad and I each had the Chicken Gnocchi Soup, which is something that I've made before and we decided that we definitely like mine better.  I did a lot to lighten it up (it's a heavy soup loaded with fat), and used potatoes instead of gnocchi because I forgot to make the gnocchi in time.  Turns out that that was a fantastic substitute because the gnocchi was kind of gross.  We got to see our friend Chris, as well.  It had been a long time since we'd seen him and we're so glad we got to!  Then we went back to Dan's place for the evening to hang out with him and Ryan.

Ryan and Katie were good buddies at Chris' house, watching Toy Story and playing with toys together.

 

And getting comfy on the floor:)

Saturday we went to my friend Sharley's house to get my hair cut before leaving the kids with her for us to go to the temple.  This time I was much more specific as to the length I wanted, and it even came out shorter! No problem with that.  Sharley was a bit worried, but I love having her cut my hair because she knows what I like as well as the personality of my hair.  She did a great job.  Tom had a hard time with it for a couple days.  He kept looking at me and saying we needed to get my hair fixed.  He seems okay with it now though.  Here's a picture of the haircut with an 8 month belly.  It'll be 8 months tomorrow!

We had a great time at the temple for Lori's endowments.  My dad was able to go, too, which was awesome. Okay, it was more than that.  I have been looking forward to going to the temple with my dad for years.  And even more so every day this month knowing that it was finally going to happen.  I love my dad and it meant so much to me to finally be able to go and have him there too.  We went to Deseret Book after the temple and got some nice wall art that we've been wanting for a while.  It's nice to catch those things on great sales and clearances!  Then we picked up boba for us and Lori, had dinner with my family and went to the Bailey's for games.  We love our Bailey friends!  Tom and Katie just got to watch movies and play by themselves...or try to join the adult games...because Isaac and Jon went to bed just before we got to their house at 7.  They were exhausted after 2 days of no naps and then Isaac's birthday party.  We stayed until...11:45.  So it was a really late night, but we had a lot of fun with our friends.

 We went to church with my parents and Lori Sunday morning.  Tom went to Grandma immediately and Katie bounced between Grandpa and Lori's lap, landing on mine only once to get a closer look at a baby sitting in front of me.  After sacrament meeting Shad and I came out from visiting in the chapel and saw the kids and grandparents sitting together.  We didn't try too hard for a looking and smiling picture.  It was clear that wasn't really going to happen.  So here are the two candids that came out well.

 

 

 

This week so far has just been catching up on laundry.  There's a lot of it between what naturally needs done, and what we bought at the thrift store in Colorado.  And those loads of laundry?  All loaded by Tom and Katie.  Voluntarily without me asking.  In fact, it was begging on their part!  On Monday Tom noticed that his fish wasn't in the bowl.  I explained to him that his fish was at the missionaries' house so that they could feed the fish while we were in Colorado.  He understood, but was very adamant that they needed to bring his fish back.  When they came later that day for games and dinner, he was soooo happy to sit and watch Two swim, and occasionally hug the fish bowl.  Oh, this might also be a good time to finally write about something that I don't think I've ever written about--our current betta fish.  The fish that my parents brought to us in February 2012 died in August when we went to Utah...a day after we passed him into someone else's hands for babysitting.  His name was Bm Bm (because that's the sound Tom reported that a fish makes).  When we got our replacement fish, I asked Tom what this fish's name was.  He said, "Two."  He's so good at naming his fish!

Here's a video from lunch time today.  Tom still loves his Call Me Maybe song.
http://youtu.be/XGzgWhyOgrw

 

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Pictures I found on my phone:

 

Tom playing with his drum as he viewed from the animal marching band on Disney's Robin Hood.  This was a proud moment for me.  After this picture he went and found a couple of his hammers to use as mallets because who knows where the drumsticks went?

 

During conference, Tom decided to stand up by the tv and repeat, word for word, President Eyring's talk.  Not the whole thing, but he kept it up for a good while and did a good job.

 

 

Meanwhile, Katie decided that her shorts were pockets and started stuffing them with crayons.  It was funny to watch her then try to stand and walk.  She'd say, "Uh oh!" when they'd all drop out, plop herself down and load up to try again.  She never got tired of it and she never got frustrated and upset.

 

After conference, Shad and I wanted to play some ping pong.  So did the kids.  So we set them up with their own ping pong table and they tried to play together.

 

On one of our Subway outtings, Tom finished off the crumbs out of the bag of chips he shared with me, so Katie, naturally, needed to do the same.

 

And then she and Shad gave me this picture and I just can't get over the coordination of their faces!

Well, time to head off for tea and popcorn.  Bis spater!

 

Katie's Prayers

Ugh, if I could ever remember everything I want to write when I sit down to write, that would be the day.  Katie has started praying.  Shad usually helps her say bedtime prayers because Tom requests that I help him with his, but last night she started her very own and I distinctly heard, "Thank you Grandma Grandpa."  What a sweet girl.  One night when I was still getting her pajamas on, she was too excited to wait.  After saying, "Pray? Pray? Pray?" she grabbed my hands to stop what I was doing and squatted down on the floor so she could pray. She's also started taking turns with prayers for meals.  The other day she was so excited for lunch (I think it was black bean quesadillas), that she ran to her high chair and jabbered a prayer and ended with "Amen."  She repeated it a couple times til I got there to help her.  She's really good at repeating words we say.

Teeth and Dragon Poops

TOTALLY forgot to update Tommy's potty training.  It's pretty much complete.  I gave him his Peter Pan movie on Sunday after he had earned 7 stickers for pooping on the toilet.  It was supposed to be 10, but he was so excited about getting it that I couldn't tell him, "No, you need 3 more stickers."  And he's more than earned those stickers.  Most of the time I tell him when it's been a while (roughly 24 hrs) and make him push it out, but on Wednesday night when I was cleaning the church, he told me he had to poop on the potty.  I wasn't quite fast enough in my response to him, and he pressed, "MOM, will you please help me?!" He successfully made it to the bathroom (luckily that was where I was cleaning at the time).  Upon inspecting it afterward, he exclaimed, "It's just like a shaushage!" (sausage)  He was so proud to run down the halls of the church and tell anyone he saw that he pooped on the potty.  Last week after a successful poo, he ran to tell Shad, "Daddy, I pooped on the potty for YOU! It's a dragon poop!"  It was his biggest up to that point.

Can you believe we started potty training 4 weeks ago?! To all those who supplied negative and pessimistic support telling me how hard or impossible it would be, eat that.  I won't tell you when Katie is potty training until she's done with it because I don't need that crap.  But she is starting to seem jealous of Tom's new skills and praises, and loves to sit on her own potty every time anyone goes to the bathroom.

And then there's Katie's language.  Holy cow, I just cannot get over this girl's language skills.  Seriously, that is my favorite area of development with both kids.  It just excites me and thrills me to pieces.  Maybe it comes from my time teaching English in China and drawing parallels to teaching my own kids to speak English.  Anyway, I already wrote about how she says, "I got it!" The phrase that preceded that was, "Get it."  She also says stop.  Just yesterday she told me, "Stop it.  Wait a minute!" Complete with holding her hand out toward my face.  On Wednesday, she was wandering the halls at church and found our friend Catrina.  When Catrina asked Katie to come over and see her, Katie got cold feet and asked for me.  Catrina asked where I was and Katie turned down the hall and said, "Follow me."  Really?! Dang, little girl!  I've never heard that one before!

Also, Katie cut her 3rd tooth 2 weeks ago and is working on the 4th to go with it.  Congrats, little girl, on getting your 3rd tooth.  It's not like you're 17 months old or anything...

Happy Easter!

I meant to write this on Sunday...and then Monday...and then I just knew it wasn't going to happen yesterday.  So here we are on Wednesday and hopefully I can get this started and finished in the same day, unlike my last post that took me a week to complete.  Hate it when that happens.  But first, some lost and found pictures and videos:

Bedtime pirates brushing teeth.  They thought it was awesome.

 

Tom so excited to finally be on our way to Nana's house...and Katie was passed out before we'd been on the road 5 minutes.

 

Every time we go to Shopko, Tom has to play with all The Avengers toys.  This is an Iron Man mask.

 

Katie playing the piano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWAr7YGaEOA

 

And a Sunday night dance party:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NH-f1bZlKM

 

 We had a fun evening on Tuesday.  After dinner at Subway, we got out Kansas State Parks pass so we can start going out to the lake.  Then we got a car wash, which was really exciting for the kids.  We thought it'd be a good idea to go out to the lake, but when we got there, found that it was 40 degrees and windy.  Tom wasn't fazed by this.  He looked like a little Rocky running in his sweatpants and beanie.  He ran over a quarter mile, telling Shad to, "Run, Dad! Come on!"  When he made it back to the van before Katie and I did (she was walking), he turned back and told Shad that we needed help.  So he ran back to us and held my other hand to help us get back to the van.  What a stud!  He'll love it these coming warm days if I can handle taking us down to the track for him to run.

 

Wednesday turned out to be a full fun day for us.  I had planned to have Tom and Katie help me pick up and clean the house, but that didn't happen.  Instead, I got a call in the morning from Deb Keiswetter.  She's a friend in our ward who has brain damage from an accident years ago, so speech and communication are difficult for her, especially over the phone.  She said she didn't know who to call, but that she needed help.  After about 5 minutes, I came to the conclusion that it sounded like she needed help calling the eye doctor to set up an appointment.  She confirmed that that's what she needed.  So we set out to help her.  Tom was all action when I told him that our friend Deb needed help.  "We'll go right now.  Get our shoes and jackets! Deb needs help! We go help Deb!"  When we got there, it turned out that that was not the help she needed, but that she was overwhelmed to tears with the task of cleaning her house.  Honestly, anyone would be.  They have some slight hoarding going on there.  So, not exactly a Tom and Katie friendly environment, but we helped nonetheless.  Tom got down on hands and knees to help Deb sweep the entryway.  He was such a good helper.  Because of Tom's willingness to serve, and it being his first opportunity to do so, I wanted to give some good positive reinforcement.  I took them out to McDonald's for lunch.  Oh, what a treat!  As we were finishing our meal, our friend Adam came in.  He's the one who was in Kuwait for a year and just got home before Christmas.  He's also a friend who Shad referred to Natoma in January, got hired, and we just found out on Monday that they let him go...just because.  They even made stuff up.  So it was good to have been there to help give him a pick-me-up for his day.  Tom and Katie always brighten his mood.  We talked with him while he ate his food, and got a bonus shake out of it because McDonald's messed up his shake and gave him another one done right even though he told them not to worry about it.  Tom saw that Adam already had a shake, so therefore this second one must be for him.  He grabbed the straw and helped himself, then took turns sharing sips with Katie.  Tom decided afterwards that we needed to go to the park.  Sure, why not.  As long as he pooped on the toilet first, was my condition.  He followed through.  We ended up being gone from home...from about 10 to 3:30.  I didn't get the kids down for naps until 3:45.  And then when they woke up we had dinner (that they decided not to eat) before going to Phillipsburg for Shad's young men's activity and the Primary Easter egg hunt...where the kids overate on candy.  Candy for dinner=baths and laundry in the morning because Katie threw up in the night.

 

Shad told me Thursday evening that he wanted to have a movie date with me.  So we went to Redbox and got Men In Black 3, then to Dollar General for some movie treats.  I love my husband.  We got the kids to bed and had a very fun night with comfortable seating for a pregnant lady who is feeling it more and more every day.

 

We babysat Haddie, Eden and Micaiah Friday night.  It was a fun play time.  Tom and Katie were finishing their dinner when the kids arrived and it was all Katie could do to get out of her seat fast enough when she saw Micaiah.  She even threw a couple pieces of her pizza to the floor.  Tom gave her a good scolding, then got on the floor himself with Micaiah.

I can't remember if Tom told me he was being a pirate or a dragon to Micaiah...

 

Two videos of Tom playing with Micaiah:

http://youtu.be/6Z4ppg0kc70

http://youtu.be/VSJDD66Lq2A

I hate how my camera won't let me zoom out in video mode once I've zoomed in!

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We went for a walk to the park, but found it was closed due to stock car races.  So we played on the hill next to the 4-H building because it has a good view of half the track.  The kids loved seeing "Lightning McQueen" race.  It was a car that was half red, and they decided it was him.  Walking to and from the park was interesting.  We took our double and single stroller (haven't gotten our scavenged triple stroller fixed yet) and had two kids walking on the side of the double, holding on.  We had five kids under the age of 4 and I'm pretty pregnant.  We got some funny looks!

 

The nursery leaders were letting Katie sneak in early for the third hour of church, but that got shut down on Sunday.  No worries, we won't be there the next 2 Sundays and then she's legal anyway!  However this Sunday when I got pulled out of Relief Society to change Katie's diaper, they were going to send her back with me unless I stayed in nursery with her.  She had already heard that they were going outside to blow bubbles, so it was impossible for me to return to my class.  She had so much fun playing with the older kids and blowing bubbles.  She's enjoying her new found freedom and playtime in nursery.  So much so that she fell asleep mid graham cracker on the way home from church.  I always know it's a serious thing when she falls asleep in the middle of food!

 

 

We had a nice relaxed Easter.  No eggs, no candy except for a few jelly beans earned by Tom pooping on the toilet.  We talked about our Savior and gave them baskets of pool noodle lightsabers, Hulk books, aprons (IOUs from Christmas), Aladdin, and goldfish.  Oh, and a tie for Tom that I made.  He was so excited to find out that Shad had a matching one.  I've decided that I need to start wearing an apron more in the kitchen because the kids weren't impressed with theirs.  What would have had them really excited is oven mitts, but I haven't gotten those done yet.  I've seen them use stray mittens and socks when cooking in their kitchen.  After church, naps and dinner (Tom actually tried and liked the ham!), we went for a walk in the gorgeous weather.  We visited Miss Rosalie, our adopted librarian grandma, for a little bit.  She wasn't feeling very well.  Since the walk to the park where Tom got to hold on to the side of the stroller and walk, neither kid wanted to ride for the beginning of our walk.  That was fine because we're always happy to help them exhaust their energy.  In fact, Tom was relatively overwhelmingly in my face with his excitement and energy on Monday, so I had him run laps in the living room until he was ready to stop.  He was much calmer after that!

 

Saturday was supposed to be my all-day freezer meal extravaganza with Mallory.  We had planned to do our shopping and prepping all in the same day...but she forgot that she couldn't do that on Saturday.  It's probably a good thing for me that that was the case because after 4 hours yesterday and another 2 to finish up today, my body is feeling pretty beat up.  I've decided I definitely need to start slowing down...after today.  I'd much rather slow down than land myself with bed rest or another early baby.

 

Speaking of baby, my little girl seems to have grown up over night.  She has worn 3-6 month size clothes all winter without a problem.  About a month ago, they started to look like capris and 3/4 length sleeves though.  I stalled switched her wardrobe because I didn't want to switch up to a bigger size of winter clothes and then a month later have to switch out the winter clothes for spring and summer clothes.  And that worked until last week when things started being snug at the snaps.  When I went through the next size boxes, I found that we were skipping 6-9 and 9-12 month clothes.  Going from 3-6 month to 12-18 month clothes is a huge style change! Suddenly she's wearing little girl clothes and not baby clothes anymore!  And she's started saying her first sentence: "I got it!"  It's very clear and enunciated.

 

Don't know if I've left anything out or not, but it's time to get ready to head out to church.  We're all going tonight because it's our turn to clean the building.