a cute boy and good food

We had Filipino siopao last week. The kids thought it was lots of fun. For more photos, go here.

I'm playing on Dictionary.com in an effort to not eat a bag of M&Ms while my children drive me crazy.
I looked up the definition of sardonic and found that the origin of the word alludes "to a Sardinian plant which when eaten was supposed to produce convulsive laughter ending in death." How's that for a way to go?

The New Jedi Uniform

While his sister was at a friend's house for preschool, Handsome Face helped himself to the dress-ups.

And here we are today

We're off to a good start today. I actually got up and went running in the dark - not my favorite - and showered and read scriptures before the kids were allowed out of bed. We had a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, bacon, and berries since Cute Girl goes to preschool today and she'll need lots of energy. I even have the breakfast dishes washed already. Not bad, eh? My kiddos got some new things from the store this week. They were VERY excited.

Swimming with Daddy
He didn't want his picture taken.

The sun was too bright to face the right direction. This is what home looks like - scrubby desert, dirt, and mountains in the background. Great combination for dust storms.

So, so, so much

I have been meaning to post all week, but life is just so full right now that I feel like I'm barely staying a float.
Yesterday was not such a nice day. I was not a good mommy or wife or housekeeper or anything. But we'll only mention the fact that I ate lots of M&Ms and had three pb/chocolate cookie bar things at RS last night. So very discouraging when the day before I hit the lowest weight I've had in months.
But this morning we are already doing better. I was awake by 5:30 to lay in bed and think about my day, read my scriptures and say goodbye to my husband. Handsome Face didn't wake up until 7am (?!?!) and I had already stripped my bed and started the wash, fed Cute Girl and myself, read her five stories, taken my allergy meds, and finished my internet updates. Oh, and Cute Girl had gone to the bathroom, made her bed, got herself dressed, and cleared her breakfast dishes. Not too bad.
We have now completed two weeks of seminary classes. It hasn't been as bad as I originally thought it would be. That is indeed a blessing. But it isn't a walk in the park either. Cute Girl is always disappointed when she isn't awake to say goodbye to her dad at 5:45 but I'm disappointed when she is. So the Rocket Scientist can no longer park in the garage because it wakes up all my children. He doesn't like it but he's pretty good natured about it.
I don't think either of us realized just how tired he would be. He only gets up 15 minutes earlier than before but with teaching a bunch of teenagers and then nine hours of work plus hour and a half of driving everyday, he's pretty worn out. Then he still has to come home, help with dinner and bedtime, do any home teaching that may be scheduled, and then prepare for the next day's lesson. We have some really exciting evenings in our house, let me tell you!
Last Sunday I was released as a Sunbeam teacher and called into the Young Women's presidency. I must admit that I am pretty happy not to be in Primary anymore. I loved my sweet, little Sunbeams but it was hard teaching them and I was always exhausted. I have never been in the Young Women and I'm excited to work with the Beehives. But all of a sudden there are activities that are coming and the details aren't worked out and I have no idea what I'm doing. It's kind of overwhelming. We have a shooting activity this Saturday that I'm not thrilled about but I feel like I have to go so I will. Hopefully the inactive girls it is supposed to be targeting will actually come.
One of the sisters I visit teach is also my neighbor and we're both in the neighborhood mommies group. She's less active and I try to do everything I can to help her, although I'm sure I don't do enough. She has a very spirited little girl who is eight months younger than Cute Girl. Last year her daughter was enrolled in preschool at the elementary but it's too expensive to enroll her again so she started a preschool group like Joy school. We meet twice a week for two hours and trade weeks so we each only teach once a month. Now, I am not a big believer in preschool. I've never felt like Cute Girl needed to go to preschool and she learns just fine at home. But I wanted to help my friend out so we joined the group. I'm constantly back and forth on it. I taught the first week and after the first day I was ready to quit. The kids are on all different levels and I couldn't keep them focused. Cute Girl got left to herself during table work because I was too busy helping everyone else. She filled an entire line with perfect A's and a's before moving on to B's because she was so bored. But then the second day was infinitely better and Cute Girl seems to like it. But I miss my freedom on Tuesday and Thursdays. We used to meet up in the park to play with neigborhood kids but that's getting harder to do. And then I realized that to walk Cute Girl to class and home again was going to take up to an hour and 20 minutes a day. For a two hour class! (We still don't have a car.) Once again I was ready to drop out but my friend Nicole is graciously driving her. But now I feel so indebted to her and I still haven't figured out how to get Cute Girl to Nicole's house when she's teaching and it's kept me up at night.
Oh, there is so much more going on in life but my kids are clamoring to get to the swimming pool. Life really is very full right now.

Hey, Grandma, watch this!

Look at my little fish! We're so proud of her. And she wishes she could go see her grandma in Indiana and prayed tonight that she will feel better soon. We hope so too.

Treasures Found

In my never-ending quest to find furniture, I scored a few treasures on Craig's List a couple of weeks ago. This wins top prize. A solid wood book case for 25 dollars. A little refinishing and it's going to be beautiful. My kids toys have already taken over.

And here's my new desk. From the pictures we thought it was solid wood, the lady said it was solid wood and it was really cheap for solid wood. Then the lady emailed back saying she had moved the desk and discovered it wasn't solid wood. I was sad. But it's still a great desk and it was a good deal if not a great deal. I'm really loving it now that it's in my house though and everyone who sees it loves it too.

Happy Wednesday!

I'm happy today. My friends came to my book party last night and they came again today to scrapbook. We're meeting other friends at the pool this afternoon. And tomorrow night I'm going to dinner with ALL my friends. My bliss would be complete if I didn't feel sorry for the poor man who I never see except when he's sleeping beside me. And even then he's still tired because early morning seminary is, well, early.

Fatigue

Today I was awake at 4:45am. I had to hurry and run before the Rocket Scientist rushed off to teach his first day of seminary. It was still dark.
All morning I've been a little (ie a lot) tired. I should have stayed home but we went into the city to shop with a friend because I already said I would and I felt bad backing out. And it was a fine day, although a little long, and now I'm really tired. Handsome Face is sleeping fitfully through his late nap and Cute Girl is bored. We just made a paper plate chick and now I'm waiting for the next craft request.
I should really clean my kitchen. Or plan FHE. Actually, I should probably do both. But I'm tired. The whole weekend of worrying about seminary (not even MY calling) wore down my nerves. Do you ever feel like that? It always amazes me how exhausted you can become just from thinking about something.

Handsome Face

This is my boy. I just love him to pieces.

It amazes me the differences I see from the first child to the second, from girl to boy. When Cute Girl was this age I thought she was so grown up. Handsome Face is still definitely my baby. That floofy blond hair doesn't help matters.

At this point Cute Girl was having long, fluent conversations and astounding us with her vocabulary. Handsome Face is just slightly ahead of the average language curve (very frustrating for me when I couldn't understand what he wanted at 18 months). But he's tackled this world in ways his sister never did. He's so physically active - running, climbing things, pushing things, throwing things... And the noises that come out of his mouth! I swear all little boys have motors built into the back of their little heads.

Lately he has taken to carrying the toy broom around and whacking balls with it, accompanied by a loud "WHOAAAA." He calls it "baseball." And he has crocodile and caterpillar pull toys that he will run around the house with. Dinosaurs and planes/helicopters top his list of cool things. Yesterday he was making his little dinosaurs eat everything in the house (me and his sister included). Just in the past two weeks he has decided he can quit moving long enough to read a book and now he's just devouring them.

He loves playing with his dad, chasing him around the house, wrestling, and playing the blanket game (Dad's a monster under a blanket). But he's a mommy's boy through and through. Nothing will make anything better but a kiss from Mommy.

This is my baby. He's playing with the RC dinosaur his grandmother gave him for his birthday. Notice the seven vertical feet separating the two of them. Seeing as he's not shrieking in terror and climbing up my leg, I think this is an improvement. It was not love at first sight with this ancient reptile.