Disneyland

We went to Disneyland in February and had a great time. Short lines, mostly decent weather (mostly) and SO MUCH FUN! Jacob surprised us with his discomfort at dark rides and noisy rides. He liked everything else. Annika was in raptures the whole time but especially - ESPECIALLY- It's a small world. I was scared she was going to jump out of her seat with excitement. We went with John's parents and two of his sisters (all saints) and it was so fun. The kids loved the rides but they may have liked riding on the scooters that some of us rented. Jacob wore a mustache for the first 4 or so hours and it brought much joy to all who saw it.  Annika was loathe to part with Aunt Roo for any of the visit.  Thanks for your patience Roo!  Emily was calm and peaceful. It was great and the kids want to know when we're going back.

My Fridge

"Once upon a time there was a mermaid and she was collecting sea shells! One day she found a Diamond sea shell! The Diamond sea shell was a magic sea shell!"

"There lived an octopus who lived in a jet airplane Who put his tenticles on his head who acted silly."

Which kid brought which story home from preschool?

(I thought this would be funny on its own but my original typo made it MUCH funnier. The high school students transcribed their stories for them so the existing spelling is theirs.)

Jacob likes to play in the sinks and he doesn't like to wear pants. He was only wearing a shirt when I found him sitting in the bathroom sink and he was playing some sort of war game with the "rocket torpedoes." Happily, I'm nursing and don't need them right now.

Annika gently told her 6 year old playmate to be nice to Jacob when they were playing together a few days ago. She never excludes him just because he is a boy or because he is younger. She just assumes that a play date includes everyone. She is really a very empathetic girl and I've never heard her say anything mean about anyone else. Ever.

Jacob has had some separation anxiety lately and our last two babysitters, both 12 year olds, called their moms to come help before the night was over. I felt so bad I was just throwing money at them! I've stayed at his play dates and have to stay at preschool for a few minutes. John and I are going for a short (hopefully 2 night) getaway while kids are at my sister's. (Thanks, Michelle!) She is in Seattle so we're going to do a local stay and then we can go back to Michelle's if Jacob just can't handle it. (or if Michelle can't handle it!) Separation anxiety aside, he is FUNNY. Usually naked, but FUNNY.

Emily has big, blue eyes and rosy cheeks. She smiles and laughs and rolls and can eat
some small finger foods and her eyes light up whenever this is an option. The two new top teeth may affect how much longer we nurse for, they meet up perfectly with the bottom two teeth.

Our house is usually a disaster but its a happy (-ish) disaster and all is well.

You all should update your blogs too

Yeah, its been a while. Its been a while since I mopped my floor too. And yet...

Emily is mellow and smiley and drooley and can roll over and likes to suck anywhere from 2 - 10 fingers at a time. She sleeps pretty well and loves her brother and sister. And mom and dad. She is very verbal and is really funny to listen to. Her hair is kind of growing back and she still has blue eyes.

Annika is brilliant and can read slowly and can write most things with a little help and sometimes no help. I keep finding papers that say "ILovEyOUCcatandbatandcow." She gave John and me a note and picture that said that we were the most special mommy and daddy in the world. I will tear my house apart to find it if it doesn't show up in the next few days of cleaning. She is soo friendly and enthusiastic and mature. Most of the time on the maturity. At her preschool Christmas program she did not drown out the other 23 kids like she did at last years end of the year program. This year the teacher asked everyone else to match her so she was one of many loud voices. (Probably still the loudest, but not SO OVERWHELMINGLY!) She is helpful and thoughtful and really, really fun.)

Jacob. Jacob. Jacob. "I bonked my head." pause. "I need a new head."

"No, I don't need a shirt. I have shirt-pants." (He hikes his pants up to his armpits a la Ed Grimley.)

Regarding the plague of flies as we tell the story of Moses in Egypt: "And then the flies went home and drinked their juice."

When playing the "Marshmallow Gratitude Game":
"I'm grateful for my stister to come."
me- "which sister?"
J - "Daddy."

We sent Jacob's binky to the binky fairy a few months ago and haven't had any problems. he potty trained easily with the normal occasional accidents. Hand washing is the real issue because he'll play in the water for 20 minutes and I'll come into the bathroom to find hand soap smeared all over the counter, mirror and his hair. Toilet paper all over the floor, or the whole roll in the toilet is also a pretty common scenario. I know these are normal things for an almost three year old, but this is a daily, if not twice daily occurrence. I lost what little patience I had with it weeks ago. Jacob also started preschool this month and he loves it. At least he loves the toys, he doesn't really mention the other stuff.

Both Annika and Jacob started swim lessons yesterday. Annika has already taken a number of classes but its Jacob first time. Lessons started at 2:10. They were in their bathing suits at 9 am. It was a long day.

Blame it on the baby

My hands have been full and my head has been fuzzy. And, lets face it - I'd rather wallow in my disaster of a house and eat several ice cream cones in a row than use my last ounce of mental clarity on the computer. And by mental clarity I mean the ability to put on clean clothes.

So, I blame the baby. But now that she is a whopping 2 months old I've been commanded in no uncertain terms to give pictures and updates (ie. brag a whole lot)of the new one and the old ones.

So, we had a baby on July 18. Emily Michelle (middle name in honor of my awesome sister of glory) was 7 lbs some ounces and was more than 15 inches long. I'm too lazy to look it up. (That's why blogging drains me.) What I do remember with perfect clarity is that I felt wonderful right up until I vomited 7 times. And that Emily is perfect. Perfect!

She nursed right from the start which took away a huge possible emotional stress. She has lots of dark hair and still has blue eyes! This may seem unusual but there are MANY close relatives with strikingly blue eyes. She is very mellow and has yet to succumb to Jacob's many attempts to push her to a nervous breakdown. I think. She sleeps well, but that only means that she goes back to sleep after feedings in the wee hours. (I don't know why they're called "wee" hours. They feel pretty long to me. The waking hours. The sleepy ones are nanoseconds.) Emily likes to stare at the ceiling fan, cuddle and to get her diaper changed. She likes bath time and LOVES her Daddy. She likes me too but in the same way that I love the refrigerator. Which is quite a lot.

Annika and Jacob have been wonderful with her. At least Annika has. They both adore her and always want to hold her. Ironically, she is safest when Jacob is holding her because it means that he's not headbutting, kicking, squeezing, pulling, spitting (yes, spitting) yelling, poking, etc. Annika will sit with her for a long time just staring into her eyes. When Emily is crying Annika likes to comfort her with a sweet rendition of Home Home on the Range. If Emily cries louder, Annika sings louder. If Annika sings louder, Jacob shouts louder. I usually step in at this point.

Jacob is potty-training and doing very well. He jumped right in (no pun intended, he just sometimes literally jumps right in. With his head.) He went straight from diapers all the time to being completely diaper free day and night. This is mostly successful and we just make sure we have extra sheets and blankets and oddly enough, pillows.

Annika started her second year of preschool and starts a ballet class at the rec center today. She has been talking about it for a while. 2 years is a while, right? Unfortunately, the regular dance class was canceled so I had to sign her up for a "Disney Princess" ballet class. Girls (and boys, I suppose) can wear their favorite dresses and dance to their hearts content. Until they trip or the sleeves fall down to far or they trip again. I REALLY did not intend to sign up for this class but Annika was pretty upset about not being able to take a class, but even she knows that its lame. Its not even "princess ballet." Its "Disney Princess" ballet. I wonder if they get royalties. No pun intended that time either. Anyhoo, she's going to wear her leotard/tutu outfit and be the best one there. Suck it Belle! (Actually, we have a Belle dress. And a Little Mermaid dress. And Disney Princess paraphenalia all over the house. Hypocrite, I know.)

So, incoherency over. Here, in absolutely no particular order, are the pictures you really want! (Thanks ElizaB for the superhero and baby and Daddy shots!)

Lost interest there for a while.

So....

Rough pregnancy, lots of doctor visits, lots of pain and now gestational diabetes. Blech. Our current, and probably permanent mantra is "three sounds good." Baby is fine, though, so that's most important. Another bright side is that its been bad enough to justify my hiring a college kid in our ward to come help clean. That will be a hard luxury to give up.

Annika cut her own hair yesterday. We'll go get it fixed this morning. It doesn't look good. Think less than an inch in the front. Ironic since she'll be singing a Rapunzel song in next week's Primary talent show.

Jacob talks like a 3 year old. That might be a slight exaggeration, but not by much. He also likes to lift up my shirt to look at my belly. We're not always alone when he does this. He stopped sleeping well for a few weeks that felt like years and John was actually sleeping on his floor for a while out of sheer exhaustion.

John works really hard to make up for my inability and is pretty much a saint. He planted 102 flowers, 6 tomato plants, 6 cilantro plants and mowed the lawn in one day and a few days later hurt his back. Glad he did all the manual labor first. The back injury meant that neither of us were much use for a good week and had to take turns with the heat pack.

Highlight of the past 6 weeks (or 5 years) was our trip to Hawaii. Without the kids. Lets just say that it was heaven and desperately needed! I'll sum it up with this description: whale watching in bed. Yes, we actually saw whales at 6am from our bed.

Happily, during what has been a difficult time, we are surrounded with a legion of friends who bring dinner, take kids over and over and generally make life happy. We have sweet and relatively easy kids and feel really blessed. We also just happen to feel pretty crappy. But spiritually and emotionally happy overrules physically and emotionally drained everyday.

I'll post pictures of before and after haircuts and heavenly Hawaii next time, and by next time, I mean sometime in the future!

Its a girl!

We had our ultrasound last Friday and saw our little girl! We saw her rocking back and forth as though she was sitting in a rocking chair and she was contemplating sucking her thumb, but giving it some thought. We were completely open to either gender but we were excited to be able to come home and tell Annika that all her hopes and prayers worked. She is pretty excited and likes to ask if she can come talk to the baby. She also informed us that the baby's name is Ariel and that she has 3 nicknames: Emily and Sara, which are the top two contenders and Miriam. So, she's been very generous to us.

Nothing particular

President's Day was celebrated by making raspberry oreo ice cream in our new ice cream maker (thanks Uncle Wally!) And, with a trip to the pediatrician so that Jacob could have the blue play-do extracted from deep within his ear canal. (Annika puts a blob of play-do on her forehead and says, "look, i'm a egypt girl" and I say, "do you mean like the girl in Jungle Book?" and she says "yes" and I say, "I think she's from India" because when putting pink blobs of play-do on our forehead, we need to be respectful of the appropriate culture. Anyway, I think that Jacob was taking the cue from Annika, putting play-do in various facial locales.)

In new baby news, we'll find out gender on Friday and I've started to feel the first tiny flutters of movement. If pure will power has anything to do with it, Annika has willed this child into being a girl!

And in joyful, exciting news... (no, not as exciting as a new baby) John and I are going to Maui! BY OURSELVES!!!!!!!!! My saintly sister is taking kids for the week and John and I will rest and explore and rest and walk and sit and swim and rest by ourselves! We love our children, of course, most dearly, but nary a day passes when we don't take a deep breath and smile at each other and say, "Maui!" We normally couldn't have brought ourselves to splurge like this, but we realize that after baby #3 comes, a chance to get away by ourselves for a week might not come again for years. Thanks Michelle!!!

I'll post some pictures tomorrow!