Letters, inspired by San Francisco

Yesterday Gracie, Katie, and I had to go to San Francisco (about 2 hrs away) for a doctor's appointment for Grace (routine checkup--nothing to be concerned about). We do this a few times a year, but usually we're able to get out of the city before traffic starts (around 4pm) and usually either (a) Dave is along to drive through the craziness or (b) I'm not 7 months pregnant, tired, and grumpy. :) Unfortunately, the only appointment they had available this time was at 4:15pm, so there was no way to avoid the traffic. When we were leaving the doctor's office at 5:30, I tried to find a fast food restaurant where we could chill, but all the ones we saw had no parking, were in a bad part of town, or were closed. So I said, "Forget it!" and just fought the traffic. A fun time was had by all, as evidenced by these letters. (I love this form of blogging, introduced to me by my friend Rachel.)

Dear GPS,
The first time it was cute. But the 4th or 5th time you tell me to make a U-turn in the middle of San Francisco's rush hour traffic, I want to throw you across the car.
Sincerely,
A Generally Loyal Fan

Dear San Franciscans,
You're all crazy. No, I'm not lumping you all in with that strange guy talking to himself on the corner. Nor am I being political or bigoted. I just think there's something wrong with being alright with (or, heaven forbid, enjoying) living in a place where you can't drive, walk, or breathe without feeling claustrophobic.
Best of luck,
A Happy Suburbanite

Dear Katie,
I love that you love to sing. Your little 3-year-old voice is absolutely adorable. Someday, maybe (maybe) I'll inform you that the correct lyrics are "...keep bleeding, keep keep bleeding love...." For now, I'll enjoy delighting in your version: "keep eating, keep keep eating enough."
Very Hungrily Yours,
Mom

Announcement!

We're expecting Baby #3 in March 2013! I meant to post this video on the blog a long time ago, but better late than never, right? This is us telling the girls about the new baby, and their reactions:


Obviously, Grace is thrilled. Katie is starting to better understand that there's a baby in there, but in this video she felt no need for a baby, as she already "haves a baby Aurora." Hopefully the baby will be welcomed by her (eventually) nonetheless. :)

Mike & Jessica's wedding

Okay, here are some wedding pictures, finally. :) We had a great time in Arizona and are so happy for Mike and Jessica. They are so perfect for each other and I think they'll be very happy together.

First, their photographer was Tami Webb, and she did such an awesome job with the pictures. All but the last two in this post are hers, and she gave all the rights to the pictures to Mike and Jessica to publish as they wanted, but she did ask that we give her credit (understandably). She did a super job, so give her a call if you are in the Phoenix area and like her work. :)

The handsome couple

The handsome couple

I love how she caught their personalities in so many of the shots.

I think those are St. Louis Cardinals hats (Jessica is from St. Louis).

That handsome guy on the left is Adam, Kristine's then-boyfriend and now-fiance! They got officially engaged last week, and we're very excited for them! :)

Good looking group of siblings, huh? :)

And here they are with James (a drawing), so he could be represented. He's on a mission in Mexico, so we had to make sure he was there. :)

Jessica's family - they were a lot of fun, and we really enjoyed getting to know them a little bit.

Jessica's family, including spouses and children

Jessica and her siblings

I like to call these next few pictures "Natural Birth Control." :) It was naptime for several of these kiddos, and that made it difficult to get any good shots of all of them. Make sure you look at the expressions on Mike's face. Hehehe

 Here's a King family picture taken at the Open House in Turlock the next week.

 

The Turlock wedding cake, which Kristine and I made together. It was our first wedding cake, and we had a lot of fun making it. :)

  Well, there are more pictures I could add, but I want to make sure I get this posted before their first anniversary, so I'll stop there. It was a beautiful wedding for two great people. :)

Hair today, gone tomorrow

This is a story about a cute little 5-year-old and her beautiful hair. As I've stated before on this blog, my husband passed on some Super Amazing Hair Genes to our children. Gracie's hair has always been beautiful and healthy, so we have only cut it twice (once when she was 1, we trimmed her bangs; then we trimmed the end of her hair just before school started). Well, during the fall it started getting so long that it was becoming unmanageable. She hated having it washed, dried, brushed, fixed, etc., and even when she let me fix it in the morning, her hair was so heavy that it would start falling out and then she'd pull out the ponytails or clips and it would get tangled and messy. Dave kept saying we needed to get her a haircut, and then she started to say she wanted short hair, but I was the resistant one. I was worried that she would miss her long hair or wouldn't like it and then she'd get mad at me.

Well, with Mike's wedding coming, Dave said he thought it would be really fun for Gracie to have a fresh, new haircut for the wedding, and I gave in. Because her hair was so long, I wondered if maybe we could donate it to Locks of Love, so I measured it to see if her "extra" hair was 10 inches long. And it was! Dave and I talked to her about donating her hair just to see if she'd be alright cutting off that much hair, and she was THRILLED! She couldn't wait to give her hair to another child who didn't have any! It was so cute.

So, while we were in Arizona, we went to Great Clips (because they were close to my parents' house and would do a free haircut for a Locks of Love donation) and got her hair cut. She was so excited and asked questions the whole time. (Fun fact: The hairdresser happened to be a good friend of my brother's wife. I remembered her from their wedding reception [because her family did the setup/cleanup], so it was a fun connection to make.) I was the only one who was nervous, but I didn't need to be. :) Here are some pictures of the process:

Look at all that hair!

I have a picture from when I donated my hair in college, and I'm making a scared expression like this, so Gracie wanted to have a picture like that too. :)

The finished product

She's so excited about her new hairdo!

So proud!

Such a cutie!

Gracie still loves having short hair, and we're all very glad that I was finally convinced to allow it to be cut. ;) We are so proud of her for donating it too. Below is a picture of her hair all fixed up for the wedding. (Plus, it's a nice teaser for the wedding post I hope to do within the next few days. The wedding was beautiful, and we had a great time in Arizona!)

Hi there! Remember me? I used to blog regularly-ish, and post pictures of my adorable little girls and say funny stuff? (Well, at least the first two.) Then life got busier, I got behind, then I thought about how much catching up I needed to do, then I thought "Just start where you are and work backwards", then I knew that my OCD-prone self couldn't handle that, so I went back to realizing how much catching up I had to do; then on top of that I heard that there were some changes with Blogger and was afraid that I'd just be annoyed with the changes and didn't want to put in the time to figure that out. So I didn't put any time into the blog. So here we are, many months later and no updates. I'm going to force myself to just start with "now" and update you all a little bit.

As most of you know, Dave was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2009, making 2010 quite an interesting and exhausting year for all of us. After many intense chemotherapy treatments and painful surgeries/recoveries, he was declared cancer-free in June 2010. In some ways things got a little harder after that. Dave contacted his boss once he felt able to work a little more, and his boss didn't even have enough business for himself and was unable to hire him back. :( For some reason, Dave's disability claim had been turned down earlier in the year, so we were really struggling financially by this point.

Thankfully, he was able to find another job as a computer tech in August and started working part-time. We also felt like he needed to finish his Associate's Degree that fall, so he enrolled full-time in school and was able to complete all his coursework--with straight A's! We really learned the importance of following promptings from the Spirit, because it didn't really make sense for him to enroll in school when he was just barely recovering from cancer, but he was given the strength and endurance to do it and excelled! He walked at graduation in April of this year, and I was so proud!

Fall of 2010 I was also able to start substitute teaching again. It was very crazy coordinating schedules, as Dave was working from 9am-1pm Monday through Friday, the girls were with his mom from 8-3 while I subbed, and then he had night classes starting at 5pm Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays--and all this with only one car! It was crazy times, but we were definitely blessed and made it through. During the week of Christmas that year we went to Disneyland with both our families, and it was a fun, exhausting time for all. :)

Beginning in January of 2011, Dave's work schedule changed to Tuesday through Thursday from 8-5, making it a little easier to do subbing. I started subbing most Mondays and Fridays so that he could watch the girls, and then I was home with them in the middle of the week. I was also called as the Relief Society secretary, which added a little bit of busy-ness to life, but I've really enjoyed having that calling. I get to know all the women at church, but am mostly behind the scenes, where I like to be. :) During the summer, my mom came to visit for Gracie's birthday, and our time with her got extended quite a bit when my grandmother passed away (in Arizona). My mom and I rented a car and drove with the girls to Arizona for the funeral, and then she drove back with me and flew home a few days later. We were sad to lose my grandma, but she had been suffering for several years and it was a relief to know that her suffering was over.

In August Gracie started Kindergarten, and we still can't believe that she's old enough to go to school! She absolutely loves it, and her hardest days the past few months have been days when she's had to miss school (for illness or doctor's appointments). Weekends are hard for her too, because she has to go TWO WHOLE DAYS without school! ;) She is doing very well academically too, and tries to read anything and everything she comes across. Her writing/knowledge of phonics is especially good, and she will write long letters to people without us even knowing about it. Also, her teacher recently said that Gracie doesn't have a mean bone in her body, and she got very good grades in "Kindness" and "Respect" because she is always trying to help others. (On a side note, I've been lucky enough to volunteer in her class once a week, and it has been so fun. She looks forward to me coming every week, and I love getting to know her little friends and her teacher and seeing how they all interact. Good stuff.)

Dave's and my work schedules have stayed the same, with me working Mondays and Fridays and him working Tuesday through Thursday. (His mom is so sweet and watches the girls if I take a job in the middle of the week too, which has been so great.) Dave gets frustrated because he is still battling a lot of the after-effects of chemo (especially exhaustion), so he can't do as much as he'd like to, but I think he's doing pretty darn well. :) We've heard that it can take several years to completely return to "normal," so he's having to be patient with himself and his body. He works so hard for us and does all he can for us, and I'm incredibly grateful for him.

Well, there's the Reader's Digest version of what we've been doing the past year and a half! Right now we're enjoying the Christmas holidays and looking forward to lots of great family times soon. Dave's younger brother Mike is getting married in the Mesa Temple on December 20, which works out very nicely for us since it means we get to be with my family and Dave's family at Christmastime! Woohoo! Now that this blog feels somewhat updated, I'll try to at least post cute pictures when I have them (but no promises!). Have a great day!

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Okay, okay.....since you've been such loyal readers, I'll post one cute picture now. ;) Here are my sweet girls, enjoying the fall leaves outside our apartment. Aren't they adorable?!

Happy 11-11-11!!!

I love cool number days like this! Just had to post something to celebrate 11-11-11!  :)

Pumped Up Kicks

Around here, we've become fans of this song by the band Foster The People. (I don't know if it's bad. I mostly can't tell what they're saying. Do me a favor and don't tell me if it's about something bad. Thanks.) The title of this song is "Pumped Up Kicks," and the first part of the chorus is "All the other kids with their pumped-up kicks....", which can be found at about 1:08 of the video I linked to above. And, again, I have no idea what the words are after that. But we don't need to know that for the purposes of this post.

On to the important part. Being a member of our little family, Gracie has also become a fan of this song. She has interpreted the lyrics in a different way, though. Please watch the video to hear her version (with actions!). You won't regret it.





Yes, she sings it "hump dump kicks." (In the video I said "hump Jump kicks," but I had it wrong.) And, being the imaginative being that she is, she invented a "hump dump kick" and performs it for us regularly. Dave and I have to catch ourselves whenever that song comes on the radio, so we don't sing the right words. Because it would be a shame for her to get them right. :)