Brady/norah, Elizabeth/me, homemade pizza

Abigail's hair is like fine thread.  and while she sleeps, rumpelstiltskin, weaves it into this.

every morning, a new 3-D creation greets me.  it's like cotton candy gone bad.

we're in December! so we kept the December page and sent the rest of the calendar to the recycle bin.  but how cute it is that Brady crosses off each day.  he calls it his chart.  I basically turned 2017 into a to do list when I gave him this calendar.  that kid.

I went to the barbell class and then listened/read scriptures while I stretched afterward.

this is Sarah.  I'm a bad friend so I took this picture of her.  she organized a girls night for my birthday and bought me pizza and I just sit on a park bench and take pictures of her looking like a crazy person.  and then she took Brady to Costco with her and Norah and kept him until 4pm.  she is a good friend.

and so lovable.

Norah pushing Brady...

Brady pushing Norah...

while Sarah and I Marco polo'd Marissa.  it was a beautiful moment.

Elizabeth was SO SAD that Brady got to go to Costco with Norah and eat samples and she had to come home with me so I let her ride in Brady's carseat.  the whole way home she's all "so fun!!!"  ha.

I mean seriously, look at that face.  pure joy.

our neighbors have those blow up Christmas decorations on their lawn and they look so nice from 4pm-6am but then when the sun rises, it's like there was a massacre at the North Pole.

Abigail was at school, Brady at Costco with Sarah and Norah, and Andrew asleep in his carseat... so Elizabeth and I had so one on one time and it was AMAZING.  oh my gosh, she is such a funny kid.  she started saying "oh goodness!" out of the blue and only sometimes says it in the correct context so that was fun.  also, she loves acting like a grown up or like she always knows what's going on.  and she's a ham for the camera.  and she was thrilled that we shared a banana and Nutella (if you haven't already... microwave a little bowl of it and it's basically chocolate fondue) together at the start of our lunch.  when she's not driving me crazy, she is seriously the best ever.  so entertaining.

so then I put Elizabeth down for a nap around 1 and then Andrew woke up and then I semi put Andrew down for a nap and he fell asleep while I was in the shower at 1:45 and I spent some time prepping grapefruit for dinner and making pizza dough in my blender and blogging and then picked up Brady (and my mod pizza that I left in Sarah's car last night!) and then got Abigail from school.  we had a good after school time which typically doesn't happen.  the kids helped me make little pizzas.  we made four small pizzas... two cheese, two pepperoni and Elizabeth saying peppy-oni made me want to serve that for dinner every night.  she is getting so vocal with expressing what's on her mind.  during dinner, honey got a few calls/emails that wrapped him up with work and occupied him till 8:00.  and then left him in a rough mood for the rest of the night after that.  I don't want to sound ungrateful because he's got an amazing job, but man, it consumes him.  so then the kids all went crazy at 7 when I asked them to get ready for bed.  why does this happen?! they'd been so calm and listening to that point and they instantly got soooo hyper and silly.  I know I'm a terrible mother but I pretty much hate the sound of my kids' laughter.  It almost always is when they're supposed to be doing something like getting ready for bed but they're just messing around instead.  I really shouldn't care except that I told them to get ready at 7 so we could have plenty of time to read Christmas books before bed... but they messed around for 45 minutes and Abigail barely scraped by to get ready... we had 7 minutes and used that time for one picture book, prayers, and one scripture story... during that 7 minutes, Brady finally decided to clean his room and finished two seconds after I announced to Abigail that it was lights out.  then he went ballistic because he missed his chance and I thought to myself for the millionth time... "this is why I hate the sound of my kids' laughter.  it's just a precursor to THIS."  ugh... anyway.  eventually all the kids were asleep and my kitchen was semi cleaned and I gave myself a pat on the back for surviving one more day.

but seriously... that time with Elizabeth today was pure gold.

birthday pizza!

I literally just listened to this chapter yesterday on my phone at the gym and nothing really stuck out to me and then I opened to this chapter in my little book of mormon and these verses just stood out.  I'm such a visual person.  reading on paper makes all the difference.

I set Andrew on my bed to hang out while I ran upstairs to put Elizabeth down for nap and when I came back, he'd passed out.  ugh.  frustrating when you just need to be in two places at once.

Sarah is one of the most unclear texters I know.  I got this as I pulled in the garage after visiting teaching and was so confused.  even two hours later, I was still trying to figure out who was going to watch my kids, etc.  I wondered if maybe she'd ask Jane to come over but texted my honey and found out that he had plans to be home by 5 so I could go.  what a fun surprise!  I chose mod pizza as our spot and Sarah and Jill picked me up and Janel met us there.

wanna know what else was really fun about the day? Abigail has been talking about this girl, Fiona, that lives on our block (although I just found out which house she lives in) for a while and playing with her after school and we just realized that that's the same girl that we see walk home with her brother after school each day.  I finally told Fiona that I wanted to go over and meet her mom and when I did, I could instantly tell that I liked her.  we talked for only a few minutes before I mentioned that we go to the church on the other side of the neighborhood and she's all "the LDS church?!" yup... that one.  and then she excitedly tells me "my best friend is LDS!!!"  they just moved here from longmont and the LDS friend actually just moved from longmont to New York and I was just hearing all about it but it was seriously the most hilarious thing to me that it gave me such an instant connection with it.  she had so many questions about why there are so many mormons in Parker and why all of the ward buildings here look different than the ones in longmont and she was so excited to tell her kids that Abigail is mormon just like their best friends.  I'm excited to get to know this lady better.  also excited that Abigail's friend isn't part of a weird family where I have to make up excuses of why they can't play together.  ; )

Abigail's fashions

we've been having unusually warm weather.  but still, Abigail was anxious to wear her hat, scarf, and mittens.  she walked downstairs, ready to wear this outfit to school.  how do you find that balance of letting your kid confidently wear clothes they love and protecting them from outfits that will have other people making fun of them?  

I let her wear the whole thing except that I had her put on full length black leggings... and I brushed her hair, which naturally broke up what she had going on above her shoulders... since she had on the hood of the hoodie and then the hat and then the scarf.  I can't remember exactly what she looked like when I dropped her off, but it was a significant improvement considering I only asked her to change one thing.

here's our daily Andrew picture.

monkey see, monkey do.

I did a reading lesson with Brady out of his reading lesson book.  for the first time since October 14th.  the book made a pretty significant jump where it dropped all of the special symbols (like a line over the long vowel sounds) and font and went to a regular font and no symbol clues.  it was sooo confusing/frustrating for Brady even though he was fine reading that font in regular books that had no special symbols.  after a few days of frustrating lessons, I just dropped it.  we did some "lessons" of just him reading books to me (mostly bob books) but that eventually faded out too.  he's not a fan of bob books because there's really no plot and his questions never get answered.  so, mostly, he's just been reading random stuff that he sees around and sometimes reads some easy reader books.  I decided to try the reading lesson book again and Brady and I were both pleased and surprised at how easy it was for him again.  so even without formal lessons, the time off was still a time of learning for him.  anyway... we'll see what kind of schedule we do with it going forward.  it's just nice to know that it's an option again.  and just to note... the first lap was reading all of the words two times through, the second lap was reading the story the first time through, and the third lap was him reading the story the second time through while pausing at points to answer reading comprehension questions.

Brady told me a few weeks ago that he wanted a drum for Christmas.  it was the first I'd ever heard of it so I thought it was a fleeting thing.  not the case.  he's really into drumming now... with Lincoln logs and a boppy pillow.

Christopher had a bishopric meeting at 8:30 and bedtime was ROUGH... especially because Brady was exhausted and out of control.  I sat in the hall and waited for my kids to fall asleep while I read this conference talk about how hard is good.  these are screenshots of some of my favorite parts.

and honey and I watched some this is us before bed.  I love that show.

o Christmas tree

church was great.  the speakers were wonderful, Sunday school was great, and RS was a fantastic lesson on gratitude... complete with homemade gratitude journals for everyone.  I loved hearing everyone's comments.

this just made me feel like Abigail should be in a musical or something... even though she wasn't singing.

Chris and the kids put up the Christmas tree.  Abigail was well behaved but Brady was 100% out of control.  Christopher was gone much of the afternoon with calling stuff and home teaching, but the girls and I hung some ornaments on the tree.

and Brady fell asleep on his bed sometime between 6 and 6:30... I shouldn't have been surprised considering most of his bad behavior stems from lack of sleep.  he slept for an hour, woke up to eat something, and then went to bed again.  rough night.

Dylan's baby blessing day

sunday primary program

I decided to go easy on myself and have zero showers/baths before church on sunday so we could for sure make it to church early for the primary program.  it left a bit of playtime for the kids.

the weather turned to winter all of a sudden and we've been just freezing around here.

this feisty kid cracks me up.

Brady's Sunday school teacher gave the kids a chart last week to fill in.  it had the days of the week on the left and morning/night on the top and the kids were to color in a block each time they said they're personal prayer.  Brady took this VERY seriously and only missed one morning (and asked me a million times in the days that followed if he could say an extra prayer to make up for that day... he was afraid he wouldn't get the promised treat from his teacher if every block wasn't filled in).  as we were pulling out of the driveway for church, I remembered the chart (by sheer miracle) and Brady ran in to get it.  turns out, he was the only kid in his class to bring back the chart so he got both of these little cupcake things.  after church, he excitedly ran to Abigail's classroom and said "Abigail! look what we get! because I was the only one that brought back my chart so my teacher gave me both of these so we each get one!"  it was precious.  he is soooo addicted to sweets but somehow still really good at sharing.  I honestly don't understand it because heavens knows, I do NOT share my treats that I get at church.  also, it kind of broke my heart because Abigail never shares back.  last Sunday, she'd gotten a full size Krispy Kreme donut on a plate and Brady asked so sweetly if he could have some.  nope.  not a single crumb.  so double nice of Brady to not hold a grudge because I totally did and was semi hoping he would hesitate about sharing with Abigail.  also, it was good for Christopher to see because he never believes me that Abigail never shares and Brady pretty much always does.  anyway... that focused little boy did an awesome job with his personal prayers each morning and night and an even more awesome job being selfless and giving of his cupcakes.  he makes me proud.

and both kids did great in the primary program.  and Elizabeth, sitting next to me, did great singing all the words to "choose him again" as well as a number of the other songs.  it was precious.  also, the kids invited the kids that live in the three houses next to us and Braydon and his dad actually came.  Chris was conducting the meeting and saw them in the back and texted me about it (which I actually saw because I'd forgotten to put my phone on silent, whoops) and then he happened to be sitting next to Brady on the stand for the whole program and he pointed Braydon out to Brady and Brady got SOOOO excited.  like stood up and was smiling and waving and being SO cute that a number of people in the congregation were giggling about it.  but seriously, it was adorable.  it made me so happy that they came to support him and that Brady got to see that.

Christopher bought himself a box of corn flakes yesterday morning when he stopped by Walmart to pick up French bread on the way to the hillier's to make French toast for our breakfast.  pouring himself a bowl tonight, I saw him pull out something and was all "oh, yeah, sometimes there are burnt pieces."  then he told me... nope... not burnt and not a corn flake.  it was literally a piece of shredded rubber.  don't worry, he still ate the cereal and we still have that box in our cabinet.  but, if you hear of a giant corn flakes recall over shredded rubber, let me know.  I'd love to know if this is a regular occurrence right now or what.

real stretchy.

my sweet baby.

Christopher knows I drink a lot of milk (as does anyone that knows me even just a little bit) but was so disturbed when he saw how much milk was gone from this gallon.  I think he normally just doesn't really notice how much milk I drink but he did this time because he'd just gotten a fresh gallon from the garage for his bowl of corn flakes and rubber.  checking the time stamps on my phone... he brought the milk in at 8:45 and this was what it looked like at 9:59.  it wasn't completely me because he did have that bowl of cereal.  but seriously, I just get so thirsty at night.

and I still had more after that.  I typically average about a gallon a day but when I'm nursing, it's not uncommon to finish a gallon in less than 24 hours.  I wish I liked water this much.