Like Father, Like Son

THIS

is the picture we took when Peter wore his first tie to church.

...and

THIS

is the picture we took after Peter wore his first suit to church.

That's right. It's a real suit.

I found it at Unique Thrift for ten bucks. I had to rub a couple of spots out but altogether, it's in pretty darn good shape.

Peter was so adorably proud of his new missionary look. He announced,
"I look like a missionary today!"
to his primary teachers and got to model his new attire for the whole of the Junior Primary.

Not to mention how happy he is that his new suit makes him look just like his dad.
Two handsome dudes.

TheNange

It’s time for my shout out to my sister Angie to say a

Huge Thank You

for spending two wonderful weeks with me in Maryland.
The original plan was for her to arrive the day before Annelise’s scheduled cesarean delivery…then be there to help me when I was laid up for the next two difficult weeks.

Well, as you know, things don’t always turn out the way you plan. By the time Angie and her kids arrived, I was already 4 weeks post-op and more on my feet.
Despite the fact that I was significantly more able-bodied, Angie still executed her plan to wait on me hand-and-foot. I still cannot believe her super-human energy as she took care of her kids Cal and Monica plus Peter and Adam, and sometimes the baby, too. (see Theme Days post below). Add to that all the laundry, dishes, vacuuming, and cooking she did. She took care of all 5 kids during my seemingly endless barrage of doctor appointments, and she insisted on sending me and Weston out on dates TWICE while she was here.

But wait….it gets better.

We partied.

Our evenings after the kids were in bed were filled with lots of British Drama, hysterical laughter, and shameless pigging out. We watched Middlemarch, Jayne Eyre and Cranford. We made fruit pizza, monkey bread (twice), café rio salad, and would have gone on to malt shakes if we’d had time.
What’s more, we went together to get our hair cut. We had a lot of fun dramatizing the before and after pictures just to kick it up a notch.

BEFORE

Side note: It’s a good thing neither of us is trying to make it as an actress because we had a very difficult time getting even one shot of each of us looking dejected without busting up laughing.

AFTER

The long and short of it is, I love my sis. She’s one of my best friends. Whenever I need to talk to someone to understand exactly what I’m experiencing or feeling, I call her. She never lets me down. She spoiled me rotten, and I can only pray that she gets lots of extra blessings in heaven for all of her selfless service….cause I know there’s no way I can ever repay her.

Theme Days

One of the things that Angie came prepared with was a plan to do “theme days” for entertaining the boys. She put several books on hold at the local library so they would be here when she came. She planned treats and activities around the different themes and the boys LOVED IT!!
The first theme day she did, I returned from my doctor appointment and both of my boys came running to me shouting, “Mommy, we learned about bugs!!” They were so excited.
Here are just a few pics from the good times the boys had together:

( It seems like every day is Stick Day around here.)

I think our favorite theme day was Gingerbread Man Day. We read two different versions of the story and made cookies.

Then we played a chasing game that the boys loved. We are blessed with a house that has a long circular “track” that the boys love to run because it makes a full circle. Mostly we use it when they don their superman capes and we turn on the Superman theme song to let them fly. However, it is easily adapted for special occasions like this. We let the boys take turns wearing different hats to represent the characters in the gingerbread man story. Whoever plays the gingerbread man has to recite the famous words:

Run, run, as fast as you can.
You can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man.
I’ve run from a husband, I’ve run from a wife,
I’ve run from a butcher with a carving knife…
And I’ll run from you, too. I can, I can!

Then everyone else says:
Come back, come back, come back!

Then the Gingerbread man says:
No, no. I won’t come back.
I’d rather run than be your snack!



And,the girls had the same themes on most days:

Annelise ~ Nursing and Sleeping Days
Monica ~ Trying Not To Get Clobbered By The Boys Days

Newborn Portraits

My awesome friend Natalie agreed to take some newborn portraits of Annelise. I feel so spoiled. There's no way I could have afforded a photo shoot or portraits this nice. We had a fun time doing this on Friday afternoon and got several fantastic shots. Annelise co-operated beautifully until the end. I guess that's how you know when you're done, huh?
Anyway, here are most of my favorites. Let me know which one(s) you like the best before I send my order off to snapfish.

Come On Over!!

Announcing a new and exciting blog, just for you!

Well, it's for all of us.

All interested parties, that is.

And that means you, obviously.

It's a place for us to write our movie and book reviews and discuss.

Kind of like a book club but lots and lots more fun.

Go over there and tell me what you thought of Middlemarch.

PLEASE!!!

Waking Up Is Hard To Do

Yesterday marked Annelise’s 3-week birthday. Up until now, she has slept so much that even when we try to wake her up for feedings we usually only get this pained expression:

I’m pretty sure that’s the face I make when I’m trying to wake up. Even if it’s not, I can definitely empathize with the feeling behind it.
Now that she is starting to wake up and we get to see the whites of her eyes a little more often, I wanted to post some pics so you can see what a beauty she is.



Incidentally, both of the above outfits are from the darling layette set that was given to us by Weston’s co-workers when they threw us a baby shower. These are among my favorite of all her newborn clothes and I find myself going for them almost every time I get her dressed. Thank You, Denise and everyone at the NCI OBF!!!

And…speaking of showing off cute baby stuff, here are the adorable, signature booties and scratch mittens hand-knitted for Annelise by my friend Becca. Thanks, Mme Dall. You’re the best!

Maybe I will laugh about it someday….maybe.

A few days ago, Weston called me from work to ask me about a good time for an “appointment” either in Woodbridge or Alexandria (both about an hour’s drive from home.) He wouldn’t tell me what the appointment was for…but as time progressed I figured it must be a massage or something of the sort. A very nice gesture from my sweet husband to let me pamper my body that has been through #*&^ and is in dire need of pampering.
We settled on Saturday morning at 10:30 and agreed that my mom would take me (since I’m still not allowed to drive) and he would stay home with all 3 kids. Impressive. It’s only been 2 weeks since the baby was born.

As the mystery appointment approached, I pressed him for more information so I could be more prepared. He wouldn’t tell me much of anything. It’s a surprise. Eventually I did get out of him that it was a pedicure. He kept saying…. “Just make sure that whatever service they offer you, you do it.” Okay. Whatever.

Long about Friday afternoon we began to hear news of Hurricane Hannah that would be making her way through this area on Saturday. Mom and I started to wonder if we really wanted to drive all the way to Woodbridge in the rain. She’s never excited to drive someone else’s car…and the rain just adds to the stress.

However, I determined that I didn’t want to try to change Weston’s carefully crafted plan, in fear that if I turn my nose up at it or try to reschedule, he might not be so eager to surprise me with such nice things in the future. Besides, it didn’t seem like it was raining too heavily at the time.

Side note: One time I was in the BYU floral shop when a young bride came in with a bouquet of flowers and told the florist, “My husband just got me these flowers but they aren’t the kind I like.” She proceeded to ask for an exchange. I found that both odd and appalling.

As we got on the beltway the rains started to pound on us. We drove through it, but also started to worry about getting stranded and considered turning around. We wondered why Weston would send us so far away for a pedicure when there are plenty of day spas near home. We called him and suggested maybe turning around and going to White-Flint Mall instead. He said he wouldn’t send us so far away if it was something we could have done in Maryland. So, we persevered and made it to our destination.

We pulled up to the day spa and I saw a big sign that said, “Try our new Fish Doctor Pedicure” with a picture that looked something like this:

Huh.

Well, I promised I would submit myself to whatever treatment Weston deemed worthy of pampering me. We approached the front desk and checked in. The receptionist told us to pick our nail polish colors and mom explained that she wasn’t there for a pedicure. She was just with me.

The pedicure itself was awesome. Before I put my feet in the fish tank I didn’t understand what the fish were for. I just thought they were supposed to swim around while you soak your feet. Bizarre. However, as soon as I put my foot in, the fish SWARMED to me and it freaked me out. Apparently the idea is that these fish actually eat the dead skin off your feet. Still kind of strange but also kind of cool. I let them chew on me for a full 15 minutes, every once-in-a-while getting totally weirded out. Mom thought it was a cool idea, and suggested that next time she and dad are in town, they will have to come and try it out themselves.

After the fish treatment I sat in the awesome foot-bath chair which massages your neck and back while the pedicure is being done. I got the deluxe treatment where they even exfoliated and massaged my legs and also took care of my feet.
Mom had a good time watching and chatting with me and with others in the spa. She proudly explained that I’d just had a c-section and new baby and so I deserved some pampering. I really think she was happy to see me getting the deluxe treatment.

When the pedicure was done, we were faced with the task of driving home. The hurricane, it seemed, had worsened. We decided we would gas up and then say a prayer for our safe return. Despite the fact that we picked a covered gas pump, mom still got completely soaked while filling up. We drove home very cautiously, just waiting for it to be over. We were frequently unable to see anything out of the windshield, due to the sheer volume of water being splashed up by other cars. Not 5 minutes from home, we drove over a stick which got stuck up the front grill of the car. Mom had to get out, pop the hood, and she also knelt down on the ground in the pouring rain to try to get the stick out. By the time we got home, she was soaked to the skin. She was such an unbelievably good sport. I was feeling guilty for putting her through that much stress and….well, water.

It didn’t take long after our arrival home before the grossest miscommunication was discovered. Apparently, Weston had scheduled TWO appointments for pedicure. Mom was supposed to get one, too. Nobody told me that. In all of Weston’s efforts to preserve the surprise, that part didn’t transfer through. Even the receptionist at the day spa didn’t mention anything. Once Mom told them she wasn’t having a pedicure, they accepted it and moved on. The thought never occurred to either one of us.

I cried.

First of all, if it was just a pedicure for me, we could have easily done it at another time. The reason Weston had us drive through the hurricane was so we could do something fun together before she leaves tomorrow. He thought it would be a nice way to “thank her” for all of her efforts this past week-and-a-half.
“Well mom, thanks for everything you’ve done for us. To top it all off, we want you to drive two hours through a hurricane to watch me relax.” Great.

I was so sad all afternoon. It’s just one of those situations that is so disappointing and it could have been prevented if only someone had been able to predict the gap in information that was getting passed on, and now there’s nothing you can do to fix it.

All I can say at this point is, Mom and Dad, now you really will have to get a fish pedicure next time you come and visit. Our treat.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these feet got it’s nails painted.