Cousins

Dalton's birthday was yesterday. Happy Birthday, Dalton! Now Lisa has a 3-yr-old, 1-yr-old, and twins instead of a 2-yr-old and 1-yr-old and twins. What a relief. ;)

He was oh-so-excited to blow out the candles. Seriously--what more is there to life?

To celebrate his birthday, and to get out of the house, and to take advantage of our new Hogle Zoo Membership, courtesy of Grandma Karrie at Christmas--thank you!!--we braved the elements with all seven kids in tow.

Jane is the oldest. It was a little intense. Just a little. Chris came with us so we were 3 to 7 instead of 2 to 7--better odds, don't ya know.

Between Lisa's stress with new twins and all the drama in my house, we haven't played together nearly as often as we did pre-third pregnancies. I did manage to capture a few shots of our one and only at-home playdate we've managed since both twins made it home from the NICU.

I was also browsing through files on my computer and found these pictures from a trip we made to Copperton City Park back in October.

Ah, we miss those days. Here's to looking forward to bigger babies up for more adventure. And moms who aren't quite so exhausted and able to handle it...hopefully.

P.S. Shout-out to Ivan! He's our cousin, too!

Photo courtesy of Janneke Marquez Photography, via Facebook :)

Six Months

3 Days

3 Months

6 Months

If you notice, his knees are bent up so you can't see how long his legs really are. Ben's six month check-up is this coming Monday, along with Jane's four-year visit. Man, they're getting old. I'll post their stats then!

Meanwhile, pictures of my cutest baby boy ever. In the crabbiest outfit I've ever been genuinely excited to spend money on.

I posted this last picture on Facebook and took suggestions for an appropriate caption.

A few of my favorite submissions:

"It's hard to find treats on a freshly vacuumed carpet, Mom."

"Is it time to eat or poop?"

"So when is Amy coming over?"

And the official contest winner:

"Take it from me buddy...you really should have E-trade take a look at your investment portfolio."

Mommy Date

There are times when playdates are all about the kids--making up fun activities, creating simultaneously crafty and delicious treats, adventuring in new venues--and then there are the playdates that are all about the Moms.

Ok, maybe that's really how most playdates are...at least around my house.

Some of you may have recently read Liz's blog and you already know that we had a wonderful trip to Discovery Gateway downtown. The girls ran loose, Liz and I parked it at the door with the babies and talked and talked and talked about all kinds of things that we didn't even realize we had in common, even though we've known each other since our first babies were born more than four years ago.

We should have playdates more often so we can have enough conversation saved up that we can actually pay attention to the kids. Who's with me?

Anyway. Pictures!!

See? Only two pictures. I told you I was too busy talking.

Ok, all you Mom friends in the Salt Lake area--I vote we set up a regular monthly playdate.

How's the first Thursday of the month?

That would be this coming week.

I volunteer my house first.

Thoughts?

FHE, Jane Style

I have a system set up for Family Home Evening. I don't like to have to come up with what I'm going to do a lesson about, but I do like to have a little room for creativity since I don't get to plan school lessons anymore.

Wanting to make sure that I am in fact teaching my children the gospel, I devised this system for choosing topics:

First Monday: 

An Article of Faith

Second Monday: 

Chapter from Gospel Principles

Third Monday: 

Section from Preach My Gospel 

(starting in Lesson 3)

Fourth Monday: 

Outing AWAY from the house 

(for variety's sake)

Fifth Monday: 

(when it happens to occur) 

Chris is in charge!!

It's been working quite well for us for a few months now. I like it.

And yet, this post is actually about a week when we strayed from the plan. Ha.

The weather's been nasty, I'm burned out (keep holding your breath for that elusive tell-all post...it's coming...), and I didn't want to go to the effort or the expensive of finding an out-of-house activity in January. At a loss for what to do when my grand scheduled plan fell through, I asked Jane what we should do instead. Bravo her, she just took over.

Opening prayer offered by Megan.

(I know prayer pictures are kind of taboo--I should have had my eyes closed, too! But I was taking care of Ben and caught a peek and they were just oh-so-cute!)

And Jane gave the lesson.

She told us some very nice stories about Jesus. Some were impressively accurate from the scriptures, and she told others that I have never heard before...but delightful nonetheless.

Then Jane introduced and lead our activity. It was remarkably similar to an activity I did a few weeks ago--but with her own special touch, too.

Ben hung out with me on the couch.

I love it when my kids get excited about the gospel!

Comfortably Hideous: A Tour

I've always thought our basement was ugly. It was certainly not a mark in favor of purchasing this particular house, though it wasn't quite ugly enough to outweigh all the good things about the house.

Our big project of last week was cleaning out and rearranging the basement in preparation for a new semi-long-term house guest who will be living there for a few months. I must say, the new organization has served to spruce up the place a bit...but I still think it's ugly.

Perhaps you'd like to judge for yourself?

The stairs themselves aren't so bad.

At the bottom of the stairs and to the left is the utility room. I don't really expect this to be pretty, and for sure, it isn't.

To the right of the stairs is the guest bedroom/my craft and writing room. This is where I go when I have moments of free time away from the kids. I thoroughly enjoy this room. Or at least what I can do in this room.

Straight ahead at the bottom of the stairs is this bookcase. Side note, I own all of the Work and the Glory books except volume 7.

To the right again is the laundry room. Currently, we've moved some portion of our food storage into there.

And back out of the laundry room...Hello brown linoleum and wood paneling.

Dining room. I guess. When we're not using this as an apartment, this space is fairly useless.

Basement bathroom.

Nothing amazing, though it does contain this cupboard that is quite annoyingly deep. Not helpful to a short person. I can't actually reach the back.

The second kitchen. These cupboards were originally upstairs. The man who built our house was an accomplish carpenter and built three sets of cabinets for this house through the years. He also did a lot of the finish work in the chapel where our ward meets.

Last but not least, the puzzle room. At least, that's what it was. Back when we kept working on the puzzle. Someday we'll finish it. Hopefully.

Ugh. I hate the wood paneling. Whenever we have the time and the money for remodeling, that'll be the first thing to go.

I'm sure there are uglier basements out there, but this one very much meets my standards of hideous. Even if we do arrange the furniture nicely.

The Mush of Life

Ben has shown increasing interest in everything the rest of us have been eating, so I figured it was about time to give him his own taste of semi-solid food.

He was less excited about the prospect when we began the adventure.

He perked up after the first bite, though.

And he was quite satisfied when all was said and done.

This boy loves to eat. Just like his dad.

My Apologies

Once again, I have seriously slacked on the blogging, much to my dismay and to that, apparently, of many, many other people who keep asking why I haven't blogged recently.

Someday, someday, I'll write about what's actually going on at our house. Oh, the stories I can tell. For the moment, just know that I am not myself and our household has been under extreme stress for many months now. Slowly but surely, though, we're getting a grip on the situation. I look forward to the time when I can finally write it all down and stop keeping quite so many secrets.

I'll write about it soon. I promise.

In the meantime, I have written and back-dated several posts, including one all the way back in 2011. Yep, I was so far behind I had to go back to a completely different year. Sigh.

Happy commenting!