stuff we're doin'

First, I have to start with the pictures I took before church on Sunday. The girls are just too darling in their dresses outside.


Last night we went candle-pin bowling for family home evening. It's a lot different from regular bowling. You get to bowl 3 times a frame and it's a lot harder to make the pins knock each other down. David won with 81, then me with 64 and I think Grace had a 45. At the very end, we figured out how to do it a lot better, so hopefully our scores will break 100 the next time. Being from Lander, Wyoming, it is shameful to have a score less than 100! I haven't been bowling for ages. I avoid it because I get "bowler's butt." Maybe you don't understand bowler's butt, but basically, your left "cheek" hurts like heck the next day from swinging your weight to it all night. I thought I was safe with candle-pin because the balls are much lighter and you don't have to throw them so hard... not so... I can't walk today. David calls me his BBB - bowler's butt babe. Seriously though, my hip hurts. It doesn't help that both Grace and Harriet burrowed a hole in it when I was pregnant. I'm going to have to start bowling with the under-hand straddle technique! (and no, I'm not throwing Hattie down the lane here...)
Grace had an absolute blast. It was her first time bowling. She bowled a pretty good game too (gutter guards on.) She also had a great time at the arcade. I forgot how much I love an arcade. I could play skee-ball all night. Hattie had a pretty good time too. She wanted to pick up the bowling balls and toss them herself. We had to keep her away from the fast-rolling bowling balls coming up the tracks though.

Today, Grace went to her second swimming lesson of the summer. She LOVES the water and loves learning how to do new things. She is getting much braver and much better about using her water skills. I hope she can actually swim a few strokes on her own soon so I don't have to worry about her so much in the water. Now, we're prepping for more company - the last of the summer. Where did summer go? It's almost over and I'm just getting started!

A night at Fenway

Well it has been a week since we took the whole family with Jared and Tara to catch a Red Sox game. It was Harriet's first game and Grace was enjoying her second Fenway action. Unfortunately we didn't have enough tickets that were together, so Jared and I took one for the team and sat in the seats under the infield grandstand. It was rough being so close to hear the ball hit the mitt, but someone had to do it. Meanwhile the womenfolk were out enjoying a nice summer night in the right field.

Eventually in the sixth inning we were able to consolidate at our seats in the infield. Grace enjoyed cheering for the Blue Jays and egging on her daddy, but I know she really is a Red Sox fan. I can say that both of my girls know how to charm the crowd.



Harriet was having a great time for the first few innings. After that though all I can really say is that Harriet outlasted Julian Tavarez. Unfortunately the Red Sox lost which means Jared and I are 0-2 watching the Red Sox together. Despite the loss, it was fun. Fenway really is a fun ball park and I can't wait for our next game on Labor Day. If only I could see someone besides the Blue Jays.



The next night Jared and Tara returned to see a Red Sox victory. So at least they were able to see a victory.

Ambition

I had to post about this little chipmunk. He really wanted to get to the food in our bird feeder. He tried yesterday and couldn't figure it out. However, he was back today and he finally succeeded. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of his triumphant victory, but I got to hand it to the little guy. Let's hope the goldfinch pair don't mind sharing their loot with the chipmunk.

Bad picture? There are no bad pictures of Michelle!

See. The famous picture of Michelle eating ice cream was taken during the summer of 2007. The photographer, Chappo, thought that this model was the crowning moment of his photographic career, and notice how the people are enjoying it as if they can taste the ice cream.

Basketball, Basketball, Basketball

Today Jared, Tara, Grace, and I drove the 75 minutes to Springfield to visit the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Despite having lived here for over 2 years and having driven past the Hall of Fame a couple of times it took Jared to get me to make the trek. Grace was excited about the "Basketball Museum" and she was a trooper. She got bored as I walked around the shrine level reading about the inductees, but as we got to some interactive items later on she had fun. While it wasn't a religious experience for me, it was interesting to read about some of the people and the history of basketball. I'll have to go back when John Stockton becomes eligible.

On a side note, Jared is becoming Grace's best friend. She didn't want daddy to hold her hand she wanted Jared. All I was good for was holding her hat. I also played a couple of games against Jared and while I lost it reminded me of the Shasta days back in junior high. I lost to Jared then and I lost to Jared today. But, I am winning this week in fantasy baseball. Let's hope I keep it up, so that I can get some payback.

Take a look at the pictures on Flickr.

TERRIBLE PICTURE!

I cannot believe that David put that picture of me eating ice cream on our blog. The worst part is, that there isn't a better one to replace it! I just went through our 10,000 some-odd pictures and, apparently, I HAVE TAKEN all of the pictures in the last 5 years except for the rare occasion when David gets a photo of me eating. I do have pictures of me with the kids here and there, and lots of me leading a pony with a kid on top, but none just of myself. I guess I am going to have to get dolled up and have someone take a glamor shot of me so that I have a decent picture to put up. I guess I could go search for those school pictures I had taken when I was a high school teacher. They're decent, but they drudge up memories of a job I've left in the past for a reason. I guess, at least, that he didn't post a naked picture or something... (not that there are any of those either - I might take a naked shot over one of me eating... well, maybe not these days...)

Baby Steps

Michelle will probably want to add to this, but on July 3, Harriet took her first steps. It wasn't much. Just a couple of steps to span about a foot, but it was her first steps. We now are 10 days later and progress hasn't been as fast as I would like, but before the end of the month we will have a toddler instead of an infant. She already is quite the explorer and loves going up stairs so we will have our work cut out for us to keep her from making a huge mess and endangering herself. It won't be long before she is out running around with Grace.

You're right, I will add to this. 2.5 weeks later, and Hattie is still an almost walker. She's doing more each day, but it's slow. She's standing on her own quite a bit. Hopefully she'll be walking well by the end of summer.

Look who came to visit

Well June and July this year have been very busy. It started with visits from Grandma Debbie and Aunt Em while Michelle had jury duty. Then after a week downtime we had some of my family including Janie who came out to do horse camp with Grace. Well after all the family we finally have some friends visiting. And you know what I always say, "Friends welcome, family by appointment only!" While that isn't really true it is nice to have some friends visit. I know that if it weren't for conferences and the Red Sox that Jared and Tara probably wouldn't be out here, but I can live with that. It will be a fun filled weekend so stay tuned for the adventures.

Got Moose?

Well it has only been a month and 4 days since I got back from my high adventure trip to Maine. It was a lot of fun as 7 of us went up north to Maine to climb Mount Katahdin and do some white-water rafting on the Penobscot River.

The trip was incredible. I was very impressed with Katahdin after having been less than overwhelmed by some of the White Mountains. I am a Rocky Mountain native after all. The knife edge was very fun and the weather was perfect for my weekend in Maine. The trip started out a little rough as I had to give a group talk at work in the morning and that made me a little late for the rendevouz. Then, as we start driving on the freeway my car starts shaking because a tire is out of balance. The tire stemmed for a slow leak that I thought I would fix with "fix-a-flat". Long story short, don't use that stuff. We ended up stopping at a service station in South Lawrence and getting the tires rebalanced and rotated. Sum total of 75 minute delay.

But, we finally made it up there. We stayed at the New England Outdoor Center in Millinocket, ME which I highly recommend. The food was great and the price was very reasonable. On Friday we headed up to Baxter State Park to climb Katahdin. I really enjoyed the hike. Take a look at my Katahdin Album on Flickr to see pictures taken by Spencer and me. Some great views. I would go back and do it again tomorrow if it wasn't a 6 hour drive. The hike started out slowly with about a 2 mile hike along the river up to some cabins and a lake. Then it got interesting as we climbed straight up the face to get to the ridge. We ate lunch on the peak while enjoy perfect 65-70 degree weather and then headed out across the knife edge. A few reckless actions with our lives and then down the mountainside. All in all a success except for some minor knee pain coming down.

The next day I was gearing up for some white-water rafting. The Penobscot is one of the better rivers to run on the east coast and the rapids were pretty fun. We had two class V's and one class IV. I can say that I stayed in the boat, but that can't be said for everyone and I helped haul several people into our boat after they fell out of our boat or some of the other boats on the trip. The highlights were probably see Spencer surf the raft down several rapids and the whole crew surfing one of the rapids. It was a short trip, but it was a lot of fun. Next year perhaps we will go sea kayaking.

I should add one more note. Good thing I am not Senor Chappo as the border patrol set up a stop on I-95 and all cars had to go through it. Luckily my accent must be good because I wasn't asked to show ID.

Ponies Rule!

Grace’s little cousin, Janie, is just as horse crazy as we are. She has been planning a trip to our house for over a year now to go to horse camp with us. The barn where I work runs a summer day camp that is pretty cool. You have to be 6 years old and she came to the first week of camp after her 6th birthday. Grandma decided to help her get here, so Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Christine left SLC about 3 weeks ago and headed to Denver. In Denver, they picked up Aunt Jane, Janie and Evan (and their car) and headed East.

They all got to our house Sunday night 2 weeks ago. The first week they were here, Janie, Grace, and I went to horse camp at our barn every day. I taught some of the riding lessons (not theirs) at camp while they went to camp. They are both tiny, young, beginning riders and went to our “Ponies Rule!” program. There, they were in a class of 8 riders with an instructor, 4 counselors, and 3 ponies, Tinkerbell, Peter Pan, and Peppe. Everyone knows that Tink is Grace’s favorite pony and the one she calls her own. I have schooled her for months on sharing Tinkerbell and she was all set to let the other kids ride her. However, I wasn’t prepared that she wouldn’t want to share Peppe! She had a few disappointing moments when she really wanted to ride Peppe and couldn’t.

During Ponies Rule! The kids get to have a 45 minute riding lesson every day in a small class of 3. They also learn how to clean stalls, groom a pony, put tack on and off, etc. They do a few other campy type activities like arts and crafts and singing. This year they learned the cutest song set to a “Sound of Music” song – the one about “these are a few of my favorite things.” Just so I have it written down somewhere, I’m going to type in the words here…

Clinics and riding and mucking out stalls,
Learning to ride and learning to fall,
Swimming and ponies and all sorts of stuff
Riding at Hybid Farm isn’t so tuff.

When the horse bites,
When I fall off,
When I’m feeling sad,

I go to my pony and give him a hug,
And then I don’t feel, so bad!
There are 2 rules at camp: You are not allowed to say "can't" or you have to ride backwards! and, if you fall off, you have to bring your instructor chocolate. It looks like Janie had to ride backwards. I think Grace did too. Neither had to take their instructor chocolate, but I did receive chocolate as an instructor from one of my students.

Each day after they are finished with their ponies and chores, we head over to the pool for lunch and swimming. Grace isn’t a good swimmer yet, but Janie is a fish! Grace wore a lifejacket so she could keep up with some of the other kids. At the age of 4, Grace is by far the youngest kid to go to camp. Of course, her mother was there with her to deal with the 4 year old stuff like temper tantrums and going potty and watching to make sure she didn’t drown!

By about Wednesday, the kids were getting pretty worn out from the hectic schedule of getting up early every day and having so many physical activities. They were troopers though and finished out the week well.

I know Janie was especially sad to leave the barn on the last day of camp because she knew she wouldn’t be coming back for a long time. So, the next week, when most of the ponies were “on vacation” at a camp-out in NH, I took Janie and Grace AND Evan back over to the barn for a farewell ride. I could NOT believe how much the girls had learned at camp. They really had learned to ride. Janie was amazing – quite the little horsewoman, and Grace had learned so many things I hadn’t taught her yet. I had no idea she was ready to learn so much. I’m going to have to do more with her. Even Evan who had been too scared to ride or even touch the horses got on Peter Pan and had a ride before going back to Colorado. I was really proud of him too.

Who brought the Ultra Charmin?

We just finished up a visit from my family. It might have been a little crazy to host my parents, Christine, Jane and her 2 kids at the same time, but I'll take feast over famine everyday. With 10 people and 2 dogs in the house it made for some interesting times, especially in the bathroom. Careful scheduling and we didn't have too many problems, but I have to warn the rest of you that if the Chapman clan gets together in large numbers beware the clog! In 2005 at Brian's house with everyone there we had a toilet incident that ended up overflowing and sending water down through the ceiling into the dining room. Well now I have my own toilet experience. It was a nice Friday and I was coming home from work after only working a half day when the call came, "David, there is slight issue with the toilet."

Sure enough, when I got home a very clogged toilet was awaiting. Two augers and two hours later and the decision was made to remove the toilet. That was going to be the only way to get the toilet unclogged. So the toilet came off. To make a disgustingly dirty story family friendly, let's just say that there was a clog and it was cleared.

Just beware if you invite more than one of us to your house that you take proper precautions.

super dooper wooper busy week

lots to do... no time to write about it... see pictures of horse camp and our day in Boston on flickr button!

Dancensation 2007

Someone go get Grandma Pearlie...

Grace danced in her first formal dance recital last weekend. It was complete with all the bells and whistles - professional costumes, lighting, big nice auditorium, reserved seating, and awards at the end.

Grace is the youngest and smallest in her dance class. She was so amazing. I couldn't believe what a good job she did at getting up and trying really hard to do her steps and not goof off onstage. She had the best time and I think that's what is most important. There were several little girls backstage with their "stage moms" who cried for much of the recital. Not Grace - she loved every aspect of it except for the waiting time to go onstage. The only thing that was stressful for me was the dress rehearsal and pictures on Friday. I had Hattie with me and it was a 2 hour ordeal. The recital was a breeze in comparison.

I danced as a little girl and so did all my sisters. Even after I quit taking dance lessons, I have always liked to go out dancing and to watch dancing. It is so fun to have a little girl to take to dance class and to watch her perform. I have to say too, that the recital was pretty fun to watch as a whole. The other dance numbers were entertaining and the older girls were quite good.
When Grace came onto the stage in her ballet costume, I seriously started crying. She is so beautiful and I am so proud to be her mom. Her tap number was really cute too. She had the job of picking up birthday present props one by one and passing them out to the dancers as the dance started. I was really surprised at how much coreography the kids had learned along with their dance steps.At the end, we gave Grace the traditional dancer flower bouquet. She got one at her little Christmas recital and now knows that it is what she should get. She asked if she might get one this time too. She was also given a pink ribbon at the awards ceremony. That was pretty cool for her too.The evening was also a new experiment with Harriet. Since the recital didn't start until 7pm, we decided we just couldn't take her without real fear of her crying through the whole thing to go to bed. So, I hired my first teen-age baby sitter ever. She reported that Harriet was perfect and went right to bed and never cried or fussed. I was so relieved that it worked out. Now I have someone that I know I can leave Harriet with at night. We use to take Grace out when she was a baby because she would fall asleep anywhere and didn't go to bed until late anyway. Not Hattie - she goes to bed promptly at 8pm and really likes to do it in her crib!
I am really glad that Grace has done dance this year. She has learned so much. She has really grown into a big girl and dance has been part of that. She has also made some great little friends and so have I in the process. We will be sad to leave dance for the summer.

JURY DUTY

I did my civic duty, so y'all better appreciate it! After post-poning it for a year (due to having a freshly newborn baby last year), I reported for jury duty on Monday 2 weeks ago. I naively went in thinking that I would be there until lunchtime and then would be dismissed to go home and play with my mom for a week.

NOPE - NO FUN FOR YOU!

In the words of Judge Chernoff (after I had pleaded with every valid excuse I had) "we would like you to serve as a juror with us, will you serve." Why didn't I yell NO WAY! ? It was a little intimidating as I was standing there at the judge's stand with an accomplished and senior judge, 3 attorneys, a court reporter, an accused murderer and 3 armed court guards staring me in the face in close proximity. Ok, FINE, I'll do it, but again, y'all better be appreciatin' it.

So, I was called to be a juror on a murder case, no less. When they told us earlier that morning, the 2 cases that were a possibility and one was a homicide, a sinking feeling in my stomach told me I wouldn't be leaving anytime soon and I was right.

I have had lots of people ask me about the details of the case and I couldn't talk about it when I most wanted to (during the trial) and now that it's over and a week past, I have no desire whatsoever to drum up the yucky details of it. Still, I know all you freaky CSI fans want to hear the gore, so I will tell you what it was like to decide if a man should be put in prison for the rest of his life for strangling a woman to death and leaving her body in the alley way behind his apartment.

Basically, it was like reading a novel. Each day, new details and information to the story were given in court and you were always left hanging at the end of the day with a lack of closure in the story. The next morning brought more details and evidence and then the same thing again - no closure. I thought there would be more closure by the end of the case, but there were some seriously wide open holes in the story left and it was really frustrating to have to decide if we had enough information to recreate new details or if we had to ignore even more of the ones we had.

Here's the gore: it was basically a crack party gone bad. A woman in her forties who had just come from her daughter and grandchildren's house, (previously just released from jail) went looking for a good time and found it at this little sad apartment building with a bunch of strangers. It was seriously a soap opera - you couldn't have written a more convoluded story. The new strangers invited her up for some crack smoking and she met a 50+ year old guy who was renting a room in one of the apartments - a basic stranger to the others as well. They exchanged phone numbers at the end of the night and he called her at 2:15 in the morning and she was never seen again until her body was found in the alley 4 days later. The reason it took 4 days for the body to turn up in the alley was because he left her in his bed in his room and only threw her out when his room-mate (who had been in a hospital since before the party for attempted suicide) came home from the hospital. The crime scene photos weren't pleasant, but of course having watched way too much tv, most of us were desensitized enough to be able to handle looking at them. We had the works from phone records to DNA evidence to boxes of bloody stuff. (no bloody glove, and the "knife" was missing!)

The trial only lasted 7 days (and I say ONLY as in comparison to some of the high-profile trials that take weeks and months.) It was short and sweet because the accused actually confessed to the murder on tape at the police station. The purpose of the trial wasn't to prove that he did it, it was to decide whether he had premeditated it and whether it was extremely atrocious enough to qualify for 1st degree murder and send him to jail forever. He also claimed self defense and said that the 118 pound 5'6" woman came after him with a knife. (Why would you get rid of the one piece of evidence that would set you free?! EVERYTHING else was in his room!) After about 5 hours of back and forth deliberation, we decided that it was NOT self defense and he was too "coked up" to have premeditated anything and also that (although atrocious to kill) the killing was not EXTEMELY atrocious. We could think of much worse ways to die and much more suffering that could have happened to a person. So we came to the conclusion that he would be guilty of 2nd degree murder which still allows for some of those same feelings, but not to the extreme degree that is 1st degree. He will be sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole at 15 years. He's already like 52 years old, so he'll be in jail for the better part of the rest of his life.

The judge said that if we were picked to be on the jury that it would be one of the greatest experiences of our lives and that at the end we would be glad we did it. I have to say, it was really interesting to see how the justice system works (it's really not like what you see on tv - but what is?) and it was also good to learn about new things. I know all sorts of things about crack and cocaine now! However, at the end, I don't know that I am glad I did it. It was extremely hard to leave my kids for that long and I do wish I had been able to see more of my mom and Emily. David even ended up giving some vacation time to the trial because the trial was still going when my family left. He stayed home with the kids until the trial was over.

I think that if you could sign up for jury duty and do it when it didn't disrupt your life so much (like when would that happen?!) that you really might enjoy it and be glad you did it...

At least I can say I helped put a criminal behind bars and gave a little peace to a family who has been suffering for over a year since their mother and grandmother was killed.

first of many

I "owe" a bunch of blogs. I have had so many noteworthy things happen this month and they deserve space on the blog. I just have had so many that I haven't had a chance to sit down and record them.My mother came to visit on June 9th. She came to tend my kids while I had a jury duty assignment (see next blog.) My sister, Emily, came too. Grace told her she had to come. "If you buy 2 plane tickets, then 2 people can come!" Emily is probably our most frequent and regular visitor and we love to have her. She also loves to have a "grace and hattie fix."

We ended up not having much time to play since I was called as a juror. (We had a fantasy that I would have to go in for only 1 or 2 days and then we could spend the rest of the week playing.) The kids and I were also really sick when my mom got here and my kids stayed sick for much of the week, but we did do a few fun things at the end of the week. We went out to dinner at The Quarterdeck, Grace's favorite. We also did lots of "bumming" in Maynard, our favorite thing to do together. They took the girls to Erikson's Dairy for ice cream. We also did our Father's Day shopping and mailing and of course, lots of gabbing.

Other than me getting called to jury duty, the craziest thing to happen was that their plane ride home turned into a plane ride to Vegas, a car ride through the desert at 3am to St. George and then a small plane ride home to Salt Lake just in time for Father's Day brunch!

It is always nice to have them here and I am so extremely bummed that I didn't get to see them much before they had to leave.

Surprise Birthday Velvet!

blog by Grace
Happy Birthday Velvet. You are 9 years old! You are my favorite dog. I love you Velvet. I made you a surprise card. My mom helped me make party hats. We gave you and Shadow doggie bones for cake. I loved Velvet's surprise party.

(Velvet has been a member of our family for 8+ years. We know she was 9 months old in March of 1999, so that makes her birthday sometime in June 1998. We don't know the exact date because we rescued her. Today, Grace decided that we should have a birthday party for Velvet, her favorite dog. I told her that would be a great idea because her birthday is in June, but we don't know the day. So, now Velvet's real birthday will be June 6th. PS - Shadow's birthday was in early April. Happy Belated Birthday to Shadow too. She is 7 years old and we rescued her at 8 weeks old.)

swing

blog by Grace
Daddy is the best Daddy ever for building me a swingset. Putting together my slide and house. I like the swinging teeter-totter and the regular swing. Harriet has her own swing on it too. My friends came to swing with me yesterday.

(It took Daddy 5 hours to build on Saturday. Mommy would have taken an action shot of Daddy and Grace building the swingset together, but she was busy tending a 6 week old baby and Harriet.)

Hooray for swings! Good job Daddy!

In my pretty garden

the herbs and flowers and vegetables are growing. Since we moved here, I have wanted to have a garden. The first summer we were here, I just blankly stared at my yard wondering what would grow where, what all those weird plants were, and wondering if there was actually a spot in the whole thing that got full sun. Full sun is a rare commodity in these parts! The second summer we were here, I had a newborn baby and was gone the last month of summer. Neither lent themselves to being able to plant or take care of a garden.

It turns out (after watching my yard carefully for many months) there IS a spot in my yard that gets full sun all day long. WAY out in the far corner, there is a spot!So, this summer, with lots of help from David and Grace, I finally have one. Well, I guess I should say that Grace has one. The newly painted and decorated sign hanging in the corner says "Grace's Garden." Next year, when Harriet is old enough to help, we'll hang another sign that says "Hattie's Herbs." The project has been really fun for us to do together. It gives Grace and me a daily "something to do" in the morning as we go out together and water the garden with her new watering can from Drumlin Farm and look for weeds. Haven't had any weeds yet. We have also spent the better part of this week making the big garden sign and the little signs that say what is growing that you stick in the dirt.

We are doing a garden project called "square foot gardening." It's a whole style of gardening I had never heard of until someone in the ward introduced me to it. You take a 4x4 square raised box and divide it into 16 "square feet." In each square you plant something different. We have a few squares that are the same, but I guess that's ok. The idea with the square foot garden is that you don't have to actually walk IN the garden to do any weeding or harvesting. You can reach any plant in the garden from the outside of the box. It is also raised up from the ground so that you can control the soil better and also the water (here you sometimes fear that you will get too much water in the garden when it rains for days on end.) In the first box we built, we put starts we got from David's colleague at work. She hooked us up with rosemary, chives, garlic chives, and a few flowers. We also planted some cilantro and basil in that box. In our second box, we are trying out starting everything from seed. I know that the growing season isn't long enough here to get to the harvesting of some things from seed, but it's an experiment and Grace had fun choosing the seed packets at the store and carefully planting each seed. I really hope they sprout, or I will have a disappointed 4 year old. I will have to go find plants to put in their place so that she has something to keep watering! She planted sunflowers, another type of flower that I can't remember, pumpkins, two kinds of tomotoes, and cucumbers.

We are really hoping to get a few herbs because we like to cook with fresh herbs and they are so dang expensive at the store - $3-5 for a little sprig of basil? And, we are also hoping to get our favorite salad ingredients - tomatoes and cucumbers are staples at our dinner table. Grace desperately wants to grow her own pumpkin for halloween. We hope that one works out too!

summah, summah, summah

say it with a Boston accent and to the tune of The Cars song "Magic"...

Yes! It's summer! Ok, I know I've made a record of my mixed feelings about summer in New England. The sushine is great, I'm fine with shedding my 20 layers of clothes I wear just to be inside, but it also brings out TOO MANY LEAVES ON TOO MANY TREES, and TOO MANY BUGS flying about in those trees. We've been literally eaten alive this week. We started out the week not being able to go out after 4pm, then it moved to noon, and then at 10:45 on Friday, Grace and I both had 2 mosquito bites after being in the yard only 30 minutes. We gave up. I'm grateful for my cute picture windows so that I can look out at the beautiful outside since I can't go out in it. Forget taking a baby out. You can't put enough bug spray on a baby to keep these mosquitos away!

Hooray for Daddy. He rescued us today by spraying the entire perimeter of the house, porches, deck, garden, and play areas with garlic. The bugs have bugged out. MUCH better now.

Grace and I have made a focused effort to be outside during Hattie's naps. Grace is enjoying:
*riding her new (bought from a consignment shop) spiderman scooter
*riding her trike
*watering her herb garden
*bird watching cardinals, blue jays, robins, finches, swan, ducks, and geese
(hung up new bird feeders, but the birds haven't noticed them yet)
*listening to the peeper frogs as she goes to sleep (who sadly quit peeping this week!)
*chatting over the fence with the neighbors any chance she gets - she can often be heard shouting "Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne!!!" while running towards the fence-
*walking to the mailbox
*going on long walks with her dad to Crow Island when I'm gone
*driving with her window down in the car (and the sunroof open)
*going to Erikson's Dairy for any reason on any day


Harriet, when awake, is enjoying
*her dogs
*crawling from room to room
*climbing up on anything that she can hook her little leg up to
*sitting on short stools
*laughing at Grace
*bird watching
*going for stroller rides
*eating ALL BY HERSELF - preferably with a utensil if she can grab one
(she freaks out if you try to feed her and she likes to take things off your plate - tonight she drank my whole margarita and screamed if I tried to get a sip!)
I am enjoying spending every day with the girls. I may not be 100% happy 100% of the day (ok, sometimes, 5% is all I can ask for), but a bad day at home is better than any whole day away from them at work. I'm starting to realize how much I missed by working when Grace was tiny. Just the other day, they were playing with the shoes in Hattie's "closet" and having the best time putting them on each other's feet while I was putting laundry away in Hattie's drawers. Another treasured moment was on Thursday when we couldn't take the hot day and drove over to Erikson's Dairy for a quick spot of ice cream. We ordered a cup of black raspberry and a soft serve twist. We took them in the back where there are picnic tables in the shade and Hattie sat in the middle of the picnic table and took bites out of both bowls as Grace and I spooned up the yummy stuff. I love little times like that with them.

Ok, if you didn't know that you can click on a picture in a blog to enlarge it, you'll have to try it with this one. See if you can see what's in it!
(hint - it's one of our furry family members chasing something in a wet spot of our yard)

Happy Mother's Day!

When you have little kids, it's hard to get a day off. Not that I really want a full day off, but an uninterrupted nap or tv show might be nice. Starting with all 4 of us in bed together this morning with little sleep was about par for the course. I did get to get ready for church without any kids awake. That was nice. We were late to church since the kids slept so long from their tired day yesterday. David is also cooking me dinner, so that is nice too.

At church, Grace got up for the first time in sacrament meeting with the primary to sing a Mother's day song. David had to walk her up to the front. She didn't sing, but put her arms over the front of the wooden podium railing and stared with a cross look on her face into the congregation. To her defense, she wasn't here the past 2 weeks to practice or to be warned about having to perform.

Then, in primary, she participated in making the traditional mother's day gift. The kids were interviewed and their answers written in a card for their mothers. They also took home chocolate kiss necklaces to give to their moms. I think most moms had to give up the chocolate kisses to their kids before they got out of the church doors. I let Grace share mine...it was cute enough just to see her bring it to me with a big smile on her face. She was so proud.

Grace's mother's day interview answers:

"All About My Mom"

My mom's favorite color is: green
My mom's favorite food is: everything
But, she doesn't like: (blank)
She spends most of her time doing: (blank)
Mom helps our family by: making train tracks
The thing my mom likes to do for fun is: read books
If my mom could have one wish, she would wish for: (blank)
I want my mom to know: (blank)

On the blanks, she said she couldn't think of something to tell them to write.
She was right on the color and mostly on the food. There's not much I don't like. I thought for sure she'd say I spend all my time doing e-mail because that's what she tells me when she wants me to do something during the day (I do check my e-mail frequently, but don't spend the whole day on the computer - it's mostly after she goes to bed that I monopolize David's computer.)

I'm surprised she said I like to read books. I do like to read books, but I seldom get a chance to do it. I have been trying really hard to read the books for my book group, so maybe that's what she thought of. I'm also surprised that there was no mention of horses in there anywhere...

Since I am in primary, I got to help a bunch of kids fill out the card. Their answers were pretty funny. Most kids said that their moms spend a lot of time cleaning and vacuuming and that their favorite things to do are to play or clean. (I guess I don't clean as much as I should because Grace didn't mention that I clean!) I was suprised that a lot of moms' favorite food was reported to be broccoli. I am wondering if they are just trying to get their kids to eat broccoli? Grace loves broccoli, so I don't have to worry about that one.

Happy Mother's Day to my mom, my grandmas, my mother-in-law, my sisters, and all my friends who are mothers. We're all in this together! Hope you all get at least an hour off today.