Hope is Springing Up

Today is a happy day. The windows are open, my children are content and happy, and we have a good week ahead of us. I feel hopeful about so many things. Hopeful for change, both from myself and others, hopeful for the future, and hopeful for our family. Conference will do that to you along with tidbits of good news along the way.

I went to my first garage sale this season. I bought toys, which is completely ridiculous. Our house is already like a Toys R Us without me compounding the problem. I just have a hard time saying no when you can get the following for $4.


They have spent all week playing with that car that cost the same as a Happy Meal, without all the saturated fat. Cheap entertainment.




Later on this week, Nadia and Rowan got to have separate playdates with Tiffany's kids while she was preparing a missionary zone conference meal. Nadia and her buddy Clayton got along really well. I've noticed that Nadia is much more interested in social interaction these days and has no qualms about approaching kids to play. Needless to say, she showed Clayton all of her tricks.

I found her brushing her teeth while Clayton circled the toilet wondering how she got up there.


They also had fun banging on our whiteboard and having snack time together. I was surprised that they followed each other around so much.


Rowan and Clarissa had a good time together too, while Nadia was taking a nap. I like that Rowan gets along with girls just as well as boys. I'm sure that will change at some point, but for now it's really nice.


There was also a little thing called Easter this weekend. Rowan got to go to 3 different Easter egg hunts- lucky kid. He had one at preschool, one at a friend's and another at a park with more friends. Our candy bucket is definitely replenished for quite some time.

While the dads played Easter Bunny, the kids spent the majority of their time throwing things down the drain. I was surprised that their focus was so intent that they didn't see what was going on.

Apparently Chris and Steve thought the kids were 6 feet tall...





Nadia was more interested in the playground than the random plastic eggs on the ground.



Easter morning brought a pleasant surprise...


Apparently the Easter bunny drinks our beverage of choice.




For our dessert day on Sunday, we made apple betty along with the traditional Easter ham, scalloped potatoes and carrots. We made a lot, so we borrowed an apple peeler/corer, which Rowan loved using. He peeled about eight pounds of apples!


After Conference, we went to the last Easter egg hunt of the weekend. It was perfect weather and timing, especially after the kids had been cooped up inside all weekend while we listened to the Conference.









I'm not sure what we'll do for an encore... :) Happy Easter everyone!

Merry Morsels

Spring break came and spring break went. We did a few fun things to try and make it a vacation, but for the most part it was business as usual. Cleaning, cooking, haircuts, fixing bookcases- thanks hun- and doing the day-to-day things. Steve took a few half days and we went running those days. I'm so much more motivated to exercise as a family than to push myself out the door and I also find that I run longer when I have Steve next to me. In a perfect world, we would be able to go everyday together, but it's not a perfect world- surprise, surprise. Still, it was nice to have Steve around a little bit more than usual and have some adult conversations during the day.

One of the highlights of our week was having a Rifftrax/New Moon get together at our place with some friends. There were some pretty hilarious jabs and it was nice to kick back and enjoy some down time. Apparently we didn't clean up after ourselves very well because the next morning Rowan ran into our room and told us he had a GREAT idea- we should pretend that there was a movie theater downstairs and watch a movie. He had found our living room set up differently to optimize viewing the television and he had also found our leftover popcorn and chips. So he filled up empty bowls with chips and popcorn and put a Scooby-doo movie on. He even collected pretend movie tickets as we came down the stairs. Normally we don't watch T.V. first thing in the morning, but this was a definite exception.

I'm still cringing about letting them eat the leftover popcorn, but he was so into the whole thing.


It was nice to have Steve around a little bit more than usual with the kids. Nadia is becoming quite the little reader and found Steve to be a willing participant.


We also have some new members of the family in our household. Meet Batfish and Robin II.

A few weeks back I went to an enrichment activity and won some goldfish. I joke that I always seem to win things when I don't care and this seems to prove my theory. The night before I went to a community subdivision meeting where there are a lot of prizes given away for attending. This is the second year that I have walked away empty-handed even though there are a ton of prizes. The only year Steve and I have won something was the year that there were more prizes than attendees. It's a good thing we don't gamble. Anyways, now we have fish. Robin I didn't live past the first night so Rowan never got to see him, which was for the best. We decided Batfish looked a little lonely- seriously, he would spend the day doing something that looked like he was circling the drain- so we got him Robin II. This will be a nice test run for a pet, but I find I'm kind of paranoid about them. Last night I had a dream that I had a cat, but I had forgotten to change the litter and feed it for an entire year. It was still alive in my dream, but I found it pretty disturbing. Fish aren't that durable.

Apparently, Easter is approaching. I'm so not up to date on holidays. This Sunday my co-teacher Carli taught a lesson that involved the Easter Bunny and Rowan was completely clueless. I'm sure we've mentioned it in the past so maybe he just forgot from a year ago, but it was just sad, yet funny to watch him laughing in class about something that sounded so strange. But, seriously the Easter Bunny is weird- a bunny who hides dyed hard-boiled eggs? Someone in the seventies must of come up with that when tie dye and smoking mind-altering substances were in. Off the soapbox now... the kids wore their Easter outfits with General Conference on next week and I managed to get a few pictures after church.


Yes, they really are that fun.





Yes, they really are that beautiful.


Yes, they really do love each other that much.


I guess it's been a while since I've taken pictures with these two together. We tried the usual setup of Rowan holding Nadia, but that didn't work out this time as evidenced by the following-


I'm admittedly still in shock about how fast this has all happened.


We've also started up a new family tradition. Sunday is now our dessert day! Last week we had banana cream pie and this week we did doughnuts. It's fun to bake with Rowan and enjoy a special treat at the same time and Sunday is the perfect day to do it. Aside from a minor kitchen fire and some burns from splattering oil, this doughnut making experiment was a great success- so good!! I'm wearing a glove in this picture to avoid future oil burns.

Yummy fried goodness!

And my fabulous glazer...


Suffice it to say, my house smells like a doughnut factory right now.

Life is good. And that's all she wrote.

Just an Update

Spring is here! Or is it? We had a gorgeous week until the weekend hit and now we are stuck indoors. Nadia begs to go outside CONSTANTLY. If someone goes outside without her, there is a whole lot of screeching going on. She spends a lot of her day hanging by the window watching the world go by and as a result there is a consistent layer of "Nadia-prints" 3 feet up the window. Needless to say, I've given up on cleaning them. When we do get outside, you have to keep a close eye on this little one. She has NO fear, quite the opposite of her cautious brother. Her first time (and second, and third...) on the playground, Nadia walked straight off the slide. She is so dead set on moving on to the next step physically that she is quite reckless and needs constant supervision. Her legs already look like she's gone into battle and I'm cringing at the thought of bare knees.

This little girl takes her snack time on the go.




Nadia has learned to do several things this month- come down stairs, climb into her high chair, give five, and call people on the phone. Luckily, Daddy is most often the one on redial. I've tried to get video of some of these things, but she gets stage fright.




When we aren't able to go for endless walks, we are extremely blessed to be able to have a little outdoor space where the kids can have a good time. I'm rethinking the sandbox, but it's constantly played with so I guess I'll put up with sand being tracked into the house.

I caught the kids playing peek a boo with each other one day. Forgive the "through the screen shot", but videotaping kids is like trying to capture wildlife on film.


I've noticed that I have a lot more videos of Nadia than pictures. I think the following picture illustrates why that is pretty well.


She's a total monkey that doesn't stop moving! And she likes looking through her legs. I did find this picture though as evidence that she does sit still sometimes. She's really quite a snugglebug and likes to look through books as long as you don't try to turn the pages for her. I'll often find her reading to herself with just about every book taken off the shelf.



Grandma and Grandpa sent some letters to the kids a few weeks ago. Rowan was in heaven as evidenced by the following:

There were construction stickers inside that Rowan got to put on a landscape drawn by Grandpa.


Rowan's creative streak continues. All this kid wants for Christmas is tape. A lifetime supply of tape. And that will last us for a few months we hope.


I forget what this is because it morphed into several different things. At one point it was a campsite, then the umbrella became a machine gun that shoots down zombies, monsters, and your average bad guys.


He actually had a web of tape at one point with words that he had written on paper embedded into the structure. I foresee a conspiracy theorist in the works. An OCD one because at this point he is cleaning his "gun" with baby wipes. Grandpa would be so proud. At least he has his scriptures in there with him too.


Rowan's really into writing these days. The other day he asked his dad how to write the following:


This is apparently his plan for his upcoming birthday party. Chocolate cake and his dad had to note that the chocolate cake should have chocolate baby jaguars on it. Thanks Diego. We plan to have a party when Rowan's friends are available and the weather is agreeable. Lucky Christmas babies get two cakes.

And this fetching specimen was captured by Rowan himself. A little frazzled looking, but with spring break ahead of her perhaps that will take some of the edge off. I've started running again to offset my nightly Oreo encounters. Darn you Sam's Club with your obscene quantities of forbidden goodies...


Otherwise things are going well here in Lukeville. Steve's prelim has finally gotten through the red tape enough to be scheduled soon and then he'll just have to write his dissertation. Easy as pie....right? :)

Rowanism:
"When I grow up, I want to marry Nadia." This resulted in a long conversation about who we can and cannot marry and other rules about marriage. Then somehow we got involved in a conversation about what superhero Rowan could be when he grew up. The result was T. Rex Man, because you have to be something frightening right?

Alright, back to happy blog posts.

Nadia will be 15 months old soon. 3 months away from nursery. It is UNREAL to me how fast this time has gone. She is an absolute ray of sunshine in our home and it truly just keeps getting better. Steve and I are both loving this stage of her life, she's just so full of happy energy. She is not a talker, but definitely a mover. There's been some new dance moves surfacing, my personal favorite being when she leads herself around in a circle, and she has been running nonstop outside since the weather now allows for it. Unfortunately, she also has discovered the wonder of mud, but hopefully things will dry up a little outside soon.
Here's the best video I have of her dancing:


Even though she doesn't talk much, she understands a ton. She'll fold her arms when it's time for prayer and knows a lot of what we ask her to do. Last night Steve and her played hide and seek, which was beyond adorable.

Victory dance with new shoes.


She is not a great sleeper. She stopped taking 2 naps once she turned 1 year old and now only sleeps for 2 hours at most during the day. She does go down to sleep from 7pm-7am, but we often hear her scream and squeak in her sleep during the night so it seems she has nightmares quite regularly.
She's also discovered her tongue.


Rowan is my little creative guy. One day he decided he was going to make a Batcave and this is the result.




He also is learning the art of comedic timing.

While discussing what to make for dinner with Steve.

Me: We have a lot of lettuce and a lot of eggs I need to get rid of so we can either have an egg-based meal or a lettuce-based meal.
Rowan: How about a cookie-based meal?

Ranting

I've been feeling a little down in the dumps lately. Last night Steve and I stayed up and as always, he was able to put his finger on why I was feeling so frustrated. I swear he'd make a great clinical psychologist, but considering how we both feel about that field and the fact that I am already a very demanding patient of his, it's best he sticks to the cognitive side of things. Anyways, if you know me well, you know that unless I vocalize my feelings, they tend to build up and then things get messy. So please indulge me in the following rant, but don't feel like you need to read it.

After this semester it will be Steve's last year of school. Grad school is kind of a grand equalizer. Everyone is poor and we tend to live in similar housing with similar qualities of life. It's been interesting to watch my friends as they move on and how their standard of living changes vastly. Several of my friends are buying houses this year and enjoying significant changes in their lifestyle. I am not jealous- in all honesty I am truly happy for them. But for those of us in academia, there's a long ladder to climb before you start to enjoy those perks. I've started to realize this as we looked at some job postings, although Steven says I shouldn't start reacting to situations that haven't even been presented yet. My largest concern is that we will downgrade from our current lifestyle because the majority of openings are on the east coast and we all know that life is not cheap there. But, again I am getting ahead of myself.

When we first moved to Illinois, it was a literal leap of faith. Steve still had not received funding and we didn't know anyone out here. We hadn't even seen the apartment we had leased except though a couple of digital pictures. Things didn't turn out the way we had hoped. Steve didn't receive funding and we ended up working for a year to avoid student loans. Steve's adviser at the time was not particularly helpful and it was really frightening to be in a place where we had no support. After we had come to terms with the fact that funding was no where to be found, Steve started to look for a job. Even after applying at Walmart, there was still two weeks where we just sat in our basement apartment in the middle of Illinois wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. Steve eventually got a job working front desk at the Marriott and after filling out disgusting amounts of paperwork to get a work visa, I found work as a nanny. Not the greatest start to our adventures in Illinois, but at least we were able to support ourselves. When I compare our life then to our life now, the difference is night and day. We have a beautiful home, Steven is making decent money, his educational pursuits are going great, he has a fantastic adviser, we have two beautiful children which I have the privilege of staying home with- life is good, but it didn't start out that way. It took a long time to get here, as Steve so graciously pointed out to me last night, and the next chapter in our lives may take some adjusting to too.

Admittedly it was a little sad to see that there's a chance that life will not be as easy as I had hoped after what will end up being 7 years of school. But what really hurts are the comments made from people in my life who don't really understand what we are doing. Yes, it's true that Steve could of gone into a more profitable field, but he would not have been happy and as a result, neither would our family. If he had gone into law or worked in the oil industry back up in Alberta, perhaps we would have a lot more money than we do now. But not everything is about money- our main priority as a family is stability. Yes, we've been in school for a long time, but I find it hard to understand how someone can judge our situation when we have no debt and plenty of savings.

Another thing that has been getting me down lately is that I feel like I'm going through a bit of an identity crisis. I was telling Steve the other day that I don't really know what my strength is as a mom. Some people are great at cooking or crafts and others at clipping coupons. Steve asked me what I tend to do if I have a spare moment and I told him "clean." But my house is not spotless and I am currently writing this with dishes and laundry that need to be done. Clearly I can't claim this as my strength because it's not my number one priority. Just because I notice the need doesn't mean it always gets fulfilled. I'm not sure that I am particularly strong in one area and I suppose I need to learn to be okay with that.

However, this isn't entirely what has been bothering me. Once again, others' opinions have been getting under my skin only this time it has been about things like how I parent or how I spend my money. Obviously I have some work to do with not letting other people's words affect how I feel about my life, but it does. Some people believe that you must save money by any means possible. I too believe in saving money, but my philosophy is more to buy the best my money can afford. If I have to go secondhand to get a better quality product, I will happily do so. If I can't stand generic root beer, I will buy A&W because a few extra dollars to buy something that I enjoy is not going to ruin our finances. I buy the best I can with what I have because that is what works for us. Do I expect that it will work for you? No. Because I want the best that I can afford, does that make me materialistic? To a certain degree I can understand how one can think that, but if I truly was that way wouldn't I have convinced Steve to go a different way in his education? In my life I have found that when I scrimp on quality, like buying cheap Walmart bookcases at a garage sale, they tend to sag and lean and later on I kick myself for not spending the extra $30 for the wood ones I saw at an earlier sale.

I realize that I am just as guilty for judging people. Sometimes I think "why doesn't such and such do this- it would make their lives so much easier/better..." But I'm coming to a realization that there's a lot of room for variability even within living the standards of the church. To assume that I can live someone else's life better than they can is a horrible folly because I am coming from a different background with different life experiences. Maybe if I had lived that person's life from A-Z I would find myself in the same predicament that they are in. So unless I am soliciting for advice, please don't assume that your way is the best way. You are probably only doing more damage than good by thinking that you can tell me how to live my life.

End Tangent.

Thoughts of the week

While talking about dinner...
Rowan: Chocolate is my favorite food!

While walking around Lowes...
Rowan: Daddy, I know what the word cumbersome means.
Steve: Oh yeah Rowan? What's that?
Rowan: It means difficult or hard to handle.
I love Wordgirl on PBS.

While looking for his scriptures at church or anything else for that matter:
Rowan: I swear I put them here somewhere.

While talking with a friend during carpool...
Clarissa: Rowan when I grow up will you marry me and then I'll be the mommy and you can be the daddy?
Rowan: No, when I grow up I'm going to be Batman.
Apparently his other answer to this question- it comes up multiple times- is that he's going to marry me instead. Freud may have had something there...

Nadia: No! Meow! Mamamamama. Dadadadadada.

While grocery shopping...
Me: Why do they have parking spots for expectant mothers, but they don't for mothers carrying 25 pound toddlers?

Still grocery shopping...
Me: Why do they give kids free cookies, but not the moms who really could use an upper during this whole experience?

And still grocery shopping...
Me: Why do they give you shopping carts that are as long as limos and then put the glass jars on the lower shelves so that when you turn you do serious damage?