Super Saturday

Here's what I made at Super Saturday, our own "Christmas" present. It's a lot of work but very cute, and I am so glad to start decorating with great looking stuff. I painted it at church but did the decals at home with Rychen P's help. Here we are...

Tag

I wanted to do this because of how random it is...

1.) Go to your Pictures folder on your computer.
2.) Go to your 4th folder.
3.) Get your 4th picture.
4.) Tag four people.

This is a very random photo indeed. It is nobody in my immediate family, and I wasn't even there to take the picture. This my neice Millie, a photo that my sister e-mailed over a few months ago.

I tag everybody who cares to do it!

zzzz

We were a family of early risers but no longer. Elisabeth has followed in the footsteps of Courtney, Logan, & Whitney and will sleep "all day if you let her"!! Here's how it goes at our house:

4:45 am - Rychen up
5:30 am - Rychen leaves (thankfully w/o a Goodbye)
6 or 7:00 - Rychen P. wakes up, and fiddles around while I try to snooze more
7:30 - We hang out in the playroom, watch cartoons, do computer
9 or 9:30 - Elisabeth finally wakes up, and we go downstairs

(They both go to bed at 7 pm, and we stay up til 9 or 10)

Life around our house is crazy these days. We're basically in survival mode. Make it through each day in order to get to the next one. Maybe that's too harsh, but after a day of early morning seminary preparation (that being, before early morning seminary) starting at around 4:30am, work, play time with Bub, putting Bub to bed, dinner (notice the order there), beginning to prep for the next day's seminary lesson, falling asleep on couch with my arm over my eyes at around 8pm, and at some point draggin myself up to bed. Add to this Annalise's hectic day of taking care of the house, a 2-month old and energetic but easily bored 3-year old, and we were/are in serious need of a date. So yesterday we tried. Here's how it went:

3:15pm Called Courtney to see if she could come play with Bub for a little while. Agreed on about 4:30pm

4:30pm: Received text from Courtney saying she'll be there around 5pm

5:22pm: Courtney arrives

5:23pm: Elisabeth gets put in her carseat quietly and without incident

5:25pm: Elisabeth starts screaming from the back seat and refuses to be comforted by sucking on Annalise's finger (from the front seat). Concurrently, I am trying to navigate Commercial St. in rush hour traffic trying to find a store that closes at 6pm.

5:39pm: Elisabeth still screaming, me still driving on Commercial St (we've now doubled back twice, sat for a combined 6 minutes at three stoplights and still have no idea where the store is). Annalise takes the opportunity to jump into the back seat from the front to try to calm Elisabeth, but to no avail.

5:42pm: Abandoned hope of finding the store. Pulled into the Fred Meyer parking lot where Annalise nursed Elisabeth (in the back seat). Silence at last.

5:46pm: Four minutes of silence pass. Nothing to talk about? or both of us just enjoying the silence? Actually both. All week long we've felt like we haven't gotten a chance to talk at all about anything and now given the chance, we're both good to go. No concerns, questions or anything of the sort for the other.

5:47pm: Annalise: Do you want to go walk around Fred Meyer? Rychen: Sure.

6:14pm: Left Fred Meyer after walking aimlessly around for approx 30 minutes. "Tested" the microfiber sectional in the furniture section (approved by both of us by the way) and contemplated putting a huge picture of a bear on our wall (next to the huge picture of a moose of course, also available).

6:29pm: Arrive at home at the end of our "date."

Elisabeth 2

Wow, so professional looking!

Thanks again to Rachelle!

Elisabeth

A sweet acquaintance of mine asked if she could take some photos of Elisabeth to practice her photography with a new camera. I jumped at the opportunity!!

First date

Today we had a "first date" playdate with some friends. Wow, they have such a fun yard! Tons of toys - play kitchen, slide, basketball, cars to drive, trucks in the dirt, baby strollers, you name it. Rychen didn't play with the other kids much but he sure loved all of the above! But my favorite part was the toys for me--mint, oregano, cilantro, basil, fig tree, peach tree, currant tomatoes, kale, collards, artichoke........you can imagine my delight! I am so glad to have this friend and not just because I get free food. She is way cool and we had some great conversation--ayurvedic therapy, yoga, nutrition, raw foods, gardening, green smoothies, yeah. Good stuff.