Moab

We snuck in a quick trip to Moab this week, with Nonny & Poppa and Brittiny, Brooklyn, and Braden. The weather was very cooperative and the redrock was as beautiful as ever. The kids were good little troopers on the hikes; on the first evening we took a stroll to North and South Window:

Anna told me, "Look, I'm a stywish baby."

North Window

South Window

Turret Arch

After the Windows, we went up to Devil's Kitchen to see how far we could get before the kids ran out of steam. We made it to Landscape Arch, probably the second most "famous" arch in the park, and a even more spectacular by morning than evening, I'm told:

Thursday morning we walked out to Broken Arch. This hike quickly became a favorite: a soft, sandy trail with terrain flat enough for the kids to handle, through beautiful changing scenery. We saw tracks of bighorn sheep, a flock of blue birds chasing each other over and around and through the fins of red rock, and yellow horsetail and silvery-green juniper bushes dotting the landscape, all under a bowl of brilliant blue sky.

Jared had gone ahead with the girls, with Brittiny and Mom and me a few hundred yards behind. As the arch came into view, I was surprised to see somebody standing on top of it. . .hang on, that "somebody" was my husband!


Not to be outdone, Brittiny and I climbed to the top too. We were a little less adventurous, though, and weren't willing to stand quite so close to the edge:


Dad had stayed behind to wait for Braden to finish his nap in the car. By the time they caught up with the rest of us, we were ready to head out, so we left Dad at the base of the arch and started down the trail. A few minutes later we looked back--and of course, now Dad was standing on top of the arch.



"Pussycats always stay together when it's far". I have no clue just how it got started, but this is something Elizabeth and Brooklyn kept telling each other on the hikes. They were so delighted to be together that we probably could've marched them across Siberia and they wouldn't have complained. Every time we got out of the car and they saw each other, they'd shriek and run together for a big bear hug. I'm surprised Brooklyn didn't break her nose, crashing into Elizabeth's sternum every time they reunited.

After a morning of hiking, we stopped to eat lunch and let the kids do a little climbing of their own:

Aww, look at that cute family! (At least one couple thought we were all one nuclear family, until Jared set them straight. I guess it must be confusing when you see four kids who look like they're the right ages to be a set of siblings, plus two adults who could pass for either grandparents or parents, and then three other adults--one of whom is short enough to mistaken for a teenager and the other two who look more like siblings than husband and wife. Jared said something about how with Brandon back at home, maybe other people had thought Brittiny and I were both his wives--till I pointed out that Brittiny is WAY too pretty to be a polygamist:



Thursday evening Jared stayed at the hotel with the girls while the rest of us hiked to Delicate Arch. Dang, I can't believe people are willing to do this hike in July. Insane. You spend the first half-mile trekking up a steep hill of slickrock, with no shade in sight. Even on a cool day with the sun low in the horizon, I was feeling pretty warm. After you schlep up the hill, you've got another half-mile to cross of much easier terrain. The last hundred yards or so take you on a narrow ledge overlooking an enormous sandstone canyon:

Then you turn the corner, and voila:


Suddenly I got why Delicate Arch is on our license plate, on the front page of the Utah tourism site, in every "Scenes of Utah" calendar ever printed. . .Up-close and in person, it really is spectacular.


By Friday, the weather had turned cold and stormy--it even started to snow as we packed up the cars and headed out to Dead Horse Point. I remember being both horrified of the name and terrified of the dropoff at Dead Horse Point when I was a little girl. Dad had to promise that yes, there was a fence, and no, nobody was going to fall off the edge, before I agreed to get out of the car to take a look. I'm afraid Elizabeth was equally reticent about the overlook, though for her it was simply because it was so darned COLD. We ran out to take a quick peek and snap some photos before dashing back to the warmth of the car.

The classic "Dang it, we just paid $10 and drove 30 minutes to get to this site of scenic wonder and we're going to take a picture in front of it, I don't care HOW cold it is" pose.

We got back from our trip Friday evening, just in time to have dinner with the rest of the family and pretend to be surprised when Brandon showed up late that night, having flown in from Newark as a surprise for Brittiny and the kids. As it turns out, the news had slowly leaked out and everyone knew he was coming, but they didn't know everyone else knew. Regardless, we were happy that he made it out for the rest of the visit.

Stagestruck

Ever since Elizabeth started her ballet lessons, we've been looking forward to the big night when she would perform in the studio's production of Swan Lake. When the big night came, I was a little worried that she might get stage fright and back out at the last minute--but to my surprise, it turns out that this kid LOVES the spotlight. She pranced onto the stage with a huge grin plastered to her face, and as you can see (she's in the very middle of the group on the left), she was a little reluctant to leave even after her turn was over:

The performance was a lot of fun, even for Hailey and Anna. Anna was especially taken by the fog machine that would turn on whenever the evil sorceress came onstage: "Look Mommy, dere's da suh-MOKE!" The entire production left quite an impression on her; she still talks about it and asks me to draw "a ballerina wif da suh-MOKE and da moon".

Afterward, Elizabeth greeted her adoring fans. Aunt Sarah and Nonny even brought her flowers, lucky girl.

Despite having a fabulous time at the performance, Elizabeth says she wants to try something new, like gymnastics. I guess in her mind she's already conquered the whole ballet "thing". Well, whatever you choose to do, kiddo, we love you and are very proud of you!

The family who paints together, stays together

When Jared and I began dating, one of the things that really attracted to me was his "can do" attitude. He loves nothing more than hunkering down and fixing a problem--be it a bug in a computer program, a car that won't run, or a home improvement project. So it was no surprise to me that when we started looking for our second house, the place that Jared (and I) fell in love with was one that needed a lot of work.

It's been three years now since we bought this house. Three years of fixing faulty electrical work, overhauling the landscaping, ripping out moldy drywall, and dreaming big. It seems like for every one project that gets crossed off the to-do list, three more are added. A few weeks ago, we tackled something that's been on the list since we moved in: painting Elizabeth's room. (See, we didn't paint it when we first moved in, because Jared needed to do some rewiring--which entailed cutting holes in the wall for the new outlets. Then the holes needed to be patched, mudded, re-textured. . .you get the point.)

Elizabeth was very, very excited for this project--ever since I mentioned it to her, she'd started coming up with great color scheme ideas: "How about we paint one wall pink, one wall green, one wall blue, and the ceiling purple?" I gradually talked her into picking just one color from the curtains I'd bought for the room, and we made the requisite trip to the paint counter. Back at home, we gathered up our paint rollers, cranked the tunes, and went to work.

I was a little worried about having a 5-year-old slinging paint on the wall, but as it turns out, Elizabeth is a very conscientious and neat painter. Neater than me, for sure. (Those of you who've painted with me know that's not saying much.) Her enthusiasm petered out after a couple of CDs, though, and she left me to finish up while she hung out with Anna. When I took a break, I found them snuggled together on the Poang chair:

(Don't be too fooled by the display of sisterly affection. This was about 30 seconds before the pinch-fest began.)

We got their room put back together before the day was out, and the girls were giddy with excitement. Okay, so was I--I'd bought those curtains almost 3 years ago, and it was exciting to finally see the room all come together. All that's left to do now is to procure (build, maybe?) some real beds for the girls. . .and revamp the closet. . .and paint the door. . .and hang some artwork. . .and get some curtains for the other window. . .

Punchline

Overheard today:

Elizabeth: "Hey, Anna, let's tell knock-knock jokes!"
Anna: "Okay."
E: "Knock-knock"
A: "Who's dere?"
E: "Banana."
A: "Banana who?"
E: "Banana water I'm going away."
A: (laughing)
E: "Did you like that joke? I made it up."
A: "Yeah. An' I made it down."

Alchemy

We made some heart-shaped crayons for Elizabeth to give to her friends for Valentine's Day. I think we'd better attach a note explaining what they are; when I handed one to Anna she immediately asked, "Can I eat this?" I must admit, the brown ones do look pretty tasty.

2009: An alphabetical summary

I feel bad that our blog was a little neglected last year. We have early church this year, so I'm looking forward to spending Sunday afternoons keeping the blog nice and current (as much for us as for you guys. This blog has become my primary form of "record-keeping" for our family.) Anyway, I thought I'd do a recap of 2009 to bring this up to speed. . .and so I could post a bunch of pics I meant to share but never got around to posting:

A is for Annalise. She turned 2 this past summer, and she's got the whole toddler thing down pat. She's our little clown, loving to pull funny faces and act out (especially at dinner) in an attempt to get us to laugh.


Anna loves to "read" her books, sing to herself as she puts together puzzles, and narrate the escapades of her stuffed animals in stuffy-nosed but still adorable falsetto. One of the funniest exchanges I've had with her this year is as follows:
Anna: "Mommy, abbo tees."
Me: "What? What do you want?"
Anna: "Abbo tees!"
Me: (still clueless) "Uhhh, can you show me?"
Anna: (pointing at the refrigerator) "Abbo TEES, Mommy! Abbo TEES!"
Me: (racking my brain for some food that sounds remotely like "abbo tees") "Umm, apples? You want some apple, uh, T's?")
Anna: (sobbing) "ABBO TEES!! ABBO TEES!!"
Me: (light bulb goes on) "Ohhhhh. . .cheese? 'How about cheese?' "
Anna: (relieved, yet mildly disgusted by my idiocy) "Yeah! Abbo tees."


B is for basement. We kept plugging away at the basement overhaul through the year. By the end of 2009, demolition was just about finished. I'm hoping that we'll be ready to put away the sledgehammer and pick up a framing gun soon.

C is for cousins. We love the cousins, all. . .hold on, gotta add them up. . .seventeen of them. When the newest cousin (Jay and Lisa's baby Ella) joined the crew this summer, we got to have her big brother and sister, Madi and Jordan, sleep over. We had a fabulous time partying with the kiddos:

D is for dentist. At our last visit, we found out that our little Anna Boo's teeth are basically rotting out of her head. Okay, minor exaggeration. But she does have quite a few cavities. Enough that I'm pretty sure I can add the "Poor Hygiene" patch to my Bad Mom merit badge sash.

E is for Elizabeth. She's growing by leaps and bounds. She loves going to preschool, inviting friends over for playdates, and going to ballet:

She's also a super little reader and writer--she reads anything and everything these days, from a stack of picture books to the back of the cereal box. . .and we never know when we'll come across a little note that she's written:

(She taped this to our bathroom door, in reference to a family joke. I always call the girls "my chickens". Put a couple of chickens into a tub of hot water, and what do you get? Chicken soup, of course.)

I've really enjoyed Elizabeth this past year--this is a wonderful age, if only for the great conversations you can have with kids at this age. Here's a recap of a conversation I had with her awhile ago:
Elizabeth: "I loooove chocolate ice cream! I love it more than ANYTHING."
Me: "Oh, so do you love chocolate ice cream more than. . .me?"
Elizabeth: (pause) "No. . .I just love you. . .the same as I love chocolate ice cream."
(I'm comparing that conversation with this one and trying to decide. . .am I pulling ahead or falling behind? Is chocolate ice cream more or less than "a hundred"?)
F is for finger paint, that staple of art projects for the 2-and-under crowd that, by cruel coincidence of nature, has a texture and consistency nearly identical to pudding:



G is for graduation. In June, Elizabeth's preschool held a graduation ceremony to congratulate the kids on surviving the rigors of their first year of preschool. Say what you will, but they did look pretty cute in their mortarboards.

H is for Holly. Somewhere between grocery-shopping and laundry, I did manage to get a few other things done. . .I even ran my first 5K!

I is for ice. It was a hot, hot summer, and we indulged in more than a few sno-cones. (Has anyone ever actually eaten an entire sno-cone? My girls just suck them dry of the syrup, like sticky little vampires, then leave the rest to fuse into a tasteless and inedible ball of ice.)

J is for Jared. When he's not hard at work on base, you can find him at home operating a variety of heavy machinery:

K is for Khaki Shade, the color we chose to paint the upstairs. And it only took me three months and seven sample swatches to pick. We painted the living room/kitchen/hallways/stairwell. And the ceiling. Two coats. Plus primer. Don't forget the baseboards. And the eight doorways. And the crown molding. Whew! Before we painted, Jared redid all the electrical outlets in the living room, patched up the ceiling, and put in recessed lights in the living room and new light fixtures in the kitchen--once we got it all painted, the upstairs started to look pretty darn good!
L is for laundry. I just realized that I did about 300 loads of laundry in 2009. Somewhere around load #195, I had a flash of inspiration: just let the girls wear their swimsuits 24/7 and have them run through the sprinklers when they get dirty. Synergy, my friends. Synergy.


M is for marriage. We celebrated our seventh anniversary in July of 2009. Jared was out of town on business, and I'm sure we intended to go out to celebrate once he got home, but I'm now realizing that we never did get around to it. That sounds about right for us--to be totally honest, we're both pretty happy spending a quiet evening together at home. But honey, if you're reading this, just because I admitted to that doesn't give you carte blanche to forget Valentine's Day. ;)

N is for nursery. Jared and I served for the better part of 2009 as the nursery leaders in our ward. We were released a few months ago, and while I was really, really looking forward to getting to go back to Relief Society, I'm rather missing those little monkeys. All 15 of them.

O is for October, so I can post gratuitous Halloween pictures.


P is for princesses. At Elizabeth's request, for her 5th birthday we had a "princess party", complete with the classic Barbie-in-a-cake cake.Don't ask what's up with the skirt. I was just glad to get it done before the guests start arriving.


Q is for quiet. . .or rather, the lack thereof. Now that Anna can say more than "goggy" (doggy) and "dit" (binky), the girls keep up a near-constant stream of conversation with each other, with me, with their toys. . .

R is for retaining wall. Jared spent the better part of the summer and fall putting in a stone retaining wall in our backyard. At the risk of sounding the fool and stating the obvious, rocks are really, really heavy. Thank goodness for the Frankentractor (see "T is for. . .") and for strong in-laws.

S is for is for sisterhood. It's been so interesting to watch the girls' relationship develop as they grow older. I'll admit, this past year was MUCH harder than the previous in terms of sibling relations. Anna is no longer content to just be a "prop" in Elizabeth's play world; she's got very definite opinions of what she wants to do. That's been hard for Elizabeth, who ALSO has very definite opinions of how she wants things to go. And Anna is old enough now to know just how to push her sister's buttons--and takes great delight in doing so. About half of the time they play beautifully together, and it's simply heartwarming to watch. They'll make up games to play together, Elizabeth will read stories to Anna, Anna will wrap her arms around Elizabeth for a big hug. . .Then there's the other half of the time, when I find myself wishing for a couple of extra-large dog crates with locking doors. Ahhh, sisterhood.




T is for tractor. Jared built a frame so he could add the backhoe attachment to the back of the tractor--once that was done, he was more eager than ever to start digging up the backyard. All in the name of progress, he assures me.




U is for umbrellas. The girls love their umbrellas, and all spring/summer/fall they waited impatiently for it to RAIN so they could get them out:



V is for vegetable garden. We succeeded in growing a pretty decent crop of tomatoes and zucchini. The cherry tomatoes, especially, were a big hit with the girls. I also tried my hand at a few other things, including broccoli. But judging by our yard, broccoli is second only to tulips as the favorite meal of the local deer.

W is for William, our baby boy whom we lost in February. We know only a little more about why we lost him (I had a large subchorionic hematoma and the beginnings of an infection; either or both of these things could have broken my water and sent me into labor), but that doesn't matter much to me anymore. What matters is that we love him and miss him dearly, and that I feel fortunate for the brief time we did have with him.

X is for Xmas. We went to Elizabeth's preschool program, where Santa made a surprise visit. Anna was thoroughly nonplussed.

We took a trip downtown to see the Christmas lights. The girls think Trax is just one step from Disneyland in terms of awesomeness.

I found a cute Christmas dress for Elizabeth at the thrift store and got a wild hair to make a coordinating dress for Anna:

Elizabeth got to be Mary to Jordan's Joseph in this year's nativity. Anna was a Wise (wo)Man, who thought Baby Jesus would rather have a puzzle than a box of "frankincense". As usual, the paparazzi was out in full force:

After three years of asking, Elizabeth got a rocking horse for Christmas!




Y is for Yellowstone. Hey, wait, I actually managed to blog about that, didn't I? Yay, me!

(I don't think I included this photo in the original Yellowstone post. Random cute puppy snoozing at the Yellowstone lodge, waiting for his owner to return. . .)

Z is for zoo. Z is always for zoo, but did we actually go to the zoo in 2009? Ummm. . .wait, yes, we DID! Excellent. (Z is, uh, also for zero, the number of decent pictures I got of the girls on said trip to the zoo.)

There you have it--our 2009 in a nutshell. A big, wordy nutshell with a few megabytes worth of photos. :)

If You Give Your Husband A Backhoe . .

. . .he's going to want to landscape the backyard. First he'll build a retaining wall.

While he's building the wall, he'll uncover the electrical conduit that goes to the site of his future workshop, and he'll have to dig a deeper trench to bury it below the wall.

When he starts digging the trench, he'll realize he wants to have water in his workshop too, so he'll dig another trench back to the house, to lay the pipes.

Once he reaches the house, he'll need to drill a hole through the foundation to put the pipe through.

When the hole is drilled and the pipe is through, he'll need to frame out the wall to cover up the pipe

After he frames out the wall, it'll need to be drywalled and mudded.

The new wall will look so nice that he'll want to re-do all the other walls and the ceiling in the basement, too.

But before he can finish the ceiling, he needs to finish re-wiring the basement.

Re-wiring the basement will end up being the final straw that causes his wife to lose what remains of her patience and decide they should just tear down the house and start from scratch.

And chances are, if you let her tear down the house. . .she's going to need a backhoe to do it.