Day Clothes Optional

You know you've been slacking off as a mother when you tell your daughter to get dressed and she counters with, "Why?"

I was about to answer with something like "because I said so" or "because that's what people do...I think?" but my tongue got caught and instead I said, "I don't know. Just get dressed."

In fact, the only reason we were dressing in the a.m. was to go to an appointment. I do try to have all of us (myself included) dressed and breakfasted and ready to greet each day, but it usually ends up being lunchtime by the time this is accomplished. And some days it doesn't seem worth the effort to swap out their pajamas for day clothes when they're just going to go to bed again 12 hours later. I know--mom of the year committee should be ringing me any day now.

When I was single, it was typical to wear pajamas all day on a day off when I wasn't expected to go anywhere. When I was married without children, we'd look forward to those days of staying indoors and staying in our pajamas. Now that I have kids, there's suddenly all this societal pressure to teach my children by demonstration that living your entire life in your pajamas is probably not the best way to be a productive member of civilization.

If in twenty years you see two young adults walking around town in their pajamas and blinking confusedly at the sunlight, treat them kindly. Their mother was also a very confused person.

I'm Famous! (locally)(sort of)(well no, not really)

A month or so ago, Josh and I attended a city council meeting that was going to discuss rezoning the street behind our house to allow for general office buildings rather than its current status of single-family residential homes. There are four or five plots of land that are vacant where old houses had been removed so long ago that no trace of them still stands. A developer wanted to buy up the properties but only if he could then build office buildings, which would reduce the size of our neighborhood and increase traffic along one of the only exit routes out of our neighborhood.

I hadn't planned to speak at the meeting but there seemed to be so few people there to protest the rezoning decision, so I volunteered to speak. There's a three-minute time limit on individual citizens' comments, so I was very brief. I explained that we purchased our home because we love the neighborhood and inviting more traffic into our neighborhood reduces the safety and beauty of the area we are so in love with. Despite my and a handful of others' pleas against the development, the city council members voted to move forward with the rezoning and I was pretty devastated. So our beautiful little neighborhood just got reduced by one full street.

While it's not the end of the world, it does add a new safety concern to my life. My children can't play in their backyard with public buildings just on the other side of it. (Technically the office buildings would be built on the far side of the street behind our house, so our backyard would still share a fence with another house, but for how long?) I deem it an inevitability that the houses up and down that street will all eventually fold to commercial construction and I'll be forced to live against a backdrop of businesses and strangers. Boo...

Anyway, this doom and gloom is certainly a bit hyperbolic and will dissipate somewhat over time. Josh and I got some frozen yogurt after the disappointing meeting to temper the bad news (why is ice cream so effective?!) and then we moved on with our lives.

But then Josh found this little nugget in our local paper:

Sorry for the sideways picture. For some reason, I can't make it rotate.

If you squint at the tiny print, you can see that one Camille Bowman is mentioned and slightly misquoted. I'm famous! I'm also totally saving the paper...because we're using newspapers to clean windows in our neighborhood as a Young Women's activity this summer. Can't wait to show my girls that their church leader happens to be a total celebrity before we crinkle the paper up and use it to smear Windex across dirty glass. Those fifteen minutes of fame go by quick, my friends!

Josh's Sacrifice

Josh makes me laugh so much. Last week I went to dinner with some friends and while I was gone, Josh took our kids to a neighbor's birthday party at Jungle Jim's. Jungle Jim's, for those who don't know, is sort of indoor pizza place with a bunch of child-size rides. It's very cheap and super fun and dirtier than I like to think about and we love it. While I was out, I didn't check my phone because manners. But when I was getting into my car around 10:00, I thought to check my messages before heading home.

Josh had sent me four texts back-to-back between 7:09 and 7:30. They read as follows:

"Rode some spinny ride. Sweating all over now, still trying not to throw up a few minutes later now."

"Still sweating, stomach hasn't calmed yet."

"Oh gosh. Almost just threw up. Why of why did I think I'd be the fun dad? I'm not the fun dad."

"Still fighting to keep from throwing up. Did I mention I only went on the ride once?"

I tried calling him to make sure he was all right, but he didn't answer, so I drove home and let myself into the house. The kids were asleep in their beds, fully-dressed and with bobby pins still in Scarlet's hair. It looked like Josh had unceremoniously dumped them into their beds upon arriving home.

I checked on Josh, who was fast asleep in our bed, a bowl on his nightstand just in case he actually made good on that threat to throw up. I had to smile.

The next day, Josh was still pretty dizzy. It took him most of the day to recover from that one spinny ride with his little girl. For what it's worth, I think he's a pretty fun dad.

The ride in question

Moved In

So we've been living in our new house for eight whole months. (We purchased the house nine months ago.) Within the course of that first month we refinished the floors, bought kitchen appliances and demolished the former kitchen, installed a living room ceiling fan, bought and installed a dozen window blinds, sprayed the entire house for bugs, and cleaned and dusted and washed and vacuumed every inch of the house. Then we rented a moving truck and moved our apartment belongings into our house over the course of six hours. Within a week or two, the house was unpacked and we had moved comfortably in. Almost.

Since we were renovating the kitchen and we didn't have the cabinets yet, all of our kitchen supplies remained in boxes in our bedroom so they'd be out of the way of our kids (through October). When the cabinets were installed, we still couldn't move the kitchen supplies because we didn't have a countertop (through November). When the countertop was installed, we still couldn't move the kitchen supplies because we didn't have a kitchen sink or faucet installed (through December). When the kitchen sink and faucet were installed, we unpacked our dishes and pans and washed everything and found places to put it in our new kitchen. Then we discovered that those weren't the only items left hiding in our bedroom for all those months.

There were five final boxes that contained any number of odds and ends that we didn't know what to do with. They contained such things as antibacterial hand soap, extra razors, nail polish, two surge protectors, an extra length of coil for the dryer, baby shampoo, Reynold's Wrap, skewers, tape, a baby-proofing kit, an extra pair of glasses, stamps, the box of CenturyLink cables left over from our internet installation, and numerous other similar miscellany. I hadn't even realized we'd had this junk. We'd been living for half a year without needing them, but I also couldn't just throw the stuff away without at least sorting through it all to see what we needed to keep. And then there was the dizzying concept of having to find a place to store those things somewhere in our new house. I'm not the most organized person, so I combat that weakness by minimizing the amount of stuff I keep in my house. That way, organized or not, there isn't too much clutter around me, stifling and oppressing me with its mass.

Since I was overwhelmed by the concept of clearing out those final boxes, I just pretended they didn't exist. Our room was significantly clearer without the kitchen items in it, so it was already improved even with the remaining moving boxes. And I knew Josh wouldn't touch the boxes without strong encouragement from me, so it'd be up to me to sort through them and I just didn't want to.

Cue the music while months and months roll by. A rainy April rolls around and just as it's about to turn into a sunnier May, I decide I've finally had enough. We spent last Friday night cleaning the house after the kids were asleep so we wouldn't have to waste any of our Saturday on chores. After I'd done my housework, I entered my bedroom with determination. Those boxes were going to die that night.

I did end up throwing away a lot of the stuff from those boxes. Another portion went to D.I., and a tiny amount went to various places around the house where we would eventually use them. After the boxes were stomped down and shoved into the recycling bin, I felt an incredible lightness. I walked back into my bedroom and saw just how big and beautiful it looked with a few select pieces of furniture and nothing else to mar the even pattern of the light wood floors. I loved it immensely.

That night I slept soundly. I couldn't believe what an effect that clear room was having on me. I mean, I'd been living with those boxes for most of a year and had slept like normal (that is to say, a little fitfully thanks to my insomnia). I hadn't realized that they were a source of oppression for me. Those boxes were a dark little cloud on my soul and I'd been unconsciously avoiding my bedroom except for sleep to avoid that cloud.

Now I welcome time spent in my bedroom. I no longer keep the door closed to keep the kids out, because there's no longer a pile of things they could get into. I raised the blinds today and opened the window to let in the beautiful spring air for literally the first time. The kids like to come in now to sit on the bed or the computer chair. They play in the open space while I fold laundry. They revel in the newness of the room the same way I do.

Now we have officially moved in, and I love this house more than ever.

You Might Be A Dad If...

Josh is a pretty old soul. A lot of his family are old souls, actually. And what I mean by that is that they're pretty mentally mature and think pretty logically, and also they tend to enjoy things that younger-minded people of their same age do not enjoy. For example, Josh was watching Peter Pan with the kids and later on our family walk, he commented on the fact that the Darling children's father wasn't a bad guy and hadn't really done anything wrong. He said that it made sense for him to have Wendy sleep in a room by herself rather than share the nursery with her younger brothers, that dogs should sleep outside, that drawing on his last clean shirt was a pretty offensive thing. His anger was justified and it's not like he screamed at his kids or did anything particularly offensive.

I pointed out that he kicked Nana out of the house even though it was obvious that she was accustomed to staying inside with the children, that he couldn't appreciate how much his children loved to be together, that he was shouting at the family as a whole and seemed to be more preoccupied with his pending evening out than with his children. But in reality, I think Josh was right. That father had acted like any father would have under the circumstances and although as a child, I thought Mr. Darling was cranky and mean, as an adult I now recognize that he's just a dad. Thanks to Josh for pointing that out.

Anyway, it's that fatherly perspective that has shaped Josh's mid-to-late 20s. And what goes with fatherhood better than the cheesy, punny Dad Joke? I shall give you an example of what Josh has been up to just in the last week:

At the grocery store, he was being checked out by a female checker and a male, teenage bagger. The overhead music was playing "This is How You Remind Me" by Nickelback. The bagger said to the checker, "How about this song? Can you guess this song?" to which she replied, "I'm bad at this. I won't know it."

The bagger said she could just name the band even if she couldn't name the song title. Josh recognized the song so when the checker told Josh that his total was $29.34, Josh devised a quick plan on the spot.

"What if I were to give you $29.39?" he asked the checker.

She absently stared at him before correcting. "No, it's $29.34."

"Yes," Josh agreed, inserting his credit card into the chip reader. "But what if I gave you $29.39? What would you have to give me BACK?"

"Oh, did you somehow overpay?" the checker asked.

The bagger was no help at all. He also had no idea what Josh was trying to say. So Josh explained, "I'd have to get a nickel back then, wouldn't I?"

The bagger finally catches on. "Ohhh, he's trying to give you a hint! The band's name is Nickelback!"

Neither the bagger nor the checker was particularly impressed with Josh's dad joke.

Josh relayed this story to me in the car, where I had left him earlier to wrangle the kids into car seats while he paid for our groceries. As the story progressed, I cringed more and more often with embarrassment and Josh grew cheerier. He laughed heartily at the end of his retelling, perfectly pleased with himself while I resigned myself to fifty or sixty more years bound to this man.

Date Night!

Last Friday, my sister was gracious enough to offer to babysit my children while I went on a date. Josh and I have been trying to get to the temple for like three weeks now but our best-laid plans have always been interrupted with surprise responsibilities or repeated illnesses. I briefly entertained the idea of going to the temple but honestly, I just wasn't feeling it. What I wanted was a good, old-fashioned date with the husband, so we did that instead.

After dropping the kids off at my sister's house with a house key to our place (so that in case we got back after their bedtime, my sister could take them home and put them to bed), we went to Jinya, this new ramen bar on State Street. Every time we drove past it, we commented on trying it out but we just never did. It's hard to make long-term date plans for eating out, so we don't often do it.

The food was amazing! We had tempura-battered brussels sprouts and a pork bun as appetizers and they were absolutely delicious. I told Josh that the bun in particular was so satisfying as it went down my throat and settled in my stomach that I described it (in a whisper so as not to sound like a pretentious hipster to the other diners) as umami. He mocked me appropriately for the description but (also in a whisper) agreed. We chose to eat outdoors because it was so beautiful and aside from the ten minutes of smoke we smelled from a woman waiting at a nearby bus stop, it was very pleasant. Josh had a pork ramen and I had a spicy chicken. I added a seasoned egg and loved that part the most. The noodles, the meat, the vegetables, and even the broth was individually tasty, but combined it was heaven! I didn't grow up loving soups much, but soups from various Asian regions knock it out of the park. I thought trying pho was epic, but ramen is just as savory and delicious in a different way.

Josh also teased me for taking a hipster picture of our meal, so I included him in it.

After dinner we went over to a bowling alley and played a game. We were going to see a movie but nothing was out that we were interested in (technically it was opening night for Beauty and the Beast but there was no way Josh was going to go see THAT with me), so we opted for a game instead. I am lousy at bowling. I can't roll the ball properly, I can't aim, I usually throw half my turns into the gutter, but I absolutely love bowling! It's just fun! The lights and the slippery shoes and the satisfying sound of the ball crashing into the pins (on other people's turns because that seriously doesn't happen with me).

Josh had a hard time finding a ball that fit his fingers without being unbelievably heavy, so he ended up playing with a heavier ball than he would have preferred. My ball didn't seem too heavy for me, although my wrist was starting to hurt as the game progressed. Our final scores weren't terribly impressive, although Josh did manage to get almost double my score.

Since Fat Cats is so close to Iceberg, we decided to swing by and get some ice cream on our way home. The wait was really long, as it always is, but the ice cream is pretty good. I usually stick very close to my favorite flavors when I get ice cream because we don't get it often and I don't want to risk getting a gross flavor on one of the rare occasions when I actually do splurge on a treat. The same principle holds for eating out: because we don't do it very often, I'm afraid to get something new because what if it's not as good as my tried-and-true favorites? Sometimes it pays off and I find something new that is delicious but it is a risk, because other times I end up getting something mediocre and who knows how long it'll be before we next go to that particular restaurant?

Anyway, because of this first-world problem of mine, I was a little antsy at Iceberg. This was the third time in my life we've ever been there and I wanted to try an as-yet untasted flavor from their massive list, but I was afraid of branching out and risking a bad experience during such a rare opportunity. Josh sort of persuaded me to try something new, and I'm glad I did. It was yummy! I went out of my comfort zone and got a butterscotch flavor this time. It was a ton of ice cream, and not even halfway eaten before we got to my sister's house to pick up the kids, but very tasty.

Somehow, even after our three-part date with fun conversation and beautiful weather, we still managed to take up only two hours of time. That was like the fastest date of my life. It worked out great, though, because we were able to sit out in my sister's backyard with her and her husband and just talk in the beautiful weather for half an hour while James begged more and more bites of ice cream off of me. Eventually my brother-in-law saved me and ran the ice cream into the house and on a kitchen counter so James would stop begging. He went inside and we didn't hear from him until it got a little later and we decided to take our kids home.

James had managed to use his incredible balance and his tippy toes to reach up to the kitchen counter, pull down the cup withOUT spilling, and to bring it to the ground, where he was calmly feeding himself spoonfuls of ice cream. I have no idea how long he'd been doing that, but not a drop of ice cream was to be found on his clothes, the floor, or the counter. That was really impressive. The stinker!

We put the kids to bed and enjoyed half of a movie together until we both fell asleep on the couch. Such is the exciting lifestyle of the not-so-young couple with children! It was a great date and a great night.

Theresa the Thyroid Welcomes Lucy the Lump

I had my regular doctor check-up a week ago today. During the exam, my doctor felt a weird lump on my thyroid. I didn't know what a thyroid was, but research a little later on informed me it looked a little something like this:

It's this adorable, butterfly-shaped gland on top of your neck (I think it looks more like a dapper bowtie but I read a lot of websites that kept calling it butterfly-shaped, so we'll go with that). It's really important for regulating hormones and secreting thyroid hormones that affect your metabolism and a bunch of other really important stuff. When you're not producing enough hormones or in the right variation, all kinds of symptoms show up in your body, from wacky to scary. 

I have no symptoms so I had no idea my thyroid (a previously unknown little piece of my anatomy) was acting out of sorts. And it's still not known if that's the case. My doctor said I needed to get an ultrasound to see what the lump was so he gave me a referral and took some blood for testing and sent me on my merry way. 

I called the ultrasound place (same place that first told me Scarlet was a girl!) and they had an opening the very next morning, so I jumped at the opportunity. I dropped my kids off at my sister's in the morning and had some uncomfortable ultrasounds taken of my neck (they kept pressing into my throat, making me fight to resist pushing the machine off of me in a fit of claustrophobic rage). The images were sent to a radiologist and the information faxed back to my doctor, who then sent them on to an ENT and set me up an appointment a week later with the ENT. I liked to think of him as a giant shepherd of the forest, but really he's just a friendly older man named Dr. Hunter.

Dr. Hunter said my thyroid was acting normally (which explains my lack of symptoms) but noted that the lump on my thyroid was actually a lump IN my thyroid, and he wanted me to get a biopsy of it to make sure it was benign material (which it is 88% of the time). He sent me referral information for the lab and I set up an appointment for the next day (today) to have a PA use an ultrasound to guide her scary needle into my neck and shake loose (literally shake the needle up and down until some cells get lodged into the needle and she can extract them--ick) some "mystery lump" cells for the pathologist to examine. 

So I dropped my kids off again today and spent a very tense hour getting my neck prodded by numbing needles and then the cell-extracting needle. I talked to the pathologist and the ultrasound technician and the PA and the weird guy in the back who never introduced himself or his purpose while I was being prepped. The PA mentioned that my lump was solid instead of liquid, so it's not just a cyst that you can leave alone, and the ultrasound technician said that mystery lumps are sometimes reluctant to give up their cells because the thyroid closely safeguards itself since it's so crucial to normal hormone balancing and all. The pathologist said I can expect results of the cell analysis around Monday. 

It took three needle jiggles and three extractions while I tried not to swallow before we were finished. They gave me a bandaid on my neck and let me drive myself home, which seems irresponsible because I was incredibly tense and rigid walking out of there. Sticking a needle repeatedly into my neck may be the scariest thing I've ever had happen to me.

I picked up my kids, had dinner with Josh, and then we went out for frozen custard because I had undergone four different medical appointments in one week and I was a bit frazzled. The custard was delicious, but my neck is quite tender. Moving, swallowing, and speaking are uncomfortable and sometimes painful. A bruise is already starting to peek out from under my bandaid. 

You can almost see it blooming out of the top of the bandaid.

BUT...

But there's a very, very high chance that the mystery lump is nothing but a mystery lump, causing no harm and doing no damage to the rest of me or my thyroid.

But I've named the lump Lucy. Lucy the lump.

But I've also decided my thyroid's name is Theresa.

But my belly is full of unbelievably creamy ice cream with fudge and cherries like a BOSS.

But I'm really relieved and happy and grateful that everything has worked out so smoothly and that there has been so much good news already.

But I am amazed yet again at what the human body does normally to function and how it adapts to changes and evolution.

And I'm anticipating a lot more good news on Monday when the results come back. :)

Our Super Family-Oriented Weekend

Through no great forethought, Josh and I ended up having a really family-friendly Saturday complete with lots of time spent bonding with our children. It was pretty fantastic, even though it sort of happened organically.

It started the night before, when I began a fun little book while lying in bed. The book got more fun and I couldn't put it down until I'd read it all, which happened at 4:30 the next morning. Then I collapsed into bed and woke up to my alarm at 7:45 because it was the Young Women's turn to clean the chapel and we'd agreed to meet there at the unholy eight o'clock hour. Somewhat dizzy and very sleepy, I stumbled into the bathroom to brush my teeth and pull my hair back, then I drove to the church and helped them clean for an hour. It wasn't so bad. My mom used to work as a janitor for the Church, so she'd employ all of her children to clean the buildings with her after school. I have come to really love the time spent in quiet reflection or humming songs while I vacuum long hallways and empty trashes.

Then I drove home and showered, played with the kids while Josh showered, got the kids dressed, and we all drove to the zoo. There were like 14 other people in the zoo. The parking lot was eerily empty. It was 38 degrees outside, which isn't freezing but it's uncomfortable enough that I guess not many people want to wander around outside in it. I get that. I wish I'd brought gloves, but other than that, it was a fun time. We rode the carousel and enjoyed all the animals that were unusually alert and awake, like the snakes and armadillos and tortoises in the reptile house, and the snow leopard and Amur leopard and wolves and elephants and grizzly bears. Some animals prefer the cold, it seems. Or the mornings? Whatever the reason, they were really fun to watch.

After the zoo, we went to the British Market because I had a gift certificate from work. We bought some treats and drinks from the market side and a vegetable curry pasty and cheese and onion pie from the bakery side. The kids were really only interested in their weird circular chips, but we had a lovely lunch there. 

Then we hurried home to put James down for a nap. We spent an hour or so vacuuming, doing dishes and laundry, and generally tidying up the house before I just couldn't take it anymore. I took an hour nap to try to make up for my lost night of sleep. Josh got started on an amazing dinner. When I woke, I had to go back downtown to get my hair done, and by the time I came back home that evening, Josh's parents had arrived for dinner. We'd invited them earlier in the week when we realized that we never have them over for dinner (but we always go to their house for dinner). We were a little embarrassed at the realization.

Josh made a veritable feast of nations. He made vichyssoise soup with sliced sourdough bread as a starter, then rotkohl with apple and vinegar and weiner schnitzel for the entree. We also had honeydew melon and Josh's parents brought a broccoli side dish with stuffing and sliced almonds mixed in. Everything was delicious! Then we had banoffee pie for dessert. We left the table stuffed and very contented.

The soup is French, the rotkohl is German, the schnitzel is Austrian (apparently weiner mean "from Vienna" and that kind of schnitzel is prepared differently than the kind you'd see in Germany), the sourdough is American, and the dessert is British. We didn't mean to make it so multinational but it ended up being very tasty.

Then Josh's parents played hide-and-go-seek with Scarlet and James for about an hour. The kids love it more than anything and Josh's parents love their grandkids more than anything, so everyone was happy. They left when it was time for James to go to bed. It ended up being a very enjoyable day with our family.

On Sundays, we've decided to carry on a tradition I had with my family. Growing up, we'd make popcorn enough to feed the entire family and we'd watch the Disney's original movie on television. That was a tradition born of necessity because popcorn is an affordable meal for a family of 14. For Josh and myself, we decided to adopt the quality family time aspect of the tradition. We don't watch t.v. on Sundays, but on Sunday evenings, we make an exception and put on a Disney movie for the kids, pop some popcorn (microwave this time because we're pretty lazy, and also it's just a supplement to dinner because we definitely make dinner on Sundays), and we spend the last two hours before bedtime on the couch, cuddled up with each other in the semi-darkness, enjoying our sweet little family. It's a fantastic way to spend the last hours of weekend before the next week unfolds.

Burn It With Fire

I had a bit of a rough day. All week I've been struggling with inexplicable insomnia, which has made work VERY difficult since it's hard to concentrate on words when you're only getting 2-4 hours of sleep. Last night I could tell I was developing a cold and although exhausted, I couldn't make my body go to sleep. After lying in bed for four hours, I gave up and stayed up the rest of the night reading a really sad book on cancer until I collapsed in exhaustion around 6:00 a.m.  I slept a couple hours and signed into work late and tried not to drool on my laptop.

Anyway, today was hard because my cold was in full force and I kept randomly crying at facebook posts or getting suddenly, inordinately angry at petty grievances. I was just really really tired and really really sick. It was a relief when Josh came home so I could escape to take a steamy shower and nurse my cold a bit. After my shower, I dressed and started blow-drying my hair and then a blur of black shot past my forearm and I screamed and brushed whatever it was onto the bathroom floor.

It was a spider. A HUGE BLACK SPIDER. Josh happened to be walking by the hallway when I screamed and jumped out of the bathroom, and when he poked his head in, he saw the spider and immediately stomped it to death. I stood clutching my heart and visibly shaking. Josh just looked at me a moment. Then he said, "I love you very much, but now we must set you on fire."

I couldn't agree more.

Is it tomorrow yet?

2016 in Review

It's that time again (and with barely one day left in January--geez, I'm really pushing it this year): a year-end review of 2016! Complete with pictures and reminiscence and retrospective. Here we go!

So for me, last year feels a bit like a black hole in one sense. I think of it like a lost year somehow. I had a bunch of goals but I ended up not accomplishing very much. Just living my life (and raising kids and working and reading books and all the other things that one does when one is living life) doesn't feel like enough for me. I want to be doing incredible things and planning trips and exploring opportunities and building myself into a better version of myself. Because of this constant desire of mine and my lack of follow-through this past year, I feel like I wasted the opportunity of an entire year to develop into a better, more accomplished person. Naturally, I don't regret last year--it was a great year for me and my family. But I do feel as though I could have been better during it, and so I'm taking that lesson into 2017 with me and making sure I don't waste the time given to me.

In another sense, 2016 was a fantastic year! There were a lot of naysayers on social media complaining about how horrid 2016 was, and before that concept became a popular sentiment, I hadn't considered 2016 to be any different from any other year in my life. Good things, bad things, great things, terrible things, and mediocre things all happened in a hodge-podge melting pot of experience and adventure. It was what it was. If I had to assess it off the cuff, I'd say 2016 was fantastic. Wonderful things happened and I loved my life last year. So on to the pictures!

January was quiet. We didn't do anything particularly interesting or special. This is a picture of James getting into the toilet paper in our apartment bathroom, because it was particularly interesting and special to him to do so.

In February we had our semi-annual tooth cleaning appointments at the dentist. Scarlet was scheduled to be cleaned, but she sobbed the entire time, even when I sat in the chair with her and held her, so she ended up getting nothing done. She did score a new toothbrush, so it wasn't a total waste. At the end the month, we took her to Disneyland for her birthday (but I've already blogged about that, so...) just before she turned three years old. It was a great family vacation.

March was pretty fun. I drove the kids down to Las Vegas and spent a week working remotely so my kids could spend time playing with their cousins. We went to a splash pad on one of the days and I was reminded how perfectly suited Las Vegas weather is to splash pads. Even in March, it was boiling hot outside. Scarlet kept playing dress up and James wanted to copy her, so he was thrilled when I put a tutu on him. It cracked me up so much that I kept him in it for hours. Josh hates that he wasn't there to stop me, but I still smile when I see the pictures. That boy is a fashionista!

Us in our St. Patrick's day garb

Look how pleased he is!

Although less pleased to be in the water.

Scarlet, however, loves the water.

The kids had frequent movie parties with popcorn. It was a dream trip for them all.

In April we had a lovely Easter egg hunt at Josh's parents' house. Scarlet and her cousin Hazel scoured the ample yard and overflowed their buckets. When the weather turned nicer, we started taking the kids to the zoo more often. During the bird show, Scarlet was invited to dance on the stage with all the other willing children. At first she was swept up in the thrill of being allowed to leave her seat, but once she realized she was not accompanied by her parents, the enjoyment quickly vanished.

Then May arrived. For Memorial Day Weekend, we went up to Josh's grandmother's farm in Wyoming. She has this gorgeous working sheep farm with tons of animals and breathtaking views. Josh seemed to gather inner strength from being out in the fresh air so close to the Grand Tetons. I, however, caught a vicious allergy attack/summer cold and spent the weekend congested and miserable. It was pretty though.

We also went to this working farm north of Salt Lake, where they have a spring baby animals fair of sorts. We took Scarlet and James and Rachel brought Hazel, and the kids (and mothers) went wild for the baby animals. Scarlet got to ride a horse too, which was adorable.

Fearless

Notice how she goes straight for the goat's butt. Nice.

'Tis a baby chick

As the weather warmed, Josh and I tried to incorporate a few Saturday morning hikes into our summer. It was a lot harder with two kids, but we still managed to squeeze a few in.

June is James's birthday. We made him a James-sized smash cake (I had not heard of this fun little tradition when Scarlet turned one, so this was my first one!) and James spent a good ten minutes grinning and licking off the frosting one finger-full at a time. Then we encouraged him to really dig deep, and it got a whole lot messier and cuter!

Look at that happy one-year-old.

My sister and her family stopped by to visit us during the summer on their month-long tour of southwestern national parks. We all took a tour of the Conference Center downtown and shared dinner together.

Josh's work also hosted a potluck picnic at a park (alliteration!). James loved the playground and it ended up being a really enjoyable evening.

Then came July. For several months earlier in the year, Josh and I researched houses and built up our savings to purchase a house. While we were still in the research stage, we took another trip down to Las Vegas for the fourth of July. This is one of my favorite holidays, first because it's America's birthday and my country rocks, and second because it's *such* a fun way to spend a summer afternoon: fireworks, barbecue, balmy weather, and family and friends. I tend to idealize summer and the Fourth is the quintessential summer event. Josh never let us light fireworks in our apartment parking lot because he thought it was bad manners to risk scorching other people's cars (I still think they would have thought it worth it to watch a little patriotism light up the lot). Because of that, we never really did much for the holiday until this past year, when I insisted we go celebrate with my kin. My parents know how to do it right. We had a lovely barbecue and everyone brought their children to watch a fun backyard fireworks show. Josh seemed to come to life with excitement around the fireworks. He kept insisting that he enjoyed how much the older boys enjoyed lighting them (he was overseeing the operation), but it was obvious that he got a kick out of lighting a bunch of explosives too. He is such a boy hidden beneath those folds of intellectualism and maturity and responsibility and duty. I love that boy.

Look how excited Josh is. He pretended not to care that much but it was easy to catch his happiness when he wasn't looking.

In fact, most of the kids loved watching the fireworks.

Scarlet did NOT enjoy them. They scared her so much that she refused to watch them unless protected by the French doors with the other scared babies.

The boys kept a hose on hand and a big bucket of water and sprayed down the board that held the fireworks after each rocket. It's important to practice fire safety during such a dry activity during such a dry month inside such a dry state.

James was content to watch them from any angle.

At the end of the month, Josh and I closed on our house (wait, I blogged about that too!) and we started the arduous process of moving in.

James helped, of course.

Actually, it wasn't very hard at all. We moved five minutes away from our apartment, only needed to rent a moving truck for half a day, had an entire month to clean the house and update things before gradually moving things in a piece at a time, and had very difficulties transitioning from apartment to house. It was such an easy experience. I feel very blessed that we were able to have such a positive transition. The real stress and exhaustion came from the month after we closed, when we were still living in our apartment but we were spending every evening working on finishing the floors and installing door stops and ceiling fans and remodeling the kitchen and washing windows and cutting and installing window blinds, and any number of things that go along with buying an older home. It all feels idyllic now, but at the time, it was just exhausting. We flew one of my sisters in for the month of August so she could babysit our kids in the evenings while we spent hours at the new house getting it up to snuff. That is probably why the actual move was so easy.

At the end of August, Josh's brother got married! It was in the Provo City Center temple, which is inexplicably beautiful. I loved attending their special sealing, and I loved walking the grounds of the temple after they came out!

And then we were moved into our new house and fall was fast approaching. Before we had even imagined purchasing a house, I had planned a quiet little anniversary trip to St. George and Cedar City. After we bought the house, the trip was still planned, so we went. We saw a very funny play in Cedar City and then drove down to St. George and stayed in a fun hotel and went swimming and hiking and eating out at fun, fancy restaurants. We saw two Tuacahn plays (Hunchback of Notre Dame was amazing! It left me in tears and utterly emotionally spent. Of course I bought the soundtrack). Josh and I really enjoyed some alone time after spending an exhausting month working on the house. The kids spent a couple of nights with their grandparents in Kaysville and Josh and I spent a lot of time watching fun shows on the t.v. in our room in the middle of the afternoon or reading the book Quiet aloud to one another (very interesting book, btw). I look back on that vacation with absolute joy. It was a perfect sixth anniversary trip.

Look how fancy those soups are!

This was us at the fancy restaurant.

Waiting for my fancy soup at the fancy restaurant. It was housed in an art gallery with a southwestern Indian motif. Very Arizona-y.

Hiking

Still hiking

Still more hiking

Yummy dinner

This was the set for Tarzan. It was good but it didn't even compare to Hunchback. 

I paid top dollar to ensure we got the best possible seats for this show. 

It was so close, Josh could touch the stage. That's his foot.

Waiting for hunchback!!!

 I also happened to be in Las Vegas for my birthday and our Super Family Fun Day weekend, which was a huge smash hit of fun and family reunion-ing. In our family, all of the birthdays that fall in the same month are celebrated on Fast Sunday. I'm in line with my fellow Septemberians while we sing Happy Birthday at the top of our lungs.

Then Josh and I were right back at it, working on the kitchen remodel as the cabinets started arriving, and negotiating with the electrician and the plumber. We spent a lot of long nights keeping the plumber company as he worked on our kitchen during the late night hours after his regular work. He is a good friend and a very good plumber, and he did amazing work for us. I feel a lot of gratitude for how the issues that came up after we bought the house were resolved. We've been blessed ten times over since we bought this place. And I'm still desperately in love with it.

Before we stocked the new cabinets with pots and pans, the kids loved playing in there. 

Josh did a lot of tree trimming that first month.

Scarlet liked to sit back and watch.

Whenever I couldn't find James in the backyard, I'd know he was over in the farthest corner on the side of the house, digging in the dirt.

This is to show how tiny he was compared to that corner of the yard. It was so easy to miss him sometimes when I searched for him.

As the season turned to fall, I discovered new responsibilities as a homeowner: raking up the leaves in our front and back yards. We had to buy big black garbage bags and a rake. It was so strange to own yard equipment. Scarlet really enjoyed mimicking her father while he worked.

We had a ward trunk or treat at our new ward and I got to meet our new ward members as I took Scarlet around the parking lot. Scarlet was Rapunzel and James was a pumpkin. They were so stinking cute. I love Halloween three thousand times more as a holiday now that I have children. I was hoping to get more people at our door, but Josh was relieved that we didn't. He enjoyed watching a Halloween movie with me that night after the kids went to bed and didn't like being interrupted too many times to pass out candy.

The cousins all dressed up for Boo and the Zoo. It was a great experience!

It's hard to tell in this picture, but Josh is dressed up as Clark Kent. You can make out his Superman uniform underneath his unbuttoned shirt.

They played in their costumes a lot that month. Gotta get your money's worth!

One last hike before the weather completely turned and it grew too cold to go up in the mountains.

My sister and her family moved up to Utah in September, which was a surreal experience for me. Buying a house and moving my own family didn't seem like that big of a deal, but having one of my family members actually leave Las Vegas and join me in Utah, no less, was nothing short of a miracle. We helped them move in, and they have become our best friends. We love having the cousins play together and the only thing that could make their move any more awesome would be if other siblings would follow suit and join us up here. 

For Thanksgiving, we opted to stay local and shared a meal with my sister and her family. Richard smoked an absolutely gorgeous bird and we divvied up the remaining appetizers and sides. It was a delicious and enjoyable holiday. Allyse and I even sneaked away before dessert to check out Best Buy for their black Friday sale. We've never been black Friday shopping (and on Thursday, no less!) and it turned to be not much of a big deal. We didn't see anything that seemed worth buying and we left after half an hour. Now I know that there's nothing to buy, I won't ever feel tempted to leave again.

Adult table

Cuter table

Beautiful, beautiful bird

And then there was Christmas. How to describe one's first Christmas in one's first home? Imagine the magic of Christmas and then add to that the magic of Christmas with small children. Then triple said magic with the magic of owning a beautiful home and you have a trifecta of enchantment. It was so much fun to hang stockings on an actual fireplace and to place presents underneath a tree in one's own living room. We had my sister from Pennsylvania staying with us for Christmas, so she took a few pictures of our family opening presents on Christmas morning. Actually, it was the following Tuesday, because we spent Christmas in Las Vegas, where a huge crowd of siblings, in-laws, and four billion nieces and nephews ran amok in my parents' increasingly shrinking house. I love big, loud Christmas with all the family. It was a great holiday.

Upon her first  coming out of her room.

Just before we went to bed, after wrapping that ridiculous playhouse/tunnel.

Grandma and Grandpa bought Scarlet and James a great big ball pit to play with since they can't play outside during the winter months.

That's how I feel all the time.

Upon discovering her new playhouse.

Present time!

Christmas Eve buffet line

Upon James discovering his own playhouse.

James received a blow-up light saber.

James officially loves the princess castle more than Scarlet. He also plays with it more than Scarlet.

No Christmas is complete without umbrellas.

When I reflect back on the year, I can see so easily how wonderful and beautiful and exciting and eventful it was. Maybe I didn't accomplish everything I'd intended to do last year, but I had amazing memories with my family. I loved so much of last year and I'm still enjoying the blessings I received then.You can see why it's hard for me to relate to those who claim 2016 was a rough year. A lot of celebrities died, sure, and the politics were an absolute zoo, but in my small world of family and love, life was beautiful. Here's to another beautiful year in 2017.