Train up a child in the way she should go . . .

And when she is old she will wear flannel with her dad. First Jacey is playing "New Yankee Workshop", now this.

I need to buy these girls cameras. Without intervention, Jacey may be asking for an Al Borlin birthday party next year.

Another really good weekend

Memorial Day weekend was Robins Family Vacation Time!  This is the first RFV we've had since the summer Will and I were married, so nearly 7 years ago.  Definitely overdue!  And we had a wonderful time.  We were prepared for cold and rainy weather, but it actually turned out to be pretty mild.  Will's dad got us all rooms at his hotel in Midway, and it was a perfect little get-away.  Will got to play some tennis on Saturday morning, then we all went shopping at the Park City outlet mall.  Corby came across a lovely little picture-taking spot during her morning run, so she and I went back spent some time taking pictures.  The girls got to ride on the carousel, which Jacey loved and which Londyn . . . learned to love, I guess.  She's a little fickle.  She didn't want anything to do with it at first, but by the last ride she was saying "Wee!" and didn't want to get off.  We swam in the pool, chilly though it was outside.  Luckily there is an indoor pool too, and a hot tub, so all was well.  We played a lot of games, ate a lot of good food, and had a lot of fun visiting and being together. 

We didn't actually spend a ton of time in our room, since Glen & Liz had a little condo-type room where everybody hung out, but every time we came back into our room Londyn ran for the patio door.  She loved to stand out there on the deck and peek through this little crack in the railing down at the people below.  I kid you not - she spent most of our room-time in this exact location, just watching.

On Sunday morning Corby took some pictures for us by that cute little creek.  Believe it or not, this is the first family picture we have ever taken with all 4 of us.  I am so excited to have it.  Thanks again, Corby.

This whole trip just really made me want to move to Midway.  It really is lovely up there.  Up next:  DFV (Davis Family Vacation) in June, then the Taylor Family Reunion in July.  Can't wait!

My crazy kid is 4 today.

I must say, life would be just plain boring around our house without her. 

We're going to have some Cafe Rio tonight (her favorite) and go play at Boondocks.  She keeps asking me "Is it time for my birthday to start yet?"  I tried explaining that her birthday is all day long, but apparently doing laundry and returning library books doesn't quite hold the same excitement for her.  I did do her chores for her today though, so that ought to count for something, no?

Londyn's new fake smile

I said "Smile!" and she said "cheese".  I didn't tell her to.  She just did.

My mom's house gets way more light than mine.  I'm jealous.  We're still in Vegas, obviously.  Will is in California for training this week.  So since we'd be coming back on Saturday for Nathan's (non)homecoming, we just stayed down here for the week.  Jacey was bummed to miss 2 weeks of preschool in a row, but she always has a blast here with Grandma & Grandpa.  This week has been no exception.  She's rediscovering that her Uncle Nate is just as big of a tease as her dad is.  We've gone swimming a couple of times and she's getting more and more comfortable in the water. 

We spent most of our day today shopping for new clothes for Nathan.  Apparently he grew a little bit in the last 2 years.  He's taller and skinnier.  Don't get me started on how unfair that is.  I did, however, find an amazing clearance sale at Aéropostale and ended up with 3 shirts, a pair of jeans and a pair of capris, all for under $35.  Not bad! 

Londyn's been saying a lot of new words this week.  Today I heard "pickle" and "yogurt", two things I've never heard her say before.  Should it worry me that most of the words she can say involve food?  Her first word was "tickle", but after that it was "popcorn", "broccoli", and maybe a "Mama" or "Dada" thrown in there somewhere.  Will was really miffed that she learned "broccoli" before "Daddy."

So Pilgrim's Landing ladies . . . are you going to Enrichment tomorrow?  I'm not there (obviously) but my donated service for the service auction is to take some photos for somebody.  And I do know how pathetic this sounds, but . . . will somebody please bid on it for me?  I know I'm not a pro or anything but if I get a call from Michelle Bacon saying "Sorry, nobody wanted you to take pictures for them," I'm going to feel really, really stupid. 

Okay, gotta wrap this up so I can go get the girls out of the tub before AI starts.  I'm a junkie, truth be told.

A really good day

    

I spoke too soon

So the day after that last post, I finished doing Jacey's hair and I said to her "Your hair looks really pretty today." She said "Yeah mom, let's take a picture of it!" What the heck??? What is going on here? Did somebody slip these girls some I-like-to-have-my-picture-taken pills?? And if so, how do I order more of them?

We got to spend the day on Friday hanging out with Reese. (The Reese.) She is even cuter in person, if you can believe that. Jacey was really excited that Londyn got to have a friend over. On Thursday night she asked me "Mom, do all the kids in this family get to play with Rachel's baby tomorrow?" Apparently she was afraid that she was going to be excluded. Unfortunately, she didn't end up getting to play with Reese. She woke up sick on Friday, so Will took her to his folks' house and worked from there so she wouldn't get Reese sick. (His exact words when he proposed the plan: "The last thing Rachel wants is her kid throwing up on the plane back home.") It was kind of weird to not have Jacey home - I realized just how much she helps me with Londyn!

Rachel it was so fun to see you guys. One of these days we will come and visit you in Denver, since we never seem to end up in Vegas at the same time.

So easy!

I don't know what changed in the last 4 months (other than Londyn getting 4 months older) but it is like night and day taking her picture lately.  Before, I could not bribe her for anything to face the camera.  As soon as she saw me pull it out she ran away (something Jacey still does, therefore no picture of Jacey today.)  But now she is old enough to think it's cool to see herself on the little preview screen on the back of the camera.  Vanity?  Perhaps.  Or maybe just curiosity.  After I took her picture this morning and showed it to her, I asked "Do you want to take another one?"  She said yes, so I said "Okay - sit down and look at me."  And she did!  Can it really be that easy?  (I really hope I'm not jinxing myself here.)  How can I get Jacey to follow suit?  Or William for that matter?  He looks annoyed in every picture I take of him.

Do you see that yellow spot on her forehead?  Poor bean took a tumble on Saturday and had a goose-egg like nothing I've ever seen before.  I thought about cloning it out, but it is what it is.

I'm trying to think what we've been up to lately and it must not have been much because I'm stumped.  Will's been working with Jacey on trying to sound out simple words (dog, cat, . . . you get the point) and she is getting pretty good at it.  She is so excited about learning new things right now - it's really fun to see.  Also a little scary for me as her mom - the whole mommy guilt thing kicks in.  You know, the "these are her formative years where she absorbs knowledge like a sponge so I better not waste them" sort of mommy guilt.  I really loved Elder Ballard's talk this past conference.  I'll admit that when I first heard it, it actually made me feel really guilty.  But I've read it again since then and I don't think that's the spirit it was given in.  Although I realize that if I feel guilty it's probably because I do need to make some changes and adjustments.  One of my favorite parts of that talk was when he quoted Anna Quindlen :

"The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.”

I love that.  I've seen that quote floating around in different places but for some reason it really hit me differently coming from an Apostle.  And while we're on the subject of quotes, let me share another one.  First, a little background.  I am scared of the world.  I am terrified that someday the influence of the world may be stronger over my children than the influence of their mother.  I feel that pressure.  Every single day.  And it doesn't help that that worldly influence gets more and more evil as the years go by.  I've had this conversation with my mom, my sister, and just about every other mom I know.  How do I keep them safe from this evil, screwed up world?  Well on Saturday we went over to Marie and Ky's for Mason's birthday.  After the kids had cake and ice cream, I hung behind to help clean up in the kitchen.  As I went to throw some paper plates in the trash can, I glanced at the fridge and saw that Marie had put this quote up on it. 

"You have a choice. You can wring your hands and be consumed with concern for the future or choose to use the counsel the Lord has given to live with peace and happiness in a world awash with evil. If you choose to concentrate on the dark side, this is what you will see.  Despite pockets of evil, the world overall is majestically beautiful, filled with many good and sincere people. God has provided a way to live in this world and not be contaminated by the degrading pressures evil agents spread throughout it. You can live a virtuous, productive, righteous life by following the plan of protection created by your Father in Heaven: His plan of happiness."  - Elder Richard G. Scott

It stopped me in my tracks.  And without going into too much detail or making this post any longer than it already is, I'll simply say that know this is a true statement.  And I think it really answered my question in a way that made sense to my spirit.  Which probably sounds weird, but I don't know how else to describe it.

I really had no intention of going here with this post.  But, alas, here we are.  Still, I think that's enough deep thought for one day.  Let's end with this quote instead.

Q:  How do you shoot a blue elephant?
A:  With a blue elephant gun, of course.
Q:  How do you shoot a red elephant?
A:  You strangle him until he turns blue, and then shoot him with a blue elephant gun.

Happy Wednesday. :)

Photos from last week

On Thursday Jacey had preschool at Caitlin's house. I've mentioned before what a craft goddess Emily is. Well she sent home some extra crafts that Jacey couldn't wait to paint. She broke down in tears when I told her I couldn't find the paint brushes. Luckily, we found them in Londyn's room and peace & harmony was restored to the world. They did "Z" for Zoo, and check out these cool finger puppet zoo animals Emily did. Craft goddess I tell you.

Will came home around lunch time on Friday and worked the rest of the day from home while I listened to a vacuum salesman for 2 1/2 hours. A small price to pay for a free carpet cleaning that my front room desperately needed. And hey, if I had an extra 2K sitting around, I might just have bought his monster NASA-designed vacuum cleaner. I digress. My point was that Will was home when the girls woke up from their naps, so we went to the park to fly his kite and play. The 75 mph winds didnt' get here until Saturday, so it was a perfect day for it. Jacey apparently finds kite-flying quite relaxing. (Actually, she had seen me doing this about 5 minutes before. Will came over and took the kite away from me because he thought I was going to fall asleep and lose it. Meanie. )

On Saturday we packed a picnic and went to this park in Pleasant Grove that Will had been telling me about. He'd played tennis there before and he said they had this cool castle play area that he thought the girls would dig. Right about the time we got there was when the winds started picking up, but not terribly bad yet. Just windy. So we had our windy picnic and then played on the toys. It is a pretty awesome play area, but man were there a lot of kids there. I think we'll have to go back sometime when school is in session and see if it's not so crowded.

They had these little Beehives with chairs inside them which the girls thought were cool. There were 3 I think, one said Queen Bee and one said Worker Bee, and I didn't look in the third to see what it said.

Londyn didn't do so well in nursery again yesterday. I really think she'd do better if it wasn't right smack dab in the middle of nap time. So I stayed in there for the first hour and Will went in with her during the second hour. I think she'll do fine once she gets comfortable, and if we can get her to nap during Sacrament meeting. (Fingers crossed.)

Apostles song

When my folks were here for General Conference, we were talking about how the Prophets song is getting a little outdated and/or cumbersome. (You know the primary song . . . Latter-day Prophets are number one . . . Joseph Smith then Brigham Young . . .) I remember it ending "Our latter-day prophet is loved by all, he's Spencer W. Kimball", but they've added on so many times now that I don't even know how it ends. Anyway, that's not really relevant at all. But we were saying that somebody needs to write a whole new song. This isn't the same thing, but that's why my My mom sent me this. I thought it was cute.

Tag

Jobs I've Had:

1. Party hostess at Pistol Pete's Pizza.  Yup. 
2. File clerk for an insurance office, a job given me by my friend Kim, and then given to my friend Emily.  Who got it then, Emily?
3. I worked in the Heritage Halls central building at BYU.  I don't know what to call my job, because I didn't really do anything.  I'm pretty sure it was a made-up job.
4. Student Receptionist at the Dean's office in the College of Engineering at BYU. 
5. Human Resources at the MTC.  (I did the payroll, mostly.)
6. Mom. 

All the Places I've Lived:

1. Provo, UT (birth-9 months)
2. Kansas City, MO (9 months - 9 years)
3. Las Vegas, NV (9 - 18)
4. Provo, UT/South Jordan, UT/Lehi, UT (18 - now)

4 Favorite Movies:

1. A River Runs Through It
2. Dead Poet's Society
3. Charly (I know, I know . . . but it gets me every time.  Still, I like it better as a book.)
4. I can't think of another.  There are a lot of movies I like, but it's hard to choose ones that I love.  I'll come back to this one if I think of something.

4 Favorite Foods:

1. Pizza
2. Pastries & bakery treats (just about any)
3. Nacho cheese Doritos
4. Heath bar, especially in chocolate ice cream

4 Weird Things About Me:

1. I hate birds.  A lot.  If Jacey looks out of her window while we're driving and sees a bird, she says "Mom are you scared of that bird?  It's really far away though, so it will be okay."  (I once explained to her that I'm only scared of birds when they're too close.) Corby's experience just about made me puke.
2. I can't fall asleep if Will's already asleep.  I have to wake him up and then I can fall asleep.  Rude, I know.
3. I have an Uncle who is 6 days younger than me.  When I would go to his primary class with him and he'd introduce me as his niece, the teacher would always say "You mean your cousin?"  No, I mean my niece.
4. I don't like to go to bed with a messy house.  But I don't think that's weird.  It's just nice to wake up to a clean house.  Even though it doesn't last past breakfast.

4 Favorite TV Shows:

1. American Idol
2. The Office
3. House.  I know, those of you who know my tendency to faint are surprised by this.  I have to close my eyes a lot during this show.  I just dig Hugh Laurie's sense of humor.
4. Just For Laughs

4 Places I'd Love To Go:

1. London
2. New York
3. San Diego (I've never been there.  Can you believe that?)
4. Hawaii

And now, I tag . . .

MARIE!  Who has a blog but has yet to post.  So get crackin'!