Go to SLEEP Sophie!!

Sophie has been having the hardest time sleeping in her bed lately. She just keeps getting out or just wailing in her room until we have to remove her so Abby can sleep. This has been going on for a few months now and I'm ready for the phase to be over. We have tried to give the girls some quiet time in between stories/prayer and lights out. It seems to help some nights, but not all nights. Anyway, the other night she came downstairs AGAIN while I was toodling on my computer. I told her to go to her room and go to sleep and she went away. When I went to go upstairs this is what I found. She was asleep just outside the computer room door. (Sophie VERY rarely falls asleep in places other than a bed.) I thought it was cute, and just showed how exhausted she was even though she was fighting it.

Happy Birthday Tom

Tom had his birthday on Thursday. It wasn't particularly eventful, but I tried to make it a fun day for him. I even let him sleep in without nagging him over and over. He went out to lunch with some friends and then got to open his presents. I got him an Xbox 360. I think he likes it, I can hear him playing it right now. He even lets me play Final Fantasy XIII sometimes ;) I made clam chowder and we had our parents over for dinner and key lime pie.

I have been blessed with a wonderful husband. He is more tolerant with my many quirks and shortcomings than I would be if I knew a clone of myself. (That's a totally viable situation.) He is wonderful with our little girls and is always very generous with all of us. Happy Birthday Tom!

Abby's new smile

Abby lost one of her front teeth Wednesday night while I was at mutual. She has been working on this tooth for a LONG time. I love listening to her lisp with this missing tooth. It's funny.

Score!

I've never been very good at basketball, that was always Laura's thing. I somewhat enjoy playing, as long as I'm not expected to contribute a whole lot. I've been playing this last month with some other ladies in my ward/stake. I wanted to get some exercise and help out if they needed more people. I definitely got some good exercise, and I may have even improved a little. It makes me wish we had Young Women's basketball when I was growing up. Anyways, I mentioned the part where I'm not very good - but I scored my first and only basket today. I was pretty happy. I know it isn't much of an accomplishment, but I have to take what I can get. Maybe next year I'll even play again. We'll see.

Cuddles

Alice was really happy this morning when she got up. You know, being especially cute and smiley. She even rocked back and forth (her version of dancing?) while listening to some music with Tom. Then she threw up. Thinking maybe it was a fluke I fed her some scrambled eggs. Then she threw up. And she threw up again.

Anyway, she continued to be so cute and happy even after throwing up. She cuddled with me and sucked her thumb for a while. Why does it take being sick for my kids to get all cuddly? I don't get it. How can I train them to like cuddling with me more? I guess I've just made them too independent.

Evening Visitor

We had a fun visitor this evening. We have a baby of our own, but for some reason Abby and Sophie were pretty stoked to have an entirely NEW baby in the house.

Little Olivia was very free with her smiles. I think she liked having other kids to smile at. While Abby and Sophie enjoyed our little visitor, Alice didn't seem to like me paying attention to anyone other than her! When I was rocking her to sleep (for a pretty short lived nap) I couldn't help but think her awesome Grandma Harriet would love to switch places with me!

Basement facelift

We're still working on finishing things up in the family room downstairs, but I had a request to see a picture of the paint job I did downstairs. Anyway, here it is. It's a little difficult to tell the color I used since it isn't super dark or anything. It is called Imperial Sand - and it's pretty much a warm tan color. I think it turned out pretty well, certainly better than the stark white from before. The couches are new and I still need to figure out a good room configuration. Our room is really narrow - it's like 12 feet wide and 20 feet long, so it's tricky to find something functional that also looks good. We'll probably settle for functional.

We also got a new TV. It's big. WAY bigger than our 32" tube TV we bought 8 years ago. Hopefully this new TV lasts us at least 8 years. We still need to get some sort of console/entertainment center for underneath. I'm thinking something wood and black, maybe kind of chunky? Who knows, but I'm looking for a deal so it could be a while. In the meantime, coffee table it is.