The Big Trip

What a trip! It couldn't have been better (well, I guess we could have done with a little less rain and cold - but you can't have everything!). We packed our 5 days with favorite places and favorite people and had all sorts of serendipitous experiences (mostly involving getting something for free- always nice). One of the highlights was sharing everything with these wonderful big boys of ours - while knowing the twins and Eliza were safe and having a wonderful time at home with our good friends, the Lanoues. The boys were totally excited about everything - both the sights we were excited to show them and the things they discovered on their own (like the joy of chasing squirrels in Harvard Yard and Central Park) - and it was great to see things through their eyes. They didn't complain once about the many many miles we walked every day and were always up for the next adventure.

We left home at 4am on Wednesday the 10th for our flight from Vegas only to get there and find the flight was delayed an hour and a half - so we had a great time exploring the airport. The boys loved this poster of Blue Man group at the airport (they're trying to do Blue Man faces in the picture). Little did we know we'd be seeing the show that night!
NEW YORK CITY
After we left the JFK airport, Noah greeted us at the subway with the news that he got us positions as ushers at Blue Man Group and fanagled a way for us to bring Ash and Ike. Ashton's fondest wish was coming true! I got to sit by Ashton in some great seats up front and he was transfixed throughout the show (despite getting up at 4am for our flight and not sleeping much on the plane - he was too excited to sleep and wrote all this cute excited stuff in his journal instead). It really is a great show that's so entertaining to all ages - and has some great messages imbedded. Isaac was thrilled that a Blue Man came up in the show and put a blue thumb print on his cheek - he wouldn't let us wash his cheek for days. As "ushers" it turned out that all we had to do was help clean up crepe paper at the end for about 5 minutes - and we got four $80 tickets! I love free stuff, don't you?After the show we went to Times Square. To add to the excitement of all the lights and people you can count on there, a garbage truck had just totally demolished a taxi cab and there were police on horseback and all sorts of exciting things going on. Great to be there and see the place so alive - at 11pm on a Wednesday night - NYC is truly the "city that doesn't sleep"!
Here we are waiting for the subway - we all loved the experience of riding around on the subway - people of every color and background and interest brought together by the common need to go somewhere in the same direction, buskers playing instruments and putting on shows in the stations and on the trains, dirty old trains with graffiti that muggy hot smelly subway air, nice new trains that don't seem to belong to the same transit system, beautiful old mosaic tiles with the names of stations.... There's nothing like the NY Subway. Isaac especially liked the lady that got on wearing a funny paper birthday party hat and I thought the pretty 20-something woman with tattoos and lots of piercings who was sucking her thumb and rubbing her nose as she contemplated life was pretty interesting.
We all wedged ourselves into Noah and Kristi's great little apartment for a very welcome night's sleep. Noah and Kristi have created such a lovely home there and they live in such a great area. They are the greatest hosts and were so sweet to show us around and help us do all the things we wanted to do.

We started off with Central park and FAO Schwartz. The boys loved chasing squirrels (or "chipmunks" as they called them - we don't have any squirrels around here) in Central Park and playing the big piano at FAO.
Then we walked down 5th Avenue - loving the roasted chestnut smell at all the little food stands, the people-watching and the fancy window displays (looks like everyone should wear black this coming season - black, black and more black on all the manequins - fine with me - my favorite color to wear). We stopped into St Patricks Cathedral and it was mass - there's nothing like hearing music in a cathedral - a wonderful woman singer echoing throughout the place. Then we headed on down to try our luck at catching some great views atop 500 5th Avenue - I think I was one of the very few people in my family who hadn't done that yet and the boys were very excited about the intregue of "sneaking up" there. We breezed past the security guard station - took our name and picture and sent us to the elevators. Then we took the elevator, then the stairs, and just kept going - it was pretty exciting for the kids going through all these machine rooms and old narrow metal staircases. We finally got out to where the ladders are and there were all these workmen (they're fixing the brickwork all over the building) who didn't seem to mind us being up there but didn't like Isaac trying to climb up a ladder. So we retreated to another great spot and got some wonderful views.

You can see in this photo how seriously Ashton took the "sneaking" - he's so into spies and all that. The boys were so excited that we found this great secret place for a great view!
We headed down to try to see the Statue of Liberty but it was POURING by the time we got to that end of town so we checked out the World Trade Center site (sad long long list of names there) and saw that we couldn't see anything of the Statue of Liberty through the rain - oh well. We headed back to Noah and Kristi's to get our bags and say our goodbyes and went to explore Chinatown for a while before taking the good old Fung Wa bus for Boston. What a day!

BOSTON

Sweet Saydi came and picked us up at midnight when our bus finally got into South Station - lots of rain and traffic made for a long ride but it was nice to just sit for a while and enjoy the odd assortment of sandwiches I picked up for dinner at a random place in Chinatown while a truly diverse group of people on the bus talked loudly on their cell phones in Chinese, complained with a lot of expletives about the bus driver's technique, snored or ate smelly food.

Saydi and Jeff's house is beautiful! They've done such a wonderful job with it- I loved all the colors and the beautiful old creaky floors and the radiator noises that took me back to my days at Wellesley - such a pleasant homey place. Ashton and Isaac had so much fun playing with Charlie and Hazel and kept them entertained in the early mornings so the rest of us could sleep a bit. We spent a rainy Friday eating amazing food at an Indian buffet on Newbury Street with Saydi and Jeff and kids, checking out the Public Gardens and doing a fair amount of the Freedom Trail until we were just too cold. Then we headed for the Boston Children's Museum which has all this new stuff and everyone had a wonderful time - luckily it was late opening day so we had all evening there and we got in free off Saydi's pass.

Here's Ashton and Isaac's favorite spot on Newbury Street

The boys at the Massachusett's State House - beginning of the Freedom Trail

Outside the Children's Museum

Saturday we did the grand tour of MIT and Ashton decided he's going there. He couldn't get enough of all the cool inventions we saw at the MIT museum and loved the labs we walked past and the neat echo bench place on the grounds and the awesome new computer sciences building. It was so fun to have Jared show us some places I'd never even been before.

Here's the wild new computer science building.

Here's one of the really cool, whimsical machines we saw at the MIT museum.
Then we went on to Harvard Business School to visit our friends Neylan and Elliott and family and check out Mom and Dad's old stomping grounds.

Then walked around Harvard Square and the Ed School and Harvard Yard. It was fun to see all the students carrying "Free Hugs" signs and the buskers doing various shows in the Square and it seemed like just yesterday that I was there - so much the same.

The kids thought Harvard paled in comparison to MIT - no cool gadgets in sight, just a lot of old brick sidewalks and buildings covered in ivy. But the squirrels in Harvard Yard - they were cool.

We finished off the day with a visit to Newburyport to see Eva and family - her little kids are so cute! It was fun to see their house (with walls full of Eva's beautiful photography) and catch up a bit, speak some Bulgarian and see the beautiful little jewel of a town where they live. It was quick but it was worth it!

Sunday we had a nice breakfast with Tal who was there for the single's conference - fun to see him here and there between his activities. Then it was great to be in Saydi and Jeff's ward - such a mix of good people from all walks of life and Saydi and Jeff clearly part of the foundation that ward relies on.

Went out to Wellesley right after church and I loved showing the boys some of my favorite spots. Wow - that place is gorgeous! The leaves were all really starting to turn thanks the cold weather we endured.

We had a great dining hall Sunday dinner with Charity and the boys thought it was pretty much the coolest thing in the world to eat all the food they wanted. We ate in the dining hall for lunch the next day too and the boys seriously put away about 5 meals worth of food in one sitting. Thanks in large part to the food, Isaac declared that Ashton could go to MIT if he wanted but as for him, he'd be going to Wellesley. He was pretty disappointed to hear that that wouldn't be a possiblity!

The three Eyre Wellesley women in Great Hall

Saydi and I stayed out at Wellesley after Jeff and Jared took the kids back for bed (all but Ashton who got to spend the night with Char and thought it was very very wonderful). It was so fun to talk about all the wonderful and weird things about Wellesley with my two Wellesley sisters - when I went there way back when, I never would have guessed I'd have any siblings go there - let alone two!

We spent Monday morning at Wellesley again, exploring my favorite "secret" passageways and getting one last meal in with Charity. Then we spent some time with one of my best friends from Wellesley, Keliegh and her husband and little girl - great to catch up. Then Saydi took us to the airport and that was it!

We were so excited to see Liza and the little guys and they'd had a wonderful time with the Lanoues. It was great to be back at home and back together. What a trip we had! I love that Ashton, Isaac and Jared have all these special shared experiences now and that the boys know more about the places that helped shaped who Jared and I are. There are so many things I love and miss about the East Coast. But this is home - for now - and it's great to do the comparison and feel so blessed to be where we are at this time in our lives.

Catching Up

It's been forever so I'll catch up a bit via some photos mostly. We had a great time in SLC a few weeks back for the big Ascend Gala where mom and dad were MCs (they did a great job in a hard situation with a huge ballroom full of people who wanted to chat rather than listen to the overly many people speaking and performing!). I also go to do a training for an intern headed for Bulgaria for 2 months to work in orphanages - and got him a $500 check from Eyrealm to help him do wonderful things for the kids over there. The kids' favorite thing about the trip was an exciting train ride on Trax (mostly for the twins who are obsessed with trains) with Grammie and Grandfather and Eli, our zoo visit, and the fact that it snowed - they even built a snowman - in September!

This is the International Children's Choir at the Ascend gala

Here's a delighted Silas on Trax with Grammie and Grandfather
SNOW! In September! Didn't get a photo of the snowman, but there really was one.

Then Conference weekend here was great. Eli and Julie came down along with Tenille, Paul and Rennie so we had quite a houseful (luckily some could stay at Jo and Aja's while they were in Vegas for Aja's big reuion). Julie's great - so easy to have around, fun to talk to, bright, good to the kids. It was good to get to know her better and she definitely gets thumbs up from us. We ate lots of good food, watched the marathon for a while, went to the sand dunes (Eli sent a great video - always so much fun to run down those hills and the twins don't seem to mind face plants - end up with lots of sand in their nose, ears, mouth, etc.), hiked up to the caves behind our house, had a great late night hot tub with all the adults (including Jo and Aja who came back before Tennessee) and really enjoyed watching conference.

Here we are at the St George Marathon -
watched for Michelle Eyre but missed her -at least we tried!

Sunday morning session of conference.
Aja brought beads for the kids to string - worked out great.
Tried some jumping pictures at the sand dunes -
sort of hard to get air with a bunch of small kids attached but Eli and Julie did remarkably well!

Then we were on to lots of packing and getting work done and getting our great friends and babysitters oriented to their upcoming task so that we could leave for the East Coast with Ash and Ike.

Rainbows

I woke up yesterday (Saturday) to the phone ringing - Jared was at Sand Hollow ready to start his triathalon and he'd forgotten his helmet. We were planning to go see him finish the bike part and do the running part, but he needed us to come earlier with the helmet. As I stumbled out of bed all bleary eyed - this is what I saw outside my window.

The picture can't even start to capture how surreal the lighting was and how amazing everything looked with a big storm and a bright sunrise seeming to compete with each other. Then a huge double rainbow appeared, spanning the whole sky behind our house. I ran and got the kids and we all marveled at the beauty and the unrealness of the lighting and the soft heaviness of the wet air.
Then the rain really moved in and the rainbow started to disappear - all but one end where it got really intense and bright before finally dying.

After the rainbow was gone and the rain started in full force, we quickly scrambled into the van and took off for the triathlon - only to find that it was canceled due to white caps on the lake (hard to swim through that!) and slippery mud roads for biking and running. Strike two for Jared on triathlons! But they'll probably reschedule and we found a fun place for breakfast then came home for a nice relaxing day of watching movies and just enjoying hanging out together for once while the rain poured down like crazy and made everything smell so nice while bringing out the desert colors so beautifully. We made our first batch of pumpkin cookies to welcome fall and just relaxed for the most part. Precious, great day!

We spent a lot of time Friday and Saturday night explaining Mountain Interiors to our friends Justin and Jessica so they can take over handling orders. So nice to get that in good hands! And our kids had a great time with their kids so everyone was happy.

The kids went to a pirate party for their friend Peyton on Friday night and had a fabulous time. They really wanted to send you the picture of them all dressed up for the party.

Today it's gorgeous - sunny, sweetly cool. Jo just took us for a ride around the neighborhood in his fun new open air Jeep. We had FHE out on the balcony. Everything's sparkly in the sun after the rain. My lesson in YW went great and I'm really loving the four good Mia Maids (have to say "Mia Maids" is a pretty funny name) I have right now. We've got great kids. Life is good. Life is hard - but it's so good. The kids about drove me crazy at dinner tonight - got to love making a really nice dinner and then not getting a chance to eat more than a bite or two before it gets cold as you stop to dish for everyone else, break up fights, try to engage everyone in a half-decent (and very interrupted) conversation about what they learned at church and dish up again and again and again for the kids (especially the twins) who never seem to be able to get enough. After most attempts at a family dinner I'm exhausted at best and despondent at worst! But in the midst of the craziness, there are always the beautiful moments thrown in - like yesterday morning's surreal beauty and the opportunity to delight in it along with my kids - that somehow make everything else OK.

Foogy Cereal and Glitter all Over

A couple days before our anniversary (Sept 8th), I looked out the window and saw a perfect "S" made of clouds. By the time I got my camera out, the "S" had become this great "J". Early anniversary present from Heaven? I like to think so. The kids were so delighted about the whole thing and I took this picture to show Jared - just sorry I missed out on a photo of the "S"!

Eliza says the funniest stuff every day and I'm so bad at remembering it. So I'd better write down the couple of things I've got in mind now. This morning she came and woke me up to complain, "Ashton gave me some cereal and he poured the milk too long ago and now it's ruined it's so foggy!" It took me a while in my half-asleep state to realize what she meant. The twins ended up happily eating the huge amount of "foggy" cereal Ashton graciously prepared (we're working with Ashton on understanding what an appropriate amount of cereal might be) and I got Eliza some fresh stuff and everyone was happy. But a lot of the time, Eliza's issues aren't so easily solved. She wakes me up most mornings with some sort of crisis. Here's how it goes - I'm sleeping, I wake up to my door opening and a little girl sniffing and whining - "I have a bugger in my nose and I can't get it out!" or "My shirt is really REALLY boddering me!" (most of her badly behaved clothing "bothers" her on a regular basis - the tags itch her or the waistband pokes her...) or "Isaac said he's never going to play with me again!" Oh, the traumas of Eliza's life! And Liza's quite concerned about glitter. As we walked down to the pool the other day and saw some trash in the bushes, she said, "Mommy, don't you just hate it when people glitter! Glittering is so rude!" No matter how many times the boys correct her and tell her it's LITTER, she prefers glitter. Right now, Liza and her friend Grayce are dancing away to this funny video some friends gave us called "Kids Dance Party" - they're so cute, trying to learn the bunny hop and hokey pokey. Liza requested this video by saying "Mommy, I just really want that video with the magical juice box." I couldn't figure out what in the world she was talking about. Finally she pointed out this video and I realized she meant the magical JUKE box (there's this dancing juke box on the show). Guess she's never heard of a juke box so to her, she's dancing around in there with a magical juice box, why not?

Liza with Cinderella and the Prince

Barb and Joel (Jared's brother) and girls were here for their annual Tuachan trip this weekend - we went with them to see Cinderella at the beautiful outdoor amphiteater at Tuachan, went to the temple with them while their girls graciously watched our kids, did some historical sites and had a great BBQ and swim party. It's so nice to have these older cousins around to entertain these kids of ours! Good people - great weekend.

Inspired by Cinderella, Eliza's been having a lot of fun dressing up her little brothers - and they're delighted about being "pincesses" as they say and love to ham it up for the camera

The twins are pretty much the cutest and most infuriating little people in the world these days. I thought they were done with the worst of the messes - they were much better for a while. But this last week, while I've been sick with the worst cold I've had in a long long time and really haven't felt like dealing with anything, let alone messes, they've been on a wild mess spree. These days most of their messes center around food. They can deftly scale the shelves in the pantry and help themselves to just about anything. In the last few days, I've found JoJo's (oreo type cookies) crumbled and smeared all over the pantry floor (with 1/2 the box no where to be found - surely tucked away in their tummies), crackers and cereal crumbles coating most of the house, peanuts flung all over the living room, granola bars smashed up in their beds, and my personal favorite is the countless times I've found various types of crumbs and smashed foods all over my bed. Is nothing sacred?! They seem to have decided that the very best place to eat their stolen food is on my bed which is just great. Why? Because they know I hate them jumping on my bed, messing up my bed, or being in my room at all and they know I they aren't allowed to take food out of the kitchen so they just cannot help themselves - the total naughtiness of stealing food and eating it in my room is just too wonderful! And the extra food they've been helping themselves to means lots of extra nasty diapers. Fun.

But on a positive note, they are talking a ton and have the cutest little deep voices. It's even cute to hear them indignantly telling each other off - "No, No Si Si, dats MEAN!" Other things they say a lot: "Oh, dang it!" (pretty funny coming from them with their best mad faces on), "Oh yeah! Oh yeah! cheese sandwiches!" (Si says "oh yeah!" whenever he's excited about anything which is pretty often), "Why?" (Si says this every time I tell him "no" about something), "In the car in the car in the car - yeah!" (they love going anywhere), and "Oh, gross, dat's grossy!" (whenever the other guy is getting his dirty diaper changed). And one of the things they say the most often: "No - I do it by SELF!" They have to do everything themselves these days - from dressing themselves (lots of backwards and inside out wild combinations of clothes), to buckling their carseats (takes so long to get everyone in the car this way!) to washing their hands and putting away their dishes after a meal (they're not so great at this but they sure try!). Oliver is especially into being independent and gives me a total dirty look and pouts for quite a while when I do something for him that he wanted to do.

They're really into reading books with me and I can still just barely fit them both on my lap. They insist on each having a leg to sit on and there's nothing like having a lap overflowing with the sweetest little boys in the world - their fuzzy blond heads against my cheeks, their chubby fingers pointing out things they like in the book, their cute little excited voices exclaiming over favorite parts. Isaac, Ashton and Eliza are also really cute about reading to them and I love seeing my big guys and little guys enjoying each other so much. The big kids get SO excited about everything the little guys learn to do and tell me about all the funny things they hear them say. And the twins still can't get enough of all the excavators, "scoopies"(backhoes) and tractors they see when we're driving around. They jubliantly yell out "scoopie!" until I've not only acknowledged what they've seen but also shown an acceptable level of heartfelt enthusiasm about it. Oh, I love these wild boys of mine!

The weather's finally getting sort of decent around here. Saturday night we were at the pool with Joel and Barb and their girls (Jared's brother and sister-in-law) for a BBQ and swimming and I didn't HAVE to get into the pool to keep from sweating to death. And yesterday morning, we ate breakfast outside on the deck in the slightly crisp shade of the morning. And I did some weeding outside the other day in full sun without completely wilting away. And last night we actually opened some windows and got some nice cool air coming in. So I think I can actually say it's starting to cool off around here and a little fall is in the air.

Jared and I had SUCH a nice weekend away for our anniversary last weekend. I think it's been like 3 years since we've been away for more than a really quick overnight and we found it to be such a wonderful thing to spend two full days and nights off on our own. We went to Park City while my parents graciously watched the kids (the kids had SO much fun with them). We went on lots of beautiful hikes, ate delicious food, did the Alpine slide, rode the chair lifts, looked at beautiful art, did a little shopping at the outlets, and stayed at a nice place for super cheap thanks to spending a couple hours listening to a time share presentation (those guys are pretty persuasive - but we held our ground somehow). I can't even say how nice it was NOT to be woken up by little guys calling "Mommy, MOMMY!!!" or singing Bob the Builder and NOT to have to clean up mess after mess all day and NOT to have to share every bite of food I take with the twins and NOT to have to deal with kids' squabbles. And I can't begin to say how happy I was to be able to focus on Jared for a while and have some conversations interrupted only by trucking issues (rather than by trucking issues AND kids' issues). Poor Jared did need to deal with a lot of things that came up while we were gone - there are definite pros and cons to running a business - but it was still a really wonderful weekend and I really really really needed that.

The weather was PERFECT - brilliant blue skies and sun that actually felt good with the temperature at a mere 73 degrees. A couple favorite moments - happening upon a delicious free dinner served at a gallery full of amazing art with all the artists present, looking for a different restaurant and somehow finding ourselves eating a wonderful lunch at Stein Erikson Lodge where we spent our wedding night, running into dear friends and relatives we used to spend Christmas with in the Bay Area (Al and Connie Loosli) as we hiked up a trail they were coming down... Definitely a weekend of relaxation and serendipity.

Me and Jared hiking at Deer Valley - yeah, great self-taken photo looking into the sun but it's the best we've got of the two of us. That's Jordanelle Reservoir in the background.

Other random family news and happenings:
I've got a room parent training at the school tomorrow that I'm in charge of and the parent volunteer program's going along pretty well - as far as I can tell any way. Next month we're doing prizes for the classes with the most volunteer hours so we'll see how much we're really getting.

I explained what Origami was to Ashton the other day and within an hour or so, he was showing me all these fairly intricate origami bats and frogs he'd made using a website he found. He's also really into doing shows - he puts on a dance or drum or piano show downstairs in the theater for pretty much everyone who he can get to watch.

• Things are going pretty well with Jared's trucks and while it's hard to have him answering phone calls about random truck issues at all hours of the day and night, he's really enjoying this job and learning a lot and contributing a lot and seeing things slowly but surely turn around.

Isaac's still pretty firm in his decision not to like reading. Reading with him daily is a chore for everyone concerned. But he does have his better moments with reading and is generally getting better. Most of his friends at school are girls and he's pretty popular with them. His teachers really like him and 1st grade has been really good and fun for him so far. He's excited about math and that's fun.

• After 3 years of having 5 or 6 commercial Joy Schools, this year we've had 6 new groups - not sure why the sudden jump. We've got one in the Philippines (she's actually building a stand-alone preschool based on the Joy School curriculum and going all out) and one in the Ukraine for the children of the US embassy there. Interesting, huh? It's been pretty busy getting them all started and helping them figure out how to do everything.

Ashton's pretty bored in English and pretty annoyed at how challenged he is in Spanish - so I guess he's learning to learn in both basic and challenging classroom situations. He's starting a new club this year - he said his old SK (Spy Kids) club was named after a movie and he feels the need to be more original with a concept all his own for this new club. He's one funny kid (but he doesn't think he's one bit funny - it's all seriousness and business with this guy).

We've got some good friends who are interested in taking over answering phones for Mountain Interiors which would be GREAT - it's been sadly ignored lately and could really be more profitable if someone could actually answer the phone when people call to place an order! But even with very little effort on our part, it's still be covering its costs and making a bit of money here and there.

• We're not doing soccer this year and I feel such freedom having our Saturdays to ourselves! Isaac did ask about it one time but no one seems to notice the non-soccer status of our lives much.

• We've been on time to school a couple times. We're working on that. It doesn't seem to matter how early I start or how prepared I am with setting out clothes and all that, there's always variable I didn't plan on when there are 5 kids involved. The boys are getting better at getting themselves dressed and fed and getting their morning jobs done - marginally better anyway! The babies HAVING to do up their own carseats doesn't exactly speed things along. I mostly feel like I'm trying to herd cats around here. After leaving the house late this morning due to lost lunch boxes and shoes and general slow-moving issues, I lectured the boys all the way to school about how we HAVE to be on time - and then Aja saw Ashton and Isaac after I dropped them off (she was already at the school) buying notebooks and pencils they DON'T need at the school office - right after my lecture and firm reminder to HURRY STRAIGHT TO CLASS. What do I do with these people?! Turns out Ashton stole money from my room to buy these notebooks and also took a detour after school to buy some beef jerky at the office for some odd reason, making Aja wait for him at pick up after he's been told repeatedly to get out there and wait on the front playground for pick up RIGHT AFTER SCHOOL. So tonight we had a big talk instead of the fun game night we'd planned for FHE. I asked "Why would you do this stuff, Ashton? You're such a good boy and you know better" - he said through his tears, "Satan. He's pretty strong sometimes." Trying to come up with solutions, Ashton said he thought he needed to read the scriptures more and pray more and I thought that was a pretty good idea. Both boys agreed to really step it up and they're going to read the kid scriptures together every night during their reading time - so we'll see how it goes!

I'm working out a lot more and it feel so good. Working out always makes me feel better in every way and I've made it a higher priority. Plus I read while on the eliptical machine and I love reading so much - great to kill two birds with one stone.

• I saw a huge huge owl in the street the other night when I was coming home from a PTA meeting - it was just sitting there, about 2 ft tall and then it took off with this enormous wingspan. What a beautiful thing to see! And the twins get so excited about the bunnies we see all over in the morning and evening.


• I finally decided on a rug for downstairs under our game table and put in the order with a big order for some friends. I can't believe how long it takes me to make decisions! I stress myself out so much!


• The stars here are amazing every night. Black velvet sky, bright stars that somehow seem closer for how bright they are.


• I saw High School Musical II with my young women a while back and it was about the cheesiest thing ever (got to see it with Jared - the anti-cheese man - he'll die) but fun to watch with them and very fun to see all the scenery that's all around us here - they filmed it at the country club across the street from us. Wow, we live in a beautiful place!

Thats all for now. Enough for you?

Blessings

We have so many blessings. I've felt worried and overwhelmed quite a bit this week, but after a trip to the temple, the last couple days I've been feeling so extra grateful. So this post will recount a bit of what's been going on with us in the context of what I'm grateful for.

First, I'm so grateful for Jared. He's just so amazingly patient and supportive. He's always willing to do whatever it takes to help me do all the wild things I take on. This week he watched the kids while I ran around helping teachers and meeting with our own kids' teachers at Back to School Night, made smoothies for me and my client (and Jared's good friend) Dave while we went over floor plans on the house I'm helping with, helped me figure out how to get payment from this lady in the Philippines who wants to start a Joy School there and who can't just send a check like everyone else, helped me figure out how to transfer my parent volunteer database to something they can use on the school computers (and he helped me set up the database in the first place a while back), did a bunch of cleaning and kept the kids focused on Saturday jobs, helped deal with Eliza's ongoing middle-of-the night bedwetting incidents, gave me a back rub at the end of a long day, listened to my woes and worries a lot, and suffered through Fiesta Fun (this crappy place with lots of token-operated games) with me since the kids really wanted to go and they'd earned a lot of money on their points this week. And there's way more but I don't want to bore you. What a guy! We went to the temple together yesterday as I looked at him across the way, my heart was so full of love and gratitude for this super handsome, worthy, kind, patient, smart and wonderful man I call my own.

View I see when I wake up each morning (wetter than usual thanks to last night's storm!)

View from my kitchen (on a rainy day)

I'm so grateful for the view outside my window each morning - when I wake up at 7am, the red hills are lit up by the sun that has just hit them - they glow in an other-worldly way against the azure blue sky and make my heart glad every single morning. And the view as I stand in the kitchen, passing out food to the kids seated at the bar is really amazing - lava rock with the tired golds and soft olives of the plants poking through the rock, then the red hills, then the blue blue sky - colors varying by time of day and occasionally by some cloud cover. And the sunsets - different colors every night. Last night it POURED with rain and the thunder was so loud it woke us all up a lot of times and the lightening was beautiful. There was a big river in the wash this morning and the kids were so excited. The wash looks so different and the colors are so deep with everything soaking wet. I'm so grateful for the beauty of nature and for the way it's ever-present in this house - and I'm so excited for a little cooler weather so we can get out there hiking again.

Eliza's first day at Little Einsteins Preschool

I'm so grateful for Eliza. She stared preschool and gymnastics and Joy School this week and she was so excited and cute about everything. She's got this cute preschool class with three boys and three girls and she's told me pretty much every single thing they've done so far (so opposite from the boys who generally can't seem to remember anything they've done at school). I watched her at her first gymnastics class and she was so excited to try the balance beam and the uneven parallel bars and all the stuff they did - and so happy to be there in her leotard surrounded by other little girls. She's always so observant and loves trying to figure out how everyone and everything works. At Bajio for dinner yesterday, she pointed to some people at the next table, "Mommy, that can't just be one family because there are three ladies and one man and in a family you just have one mom and one dad, right? Oh, I see, that lady looks like the grandma and maybe that other one is an aunt or something" (I didn't bother explaining about all the polygamists there are around here). She loves to get up behind me on my chair when I'm at the computer and do my hair or scratch my back which always feels so good. And she's generally so sweet and good to the twins, "reading" them stories and helping them with fun games. And when she hugs my arm with both of hers and tells me she loves me while she looks at me with those deep blue eyes, her lips so red, her funny teeth with their big gaps, a scattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks, a sweep of her platinum blond hair across her forehead and the rest in its cute little pig tails, I think to myself that I've got the prettiest, sweetest little girl in the world and count my lucky stars.









Ollie's before and after pictures - his first haircut

Then the twins. I think I've talked about their wild antics so much that I haven't really focused on writing about all the sweet little things they do and say all the time lately. I cut their hair this week and they look so cute and so much more grown up with their new haircuts. Oliver sat so still for his haircut - very interested in the clippers and quite solemn about everything. Si kept saying "All done now, Mommy!" and wanting to get down - but he did a pretty good job staying still. I took them both to Costco this week and with just them and not Eliza or the big kids it was actually fun. Si asked "What's that?" about every single thing in the store and I wasn't in a huge rush which was so nice so I took the time to tell him the answers and to explain to Ollie and Si what a lot of things were and what they were for. They really really wanted to try some dog food that was out at one of the sample tables ( not sure why, really) and we had a good talk about how they are not dogs, they are boys and people. Then they thought it was so fun to play this game where I say, "Are you a dog?" or "Are you a cat" (repeat with any animal) and Si would say "No, I boy! I person!" and Ollie would say, "No, I Alber" (Oliver).

On the way home from Fiesta Fun last night (I'm NOT thankful for that place with all it's broken machines and half-hearted air conditioning and grungy everything!), Isaac lost the little plastic snake he bought with his tickets and was complaining about it - Ollie was sitting next to him and holding his own plastic snake. After some consideration, Ollie handed the snake to Isaac and had the cutest pleased look on his face when Isaac took it and happily said "thanks Little Guy!"

The twins love to help Ashton and Isaac empty or load the dishwasher and I don't think there's anything cuter than seeing the big boys and little boys work together, both parties so proud of themselves and each other as they get the job done. Ash and Ike are great about sweetly explaining to little guys what to do and cheering them on in their efforts and Ollie and Si look like they've just won the lottery when their big brothers help them accomplish something and applaud their little achievements.

At bedtime, Ollie and Si insist on saying their prayers, having me and/or Jared sing them Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Gentle Shepherd and Hushabye (or the "Horsie Song" as they call it) and then they want to be sure to give me and Jared multiple hugs and kisses and really like doing nose kisses and eye kisses (butterfly kisses) and blowing kisses at the end. There's nothing like their little arms around my neck and their sweet kisses on my cheek and their little noses rubbing against mine.

I'm so grateful for Ash and Ike. Ike just walked in and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek and said "I love you, Mommy" like he does at least 10 times a day. Often he hugs me right at a bad time and ends up sort of tripping me - but it's all good. And Ashton has become a great little babysitter. On Friday, I took the Dawsons (my clients and good friends) out to look at houses right around here (so I could start to get a sense of what direction they want to go with this new house) and the twins were sleeping so Ashton worked on the computer and listened for the twins (with the phone next to him to call me if they woke up). It worked beautifully. Ashton's great with entertaining the twins and he even took it upon himself to change Si's poopy diaper the other morning and was SO proud of himself that he did it (and he actually did a pretty darn good job). Isaac helped hold up Si's feet and gave Ashton some pointers on what to do (apparently Ike had to remind Ashton to wipe the bum, not the diaper - I guess Ash got a bit mixed up at first and thought he should wipe some poo out of the diaper!). And the boys made cookies together the other day, for the 2nd time - did it totally on their own and they were GOOD cookies. Life is good - I now have kids who can change diapers for me and make cookies for me - on my way to a life of leisure I guess.

There are plenty of bad and sort of bad and just mundane and annoying and worrisome things that also happened this week - but wow, my life is rich and wonderful and I've got the best husband and kids in the world. So I wanted to dedicate this blog to my blessings and set off into the new week with gratitude and optimism and joy.

School has Started

First Day of School

Well, we're back into packing lunches and doing chore charts and running carpools and getting out the door on time in the mornings - and it's good. Ashton and Isaac have had three days of school and it looks like its going to be a great year! Both kids have great teachers. Isaac has Ashton's teachers from last year (Ms Cahill for English and Ms Bosworth for Spanish) and he's really liking them so far - they're wonderful ladies with lots of experience. Ashton is excited to have a boy teacher for the first time (Mr. Garcia for Spanish) and has a very nice English teacher (Ms. Hammond). Everything's so much better this year - the kinks in the bilingual program seem to have been largely worked out as they launch into year II and so far the new parent participation program I've been working on seems to be off to a good start - it's been very gratifying for me to see a lot of parents in the classrooms right off the bat.

Here's what Ashton likes about school so far: "seeing my friends again"
And Isaac: "staying on green" (If you're not good in class, you get off green and onto yellow, then red, then they call home. Last year, Ike got on yellow a lot - especially at the beginning of the school year - so he's been SO excited to tell me every day that he stayed on green!)

Eliza's SO excited to start at her new preschool on Tuesday - she'll be going with her best friend Olivia and most of the other Sunbeams at church to this cute new preschool in a lady's house near here - plus she'll be doing one day a week of Joy School with the same group as last year - it was such a fun, cute group that we decided to keep it going. Liza's been such a great helper with the twins while the big boys are at school, "reading" them books that she's memorized, helping them play fun games. It's remarkable how much easier things have seemed with the boys in school - two less kids to feed lunch to, two less kids to be contributing to the bickering - and Eliza's delighting in being the big kid for much of the day. We all miss the boys though and the twins have been especially excited to see them when they get home from school.

And I've started a little playgroup of moms from the ward so the twins will have something fun to look forward to each week. These little guys get SO excited to go to church or do anything involving going out and being around other people - poor guys, they really don't get out much. They are talking a ton and it's so cute to hear them saying everything from "OK mommy" to "Aston, Izik, Whyza, time for dinner!" They still LOVE Bob the Builder and they use phrases from the show as they push their cars and trucks around - "come on team, let's go!" They've learned to climb up the shelves in the pantry and help themselves to random food when they're hungry - when the pantry door's closed, there's a good chance they're in there munching away on something, sitting in a mess of crumbs and wrappers. But for the most part, they aren't so much the "masters of disasters" anymore - they're full of cute comments and sweet hugs and kisses and it's more and more fun to tell them stories and play games with them as they understand more and more. My favorite thing is seeing them pat, kiss and hug each other when someone is hurt or sad.

Our Dixie Downs Boys

So my big training for all the teachers that I was so stressed out about a while back ended up going really well. I spent 3 hours discussing and doing activities with all the teachers at Dixie Downs to get them all trained on how to effectively involve parents. They seemed very receptive and the principal told them on no uncertain terms that Dixie Downs is now a parent participation school and although it might be hard for them to really involve parents if they're not used to it, they'd better get used to it! I've got a staff person at the school who will be tracking all the volunteer hours and I was totally blessed to find two ladies (one for K-2 and one for 3-5 grades) to help recruit and train volunteers so that I can focus more on the big picture). After working so hard on the training, I was really worried about how to move this whole thing forward - wanted to keep the momentum going but couldn't do all the legwork on my own. So these two great ladies fell into my lap and I see once again how the Lord always provides a way to make good things happen! Monday night is Back to School Night when all the teachers are supposed to really do some serious parent recruiting and training so we'll see how that works. But there's a great energy at Dixie Downs this year and it's been so nice to see things really coming together and some people really catching the vision of what Dixie Downs can be.

While juggling the start up of the parent program at school and trying to get the kids ready for school and doing end of the summer swim parties and school shopping and all that, I somehow ended up signing on to be the designer on a $2 million spec house that some friends are building. It's been really fun helping with floor plans, meeting with the architect and thinking about the exciting possibilities on this house - even in the midst of so many other things going on. I've realized that design is a really good creative outlet for me. This should be a nice project where I can just give suggestions and ideas but I don't have to make final decisions or stress about subcontractors or anything like that. The house is in the development right next door so it'll be convenient and I'll get paid enough to cover babysitting and a cleaning lady and then some so this will provide me with a much-needed get-away here and there as well as a chance to work on a house from the ground up and really help make it gorgeous.

Jared went up to Provo this week to check out a new devise he and one of his partners are working on that will cool the truck cabs at night without the expense of keeping the trucks running to keep the A/C on. It's been fun for Jared to use some of his engineering knowledge to help design this thing and after they try it out on their own trucks, they can market it to other trucking companies. Never a dull moment in Jared's career... MG Trucklines is going well with all the new trucks bringing down the price of gas - but there's always a break down or a new driver needed to keep everyone on their toes!

The biggest news, other than school starting, according to the kids, is that Ashton's front tooth that has been loose forever finally fell out today in church. Yeah! He had this "Nanny McPhee" look going for a while with that wiggly tooth. And now he's got a brand new smile.