Kristen, Tyler & company

Gong Hey Fat Choy

2012-01-23T22:31:00.004-07:00

Or as Seth will be happy to tell you, "Happy New Year in Chinese!"

We celebrated Chinese New Year tonight and boy was it fun. Actually it was a good excuse to get take-out for dinner, but in a way that never let them suspect that Mom just didn't want to cook tonight.

The local party store had a pretty decent selection of Chinese New Year decorations (considering that the local Chinese population is about 0.0001%), so with a couple of Google searches under my belt, I hung up red lanterns and paper dragons and hid the brooms so our good luck wouldn't get swept away. Hiding the brooms was definitely good luck for Carden and Seth, since sweeping is one of their nightly tasks.

I remembered I had a roll of tablecloth-size clear plastic, so for our table decorations I swiped an idea I read somewhere. I made color copies of pictures and factoids about China from a kids encyclopedia. I cut them out and laid them on the table under the plastic. It does have a bit of a white-trash aesthetic, but considering a full glass of water spilled during dinner, plus the usual assortment of dropped food (especially with four kids handling chopsticks), all my stuff was protected.

While we struggled with our chopsticks, we read the factoids and talked about China and discussed the animal zodiac and which animals we were. Despite all our emphasis on the positive qualities of each animal, Charlotte could not recover from being born in the year of the pig.

After dinner we handed out red envelopes with actual dollar bills inside and watched a great documentary, "Wild China," that was perfect for the kids, with lots of interesting animals and landscapes.

We wish everyone happiness, wealth, and longevity!

Halloween Recital

2011-11-06T22:12:00.002-07:00

The annual Halloween recital was a great success. The kids were super excited to wear their costumes for the first time, and it was great fun to welcome their cousin Coby, who just joined the same piano studio as Carden and Seth. The music was spooky, and the kids love dressing up. I was really tickled with Seth, who wanted to be a pharaoh from the beginning. I had to convince him that the eyeliner was really needed to complete the look, but he was pleased with it. Afterwards Granny took us out for ice cream to celebrate their accomplishments. Now on to the Christmas music!

We need more days like this...

2011-09-02T23:10:00.000-06:00

Today the girls and I met Granny to feed the ducks. She squirrels away the cafeteria rolls in her little freezer at the retirement center and when she's gotten enough we go search out our feathered friends at the newly relandscaped Botany Pond at BYU. Claire and Charlotte absolutely loved it, and it was a perfect day.

My aunt Karen was passing through on a road trip from Southern California to take her daughter Kristina back up to BYU-Idaho for school, so they joined us for lunch, where I realized that Charlotte's love to be center stage gets really old when you're trying to talk to other adults. They were very patient with her and it made us laugh to hear Charlotte keep saying, "You look like my grandma Halverson!" She was so amused by the idea that her grandma could have a sister.

Tonight I took the boys and a couple of their friends to see Cars 2. They were beside themselves with excitement over going to the movies with friends. I know--we obviously need to get out more! I was equally excited that they got to be with friends without the major effort to get their rooms and the playroom cleaned up! The traffic was awful, though, and for 30 minutes I got to hear every playground joke that 7-year-old and 9-year-old boys think is funny--which of course, aren't really funny at all. This being Utah, the jokes are at least clean, for which I'm thankful. Some academic should do a folkloric study on why playground humor doesn't ever change. How can there be no new material since the1980s!

Back to Sanity!

2011-08-28T21:17:00.003-06:00

Back to school is always bittersweet, but this summer we had so much fun it made it a little easier to face the music of another school year. Our last-minute California trip helped us endthe summer on a very high note. It's amazing how much the activities of June are already a distant memory.

Seth starts first grade, and despite a little trepidation about going for the full day and eating lunch in the cafeteria, the prospect of two recesses won him over. He has the same wonderful teacher Carden had in first grade and he knew a handful of kids in his class. He wouldn't go for any of the new clothes I got him, wearing his school t-shirt with his new slip-on shoes that he absolutely loves. For our California trip we bought him a suitcase set that came with the red carry-on bag you see him carrying. He didn't want a backpack this year, and is quite pleased with his "messenger bag." Let's hear it for having your own style--I guess.

Carden has two fabulous teachers splitting the day this year, so he's excited to get a new face halfway through the day. I can't believe he'll be in fourth grade. That seems so big, and I remember him starting kindergarten so clearly. I think I'm starting to sound nostalgic and old! His classroom is in the new school addition, which is full of big windows and lots of space and light. Next year he'll have to go back into the old portion, and I'll be sad.

As for me and the girls, we are getting used to a quieter house during the day. It's really fun to be able to focus on them and a world of dollies and princesses rather than trains and superheroes. I remember all the fun things I did when I just had two little boys at home and I need to get back into that young kid mode and make the same memories with the girls.

What have we been doing?

2011-05-22T22:39:00.007-06:00

Visiting the Church Art Museum and their very cool new kids exhibit on the church in Latin America. Fun mission memories for me. Charlotte was in heaven with the Mexican dancing dresses you got to wear, and the boys had a great time with the Zarahemla life-size building blocks.

Having Claire push Charlotte and Seth in the doll stroller. Good practice for those handcart treks. She doesn't like to be the rider, just the pusher. (Probably scarred for life because Seth has dumped her out a few times rocketing around the house at break-neck speed.)

Adjusting to Carden's new glasses. His doctor checkup this year revealed an alarming discrepancy between his right and left eyes. An optometry exam explained that he has amblyopia, sometimes called "lazy eye." Glasses correct the vision deficiency in the bad eye, but he has to wear a pirate patch for 1-2 hours a day and do close-up work to force his brain to accept visual input from the bad eye. The hard part is because his brain ignores his bad eye, he sees no improvement with glasses, so he's taking it on faith that they really do make things better. His outlook has improved since I told him that playing games on the computer and iPhone count as "close-up work."

Seeking comfort wherever we can find it. For Claire that means left thumb in mouth, right hand rubbing her belly button. The thumb-sucking has been her therapy since she first was able to get it into her mouth. The belly-rubbing is new in the last couple of months. She hates when I dress her in onesies. Another drawback: when your two arms are glued to your body, your options for steadying yourself as you walk are limited. Face-plants create need for belly-rubbing, belly-rubbing creates opportunities for face-plants. We're kinda stuck in a vicious circle here.

Looking for the balance between enjoying the kids and still getting the work done. We'll let you know when we figure that one out.

Piano projects

2011-05-18T22:47:00.004-06:00

Carden and Seth finished their year of piano lessons in grand style. Carden earned a gold cup for receiving 3 years of Superior ratings in the Music Federation's festival. Both boys performed well at the final, and both won the award for having the most weeks of "perfect practice."Personally, I think that award should go to me.

Their teacher requires a "Creative Musicianship" project every year--they have to do something creative or artistic incorporating music. This year the projects turned into much more than I expected, but we had a great time doing them.

Carden and I had attended a performance of the American Piano Duo, two pianists who play these elaborate duets of famous music that has been arranged for two pianos. He wrote down his impressions of each piece and made a poster showing the flags of all the countries the music originated from or was written for, and his notes from the performance.

I was proud of his work on the poster--cutting out those construction paper flags was much more meticulous work than he usually goes for. But I was most proud of how much he had enjoyed an adult concert experience. He stayed focused on the music, behaved well, and had a great time. It gives me hope that my life is not always destined to be picking up Legos and Barbie doll dresses and changing diapers.

Seth had a harder time deciding on a project, but I remembered how much he liked The Firebird Suite by Igor Stravinsky. We first discovered it from the Disney "Fantasia 2000" movie and a Little Einsteins DVD. Then we heard a piano version by the Five Browns. So Seth and I learned the history of the piece (a Russian fairytale turned into a ballet) and watched a clip of Stravinsky himself conducting the finale a few years before he died. Seth even watched the entire ballet performed by a Russian ballet company. (YouTube sure makes research easy!) It took 2 days to get through the whole thing, watching in 5-10 minute spurts, but he really got into it. For his project, he wrote about all the different versions he'd seen and listened to. Now he wants a French horn for his birthday.

As usually happens when mom is the official "ghostwriter," I learned as much as they did. Once we got to the recital, I realized that they had put in much more time and effort than other students, but at the same time, I think we had more fun and really thought about the music they chose. Just listening to classical music in the background is great, and we do a fair amount of that at home or in the car, but really delving into the pieces, listening to them over and over or examining the different arrangements made them come alive for us.

Spring Break

2011-05-02T23:45:00.000-06:00

One of the reasons I blog is to remind myself that some days I really have it good. Digging through the archive reminded me that last year we spent the entire week of spring break suffering from snowstorms and stomach flu.

Monday:

The forecast warned that this would likely be the only good weather day, so we took advantage. Lunch with Granny at BYU Creamery. Watched college students sweat out their last week of classes with extra large servings of french fries and ice cream (cramming Mormon-style). A trip to the park, the Museum of Peoples and Cultures, and back to BYU for the opening of the South Campus stream. The grounds department has built a half-mile stream along the hillside and marked the opening with a Rubbery Ducky Derby and ice cream.

The rest of the week was not quite as exciting. Lots of playing in the backyard, lots of attempts to dejunk the playroom, centered around my bribe, I mean incentive, that if they got rid of old toys, I'd take them to the store and let them buy a new one. This will leave me at a zero-sum game, which in our world translates into "the playroom will still be a mess, I'll just be stepping on new toys."

All in all, spring break did what it was supposed to do--gave the kids a break from school, and sent me signing them up for any and all summer camps.

Lesson learned

2011-04-15T13:53:00.007-06:00

Good days don't start with a phone call from the credit card fraud team, alerting you of suspicious activity on your card. I looked up my account online and saw nothing unusual--$45 for gas, $150 for groceries, but then before my eyes, something new popped up. $250 in assorted iTunes charges.

I looked up our iTunes account. And then I realized I'd been victimized by my own flesh and blood. Carden had been watching over my shoulder the week before as I downloaded some new math apps onto our iPod, and figured out my password. And in between fraction sessions, he goofed around with a Lil' Pirates game that I have since learned is what's considered a "freemium" game--free to download, but in order to progress, you have to buy items with real money. Lots of parents have been scammed by this, and the games now have a warning on them, but it was too little, too late.

I sent several e-mails to the credit card company, Apple, and the game manufacturer, Apple was good about it, and refunded our money, with the warning that their grace was one-time only.

Our next steps:

1. Deleted all the games. I admit this was a bit drastic, but then I figured they have plenty of computer and video games. A life without Angry Birds would not be the worst thing. If they're playing with the iPod at least now I know it's something educational. Plus we've had more than a few flashcard sessions get sidetracked with a game.

2. Changed the password.

3. Reset the iPod to not allow any in-app purchases. If you've got one of these devices, I really suggest you look into disabling the in-app purchase feature. It wasn't hard.

4. Had several lengthy discussions with the kids.

Now that things have calmed down, I've realized this is just my introduction to the stage of life where my children's mistakes begin to get considerably more expensive. I can hardly wait.

Funny things she says

2011-04-12T23:05:00.000-06:00

Trying unsuccessfully to go potty on the toilet: "It's not working! Maybe I need new batteries."

Angus had done something wrong (or maybe just annoying): "Angus! Curse you, you pooch!"

Dad comments on the beautiful puffy clouds: "Charlotte, are the clouds made of marshmallows?" "No. Bacon."

"Charlotte, what do you want for dinner?" "Bacon."

Charlotte has caught on to my habit of responding to her "look, look!" demands with an unfocused "mm-hmm." She now insists, "No! Look with your face!"

Our own March madness

2011-04-09T22:03:00.006-06:00

(Isn't every month just a little bit mad? Around here, at least, it seems to be.)

Seth wrapped up his 2-month Lego Club experience, joining a noncompetitive group in the FIRST Lego League. The boys had a great time with their dads, designing a hospital, ambulance, movable operating table, and other creations to go with the biomedical theme. Thanks to our very cool neighbors for sponsoring this group of crazy six-year-olds and training them to work as a team.

(You can see our Lego cupcakes we made for the celebration.)

Here's another project of Seth's. He worked on it for about a week, adding courses to his giant pyramid/arrowhead/ice cream cone until he ran out of bricks.

Charlotte earned her ticket to preschool and three-year-old independence. She loves it, bouncing out of bed on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a shout, "it's preschool day!" We've been encouraged to start an intensive name-learning project. Poor kid, this might really be the time to embrace the nickname concept. Actually, there's another Charlotte in the class, so they asked if she had a nickname, and got a fist-clenched response, "My name is Char-lotte!" Guess not.

Claire wanders the house looking for snacks. We had a week of good weather and she was outside every chance she had. This week's rain, snow, and slush has not left her in good spirits.

This week has been brought to you by the following Google searches

2011-04-07T20:32:00.002-06:00

"how to remove marker from clothes"

"Dominos Pizza coupons"

"frosting recipe"

"school lunch ideas"

"how to remove crayon from clothes"

"how to remove crayon from dryer"

"things to do in Utah + kids"

"bug + preschool snack"

"how to file tax extension"

"iPod fraction apps"

Shopping spree

2011-04-01T23:42:00.006-06:00

One of the perks (or quirks) of living in this corner of Zion is the grocery store case lot sale. Twice a year (April and October, by coincidence), the stores encourage you to stock up on wheat, canned tomatoes, and brownie mix by selling them by the case. Saves you from having to carry cans into the house one at a time; saves the employees from having to open and dispose of a lot of cardboard boxes.

Friday morning, Tyler and I planned to go do our part, but the day got away from us, and it was 7:00pm with all four kids in tow when we finally marched into the store. We even let Carden commandeer his own cart, instantly loading it with 45 pounds of wheat to prevent him from pushing it too fast. Actually, the result was that it prevented him from stopping fast enough, and he took out a couple of mid-aisle displays before getting the hang of it.

Into our three carts we load 50 pounds of beans, 100 pounds of wheat, 3 sacks of flour, and 2 cases of diced tomatoes. We pass the graham cracker display. I signal to Tyler from across the bulk-candy bins where I am looking for candy legos to decorate cupcakes for Seth's Lego Club party. "How many do you want?" he mouths. The crackers are on sale, 2 boxes for $7. I hold up 2 fingers.

We finish our shopping adventure: Each child gets to pick his or her own cereal, interrupted by Charlotte, never one to pass up the chance to use a public bathroom.

We fold down the back seats of the van and start loading our stash. It is at this point I notice the 12 bright-yellow boxes of graham crackers. Not 2 boxes, 12. Filled with case-lot euphoria, Tyler thought I meant 2 cases.

So when the world ends in fire, I'll be looking for someone with marshmallows and someone with chocolate bars, and we can all make s'mores over the ashes of civilization.

How we do General Conference

2011-03-27T21:45:00.001-06:00

We've tried several approaches to General Conference with our kids, some more successful than others, but last year worked really well. So if you're looking for something new, maybe this could work at your house, too.

We stream conference on the computer (we're freaks without TV service) and play radio/iPod streams throughout the house. The kids are free to play inside or out during all four sessions, but when one of the Apostles or First Presidency speaks, they have to come in and listen. The boys take notes/draw pictures using this very basic packet from the church website. We've not yet begun to worry about the girls' souls.

The advantages:

The kids learn that all four sessions of conference are equally important. We don't want them to think the Saturday or Sunday afternoon sessions are optional.

They only have to focus for 10-20 minutes at a time, then they get a break. At their ages, we feel that's a reasonable expectation. With 15 speakers at an average of 10 minutes each, they're getting plenty of exposure, yet it doesn't feel like a never-ending meeting.

Mom and Dad get to enjoy some portions of conference without kids pestering us or feeling guilty like we should be making them listen as well.

Works for us! I'd love to hear suggestions from others, too.

My new hobby

2011-03-09T20:17:00.000-07:00

Back in September, flush with back-to-school motivation, I asked Carden's teachers about their lack of a parent volunteer sheet. Didn't they need my help? At third grade, are the students too old to have mommy sit in the back and staple papers while she surreptitiously counts the number of times her child fidgets in his seat?

"Well, what can you do?" they asked.

"Umm, I know a bit about writing," I replied.

Better put, I know someone who knows a lot about how to teach writing to elementary students. My poor mother didn't know she'd gained a long-distance, one-period-a-week student teacher this year: me.

Mom's district has designed an integrated writing program. Starting in kindergarten and building every year, the students learn how to write. Not "capital letter at the beginning and period at the end" writing. I'm talking "genre-specific, fabulous sentence structure, vivid detail, and strong verb" writing. Mom serves on the district writing committee to train teachers. This year they even won an award from the California Department of Education.

Long having since stolen her materials for first grade, I offered to come in to Carden's class and teach descriptive writing. I started in October and have come every week since. We've covered multipart sentences, sensory adjectives, showing instead of telling, similes, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.

Now we're working on a narrative unit, letting the kids put those descriptive techniques to use in their own stories. They've written stories about being stuck on a deserted island, how to remove a stubborn loose tooth, and what to do with a dog that follows you home. The kids really are making progress, a pleasant revelation since I'm only there once a week.

I've learned a few things, myself:

Teaching is dang hard work. It takes me 2 hours at least to prepare my 45-minute lesson. Coming up with assignments for the kids who finish first, while not rushing the slow ones, is tough! And how do you involve the ones who don't like to raise their hand or be called on?

It's so fun to see them "get it." To have a student interrupt me with "Mrs. Crockett, you just used alliteration!" makes my whole day.

Good writing is good writing. Period. The concepts I'm teaching these third graders aren't much different than the concepts I taught college students years ago as a writing tutor.

Most schools don't teach writing, and that's a loss. Carden's teacher has exclaimed many times that my lessons and progressions make perfect sense when you see it done, but you'd never come up with it yourself. Mom's district unexpectedly found that spelling and reading comprehension scores improved as the classes focused more on writing.

Writing teaches you to organize your thoughts. One of my writing teachers used to say "How can I know what I think until I see what I said?"

Where will it go from here? Who knows, but I (and hopefully the students) are having a lot of fun in the meantime.

Because I'm me...

2011-03-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

And I'm mean.

And I truly lay awake at night thinking of more ways to make my children's lives unpleasant.

And, as my father used to say, "I didn't have kids so I could wash my own car..."

And I was tired of making idle threats. It was time for real threats!

And so

I introduced

the penalty job.

Now when the kids act up, it's just like being a hockey ref. Into the penalty box. The jobs are written on index cards and hang on the fridge. They take a card, spend 5 minutes in baseboard-cleaning penance, then move the card to the back of the stack. Instant lesson learned, and my walls get washed. Most of the jobs are ones I rarely get to (washing door frames and light switches, scrubbing cabinet fronts, cleaning the kitchen chairs). I even make them show me the used wipes as proof they actually got some dirt off.

That's my girl

2011-03-05T21:54:00.003-07:00

Wrong camera setting, so they're blurry and grainy, but you get the idea.

Claire's comfort objects are her shoes ("oos") and her jacket. She has to wear her shoes all the time, and likes to carry her jackets or coats around. Always ready for an adventure.

She fights with Charlotte now for possession of anything sparkly. Her other favorite word is "mine!"

Beach Week

2011-03-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

I think Tyler has won me over to his favorite place--Pacific Grove, California. Not that it's a hard sell. We were lucky to spend a week there before Marianne's (Tyler's sister's) wedding on February 19. All the Crockett cousins came early and the kids had so much fun renewing friendships--at least the older ones. Poor Claire had about three cousins stalking her at any given time, which unfortunately coincided with a clingy phase and teething.

We've made so many wonderful beach memories over the years, centered on traditional activities and traditional foods, so I'll focus on the unique experiences from this year:

Walking through the Butterfly Sanctuary with all the cousins except two. It was the end of the monarchs' migration stay, and mating season to boot. The kids loved seeing so many butterflies "chasing each other." I let Carden and Seth take the camera and it makes me laugh to see what they take pictures of. . .

Dirt

Long strips of eucalyptus bark (ok, it was pretty cool)

Favorite cousins (and a few of the 30 shots were even in focus!)

* * * * *

I made an effort this trip to find some time alone with Carden, Seth, and Charlotte. Carden and I spent an hour down on the beach by ourselves, studying tide pools, wave patterns, and talking about his life. It was so great, and I was touched that our hour beat out Uncle Aaron's s'mores bonfire and trip to the caramel apple shop as his favorite memory of the week.

Seth wanted to go pick out a treat and eat it on the beach. We walked along Cannery Row and he chose caramel apples, completely swept up in the merits of cinnamon-sugar crust or Oreo. He picked one flavor for himself and one for me and we headed to the park overlooking the ocean to eat our treasures.

Charlotte's special time was being dragged along on a couple of errands and then waiting patiently while I tried to find the San Carlos Cathedral in Monterey. I love historical sites, but they don't end up on our beach itinerary very often. The small church dates from 1794 and was the royal chapel of the Presidio. The doors were locked when Charlotte and I arrived, but the caretaker was leaving and allowed us to go inside and then let ourselves out. We had the place to ourselves, and it was really amazing, although Charlotte couldn't quite get past "it's dark and cold in here!" Chocolate and strawberry crepes redeemed the excursion in her eyes, so hopefully I may yet have someone to accompany me through the past.

* * * * *

Even though we hit the beach every trip, the ever-changing ocean creates new experiences each time. Despite a February breeze and cold water, the kids love to wade in and out of the surf. One evening we headed down for a sunset walk. The tide was low, causing the waves to break far out and then sweep up the beach for 30 yards or so, just a few shallow inches of salt water. You can see in the photo how far Charlotte is from the water's edge, yet her reflection shows that the sand was still very wet.

She danced back and forth along the edge of the water, playing tag with the surf, and ignoring my reminders that she was dressed in clothes and shoes, not a swimsuit. I missed the moment that a wave swept up faster than she expected and she got disoriented and lost her balance.

Now, emergencies show our true character, and I regret to say that when I saw Charlotte, drenched, laying on her stomach in 3-4 inches of water, yet still 30 feet away from me, my first thoughts were "Dang, I'm going to have to wade in to her and get my feet sopping wet. I wonder if those people laughing behind me would notice if I just shout encouragement to her from a safe (dry) distance while I wait 10 seconds until the wave retreats enough for me to pick her up and not get my feet wet. "

Lucky for me, Seth's true character was also revealed, and he nobly dashed into the spray to retrieve his fallen sister. His display of chivalry earned him the "You Are Special" red plate at dinner when we returned home, and Charlotte's enthusiastic accolade: "The ocean knocked me down but Seffie SAVED me!" Lucky she missed the fact that her parents were noticeably absent during her moment of need.

I groused all the way home that our beautiful sunset walk on the beach was cut short in favor of a hot bath. True character.

What's your metaphor?

2011-02-28T21:10:00.002-07:00

Last night (technically early this morning, since I was growing roots in the Walmart checkout line when the calendar ticked over from Saturday to Sunday) I said to Tyler:

"Lately I feel like a gerbil stuck in those exercise wheels. I'm running so fast every day but I'm not making any progress. Do you feel like that?"

His response: "Actually I feel like that scene from Star Wars when they're in the trash compactor."

Now I feel irritated that I can't even come up with a life metaphor that isn't trite and cliche.

Beware. I'm scouring my meager repertoire of pop culture, searching for a metaphor that will blow his compacted trash out of the park.

Blue & Gold Banquet

2011-02-26T20:39:00.006-07:00

Experts recommend planning something exciting in January or February. Who could be mired in post-Christmas letdown when you can look forward to events like the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Banquet. More specifically you can look forward to spending 3 weeks doing art projects with 8- and 9-year-old boys, decorating the church gym all Saturday, helping your son decorate a cake for the contest, and roasting 10 pounds of potatoes for the evening's medieval-style (eat with your hands) roast chicken feast.

Do the post-holiday blues sound better yet?

Actually, we did have a fantastic trip to Northern California for Marianne's wedding, which was the true solution to the January blahs, but I haven't sifted through those pictures yet.

After explaining to Carden that we would not be using any of the great ideas he saw on old episodes of "Cake Boss," he chose a dragon cake more suited to our abilities. By breaking up the project into two days and three sessions, we survived working with each other. Sadly, I really don't enjoy cooking with my kids. I wish I did, but it's hard to get past the huge messes and Claire screaming to be part of the action.

I wish I'd taken pictures of the gym, since we really outdid ourselves. The scouts all painted about 50 banners and we hung them on fishing line strung across the gym. With tissue-paper torches lining the walls and an enormous castle backdrop made from the boxes that king-size bedroom sets come in, the room was pretty striking. My kids really got into the silverware-free dining experience (sadly they think most of our normal dinners are silverware-optional). Charlotte attacked the chicken carcass and balance-beam jousting activity with equal ferocity. Truly a night celebrating those lofty Scouting values.

How to get what you want

2011-01-27T21:41:00.001-07:00

I've discovered how to get what you want. Complain about what you want but don't have in your Christmas newsletter.

Four weeks ago I moaned that Charlotte wasn't potty-trained, and that Claire wasn't walking or talking and she had no teeth.

January arrived, and voila! Public humiliation has once again triumphed.

Charlotte is making definite progress, albeit marked with her own flair. She really likes the whole bathroom ritual--wiping, flushing, washing, drying. But she's added her own special ending. You must spit into the toilet before flushing it. We try not to ask...

Between that and the two pairs of princess undies that somehow got flushed down the toilet, along with a large quantity of non-flushable baby wipes, I'm wondering if I truly want this.

Claire is saying a few words. Nowhere near what she should for her age, but we're dusting off our well-worn speech therapy tricks and putting up with having our eyes gouged out so she can say "eye" over and over.

And she's wobbly, but she's up on two feet! At 15 months, our latest one yet, but she's headed in the right direction. Actually, I am more excited that she's figured out to go down the stairs feet-first. Maybe we can get rid of the gates soon, since no one ever remembers to shut them anyway.

Christmas morning

2011-01-23T21:17:00.006-07:00

I tried something new this year and happily it worked! Last year Christmas morning was a blur, and my pictures proved it. Plus the boys got worked into a bit of a gift-opening frenzy, hardly stopping to look at a toy before searching for the next one. With this in mind, and knowing that Santa might bring a few large gifts that wouldn't have fit in the living room, we asked Santa to put his gifts and the stockings in the family room.

On Christmas morning (at 8:00 when the girls woke up, NOT at 5:30 when the boys woke up), we started in the family room with the Santa presents, and spent about an hour

playing, eating candy canes and chocolate, and examining every single item in precious detail. The boys shot their arrows and crossbows, Claire and Charlotte played in the princess tent.

And if you're wondering what the boys did from 5:30 to 8:00, it's right there in the photo. The handheld games from Grandma Vicki they opened the night before kept us all sleeping peacefully until the sun actually rose.

Then we headed to the living room and had a mini-frenzy under the tree. Crazy fun.

After breakfast I took a nap and the kids watched one of their movies. I now understand why my mom always made sure we got a new movie for Christmas. It was her only guarantee of a 90-minute nap after being up most of the night.

Christmas? Oh yeah, we did that

2011-01-12T23:14:00.006-07:00

I know you all think I'm horribly behind. Actually this has been a psychological experiment. If I wait long enough, will my memories of Christmas fade to slightly fuzzy but happy mental pictures? Will I have forgotten, or at least toned down, remembrances of the endless shopping (my life's least favorite activity), cooking, wrapping, and crowd-fighting? Like childbirth, will I only remember enough to be ready--even eager--to do it again?

We'll see.

So here's the fun we had.

We decorated gingerbread cookies. Charlotte won the Cookie Monster award this year. Long after everyone else had left the table she remained, squeezing every last drop of frosting onto her masterpiece. She ended up with a cookie buried under a two-inch thick layer of multicolored sugar and frosting.

Saw the lights at Temple Square which most of us thoroughly enjoyed (Charlotte being the obvious exception, here). It surprised me by being one of my highlights. It felt like a bit of a chore, packing everyone up to be outside for an evening, but we were there on a warmish day right when the lights came on and it wasn't crowded. We heard a couple of high school choirs perform (perfect training for the kids to sit through a nice, short performance), and it was so beautiful and peaceful, while the days before and after had definitely not been.

Went to Charlotte's dance performance and the boys' piano recitals. Wised up and took the boys out for their favorite chili-cheese hot dogs AFTER the recital and not before. (Caroline, that "authentic Viking blood" on Carden's shirt at the Halloween recital was actually authentic Viking ketchup.)

The cousin gift exchange. Who knew that $1 could go so far. It'll be sad (or at least expensive) when they outgrow the wonder of the dollar store. It was far more successful than the nativity play, which the older kids were burned out on and left the younger kids squabbling over which role had the best costume accessories.

Took the kids to the children's hospital fundraiser, Festival of Trees, our second year coming. Afterwards we dropped off our Sub-for-Santa contributions and went out to lunch (me and the boys at Little Caesars, Tyler and the girls at the slightly seedy Chinese restaurant next door). Here's Seth at the "dial-an-elf" phone booth. Charlotte was transfixed by all the dance groups performing. The kids love all the fun craft projects and it's touching to see all the beautiful trees created by families as tributes to loved ones gone.

Fall

2010-12-02T21:53:00.000-07:00

I think we had fall this year--sandwiched in between a wonderful late summer and the Thanksgiving blizzard. Seth and I went out one afternoon to rake leaves and play with the camera. These shots melt my heart; he loves to be part of the action, especially if he can be your helper. We put the camera on the sports setting and took a series of shots of him throwing armfuls of leaves in the air. Classic fall fun.

By the time Charlotte came out, we'd mown over most of the leaf piles, much to her dismay. Laying on a thin carpet of leaves just doesn't have the same effect.

The sunset was spectacular. Swaths of purple and orange streaked across the western sky and reflected on the eastern mountains. I think I would have missed it had we not been out raking. I can't think of a better reward for our work, if you could call it that.

2010-11-30T21:23:00.002-07:00

It's December first, which means it's time for the post on...Halloween, you guessed it!

Trying to embrace the whole costume thing, I drove the kids to every store in town looking for the perfect costume. Carden again tried my sewing patience to put together his Viking fur accessories. By the time Seth made his final decision, every store in town and every website was sold out of the outfit he wanted. He then set his heart on a 2-sizes-too-big, broken-zipper, hurry-up-the-store-is-closing costume from the thrift store. Did I mention I hate sewing?

Shocking, I know. A pink princess.

I dressed up--a first--as did Tyler. That Ghostbusters shirt made him a star with the 12-year-old boys at the church Halloween party.

We had a lot of fun, ate too much candy, and trick-or-treated on October 30 (in Utah, it's understood that when holidays fall on Sunday they will be celebrated on Saturday). All in all, I think we'll even do it again next year.

Halloween piano recital

2010-10-27T21:51:00.004-06:00

The annual Halloween piano recital... I used to be a trifle annoyed by how many recitals Carden (and now Seth) have, but I now enjoy them a lot more. Live performance is a real motivator for the kids, and Halloween is a great excuse to work on music that they love.

I, however, missed this year's recital, being at school helping run the PTA Reflections program (school art competition). It was judging night and I was responsible to make sure 150 works of art, carefully crafted from tin foil, paper mache, clay, straws and cereal boxes--as well as the more traditional mediums--survived the night intact. So kudos again to Tyler, who took all the kids and Granny to dinner at Sonic and then listened to "Halloween, Halloween" and "Spook House" for the nine thousandth time, all while pretending he'd never heard them before.

His report: Seth was a natural. He's been attending these recitals for years, so now that it was his turn he got up there (still too short to actually sit on the bench) and did his thing without missing a beat. Charlotte, however, insisted loudly and emphatically after every performance, "MY TURN NOW!" Now that Seth has started lessons, she does not understand why she is being denied the basic human right of daily piano practice. After I supervise the boys' practice, she and I will run through the repertoire of Disney princess songs so that she feels like she's practiced too.

The big ONE for Claire-bear

2010-10-16T22:57:00.006-06:00

(I know--she doesn't have the most original nickname of the bunch. But you have to drawl it out the way Tyler does--"Bee-yer" or "bee-bee-beeyers")

She did it, we did it. The first birthday!

We got cupcakes from a fabulous bakery. The kids picked out their favorite kinds, so everyone was happy.

You got really fun presents, Claire. I promise I'm trying to take them away from the other kids so you can play with them, too. At least you know the clothes are all yours.

I wish I could have gotten a better shot of her face. She was so tickled with the doll. It crawls, and Claire thinks it's so funny that she's faster than the doll.

For some reason it's harder to write about Claire. We have lots of tender feelings for her particular spirit and have sometimes felt that she may have a harder row to hoe than some of her siblings. She has a quiet, peaceful air about her and she just wants to be cuddled and loved more than any of the others. For now we're loving every day with her, trying to hold on to these precious baby days that are already gone!

How Seth spent his summer

2010-10-03T23:16:00.008-06:00

Climbing.

Calculating.

Flipping.

Discovering.

Swinging.

Seth had a great summer: swim lessons, tennis lessons, and lots of fun in the backyard riding his plasma car and tossing water balloons. He's growing up and enjoying life a lot more; the whining that plagued the previous two years has almost disappeared completely. Hurray!

He didn't learn it at home

2010-10-02T12:38:00.002-06:00

Despite the fact that we are not a family of sports fanatics, Carden has learned a few things from the local fan base, which as you can probably guess, bleeds BYU blue.

So upon opening today's newspaper, looking for his usual comics fix, Carden caught sight of the score from yesterday's BYU game--a loss to Utah State, marking BYU's third loss in a row.

"WHAT?!?" He screams. "BYU lost to the AGGIES??!!? What is with them?" he rants. They're losing left and right, and up and down and even diagonal! If this keeps up I'm going to have to start rooting for those darn Utes!"

How Charlotte spent her summer

2010-09-28T00:30:00.008-06:00

Playing with Seth--probably her favorite brother.

Loving a surprise visit from Dr. Papa

Thinking about life.

Watching out for a little sister.

Riding her pink plasma car (after convincing dad she r-e-a-l-l-y had to have one--it wasn't a hard sell).

Being cute.

Taking naps in odd places.

Supporting the Disney Princess franchise.

Playing in any water she could find.

How Claire spent her summer

2010-09-27T00:05:00.006-06:00

Learning to crawl.

Eating berries.

Endangering the ankles (and paws) of everyone in the house as she zoomed around in her walker.

Swimming

Snuggling.

Playing. How does an 11-month-old knows exactly what to do with a cell phone?

Discovering the joys of food.

Being loved.

Back to school

2010-09-26T23:37:00.006-06:00

It's been a whole month now, and the polish is rubbing off our back-to-school resolutions (eat nutritious snacks, do homework and piano practicing right after coming home, keep the house clean).

Here's what we looked like on that first bright, shiny day.

I swiped an idea from the NieNie Dialogues and the night before school started we held our first Back To School Feast. I remembered the idea at the last minute, but the kids still really loved being able to make it a special evening. The boys love the chicken cordon bleu from Costco, and with a bag of sweet corn from the farm stand and Carden's favorite punch recipe, we broke out the goblets and gold china on the tablecloth Dad bought in India.

I put Dad, our artist-in-residence, in charge of decorating the crowns for our new scholars. It was a good idea. I'm sure that years from now, they'll all share fond memories about how "Dad always drew these cool crowns for our Back to School Feasts..." And I'll bite my tongue about how I put the crowns and the Sharpie in his hand and said, "Have these done in an hour."

Carden is in third grade (note the three fingers he shows in every picture). The school addition is finished and he is in a brand new classroom. It's beautiful, with big windows and none of the funny smell of last year's portable trailers. He has two teachers who job-share, and both are wonderful.

Seth has a great teacher, and she admitted to me that he is one of her favorites (something about his love of staying after class to help clean up just endears him to people, myself included).

I'm so glad we kept Seth back that extra year. He grew up a lot and is now ready for the big time. He has a little more confidence now and he is just starting to sound out words, a feat that was completely beyond him a year ago, so I'm glad we didn't push it. I remember working with kids in Carden's first grade classroom and seeing how many of them were already labeling themselves as "smart" or "dumb." There's a lot of talk about "redshirting kindergarteners" to give them an advantage in sports or size. I'm sure that's out there, but for us, Seth was just not ready for school emotionally, socially, or academically, and I'm glad we didn't push him.

July

2010-08-22T11:16:00.009-06:00

Tyler left on July 7 for a round-the-world, 24-day, 6-country business trip. I stayed home for a round-the-house, 576-hour (I counted every one of them), 4-kid-and-1-dog experience.

Somehow we both survived.

He went to California, Germany, India, Singapore, China, Taiwan, and Japan. We went to summer camp, the canyon, swim lessons, the park, the pool, tennis lessons, Granny's house, and the store (but never with all four kids at once).

I gotta admit, I was really proud of myself. I was mostly patient, and even a little fun. I saw the appeal of simplifying life--we tried for only one activity a day and a decent dinner. Anything else was gravy.

Grandma and Grandpa Halverson came for a few days and were lifesavers with Seth's birthday party. There's no one better to help plan a 6-year-old's party than an elementary school teacher.

Seth had the never-ending birthday this year: a family party, a friend party, Granny taking him out for lunch a couple of times, and extra presents when Dad returned from his business trip.

His favorites: a zippy red Plasma Car, that he likes to steer with his feet, naturally.

And "curtains" that Grandma H. sewed for his lower bunk. We attached to the bed rails with shower curtain rings; Seth likes to close them and read books or sleep hidden from view in his wild animal fortress. He was so excited about them he would tell everyone, "Guess what I got for my birthday? I got curtains!!" This prompted more than a few raised eyebrows in my direction. It's one thing to pawn off socks and underwear as birthday presents, superhero undies notwithstanding. Curtains are another thing entirely. But they really are pretty fun.

California Vacation

2010-08-18T22:13:00.000-06:00

So, is the purpose of a vacation to relax and enjoy yourself? Or to learn new things--about yourself and your destination?

Our Northern California trip this summer fell into the second category. Here's a few things we learned:

The only thing better than eating a donut as big as your head is eating a donut as big as your head every day for four days. Ditto on the chocolate croissants for Mom and Dad.

Yes, your cousins have cooler toys than you do.

Sand in your underwear doesn't really feel that good.

Nothing beats an old-school Crockett Scrabble game.

Why is it fun to splash other people, but it's not fun if other people splash you?

You can never really get away from work. And, even on an iPad, answering e-mail is just not that cool.

The ocean is really cold.

The following sentence only makes sense to adults: "Don't bother putting on your swimsuit. It's so cold you won't want to go in the water."

Always leave room in your plans for an unexpected adventure.

Try not to let the unexpected adventure be the discovery of poison oak. Luckily we got away with an intellectual and not a hands-on lesson.

You're never too young to play in the sand.

And...

When it's midnight and you're hungry, you can still get really great food in San Francisco. Lehi hasn't reached that stage yet.

Only I could bring you this post

2010-08-17T23:49:00.005-06:00

Last year we raised a good-size crop (for us) of red potatoes. We stored them in a box in the basement, hoping that the dark, cool spot would keep them. We ate them for a good six months.

Then we forgot about them.

This week we cleaned the basement.

We discovered the box of red potatoes, now ready to star in a veggie-themed horror movie.

Beyond their grotesque sprouts, stretching futilely toward a light source, we discovered the interesting fact that they had completely used up every speck of nutrition from the potato itself.

The only thing left of the original potato is a shriveled carcass, sucked dry.

You think there's a parenting analogy, here?

Nah.

Isn't it fun to have a new obsession?

2010-08-14T00:36:00.002-06:00

Charlotte's birthday

2010-07-21T23:43:00.003-06:00

I didn't realize I hadn't posted since our pre-summer-vacation snowfall. Summer did indeed arrive with all the fun, bugs, and weeds we'd forgotten since last year.

Charlotte's birthday was in June, and other than an unexpected case of 24-hour flu, was a lot of fun. We had to hold her celebrations in stages--before the flu, the next morning, and the next evening, depending on how much she was up for (that explains the different outfit in each photo).

As usual, Dad picked the favorite present--the princess castle.

I get credit for the "most bang for the buck" present: 12 Barbie dresses and accessories for $20. Granted, they have that "made in a Chinese factory" sense of style (peach dress with gold spider web trim, a pink ruffle and red straps). But Charlotte has a great time.

Everyone got to help decorate the butterfly wings on her cake with candy designs. I've become a big fan of the decorate-your-own-cake idea. Mainly because it means that I'm not responsible for how it looks.

The home stretch to summer vacation

2010-05-24T09:40:00.003-06:00

This is the last week of school. Mere hours separate Carden and Seth from swimming pools, popsicles, and bottles of sunscreen.

Can't you just see it?

Seth's sports

2010-05-23T21:56:00.005-06:00

Seth wrapped up his first semester of gymnastics this week. He downplays his enthusiasm for it, but it's hysterical to watch him bounce to his event, do his routine, and then bounce back to his seat. And he loves the chalk buckets. I've tried to explain that the chalk is only useful on your palms. But Seth is thorough, and before he gets on the high bar, he has chalk all the way up to his elbows.

If nothing else, he's gained a new way to move about the house (cartwheels), and now has fancy vocabulary to go along with it.

"Seth, please stop jumping on the couch."

"Mom, I wasn't jumping, that was a donkey kick."

"Seth, don't jump on the bed."

"But Mom, aren't I so good at round-offs?"

He's also in the middle of spring soccer, as is Carden. He's jumped into soccer with the same bouncy enthusiasm. He never wants to be subbed out during the game, and he loves to be right in the middle of the action. His signature moves are the "slide kick" where he slides into the chum to kick the ball (usually getting trampled in the process) and the "kick the ball so hard your shoe flies off" kick (self-explanatory).

My new shirt

2010-05-19T18:37:00.004-06:00

I have a new shirt, and since it's the most expensive thing in my closet, I thought it deserved its own post.

It's yellow. Cheery and bright. I don't have many yellow shirts; in fact, I think this is the only one. About time I branched into new territory.

It's classic. Necklines come and go, but a good old button-down will never fail you.

And it's full of embellishments. Claire loves it when I wear this shirt. So much visual stimulation! So many things to grab, poke, and yank on.

Did I mention it comes with accessories, too? Mainly seven hyperactive 9-year-old boys learning to tie knots, cook over open fires, and use pocket knives.

Don't you wish you had a yellow shirt?

Nature and Nurture

2010-05-16T23:18:00.004-06:00

Charlotte is a frilly, twirly, girly girl: Nature

Charlotte's mother buys her a pink ballerina-style swimsuit: Nurture

Charlotte only walks on her toes when she wears it: Anyone want to tackle that one?

Pinewood Derby

2010-05-16T22:49:00.004-06:00

We had our first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby a couple of weeks ago. After a lot of fear and trepidation on the part of Carden's parents who have no power tools, no engineering knowledge, and no wood-working skills, we discovered the one skill our Silicon Valley days gave us: We know how to outsource.

So with the enthusiastic help of John, one of the older men in the ward, who possessed both tools and a background in auto body work, Carden's car was born.

Beyond Carden's input on color and design ("I want FLAMES!") I'm sad to say it was mostly Carden watching John. Or Carden riding his bike around the driveway while John sanded, sculpted, and shaped. Once in a while I would force him to sit down and help, or at least watch. But Carden is interested in the product, not the process, and I was torn between making it his project and not coming in last at the big race. Tyler had a more realistic outlook: "Kristen, no kid makes his car. It's all about the dads."

The night before the race, Carden discovered a broken Star Wars figure that he wanted to glue in the driver's seat, and then he wanted to put stickers with his initials on. Tyler was sure I'd destroyed the beautiful minimalist paint job just to spite him, but it was all Carden's idea, and something had to look like the brainchild of an 8 year old.

In the end, it was a great night. I'm not sure how they arranged the heats, but the boys were rotated so that sometimes they won, and sometimes they lost, yet they still came up with an overall winner of the night. Carden had a fantastic time, and we only have to do this until 2015.

Pop!

2010-04-25T22:56:00.002-06:00

Charlotte comes to me and asks for a diaper change. (Sigh. Yes, I know, yet another old-enough-to-be-potty-trained-and-yet-ISN'T-potty-trained-kid for me.)

Then she toots.

Her eyes get really big and she says to me in a stage whisper, "Mommy, my body is popping!"

Easter--remember way back when?

2010-04-25T22:39:00.006-06:00

I forgot about those Easter pics, mainly because stomach flu hit and hit hard on Saturday night before Easter and spoiled our whole week of spring break. So we postponed, adapted, and skipped a few of our Easter plans. (Don't tell anyone I just put the plastic eggs full of candy down in the basement to see if they'll last until next year. Do jelly beans get stale? Do kids care if jelly beans get stale?)

This month's BYU Magazine cover story is on how moms use their college education at home. Well dear English professors, you'll all be glad to know that those hours and hours of classroom instruction and writing assignments have culiminated in my ability to (quickly) write 4-verse poems leading my kids through the house on their Easter basket treasure hunt. Sorry Dr. Sorenson, it wasn't even in iambic pentameter.

It was a fun activity, even if Seth felt too sick to really enjoy it. Devilish me, I really enjoyed the crushed look on their faces when they went downstairs to see a lone Easter basket on the table with a lone egg in it (containing the first clue) and we told them they had to share the egg. Having the outside egg buried under a surprise snowfall was a bonus. So mean!

Don't ask why

2010-04-23T00:36:00.006-06:00

This is what I found when I returned from taking Carden and Seth to school this morning. Charlotte was nowhere to be found. Claire was quite accepting of the fact that she had 4 pounds of shredded cheese in her lap. If I were trapped by 25% of my body weight in cheese, I think I would be a bit more vocal.

I am curious, though. Was Charlotte trying to share? Hoping Claire would open the package for her? Thinking Claire was ready for a better toy than the caterpillar rattle?

And tonight's special is?

2010-04-01T22:13:00.004-06:00

Rice cereal, served any way you like it, as long as it's mushy.

After the first spoonfuls, Claire looked at Tyler as if to say, "How could you betray me?!" A cross between electroshock therapy and a lemon-sucking contest.

It can only go up from here.

Garden season opens!

2010-03-28T19:17:00.003-06:00

In case you wondered how we've learned to garden in our oversize yard: think big. Think very big. As my gardening neighbor said when I was rolling my eyes at Tyler's truck purchase: "Kristen, we're not one of those people who garden on postage-stamp-size lots. We don't buy compost in bags."

Nope. We buy compost in 4-cubic-yard truckloads. In case you're wondering, that's about 8,000 pounds, enough to cover a 1,300-square-foot area with a 1-inch-layer of compost. When dumped in your driveway, it makes a pile about 9 feet long, 7 feet wide, and 4 feet high for the neighbors to admire, the kids to play in, and the dog to eat (and then throw up on the family room rug).

Ask me next week if I'll trade it for a condo in San Diego.

Looking cheesy

2010-03-28T19:13:00.002-06:00

goat cheese, that is.

gotta start 'em young!

Valentine's Day

2010-03-12T00:25:00.005-07:00

February was one long month around here, and I am officially out of wit, so I'm a bit behind in posting.

The past few years we've made Valentine's Day a family celebration as opposed to a romantic one. This year we brought out the chocolate fountain and let everyone make a mess. Anyone know when kids learn to eat neatly?

Charlotte was only interested in dipping, not eating, and we couldn't eat fast enough to keep up with her, which frustrated her no end. Carden's food kept falling off the skewer and getting lost in the chocolate. But everyone had a great time, and I was reminded why we only do this once a year!

Basketball

2010-02-28T23:02:00.005-07:00

We just finished Seth's first and Carden's second season of basketball. It was truly an interesting study of how different our two boys are. Carden made great progress, aided by our Craigslist find of a basketball hoop now presiding over the back patio. We are really proud of how far he came. Athletics take a bit of work for him, and he stuck with it despite a few moments of discouragement.

Watching Seth was like watching those old Saturday morning cartoons of Speedy Gonzales. We kept telling him that his teammates couldn't pass him the ball because he didn't hold still long enough for them to throw it to him. All the other kids moved in a pack around the ball, with Seth orbiting rapidly around the group. And after every contact with the ball he would bounce up and down, unable to contain his excitement at being on the court.

Unforgettable moments:

Carden on the sideline with the ball, ready to pass it in. He puts the ball on his hip and moves his index finger back and forth between his two teammates. I can see him mouthing "eenie-meenie-minie-moe" trying to decide who to pass the ball to.

Seth has the ball and is dribbling down the court. He lifts his leg up and dribbles the ball under it, Harlem Globetrotter-style. He is so short his dribbling only bounces the ball six inches off the floor.

Making the beds

2010-02-08T22:13:00.003-07:00

Carden and Seth are the proud inhabitants of a new bunk bed. We found a great deal on one, and after making them keep their room spotlessly clean for two weeks, we set it up last weekend. Actually, we moved the guest room queen-size bed down two flights of stairs, disassembled two twin beds, reassembled one twin in Charlotte's room, put together the bunk bed, and made two trips to Provo for a full-size mattress--all without killing each other (the real accomplishment).

The real news in all this bed-shuffling is that Charlotte now has her own room. It's been the guest room up till now. She is loving her new Little Mermaid sheets (she won't allow me to cover them up with a bedspread). And I've put my very own personal interior decorator (my talented sister-in-law Marianne) on the job to transform the white walls into something fun for her and Claire.

Claire's blessing

2010-01-26T23:36:00.005-07:00

We held Claire's blessing at home the Sunday after Christmas. In the LDS faith, a baby blessing is similar to a christening. The baby is officially given a name and the one giving the blessing, usually the dad, offers a prayer for that child's life.

When Charlotte was blessed, she wore the dress that I had worn as a baby. For Claire's day she wore the dress my mother had worn for her blessing. The look on my grandmother's face when I brought out the dress was priceless. Neither of us has any idea how the dress came into my possession. (I have a vague memory of it being stuffed in a box with some antique silver bowls.) She assures me it was white 60-odd years ago, but it has aged to a lovely ivory color.

The dress is made of Japanese silk that my grandfather brought back from his time in Japan as a serviceman during WWII. My great-grandmother made the dress and crocheted the lace on the hem and the matching lace cardigan. The silk is so fragile now I was nervous about Claire wearing it, but it added so much to our day, and it just seemed right for her spirit. I love the thought of five generations of women involved in that dress: Nina made it, Norma chose it, Sandy wore it, Kristen revived it, and Claire wore it. All those women are a part of you, Claire. Remember that you are loved.

Oh, Christmas tree...

2009-12-19T16:22:00.005-07:00

Last year's pre-Christmas post celebrated my catastrophe of a kitchen. This year it's our poor Christmas tree. I'm sensing a theme with my holiday posts--"our tinsel bloodied, but unbowed." (As I looked up "Invictus" to make sure I had my mangled reference correct, I'm reminded what a great poem it is. And I'm definitely seeing a holiday subtext in there...

Back to the tree. It started out so well, standing straight, full of bushy green needles just waiting for ornaments and lights.

And waiting.

Waiting because somehow only three boxes of lights surfaced in all of the Christmas storage bins--enough to do the top half in colored lights and a thin smattering of white lights from the top to about three feet above the floor. Carden and Seth wanted both colored and white lights on the tree, and I kept thinking I'd make it to the store to buy more. Finally after three days of their relentless pleading I thought, "the heck with this. It's good enough." I tugged the strands around to make it appear more even (albeit even more sparse now) and announced the tree ready for decorating. Three eager helpers descended upon me, snatching all the unbreakable ornaments they could find (most featuring popsicle sticks and a lot of glitter) and crammed them onto one side of the tree.

Now we are one week away from this poor tree's day of glory and this is what I've got.

A crumpled tree skirt from when I accidentally sucked it into the vacuum cleaner.

A big blob of star garland. This is from when Carden accidentally sucked it into the vacuum cleaner, slurping it off the tree at a frightening speed. Once he pulled it out, I think he just threw it at the tree, hoping it'd stick.

A tree with some major bare spots on the top and sides. Two boxes of pretty but breakable ornaments sitting on the couch. Maybe we can get together?

But you know, I was reminiscing about the Christmas trees of my childhood with my brother, and we only really remembered the tree that fell over the day after we'd decorated it, or the tree Dad picked out by himself (the ugliest, scrawniest, lumpiest one on the lot), or the live tree that died once we planted it in the yard. So on that note, I think I'll remember my "Invictus Tree" for a long time to come.

Worth a thousand words

2009-12-09T22:39:00.006-07:00

Not much to say, just some cute pictures of the kids. Not the cute picture I wanted (all of us together), but some fun individual shots showing their personalities.

Charlotte: loud

We were driving and Claire started fussing. Charlotte patted Claire's carseat and said, "It's ok, baby. Don't cry, baby." over and over. When this got no response she shouted at her, "Be quiet, baby!"

Carden: without pretense

We're at a restaurant and Tyler orders a burrito without cheese. The server accidentally puts cheese on the order. Tyler repeats the "no cheese" part and the guy quickly fixes it. No problem; we move on. Carden goes back in line and tells him earnestly, "I know how it feels to make a mistake." A few days earlier we're in the parking lot at Target and he sees someone walking on crutches about 25 feet away. He shouts out, "Hey, you need some help?"

Seth: trying really hard to be happy

"Mom, I know what the three wise men brought. Frankincense, gold, and murder."

I'm just here for the food

2009-12-07T23:18:00.004-07:00

We've had lots of great Thanksgivings over the years, but this was the first one that was just about the food. Joel and Mandi were in town and we had a great Thanksgiving with them. Joel is a fabulous, creative cook, and we had a great time cooking together. We didn't worry about centerpieces, the antique gold china stayed in its box, the mismatched serving bowls worked just fine; it was all about having some fun in the kitchen. Here's what we came up with:

Brined turkey with roast vegetable gravy

Mixed sweet potatoes and yams, cooked in orange juice and cream

Some of the best rolls I have ever eaten (and I ate about 10, just to be sure)

Butternut squash panade

Mashed potatoes

Autumn salad

Carrot and cumin tart

Corn on the cob (Seth's one request)

Green beans with tomato-mushroom topping

Apple tart tatin

Homemade pecan pie

Pumpkin pie

Peach-ginger fizzy punch

All for four adults and four kids. I think I used up every piece of tupperware I owned! Well worth it, though.

Of spooks and substitutes

2009-11-08T20:55:00.005-07:00

Having a baby two weeks before Halloween tends to put a crimp in family activities--or at least require a bit of modification. I worried that the kids would be disappointed that some of our usual festivities (pumpkin patch, elaborate carvings, lots of community activities) were going to be severely curtailed this year. But I hadn't counted on a dedicated dad and the influx of helpful relatives who stepped in to fill my place and take my kids all over town.

Grandma braved the crowds to attend the school parade and took Carden and Seth to a performance of "Stellaluna" done by professional puppeteers. Uncle David and Aunt Julia lent artistic skills to help carve the jack o'lanterns. Aunt Marianne treated the boys to see "Where the Wild Things Are." Grandma took all three kids to join their cousins at the trick-or-treating event at This is the Place Pioneer Park. Tyler toted our giant pumpkin, a potluck dessert, a bowl full of candy, and three costumed children to the church trunk-or-treat evening. Great-granny Wilcox took everyone to dinner before Carden's Halloween piano recital.

The only downside to all this frivolity was the lack of photos. It was a bit more than I could ask to say, "Here's the jackets, snacks, diaper bag, costume accessories, and directions to where you're going. Oh, and take lots of pictures too!" But having so many people to share the fun with was well worth the small trade-off.

A new addition

2009-10-23T23:23:00.004-06:00

She's finally here! Eleven days ago, to be precise, but the announcement was, as usual, held up by our inability to name the poor child. But with 90 minutes to spare before the state deadline, we settled on Claire Ellen Crockett. Claire because we all liked it (especially Charlotte, who accepted it as second choice once we said we weren't choosing "Billy"), Ellen because it's the middle name of one of my grandmothers, and Crockett because, at this point, it's expected.

She's a different look from any of our other kids, dark hair and a different face than we expected. She sleeps almost around the clock, except for that precious hour of awake time--at 3:00am. But we're working on that. The kids all love her in short spurts. Charlotte loves to hold her, but after about 30 seconds she starts shouting "Take it! Take it!" The hardest part was trying to protect her from the coughing and sneezing since she was born during the week that all of us had nasty colds.

For those interested in stats:

7 pounds, 9 ounces

20 inches long

2.5 hours of labor (60 minutes of which the epidural didn't work)

Born October 12, 2009

1:51 pm

Jam

2009-10-09T06:54:00.005-06:00

We have made a lot of jam this year. Of all the harvest activities, I enjoy jam-making most. The kids love it, it tastes better than store-bought, and it can be done in 30-45 minutes with minimal cleanup. This year we made about 50 jars, which should carry us through the year: four boxes of apricot, raspberry, blackberry, mixed berry, plum, and plum berry now stacked in the basement.

I was making a batch last week while my nephew Isaiah was visiting. He and Seth brought in a bowl of blackberries they had picked and announced they wanted to make jam. I told them I was out of jars, so we wouldn't be able to do it. They went back outside and returned a few minutes later, not dissuaded.

"We're going to make jam by ourselves. Where's the smasher? (a small wooden tool for smashing the berries)"

I got distracted and didn't supply the requested smasher. They go back outside.

"Where's the sugar, Mom? We need sugar now."

"I thought you needed the smasher."

"No, we just used a rock." They proudly show me a bowl of smashed berries, plus a few extra bits of leaf, grass, twigs, etc.

"Oh. OK, here's the sugar." I dump a big scoop into their pot. They go back outside.

"We need some bread. Our jam is done."

Tastier than mud pies, I guess. Anyone else for jam?

Extreme nesting

2009-09-14T23:05:00.007-06:00

The kids watched "Lady and the Tramp" last week and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" this week. In both films the scenes with the expectant mother depict her sitting placidly in a rocking chair knitting baby booties, blankets, or sweaters. She hums.

This makes me wonder where I went wrong. I am in the process of:

Freezing pesto. Seth is a champion basil picker.

Refinishing the kitchen table. The varnish had completely worn off, so every spill soaked into the wood, requiring a good scraping after every meal.

Dehydrating pears. Supposedly easier than canning. Definitely tastier.

Making jam. Apricot, raspberry, blackberry, mixed berry... And the plums are ripe this week.

Canning tomatoes and applesauce. Now I know the real reason we didn't send Seth to kindergarten--he's too helpful to lose.

Planting trees. The 50% off sale was too good to pass up. We added a linden, honey locust, tulip tree, and ash. A friend said perplexedly, "But I thought you already had trees in your yard. Any more and the Forest Service will be annexing your property."

Helping with the enrichment activity, PTA carnival fundraiser, and soaking all Charlotte's old baby clothes in vats of Oxi-Clean. I swear that stuff was clean when I put it away two years ago.

I am not humming.

School days again

2009-09-09T21:31:00.003-06:00

Carden has been in class for almost three weeks now, but Seth began today. Both are excited for new teachers, new classrooms, and new adventures.

It does look like we've shipped Carden off to the gulag; the school is under construction this year to add 12 new classrooms, so hopefully next year they won't need these portable rooms in the back parking lot.

Here's his new backpack, loaded down with all the essential school supplies of a 2009 student: tissues, hand sanitizer, Clorox wipes, and hand wipes. Oh yes, and a small pencil box. Looks like we're more concerned about the germs he'll bring home than the grades.

Seth is getting one more year at home/preschool, and he's excited about being the "old man" in the classroom. I think he'll do great with a bit more time under his belt. Now, if we could just get a few more pounds under his belt, we'd really be doing well!

And Charlotte, Angus, and I will continue to hold down the fort. I have high hopes for our free time, but I won't say what, for fear someone will actually hold me to all my lofty goals.

11 hours and counting

2009-08-19T22:06:00.003-06:00

Until that bell rings and Carden returns to school. Pity preschool doesn't begin for another three weeks. Yep, Seth, despite his fifth birthday, will stay at home and preschool for another year. The school cutoff is five weeks after his birthday, and we felt like he could really use another year before being thrown to the kindergarten wolves.

We squeezed out our last few days of summer vacation, although the weather feels like mid-September already. We really only got six weeks of summer weatherwise, so part of me feels like we never got warmed up (literally). But in the last 72 hours we hit the park, the snow-cone shack, the pool, the children's museum, and the Belgian waffle stand. We also spent four days cleaning and sorting the playroom, a Herculean task measured in the number of trash-can loads dumped.

With only seven weeks to this pregnancy left, I am torn between great memories of all the fun we did have, and regret for all the things we didn't do because I just didn't have the stamina for it. Lucky the kids are young enough that we can massage their memories to focus on the good times. So farewell summer, we hardly knew ya. But it was great while it lasted.

Seth survives to five

2009-08-14T22:34:00.006-06:00

There have been many times, I hate to admit, during the last five years, when I would have happily flagged down a passing gypsy caravan and asked them to haul this child off. That Old Testament story of Joseph of Egypt? Well, maybe his brothers had just heard "the whiny voice" one too many times. Digging a pit and packing him off to the pyramids doesn't seem too extreme a reaction, really. Tyler says he's too much like me, which is why I have a lower tolerance for his moping. (And the first person who agrees that I whine or mope gets clobbered.)

To be fair, Seth has a lot of really great traits. He is a stellar worker. He loves to help, and will often go above and beyond his chore list. He is athletic and coordinated. He loves attention, especially linked to a camera, and his blue eyes and white-blond hair pop him out of any crowd. He plays with Charlotte and is always willing to do any little favor I ask (lately this means running up and down the stairs a lot to get/put away some item).

His birthday in July was a big day. We went through our usual birthday traditions: presents laid out at the breakfast table, his choice of meals, the outing he planned, and cake and ice cream. Bless this child who wanted an off-the-shelf cake from Costco. The best $15 I spent and 15 hours I saved all month.

Seth chose Liberty Land, a small local amusement park, for his outing. We played miniature golf, laser tag, rode the roller coaster, rides, bumper boats, over and over.

Showing off his Pokemon shirt, Spiderman sunglasses, and flip-flops. I hate flip-flops--and all sandals between my toes--so I've never bought them for the kids. So these had the aura of "forbidden fruit" since he's the only one in the family who has flip-flops.

You wanted a post? Here it is...

2009-07-27T23:26:00.004-06:00

Several people have informed me that their status as devoted followers of our little corner of the blogging world gives them the right to hound me for the lack of posts in the past four weeks. To them, I offer the following riveting account of how we are spending our summer vacation.

We get up late.

We clean the playroom/boys' room/family room/hallway.

We eat an Otter Pop to celebrate that one-half/one-fourth/one tiny corner of chosen room is now clean.

We change the sheets on the guest room bed. By a rough estimate, we have had house guests for 30 nights so far in 2009.

I praise the heavens for the invention of air conditioning. This is the first summer of my entire life where I have had it. I run it around the clock. I stand directly over/under the vents. Tyler can sell an internal organ to pay the bill if necessary.

We play outside.

We eat something not really resembling a balanced meal.

We play outside again. At 9:30 the sun sets and we herd kids inside. We do not generally bathe them.

We remind them (weakly) that bedtime was at 9:00 and why are they all still up?

The diva is 2

2009-06-11T19:23:00.007-06:00

Heaven help us all.

Charlotte's second birthday arrived in all its frilly pink splendor. She woke up to her big present, a doll house, spread over the kitchen table and a set of princess dolls. She spent most of the morning moving the furniture and occupants around, so engrossed she was quiet all morning.

After pizza for dinner we brought out the rest of her presents and her pink cake and pink ice cream. We were thrilled Marianne and Granny Wilcox could come celebrate with us. I was surprised how Charlotte seemed to know exactly what was going on. She sang loudly with us as we warbled "Happy Birthday to You" and then instantly started blowing at the candles, without any coaching. Thanks to Carden and Seth who actually put them out.

The hits of the night were her dress from Marianne and her gifts from Carden and Seth: purple beads and bracelets, high heels and sunglasses--the basics, as any girl knows.

Seth helped me make the cake, and Carden helped put the sprinkles on the cupcakes. I was happily surprised that it looked pretty cute! Thankfully Charlotte is easily impressed.

Why I am a good mother; Reason #218

2009-06-07T15:53:00.005-06:00

We come out of swim lessons to see that the city has set up a "get to know your city departments" fair. After free hot dogs and lemonade, the boys want to ride in the power company's cherry picker.

"Fine," I say. I will stand here in line so you can ride the cherry picker. When we get to the front of the line they want me to go with them.

"Oh no," I say. "That's the last thing I'm going to do."

"Oh but you have to" says the power company guy. He's smirking, so I'm not sure if he's joking or not.

"You're kidding." I tell him. "They can go with you. I give permission."

"But look," he tells me. "They want you to go."

So against my better judgment--against any judgment at all--I climb in, and let me tell you, there is no graceful way to climb into a cherry picker. And up we go. Way up. The next time I see my house from that vantage point I better be floating on a cloud plucking a harp. I decide that this is not the time to discuss the recent rise in electrical rates with the guy operating the controls.

How to get that summer tan

2009-06-02T16:42:00.003-06:00

"Why fork over your hard-earned cash for those expensive bottles of tanning cream? Why hassle with reapplying every few days? Do what Miss Charlotte does: use deck stain! It's long-lasting, comes in convenient gallon size, and is so much fun with a paintbrush! Miss Charlotte recommends Formula 1904: Heart Redwood to give her that desirable sun-kissed look."

You turn your back for a second...

Save the cheese!

2009-05-27T09:43:00.004-06:00

This week we've been dog-sitting Higgins, a bulldog belonging to Tyler's brother Joel. Despite Higgins and Angus coming from the same breeder, they are completely different physically. Angus looks like a fat slug, and Higgins is a trim machine, although they have the same penchant for snoring in the shade. We've also discovered that both dogs love cheese. And poor Charlotte, at only 33 inches high, is their prime target for hostile takeovers. Charlotte also loves cheese, and spent most of yesterday afternoon running from the dogs, waving her cheddar over her head and screeching "Not yet!" She never latched onto the toddler's favorite word "no," prefering the more polite version "not yet," although the meaning is the same--"no way."

Notes from the field: boys and girls are different

2009-05-17T22:30:00.003-06:00

Last week we had an extended family picnic at the botanic gardens. Three families, three assorted fast food offerings (no one felt like cooking), and some picnic tables by a fast-moving creek made for a great evening. We spread out our paper bags while the kids wandered around, until Carden shooed them back to their own table: "Your food is over there. This is our feast." Who knew he'd be so possessive over chicken sandwiches and french fries.

The gardens were lovely, full of spring flowers and blooming trees. It seems to be a popular spot with wedding photographers and we saw many couples doing photo shoots. To appreciate this, you have to understand that Charlotte, not yet 2, is in a full-blown princess phase. Her limited vocabulary has a large chunk devoted to words like "princess," "pretty princess," "dress," "pretty dress," "shoes," "pretty shoes," etc. You get the idea. So we're wandering through the gardens, and around the bend we come across one of the brides. Charlotte stops dead in her tracks, mouth open, staring at this girl in clouds of white tulle. She doesn't move for a full minute, and even once I call her name, she takes a half-hearted step toward me, not taking her eyes off the bride until they've left. Princesses in real life! Who knew?

A few minutes later we come around another bend and spot another bride. I can hear my 5-year-old niece excitedly telling her mother, "That one had a tiara! The other one only had lace on her hair. I want a tiara."

A few minutes later we spot yet another bride. The 5-year-old girl says in a dreamy voice, "Look Mom, a bride!" To which Carden responds, "Sheesh, not another one!"

So what do you do...

2009-05-05T22:01:00.002-06:00

What do you do when you go in to check on the kids at night and discover that Charlotte is sleeping peacefully...soaked in vomit?

Tiptoe back out and pretend you didn't notice?

Or wake her up, clean her up, change all the bedding, and listen to her scream during the whole process?

Sigh.

You do what I did--call for Dad!!

And to his everlasting credit, he did it all. Even after he'd been doing it for the two days that I was gone all day at Women's Conference at BYU and he was taking care of the kids solo. Even after the first episode was Charlotte throwing up while they were at the pool watching the boys' swimming lesson.

Hurray for dads.

Palm branches and empty tombs

2009-04-17T11:40:00.008-06:00

We celebrated the religious side of Easter a bit differently this year--we actually celebrated it. The week before I was grumbling about how our Easter Sunday services would be pretty dull compared to the high churches with their cathedrals of stained glass, booming organ oratorios, flowers, and candles. Compared to Christmas, a holiday marked with eight large boxes of decorations and at least 24 days of special activities, foods, and music, Easter seemed a poor country cousin, at least in our house. Somehow the idea evolved that I could make this year different and the Crocketts would commemorate the last week of Christ's life with a bit more pomp and ceremony.

We began on Palm Sunday, and using a large pad of easel paper, every day we drew pictures to illustrate what happened on that day of Holy Week. Carden and Seth really got into this, embellishing and adding to my pathetic stick figures with their own drawings, coloring, labels "Pilate = bad guy," and discussions between themselves "Seth, don't draw a smile! Jesus was SAD that day!" "Carden, that's Judas, he's not supposed to be happy." "He's not. See, I drew mean eyebrows." More amazing was how interested I got into researching what happened so that I could be prepared for the next day's drawing. Tyler teased me that I walked around the house reading Jesus the Christ like it was Harry Potter.
By Wednesday I'd found a Mormon Tabernacle CD full of Easter music: the cathedral-and-stained-glass-type I'd been craving. Pieces from the Beethoven oratorio, Dvorak, Gounod, John Rutter--all wonderful stuff made for a great iPod Easter playlist. Nowhere near my 32 hours of Christmas music, but a good start, and it filled the house with the feeling of Easter.

Thursday I thought about serving a Passover dinner, but figured the kids were not quite old enough to make it worth the work. But we did serve bread and grape juice and talked about the change from the Passover to the Sacrament, before diving into our decidedly nontraditional plates of spaghetti.
For Good Friday I made Hot Cross Buns, which didn't turn out quite so pretty as I'd hoped, but tasted good and will hopefully work better next year. Because the Gospel writers offer enough detail of what happened when during that Friday, I spent the day much more aware of the time and what was happening so many years ago in Jerusalem (7am: probably dragged between Pilate and Herod; 8am: the scourging?; 10am: the cross; sunset: hastily placing the body in the tomb).

Saturday was gloomy weather, appropriate for the day I spent thinking of the Disciples marking the Jewish Sabbath, ruminating on the previous day's event. As part of a church lesson on Easter that I had to teach, I put together a DVD slideshow of works of art depicting scenes from the last week of Christ's life. I really had a great time combing the Internet for material. And our computer even cooperated (mostly) and Tyler burned the disc without incident! True miracle.

Easter Sunday was a beautiful spring day, wonderfully perfect after the gloom inside my soul the preceeding two days. We ran out of time on Sunday, but later that week we made Resurrection Rolls (slightly goofy concept but a big hit with the kids).

By the time I packed up the box of Easter decorations, I felt like we had really celebrated Easter for what it is--a hard week of watching someone prepare for his death, paying closer attention to his last words and teachings, and appreciating the glory of Resurrection morning because we'd seen the price it took to get there. Next year I think we'll add some more activities I found online and continue to make Easter a wonderful--and major--holiday for our family.

Jelly beans and chocolate bunnies

2009-04-17T10:51:00.002-06:00

We stretched out our Easter festivities this year, starting with a cousin egg hunt in the backyard the weekend before when my parents were in town. Unfortunately the weather was not cooperative at all, and we squeezed in the egg finding between snow flurries. Nothing like trying to pick up slippery plastic eggs while wearing gloves.

The Easter bunny brought his usual baskets full of treats, which were eaten before/instead of breakfast. We tried unsuccessfully to pry the chocolate bunny out of Charlotte's hands and replace it with a piece of toast, but she wasn't going for that. Charlotte is not much for jelly beans, but she can smell chocolate at 50 paces.

Our indoor jelly bean hunt was another favorite activity. All the ones I hid above kid-eye-level are still there, providing me, at least, with an additional stash of jelly beans now that the kids have gobbled all the rest.

Grandparents day at school

2009-04-09T22:23:00.003-06:00

Carden lucked out that for the weekend of the school Grandparents Day, both sets of his California grandparents were in town. Grandma and Grandpa Halverson won (or lost?) the prize of actually going to school and fighting the crowds for two hours.

They played bingo, checkers, and math games, globbed their hands with paint for handprints, frosted cookies, interviewed each other, and toured the school. Carden said it was "the best day of my life!" Afterwards they snuck him off-campus for lunch at his favorite restaurant, Applebees, to feast on corndogs, fries, and miniature Oreo sundaes.

Since both sides of our family come with large numbers of aunts, uncles, and cousins, we're used to sharing grandparents among all the families. And within the family, we're used to sharing grandparents with siblings and parents. That probably contributed to Carden's enthusiasm to have some of his favorite people all to himself. It reminded me of the few times that I got to be alone with my grandparents and how special that was. I'm sure the opportunities were infrequent, again because of the numbers they had to divide themselves among, and yet they are vivid memoriesto me. Thanks to our great grandparents (and Great-Grandparents even!) for making Carden's day such a fun one.

April Fool's

2009-04-02T21:58:00.002-06:00

Not funny.

And Charlotte?

2009-03-31T21:00:00.005-06:00

Charlotte is doing many things, at the ripe old age of 21 months. Unfortunately, the one thing her parents want her to do, namely talk, she is not doing. I suppose she is making s-l-o-w progress, but aack! it is more slow than progress.
Of course, Carden spent a year of intensive therapy learning to talk, among other behaviors, so to all you good California taxpayers of 2004-2005, you have gotten 3 for 1 out of your investment, since all the tricks that we learned from his speech team were put to use on Seth when he was slow to speak, and are now being dusted off for Charlotte's benefit. Once again we sing "Icky Sticky Bubble Gum" to learn body parts, parcel out snacks one at a time ("oh, you want another cracker?"), practice flashcards, and watch hours of Baby Bumblebee speech videos.

For all our pains we get a lot of "my dat" (everything in sight is "my that") and "no dat." Sigh. Or we'll prompt her, "you want up? Say up." To which she looks at us like the lights finally went on in our heads and emphatically say "yeah." The only bright spot is "lish" (delicious), which applies to almost everything I cook for dinner. Sadly, Carden and Seth are twice as loud with "this is the worst dinner ever." This is why people have girls, right?

Charlotte has also jumped into princess life with both feet. Here she is on the trampoline with her fairy princess skirt, which looks equally at home with pajamas and raincoats. "Doll" is another of her highly prized words, and I am chagrined to confess how her face lights up when we ask if she wants to watch Cinderella or Snow White. Sorry, Baby Bumblebee. Maybe it's time to come up with a Princess Speech video.

The rest of the Southern California trip

2009-03-29T20:24:00.008-06:00

Still catching up on the back-blog of stuff to write about. Here's a few shots of our other activities during our Southern California mini-vacation. The best part of the trip for me was getting a weekend of California spring weather--warm. The week after we returned, Seth's preschool teacher told me that Seth had announced to his class that "My mom says that in our country spring is COLD!" (I'd told the boys that despite the calendar saying "spring," they could not wear t-shirts and shorts yet because spring in Utah is cold. They had reveled in their shorts and t-shirts at Grandma's house.

Carden celebrated his 7th birthday, and Grandma decorated the kitchen for our family party the day before the big Disneyland trip. Carden was thrilled to get a bag full of interesting books, some new games and toys and a new outfit or two--not as exciting, but still fun to open.

That afternoon I took the kids to Hart park to see the small petting zoo, which turned out to be closed for renovations. So we opted for a short hike instead up to the Hart mansion on the top of the hill. William S. Hart, the local celebrity, was a cowboy film star from the silent-movie days, and the namesake of the high school I went to, yet I'd never toured his house. I gave Carden the camera during the tour, and he went crazy, shooting photos of the floor tiles, the light fixtures, every piece of statuary and furniture, telling the other people on the tour, "excuse me, I've got to get this shot!" while he wiggled around them. Eighty-four shots, to be exact. This sitting room was his favorite part because of the bearskin rug. Afterward we drove back to Rite-Aid to see if they'd kept the ice cream counter from when it was Thrifty's Drugstore. Success! Ice cream cones for a dollar--doesn't get any better, although I remember they only cost 59 cents when I was a kid.

We squeezed in an afternoon at the beach, where despite cold and wind, salt water still smells like salt water, a fragrance we just haven't found here in Utah. Angus even came along, although after face-planting into a large sand dune (tough when your tongue is constantly out of your mouth) and getting stung by a bee, he was more than happy to climb back in his crate in the van.

It's funny how satisfying it is for me to be at the beach with my kids. I agree, in a detached sort of way, that the mountains of Utah are lovely, but nothing stirs my heart like the scrubby brown hills of Southern California, the golden-grass hills of Northern California, and the coastline between. I guess it's the magic associations of childhood and family, but it makes me wonder if my kids will grow up believing there is no scenery more beautiful than the Wasatch Range with it's near year-round dusting of snow. Probably not since we never actually get up into those mountains to do anything!

We left at 6:00 the next morning to start the drive home, hoping to arrive in time for Carden's Cat in the Hat program at school that night. After speeding through the minimum number of rest stops, Tyler dropped Carden and me off in the school parking lot with two minutes to spare. We yanked his pjs (the evening's costume) out of a suitcase, changed in the doorway of the van and ran to find a seat. I bet the only thing he remembers about the night is how we walked home and a cat followed us all the way, and then sat in the front yard for two days until I got fed up, stuffed it in a cardboard box and drove it back to the house it had come from. Carden was disappointed I hadn't learned to love it during those two days, but I say it got off easy, considering my reputation with neighborhood felines and the local Animal Control department.

The Not-So-Magic Kingdom

2009-03-17T15:47:00.006-06:00

Well, for most of us, it was still the Magic Kingdom, but I learned that it does depend on who you ask--and when.

For Carden's 7th birthday we planned a big Disneyland trip. The combination of Disney's offer to get in free on your birthday in 2009, combined with the two free tickets we won at the school raffle made it too good to pass up a trip to Southern California, especially since it means we get to see Grandma and Grandpa H. at the same time.

It really was a great day. Not too hot, not too crowded. They gave Carden a Happy Birthday button to wear, which he was so proud of. If he put on his jacket, he would quietly ask me to help him move the button from his shirt to the jacket so it could be seen. When the jacket came off, he'd again, quietly ask me to relocate the button. The Disney employees all wished him a happy day and it really made him feel like a star.

Carden loved everything about Disneyland. Tall enough to go on all the rides he wanted, but still young enough to ooh and aah over the movies come to life.

Seth had a great time once it was all over and he'd sifted through some of his emotions, but at the time he was not too sure about most of the rides. Granted, it probably had something to do with his parents' poor judgement in starting the day not in Fantasyland, but with Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean. Halfway through Haunted Mansion he turns to Tyler and asks in a scared, quavery voice, "Daddy, why did you take us to this Haunted Mansion?" After most of the other rides it was an emphatic, "That was the worst ride ever!" But by the next day they had all transformed to the best rides ever, so go figure. Here's a shot I took of Seth and me on Splash Mountain, which he now claims is his favorite.

Charlotte was a really good sport about spending much of the day in the stroller while Tyler and I took the boys on the bigger rides. Tiding the carousel five times in a row while I was braving Dumbo was the highlight of her day--that and screeching for every princess item at every gift shop. She screamed when Tyler took her off until he'd ask, "Ride horsies again?" "OK" she smiled, and around the line again they went. Enjoy it, kid, because despite what your dad promises, that's the only pony you're getting.

Our new addition

2009-02-15T22:37:00.003-07:00

Tyler bought a truck.

I am not allowed to say anything else.

Pity.

Wintertime blues

2009-02-15T22:05:00.005-07:00

Oh what do you do in the wintertime, when all the world is cold?

Do you stay in the house? Pick fights with your spouse?

Or wonder why life's gotten drab?

It's happening to us--don't feel bad.

Here in the middle of February, we are suffering from cabin fever. Winter has overstayed its welcome, and Carden is personally affronted by the nerve of Punxatawny Phil, seeing his shadow and condemning us to six more weeks of morosity. He (Carden, not Phil) wanders the house, muttering, "That dumb groundhog. What did he have to see his shadow for?" There's a construction paper countdown to spring in a local store window, and we're all ready for Phil to release us from our cocoons.

Naturally, one of the telltale signs of cabin fever is odd behavior. Following are unstaged, un-PhotoShopped photos showing what's become of us lately.

Carden wears gloves wherever he goes, inside and out. Despite dishes slipping out of his hands and shattering on the floor, nothing persuades him that it really isn't that cold in the house. Here he is, asleep, with his gloves on. This is the boy who sweats with just a sheet and light bedspread on during the winter, and yet he pulls all the blankets over his head every night until he's sweat-soaked his pillow six inches in every direction. He's also in a "Mom, I'm going to freak out!" phase where he doesn't like to be alone, ever. This has led to heated discussions about why we don't invite younger brothers to joint potty breaks. No details necessary. Note that he and Seth end up smashed into the same twin bed most nights.

Seth walks around wrapped up in "The Wonder Blanket," a fuzzy blue blanket that really keeps you toasty. We also have the brown and green models, just so you can be cozy in every room in the house. He lays on the couch and the floor and moans, "I need electronic." "Electronic" refers to movies, computer games, the Wii video games, and the handheld Nintendo, all of which are denied much more frequently than they are allowed.

Charlotte has latched on to citrus fruits. Yes, she is eating a lime. Straight. The week before she found half a lemon on the table and wandered about for two days licking the cut side and getting extremely upset if I tried to take it away.

Christmas: the good

2009-01-09T22:34:00.007-07:00

Despite some very memorable disasters, we are now able to look back fondly on Christmas. A week of having the kids back in school, although I am still sick, has definitely helped. Here's a few of the things that went right.

An uncle who builds a sledding launch pad and then stays out in the cold to play.

Gingerbread cookies to decorate and eat every day for a week.

The first-ever family Nativity play, complete with costumes, props, and scenery.

Getting the present from Santa that you really, really wanted.

Girl toys--and no one to have to share with.

Your very own book, all about you!

Christmas morning with the people you like best, and in fabulous new pjs to boot.

Christmas: the bad and the ugly

2009-01-05T21:42:00.006-07:00

This is the first year that Christmas got a subtitle. "Christmas 2008: The year it all went wrong."

The month started out ok, battling too many activities and too little time. But by Christmas Eve, which was hosted at our house, I had resorted to sweeping my arm across the kitchen counters, filling two large laundry baskets with assorted junk and stashing it in my bedroom so that the house would be "clean" (the baskets are still in my bedroom--I've been carrying laundry around in extra Costco boxes). Our food assignments were hurridly thrown together, after Tyler made the obligatory Christmas Eve grocery run for forgotten ingredients. And then, stupid me, I opened the oven door and poured cold chicken stock over the turkey. When the stock hit the hot glass roasting pan it shattered. Hmmm.

Not to be deterred, we dumped the turkey in the sink, rinsed it off with the kitchen sprayer hose and plopped it in a new pan. Christmas Dinner, only delayed an hour. I did think about grabbing the camera, but figured it best not to antagonize Tyler, wearing all our oven mitts and scraping chunks of glass out of a hot oven with a spatula.

By the end of Christmas Day both Charlotte and Carden had thrown up, victim to the stomach flu that swept through our entire extended family for the next week. Santa--next year just stick with coal. There's no way we were that naughty! The bug lasted for another week, forcing our visit from Caroline & Aaron's family to be severely curtailed. They found other relatives to take them in at the last minute, and our plans for five days of fun got condensed to one afternoon at a kids play area and lunch at The Pie Pizzeria.

But, as my brother-in-law Dave pointed out to me--no one remembers the Christmases where everything went smoothly. True. Christmas 2008, we'll never forget you, but some experiences you only need once!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

2008-12-20T22:28:00.004-07:00

Chaos.

Six weeks ago when I flipped the calendar page from October to November, I was greeted by a scotch-taped list titled "Christmas Ideas" -- ways to make Christmas less stressful (do the cards early, shop early, buy generic gifts for forgotten events, etc.) Now there's less than a week to go and I've moved the list to next November, in the spirit of "at least there's always next year..."

This (or I should say, buried under all this disaster) is our kitchen. If you can stomach the sight, and frankly I can't, which is why I'm here blogging at 10:30pm instead of cleaning it, you may notice the following:

1. Half-eaten gingerbread house. I never actually granted permission for the kids to eat it, which is why it's only half-eaten and not completely gone. They think I haven't noticed yet.

2. Playdough from the preschool gift exchange, which despite my many pleas, never made it into the playdough box.

3. Plate of leftovers from the ward Christmas breakfast, which everyone promised they would eat and now no one will eat except the dog.

4. Assorted Christmas projects from the last day of school, newspaper ads from this week's sales, receipts from today's hellacious trip to the mall.

5. Envelopes from the Christmas cards we received this year. I can't throw them away yet because I lost my address book in the summer's hard drive crash.

6. Quantities of measuring cups, baking sheets, spices, sugars, sprinkles, etc. from making spiced nuts, peanut-butter kiss cookies, cranberry bread, spritz cookies, and toffee. Two batches of each because Tyler kept upping the number of plates he needed for the families he and the ward missionaries are working with.

7. Ribbon, tags, gift bags and plates for #6.

8. Cup from Del Taco when I told Tyler at 4:00, if you want dinner, you either make it or buy it (see #6 and #7).

9. Leftover programs from the Relief Society Christmas dinner I was in charge of.

10. Assorted deposits, fragments, leavings, rubble, scree, sediment, shavings, and detritus that accompany the "most wonderful time of the year." I have new appreciation for a friend who was so burned out last year that by the time her husband and kids woke up from their post-Christmas-dinner naps, she had taken down the tree, boxed up the decorations, and put it all back in the garage.

Suffer

2008-12-16T23:21:00.003-07:00

Today I made one of my bigger errors in judgment. I thought an 18-month old would sit still and smile for a photography sitting. Three hours and three photographers later, I had photographic proof of how dumb I was. I even made the ultimate sacrifice and jumped in the picture with the kids, thinking that holding Charlotte on my lap would instantly transform her personality. Tip: When you're using the drool rag to mop up the sweat on your own forehead from wrestling an alligator in a black velvet Christmas dress, it doesn't make for a beautiful shot. Still, I now own an 8x10 to hang on my wall. Somebody else will have to say how cute they are. I'm still looking for a traveling circus in need of a few extra alligators.

All things old are new again

2008-12-13T22:30:00.005-07:00

Vicki--this one's for you. Shortly after Tyler and I got married, his parents gave us an old kitchen table set. Vicki and I bought new fabric and staple-gunned it onto the old chairs for a new look. Fast-forward eight years and those chair covers were looking pretty shabby. Well, grape juice stains be gone! I am now the proud owner of a staple gun and I'm not afraid to use it. Sadly, my fancy "new" chair seats are hidden under vinyl protectors. Oh well. At night I peel off the protectors and feel like a grown-up again.

Deborah--this one's for you. Another wedding gift revisited, my wonderful college roommate Deborah made a beautiful quilt for us, but those chaotic eight years took a toll on that one, too. It was coming untied and the backing was wearing out in spots. My friend Kristin, a quilter (actually, calling her a quilter is like saying Rembrandt drew pretty pictures) had just started a long-arm machine quilting business, Sadiebird. She helped revive my quilt, adding a new backing and machine quilting it. I even got to go over and try working the machine, which was tremendous fun, even though you can clearly tell the difference between the end I worked on and the end she did! Since it's the biggest quilt we own, it's currently doing fort duty in the playroom, a use for which I suspect Deborah would heartily approve. Here's Kristin's quilt blog posting about it with some photos. Thanks to both of you. I love having another memory layered into my quilt!

Wicked

2008-11-23T20:53:00.002-07:00

I have recently rediscovered the soundtrack to the musical Wicked. Lousy book, but fabulous Broadway production. Much to my surprise, the boys have taken to it like mad, and won't let me play anything else. They have memorized the track numbers of all their favorites and shout at me in the car, "play number 1, play number 9." Even Charlotte shocked us the other day but screaming out, on exactly the right note and beat, "DAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY!" (the last word in a particularly rousing song, "One Short Day." We just learned that Salt Lake is on the upcoming tour next spring, but after getting a busy signal for three hours we concluded that all the tickets had been bought by scalpers. Luckily it's still in LA and San Francisco, two cities we still have ties to, so we've got a good plan B.

So just what have we been doing?

2008-11-23T18:25:00.006-07:00

Frankly, it doesn't seem like too much, and yet I remember a steady stream of "hurry up, we'll be late!" and "you need to do X, and Y now, because later we've got to do Z" coming out of my mouth.

Charlotte wins the prize for most drama as of late. We had noticed a strange growth on one of her toenails. Pediatrician referred us to a dermatologist who said it needed to be biopsied. So after a shot in her toe and having most of the nail scraped off, I took a screaming child and a sample of bacitracin home to await lab results. Whatever it was, and they never did figure it out, it's benign, for which we are grateful. Now we wait to see if she will ever have a toenail regrow on that toe. I hope so. As I said to the doctor, "I know this is vain, but when she's a teenager she's going to want to paint her toenails and wear cute sandals."

Carden and Seth finished a session of swimming lessons, and both passed to the next level. This is major cause for celebration since I have shelled out $30 for Carden to take Level 3 at least four times, in addition to a couple of bouts of private lessons.

We have contributed three stray cats to our local Animal Control office this month. Naturally most of this happened while Tyler spent his usual week in Japan. Animal Control only collects the animals--they don't actually catch them. You, the tax-paying citizen get to put down a $75 deposit for the privilege of setting a trap in your backyard and capturing the critter yourself. We had a couple of false starts when I set the trap incorrectly, and the cats enjoyed a free meal and waltzed off. Then one cat somehow got trapped in our garage. I moved the trap into the garage and loaded it with food, but that dumb cat sat under the van and stared at it for 24 hours until I finally had to open the garage to get the car out and it escaped. On the bright side, I haven't noticed that one in the yard lately, so maybe it learned its lesson.

Netherlands Day 6 (last day) -- Amsterdam

2008-11-12T22:09:00.006-07:00

We rousted ourselves out of bed and made our usual morning run to the bakery, indulging in cherry tarts and apple dumplings since it was our last day. And then, off to the station and Amsterdam. This picture isn't so good because of all the morning fog, but this is David and Julia's house. The single window at the very top is the one bedroom in the attic/loft-type space that they so graciously let us use (two floors above the bathroom!).

On a whim, we opted for a canal bus tour, hopping on and off the boat as it circles some of the larger canals. Other than poor Vid being target practice from a passing bird, it was great fun to see the city from the water and a nice rest when we didn't want to walk so much.

First stop: the Anne Frank House. The line was long, but the museum was worth it. Very sobering. To see someone so young, just wanting to live and make her mark on the world and not being allowed to.

We walked up the street to the Westerkerk (West church) and saw the church with Rembrandt's unmarked grave (he couldn't afford anything better than the 20-year grave). Someone was practicing the organ--you could tell from the repeated passages and occasional mistakes--but it was still beautiful to hear the music filling the enormous space.

Here's a shot of those lovely Dutch row houses. You'll notice that at the top of every house is a plank with a pulley attached to the end. Because of the narrowness of the houses, furniture and bulky objects were hoisted up to the correct floor and loaded in through the windows. Ouch. Many of the buildings are built to lean out a bit so that ascending objects wouldn't smash into the building, which caused more than a few to topple over. Lunch at the Pancake Bakery, a restaurant Tyler had researched online before we came. They had the biggest selection we'd seen: sweet, savory, anything you can imagine. Dutch pancakes are more like very large crepes--thin and stretchy. Tyler had his with tomato, onion, and mushroom; mine was lemon and powdered sugar; David ordered ham and cheese; and Julia chose chicken and onion. Then we stopped by a cheese shop and bought a wedge of cheese and a slicer, which has been my quest for many years.

We caught the canal bus to its next stop at the Rijksmuseum (the national museum) and Van Gogh museum. The Rijks was under construction, but we saw the highlights, including "Night Watch," several Rembrandt portraits, and some other stunning works. It was good to be forced through quickly since we were trying to see so much in our one day.

The Van Gogh was great. I hadn't realized that he tried a wide range of techniques--Japanese paintings, copies of Old Masters done in his distinct style. I guess because his working life was so short but intense you get the high points and his learning along the way. A lot of his famous works are scattered in other museums around the world, so we didn't get to see a lot of our personal favorites. But Tyler did get to see "Wheatfield with Crows" which doesn't do much for me, but he really liked. It's always such a different experience to see art in person. Van Gogh's work is so textural--the paint is almost a character in the pieces. I had never been that big a fan of his work, but seeing it in person gave me a much greater appreciation for him.

As the day wound down, we went through a shopping district looking for a few things for the kids but it was all junky tourist stuff. David suggested we try Hema, the Dutch version of Target. Success! Their toy section was small compared to US stores, but we found cool socks, art kits, and a gnome house for Charlotte. Needing our daily dose of frites, David led us to the frites shop, a small take-out restaurant serving nothing but paper cones full of salty Dutch yumminess. This place offered about 10 different sauces to dip yours in. We tried curry ketchup, regular ketchup, the traditional mayonnaise, and peanut satay sauce. Here's about the point that we really appreciated being with David, since the train station is on the edge of the red light district. He could warn us, don't look left, stay to the right. Let's go down this street, but not that one, etc. So we came away with a lovely impression of Amsterdam as a beautiful city well worth the visit.

Back in Leiden we zipped into the grocery store before it closed at 6 and bought some chocolates and stropwaffels for souvenirs and came home for our Phase 10 rematch. The next day we got up and headed to the airport.

It was a marvelous trip, especially enjoying the life of a "resident" by staying with David and Julia. European life seems so much simpler--small houses, small cars, small shops are such a stark difference from America's mega-everything. It's really made me wonder, how much do you really need. It's like those decorative signs that say "simplify." If you have to buy an accessory to simplify, isn't that sort of missing the point?

Netherlands Day 5 - Leiden

2008-11-12T21:14:00.003-07:00

This was Sunday, General Conference day, so no church meetings were planned here because the time difference is so great. They watch tape-delay sessions the next weeks. Tyler had homework to catch up on so he worked on that and David, Julia and I walked around other parts of Leiden I hadn't seen yet.

First stop: the Burcht, a manmade hill with a circular fortress on top. When your whole country is below sea-level, you have to make your own hills. I'm not quite sure how they managed something like that hundreds of years ago. It was designed to protect the citizens from flooding by providing a small amount of "higher ground." You can see from the photo that they must have lugged an awful lot of carts full of dirt to do that. It has slits along the battlements attesting to its military uses as well. It had great views of various churches and the town hall, which we had passed earlier. Form one side the town hall is built of stone, on the other side brick, a later replacement when the original stone was destroyed in a fire. This older part of town was the area where the Pilgrims lived for 10-12 years before they went to England and chartered the Mayflower.

Walking back to their house, we passed an unusual building with a large courtyard (all the other buildings are built right up to the sidewalk). It looked museumish, so we popped in. Luck! It was the city historical museum, housed in the old cloth merchant's hall. Leiden was world-famous for cloth. We learned about the cloth making process and the quality control inspections (8 grades) and a neat display on various episodes in the city's history, especially the Siege and Relief of Leiden. They even had the Spanish pot the traditional hutspot stew came from. Lots of great art and decorative objects. There's a lot to be said for the smaller, more specialized museums.

We stopped in at a small (comparatively--it was still probably six stories high) Protestant Marekerk (this is their website; click on "Huren" to see photos) and saw that they were holding evening services. After dinner I convinced David and Julia to come back with me to hear the service. Our enthusiasm faltered a bit once we walked in and realized we didn't know where to sit, what to do, and for Julia and I, what they were saying and singing. The sermon seemed longer than usual (I have new empathy for small children in sacrament meetings), as we copied the other members in standing, singing, and listening. "Blah blah blah Ezekial." "Blah blah blah blah prophet blah." But the organ was magnificent, filling the space with such sound, it was all worth it.

Not understanding the sermon gave me a lot of time to think. 90 minutes, to be exact. I felt like a medieval peasant, hearing the mass in Latin, not understanding it but being awed by the music and architecture. I'd have made a good Catholic peasant, I thought. Then I thought of those rabble-rousing Protestant reformers who worked to translate the Bible and church services into the vernacular. I'd have made a good Protestant revolutionary, I thought. Then I thought of my own ancestors among the Mayflower arrivals and imagined them walking through the streets of Leiden and was grateful for the paths they took to lead me where I am today. The LDS Church wins for doctrinal clarity and applicability to daily life, but loses in the ability to inspire awe from the moment you step through the door. Oh well. Can't have it all. Home for dinner and to put our soaking jackets and gloves on the radiators to dry out before tomorrow.

Netherlands Day 4, Antwerp, Belgium

2008-10-26T20:31:00.006-06:00

(To everyone slogging through these travelogues, please know these are mainly for my mother--partly because she says she's terribly interested in every detail, and because David and Julia don't post anything about what they're doing! I have no delusion that anyone else really cares to know exactly what we did, ate, and saw in such mind-numbing detail.)

Tyler really wanted to see another country on our trip, in spite of the fact that those European Union countries don't stamp passports anymore. So Belgium it was, specifically Antwerp. Sadly, our trip to Antwert was punctuated by things that didn't go right, but we still had a pretty good day. To start, I had miscalculated the time difference and set my cell phone alarm wrong (it was still on Utah time). It went off at 3am and I didn't reset it so we overslept and got started late. Then we got to the train station and poor David couldn't get our tickets because the system kept crashing, so we missed the train and had to wait an hour. Then they announced that the ticket system had crashed nationwide, so we were lucky to have gotten our tickets at all!

The train ride to Antwerp took about 2 hours, and was pleasant, passing through countryside: fields of onions and broccoli, lots of cows. The central Antwerp station was the biggest we'd been in. Three stories underground, but the entrance was a stunning collection of towers, marble, glass, and gold. In our daze at the building's construction we exited out the wrong side of the building and walked around Chinatown for 20 minutes before we discovered the right direction to get to the historic district.

First we saw the Cathedral, built between the 1200s and 1600s. It was the biggest one we'd seen yet, with an enormous tower, flying buttresses, and four paintings by Reubens. It always strikes me as odd to see these amazing masterworks just sitting on the wall of a church, not protected by bullet-proof Plexiglas, not monitored by cameras. It was the first cathedral I'd seen with painted columns, moldings, and walls, although most of the paint had been worn away or covered with whitewash. The carved screens were so elaborate, and it had beautiful stained glass. They're big on statues commemorating old legends--usually involving giants and someone a little bit drunk.

After the church we saw the stadhuis (statehouse) flying modern flags of various countries, although we did not see the U.S. one--guess we're not all that popular these days, anyway. In the courtyard sits a large fountain depicting the legend of how the city was founded. Apparently linguistically, Antwerp could mean "Hand werpen" (throwing the hand). So there's this giant, and someone (likely a teensy bit drunk) kills him and cuts off his hand. The giant-slayer then tosses the hand and its landing spot is the place the city began. There are various hand statues around town, but this one showed the giant killer tossing the severed hand, while the stump of the arm spouts water. Charming.

We also saw a castle with its military fortifications, the meat hall, built of red and white bricks, designed to look like a slab of bacon, and an alley from medieval times. Today is just a cute little alley weaving among shops and restaurants, but we overheard a guide explaining that on those original paving stones would be crowds of unwashed inhabitants and their animals, all wallowing together in whatever murky liquids ran through those lovely cobblestones.

Despite the enjoyable meanderings through random streets (note to self: next time, get a map!) we tried heading back to the station to find Reuben's home, but arrived right after closing. Next we tried returning to the medieval part of town to see a printing museum, but got there as it was closing its doors. So back to the station again, consoling ourselves with Belgian chocolates, and Belgian waffles dripping with carmelized sugar. Why don't we have tasty street food in the U.S.?

We laughed at a couple of street performers--the ones who look like a statue but then move. One was pouring a jar of water into a pool, and I was convinced it was a fountain. When she moved, it scared me to death. Once we arrived back in Leiden we got our daily dose of frites and a falafel and rushed home to get warm. It was the first dry day but the wind at night was icy!

Netherlands Day 3 - Den Haag

2008-10-26T19:38:00.005-06:00

Tyler and I walked to the corner bakery for our daily bread, but it was closed for the festival. We took the long way back to the apartment, passing two canal streets and seeing lots of families with strollers heading for the "Relief of Leiden" festival (quick summary: The Spanish control the city as part of the 80 Years War. Dutch resist. Spanish beseige the city. Half the population of 70,000 starve. Dutch break through and free the city, bringing herring and white bread. In gratitude, the citizens are offered permanent freedom from taxation or a university. They opt for the university--Leiden University, where David is studying.)

The streets were getting crowded with stalls full of fish, snacks, and various wares--clothes, scarves, jewelry, leather goods. One smaller stand had two old men smoking herring in big oil drums and string the fish out on racks. The traditional food for the day is herring (typically raw with onion, but also smoked I guess) and white bread. Also the Hutspot or "Spanish stew" found in the still-hot pot when the Spanish fled Leiden. Hutspot is mashed potatoes topped with sauteed onions and carrots, which David and Julia prepared for us for that night's dinner. The street fair was going full tilt--we bought fresh stroopwafels hot off the griddle--two thin wafers glued together with a thin layer of caramel. Very good, but very sweet, and much better than the packaged ones David brought home from his mission. In honor of the festival, the local windmill was open for exploring, so we climbed up some very steep, very narrow stairs and looked out at the old wooden gears turning the sails. This particular one was used as a flour mill. Some windmills were used for draining water out of the land, and some for commercial purposes.
The trip to Den Haag (The Hague) was about 15 minutes by train. The city is much more modern and busy, with large governmental and office buildings and shopping centers. We walked about 10 minutes to the older part of the centrum to poke around.

First spontaneous stop was the Prison Gatehouse, one of the oldest buildings in town, from 1300. Sad that the prison is always one of the first things built. That and the church--I guess things don't change all that much. It served as prison and torture chamber. We watched a video of the trial, torture, and murder by the mob of one of the famous Dutch noblemen, later exonerated from his charge of treason. It was a bit gruesome to see the torture devices and note all the little details that had been so carefully thought out so as to inflict as much pain as possible. Despite the horrible purpose of the structure, I enjoyed walking and climbing around in the building. Old buildings have a distinct yet similar smell. I guess it's old wood and brick and stone. Carpet and drywall just aren't that evocative, albeit a lot more comfortable--and warm. But I really could imagine peering through the narrow windows at the mob outside, and hearing all the shouts and screams.

Across the street from the Gatehouse is a large brick-surrounded pond with a fountain, next to the Binnenhof (Parliament Building). They were typical European--large and impressive stone walls, but with Dutch rooflines.

Behind this compound we visited our first art museum, the Mauritshuis. Built as a private home, although it's hard now to see how it functioned as a home, it has a small collection but it's almost all of highly regared works by Dutch Masters, which is the period I most wanted to see. It was so impressive to see the paintings in person, so different from seeing them in a book. The colors are noticeably brighter, the light the artist conveyed was much more engaging. We bought a print of one of my favorites, "View of Delft" by Vermeer, but it doesn't come close. But it reminds me of the value of seeing art in person. Other favorites were "Girl with a Pearl Earring" (Vermeer), and "Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp" (Rembrandt), which I included mainly because seeing it in person changed my mind and made me like it. Also saw several interesting floral still lifes, although despite the symbolic interpretation of the inclusion of bugs (imperfection and decay) and butterflies (change and resurrection), I still wish they had just painted the flowers.

Spontaneous jaunt number 2 was Tyler's interest in heading out to the beach. So on to the tram and through the city and out to the coast. We passed the embassy district, a large park, and the International Court of Justice. The North Sea was windy and cold, but we still walked down to the sand, which was studded so thickly with small shells that the sand crunched as you stepped. But now we can say we've seen the North Sea, age-old enemy of the below-sea-level Dutch.

Back on the tram, the train, and the crowds to Leiden, where we picked up some currant juice, panekuchen (pancakes), and lemon qwark at the market; and some oliebollen (cherry, apple, and pineapple) and frites (French fries) with mayo, ketchup, and curry ketchup from the fair's street vendors.

Netherlands, Day 2 - Delft

2008-10-22T14:27:00.002-06:00

Slept in until 11, trying to get acclimated, but horrified that half the day was gone. The bakery around the corner made fruit bread that morning (not cakey like our pumpkin or apple breads, but more like regular bread with bits of dried fruit) so we tried that and a loaf of sunflower, which we ate with jam and cheese, and felt very European.

Delft is known for the famous blue and white Delft porcelain. We toured the factory, which they'd been using for 300 years or so. Most of the walls are tiled with rejects or extras from various projects through the centuries, including some beautiful exterior-grade construction ceramics, which they used to decorate the courtyard garden. We watched the process of pouring molds, sketching and painting the designs. The work was beautiful but very expensive. Most stunning was a life-size tile reproduction of Rembrandt's work, The Night Watch, which is about 12 feet by 16 feet.

After the tour we toured Old Church and New Church--"new" of course meaning 1396, since "old" was way back to 1200. New Church was not that impressive except for the fact that it contains the Royal Crypt of the Dutch royal family, the House of Orange. Since the founder of the line was assassinated across the street, it was a rather unplanned decision. Old Church has the grave of Johannes Vermeer, who lived in Delft, and some stunning stained-glass windows. I really wish stained glass had caught on in the U.S. There's something to be said for inspiring surroundings to compensate for the days the sermon just doesn't cut it. High Council Sunday, anyone?

Lunch was Dutch pancakes and pofferjtes (round pancakes, similar to aebleskivers--inside Halverson memory). We tried them with ginger, apple, peach, and cherry. The train ride back was on a modern double-decker train; the ride out had been on an old Hogwarts Express-style train with individual compartments for passengers. The Leiden festival planned for the weekend had already started with the street vendors so we picked up oliebollen, a fried donut-type pastry covered in powdered sugar and usually eaten during Christmas. What's not to love? Sounds like a perfect dinner after pancakes for lunch!

The grown-ups flee

2008-10-12T22:45:00.007-06:00

Most of our friends and acquaintances know that Tyler travels a good deal for his job. Some assume that we wallow in frequent flyer miles and must always be planning an exotic vacation. Oh that it were true. Stingy airline policies and business-class upgrades have eroded much of my mileage cache. (We joke that the suitcases may belong to Tyler, but the miles belong to me.) But for the first time in eight years, we left the kids in the able care of my soon-to-be-canonized sister-in-law Mandy, and Tyler and I spent a week in the Netherlands.

We were prompted by a batch of expiring miles, but more important, the fact that my brother David and his wife Julia are currently living in Leiden, south of Amsterdam. For one semester he is a student at Leiden University. They're living in a lovely Dutch row house on Rembrandt Street, since Rembrandt was born here so with free tickets and free accommodations, we couldn't pass up the chance.

Here's a bit from my recollections (and you don't have to slog through it all--this serves as my pitiful effort at a journal).

Day 1 - Leiden

Slightly disoriented, despite those lovely business-class seats, we collected our luggage and found David and Julia at the airport. They took us downstairs to the train station (leave it to those ever-efficient Dutch to stack the airport over the train station) and we soon arrived in Leiden to our first rainstorm--of course with jackets and umbrellas stowed in the suitcases. We arrived about 10am, and after unpacking a bit we went out to see some of Leiden.

The city is small and feels like Old Europe--brick streets, stone buildings--but not crowded. We walked around the courtyard of Pieterskerk, and the old prison and had it all to ourselves. Everyone walks or rides bicycles here--there are bikes or all descriptions everywhere you look, and all loaded down with baskets, mailbags, wheelbarrow-style attachments to carry children and dogs. Take a look at the red-brick house behind David--it's not much wider than the doorway. Hope it goes really far back...

Once the rain stopped we walked through the Hortus Botanicus, the University botanical garden. We didn't find the 400-year-old tree, but did see several that predated the American Revolution. I liked their use of tree branches or logs to build raised beds, and several of the greenhouses were filled with interesting pitcher plants, cycads, and other tropicals. Vid took us to a restaurant for Doner Kebabs (Israeli-style schwarma and falafel) for lunch, and we went out for Indonesian food for dinner. The rijstafel came with two kinds of rice and 12 things to put on top of it. Spicy but good.

At home we had snacks of pancakes with orange quark (sort of like a cross between yogurt and cream cheese), which I'd had in the States, and I wish I could find in Utah. This will become a theme. Pancakes are not breakfast food to the Dutch. There are entire restaurants devoted to the pancakes, and they're full at all hours of the day.

David and Julia's apartment is so fun, albeit a bit quirky. It's a typical Dutch row house, with three floors, each about 12 feet by 20 feet, with the front door right on the sidewalk. The Dutch used to base property tax on the width of your house, hence the typical Dutch architecture is narrow but tall. Their main floor is kitchen and a small bathroom/laundry room squeezed under the staircase. The bathroom contains a toilet, but no sink or mirror. The second floor is a sitting area, and the third floor is the bedroom and the other half of the bathroom (sink, shower, and tub, but no toilet). The bedroom has four sloping ceilings rising to a point, like an attic loft. Clearly not a house designed for large families, especially with the staircases squeezed into an almost ladder-like steepness. When you wake up in the middle of the night, needing to go to the bathroom, you really think about how badly you need to, since it would require climbing two flights of narrow twisty stairs in the dark.

Back to school (a month ago!)

2008-09-27T00:21:00.000-06:00

Hard to believe that six weeks of school have already blown by. Carden is loving first grade. I still don't get a lot of detail about what goes on, other than recess, but what his reports lack in comprehensiveness is made up by their enthusiasm. He has taken to the daily homework assignments without too much complaint and we are thrilled with his newfound interest in coloring (mainly because it indicates vast improvement in his fine-motor skills).

Seth is also enjoying preschool--a new school for him. We are quite happy that he's liking the new school, mainly because I chose it for the revealing but honest reason that it is 10 minutes closer to our house, one hour longer, and came with a carpool partner. What's not to like? In my defense, I did give Seth the final say, and luckily the new school had better playground equipment. And what do I do in my gifted free hour? Clean the house, teach Charlotte to actually play with her own toys instead of eating Star Wars action figures, wonder why I'm not getting a whole lot done in my free hour...

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date"

2008-09-27T00:08:00.007-06:00

Labor Day weekend was a mix of one beautiful day and one rainy, windy, knock-the-sunscreen-out-of-your-hand day. Luckily we spent the sunny day outside without much thought for anything besides having fun. Even Dad and Angus got in on the act.

We ate blackberries off our bushes, swung in the hammock (our favorite backyard addition), had squirt gun fights and full-fledged water wars. These are the days you hate to see end, especially since at the time you don't realize that the best days of your life, like the season, are spinning through space, away from you.

How we spent our summer vacation

2008-08-28T13:46:00.008-06:00

Lately all the home improvement businesses have spent vast sums of advertising dollars telling us that instead of traveling we should invest in our homes. Well, this summer we bought it. "It" being anything sold at Lowe's or Home Depot. Our friend Steve, who can build or fix practically everything and was between jobs, spent much of the spring and summer working on various projects for us. For a few blissful months I felt like the queen of a castle, laying out the daily tasks for the servants. Sadly, a budgetary coup has overthrown me and the projects have ground to a halt or are being imperfectly and slowly done by yours truly. But here's a sampling of what we accomplished.

Our first goal was to finish half the basement, especially Tyler's office since he works exclusively from home. After three years of living here we decided he'd earned heat, real walls, and more light than the bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. We're not done yet, but there's wires in them thar walls! We also are finishing another bedroom and we started the rough plumbing and electrical work for a bathroom. Under the drywall we added a layer of soundboard in an attempt to muffle the pitter-patter of little feet.

For Mother's Day I decided to see if Steve could add another layer of beams to an arbor we already had in the backyard. The existing beams were too far apart and the vines flopped through instead of spreading out on top, and there wasn't any shade or sense of enclosure. Voila! Next year this will be the perfect place for the hammock I'm searching for.

I shouldn't admit it but this was probably my favorite project. I thought it was one of Tyler's whims, but he was right. Turning half of the basement into livable rooms meant that all the junk stored down there needed to find a new home. Tyler asked Steve to whip up a wall o' shelves in the garage. While we were on vacation he worked his magic and we arrived home to a beautiful bank of hanging shelves. I am an organization nerd, I admit. I often go out to the garage just to gaze at the neatly labeled boxes in their rows. It's not exactly Pottery Barn, but it does make me ridiculously happy.

Actually this was my favorite project. In the end of July our swamp cooler died. We had figured we'd bite the bullet and replace it with air conditioning in a year or two, but that schedule suddenly accelerated once I'd spent a day in a house that was pushing 90 degrees. Thankfully the AC guy rushed our job through, even working on Pioneer Day (an actual holiday here). Here's a shot of him up on the roof, dismantling the swamp cooler and sending it to its ignominious death. Something about having AC has made me feel very grown up. This is the first house I've ever lived in with air conditioning. Of course, once the first electric bill comes, I'll feel that other grown-up feeling: broke.

OK, this is definitely my favorite project. Here is the "before" shot. When we bought the house, we inherited a beautiful yard and a lousy sprinkler system. The whole neighborhood knows when we go on vacation because the lawn dies. After two vacations and two death-and-resurrection cycles this summer we'd had it. Thanks to my brother-in-law Dave, an irrigation guru who lives too far away to do forced family service projects, we tapped his friend, another wizard of water, to revamp our system. Actually, we begged, pleaded, sent photos of our dead grass. As of 8pm tonight, we have an almost entirely new system. The sprinklers are beautiful in motion. I could seriously watch them all day. They are fountains, arcing through space, cascading, dripping, dropping, welling up, raining down... I am truly inspired.

So there you have it: how we spent our summer vacation--every penny of it. I wish we'd bought stock in Lowe's and Home Depot--it would have funded an actual vacation next year!

Meet Angus

2008-08-27T21:47:00.008-06:00

After eight years of postponing the inevitable, we have a dog. I really tried to talk up the aquarium full of fish, but no dice. Tyler and Carden insisted on having something "more alive." Last week, Tyler and his brother Joel returned from their Missouri road trip (Joel was driving west for med school rotations; Tyler went along to help drive and to meet the bulldog breeder Joel had bought his dog from).

It's been a busy week. The whole experience has reminded me so much of bringing a newborn home from the hospital, starting with this first photo of Tyler carrying his new arrival into the house. Watching Tyler has been like seeing myself as a first-time mom. He wakes up before dawn to take the dog out, since the dog isn't on Utah time yet; he measures out the dog food on a digital scale; and keeps track of each "messy diaper" with all the fervor (but not the charts) I had with Carden. He's found special puppy shampoo (two kinds!), debates the merits of various chew toys, and browses bulldog websites gathering helpful tips. It's really cute. He's as hands-on a dad as you could wish with all of our human babies, but he's gotten into this dog like nothing I've ever seen.

Angus is a bulldog. They are short, fat, and friendly. I personally think they are ugly. Tyler thinks they are beautiful. Of course, one of his main dog criteria has always been, "something that makes me laugh when I look at it." Just remember Angus, we're laughing with you, not at you.

Angus is 5 months now, older than the typical puppy you bring home, but that's meant he's that much closer to being housetrained. He contracted an eye infection after birth and his right eye (the brown side of his face) is smaller than the other. The pink tissue of the eyelid is almost the only thing you can see because the eyeball is partially hidden under his wrinkles. The breeder couldn't sell him because of the problem. But there's a dog for everyone out there, and this seems to be the one for us. Maybe it's helped warm me up to him. It's tough to preach to your kids to make friends with people who may look a little different and then ignore the visual aid that's slobbering on your ankles.

Carden is in heaven. He has wanted a dog for so long, and he now he has a furry pillow who is happy to eat the dog treats Carden offers and pretend to obey him. Carden's technique of shouting commands after Angus has done something has made Carden believe he is a super dog trainer. Seth is a little more ambivalent towards the new pet. He's too busy doing four-year-old things, and he's so small and quick-moving that Angus is a little jumpy around him. Charlotte is the goddess on high. She sits in her high chair and tosses crumbs to her new acolyte below.

As for all of us, having to take a potty break outside every two hours has been a surprising source of enjoyment (I say this, not being the resident pooper scooper). There is so much work to be done in the yard that when we are outside it tends to be because there is mowing, weeding, or watering to be done. But now we sit on a bench under the apple trees and watch the kids throw the ball to Angus, or have a snack, or watch Charlotte learn to bounce on the trampoline. There's even a little less mowing, weeding, or watering to be done because Tyler has been making good use of his early mornings up with the dog to reclaim the garden from the weeds. He's done more yard work this week than he had the entire summer.

And that's enough to make me love any dog.

Catching up

2008-08-24T21:14:00.002-06:00

The summer has sped by, and blogging, along with an awful lot of house and yardwork, has fallen behind. As usual, there's no easy-to-name culprit for why I've felt so busy, but we've definitely had the feeling of looking around and saying, "what happened?" Hopefully with the start of school I'll be able to dig down to the bottom of all the piles and discover the things I can't find. I only pray my mind will be in there somewhere.

Seth turns four

2008-07-21T22:00:00.004-06:00

Lucky Seth got to have his grandparents arrive on his birthday for a visit. We decorated cupcakes as a family project, an idea I think I'll do forever--no slaving over decorating the cake! He opened his presents throughout the day, the highlight being his Razor scooter, and went to the exotic, cliff-diving Maya restaurant for dinner. The boys thought the fire dancers were very cool. I wish I'd had a picture of Seth staring open-mouthed at them, with his fists clenched in excitement.

Charlotte's First Birthday

2008-07-05T23:37:00.004-06:00

Happy Birthday to my baby girl who is not a baby anymore. In the last week or so she seems to have gotten so much older. I see a little girl starting to explore her world and letting us all know what she thinks about it. She wants to be up, she wants to be down, she wants to keep up with Carden and Seth, she wants to be cuddled with her stuffed animals. She's got such an infectious smile and laugh--and even her growl makes me happy. Here's to you Charlotte Karenna. Life's much better with pink frosting!

Beach vacation

2008-07-05T23:00:00.002-06:00

We spent two wonderful weeks in California. One week at Tyler's parents home and then a week at the beach in Monterey for Tyler's family reunion. My mother-in-law has always been a fantastic party thrower, and she went all out for us. Five cars drove down completely stuffed with food, movies, toys, inflatable swimming pools, balloons, party favors, craft projects, etc.

The kids had such a wonderful time being together, and thanks to all Grandma's entertainment, even the adults got to relax. Tyler's family has someone in every time zone of the United States, so we don't get together often enough.

Some favorite memories:

Watching "What about Bob?" and realizing that Ben's wife, Mandi, and I have basically married Bob. WAY too many lines from that movie are part of our husbands' daily conversation.
The family scavenger hunt in downtown Pacific Grove. How far can you make $10 go in 30 minutes? Not as far as Caroline!
Family DVD night. Every family had to create a DVD slideshow of their family's life, so we could "tour" the homes and lives of those who live far away. The kids loved seeing themselves and their cousins on TV.
Birthday party surprises. Surprise "Vickifest 2008" T-shirts for my mother-in-law's birthday party, and a surprise pirate party for one of the cousins, complete with costumes, props, and funny accents.
Grandma taking the kids to see "Kung Fu Panda."
Emergency run to Target to buy sweatshirts and long pants. We had one beautiful day at the beach, and the rest of the week was overcast and cold.
That one beautiful day at the beach in very un-Pacific Grove-type weather. One bottle of sunblock gone in one day! Hurray for the canopy that shaded us all.
Everyone taking a turn to make dinner--a great recipe parade of yummy food, and endless loaves of sourdough bread and chocolate malted crunch ice cream.
Family FHE, hearing some great counsel from my wonderful second parents.
Tucking the boys in bed every night and asking them, "what was the best part of today?" Their answer was always "EVERYTHING!"

Rockin Robins

2008-07-05T21:53:00.002-06:00

For the second year, a robin family has built a nest in the wisteria vine climbing up our downspout. The slideshow is from last year. Every few days, once the mother bird had flown away to search for food, I climbed on a chair and aimed the camera down into the nest, since it was built too high for us to see into. Right now the babies are at picture 4; tiny feathers are growing in, but they still have mostly fuzz.

This year's nest location is, unfortunately, not as secure as last year's, and the prevailing winds have made the wisteria rock back and forth until it loosened the cable the vine is trained onto. Vine and nest sagged down to an accommodating eye-level, but also started tipping a bit precariously. So tonight Tyler and I, sacrificing all gardening instincts, hacked the wisteria almost in half, and bungee-corded the cable to the rain gutter. Mom and Dad Robin watched all this somewhat suspiciously, but I think we'll all sleep more safely tonight.

"No more teachers, no more books..."

2008-06-09T00:09:00.004-06:00

Seth and Carden are out of school and preschool for the summer. They are so thrilled with the prospect of adhering to the daily schedule Carden drew up:

Breakfast

Morning: play

Lunch

Afternoon: relax

Dinner

Evening: have fun

We treated them to breakfast in bed on their first day of vacation and broke the news that despite it being officially summer vacation, we would not be having popsicles or running in the sprinklers since it was only 60 degrees and threatening rain.