Snaggletooth

Ok, so I found this photo from today and I am posting it largely because I know that Leslie will find it amusing.



Lizzy can be so beautiful sometimes, but her skin and her teeth really hold her back. Right now she looks like she's got scabies and I don't know what to think about her teeth. Brent and I are both fairly concerned and have started putting pennies away for braces. At least we live in modern society where even the worst cases of snaggletooth can be fixed, for a fee. Maybe her permanent teeth will prove more attractive, but I think she's going to be requiring several years of orthodontic care to achieve her perfect smile. But then... she's going to be a knock out.

Uncharacteristic of me

My mom told me that it had been an "uncharacteristically long time since I posted" so I guess the time has come. I haven't posted because there hasn't been much going on around here.

My fake Aunt Raija and Uncle Bob are leaving tomorrow to serve a medical mission in central Europe and today was their farewell. I took my camera and didn't even get a photo with them before they left! Raija was my mom's roommate in college and our families have been very close ever since. All 3 of us kids lived with them when we were in school. I actually met Brent while I was living there in Sugarhouse. He picked me up for our first date from Raija's house and Sugarhouse will always feel like home to me, I think. Vegas shmegas, I love Sugarhouse. My dad got a photo of our little family while we were there since we were all dressed up.



It's hard to get all of us looking decent in a photo, but we tried.
This dress is about the only thing that fits me these days, so I will probably be wearing it to church until the baby comes. The black hides it well, but I'm certainly getting large enough to outgrow even my maternity clothes these days.

I'll try to do more interesting things so that I have something to write about :)

Shabby Chic

I like the way the my dad described when I first tried to explain it to him

"Ya, I get it... It looks like trash, but for some reason, that's ok"

Ya, pretty much, Dad. I'm not usually a shabby chic person, myself. I don't really have anything against the whole look, it just isn't really my thing. My kids' bathroom was in need of a makeover and I didn't have any money to fix it up after my fabulous bathroom remodel, so we went the shabby chic route. It's such an easy way to go, when you haven't a lot of money. A little white paint, some sandpaper and a little crystal and viola! It actually turned out REALLY cute, in my eyes, so I thought I'd share.




My mom inspired the look with the cabinet that she bought for her house. It didn't fit, so I was the lucky recipient.



I ordered this print from Sarah Jane Studios because I couldn't live without it. It is a line from the nursery rhyme...

there was a little girl
and she had a little curl
right in the middle of her forehead...

I think I've posted about how my mom used to recite that to me all the time when I was little and now I say it to my little girl. I love it.

Poor little Charlie will have a girly bathroom, but it will take a few years before he realizes it, so until then... shabby chic it is!

Fall is almost here

I'm back from my luxurious weekend in Summit. Don't you just love moms (and dads too)? They always come through for you, even when you're a mom yourself. My mom took such good care of us even though she wasn't feeling great herself. Love you Mom! Here are some Lizzy shots from the weekend





Enjoying her snack on back patio.



Lizzy got sick on Saturday, poor thing. I took some photos of her when she fell asleep in Grandma's arms since she NEVER lets you hold her for more than 2 seconds at a time. Mom didn't want to move because she never gets to snuggle with Lizzy.





Yes, I know, she looks drugged, but...

Ok, what do you all think about the hair? I'm trying to do something with it while it grows. My dad and Brent call it Deb hair (from Napoleon Dynamite) and Leslie agrees that its a little too 80s. Does she not rock the side pony? I'm afraid my judgment is flawed and I don't want her walk around looking like a fool.

Moving on, Jane started "4 year old preschool" today. She goes three times a week and I'm so hopeful that her new schedule will provide our lives with some stability. She has been really struggling lately with separation from us and being scared of things. She's a little paranoid for being so small and we had a horrible end to last year. Today, after a most miserable morning, she hopped out of the car and hopped in at the end reporting that she LOVES school and she had lots of fun and met lots of new friends and when can she go back. Hallelujah! I think that the poor little thing has been bored out of her mind all summer.

Other than that, we've all been getting sick inhaling all the smoke from what has turned into a huge fire by our house. Here are some photos for those who aren't in the area



It's close, but not scary close to the Draper Temple



This is the closest one to my house that I could find. It's a shot from down the road a bit from us.
I feel involved with this fire because Leslie and I saw it start around noon and now it's burned like 600 acres of the mountain. I'm so grateful to be far enough away that we are only dealing with the tons smoke and not the flames. I have lots of things to be grateful for today.

Weekend Getaway

So, my mom and dad were kind enough to invite me to Summit for the weekend with them, but there was a catch. The invite was only extended to me and one of my children. So yesterday, Lizzy and I loaded up and came down, leaving Brent and Jane to fend for themselves for the weekend. I'm loving being here and letting my mom take care of us and Lizzy seems to be loving some time away from her very overpowering sister.
I left Brent with very specific instructions that Jane was NOT to look like an orphan while I was gone and he promised that he would do his best. I told Jane that if he didn't do her hair for church, she was to have him call one of her friends' moms to do it for her. He got a new iPhone for his birthday and has already been emailing me updates. Here's Jane's hair today...



Not bad for his first time! I think he may have missed his calling in life. It's not too late Honey, you can still go to beauty school!
He's also been putting her to work doing laundry apparently. Jane's decided that socks now belong on hangers.



Funny how the kid can make me completely crazy and then the minute I leave, I miss her... Brent too.

I'm goin' hungry

Lizzy has been on a hunger strike for the last, oh, several months. It's SO infuriating to have a small child that just plain refuses food. It seems as though she's finally starting to break down a little, but she's so dang stubborn that EVERYTHING has to be on her terms.



She has to feed herself, you can't be involved or she'll just throw the food or spit it out.



The older the food, the better. I was so upset to see her eating these crusty leftovers late the other night, but I'm just glad she's eating, so I let her have at it. By the way, our little monkey climbed up on top of the table all by herself. If she sees something high, it's just a challenge for her to get to the top and trust me, she'll get there.



High chairs are SO last month. Don't even bother her with them. We are needing to get another kids chair from Ikea since Jane and Lizzy fight over this one all the time.
When I thought about having kids, it never occurred to me that I would have to sucker them into eating and then rejoice at every calorie filled bite they take. Who knew?

Too cold

Jane was sharing her icecream with Lizzy tonight at dinner. Every time she took a bite, she made this face...



You'd swear she didn't like it or something.

Happy Birthday Brent!

Sometimes, I forget how much older Brent is than me. Today is his 32nd birthday. I don't usually post much about how I feel about my husband, I guess it just isn't my thing, but for the record... I adore him. Happy Birthday sweetheart! We love you so much!

P.S. This is obviously an old photo, but I thought it was cute. I love that he can just laugh at his ornery girls (all 3 of us) and let things roll. We are so lucky to have him.

Baby Watch!

My 34 week appointment was this morning. I just got home. Things are still pretty normal, with a couple minor exceptions. The abnormalities are that I'm not swelling, I'm measuring small and that I'm not gaining weight. Doesn't sound so bad to me! The non-swelling is a good thing all around, but the lack of weight gain, while fabulous in my eyes, is not so fabulous to an OB. Sooooooooo the next time I go in, in 2 weeks, I get to have an ultrasound. I'm going to be 36 weeks, so this will be a good start to all the fun. I'm sure that he's just covering his tracks so that he's not at fault in any way. He said that lack of weight gain often indicates that the baby will be small (again, is this a bad thing?) so he wants to check the size as well as the fluids and placenta and everything. I'm really not concerned, especially after all the ultrasounds I had with Lizzy, but I always like to see the baby so I will gladly accept. He said that if I don't catch up with all my measurements, they may need to do some monitoring of little Charlie until he's born, but as I mentioned, I like monitoring. At least I get to know what's going on. So there you have it. Other than that, things are normal for me. As I've been discussing with friends, the last part your pregnancy seems like it should all be downhill, but it's really an uphill battle. I'm almost there though, just a few more weeks until once again, my life will never be the same.

Potty Time

Lizzy has been showing a LOT of interest in the toilet lately. We've been trying to see if she'll use it (in a conventional sense) but so far, no luck. I think she's still a little young for the potty training. No, her interest isn't nearly a convenient as that, it's a lot more... unsettling. From my posts about the 'rubber ducky incident,' you are probably already aware that she likes to unroll the toilet paper into the toilet as well as throw random things into it. Here are a few other ways I've caught her using the toilet

- dunking her toothbrush in the water to brush her teeth.
- digging a used Dixie cup out of the trash (or really any vessel at all) and dipping it in the water to get a drink
- splashing the water on her face because she's trying to wash it
- general good times playing in the water

You might be asking yourself "Laura, why don't you just close the bathroom door?" well, I do. All of them. Problem is that I'm not the only one who lives in the house. We also have a forgetful 4 year old that not only forgets to close the door and the toilet lid, but also forgets to flush half the time. We've been going to through a lot of soap lately.



Ya, she may look cute, but think twice before cuddling up or accepting kisses. You don't know where that mouth has been.

Swim Lessons

So, right as my opportunity was coming to a close, I decided to rush and get Jane into swim lessons before it was too late. She's been going twice a week for 3 weeks and today was her last lesson. It was just right. We aren't swimming people and Jane doesn't have any experience in the water, so she was in the "guppies" class, which is pre-level 1. I felt a little bad that she's 4 and I haven't done more for her, but whatever. I brought my camera a couple of times, but I was really bad about documenting her first swimming experiences.



This is pretty much how every lesson ended.

morning swim lessons
+
scrawny little girl
=
cold 4 year old that won't move from under the towel.



Jane wouldn't put her head under the water, so Brent bought her some Ariel goggles and she's dependent on them now. She looks a little freaky in them.



Lizzy was repeatedly harassed by a bee every time we went. Jane says that it thought she was a flower. It came back time after time and would get in her face and just drive me nuts. She's already allergic to everything and I did NOT want to see what would happen if she got stung, so for for her sake, I'm glad that we don't have to go back.
I'm so proud of Jane for being so brave with her swimming. I love that little girl.

Apparently this is all I do

I think that as my mobility decreases, my crafting is increasing (sorry Kriss). Probably because I can do it as I sit at my desk, no standing, walking, bending or general moving involved. I decided that I wanted at least one, probably more, cute little onesies that have those cute appliques on them, but I'm really not interested in paying like $30 a piece for them, so I made some of my own.





I'm not certain what I'll do with the little apple. It's a bit girly, I may sell it or save it for a gift.





The owl is for my Charlie. I got the newborn size so that they would fit him right away. I love my little owl.

I'm needing to get this baby stuff in order. Leslie brought over all her old Benny clothes, which is actually very much appreciated since most of them are in really good shape and she has good taste in clothes. My family room is full of blue right now. I've been having the usual pregnant cravings, for me. All I want is milk and Italian food. Actually, it's more like I only want foods that make me want milk and red sauce, separately, but equally. I've been eating graham crackers with cream cheese frosting and milk pretty much every hour on the hour. With the red sauce, the lower quality, the better. I can, and do, eat $5 pizza from Little Ceasar's about three times a week, but I have to get extra crazy sauce to make sure that each and every bite of low quality pizza is doused in low quality pizza sauce. I need me a trip to the Spaghetti Factory. Yes, the tomatoes give me indigestion like crazy, but so does everything else these days, so I muscle through it and enjoy my red sauce.

Look what I did!

I made a changing pad today. I'm not sure what exactly inspired me, but I wanted one to coordinate with my new, AWESOME diaper bag that I got this week. Seriously, I love this bag so much that I'm tempted to get a smaller one for when I don't need a diaper bag. You've all GOT to visit Peas & Carrots to order your own custom bag. Anyway, I picked up a towel and some material that coordinates with the accent materials on my bag and tried my hand at changing pad making.







There's something kind of liberating about making things. Not that my life wouldn't go on without a changing pad, but it just feels good to create something that you would otherwise have bought, you know? Anyway, I'm pleased. I've also been making these cloth binky clips for my Sew Lou Lou Designs etsy store.



I can make them out of any cute material and I've been having so much fun making them. Hopefully, I'll be able to sell some to recoup some of my crafting expenses.



Leslie thought that Ben had given up the binky, but he's obviously still attached to it (no pun intended). He's sporting his own new, fancy binky clip. If he's going to use that thing, then he's going to be cute in the process. Ah, I love that little guy.

Hormones

God doesn't like whiners

This is what Brent and I tell Jane over and over again, whenever she whines. We talk about Laman and Lemuel and how they whined all the time and how she wants to be like Nephi, who wasn't a whiner. Since it is probably good that I practice what I preach, I'm going to make an effort to post on my blog without whining.

Today was a good day. I called the Roto Rooter to come fix or toilets and they got here lickety split to take care of our rubber ducky situation and even though I did want to have to pay them to get it out (mostly because I was bitter that it was there in the first place), the guy was really nice and we were VERY fortunate that it hadn't traveled into the main line yet, which would have cost a grundle more than it did. Said ducky has since been laid to rest in the trash. I felt so silly until the guy told me that yesterday, he had to fish a Thomas train out of another persons toilet. That felt a little better.

Brent's mom came over to pick up Jane and take her to visit her great grandma in Provo. She was gone all afternoon while Lizzy took an extra long nap and I was able to rest for a little while and clean up some. Barbara does this for me every few weeks and I'm always so grateful, it's such a helpful, thoughtful thing for her to do.

Jane and I went to her preschool open house this evening and I'm really hoping that this will be a good year for her. She has one of the same teachers that she had last year, which seemed to be very comforting to her. My neighbor was so sweet to watch Lizzy for me until Brent got home so that I didn't have to take both of the girls by myself.

It has been a good day and I figured that I should share the good days too. Here are a couple photos that I took this evening while the kiddos were playing out front.



My big 4 year old girl. I can't believe how big she's getting!



If Lizzy looks concerned, it's with reason. Jane immediately started to tip the stroller over backwards.






Lizzy has been loving her kisses lately. She was totally smashing my poor nose, but I love her kisses too and I'll take all of them I can get. So here's to a good day!

Baby Watch!

So, I had another appointment today, 32 weeks. I think that this one takes the cake for being the most worthless appointment that I've had with all three of my pregnancies. I got in there and was informed that the doctor was called in for a C-section and that my options were either to wait for him or to see the nurse. I thought about it. I didn't really want to see the nurse, but in all honesty, I knew there was nothing interesting that the doctor was going to share with me and that all I needed was for someone to write on my chart that everything was normal. So... I saw the nurse, and you know what? Everything was normal. In this case, I guess that no news is good news.
I have another appointment in 2 weeks, things should start getting a little more interesting in about 4, I imagine. I'm already anxious to not be pregnant anymore and I want to start asking those questions about my delivery that every pregnant woman wants to talk about WAY too soon and every doctor and midwife tries to avoid for as long as possible. I'm keeping things to myself for now, but the way I figure it, once I hit 36 weeks, it's fair game.
As for little Charlie, he's VERY active and causes me tons of contractions. They let up for a few days and now they are back. I'm trying to make myself think that they are accomplishing something, but it's probably wishful thinking. The nurse told me that she thought my ankles were swelling a little, which I think is crap. I've never swollen before and I CERTAINLY don't intend to start now. I don't have time for that kind of discomfort, I've got enough to worry about already. I will be watching my soda intake very closely though, since I'm convinced that it causes swelling. Normally, I would be inclined to complain more about being pregnant, but I'm so tired that I don't really have the energy to right now. Just know that I'm uncomfortable and that you should be glad you aren't me right now. Unless of course, you are worse off than I am, in which case, I'm glad that I'm not you :)

Note to self: I don't want to live.

So, please tell me that I'm not the only one who wakes up in the morning with all kinds of ambition and intentions for the day and then somehow, you reach the end of the day and all your ambition has turned into this...














Seriously, how did this happen? Jane never got her hair done today. She got herself dressed in her swimming suit this morning and I never changed her out of it. Lizzy has apparently been eating chocolate cookies that ended up on the floor even though I didn't get them out of the pantry, she has no shirt because she pooed on it earlier today and she's desperately trying to drink chicken broth from a sealed can. Sad. Not to mention all the crackers, cheese and general filth that is ground into my carpet, couch and hardwood floors. Oh, AND I accidentally flushed a rubber ducky down the kids bathroom toilet this morning, not realizing it was buried under the MOUNDS of toilet paper that Lizzy unrolled into it, rendering the brand new Totos in the kid bath and downstairs bath completely out of commission. Fabulous.

I'm not even feeling all that debilitated, like I was yesterday when I was so bad off that I started to think that perhaps 32 weeks wasn't all THAT early for a baby to be born, with modern medicine being what it is, and I'm sure little Charlie would survive in the long run if I went into labor at that moment, ridding me of the misery that I was suffering. At least the hospital can give you a nerve block, but that's a story for another day. Please don't show this post to anyone at child protective services.

Jane found a package of barrettes that I needed to get in the mail today and stabbed it a gazillion times with screws that came from who knows where. When I asked her what happened, she lied to me and told me that Lizzy did it. Then, when I told her I knew she was lying, she said it was her dad. THAT earned her a nice long time out.

I locked the girls in their room until their dad got home to deal with them. I thought it best that we were separated for a while, for their own safety. We then went to dinner at Five Guys Burgers (of which I will bear my testimony later) where Lizzy reacted to something and her face broke out in a rash. Don't even ask me to tell you about bedtime, let's just say that it is now after 10:30 and it barely got quiet. Maybe it would be better if I stopped fighting for my sanity for a while. Being crazy might make my job a bit easier.