The Forgotten

I know, I know. . . I never got around to posting pictures of the other two the other day. Nate's been a little under the weather, I've had a zillion things to do and I had to give a talk in Church. Every time I got on the computer, I kept feeling guilty, so I would end up researching my talk and I never got around to anything fun. So as promised. . .

Our trip in Iowa ended with a bang as Sadie decided to grow up over night. The last day we were there she decided to give up swaddling and being put to sleep by me. She also decided to start army crawling and sitting up. PLUS, she started on baby food. It was a lot for me to handle in just one week, but she didn't really give me a choice.

Here's my two thumb suckers this morning. While I was vacuuming, I noticed they were just sitting there looking so cute together. Of course the second I got out the camera, Nate decided to "love" Sadie a little too much and that was the end of the cuteness since Sadie does not like the smothering.

Nate is adjusting to having Ellie at school. he first couple of days he was really mad at her for leaving him and he would ignore her when she came home. Now he's decided that he likes the extra attention from me and follows me everywhere. For instance, he's sitting in my lap right now. I can't believe I got rid of his entertainment! What was I thinking? I've had a crash course in how to play trains and super heroes. Oh, and make sure you notice that he a long sleeve shirt on in the pictures. Even though it is 99 degrees outside, Nate still has to wear his train shirt.

This morning we vacuumed, folded laundry -- 3 weeks worth, I didn't know we had that many clothes, did puzzles and Sadie played Barbies. Now it's nap time, the bug guy came and I have to finish up my Visiting teaching this afternoon. I know what you're thinking -- STOP! The excitement is too much! Well, that's just my glamorous life. It's the flossy flossy.

And this is me writing really really small about Ellie since this post is really about Nate and Sadie. Today was her first day going to school without me. Tasha picked her up and took her to school. BOO HOO! It was definitely sad for me, but Tasha said she did great.

Take two

Thanks everyone for your sympathy and well wishes. I am happy to report that the 1st day of school was "AWESOME." Ellie had a great day although the first thing she told me when she came home was, "We didn't even learn anything." She was so disappointed.

She did come home with a full lunch bag though. I asked her if she ate anything and she told me there was only room for a few grapes and I packed her "too much stuff." What kid doesn't want cookies, yogurt and fruit snacks?? I also had to laugh at the names of the kids in her class. I can't tell if they're real or if she got them a little mixed up. One boy is named Marvin -- no wonder he was the first kid to pull a stick. If that we're my name, I would rebel too. And then there's Santiago and Mexica. If I didn't know Scout personally, I'd have questioned that name too.


Today Ellie was all smiles and happy as could be going to class. She blew me some kisses and walked off. RELIEF! Still not much progress on the lunch though. She ate a little bit of cake and 2 apple slices. I'm not even going to bother packing her a sandwich tomorrow.

And she learned things! We were sitting down reading Junie B tonight and she showed me the title page -- I was super impressed. She also learned the phonogram sounds for A and O. So all in all, this school thing may be bearable! I guess we'll see when the homework comes.

Coming later this week in the blog: My other children. Yes, I have a SON and a BABY!

The Sad Day

It's official -- my baby is in Kindergarten. Yesterday was sort of a surreal day for me as I got all of her stuff ready. I was putting Sadie down when I realized that I was entering a whole new phase of my life -- the school phase. No more sleeping in and having lazy mornings. What happened to my baby? It was a hard night for all of us. Ellie couldn't even eat dinner because of the butterflies in her stomach. We even tried to get her to eat ice cream and that didn't work. Dustin gave her a beautiful blessing and that calmed her down for a little bit, but the nerves were definitely setting in. She did manage to fall asleep before 9, luckily.

This morning I woke her up at 6:45 and she wouldn't even eat breakfast because she was so nervous. It just about broke my heart. She was brave all the way to school until we turned the corner to the Kindergarten line up and then she broke down crying. Her teacher was coming out right then, so her teacher ran over to hug her and tell her how much fun it was going to be, but even that didn't help.

We went and stood in line and I tried to get her to talk to some of the kids she knew, but that didn't help. She kept crying and telling me she wanted to go home with me. I was trying so hard to be brave for her, but I wanted to take her home too! Finally the lines started going in and hers was the last one, so the crowd had thinned out, but Ellie was still sobbing. Then a little girl from her class came over and gave her a hug and held her hand. he next thing I knew, Ellie was walking off to Kindergarten holding hands and not even looking back at me. And then I broke down bawling like a baby. In fact I'm crying right now thinking about it.



I can't believe my little girl is gone all day. I miss her already. I keep finding myself looking at the clock wondering how long until she comes home. I started the count down at 6 hours. It's like a little piece of my heart walked out the door. I'm not ready for all the worry that comes with letting my little girl out into the big world without me.

Gratitude

Today we threw a shower for my girlfriend Jacque. As her mom was leaving, she kept thanking us and telling us what great friends Jacque had. I kept thinking how true it was -- I have the greatest girl friends. I've been really blessed in my life to have super amazing friends. I hope they all know how much I love each and every one of them. And of course all of you reading this. I love you all! You've each brought so much joy into my life. Thank you for being such great examples and always making me laugh. I have shared so much with each of you over the years and I am so blessed to know all of you. MWAH!

And with that, I have a little request. I have to speak in church in a few weeks (Jill you owe me big time for getting the Presidency off the hook) on Gratitude. So if you have any great insights, talks, scriptures, quotes. . . anything, even if it's just random thoughts or ideas. . .share them with me. Either here or via e-mail. I just want to hear your ideas about gratitude! Thanks!

We're back -- Picture overload

We've been on vacation for the last 9 days, so hopefully that explains the lack of posting. I'm happy to say that we are home safe and sound.

We left last week for our stay in D's hometown of Fairfield Iowa. Four of the five boys and their families all came along too, so we needed a bigger house to fit us all. We stayed at this enormous house bought by some members as a vacation home for when they came to visit Nauvoo. I think someone said it was 10,000 square feet -- indoor and outdoor pool, bowling alley, 7 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, two laundry rooms, two offices. . . basically we all had plenty of space. This could be a little scary at times, though, because we never knew where Nate was. We just knew if the house was quiet too long, he and his buddy Wyatt were up to trouble.

So you're probably wondering what we did for 9 days in a small town in Iowa! Well, here goes:
*Crunch Cones -- For all the talk, I thought they were over rated, but the kids loved them. Basically they're soft served ice cream cones with some sort of crunch concotion sprinkled all over the top. I think we went on a Crunch Cone run almost every day we were there.
*Swimming -- not only at the house pool, but also at the public pool which had a rockin' water slide.

*Pool Relays -- the source of a heated debated.
*Parks -- For a small town, Fairfield has a zillion parks. We visited quite a few. Nate and Ellie even got to go down a slide that was still there from when D was a kid.

* Bowling

*Hide and Go Seek -- in a house that big, Hide and Go Seek was definitely one of my favorite games we played all week.
*Ooga Booga -- so I can't tell you what it is since it's a secret initiation, but I can post some pictures and tell you the kids thought it was hysterical.


*Ratatouille -- super cute movie.
*Cars, Barbies, movies, crafts, Wii, pool, playing with cousins . . .


*Fireworks -- Poor Nate was injured by a sparkler and is now paranoid of heat even more.


*Books -- I finished TWO this vacation, plus two trashy magazines, and the end of my Sudoku book.
*Matching shirts

*Running and walking -- One of the few times D and I got to work out together.
*Too much food
*Barack Obama -- I'm not even kidding. He was in Fairfield for a speech on the 3rd of July, so my sister-in-law and I went down to the square to listen. I guess it pays to be in Iowa during election season. It was pretty cool to see him in person and he was a very dynamic speaker. (PS not my picture below -- he was much more "cas" when we saw him).

* Art Walk and Street Dance -- small towns are happening on a weekend
*Fishing -- Oh yeah, the house was on acreage with a fishing lake.
*Fire fly catching
*Growing up -- While we were in Iowa, Sadie decided to grow up. She started on sweet potatoes, she starting sitting up better, starting sleeping without being swaddled, started putting herself to sleep, started scooting large distances. . . it was a sad week for growing up.

*Getting into trouble -- Remember early when I said we knew the boys were up to no good when it was quiet? Usually they headed straight for a bedroom since there was a room full of mirrored closets that they loved to run in and out of, so one morning we realized how quiet it was and set off to our bedroom. They had crawled into Sadie's Port-a-crib (and woken her up the stinkers) and were loving all over her.

*Late night games -- Chris always has the best games and I stayed up too late too many nights.
*Sheer exhaustion -- the kids worn out and we're looking forward to trying to relax today.


The whole way to the airport (a 4 hour drive), Ellie cried that she didn't want to leave Iowa, so it was definitely a successful trip!