Not much to say, but I'll say it anyway

Things are pretty good around here. We haven't had anything too eventful happen - so I haven't blogged for quite a while. I guess that means Sophie has been relatively good. At least she hasn't smeared any gooey substances all over her body or poured out an entire cereal box or anything.

We have been sort of potty training Sophie this last week or so. She doesn't quite get it yet, so I'm not ready to commit to have her in panties all the time. She goes on the potty one or two times a day and is really excited when she actually does something. We give her a little lollipop and that makes her pretty darn happy. At least she is figuring out what the feelings are that go along with using a potty.

Alice cut her first tooth yesterday - FINALLY!!! I'm pretty sure she has been teething for the last three months or so. I don't mind the no teeth part, I just get frustrated always thinking there could be a tooth any time!

That's about it for today. Maybe I'll get some good pictures tomorrow at our various Thanksgiving venues. Then I could have something worthwhile to blog about.

Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween has come and gone and I'm doing surprisingly well curbing my candy craving! We had a fun Halloween party Friday night at Laura's house. The kids had a lot of fun and us adults found a way to enjoy ourselves as well.

I don't think we really were successful at getting the kids to look at the camera at the same time - but at least they are all on the couch together!

Paige popping her balloon

Hayley working her balloon over

Abby prepping herself for the balloon pop

The kids played a fun game with popping balloons and getting people to guess what they had on their paper from inside. They also got to make some haunted gingerbread houses. None of them would win any awards - but the kids had fun nonetheless. Ethan is getting a bit too smart for his britches, though. He made a minimal structure, a scout tent, then piled as much candy as he could on his plate!

I was happy to get another use out of the monkey costume I made for Abby when she was a baby. Alice has great little chubby monkey cheeks!

We lazed around on Saturday until it was time to show off to the grandparents. We made quick visits to both sets of grandparents, then back to our neighborhood for some trick-or-treating. The kids were SO excited, of course.




Alice went with Tom and the other girls for a few houses and was ready for bed. Amazingly, she went to sleep and stayed asleep through all the doorbell ringing and knocking! I made chili and cornbread in between answering the door for all the trick-or-treaters. There were some cute costumes. I had one guy come by himself, not dressed in a costume - he was probably college age. I thought afterwards that I shouldn't have given him anything. Oh well. I guess if he is that much of a loser I can spare a cheap piece of candy for him.

Halloween is lots of fun. I should have dressed up. I LOVE dressing up - at least if I don't look too stupid. I just don't like being the only adult dressed in costume. Our ward doesn't have a Halloween party either, so I wouldn't have many occasions to show off my efforts. Maybe next year . . .

Last Minute Trip

We made a last minute trip to San Diego for UEA weekend. We had thought about going but ruled it out because it was a long drive and wouldn't have enough time to do it justice - but then most of Tom's family decided to go and we jumped on the bandwagon! We left Thursday morning and came back on Sunday.

Abby LOVED jumping the waves with her cousins

Sophie was NOT a fan of the ocean, but she enjoyed playing in the sand over by the shower

We had fun at the beach on Friday. It was the first time for our girls to see the ocean. I was really good and kept Alice in the shade, yet she still mysteriously ended up with a sunburn. (It only lasted a day or so.) She is such a sunburn magnet!!!

I furiously searched for something close by and cheap to visit, so we made a visit to Mission San Luis Rey Saturday morning. It was my first visit to a mission and it was pretty neat. It was interesting trying to tell Abby a little bit about there being different religions. We haven't had the need to explain much outside of our Utah bubble so far with her. (Of course, most 5 year olds don't notice that much about different religions anyway.) We spent some good time with Tom's cousins. It was good to see them again. The girls had a blast with SO many cousins around.

We also made it to the BYU-SDSU football game. BYU won, so it was pretty great. Tom's mother also graciously watched all of the grandkids while we went to the game.



All three girls did fabulous in the car during our long drive. I was so proud of them and am even willing to go far away for a trip again sometime! There was minimal fighting and crying. Alice was as good as a baby could possibly be. I think I got lucky!

This was the best "in the car" picture of Alice I could get with my vantage point.

Kindergarten!

Abby went to her first day of Kindergarten about 30 minutes ago. I think she'll do just great - but I worry about her falling on the playground or getting her feelings hurt by the other kids. I feel like I haven't prepared her enough for going out into the "world"! I didn't think it would feel that different than taking her to preschool, but it does. She didn't take the BUS to preschool. And preschool was in a wonderful woman's basement that lives around the corner. Kindergarten is not nearly as safe and secure as all that.

We went to the school last night to find out who her teacher would be and to briefly meet her. It was a madhouse at the school! There were way too many parents stuffed into the hallways and classrooms. It was a little intimidating for me since this is my first child in school. At least Abby didn't seem to be nervous.

The decision to have her ride the bus to school this morning was pretty last minute. Abby really wanted to ride it - but I had planned on having Tom take her. So, I didn't get any really good pictures of my little Kindergartner. Ah well, at least I got a couple.

Abby looks nervous here - but really she's just worried I'll take too long with the pictures for her to make it to the bus.

You can see Abby's little legs just before she climbs into that big bus.

Is easier really better?

I know it is human nature to pursue the path of least resistance - in this I am all too human. I've been thinking lately that I have been letting too many opportunities for making memories pass me by. Taking the kids anywhere is a lot of work. I don't ever take them to the store at the same time unless Tom is with me. I rarely even take two of them at the same time. (To tell you the truth, I rarely go to the store at all.)

We haven't often stayed overnight during family campouts, we just leave before bed time. It's not easy getting the kids to bed every night at home - so we don't generally even bother elsewhere. I didn't think of this as a bad thing, but a necessary thing. But how much are we missing out on? How many memories are my children not creating?

Tom and I were not going to go to a family reunion a couple of hours away because it seemed like it would be too much work. We changed our minds and drove down for the day - and had a pretty good time. The kids had a blast and were able to spend lots of fun time with their cousins. On another occasion, we didn't stay at the main reunion house with family because it seemed like it would be more work with the kids. But how much did we miss out on? I don't want to deprive my children of precious memories - but I'm not sure where to draw the line.

My cousin passed away a week and a half ago and I can't help but wish I had spent more time with him. He was 16 years younger than me, so it isn't like we would have hung out or anything. But I really liked him and missed out on opportunities to know him better. He received his Eagle Scout award in May and I couldn't even drive 20 minutes to go to the Court of Honor because keeping 3 young children in order is too much work. It is a lot of work, but now I feel guilty that I wasn't more supportive. Now I wish that I could have had another chance to see his wonderful grin. I don't want to miss these chances and I don't want my children to miss them either.

I'm not sure where to set the balance, but I do know that it needs to be shifted a bit. I just wish I knew how much.

Happy Birthday Po

Today is Po's birthday - he's two years old now. We have our ups and our downs with him but at least he is always cute! Maybe I'll give him a bath for his birthday.

Alice eats food

I finally broke down and decided to try Alice with some food. She's been getting really mad when I eat in front of her -- so I thought maybe she wanted to try some food of her own. My other kids weren't really into baby food, so I'm terrible at it. Weird, but whatever.