Snow Day

A few weekends ago we put the kids in everything warm that they owned (which really isn't a lot) and headed to the Glendora snow day...the kids at a BLAST. Despite our desires to head up the mountains and do some real sledding, a pile of snow in the park might be it this year, but the kids really didn't know the difference!



Along with the sledding hill and snowball/snowman building areas, there were also a few bounce houses--Charlie was in heaven. I kept waiting for his little body to tire out, but it never happened. He kept getting knocked over by larger kids, but he just somehow pulled himself back up and kept trying to bounce.


As with most activities in this city, we quickly ran into friends from school and pre-school and the girls pal-ed around all night with their friends...

An update...

It's been a few weeks, and it's time to update the blog--I have to say, I'm really not that good at taking pictures anymore. So this may be a post with fewer pictures. We had a fun afternoon with friends watching the Super Bowl and eating. Way.too.much.eating. But it's nice to sit and chat and let the kids run wild at the home of someone else! Our life is in a nice routine right now...not overwhelmingly busy, but still interesting. Some updates on us...

About Lauren--Lauren is a Daisy girl scout, and LOVES it. Seriously. She sold girl scout cookies these past few weeks, loves going to troop meetings, and begs me to iron on her patches. Isn't it fantastic that the patches just iron on? I think so. She loves to read and write. She has picked up reading so quickly and usually reads us 2-3 books a night. She does her homework most nights with her dad. It's cute, except when he or she is tired and ornery, then it's not cute, it's torture. We walk to kindergarten every morning, except when it's raining. Usually we have to run about 3/4 the way there because we're running late. Lauren stands backwards on the front of the double stroller leaning over Kate and Charlie, and I run while pushing all 3 of them. This week we had a little accident--I was running pretty fast pushing them (why don't I just leave 5 minutes earlier? Not so easy) and the stroller hit a rock or something (or I think Kate's blanket might have caught in the wheel) and it just stopped and threw us all--the entire stroller went end-over and Kate and Charlie landed face down on the pavement. The only thing that saved their lucky little faces was the fact that Lauren hit the pavement first because she was standing over them. I flew over the top of the stroller and landed on my side, and I have a deep purple bruise to show for it. We were all pretty shaken up, and sat on the curb for a good few minutes. We were late to school. We were all very lucky because I really was going pretty fast and to have the stroller just stall like that, we could have all been hurt, esp. Kate and Charlie, but luckily Lauren kept them from ripping their faces off! She scraped up her knee, but she's fine. Now I leave 5 minutes earlier. I may have to yell a little more at home to get us out the door, but I can't bring myself to run with the stroller anymore.



About Kate--I was trimming Kate's hair one night, and I walked away to answer Andy in another room, and came back to find that Kate had picked up where I had left off...I took the opportunity to give her bangs, which I had been thinking about for a long time. She has my finer hair, and refuses to do anything with it. I have to say, I love it. I loved it the minute I did it. Andy's not quite in the bangs fan club, but he's getting used to them. I think her hair looks better for a longer part of the day now. I've round brushed her hair a few times recently to get all the waviness out, and finally have achieved the nice, smooth bob that I always envisioned for her, but couldn't quite accomplish with her old cut. Now she says she's Kiki from the Fresh Beat Band, because Kiki has bangs. She still loves to rock out...all.the.time. She would eat vegetables all the time instead of a regular plate of food if allowed--who does that? Her favorite thing is to pick up Charlie under the armpits and carry him around...we remind her that Lauren picked her up and dropped her when she "broke her face." (That's how she refers to the accident that produced the scar on her upper left cheek). The funny thing is that Charlie weighs 27 pounds, and Kate weighs 29--little brother will be much bigger than his 2 older sisters. He wears size 7 shoe...Kate wears 8. Her favorite bedtime song right now is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. She STILL sucks her lower lip when she's tired or sad or angry. It's still endearing. If you're not careful, she will shake her bootie at you...


About Charlie--Charlie is still my favorite little boy...he has been very sick this entire past week with a viral bronchitis, and sort of slips from his status as "favorite" when he gets so miserable. I know it's not really his fault, but it's still hard to handle after so many days...his asthma symptoms get so bad when he gets a cold, and we are tied to nebulizer constantly. He's sort of resigned himself to breathing in a mask several times a day, and it's not such a fight anymore. I'm still trying to get him allergy tested to find out what he's allergic to that exacerbates the asthma...both times we've been to the allergist he's too asthmatic to be tested. Hopefully this next week...I know for certain that he's allergic to oatmeal, and with that, oat flour. Do you know how many things have oat flour in them??? A lot. Cheerios, cereal bars, many crackers, anything multi-grain, Gerber puffs--it really stinks to be reading labels so strictly...not a fun club to be in. As I've finally figured all this out and avoided giving them to him, his rashes have gone away. Hopefully oatmeal will be the only thing on his list? Wishful thinking, I'm sure. He's a lovely child, though. Turning into a toddler--says mama, dada, hot and bye bye...is starting to engage in imaginary play--combing hair, pretending to feed us with play food, dancing. He likes to hold his binky in his mouth upside down with his lower lip sticking out...I love this. He'd drink milk all day long as his only source of calories if I'd let him. He loves it. He pulls his blanket over his head when he sleeps--just like me. He loves to be chased. He carries a fork around all the time. He's starting to open books and read them. By this time with the girls, I was thinking about another baby. Not this time--I'll just enjoy him for a few more years. It's easy. And no, ALLISON that's not a tricky way of trying to throw people off about an actual pregnancy--it's literal :) Congrats to you in Aug, but not to me for a while.


About us--I'm into pressure cooking in jars right now. I fill my jars with chicken, or pork, or beans, or vegetables, or whatever and put them in my pressure cooker and they cook and then the jars seal so that I can put them on my shelf for food storage--I'm in love with it. So much cheaper and faster than buying cans and cans of food. I have a little side piano playing gig right now that is forcing me to sit at the piano and learn some hard music, and I walk away with a nice check every week. Those lessons did pay off. I am thoroughly enjoying my kids right now. These are good ages. Andy is uber busy with work and Church. Bishopric stuff keeps him occupied several times a week, and for long hours. He is slowly but dilligently working on digging out our flower beds in the back yard. We have had wall to wall grass since we moved in, and we're ready to pull out the grass all along the walls to start growing shrubs in front of the walls, and most importantly, plant a garden. Lauren has been begging to plant one, we have the space, we've just needed to pull out the grass. So he's been doing that. We're doing some work in the front yard as well, including have a big flowering pear tree planted on Tue, hopefully to give us some porch shade in the summer.


Black beans...
That's about it...I'm tired and tomorrow begins another week. Should be a good one...