Category: Family Fun

Today, as we were driving back from a quick Idaho trip, I had one of those moments where it dawned on me like it was some sort of new idea:

“I have two children! Whoa!”

You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I still feel a lot of responsibility and awe about the whole thing. Pace and I are “in the trenches” as I’ve heard it said. I am very imperfect and I get really overwhelmed at times, but I am also enjoying a lot of the moments while these kids are still small.

Below is a photo of a recent miracle, on a day when Chase actually took a nap, and decided to do so in Charlotte’s room. I didn’t fight it one bit. They fell asleep at the same time, and I got a wonderful break!

I enjoy having two kids, especially because they can play together and entertain each other. That’s my favorite thing. Life is certainly busier around here than it was with just one child, which can make for a lot of chaos, but it gives me plenty to do during the day. Chase and Charlotte make me laugh often, and my heart is full of love for them. And for Pace, too! Especially because he comes home from work and helps out with the munchkins.

We had a big windstorm here about 2 weeks ago. It was the craziest wind I’ve ever heard– the damage was pretty bad. In the morning there were shingles all over the neighborhood. Luckily we only lost shingles, not any of the paper that keeps water from getting into our house. And luckily we have a contractor friend to put shingles back on for us!

Power lines were down, we found our garbage can in the backyard, our welcome mat had flown to the other side of the house, and the neighbor’s fence blew over in a few spots. I was kind of excited about that, because our really good friends live in the house you can see peeking over the fence, so I was hoping we could just cut through and play all the time! But alas. It’s now fixed, and doesn’t look that great, either!

I haven’t blogged lately… I think I got out of the habit when we were in CA and haven’t felt much motivation to resume. Also, we’ve seemed to have some different types of colds around here, so regular life was on hold for a bit.

Last winter, I was basically prideful about how we seemed “immune” to getting sick, because we didn’t have any problems at all. But this winter, I’ve been humbled… While we’ve been sick, we’ve pretty much stayed home, inside… which makes for some craziness around here. But I am very grateful for my helpful husband and also a great Mom-in-law who has been over several times to save the day!!! Even though I feel like kind of a wimp, it’s sooooo nice to be “rescued” sometimes!

As usual, Joy wanted a family picture at Christmas, after 30 minutes of attempting we had the following to show for our efforts. ENJOY!

With such a busy December we’ve started celebrating things at different times. I’m starting to enjoy it. For example, we got a great deal on a beachfront hotel back in June while in NC, so we celebrated our Anniversary. Now, there is a smoking deal at a five star/ five diamond place in Park City, the Stein Eriksen Lodge. So next week we will be celebrating Joy’s birthday!

Just to get Joy a little excited… this is the only five star/five diamond hotel in UT. We will start with dinner at Glitretind the award winning restaurant, where the chef makes handmade chocolates (which Joy will be getting a box of); a three course dinner is included so we will be eating an appetizer, main course and dessert. I think Joy will be eating the filet mignon, any other guesses?
Then we’ll prob take a walk or check out the breathtaking scenery, before we retire to our “deluze luxury” room (whatever that means). Where we will watch Survivor and other tv shows until we fall asleep. Then, most importantly, we will sleep UNINTERRUPTED until the rising sun pierces the curtains and alerts us that we haven’t died but that we have to check out and return to our precious children.

I can’t wait honey! Happy Birthday Joy.

Yesterday we took the Activity Day girls to Hee Haw Farms. We hardly had enough seats to take all the girls, but I didn’t have the heart to leave Chase with a sitter because I knew he’d have a blast—which he did! Thank goodness GG came to help with the kids (they just got into town yesterday)!

Only 2 things tainted the experience a little…

See, about 1/3 of our ward and neighborhood HAS or HAS HAD the Swine Flu! It scares me so much. And two of the girls in our group were just barely recovered, one of which still had the infamous cough. So long story short, I made her wear a mask and ride in the other car that didn’t have a little baby in it. She was upset… But hey, I let her come with us!!!

And the other thing was that RIGHT as we were gathering the girls together to leave, the other leader’s 3-year-old daughter fell, hit her forehead on a rock, got a huge gash, and had to go get stitches! Yikes.

Other than that, it was a GREAT time!!!              

These are our cute children, whom I love so much! Lately, we’ve seemed to have had quite the mixture of ups and downs– some moments are wonderful and some we could do without– which is how life goes, I guess! But the “ups” have definitely outnumbered the “downs.”

Some things to celebrate are that recently, Chase helped Pace “mow the lawn,” and he made his bed perfectly all by himself, and he had a pretty sweet setup for General Conference (the part of one session that he stayed downstairs for).

In other news, we seem to have 2/2 not-so-great sleepers for children. I would be just thrilled if I could somehow function well on a few broken hours of sleep, but since things are going well overall in our lives, I can cope… This sweet little rascal prefers to be vertical rather than horizontal in her crib:

And I have to let her cry herself to sleep sometimes, after which I check on her and find her in some interesting position like this:

But she is growing up so quickly, and she can climb up the stairs quite rapidly now. Hooray for Charlotte!

Something random that happened recently was that the other day, a couple of funny girls from Activity Days stayed at my house to help clean. They’ve done this twice now, voluntarily! I’ve “paid” them with cupcakes, snacks, and little Victoria’s Secret lotions. If they show up on my doorstep again, who knows what I’ll come up with next to repay them.

What a glorious time this is. The weather couldn’t be better, and the kitchen has been painted!

BEFORE:

AFTER:

(And Pace promises to get crown molding up there on top by the end of October.)

WOW! We’ve been in this house for 3 years now, and the kitchen is finally not white anymore! It looks so cozy now. My favorite thing to see whenever we’re done painting is the beautiful white trim that stands out so nicely. This color (Toasted Pecan) was a somewhat spontaneous choice, but I am pleased with the results.

I wanted a light brownish color, but it had to be darker than our “amazing” (<sarcasm) cabinets. So I tried to find a shade that would match the dark grain in the cabinet wood. 

Chase got to be the first one to smear some paint on the wall, and it really looked like poop or mud. 🙂 I was a tiny bit nervous about the color at that point.

We were going to have people help yesterday, but McGrandaddy came over on Friday night and helped out A TON—I am so glad he helped! Then Pace touched up a bit yesterday morning, so by the time Jessica and the McGowans came over to help, it was already done! I love the dark effect, even though sometimes it seems almost too dark for my taste, but overall it’s pretty “elegant” (the adjective I kept using as we were painting).

We celebrated yesterday with a brunch– homemade Belgian Waffles & homemade whipped cream. (And then we all felt gross & groggy after eating that.) Thanks guys, for the help (and the willingness to help). I love it!