Saturday, December 31, 2011

While the Family’s away…

This week I got a very selfish wish fulfilled in the form of almost 5 full days home alone to do whatever I wanted. Of course I missed my husband and daughter and I CAN”T WAIT until they get home tonight in approximately 10 hours (yes, I’ll be counting down and calling for updates on their whereabouts all day). But, lets be real, what mother wouldn’t appreciate some time alone every once in a while? I will definitely say that 5 days was a little too long, but I think 4 would have been perfect.

I had to come home early from our Christmas in Idaho to be at our apartments incase anyone needed anything, so I flew into Sacramento on Monday night and stayed with my dad. Tuesday morning I had the wonderfully fun task of saying goodbye to my sister. It’s always awesome to say goodbye to your oldest, closest, most amazing best friend right before they pack up the car to move halfway across the country. Sigh… All I can say is thank goodness for Skype! What made it even better was the fact that the breakfast we had that morning made me incredibly sick and I spent all day trying not to feel worse than I already did. Needless to say I probably won’t ever eat sweet cream pancakes from Black Bear Diner in Vacaville ever again! So day 1 of my week of freedom was a bust.

Along with working on my family and “Lily” blogs Wednesday and Thursday I decided to use my time sans little hands grabbing everything to work on some craft projects I had been wanting to try. The first of which was painting something. I had found some different flower inspirations on PInterest and went to town. My only mistake was trying to this while watching Harry Potter 7 part 2. Let’s just say I was a little distracted… The one on the left is definitely my favorite of the two, but not so bad, eh? Brings a little color to my kitchen :)

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The other thing I worked on was for Lily’s room.

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I used dollar store frames, scrapbook paper and embellishments I already had, and left over thread from the blanket I made for LIl. Unfortunately they didn’t have enough frames for me to spell out Lillian, but this works just fine. Definitely would not have been able to do this with her around!

Friday I spent most of the day cleaning our apartment. Like, really cleaning. Let me say I am grateful I don’t have to shampoo carpets for a living…not too exciting. But is was so nice to be able to clean without worrying about Lily getting in to the cleaning supplies or undoing all of the work I just did. Luckily I waited on the kitchen until today since the brand new jar of salsa I opened last night exploded all over the counter.

As lovely as my free time has been, I was still bored for large chunks of each day. Not because I had nothing to do, but because my life no longer consists of full time quiet and focus. I had no one to share giggles with. No one to hug. No one to help out or clean or cleanup after. No one wanting all of my attention to be on them and who would climb on top of me to get it if necessary.

 

Can’t wait to get my arms around ‘em again!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Cousin Fun

I kind of can’t believe that Lily already has 13, soon to be 14, cousins. It is such a shame that they are all spread out and usually only communicate via Skype, if at all. Luckily, this Christmas Lil was able to play with almost all of them.

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We spent a few days before Christmas at my dad’s house and Lil got to play with all but 3 of her cousins on my side of the family. Out of 9, she is the only girl, but let me tell you she can keep up with the boys! Luckily my parents go with the flow and don’t seem to mind that their house will get destroyed when they’re all hanging out.

Here’s Lil with her favorite cousin, baby Colin. I never understand why Colin always looks slightly terrified when she’s around… ;)

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Aaron, Mason, Colin, Ean, and Lily (I’m pretty sure I got the twins named correctly)IMG_2024 copy

 

We left My dad’s and headed up to Idaho for Christmas weekend. There were 3 cousins there waiting for Lil when she arrived.  On Christmas eve we had the little ones put on a nativity pageant, which was quite amusing.

We had our star, Rustin

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Our angel (my personal favorite Smile)

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Our Joseph, Brigham

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Our Mary, Amber

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and our wise man, who was doing double duty

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I know Lil as just been in heaven this week with so many little friends to play with, and more who arrived after I had already gone home with my camera. All weekend Lil was running around playing with everyone, including the new Christmas puppy. At least 3 or 4 times a day she would start jumping up and down and say YAAAAAAAAY. I just love watching her interact with other little ones and having so much fun. And I’m so glad for video chats that allow her to have some familiarity with those cousins and family members that she doesn’t see very often.

Christmas

This year we spent Christmas up in Idaho with Clark’s family. Due to work schedules we had to drive through the night to make it out there. The best part about that was Lily slept most of the way. When we arrived outside their house we checked our phones and were informed that it was a balmy 3 degrees outside. Lovely. Though that’s not too much different from the 60 degree highs we were experiencing at home, right? Anyway, I was only there for 2 1/2 days due to the fact that I had to be back home to manage the apartments. Even so, we had a nice little trip and got to enjoy Lillian’s second Christmas with lots of family around.

Last Christmas was fun with just the three of us but Lily was still a little unaware of what exactly was going on. This year was such a blast! About a week before Christmas we made the mistake of letting Lil open our gifts from my aunt and uncle and she quickly figured out that the presents under our tree also needed to be opened. With enough distraction, however, we kept our gifts safe. Christmas morning we woke up early to talk via Skype to my brother-in-law Van who is on his mission in Germany. We then went to church for a little bit and came home to commence with opening the presents. I am lucky enough to have a husband who always gets me wonderful gifts, but the best gift I got this year was being able to see my sweet little girl open her presents. She’s not quite to the stage yet where she wants to open every gift she sees or is unhappy that there’s not more. She’s at the perfect spot that she is simply tickled pink that she gets to discover and play with something new.

I was able to catch a few of these precious moments with my camera, the first of which being my favorite. Lily had just watched her cousin open a set with a baby doll and lots of accessories, the most important part being a little stroller, over which the two of them immediately began a tug of war. I let grandpa know that it was absolutely necessary to now open the baby stroller we had gotten for Lily before things got any worse. I grabbed my camera a little too late, so the picture is blurry, but I managed to capture the look of pure joy on Lily’s face as she realized that she too had her own little stroller. I don’t think I have ever seen her open her mouth so wide or for so long :)

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I love how in this one she looks like she’s sneaking off with her own little treasure

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Seeing Clark’s joy only added to the fun :)

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Playing with her Elmo phone

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Opening the blanket I made for her

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Clark even took a turn behind the lens

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Tuckered out after a fun filled morning

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And then finding something else to open…

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I’m so happy to have such a precious little girl who brings me such great joy.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

18,000 ways to say I love you

So I’m not very talented when it comes to crafting. I can’t make a quilt and I can’t sew Lily any clothes. I’m not a painter and I can’t decorate cakes beyond getting the frosting from the jar to the cake. Probably a good thing because I’d waste too much time on that instead of actually spending time with my child. I did, however, find a pattern for a cross stitch blanket a few months ago and I decided I should make an effort to actually make something for my child. I have done enough cross stitching in my life to know that you don’t really need talent to make something, you just need patience and time. Lots of time. Time here, time there. Time when you should be cooking or cleaning or playing with your child or sleeping. I figured I could handle that but I severely underestimated how much time I really would need. Or  how much your fingers can bleed when pricked by a needle, or your toes, for that matter, when they are unintentionally  used to find the needle that has been lost in the carpet… Anyway, I ordered the blanket kit and it arrived in the mail just as we were leaving for my dad’s birthday party on September 24th.  I was very excited and got started on it that night when we got home. This is what it looked like when I just started (after adding all of the eyes, beaks, and other small details)


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Being a stamped cross stitch blanket, all of the blue markings are there to show me where to go and I can wash them off when I finish. I went to work on this and worked, and worked, and worked. I’d say that on average I spent at least an hour a day, five days a week on this. Though most weeks it was 2-3+ hours, seven days a week. To be fair though, I was definitely distracted by the T.V., my daughter and husband, and duties from our apartment managing job during those long hours of stitching. Though tedious, it was rewarding to see the blanket coming along and the work helped distract me from the fact that Clark was usually working on homework…again. I had to be reminded at times that even though I was making this for Lily, she would probably appreciate me putting down the blanket and playing with her more. Lily even helped a few times. She loved to pull the needle and thread for me, most times pulling way too hard. I can say the best $0.99 I ever spent was on my needle threader! This blanket would have taken me years if I couldn’t have used that! Finally on December 18th- three months after starting my project, I tied off the last piece of thread and declared the blanket finished. A friend will help me sew fabric on the back to cover the backside of the stitching later, but all of my hard work was done :).


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Here is a pic of Lily playing with it to give you an idea of the size of the blanket


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Naturally, when I finished the blanket I had to count (approximately) how many stitches there are on the blanket to know just how many little x’s I stitched. Each of the 12 circles contains 282 squares of 4 x’s each, which came out to 13,536. The border contains about 4220 x’s. Adding in the thread used for the detailing and outlining, that comes to around 18,000 x’s on this blanket.


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I hope Lily someday knows that those are 18,000 hugs, 18,000 bits of encouragement, 18,000 “I love you”s.  In a few days I’ll give this to Lily for Christmas, even though it’s not exactly a surprise. She has been watching me and using it to learn some new animals. My favorite of which is the porcupine, or in Lily’s words “cok-u-pime.” I would not be surprised if she opens this present on Christmas and quickly brings it to me and says “ Mommy’s blanket, don’t touch,” as that is probably what she heard most whenever trying to steal it from my working hands. To be honest, though, I’m kind of terrified of giving it to her fully. I keep having visions of the threads coming untied and falling off. Also, if she destroys it somehow I will literally cry. Knowing my little tornado of a daughter, that is a very real possibility, but I’m willing to take that risk






I should probably say where I got the pattern in case anyone has any crazy notions of doing anything like this .
http://www.eksuccessbrands.com/dimensionsneedleworks/Products/Happi_Woodland_Quilt_70-73559.htm 

Thursday, December 15, 2011

If only I could amuse myself this easily…

Every once in a while I notice how productive I have been and how wonderfully quiet it is. It is about two seconds later that I realize it’s because Lillian must be getting into some type of mischief and I quickly scan the apartment for her. Rarely I find her doing something like stabbing the ottoman with my crafting scissors, putting her pretzels in the toilet brush holder, or emptying her diaper pail (luckily that stage is over!).  More often, though, I find her doing something I never would have thought of and something that is usually quite silly. She’s already showing signs of becoming a little fashionista by putting on multiple shirts and dresses and parading around the apartment. If I’m absent minded enough to leave the dishwasher unlocked she’ll make her way in there and rearrange the dishes. She loves putting on both of the pot holders, which cover her  entire arms, and a pair of our shoes and seeing how far she can go in them. Ever since we got a keyboard I’ll find her pounding on it with the “DJ” function on and making all kinds of random sounds. On some of these occasions I have been lucky enough to have my camera handy to snap a picture before she realizes she’s being watched. Here are some of the few shots I managed to get that I find pretty amusing…
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I am grateful for her inquisitive spirit and love that she can be amused with almost anything. I hope that I can catch  more moments of silliness and share in even more with her. I love my silly, sweet, sometimes crazy little girl.

Friday, December 2, 2011

So I've started a blog. Obviously. Now seems like as good of a time as any. Today Clark and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary. We were fortunate enough to spend the day together, even if it mainly consisted of Clark doing homework while I tried to keep Lily from running amok in our apartment. We did, however, make it out to The Cheesecake Factory for some incredibly indulgent cheesecake to celebrate. 
For me, this day also represents something else wonderful. Probably the thing I have wanted most to happen, or not happen, since we made our biggest compromise ever while engaged. As any of you who know us already know, Clark is from Idaho and I am from California. We spent quite a bit of our time dating long-distance trying to figure out where we would live if/when we got married. (Though in all honesty I never thought for a moment I would actually have to move to Idaho). I got a very special phone call one day from Clark saying he had decided to move here to California when we got married...with the condition that in 5 years we would move back to Idaho.  I was, of course, elated and, of course, I agreed. I wasn't as sure this time, however that I wouldn't end up moving to Idaho. Skipping forward 5 years I am so happy to say that I had no need to worry and that we have NO intention of moving Idaho or anywhere else- and even Clark is happy about that.
We have been so fortunate as to land in a great area on the San Francisco peninsula and that we have such a great ward. Our friends and ward family are definitely a huge part of the reason why we wouldn't want to leave. And now Lily has her own little best friends and would be devastated if we had to leave them. We spend Lots of time with her two besties Parker and Atlas, or as Lil likes to call them, Pocket and Ashy. Those three are like peas in a pod and it is wonderful to watch them together.






Don't worry, you'll definitely get to hear more about their adventures, as I'm sure this blog will end up being mostly about Lillian. I'm hoping that this will be easier than keeping a written journal and that Lily especially will be able to enjoy reading all of this in years to come.


So here goes nothing....

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Thanksgiving fun

This year I got to host Thanksgiving for the first time. I’ll admit, I was a little intimidated by the task that was ahead of me. We had Clark’s brother Dean and also his brother Aaron along with his wife Karen and daughter Amber celebrating the holiday with us. Not only was there lots of cooking to be done (in my postage stamp sized kitchen), but most of the recipes I was using were my mother-in-laws and I had 3 of her sons counting on me to make them perfectly… Luckily all of my nervous planning paid off and dinner turned out (almost) perfect. We made about 3/4 of the food the day before and I had lots of help from Clark and my 2 brothers-in-law. Though I did force them to help with some of the things they wanted, no, needed to have as part of their dinner that I had no intention of eating, such as the 6 pies (for 5 people) or the giant bowl of Jell-O-cool whip-cottage-cheese-pineapple-salad ( um…yeah…). Even Lily tried to get in on the pie action, but her additions were more destructive than anything…
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Thanksgiving morning I woke up early and finished defrosting my turkey (I know, I know, I should have done it earlier…) and we set off for our church’s Turkey Bowl. The boys ( Clark, Dean, and Aaron) got to show off their football skills
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While the two little ones had fun running around and playing
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After the game we headed back home and continued cooking in preparation for the big dinner ahead. I finally figured out what I was doing to the turkey and in to the oven it went. We finished all of the other food amid mario kart tournaments and football watching and, other than the slightly dry turkey, had a great Thanksgiving meal. A few hours later Dean, Aaron and Karen set out for early Black Friday shopping and luckily were successful. Why anyone would stand in line for hours or actually go out on Thanksgiving night is beyond me, but I thoroughly enjoyed playing with what they bought.
We also took a quick trip up to San Francisco but I think I enjoyed watching the little cousins playing together for the first time the most. I love the way that children can take to someone new within a few minutes and it seems like they’ve been friends for a lot longer than that. They got into plenty of mischief and shared lots of giggles. I’m sure they’ll both be excited to see each other again at Christmas time.
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To finish the week off, we celebrated my quarter of a century birthday with a little Baskin Robbins ice cream cake. yum…. A little of that and I’m a very happy girl! Though my favorite part of my birthday was hearing Lily say “Happy day, mommy” over and over. That’s probably my favorite thing that she’s said to me so far, aside from “ I wuv you mommy.” Music to my ears Smile


After this week I know that:
A) Even with a tiny kitchen and 1 oven I don’t have to cook half of the meal the day before in order for it to be a success.
2) I need to defrost the turkey earlier and start checking it’s temperature in the oven WAY before I think it’s done.
D) Hosting Thanksgiving isn’t really all that scary…

By the way, we’ve already started watching our Christmas movies, if you didn’t pick up on my Home Alone reference… Winking smile