Winter Blah?

I've been feeling fairly 'blah' this weekend. I think I'm officially ready for it to be spring here in Ohio. I know my Utah readers are scoffing at my complaints, but those who are buried under umpteen million feet of snow tend to be fairly cranky anyway, so I'm going to ignore the scoffing for now. Mainly, I'm tired of the 'dead' feel of everything around me. I'm tired of dead grass, dead trees, and dead leaves on the ground. Winter without snow is just dead, ugly growth everywhere you look. This problem is only compounded when you live in an area that is so densely populated with trees and every other form of plant life. At least if there were snow, the kids could go sledding, we could build snowmen, and the area would look beautiful and fairly-tale like. Without snow? It's just all dead.

In other news, my parents are going to be here on Thursday. I admit, I was originally somewhat nervous about squeezing two more adults into our townhouse and trying to find something that screams OHIO to entertain them for five days, but at this point I'm just flat-out looking foward to it. We will be going to the aquarium, the children's museum, a famous local restaurant, and the biggest Air Force Museum in the united states. I also anticipate spending a lot of time sitting around and playing games, catching up on the last 8 months since we were last together. Sometimes, living far, far away from family can be a good thing, because it seems like when we lived 40 minutes away, we hardly saw each other. Daily life, family, and outside responsibilities regularly got in the way, and now we get to look forward to an uninterrupted week together. I can't wait to show my parents our little corner of the world, and hope they can appreciate how much we have come to love this area.

Husband Tagged

I received another tag, this time for a husband survey. You lucky people get to learn more about the best man in my life.

What is his name? Ammon
How long have you been married? 8 years this summer
How long did you date? We were married six months after our first 'date'
How old is he? 28
Who eats more? We're both trying to lose weight, so it's kind of a draw
Who said I love you first? I did. He was waiting for me to say it, so he didn't scare me away. I felt like it took forever to get those words out, but in hindsight it only took three months.
Who is smarter? I'm smart. SMRT
Whose temper is worse? These days, probably me.
Who does laundry? Mainly me, but he chips in on a regular basis by folding loads.
Who does the dishes? Again, mainly me, but he helps out often.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? If you're laying down, I'm on the left, he's on my right.
Who pays the bills? He makes the money, I write the checks. I'm pretty sure that officially makes it a joint venture.
Who cooks dinner? Me
Who drives when you are together? ALWAYS Ammon. I hate driving.
Whose parents do you see the most? Considering mine live cross-country and his are barely more than an hour, I would have to say his parents see us more.
Who proposed? Ammon would swear it was my Mother, but it was really him. I swear, she wasn't even there.
Who has more friends? Me, at this point. He's struggling more in that area since we moved, it's easier for me to get out and meet people.
Who has more siblings? He has 4 siblings, I have 3.
Who wears the pants in the family? Definetely Brooklyn.

I tag: Um.....whoever reads this and I didn't tag last time.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Laura.

Pick up the nearest book (one of at least 123 pages). Open the page to 123, find the 5th sentence, and post the next 3 sentences. Tag 5 people.

Mine is The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier.

"I swore fifteen years of my life to this task, and fifteen years I will give, more if I must, to see it through. Drust's anxieties are one thing. We speak tonight of the future of Fortriu; of the very survival of our people."
"Fine rhetoric," Talorgen commented, "but of no avail should the gaels gather themselves to strike in two years, in four years, in five. How long can we wait for our new king while hte old one slowly weakens and our enemies draw close?"

I must note, I haven't even made it this far in this book, because I just started it. In fact, if anybody has read, or heard anything about, this book or author, I'd love some input. It's not my 'normal' style of book, but I'm trying to branch out a little bit.

Anyway, I tag: Cindy, Mary, Colleen, Meagon, and Alisha

Going's On

We've stayed busy lately, as usual. Earlier in the week I received a call from a friend of mine telling me about this great indoor playplace for the kids. We agreed to meet there this morning, and I was excited to see what new treasure the city of Cincinnati would offer us. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the 'indoor playplace' we were told about consisted of about five of the very, very expensive sets of playground equipment in one large room, accompanied by all the small moving pedal cars you can imagine. The business that houses this playland is actually Rainbow Play Systems, but three days a week they open up their showroom and let parents bring their children in for two hours of 'free play' in the mornings. The kids had an absolutely amazing time, and I'm already planning how I'm going to spend our next 10K to put one of these unbelievable systems in our own backyard. I took a few photos of the kids, and wanted to share them here.

I love this look of pure joy that Kadon gets when he's enjoying something. Makes me feel all warm inside.
I had a tough time catching Jeremy long enough to get a picture of him, but this is what I came up with when I told him to sit still long enough to get a shot of him.
I've also had a couple requests for some more recent pictures of Brooklyn, so I took these this afternoon between vaccuuming the floor and getting dinner ready. She loves her jumper, but we have to wrap a blanket around her in order to make her big enough to not slip through the openings for her legs. She also loves it when I attach toys to the jumper with her rings.
Unfortunatey, she can't fit the entire toy in her mouth. But she sure tries.
So close to a smile, but not quite there. I absolutely love, love, love her beautiful blue eyes.

Privacy?

I'm seriously considering making this blog even more private. I can activate a function that would require me to add the email address of anybody that wanted to view it, and you would be required to sign in with that email address in order to be able to view my sometimes very private blog. I'm getting increasingly nervous about posting such personal information and photos in such a public way, but I also don't want to alienate any readers I already have. If you have an opinion one way or another, even if it's to tell me that if you have to sign in you'll never check my blog again, please comment here and let me know. I'll wait at least a couple of weeks before shutting anybody out, and I may not do it at all. Please comment and give me some feedback, so I don't worry about locking people out.

Raining Ice

Yeah, it was cold this morning.

Harried Haircut

As a welcoming gift to our new neighborhood, I received a packet of coupons and gift certificates in the mail a few weeks ago. Among other things, we received a voucher for one free haircut at the Great Clips nearest us. Now, I have nothing against Great Clips, but seeing as how I have FINALLY found a hairstylist I feel I can be completely loyal to, I was not about to waste the certificate on me. Ammon is perfectly happy to have me cut his hair with our clippers at home, and Jeremy's hair is simple to cut evenly with clippers and scissors. Since Brooklyn isn't exactly to 'haircutting' stage yet, we decided that the free voucher should be used to trim Kadon's long, lucsious curls. I warned Ammon that I was going to take him to have his hair trimmed, and asked the stylist to leave as many of his curls as possible. We're greatly enamored of Kadon's beautifully curly hair, but when I've had three people in as many weeks comment on what a 'pretty little girl' we have, I knew it was time for them to go. The stylist removed about 3/4" from the ends, and I think the results are pretty good. If I wet his hair down and kind of scrunch it, the curls spring right back up, and a particularly humid day certainly helps. I know that the days of Kadon's curly hair are numbered, but I'm hopeful that we avoided it, at least for now. As an incentive to return to the salon, I was also given a coupon to get a second haircut for $5. I'm thinking about taking Jeremy in and attempting an entirely new style, rather than the boring old 'bowl' cut that he's had for several years. I'm hoping to talk him into a shorter, spikier do. If it works, I'll post pictures of it later.

Kadon was NOT pleased to have me taking pictures of his hair. He had just gotten up from a nap, and wasn't his normal, chipper self. Pretty funny picture, I think.
See, it's still pretty curly, right?

10 Pounds

I took Brooklyn in to the doctor for her regular 4 month checkup last week, and our tiny daughter is weighing in at a whopping 10 pounds. I think the boys each weighed this much within the first month, maybe two in Jeremy's case. I find it amazing that she's 4 months old, and still just barely getting into the 0-3 clothing size. I packed away her preemie and most of her newborn clothing with very bittersweet emotions. I absolutely love watching my children grow from a tiny seed inside my womb to walking, talking, free-thinking individuals. Somehow, though, the combination of Brooklyn being our only girl and also being our last child, is making all her milestones a little bit more difficult. At 4 months both of the boys were eating rice cereal every night, and I was looking forward to the days when they would move onto finger foods and being able to crawl. Brooklyn has been showing signs of readiness for solid food for the last couple of weeks, but when we attempted a small amount last week, she couldn't quite negotiate the spoon. After about 10 minutes of trying to get her to swallow a watery mixture of pureed carrots and rice cereal, I happily packed the rest of the baby food back into the cupboard. Solid food is just one more milestone that I will happily postpone.

In other news, we have recently had some car trouble. A few weeks ago, I had the van into Midas in order to get the oil changed, and was informed of several problems with the van. Some of them we knew about, or at least suspected, and a few were a surprise. We knew we needed new brakes, rotars, windshield wipers, and tires. We knew we had an oversized plug in our oil pan, but were unaware that there is also a small crack starting to form. At this point our oil pan isn't leaking, but at some point the entire oil pan will need to be removed and replaced, a venture that will cost several hundred dollars. In the last month, we replaced the brakes, rotars, water pump, and the timing belt. We have hopes for our tax refund allowing us to buy 4 new tires for the van and 2 new tires for Ammon's car. All in all, even though it is an expensive pasttime, we're grateful for the fact that we have two vehicles. On the way to the doctors office for Brooklyn's checkup last week, a warning light came on in the van. In light of our recent oil-pan discovery, I assumed the light was related to the oil pressure. The van limped the rest of the way to the doctors office, where it stayed for the next two days until I could make the arrangements to have it towed to Ammon's brothers house here in Cincinnati, and Russ, Jon, and Ammon could get together on Friday morning to check out the damage. The prevailing hope was that it would simply require a new oil pump, a venture of only $200, and wouldn't require a new engine, a venture that would cost closer to $1000. I stayed close to the phone on Friday morning, waiting for news about the van, and when Ammon called and asked me to describe precisely what the warning light looked like, I described it for him. Apparently the small automotive knowledge I possess does not extend to knowing what the symbol signaling an overheated engine looks like. Thankfully in this situation, my ignorance saved us a fair amount of money. Instead of an oil pump and possibly an engine, it simply required a new water pump and timing belt, which set us back a mere $75. All in all, I guess I've never been so pleased to be a nincompoop.

I learned about a neat, and touching tribute to our dear prophet, Gordon B. Hinckley. You can read all about it for yourself here, but in short, this is what's going on: a movement has been started, and is quickly spreading across the world. Knowing of our late Prophet's great love for this scripture, almost 20,000 people have committed to read it in it's entirety within 97 days. One day to commemorate every year of his life. As for myself, I had already set a new year resolution to be better about daily scripture study, but this gives me even more incentive to immerse myself in the scriptures that we are so blessed to have. I urge all the members that read this blog, and even non-members that are so inclined, to sign up and add your name to the list of people who are choosing to honor a great man in a way that surely has him shaking his head with great affection beyond the veil of death.

10 Questions

All actors, actresses, directors, etc., are asked these ten questions on Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio. I'd love to hear what your answers would be, either in the comment section or in your own blog.

1. What is your favorite word? Love
2. What is your least favorite word? Hate
3. What turns you on? Loyalty, hard work, compassion
4. What turns you off? pettyiness, jealousy
5. What sound or noise do you love? The sound of my children laughing
6. What sound or noise do you hate? An ambulance
7. What is your least favorite curse word? The f-bomb
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Secretary
9. What profession would you not like to do? Restaurant Work
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? Well done, thou good and faithful servant

Updating

Here is an update on all things update-able (is that a word?) Potty training, which I mentioned here is going pretty well. We've gotten pretty confident about leaving the house in underwear (even Ammon--aren't you proud?!), but I always make sure I have a grocery bag with a spare pair of pants and underwear in my bag. We're still having issues with naptime and bedtime, such that we recently cut out Kadon's bedtime sippy cup. For years the kids have been allowed to have a sippy cup of water in bed, but in the hopes that Kadon will eventually learn to stay dry during the night, we've recently done away with the water in bed. Kadon has handled the transition surprisingly well so far, but Jeremy is another story. Tonight he cried for a full 15 minutes after I shut off the light, then finally succumbed to hiccuping sleep. I'm hoping that tomorrow is more successful.



Speaking of sleeping, hiccuping, and bodily functions in general, we're also feeling much more healthy. When I wrote this it seemed like we would never get over the afflictions of our household, but we're seriously crossing our fingers that we're over it now. Both boys are still sporting a slight cough, and Kadon is clinging to his runny nose. Brooklyn still seems somewhat congested and requires a vaporizer at night, but has stopped vomiting mucous and requiring the three times daily blue-bulb-syringe-of-death. Today I spent the better part of the day washing every scrap of bedding, blanket, stuffed animal, toy, dish, doorknob, lightswitch, and toilet in the house, hoping to ensure that the virus wouldn't find it's way back into our system. Here I sit, with a sparkling home and near-healthy kids. Does it get better?