Apparel

I was telling my mom the other day that I have chosen not to fight with Allie (much) about what she chooses to wear. If I did, we would be fighting every day.

Allie has a few choice things that she likes to wear. Everything else, she doesn't care for much, but tolerates if she is in a good mood. If she's not, it's tears, tears, and more tears. Here are a few of her favorite outfits.

1. Her favorite jammies: the ice cream ones. She would wear these every night if they were clean. Unfortunately for her, she sometimes doesn't make it through the night dry and doesn't get to wear them nearly as much as she'd like. This was taken one morning when we spotted a hot air balloon on the horizon and watched it land a few hundred yards from us.

2. Her dancing outfits. You already saw the purple one in an earlier post, and I realized we haven't gotten a good picture of her in her new blue one (thanks Daisy and Romy!), but here she is wearing it (the kids were watching a show on the littlest tv in the house). She also wore it when we went to Cafe Rio a few nights ago. Like I said, I'm not willing to fight it.

3. Her Leggings. She has two pair of these and will change into them when she gets tired of dancing. One day Kimmy and Heidi helped her get all done up with curly hair and accessories. She did look cute.

For those of you who have boys and girls, it will come as no surprise to you that Damon has worn nothing but a swimsuit since swimming lessons started last week. It's either the orange one or the white one every day. All day. Which is why he doesn't have a shirt on in the picture with the kids or this one with Malakai.

Beach Friday

It's hard to break tradition. We have gone to the beach on Friday as often as we could. So even though we were in St. George, we tried to continue our tradition. We loaded the whole crew (my sis, her twins, another sis, two cousins, my bro and my three kids) and headed to Sand Hollow Reservoir today.

It wasn't the Atlantic Ocean, but it was still fun.

This was our setup. Everyone else there had a canopy. We had an umbrella, and it was missing the bottom pole. If you look closely, you can see Allie lying under it. She had a bit of a struggle at first. She had left her swimsuit at Subway and we didn't realize it until we got to the "beach," and she was left with some unfavorable choices: she could either get in the ocean in her leggings and shirt or take them off and get in in her undies. She hated both options. So, she cried. And cried. And CRIED.

Finally, Kimmy convinced her to put on a tanktop and get into the water. After that, we had a different Allie. A fun Allie. She even sat by me and posed for a picture with the other kids.

Damon spent most of his time hauling rocks out of the water into a big pile (and then made a firepit out of them). I was especially impressed with this big rock. It took him quite a while to get it across the sand, but he was awfully excited about his accomplishment.

Kyla loved it most of all. She is such a water baby, and has stopped eating sand, which makes her diaper changers very happy. She sported a faux hawk long enough for me to get a few pics.

I didn't put her in a swim diaper. Those things are precious! I was willing to risk infecting everyone with crypto and kept her in her regular diaper. She decided to impersonate J-Lo and we all thought she did a fantastic job.

You can imagine how sandy we all were, so we stopped at the bathroom on our way out to rinse off. I loved this picture of Kyla as she sat in the sink with Allie.

We all had a good time. I do miss Florida, but since we are now Utah residents, we will have to learn to make do.

Mom's Gone?

Six weeks is too long to go without seeing your husband. Right? I found a way to get back to Jacksonville for one last visit and only had to make minor sacrifices to get there (red eye flights, Kyla on my lap, arms about to fall off from hauling Chunky plus car seat through three different airports...). It was such a great visit. I took two pictures before the batteries in my camera died, so I will post those later. But I found these pics on my mom's of the fun that happened here.

I left Damon in Tara's care. When I told him, he said to Allie, "Tara is the best." He has always loved her (maybe more than he loves me). Tara told him he didn't have to go to bed at 9:00 (our bargain for the summer, provided he doesn't wake up until 8:00 am) while I was gone, and he said, "That's what I'm talking about!" He had a great time with her. He has been on an artwork kick lately and plastered the fridge with his recent creations.

He also was very sweet with Maddux and Malakai (most of the time, from what I hear). He got to go to chemo with my mom and was much nicer to everyone after that personal attention.

Allie stayed with Heather (a tough job, I know), and only annoyed her occasionally with her constant chatter. She showed off her tricks...

...and got her toenails painted again by our good friend, Holly. She was so excited.

They didn't seem to miss me at all. And honestly, I didn't really miss them much, either. It must be because I knew they were in good hands and I didn't have to worry about them. Probably not because I'm not a good mom. Right?

Do we really have to eat?

Here's what's on my mind this morning:

As soon as my kids wake up in the morning, and make their way bleary-eyed into my room, they want to eat. Kyla starts signing "eat" or "milk" the instant I get her out of bed. Allie, who rarely wakes up happy, is asking for a bowl of cereal and a drink of milk. And Damon, who is usually far more patient than the other two, is not usually far behind. Feeding my kids is a full time job. And it's one I disdain.

Allie, who claims to be starving, will routinely take between 6 and 8 bites of her cereal before deciding she's done. She'll spill her milk as she tries to get down from the table and halr-heartedly clean it up. About 30 minutes later, she will return to the kitchen, hungry again (what? 6 bites of Cheerios isn't going to get you through until lunch?), and will ask for another kind of cereal. I will remind her that she is more than welcome to have something else to eat. Provided she finishes her (now soggy) Cheerios first. Nearly every day we follow this little script, and at this point, Allie will do one of three things:

1. Throw a fit and come up with an excuse why she can't finish it (today it was, "I'm really getting sick of it.")
2. Throw a fit and refuse, resulting in a very sad and miserable girl until lunch.
3. Throw a fit and finally choke the soggy cereal down, resulting in a second bowl for her.

Fun, huh? Kyla will sit in her high chair eating all day long. And when she finally gets sick of something, she'll just toss it on the floor and go back to signing "milk" and "eat." All day long.

Damon appears to have learned a lot from Allie's morning ritual. He skips most of the drama. But he still wants to eat.

It's not long after breakfast ends, the dishes are cleared, the kitchen cleaned, when it's time to start again for lunch. Some days I give in and let them have peanut butter sandwiches. But most of the time I encourage them to "broaden their horizons" and let their body try something else. This usually is met with some more whining and/or impatience, but eventually we make it through lunch, and get it cleaned up. Kyla still sits in her high chair, eating.

Then before I even blink, it's snack time. I scour the cupboards for something healthy to go along with the crackers they demand, and after seconds and sometimes thirds, I finally convince them to stop eating so they will be able to eat dinner.

Dinner is either eaten quickly and very well (depending on what it is and how many crackers I've actually let them eat), or filled again with complaining. "This makes me sick," is something Allie has been known to say often when she doesn't like the meal I have prepared. I remind the children that they can choose not to eat, but that often times that choice means they will be hungry until breakfast. It's not often that they choose this, but it definitely does happen. If there is dessert involved, dinner seems to go over much better. Most of the time, though, it is a fight I am tired of fighting.

Can't we just stop eating for a while? Is that too much to ask? I think the planning, preparation, eating, and cleaning up of meals is one of my least favorite things about being a mother. I propose that we do away with lunch. Breakfast and dinner should be enough. And then I wouldn't feel like I am a slave to the kitchen.

Good ole SG

I haven't lived at home for an extended period of time for ten years. But some things never change. Here's how I know I'm home:

1. My dad saying, "just one more thing and I'll be finished" at FHE. I can't tell you how many times I have heard this in my life. It didn't take long to learn that "one more thing" usually means about 10 more minutes. Allie actually fell asleep during FHE this week. Not that the lesson was boring (it wasn't), but it was probably a lot longer than she's used to.



2. "Sunday music" playing every day of the week. Another thing we all are used to, but my kids have made many comments about it. Usually it's "Turn that off, it's not Sunday."



3. You can see the heat coming off the asphalt, and if you stay outside too long, you feel like you're baking (still better than the feeling of melting I experienced in Florida). Also, the nights cool off and it feels so delicious in the evenings, I wish the sun would never go down.



4. Buffy (our sheltie) still chases rocks (although she does tire out more easily than she used to). She was shaved recently (not because everyone else was shaved to show support for my mom, but because she had a skin infection that required it), so looks a little different, but she's the same old girl we've had since I was in high school.

5. The trampoline is still in the front yard; the park is still in the back. I have more memories than I can possibly write about the park (climbing up on the basketball hoop to tape a square on the backboard, having a snowball fight in high school the one day school got cancelled due to snow (ice, really), several movie nights with dates, night games (pump), rollerblading...the list goes on and on), but it is the one reason my parents will never move. Plus, my mom has a view of the temple from her kitchen window and she doesn't even have to sneak out at night to cut branches of the trees that block the view anymore.

6. My family still loves ice cream. We heard Blue Bunny was having a 50% off sale today and my mom came home with two tubs of ice cream. Three gallons each. That should last us through the week...

I really have enjoyed being home. It's fun to relive old memories while watching my kids make memories of their own. I am anxious to visit Jeff next week, but I have been far less "homesick" than I thought I would be. And that's probably because, in a small way, I feel like I am home.

A few pics from NYC

"The loving mother holds her daughter's head toward the camera." I don't even remember doing this, but judging by Kyla's interest, I think something must have happened right before this. We did enjoy some yummy hot dogs and chicken kabobs from this lovely vendor.

"The kids try to blend into the crowd by acting like they know what they're doing on the subway." Safe to say everyone knew we were tourists.

"Wow, that's a tall building. And a boy who needs a haircut." Damon in front of the ESB. Our best layover ever...